Note 127 — Front matter (continued 4)

This is really very amusing. These pretty verses had been addressed, many years before, by Voltaire, to Adrienne Lecouvreur; and the Marshal not only coolly appropriates them, but adds insult to injury by calling them "rhymed prose"! One can imagine the indignation of the poet had this letter, by any chance, fallen into his hands. This was not the first time, however, that Voltaire's verses had been purloined by an unscrupulous lover. The charming lines, in English, which he addressed to Lady Hervey, beginning—

"Hervey, would you know the passion

You have kindled in my breast,"

were subsequently transcribed by the lover of a Mrs. Harley, the wife of a London merchant, and formed part of the evidence on which her husband based his claim for a divorce.