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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol.
+X. (of XXI.), by Thomas Carlyle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.)
+       Frederick The Great--At Reinsberg--1736-1740
+
+Author: Thomas Carlyle
+
+Posting Date: June 13, 2008 [EBook #2110]
+Release Date: March 2000
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D.R. Thompson
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II OF PRUSSIA
+
+FREDERICK THE GREAT
+
+By Thomas Carlyle
+
+Volume X.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK X. -- AT REINSBERG. - 1736-1740.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I. -- MANSION OF REINSBERG.
+
+On the Crown-Prince's Marriage, three years ago, when the AMT or
+Government-District RUPPIN, with its incomings, was assigned to him for
+revenue, we heard withal of a residence getting ready. Hint had fallen
+from the Prince, that Reinsberg, an old Country-seat, standing with
+its Domain round it in that little Territory of Ruppin, and probably
+purchasable as was understood, might be pleasant, were it once his
+and well put in repair. Which hint the kind paternal Majesty instantly
+proceeded to act upon. He straightway gave orders for the purchase of
+Reinsberg; concluded said purchase, on fair terms, after some months'
+bargaining; [23d October, 1733, order given,--16th March, 1734, purchase
+completed (Preuss, i. 75).]--and set his best Architect, one Kemeter,
+to work, in concert with the Crown-Prince, to new-build and enlarge
+the decayed Schloss of Reinsberg into such a Mansion as the young Royal
+Highness and his Wife would like.
+
+Kemeter has been busy, all this while; a solid, elegant, yet frugal
+builder: and now the main body of the Mansion is complete, or nearly so,
+the wings and adjuncts going steadily forward; Mansion so far ready that
+the Royal Highnesses can take up their abode in it. Which they do, this
+Autumn, 1736; and fairly commence Joint Housekeeping, in a permanent
+manner. Hitherto it has been intermittent only: hitherto the
+Crown-Princess has resided in their Berlin Mansion, or in her own
+Country-house at Schonhausen; Husband not habitually with her, except
+when on leave of absence from Ruppin, in Carnival time or for shorter
+periods. At Ruppin his life has been rather that of a bachelor, or
+husband abroad on business; up to this time. But now at Reinsberg they
+do kindle the sacred hearth together; "6th August, 1736," the date of
+that important event. They have got their Court about them, dames and
+cavaliers more than we expected; they have arranged the furnitures of
+their existence here on fit scale, and set up their Lares and Penates
+on a thrifty footing. Majesty and Queen come out on a visit to them next
+month; [4th September, 1736 (Ib.).]--raising the sacred hearth into its
+first considerable blaze, and crowning the operation in a human manner.
+
+And so there has a new epoch arisen for the Crown-Prince and his
+Consort. A new, and much-improved one. It lasted into the fourth year;
+rather improving all the way: and only Kingship, which, if a higher
+sphere, was a far less pleasant one, put an end to it. Friedrich's
+happiest time was this at Reinsberg; the little Four Years of Hope,
+Composure, realizable Idealism: an actual snatch of something like the
+Idyllic, appointed him in a life-pilgrimage consisting otherwise of
+realisms oftenest contradictory enough, and sometimes of very grim
+complexion. He is master of his work, he is adjusted to the practical
+conditions set him; conditions once complied with, daily work done,
+he lives to the Muses, to the spiritual improvements, to the social
+enjoyments; and has, though not without flaws of ill-weather,--from
+the Tobacco-Parliament perhaps rather less than formerly, and from
+the Finance-quarter perhaps rather more,--a sunny time. His innocent
+insipidity of a Wife, too, appears to have been happy. She had the
+charm of youth, of good looks; a wholesome perfect loyalty of character
+withal; and did not "take to pouting," as was once apprehended of
+her, but pleasantly gave and received of what was going. This poor
+Crown-Princess, afterwards Queen, has been heard, in her old age,
+reverting, in a touching transient way, to the glad days she had at
+Reinsberg. Complaint openly was never heard from her, in any kind of
+days; but these doubtless were the best of her life.
+
+Reinsberg, we said, is in the AMT Ruppin; naturally under the
+Crown-Prince's government at present: the little Town or Village of
+Reinsberg stands about, ten miles north of the Town Ruppin;--not quite
+a third-part as big as Ruppin is in our time, and much more pleasantly
+situated. The country about is of comfortable, not unpicturesque
+character; to be distinguished almost as beautiful, in that region
+of sand and moor. Lakes abound in it; tilled fields; heights called
+"hills;" and wood of fair growth,--one reads of "beech-avenues" of "high
+linden-avenues:"--a country rather of the ornamented sort, before the
+Prince with his improvements settled there. Many lakes and lakelets in
+it, as usual hereabouts; the loitering waters straggle, all over that
+region, into meshes of lakes. Reinsberg itself, Village and Schloss,
+stands on the edge of a pleasant Lake, last of a mesh of such: the
+SUMMARY, or outfall, of which, already here a good strong brook or
+stream, is called the RHEIN, Rhyn or Rein; and gives name to the little
+place. We heard of the Rein at Ruppin: it is there counted as a kind of
+river; still more, twenty miles farther down, where it falls into the
+Havel, on its way to the Elbe. The waters, I think, are drab-colored,
+not peat-brown: and here, at the source, or outfall from that mesh
+of lakes, where Reinsberg is, the country seems to be about the
+best;--sufficient, in picturesqueness and otherwise, to satisfy a
+reasonable man.
+
+The little Town is very old; but, till the Crown-Prince settled there,
+had no peculiar vitality in it. I think there are now some potteries,
+glass-manufactories: Friedrich Wilhelm, just while the Crown-Prince
+was removing thither, settled a first Glass-work there; which took
+good root, and rose to eminence in the crystal, Bohemian-crystal,
+white-glass, cut-glass, and other commoner lines, in the Crown-Prince's
+time. [_Bescheibung des Lutschlosses &c. zu Reinsberg_ (Berlin, 1788);
+Author, a "Lieutenant Hennert," thoroughly acquainted with his subject.]
+
+Reinsberg stands on the east or southeast side of its pretty Lake: Lake
+is called "the GRINERICK SEE" (as all those remote Lakes have their
+names); Mansion is between the Town and Lake. A Mansion fronting, we may
+say, four ways; for it is of quadrangular form, with a wet moat from
+the Lake begirdling it, and has a spacious court for interior: but the
+principal entrance is from the Town side; for the rest, the Building is
+ashlar on all sides, front and rear. Stands there, handsomely abutting
+on the Lake with two Towers, a Tower at each angle, which it has on that
+lakeward side; and looks, over Reinsberg, and its steeple rising amid
+friendly umbrage which hides the house-tops, towards the rising sun.
+Townward there is room for a spacious esplanade; and then for the
+stables, outbuildings, well masked; which still farther shut off the
+Town. To this day, Reinsberg stands with the air of a solid respectable
+Edifice; still massive, rain-tight, though long since deserted by
+the Princeships,--by Friedrich nearly sixscore years ago, and nearly
+threescore by Prince Henri, Brother of Friedrich's, who afterwards had
+it. Last accounts I got were, of talk there had risen of planting an
+extensive NORMAL-SCHOOL there; which promising plan had been laid aside
+again for the time.
+
+The old Schloss, residence of the Bredows and other feudal people for
+a long while, had good solid masonry in it, and around it orchards,
+potherb gardens; which Friedrich Wilhelm's Architects took good care to
+extend and improve, not to throw away: the result of their art is what
+we see, a beautiful Country-House, what might be called a Country-Palace
+with all its adjuncts;--and at a rate of expense which would fill
+English readers, of this time, with amazement. Much is admirable to us
+as we study Reinsberg, what it had been, what it became, and how it was
+made; but nothing more so than the small modicum of money it cost. To
+our wondering thought, it seems as if the shilling, in those parts, were
+equal to the guinea in these; and the reason, if we ask it, is by no
+means flattering altogether. "Change in the value of money?" Alas,
+reader, no; that is not above the fourth part of the phenomenon.
+Three-fourths of the phenomenon are change in the methods of
+administering money,--difference between managing it with wisdom and
+veracity on both sides, and managing it with unwisdom and mendacity on
+both sides. Which is very great indeed; and infinitely sadder than
+any one, in these times, will believe!--But we cannot dwell on
+this consideration. Let the reader take it with him, as a constant
+accompaniment in whatever work of Friedrich Wilhelm's or of Friedrich
+his Son's, he now or at any other time may be contemplating. Impious
+waste, which means disorder and dishonesty, and loss of much other than
+money to all, parties,--disgusting aspect of human creatures, master and
+servant, working together as if they were not human,--will be spared
+him in those foreign departments; and in an English heart thoughts will
+arise, perhaps, of a wholesome tendency, though very sad, as times are.
+
+It would but weary the reader to describe this Crown-Prince Mansion;
+which, by desperate study of our abstruse materials, it is possible to
+do with auctioneer minuteness. There are engraved VIEWS of Reinsberg
+and its Environs; which used to lie conspicuous in the portfolios of
+collectors,---which I have not seen. [See Hennert, just cited, for the
+titles of them.] Of the House itself, engraved Frontages (FACADES),
+Ground-plans, are more accessible; and along with them, descriptions
+which are little descriptive,--wearisomely detailed, and as it were dark
+by excess of light (auctioneer light) thrown on them. The reader
+sees, in general, a fine symmetrical Block of Buildings, standing in
+rectangular shape, in the above locality;--about two hundred English
+feet, each, the two longer sides measure, the Townward and the Lakeward,
+on their outer front: about a hundred and thirty, each, the two shorter;
+or a hundred and fifty, taking in their Towers just spoken of. The
+fourth or Lakeward side, however, which is one of the longer pair,
+consists mainly of "Colonnade;" spacious Colonnade "with vases and
+statues;" catching up the outskirts of said Towers, and handsomely
+uniting everything.
+
+Beyond doubt, a dignified, substantial pile of stone-work; all of good
+proportions. Architecture everywhere of cheerfully serious, solidly
+graceful character; all of sterling ashlar; the due RISALITES
+(projecting spaces) with their attics and statues atop, the due
+architraves, cornices and corbels,--in short the due opulence of
+ornament being introduced, and only the due. Genuine sculptors, genuine
+painters, artists have been busy; and in fact all the suitable fine
+arts, and all the necessary solid ones, have worked together, with
+a noticeable fidelity, comfortable to the very beholder to this day.
+General height is about forty feet; two stories of ample proportions:
+the Towers overlooking them are sixty feet in height. Extent of outer
+frontage, if you go all round, and omit the Colonnade, will be five
+hundred feet and more: this, with the rearward face, is a thousand
+feet of room frontage:--fancy the extent of lodging space. For "all the
+kitchens and appurtenances are underground;" the "left front" (which is
+a new part of the Edifice) rising comfortably over these. Windows I did
+not count; but they must go high up into the Hundreds. No end to
+lodging space. Way in a detached side-edifice subsequently built, called
+Cavalier House, I read of there being, for one item, "fifty lodging
+rooms," and for another "a theatre." And if an English Duke of Trumps
+were to look at the bills for all that, his astonishment would be
+extreme, and perhaps in a degree painful and salutary to him.
+
+In one of these Towers the Crown-Prince has his Library: a beautiful
+apartment; nothing wanting to it that the arts could furnish, "ceiling
+done by Pesne" with allegorical geniuses and what not,--looks out on
+mere sky, mere earth and water in an ornamental state: silent as in
+Elysium. It is there we are to fancy the Correspondence written, the
+Poetries and literary industries going on. There, or stepping down for
+a turn in the open air, or sauntering meditatively under the Colonnade
+with its statues and vases (where weather is no object), one commands
+the Lake, with its little tufted Islands, "Remus Island" much famed
+among them, and "high beech-woods" on the farther side. The Lake is very
+pretty, all say; lying between you and the sunset;--with perhaps some
+other lakelet, or solitary pool in the wilderness, many miles away,
+"revealing itself as a cup of molten gold," at that interesting moment.
+What the Book-Collection was, in the interior, I know not except by mere
+guess.
+
+The Crown-Princess's Apartment, too, which remained unaltered at the
+last accounts had of it, [From Hennert, namely, in 1778.] is very
+fine;--take the anteroom for specimen: "This fine room," some twenty
+feet height of ceiling, "has six windows; three of them, in the main
+front, looking towards the Town, the other three, towards the Interior
+Court. The light from these windows is heightened by mirrors covering
+all the piers (SCHAFTE, interspaces of the walls), to an uncommonly
+splendid pitch; and shows the painting of the ceiling, which again is
+by the famous Pesne, to much perfection. The Artist himself, too, has
+managed to lay on his colors there so softly, and with such delicate
+skill, that the light-beams seem to prolong themselves in the painted
+clouds and air, as if it were the real sky you had overhead." There in
+that cloud-region "Mars is being disarmed by the Love-goddesses, and
+they are sporting with his weapons. He stretches out his arm towards the
+Goddess, who looks upon him with fond glances. Cupids are spreading
+out a draping." That is Pesne's luxurious performance in the
+ceiling.--"Weapon-festoons, in basso-relievo, gilt, adorn the walls of
+this room; and two Pictures, also by Pesne, which represent, in life
+size, the late King and Queen [our good friends Friedrich Wilhelm and
+his Sophie], are worthy of attention. Over each of the doors, you
+find in low-relief the Profiles of Hannibal, Pompey, Scipio, Caesar,
+introduced as Medallions."
+
+All this is very fine; but all this is little to another ceiling, in
+some big Saloon elsewhere, Music-saloon, I think: Black Night, making
+off, with all her sickly dews, at one end of the ceiling; and at the
+other end, the Steeds of Phoebus bursting forth, and the glittering
+shafts of Day,--with Cupids, Love-goddesses, War-gods, not omitting
+Bacchus and his vines, all getting beautifully awake in consequence. A
+very fine room indeed;--used as a Music-saloon, or I know not what,--and
+the ceiling of it almost an ideal, say the connoisseurs.
+
+Endless gardens, pavilions, grottos, hermitages, orangeries, artificial
+ruins, parks and pleasances surround this favored spot and its Schloss;
+nothing wanting in it that a Prince's establishment needs,--except
+indeed it be hounds, for which this Prince never had the least demand.
+
+Except the old Ruppin duties, which imply continual journeyings thither,
+distance only a morning's ride; except these, and occasional commissions
+from Papa, Friedrich is left master of his time and pursuits in this new
+Mansion. There are visits to Potsdam, periodical appearances at
+Berlin; some Correspondence to keep the Tobacco-Parliament in tune. But
+Friedrich's taste is for the Literatures, Philosophies: a--young Prince
+bent seriously to cultivate his mind; to attain some clear knowledge of
+this world, so all-important to him. And he does seriously read, study
+and reflect a good deal; his main recreations, seemingly, are Music,
+and the converse of well-informed, friendly men. In Music we find him
+particularly rich. Daily, at a fixed hour of the afternoon, there is
+concert held; the reader has seen in what kind of room: and if the
+Artists entertained here for that function were enumerated (high names,
+not yet forgotten in the Musical world), it would still more astonish
+readers. I count them to the number of twenty or nineteen; and mention
+only that "the two Brothers Graun" and "the two Brothers Benda" were of
+the lot; suppressing four other Fiddlers of eminence, and "a Pianist
+who is known to everybody." [Hennert, p. 21.] The Prince has a fine
+sensibility to Music: does himself, with thrilling adagios on the
+flute, join in these harmonious acts; and, no doubt, if rightly vigilant
+against the Nonsenses, gets profit, now and henceforth, from this part
+of his resources.
+
+He has visits, calls to make, on distinguished persons within reach; he
+has much Correspondence, of a Literary or Social nature. For instance,
+there is Suhm the Saxon Envoy translating _Wolf's Philosophy_ into
+French for him; sending it in fascicles; with endless Letters to and
+from, upon it,--which were then highly interesting, but are now dead
+to every reader. The Crown-Prince has got a Post-Office established
+at Reinsberg; leathern functionary of some sort comes lumbering round,
+southward, "from the Mecklenburg quarter twice a week, and goes by
+Fehrbellin," for the benefit of his Correspondences. Of his calls in the
+neighborhood, we mean to show the reader one sample, before long; and
+only one.
+
+There are Lists given us of the Prince's "Court" at Reinsberg; and one
+reads, and again reads, the dreariest unmemorable accounts of them; but
+cannot, with all one's industry, attain any definite understanding of
+what they were employed in, day after day, at Reinsberg:--still more
+are their salaries and maintenance a mystery to us, in that frugal
+establishment. There is Wolden for Hofmarschall, our old Custrin friend;
+there is Colonel Senning, old Marlborough Colonel with the wooden leg,
+who taught Friedrich his drillings and artillery-practices in boyhood,
+a fine sagacious old gentleman this latter. There is a M. Jordan,
+Ex-Preacher, an ingenious Prussian-Frenchman, still young, who acts
+as "Reader and Librarian;" of whom we shall hear a good deal more.
+"Intendant" is Captain (Ex-Captain) Knobelsdorf; a very sensible
+accomplished man, whom we saw once at Baireuth; who has been to Italy
+since, and is now returned with beautiful talents for Architecture: it
+is he that now undertakes the completing of Reinsberg, [Hennert, p.
+29.] which he will skilfully accomplish in the course of the next three
+years. Twenty Musicians on wind or string; Painters, Antoine Pesne but
+one of them; Sculptors, Glume and others of eminence; and Hof-Cavaliers,
+to we know not what extent:--how was such a Court kept up, in harmonious
+free dignity, and no halt in its finances, or mean pinch of any kind
+visible? The Prince did get in debt; but not deep, and it was mainly for
+the tall recruits he had to purchase. His money-accounts are by no means
+fully known to me: but I should question if his expenditure (such is my
+guess) ever reached 3,000 pounds a year; and am obliged to reflect more
+and more, as the ancient Cato did, what an admirable revenue frugality
+is!
+
+Many of the Cavaliers, I find, for one thing, were of the Regiment
+Goltz; that was one evident economy. "Rittmeister van Chasot," as the
+Books call him: readers saw that Chasot flying to Prince Eugene, and
+know him since the Siege of Philipsburg. He is not yet Rittmeister,
+or Captain of Horse, as he became; but is of the Ruppin Garrison;
+Hof-Cavalier; "attended Friedrich on his late Prussian journey;" and
+is much a favorite, when he can be spared from Ruppin. Captain Wylich,
+afterwards a General of mark; the Lieutenant Buddenbrock who did the
+parson-charivari at Ruppin, but is now reformed from those practices:
+all these are of Goltz. Colonel Keyserling, not of Goltz, nor in active
+military duty here, is a friend of very old standing; was officially
+named as "Companion" to the Prince, a long while back; and got into
+trouble on his account in the disastrous Ante-Custrin or Flight Epoch:
+one of the Prince's first acts, when he got pardoned after Custrin, was
+to beg for the pardon of this Keyserling; and now he has him here, and
+is very fond of him. A Courlander, of good family, this Keyserling;
+of good gifts too,--which, it was once thought, would be practically
+sublime; for he carried off all manner of college prizes, and was the
+Admirable-Crichton of Konigsberg University and the Graduates there. But
+in the end they proved to be gifts of the vocal sort rather: and have
+led only to what we see. A man, I should guess, rather of buoyant
+vivacity than of depth or strength in intellect or otherwise.
+Excessively buoyant, ingenious; full of wit, kindly exuberance; a
+loyal-hearted, gay-tempered man, and much a favorite in society as well
+as with the Prince. If we were to dwell on Reinsberg, Keyserling would
+come prominently forward.
+
+Major van Stille, ultimately Major-General von Stille, I should also
+mention: near twenty years older than the Prince; a wise thoughtful
+soldier (went, by permission, to the Siege of Dantzig lately, to improve
+himself); a man capable of rugged service, when the time comes. His
+military writings were once in considerable esteem with professional
+men; and still impress a lay reader with favorable notions towards
+Stille, as a man of real worth and sense. [_Campagnes du Roi de
+Prusse;_--a posthumous Book; ANTERIOR to the Seven-Years War.]
+
+
+
+
+OF MONSIEUR JORDAN AND THE LITERARY SET.
+
+There is, of course, a Chaplain in the Establishment: a Reverend "M.
+Deschamps;" who preaches to them all,--in French no doubt. Friedrich
+never hears Deschamps: Friedrich is always over at Ruppin on Sundays;
+and there "himself reads a sermon to the Garrison," as part of the day's
+duties. Reads finely, in a melodious feeling manner, says Formey, who
+can judge: "even in his old days, he would incidentally," when some
+Emeritus Parson, like Formey, chanced to be with him, "roll out choice
+passages from Bossuet, from Massillon," in a voice and with a look,
+which would have been perfection in the pulpit, thinks Formey.
+[_Souvenirs d'un Citoyen_ (2de edition, Paris, 1797), i. 37.]
+
+M. Jordan, though he was called "LECTEUR (Reader)," did not read to him,
+I can perceive; but took charge of the Books; busied himself honestly to
+be useful in all manner of literary or quasi-literary ways. He was,
+as his name indicates, from the French-refugee department; a recent
+acquisition, much valued at Reinsberg. As he makes a figure afterwards,
+we had better mark him a little.
+
+Jordan's parents were wealthy religious persons, in trade at Berlin;
+this Jordan (Charles Etienne, age now thirty-six) was their eldest son.
+It seems they had destined him from birth, consulting their own pious
+feelings merely, to be a Preacher of the Gospel; the other sons, all of
+them reckoned clever too, were brought up to secular employments. And
+preach he, this poor Charles Etienne, accordingly did; what best Gospel
+he had; in an honest manner, all say,--though never with other than a
+kind of reluctance on the part of Nature, forced out of her course. He
+had wedded, been clergyman in two successive country places; when his
+wife died, leaving him one little daughter, and a heart much overset by
+that event. Friends, wealthy Brothers probably, had pushed him out into
+the free air, in these circumstances: "Take a Tour; Holland, England;
+feel the winds blowing, see the sun shining, as in times past: it will
+do you good!"
+
+Jordan, in the course of his Tour, came to composure on several points.
+He found that, by frugality, by wise management of some peculium already
+his, his little Daughter and he might have quietness at Berlin, and the
+necessary food and raiment;--and, on the whole, that he would altogether
+cease preaching, and settle down there, among his Books, in a frugal
+manner. Which he did;--and was living so, when the Prince, searching for
+that kind of person, got tidings of him. And here he is at Reinsberg;
+bustling about, in a brisk, modestly frank and cheerful manner: well
+liked by everybody; by his Master very well and ever better, who grew
+into real regard, esteem and even friendship for him, and has much
+Correspondence, of a freer kind than is common to him, with little
+Jordan, so long as they lived together. Jordan's death, ten years hence,
+was probably the one considerable pain he had ever given his neighbors,
+in this the ultimate section of his life.
+
+I find him described, at Reinsberg, as a small nimble figure, of
+Southern-French aspect; black, uncommonly bright eyes; and a general
+aspect of adroitness, modesty, sense, sincerity; good prognostics, which
+on acquaintance with the man were pleasantly fulfilled.
+
+For the sake of these considerations, I fished out, from the Old-Book
+Catalogues and sea of forgetfulness, some of the poor Books he wrote;
+especially a _Voyage Litteraire,_ [_Histoire d'un Voyage Litteraire
+fait, en MDCCXXXIII., en France, en Angleterre et en Hollande_ (2de
+edition, a La Haye, 1736).] Journal of that first Sanitary Excursion or
+Tour he took, to get the clouds blown from his mind. A LITERARY VOYAGE
+which awakens a kind of tragic feeling; being itself dead, and treating
+of matters which are all gone dead. So many immortal writers, Dutch
+chiefly, whom Jordan is enabled to report as having effloresced, or
+being soon to effloresce, in such and such forms, of Books important to
+be learned: leafy, blossomy Forest of Literature, waving glorious in
+the then sunlight to Jordan;--and it lies all now, to Jordan and us, not
+withered only, but abolished; compressed into a film of indiscriminate
+PEAT. Consider what that peat is made of, O celebrated or uncelebrated
+reader, and take a moral from Jordan's Book! Other merit, except indeed
+clearness and commendable brevity, the _Voyage Litteraire_ or other
+little Books of Jordan's have not now. A few of his Letters to
+Friedrich, which exist, are the only writings with the least life
+left in them, and this an accidental life, not momentous to him or
+us. Dryasdust informs me, "Abbe Jordan, alone of the Crown-Prince's
+cavaliers, sleeps in the Town of Reinsberg, not in the Schloss:" and if
+I ask, Why?--there is no answer. Probably his poor little Daughterkin
+was beside him there?--
+
+We have to say of Friedrich's Associates, that generally they were of
+intelligent type, each of them master of something or other, and
+capable of rational discourse upon that at least. Integrity, loyalty of
+character, was indispensable; good humor, wit if it could be had, were
+much in request. There was no man of shining distinction there; but
+they were the best that could be had, and that is saying all. Friedrich
+cannot be said, either as Prince or as King, to have been superlatively
+successful in his choice of associates. With one single exception, to
+be noticed shortly, there is not one of them whom we should now remember
+except for Friedrich's sake;--uniformly they are men whom it is now a
+weariness to hear of, except in a cursory manner. One man of shining
+parts he had, and one only; no man ever of really high and great mind.
+The latter sort are not so easy to get; rarely producible on the soil of
+this Earth! Nor is it certain how Friedrich might have managed with one
+of this sort, or he with Friedrich;--though Friedrich unquestionably
+would have tried, had the chance offered. For he loved intellect as few
+men on the throne, or off it, ever did; and the little he could gather
+of it round him often seems to me a fact tragical rather than otherwise.
+
+With the outer Berlin social world, acting and reacting, Friedrich has
+his connections, which obscurely emerge on us now and then. Literary
+Eminences, who are generally of Theological vesture; any follower of
+Philosophy, especially if he be of refined manners withal, or known in
+fashionable life, is sure to attract him; and gains ample recognition
+at Reinsberg or on Town-visits. But the Berlin Theological or Literary
+world at that time, still more the Berlin Social, like a sunk extinct
+object, continues very dim in those old records; and to say truth, what
+features we have of it do not invite to miraculous efforts for farther
+acquaintance. Venerable Beausobre, with his _History of the Manicheans,
+[_Histoire critique de Manichee et du Manicheisme:_ wrote also
+_Remarques &c. sur le Nouveau Testament,_ which were once famous;
+_Histoire de la Reformation;_ &c. &c. He is Beausobre SENIOR; there were
+two Sons (one of them born in second wedlock, after Papa was 70), who
+were likewise given to writing.--See Formey, _Souvenirs d'un Citoyen
+since, in Toland and the Republican Queen's time, as a light of the
+world. He is now fourscore, grown white as snow; very serene, polite,
+with a smack of French noblesse in him, perhaps a smack of affectation
+traceable too. The Crown-Prince, on one of his Berlin visits, wished to
+see this Beausobre; got a meeting appointed, in somebody's rooms "in
+the French College," and waited for the venerable man. Venerable man
+entered, loftily serene as a martyr Preacher of the Word, something
+of an ancient Seigneur de Beausobre in him, too; for the rest, soft as
+sunset, and really with fine radiances, in a somewhat twisted state,
+in that good old mind of his. "What have you been reading lately, M. de
+Beausobre?" said the Prince, to begin conversation. "Ah, Monseigneur,
+I have just risen from reading the sublimest piece of writing that
+exists."--"And what?" "The exordium of St. John's Gospel: _In the
+Beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was--"_
+Which somewhat took the Prince by surprise, as Formey reports; though he
+rallied straightway, and got good conversation out of the old gentleman.
+To whom, we perceive, he writes once or twice, [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
+121-126. Dates are all of 1737; the last of Beausobre's years.]--a copy
+of his own verses to correct, on one occasion,--and is very respectful
+and considerate.
+
+Formey tells us of another French sage, personally known to the Prince
+since Boyhood; for he used to be about the Palace, doing something.
+This is one La Croze; Professor of, I think, "Philosophy" in the French
+College: sublime Monster of Erudition, at that time; forgotten now, I
+fear, by everybody. Swag-bellied, short of wind; liable to rages, to
+utterances of a coarse nature; a decidedly ugly, monstrous and rather
+stupid kind of man. Knew twenty languages, in a coarse inexact way.
+Attempted deep kinds of discourse, in the lecture-room and elsewhere;
+but usually broke off into endless welters of anecdote, not always of
+cleanly nature; and after every two or three words, a desperate sigh,
+not for sorrow, but on account of flabbiness and fat. Formey gives a
+portraiture of him; not worth copying farther. The same Formey, standing
+one day somewhere on the streets of Berlin, was himself, he cannot
+doubt, SEEN by the Crown-Prince in passing; "who asked M. Jordan, who
+that was," and got answer:--is not that a comfortable fact? Nothing
+farther came of it;--respectable Ex-Parson Formey, though ever
+ready with his pen, being indeed of very vapid nature, not wanted at
+Reinsberg, as we can guess.
+
+There is M. Achard, too, another Preacher, supreme of his sort, in the
+then Berlin circles; to whom or from whom a Letter or two exist. Letters
+worthless, if it were not for one dim indication: That, on inquiry, the
+Crown-Prince had been consulting this supreme Achard on the difficulties
+of Orthodoxy; [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvi. pp. 112-117: date,
+March-June, 1736.] and had given him texts, or a text, to preach from.
+Supreme Achard did not abolish the difficulties for his inquiring
+Prince,--who complains respectfully that "his faith is weak," and leaves
+us dark as to particulars. This Achard passage is almost the only
+hint we have of what might have been an important chapter: Friedrich's
+Religious History at Reinsberg. The expression "weak faith" I take to
+be meant not in mockery, but in ingenuous regret and solicitude; much
+painful fermentation, probably, on the religious question in those
+Reinsberg years! But the old "GNADENWAHL" business, the Free-Grace
+controversy, had taught him to be cautious as to what he uttered on
+those points. The fermentation, therefore, had to go on under cover;
+what the result of it was, is notorious enough; though the steps of the
+process are not in any point known.
+
+Enough now of such details. Outwardly or inwardly, there is no History,
+or almost none, to be had of this Reinsberg Period; the extensive
+records of it consisting, as usual, mainly of chaotic nugatory matter,
+opaque to the mind of readers. There is copious correspondence of the
+Crown-Prince, with at least dates to it for most part: but this,
+which should be the main resource, proves likewise a poor one; the
+Crown-Prince's Letters, now or afterwards, being almost never of a deep
+or intimate quality; and seldom turning on events or facts at all, and
+then not always on facts interesting, on facts clearly apprehensible to
+us in that extinct element.
+
+The Thing, we know always, IS there; but vision of the Thing is only to
+be had faintly, intermittently. Dim inane twilight, with here and
+there a transient SPARK falling somewhither in it;--you do at last, by
+desperate persistence, get to discern outlines, features:--"The Thing
+cannot always have been No-thing," you reflect! Outlines, features:--and
+perhaps, after all, those are mostly what the reader wants on this
+occasion.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II. -- OF VOLTAIRE AND THE LITERARY CORRESPONDENCES.
+
+One of Friedrich's grand purposes at Reinsberg, to himself privately
+the grandest there, which he follows with constant loyalty and ardor,
+is that of scaling the heights of the Muses' Hill withal; of attaining
+mastership, discipleship, in Art and Philosophy;--or in candor let us
+call it, what it truly was, that of enlightening and fortifying himself
+with clear knowledge, clear belief, on all sides; and acquiring some
+spiritual panoply in which to front the coming practicalities of life.
+This, he feels well, will be a noble use of his seclusion in those still
+places; and it must be owned, he struggles and endeavors towards this,
+with great perseverance, by all the methods in his power, here, or
+wherever afterwards he might be.
+
+Here at Reinsberg, one of his readiest methods, his pleasantest if not
+his usefulest, is that of getting into correspondence with the chief
+spirits of his time. Which accordingly he forthwith sets about, after
+getting into Reinsberg, and continues, as we shall see, with much
+assiduity. Rollin, Fontenelle, and other French lights of the then
+firmament,--his Letters to them exist; and could be given in some
+quantity: but it is better not. They are intrinsically the common
+Letters on such occasions: "O sublime demi-god of literature, how small
+are princely distinctions to such a glory as thine; thou who enterest
+within the veil of the temple, and issuest with thy face shining!"--To
+which the response is: "Hm, think you so, most happy, gracious,
+illustrious Prince, with every convenience round you, and such prospects
+ahead? Well, thank you, at any rate,--and, as the Irish say, more power
+to your Honor's Glory!" This really is nearly all that said Sets of
+Letters contain; and except perhaps the Voltaire Set, none of them give
+symptoms of much capacity to contain more.
+
+Certainly there was no want of Literary Men discernible from Reinsberg
+at that time; and the young Prince corresponds with a good many of them;
+temporal potentate saluting spiritual, from the distance,--in a way
+highly interesting to the then parties, but now without interest, except
+of the reflex kind, to any creature. A very cold and empty portion,
+this, of the Friedrich Correspondence; standing there to testify what
+his admiration was for literary talent, or the great reputation of such;
+but in itself uninstructive utterly, and of freezing influence on the
+now living mind. Most of those French lights of the then firmament are
+gone out. Forgotten altogether; or recognized, like Rollin and others,
+for polished dullards, university big-wigs, and long-winded commonplace
+persons, deserving nothing but oblivion. To Montesquieu,--not yet called
+"Baron de Montesquieu" with ESPRIT DES LOIS, but "M. de Secondat" with
+(Anonymous) LETTRES PERSANES, and already known to the world for a
+person of sharp audacious eyesight,--it does not appear that Friedrich
+addressed any Letter, now or afterwards. No notice of Montesquieu; nor
+of some others, the absence of whom is a little unexpected. Probably
+it was want of knowledge mainly; for his appetite was not fastidious at
+this time. And certainly he did hit the centre of the mark, and get
+into the very kernel of French literature, when, in 1736, hardly yet
+established in his new quarters, he addressed himself to the shining
+figure known to us as "Arouet Junior" long since, and now called M. DE
+VOLTAIRE; which latter is still a name notable in Friedrich's History
+and that of Mankind. Friedrich's first Letter, challenging Voltaire
+to correspondence, dates itself 8th August, 1736; and Voltaire's
+Answer--the Reinsberg Household still only in its second month--was
+probably the brightest event which had yet befallen there.
+
+On various accounts it will behoove us to look a good deal more strictly
+into this Voltaire; and, as his relations to Friedrich and to the world
+are so multiplex, endeavor to disengage the real likeness of the
+man from the circumambient noise and confusion which in his instance
+continue very great. "Voltaire was the spiritual complement of
+Friedrich," says Sauerteig once: "what little of lasting their poor
+Century produced lies mainly in these Two. A very somnambulating
+Century! But what little it DID, we must call Friedrich; what little it
+THOUGHT, Voltaire. Other fruit we have not from it to speak of, at this
+day. Voltaire, and what CAN be faithfully done on the Voltaire Creed;
+'Realized Voltairism;'--admit it, reader, not in a too triumphant
+humor,--is not that pretty much the net historical product of the
+Eighteenth Century? The rest of its history either pure somnambulism; or
+a mere Controversy, to the effect, 'Realized Voltairism? How soon
+shall it be realized, then? Not at once, surely!' So that Friedrich and
+Voltaire are related, not by accident only. They are, they for want of
+better, the two Original Men of their Century; the chief and in a sense
+the sole products of their Century. They alone remain to us as still
+living results from it,--such as they are. And the rest, truly, OUGHT
+to depart and vanish (as they are now doing); being mere ephemera;
+contemporary eaters, scramblers for provender, talkers of acceptable
+hearsay; and related merely to the butteries and wiggeries of their
+time, and not related to the Perennialities at all, as these Two
+were."--With more of the like sort from Sauerteig.
+
+M. de Voltaire, who used to be M. Francois-Marie Arouet, was at this
+time about forty, [Born 20th February, 1694; the younger of two sons:
+Father, "Francois Arouet, a Notary of the Chatelet, ultimately Treasurer
+of the Chamber of Accounts;" Mother, "Marguerite d'Aumart, of a noble
+family of Poitou."] and had gone through various fortunes; a man, now
+and henceforth, in a high degree conspicuous, and questionable to his
+fellow-creatures. Clear knowledge of him ought, at this stage, to
+be common; but unexpectedly it is not. What endless writing and
+biographying there has been about this man; in which one still reads,
+with a kind of lazy satisfaction, due to the subject, and to the French
+genius in that department! But the man himself, and his environment and
+practical aspects, what the actual physiognomy of his life and of him
+can have been, is dark from beginning to ending; and much is left in an
+ambiguous undecipherable condition to us. A proper History of Voltaire,
+in which should be discoverable, luminous to human creatures, what he
+was, what element he lived in, what work he did: this is still a problem
+for the genius of France!--
+
+His Father's name is known to us; the name of his Father's profession,
+too, but not clearly the nature of it; still less his Father's
+character, economic circumstances, physiognomy spiritual or social: not
+the least possibility granted you of forming an image, however faint,
+of that notable man and household, which distinguished itself to all the
+earth by producing little Francois into the light of this sun. Of Madame
+Arouet, who, or what, or how she was, nothing whatever is known. A human
+reader, pestered continually with the Madame-Denises, Abbe-Mignots and
+enigmatic nieces and nephews, would have wished to know, at least, what
+children, besides Francois, Madame Arouet had: once for all, How many
+children? Name them, with year of birth, year of death, according to the
+church-registers: they all, at any rate, had that degree of history! No;
+even that has not been done. Beneficent correspondents of my own make
+answer, after some research, No register of the Arouets anywhere to
+be had. The very name VOLTAIRE, if you ask whence came it? there is no
+answer, or worse than none.--The fit "History" of this man, which might
+be one of the shining Epics of his Century, and the lucid summary and
+soul of any HISTORY France then had, but which would require almost a
+French demi-god to do it, is still a great way off, if on the road at
+all! For present purposes, we select what follows from a well-known
+hand:--
+
+"YOUTH OF VOLTAIRE (1694-1725).--French Biographers have left the Arouet
+Household very dark for us; meanwhile we can perceive, or guess, that it
+was moderately well in economic respects; that Francois was the second
+of the Two Sons; and that old Arouet, a steady, practical and perhaps
+rather sharp-tempered old gentleman, of official legal habits and
+position, 'Notary of the Chatelet' and something else, had destined him
+for the Law Profession; as was natural enough to a son of M. Arouet, who
+had himself succeeded well in Law, and could there, best of all, open
+roads for a clever second son. Francois accordingly sat 'in chambers,'
+as we call it; and his fellow-clerks much loved him,--the most amusing
+fellow in the world. Sat in chambers, even became an advocate; but did
+not in the least take to advocateship;--took to poetry, and other airy
+dangerous courses, speculative, practical; causing family explosions
+and rebukes, which were without effect on him. A young fool, bent on
+sportful pursuits instead of serious; more and more shuddering at Law.
+To the surprise and indignation of M. Arouet Senior. Law, with its wigs
+and sheepskins, pointing towards high honors and deep flesh-pots, had no
+charms for the young fool; he could not be made to like Law.
+
+"Whereupon arose explosions, as we hint; family explosions on the part
+of M. Arouet Senior; such that friends had to interfere, and it was
+uncertain what would come of it. One judicious friend, 'M. Caumartin,'
+took the young fellow home to his house in the country for a time;--and
+there, incidentally, brought him acquainted with old gentlemen deep
+in the traditions of Henri Quatre and the cognate topics; which much
+inflamed the young fellow, and produced big schemes in the head of him.
+
+"M. Arouet Senior stood strong for Law; but it was becoming daily more
+impossible. Madrigals, dramas (not without actresses), satirical wit,
+airy verse, and all manner of adventurous speculation, were what
+this young man went upon; and was getting more and more loved for;
+introduced, even, to the superior circles, and recognized there as one
+of the brightest young fellows ever seen. Which tended, of course, to
+confirm him in his folly, and open other outlooks and harbors of refuge
+than the paternal one.
+
+"Such things, strange to M. Arouet Senior, were in vogue then; wicked
+Regent d'Orleans having succeeded sublime Louis XIV., and set strange
+fashions to the Quality. Not likely to profit this fool Francois,
+thought M. Arouet Senior; and was much confirmed in his notion, when a
+rhymed Lampoon against the Government having come out (LES J'AI VU, as
+they call it ["I have seen (J'AI VU)" this ignominy occur, "I have seen"
+that other,--to the amount of a dozen or two;--"and am not yet twenty."
+Copy of it, and guess as to authorship, in _OEuvres de Voltaire_, i.
+321.]), and become the rage, as a clever thing of the kind will, it was
+imputed to the brightest young fellow in France, M. Arouet's Son. Who,
+in fact, was not the Author; but was not believed on his denial; and
+saw himself, in spite of his high connections, ruthlessly lodged in the
+Bastille in consequence. 'Let him sit,' thought M. Arouet Senior, 'and
+come to his senses there!' He sat for eighteen months (age still little
+above twenty); but privately employed his time, not in repentance, or in
+serious legal studies, but in writing a Poem on his Henri Quatre. 'Epic
+Poem,' no less; LA LIGUE, as he then called it; which it was his hope
+the whole world would one day fall in love with;--as it did. Nay, in two
+years more, he had done a Play, OEDIPE the renowned name of it; which
+ran for forty-eight nights' (18th November, 1718, the first of them);
+and was enough to turn any head of such age. Law may be considered
+hopeless, even by M. Arouet Senior.
+
+"Try him in the Diplomatic line; break these bad habits and connections,
+thought M. Arouet, at one time; and sent him to the French Ambassador
+in Holland,--on good behavior, as it were, and by way of temporary
+banishment. But neither did this answer. On the contrary, the young
+fellow got into scrapes again; got into amatory intrigues,--young lady
+visiting you in men's clothes, young lady's mother inveigling, and I
+know not what;--so that the Ambassador was glad to send him home again
+unmarried; marked, as it were, 'Glass, with care!' And the young lady's
+mother printed his Letters, not the least worth reading:--and the old M.
+Arouet seems now to have flung up his head; to have settled some small
+allowance on him, with peremptory no hope of more, and said, 'Go your
+own way, then, foolish junior: the elder shall be my son.' M. Arouet
+disappears at this point, or nearly so, from the history of his son
+Francois; and I think must have died in not many years. Poor old
+M. Arouet closed his old eyes without the least conception what a
+prodigious ever-memorable thing he had done unknowingly, in sending this
+Francois into the world, to kindle such universal 'dry dung-heap of a
+rotten world,' and set it blazing! Francois, his Father's synonym, came
+to be representative of the family, after all; the elder Brother also
+having died before long. Except certain confused niece-and-nephew
+personages, progeny of the sisters, Francois has no more trouble or
+solacement from the paternal household. Francois meanwhile is his
+Father's synonym, and signs Arouet Junior, 'Francois Aroue l. j. (LE
+JEUNE).'
+
+"'All of us Princes, then, or Poets!' said he, one night at supper,
+looking to right and left: the brightest fellow in the world, well fit
+to be Phoebus Apollo of such circles; and great things now ahead of him.
+Dissolute Regent d'Orleans, politest, most debauched of men, and very
+witty, holds the helm; near him Dubois the Devil's Cardinal, and so many
+bright spirits. All the Luciferous Spiritualism there is in France is
+lifting anchor, under these auspices, joyfully towards new latitudes
+and Isles of the Blest. What may not Francois hope to become? 'Hmph!'
+answers M. Arouet Senior, steadily, so long as he lives. Here are one
+or two subsequent phases, epochs or turning-points, of the young
+gentleman's career.
+
+"PHASIS FIRST (1725-1728).--The accomplished Duc de Sulli (Year 1725,
+day not recorded), is giving in his hotel a dinner, such as usual; and a
+bright witty company is assembled;--the brightest young fellow in
+France sure to be there; and with his electric coruscations illuminating
+everything, and keeping the table in a roar. To the delight of most; not
+to that of a certain splenetic ill-given Duc de Rohan; grandee of high
+rank, great haughtiness, and very ill-behavior in the world; who feels
+impatient at the notice taken of a mere civic individual, Arouet Junior.
+_ 'Quel est done ce jeune homme qui parle si haut,_ Who is this young
+man that talks so loud, then?' exclaims the proud splenetic Duke.
+'Monseigneur,' flashes the young man back upon him in an electric
+manner, 'it is one who does not drag a big name about with him; but who
+secures respect for the name he has!' Figure that, in the penetrating
+grandly clangorous voice (VOIX SOMBRE ET MAJESTUEUSE), and the momentary
+flash of eyes that attended it. Duc de Rohan rose, in a sulphurous
+frame of mind; and went his ways. What date? You ask the idle French
+Biographer in vain;--see only, after more and more inspection, that
+the incident is true; and with labor date it, summer of the Year
+1725. Treaty of Utrecht itself, though all the Newspapers and Own
+Correspondents were so interested in it, was perhaps but a foolish
+matter to date in comparison!
+
+"About a week after, M. Arouet Junior was again dining with the Duc
+de Sulli, and a fine company as before. A servant whispers him, That
+somebody has called, and wants him below. 'Cannot come,' answers Arouet;
+'how can I, so engaged?' Servant returns after a minute or two: 'Pardon,
+Monsieur; I am to say, it is to do an act of beneficence that you are
+wanted below!' Arouet lays down his knife and fork; descends instantly
+to see what act it is. A carriage is in the court, and hackney-coach
+near it: 'Would Monsieur have the extreme goodness to come to the door
+of the carriage, in a case of necessity?' At the door of the carriage,
+hands seize the collar of him, hold him as in a vice; diabolic visage
+of Duc de Rohan is visible inside, who utters, looking to the
+hackney-coach, some "VOILA, Now then!" Whereupon the hackney-coach
+opens, gives out three porters, or hired bullies, with the due
+implements: scandalous actuality of horsewhipping descends on the back
+of poor Arouet, who shrieks and execrates to no purpose, nobody being
+near. 'That will do,' says Rohan at last, and the gallant ducal party
+drive off; young Arouet, with torn frills and deranged hair, rushing up
+stairs again, in such a mood as is easy to fancy. Everybody is sorry,
+inconsolable, everybody shocked; nobody volunteers to help in avenging.
+'Monseigneur de Sulli, is not such atrocity done to one of your
+guests, an insult to yourself?' asks Arouet. 'Well, yes perhaps,
+but'--Monseigneur de Sulli shrugs his shoulders, and proposes nothing.
+Arouet withdrew, of course in a most blazing condition, to consider what
+he could, on his own strength, do in this conjuncture.
+
+"His Biographer Duvernet says, he decided on doing two things: learning
+English and the small-sword exercise. [_La Vie de Voltaire,_ par M--(a
+Geneve, 1786), pp. 55-57; or pp. 60-63, in his SECOND form of the Book.
+The "M--" is an Abbe Duvernet; of no great mark otherwise. He got
+into Revolution trouble afterwards, but escaped with his head; and
+republished his Book, swollen out somewhat by new "Anecdotes" and
+republican bluster, in this second instance; signing himself T. J. D.
+V--(Paris, 1797). A vague but not dark or mendacious little Book;
+with traces of real EYESIGHT in it,--by one who had personally known
+Voltaire, or at least seen and heard him.] He retired to the country for
+six months, and perfected himself in these two branches. Being perfect,
+he challenged Duc de Rohan in the proper manner; applying ingenious
+compulsives withal, to secure acceptance of the challenge. Rohan
+accepted, not without some difficulty, and compulsion at the Theatre or
+otherwise:--accepted, but withal confessed to his wife. The result was,
+no measuring of swords took place; and Rohan only blighted by public
+opinion, or incapable of farther blight that way, went at large; a
+convenient LETTRE DE CACHET having put Arouet again in the Bastille.
+Where for six months Arouet lodged a second time, the innocent not the
+guilty; making, we can well suppose, innumerable reflections on the
+phenomena of human life. Imprisonment once over, he hastily quitted for
+England; shaking the dust of ungrateful France off his feet,--resolved
+to change his unhappy name, for one thing.
+
+"Smelfungus, denouncing the torpid fatuity of Voltaire's Biographers,
+says he never met with one Frenchman, even of the Literary classes, who
+could tell him whence this name VOLTAIRE originated. 'A PETITE
+TERRE, small family estate,' they said; and sent him hunting through
+Topographies, far and wide, to no purpose. Others answered, 'Volterra
+in Italy, some connection with Volterra,'--and seemed even to know that
+this was but fatuity. 'In ever-talking, ever-printing Paris, is it as
+in Timbuctoo, then, which neither prints nor has anything to print?'
+exclaims poor Smelfungus! He tells us at last, the name VOLTAIRE is
+a mere Anagram of AROUET L. J.--you try it;
+A.R.O.U.E.T.L.J.=V.O.L.T.A.I.R.E and perceive at once, with obligations
+to Smelfungus, that he has settled this small matter for you, and that
+you can be silent upon it forever thenceforth.
+
+"The anagram VOLTAIRE, gloomily settled in the Bastille in this manner,
+can be reckoned a very famous wide-sounding outer result of the Rohan
+impertinence and blackguardism; but it is not worth naming beside the
+inner intrinsic result, of banishing Voltaire to England at this point
+of his course. England was full of Constitutionality and Freethinking;
+Tolands, Collinses, Wollastons, Bolingbrokes, still living; very free
+indeed. England, one is astonished to see, has its royal-republican ways
+of doing; something Roman in it, from Peerage down to Plebs; strange and
+curious to the eye of M. de Voltaire. Sciences flourishing; Newton still
+alive, white with fourscore years, the venerable hoary man; Locke's
+Gospel of Common Sense in full vogue, or even done into verse, by
+incomparable Mr. Pope, for the cultivated upper classes. In science,
+in religion, in politics, what a surprising 'liberty' allowed or taken!
+Never was a freer turn of thinking. And (what to M. de Voltaire is a
+pleasant feature) it is Freethinking with ruffles to its shirt and rings
+on its fingers;--never yet, the least, dreaming of the shirtless or
+SANSCULOTTIC state that lies ahead for it! That is the palmy condition
+of English Liberty, when M. de Voltaire arrives there.
+
+"In a man just out of the Bastille on those terms, there is a mind
+driven by hard suffering into seriousness, and provoked by indignant
+comparisons and remembrances. As if you had elaborately ploughed and
+pulverized the mind of this Voltaire to receive with its utmost avidity,
+and strength of fertility, whatever seed England may have for it. That
+was a notable conjuncture of a man with circumstances. The question,
+Is this man to grow up a Court Poet; to do legitimate dramas, lampoons,
+witty verses, and wild spiritual and practical magnificences, the like
+never seen; Princes and Princesses recognizing him as plainly divine,
+and keeping him tied by enchantments to that poor trade as his task in
+life? is answered in the negative. No: and it is not quite to decorate
+and comfort your 'dry dung-heap' of a world, or the fortunate cocks that
+scratch on it, that the man Voltaire is here; but to shoot lightnings
+into it, and set it ablaze one day! That was an important alternative;
+truly of world-importance to the poor generations that now are; and
+it was settled, in good part, by this voyage to England, as one may
+surmise. Such is sometimes the use of a dissolute Rohan in this world;
+for the gods make implements of all manner of things.
+
+"M. de Voltaire (for we now drop the Arouet altogether, and never hear
+of it more) came to England--when? Quitted England--when? Sorrow on
+all fatuous Biographers, who spend their time not in laying permanent
+foundation-stones, but in fencing with the wind!--I at last find
+indisputably, it was in 1726 that he came to England: [Got out of
+the Bastille, with orders to leave France, "29th April" of that year
+(_OEuvres de Voltaire,_ i. 40 n.).] and he himself tells us that he
+1728.' Spent, therefore, some two years there in all,--last year of
+George I.'s reign, and first of George II.'s. But mere inanity and
+darkness visible reign, in all his Biographies, over this period of his
+life, which was above all others worth investigating: seek not to know
+it; no man has inquired into it, probably no competent man now ever
+will. By hints in certain Letters of the period, we learn that he
+lodged, or at one time lodged, in 'Maiden Lane, Covent Garden;' one of
+those old Houses that yet stand in Maiden Lane: for which small fact
+let us be thankful. His own Letters of the period are dated now and
+then from 'Wandsworth.' Allusions there are to Bolingbroke; but the
+Wandsworth is not Bolingbroke's mansion, which stood in Battersea; the
+Wandsworth was one Edward Fawkener's; a man somewhat admirable to young
+Voltaire, but extinct now, or nearly so, in human memory. He had been a
+Turkey Merchant, it would seem, and nevertheless was admitted to speak
+his word in intellectual, even in political circles; which was wonderful
+to young Voltaire. This Fawkener, I think, became Sir Edward Fawkener,
+and some kind of 'Secretary to the Duke of Cumberland:'--I judge it to
+be the same Fawkener; a man highly unmemorable now, were it not for the
+young Frenchman he was hospitable to. Fawkener's and Bolingbroke's
+are perhaps the only names that turn up in Voltaire's LETTERS of
+this English Period: over which generally there reigns, in the French
+Biographies, inane darkness, with an intimation, half involuntary, that
+it SHOULD have been made luminous, and would if perfectly easy.
+
+"We know, from other sources, that he had acquaintance with many men
+in England, with all manner of important men: Notes to Pope in
+Voltaire-English, visit of Voltaire to Congreve, Notes even to such as
+Lady Sundon in the interior of the Palace, are known of. The brightest
+young fellow in the world did not want for introductions to the highest
+quarters, in that time of political alliance, and extensive private
+acquaintance, between his Country and ours. And all this he was the
+man to improve, both in the trivial and the deep sense. His bow to the
+divine Princess Caroline and suite, could it fail in graceful reverence
+or what else was needed? Dexterous right words in the right places,
+winged with ESPRIT so called: that was the man's supreme talent,
+in which he had no match, to the last. A most brilliant, swift,
+far-glancing young man, disposed to make himself generally agreeable.
+For the rest, his wonder, we can see, was kept awake; wonder readily
+inclining, in his circumstances, towards admiration. The stereotype
+figure of the Englishman, always the same, which turns up in Voltaire's
+WORKS, is worth noting in this respect. A rugged surly kind of fellow,
+much-enduring, not intrinsically bad; splenetic without complaint,
+standing oddly inexpugnable in that natural stoicism of his; taciturn,
+yet with strange flashes of speech in him now and then, something which
+goes beyond laughter and articulate logic, and is the taciturn elixir of
+these two, what they call 'humor' in their dialect: this is pretty much
+the REVERSE of Voltaire's own self, and therefore all the welcomer to
+him; delineated always with a kind of mockery, but with evident love.
+What excellences are in England, thought Voltaire; no Bastille in it,
+for one thing! Newton's Philosophy annihilated the vortexes of Descartes
+for him; Locke's Toleration is very grand (especially if all is
+uncertain, and YOU are in the minority); then Collins, Wollaston and
+Company,--no vile Jesuits here, strong in their mendacious mal-odorous
+stupidity, despicablest yet most dangerous of creatures, to check
+freedom of thought! Illustrious Mr. Pope, of the _Essay on Man,_ surely
+he is admirable; as are Pericles Bolingbroke, and many others. Even
+Bolingbroke's high-lacquered brass is gold to this young French friend
+of his.--Through all which admirations and exaggerations the progress of
+the young man, toward certain very serious attainments and achievements,
+is conceivable enough.
+
+"One other man, who ought to be mentioned in the Biographies, I find
+Voltaire to have made acquaintance with, in England: a German
+M. Fabrice, one of several Brothers called Fabrice or
+Fabricius,--concerning whom, how he had been at Bender, and how Voltaire
+picked CHARLES DOUSE from the memory of him, there was already mention.
+The same Fabrice who held poor George I. in his arms while they drove,
+galloping, to Osnabriick, that night, IN EXTREMIS:--not needing mention
+again. The following is more to the point.
+
+"Voltaire, among his multifarious studies while in England, did not
+forget that of economics: his Poem LA LIGUE,--surreptitiously printed,
+three years since, under that title (one Desfontaines, a hungry
+Ex-Jesuit, the perpetrator), [1723, VIE, par T. J. D. V. (that is, "M--"
+in the second form), p. 59.]--he now took in hand for his own benefit;
+washed it clean of its blots; christened it HENRIADE, under which name
+it is still known over all the world;--and printed it; published it
+here, by subscription, in 1726; one of the first things he undertook.
+Very splendid subscription; headed by Princess Caroline, and much
+favored by the opulent of quality. Which yielded an unknown but very
+considerable sum of thousands sterling, and grounded not only the
+world-renown but the domestic finance of M. de Voltaire. For the fame of
+the 'new epic,' as this HENRIADE was called, soon spread into all lands.
+And such fame, and other agencies on his behalf, having opened the way
+home for Voltaire, he took this sum of Thousands Sterling along with
+him; laid it out judiciously in some city lottery, or profitable scrip
+then going at Paris, which at once doubled the amount: after which he
+invested it in Corn-trade, Army Clothing, Barbary-trade, Commissariat
+Bacon-trade, all manner of well-chosen trades,--being one of the
+shrewdest financiers on record;--and never from that day wanted
+abundance of money, for one thing. Which he judged to be extremely
+expedient for a literary man, especially in times of Jesuit and other
+tribulation. 'You have only to watch,' he would say, 'what scrips,
+public loans, investments in the field of agio, are offered; if you
+exert any judgment, it is easy to gain there: do not the stupidest of
+mortals gain there, by intensely attending to it?'
+
+"Voltaire got almost nothing by his Books, which he generally had to
+disavow, and denounce as surreptitious supposititious scandals, when
+some sharp-set Book-seller, in whose way he had laid the savory
+article as bait, chose to risk his ears for the profit of snatching
+and publishing it. Next to nothing by his Books; but by his fine
+finance-talent otherwise, he had become possessed of ample moneys. Which
+were so cunningly disposed, too, that he had resources in every Country;
+and no conceivable combination of confiscating Jesuits and dark fanatic
+Official Persons could throw him out of a livelihood, whithersoever he
+might be forced to run. A man that looks facts in the face; which is
+creditable of him. The vulgar call it avarice and the like, as their way
+is: but M. de Voltaire is convinced that effects will follow causes; and
+that it well beseems a lonely Ishmaelite, hunting his way through the
+howling wildernesses and confused ravenous populations of this world, to
+have money in his pocket. He died with a revenue of some 7,000 pounds a
+year, probably as good as 20,000 pounds at present; the richest literary
+man ever heard of hitherto, as well as the remarkablest in some other
+respects. But we have to mark the second phasis of his life [in which
+Friedrich now sees him], and how it grew out of this first one.
+
+"PHASIS SECOND (1728-1733).--Returning home as if quietly triumphant,
+with such a talent in him, and such a sanction put upon it and him by a
+neighboring Nation, and by all the world, Voltaire was warmly received,
+in his old aristocratic circles, by cultivated France generally; and
+now in 1728, in his thirty-second year, might begin to have definite
+outlooks of a sufficiently royal kind, in Literature and otherwise. Nor
+is he slow, far from it, to advance, to conquer and enjoy. He writes
+successful literature, falls in love with women of quality; encourages
+the indigent and humble; eclipses, and in case of need tramples down,
+the too proud. He elegizes poor Adrienne Lecouvreur, the Actress,--our
+poor friend the Comte de Saxe's female friend; who loyally emptied out
+her whole purse for him, 30,000 pounds in one sum, that he might try
+for Courland, and whether he could fall in love with her of the Swollen
+Cheek there; which proved impossible. Elegizes Adrienne, slightly, and
+even buries her under cloud of night: ready to protect unfortunate
+females of merit. Especially theatrical females; having much to do in
+the theatre, which we perceive to be the pulpit or real preaching-place
+of cultivated France in those years. All manner of verse, all manner of
+prose, he dashes off with surprising speed and grace: showers of light
+spray for the moment; and always some current of graver enterprise,
+_Siecle de Louis Quatorze_ or the like, going on beneath it. For he is a
+most diligent, swift, unresting man; and studies and learns amazingly in
+such a rackety existence. Victorious enough in some senses; defeat, in
+Literature, never visited him. His Plays, coming thick on the heels of
+one another, rapid brilliant pieces, are brilliantly received by the
+unofficial world; and ought to dethrone dull Crebillon, and the sleepy
+potentates of Poetry that now are. Which in fact is their result with
+the public; but not yet in the highest courtly places;--a defect much to
+be condemned and lamented.
+
+"Numerous enemies arise, as is natural, of an envious venomous
+description; this is another ever-widening shadow in the sunshine. In
+fact we perceive he has, besides the inner obstacles and griefs, two
+classes of outward ones: There are Lions on his path and also Dogs.
+Lions are the Ex-Bishop of Mirepoix, and certain other dark Holy
+Fathers, or potent orthodox Official Persons. These, though Voltaire
+does not yet declare his heterodoxy (which, indeed, is but the orthodoxy
+of the cultivated private circles), perceive well enough, even by the
+HENRIADE, and its talk of 'tolerance,' horror of 'fanaticism' and the
+like, what this one's 'DOXY is; and how dangerous he, not a mere mute
+man of quality, but a talking spirit with winged words, may be;--and
+they much annoy and terrify him, by their roaring in the distance. Which
+roaring cannot, of course, convince; and since it is not permitted to
+kill, can only provoke a talking spirit into still deeper strains of
+heterodoxy for his own private behoof. These are the Lions on his path:
+beasts conscious to themselves of good intentions; but manifesting from
+Voltaire's point of view, it must be owned, a physiognomy unlovely to
+a degree. 'Light is superior to darkness, I should think,' meditates
+Voltaire; 'power of thought to the want of power! The ANE DE MIREPOIX
+(Ass of Mirepoix), [Poor joke of Voltaire's, continually applied to this
+Bishop, or Ex-Bishop,--who was thought, generally, a rather tenebrific
+man for appointment to the FEUILLE DES BENEFICES (charge of nominating
+Bishops, keeping King's conscience, &c.); and who, in that capacity,
+signed himself ANC (by no means "ANE," but "ANCIEN, Whilom") DE
+MIREPOIX,--to the enragement of Voltaire often enough.] pretending to
+use me in this manner, is it other, in the court of Rhadamanthus,
+than transcendent Stupidity, with transcendent Insolence superadded?'
+Voltaire grows more and more heterodox; and is ripening towards
+dangerous utterances, though he, strives to hold in.
+
+"The Dogs upon his path, again, are all the disloyal envious persons of
+the Writing Class, whom his success has offended; and, more generally,
+all the dishonest hungry persons who can gain a morsel by biting him:
+and their name is legion. It must be owned, about as ugly a Doggery
+('INFAME CANAILLE' he might well reckon them) as has, before or since,
+infested the path of a man. They are not hired and set on, as angry
+suspicion might suggest; but they are covertly somewhat patronized
+by the Mirepoix, or orthodox Official class. Scandalous Ex-Jesuit
+Desfontaines, Thersites Freron,--these are but types of an endless
+Doggery; whose names and works should be blotted out; whose one claim to
+memory is, that the riding man so often angrily sprang down, and tried
+horsewhipping them into silence. A vain attempt. The individual hound
+flies howling, abjectly petitioning and promising; but the rest bark
+all with new comfort, and even he starts again straightway. It is bad
+travelling in those woods, with such Lions and such Dogs. And then the
+sparsely scattered HUMAN Creatures (so we may call them in contrast,
+persons of Quality for most part) are not always what they should be.
+The grand mansions you arrive at, in this waste-howling solitude, prove
+sometimes essentially Robber-towers;--and there may be Armida Palaces,
+and divine-looking Armidas, where your ultimate fate is still worse.
+
+_'Que le monde est rempli d'enchanteurs, je ne dis rien
+d'enchanteresses!'_
+
+To think of it, the solitary Ishmaelite journeying, never so well
+mounted, through such a wilderness: with lions, dogs, human robbers and
+Armidas all about him; himself lonely, friendless under the stars:--one
+could pity him withal, though that is not the feeling he solicits; nor
+gets hitherto, even at this impartial distance.
+
+"One of the beautiful creatures of Quality,--we hope, not an
+Armida,--who came athwart Voltaire, in these times, was a Madame du
+Chatelet; distinguished from all the others by a love of mathematics
+and the pure sciences, were it nothing else. She was still young, under
+thirty; the literary man still under forty. With her Husband, to whom
+she had brought a child, or couple of children, there was no formal
+quarrel; but they were living apart, neither much heeding the other,
+as was by no means a case without example at that time; Monsieur
+soldiering, and philandering about, in garrison or elsewhere; Madame, in
+a like humor, doing the best for herself in the high circles of society,
+to which he and she belonged. Most wearisome barren circles to a person
+of thought, as both she and M. de Voltaire emphatically admitted to one
+another, on first making acquaintance. But is there no help?
+
+"Madame had tried the pure sciences and philosophies, in Books: but
+how much more charming, when they come to you as a Human Philosopher;
+handsome, magnanimous, and the wittiest man in the world! Young
+Madame was not regularly beautiful; but she was very piquant, radiant,
+adventurous; understood other things than the pure sciences, and could
+be abundantly coquettish and engaging. I have known her scuttle off, on
+an evening, with a couple of adventurous young wives of Quality, to the
+remote lodging of the witty M. de Voltaire, and make his dim evening
+radiant to him. [One of Voltaire's Letters.] Then again, in public
+crowds, I have seen them; obliged to dismount to the peril of Madame's
+diamonds, there being a jam of carriages, and no getting forward for
+half the day. In short, they are becoming more and more intimate, to the
+extremest degree; and, scorning the world, thank Heaven that they are
+mutually indispensable. Cannot we get away from this scurvy wasp's-nest
+of a Paris, thought they, and live to ourselves and our books?
+
+"Madame was of high quality, one of the Breteuils; but was poor in
+comparison, and her Husband the like. An old Chateau of theirs, named
+Cirey, stands in a pleasant enough little valley in Champagne; but so
+dilapidated, gaunt and vacant, nobody can live in it. Voltaire, who is
+by this time a man of ample moneys, furnishes the requisite cash; Madame
+and he, in sweet symphony, concert the plans: Cirey is repaired,
+at least parts of it are, into a boudoir of the gods, regardless of
+expense; nothing ever seen so tasteful, so magnificent; and the two
+withdraw thither to study, in peace, what sciences, pure and other, they
+have a mind to. They are recognized as lovers, by the Parisian public,
+with little audible censure from anybody there,--with none at all from
+the easy Husband; who occasionally even visits Cirey, if he be passing
+that way; and is content to take matters as he finds them, without
+looking below the surface. [See (whosoever is curious) Madame de
+Grafigny, _Vie Privee de Voltaire et de Madame du Chatelet_ (Paris,
+1820). A six months of actual Letters written by poor Grafigny, while
+sheltering at Cirey, Winter and Spring, 1738-1739; straitened there
+in various respects,--extremely ill off for fuel, among other things.
+Rugged practical Letters, shadowing out to us, unconsciously oftenest,
+and like a very mirror, the splendid and the sordid, the seamy side
+and the smooth, of Life at Cirey, in her experience of it. Published,
+fourscore years after, under the above title.] For the Ten Commandments
+are at a singular pass in cultivated France at this epoch. Such
+illicit-idyllic form of life has been the form of Voltaire's since
+1733,"--for some three years now, when Friedrich and we first make
+acquaintance with him. "It lasted above a dozen years more: an illicit
+marriage after its sort, and subject only to the liabilities of such.
+Perhaps we may look in upon the Cirey Household, ourselves, at some
+future time; and"--This Editor hopes not!
+
+"Madame admits that for the first ten years it was, on the whole,
+sublime; a perfect Eden on Earth, though stormy now and then. [_Lettres
+Inedites de Madame la Marquise du Chastelet; auxquelles on a joint une
+Dissertation_ (&c. of hers): Paris, 1806.] After ten years, it began to
+grow decidedly dimmer; and in the course of few years more, it
+became undeniably evident that M. de Voltaire 'did not love me as
+formerly:'--in fact, if Madame could have seen it, M. de Voltaire
+was growing old, losing his teeth, and the like; and did not care for
+anything as formerly! Which was a dreadful discovery, and gave rise to
+results by and by.
+
+"In this retreat at Cirey, varied with flying visits to Paris, and kept
+awake by multifarious Correspondences, the quantity of Literature done
+by the two was great and miscellaneous. By Madame, chiefly in the region
+of the pure sciences, in Newtonian Dissertations, competitions for
+Prizes, and the like: really sound and ingenious Pieces, entirely
+forgotten long since. By Voltaire, in serious Tragedies, Histories, in
+light Sketches and deep Dissertations:--mockery getting ever wilder
+with him; the satirical vein, in prose and verse, amazingly copious, and
+growing more and more heterodox, as we can perceive. His troubles from
+the ecclesiastical or Lion kind in the Literary forest, still more from
+the rabid Doggery in it, are manifold, incessant. And it is pleasantly
+notable,--during these first ten years,--with what desperate intensity,
+vigilance and fierceness, Madame watches over all his interests and
+liabilities and casualties great and small; leaping with her whole force
+into M. de Voltaire's scale of the balance, careless of antecedences and
+consequences alike; flying, with the spirit of an angry brood-hen,
+at the face of mastiffs, in defence of any feather that is M. de
+Voltaire's. To which Voltaire replies, as he well may, with eloquent
+gratitude; with Verses to the divine Emilie, with Gifts to her, verses
+and gifts the prettiest in the world;--and industriously celebrates the
+divine Emilie to herself and all third parties.
+
+"An ardent, aerial, gracefully predominant, and in the end somewhat
+termagant female figure, this divine Emilie. Her temper, radiant rather
+than bland, was none of the patientest on occasion; nor was M. de
+Voltaire the least of a Job, if you came athwart him the wrong way. I
+have heard, their domestic symphony was liable to furious flaws,--let
+us hope at great distances apart:--that 'plates' in presence of the
+lackeys, actual crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to
+end of the dinner-table; nay they mention 'knives' (though only in the
+way of oratorical action); and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, the
+sombre and majestic voice of him risen to a very high pitch: _'Ne me
+regardez tant de ces yeux hagards et louches,_ Don't fix those haggard
+sidelong eyes on me in that way!'--mere shrillness of pale rage
+presiding over the scene. But we hope it was only once in the quarter,
+or seldomer: after which the element would be clearer for some time. A
+lonesome literary man, who has got a Brood Phoenix to preside over him,
+and fly at the face of gods and men for him in that manner, ought to be
+grateful.
+
+"Perhaps we shall one day glance, personally, as it were, into Cirey
+with our readers;"--Not with this Editor or his!--"It will turn out beyond
+the reader's expectation. Tolerable illicit resting-place, so far as the
+illicit can be tolerable, for a lonesome Man of Letters, who goes into
+the illicit. Helpfulness, affection, or the flattering image of such,
+are by no means wanting: squalls of infirm temper are not more frequent
+than in the most licit establishments of a similar sort. Madame, about
+this time, has a swift Palfrey, 'ROSSIGNOL (Nightingale)' the name of
+him; and gallops fairy-like through the winding valleys; being an
+ardent rider, and well-looking on horseback. Voltaire's study is inlaid
+with--the Grafigny knows all what:--mere china tiles, gilt sculptures,
+marble slabs, and the supreme of taste and expense: study fit for the
+Phoebus Apollo of France, so far as Madame could contrive it. Takes
+coffee with Madame, in the Gallery, about noon. And his bedroom, I
+expressly discern, [_Letters of Voltaire._] looks out upon a running
+brook, the murmur of which is pleasant to one."
+
+Enough, enough. We can perceive what kind of Voltaire it was to whom the
+Crown-Prince now addressed himself; and how luminous an object, shining
+afar out of the solitudes of Champagne upon the ardent young man, still
+so capable of admiration. Model Epic, HENRIADE; model History, CHARLES
+DOUZE; sublime Tragedies, CISAR, ALZIRE and others, which readers still
+know though with less enthusiasm, are blooming fresh in Friedrich's
+memory and heart; such Literature as man never saw before; and in the
+background Friedrich has inarticulately a feeling as if, in this man,
+there were something grander than all Literatures: a Reform of human
+Thought itself; a new "Gospel," good-tidings or God's-Message, by this
+man;--which Friedrich does not suspect, as the world with horror does,
+to be a new BA'SPEL, or Devil's-Message of bad-tidings! A sublime enough
+Voltaire; radiant enough, over at Cirey yonder. To all lands, a visible
+Phoebus Apollo, climbing the eastern steeps; with arrows of celestial
+"new light" in his quiver; capable of stretching many a big foul Python,
+belly uppermost, in its native mud, and ridding the poor world of her
+Nightmares and Mud-Serpents in some measure, we may hope!--
+
+And so there begins, from this point, a lively Correspondence between
+Friedrich and Voltaire; which, with some interruptions of a notable
+sort, continued during their mutual Life; and is a conspicuous feature
+in the Biographies of both. The world talked much of it, and still
+talks; and has now at last got it all collected, and elucidated into a
+dimly legible form for studious readers. [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_
+(xxi. xxii. xxiii., Berlin, 1853); who supersedes the lazy French
+Editors in this matter.] It is by no means the diabolically wicked
+Correspondence it was thought to be; the reverse, indeed, on both
+sides;--but it has unfortunately become a very dull one, to the actual
+generation of mankind. Not without intrinsic merit; on the contrary
+(if you read intensely, and bring the extinct alive again), it sparkles
+notably with epistolary grace and vivacity; and, on any terms, it has
+still passages of biographical and other interest: but the substance
+of it, then so new and shining, has fallen absolutely commonplace, the
+property of all the world, since then; and is now very wearisome to the
+reader. No doctrine or opinion in it that you have not heard, with clear
+belief or clear disbelief, a hundred times, and could wish rather not
+to hear again. The common fate of philosophical originalities in this
+world. As a Biographical Document, it is worth a very strict perusal,
+if you are interested that way in either Friedrich or Voltaire: finely
+significant hints and traits, though often almost evanescent, so slight
+are they, abound in this Correspondence; frankness, veracity under
+graceful forms, being the rule of it, strange to say! As an illustration
+of Two memorable Characters, and of their Century; showing on what
+terms the sage Plato of the Eighteenth Century and his Tyrant Dionysius
+correspond, and what their manners are to one another, it may long have
+a kind of interest to mankind: otherwise it has not much left.
+
+In Friedrich's History it was, no doubt, an important fact, that there
+lived a Voltaire along with him, twenty years his senior. With another
+Theory of the Universe than the Voltaire one, how much OTHER had
+Friedrich too been! But the Theory called by Voltaire's name was
+not properly of Voltaire's creating, but only of his uttering and
+publishing; it lay ready for everybody's finding, and could not well
+have been altogether missed by such a one as Friedrich. So that perhaps
+we exaggerate the effects of Voltaire on him, though undoubtedly they
+were considerable. Considerable; but not derived from this express
+correspondence, which seldom turns on didactic points at all; derived
+rather from Voltaire's Printed WORKS, where they lay derivable to
+all the world. Certain enough it is, Voltaire was at this time,
+and continued all his days, Friedrich's chief Thinker in the world;
+unofficially, the chief Preacher, Prophet and Priest of this Working
+King;--no better off for a spiritual Trismegistus was poor Friedrich in
+the world! On the practical side, Friedrich soon outgrew him,--perhaps
+had already outgrown, having far more veracity of character, and an
+intellect far better built in the silent parts of it, and trained too
+by hard experiences to know shadow from substance;--outgrew him,
+and gradually learned to look down upon him, occasionally with much
+contempt, in regard to the practical. But in all changes of humor
+towards Voltaire, Friedrich, we observe, considers him as plainly
+supreme in speculative intellect; and has no doubt but, for thinking
+and speaking, Nature never made such another. Which may be taken as
+a notable feature of Friedrich's History; and gives rise to passages
+between Voltaire and him, which will make much noise in time coming.
+
+Here, meanwhile, faithfully presented though in condensed form, is the
+starting of the Correspondence; First Letter of it, and first Response.
+Two Pieces which were once bright as the summer sunrise on both sides,
+but are now fallen very dim; and have much needed condensation, and
+abridgment by omission of the unessential,--so lengthy are they, so
+extinct and almost dreary to us! Sublime "Wolf" and his "Philosophy,"
+how he was hunted out of Halle with it, long since; and now shines from
+Marburg, his "Philosophy" and he supreme among mankind: this, and other
+extinct points, the reader's fancy will endeavor to rekindle in some
+slight measure:--
+
+TO M. DE VOLTAIRE, AT CIREY (from the Crown-Prince).
+
+"BERLIN, 8th August, 1736.
+
+"MONSIEUR,--Although I have not the satisfaction of knowing you
+personally, you are not the less known to me through your Works. They
+are treasures of the mind, if I may so express myself; and they reveal
+to the reader new beauties at every fresh perusal. I think I have
+recognized in them the character of their ingenious Author, who does
+honor to our age and to human nature. If ever the dispute on the
+comparative merits of the Moderns and the Ancients should be revived,
+the modern great men will owe it to you, and to you only, that the scale
+is turned in their favor. With the excellent quality of Poet you join
+innumerable others more or less related to it. Never did Poet before
+put Metaphysics into rhythmic cadence: to you the honor was reserved of
+doing it first.
+
+"This taste for Philosophy manifested in your writings, induces me to
+send you a translated Copy of the _Accusation and defence of M. Wolf,_
+the most celebrated Philosopher of our days; who, for having carried
+light into the darkest places of Metaphysics, is cruelly accused of
+irreligion and atheism. Such is the destiny of great men; their superior
+genius exposes them to the poisoned arrows of calumny and envy. I am
+about getting a Translation made of the _Treatise on God, the Soul,
+and the World,"_--Translation done by an Excellency Suhm, as has been
+hinted,--"from the pen of the same Author. I will send it you when it
+is finished; and I am sure that the force of evidence in all his
+propositions, and their close geometrical sequence, will strike you.
+
+"The kindness and assistance you afford to all who devote themselves to
+the Arts and Sciences, makes me hope that you will not exclude me from
+the number of those whom you find worthy of your instructions:--it is so
+I would call your intercourse by Correspondence of Letters; which cannot
+be other than profitable to every thinking being....
+
+... "beauties without number in your works. Your HENRIADE delights me.
+The tragedy of CESAR shows us sustained characters; the sentiments in it
+are magnificent and grand, and one feels that Brutus is either a Roman,
+or else an Englishman _(ou un Romain ou un Anglais)._ Your ALZIRE, to
+the graces of novelty adds...
+
+"Monsieur, there is nothing I wish so much as to possess all your
+Writings," even those not printed hitherto. "Pray, Monsieur, do
+communicate them to me without reserve. If there be amongst your
+Manuscripts any that you wish to conceal from the eyes of the public,
+I engage to keep them in the profoundest secrecy. I am unluckily aware,
+that the faith of Princes is an object of little respect in our days;
+nevertheless I hope you will make an exception from the general rule in
+my favor. I should think myself richer in the possession of your Works
+than in that of all the transient goods of Fortune. These the same
+chance grants and takes away: your Works one can make one's own by means
+of memory, so that they last us whilst it lasts. Knowing how weak my own
+memory is, I am in the highest degree select in what I trust to it.
+
+"If Poetry were what it was before your appearance, a strumming of
+wearisome idyls, insipid eclogues, tuneful nothings, I should renounce
+it forever:" but in your hands it becomes ennobled; a melodious "course
+of morals; worthy of the admiration and the study of cultivated minds
+(DES HONNETES GENS). You"--in fine, "you inspire the ambition to follow
+in your footsteps. But I, how often have I said to myself: 'MALHEUREUX,
+throw down a burden which is above thy strength! One cannot imitate
+Voltaire, without being Voltaire!'
+
+"It is in such moments that I have felt how small are those advantages
+of birth, those vapors of grandeur, with which vanity would solace us!
+They amount to little, properly to nothing (POUR MIEUX DIRE, RIEN).
+Nature, when she pleases, forms a great soul, endowed with faculties
+that can advance the Arts and Sciences; and it is the part of Princes to
+recompense his noble toils. Ah, would Glory but make use of me to crown
+your successes! My only fear would be, lest this Country, little fertile
+in laurels, proved unable to furnish enough of them.
+
+"If my destiny refuse me the happiness of being able to possess you, may
+I, at least, hope one day to see the man whom I have admired so long now
+from afar; and to assure you, by word of mouth, that I am,--With all the
+esteem and consideration due to those who, following the torch of
+truth for guide, consecrate their labors to the Public,--Monsieur, your
+affectionate friend,
+
+"FREDERIC, P. R. of Prussia."
+
+[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxi. 6.]
+
+
+By what route or conveyance this Letter went, I cannot say. In general,
+it is to be observed, these Friedrich-Voltaire Letters--liable perhaps
+to be considered contraband at BOTH ends of their course--do not go by
+the Post; but by French-Prussian Ministers, by Hamburg Merchants, and
+other safe subterranean channels. Voltaire, with enthusiasm, and no
+doubt promptly, answers within three weeks:--
+
+TO THE CROWN-PRINCE, AT REINSBERG (from Voltaire).
+
+"CIREY, 26th August, 1736.
+
+"MONSEIGNEUR,--A man must be void of all feeling who were not infinitely
+moved by the Letter which your Royal Highness has deigned to honor me
+with. My self-love is only too much flattered by it: but my love of
+Mankind, which I have always nourished in my heart, and which, I venture
+to say, forms the basis of my character, has given me a very much purer
+pleasure,--to see that there is, now in the world, a Prince who thinks
+as a man; a PHILOSOPHER Prince, who will make men happy.
+
+"Permit me to say, there is not a man on the earth but owes thanks for
+the care you take to cultivate by sound philosophy a soul that is born
+for command. Good kings there never were except those that had begun by
+seeking to instruct themselves; by knowing-good men from bad; by loving
+what was true, by detesting persecution and superstition. No Prince,
+persisting in such thoughts, but might bring back the golden age into
+his Countries! And why do so few Princes seek this glory? You feel it,
+Monseigneur, it is because they all think more of their Royalty than of
+Mankind. Precisely the reverse is your case:--and, unless, one day,
+the tumult of business and the wickedness of men alter so divine a
+character, you will be worshipped by your People, and loved by the whole
+world. Philosophers, worthy of the name, will flock to your States;
+thinkers will crowd round that throne, as the skilfulest artisans do to
+the city where their art is in request. The illustrious Queen Christina
+quitted her kingdom to go in search of the Arts; reign you, Monseigneur,
+and the Arts will come to seek you.
+
+"May you only never be disgusted with the Sciences by the quarrels of
+their Cultivators! A race of men no better than Courtiers; often
+enough as greedy, intriguing, false and cruel as these," and still more
+ridiculous in the mischief they do. "And how sad for mankind that the
+very Interpreters of Heaven's commandments, the Theologians, I mean,
+are sometimes the most dangerous of all! Professed messengers of the
+Divinity, yet men sometimes of obscure ideas and pernicious behavior;
+their soul blown out with mere darkness; full of gall and pride, in
+proportion as it is empty of truths. Every thinking being who is not of
+their opinion is an Atheist; and every King who does not favor them
+will be damned. Dangerous to the very throne; and yet intrinsically
+insignificant:" best way is, leave their big talk and them alone; speedy
+collapse will follow....
+
+"I cannot sufficiently thank your Royal Highness for the gift of that
+little Book about Monsieur Wolf. I respect Metaphysical ideas; rays of
+lightning they are in the midst of deep night. More, I think, is not
+to be hoped from Metaphysics. It does not seem likely that the
+First-principles of things will ever be known. The mice that nestle
+in some little holes of an immense Building, know not whether it is
+eternal, or who the Architect, or why he built it. Such mice are we; and
+the Divine Architect who built the Universe has never, that I know
+of, told his secret to one of us. If anybody could pretend to guess
+correctly, it is M. Wolf." Beautiful in your Royal Highness to protect
+such a man. And how beautiful it will be, to send me his chief Book,
+as you have the kindness to promise! "The Heir of a Monarchy, from his
+palace, attending to the wants of a recluse far off! Condescend to
+afford me the pleasure of that Book, Monseigneur....
+
+"What your Royal Highness thinks of poetry is just: verses that do not
+teach men new and touching truths, do not deserve to be read." As to
+my own poor verses--But, after all, "that HENRIADE is the writing of an
+Honest Man: fit, in that sense, that it find grace with a Philosopher
+Prince.
+
+"I will obey your commands as to sending those unpublished Pieces. You
+shall be my public, Monseigneur; your criticisms will be my reward:
+it is a price few Sovereigns can pay. I am sure of your secrecy:
+your virtue and your intellect must be in proportion. I should indeed
+consider it a precious happiness to come and pay my court to your Royal
+Highness! One travels to Rome to see paintings and ruins: a Prince such
+as you is a much more singular object; worthier of a long journey! But
+the friendship [divine Emilie's] which keeps me in this retirement does
+not permit my leaving it. No doubt you think with Julian, that great and
+much calumniated man, who said, 'Friends should always be preferred to
+Kings.'
+
+"In whatever corner of the world I may end my life, be assured,
+Monseigneur, my wishes will continually be for you,--that is to say,
+for a whole People's happiness. My heart will rank itself among your
+subjects; your glory will ever be dear to me. I shall wish, May you
+always be like yourself, and may other Kings be like you!--I am, with
+profound respect, your Royal Highness's most humble
+
+"VOLTAIRE."
+
+[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxi. 10.]
+
+
+The Correspondence, once kindled, went on apace; and soon burst forth,
+finding nourishment all round, into a shining little household fire,
+pleasant to the hands and hearts of both parties. Consent of opinions on
+important matters is not wanting; nor is emphasis in declaring the same.
+The mutual admiration, which is high,--high and intrinsic on Friedrich's
+side; and on Voltaire's, high if in part extrinsic,--by no means wants
+for emphasis of statement: superlatives, tempered by the best art,
+pass and repass. Friedrich, reading Voltaire's immortal Manuscripts,
+confesses with a blush, before long, that he himself is a poor
+Apprentice that way. Voltaire, at sight of the Princely Productions,
+is full of admiration, of encouragement; does a little in correcting,
+solecisms of grammar chiefly; a little, by no means much. But it is a
+growing branch of employment; now and henceforth almost the one
+reality of function Voltaire can find for himself in this beautiful
+Correspondence. For, "Oh what a Crown-Prince, ripening forward to be the
+delight of human nature, and realize the dream of sages, Philosophy upon
+the Throne!" And on the other side, "Oh what a Phoebus Apollo, mounting
+the eastern sky, chasing the Nightmares,--sowing the Earth with Orient
+pearl, to begin with!"--In which fine duet, it must be said, the Prince
+is perceptibly the truer singer; singing within compass, and from the
+heart; while the Phoebus shows himself acquainted with art, and warbles
+in seductive quavers, now and then beyond the pitch of his voice. We
+must own also, Friedrich proves little seducible; shows himself laudably
+indifferent to such siren-singing;--perhaps more used to flattery, and
+knowing by experience how little meal is to be made of chaff. Voltaire,
+in an ungrateful France, naturally plumes himself a good deal on such
+recognition by a Foreign Rising Sun; and, of the two, though so many
+years the elder, is much more like losing head a little.
+
+Elegant gifts are despatched to Cirey; gold-amber trinkets for Madame,
+perhaps an amber inkholder for Monsieur: priceless at Cirey as the gifts
+of the very gods. By and by, a messenger goes express: the witty Colonel
+Keyserling, witty but experienced, whom we once named at Reinsberg;
+he is to go and see with his eyes, since his Master cannot. What a
+messenger there; ambassador from star to star! Keyserling's report at
+Reinsberg is not given; but we have Grafigny's, which is probably the
+more impartial. Keyserling's embassy was in the end of next year; [3d
+November, 1737 (as we gather from the Correspondence).] and there is
+plenty of airy writing about it and him, in these Letters.
+
+Friedrich has translated the name KEYSERLING (diminutive of KAISER) into
+"Caesarion;"--and I should have said, he plays much upon names and also
+upon things, at Reinsberg, in that style; and has a good deal of airy
+symbolism, and cloud-work ingeniously painted round the solidities of
+his life there. Especially a "Bayard Order," as he calls it: Twelve of
+his selectest Friends made into a Chivalry Brotherhood, the names of
+whom are all changed, "Caesarion" one of them; with dainty devices, and
+mimetic procedures of the due sort. Which are not wholly mummery; but
+have a spice of reality, to flavor them to a serious young heart.
+For the selection was rigorous, superior merit and behavior a strict
+condition; and indeed several of these Bayard Chevaliers proved notable
+practical Champions in time coming;--for example Captain Fouquet,
+of whom we have heard before, in the dark Custrin days. This is a
+mentionable feature of the Reinsberg life, and of the young Prince's
+character there: pleasant to know of, from this distance; but not now
+worth knowing more in detail.
+
+The Friedrich-Voltaire Correspondence contains much incense; due whiffs
+of it, from Reinsberg side, to the "divine Emilie," Voltaire's quasi
+better-half or worse-half; who responds always in her divinest manner
+to Reinsberg, eager for more acquaintance there. The Du Chatelets had
+a Lawsuit in Brabant; very inveterate, perhaps a hundred years old or
+more; with the "House of Honsbrouck:" [_Lettres Inedites de Voltaire_
+(Paris, 1826), p. 9.] this, not to speak of other causes, flights from
+French peril and the like, often brought Voltaire and his Dame
+into those parts; and gave rise to occasional hopes of meeting with
+Friedrich; which could not take effect. In more practical style,
+Voltaire solicits of him: "Could not your Royal Highness perhaps
+graciously speak to some of those Judicial Big wigs in Brabant, and flap
+them up a little!" Which Friedrich, I think, did, by some good means.
+Happily, by one means or other, Voltaire got the Lawsuit ended,--1740,
+we might guess, but the time is not specified;--and Friedrich had a
+new claim, had there been need of new, to be regarded with worship by
+Madame. [Record of all this, left, like innumerable other things there,
+in an intrinsically dark condition, lies in Voltaire's LETTERS,--not
+much worth hunting up into clear daylight, the process being so
+difficult to a stranger.] But the proposed meeting with Madame could
+never take effect; not even when Friedrich's hands were free. Nay
+I notice at last, Friedrich had privately determined it never
+should--Madame evidently an inconvenient element to him. A young man not
+wanting in private power of eyesight; and able to distinguish chaff from
+meal! Voltaire and he will meet; meet, and also part; and there will
+be passages between them:--and the reader will again hear of this
+Correspondence of theirs, where it has a biographical interest. We are
+to conceive it, at present, as a principal light of life to the
+young heart at Reinsberg; a cheerful new fire, almost an altar-fire,
+irradiating the common dusk for him there.
+
+Of another Correspondence, beautifully irradiative for the young heart,
+we must say almost nothing: the Correspondence with Suhm. Suhm the Saxon
+Minister, whom we have occasionally heard of, is an old Friend of the
+Crown-Prince's, dear and helpful to him: it is he who is now doing those
+_Translations of Wolf,_ of which Voltaire lately saw specimens; translate
+at large, for the young man's behoof. The young man, restless to know
+the best Philosophy going, had tried reading of Wolf's chief Book; found
+it too abstruse, in Wolf's German: wherefore Suhm translates; sends it
+to him in limpid French; fascicle by fascicle, with commentaries;
+young man doing his best to understand and admire,--gratefully, not too
+successfully, we can perceive. That is the staple of the famous SUHM
+CORRESPONDENCE; staple which nobody could now bear to be concerned with.
+
+Suhm is also helpful in finance difficulties, which are pretty frequent;
+works out subventions, loans under a handsome form, from the Czarina's
+and other Courts. Which is an operation of the utmost delicacy;
+perilous, should it be heard of at Potsdam. Wherefore Suhm and the
+Prince have a covert language for it: and affect still to be speaking
+of "Publishers" and "new Volumes," when they mean Lenders and
+Bank-Draughts. All these loans, I will hope, were accurately paid one
+day, as that from George II. was, in "rouleaus of new gold." We need not
+doubt the wholesome charm and blessing of so intimate a Correspondence
+to the Crown-Prince: and indeed his real love of the amiable Suhm,
+as Suhm's of him, comes beautifully to light in these Letters:
+but otherwise they are not now to be read without weariness, even
+dreariness, and have become a biographical reminiscence merely.
+
+Concerning Graf von Manteufel, a third Literary Correspondent, and the
+only other considerable one, here, from a German Commentator on this
+matter, is a Clipping that will suffice:--
+
+"Manteufel was Saxon by birth, long a Minister of August the Strong, but
+quarrelled with August, owing to some frail female it is said, and
+had withdrawn to Berlin a few years ago. He shines there among the
+fashionable philosophical classes; underhand, perhaps does a little
+in the volunteer political line withal; being a very busy pushing
+gentleman. Tall of stature, 'perfectly handsome at the age of sixty;'
+[Formey, _Souvenirs d'un Citoyen,_ i. 39-45.] great partisan of Wolf and
+the Philosophies, awake to the Orthodoxies too. Writes flowing elegant
+French, in a softly trenchant, somewhat too all-knowing style. High
+manners traceable in him; but nothing of the noble loyalty, natural
+politeness and pious lucency of Suhm. One of his Letters to Friedrich
+has this slightly impertinent passage;--Friedrich, just getting settled
+in Reinsberg, having transiently mentioned 'the quantity of fair sex'
+that had come about him there:--
+
+"'BERLIN, 26th AUGUST, 1736 (to the Crown-Prince).... I am well
+persuaded your Royal Highness will regulate all that to perfection, and
+so manage that your fair sex will be charmed to find themselves with you
+at Reinsberg, and you charmed to have them there. But permit me, your
+Royal Highness, to repeat in this place, what I one day took the liberty
+of saying here at Berlin: Nothing in the world would better suit the
+present interests of your Royal Highness and of us all, than some Heir
+of your Royal Highness's making! Perhaps the tranquil convenience with
+which your Royal Highness at Reinsberg can now attend to that object,
+will be of better effect than all those hasty and transitory visits at
+Berlin were. At least I wish it with the best of my heart. I beg pardon,
+Monseigneur, for intruding thus into everything which concerns your
+Royal Highness;'--In truth, I am a rather impudent busybodyish fellow,
+with superabundant dashing manner, speculation, utterance; and shall get
+myself ordered out of the Country, by my present correspondent, by and
+by.--'Being ever,' with the due enthusiasm, 'MANTEUFEL.' [_OEuvres de
+Frederic,_ xxv. 487;--Friedrich's Answer is, Reinsberg, 23d September
+(Ib. 489).]
+
+"To which Friedrich's Answer is of a kind to put a gag in the foul mouth
+of certain extraordinary Pamphleteerings, that were once very copious in
+the world; and, in particular, to set at rest the Herr Dr. Zimmermann,
+and his poor puddle of calumnies and credulities, got together in that
+weak pursuit of physiology under obscene circumstances;--
+
+"Which is the one good result I have gathered from the Manteufel
+Correspondence," continues our German friend; whom I vote with!--Or
+if the English reader never saw those Zimmermann or other dog-like
+Pamphleteerings and surmisings, let this Excerpt be mysterious and
+superfluous to the thankful English reader.
+
+On the whole, we conceive to ourselves the abundant nature of
+Friedrich's Correspondence, literary and other; and what kind of event
+the transit of that Post functionary "from Fehrbellin northwards," with
+his leathern bags, "twice a week," may have been at Reinsberg, in those
+years.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III. -- CROWN-PRINCE MAKES A MORNING CALL.
+
+Thursday, 25th October, 1736, the Crown-Prince, with Lieutenant
+Buddenbrock and an attendant or two, drove over into Mecklenburg, to
+a Village and serene Schloss called Mirow, intending a small act of
+neighborly civility there; on which perhaps an English reader of our
+time will consent to accompany him. It is but some ten or twelve miles
+off, in a northerly direction; Reinsberg being close on the frontier
+there. A pleasant enough morning's-drive, with the October sun shining
+on the silent heaths, on the many-colored woods and you.
+
+Mirow is an Apanage for one of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz junior
+branches: Mecklenburg-Strelitz being itself a junior compared to the
+Mecklenburg-Schwerin of which, and its infatuated Duke, we have heard so
+much in times past. Mirow and even Strelitz are not in--a very shining
+state,--but indeed, we shall see them, as it were, with eyes. And the
+English reader is to note especially those Mirow people, as perhaps of
+some small interest to him, if he knew it. The Crown-Prince reports to
+papa, in a satirical vein, not ungenially, and with much more freedom
+than is usual in those Reinsberg letters of his:--
+
+"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
+
+"REINSBERG, 26th October, 1736.
+
+... "Yesterday I went across to Mirow. To give my Most All-gracious
+Father an idea of the place, I cannot liken it to anything higher than
+Gross-Kreutz [term of comparison lost upon us; say GARRAT, at a venture,
+or the CLACHAN OF ABERFOYLE]: the one house in it, that can be called
+a house, is not so good as the Parson's there. I made straight for the
+Schloss; which is pretty much like the Garden-house in Bornim: only
+there is a rampart round it; and an old Tower, considerably in ruins,
+serves as a Gateway to the House.
+
+"Coming on the Drawbridge, I perceived an old stocking-knitter disguised
+as Grenadier, with his cap, cartridge-box and musket laid to a side,
+that they might not hinder him in his knitting-work. As I advanced, he
+asked, 'Whence I came, and whitherward I was going?' I answered, that 'I
+came from the Post-house, and was going over this Bridge:' whereupon the
+Grenadier, quite in a passion, ran to the Tower; where he opened a door,
+and called out the Corporal. The Corporal seemed to have hardly been out
+of bed; and in his great haste, had not taken time to put on his shoes,
+nor quite button his breeches; with much flurry he asked us, 'Where we
+were for, and how we came to treat the Sentry in that manner?' Without
+answering him at all, we went our way towards the Schloss.
+
+"Never in my life should I have taken this for a Schloss, had it not
+been that there were two glass lamps fixed at the door-posts, and the
+figures of two Cranes standing in front of them, by way of Guards.
+We made up to the House; and after knocking almost half an hour to no
+purpose, there peered out at last an exceedingly old woman, who looked
+as if she might have nursed the Prince of Mirow's father. The poor
+woman, at sight of strangers, was so terrified, she slammed the door to
+in our faces. We knocked again; and seeing there could nothing be made
+of it, we went round to the stables; where a fellow told us, 'The young
+Prince with his Consort was gone to Neu-Strelitz, a couple of miles off
+[ten miles English]; and the Duchess his Mother, who lives here, had
+given him, to make the better figure, all her people along with him;
+keeping nobody but the old woman to herself.'
+
+"It was still early; so I thought I could not do better than profit by
+the opportunity, and have a look at Neu-Strelitz. We took post-horses;
+and got thither about noon. Neu-Strelitz is properly a Village; with
+only one street in it, where Chamberlains, Office-Clerks, Domestics all
+lodge, and where there is an Inn. I cannot better describe it to my Most
+All-gracious Father than by that street in Gumbinnen where you go up to
+the Town-hall,--except that no house here is whitewashed. The Schloss is
+fine, and lies on a lake, with a big garden; pretty much like Reinsberg
+in situation.
+
+"The first question I asked here was for the Prince of Mirow: but they
+told me he had just driven off again to a place called Kanow; which
+is only a couple of miles English from Mirow, where we had been.
+Buddenbrock, who is acquainted with Neu-Strelitz, got me, from a
+chamberlain, something to eat; and in the mean while, that Bohme came
+in, who was Adjutant in my Most All-gracious Father's Regiment [not of
+Goltz, but King's presumably]: Bohme did not know me till I hinted
+to him who I was. He told me, 'The Duke of Strelitz was an excellent
+seamster;'" fit to be Tailor to your Majesty in a manner, had not Fate
+been cruel, "'and that he made beautiful dressing-gowns (CASSAQUINS)
+with his needle.' This made me curious to see him: so we had ourselves
+presented as Foreigners; and it went off so well that nobody recognized
+me. I cannot better describe the Duke than by saying he is like old
+Stahl [famed old medical man at Berlin, dead last year, physiognomy not
+known to actual readers], in a blond Abbe's-periwig. He is extremely
+silly (BLODE); his Hofrath Altrock tells him, as it were, everything he
+has to say." About fifty, this poor Duke; shrunk into needlework, for a
+quiet life, amid such tumults from Schwerin and elsewhere.
+
+"Having taken leave, we drove right off to Kanow; and got thither about
+six. It is a mere Village; and the Prince's Pleasure-House (LUSTHAUS)
+here is nothing better than an ordinary Hunting-Lodge, such as any
+Forest-keeper has. I alighted at the Miller's; and had myself
+announced" at the LUSTHAUS, "by his maid: upon which the Major-Domo
+(HAUS-HOFMEISTER) came over to the Mill, and complimented me; with whom
+I proceeded to the Residenz," that is, back again to Mirow, "where
+the whole Mirow Family were assembled. The Mother is a Princess of
+Schwartzburg, and still the cleverest of them all," still under sixty;
+good old Mother, intent that her poor Son should appear to advantage,
+when visiting the more opulent Serenities. "His Aunt also," mother's
+sister, "was there. The Lady Spouse is small; a Niece to the Prince
+of Hildburghausen, who is in the Kaiser's service: she was in the
+family-way; but (ABER) seemed otherwise to be a very good Princess.
+
+"The first thing they entertained me with was, the sad misfortune
+come upon their best Cook; who, with the cart that was bringing the
+provisions, had overset, and broken his arm; so that the provisions had
+all gone to nothing. Privately I have had inquiries made; there was
+not a word of truth in the story. At last we went to table; and, sure
+enough, it looked as if the Cook and his provisions had come to some
+mishap; for certainly in the Three Crowns at Potsdam [worst inn, one may
+guess, in the satirical vein], there is better eating than here.
+
+"At table, there was talk of nothing but of all the German Princes who
+are not right in their wits (NICHT RECHT KLUG)," as Mirow himself,
+your Majesty knows, is reputed to be!" There was Weimar, [Wilhelmina's
+acquaintance; wedded, not without difficulty, to a superfluous Baireuth
+Sister-in-law by Wilhelmina (_ Memoires de Wilhelmina,_ ii. 185-194):
+Grandfather of Goethe's Friend;--is nothing like fairly out of his wits;
+only has a flea (as we may say) dancing occasionally in the ear of him.
+Perhaps it is so with the rest of these Serenities, here fallen upon
+evil tongues?] Gotha, Waldeck, Hoym, and the whole lot of them, brought
+upon the carpet:--and after our good Host had got considerably drunk, we
+rose,--and he lovingly promised me that 'he and his whole Family would
+come and visit Reinsberg.' Come he certainly will; but how I shall get
+rid of him, God knows.
+
+"I most submissively beg pardon of my Most All-gracious Father for
+this long Letter; and"--we will terminate here. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
+xxvii. part 3d, pp. 104-106.]
+
+Dilapidated Mirow and its inmates, portrayed in this satirical way,
+except as a view of Serene Highnesses fallen into Sleepy Hollow, excites
+little notice in the indolent mind; and that little, rather pleasantly
+contemptuous than really profitable. But one fact ought to kindle
+momentary interest in English readers: the young foolish Herr, in this
+dilapidated place, is no other than our "Old Queen Charlotte's" Father
+that is to be,--a kind of Ancestor of ours, though we little guessed
+it! English readers will scan him with new curiosity, when he pays that
+return visit at Reinsberg. Which he does within the fortnight:--
+
+"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
+
+"REINSBERG, 6th November, 1736.
+
+... "that my Most All-gracious Father has had the graciousness to send
+us some Swans. My Wife also has been exceedingly delighted at the fine
+Present sent her.... General Praetorius," Danish Envoy, with whose Court
+there is some tiff of quarrel, "came hither yesterday to take leave of
+us; he seems very unwilling to quit Prussia.
+
+"This morning about three o'clock, my people woke me, with word that
+there was a Stafette come with Letters,"--from your Majesty or Heaven
+knows whom! "I spring up in all haste; and opening the Letter,--find it
+is from the Prince of Mirow; who informs me that 'he will be here to-day
+at noon.' I have got all things in readiness to receive him, as if he
+were the Kaiser in person; and I hope there will be material for some
+amusement to my Most All-gracious Father, by next post."--Next post is
+half a week hence:--
+
+"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
+
+"REINSBERG, 11th Novemher.
+
+... "The Prince of Mirow's visit was so curious, I must give my Most
+All-gracious Father a particular report of it. In my last, I mentioned
+how General Praetorius had come to us: he was in the room, when I
+entered with the Prince of Mirow; at sight of him Praetorius exclaimed,
+loud enough to be heard by everybody, 'VOILA LE PRINCE CAJUCA!'
+[Nickname out of some Romance, fallen extinct long since.] Not one of us
+could help laughing; and I had my own trouble to turn it so that he did
+not get angry.
+
+"Scarcely was the Prince got in, when they came to tell me, for his
+worse luck, that Prince Heinrich," the Ill Margraf, "was come;--who
+accordingly trotted him out, in such a way that we thought we should all
+have died with laughing. Incessant praises were given him, especially
+for his fine clothes, his fine air, and his uncommon agility in dancing.
+And indeed I thought the dancing would never end.
+
+"In the afternoon, to spoil his fine coat,"--a contrivance of the Ill
+Margraf's, I should think,--"we stept out to shoot at target in the
+rain: he would not speak of it, but one could observe he was in much
+anxiety about the coat. In the evening, he got a glass or two in his
+head, and grew extremely merry; said at last, 'He was sorry that, for
+divers state-reasons and businesses of moment, he must of necessity
+return home;'--which, however, he put off till about two in the morning.
+I think, next day he would not remember very much of it.
+
+"Prince Heinrich is gone to his Regiment again;" Praetorius too is
+off;--and we end with the proper KOW-TOW. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvii.
+part 3d, p. 109.]
+
+These Strelitzers, we said, are juniors to infatuated Schwerin; and poor
+Mirow is again junior to Strelitz: plainly one of the least opulent
+of Residences. At present, it is Dowager Apanage (WITTWEN-SITZ) to the
+Widow of the late Strelitz of blessed memory: here, with her one Child,
+a boy now grown to what manhood we see, has the Serene Dowager lived,
+these twenty-eight years past; a Schwartzburg by birth, "the cleverest
+head among them all." Twenty-eight years in dilapidated Mirow: so long
+has that Tailoring Duke, her eldest STEP-SON (child of a prior wife)
+been Supreme Head of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; employed with his needle, or
+we know not how,--collapsed plainly into tailoring at this date. There
+was but one other Son; this clever Lady's, twenty years junior,--"Prince
+of Mirow" whom we now see. Karl Ludwig Friedrich is the name of this
+one; age now twenty-eight gone. He, ever since the third month of him,
+when the poor Serene Father died ("May, 1703"), has been at Mirow with
+Mamma; getting what education there was,--not too successfully, as would
+appear. Eight years ago, "in 1726," Mamma sent him off upon his
+travels; to Geneva, Italy, France: he looked in upon Vienna, too; got a
+Lieutenant-Colonelcy in the Kaiser's Service, but did not like it;
+soon gave it up; and returned home to vegetate, perhaps to seek a
+wife,--having prospects of succession in Strelitz. For the Serene
+Half-Brother proves to have no children: were his tailoring once
+finished in the world, our Prince of Mirow is Duke in Chief. On this
+basis the wedded last year; the little Wife has already brought him one
+child, a Daughter; and has (as Friedrich notices) another under way,
+if it prosper. No lack of Daughters, nor of Sons by and by: eight years
+hence came the little Charlotte,--subsequently Mother of England: much
+to her and our astonishment. [Born (at Mirow) 19th May, 1744; married
+(London), 8th September, 1761; died, 18th November, 1818 (Michaelis, ii.
+445, 446; Hubner, t. 195; OErtel, pp. 43, 22).]
+
+The poor man did not live to be Duke of Strelitz; he died, 1752, in
+little Charlotte's eighth year; Tailor Duke SURVIVING him a few months.
+Little Charlotte's Brother did then succeed, and lasted till 1794; after
+whom a second Brother, father of the now Serene Strelitzes;--who also
+is genealogically notable. For from him there came another still more
+famous Queen: Louisa of Prussia; beautiful to look upon, as "Aunt
+Charlotte" was not, in a high degree; and who showed herself a Heroine
+in Napoleon's time, as Aunt Charlotte never was called to do. Both Aunt
+and Niece were women of sense, of probity, propriety; fairly beyond the
+average of Queens. And as to their early poverty, ridiculous to this
+gold-nugget generation, I rather guess it may have done them benefits
+which the gold-nugget generation, in its Queens and otherwise, stands
+far more in want of than it thinks.
+
+But enough of this Prince of Mirow, whom Friedrich has accidentally
+unearthed for us. Indeed there is no farther history of him, for or
+against. He evidently was not thought to have invented gunpowder, by
+the public. And yet who knows but, in his very simplicity, there lay
+something far beyond the Ill Margraf to whom he was so quizzable? Poor
+down-pressed brother mortal; somnambulating so pacifically in Sleepy
+Hollow yonder, and making no complaint!
+
+He continued, though soon with less enthusiasm, and in the end very
+rarely, a visitor of Friedrich's during this Reinsberg time. Patriotic
+English readers may as well take the few remaining vestiges, too, before
+quite dismissing him to Sleepy Hollow. Here they are, swept accurately
+together, from that Correspondence of Friedrich with Papa:--
+
+"REINSBERG, 18th NOVEMBER, 1736.... report most submissively that
+the Prince of Mirow has again been here, with his Mother, Wife, Aunt,
+Hofdames, Cavaliers and entire Household; so that I thought it was the
+Flight out of Egypt [Exodus of the Jews]. I begin to have a fear of
+those good people, as they assured me they would have such pleasure in
+coming often!"
+
+"REINSBERG, 1st FEBRUARY, 1737." Let us give it in the Original too, as
+a specimen of German spelling:--
+
+_"Der Prints von Mihrau ist vohr einigen thagen hier gewessen und haben
+wier einige Wasser schwermer in der See ihm zu Ehren gesmissen, seine
+frau ist mit eber thoten Printzesin nieder geKomen.--Der General
+schulenburg ist heute hier gekommen und wirdt morgen"_--That is to say:--
+
+"The Prince of Mirow was here a few days ago; and we let off, in honor
+of him, a few water-rockets over the Lake: his Wife has been brought to
+bed of a dead Princess. General Schulenburg [with a small s] came hither
+to-day; and to-morrow will"...
+
+"REINSBERG, 28th MARCH, 1737.... Prince von Mirow was here yesterday;
+and tried shooting at the popinjay with us; he cannot see rightly, and
+shoots always with help of an opera-glass."
+
+"RUPPIN, 20th OCTOBER, 1737. The Prince of Mirow was with us last
+Friday; and babbled much in his high way; among other things, white-lied
+to us, that the Kaiserinn gave him a certain porcelain snuff-box he was
+handling; but on being questioned more tightly, he confessed to me he
+had bought it in Vienna." [_Briefe an Vater,_ p. 71 (CARET in _OEuvres_
+); pp. 85-114.--See Ib. 6th November, 1737, for faint trace of a visit;
+and 25th September, 1739, for another still fainter, the last there is.]
+
+And so let him somnambulate yonder, till the two Queens, like winged
+Psyches, one after the other, manage to emerge from him.
+
+Friedrich's Letters to his Father are described by some Prussian Editors
+as "very attractive, SEHR ANZIEHENDE BRIEFE;" which, to a Foreign
+reader, seems a strange account of them. Letters very hard to understand
+completely; and rather insignificant when understood. They turn on Gifts
+sent to and sent from, "swans," "hams," with the unspeakable thanks for
+them; on recruits of so many inches; on the visitors that have been;
+they assure us that "there is no sickness in the regiment," or tell
+expressly how much:--wholly small facts; nothing of speculation, and of
+ceremonial pipe-clay a great deal. We know already under what
+nightmare conditions Friedrich wrote to his Father! The attitude of the
+Crown-Prince, sincerely reverent and filial, though obliged to appear
+ineffably so, and on the whole struggling under such mountains of
+encumbrance, yet loyally maintaining his equilibrium, does at last
+acquire, in these Letters, silently a kind of beauty to the best class
+of readers. But that is nearly their sole merit. By far the most human
+of them, that on the first visit to Mirow, the reader has now seen;
+and may thank us much that we show him no more of them. [_Friedrich
+des Grossen Briefe an seinen Vater_ (Berlin, 1838)]. Reduced in size,
+by suitable omissions; and properly spelt; but with little other
+elucidation for a stranger: in _OEuvres,_ xxvii. part 3d, pp, 1-123
+(Berlin, 1856).
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV. -- NEWS OF THE DAY.
+
+While these Mirow visits are about their best, and much else at
+Reinsberg is in comfortable progress, Friedrich's first year there just
+ending, there come accounts from England of quarrels broken out between
+the Britannic Majesty and his Prince of Wales. Discrepancies risen now
+to a height; and getting into the very Newspapers;--the Rising Sun too
+little under the control of the Setting, in that unquiet Country!
+
+Prince Fred of England did not get to the Rhine Campaign, as we saw:
+he got some increase of Revenue, a Household of his own; and finally
+a Wife, as he had requested: a Sachsen-Gotha Princess; who, peerless
+Wilhelmma being unattainable, was welcome to Prince Fred. She is in the
+family-way, this summer 1737, a very young lady still; result thought to
+be due--When? Result being potential Heir to the British Nation, there
+ought to have been good calculation of the time when! But apparently
+nobody had well turned his attention that way. Or if Fred and Spouse
+had, as is presumable, Fred had given no notice to the Paternal
+Majesty,--"Let Paternal Majesty, always so cross to me, look out
+for himself in that matter." Certain it is, Fred and Spouse, in the
+beginning of August, 1737, are out at Hampton Court; potential Heir due
+before long, and no preparation made for it. August 11th in the evening,
+out at solitary Hampton Court; the poor young Mother's pains came on; no
+Chancellor there, no Archbishop to see the birth,--in fact, hardly
+the least medical help, and of political altogether none. Fred, in
+his flurry, or by forethought,--instead of dashing off expresses, at
+a gallop as of Epsom, to summon the necessary persons and appliances,
+yoked wheeled vehicles and rolled off to the old unprovided Palace of
+St. James's, London, with his poor Wife in person! Unwarned, unprovided;
+where nevertheless she was safely delivered that same night,--safely,
+as if by miracle. The crisis might have taken her on the very highway:
+never was such an imprudence. Owing, I will believe, to Fred's sudden
+flurry in the unprovided moment,--unprovided, by reason of prior
+desuetudes and discouragements to speech, on Papa's side. A shade of
+malice there might also be. Papa doubts not, it was malice aforethought
+all of it. "Had the potential Heir of the British Nation gone to wreck,
+or been born on the highway, from my quarrels with this bad Fred, what
+a scrape had I been in!" thinks Papa, and is in a towering permanence
+of wrath ever since; the very Newspapers and coffee-houses and populaces
+now all getting vocal with it.
+
+Papa, as it turned out, never more saw the face of Fred. Judicious
+Mamma, Queen Caroline, could not help a visit, one visit to the poor
+young Mother, so soon as proper: coming out from the visit, Prince Fred
+obsequiously escorting her to her carriage, found a crowd of people and
+populace, in front of St. James's; and there knelt down on the street,
+in his fine silk breeches, careless of the mud, to "beg a Mother's
+blessing," and show what a son he was, he for his part, in this
+sad discrepancy that had risen! Mamma threw a silent glance on him,
+containing volumes of mixed tenor; drove off; and saw no more of Fred,
+she either. I fear, this kneeling in the mud tells against Prince Fred;
+but in truth I do not know, nor even much care. [Lord Hervey, _Memoirs
+of George the Second,_ ii. 362-370, 409.] What a noise in England about
+nothing at all!--What a noisy Country, your Prussian Majesty! Foolish
+"rising sun" not restrainable there by the setting or shining one;
+opposition parties bowling him about among the constellations, like a
+very mad object!--
+
+But in a month or two, there comes worse news out of England; falling
+heavy on the heart of Prussian Majesty: news that Queen Caroline herself
+is dead. ["Sunday evening, 1st December (20th Nov.), 1737." Ib. pp.
+510-539.] Died as she had lived, with much constancy of mind, with a
+graceful modest courage and endurance; sinking quietly under the load of
+private miseries long quietly kept hidden, but now become too heavy,
+and for which the appointed rest was now here. Little George blubbered
+a good deal; fidgeted and flustered a good deal: much put about, poor
+foolish little soul. The dying Caroline recommended HIM to Walpole;
+advised his Majesty to marry again. _"Non, j'aurai des maitresses_ (No,
+I'll have mistresses)!" sobbed his Majesty passionately. _"Ah, mon Dieu,
+cela n'empeche pas_" (that does not an experience of the case). There is
+something stoically tragic in the history of Caroline with her flighty
+vaporing little King: seldom had foolish husband so wise a wife. "Dead!"
+thought Friedrich Wilhelm, looking back through the whirlwinds of life,
+into sunny young scenes far enough away: "Dead!"--Walpole continued to
+manage the little King; but not for long; England itself rising in
+objection. Jenkins's Ear, I understand, is lying in cotton; and there
+are mad inflammable strata in that Nation, capable of exploding at a
+great rate.
+
+From the Eastern regions our Newspapers are very full of events: War
+with the Turk going on there; Russia and Austria both doing their best
+against the Turk. The Russians had hardly finished their Polish-Election
+fighting, when they decided to have a stroke at the Turk,--Turk always
+an especial eye-sorrow to them, since that "Treaty of the Pruth," and
+Czar Peter's sad rebuff there:--Munnich marched direct out of Poland
+through the Ukraine, with his eye on the Crimea and furious business
+in that quarter. This is his second Campaign there, this of 1737; and
+furious business has not failed. Last year he stormed the Lines of
+Perecop, tore open the Crimea; took Azoph, he or Lacy under him;
+took many things: this year he had laid his plans for Oczakow;--takes
+Oczakow,--fiery event, blazing in all the Newspapers, at Reinsberg
+and elsewhere. Concerning which will the reader accept this condensed
+testimony by an eye-witness?
+
+"OCZAKOW, 13th JULY, 1737. Day before yesterday, Feldmarschall Munnich
+got to Oczakow, as he had planned,"--strong Turkish Town in the nook
+between the Black Sea and the estuary of the Dnieper;--"with intention
+to besiege it. Siege-train, stores of every sort, which he had set
+afloat upon the Dnieper in time enough, were to have been ready for
+him at Oczakow. But the flotilla had been detained by shallows, by
+waterfalls; not a boat was come, nor could anybody say when they were
+coming. Meanwhile nothing is to be had here; the very face of the earth
+the Turks have burnt: not a blade of grass for cavalry within eight
+miles, nor a stick of wood for engineers; not a hole for covert, and
+the ground so hard you cannot raise redoubts on it: Munnich perceives he
+must attempt, nevertheless.
+
+"On his right, by the sea-shore, Munnich finds some remains of gardens,
+palisades; scrapes together some vestige of shelter there (five
+thousand, or even ten thousand pioneers working desperately all that
+first night, 11th July, with only half success); and on the morrow
+commences firing with what artillery he has. Much outfired by the
+Turks inside;--his enterprise as good as desperate, unless the Dnieper
+flotilla come soon. July 12th, all day the firing continues, and all
+night; Turks extremely furious: about an hour before daybreak, we notice
+burning in the interior, 'Some wooden house kindled by us, town got on
+fire yonder,'--and, praise to Heaven, they do not seem to succeed in
+quenching it again. Munnich turns out, in various divisions; intent
+on trying something, had he the least engineer furniture;--hopes
+desperately there may be promise for him in that internal burning still
+visible.
+
+"In the centre of Munnich's line is one General Keith, a deliberate
+stalwart Scotch gentleman, whom we shall know better; Munnich himself is
+to the right: Could not one try it by scalade; keep the internal burning
+free to spread, at any rate? 'Advance within musket-shot, General
+Keith!' orders Munnich's Aide-de-Camp cantering up. 'I have been
+this good while within it,' answers Keith, pointing to his dead men.
+Aide-de-Camp canters up a second time: 'Advance within half musket-shot,
+General Keith, and quit any covert you have!' Keith does so; sends, with
+his respects to Feldmarschall Munnich, his remonstrance against such
+a waste of human life. Aide-de-Camp canters up a third time:
+'Feldmarschall Munnich is for trying a scalade; hopes General Keith will
+do his best to co-operate!' 'Forward, then!' answers Keith; advances
+close to the glacis; finds a wet ditch twelve feet broad, and has not a
+stick of engineer furniture. Keith waits there two hours; his men,
+under fire all the while, trying this and that to get across; Munnich's
+scalade going off ineffectual in like manner:--till at length Keith's
+men, and all men, tire of such a business, and roll back in great
+confusion out of shot-range. Munnich gives himself up for lost. And
+indeed, says Mannstein, had the Turks sallied out in pursuit at that
+moment, they might have chased us back to Russia. But the Turks did not
+sally. And the internal conflagration is not quenched, far from it;--and
+about nine A.M. their Powder-Magazine, conflagration reaching it, roared
+aloft into the air, and killed seven thousand of them," [Mannstein, pp.
+151-156.]--
+
+So that Oczakow was taken, sure enough; terms, life only: and every
+remaining Turk packs off from it, some "twenty thousand inhabitants
+young and old" for one sad item.--A very blazing semi-absurd event, to
+be read of in Prussian military circles,--where General Keith will be
+better known one day.
+
+Russian War with the Turk: that means withal, by old Treaties, aid of
+thirty thousand men from the Kaiser to Russia. Kaiser, so ruined lately,
+how can he send thirty thousand, and keep them recruited, in such
+distant expedition? Kaiser, much meditating, is advised it will be
+better to go frankly into the Turk on his own score, and try for slices
+of profit from him in this game. Kaiser declares war against the Turk;
+and what is still more interesting to Friedrich Wilhelm and the
+Berlin Circles, Seckendorf is named General of it. Feldzeugmeister now
+Feldmarschall Seckendorf, envy may say what it will, he has marched this
+season into the Lower-Donau Countries,--going to besiege Widdin, they
+say,--at the head of a big Army (on paper, almost a hundred and fifty
+thousand, light troops and heavy)--virtually Commander-in-Chief; though
+nominally our fine young friend Franz of Lorraine bears the title
+of Commander, whom Seckendorf is to dry-nurse in the way sometimes
+practised. Going to besiege Widdin, they say. So has the poor Kaiser
+been advised. His wise old Eugene is now gone; [Died 30th April,
+1736.] I fear his advisers,--a youngish Feldzeugmeister, Prince of
+Hildburghausen, the chief favorite among them,--are none of the wisest.
+All Protestants, we observe, these favorite Hildburghausens, Schmettaus,
+Seckendorfs of his; and Vienna is an orthodox papal Court;--and there
+is a Hofkriegsrath (Supreme Council of War), which has ruined many
+a General, poking too meddlesomely into his affairs! On the whole,
+Seckendorf will have his difficulties. Here is a scene, on the
+Lower Donau, different enough from that at Oczakow, not far from
+contemporaneous with it. The Austrian Army is at Kolitz, a march or two
+beyond Belgrade:--
+
+"KOLITZ, 2d JULY, 1737. This day, the Army not being on march, but
+allowed to rest itself, Grand Duke Franz went into the woods to hunt.
+Hunting up and down, he lost himself; did not return at evening; and, as
+the night closed in and no Generalissimo visible, the Generalissimo AD
+LATUS (such the title they had contrived for Seckendorf) was in much
+alarm. Generalissimo AD LATUS ordered out his whole force of drummers,
+trumpeters: To fling themselves, postwise, deeper and deeper into the
+woods all round; to drum there, and blow, in ever-widening circle, in
+prescribed notes, and with all energy, till the Grand Duke were found.
+Grand Duke being found, Seckendorf remonstrated, rebuked; a thought
+too earnestly, some say, his temper being flurried,"--voice snuffling
+somewhat in alt, with lisp to help:--"so that the Grand Duke took
+offence; flung off in a huff: and always looked askance on the
+Feldmarschall from that time;" [See _Lebensgeschichte des Grafen van
+Schmettau_ (by his Son: Berlin, 1806), i. 27.]--quitting him altogether
+before long; and marching with Khevenhuller, Wallis, Hildburghausen, or
+any of the subordinate Generals rather. Probably Widdin will not go
+the road of Oczakow, nor the Austrians prosper like the Russians, this
+summer.
+
+Pollnitz, in Tobacco-Parliament, and in certain Berlin circles foolishly
+agape about this new Feldmarschall, maintains always, Seckendorf will
+come to nothing; which his Majesty zealously contradicts,--his
+Majesty, and some short-sighted private individuals still favorable to
+Seckendorf. [Pollnitz, _Memoiren,_ ii. 497-502.] Exactly one week after
+that singular drum-and-trumpet operation on Duke Franz, the Last of the
+Medici dies at Florence; [9th July (_Fastes de Louis XV._, p. 304).]
+and Serene Franz, if he knew it, is Grand Duke of Tuscany, according to
+bargain: a matter important to himself chiefly, and to France, who, for
+Stanislaus and Lorraine's sake, has had to pay him some 200,000 pounds a
+year during the brief intermediate state.
+
+
+
+
+OF BERG AND JULICH AGAIN; AND OF LUISCIUS WITH THE ONE RAZOR.
+
+These remote occurrences are of small interest to his Prussian Majesty,
+in comparison with the Pfalz affair, the Cleve-Julich succession, which
+lies so near home. His Majesty is uncommonly anxious to have this
+matter settled, in peace, if possible. Kaiser and Reich, with the other
+Mediating Powers, go on mediating; but when will they decide? This year
+the old Bishop of Augsburg, one Brother of the older Kur-Pfalz Karl
+Philip, dies; nothing now between us and the event itself, but Karl
+Philip alone, who is verging towards eighty: the decision, to be
+peaceable, ought to be speedy! Friedrich Wilhelm, in January last, sent
+the expert Degenfeld, once of London, to old Karl Philip; and has
+him still there, with the most conciliatory offers: "Will leave your
+Sulzbachs a part, then; will be content with part, instead of the whole,
+which is mine if there be force in sealed parchment; will do anything
+for peace!" To which the old Kur-Pfalz, foolish old creature, is
+steadily deaf; answers vaguely, negatively always, in a polite manner;
+pushing his Majesty upon extremities painful to think of. "We hate war;
+but cannot quite do without justice, your Serenity," thinks Friedrich
+Wilhelm: "must it be the eighty thousand iron ramrods, then?" Obstinate
+Serenity continues deaf; and Friedrich Wilhelm's negotiations, there
+at Mannheim, over in Holland, and through Holland with England, not to
+speak of Kaiser and Reich close at hand, become very intense; vehemently
+earnest, about this matter, for the next two years. The details of
+which, inexpressibly uninteresting, shall be spared the reader.
+
+Summary is, these Mediating Powers will be of no help to his Majesty;
+not even the Dutch will, with whom he is specially in friendship: nay,
+in the third year it becomes fatally manifest, the chief Mediating
+Powers, Kaiser and France, listening rather to political convenience,
+than to the claims of justice, go direct in Kur-Pfalz's favor;--by
+formal treaty of their own, ["Versailles, 13th January, 1739" (Olrich,
+_Geschichte der Schlesischen Kriege,_ i. 13); Mauvillon, ii 405-446;
+&c.] France and the Kaiser settle, "That the Sulzbachers shall, as a
+preliminary, get provisional possession, on the now Serenity's decease;
+and shall continue undisturbed for two years, till Law decide between
+his Prussian Majesty and them." Two years; Law decide;--and we know what
+are the NINE-POINTS in a Law-case! This, at last, proved too much
+for his Majesty. Majesty's abstruse dubitations, meditations on such
+treatment by a Kaiser and others, did then, it appears, gloomily settle
+into fixed private purpose of trying it by the iron ramrods, when old
+Kur-Pfalz should die,--of marching with eighty thousand men into the
+Cleve Countries, and SO welcoming any Sulzbach or other guests that
+might arrive. Happily old Kur-Pfalz did not die in his Majesty's time;
+survived his Majesty several years: so that the matter fell into other
+hands,--and was settled very well, near a century after.
+
+Of certain wranglings with the little Town of Herstal,--Prussian Town
+(part of the Orange Heritage, once KING PEPIN'S Town, if that were
+any matter now) in the Bishop of Liege's neighborhood, Town highly
+insignificant otherwise,--we shall say nothing here, as they will fall
+to be treated, and be settled, at an after stage. Friedrich Wilhelm was
+much grieved by the contumacies of that paltry little Herstal; and
+by the Bishop of Liege's high-flown procedures in countenancing
+them;--especially in a recruiting ease that had fallen out there,
+and brought matters to a head. ["December, 1738," is crisis of the
+recruiting case (_Helden-Geschichte,_ ii. 63); "17th February, 1739,"
+Bishop's high-flown appearance in it (ib. 67); Kaiser's in consequence,
+"10th April, 1739."] The Kaiser too was afflictively high in
+countenancing the Bishop;---for which both Kaiser and Bishop got due
+payment in time. But his Prussian Majesty would not kindle the world for
+such a paltriness; and so left it hanging in a vexatious condition. Such
+things, it is remarked, weigh heavier on his now infirm Majesty than
+they were wont. He is more subject to fits of hypochondria, to talk of
+abdicating. "All gone wrong!" he would say, if any little flaw rose,
+about recruiting or the like. "One might go and live at Venice, were one
+rid of it!" [Forster (place LOST).] And his deep-stung clangorous growl
+against the Kaiser's treatment of him bursts out, from time to time;
+though he oftenest pities the Kaiser, too; seeing him at such a pass
+with his Turk War and otherwise.
+
+It was in this Pfalz business that Herr Luiscius, the Prussian
+Minister in Holland, got into trouble; of whom there is a light dash
+of outline-portraiture by Voltaire, which has made him memorable to
+readers. This "fat King of Prussia," says Voltaire, was a dreadfully
+avaricious fellow, unbeautiful to a high degree in his proceedings with
+mankind:--
+
+"He had a Minister at the Hague called Luiscius; who certainly of all
+Ministers of Crowned Heads was the worst paid. This poor man, to warm
+himself, had made some trees be felled in the Garden of Honslardik,
+which belonged at that time to the House of Prussia; he thereupon
+received despatches from the King, intimating that a year of his salary
+was forfeited. Luiscius, in despair, cut his throat with probably the
+one razor he had (SEUL RASOIR QU'IL EUT); an old valet came to his
+assistance, and unhappily saved his life. In after years, I found his
+Excellency at the Hague; and have occasionally given him an alms at the
+door of the VIEILLE COUR (Old Court), a Palace belonging to the King of
+Prussia, where this poor Ambassador had lived a dozen years. It must be
+owned, Turkey is a republic in comparison to the despotism exercised by
+Friedrich Wilhelm." [_OEuvres de Voltaire (Vie Pricee,_ or what they
+now call _Memoires_ ), ii. 15.]
+
+Here truly is a witty sketch; consummately dashed off, as nobody but
+Voltaire could; "round as Giotto's O," done at one stroke. Of which
+the prose facts are only as follows. Luiscius, Prussian Resident,
+not distinguished by salary or otherwise, had, at one stage of these
+negotiations, been told, from head-quarters, He might, in casual
+extra-official ways, if it seemed furthersome, give their High
+Mightinesses the hope, or notion, that his Majesty did not intend actual
+war about that Cleve-Julich Succession,--being a pacific Majesty, and
+unwilling to involve his neighbors and mankind. Luiscius, instead of
+casual hint delicately dropped in some good way, had proceeded by direct
+declaration; frank assurance to the High Mightinesses, That there would
+be no war. Which had never been quite his Majesty's meaning, and perhaps
+was now becoming rather the reverse of it. Disavowal of Luiscius had
+to ensue thereupon; who produced defensively his instruction from
+head-quarters; but got only rebukes for such heavy-footed clumsy
+procedure, so unlike Diplomacy with its shoes of felt;--and, in
+brief, was turned out of the Diplomatic function, as unfit for it; and
+appointed to manage certain Orange Properties, fragments of the
+Orange Heritage which his Majesty still has in those Countries. This
+misadventure sank heavily on the spirits of Luiscius, otherwise none of
+the strongest-minded of men. Nor did he prosper in managing the Orange
+Properties: on the contrary, he again fell into mistakes; got soundly
+rebuked for injudicious conduct there,--"cutting trees," planting trees,
+or whatever it was;--and this produced such an effect on Luiscius, that
+he made an attempt on his own throat, distracted mortal; and was only
+stopped by somebody rushing in. "It was not the first time he had tried
+that feat," says Pollnitz, "and been prevented; nor was it long till he
+made a new attempt, which was again frustrated: and always afterwards
+his relations kept him close in view:" Majesty writing comfortable
+forgiveness to the perturbed creature, and also "settling a pension
+on him;" adequate, we can hope, and not excessive; "which Luiscius
+continued to receive, at the Hague, so long as he lived." These are the
+prose facts; not definitely dated to us, but perfectly clear otherwise.
+[Pollnitz, ii. 495, 496;--the "NEW attempt" seems to have been "June,
+1739" (_ Gentleman's Magazine,_ in mense, p. 331).]
+
+Voltaire, in his Dutch excursions, did sometimes, in after years, lodge
+in that old vacant Palace, called VIEILLE COUR, at the Hague; where he
+gracefully celebrates the decayed forsaken state of matters; dusky vast
+rooms with dim gilding; forgotten libraries "veiled under the biggest
+spider-webs in Europe;" for the rest, an uncommonly quiet place,
+convenient for a writing man, besides costing nothing. A son of this
+Luiscius, a good young lad, it also appears, was occasionally Voltaire's
+amanuensis there; him he did recommend zealously to the new King
+of Prussia, who was not deaf on the occasion. This, in the fire of
+satirical wit, is what we can transiently call "giving alms to a
+Prussian Excellency;"--not now excellent, but pensioned and cracked; and
+the reader perceives, Luiscius had probably more than one razor, had not
+one been enough, when he did the rash act. Friedrich employed Luiscius
+Junior, with no result that we hear of farther; and seems to have
+thought Luiscius Senior an absurd fellow, not worth mentioning again:
+"ran away from the Cleve Country [probably some mad-house there] above a
+year ago, I hear; and what is the matter where such a crack-brain end?"
+[Voltaire, _OEuvres_ (Letter to Friedrich, 7th October, 1740), lxxii.
+261; and Fredrich's answer (wrong dated), ib. 265; Preuss, xxii. 33.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V. -- VISIT AT LOO.
+
+The Pfalz question being in such a predicament, and Luiscius
+diplomatizing upon it in such heavy-footed manner, his Majesty thinks
+a journey to Holland, to visit one's Kinsfolk there, and incidentally
+speak a word with the High Mightinesses upon Pfalz, would not be amiss.
+Such journey is decided on; Crown-Prince to accompany. Summer of 1738:
+a short visit, quite without fuss; to last only three days;--mere sequel
+to the Reviews held in those adjacent Cleve Countries; so that
+the Gazetteers may take no notice. All which was done accordingly:
+Crown-Prince's first sight of Holland; and one of the few reportable
+points of his Reinsberg life, and not quite without memorability to him
+and us.
+
+On the 8th of July, 1738, the Review Party got upon the road for Wesel:
+all through July, they did their reviewing in those Cleve Countries; and
+then struck across for the Palace of Loo in Geldern, where a Prince of
+Orange countable kinsman to his Prussian Majesty, and a Princess still
+more nearly connected,--English George's Daughter, own niece to his
+Prussian Majesty,--are in waiting for this distinguished honor. The
+Prince of Orange we have already seen, for a moment once; at the siege
+of Philipsburg four years ago, when the sale of Chasot's horses went
+off so well. "Nothing like selling horses when your company have dined
+well," whispered he to Chasot, at that time; since which date we have
+heard nothing of his Highness.
+
+He is not a beautiful man; he has a crooked back, and features
+conformable; but is of prompt vivacious nature, and does not want for
+sense and good-humor. Paternal George, the gossips say, warned his
+Princess, when this marriage was talked of, "You will find him very
+ill-looking, though!" "And if I found him a baboon--!" answered she;
+being so heartily tired of St. James's. And in fact, for anything I
+have heard, they do well enough together. She is George II.'s eldest
+Princess;--next elder to our poor Amelia, who was once so interesting
+to us! What the Crown-Prince now thought of all that, I do not know;
+but the Books say, poor Amelia wore the willow, and specially wore the
+Prince's miniature on her breast all her days after, which were many.
+Grew corpulent, somewhat a huddle in appearance and equipment, "eyelids
+like upper-LIPS," for one item: but when life itself fled, the miniature
+was found in its old place, resting on the old heart after some sixty
+years. O Time, O Sons and Daughters of Time!--
+
+His Majesty's reception at Loo was of the kind he liked,--cordial,
+honorable, unceremonious; and these were three pleasant days he had.
+Pleasant for the Crown-Prince too; as the whole Journey had rather been;
+Papa, with covert satisfaction, finding him a wise creature, after all,
+and "more serious" than formerly. "Hm, you don't know what things are in
+that Fritz!" his Majesty murmured sometimes, in these later years, with
+a fine light in his eyes.
+
+Loo itself is a beautiful Palace: "Loo, close by the Village Appeldoorn,
+is a stately brick edifice, built with architectural regularity; has
+finely decorated rooms, beautiful gardens, and round are superb alleys
+of oak and linden." [Busching, _Erdbeschreibung,_ viii. 69.] There
+saunters pleasantly our Crown-Prince, for these three days;--and one
+glad incident I do perceive to have befallen him there: the arrival of a
+Letter from Voltaire. Letter much expected, which had followed him from
+Wesel; and which he answers here, in this brick Palace, among the superb
+avenues and gardens. [_OEuvres,_ xxi. 203, the Letter, "Cirey, June,
+1738;" Ib. 222, the Answer to it, "Loo, 6th August, 1738."]
+
+No doubt a glad incident, irradiating, as with a sudden sunburst in gray
+weather, the commonplace of things. Here is news worth listening to;
+news as from the empyrean! Free interchange of poetries and proses,
+of heroic sentiments and opinions, between the Unique of Sages and the
+Paragon of Crown-Princes; how charming to both! Literary business, we
+perceive, is brisk on both hands; at Cirey the _Discours sur l'Homme_
+("Sixth DISCOURS" arrives in this packet at Loo, surely a deathless
+piece of singing); nor is Reinsberg idle: Reinsberg is copiously doing
+verse, such verse! and in prose, very earnestly, an "ANTI-MACHIAVEL;"
+which soon afterwards filled all the then world, though it has now
+fallen so silent again. And at Paris, as Voltaire announces with a
+flourish, "M. de Maupertuis's excellent Book, _Figure de la T'erre,_
+is out;" [Paris, 1738: Maupertuis's "measurement of a degree," in the
+utmost North, 1736-1737 (to prove the Earth flattened there). Vivid
+Narrative; somewhat gesticulative, but duly brief. The only Book of
+that great Maupertuis which is now readable to human nature.] M. de
+Maupertuis, home from the Polar regions and from measuring the Earth
+there; the sublimest miracle in Paris society at present. Might build,
+new-build, an ACADEMY OF SCIENCES at Berlin for your Royal Highness,
+one day? suggests Voltaire, on this occasion: and Friedrich, as we shall
+see, takes the hint. One passage of the Crown-Prince's Answer is in
+these terms;--fixing this Loo visit to its date for us, at any rate:--
+
+"LOO IN HOLLAND, 6th AUGUST, 1739.... I write from a place where there
+lived once a great man [William III. of England, our Dutch William];
+which is now the Prince of Orange's House. The demon of Ambition sheds
+its unhappy poisons over his days. He might be the most fortunate of
+men; and he is devoured by chagrins in his beautiful Palace here, in the
+middle of his gardens and of a brilliant Court. It is pity in truth;
+for he is a Prince with no end of wit (INFINIMENT D'ESPRIT), and has
+respectable qualites." Not Stadtholder, unluckily; that is where the
+shoe pinches; the Dutch are on the Republican tack, and will not have
+a Stadtholder at present. No help for it in one's beautiful gardens and
+avenues of oak and linden.
+
+"I have talked a great deal about Newton with the Princess,"--about
+Newton; never hinted at Amelia; not permissible!--"from Newton we passed
+to Leibnitz; and from Leibnitz to the Late Queen of England," Caroline
+lately gone, "who, the Prince told me, was of Clarke's sentiment" on
+that important theological controversy now dead to mankind.--And of
+Jenkins and his Ear did the Princess say nothing? That is now becoming a
+high phenomenon in England! But readers must wait a little.
+
+Pity that we cannot give these two Letters in full; that no reader,
+almost, could be made to understand them, or to care for them when
+understood. Such the cruelty of Time upon this Voltaire-Friedrich
+Correspondence, and some others; which were once so rosy, sunny, and are
+now fallen drearily extinct,--studiable by Editors only! In itself
+the Friedrich-Voltaire Correspondence, we can see, was charming; very
+blossomy at present: businesses increasing; mutual admiration now risen
+to a great height,--admiration sincere on both sides, most so on
+the Prince's, and extravagantly expressed on both sides, most so on
+Voltaire's.
+
+
+
+
+CROWN-PRINCE BECOMES A FREEMASON; AND IS HARANGUED BY MONSIEUR DE
+BIELFELD.
+
+His Majesty, we said, had three pleasant days at Loo; discoursing, as
+with friends, on public matters, or even on more private matters, in
+a frank unconstrained way. He is not to be called "Majesty" on this
+occasion; but the fact, at Loo, and by the leading Mightinesses of
+the Republic, who come copiously to compliment him there, is well
+remembered. Talk there was, with such leading Mightinesses, about the
+Julich-and-Berg question, aim of this Journey: earnest enough private
+talk with some of them: but it availed nothing; and would not be worth
+reporting now to any creature, if we even knew it. In fact, the Journey
+itself remains mentionable chiefly by one very trifling circumstance;
+and then by another, not important either, which followed out of that.
+The trifling circumstance is,--That Friedrich, in the course of this
+Journey, became a Freemason: and the unimportant sequel was, That he
+made acquaintance with one Bielfeld, on the occasion; who afterwards
+wrote a Book about him, which was once much read, though never much
+worth reading, and is still citable, with precaution, now and then.
+[Monsieur le Baron de Bielfeld, _Lettres Familieres et Autres,_
+1763;--second edition, 2 vols. a Leide, 1767, is the one we use here.]
+Trifling circumstance, of Freemasonry, as we read in Bielfeld and in
+many Books after him, befell in manner following.
+
+Among the dinner-guests at Loo, one of those three days, was a Prince of
+Lippe-Buckeburg,--Prince of small territory, but of great speculation;
+whose territory lies on the Weser, leading to Dutch connections; and
+whose speculations stretch over all the Universe, in a high fantastic
+style:--he was a dinner-guest; and one of the topics that came up was
+Freemasonry; a phantasmal kind of object, which had kindled itself, or
+rekindled, in those years, in England first of all; and was now hovering
+about, a good deal, in Germany and other countries; pretending to be
+a new light of Heaven, and not a bog-meteor of phosphorated hydrogen,
+conspicuous in the murk of things. Bog-meteor, foolish putrescent
+will-o'-wisp, his Majesty promptly defined it to be: Tom-foolery and
+KINDERSPIEL, what else? Whereupon ingenious Buckeburg, who was himself
+a Mason, man of forty by this time, and had high things in him of the
+Quixotic type, ventured on defence; and was so respectful, eloquent,
+dexterous, ingenious, he quite captivated, if not his Majesty, at
+least the Crown-Prince, who was more enthusiastic for high things.
+Crown-Prince, after table, took his Durchlaucht of Buckeburg
+aside; talked farther on the subject, expressed his admiration, his
+conviction,--his wish to be admitted into such a Hero Fraternity.
+Nothing could be welcomer to Durchlaucht. And so, in all privacy, it
+was made up betweeen them, That Durchlaucht, summoning as many mystic
+Brothers out of Hamburg as were needful, should be in waiting with them,
+on the Crown-Prince's road homeward,--say at Brunswick, night before
+the Fair, where we are to be,--and there make the Crown-Prince a Mason.
+[Bielfeld, i. 14-16; Preuss, i. 111; Preuss, _Buch fur Jedermann,_ i.
+41.]
+
+This is Bielfeld's account, repeated ever since; substantially correct,
+except that the scene was not Loo at all: dinner and dialogue, it now
+appears, took place in Durchlaucht's own neighborhood, during the Cleve
+Review time; "probably at Minden, 17th July;" and all was settled into
+fixed program before Loo came in sight. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
+xvs. 201: Friedrich's Letter to this Durchlaucht, "Comte de
+Schaumbourg-Lippe" he calls him; date, "Moyland, 26th July, 1738:
+"Moyland, a certain SCHLOSS, or habitable Mansion, of his Majesty's,
+few miles to north of Mors in the Cleve Country; where his Majesty
+used often to pause;--and where (what will be much more remarkable to
+readers) the Crown-Prince and Voltaire had their first meeting,
+two years hence.] Bielfeld's report of the subsequent procedure at
+Brunswick, as he saw it and was himself part of it, is liable to no
+mistakes, at least of the involuntary kind; and may, for anything we
+know, be correct in every particular.
+
+He says (veiling it under discreet asterisks, which are now decipherable
+enough), The Durchlaucht of Lippe-Buckeburg had summoned six Brethren of
+the Hamburg Lodge; of whom we mention only a Graf von Kielmannsegge, a
+Baron von Oberg, both from Hanover, and Bielfeld himself, a Merchant's
+Son, of Hamburg; these, with "Kielmannsegge's Valet to act as Tiler,"
+Valet being also a Mason, and the rule equality of mankind,--were to
+have the honor of initiating the Crown-Prince. They arrived at the
+Western Gate of Brunswick on the 11th of August, as prearranged;
+Prussian Majesty not yet come, but coming punctually on the morrow. It
+is Fair-time; all manner of traders, pedlers, showmen rendezvousing;
+many neighboring Nobility too, as was still the habit. "Such a bulk
+of light luggage?" said the Custom-house people at the Gate;--but were
+pacified by slipping them a ducat. Upon which we drove to "Korn's Hotel"
+(if anybody now knew it); and there patiently waited. No great things
+of a Hotel, says Bielfeld; but can be put up with;--worst feature is, we
+discover a Hanover acquaintance lodging close by, nothing but a wooden
+partition between us: How if he should overhear!--
+
+Prussian Majesty and suite, under universal cannon-salvos, arrived,
+Sunday the 12th; to stay till Wednesday (three days) with his august
+Son-in-law and Daughter here. Durchlaucht Lippe presents himself at
+Court, the rest of us not; privately settles with the Prince: "Tuesday
+night, eve of his Majesty's departure; that shall be the night: at
+Korn's Hotel, late enough!" And there, accordingly, on the appointed
+night, 14th-15th August, 1738, the light-luggage trunks have yielded
+their stage-properties; Jachin and Boaz are set up, and all things are
+ready; Tiler (Kielmannsegge's Valet) watching with drawn sword
+against the profane. As to our Hanover neighbor, on the other side
+the partition, says Bielfeld, we waited on him, this day after dinner,
+successively paying our respects; successively pledged him in so
+many bumpers, he is lying dead drunk hours ago, could not overhear a
+cannon-battery, he. And soon after midnight, the Crown-Prince glides in,
+a Captain Wartensleben accompanying, who is also a candidate; and the
+mysterious rites are accomplished on both of them, on the Crown-Prince
+first, without accident, and in the usual way.
+
+Bielfeld could not enough admire the demeanor of this Prince, his
+clearness, sense, quiet brilliancy; and how he was so "intrepid,"
+and "possessed himself so gracefully in the most critical instants."
+Extremely genial air, and so young, looks younger even than his years:
+handsome to a degree, though of short stature. Physiognomy, features,
+quite charming; fine auburn hair (BEAU BRUN), a negligent plenty of it;
+"his large blue eyes have something at once severe, sweet and gracious."
+Eligible Mason indeed. Had better make despatch at present, lest Papa
+be getting on the road before him!--Bielfeld delivered a small address,
+composed beforehand; with which the Prince seemed to be content. And
+so, with masonic grip, they made their adieus for the present; and the
+Crown-Prince and Wartensleben were back at their posts, ready for the
+road along with his Majesty.
+
+His Majesty came on Sunday; goes on Wednesday, home now at a stretch;
+and, we hope, has had a good time of it here, these three days. Daughter
+Charlotte and her Serene Husband, well with their subjects, well with
+one another, are doing well; have already two little Children; a Boy
+the elder, of whom we have heard: Boy's name is Karl, age now three;
+sprightly, reckoned very clever, by the fond parents;--who has many
+things to do in the world, by and by; to attack the French Revolution,
+and be blown to pieces by it on the Field of Jena, for final thing!
+That is the fate of little Karl, who frolics about here, so sunshiny and
+ingenuous at present.
+
+Karl's Grandmother, the Serene Dowager Duchess, Friedrich's own
+Mother-in-law, his Majesty and Friedrich would also of course see
+here. Fine Younger Sons of hers are coming forward; the reigning Duke
+beautifully careful about the furtherance of these Cadets of the House.
+Here is Prince Ferdinand, for instance; just getting ready for the Grand
+Tour; goes in a month hence: [Mauvillon (FILS, son of him whom we cite
+otherwise), _Geschichte Ferdinands Herzogs von Braunschweig-Luneburg_
+(Leipzig, 1794), i. 17-25.] a fine eupeptic loyal young fellow; who,
+in a twenty years more, will be Chatham's Generalissimo, and fight
+the French to some purpose. A Brother of his, the next elder, is now
+fighting the Turks for his Kaiser; does not like it at all, under such
+Seckendorfs and War-Ministries as there are. Then, elder still, eldest
+of all the Cadets, there is Anton Ulrich, over at Petersburg for some
+years past, with outlooks high enough: To wed the Mecklenburg Princess
+there (Daughter of the unutterable Duke), and be as good as Czar of
+all the Russias one day. Little to his profit, poor soul!--These,
+historically ascertainable, are the aspects of the Brunswick Court
+during those three days of Royal Visit, in Fair-time; and may serve to
+date the Masonic Transaction for us, which the Crown-Prince has just
+accomplished over at Korn's.
+
+As for the Transaction itself, there is intrinsically no harm in this
+initiation, we will hope: but it behooves to be kept well hidden from
+Papa. Papa's good opinion of the Prince has sensibly risen, in the
+course of this Journey, "so rational, serious, not dangling about among
+the women as formerly;"--and what a shock would this of Korn's Hotel be,
+should Papa hear of it! Poor Papa, from officious tale-bearers he hears
+many things: is in distress about Voltaire, about Heterodoxies;--and
+summoned the Crown-Prince, by express, from Reinsberg, on one occasion
+lately, over to Potsdam, "to take the Communion" there, by way of
+case-hardening against Voltaire and Heterodoxies! Think of it, human
+readers!--We will add the following stray particulars, more or less
+illustrative of the Masonic Transaction; and so end that trifling
+affair.
+
+The Captain Wartensleben, fellow-recipient of the mysteries at
+Brunswick, is youngest son, by a second marriage, of old Feldmarschall
+Wartensleben, now deceased; and is consequently Uncle, Half-Uncle, of
+poor Lieutenant Katte, though some years younger than Katte would now
+have been. Tender memories hang by Wartensleben, in a silent way! He
+is Captain in the Potsdam Giants; somewhat an intimate, and not
+undeservedly so, of the Crown-Prince;--succeeds Wolden as Hofmarschall
+at Reinsberg, not many months after this; Wolden having died of an
+apoplectic stroke. Of Bielfeld comes a Book, slightly citable; from
+no other of the Brethren, or their Feat at Kern's, comes (we may say)
+anything whatever. The Crown-Prince prosecuted his Masonry, at Reinsberg
+or elsewhere, occasionally, for a year or two; but was never ardent
+in it; and very soon after his Accession, left off altogether:
+"Child's-play and IGNIS FATUUS mainly!" A Royal Lodge was established at
+Berlin, of which the new King consented to be patron; but he never once
+entered the place; and only his Portrait (a welcomely good one, still
+to be found there) presided over the mysteries in that Establishment.
+Harmless "fire," but too "fatuous;" mere flame-circles cut in the air,
+for infants, we know how!--
+
+With Lippe-Buckeburg there ensued some Correspondence, high enough on
+his Serenity's side; but it soon languished on the Prince's side; and
+in private Poetry, within a two years of this Brunswick scene, we find
+Lippe used proverbially for a type-specimen of Fools. ["Taciturne,
+Caton, avec mes bons parents, Aussi fou que la Lippe met les jeunes
+gens." _OEuvres,_ xi. 80 (_Discours sur la Faussete,_ written 1740).]
+A windy fantastic individual;--overwhelmed in finance-difficulties too!
+Lippe continued writing; but "only Secretaries now answered him" from
+Berlin. A son of his, son and successor, something of a Quixote too, but
+notable in Artillery-practice and otherwise, will turn up at a future
+stage.
+
+Nor is Bielfeld with his Book a thing of much moment to Friedrich or to
+us. Bielfeld too has a light airy vein of talk; loves Voltaire and the
+Philosophies in a light way;--knows the arts of Society, especially
+the art of flattering; and would fain make himself agreeable to the
+Crown-Prince, being anxious to rise in the world. His Father is a
+Hamburg Merchant, Hamburg "Sealing-wax Manufacturer," not ill off
+for money: Son has been at schools, high schools, under tutors,
+posture-masters; swashes about on those terms, with French ESPRIT in his
+mouth, and lace ruffles at his wrists; still under thirty; showy enough,
+sharp enough; considerably a coxcomb, as is still evident. He did
+transiently get about Friedrich, as we shall see; and hoped to have sold
+his heart to good purpose there;--was, by and by, employed in slight
+functions; not found fit for grave ones. In the course of some years,
+he got a title of Baron; and sold his heart more advantageously, to some
+rich Widow or Fraulein; with whom he retired to Saxony, and there lived
+on an Estate he had purchased, a stranger to Prussia thenceforth.
+
+His Book (_Lettres Familieres et Autres,_ all turning on Friedrich),
+which came out in 1763, at the height of Friedrich's fame, and was
+much read, is still freely cited by Historians as an Authority. But the
+reading of a few pages sufficiently intimates that these "Letters"
+never can have gone through a terrestrial Post-office; that they are an
+afterthought, composed from vague memory and imagination, in that fine
+Saxon retreat;--a sorrowful ghost-like "TRAVELS OF ANACHARSIS," instead
+of living words by an eye-witness! Not to be cited "freely" at all,
+but sparingly and under conditions. They abound in small errors,
+in misdates, mistakes; small fictions even, and impossible
+pretensions:--foolish mortal, to write down his bit of knowledge in that
+form! For the man, in spite of his lace ruffles and gesticulations, has
+brisk eyesight of a superficial kind: he COULD have done us this little
+service (apparently his one mission in the world, for which Nature gave
+him bed and board here); and he, the lace ruffles having gone into his
+soul, has been tempted into misdoing it!--Bielfeld and Bielfeld's
+Book, such as they are, appear to be the one conquest Friedrich got of
+Freemasonry; no other result now traceable to us of that adventure in
+Korn's Hotel, crowning event of the Journey to Loo.
+
+
+
+
+SECKENDORF GETS LODGED IN GRATZ.
+
+Feldmarschall Seckendorf, after unheard-of wrestlings with the Turk
+War, and the Vienna War-Office (HOFKRIEGSRATH), is sitting, for the last
+three weeks,--where thinks the reader?--in the Fortress of Gratz among
+the Hills of Styria; a State-Prisoner, not likely to get out soon!
+Seckendorf led forth, in 1737, "such an Army, for number, spirit and
+equipment," say the Vienna people, "as never marched against the Turk
+before;" and it must be owned, his ill success has been unparalleled.
+The blame was not altogether his; not chiefly his, except for his rash
+undertaking of the thing, on such terms as there were. But the truth
+is, that first scene we saw of him,--an Army all gone out trumpeting and
+drumming into the woods to FIND its Commander-in-Chief,--was an emblem
+of the Campaign in general. Excellent Army; but commanded by nobody in
+particular; commanded by a HOFKRIEGSRATH at Vienna, by a Franz Duke
+of Tuscany, by Feldmarschall Seckendorf, and by subordinates who were
+disobedient to him: which accordingly, almost without help of the Turk
+and his disorderly ferocity, rubbed itself to pieces before long. Roamed
+about, now hither now thither, with plans laid and then with plans
+suddenly altered, Captain being Chaos mainly; in swampy countries, by
+overflowing rivers, in hunger, hot weather, forced marches; till it was
+marched gradually off its feet; and the clouds of chaotic Turks, who
+did finally show face, had a cheap pennyworth of it. Never was such a
+campaign seen as this of Seckendorf in 1737, said mankind. Except
+indeed that the present one, Campaign of 1738, in those parts, under a
+different hand, is still worse; and the Campaign of 1739, under still a
+different, will be worst of all!--Kaiser Karl and his Austrians do not
+prosper in this Turk War, as the Russians do,--who indeed have got
+a General equal to his task: Munnich, a famed master in the art of
+handling Turks and War-Ministries: real father of Russian Soldiering,
+say the Russians still. [See MANNSTEIN for Munnich's plans with the
+Turk (methods and devices of steady Discipline in small numbers VERSUS
+impetuous Ferocity in great); and Berenhorst (_Betrachtungen uber die
+Kriegskunst,_ Leipzig, 1796), a first-rate Authority, for examples and
+eulogies of them.]
+
+Campaign 1737, with clouds of chaotic Turks now sabring on the skirts of
+it, had not yet ended, when Seckendorf was called out of it; on polite
+pretexts, home to Vienna; and the command given to another. At the
+gates of Vienna, in the last days of October, 1737, an Official Person,
+waiting for the Feldmarschall, was sorry to inform him, That he,
+Feldmarschall Seckendorf, was under arrest; arrest in his own house,
+in the KOHLMARKT (Cabbage-market so called), a captain and twelve
+musketeers to watch over him with fixed bayonets there; strictly
+private, till the HOFKRIEGSRATH had satisfied themselves in a point
+or two. "Hmph!" snuffled he; with brow blushing slate-color, I should
+think, and gray eyes much alight. And ever since, for ten months or so,
+Seckendorf, sealed up in the Cabbage-market, has been fencing for
+life with the HOFKRIEGSRATH; who want satisfaction upon "eighty-six"
+different "points;" and make no end of chicaning to one's clear answers.
+And the Jesuits preach, too: "A Heretic, born enemy of Christ and his
+Kaiser; what is the use of questioning!" And the Heathen rage, and all
+men gnash their teeth, in this uncomfortable manner.
+
+Answering done, there comes no verdict, much less any acquittal; the
+captain and twelve musketeers, three of them with fixed bayonets in
+one's very bedroom, continue. One evening, 21st July, 1738, glorious
+news from the seat of War--not TILL evening, as the Imperial Majesty
+was out hunting--enters Vienna; blowing trumpets; shaking flags: "Grand
+Victory over the Turks!" so we call some poor skirmish there has been;
+and Vienna bursting all into three-times-three, the populace get very
+high. Populace rush to the Kohlmarkt: break the Seckendorf windows;
+intent to massacre the Seckendorf; had not fresh military come, who were
+obliged to fire and kill one or two. "The house captain and his twelve
+musketeers, of themselves, did wonders; Seckendorf and all his domestics
+were in arms:" "JARNI-BLEU" for the last time!--This is while the
+Crown-Prince is at Wesel; sound asleep, most likely; Loo, and the
+Masonic adventure, perhaps twinkling prophetically in his dreams.
+
+At two next morning, an Official Gentleman informs Seckendorf, That
+he, for his part, must awaken, and go to Gratz. And in one hour more (3
+A.M.), the Official Gentleman rolls off with him; drives all day; and
+delivers his Prisoner at Gratz:--"Not so much as a room ready there;
+Prisoner had to wait an hour in the carriage," till some summary
+preparation were made. Wall-neighbors of the poor Feldmarschall, in his
+Fortress here, were "a GOLD-COOK (swindling Alchemist), who had gone
+crazy; and an Irish Lieutenant, confined thirty-two years for some
+love-adventure, likewise pretty crazy; their noises in the night-time
+much disturbed the Feldmarschall." [_Seckendorfs Leben,_ ii. 170-277
+pp. 27-59.] One human thing there still is in his lot, the
+Feldmarschall's old Grafinn. True old Dame, she, both in the Kohlmarkt
+and at Gratz, stands by him, "imprisoned along with him" if it must be
+so; ministering, comforting, as only a true Wife can;--and hope has not
+quite taken wing.
+
+Rough old Feldmarschall; now turned of sixty: never made such a Campaign
+before, as this of 1737 followed by 1738! There sits he; and will not
+trouble us any more during the present Kaiser's lifetime. Friedrich
+Wilhelm is amazed at these sudden cantings of Fortune's wheel, and
+grieves honestly as for an old friend: even the Crown-Prince finds
+Seckendorf punished unjustly; and is almost, sorry for him, after all
+that has come and gone.
+
+
+
+
+THE EAR OF JENKINS RE-EMERGES.
+
+We must add the following, distilled from the English Newspapers, though
+it is now almost four months after date:--
+
+"LONDON, 1st APRIL, 1738. In the English House of Commons, much more
+in the English Public, there has been furious debating for a fortnight
+past: Committee of the whole House, examining witnesses, hearing
+counsel; subject, the Termagant of Spain, and her West-Indian
+procedures;--she, by her procedures somewhere, is always cutting out
+work for mankind! How English and other strangers, fallen-in with in
+those seas, are treated by the Spaniards, readers have heard, nay have
+chanced to see; and it is a fact painfully known to all nations. Fact
+which England, for one nation, can no longer put up with. Walpole and
+the Official Persons would fain smooth the matter; but the West-India
+Interest, the City, all Mercantile and Navigation Interests are in dead
+earnest: Committee of the whole House, 'Presided by Alderman Perry,' has
+not ears enough to hear the immensities of evidence offered; slow Public
+is gradually kindling to some sense of it. This had gone on for two
+weeks, when--what shall we say?--the EAR OF JENKINS re-emerged for the
+second time; and produced important effects!
+
+"Where Jenkins had been all this while,--steadfastly navigating to and
+fro, steadfastly eating tough junk with a wetting of rum; not thinking
+too much of past labors, yet privately 'always keeping his lost Ear in
+cotton' (with a kind of ursine piety, or other dumb feeling),--no mortal
+now knows. But to all mortals it is evident he was home in London at
+this time; no doubt a noted member of Wapping society, the much-enduring
+Jenkins. And witnesses, probably not one but many, had mentioned him to
+this Committee, as a case eminently in point. Committee, as can still
+be read in its Rhadamanthine Journals, orders: 'DIE JOVIS, 16*
+MARTII 1737-1738, That Captain Robert Jenkins do attend this House
+immediately;' and then more specially, '17* MARTII' captious objections
+having risen in Official quarters, as we guess,--'That Captain Robert
+Jenkins do attend upon Tuesday morning next.' [_Commons Journals,_
+xxiii. (in diebus).] Tuesday next is 21st March,--1st of April, 1738, by
+our modern Calendar;--and on that day, not a doubt, Jenkins does attend;
+narrates that tremendous passage we already heard of, seven years ago,
+in the entrance of the Gulf of Florida; and produces his Ear wrapt in
+cotton:--setting all on flame (except the Official persons) at sight of
+it."
+
+Official persons, as their wont is in the pressure of debate, endeavored
+to deny, to insinuate in their vile Newspapers, That Jenkins lost his
+Ear nearer home and not for nothing; as one still reads in the History
+Books. [Tindal (xx. 372). Coxe, &c.] Sheer calumnies, we now find.
+Jenkins's account was doubtless abundantly emphatic; but there is no
+ground to question the substantial truth of him and it. And so, after
+seven years of unnoticeable burning upon the thick skin of the English
+Public, the case of Jenkins accidentally burns through, and sets England
+bellowing; such a smart is there of it,--not to be soothed by Official
+wet-cloths; but getting worse and worse, for the nineteen months
+ensuing. And in short--But we will not anticipate!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI. -- LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG; JOURNEY TO PREUSSEN.
+
+The Idyllium of Reinsberg--of which, except in the way of sketchy
+suggestion, there can no history be given--lasted less than four years;
+and is now coming to an end, unexpectedly soon. A pleasant Arcadian
+Summer in one's life;--though it has not wanted its occasional discords,
+flaws of ill weather in the general sunshine. Papa, always in uncertain
+health of late, is getting heavier of foot and of heart under his heavy
+burdens; and sometimes falls abstruse enough, liable to bewilderments
+from bad people and events: not much worth noticing here. [See Pollnitz,
+ii. 509-515; Friedrich's Letter to Wilhelmina ("Berlin, 20th January,
+1739:" in _OEuvres,_ xxvii. part 1st, pp. 60, 61); &c. &c.] But the
+Crown-Prince has learned to deal with all this; all this is of
+transient nature; and a bright long future seems to lie ahead at
+Reinsberg;--brightened especially by the Literary Element; which, in
+this year of 1739, is brisker than it had ever been. Distinguished
+Visitors, of a literary turn, look in at Reinsberg; the Voltaire
+Correspondence is very lively; on Friedrich's part there is copious
+production, various enterprise, in the form of prose and verse; thoughts
+even of going to press with some of it: in short, the Literary Interest
+rises very prominent at Reinsberg in 1739. Biography is apt to forget
+the Literature there (having her reasons); but must at last take some
+notice of it, among the phenomena of the year.
+
+To the young Prince himself, "courting tranquillity," as his door-lintel
+intimated, [_"Frederico tranquillitatem colenti"_ (Infra, p. 123).]
+and forbidden to be active except within limits, this of Literature was
+all along the great light of existence at Reinsberg; the supplement
+to all other employments or wants of employment there. To Friedrich
+himself, in those old days, a great and supreme interest; while again,
+to the modern Biographer of him, it has become dark and vacant; a thing
+to be shunned, not sought. So that the fact as it stood with Friedrich
+differs far from any description that can be given of the fact. Alas, we
+have said already, and the constant truth is, Friedrich's literatures,
+his distinguished literary visitors and enterprises, which were once
+brand-new and brilliant, have grown old as a garment, and are a sorrow
+rather than otherwise to existing mankind! Conscientious readers, who
+would represent to themselves the vanished scene at Reinsberg, in this
+point more especially, must make an effort.
+
+As biographical documents, these Poetries and Proses of the young man
+give a very pretty testimony of him; but are not of value otherwise. In
+fact, they promise, if we look well into them, That here is probably a
+practical faculty and intellect of the highest kind; which again, on
+the speculative, especially on the poetical side, will never be
+considerable, nor has even tried to be so. This young soul does not deal
+in meditation at all, and his tendencies are the reverse of sentimental.
+Here is no introspection, morbid or other, no pathos or complaint,
+no melodious informing of the public what dreadful emotions you labor
+under: here, in rapid prompt form, indicating that it is truth and not
+fable, are generous aspirations for the world and yourself, generous
+pride, disdain of the ignoble, of the dark, mendacious;--here, in short,
+is a swift-handed, valiant, STEEL-bright kind of soul; very likely for a
+King's, if other things answer, and not likely for a Poet's. No doubt he
+could have made something of Literature too; could have written Books,
+and left some stamp of a veracious, more or less victorious intellect,
+in that strange province too. But then he must have applied himself to
+it, as he did to reigning: done in the cursory style, we see what it has
+come to.
+
+It is certain, Friedrich's reputation suffers, at this day, from his
+writing. From his NOT having written nothing, he stands lower with the
+world. Which seems hard measure;--though perhaps it is the law of the
+case, after all. "Nobody in these days," says my poor Friend, "has the
+least notion of the sinful waste there is in talk, whether by pen or
+tongue. Better probably that King Friedrich had written no Verses; nay
+I know not that David's Psalms did David's Kingship any good!" Which
+may be truer than it seems. Fine aspirations, generous convictions,
+purposes,--they are thought very fine: but it is good, on various
+accounts, to keep them rather silent; strictly unvocal, except on
+call of real business; so dangerous are they for becoming conscious of
+themselves! Most things do not ripen at all except underground. And it
+is a sad but sure truth, that every time you SPEAK of a fine purpose,
+especially if with eloquence and to the admiration of by-standers,
+there is the LESS chance of your ever making a fact of it in your poor
+life.--If Reinsberg, and its vacancy of great employment, was the cause
+of Friedrich's verse-writing, we will not praise Reinsberg on that
+head! But the truth is, Friedrich's verses came from him with uncommon
+fluency; and were not a deep matter, but a shallow one, in any sense.
+Not much more to him than speaking with a will; than fantasying on the
+flute in an animated strain. Ever and anon through his life, on small
+hint from without or on great, there was found a certain leakage of
+verses, which he was prompt to utter;--and the case at Reinsberg, or
+afterwards, is not so serious as we might imagine.
+
+
+
+
+PINE'S HORACE; AND THE ANTI-MACHIAVEL.
+
+In late months Friedrich had conceived one notable project; which
+demands a word in this place. Did modern readers ever hear of "John
+Pine, the celebrated English Engraver"? John Pine, a man of good
+scholarship, good skill with his burin, did "Tapestries of the House
+of Lords," and other things of a celebrated nature, famous at home and
+abroad: but his peculiar feat, which had commended him at Reinsberg, was
+an Edition of HORACE: exquisite old FLACCUS brought to perfection, as it
+were; all done with vignettes, classical borderings, symbolic marginal
+ornaments, in fine taste and accuracy, the Text itself engraved; all by
+the exquisite burin of Pine. ["London, 1737" (_Biographie Universelle,_
+xxxiv. 465).] This Edition had come out last year, famous over the
+world; and was by and by, as rumor bore, to be followed by a VIRGIL done
+in the like exquisite manner.
+
+The Pine HORACE, part of the Pine VIRGIL too, still exist in the
+libraries of the curious; and are doubtless known to the proper parties,
+though much forgotten by others of us. To Friedrich, scanning the Pine
+phenomenon with interest then brand-new, it seemed an admirable tribute
+to classical genius; and the idea occurred to him, "Is not there, by
+Heaven's blessing, a living genius, classical like those antique Romans,
+and worthy of a like tribute?" Friedrich's idea was, That Voltaire being
+clearly the supreme of Poets, the HENRIADE, his supreme of Poems, ought
+to be engraved like FLACCUS; text and all, with vignettes, tail-pieces,
+classical borderings beautifully symbolic and exact; by the exquisite
+burin of Pine. Which idea the young hero-worshipper, in spite of his
+finance-difficulties, had resolved to realize; and was even now busy
+with it, since his return from Loo. "Such beautiful enthusiasm," say
+some readers; "and in behalf of that particular demi-god!" Alas, yes; to
+Friedrich he was the best demi-god then going; and Friedrich never had
+any doubt about him.
+
+For the rest, this heroic idea could not realize itself; and we
+are happy to have nothing more to do with Pine or the HENRIADE.
+Correspondences were entered into with Pine, and some pains taken:
+Pine's high prices were as nothing; but Pine was busy with his VIRGIL;
+probably, in fact, had little stomach for the HENRIADE; "could not for
+seven years to come enter upon it:" so that the matter had to die away;
+and nothing came of it but a small DISSERTATION, or Introductory Essay,
+which the Prince had got ready,--which is still to be found printed
+in Voltaire's Works [_OEuvres, xiii. 393-402._] and in Friedrich's, if
+anybody now cared much to read it. Preuss says it was finished, "the
+10th August, 1739;" and that minute fact in Chronology, with the above
+tale of Hero-worship hanging to it, will suffice my readers and me.
+
+But there is another literary project on hand, which did take
+effect;--much worthy of mention, this year; the whole world having risen
+into such a Chorus of TE DEUM at sight of it next year. In this year
+falls, what at any rate was a great event to Friedrich, as literary man:
+the printing of his first Book,--assiduous writing of it with an eye to
+print. The Book is that "celebrated ANTI-MACHIAVEL," ever-praiseworthy
+Refutation of Machiavel's PRINCE; concerning which there are such
+immensities of Voltaire Correspondence, now become, like the Book
+itself, inane to all readers. This was the chosen soul's employment of
+Friedrich, the flower of life to him, at Reinsberg, through the yea?
+1739. It did not actually get to press till Spring 1740; nor actually
+come out till Autumn,--by which time a great change had occurred in
+Friedrich's title and circumstances: but we may as well say here what
+little is to be said of it for modern readers.
+
+"The Crown-Prince, reading this bad Book of Machiavel's, years ago, had
+been struck, as all honest souls, especially governors or apprentices
+to governing, must be, if they thought of reading such a thing, with
+its badness, its falsity, detestability; and came by degrees, obliquely
+fishing out Voltaire's opinion as he went along, on the notion of
+refuting Machiavel; and did refute him, the best he could. Set down,
+namely, his own earnest contradiction to such ungrounded noxious
+doctrines; elaborating the same more and more into clear logical
+utterance; till it swelled into a little Volume; which, so excellent
+was it, so important to mankind, Voltaire and friends were clear for
+publishing. Published accordingly it was; goes through the press next
+Summer (1740), under Voltaire's anxious superintendence: [Here, gathered
+from Friedrich's Letters to Voltaire, is the Chronology of the little
+Enterprise:--1738, MARCH 21, JUNE 17, "Machiavel a baneful man,"
+thinks Friedrich. "Ought to be refuted by somebody?" thinks he (date not
+known). 1739, MARCH 22, Friedrich thinks of doing it himself. Has done
+it, DECEMBER 4;--"a Book which ought to be printed," say Voltaire and
+the literary visitors. 1740, APRIL 26, Book given up to Voltaire for
+finished; Book appears, "end of SEPTEMBER," when a great change had
+occurred in Friedrich's title and position.] for the Prince has at
+length consented; and Voltaire hands the Manuscript, with mystery yet
+with hints, to a Dutch Bookseller, one Van Duren at the Hague, who
+is eager enough to print such an article. Voltaire himself--such his
+magnanimous friendship, especially if one have Dutch Lawsuits, or
+business of one's own, in those parts--takes charge of correcting;
+lodges himself in the 'Old Court' (Prussian Mansion, called VIEILLE
+COUR, at the Hague, where 'Luiscius,' figuratively speaking, may 'get
+an alms' from us); and therefrom corrects, alters; corresponds with the
+Prince and Van Duren, at a great rate. Keeps correcting, altering, till
+Van Duren thinks he is spoiling it for sale;--and privately determines
+to preserve the original Manuscript, and have an edition of that, with
+only such corrections as seem good to Van Duren. A treasonous step
+on this mule of a Bookseller's part, thinks Voltaire; but mulishly
+persisted in by the man. Endless correspondence, to right and left,
+ensues; intolerably wearisome to every reader. And, in fine, there came
+out, in Autumn next,"--the Crown-Prince no longer a Crown-Prince by
+that time, but shining conspicuous under Higher Title,--"not one
+ANTI-MACHIAVEL only, but a couple or a trio of ANTI-MACHIAVELS; as
+printed 'at the Hague;' as reprinted 'at London' or elsewhere; the
+confused Bibliography of which has now fallen very insignificant. First
+there was the Voltaire text, Authorized Edition, 'end of September,
+1740;' then came, in few weeks, the Van Duren one; then, probably, a
+third, combining the two, the variations given as foot-notes:--in short,
+I know not how many editions, translations, printings and reprintings;
+all the world being much taken up with such a message from the upper
+regions, and eager to read it in any form.
+
+"As to Friedrich himself, who of course says nothing of the
+ANTI-MACHIAVEL in public, he privately, to Voltaire, disowns all these
+editions; and intends to give a new one of his own, which shall be the
+right article; but never did it, having far other work cut out for him
+in the months that came. But how zealous the worlds humor was in that
+matter, no modern reader can conceive to himself. In the frightful
+Compilation called HELDEN-GESCHICHTE, which we sometimes cite, there
+are, excerpted from the then 'Bibliotheques' (NOUVELLE BIBLIOTHEQUE
+and another; shining Periodicals of the time, now gone quite dead),
+two 'reviews' of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, which fill modern readers with
+amazement: such a DOMINE DIMITTAS chanted over such an article!--These
+details, in any other than the Biographical point of view, are now
+infinitely unimportant."
+
+Truly, yes! The Crown-Prince's ANTI-MACHIAVEL, final correct edition (in
+two forms, Voltaire's as corrected, and the Prince's own as written),
+stands now in clear type; [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_ viii.
+61-163.] and, after all that jumble of printing and counter-printing, we
+can any of us read it in a few hours; but, alas, almost none of us
+with the least interest, or, as it were, with any profit whatever.
+So different is present tense from past, in all things, especially
+in things like these! It is sixscore years since the ANTI-MACHIAVEL
+appeared. The spectacle of one who was himself a King (for the
+mysterious fact was well known to Van Duren and everybody) stepping
+forth to say with conviction, That Kingship was not a thing of attorney
+mendacity, to be done under the patronage of Beelzebub, but of human
+veracity, to be set about under quite Other patronage; and that, in
+fact, a King was the "born servant of his People" (DOMESTIQUE Friedrich
+once calls it), rather than otherwise: this, naturally enough, rose upon
+the then populations, unused to such language, like the dawn of a new
+day; and was welcomed with such applauses as are now incredible, after
+all that has come and gone! Alas, in these sixscore years, it has been
+found so easy to profess and speak, even with sincerity! The actual
+Hero-Kings were long used to be silent; and the Sham-Hero kind grow
+only the more desperate for us, the more they speak and profess!--This
+ANTI-MACHIAVEL of Friedrich's is a clear distinct Treatise; confutes,
+or at least heartily contradicts, paragraph by paragraph, the incredible
+sophistries of Machiavel. Nay it leaves us, if we sufficiently force
+our attention, with the comfortable sense that his Royal Highness is
+speaking with conviction, and honestly from the heart, in the affair:
+but that is all the conquest we get of it, in these days. Treatise
+fallen more extinct to existing mankind it would not be easy to name.
+
+Perhaps indeed mankind is getting weary of the question altogether.
+Machiavel himself one now reads only by compulsion. "What is the use of
+arguing with anybody that can believe in Machiavel?" asks mankind,
+or might well ask; and, except for Editorial purposes, eschews any
+ANTI-MACHIAVEL; impatient to be rid of bane and antidote both. Truly
+the world has had a pother with this little Nicolo Machiavelli and his
+perverse little Book:--pity almost that a Friedrich Wilhelm, taking
+his rounds at that point of time, had not had the "refuting" of him;
+Friedrich Wilhelm's method would have been briefer than Friedrich's! But
+let us hope the thing is now, practically, about completed. And as to
+the other question, "Was the Signor Nicolo serious in this perverse
+little Book; or did he only do it ironically, with a serious inverse
+purpose?" we will leave that to be decided, any time convenient, by
+people who are much at leisure in the world!--
+
+The printing of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL was not intrinsically momentous in
+Friedrich's history; yet it might as well have been dispensed with.
+He had here drawn a fine program, and needlessly placarded it for the
+street populations: and afterwards there rose, as could not fail on
+their part, comparison between program and performance; scornful cry,
+chiefly from men of weak judgment, "Is this King an ANTI-Machiavel,
+then? Pfui!" Of which,--though Voltaire's voice, too, was heard in
+it, in angry moments,--we shall say nothing: the reader, looking
+for himself, will judge by and by. And herewith enough of the
+ANTI-MACHIAVEL. Composition of ANTI-MACHIAVEL and speculation of the
+Pine HENRIADE lasted, both of them, all through this Year 1739, and
+farther: from these two items, not to mention any other, readers can
+figure sufficiently how literary a year it was.
+
+
+
+
+FRIEDRICH IN PREUSSEN AGAIN; AT THE STUD OF TRAKEHNEN. A TRAGICALLY
+GREAT EVENT COMING ON.
+
+In July this year the Crown-Prince went with Papa on the Prussian
+Review-journey. ["Set out, 7th July" (_OEuvres,_ xxvii. part 1st, 67
+n.).] Such attendance on Review-journeys, a mark of his being well with
+Papa, is now becoming usual; they are agreeable excursions, and cannot
+but be instructive as well. On this occasion, things went beautifully
+with him. Out in those grassy Countries, in the bright Summer, once more
+he had an unusually fine time;--and two very special pleasures befell
+him. First was, a sight of the Emigrants, our Salzburgers and other, in
+their flourishing condition, over in Lithuania yonder. Delightful to see
+how the waste is blossoming up again; busy men, with their industries,
+their steady pious husbandries, making all things green and fruitful:
+horse-droves, cattle-herds, waving cornfields;--a very "SCHMALZGRUBE
+(Butter-pit)" of those Northern parts, as it is since called. [Busching,
+Erdbeschreibung, ii. 1049.] The Crown-Prince's own words on this matter
+we will give; they are in a Letter of his to Voltaire, perhaps already
+known to some readers;--and we can observe he writes rather copiously
+from those localities at present, and in a cheerful humor with
+everybody.
+
+"INSTERBURG, 27th JULY, 1739 (Crown-Prince to Voltaire).... Prussian
+Lithuania is a Country a hundred and twenty miles long, by from sixty
+to forty broad; ["Miles ENGLISH," we always mean, UNLESS &c.] it was
+ravaged by Pestilence at the beginning of this Century; and they say
+three hundred thousand people died of disease and famine." Ravaged by
+Pestilence and the neglect of King Friedrich I.; till my Father, once
+his hands were free, made personal survey of it, and took it up, in
+earnest.
+
+"Since that time," say twenty years ago, "there is no expense that the
+King has been afraid of, in order to succeed in his salutary views.
+He made, in the first place, regulations full of wisdom; he rebuilt
+wherever the Pestilence had desolated: thousands of families, from the
+ends of Europe," seventeen thousand Salzburgers for the last item, "were
+conducted hither; the Country repeopled itself; trade began to flourish
+again;--and now, in these fertile regions, abundance reigns more than it
+ever did.
+
+"There are above half a million of inhabitants in Lithuania; there are
+more towns than there ever were, more flocks than formerly, more wealth
+and more productiveness than in any other part of Germany. And all
+this that I tell you of is due to the King alone: who not only gave the
+orders, but superintended the execution of them; it was he that devised
+the plans, and himself got them carried to fulfilment; and spared
+neither care nor pains, nor immense expenditures, nor promises nor
+recompenses, to secure happiness and life to this half-million of
+thinking beings, who owe to him alone that they have possessions and
+felicity in the world.
+
+"I hope this detail does not weary you. I depend on your humanity
+extending itself to your Lithuanian brethren, as well as to your French,
+English, German, or other,--all the more as, to my great astonishment,
+I passed through villages where you hear nothing spoken but French.--I
+have found something so heroic, in the generous and laborious way in
+which the King addressed himself to making this desert flourish with
+inhabitants and happy industries and fruits, that it seemed to me you
+would feel the same sentiments in learning the circumstances of such
+a re-establishment. I daily expect news of you from Enghien" [in those
+Dutch-Lawsuit Countries].... The divine Emilie;... the Duke [D'Aremberg,
+Austrian Soldier, of convivial turn,--remote Welsh-Uncle to a certain
+little Prince de Ligne, now spinning tops in those parts; [Born 23d
+May, 1735, this latter little Prince; lasted till 13th December, 1814
+("DANSE, MAIS IL NE MARCHE PAS").] not otherwise interesting], whom
+Apollo contends for against Bacchues.... Adieu. NE M'OUBLIEZ PAS, MON
+CHER AMI." [_OEuvres,_ xxi. 304, 305.]
+
+This is one pleasant scene, to the Crown-Prince and us, in those grassy
+localities. And now we have to mention that, about a fortnight later,
+at Konigsberg one day, in reference to a certain Royal Stud or
+Horse-breeding Establishment in those same Lithuanian regions, there had
+a still livelier satisfaction happened him; satisfaction of a personal
+and filial nature. The name of this Royal Stud, inestimable on such
+ground, is Trakehnen,--lies south of Tilsit, in an upper valley of the
+Pregel river;--very extensive Horse-Establishment, "with seven farms
+under it," say the Books, and all "in the most perfect order," they need
+hardly add, Friedrich Wilhelm being master of it. Well, the Royal
+Party was at Konigsberg, so far on the road homewards again from those
+outlying parts, when Friedrich Wilhelm said one day to his Son, quite in
+a cursory manner, "I give thee that Stud of Trakehnen; thou must go back
+and look to it;" which struck Fritz quite dumb at the moment.
+
+For it is worth near upon 2,000 pounds a year (12,000 thalers); a
+welcome new item in our impoverished budget; and it is an undeniable
+sign of Papa's good-humor with us, which is more precious still. Fritz
+made his acknowledgments, eloquent with looks, eloquent with voice,
+on coming to himself; and is, in fact, very proud of his gift, and
+celebrates it to his Wilhelmina, to Camas and others who have a right to
+know such a thing. Grand useful gift; and handed over by Papa grandly,
+in three business words, as if it had been a brace of game: "I give it
+thee, Fritz!" A thing not to be forgotten. "At bottom, Friedrich Wilhelm
+was not avaricious" (not a miser, only a man grandly abhorring waste,
+as the poor vulgar cannot do), "not avaricious," says Pollnitz once;
+"he made munificent gifts, and never thought of them more." This of
+Trakehnen,--perhaps there might be a whiff of coming Fate concerned in
+it withal: "I shall soon be dead, not able to give thee anything, poor
+Fritz!" To the Prince and us it is very beautiful; a fine effulgence of
+the inner man of Friedrich Wilhelm. The Prince returned to Trakehnen, on
+this glad errand; settled the business details there; and, after a
+few days, went home by a route of his own;--well satisfied with this
+Prussian-Review journey, as we may imagine.
+
+     [SEE EARLIER---Prussian Review-journey (placing of hyphen)]
+
+One sad thing there was, though Friedrich did not yet know how sad, in
+this Review-journey: the new fit of illness that overtook his Majesty.
+From Pollnitz, who was of the party, we have details on that head.
+In his Majesty's last bad illness, five years ago, when all seemed
+hopeless, it appears the surgeons had relieved him,--in fact recovered
+him, bringing off the bad humors in quantity,--by an incision in the
+foot or leg. In the course of the present fatigues, this old wound broke
+out again; which of course stood much in the way of his Majesty; and
+could not be neglected, as probably the causes of it were. A regimental
+surgeon, Pollnitz says, was called in; who, in two days, healed the
+wound,--and declared all to be right again; though in fact, as we may
+judge, it was dangerously worse than before. "All well here," writes
+Friedrich; "the King has been out of order, but is now entirely
+recovered (TOUT A FAIT REMIS)." ["Konigsberg, 30th July, 1739," to his
+Wife (_OEuvres,_ xxvi. 6).]
+
+Much reviewing and heavy business followed at Konigsberg;--gift of
+Trakehnen, and departure of the Crown-Prince for Trakehnen, winding it
+up. Directly on the heel of which, his Majesty turned homewards, the
+Crown-Prince not to meet him till once at Berlin again. Majesty's first
+stage was at Pillau, where we have been. At Pillau, or next day at
+Dantzig, Pollnitz observed a change in his Majesty's humor, which had
+been quite sunshiny all this journey hitherto. At Dantzig Pollnitz
+first noticed it; but at every new stage it grew worse, evil accidents
+occurring to worsen it; and at Berlin it was worst of all;--and, alas,
+his poor Majesty never recovered his sunshine in this world again! Here
+is Pollnitz's account of the journey homewards:--
+
+"Till now," till Pillau and Dantzig, "his Majesty had been in especially
+good humor; but in Dantzig his cheerfulness forsook him;--and it never
+came back. He arrived about ten at night in that City [Wednesday, 12th
+August, or thereby]; slept there; and was off again next morning at
+five. He drove only thirty miles this day; stopped in Lupow [coast road
+through Pommern], with Herr von Grumkow [the late Grumkow's Brother],
+Kammer President in this Pommern Province. From Lupow he went to a poor
+Village near Belgard, EIGHTY miles farther;"--last village on the great
+road, Belgard lying to left a little, on a side road;--"and stayed there
+overnight.
+
+"At Belgard, next morning, he reviewed the Dragoon Regiment von
+Platen; and was very ill content with it. And nobody, with the least
+understanding of that business, but must own that never did Prussian
+Regiment manoeuvre worse. Conscious themselves how bad it was, they lost
+head, and got into open confusion. The King did all that was possible
+to help them into order again. He withdrew thrice over, to give the
+Officers time to recover themselves; but it was all in vain. The King,
+contrary to wont, restrained himself amazingly, and would not show his
+displeasure in public. He got into his carriage, and drove away with
+the Furst of Anhalt," Old Dessauer, "and Von Winterfeld," Captain in the
+Giant Regiment, "who is now Major-General von Winterfeld; [Major-General
+since 1743, of high fame; fell in fight, 7th September, 1757.] not
+staying to dine with General von Platen, as was always his custom with
+Commandants whom he had reviewed. He bade Prince Wilhelm and the rest of
+us stay and dine; he himself drove away,"--towards the great road again,
+and some uncertain lodging there.
+
+"We stayed accordingly; and did full justice to the good cheer,"--though
+poor Platen would certainly look flustered, one may fancy. "But as the
+Prince was anxious to come up with his Majesty again, and knew not where
+he would meet him, we had to be very swift with the business.
+
+"We found the King with Anhalt and Winterfeld, by and by; sitting in
+a village, in front of a barn, and eating a cold pie there, which the
+Furst of Anhalt had chanced to have with him; his Majesty, owing to what
+he had seen on the parade-ground, was in the utmost ill-humor (HOCHST
+UBLER LAUNE). Next day, Saturday, he went a hundred and fifty or two
+hundred miles; and arrived in Berlin at ten at night. Not expected there
+till the morrow; so that his rooms were locked,--her Majesty being over
+in Monbijou, giving her children a Ball;" [Pollnitz, ii. 534-537.]--and
+we can fancy what a frame of mind there was!
+
+Nobody, not at first even the Doctors, much heeded this new fit of
+illness; which went and came: "changed temper," deeper or less deep
+gloom of "bad humor," being the main phenomenon to by-standers. But the
+sad truth was, his Majesty never did recover his sunshine; from Pillau
+onwards he was slowly entering into the shadows of the total Last
+Eclipse; and his journeyings and reviewings in this world were all done.
+Ten months hence, Pollnitz and others knew better what it had been!--
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII. -- LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER
+PERSONS AND THINGS.
+
+Friedrich had not been long home again from Trakehnen and Preussen,
+when the routine of things at Reinsberg was illuminated by Visitors, of
+brilliant and learned quality; some of whom, a certain Signor Algarotti
+for one, require passing mention here. Algarotti, who became a permanent
+friend or satellite, very luminous to the Prince, and was much about him
+in coming years, first shone out upon the scene at this time,--coming
+unexpectedly, and from the Eastward as it chanced.
+
+On his own score, Algarotti has become a wearisome literary man to
+modern readers: one of those half-remembered men; whose books seem to
+claim a reading, and do not repay it you when given. Treatises, of a
+serious nature, ON THE OPERA; setting forth, in earnest, the potential
+"moral uses" of the Opera, and dedicated to Chatham; _Neutonianismo per
+le Donne_ (Astronomy for Ladies): the mere Titles of such things are
+fatally sufficient to us; and we cannot, without effort, nor with it,
+recall the brilliancy of Algarotti and them to his contemporary world.
+
+Algarotti was a rich Venetian Merchant's Son, precisely about the
+Crown-Prince's age; shone greatly in his studies at Bologna and
+elsewhere; had written Poesies (RIME); written especially that
+_Newtonianism for the Dames_ (equal to Fontenelle, said Fame, and
+orthodox Newtonian withal, not heterodox or Cartesian); and had shone,
+respected, at Paris, on the strength of it, for three or four years
+past: friend of Voltaire in consequence, of Voltaire and his divine
+Emilie, and a welcome guest at Cirey; friend of the cultivated world
+generally, which was then laboring, divine Emilie in the van of it,
+to understand Newton and be orthodox in this department of things.
+Algarotti did fine Poesies, too, once and again; did Classical
+Scholarships, and much else: everywhere a clear-headed, methodically
+distinct, concise kind of man. A high style of breeding about him,
+too; had powers of pleasing, and used them: a man beautifully lucent in
+society, gentle yet impregnable there; keeping himself unspotted from
+the world and its discrepancies,--really with considerable prudence,
+first and last.
+
+He is somewhat of the Bielfeld type; a Merchant's Son, we observe, like
+Bielfeld; but a Venetian Merchant's, not a Hamburg's; and also of better
+natural stuff than Bielfeld. Concentrated himself upon his task with
+more seriousness, and made a higher thing of it than Bielfeld; though,
+after all, it was the same task the two had. Alas, our "Swan of
+Padua" (so they sometimes called him) only sailed, paddling grandly,
+no-whither,--as the Swan-Goose of the Elbe did, in a less stately
+manner! One cannot well bear to read his Books. There is no light upon
+Friedrich to tempt us; better light than Bielfeld's there could have
+been, and much of it: but he prudently, as well as proudly, forbore such
+topics. He approaches very near fertility and geniality in his writings,
+but never reaches it. Dilettantism become serious and strenuous, in
+those departments--Well, it was beautiful to young Friedrich and
+the world at that time, though it is not to us!--Young Algarotti,
+twenty-seven this year, has been touring about as a celebrity these four
+years past, on the strength of his fine manners and _Newtonianism for
+the Dames._
+
+It was under escort of Baltimore, "an English Milord," recommended from
+Potsdam itself, that Algarotti came to Reinsberg; the Signor had much to
+do with English people now and after. Where Baltimore first picked him
+up, I know not: but they have been to Russia together; Baltimore by
+twelve years the elder of the two: and now, getting home towards
+England again, they call at Reinsberg in the fine Autumn weather;--and
+considerably captivate the Crown-Prince, Baltimore playing chief,
+in that as in other points. The visit lasted five days: [20th-25th
+September, 1739 (_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xiv. p. xiv).] there was copious
+speech on many things;--discussion about Printing of the ANTI MACHIAVEL;
+Algarotti to get it printed in England, Algarotti to get Pine and
+his Engraved HENRIADE put under way; neither of which projects took
+effect;--readers can conceive what a charming five days these were.
+Here, in the Crown-Prince's own words, are some brief glimmerings which
+will suffice us:--
+
+REINSBERG, 25th SEPT. 1739 (Crown-Prince to Papa).... that "nothing new
+has occurred in the Regiment, and we have few sick. Here has the English
+Milord, who was at Potsdam, passing through [stayed five days, though
+we call it passing, and suppress the Algarotti, Baltimore being indeed
+chief]. He is gone towards Hamburg, to take ship for England there. As
+I heard that my Most All-gracious Father wished I should show him
+courtesy, I have done for him what I could. The Prince of Mirow has also
+been here,"--our old Strelitz friend. Of Baltimore nothing more to
+Papa. But to another Correspondent, to the good Suhm (who is now at
+Petersburg, and much in our intimacy, ready to transact loans for us,
+translate Wolf, or do what is wanted), there is this passage next day:--
+
+REINSBERG, 26th SEPTEMBER, 1739 (to Suhm). "We have had Milord
+Baltimore here, and the young Algarotti; both of them men who, by their
+accomplishments, cannot but conciliate the esteem and consideration
+of all who see them. We talked much of you [Suhm], of Philosophy, of
+Science, Art; in short, of all that can be included in the taste of
+cultivated people (HONNETES GENS)." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvi. 378.]
+And again to another, about two weeks hence:--
+
+REINSBERG, 10th OCTOBER, 1739 (to Voltaire). "We have had Milord
+Baltimore and Algarotti here, who are going back to England. This Milord
+is a very sensible man (HOMME TRESSENSE); who possesses a great deal of
+knowledge, and thinks, like us, that sciences can be no disparagement to
+nobility, nor degrade an illustrious rank. I admired the genius of this
+ANGLAIS, as one does a fine face through a crape veil. He speaks French
+very ill, yet one likes to hear him speak it; and as for his English,
+he pronounces it so quick, there is no possibility of following him. He
+calls a Russian 'a mechanical animal.' He says 'Petersburg is the eye
+of Russia, with which it keeps civilized countries in sight; if you took
+this eye from it, Russia would fall again into barbarism, out of which
+it is just struggling.' [Ib. xxi. 326, 327.]... Young Algarotti,
+whom you know, pleased me beyond measure. He promised that he"--But
+Baltimore, promise or not, is the chief figure at present.
+
+Evidently an original kind of figure to us, CET ANGLAIS. And indeed
+there is already finished a rhymed EPISTLE to Baltimore; _Epitre sur la
+Liberte_ (copy goes in that same LETTER, for Voltaire's behoof), which
+dates itself likewise October 10th; beginning,--_"L'esprit libre,
+Milord, qui regne en Angleterre,"_ which, though it is full of fine
+sincere sentiments, about human dignity, papal superstition, Newton,
+Locke, and aspirations for progress of culture in Prussia, no reader
+could stand at this epoch.
+
+What Baltimore said in answer to the EPITRE, we do not know; probably
+not much: it does not appear he ever saw or spoke to Friedrich a second
+time. Three weeks after, Friedrich writing to Algarotti, has these
+words: "I pray you make my friendships to Milord Baltimore, whose
+character and manner of thinking I truly esteem. I hope he has, by this
+time, got my EPITRE on the English Liberty of Thought." [29th October
+1739, To Algarotti in London (_OEuvres,_ xviii. 5).] And so Baltimore
+passes on, silent in History henceforth,--though Friedrich seems to have
+remembered him to late times, as a kind of type-figure when England came
+into his head. For the sake of this small transit over the sun's disk, I
+have made some inquiry about Baltimore; but found very little;--perhaps
+enough:--
+
+"He was Charles, Sixth Lord Baltimore, it appears; Sixth, and last
+but one. First of the Baltimores, we know, was Secretary Calvert
+(1618-1624), who colonized Maryland; last of them (1774) was the Son
+of this Charles; something of a fool, to judge by the face of him in
+Portraits, and by some of his doings in the world. He, that Seventh
+Baltimore, printed one or two little Volumes "now of extreme
+rarity"--(cannot be too rare); and winded up by standing an ugly Trial
+at Kingston Assizes (plaintiff an unfortunate female). After which he
+retired to Naples, and there ended, 1774, the last of these Milords.
+[Walpole (by Park), _Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors_ (London,
+1806), v. 278.]
+
+"He of the Kingston Assizes, we say, was not this Charles; but his
+Son, whom let the reader forget. Charles, age forty at this time, had
+travelled about the Continent a good deal: once, long ago, we imagined
+we had got a glimpse of him (but it was a guess merely) lounging
+about Luneville and Lorraine, along with Lyttelton, in the
+Congress-of-Soissons time? Not long after that, it is certain enough,
+he got appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince Fred; who was a
+friend of speculative talkers and cultivated people. In which situation
+Charles Sixth Baron Baltimore continued all his days after; and might
+have risen by means of Fred, as he was anxious enough to do, had both of
+them lived; but they both died; Baltimore first, in 1751, a year before
+Fred. Bubb Doddington, diligent laborer in the same Fred vineyard,
+was much infested by this Baltimore,--who, drunk or sober (for he
+occasionally gets into liquor), is always putting out Bubb, and
+stands too well with our Royal Master, one secretly fears! Baltimore's
+finances, I can guess, were not in too good order; mostly an Absentee;
+Irish Estates not managed in the first style, while one is busy in the
+Fred vineyard! 'The best and honestest man in the world, with a good
+deal of jumbled knowledge,' Walpole calls him once: 'but not capable of
+conducting a party.'" [Walpole's _Letters to Mann_ (London, 1843), ii.
+175; 27th January, 1747. See ib. i. 82.] Oh no;--and died, at any rate,
+Spring 1751: [_Peerage of Ireland_ (London, 1768), ii. 172-174.] and we
+will not mention him farther.
+
+
+
+
+BIELFELD, WHAT HE SAW AT REINSBERG AND AROUND.
+
+Directly on the rear of these fine visitors, came, by invitation, a pair
+of the Korn's-Hotel people; Masonic friends; one of whom was Bielfeld,
+whose dainty Installation Speech and ways of procedure had been of
+promise to the Prince on that occasion. "Baron von Oberg" was the
+other:--Hanoverian Baron: the same who went into the Wars, and was a
+"General von Oberg" twenty years hence? The same or another, it does
+not much concern us. Nor does the visit much, or at all; except that
+Bielfeld, being of writing nature, professes to give ocular account
+of it. Honest transcript of what a human creature actually saw at
+Reinsberg, and in the Berlin environment at that date, would have had
+a value to mankind: but Bielfeld has adopted the fictitious form;
+and pretty much ruined for us any transcript there is. Exaggeration,
+gesticulation, fantastic uncertainty afflict the reader; and prevent
+comfortable belief, except where there is other evidence than
+Bielfeld's.
+
+At Berlin the beautiful straight streets, Linden Avenues (perhaps a
+better sample than those of our day), were notable to Bielfeld; bridges,
+statues very fine; grand esplanades, and such military drilling and
+parading as was never seen. He had dinner-invitations, too, in quantity;
+likes this one and that (all in prudent asterisks),---likes Truchsess
+von Waldburg very much, and his strange mode of bachelor housekeeping,
+and the way he dines and talks among his fellow-creatures, or sits
+studious among his Military Books and Paper-litters. But all is loose
+far-off sketching, in the style of _Anacharsis the Younger;_ and makes
+no solid impression.
+
+Getting to Reinsberg, to the Town, to the Schloss, he crosses the
+esplanade, the moat; sees what we know, beautiful square Mansion among
+its woods and waters;--and almost nothing that we do not know, except
+the way the moat-bridge is lighted: "Bridge furnished," he says, "with
+seven Statues representing the seven Planets, each holding in her hand
+a glass lamp in the form of a globe;"--which is a pretty object in the
+night-time. The House is now finished; Knobelsdorf rejoicing in his
+success; Pesne and others giving the last touch to some ceilings of
+a sublime nature. On the lintel of the gate is inscribed FREDERICO
+TRANQUILLITATEM COLENTI (To Friedrich courting Tranquillity). The
+gardens, walks, hermitages, grottos, are very spacious, fine: not yet
+completed,--perhaps will never be. A Temple of Bacchus is just now on
+hand, somewhere in those labyrinthic woods: "twelve gigantic Satyrs as
+caryatides, crowned by an inverted Punch-bowl for dome;" that is the
+ingenious Knobelsdorf's idea, pleasant to the mind. Knobelsdorf is of
+austere aspect; austere, yet benevolent and full of honest sagacity;
+the very picture of sound sense, thinks Bielfeld. M. Jordan is handsome,
+though of small stature; agreeable expression of face; eye extremely
+vivid; brown complexion, bushy eyebrows as well as beard are black.
+[Bielfeld (abridged), i. 45.]
+
+Or did the reader ever hear of "M. Fredersdorf," Head Valet at this
+time? Fredersdorf will become, as it were, Privy-Purse, House-Friend,
+and domestic Factotum, and play a great part in coming years. "A tall
+handsome man;" much "silent sense, civility, dexterity;" something
+"magnificently clever in him," thinks Bielfeld (now, or else twenty
+years afterwards); whom we can believe. [Ib. p. 49.] He was a gift
+from General Schwerin, this Fredersdorf; once a Private in Schwerin's
+regiment, at Frankfurt-on-Oder,--excellent on the flute, for one
+quality. Schwerin, who had an eye for men, sent him to Friedrich, in the
+Custrin time; hoping he might suit in fluting and otherwise. Which he
+conspicuously did. Bielfeld's account, we must candidly say, appears
+to be an afterthought; but readers can make their profit of it, all the
+same.
+
+As to the Crown-Prince and Princess, words fail to express
+their gracious perfections, their affabilities, polite
+ingenuities:--Bielfeld's words do give us some pleasant shadowy
+conceivability of the Crown-Princess:--
+
+"Tall, and perfect in shape; bust such as a sculptor might copy;
+complexion of the finest; features ditto; nose, I confess, smallish
+and pointed, but excellent of that kind; hair of the supremest flaxen,
+'shining' like a flood of sunbeams, when the powder is off it. A humane
+ingenuous Princess; little negligences in toilet or the like, if such
+occur, even these set her off, so ingenuous are they. Speaks little;
+but always to the purpose, in a simple, cheerful and wise way. Dances
+beautifully; heart (her soubrette assures me) is heavenly;--and 'perhaps
+no Princess living has a finer set of diamonds.'"
+
+Of the Crown-Princess there is some pleasant shadow traced as on cobweb,
+to this effect. But of the Crown-Prince there is no forming the
+least conception from what he says:--this is mere cobweb with Nothing
+elaborately painted on it. Nor do the portraits of the others attract
+by their verisimilitude. Here is Colonel Keyserling, for instance; the
+witty Courlander, famous enough in the Friedrich circle; who went on
+embassy to Cirey, and much else: he "whirls in with uproar (FRACAS)
+like Boreas in the Ballet;" fowling-piece on shoulder, and in his
+"dressing-gown" withal, which is still stranger; snatches off Bielfeld,
+unknown till that moment, to sit by him while dressing; and there, with
+much capering, pirouetting, and indeed almost ground-and-lofty
+tumbling, for accompaniment, "talks of Horses, Mathematics, Painting,
+Architecture, Literature, and the Art of War," while he dresses. This
+gentleman was once Colonel in Friedrich Wilhelm's Army; is now fairly
+turned of forty, and has been in troubles: we hope he is not LIKE in the
+Bielfeld Portrait;--otherwise, how happy that we never had the honor of
+knowing him! Indeed, the Crown-Prince's Household generally, as Bielfeld
+paints it in flourishes of panegyric, is but unattractive; barren to
+the modern on-looker; partly the Painter's blame, we doubt not. He gives
+details about their mode of dining, taking coffee, doing concert;--and
+describes once an incidental drinking-bout got up aforethought by the
+Prince; which is probably in good part fiction, though not ill done.
+These fantastic sketchings, rigorously winnowed into the credible and
+actual, leave no great residue in that kind; but what little they do
+leave is of favorable and pleasant nature.
+
+Bielfeld made a visit privately to Potsdam, too: saw the Giants drill;
+made acquaintance with important Captains of theirs (all in ASTERISKS)
+at Potsdam; with whom he dined, not in a too credible manner, and even
+danced. Among the asterisks, we easily pick out Captain Wartensleben
+(of the Korn's-Hotel operation), and Winterfeld, a still more important
+Captain, whom we saw dining on cold pie with his Majesty, at a barn-door
+in Pommern, not long since. Of the Giants, or their life at Potsdam,
+Bielfeld's word is not worth hearing,--worth suppressing rather; his
+knowledge being so small, and hung forth in so fantastic a way. This
+transient sight he had of his Majesty in person; this, which is
+worth something to us,--fact being evidently lodged in it, "After
+church-parade," Autumn Sunday afternoon (day uncertain, Bielfeld's
+date being fictitious, and even impossible), Majesty drove out to
+Wusterhausen, "where the quantities of game surpass all belief;" and
+Bielfeld had one glimpse of him:--
+
+"I saw his Majesty only, as it were, in passing. If I may judge by his
+Portraits, he must have been of a perfect beauty in his young time; but
+it must be confessed there is nothing left of it now. His eyes truly are
+fine; but the glance of them is terrible: his complexion is composed
+of the strongest tints of red, blue, yellow, green,"--not a lovely
+complexion at all; "big head; the thick neck sunk between the shoulders;
+figure short and heavy (COURTE ET RAMASSEE)." [Bielfeld, p. 35.]
+
+"Going out to Wusterhausen," then, that afternoon, "October, 1739." How
+his Majesty is crushed down; quite bulged out of shape in that sad way,
+by the weight of time and its pressures: his thoughts, too, most likely,
+of a heavy-laden and abstruse nature! The old Pfalz Controversy has
+misgone with him: Pfalz, and so much else in the world;--the world in
+whole, probably enough, near ending to him; the final shadows, sombre,
+grand and mournful, closing in upon him!
+
+
+
+
+TURK WAR ENDS; SPANISH WAR BEGINS. A WEDDING IN PETERSBURG.
+
+Last news come to Potsdam in these days is, The Kaiser has ended his
+disastrous Turk War; been obliged to end it; sudden downbreak, and as it
+were panic terror, having at last come upon his unfortunate Generals in
+those parts. Duke Franz was passionate to be out of such a thing; Franz,
+General Neipperg and others; and now, "2d September, 1739," like lodgers
+leaping from a burning house, they are out of it. The Turk gets Belgrade
+itself, not to mention wide territories farther east,--Belgrade without
+shot fired;--nay the Turk was hardly to be kept from hanging the
+Imperial Messenger (a General Neipperg, Duke Franz's old Tutor, and
+chief Confidant, whom we shall hear more of elsewhere), whose passport
+was not quite right on this occasion!--Never was a more disgraceful
+Peace. But also never had been worse fighting; planless, changeful,
+powerless, melting into futility at every step:--not to be mended by
+imprisonments in Gratz, and still harsher treatment of individuals. "Has
+all success forsaken me, then, since Eugene died?" said the Kaiser; and
+snatched at this Turk Peace; glad to have it, by mediation of France,
+and on any terms.
+
+Has not this Kaiser lost his outlying properties at a fearful rate?
+Naples is gone; Spanish Bourbon sits in our Naples; comparatively
+little left for us in Italy. And now the very Turk has beaten us small;
+insolently fillips the Imperial nose of us,--threatening to hang our
+Neipperg, and the like. Were it not for Anne of Russia, whose big
+horse-whip falls heavy on this Turk, he might almost get to Vienna
+again, for anything we could do! A Kaiser worthy to be pitied;--whom
+Friedrich Wilhelm, we perceive, does honestly pity. A Kaiser much
+beggared, much disgraced, in late years; who has played a huge life-game
+so long, diplomatizing, warring; and, except the Shadow of Pragmatic
+Sanction, has nothing to retire upon.
+
+The Russians protested, with astonishment, against such Turk Peace on
+the Kaiser's part. But there was no help for it. One ally is gone, the
+Kaiser has let go this Western skirt of the Turk; and "Thamas Kouli
+Khan" (called also Nadir Shah, famed Oriental slasher and slayer of that
+time) no longer stands upon the Eastern skirt, but "has entered India,"
+it appears: the Russians--their cash, too, running low--do themselves
+make peace, "about a month after;" restoring Azoph and nearly all their
+conquests; putting off the ruin of the Turk till a better time.
+
+War is over in the East, then; but another in the West, England against
+Spain (Spain and France to help), is about beginning. Readers remember
+how Jenkins's Ear re-emerged, Spring gone a year, in a blazing
+condition? Here, through SYLVANUS URBAN himself, are two direct
+glimpses, a twelve-month nearer hand, which show us how the matter has
+been proceeding since:--
+
+"LONDON, 19th FEBRUARY, 1739. The City Authorities,"--laying or going to
+lay "the foundation of the Mansion-House" (Edifice now very black in our
+time), and doing other things of little moment to us, "had a Masquerade
+at the Guildhall this night. There was a very splendid appearance at the
+Masquerade; but among the many humorous and whimsical characters, what
+seemed most to engage attention was a Spaniard, who called himself
+'Knight of the Ear;' as Badge of which Order he wore on his breast the
+form of a Star, with its points tinged in blood; and on the body of it
+an Ear painted, and in capital letters the word JENKINS encircling it.
+Across his shoulder there hung, instead of ribbon, a large Halter; which
+he held up to several persons dressed as English Sailors, who seemed in
+great terror of him, and falling on their knees suffered him to rummage
+their pockets; which done, he would insolently dismiss them with strokes
+of his halter. Several of the Sailors had a bloody Ear hanging down from
+their heads; and on their hats were these words, EAR FOR EAR; on others,
+NO SEARCH OR NO TRADE; with the like sentences." [_Gentleman's
+Magazine_ for 1739, p. 103;--our DATES, as always, are N. 8.] The
+conflagration evidently going on; not likely to be damped down again, by
+ministerial art!--
+
+"LONDON, 19th MARCH, 1739." Grand Debate in Parliament, on the late
+"Spanish Convention," pretended Bargain of redress lately got from
+Spain: Approve the Convention, or Not approve? "A hundred Members were
+in the House of Commons before seven, this morning; and four hundred had
+taken their seat by ten; which is an unheard-of thing. Prince of Wales,"
+Fred in person, "was in the gallery till twelve at night, and had his
+dinner sent to him. Sir Robert Walpole rose: 'Sir, the great pains
+that have been taken to influence all ranks and degrees of men in this
+Nation--... But give me leave to'"--apply a wet cloth to Honorable
+Gentlemen. Which he does, really with skill and sense. France and the
+others are so strong, he urges; England so unprepared; Kaiser at such
+a pass; 'War like to be, about the Palatinate Dispute [our friend
+Friedrich Wilhelm's]: Where is England to get, allies?'--and hours long
+of the like sort. A judicious wet cloth; which proved unavailing.
+
+For "William Pitts" (so they spell the great Chatham that is to be) was
+eloquent on the other side: "Despairing Merchants," "Voice of England,"
+and so on. And the world was all in an inflamed state. And Mr. Pulteney
+exclaimed: Palatinate? Allies? "We need no allies; the case of Mr.
+Jenkins will raise us volunteers everywhere!" And in short,--after eight
+months more of haggling, and applying wet cloths,--Walpole, in the
+name of England, has to declare War against Spain; ["3d November (23d
+October), 1739."] the public humor proving unquenchable on that matter.
+War; and no Peace to be, "till our undoubted right," to roadway on
+the oceans of this Planet, become permanently manifest to the Spanish
+Majesty.
+
+Such the effect of a small Ear, kept about one in cotton, from ursine
+piety or other feelings. Has not Jenkins's Ear re-emerged, with a
+vengeance? It has kindled a War: dangerous for kindling other Wars, and
+setting the whole world on fire,--as will be too evident in the sequel!
+The EAR OF JENKINS is a singular thing. Might have mounted to be a
+constellation, like BERENICE'S HAIR, and other small facts become
+mythical, had the English People been of poetic turn! Enough of IT, for
+the time being.--
+
+This Summer, Anton Ulrich, at Petersburg, did wed his Serene Mecklenburg
+Princess, Heiress of all the Russias: "July 14th, 1739,"--three months
+before that Drive to Wusterhausen, which we saw lately. Little
+Anton Ulrich, Cadet of Brunswick; our Friedrich's Brother-in-Law;--a
+noticeably small man in comparison to such bulk of destiny, thinks
+Friedrich, though the case is not without example! [A Letter of his to
+Suhm; touching on Franz of Lorraine and this Anton Ulrich.]
+
+"Anton Ulrich is now five-and-twenty," says one of my Notebooks;
+"a young gentleman of small stature, shining courage in battle, but
+somewhat shy and bashful; who has had his troubles in Petersburg
+society, till the trial came,--and will have. Here are the stages of
+Anton Ulrich's felicity:--
+
+"WINTER, 1732-1733. He was sent for to Petersburg (his Serene Aunt the
+German Kaiserinn, and Kaiser Karl's diplomatists, suggesting it there),
+with the view of his paying court to the young Mecklenburg Princess,
+Heiress of all the Russias, of whom we have often heard. February, 1733,
+he arrived on this errand;--not approved of at all by the Mecklenburg
+Princess, by Czarina Anne or anybody there: what can be done with
+such an uncomfortable little creature? They gave him the Colonelcy of
+Cuirassiers: 'Drill there, and endure.'
+
+"SPRING, 1737. Much-enduring, diligently drilling, for four years past,
+he went this year to the Turk War under Munnich;--much pleased Munnich,
+at Oczakow and elsewhere; who reports in the War-Office high things of
+him. And on the whole,--the serene Vienna people now again
+bestirring themselves, with whom we are in copartnery in this Turk
+business,--little Anton Ulrich is encouraged to proceed. Proceeds;
+formally demands his Mecklenburg Princess; and,
+
+"JULY 14th, 1739, weds her; the happiest little man in all the Russias,
+and with the biggest destiny, if it prosper. Next year, too, there
+came a son and heir; whom they called Iwan, in honor of his Russian
+Great-grandfather. Shall we add the subsequent felicities of Anton
+Ulrich here; or wait till another opportunity?"
+
+Better wait. This is all, and more than all, his Prussian Majesty,
+rolling out of Wusterhausen that afternoon, ever knew of them, or needed
+to know!--
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII. -- DEATH OF FRIEDRICH WILHELM.
+
+At Wusterhausen, this Autumn, there is game as usual, but little or
+no hunting for the King. He has to sit drearily within doors, for most
+part; listening to the rustle of falling leaves, to dim Winter coming
+with its rains and winds. Field-sports are a rumor from without: for him
+now no joyous sow-baiting, deer-chasing;--that, like other things, is
+past.
+
+In the beginning of November, he came to Berlin; was worse there, and
+again was better;--strove to do the Carnival, as had been customary;
+but, in a languid, lamed manner. One night he looked in upon an
+evening-party which General Schulenburg was giving: he returned home,
+chilled, shivering, could not, all night, be brought to heat again.
+It was the last evening-party Friedrich Wilhelm ever went to. [Pollnitz
+(ii. 538); who gives no date.] Lieutenant-General Schulenburg: the same
+who doomed young Friedrich to death, as President of the Court-Martial;
+and then wrote the Three Letters about him which we once looked into:
+illuminates himself in this manner in Berlin society,--Carnival
+season, 1740, weather fiercely cold. Maypole Schulenburg the lean Aunt,
+Ex-Mistress of George I., over in London,--I think she must now be dead?
+Or if not dead, why not! Memory, for the tenth time, fails me, of the
+humanly unmemorable, whom perhaps even flunkies should forget; and I
+will try it no more. The stalwart Lieutenant-General will reappear on
+us once, twice at the utmost, and never again. He gave the last
+evening-party Friedrich Wilhelm ever went to.
+
+Poor Friedrich Wilhelm is in truth very ill; tosses about all day, in
+and out of bed,--bed and wheeled-chair drearily alternating; suffers
+much;--and again, in Diplomatic circles, the rumors are rife and
+sinister. Ever from this chill at Schulenburg's the medicines did him
+no good, says Pollnitz: if he rallied, it was the effect of Nature, and
+only temporary. He does daily, with punctuality, his Official business;
+perhaps the best two hours he has of the four-and-twenty, for the
+time hangs heavy on him. His old Generals sit round his bed, talking,
+smoking, as it was five years ago; his Feekin and his Children much
+about him, out and in: the heavy-laden, weary hours roll round as they
+can. In general there is a kind of constant Tabaks-Collegium, old Flans,
+Camas, Hacke, Pollnitz, Derschau, and the rest by turns always there;
+the royal Patient cannot be left alone, without faces he likes: other
+Generals, estimable in their way, have a physiognomy displeasing to the
+sick man; and will smart for it if they enter,--"At sight of HIM every
+pain grows painfuler!"--the poor King being of poetic temperament, as
+we often say. Friends are encouraged to smoke, especially to keep up
+a stream of talk; if at any time he fall into a doze and they cease
+talking, the silence will awaken him.
+
+He is worst off in the night; sleep very bad: and among his sore bodily
+pains, ennui falls very heavy to a mind so restless. He can paint, he
+can whittle, chisel: at last they even mount him a table, in his
+bed, with joiner's tools, mallets, glue-pots, where he makes small
+carpentry,--the talk to go on the while;--often at night is the sound of
+his mallet audible in the Palace Esplanade; and Berlin townsfolk pause
+to listen, with many thoughts of a sympathetic or at least inarticulate
+character: "HM, WEH, IHRO MAJESTAT: ACH GOTT, pale Death knocks with
+impartial foot at the huts of poor men and the Palaces of Kings!"
+[Pollnitz, ii. 539.] Reverend Herr Roloff, whom they call Provost
+(PROBST, Chief Clergyman) Roloff, a pious honest man and preacher, he,
+I could guess, has already been giving spiritual counsel now and then;
+later interviews with Roloff are expressly on record: for it is the
+King's private thought, ever and anon borne in upon him, that death
+itself is in this business.
+
+Queen and Children, mostly hoping hitherto, though fearing too, live
+in much anxiety and agitation. The Crown-Prince is often over from
+Reinsberg; must not come too often, nor even inquire too much: his
+affectionate solicitude might be mistaken for solicitude of another
+kind! It is certain he is in no haste to be King; to quit the haunts of
+the Muses, and embark on Kingship. Certain, too, he loves his Father;
+shudders at the thought of losing HIM. And yet again there will gleams
+intrude of a contrary thought; which the filial heart disowns, with a
+kind of horror, "Down, thou impious thought!"--We perceive he manages in
+general to push the crisis away from him; to believe that real danger is
+still distant. His demeanor, so far as we can gather from his Letters or
+other evidence, is amiable, prudent, natural; altogether that of a human
+Son in those difficult circumstances. Poor Papa is heavy-laden: let us
+help to bear his burdens;--let us hope the crisis is still far off!--
+
+Once, on a favorable evening, probably about the beginning of April,
+when he felt as if improving, Friedrich Wilhelm resolved to dress, and
+hold Tobacco-Parliament again in a formal manner, Let us look in
+there, through the eyes of Pollnitz, who was of it, upon the last
+Tobacco-Parliament:--
+
+"A numerous party; Schwerin, Hacke, Derschau, all the chiefs and
+commandants of the Berlin Garrison are there; the old circle full;
+social human speech once more, and pipes alight; pleasant to the King.
+He does not himself smoke on this occasion; but he is unusually lively
+in talk; much enjoys the returning glimpse of old days; and the Tobacco
+circle was proceeding through its phases, successful beyond common. All
+at once the Crown-Prince steps in; direct from Reinsberg: [12th April,
+1740? (_OEuvres,_ xxvii. part lst, p. 29); Pollnitz is dateless] an
+unexpected pleasure. At sight of whom the Tobacco circle, taken on
+the sudden, simultaneously started up, and made him a bow. Rule is, in
+Tobacco-Parliament you do not rise--for anybody; and they have risen.
+Which struck the sick heart in a strange painful way. 'Hm, the Rising
+Sun?' thinks he; 'Rules broken through, for the Rising Sun. But I am not
+dead yet, as you shall know!' ringing for his servants in great wrath;
+and had himself rolled out, regardless of protestations and excuses.
+'Hither, you Hacke!' said he.
+
+"Hacke followed; but it was only to return on the instant, with the
+King's order, 'That you instantly quit the Palace, all of you, and don't
+come back!' Solemn respectful message to his Majesty was of no effect,
+or of less; they had to go, on those terms; and Pollnitz, making for
+his Majesty's apartment next morning as usual, was twitched by a
+Gens-d'arme, 'No admittance!' And it was days before the matter would
+come round again, under earnest protestations from the one side, and
+truculent rebukes from the other." [Pollnitz (abridged), ii. 50.] Figure
+the Crown-Prince, figure the poor sick Majesty; and what a time in those
+localities!
+
+With the bright spring weather he seemed to revive; towards the end of
+April he resolved for Potsdam, everybody thinking him much better, and
+the outer Public reckoning the crisis of the illness over. He himself
+knew other. It was on the 27th of the month that he went; he said, "Fare
+thee well, then, Berlin; I am to die in Potsdam, then (ICH WERDE IN
+POTSDAM STERBEN)!" The May-flowers came late; the weather was changeful,
+ungenial for the sick man: this winter of 1740 had been the coldest
+on record; it extended itself into the very summer; and brought great
+distress of every kind;--of which some oral rumor still survives in
+all countries. Friedrich Wilhelm heard complaints of scarcity among the
+people; admonitions to open his Corn-granaries (such as he always has
+in store against that kind of accident); but he still hesitated and
+refused; unable to look into it himself, and fearing deceptions.
+
+For the rest, he is struggling between death and life; in general
+persuaded that the end is fast hastening on. He sends for Chief Preacher
+Roloff out to Potsdam; has some notable dialogues with Roloff, and with
+two other Potsdam Clergymen, of which there is record still left us.
+In these, as in all his demeanor at this supreme time, we see the big
+rugged block of manhood come out very vividly; strong in his simplicity,
+in his veracity. Friedrich Wilhelm's wish is to know from Roloff what
+the chances are for him in the other world,--which is not less certain
+than Potsdam and the giant grenadiers to Friedrich Wilhelm; and where,
+he perceives, never half so clearly before, he shall actually peel off
+his Kinghood, and stand before God Almighty, no better than a naked
+beggar. Roloff's prognostics are not so encouraging as the King had
+hoped. Surely this King "never took or coveted what was not his; kept
+true to his marriage-vow, in spite of horrible examples everywhere;
+believed the Bible, honored the Preachers, went diligently to Church,
+and tried to do what he understood God's commandments were?" To all
+which Roloff, a courageous pious man, answers with discreet words and
+shakings of the head, "Did I behave ill, then; did I ever do injustice?"
+Roloff mentions Baron Schlubhut the defalcating Amtmann, hanged at
+Konigsberg without even a trial. "He had no trial; but was there any
+doubt he had justice? A public thief, confessing he had stolen the taxes
+he was set to gather; insolently offering, as if that were all, to
+repay the money, and saying, It was not MANIER (good manners) to hang
+a nobleman!" Roloff shakes his head, Too violent, your Majesty, and
+savoring of the tyrannous. The poor King must repent.
+
+"Well,--is there anything more? Out with it, then; better now than too
+late!"--Much oppression, forcing men to build in Berlin.--"Oppression?
+was it not their benefit, as well as Berlin's and the Country's? I had
+no interest in it other. Derschau, you who managed it?" and his Majesty
+turned to Derschau. For all the smoking generals and company are still
+here; nor will his Majesty consent to dismiss them from the presence
+and be alone with Roloff: "What is there to conceal? They are people of
+honor, and my friends." Derschau, whose feats in the building way are
+not unknown even to us, answers with a hard face, It was all right and
+orderly; nothing out of square in his building operations. To which
+Roloff shakes his head: "A thing of public notoriety, Herr General."--"I
+will prove everything before a Court," answers the Herr General with
+still harder face; Roloff still austerely shaking his head. Hm!--And
+then there is forgiveness of enemies; your Majesty is bound to forgive
+all men, or how can you ask to be forgiven? "Well, I will, I do; you
+Feekin, write to your Brother (unforgivablest of beings), after I am
+dead, that I forgave him, died in peace with him."--Better her Majesty
+should write at once, suggests Roloff.--"No, after I am dead," persists
+the Son of Nature,--that will be safer! [Wrote accordingly, "not able to
+finish without many tears;" honest sensible Letter (though indifferently
+spelt), "Berlin, 1st June, 1740;"--lies now in State-Paper Office:
+"ROYAL LETTERS, vol. xciv., Prussia, 1689-1777."] An unwedgeable and
+gnarled big block of manhood and simplicity and sincerity; such as we
+rarely get sight of among the modern sons of Adam, among the crowned
+sons nearly never. At parting he said to Roloff, "You (ER, He) do not
+spare me; it is right. You do your duty like an honest Christian man."
+[_Notata ex ore Roloffi_ ("found among the Seckendorf Papers," no date
+but "May 1740"), in Forster, ii. 154, 155; in a fragmentary state:
+completed in Pollnitz, ii. 545-549.]
+
+Roloff, I perceive, had several Dialogues with the King; and stayed in
+Potsdam some days for that object. The above bit of jotting is from
+the Seckendorf Papers (probably picked up by Seckendorf Junior), and is
+dated only "May." Of the two Potsdam Preachers, one of whom is "Oesfeld,
+Chaplain of the Giant Grenadiers," and the other is "Cochius, Calvinist
+Hofprediger," each published on his own score some Notes of dialogue and
+circumstance; [Cochius the HOFPREDIGER'S (Calvinist Court-Chaplain's)
+ACCOUNT of his Interviews (first of them "Friday, 27th May, 1740, about
+9 P.M."); followed by ditto from Oesfeld (Chaplain of the Giants), who
+usually accompanied Cochius,--are in Seyfarth, _Geschichte Friedrich
+des Grossen_ (Leipzig, 1783-1788), i. (Beylage) 24-40. Seyfarth was
+"Regiments-Auditor" in Halle: his Work, solid though stupid, consists
+nearly altogether of multifarious BEYLAGEN (Appendices) and NOTES; which
+are creditably accurate, and often curious; and, as usual, have no Index
+for an unfortunate reader.] which are to the same effect, so far as they
+concern us; and exhibit the same rugged Son of Nature, looking with
+all his eyesight into the near Eternity, and sinking in a human and not
+inhuman manner amid the floods of Time. "Wa, Wa, what great God is this,
+that pulls down the strength of the strongest Kings!"--
+
+The poor King's state is very restless, fluctuates from day to day; he
+is impatient of bed; sleeps very ill; is up whenever possible; rolls
+about in his wheeled-chair, and even gets into the air: at one time
+looking strong, as if there were still months in him, and anon sunk
+in fainting weakness, as if he had few minutes to live. Friedrich at
+Reinsberg corresponds very secretly with Dr. Eller; has other friends at
+Potsdam whose secret news he very anxiously reads. To the last he cannot
+bring himself to think it "serious." [Letter to Eller, 25th May, 1740
+(_OEuvres_ ), xvi. 184.]
+
+On Thursday, 26th of May, an express from Eller, or the Potsdam friends,
+arrives at Reinsberg: He is to come quickly, if he would see his Father
+again alive! The step may have danger, too; but Friedrich, a world of
+feelings urging him, is on the road next morning before the sun. His
+journey may be fancied; the like of it falls to all men. Arriving at
+last, turning hastily a corner of the Potsdam Schloss, Friedrich sees
+some gathering in the distance: it is his Father in his ROLLWAGEN
+(wheeled-chair),--not dying; but out of doors, giving orders about
+founding a House, or seeing it done. House for one Philips, a crabbed
+Englishman he has; whose tongue is none of the best, not even to Majesty
+itself, but whose merits as a Groom, of English and other Horses, are
+without parallel in those parts. Without parallel, and deserve a
+House before we die. Let us see it set agoing, this blessed Mayday!
+Of Philips, who survived deep into Friedrich's time, and uttered rough
+sayings (in mixed intelligible dialect) when put upon in his grooming,
+or otherwise disturbed, I could obtain no farther account: the man did
+not care to be put in History (a very small service to a man); cared
+to have a house with trim fittings, and to do his grooming well, the
+fortunate Philips.
+
+At sight of his Son, Friedrich Wilhelm threw out his arms; the Son
+kneeling sank upon his breast, and they embraced with tears. My Father,
+my Father; My Son, my Son! It was a scene to make all by-standers and
+even Philips weep.--Probably the emotion hurt the old King; he had to be
+taken in again straightway, his show of strength suddenly gone, and
+bed the only place for him. This same Friday he dictated to one of his
+Ministers (Boden, who was in close attendance) the Instruction for his
+Funeral; a rude characteristic Piece, which perhaps the English reader
+knows. Too long and rude for reprinting here. [Copy of it, in Seyfarth
+(ubi supra), i. 19-24. Translated in Mauvillon (ii. 432-437); in &c.
+&c.]
+
+He is to be buried in his uniform, the Potsdam Grenadiers his escort;
+with military decorum, three volleys fired (and take care they be
+well fired, "NICHT PLACKEREN"), so many cannon-salvos;--and no fuss or
+flaunting ceremony: simplicity and decency is what the tenant of that
+oak coffin wants, as he always did when owner of wider dominions. The
+coffin, which he has ready and beside him in the Palace this good
+while, is a stout piece of carpentry, with leather straps and other
+improvements; he views it from time to time; solaces his truculent
+imagination with the look of it: "I shall sleep right well there," he
+would say. The image he has of his Burial, we perceive, is of perfect
+visuality, equal to what a Defoe could do in imagining. All is seen,
+settled to the last minuteness: the coffin is to be borne out by so and
+so, at such and such a door; this detachment is to fall-in here, that
+there, in the attitude of "cover arms" (musket inverted under left arm);
+and the band is to play, with all its blackamoors, _O Haupt voll Blut
+und Wunden_ (O Head, all bleeding wounded); a Dirge his Majesty had
+liked, who knew music, and had a love for it, after his sort. Good Son
+of Nature: a dumb Poet, as I say always; most dumb, but real; the value
+of him great, and unknown in these babbling times. It was on this same
+Friday night that Cochius was first sent for; Cochius, and Oesfeld with
+him, "about nine o'clock."
+
+For the next three days (Saturday to Monday) when his cough and
+many sufferings would permit him, Friedrich Wilhelm had long private
+dialogues with his Son; instructing him, as was evident, in the
+mysteries of State; in what knowledge, as to persons and to things, he
+reckoned might be usefulest to him. What the lessons were, we know not;
+the way of taking them had given pleasure to the old man: he was heard
+to say, perhaps more than once, when the Generals were called in, and
+the dialogue interrupted for a while: "Am not I happy to have such a
+Son to leave behind me!" And the grimly sympathetic Generals testified
+assent; endeavored to talk a little, could at least smoke, and
+look friendly; till the King gathered strength for continuing his
+instructions to his Successor. All else was as if settled with him; this
+had still remained to do. This once done (finished, Monday night), why
+not abdicate altogether; and die disengaged, be it in a day or in a
+month, since that is now the one work left? Friedrich Wilhelm does so
+purpose.
+
+His state, now as all along, was fluctuating, uncertain, restless. He
+was heard murmuring prayers; he would say sometimes, "Pray for me; BETET
+BETET." And more than once, in deep tone: "Lord, enter not into judgment
+with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified!"
+The wild Son of Nature, looking into Life and Death, into Judgment
+and Eternity, finds that these things are very great. This too is a
+characteristic trait: In a certain German Hymn (_Why fret or murmur,
+then?_ the title of it), which they often sang to him, or along with
+him, as he much loved it, are these words, "Naked I came into the world,
+and naked shall I go,"--"No," said he "always with vivacity," at this
+passage; "not quite nakid, I shall have my uniform on:" Let us be exact,
+since we are at it! After which the singing proceeded again. "The late
+Graf Alexander von Wartenberg"--Captain Wartenberg, whom we know, and
+whose opportunities--"was wont to relate this." [Busching (in 1786),
+_Beitrage,_ iv. 100.]
+
+Tuesday, 31st May, "about one in the morning," Cochius was again sent
+for. He found the King in very pious mood, but in great distress, and
+afraid he might yet have much pain to suffer. Cochius prayed with him;
+talked piously. "I can remember nothing," said the King; "I cannot pray,
+I have forgotten all my prayers."--"Prayer is not in words, but in the
+thought of the heart," said Cochius; and soothed the heavy-laden man
+as he could. "Fare you well," said Friedrich Wilhelm, at length; "most
+likely we shall not meet again in this world." Whereat Cochius burst
+into tears, and withdrew. About four, the King was again out of bed;
+wished to see his youngest Boy, who had been ill of measles, but was
+doing well: "Poor little Ferdinand, adieu, then, my little child!" This
+is the Father of that fine Louis Ferdinand, who was killed at Jena;
+concerning whom Berlin, in certain emancipated circles of it, still
+speaks with regret. He, the Louis Ferdinand, had fine qualities; but
+went far a-roving, into radicalism, into romantic love, into
+champagne; and was cut down on the threshold of Jena, desperately
+fighting,--perhaps happily for him.
+
+From little Ferdinand's room Friedrich Wilhelm has himself rolled into
+Queen Sophie's. "Feekin, O my Feekin, thou must rise this day, and help
+me what thou canst. This day I am going to die; thou wilt be with me
+this day!" The good Wife rises: I know not that it was the first time
+she had been so called; but it did prove the last. Friedrich Wilhelm
+has decided, as the first thing he will do, to abdicate; and all the
+Official persons and companions of the sick-room, Pollnitz among them,
+not long after sunrise, are called to see it done. Pollnitz, huddling on
+his clothes, arrived about five: in a corridor he sees the wheeled-chair
+and poor sick King; steps aside to let him pass: "'It is over (DAS IST
+VOLLBRACHT),' said the King, looking up to me as he passed: he had on
+his nightcap, and a blue mantle thrown round him." He was wheeled into
+his anteroom; there let the company assemble; many of them are already
+there.
+
+The royal stables are visible from this room: Friedrich Wilhelm orders
+the horses to be ridden out: you old Furst of Anhalt-Dessau my oldest
+friend, you Colonel Hacke faithfulest of Adjutant-Generals, take each
+of you a horse, the best you can pick out: it is my last gift to you.
+Dessau, in silence, with dumb-show of thanks, points to a horse, any
+horse: "You have chosen the very worst," said Friedrich Wilhelm: "Take
+that other, I will warrant him a good one!" The grim old Dessauer thanks
+in silence; speechless grief is on that stern gunpowder face, and he
+seems even to be struggling with tears. "Nay, nay, my friend," Friedrich
+Wilhelm said, "this is a debt we have all to pay."
+
+The Official people, Queen, Friedrich, Minister Boden, Minister
+Podewils, and even Pollnitz, being now all present, Friedrich Wilhelm
+makes his Declaration, at considerable length; old General Bredow
+repeating it aloud, [Pollnitz, ii. 561.] sentence by sentence, the
+King's own voice being too weak; so that all may hear: "That he
+abdicates, gives up wholly, in favor of his good Son Friedrich; that
+foreign Ambassadors are to be informed; that you are all to be true and
+loyal to my Son as you were to me"--and what else is needful. To which
+the judicious Podewils makes answer, "That there must first be a written
+Deed of his high Transaction executed, which shall be straightway set
+about; the Deed once executed, signed and sealed,--the high Royal will,
+in all points, takes effect." Alas, before Podewils has done speaking,
+the King is like falling into a faint; does faint, and is carried to
+bed: too unlikely any Deed of Abdication will be needed.
+
+Ups and downs there still were; sore fluctuating labor, as the poor King
+struggles to his final rest, this morning. He was at the window again,
+when the WACHT-PARADE (Grenadiers on Guard) turned out; he saw them make
+their evolutions for the last time. [Pauli, viii. 280.] After which, new
+relapse, new fluctuation. It was about eleven o'clock, when Cochius was
+again sent for. The King lay speechless, seemingly still conscious, in
+bed; Cochius prays with fervor, in a loud tone, that the dying King may
+hear and join. "Not so loud!" says the King, rallying a little. He
+had remembered that it was the season when his servants got their new
+liveries; they had been ordered to appear this day in full new costume:
+"O vanity! O vanity!" said Friedrich Wilhelm, at sight of the ornamented
+plush. "Pray for me, pray for me; my trust is in the Saviour!" he often
+said. His pains, his weakness are great; the cordage of a most tough
+heart rending itself piece by piece. At one time, he called for a
+mirror: that is certain:--rugged wild man, son of Nature to the last.
+The mirror was brought; what he said at sight of his face is variously
+reported: "Not so worn out as I thought," is Pollnitz's account, and the
+likeliest;--though perhaps he said several things, "ugly face," "as
+good as dead already;" and continued the inspection for some moments.
+[Pollnitz, ii. 564; Wilhelmina, ii. 321.] A grim, strange thing.
+
+"Feel mv pulse, Pitsch," said he, noticing the Surgeon of his Giants:
+"tell me how long this will last."--"Alas, not long," answered
+Pitsch.--"Say not, alas; but how do you (He) know?"--"The pulse is
+gone!"--"Impossible," said he, lifting his arm: "how could I move my
+fingers so, if the pulse were gone?" Pitsch looked mournfully steadfast.
+"Herr Jesu, to thee I live; Herr Jesu, to thee I die; in life and in
+death thou art my gain (DU BIST MEIN GEWINN)." These were the last words
+Friedrich Wilhelm spoke in this world. He again fell into a faint. Eller
+gave a signal to the Crown-Prince to take the Queen away. Scarcely
+were they out of the room, when the faint had deepened into death; and
+Friedrich Wilhelm, at rest from all his labors, slept with the primeval
+sons of Thor.
+
+No Baresark of them, nor Odin's self, I think, was a bit of truer human
+stuff;--I confess his value to me, in these sad times, is rare
+and great. Considering the usual Histrionic, Papin's-Digester,
+Truculent-Charlatan and other species of "Kings," alone attainable for
+the sunk flunky populations of an Era given up to Mammon and the worship
+of its own belly, what would not such a population give for a Friedrich
+Wilhelm, to guide it on the road BACK from Orcus a little? "Would give,"
+I have written; but alas, it ought to have been "SHOULD give." What THEY
+"would" give is too mournfully plain to me, in spite of ballot-boxes:
+a steady and tremendous truth from the days of Barabbas downwards and
+upwards!--Tuesday, 31st May, 1740, between one and two o'clock in the
+afternoon, Friedrich Wilhelm died; age fifty-two, coming 15th August
+next. Same day, Friedrich his Son was proclaimed at Berlin; quilted
+heralds, with sound of trumpet and the like, doing what is customary on
+such occasions.
+
+On Saturday, 4th June, the King's body is laid out in state; all Potsdam
+at liberty to come and see. He lies there, in his regimentals, in
+his oaken coffin, on a raised place in the middle of the room; decent
+mortuary draperies, lamps, garlands, banderols furnishing the room and
+him: at his feet, on a black-velvet TABOURET (stool), are the chivalry
+emblems, helmet, gauntlets, spurs; and on similar stools, at the right
+hand and the left, lie his military insignia, hat and sash, sword,
+guidon, and what else is fit. Around, in silence, sit nine veteran
+military dignitaries; Buddenbrock, Waldau, Derschau, Einsiedel, and five
+others whom we omit to name. Silent they sit. A grim earnest sight in
+the shine of the lamplight, as you pass out of the June sun. Many went,
+all day; looked once again on the face that was to vanish. Precisely at
+ten at night, the coffin-lid is screwed down: twelve Potsdam Captains
+take the coffin on their shoulders; four-and-twenty Corporals with
+wax torches, four-and-twenty Sergeants with inverted halberts lowered;
+certain Generals on order, and very many following as volunteers; these
+perform the actual burial,--carry the body to the Garrison Church, where
+are clergy waiting, which is but a small step off; see it lodged, oak
+coffin and all, in a marble coffin in the side vault there, which is
+known to Tourists. [Pauli, viii. 281.] It is the end of the week, and
+the actual burial is done,--hastened forward for reasons we can guess.
+
+Filial piety by no means intends to defraud a loved Father of the
+Spartan ceremonial contemplated as obsequies by him: very far from it.
+Filial piety will conform to that with rigor; only adding what musical
+and other splendors are possible, to testify his love still more. And
+so, almost three weeks hence, on the 23d of the month, with the aid of
+Dresden Artists, of Latin Cantatas and other pomps (not inexcusable,
+though somewhat out of keeping), the due Funeral is done, no Corpse
+but a Wax Effigy present in it;--and in all points, that of the
+Potsdam Grenadiers not forgotten, there was rigorous conformity to the
+Instruction left. In all points, even to the extensive funeral dinner,
+and drinking of the appointed cask of wine, "the best cask in my
+cellar." Adieu, O King.
+
+The Potsdam Grenadiers fired their three volleys (not "PLACKERING," as
+I have reason to believe, but well); got their allowance, dinner-liquor,
+and appointed coin of money: it was the last service required of them in
+this world. That same night they were dissolved, the whole Four Thousand
+of them, at a stroke; and ceased to exist as Potsdam Grenadiers.
+Colonels, Captains, all the Officers known to be of merit, were
+advanced, at least transferred. Of the common men, a minority, of not
+inhuman height and of worth otherwise, were formed into a new Regiment
+on the common terms: the stupid splay-footed eight-feet mass were
+allowed to stalk off whither they pleased, or vegetate on frugal
+pensions; Irish Kirkman, and a few others neither knock-kneed nor
+without head, were appointed HEYDUCS, that is, porters to the King's or
+other Palaces; and did that duty in what was considered an ornamental
+manner.
+
+Here are still two things capable of being fished up from the sea of
+nugatory matter; and meditated on by readers, till the following Books
+open.
+
+The last breath of Friedrich Wilhelm having fled, Friedrich hurried to a
+private room; sat there all in tears; looking back through the gulfs of
+the Past, upon such a Father now rapt away forever. Sad all, and soft in
+the moonlight of memory,--the lost Loved One all in the right as we
+now see, we all in the wrong!--this, it appears, was the Son's fixed
+opinion. Seven years hence, here is how Friedrich concludes the HISTORY
+of his Father, written with a loyal admiration throughout: "We have left
+under silence the domestic chagrins of this great Prince: readers must
+have some indulgence for the faults of the Children, in consideration
+of the virtues of such a Father." [_OEuvres,_ i. 174 (_Memoires de
+Brandebourg:_ finished about 1747).] All in tears he sits at present,
+meditating these sad things.
+
+In a little while the Old Dessauer, about to leave for Dessau, ventures
+in to the Crown-Prince, Crown-Prince no longer; "embraces his knees;"
+offers, weeping, his condolence, his congratulation;--hopes withal that
+his sons and he will be continued in their old posts, and that he,
+the Old Dessauer, "will have the same authority as in the late reign."
+Friedrich's eyes, at this last clause, flash out tearless, strangely
+Olympian. "In your posts I have no thought of making change: in your
+posts, yes;--and as to authority, I know of none there can be but what
+resides in the King that is sovereign!" Which, as it were, struck
+the breath out of the Old Dessauer; and sent him home with a painful
+miscellany of feelings, astonishment not wanting among them.
+
+At an after hour, the same night, Friedrich went to Berlin; met by
+acclamation enough. He slept there, not without tumult of dreams, one
+may fancy; and on awakening next morning, the first sound he heard was
+that of the Regiment Glasenap under his windows, swearing fealty to
+the new King. He sprang out of bed in a tempest of emotion; bustled
+distractedly to and fro, wildly weeping. Pollnitz, who came into the
+anteroom, found him in this state, "half-dressed, with dishevelled hair,
+in tears, and as if beside himself." "These huzzaings only tell me what
+I have lost!" said the new King.--"HE was in great suffering," suggested
+Pollnitz; "he is now at rest." "True, he suffered; but he was here with
+us: and now--!" [Ranke (ii. 46, 47)], from certain Fragments, still, in
+manuscript, of Pollnits's _Memoiren._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Friedrich II. of Prussia,
+Vol. X. (of XXI.), by Thomas Carlyle
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