Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
The author praised British scientific and social thought. [National Geographic Almanac, p. 211] "Voltaire himself was of course the most celebrated of all subversive writers to have found refuge in Prussia. . . . The relationship between the two men was contentious but fruitful, perhaps the most absorbing of any between intellectual and sovereign. From Frederick’s first communication of 8 August 1736 to Voltaire’s last of 1 April 1778 (he died two months later), they exchanged enough letters to fill three fat volumes of Frederick’s Œuvres, Frederick himself writing 654, many of them long. . . . The two men met for the first time on 11 September 1740 at the Château de Meuse near the Prussian territory of Cleves. Afterwards, Frederick wrote to his close friend Jordan: '[Voltaire] has the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, the wisdom of Agrippa; he combines, in short, what is to be collected of virtues and talents from the three greatest men of Antiquity.' . . . Voltaire’s own illusions had been shattered by Frederick’s invasion of Silesia in 1740 just as his Anti-Machiavel was being prepared for publication. . . . At least Frederick showed he was able to distinguish between the man and the writer, continuing to despise the former while admiring the latter: 'The world has produced no finer genius than Voltaire, but I utterly despise him because he is not honest.'” [Blanning: Frederick the Great, Kindle, p. 354-60]