As we learn from other authority that he was in the habit of driving out in a carriage adorned with gold stars on a blue ground, and with carved and gilded mountings, few philosophers, in any age, when taking the air, could have presented a more splendid appearance. But to return to Mr Sherlock:—
"He met me in the hall; his nephew, M. d'Hornoi, Counsellor in the Parliament of Paris, held him by the arm. He said to me, with a very weak voice, 'You see a very old man, who makes a great effort to have the honour of seeing you. Will you take a walk in my garden? It will please you, for it is in the English taste; it was I who introduced that taste into France, and it has become universal. But the French parody your gardens—they put your thirty acres into three.'
"From his gardens you see the Alps, the Lake, the city of Geneva and its environs, which are very pleasant. He said, 'It is a beautiful prospect.' He pronounced these words tolerably well. Sherlock—'How long is it since you were in England?' Voltaire—'Fifty years, at least.' We then talked of literature; and from that moment he forgot his age and infirmities, and spoke with the warmth of a man of thirty. He said some shocking things against Moses and against Shakespeare.
"D' Hornoi—'There, Monsieur is a village which M. de Voltaire has built.' Voltaire—'Yes, we have our freedom here. Cut off a little corner and we are out of France. I asked some privileges for my children here, and the king' (or rather Voltaire's friend, Turgot, then finance minister) 'has granted me all that I asked, and has declared the Pays de Gex exempt from all taxes of the Farmer-General; so that salt, which formerly sold for ten sous a pound, now sells for four. I have nothing more to ask, except to live.'
"The next day as we sat down to dinner, he said in English, tolerably pronounced, 'We are here for liberty and property!
