It is, indeed, certain that Voltaire’s acquaintanceship was not limited to the extremely bitter Opposition circle which centred about the disappointed and restless figure of Bolingbroke.  He had come to London with letters of introduction from Horace Walpole, the English Ambassador at Paris, to various eminent persons in the Government.  ’Mr. Voltaire, a poet and a very ingenious one,’ was recommended by Walpole to the favour and protection of the Duke of Newcastle, while Dodington was asked to support the subscription to ’an excellent poem, called “Henry IV.,” which, on account of some bold strokes in it against persecution and the priests, cannot be printed here.’  These letters had their effect, and Voltaire rapidly made friends at Court.  When he brought out his London edition of the Henriade, there was hardly a great name in England which was not on the subscription list.  He was allowed to dedicate the poem to Queen Caroline, and he received a royal gift of L240.  Now it is also certain that just before this time Bolingbroke and Swift were suspicious of a ’certain pragmatical spy of quality, well known to act in that capacity by those into whose company he insinuates himself,’ who, they believed, were betraying their plans to the Government.  But to conclude that this detected spy was Voltaire, whose favour at Court was known to be the reward of treachery to his friends, is, apart from the inherent improbability of the supposition, rendered almost impossible, owing to the fact that Bolingbroke and Swift were themselves subscribers to the Henriade—­Bolingbroke took no fewer than twenty copies—­and that Swift was not only instrumental in obtaining a large number of Irish subscriptions, but actually wrote a preface to the Dublin edition of another of Voltaire’s works.  What inducement could Bolingbroke have had for such liberality towards a man who had betrayed him?  Who can conceive of the redoubtable Dean of St. Patrick, then at the very summit of his fame, dispensing such splendid favours to a wretch whom he knew to be engaged in the shabbiest of all traffics at the expense of himself and his friends?

Voltaire’s literary activities were as insatiable while he was in England as during every other period of his career.  Besides the edition of the Henriade, which was considerably altered and enlarged—­one of the changes was the silent removal of the name of Sully from its pages—­he brought out a volume of two essays, written in English, upon the French Civil Wars and upon Epic Poetry, he began an adaptation of Julius Caesar for the French stage, he wrote the opening acts of his tragedy of Brutus, and he collected a quantity of material for his History of Charles XII.  In addition to all this, he was busily engaged with the preparations for his Lettres Philosophiques.  The Henriade met with a great success.  Every copy of the magnificent quarto edition was sold before publication; three