literature of the very trite proverb—­Poeta nascitur, non fit.  The spectacle of that heavy German Muse, with her feet crammed into pointed slippers, executing, with incredible conscientiousness, now the stately measure of a Versailles minuet, and now the spritely steps of a Parisian jig, would be either ludicrous or pathetic—­one hardly knows which—­were it not so certainly neither the one nor the other, but simply dreary with an unutterable dreariness, from which the eyes of men avert themselves in shuddering dismay.  Frederick himself felt that there was something wrong—­something, but not really very much.  All that was wanted was a little expert advice; and obviously Voltaire was the man to supply it—­Voltaire, the one true heir of the Great Age, the dramatist who had revived the glories of Racine (did not Frederick’s tears flow almost as copiously over Mahomet as over Britannicus?), the epic poet who had eclipsed Homer and Virgil (had not Frederick every right to judge, since he had read the ‘Iliad’ in French prose and the ‘Aeneid’ in French verse?), the lyric master whose odes and whose epistles occasionally even surpassed (Frederick Confessed it with amazement) those of the Marquis de la Fare.  Voltaire, there could be no doubt, would do just what was needed; he would know how to squeeze in a little further the waist of the German Calliope, to apply with his deft fingers precisely the right dab of rouge to her cheeks, to instil into her movements the last nuances of correct deportment.  And, if he did that, of what consequence were the blemishes of his personal character?  ’On peut apprendre de bonnes choses d’un scelerat.’

And, besides, though Voltaire might be a rogue, Frederick felt quite convinced that he could keep him in order.  A crack or two of the master’s whip—­a coldness in the royal demeanour, a hint at a stoppage of the pension—­and the monkey would put an end to his tricks soon enough.  It never seems to have occurred to Frederick that the possession of genius might imply a quality of spirit which was not that of an ordinary man.  This was his great, his fundamental error.  It was the ingenuous error of a cynic.  He knew that he was under no delusion as to Voltaire’s faults, and so he supposed that he could be under no delusion as to his merits.  He innocently imagined that the capacity for great writing was something that could be as easily separated from the owner of it as a hat or a glove.  ’C’est bien dommage qu’une ame aussi lache soit unie a un aussi beau genie.’ C’est bien dommage!—­as if there was nothing more extraordinary in such a combination than that of a pretty woman and an ugly dress.  And so Frederick held his whip a little tighter, and reminded himself once more that, in spite of that beau genie, it was a monkey that he had to deal with.  But he was wrong:  it was not a monkey; it was a devil, which is a very different thing.