Chapter 4

For this effort of wit, Voltaire was paid with thirty lashes on his bare back, administered by the king's sergeant-at-arms, and was compelled to sign the following curious receipt for the same:--

"Received from the righthand of Conrad Backoffner, thirty lashes on my bare back, being in full for an epigram on Frederick the Third, King of Prussia."

I say received by me, VOLTAIRE.

_Vive le Roi_!

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The church at Gondhurst, in Kent, is a fine old building, and remarkable for several reasons; one of which is, that thirty-nine different parishes may be distinctly seen from it, and in clear weather the sea, off Hastings, a distance of twenty-seven miles and a half.

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SPECULATION.

Sir William Adams, afterwards Sir William Rawson, which name he took in consequence of some property he succeeded to by right of his wife, was one of the victims of the South American mining mania. He plunged deeply into speculation, and wrote pamphlets to prove that so much gold and silver must ultimately find its way into Europe from Mexico, that all the existing relations of value would be utterly destroyed. He believed what he wrote, though he failed to demonstrate what he believed. At one period he might have withdrawn himself from all his speculations with at least a hundred thousand pounds in his pocket; but he fancied he had discovered the philosopher's stone--dreamed of wealth beyond what he could count--went on--was beggared--and you know how and where he died. Poor fellow! He deserved a better fate. He was a kind-hearted creature; and if he coveted a princely fortune, I am satisfied he would have used it like a prince. But I am forgetting my story. Well, then, it was after he had totally relinquished his profession as an oculist, that he might devote his entire time and attention to the Mexican mining affairs, that a gentleman, ignorant of the circumstance, called upon him one morning to consult him. Sir William looked at him for a moment, and then exclaimed, in the words of Macbeth, addressing Banquo's ghost, "Avaunt--there is _no speculation_ in those eyes!"

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