History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great

History Of Friedrich Ii Of Prussia Frederick The Great

HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle

BOOK V.--DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND WHAT ELEMENT IT FELL INTO.--1723-1726.

Chapter I. -- DOUBLE-MARRIAGE IS DECIDED ON.

We saw George I. at Berlin in October, 1723, looking out upon his little Grandson drilling the Cadets there; but we did not mention what important errand had brought his Majesty thither.

Visits between Hanover and Berlin had been frequent for a long time back; the young Queen of Prussia, sometimes with her husband, sometimes without, running often over to see her Father; who, even after his accession to the English crown, was generally for some months every year to be met with in those favorite regions of his. He himself did not much visit, being of taciturn splenetic nature: but this once he had agreed to return a visit they had lately made him,--where a certain weighty Business had been agreed upon, withal; which his Britannic Majesty was to consummate formally, by treaty, when the meeting in Berlin took effect. His Britannic Majesty, accordingly, is come; the business in hand is no other than that thrice-famous "Double-Marriage" of Prussia with England; which once had such a sound in the ear of Rumor, and still bulks so big in the archives of the Eighteenth Century; which worked such woe to all parties concerned in it; and is, in fact, a first-rate nuisance in the History of that poor Century, as written hitherto. Nuisance demanding urgently to be abated;--were that well possible at present. Which, alas, it is not, to any great degree; there being an important young Friedrich inextricably wrapt up in it, to whom it was of such vital or almost fatal importance! Without a Friedrich, the affair could be reduced to something like its real size, and recorded in a few pages; or might even, with advantage, be forgotten altogether, and become zero. More gigantic instance of much ado about nothing has seldom occurred in human annals;--had not there been a Friedrich in the heart of it.

Crown-Prince Friedrich is still very young for marriage-speculations on his score: but Mamma has thought good to take matters in time. And so we shall, in the next ensuing parts of this poor History, have to hear almost as much about Marriage as in the foolishest Three-volume Novel, and almost to still less purpose. For indeed, in that particular, Friedrich's young Life may be called a ROMANCE FLUNG HELLS-OVER-HEAD; Marriage being the one event there, round which all events turn,--but turn in the inverse or reverse way (as if the Devil were in them); not only towards no happy goal for him or Mamma, or us, but at last towards hardly any goal at all for anybody! So mad did the affair grow;--and is so madly recorded in those inextricable, dateless, chaotic Books. We have now come to regions of Narrative, which seem to consist of murky Nothingness put on boil; not land, or water, or air, or fire, but a tumultuously whirling commixture of all the four;--of immense extent too. Which must be got crossed, in some human manner. Courage, patience, good reader!

QUEEN SOPHIE DOROTHEE HAS TAKEN TIME BY THE FORELOCK.

Already, for a dozen years, this matter has been treated of. Queen Sophie Dorothee, ever since the birth of her Wilhelmina, has had the notion of it; and, on her first visit afterwards to Hanover, proposed it to "Princess Caroline,"--Queen Caroline of England who was to be, and who in due course was;--an excellent accomplished Brandenburg-Anspach Lady, familiar from of old in the Prussian Court: "You, Caroline, Cousin dear, have a little Prince, Fritz, or let us call him FRED, since he is to be English; little Fred, who will one day, if all go right, be King of England. He is two years older than my little Wilhelmina: why should not they wed, and the two chief Protestant Houses, and Nations, thereby be united?" Princess Caroline was very willing; so was Electress Sophie, the Great-Grandmother of both the parties; so were the Georges, Father and Grandfather of Fred: little Fred himself was highly charmed, when told of it; even little Wilhelmina, with her dolls, looked pleasantly demure on the occasion. So it remained settled in fact, though not in form; and little Fred (a florid milk-faced foolish kind of Boy, I guess) made presents to his little Prussian Cousin, wrote bits of love-letters to her; and all along afterwards fancied himself, and at length ardently enough became, her little lover and intended,--always rather a little fellow:--to which sentiments Wilhelmina signifies that she responded with the due maidenly indifference, but not in an offensive manner.

After our Prussian Fritz's birth, the matter took a still closer form: "You, dear Princess Caroline, you have now two little Princesses again, either of whom might suit my little Fritzchen; let us take Amelia, the second of them, who is nearest his age?" "Agreed!" answered Princess Caroline again. "Agreed!" answered all the parties interested: and so it was settled, that the Marriage of Prussia to England should be a Double one, Fred of Hanover and England to Wilhelmina, Fritz of Prussia to Amelia; and children and parents lived thenceforth in the constant understanding that such, in due course of years, was to be the case, though nothing yet was formally concluded by treaty upon it. [Pollnitz, Memoiren, ii. 193.]

Queen Sophie Dorothee of Prussia was always eager enough for treaty, and conclusion to her scheme. True to it, she, as needle to the pole in all weathers; sometimes in the wildest weather, poor lady. Nor did the Hanover Serene Highnesses, at any time, draw back or falter: but having very soon got wafted across to England, into new more complex conditions, and wider anxieties in that new country, they were not so impressively eager as Queen Sophie, on this interesting point. Electress Sophie, judicious Great-Grandmother, was not now there: Electress Sophie had died about a month before Queen Anne; and never saw the English Canaan, much as she had longed for it. George I., her son, a taciturn, rather splenetic elderly Gentleman, very foreign in England, and oftenest rather sulky there and elsewhere, was not in a humor to be forward in that particular business.

George I. had got into quarrel with his Prince of Wales, Fred's Father,--him who is one day to be George II., always a rather foolish little Prince, though his Wife Caroline was Wisdom's self in a manner:--George I. had other much more urgent cares than that of marrying his disobedient foolish little Prince of Wales's offspring; and he always pleaded difficulties, Acts of Parliament that would be needed, and the like, whenever Sophie Dorothee came to visit him at Hanover, and urge this matter. The taciturn, inarticulately thoughtful, rather sulky old Gentleman, he had weighty burdens lying on him; felt fretted and galled, in many ways; and had found life, Electoral and even Royal, a deceptive sumptuosity, little better than a more or less extensive "feast of SHELLS," next to no real meat or drink left in it to the hungry heart of man. Wife sitting half-frantic in the Castle of Ahlden, waxing more and more into a gray-haired Megaera (with whom Sophie Dorothee under seven seals of secrecy corresponds a little, and even the Prince of Wales is suspected of wishing to correspond); a foolish disobedient Prince of Wales; Jacobite Pretender people with their Mar Rebellions, with their Alberoni combinations; an English Parliament jangling and debating unmelodiously, whose very language is a mystery to us, nothing but Walpole in dog-latin to help us through it: truly it is not a Heaven-on-Earth altogether, much as Mother Sophie and her foolish favorite, our disobedient Prince of Wales, might long for it! And the Hanover Tail, the Robethons, Bernstorfs, Fabrices, even the Blackamoor Porters,--they are not beautiful either, to a taciturn Majesty of some sense, if he cared about their doings or them. Voracious, plunderous, all of them; like hounds, long hungry, got into a rich house which has no master, or a mere imaginary one. "MENTERIS IMPUDENTISSIME," said Walpole in his dog-latin once, in our Royal presence, to one of these official plunderous gentlemen, "You tell an impudent lie!"--at which we only laughed. [Horace Walpole, Reminiscences of George I. and George II. (London, 1786.)]

His Britannic Majesty by no means wanted sense, had not his situation been incurably absurd. In his young time he had served creditably enough against the Turks; twice commanded the REICHS-Army in the Marlborough Wars, and did at least testify his indignation at the inefficient state of it. His Foreign Politics, so called, were not madder than those of others. Bremen and Verden he had bought a bargain; and it was natural to protect them by such resources as he had, English or other. Then there was the World-Spectre of the Pretender, stretching huge over Creation, like the Brocken-Spectre in hazy weather;--against whom how protect yourself, except by cannonading for the Kaiser at Messina; by rushing into every brabble that rose, and hiring the parties with money to fight it out well? It was the established method in that matter; method not of George's inventing, nor did it cease with George. As to Domestic Politics, except it were to keep quiet, and eat what the gods had provided, one does not find that he had any.--The sage Leibnitz would very fain have followed him to England; but, for reasons indifferently good, could never be allowed. If the truth must be told, the sage Leibnitz had a wisdom which now looks dreadfully like that of a wiseacre! In Mathematics even,--he did invent the Differential Calculus, but it is certain also he never could believe in Newton's System of the Universe, nor would read the PRINCIPIA at all. For the rest, he was in quarrel about Newton with the Royal Society here; ill seen, it is probable, by this sage and the other. To the Hanover Official Gentlemen devouring their English dead-horse, it did not appear that his presence could be useful in these parts. [Guhrauer, Gottfried Freiherr von Leibnitz, eine Biographie (Breslau, 1842); Ker of Kersland, Memoirs of Secret Transactions (London, 1727)].

Nor are the Hanover womankind his Majesty has about him, quasi-wives or not, of a soul-entrancing character; far indeed from that. Two in chief there are, a fat and a lean: the lean, called "Maypole" by the English populace, is "Duchess of Kendal," with excellent pension, in the English Peeragy; Schulenburg the former German name of her; decidedly a quasi-wife (influential, against her will, in that sad Konigsmark Tragedy, at Hanover long since), who is fallen thin and old. "Maypole,"--or bare Hop-pole, with the leaves all stript; lean, long, hard;--though she once had her summer verdures too; and still, as an old quasi-wife, or were it only as an old article of furniture, has her worth to the royal mind, Schulenburgs, kindred of hers, are high in the military line; some of whom we may meet.

Then besides this lean one, there is a fat; of whom Walpole (Horace, who had seen her in boyhood) gives description. Big staring black eyes, with rim of circular eyebrow, like a coach-wheel round its nave, very black the eyebrows also; vast red face; cheeks running into neck, neck blending indistinguishably with stomach,--a mere cataract of fluid tallow, skinned over and curiously dizened, according to Walpole's portraiture. This charming creature, Kielmannsegge by German name, was called "Countess of Darlington" in this country--with excellent pension, as was natural. They all had pensions: even Queen Sophie Dorothee, I have noticed in our State-Paper Office, has her small pension, "800 pounds a year on the Irish Establishment:" Irish Establishment will never miss such a pittance for our poor Child, and it may be useful over yonder!--This Kielmannsegge, Countess of Darlington was, and is, believed by the gossiping English to have been a second simultaneous Mistress of his Majesty's; but seems, after all, to have been his Half-Sister and nothing more. Half-Sister (due to Gentleman Ernst and a Countess Platen of bad Hanover fame); grown dreadfully fat; but not without shrewdness, perhaps affection; and worth something in this dull foreign country, mere cataract of animal oils as she has become. These Two are the amount of his Britannic Majesty's resources in that matter; resources surely not extensive, after all!--

His Britannic Majesty's day, in St. James's, is not of an interesting sort to him; and every evening he comes precisely at a certain hour to drink beer, seasoned with a little tobacco, and the company of these two women. Drinks diligently in a sipping way, says Horace; and smokes, with such dull speech as there may be,--not till he is drunk, but only perceptibly drunkish; raised into a kind of cloudy narcotic Olympus, and opaquely superior to the ills of life; in which state he walks uncomplainingly to bed. Government, when it can by any art be avoided, he rarely meddles with; shows a rugged sagacity, where he does and must meddle: consigns it to Walpole in dog-latin,--laughs at his "MENTIRIS." This is the First George; first triumph of the Constitutional Principle, which has since gone to such sublime heights among us,--heights which we at last begin to suspect might be depths, leading down, all men now ask: Whitherwards? A much-admired invention in its time, that of letting go the rudder, or setting a wooden figure expensively dressed to take charge of it, and discerning that the ship would sail of itself so much more easily! Which it will, if a peculiarly good seaboat, in certain kinds of sea,--for a time. Till the Sinbad "Magnetic Mountains" begin to be felt pulling, or the circles of Charybdis get you in their sweep; and then what an invention it was!--This, we say, is the new Sovereign Man, whom the English People, being in some perplexity about the Pope and other points, have called in from Hanover, to walk before them in the ways of heroism, and by command and by example guide Heavenwards their affairs and them. And they hope that he will do it? Or perhaps that their affairs will go thither of their own accord? Always a singular People!--

Poor George, careless of these ulterior issues, has always trouble enough with the mere daily details, Parliamentary insolences, Jacobite plottings, South-Sea Bubbles; and wishes to hunt, when he gets over to Hanover, rather than to make Marriage-Treaties. Besides, as Wilhelmina tells us, they have filled him with lies, these Hanover Women and their emissaries: "Your Princess Wilhelmina is a monster of ill-temper, crooked in the back and what not," say they. If there is to be a Marriage, double or single, these Improper Females must first be persuaded to consent. [Memoires de Bareith.] Difficulties enough. And there is none to help; Friedrich Wilhelm cares little about the matter, though he has given his Yes,--Yes, since you will.

But Sophie Dorothee is diligent and urgent, by all opportunities;--and, at length, in 1723, the conjuncture is propitious. Domestic Jacobitism, in the shape of Bishop Atterbury, has got, itself well banished; Alberoni and his big schemes, years ago they are blown into outer darkness; Charles XII. is well dead, and of our Bremen and Verden no question henceforth; even the Kaiser's Spectre-Hunt, or Spanish Duel, is at rest for the present, and the Congress of Cambrai is sitting, or trying all it can to sit: at home or abroad, there is nothing, not even Wood's Irish Halfpence, as yet making noise. And on the other hand, Czar Peter is rumored (not without foundation) to be coming westward, with some huge armament; which, whether "intended for Sweden" or not, renders a Prussian alliance doubly valuable.

And so now at last, in this favorable aspect of the stars, King George, over at Herrenhausen, was by much management of his Daughter Sophie's, and after many hitches, brought to the mark. And Friedrich Wilhelm came over too; ostensibly to bring home his Queen, but in reality to hear his Father-in-law's compliance to the Double-Marriage,--for which his Prussian Majesty is willing enough, if others are willing. Praised be Heaven, King George has agreed to everything; consents, one propitious day (Autumn 1723, day not otherwise dated),--Czar Peter's Armament, and the questionable aspects in France, perhaps quickening his volitions a little. Upon which Friedrich Wilhelm and Queen Sophie have returned home, content in that matter; and expect shortly his Britannic Majesty's counter-visit, to perfect the details, and make a Treaty of it.

His Britannic Majesty, we say, has in substance agreed to everything. And now, in the silence of Nature, the brown leaves of October still hanging to the trees in a picturesque manner, and Wood's Halfpence not yet begun to jingle in the Drapier's Letters of Dean Swift,--his Britannic Majesty is expected at Berlin. At Berlin; properly at Charlottenburg a pleasant rural or suburban Palace (built by his Britannic Majesty's late noble Sister, Sophie Charlotte, "the Republican Queen," and named after her, as was once mentioned), a mile or two Southwest of that City. There they await King George's counter-visit.

Poor Wilhelmina is in much trepidation about it; and imparts her poor little feelings, her anticipations and experiences, in readable terms:--

"There came, in those weeks, one of the Duke of Gloucester's gentlemen to Berlin,"--DUKE OF GLOUCESTER is Fred our intended, not yet Prince of Wales, and if the reader should ever hear of a DUKE OF EDINBURGH, that too is Fred,--"Duke of Gloucester's gentlemen to Berlin," says Wilhelmina: "the Queen had Soiree (APPARTEMENT); he was presented to her as well as to me. He made me a very obliging compliment on his Master's part; I blushed, and answered only by a courtesy. The Queen, who had her eye on me, was very angry I had answered the Duke's compliments in mere silence; and rated me sharply (ME LAVA LA TETE D'IMPORTANCE) for it; and ordered me, under pain of her indignation, to repair that fault to-morrow. I retired, all in tears, to my room; exasperated against the Queen and against the Duke; I swore I would never marry him, would throw myself at the feet--" And so on, as young ladies of vivacious temper, in extreme circumstances, are wont:--did speak, however, next day, to my Hanover gentleman about his Duke, a little, though in an embarrassed manner. Alas, I am yet but fourteen, gone the 3d of July last: tremulous as aspen-leaves; or say, as sheet-lightning bottled in one of the thinnest human skins; and have no experience of foolish Dukes and affairs!--

"Meanwhile," continues Wilhelmina, "the King of England's time of arrival was drawing nigh. We repaired, on the 6th of October, to Charlottenburg to receive him. The heart of me kept beating, and I was in cruel agitations. King George [my Grandfather, and Grand Uncle] arrived on the 8th, about seven in the evening;"--dusky shades already sinking over Nature everywhere, and all paths growing dim. Abundant flunkies, of course, rush out with torches or what is needful. "The King of Prussia, the Queen and all their Suite received him in the Court of the Palace, the 'Apartments' being on the ground-floor. So soon as he had saluted the King and Queen, I was presented to him. He embraced me; and turning to the Queen said to her, 'Your daughter is very big of her age!' He gave the Queen his hand, and led her into her apartment, whither everybody followed them. As soon as I came in, he took a light from the table, and surveyed me from head to foot. I stood motionless as a statue, and was much put out of countenance. All this went on without his uttering the least word. Having thus passed me in review, he addressed himself to my Brother, whom he caressed much, and amused himself with, for a good while." Pretty little Grandson this, your Majesty;--any future of history in this one, think you? "I," says Wilhelmina, "took the opportunity of slipping out;"--hopeful to get away; but could not, the Queen having noticed.

"The Queen made me a sign to follow her; and passed into a neighboring apartment, where she had the English and Germans of King George's Suite successively presented to her. After some talk with these gentlemen, she withdrew; leaving me to entertain them, and saying: 'Speak English to my Daughter; you will find she speaks it very well.' I felt much less embarrassed, once the Queen was gone; and picking up a little courage, I entered into conversation with these English. As I spoke their language like my mother-tongue, I got pretty well out of the affair, and everybody seemed charmed with me. They made my eulogy to the Queen; told her I had quite the English air, and was made to be their Sovereign one day. It was saying a great deal on their part: for these English think themselves so much above all other people, that they imagine they are paying a high compliment when they tell any one he has got English manners.

"Their King [my Grandpapa] had got Spanish manners, I should say: he was of an extreme gravity, and hardly spoke a word to anybody. He saluted Madam Sonsfeld [my invaluable thrice-dear Governess] very coldly; and asked her 'If I was always so serious, and if my humor was of the melancholy turn?' 'Anything but that, Sire,' answered the other: 'but the respect she has for your Majesty prevents her from being as sprightly as she commonly is.' He wagged his head, and answered nothing. The reception he had given me, and this question, of which I heard, gave me such a chill, that I never had the courage to speak to him,"--was merely looked at with a candle by Grandpapa.

"We were summoned to supper at last, where this grave Sovereign still remained dumb. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was wrong; but I think he followed the proverb, which says, Better hold your tongue than speak badly. At the end of the repast he felt indisposed. The Queen would have persuaded him to quit table; they bandied compliments a good while on the point; but at last she threw down her napkin, and rose. The King of England naturally rose too; but began to stagger; the King of Prussia ran up to help him, all the company ran bustling about him; but it was to no purpose: he sank on his knees; his peruke falling on one side, and his hat [or at least his head, Madam!] on the other. They stretched him softly on the floor; where he remained a good hour without consciousness. The pains they took with him brought back his senses, by degrees, at last. The Queen and the King [of Prussia] were in despair all this while. Many have thought this attack was a herald of the stroke of apoplexy which came by and by,"--within four years from this date, and carried off his Majesty in a very gloomy manner.

"They passionately entreated him to retire now," continues Wilhelmina; "but he would not by any means. He led out the Queen, and did the other ceremonies, according to rule; had a very bad night, as we learned underhand;" but persisted stoically nevertheless, being a crowned Majesty, and bound to it. He stoically underwent four or three other days, of festival, sight-seeing, "pleasure" so called;--among other sights, saw little Fritz drilling his Cadets at Berlin;--and on the fourth day (12th October, 1723, so thinks Wilhelmina) fairly "signed the Treaty of the Double-Marriage," English Townshend and the Prussian Ministry having settled all things. [Wilhelmina, Memoires de Bareith, i. 83, 87,--In Coxe (Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, London, 1798), ii. 266, 272, 273, are some faint hints, from Townshend, of this Berlin journey.]

"Signed the Treaty," thinks Wilhelmina, "all things being settled." Which is an error on the part of Wilhelmina. Settled many or all things were by Townshend and the others: but before signing, there was Parliament to be apprised, there were formalities, expenditure of time; between the cup and the lip, such things to intervene;--and the sad fact is, the Double-Marriage Treaty never was signed at all!--However, all things being now settled ready for signing, his Britannic Majesty, next morning, set off for the GOHRDE again, to try if there were any hunting possible.

This authentic glimpse, one of the few that are attainable, of their first Constitutional King, let English readers make the most of. The act done proved dreadfully momentous to our little Friend, his Grandson; and will much concern us!

Thus, at any rate, was the Treaty of the Double-Marriage settled, to the point of signing,--thought to be as good as signed. It was at the time when Czar Peter was making armaments to burn Sweden; when Wood's Halfpence (on behalf of her Improper Grace of Kendal, the lean Quasi-Wife, "Maypole" or Hop-pole, who had run short of money, as she often did) were about beginning to jingle in Ireland; [Coxe (i. 216, 217, and SUPPLY the dates); Walpole to Townshend, 13th October, 1723 (ib. ii. 275): "The Drapier's Letters" are of 1724.] when Law's Bubble "System" had fallen, well flaccid, into Chaos again; when Dubois the unutterable Cardinal had at length died, and d'Orleans the unutterable Regent was unexpectedly about to do so,--in a most surprising Sodom-and-Gomorrah manner. [2d December, 1723: Barbier, Journal Historique du Regne de Louis XV. (Paris, 1847), i. 192, 196; Lacretelle, Histoire de France, 18me siecle; &c.] Not to mention other dull and vile phenomena of putrid fermentation, which were transpiring, or sluttishly bubbling up, in poor benighted rotten Europe here or there;--since these are sufficient to date the Transaction for us; and what does not stick to our Fritz and his affairs it is more pleasant to us to forget than to remember, of such an epoch.

Hereby, for the present, is a great load rolled from Queen Sophie Dorothee's heart. One, and, that the highest, of her abstruse negotiations, cherished, labored in, these fourteen years, she has brought to a victorious issue,--has she not? Her poor Mother, once so radiant, now so dim and angry, shut in the Castle of Ahlden, does not approve this Double-Marriage; not she for her part;--as indeed evil to all Hanoverian interests is now chiefly her good, poor Lady; and she is growing more and more of a Megaera every day. With whom Sophie Dorothee has her own difficulties and abstruse practices; but struggles always to maintain, under seven-fold secrecy, some thread of correspondence and pious filial ministration wherever possible; that the poor exasperated Mother, wretchedest and angriest of women, be not quite cut off from the kinship of the living, but that some soft breath of pity may cool her burning heart now and then. [In Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea (London, 1845), ii. 385, 393, are certain fractions of this Correspondence, "edited" in an amazing manner.] A dark tragedy of Sophie's, this; the Bluebeard Chamber of her mind, into which no eye but her own must ever look.

PRINCESS AMELIA COMES INTO THE WORLD.

In reference to Queen Sophie, and chronologically if not otherwise connected with this Double-Marriage Treaty, I will mention one other thing. Her Majesty had been in fluctuating health, all summer; unaccountable symptoms turning up in her Majesty's constitution, languors, qualms, especially a tendency to swelling or increase of size, which had puzzled and alarmed her Doctors and her. Friedrich Wilhelm, on conclusion of the Marriage-Treaty, had been appointed to join his Father-in-law, Britannic George, at the Gohrde, in some three weeks' time, and have a bout of hunting. On the 8th of November, bedtime being come, he kissed his Wilhelmina and the rest, by way of good-by; intending to start very early on the morrow:--long journey (150 miles or so), to be done all in one day. In the dead of the night, Queen Sophie was seized with dreadful colics,--pangs of colic or who knows what;--Friedrich Wilhelm is summoned; rises in the highest alarm; none but the maids and he at hand to help; and the colic, or whatever it may be, gets more and more dreadful.

Colic? O poor Sophie, it is travail, and no colic; and a clever young Princess is suddenly the result! None but Friedrich Wilhelm and the maid for midwives; mother and infant, nevertheless, doing perfectly well. Friedrich Wilhelm did not go on the morrow, but next day; laughed, ever and anon in loud hahas, at the part he had been playing; and was very glad and merry. How the experienced Sophie, whose twelfth child this is, came to commit such an oversight is unaccountable; but the fact is certain, and made a merry noise in Court circles. [Pollnitz, ii. 199; Wilhelmina, i. 87, 88.]

The clever little Princess, now born in this manner, is known by name to idle readers. She was christened AMELIA; and we shall hear of her in time coming. But there was, as the Circulating Libraries still intimate, a certain loud-spoken braggart of the histrionic-heroic sort, called Baron Trenck, windy, rash, and not without mendacity, who has endeavored to associate her with his own transcendent and not undeserved ill-luck; hinting the poor Princess into a sad fame in that way. For which, it would now appear, there was no basis whatever! Most condemnable Trenck;--whom, however, Robespierre guillotined finally, and so settled that account and others.

Of Sophie Dorothee's twelve children, including this Amelia, there are now eight living, two boys, six girls; and after Amelia, two others, boys, are successively to come: ten in all, who grew to be men and women. Of whom perhaps I had better subjoin a List; now that the eldest Boy and Girl are about to get settled in life; and therewith close this Chapter.

FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S TEN CHILDREN.

Marriage to Sophie Dorothee, 28th November, 1706.

A little Prince, born 23d November, 1707, died in six months. Then came,

1. FREDERIKA SOPHIE WILHELMINA, ultimately Margravine of Baireuth, after strange adventures in the marriage-treaty way. Wrote her Memoires there, about 1744. Of whom we shall hear much. Left a Daughter, her one child; Daughter badly married, to "Karl reigning Duke of Wurtemberg" (Poet Schiller's famous Serene Highness there), from whom she had to separate, &c., with anger enough, by and by.

After Wilhelmina in the Family series came a second Prince, who died in the eleventh month. Then, 24th January, 1712,

2. FRIEDRICH.

After whom (1713) a little Princess, who died in few months. And then,

3. FREDERIKA LOUISA, born 28th September, 1714; age now about nine. Margravine of Anspach, 30th May, 1729; Widow 1757. Her one Son, born 1736, was the LADY-CRAVEN'S Anspach. Frederika Louisa died 4th February, 1734.

4. PHILIPPINA CHARLOTTE, born 13th of March, 1716; became Duchess of Brunswick (her Husband was Eldest Brother of the "Prince Ferdinand" so famous in England in the Seven-Years War); her Son was the Duke who invaded France in 1792, and was tragically hurled to ruin in the Battle of Jena, 1806. The Mother lived till 1801; Widow since 1780.

After whom, in 1717, again a little Prince, who died within two years (our Fritz then seven,--probably the first time Death ever came before him, practically into his little thoughts in this world): then,

5. SOPHIE DOROTHEE MARIA, born 25th January, 1719; Margravine of Schwedt, 1734 (eldest Magraf of Schwedt, mentioned above as a comrade of the Crown-Prince). Her life not very happy; she died 1765. Left no son (Brother-in-law succeeded, last of the Schwedt MARGRAVES): her Daughter, wedded to Prince Friedrich Eugen, a Prussian Officer, Cadet of Wurtemberg and ultimately Heir there, is Ancestress of the Wurtemberg Sovereignties that now are, and also (by one of HER daughters married to Paul of Russia) of all the Czar kindred of our time. [Preuss, iv. 278; Erman, Vie de Sophie Charlotte, p. 2722.]

6. LOUISA ULRIQUE, born 24th July, 1720; married Adolf Friedrich, Heir-Apparent, subsequemly King of Sweden, 17th July, 1744; Queen (he having acceded) 6th April, 1751; Widow 1771; died, at Stockholm, 16th July, 1782. Mother of the subsequent Kings; her Grandson the DEPOSED> [OErtel, p. 83; Hubner, tt. 91, 227.]

7. AUGUST WILHELM, born 9th August, 1722; Heir-Apparent after Friedrich (so declared by Friedrich, 30th June, 1744); Father of the Kings who have since followed. He himself died, in sad circumstances, as we shall see, 12th June, 1758.

8. ANNA AMELIA, born 9th November, 1723,--on the terms we have seen.

9. FRIEDRICH HEINRICH LUDWIG, born 18th January, 1726;--the famed Prince Henri, of whom we shall hear.

10. AUGUST FERDINAND, born 23d May, 1730: a brilliant enough little soldier under his Brother, full of spirit and talent, but liable to weak health;--was Father of the "Prince Louis Ferdinand," a tragic Failure of something considerable, who went off in Liberalism, wit, in high sentiment, expenditure and debauchery, greatly to the admiration of some persons; and at length rushed desperate upon the Frenoh, and found his quietus (10th October, 1806), four days before the Battle of Jena.

Chapter II. -- A KAISER HUNTING SHADOWS.

Treaty of Double-Marriage is ready for signing, once the needful Parliamentary preludings are gone through; Treaty is signed, thinks Wilhelmina,--forgetting the distance between cup and lip!--As to signing, or even to burning, and giving up the thought of signing, alas, how far are we yet from that! Imperial spectre-huntings and the politics of most European Cabinets will connect themselves with that; and send it wandering wide enough,--lost in such a jungle of intrigues, pettifoggings, treacheries, diplomacies domestic and foreign, as the course of true-love never got entangled in before.

The whole of which extensive Cabinet operations, covering square miles of paper at this moment,--having nevertheless, after ten years of effort, ended in absolute zero,--were of no worth even to the managers of them; and are of less than none to any mortal now or henceforth. So that the method of treating them becomes a problem to History. To pitch them utterly out of window, and out of memory, never to be mentioned in human speech again: this is the manifest prompting of Nature;--and this, were not our poor Crown-Prince and one or two others involved in them, would be our ready and thrice-joyful course. Surely the so-called "Politics of Europe" in that day are a thing this Editor would otherwise with his whole soul, forget to all eternity! "Putrid fermentation," ending, after the endurance of much mal-odor, in mere zero to you and to every one, even to the rotting bodies themselves:--is there any wise Editor that would connect himself with that? These are the fields of History which are to be, so soon as humanly possible, SUPPRESSED; which only Mephistopheles, or the bad Genius of Mankind, can contemplate with pleasure.

Let us strive to touch lightly the chief summits, here and there, of that intricate, most empty, mournful Business,--which was really once a Fact in practical Europe, not the mere nightmare of an Attorney's Dream;--and indicate, so far as indispensable, how the young Friedrich, Friedrich's Sister, Father, Mother, were tribulated, almost heart-broken and done to death, by means of it.

IMPERIAL MAJESTY ON THE TREATY OF UTRECHT.

Kaiser Karl VI., head of the Holy Romish Empire at this time, was a handsome man to look upon; whose life, full of expense, vicissitude, futile labor and adventure, did not prove of much use to the world. Describable as a laborious futility rather. He was second son of that little Leopold, the solemn little Herr in red stockings, who had such troubles, frights, and runnings to and fro with the sieging Turks, liberative Sobieskis, acquisitive Louis Fourteenths; and who at length ended in a sea of futile labor, which they call the Spanish Succession War.

This Karl, second son, had been appointed "King of Spain" in that futile business; and with much sublimity, though internally in an impoverished condition, he proceeded towards Spain, landing in England to get cash for the outfit;--arrived in Spain; and roved about there as Titular-King for some years, with the fighting Peterboroughs, Galways, Stahrembergs; but did no good there, neither he nor his Peterboroughs. At length, his Brother Joseph, Father Leopold's successor, having died, [17th April, 1711.] Karl came home from Spain to be Kaiser. At which point, Karl would have been wise to give up his Titular Kingship in Spain; for he never got, nor will get, anything but futile labor from hanging to it. He did hang to it nevertheless; and still, at this date of George's visit and long afterwards, hangs,--with notable obstinacy. To the woe of men and nations: punishment doubtless of his sins and theirs!--

Kaiser Karl shrieked mere amazement and indignation, when the English tired of fighting for him and it. When the English said to their great Marlborough: "Enough, you sorry Marlborough! You have beaten Louis XIV. to the suppleness of wash-leather, at our bidding; that is true, and that may have had its difficulties: but, after all, we prefer to have the thing precisely as it would have been without any fighting. You, therefore, what is the good of you? You are a--person whom we fling out like sweepings, now that our eyesight returns, and accuse of common stealing. Go and be--!"

Nothing ever had so disgusted and astonished Kaiser Karl as this treatment,--not of Marlborough, whom he regarded only as he would have done a pair of military boots or a holster-pistol of superior excellence, for the uses that were in him,--but of the Kaiser Karl his own sublime self, the heart and focus of Political Nature; left in this manner, now when the sordid English and Dutch declined spending blood and money for him farther. "Ungrateful, sordid, inconceivable souls," answered Karl, "was there ever, since the early Christian times, such a martyr as you have now made of me!" So answered Karl, in diplomatic groans and shrieks, to all ends of Europe. But the sulky English and Allies, thoroughly tired of paying and bleeding, did not heed him; made their Peace of Utrecht [Peace of Utrecht, 11th April, 1713; Peace of Rastadt (following upon the Preliminaries of Baden), 6th March, 1714.] with Louis XIV., who was now beaten supple; and Karl, after a year of indignant protests and futile attempts to fight Louis on his own score, was obliged to do the like. He has lost the Spanish crown; but still holds by the shadow of it; will not quit that, if he can help it. He hunts much, digests well; is a sublime Kaiser, though internally rather poor, carrying his head high; and seems to himself, on some sides of his life, a martyred much-enduring man.

IMPERIAL MAJESTY HAS GOT HAPPILY WEDDED.

Kaiser Karl, soon after the time of going to Spain had decided that a Wife would be necessary. He applied to Caroline of Anspach, now English Princess of Wales, but at that time an orphaned Brandenburg-Anspach Princess, very Beautiful, graceful, gifted, and altogether unprovided for; living at Berlin under the guardianship of Friedrich the first King. Her young Mother had married again,--high enough match (to Kur-Sachsen, elder Brother of August the Strong, August at that time without prospects of the Electorate);--but it lasted short while: Caroline's Mother and Saxon Stepfather were both now, long since, dead. So she lived at Berlin brilliant though unportioned;--with the rough cub Friedrich Wilhelm much following her about, and passionately loyal to her, as the Beast was to Beauty; whom she did not mind except as a cub loyal to her; being five years older than he. [Forster, i. 107.] Indigent bright Caroline, a young lady of fine aquiline features and spirit, was applied for to be Queen of Spain; wooer a handsome man, who might even be Kaiser by and by. Indigent bright Caroline at once answered, No. She was never very orthodox in Protestant theology; but could not think of taking up Papistry for lucre's and ambition's sake: be that always remembered on Caroline's behalf.

The Spanish Majesty next applied at Brunswick Wolfenbuttel; no lack of Princesses there: Princesa Elizabeth, for instance; Protestant she too, but perhaps not so squeamish? Old Anton Ulrich, whom some readers know for the idle Books, long-winded Novels chiefly, which he wrote, was the Grandfather of this favored Princess; a good-natured old gentleman, of the idle ornamental species, in whose head most things, it is likely, were reduced to vocables, scribble and sentimentality; and only a steady internal gravitation towards praise and pudding was traceable as very real in him. Anton Ulrich, affronted more or less by the immense advancement of Gentleman Ernst and the Hanoverian or YOUNGER Brunswick Line, was extremely glad of the Imperial offer; and persuaded his timid Grand-daughter, ambitious too, but rather conscience-stricken, That the change from Protestant to Catholic, the essentials being so perfectly identical in both, was a mere trifle; that he himself, old as he was, would readily change along with her, so easy was it. Whereupon the young Lady made the big leap; abjured her religion; [1st May, 1707, at Bamberg.]--went to Spain as Queen (with sad injury to her complexion, but otherwise successfully more or less);--and sits now as Empress beside her Karl VI. in a grand enough, probably rather dull, but not singularly unhappy manner.

She, a Brunswick Princess, with Nephews and Nieces who may concern us, is Kaiserinn to Kaiser Karl: for aught I know of her, a kindly simple Wife, and unexceptionable Sovereign Majesty, of the sort wanted; whom let us remember, if we meet her again one day. I add only of this poor Lady, distinguished to me by a Daughter she had, that her mind still had some misgivings about the big leap she had made in the Protestant-Papist way. Finding Anton Ulrich still continue Protestant, she wrote to him out of Spain:--"Why, O honored Grandpapa, have you not done as you promised? Ah, there must be a taint of mortal sin in it, after all!" Upon which the absurdly situated old Gentleman did change his religion; and is marked as a Convert in all manner of Genealogies and Histories;--truly an old literary gentleman ducal and serene, restored to the bosom of the Church in a somewhat peculiarly ridiculous manner. [Michaelis, i. 131.]--But to return.

IMPERIAL MAJESTY AND THE TERMAGANT OF SPAIN.

Ever after the Peace of Utrecht, when England and Holland declined to bleed for him farther, especially ever since his own Peace of Rastadt made with Louis the year after Kaiser Karl had utterly lost hold of the Crown of Spain; and had not the least chance to clutch that bright substance again. But he held by the shadow of it, with a deadly Hapsburg tenacity; refused for twenty years, under all pressures, to part with the shadow: "The Spanish Hapsburg Branch is dead; whereupon do not I, of the Austrian Branch, sole representative of Kaiser Karl the Fifth, claim, by the law of Heaven, whatever he possessed in Spain, by law of ditto? Battles of Blenheim of Malplaquet, Court-intrigues of Mrs. Masham and the Duchess: these may bring Treaties of Utrecht, and what you are pleased to call laws of Earth;--but a Hapsburg Kaiser knows higher laws, if you would do a thousand Utrechts; and by these, Spain is his!"

Poor Kaiser Karl: he had a high thought in him really though a most misguided one. Titular King of Men; but much bewildered into mere indolent fatuity, inane solemnity, high sniffing pride grounded on nothing at all; a Kaiser much sunk in the sediments of his muddy Epoch. Sure enough, he was a proud lofty solemn Kaiser, infinitely the gentleman in air and humor; Spanish gravities, ceremonials, reticences;--and could, in a better scene, have distinguished himself by better than mere statuesque immovability of posture, dignified endurance of ennui, and Hapsburg tenacity in holding the grip. It was not till 1735, after tusslings and wrenchings beyond calculation, that he would consent to quit the Shadow of the Crown of Spain; and let Europe BE at peace on that score.

The essence of what is called the European History of this Period, such History as a Period sunk dead in spirit, and alive only in stomach, can have, turns all on Kaiser Karl, and these his clutchings at shadows. Which makes a very sad, surprising History indeed; more worthy to be called Phenomena of Putrid Fermentation, than Struggles of Human Heroism to vindicate itself in this Planet, which latter alone are worthy of recording as "History" by mankind.

On the throne of Spain, beside Philip V. the melancholic new Bourbon, Louis XIV.'s Grandson, sat Elizabeth Farnese, a termagant tenacious woman, whose ambitious cupidities were not inferior in obstinacy to Kaiser Karl's, and proved not quite so shadowy as his. Elizabeth also wanted several things: renunciation of your (Kaiser Karl's) shadowy claims; nay of sundry real usurpations you and your Treaties have made on the actual possessions of Spain,--Kingdom of Sicily, for instance; Netherlands, for instance; Gibraltar, for instance. But there is one thing which, we observe, is indispensable throughout to Elizabeth Farnese: the future settlement of her dear Boy Carlos. Carlos, whom as Spanish Philip's second Wife she had given to Spain and the world, as Second or supplementary INFANT there,--a troublesome gift to Spain and others.

"This dear Boy, surely he must have his Italian Apanages, which, you have provided for him: Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which will fall heirless soon. Security for these Italian Apanages, such as will satisfy a Mother: Let us introduce Spanish garrisons into Parma and Piacenza at once! How else can we be certain of getting those indispensable Apanages, when they fall vacant?" On this point Elizabeth Farnese was positive, maternally vehement; would take no subterfuge, denial or delay: "Let me perceive that I shall have these Duchies: that, first of all; or else not that only, but numerous other things will be demanded of you!"

Upon which point the Kaiser too, who loved his Duchies, and hoped yet to keep them by some turn of the game, never could decide to comply. Whereupon Elizabeth grew more and more termagant; listened to wild counsels; took up an Alberoni, a Ripperda, any wandering diplomatic bull-dog that offered; and let them loose upon the Kaiser and her other gainsayers. To the terror of mankind, lest universal war should supervene. She held the Kaiser well at bay, mankind well in panic; and continually there came on all Europe, for about twenty years, a terror that war was just about to break out, and the whole world to take fire. The History so called of Europe went canting from side to side; heeling at a huge rate, according to the passes and lunges these two giant figures, Imperial Majesty and the Termagant of Spain, made at one another,--for a twenty years or more, till once the duel was decided between them.

There came next to no war, after all; sputterings of war twice over,--1718, Byng at Messina, as we saw; and then, in 1727, a second sputter, as we are to see:--but the neighbors always ran with buckets, and got it quenched. No war to speak of; but such negotiating, diplomatizing, universal hope, universal fear, and infinite ado about nothing, as were seldom heard of before. For except Friedrich Wilhelm drilling his 50,000 soldiers (80,000 gradually, and gradually even twice that number), I see no Crowned Head in Europe that is not, with immeasurable apparatus, simply doing ZERO. Alas, in an age of universal infidelity to Heaven, where the Heavenly Sun has SUNK, there occur strange Spectre-huntings. Which is a fact worth laying to heart.--Duel of Twenty Years with Elizabeth Farnese, about the eventualities of Parma and Piacensa, and the Shadow of the lost Crown of Spain; this was the first grand Spectrality of Kaiser Karl's existence; but this was not the whole of them.

IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S PRAGMATIC SANCTION.

Kaiser Karl meanwhile was rather short of heirs; which formed another of his real troubles, and involved him in much shadow-hunting. His Wife, the Serene Brunswick Empress whom we spoke of above, did at length bring him children, brought him a boy even; but the boy died within the year; and, on the whole, there remained nothing but two Daughters; Maria Theresa the elder of them, born 1717,--the prettiest little maiden in the world;--no son to inherit Kaiser Karl. Under which circumstances Kaiser Karl produced now, in the Year 1724, a Document which he had executed privately as long ago as 1713, only his Privy Councillors and other Official witnesses knowing of it then; [19th April, 1713 (Stenzel, iii. 5222).] and solemnly publishes it to the world, as a thing all men are to take notice of. All men had notice enough of this Imperial bit of Sheepskin, before they got done with it, five-and-twenty years hence. [Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748.] A very famous Pragmatic Sanction; now published for the world's comfort!

By which Document, Kaiser Karl had formally settled, and fixed according to the power he has, in the shape of what they call a Pragmatic Sanction, or unalterable Ordinance in his Imperial House, "That, failing Heirs-male, his Daughters, his Eldest Daughter, should succeed him; failing Daughters, his Nieces; and in short, that Heirs-female ranking from their kinship to Kaiser Karl, and not to any prior Kaiser, should be as good as Heirs-male of Karl's body would have been." A Pragmatic Sanction is the high name he gives this document, or the Act it represents; "Pragmatic Sanction" being, in the Imperial Chancery and some others, the received title for Ordinances of a very irrevocable nature, which a sovereign makes, in affairs that belong wholly to himself, or what he reckons his own rights. [A rare kind of Deed, it would seem; and all the more solemn. In 1438, Charles VI. of France, conceding the Gallican Church its Liberties, does, it by "SANCTION PRAGMATIQUE;" Carlos III. of Spain (in 1759, "settling the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on his third son") does the like,--which is the last instance of "PRAGMATIC SANCTION" in this world.]

This Pragmatic Sanction of Kaiser Karl's, executed 19th April, 1713, was promulgated, "gradually," now here now there, from 1720 to 1724, [Stenzel, pp. 522, 523.]--in which later year it became universally public; and was transmitted to all Courts and Sovereignties, as an unalterable law of Things Imperial. Thereby the good man hopes his beautiful little Theresa, now seven years old, may succeed him, all as a son would have done, in the Austrian States and Dignities; and incalculable damages, wars, and chances of war, be prevented, for his House and for all the world.

The world, incredulous of to-morrow, in its lazy way, was not sufficiently attentive to this new law of things. Some who were personally interested, as the Saxon Sovereignty, and the Bavarian, denied that it was just: reminded Kaiser-Karl that he was not the Noah or Adam of Kaisers; and that the case of Heirs-female was not quite a new idea on sheepskin. No; there are older Pragmatic Sanctions and settlements, by prior Kaisers of blessed memory; under which, if Daughters are to come in, we, descended from Imperial Daughters of older standing, shall have a word to say!--To this Kaiser Karl answers steadily, with endless argument, That every Kaiser is a Patriarch, and First Man, in such matters; and that so it has been pragmatically sanctioned by him, and that so it shall and must irrevocably be. To the other Powers, and indolent impartial Sovereigns of the world, he was lavish in embassies; in ardent representations; and spared no pains in convincing them that to-morrow would surely come, and that then it would be a blessedness to have accepted this Pragmatic Sanction, and see it lying for you as a Law of Nature to go by, and avoid incalculable controversies.

This was another vast Shadow, or confused high-piled continent of shadows, to which our poor Kaiser held with his customary tenacity. To procure adherences and assurances to this dear Pragmatic Sanction, was, even more than the shadow of the Spanish Crown, and above all after he had quitted that, the one grand business of his Life henceforth. With which he kept all Europe in perpetual travail and diplomacy; raying out ambassadors, and less ostensible agents, with bribes, and with entreaties and proposals, into every high Sovereign Court and every low; negotiating unweariedly by all methods, with all men. For it was his evening-song and his morning-prayer; the grand meaning of Life to him, till Life ended. You would have said, the first question he asks of every creature is, "Will you covenant for my Pragmatic Sanction with me? Oh, agree to it; accept that new Law of Nature: when the morrow comes, it will be salutary for you!"

Most of the Foreign Potentates idly accepted the thing,--as things of a distant contingent kind are accepted;--made Treaty on it, since the Kaiser seemed so extremely anxious. Only Bavaria, having heritable claims, never would. Saxony too (August the Strong), being in the like case, or a better, flatly refused for a long time; would not, at all,--except for a consideration. Bright little Prince Eugene, who dictated square miles of Letters and DIplomacies on the subject (Letters of a steady depth of dulness, which at last grows almost sublime), was wont to tell his Majesty: "Treatying, your Majesty? A well-trained Army and a full Treasury; that is the only Treaty that will make this Pragmatic Sanction valid!" But his Majesty never would believe. So the bright old Eugene dictated,--or, we hope and guess, he only gave his clerks some key-word, and signed his name (in three languages, "Eugenio von Savoye") to these square miles of dull epistolary matter,--probably taking Spanish snuff when he had done. For he wears it in both waistcoat-pockets;--has (as his Portraits still tell us) given up breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, with a flash in him as of Heaven's own lightning; but now growing very old and snuffy.

Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the Spanish Crown,--it was such shadow-huntings of the Kaiser in Vienna, it was this of the Pragmatic Sanction most of all, that thwarted our Prussian Double-Marriage, which lay so far away from it. This it was that pretty nearly broke the hearts of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and their Mother and Father. For there never was such negotiating; not for admittance to the Kingdom of Heaven, in the pious times. And the open goings-forth of it, still more the secret minings and mole-courses of it, were into all places. Above ground and below, no Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him agree or not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and with all his heart, agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction; this above ground, in sight of the sun; and rashly fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his horror, he found the Imperial moles, by way of keeping assurance doubly sure, had been under the foundations of his very house for long years past, and had all but brought it down about him in the most hideous manner!--

THIRD SHADOW: IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OSTEND COMPANY.

Another object which Kaiser Karl pursued with some diligence in these times, and which likewise proved a shadow, much disturbance as it gave mankind, was his "Ostend East-India Company." The Kaiser had seen impoverished Spain, rich England, rich Holland; he had taken up a creditable notion about commerce and its advantages. He said to himself, Why should not my Netherlands trade to the East, as well as these English and Dutch, and grow opulent like them? He instituted (OCTROYA) an "Ostend East-India Company," under due Patents and Imperial Sheepskins, of date 17th December, 1722, [Buchholz, i. 88; Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne (Park, 1776), ii. 522.] gave it what freedom he could to trade to the East. "Impossible!" answered the Dutch, with distraction in their aspect; "Impossible, we say; contrary to Treaty of Westphalia, to Utrecht, to Barrier Treaty; and destructive to the best interests of mankind, especially to us and our trade-profits! We shall have to capture your ships, if you ever send any."

To which the Kaiser counterpleaded, earnestly, diligently, for the space of seven years,--to no effect. "We will capture your ships if you ever send any," answered the Dutch and English. What ships ever could have been sent from Ostend to the East, or what ill they could have done there, remains a mystery, owing to the monopolizing Maritime Powers.

The Kaiser's laudable zeal for commerce had to expend itself in his Adriatic Territories,--giving privileges to the Ports of Trieste and Fiume; [Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, x. 101.] making roads through the Dalmatian Hill-Countries, which are useful to this day;--but could not operate on the Netherlands in the way proposed. The Kaiser's Imperial Ostend East-India Company, which convulsed the Diplomatic mind for seven years to come, and made Europe lurch from side to side in a terrific manner, proved a mere paper Company; never sent any ships, only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honor to be." This was the third grand Shadow which the Kaiser chased, shaking all the world, poor crank world, as he strode after it; and this also ended in zero, and several tons of diplomatic correspondence, carried once by breathless estaffettes, and now silent, gravitating towards Acheron all of them, and interesting to the spiders only.

Poor good Kaiser: they say he was a humane stately gentleman, stately though shortish; fond of pardoning criminals where he could; very polite to Muratori and the Antiquaries, even to English Rymer, in opening his Archives to them,--and made roads in the Dalmatian Hill-Country, which remain to this day. I do not wonder he grew more and more saturnine, and addicted to solid taciturn field-sports. His Political "Perforce-Hunt (PARFORCE JAGD)," with so many two-footed terriers, and legationary beagles, distressing all the world by their baying and their burrowing, had proved to be of Shadows; and melted into thin air, to a very singular degree!

Chapter III. -- THE SEVEN CRISES OR EUROPEAN TRAVAIL-THROES.

In process of this so terrific Duel with Elizabeth Farnese, and general combat of the Shadows, which then made Europe quake, at every new lunge and pass of it, and which now makes Europe yawn to hear the least mention of it, there came two sputterings of actual War. Byng's sea-victory at Messina, 1718; Spanish "Siege of Gibraltar," 1727, are the main phenomena of these two Wars,--England, as its wont is, taking a shot in both, though it has now forgotten both. And, on the whole, there came, so far as I can count, Seven grand diplomatic Spasms or Crises,--desperate general European Treatyings hither and then thither, solemn Congresses two of them, with endless supplementary adhesions by the minor powers. Seven grand mother-treaties, not to mention the daughters, or supplementary adhesions they had; all Europe rising spasmodically seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this terrible incubus; all Europe changing color seven times, like a lobster boiling, for twenty years. Seven diplomatic Crises, we say, marked changings of color in the long-suffering lobster; and two so-called Wars,--before this enormous zero could be settled. Which high Treaties and Transactions, human nature, after much study of them, grudges to enumerate. Apanage for Baby Carlos, ghost of a Pragmatic Sanction; these were a pair of causes for mankind! Be no word spoken of them, except with regret and on evident compulsion.

For the reader's convenience we must note the salient points; but grudge to do it. Salient points, now mostly wrapt in Orcus, and terrestrially interesting only to the spiders,--except on an occasion of this kind, when part of them happens to stick to the history of a memorable man, To us they are mere bubblings-up of the general putrid fermentation of the then Political World; and are too unlovely to be dwelt on longer than indispensable. Triple Alliance, Quadruple Alliance, Congress of Cambrai, Congress of Soissons; Conference of Pardo, Treaty of Hanover, Treaty of Wusterhausen, what are they? Echo answers, What? Ripperda and the Queen of Spain, Kaiser Karl and his Pragmatic Sanction, are fallen dim to every mind. The Troubles of Thorn (sad enough Papist-Protestant tragedy in their time),--who now cares to know of them? It is much if we find a hearing for the poor Salzburg Emigrants when they get into Preussen itself. Afflicted human nature ought to be, at last, delivered from the palpably superfluous; and if a few things memorable are to be remembered, millions of things unmemorable must first be honestly buried and forgotten! But to our affair,--that of marking the chief bubblings-up in the above-said Universal Putrid Fermentation, so far as they concern us.

CONGRESS OF CAMBRAI.

We already saw Byng sea fighting in the Straits of Messina; that was part of Crisis Second,--sequel, in powder-and-ball, of Crisis First, which had been in paper till then. The Powers had interfered, by Triple, by Quadruple Alliance, to quench the Spanish-Austrian Duel (about Apanage for Baby Carlos, and a quantity of other Shadows): "Triple Alliance" [4th January, 1717.] was, we may say, when France, England, Holland laboriously sorted out terms of agreement between Kaiser and Termagant: "Quadruple" [18th July, 1718.] was when Kaiser, after much coaxing, acceded, as fourth party; and said gloomily, "Yes, then." Byng's Sea-fight was when Termagant said, "No, by--the Plots of Alberoni! Never will I, for my part, accede to such terms!" and attacked the poor Kaiser in his Sicilies and elsewhere. Byng's Sea-fight, in aid of a suffering Kaiser and his Sicilies, in consequence. Furthermore, the French invaded Spain, till Messina were retaken; nay the English, by land too, made a dash at Spain, "Descent on Vigo" as they call it,--in reference to which take the following stray Note:--

"That same year [1719, year after Byng's Sea-fight, Messina just about recaptured], there took effect, planned by the vigorous Colonel Stanhope, our Minister at Madrid, who took personal share in the thing, a 'Descent on Vigo,' sudden swoop-down upon Town and shipping in those Gallician, north-west regions. Which was perfectly successful,--Lord Cobham leading;--and made much noise among mankind. Filled all Gazettes at that time;--but now, again, is all fallen silent for us,--except this one thrice-insignificant point, That there was in it, 'in Handyside's Regiment,' a Lieutenant of Foot, by name STERNE, who had left, with his poor Wife at Plymouth, a very remarkable Boy called Lorry, or LAWRENCE; known since that to all mankind. When Lorry in his LIFE writes, 'my Father went on the Vigo expedition,' readers may understand this was it. Strange enough: that poor Lieutenant of Foot is now pretty much all that is left of this sublime enterprise upon Vigo, in the memory of mankind;--hanging there, as if by a single hair, till poor TRISTRAM SHANDY be forgotten too." [Memoirs of Laurence Sterne, written by himself for his Daughter (see Annual Register, Year 1775, pp. 50-52).]

In short, the French and even the English invaded Spain; English Byng and others sank Spanish ships: Termagant was obliged to pack away her Alberoni, and give in. She had to accede to "Quadruple Alliance," after all; making it, so to speak, a Quintuple one; making Peace, in fact, [17th February, 1720.]--general Congress to be held at Cambrai and settle the details.

Congress of Cambrai met accordingly; in 1722,--"in the course of the year," Delegates slowly raining in,--date not fixable to a day or month. Congress was "sat," as we said,--or, alas, was only still endeavoring to get seated, and wandering about among the chairs,--when George I. came to Charlottenburg that evening, October, 1723, and surveyed Wilhelmina with a candle. More inane Congress never met in this world, nor will meet. Settlement proved so difficult; all the more, as neither of the quarrelling parties wished it. Kaiser and Termagant, fallen as if exhausted, had not the least disposition to agree; lay diplomatically gnashing their teeth at one another, ready to fight again should strength return. Difficult for third parties to settle on behalf of such a pair. Nay at length the Kaiser's Ostend Company came to light: what will third parties, Dutch and English especially, make of that?

This poor Congress---let the reader fancy it--spent two years in "arguments about precedencies," in mere beatings of the air; could not get seated at all, but wandered among the chairs, till "February, 1724." Nor did it manage to accomplish any work whatever, even then; the most inane of Human Congresses; and memorable on that account, if on no other. There, in old stagnant Cambrai, through the third year and into the fourth, were Delegates, Spanish, Austrian, English, Dutch, French, of solemn outfit, with a big tail to each,--"Lord Whitworth" whom I do not know, "Lord Polwarth" (Earl of Marchmont that will be, a friend of Pope's), were the English Principals: [Scholl, ii. 197.]--there, for about four years, were these poor fellow-creatures busied, baling out water with sieves. Seen through the Horn-Gate of Dreams, the figure of them rises almost grand on the mind.

A certain bright young Frenchman, Francois Arouet,--spoiled for a solid law-career, but whose OEDIPE we saw triumphing in the Theatres, and who will, under the new name of VOLTAIRE, become very memorable to us,--happened to be running towards Holland that way, one of his many journeys thitherward; and actually saw this Congress, then in the first year of its existence. Saw it, probably dined with it. A Letter of his still extant, not yet fallen to the spiders, as so much else has done, testifies to this fact. Let us read part of it, the less despicable part,--as a Piece supremely insignificant, yet now in a manner the one surviving Document of this extraordinary Congress; Congress's own works and history having all otherwise fallen to the spiders forever. The Letter is addressed to Cardinal Dubois;--for Dubois, "with the face like a goat," [Herzogin von Orleans, BRIEFE.] yet lived (first year of this Congress); and Regent d'Orleans lived, intensely interested here as third party:--and a goat-faced Cardinal, once pimp and lackey, ugliest of created souls, Archbishop of this same Cambrai "by Divine permission" and favor of Beelzebub, was capable of promoting a young fellow if he chose:--

"TO HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL DUBOIS (from Arouet Junior).

"CAMBRAI, July, 1722.

"... We are just arrived in your City, Monseigneur; where, I think, all the Ambassadors and all the Cooks in Europe have given one another rendezvous. It seems as if all the Ministers of Germany had assembled here for the purpose of getting their Emperor's health drunk. As to Messieurs the Ambassadors of Spain, one of them hears two masses a day, and the other manages the troop of players. The English Ministers [a LORD POLWARTH and a LORD WHITWORTH] send many couriers to Champagne, and few to London. For the rest, nobody expects your Eminence here; it is not thought you will quit the Palais-Royal to visit the sheep of your flock in these parts [no!], it would be too bad for your Eminence and for us all.... Think sometimes, Monseigneur, of a man who [regards your goat-faced Eminence as a beautiful ingenious creature; and such a hand in conversation as never was]. The one thing I will ask [of your goat-faced Eminence] at Paris will be, to have the goodness to talk to me." [OEuvres de Voltaire, 97 vols. (Paris, 1825-1834), lxviii. 95, 96.]

Alas, alas!--The more despicable portions of this Letter we omit, as they are not history of the Congress, but of Arouet Junior on the shady side. So much will testify that this Congress did exist; that its wiggeries and it were not always, what they now are, part of a nightmare-vision in Human History.--

Elizabeth Farnese, seeing at what rate the Congress of Cambrai sped, lost all patience with it; and getting more and more exasperations there, at length employed one Ripperda, a surprising Dutch Black-Artist whom she now had for Minister, to pull the floor from beneath it (so to speak), and send it home in that manner. Which Ripperda did. An appropriate enough catastrophe, comfortable to the reader; upon which perhaps he will not grudge to read still another word?

CONGRESS OF CAMBRAI GETS THE FLOOR PULLED FROM UNDER IT.

Termagant Elizabeth had now one Ripperda for Minister; a surprising Dutch adventurer, once secretary of some Dutch embassy at Madrid; who, discerning how the land lay, had broken loose from that subaltern career, had changed his religion, insinuated himself into Elizabeth's royal favor; and was now "Duke de Ripperda," and a diplomatic bull-dog of the first quality, full of mighty schemes and hopes; in brief, a new Alberoni to the Termagant Queen. This Ripperda had persuaded her (the third year of our inane Congress now running out, to no purpose), That he, if he were sent direct to Vienna, could reconcile the Kaiser to her Majesty, and bring them to Treaty, independently of Congresses. He was sent accordingly, in all privacy; had reported himself as laboring there, with the best outlooks, for some while past; when, still early in 1725, there occurred on the part of France,--where Regent d'Orleans was now dead, and new politics bad come in vogue,--that "sending back," of the poor little Spanish: Infanta, ["5th April, 1725, quitted Paris" (Barbier, Journal du Regne de Louis XV., i. 218).] and marrying of young Louis XV. elsewhere, which drove Elizabeth and the Court of Spain, not unnaturally, into a very delirium of indignation.

Why they sent the poor little Lady home on those shocking terms? It seems there was no particular reason, except that French Louis was now about fifteen, and little Spanish Theresa was only eight; and that, under Duc de Bourbon, the new Premier, and none of the wisest, there was, express or implicit, "an ardent wish to see royal progeny secured." For which, of course, a wife of eight years would not answer. So she was returned; and even in a blundering way, it is said,--the French Ambassador at Madrid having prefaced his communication, not with light adroit preludings of speech, but with a tempest of tears and howling lamentations, as if that were the way to conciliate King Philip and his Termagant Elizabeth. Transport of indignation was the natural consequence on their part; order to every Frenchman to be across the border within, say eight-and-forty hours; rejection forever of all French mediation at Cambrai or elsewhere; question to the English, "Will you mediate for us, then?" To which the answer being merely "Hm!" with looks of delay,--order by express to Ripperda, to make straightway a bargain with the Kaiser; almost any bargain, so it were made at once. Ripperda made a bargain: Treaty of Vienna, 30th April, 1725: [Scholl, ii. 201; Coxe, Walpole, i. 239-250.] "Titles and Shadows each of us shall keep for his own lifetime, then they shall drop. As to realities again, to Parma and Piacenza among the rest, let these be as in the Treaty of Utrecht; arrangeable in the lump;--and indeed, of Parma and Piacenza perhaps the less we say, the better at present." This was, in substance, Ripperda's Treaty; the Third great European travail-throe, or change of color in the long-suffering lobster. Whereby, of course, the Congress of Cambrai did straightway disappear, the floor miraculously vanishing under it; and sinks--far below human eye-reach by this time--towards the Bottomless Pool, ever since. Such was the beginning, such the end of that Congress, which Arouet LE JEUNE, in 1722, saw as a contemporary Fact, drinking champagne in Ramillies wigs, and arranging comedies for itself.

FRANCE AND THE BRITANNIC MAJESTY TRIM THE SHIP AGAIN: HOW FRIEDRICH WILHELM CAME INTO IT. TREATY OF HANOVER, 1725.

The publication of this Treaty of Vienna (30th April, 1725),--miraculous disappearance of the Congress of Cambrai by withdrawal of the floor from under it, and close union of the Courts of Spain and Vienna as the outcome of its slow labors,--filled Europe, and chiefly the late mediating Powers, with amazement, anger, terror. Made Europe lurch suddenly to the other side, as we phrased it,--other gunwale now under water. Wherefore, in Heaven's name, trim your ship again, if possible, ye high mediating Powers. This the mediating Powers were laudably alert to do. Duc de Bourbon, and his young King about to marry, were of pacific tendencies; anxious for the Balance: still more was Fleury, who succeeded Duc de Bourbon. Cardinal Fleury (with his pupil Louis XV. under him, producing royal progeny and nothing worse or better as yet) began, next year, his long supremacy in France; an aged reverend gentleman, of sly, delicately cunning ways, and disliking war, as George I. did, unless when forced on him: now and henceforth, no mediating power more anxious than France to have the ship in trim.

George and Bourbon laid their heads together, deeply pondering this little less than awful state of the Terrestrial Balance; and in about six months they, in their quiet way, suddenly came out with a Fourth Crisis on the astonished populations, so as to right the ship's trim again, and more. "Treaty of Hanover," this was their unexpected manoeuvre; done quietly at Herrenhausen, when his Majesty next went across for the Hanover hunting-season. Mere hunting:--but the diplomatists, as well as the beagles, were all in readiness there. Even Friedrich Wilhelm, ostensibly intent on hunting, was come over thither, his abstruse Ilgens, with their inkhorns, escorting him: Friedrich Wilhelm, hunting in unexpected sort, was persuaded to sign this Treaty; which makes it unusually interesting to us. An exceptional procedure on the part of Friedrich Wilhelm, who beyond all Sovereigns stays well at home, careless of affairs that are not his:--procedure betokening cordiality at Hanover; and of good omen for the Double-Marriage?

Yes, surely;--and yet something more, on Friedrich Wilhelm's part. His rights on the Cleve-Julich Countries; reversion of Julich and Berg, once Karl Philip shall decease:--perhaps these high Powers, for a consideration, will guarantee one's undoubted rights there? It is understood they gave promises of this kind, not too specific. Nay we hear farther a curious thing: "France and England, looking for immediate war with the Kaiser, advised Friedrich Wilhelm to assert his rights on Silesia." Which would have been an important procedure! Friedrich Wilhelm, it is added, had actual thoughts of it; the Kaiser, in those matters of the RITTER-DIENST, of the HEIDELBERG PROTESTANTS, and wherever a chance was, had been unfriendly, little less than insulting, to Friedrich Wilhelm: "Give me one single Hanoverian brigade, to show that you go along with me!" said his Prussian Majesty;--but the Britannic never altogether would. [OEuvres de Frederic, i. 153.] Certain it is, Friedrich Wilhelm signed: a man with such Fighting-Apparatus as to be important in a Hanover Treaty. "Balance of Power, they tell me, is in a dreadful way: certainly if one can help the Balance a little, why not? But Julich and Berg, one's own outlook of reversion there, that is the point to be attended to:--Balance, I believe, will somehow shift for itself!" On these principles, Friedrich Wilhelm signed, while ostensibly hunting. [Fassmann, p. 368; Forster, _ Urkundenbuch,_ p. 67.] Treaty of Hanover, which was to trim the ship again, or even to make it heel the other way, dates itself 3d September, 1725, and is of this purport: "We three, France, England, Prussia to stand by each other as one man, in case any of us is attacked,--will invite Holland, Denmark, Sweden and every pacific Sovereignty to join us in such convention,"--as they all gradually did, had Friedrich Wilhelm but stood firm.

For it is a state of the Balances little less than awful. Rumor goes that, by the Ripperda bargain, fatal to mankind, Don Carlos was to get the beautiful young Maria Theresa to wife: that would settle the Parma-Piacenza business and some others; that would be a compensation with a witness! Spain and Austria united, as in Karl V.'s time; or perhaps some Succession War, or worse, to fight over again!--

Fleury and George, as Duc de Bourbon and George had done, though both pacific gentlemen, brandished weapons at the Kaiser; strongly admonishing him to become less formidable, or it would be worse for him. Possible indeed, in such a shadow-hunting, shadow-hunted hour! Fleury and George stand looking with intense anxiety into a certain spectral something, which they call the Balance of Power; no end to their exorcisms in that matter. Truly, if each of the Royal Majesties and Serene Highnesses would attend to his own affairs,--doing his utmost to better his own land and people, in earthly and in heavenly respects, a little,--he would find it infinitely profitabler for himself and others. And the Balance of Power would settle, in that case, as the laws of gravity ordered: which is its one method of settling, after all diplomacy!--Fleury and George, by their manifestoing, still more by their levying of men, George I. shovelling out his English subsidies as usual, created deadly qualms in the Kaiser; who still found it unpleasant to "admit Spanish Garrisons in Parma;" but found likewise his Termagant Friend inexorably positive on that score; and knew not what would become of him, if he had to try fighting, and the Sea-Powers refused him cash to do it.

Hereby was the ship trimmed, and more; ship now lurching to the other side again. George I. goes subsidying Hessians, Danes; sounding manifestoes, beating drums, in an alarming manner: and the Kaiser, except it were in Russia, with the new Czarina Catherine I. (that brown little woman, now become Czarina [8th February, 1725. Treaty with Kaiser (6th August, 1726) went to nothing on her death, 11th May, 1727.]), finds no ally to speak of. An unlucky, spectre-hunting, spectre-hunted Kaiser; who, amid so many drums, manifestoes, menaces, is now rolling eyes that witness everywhere considerable dismay. This is the Fourth grand Crisis of Europe; crisis or travail-throe of Nature, bringing forth, and unable to do it, Baby Carlos's Apanage and the Pragmatic Sanction. Fourth conspicuous change of color to the universal lobster, getting itself boiled on those sad terms, for twenty years. For its sins, we need not doubt; for its own long-continued cowardices, sloths and greedy follies, as well as those of Kaiser Karl!--

At this Fourth change we will gladly leave the matter, for a time; much wishing it might be forever. Alas, as if that were possible to us! Meanwhile, let afflicted readers, looking before and after, readier to forget than to remember in such a case, accept this Note, or Summary of all the Seven together, by way of help:--

TRAVAIL-THROES OF NATURE FOR BABY CARLOS'S ITALIAN APANAGE; SEVEN IN NUMBER.

1. Triple Alliance, English, Dutch, French (4th January, 1717), saying, "Peace, then! No Alberoni-plotting; no Duel-fighting permitted!" Same Powers, next year, proposing Terms of Agreement; Kaiser gloomily accepting them; which makes it Quadruple Alliance (18th July, 1718); Termagant indignantly refusing,--with attack on the Kaiser's Sicilies.

2. First Sputter of War; Byng's Sea-fight, and the other pressures, compelling Termagant: Peace (26th January, 1720); Congress of Cambrai to settle the Apanage and other points.

3. Congress of Cambrai, a weariness to gods and men, gets the floor pulled from under it (Ripperda's feat, 30th April, 1725); so that Kaiser and Termagant stand ranked together, Apanage wrapt in mystery,--to the terror of mankind.

4. Treaty of Hanover (France, England, Prussia, 3d September, 1725) restores the Balances, and more. War imminent. Prussia privately falls off,--as we shall see.

[These first Four lie behind us, at this point; but there are Three others still ahead, which we cannot hope to escape altogether; namely:]

5. Second Sputter of War: Termagant besieges Gibraltar (4th March, 1727--6th March, 1728): Peace at that latter date;--Congress of Soissons to settle the Apanage and other points, as formerly.

6. Congress of Soissons (14th June, 1728--9th November, 1729), as formerly, cannot in the least: Termagaut whispers England;--there is Treaty of Seville (9th November, 1729), France and England undertaking for the Apanage. Congress vanishes; Kaiser is left solitary, with the shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, in the night of things. Pause of an awful nature:--but Fleury does not hasten with the Apanage, as promised. Whereupon, at length,

7. Treaty of Vienna (16th March, 1731): Sea-Powers, leading Termagant by the hand, Sea-Powers and no France, unite with Kaiser again, according to the old laws of Nature;--and Baby Carlos gets his Apanage, in due course;--but does not rest content with it, Mamma nor he, very long!

Huge spectres and absurd bugaboos, stalking through the brain of dull thoughtless pusillanimous mankind, do, to a terrible extent, tumble hither and thither, and cause to lurch from side to side, their ship of state, and all that is embarked there, BREAKFAST-TABLE, among other things. Nevertheless, if they were only bugaboos, and mere Shadows caused by Imperial hand-lanterns in the general Night of the world,--ought they to be spoken of in the family, when avoidable?

Chapter IV. -- DOUBLE-MARRIAGE TREATY CANNOT BE SIGNED.

Hitherto the world-tides, and ebbs and flows of external Politics, had, by accident, rather forwarded, than hindered the Double-Marriage. In the rear of such a Treaty of Hanover, triumphantly righting the European Balances by help of Friedrich Wilhelm, one might have hoped this little domestic Treaty would, at last, get itself signed. Queen Sophie did hasten off to Hanover, directly after her husband had left it under those favorable aspects: but Papa again proved unmanageable; the Treaty could not be achieved.

Alas, and why not? Parents and Children, on both sides, being really desirous of it, what reason is there but it should in due time come to perfection, and, without annihilating Time and Space, make four lovers happy? No reason. Rubs doubtless had arisen since that Visit of George I., discordant procedures, chiefly about Friedrich Wilhelm's recruiting operations in the Hanover territory, as shall be noted by and by: but these the ever-wakeful enthusiasm of Queen Sophie, who had set her whole heart with a female fixity on this Double-Marriage Project, had smoothed down again: and now, Papa and Husband being so blessedly united in their World Politics, why not sign the Marriage-Treaty? Honored Majesty-Papa, why not!--"Tush, child, you do not understand. In these tremendous circumstances, the celestial Sign of the BALANCE just about canting, and the Obliquity of the Ecliptic like to alter, how can one think of little marriages? Wait till the Obliquity of the Ecliptic come steadily to its old pitch!"--

Truth is, George was in general of a slow, solemn, Spanish turn of manners; "intolerably proud, too, since he got that English dignity," says Wilhelmina: he seemed always tacitly to look down on Friedrich Wilhelm, as if the Prussian Majesty were a kind of inferior clownish King in comparison. It is certain he showed no eagerness to get the Treaty perfected. Again and again, when specially applied to by Queen Sophie, on Friedrich Wilhelm's order, he intimated only: "It was a fixed thing, but not to be hurried,--English Parliaments were concerned in it, the parties were still young," and so on;--after which brief answer he would take you to the window, and ask, "If you did not think the Herrenhausen Gardens and their Leibnitz waterworks, and clipped-beech walls were rather fine?" [Pollnitz, _ Memoiren,_ ii. 226, 228, &c.]

In fact, the English Parliaments, from whom money was so often demanded for our fat Improper Darlingtons, lean Improper Kendals and other royal occasions, would naturally have to make a marriage-revenue for this fine Grandson of ours;--Grandson Fred, who is now a young lout of, eighteen; leading an extremely dissolute life, they say, at Hanover; and by no means the most beautiful of mortals, either he or the foolish little Father of him, to our old sad heart. They can wait, they can wait! said George always.

But undoubtedly he did intend that both Marriages should take effect: only he was slow; and the more you hurried him, perhaps the slower. He would have perfected the Treaty "next year," say the Authorities; meant to do so, if well let alone: but Townshend whispered withal, "Better not urge him." Surly George was always a man of his word; no treachery intended by him, towards Friedrich Wilhelm or any man. It is very clear, moreover, that Friedrich Wilhelm, in this Autumn 1725, was, and was like to be, of high importance to King George; a man not to be angered by dishonorable treatment, had such otherwise been likely on George's part. Nevertheless George did not sign the Treaty "next year" either,--such things having intervened;--nor the next year after that, for reasons tragically good on the latter occasion!

These delays about the Double-Marriage Treaty are not a pleasing feature of it to Friedrich Wilhelm; who is very capable of being hurt by slights; who, at any rate, dislikes to have loose thrums flying about, or that the business of to-day should be shoved over upon to-morrow. And so Queen Sophie has her own sore difficulties; driven thus between the Barbarians (that is, her Husband), and the deep Sea (that is, her Father), to and fro. Nevertheless, since all parties to the matter wished it, Sophie and the younger parties getting even enthusiastic about it; and since the matter itself was good, agreeable so far to Prussia and England, to Protestant Germany and to Heaven and Earth,--might not Sophie confidently hope to vanquish these and other difficulties; and so bring all things to a happy close?

Had it not been for the Imperial Shadow-huntings, and this rickety condition of the celestial Balance! Alas, the outer elements interfered with Queen Sophie in a singular manner. Huge foreign world-movements, springing from Vienna and a spectre-haunted Kaiser, and spreading like an avalanche over all the Earth, snatched up this little Double-Marriage question; tore it along with them, reeling over precipices, one knew not whitherward, at such a rate as was seldom seen before. Scarcely in the Minerva Press is there record of such surprising, infinite and inextricable obstructions to a wedding or a double-wedding. Time and space, which cannot be annihilated to make two lovers happy, were here turned topsy-turvy, as it were, to make four lovers,--four, or at the very least three, for Wilhelmina will not admit she was ever the least in love, not she, poor soul, either with loose Fred or his English outlooks,--four young creatures, and one or more elderly persons, superlatively wretched; and even, literally enough, to do all but kill some of them.

What is noteworthy too, it proved wholly inane, this huge world-ocean of Intrigues and Imperial Necromancy; ran dry at last into absolute nothing even for the Kaiser, and might as well not have been. And Mother and Father, on the Prussian side, were driven to despair and pretty nearly to delirium by it; and our poor young Fritz got tormented, scourged, and throttled in body and in soul by it, till he grew to loathe the light of the sun, and in fact looked soon to have quitted said light at one stage of the business.

We are now approaching Act Second of the Double-Marriage, where Imperial Ordnance-Master Graf von Seckendorf, a Black-Artist of supreme quality, despatched from Vienna on secret errand, "crosses the Palace Esplanade at Berlin on a summer evening of the year 1726;" and evokes all the demons on our little Crown-Prince and those dear to him. We must first say something of an important step, shortly antecedent thereto, which occurred in the Crown-Prince's educational course.

Chapter V. -- CROWN-PRINCE GOES INTO THE POTSDAM GUARDS.

Amid such commotion of the foreign elements and the domestic, an important change occurs in the Crown-Prince's course of schooling. It is decided that, whatever be his progress in the speculative branches, it is time he should go into the Army, and practically learn soldiering. In his fourteenth year, 3d May, 1725, [Preuss, i. 26; 106; and Buch fur Jedermann (a minor book of his, on the same subject, Berlin, 1837), ii. 13.] not long before the Treaty of Hanover, he was formally named Captain, by Papa in War-council. Grenadier Guards, Potsdam Lifeguards, to be the regiment; and next year he is nominated Major, and, a vacancy occurring, appointed to begin actual duty. It is on the "20th of August, 1726, that he first leads out his battalion to the muster," on those terms. His age is not yet fifteen by four months;--a very tiny Major among those Potsdam giants; but by rank, we observe, he rides; and his horse is doubtless of the due height. And so the tiny Cadet-drillings have ended; long Files of Giants, splendent in gold-lace and grenadier-caps, have succeeded; and earnest work instead of mimic, in that matter, has begun.

However it may have fared with his other school-lessons, here now is a school-form he is advanced to, in which there will be no resource but learning. Bad spelling might be overlooked by those that had charge of it; bad drilling is not permissible on any terms. We need not doubt the Crown-Prince did his soldier-duty faithfully, and learned in every point the conduct of an officer: penalty as of Rhadamanthus waited upon all failure there. That he liked it is by no means said; he much disliked it, and his disgusts were many. An airy young creature:--and it was in this time to give one instance, that that shearing of his locks occurred: which was spoken of above, where the Court-Chirurgus proved so merciful. To clog the winged Psyche in ever-returning parade-routine and military pipe-clay,--it seems very cruel. But it is not to be altered: in spite of one's disgusts, the dull work, to the last item of it, has daily to be done. Which proved infinitely beneficial to the Crown-Prince, after all. Hereby, to his Athenian-French elegancies, and airy promptitudes and brilliancies, there shall lie as basis an adamantine Spartanism and Stoicism; very rare, but very indispensable, for such a superstructure. Well exemplified, through after life, in this Crown-Prince.

OF THE POTSDAM GIANTS, AS A FACT.

His regiment was the Potsdam Grenadier Guard; that unique giant-regiment, of which the world has heard so much in a vague half-mythical way. The giant-regiment was not a Myth, however, but a big-boned expensive Fact, tramping very hard upon the earth at one time, though now gone all to the ghostly state. As it was a CLASS-BOOK, so to speak, of our Friedrich's,--Class-Book (printed in huge type) for a certain branch of his schooling, the details of which are so dim, though the general outcome of it proved so unforgettable,--readers, apart from their curiosity otherwise, may as well take a glimpse of it on this occasion. Vanished now, and grown a Giant Phantom, the like of it hardly again to be in this world; and by accident, the very smallest Figure ever ranked in it makes it memorable there!--

With a wise instinct, Friedrich Wilhelm had discerned that all things in Prussia must point towards his Army; that his Army was the heart and pith; the State being the tree, every branch and leaf bound, after its sort, to be nutritive and productive for the Army's behoof. That, probably for any Nation in the long-run, and certainly for the Prussian Nation straightway, life or death depends on the Army: Friedrich Wilhelm's head, in an inarticulate manner, was full of this just notion; and all his life was spent in organizing it to a practical fact. The more of potential battle, the more of life is in us: a MAXIMUM of potential battle, therefore; and let it be the OPTIMUM in quality! How Friedrich Wilhelm cared, day and night, with all his heart and all his soul, to bring his Army to the supreme pitch, we have often heard; and the more we look into his ways, the more we are impressed with that fact. It was the central thing for him; all other things circulating towards it, deriving from it: no labor too great, and none too little, to be undergone for such an object. He watched over it like an Argus, with eyes that reached everywhere. Discipline shall be as exact as Euclid;--short of perfection we do not stop! Discipline and ever better discipline; enforcement of the rule in all points, improvement of the rule itself where possible, were the great Drill-sergeant's continual care. Daily had some loop fallen, which might have gone ravelling far enough; but daily was he there to pick it up again, and keep the web unrent and solidly progressive.

We said, it was the "poetic ideal" of Friedrich Wilhelm; who is a dumb poet in several particulars,--and requires the privileges of genius from those that READ his dumb poem. It must be owned he rises into the fantastic here and there; and has crotchets of ultraperfection for his Army, which are not rational at all. Crotchets that grew ever madder, the farther he followed them. This Lifeguard Regiment of foot, for instance, in which the Crown-Prince now is,--Friedrich Wilhelm got it in his Father's time, no doubt a regiment then of fair qualities; and he has kept drilling it, improving it, as poets polish stanzas, unweariedly ever since:--and see now what it has grown to! A Potsdam Giant Regiment, such as the world never saw, before or since. Three Battalions of them,--two always here at Potsdam doing formal lifeguard duty, the third at Brandenburg on drill; 800 to the Battalion,--2,400 sons of Anak in all. Sublime enough, hugely perfect to the royal eye, such a mass of shining giants, in their long-drawn regularities and mathematical manoeuvrings,--like some streak of Promethean lightning, realized here at last, in the vulgar dusk of things!

Truly they are men supreme in discipline, in beauty of equipment; and the shortest man of them rises, I think, towards seven feet, some are nearly nine feet high. Men from all countries; a hundred and odd come annually, as we saw, from Russia,--a very precious windfall: the rest have been collected, crimped, purchased out of every European country, at enormous expense, not to speak of other trouble to his Majesty. James Kirkman, an Irish recruit of good inches, cost him 1,200 pounds before he could be got inveigled, shipped and brought safe to hand. The documents are yet in existence; [Forster, Handbuch der Geschichte, Geographie und Statistik des Preussischen Reichs (Berlin, 1820), iv. 130, 132;--not in a very lucid state.] and the Portrait of this Irish fellow-citizen himself, who is by no means a beautiful man. Indeed, they are all portrayed; all the privates of this distinguished Regiment are, if anybody cared to look at them--Redivanoff from Moscow seems of far better bone than Kirkman, though still more stolid of aspect. One Hohmann, a born Prussian, was so tall, you could not, though yourself tall, touch his bare crown with your hand; August the Strong of Poland tried, on one occasion, and could not. Before Hohmann turned up, there had been "Jonas the Norwegian Blacksmith,", also a dreadfully tall monster. Giant "Macdoll,"--who was to be married, no consent asked on EITHER side, to the tall young woman, which latter turned out to be a decrepit OLD woman (all Jest-Books know the myth),--he also was an Irish Giant; his name probably M'Dowal. [Forster, _ Preussens Helden im Krieg und Frieden_ (Berlin, l848), i. 531; no date to the story, no evidence what grain of truth may be in it.] This Hohmann was now FLUGELMANN ("fugleman" as we have named it, leader of the file), the Tallest of the Regiment, a very mountain of pipe-clayed flesh and bone.

Here, in reference to one other of those poor Giants, is an Anecdote from Fassmann (who is very full on this subject of the Giants; abstruse Historical Fassmann, often painfully cited by us): a most small Anecdote, but then an indisputably certain one;--which brings back to us, in a strange way, the vanished Time and its populations; as the poorest authentic wooden lucifer may do, kindling suddenly, and' peopling the void Night for moments, to the seeing eye!--

Fassmann, a very dark German literary man, in obsolete costume and garniture, how living or what doing we cannot guess, found himself at Paris, gazing about, in the year 1713; where, among other things, the Fair of St. Germain was going on. Loud, large Fair of St. Germain, "which lasts from Candlemas to the Monday before Easter;" and Fassmann one day took a walk of contemplation through the same. Much noise, gesticulation, little meaning. Show-booths, temporary theatres, merry-andrews, sleight-of-hand men; and a vast public, drinking, dancing, gambling, flirting, as its wont is. Nothing new for us there; new only that it all lies five generations from us now. Did "the Old Pretender," who was then in his expectant period, in this same village of St. Germain, see it too, as Fassmann did? And Louis XIV., he is at Versailles; drooping fast, very dull to his Maintenon. And our little Fritz in Berlin is a child in arms;--and the world is all awake as usual, while Fassmann strolls through this noisy inanity of show-booths, in the year 1713.

Strolling along, Fassmann came upon a certain booth with an enormous Picture hung aloft in front of it: "Picture of a very tall man, in HEYDUC livery, coat reaching to his ankles, in grand peruke, cap and big heron-plume, with these words, 'LE GEANT ALLEMAND (German Giant),' written underneath. Partly from curiosity, partly "for country's sake," Fassmann expended twopence; viewed the gigantic fellow-creature; admits he had never seen one so tall; though "Bentenrieder, the Imperial Diplomatist," thought by some to be the tallest of men, had come athwart him once. This giant's name was Muller; birthplace the neighborhood of Weissenfels;--"a Saxon like myself. He had a small German Wife, not half his size. He made money readily, showing himself about, in France, England, Holland;"--and Fassmann went his way, thinking no more of the fellow.--But now, continues Fassmann:--

"Coming to Potsdam, thirteen years after, in the spring of 1726, by his Majesty's order, to"--in fact, to read the Newspapers to his Majesty, and be generally useful, chiefly in the Tobacco-College, as we shall discover,--"what was my surprise to find this same 'GEANT ALLEMAND' of St. Germain ranked among the King's Grenadiers! No doubt of the identity: I renewed acquaintance with the man; his little German Wife was dead; but he had got an English one instead, an uncommonly shifty creature. They had a neat little dwelling-house [as most of the married giants had], near the Palace: here the Wife sold beer [brandy not permissible on any terms], and lodged travellers;--I myself have lodged there on occasion. In the course of some years, the man took swelling in the legs; good for nothing as a grenadier; and was like to fall heavy on society. But no, his little Wife snatched him up, easily getting his discharge; carried him over with her to England, where he again became a show-giant, and they were doing very well, when last heard of,"--in the Country-Wakes of George II.'s early time. And that is the real Biography of one Potsdam Giant, by a literary gentleman who had lodged with him on occasion. [Fassmann, pp. 723-730.]

The pay of these sublime Footguards is greatly higher than common; they have distinguished privileges and treatment: on the other hand, their discipline is nonpareil, and discharge is never to be dreamt of, while strength lasts. Poor Kirkman, does he sometimes think of the Hill of Howth, and that he will never see it more? Kirkman, I judge, is not given to thought;--considers that he has tobacco here, and privileges and perquisites; and that Howth, and Heaven itself, is inaccessible to many a man.

FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S RECRUITING DIFFICULTIES.

Tall men, not for this regiment only, had become a necessary of life to Friedrich Wilhelm. Indispensable to him almost as his daily bread, To his heart there is no road so ready as that of presenting a tall man or two. Friedrich Wilhelm's regiments are now, by his exact new regulations, levied and recruited each in its own Canton, or specific district: there all males as soon as born are enrolled; liable to serve, when they have grown to years and strength. All grown men (under certain exceptions, as of a widow's eldest son, or of the like evidently ruinous cases) are liable to serve; Captain of the Regiment and AMTMANN of the Canton settle between them which grown man it shall be. Better for you not to be tall! In fact it is almost a kindness of Heaven to be gifted with some safe impediment of body, slightly crooked back or the like, if you much dislike the career of honor under Friedrich Wilhelm. A general shadow of unquiet apprehension we can well fancy hanging over those rural populations, and much unpleasant haggling now and then;--nothing but the King's justice that can be appealed to. King's justice, very great indeed, but heavily checked by the King's value for handsome soldiers.

Happily his value for industrial laborers and increase of population is likewise great. Townsfolk, skilful workmen as the theory supposes, are exempt; the more ingenious classes, generally, his Majesty exempts in this respect, to encourage them in others. For, on the whole, he is not less a Captain of Work, to his Nation, than of other things. What he did for Prussia in the way of industries, improvements, new manufactures, new methods; in settling "colonies," tearing up drowned bogs and subduing them into dry cornfields; in building, draining, digging, and encouraging or forcing others to do so, would take a long chapter. He is the enemy of Chaos, not the friend of it, wherever you meet with him.

For example, Potsdam itself. Potsdam, now a pleasant, grassy, leafy place, branching out extensively in fine stone architecture, with swept pavements; where, as in other places, the traveller finds land and water separated into two firmaments,--Friedrich Wilhelm found much of it a quagmire, land and water still weltering in one. In these very years, his cuttings, embankments, buildings, pile-drivings there, are enormous; and his perseverance needs to be invincible. For instance, looking out, one morning after heavy rain, upon some extensive anti-quagmire operations and strong pile-drivings, he finds half a furlong of his latest heavy piling clean gone. What in the world has become of it? Pooh, the swollen lake has burst it topsy-turvy; and it floats yonder, bottom uppermost, a half-furlong of distracted liquid-peat. Whereat his Majesty gave a loud laugh, says Bielfeld, [Baron de Bielfeld, Lettres Familieres (second edition, a Leide, 1767), i. 31.] and commenced anew. The piles now stand firm enough, like the rest of the Earth's crust, and carry strong ashlar houses and umbrageous trees for mankind; and trivial mankind can walk in clean pumps there, shuddering or sniggering at Friedrich Wilhelm, as their humor may be.

No danger of this "Canton-system" of recruitment to the more ingenious classes, who could do better than learn drill. Nor, to say truth, does the poor clayey peasant suffer from it, according to his apprehensions. Often perhaps, could he count profit and loss, he might find himself a gainer: the career of honor turns out to be, at least, a career of practical Stoicism and Spartanism; useful to any peasant or to any prince. Cleanliness, of person and even of mind; fixed rigor of method, sobriety, frugality, these are virtues worth acquiring. Sobriety in the matter of drink is much attended to here: his Majesty permits no distillation of strong-waters in Potsdam, or within so many miles; [Fassmann, p. 728.] nor is sale of such allowed, except in the most intensely select manner. The soldier's pay is in the highest degree exiguous; not above three halfpence a day, for a common foot-soldier, in addition to what rations he has:--but it is found adequate to its purpose, too; supports the soldier in sound health, vigorously fit for his work; into which points his Majesty looks with his own eyes, and will admit no dubiety. Often, too, if not already OFTENEST (as it ultimately grew to be), the peasant-soldier gets home for many months of the year, a soldier-ploughman; and labors for his living in the old way. His Captain (it is one of the Captain's perquisites, who is generally a veteran of fifty, with a long Spartan training, before he gets so high) pockets the pay of all these furloughs, supernumerary to the real work of the regiment;--and has certain important furnishings to yield in return.

At any rate, enrolment, in time of peace, cannot fall on many: three or four recruits in the year, to replace vacancies, will carry the Canton through its crisis. For we are to note withal, the third part of every regiment can, and should by rule, consist of "foreigners,"--men not born Prussians. These are generally men levied in the Imperial Free-towns; "in the REICH" or Empire, as they term it; that is to say, or is mainly to say, in the countries of Germany that are not Austrian or Prussian. For this foreign third-part too, the recruits must be got; excuses not admissible for Captain or Colonel; nothing but recruits of the due inches will do. Captain and Colonel (supporting their enterprise on frugal adequate "perquisites," hinted of above) have to be on the outlook; vigilantly, eagerly; and must contrive to get them. Nay, we can take supernumerary recruits; and have in fact always on hand, attached to each regiment, a stock of such. Any number of recruits, that stand well on their legs, are welcome; and for a tall man there is joy in Potsdam, almost as if he were a wise man or a good man.

The consequence is, all countries, especially all German countries, are infested with a new species of predatory two-legged animals: Prussian recruiters. They glide about, under disguise if necessary; lynx-eyed, eager almost as the Jesuit hounds are; not hunting the souls of men, as the spiritual Jesuits do, but their bodies in a merciless carnivorous manner. Better not to be too tall, in any country, at present! Irish Kirkman could not be protected by the aegis of the British Constitution itself. In general, however, the Prussian recruiter, on British ground, reports, That the people are too well off, that there is little to be done in those parts. A tall British sailor, if we pick him up strolling about Memel or the Baltic ports, is inexorably claimed by the Diplomatists; no business do-able till after restoration of him; and he proves a mere loss to us. [Despatches in the State-Paper Office.] Germany, Holland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, these are the fruitful fields for us, and there we do hunt with some vigor.

For example, in the town of Julich there lived and worked a tall young carpenter: one day a well-dressed positive-looking gentleman ("Baron von Hompesch," the records name him) enters the shop; wants "a stout chest, with lock on it, for household purposes; must be of such and such dimensions, six feet six in length especially, and that is an indispensable point,--in fact it will be longer than yourself, I think, Herr Zimmermann: what is the cost; when can it be ready?" Cost, time, and the rest are settled. "A right stout chest, then; and see you don't forget the size; if too short, it will be of no use to me: mind;"--"JA WOHL! GEWISS!" And the positive-looking, well-clad gentleman goes his ways. At the appointed day he reappears; the chest is ready;--we hope, an unexceptionable article? "Too short, as I dreaded!" says the positive gentleman. "Nay, your honor," says the carpenter, "I am certain it is six feet six!" and takes out his foot-rule.--"Pshaw, it was to be longer than yourself." "Well, it is."--"No it isn't!" The carpenter, to end the matter, gets into his chest; and will convince any and all mortals. No sooner is he in, rightly flat, than the positive gentleman, a Prussian recruiting officer in disguise, slams down the lid upon him; locks it; whistles in three stout fellows, who pick up the chest, gravely walk through the streets with it, open it in a safe place; and find-horrible to relate--the poor carpenter dead; choked by want of air in this frightful middle-passage of his. [Forster, ii. 305, 306; Pollnitz, ii. 518, 519.] Name of the Town is given, Julich as above; date not. And if the thing had been only a popular Myth, is it not a significant one? But it is too true; the tall carpenter lay dead, and Hompesch got "imprisoned for life" by the business.

Burgermeisters of small towns have been carried off; in one case, "a rich merchant in Magdeburg," whom it cost a large sum to get free again. [Stenzel, iii. 356.] Prussian recruiters hover about barracks, parade-grounds, in Foreign Countries; and if they see a tall soldier (the Dutch have had instances, and are indignant at them), will persuade him to desert,--to make for the country where soldier-merit is understood, and a tall fellow of parts will get his pair of colors in no-time.

But the highest stretch of their art was probably that done on the Austrian Ambassador,--tall Herr von Bentenrieder; tallest of Diplomatists; whom Fassmann, till the Fair of St. Germain, had considered the tallest of men. Bentenrieder was on his road as Kaiser's Ambassador to George I., in those Congress-of-Cambrai times; serenely journeying on; when, near by Halberstadt, his carriage broke. Carriage takes some time in mending; the tall Diplomatic Herr walks on, will stretch his long legs, catch a glimpse of the Town withal, till they get it ready again. And now, at some Guard-house of the place, a Prussian Officer inquires, not too reverently of a nobleman without carriage, "Who are you?" "Well," answered he smiling, "I am BOTSCHAFTER (Message-bearer) from his Imperial Majesty. And who may you be that ask?"--"To the Guard-house with us!" Whither he is marched accordingly. "Kaiser's messenger, why not?" Being a most tall handsome man, this Kaiser's BOTSCHAFTER, striding along on foot here, the Guard-house Officials have decided to keep him, to teach him Prussian drill-exercise;--and are thrown into a singular quandary, when his valets and suite come up, full of alarm dissolving into joy, and call him "Excellenz!" [Pollnitz, ii. 207-209.]

Tall Herr von Bentenrieder accepted the prostrate apology of these Guard-house Officials. But he naturally spoke of the matter to George I.; whose patience, often fretted by complaints on that head, seems to have taken fire at this transcendent instance of Prussian insolency. In consequence of this adventure, he commenced, says Pollnitz, a system of decisive measures; of reprisals even, and of altogether peremptory, minatory procedures, to clear Hanover of this nuisance; and to make it cease, in very fact, and not in promise and profession merely. These were the first rubs Queen Sophie met with, in pushing on the Double-Marriage; and sore rubs they were, though she at last got over them. Coming on the back of that fine Charlottenburg Visit, almost within year and day, and directly in the teeth of such friendly aspects and prospects, this conduct on the part of his Britannic Majesty much grieved and angered Friedrich Wilhelm; and in fact involved him in considerable practical troubles.

For it was the signal of a similar set of loud complaints, and menacing remonstrances (with little twinges of fulfilment here and there) from all quarters of Germany; a tempest of trouble and public indignation rising everywhere, and raining in upon Friedrich Wilhelm and this unfortunate Hobby of his. No riding of one's poor Hobby in peace henceforth. Friedrich Wilhelm always answered, what was only superficially the fact, That HE knew nothing of these violences and acts of ill-neighborship; he, a just King, was sorrier than any man to hear of them; and would give immediate order that they should end. But they always went on again, much the same; and never did end. I am sorry a just King, led astray by his Hobby, answers thus what is only superficially the fact. But it seems he cannot help it: his Hobby is too strong for him; regardless of curb and bridle in this instance. Let us pity a man of genius, mounted on so ungovernable a Hobby; leaping the barriers, in spite of his best resolutions. Perhaps the poetic temperament is more liable to such morbid biases, influxes of imaginative crotchet, and mere folly that cannot be cured? Friedrich Wilhelm never would or could dismount from his Hobby: but he rode him under much sorrow henceforth; under showers of anger and ridicule;--contumelious words and procedures, as it were SAXA ET FAECES, battering round him, to a heavy extent; the rider a victim of Tragedy and Farce both at once.

QUEEN SOPHIE'S TROUBLES: GRUMKOW WITH THE OLD DESSAUER, AND GRUMKOW WITHOUT HIM.

Queen Sophie had, by delicate management, got over those first rubs, aud arrived at a Treaty of Hanover, and clear ground again; far worse rubs lay ahead; but smooth travelling, towards such a goal, was not possible for this Queen. Poor Lady, her Court, as we discern from Wilhelmina and the Books, is a sad welter of intrigues, suspicions; of treacherous chambermaids, head-valets, pickthank scouts of official gentlemen and others striving to supplant one another. Satan's Invisible World very busy against Queen Sophie! Under any terms, much more under those of the Double-Marriage, her place in a kindly but suspicious Husband's favor was difficult to maintain. Restless aspirants, climbing this way or that, by ladder-steps discoverable in this abstruse element, are never wanting, and have the due eavesdropping satellites, now here, now there. Queen Sophie and her party have to walk warily, as if among precipices and pitfalls. Of all which wide welter of extinct contemptibilities, then and there so important, here and now become minus quantities, we again notice the existence, but can undertake no study or specification whatever. Two Incidents, the latter of them dating near the point where we now are, will sufficiently instruct the reader what a welter this was, in which Queen Sophie and her bright little Son, the new Major of the Potsdam Giants, had to pass their existence.

Incident First fell out some six years ago or more,--in 1719, year of the Heidelberg Protestants, of Clement the Forger, when his Majesty "slept for weeks with a pistol under his pillow," and had other troubles. His Majesty, on one of his journeys, which were always many, was taken suddenly ill at Brandenburg, that year: so violently ill, that thinking himself about to die, he sent for his good Queen, and made a Will appointing her Regent in case of his decease. His Majesty quite recovered before long. But Grumkow and the old Dessauer, main aspirants; getting wind of this Will, and hunting out the truth of it,--what a puddling of the waters these two made in consequence; stirring up mire and dirt round the good Queen, finding she had been preferred to them! [Wilhelmina, i. 26, 29.] Nay Wilhelmina, in her wild way, believes they had, not long after, planned to "fire a Theatre" about the King, one afternoon, in Berlin City, and take his life, thereby securing for themselves such benefit in prospect as there might be! Not a doubt of it, thinks Wilhelmina: "The young Margraf, [Born 1700 (see vol. v. p. 393.)] our precious Cousin, of Schwedt, is not he Sister's-son of that Old Dessauer? Grandson of the Great Elector, even as Papa is. Papa once killed (and our poor Crown-Prince also made away with),--that young Margraf, and his blue Fox-tiger of an Uncle over him, is King in Prussia! Obviously they meant to burn that Theatre, and kill Papa!" This is Wilhelmina's distracted belief; as, doubtless, it was her Mother's on the day in question: a jealous, much-suffering, transcendently exasperated Mother, as we see.

Incident Second shows us those, two rough Gentlemen fallen out of partnership, into open quarrel and even duel. "Duel at the Copenick Gate," much noised of in the dull old Prussian Books,--though always in a reserved manner; not even the DATE, as if that were dangerous, being clearly given! It came in the wake of that Hanover Treaty, as is now guessed; the two having taken opposite sides on that measure, and got provoked into ripping up old sores in general. Dessau was AGAINST King George and the Treaty, it appears; having his reasons, family-reasons of old standing: Grumkow, a bribable gentleman, was FOR,--having also perhaps his reasons. Enough, it came to altercations, objurgations between the two; which rose ever higher,--rose at length to wager-of-battle. Indignant challenge on the part of the Old Dessauer; which, however, Grumkow, not regarded as a BARESARK in the fighting way, regrets that his Christian principles do not, forsooth, allow him to accept. The King is appealed to; the King, being himself, though an orthodox Christian, yet a still more orthodox Soldier, decides That, on the whole, General Grumkow cannot but accept this challenge from the Field-marshal Prince of Dessau.

Dessau is on the field, at the Copenick Gate, accordingly,--late-autumn afternoon (I calculate) of the year 1725;--waits patiently till Grumkow make his appearance. Grumkow, with a chosen second, does at last appear; advances pensively with slow steps. Gunpowder Dessau, black as a silent thunder-cloud, draws his sword: and Grumkow--does not draw his; presents it undrawn, with unconditional submission and apology: "Slay me, if you like, old Friend, whom I have injured!" Whereat Dessau, uttering no word, uttering only some contemptuous snort, turns his back on the phenomenon; mounts his horse and rides home. [Pollnitz, ii. 212, 214.] A divided man from this Grumkow henceforth. The Prince waited on her Majesty; signified his sorrow for past estrangements; his great wish now to help her, but his total inability, being ousted by Grumkow: We are for Halle, Madam, where our Regiment is; there let us serve his Majesty, since we cannot here! [Wilhelmina, i. 90, 93.]--And in fact the Old Dessauer lives mostly there in time coming; sunk inarticulate in tactics of a truly deep nature, not stranding on politics of a shallow;--a man still memorable in the mythic traditions of that place. Better to drill men to perfection, and invent iron ramrods, against the day they shall be needed, than go jostling, on such terms, with cattle of the Grumkow kind! And thus, we perceive, Grumkow is in, and the Old Dessauer out; and there has been "a change of Ministry," change of "Majesty's-Advisers," brought about;--may the Advice going be wiser now!

What the young Crown-Prince did, said, thought, in such environment, of backstairs diplomacies, female sighs and aspirations, Grumkow duels, drillings in the Giant Regiment, is not specified for us in the smallest particular, in the extensive rubbish-books that have been written about him. Ours is, to indicate that such environment was: how a lively soul, acted on by it, did not fail to react, chameleon-like taking color from it, and contrariwise taking color against it, must be left to the reader's imagination--One thing we have gathered and will not forget, That the Old Dessauer is out, and Grumkow in, that the rugged Son of Gunpowder, drilling men henceforth at Halle, and in a dumb way meditating tactics as few ever did, has no share in the foul enchantments that now supervene at court.

Chapter VI. -- ORDNANCE-MASTER SECKENDORF CROSSES THE PALACE ESPLANADE.

The Kaiser's terror and embarrassment at the conclusion of the Hanover Treaty, as we saw, were extreme. War possible or likely; and nothing but the termagant caprices of Elizabeth Farnese to depend on: no cash from the Sea-Powers; only cannonshot, invasion and hostility, from their cash and them: What is to be done? To "caress the pride of Spain;" to keep alive the hopes, in that quarter, of marrying their Don Carlos, the supplementary Infant, to our eldest Archduchess; which indeed has set the Sea-Powers dreadfully on fire, but which does leave Parma and Piacenza quiet for the present, and makes the Pragmatic Sanction too an affair of Spain's own: this is one resource, though a poor one, and a dangerous. Another is, to make alliance with Russia, by well flattering the poor little brown Czarina there: but is not that a still poorer? And what third is there!--

There is a third worth both the others, could it be got done: To detach Friedrich Wilhelm from those dangerous Hanover Confederates, and bring him gently over to ourselves. He has an army of 60,000, in perfect equipment, and money to maintain them so. Against us or for us,--60,000 PLUS or 60,000 MINUS;--that will mean 120,000 fighting men; a most weighty item in any field there is like to be. If it lie in the power of human art, let us gain this wild irritated King of Prussia. Dare any henchman of ours venture to go, with honey-cakes, with pattings and cajoleries, and slip the imperial muzzle well round the snout of that rugged ursine animal? An iracund bear, of dangerous proportions, and justly irritated against us at present? Our experienced FELDZEUGMEISTER, Ordnance-Master and Diplomatist, Graf von Seckendorf, a conscientious Protestant, and the cunningest of men, able to lie to all lengths,--dare he try it? He has fought in all quarters of the world; and lied in all, where needful; and saved money in all: he will try it, and will succeed in it too! [Pollnitz, ii. 235; Stenzel, iii. 544; Forster, ii. 59, iii. 235, 239.]

The Second Act, therefore, of this foolish World-Drama of the Double-Marriage opens,--on the 11th May, 1726, towards sunset, in the TABAGIE of the Berlin Palace, as we gather from laborious comparison of windy Pollnitz with other indistinct witnesses of a dreary nature,--in the following manner:--

Prussian Majesty sits smoking at the window; nothing particular going on. A square-built shortish steel-gray Gentleman, of military cut, past fifty, is strolling over the SCHLOSSPLATZ (spacious Square in front of the Palace), conspicuous amid the sparse populations there; pensively recreating himself, in the yellow sunlight and long shadows, as after a day's hard labor or travel. "Who is that?" inquires Friedrich Wilhelm, suspending his tobacco. Grumkow answers cautiously, after survey: He thinks it must be Ordnance-Master Seckendorf; who was with him to-day; passing on rapidly towards Denmark, on business that will not wait.--"Experienced Feldzeugmeister Graf von Seckendorf, whom we stand in correspondence with, of late, and were expecting about this time? Whom we have known at the Siege of Stralsund, nay ever since the Marlborough times and the Siege of Menin, in war and peace; and have always reckoned a solid reasonable man and soldier: Why has he not come to us?"--"Your Majesty," confesses Grumkow, "his business is so pressing! Business in Denmark will not wait. Seckendorf owned he had come slightly round, in his eagerness to see our grand Review at Tempelhof the day after to-morrow: What soldier would omit the sight (so he was pleased to intimate) of soldiering carried to the non-plus-ultra? But he hoped to do it quite incognito, among the general public;--and then to be at the gallop again: not able to have the honor of paying his court at this time."--"Court? NARREN-POSSEN (Nonsense)!" answers Friedrich Wilhelm,--and opening the window, beckons Seckendorf up, with his own royal head and hand. The conversation of a man who had rational sense, and could tell him anything, were it only news af foreign parts in a rational manner, was always welcome to Friedrich Wilhelm.

And so Seckendorf, how can he help it, is installed in the Tabagie; glides into pleasant conversation there. A captivating talker; solid for religion, for the rights of Germany against intrusive French and others: such insight, orthodoxy, sense and ingenuity; pleasant to hear; and all with the due quantity of oil, though he "both snuffles and lisps;" and has privately, in case of need, a capacity of lying,--for he curiously distils you any lie, in his religious alembics, till it become tolerable to his conscience, or even palatable, as elixirs are;--capacity of double-distilled lying probably the greatest of his day.--Seckendorf assists at the grand Review, 13th May, 1726; witnesses with unfeigned admiration the non-plus-ultra of manoeuvring, and, in fact, the general management, military and other, of this admirable King. [Pollnitz, ii. 235; Fassmann, pp. 367, 368.] Seckendorf, no question of it, will do his Denmark business swiftly, then, since your Majesty is pleased so to wish. Seckendorf, sure enough, will return swiftly to such a King, whose familiar company, vouchsafed him in this noble manner, he likes,--oh, how he likes it!

In a week or two, Seckendorf is back to Berlin; attends his Majesty on the annual Military Tour through Preussen; attends him everywhere, becoming quite a necessary of life to his Majesty; and does not go away at all. Seckendorf's business, if his Majesty knew it, will not lead him "away;" but lies here on this spot; and is now going on; the magic-apparatus, Grumkow the mainspring of it, getting all into gear! Grumkow was once clear for King George and the Hanover Treaty, having his reasons then; but now he has other reasons, and is clear against those foreign connections. "Hm, hah--Yes, my estimable, justly powerful Herr von Grumkow, here is a little Pension of 1,600 ducats (only 500 pounds as yet), which the Imperial Majesty, thinking of the service you may do Prussia and Germany and him, graciously commands me to present;--only 500 pounds by the year as yet; but there shall be no lack of money if we prosper!" [Forster, iii. 233, 232; see also iv. 172, 121, 157, &c.]

And so there are now two Black-Artists, of the first quality, busy on the unconscious Friedrich Wilhelm; and Seckendorf, for the next seven years, will stick to Friedrich Wilhelm like his shadow; and fascinate his whole existence and him, as few wizards could have done. Friedrich Wilhelm, like St. Paul in Melita, warming his innocent hands at the fire of dry branches here kindled for him,--that miracle of a venomous serpent is this that has fixed itself upon his finger? To Friedrich Wilhelm's enchanted sense it seems a bird-of-paradise, trustfully perching there; but it is of the whip-snake kind, or a worse; and will stick to him tragically, if also comically, for years to come. The world has seen the comedy of it, and has howled scornful laughter upon Friedrich Wilhelm for it: but there is a tragic side, not so well seen into, where tears are due to the poor King; and to certain others horsewhips, and almost gallows-ropes, are due!--Yes, had Seckendorf and Grumkow both been well hanged, at this stage of the affair, whereby the affair might have soon ended on fair terms, it had been welcome to mankind; welcome surely to the present Editor; for one; such a saving to him, of time wasted, of disgust endured! And indeed it is a solacement he has often longed for, in these dreary operations of his. But the Fates appointed otherwise; we have all to accept our Fate!--

Grumkow is sworn to Imperial orthodoxy, then,--probably the vulpine MIND (so to term it) went always rather that way, and only his interest the other;--Grumkow is well bribed, supplied for bribing others where needful; stands orthodox now, under peril of his very head. All things have been got distilled into the palatable state, spiritual and economic, for oneself and one's grand Trojan-Horse of a Grumkow; and the adventure proceeds apace. Seckendorf sits nightly in the TABAGIE (a kind of "Smoking Parliament," as we shall see anon); attends on all promenades and journeys: one of the wisest heads, and so pleasant in discourse, he is grown indispensable, and a necessary of life to us. Seckendorf's Biographer computes, "he must have ridden, in those seven years, continually attending his Majesty, above 5,000 German miles," [Anonymous (Seckendorf's Grand-Nephew) Versuch einer Lebensbeschreibung des Feldmarschalls Grafen von Seckendorf (Leipzig, 1792, 1794), i. 6.]--that is 25,000 English miles; or a trifle more than the length of the Terrestrial Equator.

In a month or two, [13th August, 1726 (Preuss, i. 37).] Seckendorf--since Majesty vouchsafes to honor us by wishing it--contrives to get nominated Kaiser's Minister at Berlin: unlimited prospects of Tabagie, and good talk, now opening on Majesty. And impartial Grumkow, in Tabagie or wherever we are, cannot but admit, now and then, that the Excellenz Herr Graf Ordnance-Master has a deal of reason in what he says about Foreign Politics, about intrusive French and other points. "Hm, Na," muses Friedrich Wilhelm to himself, "if the Kaiser had not been so lofty on us in that Heidelberg-Protestant affair, in the Ritter-Dienst business, in those damned 'recruiting' brabbles; always a very high-sniffing surly Kaiser to us!" For in fact the Kaiser has, all along, used Friedrich Wilhelm bitterly ill; and contemplates no better usage of him, except in show. Usage? thinks the Kaiser: A big Prussian piece of Cannon, whom we wish to enchant over to us! Did LAZY PEG complain of her "usage"?--So that the Excellenz and Grumkow have a heavy problem of it; were they not so diligent, and the Cannon itself well disposed. "Those BLITZ FRANZOSEN (blasted French)!" growls Friedrich Wilhelm sometimes, in the Tobacco-Parliament: [Forster, ii. 12, &c.] for he hates the French, and would fain love his Kaiser; being German to the bone, and of right loyal heart, though counted only a piece of cannon by some. For one thing, his Prussian Majesty declines signing that Treaty of Hanover a second time: now when the Dutch accede to it, after almost a year's trouble with them, the Prussian Ambassador, singular to observe, "has no orders to sign;" leaves the English with their Hollanders and Blitz Franzosen to sign by themselves, this time. [9th August, 1726. (Boyer, The Political State of Great Rrilain, a monthly periodical, vol. xxxii. p. 77, which is the number for July, 1726.)] "We will wait, we will wait!" thinks his Prussian Majesty:--"Who knows?"

"But then Julich and Berg!" urges he always; "Britannic Majesty and the Blitz Franzosen were to secure me the reversion there. That was the essential point!"--For this too Excellenz has a remedy; works out gradually a remedy from headquarters, the amiable dexterous man: "Kaiser will do the like, your Majesty; Kaiser himself will secure it you!"--In brief, some three months after Seckendorf's instalment as Kaiser's Minister, not yet five months since his appearance in the Schlossplatz that May evening,--it is now Hunting-season, and we are at Wusterhausen; Majesty, his two Black-Artists and the proper satellites on both sides all there,--a new and opposite Treaty, in extreme privacy, on the 12th of October, 1726, is signed at that sequestered Hunting-Schloss: "Treaty of Wusterhausen" so called; which was once very famous and mysterious, and caused many wigs to wag. Wigs to wag, in those days especially, when knowledge of it was first had; the rather as only half knowledge could be had of it;--or can, mourns Dryasdust, who has still difficulties about some "secret articles" in the Document. [Buchholz, i. 94 n.] Courage, my friend; they are now of no importance to any creature.

The essential purport of this Treaty, [Given IN EXTENSO (without the secret articles) in Forster, iv. 159-166.] legible to all eyes, is, "That Friedrich Wilhelm silently drops the Hanover Treaty and Blitz Franzosen; and explicitly steps over to the Kaiser's side; stipulates to assist the Kaiser with so many thousand, if attacked in Germany by any Blitz Franzose or intrusive Foreigner whatever. In return for which, the Kaiser, besides assisting Prussia in the like case with a like quantity of thousands, engages, in circuitous chancery language, To be helpful, and humanly speaking effectual, in that grand matter of Julich and Berg;--somewhat in the following strain: 'To our Imperial mind it does appear the King of Prussia has manifest right to the succession in Julich and Berg; right grounded on express ERBVERGLEICH of 1624, not to speak of Deeds subsequent: the Imperial mind, as supreme judge of such matters in the Reich, will not fail to decide this Cause soon and justly, should it come to that. But we hope it may take a still better course: for the Imperial mind will straightway set about persuading Kur-Pfalz to comply peaceably; and even undertakes to have something done, that way, before six months pass.'" [Art. v. in Forster, ubi supra.]

Humanly speaking, surely the Imperial mind will be effectual in the Julich and Berg matter. But it was very necessary to use circuitous chancery language,--inasmuch as the Imperial mind, desirous also to secure Kur-Pfalz's help in this sore crisis, had, about three months ago, [Treaty with Kur-Pfalz, 16th August, 1726 (Forster, ii. 71).] expressly engaged to Kur-Pfalz, That Julich and Berg should NOT go to Friedrich Wilhelm in terms of the old Deed, but to Kur-Pfalz's Cousins of Sulzbach, whom the old gentleman (in spite of Deeds) was obstinate to prefer! There is no doubt about that fact, about that self-devouring pair of facts. To such straits is a Kaiser driven when he gets deep into spectre-hunting.

This is the once famous, now forgotten, "Treaty of Wusterhausen, 12th October, 1726;" which proved so consolatory to the Kaiser in that dread crisis of his Spectre-Hunt; and the effects of which are very visible in this History, if nowhere else. It caught up the Prussian-English Double-Marriage; launched it into the huge tide of Imperial Spectre Politics, into the awful swaggings and swayings of the Terrestrial LIBRA in general; and nearly broke the heart of several Royal persons; of a memorable Crown-Prince, among others. Which last is now, pretty much, its sole claim to be ever mentioned again by mankind. As there was no performance, nor an intention of any, in that Julich-Berg matter, Excellenz Seckendorf had the task henceforth of keeping, by art-magic or the PRETERnatural method,--that is, by mere help of Grumkow and the Devil,--his Prussian Majesty steady to the Kaiser nevertheless. Always well divided from the English especially. Which the Excellency Seckendorf managed to do. For six or seven years coming; or, in fact, till these Spectre-chasings ended, or ran else-whither for consummation. Steady always, jealous of the English; sometimes nearly mad, but always ready as a primed cannon: so Friedrich Wilhelm was accordingly managed to be kept;--his own Household gone almost into delirium; he himself looking out, with loyally fierce survey, for any Anti-Kaiser War: "When do we go off, then?"--though none ever came. And indeed nothing came; and except those torments to young Friedrich and others, it was all Nothing. One of the strangest pieces of Black-Art ever done.

Excellenz Seckendorf, whom Friedrich Wilhelm so loves, is by no means a beautiful man; far the reverse. Bodily,--and the spirit corresponds,--a stiff-backed, petrified, stony, inscrutable-looking, and most unbeautiful old Intriguer. Portraits of him, which are frequent, tell all one story. The brow puckered together, in a wide web of wrinkles from each temple, as if it meant to hide the bad pair of eyes, which look suspicion; inquiry, apprehension, habit of double-distilled mendacity; the indeterminate projecting chin, with its thick, chapped under-lip, is shaken out, or shoved out, in mill-hopper fashion,--as if to swallow anything there may be, spoken thing or other, and grind it to profitable meal for itself. Spiritually he was an old Soldier let for hire; an old Intriguer, Liar, Fighter, what you like. What we may call a human Soul standing like a hackney-coach, this half-century past, with head, tongue, heart, conscience, at the hest of a discerning public and its shilling.

There is considerable faculty, a certain stiff-necked strength in the old fellow; in fact, nature had been rather kind to him; and certainly his Uncle and Guardian--the distinguished Seckendorf who did the HISTORIA LUTHERANISMI, a RITTER, and man of good mark, in Ernst THE PIOUS of Saxe-Gotha's time--took pains about his education. But Nature's gifts have not prospered with him: how could they, in that hackney-coach way of life? Considerable gifts, we say; shrunk into a strange bankruptcy in the development of them. A stiff-backed, close-fisted old gentleman, with mill-hopper chin,--with puckery much-inquiring eyes, which have never discovered any noble path for him in this world. He is a strictly orthodox Protestant; zealous about external points of moral conduct; yet scruples not, for the Kaiser's shilling, to lie with energy to all lengths; and fight, according to the Reichs-Hofrath code, for any god or man. He is gone mostly to avarice, in these mature years; all his various strengths turned into strength of grasping. He is now fifty-four; a man public in the world, especially since he became the Kaiser's man: but he has served various masters, in various capacities, and been in many wars;--and for the next thirty years we shall still occasionally meet him, seldom to our advantage.

He comes from Anspach originally; and has kindred Seckendorfs in office there, old Ritters in that Country. He inherited a handsome castle and estate, Meuselwitz, near Altenburg in the Thuringen region, from that Uncle, Ernst of Saxe-Gotha's man, whom we spoke of; and has otherwise gained wealth; all which he holds like a vice. Once, at Meuselwitz, they say, he and some young secretary, of a smartish turn, sat working or conversing, in a large room with only one candle to illuminate it: the secretary, snuffing the candle, snuffed it out: "Pshaw," said Seckendorf impatiently, "where did you learn to handle snuffers?" "Excellenz, in a place where there were two lights kept!" replied the other. [_ Sechendorje Leben_ (already cited), i. 4.]--For the rest, he has a good old Wife at Meuselwitz, who is now old, and had never any children; who loves him much, and is much loved by him, it would appear: this is really the best fact I ever knew of him,--poor bankrupt creature; gone all to spiritual rheumatism, to strict orthodoxy, with unlimited mendacity; and avarice as the general outcome! Stiff-backed, close-fisted strength, all grown wooden or stony; yet some little well of human Sympathy does lie far in the interior: one wishes, after all (since he could not be got hanged in time for us), good days to his poor old Wife and him! He both lisps and snuffles, as was mentioned; writes cunningly acres of despatches to Prince Eugene; never swears, though a military man, except on great occasions one oath, JARNI-BLEU,--which is perhaps some flash-note version of CHAIR-DE-DIEU, like PARBLEU, 'Zounds and the rest of them, which the Devil cannot prosecute you for; whereby an economic man has the pleasure of swearing on cheap terms.

Herr Pollnitz's account of Seckendorf is unusually emphatic; babbling Pollnitz rises into a strain of pulpit eloquence, inspired by indignation, on this topic: "He affected German downrightness, to which he was a stranger; and followed, under a deceitful show of piety, all the principles of Machiavel. With the most sordid love of money he combined boorish manners. Lies [of the distilled kind chiefly] had so become a habit with him, that he had altogether lost notion of employing truth in speech. It was the soul of a usurer, inhabiting now the body of a war-captain, now transmigrating into that of a huckster. False oaths, and the abominablest basenesses, cost him nothing, so his object might be reached. He was miserly with his own, but lavish with his Master's money; daily he gave most striking proofs of both these habitudes. And this was the man whom we saw, for a space of time, at the head of the Kaiser's Armies, and at the helm of the State and of the German Empire," [Pollnitz, ii. 238.]--having done the Prussian affair so well.

This cunning old Gentleman, to date from the autumn of 1726, may be said to have taken possession of Friedrich Wilhelm; to have gone into him, Grumkow and he, as two devils would have done in the old miraculous times: and, in many senses, it was they, not the nominal proprietor, that lived Friedrich Wilhelm's life. For the next seven years, a figure went about, not doubting it was Friedrich Wilhelm; but it was in reality Seckendorf-and-Grumkow much more. These two, conjurer and his man, both invisible, have caught their royal wild Bear; got a rope round his muzzle;--and so dance him about; now terrifying, now exhilarating all the market by the pranks he plays! Grumkow, a very Machiavel after his sort, knew the nature of the royal animal as no other did. Grumkow, purchased by his Pension of 500 pounds, is dog-cheap at the Money, as Seckendorf often urges at Vienna, Is he not? And they add a touch of extraordinary gift now and then, 40,000 florins (4,000 pounds) on one occasion: [In 1732: Forster, iii. 232.] for "Grumkow DIENET EHRLICH (serves honorably)," urges Seckendorf; and again, "If anybody deserves favor [GNADE, meaning extra pay], it is this gentleman;"--WAHRLICH! Purchased Grumkow has ample money at command, to purchase other people needed; and does purchase; so that all things and persons can be falsified and enchanted, as need is. By and by it has got so far, that Friedrich Wilhelm's Ambassador at London maintains a cipher-correspondence with Grumkow; and writes to Friedrich Wilhelm, not what is passing in city or court there, but what Grumkow wishes Friedrich Wilhelm to think is passing.

Of insinuations, by assent or contradiction, potent if you know the nature of the beast; of these we need not speak. Tabaks-Collegium has become a workshop:--human nature can fancy it! Nay human nature can still read it in the British State-Paper Office, to boundless stupendous extent;--but ought mostly to suppress it when read.

This is a very strange part of Friedrich Wilhelm's history; and has caused much wonder in the world: Wilhelmina's Book rather aggravating than assuaging that feeling, on the part of intelligent readers. A Book written long afterwards, from her recollections, from her own oblique point of view; in a beautifully shrill humor; running, not unnaturally, into confused exaggerations and distortions of all kinds. Not mendaciously written anywhere, yet erroneously everywhere. Wilhelmina had no knowledge of the magical machinery that was at work: she vaguely suspects Grumkow and Seckendorf; but does not guess, in the mad explosions of Papa, that two devils have got into Papa, and are doing the mischief. Trusting to memory alone, she misdates, mistakes, misplaces; jumbles all things topsy-turvy;--giving, on the whole, an image of affairs which is altogether oblique, dislocated, exaggerative; and which, in fine, proves unintelligible, if you try to construe it into a fact or thing DONE. Yet her Human Narrative, in that wide waste of merely Pedant Maunderings, is of great worth to us. A green tree, a leafy grove, better or worse, in the wilderness of dead bones and sand,--how welcome! Many other Books have been written on the matter; but these to my experience, only darken it more and more. Pull Wilhelmina STRAIGHT, the best you can; deduct a twenty-five or sometimes even a seventy-five per cent, from the exaggerative portions of her statement; you will find her always true, lucid, charmingly human; and by far the best authority on this part of her Brother's History. State-Papers to some extent have also been printed on the matter; and of written State-Papers, here in England and elsewhere, this Editor has, had several hundred-weights distilled for him: but except as lights hung out over Wilhelmina, nothing yet known, of published or manuscript, can be regarded as good for much.

O Heavens, had one but seven-league boots, to get across that inane country,--a bottomless whirlpool of dust and cobwebs in many places;--where, at any rate, we had so little to do! Elucidating, rectifying, painfully contrasting, comparing, let us try to work out some conceivable picture of this strange Imperial MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING; and get our unfortunate Crown-Prince, and our unfortunate selves, alive through it.

Chapter VII. -- TOBACCO-PARLIAMENT.

In these distressing junctures, it may cheer the reader's spirits, and will tend to explain for him what is coming, if we glance a little into the Friedrich-Wilhelm TABAGIE (TABAKS-COLLEGIUM or Smoking College), more worthy to be called Tobacco-Parliament, of which there have already been incidental notices. Far too remarkable an Institution of the country to be overlooked by us here.

Friedrich Wilhelm, though an absolute Monarch, does not dream of governing without Law, still less without Justice, which he knows well to be the one basis for him and for all Kings and men. His life-effort, prosecuted in a grand, unconscious, unvarying and instinctive way, may be defined rather as the effort to find out everywhere in his affairs what was justice; to make regulations, laws in conformity with that, and to guide himself and his Prussia rigorously by these. Truly he is not of constitutional turn; cares little about the wigs and formalities of justice, pressing on so fiercely towards the essence and fact of it; he has been known to tear asunder the wigs and formalities, in a notably impatient manner, when they stood between him and the fact. But Prussia has its Laws withal, tolerably abundant, tolerably fixed and supreme: and the meanest Prussian man that could find out a definite Law, coming athwart Friedrich Wilhelm's wrath, would check Friedrich Wilhelm in mid-volley,--or hope with good ground to do it. Hope, we say; for the King is in his own and his people's eyes, to some indefinite extent, always himself the supreme ultimate Interpreter, and grand living codex, of the Laws,--always to some indefinite extent;--and there remains for a subject man nothing but the appeal to PHILIP SOBER, in some rash cases! On the whole, however, Friedrich Wilhelm is by no means a lawless Monarch; nor are his Prussians slaves by any means: they are patient, stout-hearted, subject men, with a very considerable quantity of radical fire, very well covered in; prevented from idle explosions, bound to a respectful demeanor, and especially to hold their tongues as much as possible.

Friedrich Wilhelm has not the least shadow of a Constitutional Parliament, nor even a Privy-Council, as we understand it; his Ministers being in general mere Clerks to register and execute what he had otherwise resolved upon: but he had his TABAKS-COLLEGIUM, Tobacco-College, Smoking Congress, TABAGIE, which has made so much noise in the world, and which, in a rough natural way: affords him the uses of a Parliament, on most cheap terms, and without the formidable inconveniences attached to that kind of Institution. A Parliament reduced to its simplest expression, and, instead of Parliamentary eloquence, provided with Dutch clay-pipes and tobacco: so we may define this celebrated Tabagie of Friedrich Wilhelm's.

Tabagies were not uncommon among German Sovereigns of that epoch: George I. at Hanover had his Smoking-room, and select smoking Party on an evening; and even at London, as we noticed, smoked nightly, wetting his royal throat with thin beer, in presence of his fat and of his lean Mistress, if there were no other company. Tobacco,--introduced by the Swedish soldiers in the Thirty-Years War, say some; or even by the English soldiers in the Bohemian or Palatinate beginnings of said War, say others;--tobacco, once shown them, was enthusiastically adopted by the German populations, long in want of such an article; and has done important multifarious functions in that country ever since. For truly, in Politics, Morality, and all departments of their Practical and Speculative affairs, we may trace its influences, good and bad, to this day.

Influences generally bad; pacificatory but bad, engaging you in idle cloudy dreams;--still worse, promoting composure among the palpably chaotic and discomposed; soothing all things into lazy peace; that all things may be left to themselves very much, and to the laws of gravity and decomposition. Whereby German affairs are come to be greatly overgrown with funguses in our Time; and give symptoms of dry and of wet rot, wherever handled. George I., we say, had his Tabagie; and other German Sovereigns had: but none of them turned it to a Political Institution, as Friedrich Wilhelm did. The thrifty man; finding it would serve in that capacity withal. He had taken it up as a commonplace solace and amusement: it is a reward for doing strenuously the day's heavy labors, to wind them up in this manner, in quiet society of friendly human faces, into a contemplative smoke-canopy, slowly spreading into the realm of sleep and its dreams. Friedrich Wilhelm was a man of habitudes; his evening Tabagie became a law of Nature to him, constant as the setting of the sun. Favorable circumstances, quietly noticed and laid hold of by the thrifty man, developed this simple evening arrangement of his into a sort of Smoking Parliament, small but powerful, where State-consultations, in a fitful informal way, took place; and the weightiest affairs might, by dexterous management, cunning insinuation and manoeuvring from those that understood the art and the place, he bent this way or that, and ripened towards such issue as was desirable.

To ascertain what the true course in regard to this or the other high matter will be; what the public will think of it; and, in short, what and how the Executive-Royal shall DO therein: this, the essential function of a Parliament and Privy-Council, was here, by artless cheap methods, under the bidding of mere Nature, multifariously done; mere taciturnity and sedative smoke making the most of what natural intellect there might be. The substitution of Tobacco-smoke for Parliamentary eloquence is, by some, held to be a great improvement. Here is Smelfungus's opinion, quaintly expressed, with a smile in it, which perhaps is not all of joy:--

"Tobacco-smoke is the one element in which, by our European manners, men can sit silent together without embarrassment, and where no man is bound to speak one word more than he has actually and veritably got to say. Nay, rather every man is admonished and enjoined by the laws of honor, and even of personal ease, to stop short of that point; at all events, to hold his peace and take to his pipe again, the instant he has spoken his meaning, if he chance to have any. The results of which salutary practice, if introduced into Constitutional Parliaments, might evidently be incalculable. The essence of what little intellect and insight there is in that room: we shall or can get nothing more out of any Parliament; and sedative, gently soothing, gently clarifying tobacco-smoke (if the room were well ventilated, open atop, and the air kept good), with the obligation to a MINIMUM of speech, surely gives human intellect and insight the best chance they can have. Best chance, instead of the worst chance as at present: ah me, ah me, who will reduce fools to silence again in any measure? Who will deliver men from this hideous nightmare of Stump-Oratory, under which the grandest Nations are choking to a nameless death, bleeding (too truly) from mouth and nose and ears, in our sad days?"

This Tobacco-College is the Grumkow-and-Seckendorf chief field of action. These two gentlemen understand thoroughly the nature of the Prussian Tobacco-Parliament; have studied the conditions of it to the most intricate cranny: no English Whipper-in or eloquent Premier knows his St. Stephen's better, or how to hatch a measure in that dim hot element. By hint, by innuendo; by contemplative smoke, speech and forbearance to speak; often looking one way and rowing another,--they can touch the secret springs, and guide in a surprising manner the big dangerous Fireship (for such every State-Parliament is) towards the haven they intend for it. Most dexterous Parliament-men (Smoke-Parliament); no Walpole, no Dundas, or immortal Pitt, First or Second, is cleverer in Parliamentary practice. For their Fireship, though smaller than the British, is very dangerous withal. Look at this, for instance: Seckendorf, one evening, far contrary to his wont, which was prostrate respect in easy forms, and always judicious submission of one's own weaker judgment, towards his Majesty,--has got into some difficult defence of the Kaiser; defence very difficult, or in reality impossible. The cautious man is flustered by the intricacies of his position, by his Majesty's indignant counter-volleys, and the perilous necessity there is to do the impossible on the spur of the instant;--gets into emphasis, answers his Majesty's volcanic fire by incipient heat of his own; and, in short, seems in danger of forgetting himself, and kindling the Tobacco-Parliament into a mere conflagration. That will be an issue for us! And yet who dare interfere? Friedrich Wilhelm's words, in high clangorous metallic plangency, and the pathos of a lion raised by anger into song, fall hotter and hotter; Seckendorf's puckered brow is growing of slate-color; his shelf-lip, shuttling violently, lisps and snuffles mere unconciliatory matter:--What on earth will become of us?--"Hoom! Boom!" dexterous Grumkow has drawn a Humming-top from his pocket, and suddenly sent it spinning. There it hums and caracoles, through the bottles and glasses; reckless what dangerous breakage and spilth it may occasion. Friedrich Wilhelm looked aside to it indignantly. "What is that?" inquired he, in metallic tone still high. "Pooh, a toy I bought for the little Prince August, your Majesty: am only trying it!" His Majesty understood the hint, Seckendorf still better; and a jolly touch of laughter, on both sides, brought the matter back into the safe tobacco-clouds again. [Forster, ii. 110.]

This Smoking Parliament or TABAKS-COLLEGIUM of his Prussian Majesty was a thing much talked of in the world; but till Seckendorf and Grumkow started their grand operations there, its proceedings are not on record; nor indeed till then had its political or parliamentary function become so decidedly evident. It was originally a simple Smoking-Club; got together on hest of Nature, without ulterior intentions:--thus English PARLIAMENTA themselves are understood to have been, in the old Norman time, mere royal Christmas-Festivities, with natural colloquy or PARLEYING between King and Nobles ensuing thereupon, and what wisest consultation concerning the arduous things of the realm the circumstances gave rise to. Such parleyings or consultations,--always two in number in regard to every matter, it would seem, or even three; one sober, one drunk, and one just after being drunk,--proving of extreme service in practice, grew to be Parliament, with its three readings, and what not.

A Smoking-room,--with wooden furniture, we can suppose,--in each of his Majesty's royal Palaces, was set apart for this evening service, and became the Tabagie of his Majesty. A Tabagie-room in the Berlin Schloss, another in the Potsdam, if the cicerone had any knowledge, could still be pointed out:--but the Tobacco-PIPES that are shown as Friedrich Wilhelm's in the KUNSTKAMMER or Museum of Berlin, pipes which no rational smoker, not compelled to it, would have used, awaken just doubt as to the cicerones; and you leave the Locality of the Tabagie a thing conjectural. In summer season, at Potsdam and in country situations, Tabagie could be held under a tent: we expressly know, his Majesty held Tabagie at Wusterhausen nightly on the Steps of the big Fountain, in the Outer Court there. Issuing from Wusterhausen Schloss, and its little clipped lindens, by the western side; passing the sentries, bridge and black ditch, with live Prussian eagles, vicious black bears, you come upon the royal Tabagie of Wusterhausen; covered by an awning, I should think; sending forth its bits of smoke-clouds, and its hum of human talk, into the wide free Desert round. Any room that was large enough, and had height of ceiling, and air-circulation and no cloth-furniture, would do: and in each Palace is one, or more than one, that has been fixed upon and fitted out for that object.

A high large Room, as the Engravings (mostly worthless) give it us: contented saturnine human figures, a dozen or so of them, sitting round a large long Table, furnished for the occasion; long Dutch pipe in the mouth of each man; supplies of knaster easily accessible; small pan of burning peat, in the Dutch fashion (sandy native charcoal, which burns slowly without smoke), is at your left hand; at your right a jug, which I find to consist of excellent thin bitter beer. Other costlier materials for drinking, if you want such, are not beyond reach. On side-tables stand wholesome cold-meats, royal rounds of beef not wanting, with bread thinly sliced and buttered: in a rustic but neat and abundant way, such innocent accommodations, narcotic or nutritious, gaseous, fluid and solid, as human nature, bent on contemplation and an evening lounge, can require. Perfect equality is to be the rule; no rising, or notice taken, when anybody enters or leaves. Let the entering man take his place and pipe, without obligatory remarks: if he cannot smoke, which is Seckendorf's case for instance, let him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established stream of things. And so, Puff, slowly Pff!--and any comfortable speech that is in you; or none, if you authentically have not any.

Old official gentlemen, military for most part; Grumkow, Derschau, Old Dessauer (when at hand), Seckendorf, old General Flans (rugged Platt-Deutsch specimen, capable of TOCADILLE or backgammon, capable of rough slashes of sarcasm when he opens his old beard for speech): these, and the like of these, intimate confidants of the King, men who could speak a little, or who could be socially silent otherwise,--seem to have been the staple of the Institution. Strangers of mark, who happened to be passing, were occasional guests; Ginckel the Dutch Ambassador, though foreign like Seckendorf, was well seen there; garrulous Pollnitz, who has wandered over all the world, had a standing invitation. Kings, high Princes on visit, were sure to have the honor. The Crown-Prince, now and afterwards, was often present; oftener than he liked,--in such an atmosphere, in such an element. "The little Princes were all wont to come in," doffing their bits of triangular hats, "and bid Papa good-night. One of the old Generals would sometimes put them through their exercise; and the little creatures were unwilling to go away to bed."

In such Assemblage, when business of importance, foreign or domestic, was not occupying the royal thoughts,--the Talk, we can believe, was rambling and multifarious: the day's hunting, if at Wusterhausen; the day's news, if at Berlin or Potsdam; old reminiscences, too, I can fancy, turning up, and talk, even in Seckendorf's own time, about Siege of Menin (where your Majesty first did me the honor of some notice), Siege of Stralsund, and--duly on September 11th at least--Malplaquet, with Marlborough and Eugene: what Marlborough said, looked: and especially Lottum, late Feldmarschall Lottum; [Died 1719.] and how the Prussian Infantry held firm, like a wall of rocks, when the horse were swept away,--rocks highly volcanic, and capable of rolling forward too; and "how a certain Adjutant [Derschau smokes harder, and blushes brown] snatched poor Tettau on his back, bleeding to death, amid the iron whirlwinds, and brought him out of shot-range." [_ Militair-Lexikon,_ iv. 78,? Major-General von Tettau, and i. 348,? Derschau. This was the beginning of Derschau's favor with Friedrich Wilhelm, who had witnesssed this piece of faithful work.]--"Hm, na, such a Day, that, Herr Feldzeugmeister, as we shall not see again till the Last of the Days!"

Failing talk, there were Newspapers in abundance; scraggy Dutch Courants, Journals of the Rhine, FAMAS, Frankfurt ZEITUNGS; with which his Majesty exuberantly supplied himself;--being willing to know what was passing in the high places of the world, or even what in the dark snuffy Editor's thoughts was passing. This kind of matter, as some picture of the actual hour, his Majesty liked to have read to him, even during meal-time. Some subordinate character, with clear windpipe,--all the better too, if he be a book-man, cognizant of History, Geography, and can explain everything,--usually reads the Newspaper from some high seat behind backs, while his Majesty and Household dine. The same subordinate personage may be worth his place in the Tabagie, should his function happen to prove necessary there. Even book-men, though generally pedants and mere bags of wind and folly, are good for something, more especially if rich mines of quizzability turn out to be workable in them.

OF GUNDLING, AND THE LITERARY MEN IN TOBACCO-PARLIAMENT.

Friedrich Wilhelm had, in succession or sometimes simultaneously, a number of such Nondescripts, to read his Newspapers and season his Tabagie;--last evanescent phasis of the old Court-Fool species;--who form a noticeable feature of his environment. One very famous literary gentleman of this description, who distanced every competitor, in the Tabagie and elsewhere, for serving his Majesty's occasions, was Jakob Paul Gundling; a name still laughingly remembered among the Prussian People. Gundling was a Country-Clergyman's son, of the Nurnberg quarter; had studied, carrying off the honors, in various Universities; had read, or turned over, whole cartloads of wise and foolish Books (gravitating, I fear, towards the latter kind); had gone the Grand Tour as travelling tutor, "as companion to an English gentleman." He had seen courts, perhaps camps, at lowest cities and inns; knew in a manner, practically and theoretically, all things, and had published multifarious Books of his own. [List of them, Twenty-one in number, mostly on learned Antiquarian subjects,--in Forster, ii. 255, 256.] The sublime long-eared erudition of the man was not to be contested; manifest to everybody; thrice and four times manifest to himself, in the first place.

In the course of his roamings, and grand and little tours, he had come to Berlin in old King Friedrich's time; had thrown powder in the eyes of men there, and been appointed to Professorships in the Ritter-Academy, to Chief-Heraldships,--"Historiographer Royal," and perhaps other honors and emoluments. The whole of which were cut down by the ruthless scythe of Friedrich Wilhelm, ruthlessly mowing his field clear, in the manner we saw at his Accession. Whereby learned grandiloquent Gundling, much addicted to liquor by this time, and turning the corner of forty, saw himself cast forth into the general wilderness; that is to say, walking the streets of Berlin, with no resources but what lay within himself and his own hungry skin. Much given to liquor too. How he lived, for a year or two after this,--erudite pen and braggart tongue his only resources,--were tragical to say. At length a famous Tavern-keeper, the "LEIPZIGE POLTER-HANS (Leipzig Kill-Cow, or BOISTEROUS-JACK)," as they call him, finding what a dungeon of erudite talk this Gundling was, and how gentlemen got entertained by him, gave Gundling the run of his Tavern (or, I fear, only a seat in the drinking-room); and it was here that General Grumkow found him, talking big, and disserting DE OMNI SCIBILI, to the ancient Berlin gentlemen over their cups. A very Dictionary of a man; who knows, in a manner, all things; and is by no means ignorant that he knows them: Would not this man suit his Majesty? thought Grumkow; and brought him to Majesty, to read the Newspapers and explain everything. Date is not given, or hinted at; but incidentally we find Gundling in full blast "in the year 1718;" [Von Loen, Kleine Schriften, i. 201 (cited in Forster, i. 260).] and conclude his instalment was a year or two before. Gundling came to his Majesty from the Tap-room of Boisterous-Jack; read the Newspapers, and explained everything: such a Dictionary-in-breeches (much given to liquor) as his Majesty had got, was never seen before. Working into the man, his Majesty, who had a great taste for such things, discovered in him such mines of college-learning, court-learning, without end; self-conceit, and depth of appetite, not less considerable: in fine, such Chaotic Blockheadism with the consciousness of being Wisdom, as was wondrous to behold,--as filled his Majesty, especially, with laughter and joyful amazement. Here are mines of native Darkness and Human Stupidity, capable of being made to phosphoresce and effervesce,--are there not, your Majesty? Omniscient Gundling was a prime resource in the Tabagie, for many years to come. Man with sublimer stores of long-eared Learning and Omniscience; man more destitute of Mother-wit, was nowhere to be met with. A man, bankrupt of Mother-wit;--who has Squandered any poor Mother-wit he had in the process of acquiring his sublime long-eared Omniscience; and has retained only depth of appetite,--appetite for liquor among other things, as the consummation and bottomless cesspool of appetites:--is not this a discovery we have made, in Boisterous-Jack's, your Majesty!

The man was an Eldorado for the peculiar quizzing humor of his Majesty; who took immense delight in working him, when occasion served. In the first years, he had to attend his Majesty on all occasions of amusement; if you invite his Majesty to dinner, Gundling too must be of the party. Daily, otherwise, Gundling was at the Tabagie; getting drunk, if nothing better. Vein after vein, rich in broad fun (very broad and Brobdignagian, such as suits there), is discovered in him: without wit himself, but much the cause of wit. None oftener shook the Tabagie with inextinguishable Hahas: daily, by stirring into him, you could wrinkle the Tabagie into grim radiance of banter and silent grins.

He wore sublime clothes: Friedrich Wilhelm, whom we saw dress up his regimental Scavenger-Executioners in French costume, for Count Rothenburg's behoof, made haste to load Gundling with Rathships, Kammerherrships, Titles such as fools covet;--gave him tolerable pensions too, poor devil, and even functions, if they were of the imaginary or big insignificant sort. Above all things, his Majesty dressed him, as the pink of fortunate ambitious courtiers. Superfine scarlet coat, gold buttonholes, black-velvet facings and embroideries without end: "straw-colored breeches; red silk stockings," with probably blue clocks to them, "and shoes with red heels:" on his learned head sat an immense cloud-periwig of white goat's-hair (the man now growing towards fifty); in the hat a red feather:--in this guise he walked the streets, the gold Key of KAMMERHERR (Chamberlain) conspicuously hanging at his coat-breast; and looked proudly down upon the world, when sober. Alas, he was often not sober; and fiends in human shape were ready enough to take advantage of his unguarded situation. No man suffered ruder tarring-and-feathering;--and his only comfort was his bane withal, that he had, under such conditions, the use of the royal cellars, and could always command good liquor there.

His illustrious scarlet coat, by tumblings in the ditch, soon got dirty to a degree; and exposed him to the biting censures of his Majesty, anxious for the respectability of his Hofraths. One day, two wicked Captains, finding him prostrate in some lone place, cut off his Kammerherr KEY; and privately gave it to his Majesty. Majesty, in Tabagie, notices Gundling's coat-breast: "Where is your Key, then, Herr Kammerherr?" "Hm, hah--unfortunately lost it, Ihro Majestat!"--"Lost it, say you?" and his Majesty looks dreadfully grave.--"Key lost?" thinks Tabagie, grave Seckendorf included: "JARNI-BLEU, that is something serious!" "As if a Soldier were to drink his musket!" thinks his Majesty: "And what are the laws, if an ignorant fellow is shot, and a learned wise one escapes?" Here is matter for a deliberative Tabagie; and to poor Gundling a bad outlook, fatal or short of fatal. He had better not even drink much; but dispense with consolation, and keep his wits about him, till this squall pass. After much deliberating, it is found that the royal clemency can be extended; and an outlet devised, under conditions. Next Tabagie, a servant enters with one of the biggest trays in the world, and upon it a "Wooden Key gilt, about an ell long;" this gigantic implement is solemnly hung round the repentant Kammerherr; this he shall wear publicly as penance, and be upon his behavior, till the royal mind can relent. Figure the poor blockhead till that happen! "On recovering his metal key, he goes to a smith, and has it fixed on with wire."

What Gundling thought to himself, amid these pranks and hoaxings, we do not know. The poor soul was not born a fool; though he had become one, by college-learning, vanity, strong-drink, and the world's perversity and his own. Under good guidance, especially if bred to strict silence, he might have been in some measure a luminous object,--not as now a phosphorescent one, shining by its mere rottenness! A sad "Calamity of Authors" indeed, when it overtakes a man!--Poor Gundling probably had lucid intervals now and then; tragic fits of discernment, in the inner-man of him. He had a Brother, also a learned man, who retained his senses; and was even a rather famed Professor at Halle; whose Portrait, looking very academic, solemn and well-to-do, turns up in old printshops; whose Books, concerning "Henry the Fowler (De Henrico Aucupe)," "Kaiser Conrad I.," and other dim Historical objects, are still consultable,--though with little profit, to my experience. The name of this one was NICOLAUS HIERONYMUS; ours is JAKOB PAUL, the senior brother,--once the hope of the House, it is likely, and a fond Father's pride,--in that poor old Nurnberg Parsonage long ago!

Jakob Paul likewise continued to write Books, on Brandenburg Heraldries, Topography, Genealogies: even a "LIFE" or two of some old Brandenburg Electors are still extant from his hand; but not looked at now by any mortal. He had been, perhaps was again, Historiographer Royal; and felt bound to write such Books: several of them he printed; and we hear of others still manuscript, "in five folio volumes written fair." He held innumerable half-mock Titles and Offices; among others, was actual President of the Berlin Royal Society, or ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, Leibnitz's pet daughter,--there Gundling actually sat in Office; and drew the salary, for one certainty. "As good he as another," thought Friedrich Wilhelm: "What is the use of these solemn fellows, in their big perukes, with their crabbed X+Y's, and scientiflc Pedler's-French; doing nothing that I can see, except annually the Berlin Almanac, which they live upon? Let them live upon it, and be thankful; with Gundling for their head man."

Academy of Sciences makes its ALMANAC, and some peculium of profit by it; lectures perhaps a little "on Anatomy" (good for something, that, in his Majesty's mind); but languishes--without encouragement during the present reign. Has his Majesty no prize questions to propose, then? None, or worse. He once officially put these learned Associates upon ascertaining for him "Why Champagne foamed?" They, with a hidden vein of pleasantry, required "material to experiment upon." Friedrich Wilhelm sent them a dozen, or certain dozens; and the matter proved insoluble to this day. No King, scarcely any man, had less of reverence for the Sciences so called; for Academic culture, and the art of the Talking-Schoolmaster in general! A King obtuse to the fine Arts, especially to the vocal Arts, in a high degree. Literary fame itself he regards as mountebank fame; the art of writing big admirable folios is little better to him than that of vomiting long coils of wonderful ribbon, for the idlers of the market-place; and he bear-baits his Gundling, in this manner, as phosphorescent blockhead of the first magnitude, worthy of nothing better.

Nay, it is but lately (1723 the exact year) that he did his ever-memorable feat in regard to Wolf and his Philosophy, at Halle. Illustrious Wolf was recognized, at that time, as the second greater Leibnitz, and Head-Philosopher of Nature, who "by mathematical method" had as it were taken Nature in the fact, and illuminated everything, so that whosoever ran might read,--which all manner of people then tried to do, but, have now quite ceased trying "by the Wolf-method:"--Immortal Wolf, somewhat of a stiff, reserved humor, inwardly a little proud, and not wanting in private contempt of the contemptible, had been accused of heterodoxy by the Halle Theologians. Immortal Wolf, croakily satirical withal, had of course defended himself; and of course got into a shoreless sea of controversy with the Halle Theologians; pestering his Majesty with mere wars, and rumors of war, for a length of time, from that Halle University. [In Busching (Beitrage, i. l-140) is rough authentic account of Wolf, and especially of all that,--with several curious LETTERS of Wolf's.] So that Majesty, unable to distinguish top or bottom in such a coil of argument; or to do justice in the case, however willing and anxious, often passionately asked: "What, in God's name, is the real truth of it?" Majesty appointed Commissions to inquire; read Reports; could for a long while make out nothing certain. At last came a decision on the sudden;--royal mind suddenly illuminated, it is a little uncertain how. Some give the credit of it to Gundling, which is unlikely; others to "Two Generals" of pious orthodox turn, acquainted with Halle;--and I have heard obscurely that it was the Old Dessauer, who also knew Halle; and was no doubt wearied to hear nothing talked of there but injured Philosopher Wolf, and injuring Theologian Lange, or VICE VERSA. Some practical military man, not given to take up with shadows, it likeliest was. "In God's name, what is the real truth of all that?" inquired his Majesty, of the practical man: "DOES Wolf teach hellish doctrines; as Lange says, or heavenly, as himself says?" "Teaches babble mainly, I should think, and scientific Pedler's French," intimated the practical man: "But they say he has one doctrine about oaths, and what he calls foundation of duty, which I did not like. Not a heavenly doctrine that. Follow out that, any of your Majesty's grenadiers might desert, and say he had done no sin against God!" [Busching, i. 8; Benekendorf, Karakterzilge aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm I. (Anonymous, Berlin, 1787), ii. 23.] Friedrich Wilhelm flew into a paroxysm of horror; instantly redacted brief Royal Decree [15th November (Busching says 8th), 1723.] (which is still extant among the curiosities of the Universe), ordering Wolf to quit Halle and the Prussian Dominions, bag and baggage, forevermore, within eight-and-forty hours, "BEY STRAFE DES STRANGES, under pain of the halter!"

Halter: the Head-Philosopher of Nature, found too late, will be hanged, as if he were a sheep-stealer; hanged, and no mistake! Poor Wolf gathered himself together, wife and baggage; girded up his loins; and ran with the due despatch. He is now found sheltered under Hessen-Darmstadt, at Marburg, professing something there; and all the intellect of the world is struck with astonishment, and with silent or vocal pity for the poor man.--It is but fair to say, Friedrich Wilhelm, gradually taking notice of the world's humor in regard to this, began to have his own misgivings; and determined to read some of Wolf's Books for himself. Reading in Wolf, he had sense to discern that here was a man of undeniable talent and integrity; that the Practical Military judgment, loading with the iron ramrod, had shot wide of the mark, in this matter; and, in short, that a palpable bit of foul-play had been done. This was in 1733;--ten years after the shot, when his Majesty saw, with his own eyes, how wide it had gone. He applied to Wolf earnestly, more than once, to come back to him: Halle, Frankfurt, any Prussian University with a vacancy in it, was now wide open to Wolf. But Wolf knew better: Wolf, with bows down to the ground, answered always evadingly;--and never would come back till the New Reign began.

Friedrich Wilhelm knew little of Book-learning or Book-writing; and his notion of it is very shocking to us. But the fact is, O reader, Book-writing is of two kinds: one wise, and may be among the wisest of earthly things; the other foolish, sometimes far beyond what can be reached by human nature elsewhere. Blockheadism, Unwisdom, while silent, is reckoned bad; but Blockheadism getting vocal, able to speak persuasively,--have you considered that at all? Human Opacity falling into Phosphorescence; that is to say, becoming luminous (to itself and to many mortals) by the very excess of it, by the very bursting of it into putrid fermentation;--all other forms of Chaos are cosmic in comparison!--Our poor Friedrich Wilhelm had seen only Gundlings among the Book-writing class: had he seen wiser specimens, he might have formed, as he did in Wolf's case, another judgment. Nay in regard to Gundling himself, it is observable how, with his unutterable contempt, he seems to notice in him glimpses of the admirable (such acquirements, such dictionary-faculties, though gone distracted!),--and almost has a kind of love for the absurd dog. Gundling's pensions amount to something like 150 pounds; an immense sum in this Court. [Forster, i. 263, 284 (if you can RECONCILE the two passages).] A blockhead admirable in some sorts; and of immense resource in Tobacco-Parliament when business is slack!--

No end to the wild pranks, the Houyhnhnm horse-play they had with drunken Gundling. He has staggered out in a drunk state, and found, or not clearly FOUND till the morrow, young bears lying in his bed;--has found his room-door walled up; been obliged to grope about, staggering from door to door and from port to port, and land ultimately in the big Bears' den, who hugged and squeezed him inhumanly there. Once at Wusterhausen, staggering blind-drunk out of the Schloss towards his lair, the sentries at the Bridge (instigated to it by the Houyhnhnms, who look on) pretend to fasten some military blame on him: Why has he omitted or committed so-and-so? Gundling's drunk answer is unsatisfactory. "Arrest, Herr Kammerrath, is it to be that, then!" They hustle him about, among the Bears which lodge there;--at length they lay him horizontally across two ropes;--take to swinging him hither and thither, up and down, across the black Acherontic Ditch, which is frozen over, it being the dead of winter: one of the ropes, LOWER rope, breaks; Gundling comes souse upon the ice with his sitting-part; breaks a big hole in the ice, and scarcely with legs, arms and the remaining rope, can be got out undrowned. [Forster (i. 254-280); founding, I suppose, on Leben und Thaten des Freiherrn Paul von Gundling (Berlin, 1795); probably not one of the exactest Biographies.]

If, with natural indignation, he shut his door, and refuse to come to the Tabagie, they knock in a panel of his door; and force him out with crackers, fire-works, rockets and malodorous projectiles. Once the poor blockhead, becoming human for a moment, went clean away; to Halle where his Brother was, or to some safer place: but the due inveiglements, sublime apologies, increase of titles, salaries, were used; and the indispensable Phosphorescent Blockhead, and President of the Academy of Pedler's-French, was got back. Drink remained always as his consolation; drink, and the deathless Volumes he was writing and printing. Sublime returns came to him;--Kaiser's Portrait set in diamonds, on one occasion,--for his Presentation-Copies in high quarters: immortal fame, is it not his clear portion; still more clearly abundance of good wine. Friedrich Wilhelm did not let him want for Titles;--raised him at last to the Peerage; drawing out the Diploma and Armorial Blazonry, in a truly Friedrich-Wilhelm manner, with his own hand. The Gundlings, in virtue of the transcendent intellect and merits of this Founder Gundling, are, and are hereby declared to be, of Baronial dignity to the last scion of them; and in "all RITTER-RENNEN (Tournaments), Battles, Fights, Camp-pitchings, Sealings, Sightings, shall and may use the above-said Shield of Arms,"--if it can be of any advantage to them. A Prussian Majesty who gives us 150 pounds yearly, with board and lodging and the run of his cellar, and honors such as these, is not to be lightly sneezed away, though of queer humors now and then. The highest Personages, as we said, more than once made gifts to Gundling; miniatures set in diamonds; purses of a hundred ducats: even Gundling, it was thought, might throw in a word, mad or otherwise, which would bear fruit. It was said of him, he never spoke to harm anybody with his Majesty. The poor blown-up blockhead was radically not ill-natured,--at least, if you let his "phosphorescences" alone.

But the grandest explosions, in Tobacco-Parliament, were producible, when you got Two literary fools; and, as if with Leyden-jars, positive and negative, brought their vanities to bear on one another. This sometimes happened, when Tobacco-Parliament was in luck. Friedrich Wilhelm had a variety of Merry-Andrew Raths of the Gundling sort, though none ever came up to Gundling, or approached him, in worth as a Merry-Andrew.

Herr Fassmann, who wrote Books, by Patronage or for the Leipzig Booksellers, and wandered about the world as a star or comet of some magnitude, is not much known to my readers:--but he is too well known to me, for certain dark Books of his which I have had to read. [Life of Friedrich Wilhelm, occasionally cited here; Life of August the Strong; &c.] A very dim Literary Figure; undeniable, indecipherable Human Fact, of those days; now fallen quite extinct and obsolete; his garniture, equipment, environment all very dark to us. Probably a too restless, imponderous creature, too much of the Gundling type; structure of him GASEOUS, not solid; Perhaps a little of the coxcomb naturally; much of the sycophant on compulsion,--being sorely jammed into corners, and without elbow-room at all, in this world. Has, for the rest, a recognizable talent for "Magazine writing,"--for Newspaper editing, had that rich mine, "California of the Spiritually Vagabond," been opened in those days. Poor extinct Fassmann, one discovers at last a vein of weak geniality in him; here and there, real human sense and eyesight, under those strange conditions; and his poor Books, rotted now to inanity, have left a small seed-pearl or two, to the earnest reader. Alas, if he WAS to become "spiritually vagabond" ("spiritually" and otherwise), might it not perhaps be wholesome to him that the California was NOT discovered?--

Fassmann was by no means such a fool as Gundling; but, he was much of a fool too. He had come to Berlin, about this time, [1726, as he himself says (supra p. 8).] in hopes of patronage from the King or somebody; might say to himself, "Surely I am a better man than Gundling, if the Berlin Court has eyesight." By the King, on some wise General's recommending it, he was, as a preliminary, introduced to the Tabagie at least. Here is the celebrated Gundling; there is the celebrated Fassmann. Positive Leyden-jar, with negative close by: in each of these two men lodges a full-charged fiery electric virtue of self-conceit; destructive each of the other;--could a conductor be discovered. Conductors are discoverable, conductors are not wanting; and many are the explosions between these mutually-destructive human varieties;--welcomed with hilarious, rather vacant, huge horse-laughter, in this Tobacco-Parliament and Synod of the Houyhnhnms.

Of which take this acme; and then end. Fassmann, a fellow not without sarcasm and sharpness, as you may still see, has one evening provoked Gundling to the transcendent pitch,--till words are weak, and only action will answer. Gundling, driven to the exploding point, suddenly seizes his Dutch smoking-pan, of peat-charcoal ashes and red-hot sand; and dashes it in the face of Fassmann; who is of course dreadfully astonished thereby, and has got his very eyebrows burnt, not to speak of other injuries. Stand to him, Fassmann! Fassmann stands to him tightly, being the better man as well as the more satirical; grasps Gundling by the collar, wrenches him about, lays him at last over his knee, sitting-part uppermost; slaps said sitting-part (poor sitting-part that had broken the ice of Wusterhausen) with the hot pan,--nay some say, strips it and slaps. Amid the inextinguishable horse-laughter (sincere but vacant) of the Houyhnhnm Olympus.

After which, his Majesty, as epilogue to such play, suggests, That feats of that nature are unseemly among gentlemen; that when gentlemen have a quarrel, there is another way of settling it. Fassmann thereupon challenges Gundling; Gundling accepts; time and place are settled, pistols the weapon. At the appointed time and place Gundling stands, accordingly, pistol in hand; but at sight of Fassmann, throws his pistol away; will not shoot any man, nor have any man shoot him. Fassmann sternly advances; shoots his pistol (powder merely) into Gundling's sublime goat's-hair wig: wig blazes into flame; Gundling falls shrieking, a dead man, to the earth; and they quench and revive him with a bucket of water. Was there ever seen such horse-play? Roaring laughter, huge, rude, and somewhat vacant, as that of the Norse gods over their ale at Yule time;--as if the face of the Sphinx were to wrinkle itself in laughter; or the fabulous Houyhnhnms themselves were there to mock in their peculiar fashion.

His Majesty at length gave Gundling a wine-cask, duly figured; "painted black with a white cross," which was to stand in his room as MEMENTO-MORI, and be his coffin. It stood for ten years; Gundling often sitting to write in it; a good screen against draughts. And the poor monster was actually buried in this cask; [Died 11th April, 1731, age 58: description of the Burial "at Bornstadt near Potsdam," in Forster, i. 276.] Fassmann pronouncing some funeral oration,--and the orthodox clergy uttering, from the distance, only a mute groan. "The Herr Baron von Gundling was a man of many dignities, of much Book-learning; a man of great memory," admits Fassmann, "but of no judgment," insinuates he,--"LOOKING FOR the Judgment (EXPECTANS JUDICIUM)," says Fassmann, with a pleasant wit. Fassmann succeeded to all the emoluments and honors; but did not hold them; preferred to run away before long: and after him came one and the other, whom the reader is not to be troubled with here. Enough if the patient reader have seen, a little, into that background of Friedrich Wilhelm's existence; and, for the didactic part, have caught up his real views or instincts upon Spiritual Phosphorescence, or Stupidity grown Vocal, which are much sounder than most of us suspect.

These were the sports of the Tobacco-Parliament; and it was always meant primarily for sport, for recreation: but there is no doubt it had a serious function as well. "Business matters," adds Beneckendorf, who had means of knowing, [Benekendorf, Karakterzuge, i. 137-149; vi. 37.] "were often a subject of colloquy in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM. Not that they were there finished off, decided upon, or meant to be so. But Friedrich Wilhelm often purposely brought up such things in conversation there, that he might learn the different opinions of his generals and chief men, without their observing it,"--and so might profit by the Collective Wisdom, in short.

Chapter VIII. -- SECKENDORF'S RETORT TO HER MAJESTY.

The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not yet known to Queen Sophie, to her Father George, or to any external creature: but that open flinching, and gradual withdrawal, from the Treaty of Hanover was too well known; and boded no good to her pet project. Female sighs, male obduracies, and other domestic phenomena, are to be imagined in consequence. "A grand Britannic Majesty indeed; very lofty Father to us, Madam, ever since he came to be King of England: Stalking along there, with his nose in the air; not deigning the least notice of us, except as of a thing that may be got to fight for him! And he does not sign the Double-Marriage Treaty, Madam; only talks of signing it,--as if we were a starved coach-horse, to be quickened along by a wisp of hay put upon the coach-pole close ahead of us always!"--"JARNI-BLEU!" snuffles Seckendorf with a virtuous zeal, or looks it; and things are not pleasant at the royal dinner-table.

Excellenz Seckendorf, we find at this time, "often has his Majesty to dinner:" and such dinners; fitting one's tastes in all points,--no expense regarded (which indeed is the Kaiser's, if we knew it)! And in return, Excellenz is frequently at dinner with his Majesty; where the conversation; if it turn on England, which often happens, is more and more an offence to Queen Sophie. Seckendorf studies to be polite, reserved before the Queen's Majesty at her own table; yet sometimes he lisps out, in his vile snuffling tone, half-insinuations, remarks on our Royal Kindred, which are irritating in the extreme. Queen Sophie, the politest of women, did once, says Pollnitz, on some excessive pressure of that lisping snuffling unendurability, lose her royal patience and flame out. With human frankness, and uncommonly kindled eyes, she signified to Seckendorf, That none who was not himself a kind of scoundrel could entertain such thoughts of Kings and gentlemen! Which hard saying kindled the stiff-backed rheumatic soul of Seckendorf (Excellenz had withal a temper in him, far down in the deeps); who answered: "Your Majesty, that is what no one else thinks of me. That is a name I have never permitted any one to give me with impunity." And verily, he kept his threat in that latter point, says Pollnitz. [ii. 244.]

At this stage, it is becoming, in the nature of things, unlikely that the projected Double-Marriage, or any union with England, can ever realize itself for Queen Sophie and her House. The Kaiser has decreed that it never shall. Here is the King already irritated, grown indisposed to it; here is the Kaiser's Seckendorf, with preternatural Apparatus, come to maintain him in that humor. To Queen Sophie herself, who saw only the outside of Seckendorf and his Apparatus, the matter doubtless seemed big with difficulties; but to us, who see the interior, the difficulties are plainly hopeless. Unless the Kaiser's mind change, unless many fixed things change, the Double-Marriage is impossible.

One thing only is a sorrow; and this proved an immeasurable one: That they did not, that Queen Sophie did not, in such case, frankly give it up: Double-Marriage is not a law of Nature; it is only a project at Hanover that has gone off again. There will be a life for our Crown-Prince, and Princess, without a marriage with England!-It is greatly wise to recognize the impossible, the unreasonably difficult, when it presents itself: but who of men is there, much more who of women that can always do it?

Queen Sophie Dorothee will have this Double-Marriage, and it shall be possible. Pour Lady, she was very obstinate; and her Husband was very arbitrary. A rough bear of a Husband, yet by no means an unloving one; a Husband who might have been managed. She evidently made a great mistake in deciding not to obey this man; as she had once vowed. By perfect prompt obedience she might have had a very tolerable life with the rugged Orson fallen to her lot; who was a very honest-hearted creature. She might have done a pretty stroke of female work, withal, in taming her Orson; might have led him by the muzzle far enough in a private way,--by obedience.

But by disobedience, by rebellion open or secret? Friedrich Wilhelm was a Husband; Friedrich Wilhelm was a King; and the most imperative man then breathing. Disobedience to Friedrich Wilhelm was a thing which, in the Prussian State, still more in the Berlin Schloss and vital heart of said State, the laws of Heaven and of Earth had not permitted, for any man's or any woman's sake, to be. The wide overarching sky looks down on no more inflexible Sovereign Man than him in the red-collared blue coat and white leggings, with the bamboo in his hand. A peaceable, capacious, not ill-given Sovereign Man, if you will let him have his way. But to bar his way; to tweak the nose of his sovereign royalty, and ignominiously force him into another way: that is an enterprise no man or devil, or body of men or devils, need attempt. Seckendorf and Grumkow, in Tobacco-Parliament, understand it better. That attempt is impossible, once for all. The first step in such attempt will require to be assassination of Friedrich Wilhelm; for you may depend on it, royal Sophie, so long as he is alive, the feat cannot be done. O royal Sophie, O pretty Feekin, what a business you are making of it!

The year 1726 was throughout a troublous one to Queen Sophie. Seckendorf's advent; King George's manifestoing; alarm of imminent universal War, nay sputters of it actually beginning (Gibraltar invested by the Spaniards, ready for besieging, it is said): nor was this all. Sophie's poor Mother, worn to a tragic Megaera, locked so long in the Castle of Ahlden, has taken up wild plans of outbreak, of escape by means of secretaries, moneys in the Bank of Amsterdam, and I know not what; with all which Sophie, corresponding in double and triple mystery, has her own terrors and sorrows, trying to keep it down. And now, in the depth of the year, the poor old Mother suddenly dies. [13th November, 1726: Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, Consort of George I. (i. 386),--where also some of her concluding Letters ("edited" as if by the Nightmares) can be read, but next to no sense made of them.] Burnt out in this manner, she collapses into ashes and long rest; closing so her nameless tragedy of thirty years' continuance:--what a Bluebeard-chamber in the mind of Sophie! Nay there rise quarrels about the Heritage of the Deceased, which will prove another sorrow.

End Of Book V

======================================================================== VOLUME 06 — Project Gutenberg #2106 ========================================================================

Produced by D.R. Thompson

HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle

VOLUME VI.

BOOK VI.--DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND CROWN-PRINCE, GOING ADRIFT UNDER THE STORM-WINDS.--1727-1730.

Chapter I. -- FIFTH CRISIS IN THE KAISER'S SPECTRE-HUNT.

The Crown-Prince's young Life being, by perverse chance, involved and as it were absorbed in that foolish question of his English Marriage, we have nothing for it but to continue our sad function; and go on painfully fishing out, and reducing to an authentic form, what traces of him there are, from that disastrous beggarly element,--till once he get free of it, either dead or alive. The WINDS (partly by Art-Magic) rise to the hurricane pitch, upon this Marriage Project and him; and as for the sea, or general tide of European Politics--But let the reader look with his own eyes.

In the spring of 1727, War, as anticipated, breaks out; Spaniards actually begin battering at Gibraltar; Kaiser's Ambassador at London is angrily ordered to begone. Causes of war were many:

1. Duke de Ripperda--tumbled out now, that illustrious diplomatic bulldog, at Madrid--sought asylum in the English Ambassador's house; and no respect was had to such asylum: that is one cause.

2. Then, you English, what is the meaning of these war-fleets in the West Indies; in the Mediterranean, on the very coast of Spain? We demand that you at once take them home again:--which cannot be complied with.

3. But above all things, we demand Gibraltar of you:--which can still less be complied with. Termagant Elizabeth has set her heart on Gibraltar: that, in such opportunity as this unexpected condition of the Balances now gives her, is the real cause of the War.

Cession of Gibraltar: there had been vague promises, years ago, on the Kaiser's part; nay George himself, raw to England at that date, is said to have thought the thing might perhaps be done.--"Do it at once, then!" said the Termagant Queen, and repeated, with ever more emphasis;--and there being not the least compliance, she has opened parallels before the place, and begun war and ardent firing there; [22d February, 1727 (Scholl, ii. 212). Salmon, Chronological Historian (London, 1747; a very incorrect dark Book, useful only in defect of better), ii. 173. Coxe, Memoirs of Walpole, i. 260, 261; ii. 498-515.] preceded by protocols, debates in Parliament; and the usual phenomena. It is the Fifth grand Crisis in the Kaiser's spectre-huntings; fifth change in the color of the world-lobster getting boiled in that singular manner;--Second Sputter of actual War.

Which proved futile altogether; and amounts now, in the human memory; to flat zero,--unless the following infinitesimally small fraction be countable again:--

"Sputtering of War; that is to say, Siege of Gibraltar. A siege utterly unmemorable, and without the least interest, for existing mankind with their ungrateful humor,--if it be not; once more, that the Father of TRISTRAM SHANDY was in it: still a Lieutenant of foot, poor fellow; brisk, small, hot-tempered, loving, 'liable to be cheated ten times a day if nine will not suffice you.' He was in this Siege; shipped to the Rock to make stand there; and would have done so with the boldest,--only he got into duel (hot-tempered, though of lamb-like innocence), and was run through the body; not entirely killed, but within a hair's breadth of it; and unable for service while this sputtering went on. Little Lorry is still living; gone to school in Yorkshire, after pranks enough, and misventures,--half-drowning 'in the mill-race at Annamoe in Ireland,' for one. [Laurence Sterne's Autobiography (cited above).] The poor Lieutenant Father died, soldiering in the West Indies; soon after this; and we shall not mention him again. But History ought to remember that he is 'Uncle Toby,' this poor Lieutenant, and take her measures!--The Siege of Gibraltar, we still see with our eyes, was in itself Nothing."

Truly it might well enough have grown to universal flame of War. But this always needs two parties; and pacific George would not be second party in it. George, guided by pacific Walpole, backed by pacific Fleury, answers the ardent firing by phlegmatic patience and protocolling; not by counter-firing, except quite at his convenience, from privateers, from war-ships here and there, and in sulky defence from Gibraltar itself. Probably the Termagant, with all the fire she has, will not do much damage upon Gibraltar? Such was George's hope. Whereby the flame of war, ardent only in certain Spanish batteries upon the point of San Roque, does not spread hitherto,--though all mortals, and Friedrich Wilhelm as much as any, can see the imminent likelihood there is. In such circumstances, what a stroke of policy to have disjoined Friedrich Wilhelm from the Hanover Alliance, and brought him over to our own! Is not Grumkow worth his pension? "Grumkow serves honorably." Let the invaluable Seckendorf persevere.

CROWN-PRINCE SEEN IN DRYASDUST'S GLASS, DARKLY.

To know the special figure of the Crown-Prince's way of life in those years, who his friends, companions were, what his pursuits and experiences, would be agreeable to us; but beyond the outline already given, there is little definite on record. He now resides habitually at Potsdam, be the Court there or not; attending strictly to his military duties in the Giant Regiment; it is only on occasion, chiefly perhaps in "Carnival time," that he gets to Berlin, to partake in the gayeties of society. Who his associates there or at Potsdam were? Suhm, the Saxon Resident, a cultivated man of literary turn, famed as his friend in time coming, is already at his diplomatic post in Berlin, post of difficulty just now; but I know not whether they have yet any intimacy. [Preuss, Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden, p. 24.] This we do know, the Crown-Prince begins to be noted for his sprightly sense, his love of literature, his ingenuous ways; in the Court or other circles, whatsoever has intelligence attracts him, and is attracted by him. The Roucoulles Soirees,--gone all to dim backram for us, though once so lively in their high periwigs and speculations,--fall on Wednesday. When the Finkenstein or the others fall,--no doubt his Royal Highness knows it. In the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM, there also, driven by duty, he sometimes appears; but, like Seckendorf and some others, he only affects to smoke, and his pipe is mere white clay. Nor is the social element, any more than the narcotic vapor which prevails there, attractive to the young Prince,--though he had better hide his feelings on the subject.

Out at Potsdam, again, life goes very heavy; the winged Psyche much imprisoned in that pipe-clay element, a prey to vacancy and many tediums and longings. Daily return the giant drill-duties; and daily, to the uttermost of rigorous perfection, they must be done:--"This, then, is the sum of one's existence, this?" Patience, young "man of genius," as the Newspapers would now call you; it is indispensably beneficial nevertheless! To swallow one's disgusts, and do faithfully the ugly commanded work, taking no council with flesh and blood: know that "genius," everywhere in Nature, means this first of all; that without this, it means nothing, generally even less. And be thankful for your Potsdam grenadiers and their pipe-clay!--

Happily he has his Books about him; his flute: Duhan, too, is here, still more or less didactic in some branches; always instructive and companionable, to him. The Crown-Prince reads a great deal; very many French Books, new and old, he reads; among the new, we need not doubt, the Henriade of M. Arouet Junior (who now calls himself VOLTAIRE), which has risen like a star of the first magnitude in these years. [London, 1723, in surreptitious incomplete state, La Ligue the title; then at length, London, 1726, as Henriade, in splendid 4to,--by subscription (King, Prince and Princess of Wales at the top of it), which yielded 8,000 pounds: see Voltaire, OEuvres Completes, xiii. 408.] An incomparable piece, patronized by Royalty in England; the delight of all kindred Courts. The light dancing march of this new "Epic," and the brisk clash of cymbal music audible in it, had, as we find afterwards, greatly captivated the young man. All is not pipe-clay, then, and torpid formalism; aloft from the murk of commonplace rise glancings of a starry splendor, betokening--oh, how much!

Out of Books, rumors and experiences, young imagination is forming to itself some Picture of the World as it is, as it has been. The curtains of this strange life-theatre are mounting, mounting,--wondrously as in the case of all young souls; but with what specialties, moods or phenomena of light and shadow, to this young soul, is not in any point recorded for us. The "early Letters to Wilhelmina, which exist in great numbers," from these we had hoped elucidation: but these the learned Editor has "wholly withheld as useless," for the present. Let them be carefully preserved, on the chance of somebody's arising to whom they may have uses!--

The worst feature of these years is Friedrich Wilhelm's discontent with them. A Crown-Prince sadly out of favor with Papa. This has long been on the growing hand; and these Double-Marriage troubles, not to mention again the new-fangled French tendencies (BLITZ FRANZOSEN!), much aggravate the matter, and accelerate its rate of growth. Already the paternal countenance does not shine upon him; flames often; and thunders, to a shocking degree;--and worse days are coming.

Chapter II. -- DEATH OF GEORGE I.

Gibraltar still keeps sputtering; ardent ineffectual bombardment from the one side, sulky, heavy blast of response now and then from the other: but the fire does not spread; nor will, we may hope. It is true, Sweden and Denmark have joined the Treaty of Hanover, this spring; and have troops on foot, and money paid them; But George is pacific; Gibraltar is impregnable; let the Spaniards spend their powder there.

As for the Kaiser, he is dreadfully poor; inapt for battle himself. And in the end of this same May, 1727, we hear, his principal ally, Czarina Catherine, has died;--poor brown little woman, Lithuanian housemaid, Russian Autocrat, it is now all one;--dead she, and can do nothing. Probably the Kaiser will sit still? The Kaiser sits still; with eyes bent on Gibraltar, or rolling in grand Imperial inquiry and anxiety round the world; war-outlooks much dimmed for him since the end of May.

Alas, in the end of June, what far other Job's-post is this that reaches Berlin and Queen Sophie? That George I., her royal Father, has suddenly sunk dead! With the Solstice, or Summer pause of the Sun, 21st or 22d June, almost uncertain which, the Majesty of George I. did likewise pause,--in his carriage, on the road to Osnabruck,--never to move more. Whereupon, among the simple People, arose rumors of omens, preternaturalisms, for and against: How his desperate Megaera of a Wife, in the act of dying, had summoned him (as was presumable), to appear along with her at the Great Judgment-Bar within year and day; and how he has here done it. On the other hand, some would have it noted, How "the nightingales in Herrenhausen Gardens had all ceased singing for the year, that night he died,"--out of loyalty on the part of these little birds, it seemed presumable. [See Kohler, Munzbelustigungen, x. 88.]

What we know is, he was journeying towards Hanover again, hopeful of a little hunting at the Gorhde; and intended seeing Osnabruck and his Brother the Bishop there, as he passed. That day, 21st June, 1727, from some feelings of his own, he was in great haste for Osnabruck; hurrying along by extra-post, without real cause save hurry of mind. He had left his poor old Maypole of a Mistress on the Dutch Frontier, that morning, to follow at more leisure. He was struck by apoplexy on the road,--arm fallen powerless, early in the day, head dim and heavy; obviously an alarming case. But he refused to stop anywhere; refused any surgery but such as could be done at once. "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" he reiterated, growing visibly worse. Two subaltern Hanover Officials, "Privy-Councillor von Hardenberg, KAMMERHERR (Chamberlain) von Fabrice, were in the carriage with him;" [Gottfried, Historische Chronik (Frankfurt, 1759), iii. 872. Boyer, The Political State of Great Britain, vol. xxxiii. pp. 545, 546.] King chiefly dozing, and at last supported in the arms of Fabrice, was heard murmuring, "C'EST FAIT DE MOI ('T is all over with me)!" And "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" slumberously reiterated he: To Osnabruck, where my poor old Brother, Bishop as they call him, once a little Boy that trotted at my knee with blithe face, will have some human pity on me! So they rushed along all day, as at the gallop, his few attendants and he; and when the shades of night fell, and speech had now left the poor man, he still passionately gasped some gurgle of a sound like "Osnabruck;"--hanging in the arms of Fabrice, and now evidently in the article of death. What a gallop, sweeping through the slumber of the world: To Osnabruck, Osnabruck!

In the hollow of the night (some say, one in the morning), they reach Osnabruck. And the poor old Brother,--Ernst August, once youngest of six brothers, of seven children, now the one survivor, has human pity in the heart of him full surely. But George is dead; careless of it now. [Coxe (i. 266) is "indebted to his friend Nathaniel Wraxall" for these details,--the since famous Sir Nathaniel, in whose Memoirs (vague, but NOT mendacious, not unintelligent) they are now published more at large. See his Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, &c. (London. 1799), i. 35-40; also Historical Memoirs (London, 1836), iv. 516-518.] After sixty-seven years of it, he has flung his big burdens,--English crowns, Hanoverian crownlets, sulkinesses, indignations, lean women and fat, and earthly contradictions and confusions,--fairly off him; and lies there.

The man had his big burdens, big honors so called, absurd enough some of them, in this world; but he bore them with a certain gravity and discretion: a man of more probity, insight and general human faculty than he now gets credit for. His word was sacred to him. He had the courage of a Welf, or Lion-Man; quietly royal in that respect at least. His sense of equity, of what was true and honorable in men and things, remained uneffaced to a respectable degree; and surely it had resisted much. Wilder puddle of muddy infatuations from without and from within, if we consider it well,--of irreconcilable incoherences, bottomless universal hypocrisies, solecisms bred with him and imposed on him,--few sons of Adam had hitherto lived in.

He was, in one word, the first of our Hanover Series of English Kings; that hitherto unique sort, who are really strange to look at in the History of the World. Of whom, in the English annals, there is hitherto no Picture to be had; nothing but an empty blur of discordant nonsenses, and idle, generally angry, flourishings of the pen, by way of Picture. The English Nation, having flung its old Puritan, Sword-and-Bible Faith into the cesspool,--or rather having set its old Bible-Faith, MINUS any Sword, well up in the organ-loft, with plenty of revenue, there to preach and organ at discretion, on condition always of meddling with nobody's practice farther,--thought the same (such their mistake) a mighty pretty arrangement; but found it hitch before long. They had to throw out their beautiful Nell-Gwynn Defenders of the Faith; fling them also into the cesspool; and were rather at a loss what next to do. "Where is our real King, then? Who IS to lead us Heavenward, then; to rally the noble of us to him, in some small measure, and save the rest and their affairs from running Devilward?"--The English Nation being in some difficulty as to Kings, the English Nation clutched up the readiest that came to hand; "Here is our King!" said they,--again under mistake, still under their old mistake. And, what was singular, they then avenged themselves by mocking, calumniating, by angrily speaking, writing and laughing at the poor mistaken King so clutched!--It is high time the English were candidly asking themselves, with very great seriousness indeed, WHAT it was they had done, in the sight of God and man, on that and the prior occasion? And above all, What it is they will now propose to do in the sequel of it! Dig gold-nuggets, and rally the IGnoble of us?--

George's poor lean Mistress, coming on at the usual rate of the road, was met, next morning, by the sad tidings. She sprang from her carriage into the dusty highway; tore her hair (or headdress), half-frantic; declared herself a ruined woman; and drove direct to Berlin, there to compose her old mind. She was not ill seen at Court there; had her connections in the world. Fieldmarshal Schulenburg, who once had the honor of fighting (not to his advantage) with Charles XII., and had since grown famous by his Anti-Turk performances in the Venetian service, is a Brother of this poor Maypole's; and there is a Nephew of hers, one of Friedrich Wilhelm's Field-Officers here, whom we shall meet by and by. She has been obliging to Queen Sophie on occasions; they can, and do, now weep heartily together. I believe she returned to England, being Duchess of Kendal, with heavy pensions there; and "assiduously attended divine ordinances, according to the German Protestant form, ever afterwards." Poor foolish old soul, what is this world, with all its dukeries!--

The other or fat Mistress, "Cataract of fluid Tallow," Countess of Darlington, whom I take to have been a Half-Sister rather, sat sorrowful at Isleworth; and kept for many years a Black Raven, which had come flying in upon her; which she somehow understood to be the soul, or connected with the soul, of his Majesty of happy memory. [Horace Walpole, Reminiscences.] Good Heavens, what fat fluid-tallowy stupor, and entirely sordid darkness, dwells among mankind; and occasionally finds itself lifted to the very top, by way of sample!--

Friedrich Wilhelm wept tenderly to Brigadier Dubourgay, the British Minister at Berlin (an old military gentleman, of diplomatic merit, who spells rather ill), when they spoke of this sad matter. My poor old Uncle; he was so good to me in boyhood, in those old days, when I blooded Cousin George's nose! Not unkind, ah, only proud and sad; and was called sulky, being of few words and heavy-laden. Ah me, your Excellenz; if the little nightingales have all fallen silent, what may not I, his Son and nephew, do?--And the rugged Majesty blubbered with great tenderness; having fountains of tears withal, hidden in the rocky heart of him, not suspected by every one. [Dubourgay's Despatches, in the State-Paper Office.]

I add only that the Fabrice, who had poor George in his arms that night, is a man worth mentioning. The same Fabrice (Fabricius, or perhaps GOLDSCHMIDT in German) who went as Envoy from the Holstein-Gottorp people to Charles XII. in his Turkish time; and stayed with his Swedish Majesty there, for a year or two, indeed till the catastrophe came. His Official LETTERS from that scene are in print, this long while, though considerably forgotten; [Anecdotes du Sejour du Roi de Suide a Bender, ou Lettres de M. le Baron de Fabrice pour servir d'elaircissement a l'Histoire de Charles XII. (Hambourg, 1760, 8vo).] a little Volume, worth many big ones that have been published on that subject. The same Fabrice, following Hanover afterwards, came across to London in due course; and there he did another memorable thing: made acquaintance with the Monsieur Arouet, then a young French Exile there, Arouet Junior ("LE JEUNE or L. J."), who,--by an ingenious anagram, contrived in his indignation at such banishment,--writes himself VOLTAIRE ever since; who has been publishing a HENRIADE, and doing other things. Now it was by questioning this Fabrice, and industriously picking the memory of him clean, that M. de Voltaire wrote another book, much more of an "Epic" than Henri IV.,--a HISTORY, namely, OF CHARLES XII.; [See Voltaire, OEuvres Completes, ii. 149, xxx. 7, 127. Came out in 1731 (ib. xxx. Avant-Propos, p. ii).] which seems to me the best-written of all his Books, and wants nothing but TRUTH (indeed a dreadful want) to make it a possession forever. VOLTAIRE, if you want fine writing; ADLERFELD and FABRICE, if you would see the features of the Fact: these three are still the Books upon Charles XII.

HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY FALLS INTO ONE OF HIS HYPOCHONDRIACAL FITS.

Before this event, his Majesty was in gloomy humor; and special vexations had superadded themselves. Early in the Spring, a difficult huff of quarrel, the consummation of a good many grudges long subsisting, had fallen out with his neighbor of Saxony, the Majesty of Poland, August, whom we have formerly heard of, a conspicuous Majesty in those days; called even "August the Great" by some persons in his own time; but now chiefly remembered by his splendor of upholstery, his enormous expenditure in drinking and otherwise, also by his three hundred and fifty-four Bastards (probably the maximum of any King's performance in that line), and called August DER STARKE, "August the Physically Strong." This exemplary Sovereign could not well be a man according to Friedrich Wilhelm's heart: accordingly they had their huffs and little collisions now and then: that of the Protestant Directorate and Heidelberg Protestants, for instance; indeed it was generally about Protestantism; and more lately there had been high words and correspondings about the "Protestants of Thorn" (a bad tragedy, of Jesuit intrusion and Polish ferocity, enacted there in 1724); [Account of it in Buchholz, i. 98-102.]--in which sad business Friedrich Wilhelm loyally interfered, though Britannic George of blessed memory and others were but lukewarm; and nothing could be done in it. Nothing except angry correspondence with King August; very provoking to the poor soul, who had no hand but a nominal one in the Thorn catastrophe, being driven into it by his unruly Diet alone.

In fact, August, with his glittering eyes and excellent physical constitution, was a very good-humored fellow; supremely pleasant in society; and by no means wishful to cheat you, or do you a mischief in business,--unless his necessities compelled him; which often were great. But Friedrich Wilhelm always kept a good eye on such points; and had himself suffered nothing from the gay eupeptic Son of Belial, either in their old Stralsund copartnery or otherwise. So that, except for these Protestant affairs,--and alas, one other little cause,--Friedrich Wilhelm had contentedly left the Physically Strong to his own course, doing the civilities of the road to him when they met; and nothing ill had fallen out between them. This other little cause--alas, it is the old story of recruiting; one's poor Hobby again giving offence! Special recruiting brabbles there had been; severe laws passed in Saxony about these kidnapping operations: and always in the Diets, when question rose of this matter, August had been particularly loud in his denouncings. Which was unkind, though not unexpected. But now, in the Spring of 1727, here has a worse case than any arisen.

Captain Natzmer, of I know not what Prussian Regiment, "Sachsen-Weimar Cuirassiers" [Militair-Lexikon, iii. 104.] or another, had dropt over into Saxony, to see what could be done in picking up a tall man or two. Tall men, one or two, Captain Natzmer did pick up, nay a tall deserter or two (Saxon soldier, inveigled to desert); but finding his operations get air, he hastily withdrew into Brandenburg territory again. Saxon Officials followed him into Brandenburg territory; snapt him back into Saxon; tried him by Saxon law there;--Saxon law, express in such case, condemns him to be hanged; and that is his doom accordingly.

"Captain Natzmer to swing on the gallows? Taken on Brandenburg territory too, and not the least notice given me?" Friedrich Wilhelm blazes into flaming whirlwind; sends an Official Gentleman, one Katsch, to his Excellenz Baron von Suhm (the Crown-Prince's cultivated friend), with this appalling message: "If Natzmer be hanged, for certain I will use reprisals; you yourself shall swing!" Whereupon Suhm, in panic, fled over the marches to his Master; who bullied him for his pusillanimous terrors; and applied to Friedrich Wilhelm, in fine frenzy of indignant astonishment, "What, in Heaven's name, such meditated outrage on the law of nations, and flat insult to the Majesty of Kings, can have meant?" Friedrich Wilhelm, the first fury being spent, sees that he is quite out of square; disavows the reprisals upon Suhm. "Message misdelivered by my Official Gentleman, that stupid Katsch; never did intend to hang Suhm; oh, no;" with much other correspondence; [In Mauvillon (ii. 189-195) more of it than any one will read.]--and is very angry at himself, and at the Natzmer affair, which has brought him into this bad pass. Into open impropriety; into danger of an utter rupture, had King August been of quarrelsome turn. But King August was not quarrelsome; and then Seckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament,--on the Kaiser's score, who wants Pragmatic Sanction and much else out of these two Kings, and can at no rate have them quarrel in the present juncture,--were eager to quench the fire. King August let Natzmer go; Suhm returned to his post; [Pollnitz, ii. 254.] and things hustled themselves into some uneasy posture of silence again;--uneasy to the sensitive fancy of Friedrich Wilhelm above all. This is his worst collision with his Neighbor of Saxony; and springing from one's Hobby again!--

These sorrows, the death of George I., with anxieties as to George II. and the course he might take; all this, it was thought, preyed upon his Majesty's spirits;--Wilhelmina says it was "the frequent carousals with Seckendorf," and an affair chiefly of the royal digestive-apparatus. Like enough;--or both might combine. It is certain his Majesty fell into one of his hypochondrias at this time; talked of "abdicating" and other gloomy things, and was very black indeed. So that Seckendorf and Grumkow began to be alarmed. It is several months ago he had Franke the Halle Methodist giving ghostly counsel; his Majesty ceased to have the Newspapers read at dinner; and listened to lugubrious Franke's exhortations instead. Did English readers ever hear of Franke? Let them make a momentary acquaintance with this famous German Saint. August Hermann Franke, a Lubeck man, born 1663; Professor of Theology, of Hebrew, Lecturer on the Bible; a wandering, persecuted, pious man. Founder of the "Pietists," a kind of German Methodists, who are still a famed Sect in that country; and of the WAISENHAUS, at Halle, grand Orphan-house, built by charitable beggings of Franke, which also still subsists. A reverend gentleman, very mournful of visage, now sixty-four; and for the present, at Berlin, discoursing of things eternal, in what Wilhelmina thinks a very lugubrious manner. Well; but surely in a very serious manner! The shadows of death were already round this poor Franke; and in a few weeks more, he had himself departed. [Died 8th June, 1727.] But hear Wilhelmina, what account she gives of her own and the young Grenadier-Major's behavior on these mournful occasions. Seckendorf's dinners she considers to be the cause; all spiritual, sorrows only an adjunct not worth mentioning. It is certain enough.

"His Majesty began to become valetudinary; and the hypochondria which tormented him rendered his humor very melancholy. Monsieur Franke, the famous Pietist, founder of the Orphan-house at Halle University, contributed not a little to exaggerate that latter evil. This reverend gentleman entertained the King by raising scruples of conscience about the most innocent matters. He condemned all pleasures; damnable all of them, he said, even hunting and music. You were to speak of nothing but the Word of God only; all other conversation was forbidden. It was always he that carried on the improving talk at table; where he did the office of reader, as if it had been a refectory of monks. The King treated us to a sermon every afternoon; his valet-de-chambre gave out a psalm, which we all sang; you had to listen to this sermon with as much devout attention as if it had been an apostle's. My Brother and I had all the mind in the world to laugh; we tried hard to keep from laughing; but often we burst out. Thereupon reprimand, with all the anathemas of the Church hurled out on us; which we had to take with a contrite penitent air, a thing not easy to bring your face to at the moment. In a word, this dog of a Franke [he died within few months, poor soul, CE CHIEN DE FRANKE] led us the life of a set of Monks of La Trappe.

"Such excess of bigotry awakened still more gothic thoughts in the King. He resolved to abdicate the crown in favor of my Brother. He used to talk, He would reserve for himself 10,000 crowns a year; and retire with the Queen and his Daughters to Wusterhausen. There, added he, I will pray to God; and manage the farming economy, while my wife and girls take care of the household matters. You are clever, he said to me; I will give you the inspection of the linen, which you shall mend and keep in order, taking good charge of laundry matters. Frederika [now thirteen, married to ANSPACH two years hence], who is miserly, shall have charge of all the stores of the house. Charlotte [now eleven, Duchess of BRUNSWICK by and by] shall go to market and buy our provisions; and my Wife shall take charge of the little children, [says Friedrich Wilhelm], and of the kitchen." [Little children are:

1. Sophie Dorothee, now eight, who married Margraf of Schwedt, and was unhappy;

2. Ulrique, a grave little soul of seven, Queen of Sweden afterwards;

3. August Wilhelm, age now five, became Father of a new Friedrich Wilhelm, who was King by and by, and produced the Kings that still are;

4. Amelia, now four, born in the way we saw; and

5. HENRI, still in arms, just beginning to walk. There will be a Sixth and no more (son of this Sixth, a Berlin ROUE was killed, in 1806, at the Battle of Jena, or a day or two before); but the Sixth is not yet come to hand.]

Poor Friedrich Wilhelm; what an innocent IDYLLIUM;--which cannot be executed by a King. "He had even begun to work at an Instruction, or Farewell Advice, for my Brother; and to point towards various steps, which alarmed Grumkow and Seckendorf to a high degree." [Wilhelmina, Memoires de Bareith, i. 108.]

"Abdication," with a Crown-Prince ready to fall into the arms of England, and a sudden finis to our Black-Art, will by no means suit Seckendorf and Grumkow! Yet here is Winter coming; solitary Wusterhausen, with the misty winds piping round it, will make matters worse: something must be contrived; and what? The two, after study, persuade Fieldmarshal Flemming over at Warsaw (August the Strong's chief man, the Flemming of Voltaire's CHARLES XII.; Prussian by birth, though this long while in Saxon service), That if he the Fieldmarshal were to pay, accidentally, as it were, a little visit to his native Brandenburg just now, it might have fine effects on those foolish Berlin-Warsaw clouds that had risen. The Fieldmarshal, well affected in such a case, manages the little visit, readily persuading the Polish Majesty; and dissipates the clouds straightway,--being well received by Friedrich Wilhelm, and seconded by the Tobacco-Parliament with all its might. Out at Wusterhausen everything is comfortably settled. Nay Madam Flemming, young, brilliant, and direct from the seat of fashion; it was she that first "built up" Wilhelmina's hair on just principles, and put some life into her appearance. [Wilhelmina, i. 117.] And now the Fieldmarshal (Tobacco-Parliament suggesting it) hints farther, "If his Prussian Majesty, in the mere greatness of his mind, were to appear suddenly in Dresden when his royal Friend was next there,--what a sunburst after clouds were that; how welcome to the Polish Majesty!"--"Hm, Na, would it, then?"--The Polish Majesty puts that out of question; specially sends invitation for the Carnival-time just coming; and Friedrich Wilhelm will, accordingly, see Dresden and him on that occasion. [Ib. i. 108, 109; Pollnitz, ii. 254; Fassman, p. 374.] In those days, Carnival means "Fashionable Season," rural nobility rallying to head-quarters for a while, and social gayeties going on; and in Protestant Countries it means nothing more.

This, in substance, was the real origin of Friedrich Wilhelm's sudden visit to Dresden, which astonished the world, in January next. It makes a great figure in the old Books. It did kindle Dresden Carnival and the Physically Strong into supreme illumination, for the time being; and proved the seal of good agreement, and even of a kind of friendliness between this heteroclite pair of Sovereigns,--if anybody now cared for those points. It is with our Crown-Prince's share in it that we are alone concerned; and that may require a Chapter to itself.

Chapter III. -- VISIT TO DRESDEN.

One of the most important adventures, for our young Crown-Prince, was this visit of his, along with Papa, to Dresden in the Carnival of 1728. Visit contrived by Seckendorf and Company, as we have seen, to divert the King's melancholy, and without view to the Crown-Prince at all. The Crown-Prince, now sixteen, and not in the best favor with his Father, had not been intended to accompany; was to stay at Potsdam and diligently drill: nevertheless an estafette came for him from the gallant Polish Majesty;--Wilhelmina had spoken a word to good Suhm, who wrote to his King, and the hospitable message came. Friedrich made no loitering,--to Dresden is but a hundred miles, one good day;--he arrived there on the morrow after his Father; King "on the 14th January, 1728," dates Fassmann; "Crown-Prince on the 15th," which I find was Thursday. The Crown-Prince lodged with Fieldmarshal Flemming; Friedrich Wilhelm, having come in no state, refused King August's pressings, and took up his quarters with "the General Fieldmarshal Wackerbarth, Commandant in Dresden,"--pleasant old military gentleman, who had besieged Stralsund along with him in times gone. Except Grumkow, Derschau and one or two of less importance, with the due minimum of Valetry, he had brought no retinue; the Crown-Prince had Finkenstein and Kalkstein with him, Tutor and Sub-Tutor, officially there. And he lodges with old Count Flemming and his clever fashionable Madam,--the diligent but unsuccessful Flemming, a courtier of the highest civility, though iracund, and "with a passion for making Treaties," whom we know since Charles XII.'s time.

Amongst the round of splendors now set on foot, Friedrich Wilhelm had, by accident of Nature, the spectacle of a house on fire,--rather a symbolic one in those parts,--afforded him, almost to start with. Deep in the first Saturday night, or rather about two in the morning of Sunday, Wackerbarth's grand house, kindling by negligence somewhere in the garrets, blazed up, irrepressible; and, with its endless upholsteries, with a fine library even, went all into flame: so that his Majesty, scarcely saving his CHATOULLE (box of preciosities), had to hurry out in undress;--over to Flemming's where his Son was; where they both continued thenceforth. This was the one touch of rough, amid so much of dulcet that occurred: no evil, this touch, almost rather otherwise, except to poor Wackerbarth, whose fine House lay wrecked by it.

The visit lasted till February 12th, four weeks and a day. Never was such thrice-magnificent Carnival amusements: illuminations, cannon-salvoings and fire-works; operas, comedies, redoubts, sow-baitings, fox and badger-baiting, reviewing, running at the ring:--dinners of never-imagined quality, this, as a daily item, needs no express mention.

To the young Soldier-Apprentice all this was, of course, in pleasant contrast with the Potsdam Guard-house; and Friedrich Wilhelm himself is understood to have liked at least the dinners, and the airy courteous ways, light table-wit and extreme good humor of the host. A successful visit; burns off like successful fire-works, piece after piece: and what more is to be said? Of all this nothing;--nor, if we could help it, of another little circumstance, not mentioned by the Newspapers or Fassmann, which constitutes the meaning of this Visit for us now. It is a matter difficult to handle in speech. An English Editor, chary of such topics, will let two witnesses speak, credible both, though not eye-witnesses; and leave it to the reader so. Babbling Pollnitz is the first witness; he deposes, after alluding to the sumptuous dinings and drinkings there:--

"One day the two Kings, after dinner, went in domino to the redoubt [RIDOTTO, what we now call ROUT or evening party]. August had a mind to take an opportunity, and try whether the reports of Friedrich Wilhelm's indifference to the fair sex were correct or not. To this end, he had had a young damsel (JUNGE PERSON) of extraordinary beauty introduced into some side-room; where they now entered. She was lying on a bed, in a loose gauzy undress; and though masked, showed so many charms to the eye that the imagination could not but judge very favorably of the rest. The King of Poland approached, in that gallant way of his, which had gained him such favor with women. He begged her to unmask; she at first affected reluctance, and would not. He then told her who he was; and said, He hoped she would not refuse, when two Kings begged her to show them this complaisance. She thereupon took off her mask, and showed them one of the loveliest faces in the world. August seemed quite enchanted; and said, as if it had been the first time he ever saw her, He could not comprehend how so bewitching a beauty had hitherto remained unknown to him.

"Friedrich Wilhelm could not help looking at her. He said to the King of Poland, 'She is very beautiful, it must be owned;'--but at the same instant turned his eyes away from her; and left the room, and the ridotto altogether without delay; went home, and shut himself in his room. He then sent for Herr von Grumkow, and bitterly complained that the King of Poland wanted to tempt him. Herr von Grumkow, who was neither so chaste nor so conscientious as the King, was for making a jest of the matter; but the King took a very serious tone; and commanded him to tell the King of Poland in his name, 'That he begged him very much not to expose him again to accidents of that nature, unless he wished to have him quit Dresden at once.' Herr von Grumkow did his message. The King of Poland laughed heartily at it; went straight to Friedrich Wilhelm, and excused himself. The King of Prussia, however, kept his grim look; so that August ceased joking, and turned the dialogue on some other subject." [Pollnitz, ii. 256.]

This is Pollnitz's testimony, gathered from the whispers of the Tabagie, or rumors in the Court-circles, and may be taken as indisputable in the main. Wilhelmina, deriving from similar sources, and equally uncertain in details, paints more artistically; nor has she forgotten the sequel for her Brother, which at present is the essential circumstance:--

"One evening, when the rites of Bacchus had been well attended to, the King of Poland led the King [my Father], strolling about, by degrees, into a room very richly ornamented, all the furniture and arrangements of which were in a quite exquisite taste. The King, charmed with what he saw, paused to contemplate the beauties of it a little; when, all on a sudden, a curtain rose, and displayed to him one of the most extraordinary sights. It was a girl in the condition of our First Parents, carelessly lying on a bed. This creature was more beautiful than they paint Venus and the Graces; she presented to view a form of ivory whiter than snow, and more gracefully shaped than the Venus de' Medici at Florence. The cabinet which contained this treasure was lighted by so many wax-candles that their brilliancy dazzled you, and gave a new splendor to the beauties of the goddess.

"The Authors of this fine comedy did not doubt but the object would make an impression on the King's heart; but it was quite otherwise. No sooner had he cast his eyes on the beauty than he whirled round with indignation; and seeing my Brother behind him, he pushed him roughly out of the room, and immediately quitted it himself; very angry at the scene they had been giving him, He spoke of it, that same evening, to Grumkow, in very strong terms; and declared with emphasis that if the like frolics were tried on him again, he would at once quit Dresden.

"With my Brother it was otherwise. In spite of the King's care, he had got a full view of that Cabinet Venus; and the sight of her did not inspire in him so much horror as in his father." [Wilhelmina, i. 112.]--Very likely not!--And in fact, "he obtained her from the King of Poland, in a rather singular way (d'une facon assez singuliere)"--describable, in condensed terms, as follows:--

Wilhelmina says, her poor Brother had been already charmed over head and ears by a gay young baggage of a Countess Orzelska; a very high and airy Countess there; whose history is not to be touched, except upon compulsion, and as if with a pair of tongs,--thrice famous as she once was in this Saxon Court of Beelzebub. She was King August's natural daughter; a French milliner in Warsaw had produced her for him there. In due time, a male of the three hundred and fifty-four, one Rutowski, soldier by profession, whom we shall again hear of, took her for mistress; regardless of natural half-sisterhood, which perhaps he did not know of. The admiring Rutowski, being of a participative turn, introduced her, after a while, to his honored parent and hers; by whom next--Heavens, human language is unequal to the history of such things! And it is in this capacity she now shines supreme in the Saxon Court; ogling poor young Fritz, and driving him distracted;--which phenomenon the Beelzebub Parent-Lover noticed with pain and jealousy, it would appear.

"His Polish Majesty distinguished her extremely," says Pollnitz, [Memoires, ii.261.] "and was continually visiting her; so that the universal inference was"--to the above unspeakable effect. "She was of fine figure; had something grand in her air and carriage, and the prettiest humor in the world. She often appeared in men's clothes, which became her very well. People said she was extremely open-handed;" as indeed the Beelzebub Parent-Lover was of the like quality (when he had cash about him), and to her, at this time, he was profuse beyond limit. Truly a tempting aspect of the Devil, this expensive Orzelska: something beautiful in her, if there are no Laws in this Universe; not so beautiful, if there are! Enough to turn the head of a poor Crown-Prince, if she like, for some time. He is just sixteen gone; one of the prettiest lads and sprightliest; his homage, clearly enough, is not disagreeable to the baggage. Wherefore jealous August, the Beelzebub-Parent, takes his measures; signifies to Fritz, in direct terms, or by discreet diplomatic hints and innuendoes, That he can have the Cabinet Venus (Formera her name, of Opera-singer kind);--hoping thereby that the Orzelska will be left alone in time coming. A "facon assez singuliere" for a Sovereign Majesty and Beelzebub Parent-Lover, thinks Wilhelmina.

Thus has our poor Fritz fallen into the wake of Beelzebub; and is not in a good way. Under such and no better guidance, in this illicit premature manner, he gets his introduction to the paradise of the world. The Formera, beautiful as painted Chaos; yes, her;--and why not, after a while, the Orzelska too, all the same? A wonderful Armida-Garden, sure enough. And cannot one adore the painted divine beauties there (lovely as certain apples of the Dead Sea), for some time?--The miseries all this brought into his existence,--into his relations with a Father very rigorous in principle, and with a Universe still more so,--for years to come, were neither few nor small. And that is the main outcome of the Dresden visitings for him and us.--

Great pledges pass between the two Kings; Prussian Crown-Prince decorated with the Order of the Saxon Eagle, or what supreme distinction they had: Rutowski taken over to Berlin to learn war and drill, where he did not remain long: in fact a certain liking seems to have risen between the two heteroclite individualities, which is perhaps worth remembering as a point in natural history, if not otherwise. One other small result of the visit is of pictorial nature. In the famed Dresden Gallery there is still a Picture, high up, visible if you have glasses, where the Saxon Court-Painter, on Friedrich Wilhelm's bidding it is said, soon after these auspicious occurrences, represents the two Majesties as large as life, in their respective costumes and features (short Potsdam Grenadier-Colonel and tall Saxon Darius or Sardanapalus), in the act of shaking hands; symbolically burying past grudges, and swearing eternal friendship, so to speak. [Forster, i. 226.] To this Editor the Picture did not seem good for much; but Friedrich Wilhelm's Portrait in it, none of the best, may be of use to travelling friends of his who have no other.

The visit ended on the 12th of February, as the Newspapers testify. Long before daybreak, at three in the morning, Friedrich Wilhelm, "who had smoked after dinner till nine the night before," and taken leave of everybody, was on the road; but was astonished to find King August and the Electoral Prince or Heir-Apparent (who had privately sat up for the purpose) insist on conducting him to his carriage. [Boyer, xxxv. 198.] "Great tokens of affection," known to the Newspapers, there were; and one token not yet known, a promise on King August's part that he would return this ever-memorable compliment in person at Potsdam and Berlin in a few months. Remember, then!--

As for the poor Crown-Prince, whom already his Father did not like, he now fell into circumstances more abstruse than ever in that and other respects. Bad health, a dangerous lingering fit of that, soon after his return home, was one of the first consequences. Frequent fits of bad health, for some years coming; with ominous rumors, consultations of physicians, and reports to the paternal Majesty, which produced small comfort in that quarter. The sad truth, dimly indicated, is sufficiently visible: his life for the next four or five years was "extremely dissolute." Poor young man, he has got into a disastrous course; consorts chiefly with debauched young fellows, as Lieutenants Katte, Keith, and others of their stamp, who lead him on ways not pleasant to his Father, nor conformable to the Laws of this Universe. Health, either of body or of mind, is not to be looked for in his present way of life. The bright young soul, with its fine strengths and gifts; wallowing like a young rhinoceros in the mud-bath:--some say, it is wholesome for a human soul; not we!

All this is too certain; rising to its height in the years we are now got to, and not ending for four or five years to come: and the reader can conceive all this, and whether its effects were good or not. Friedrich Wilhelm's old-standing disfavor is converted into open aversion and protest, many times into fits of sorrow, rage and despair, on his luckless Son's behalf;--and it appears doubtful whether this bright young human soul, comparable for the present to a rhinoceros wallowing in the mud-bath, with nothing but its snout visible, and a dirty gurgle all the sound it makes, will ever get out again or not.

The rhinoceros soul got out; but not uninjured; alas, no; bitterly polluted, tragically dimmed of its finest radiances for the remainder of life. The distinguished Sauerteig, in his SPRINGWURZELN, has these words: "To burn away, in mad waste, the divine aromas and plainly celestial elements from our existence; to change our holy-of-holies into a place of riot; to make the soul itself hard, impious, barren! Surely a day is coming, when it will be known again what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable if forgotten, is the duty laid, not on women only, but on every creature, in regard to these particulars? Well; if such a day never come again, then I perceive much else will never come. Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of heart and of eye; noble pious valor, to amend us and the age of bronze and lacquer, how can they ever come? The scandalous bronze-lacquer age, of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies and mendacities, will have to run its course, till the Pit swallow it."--

In the case of Friedrich, it is certain such a day never fully came. The "age of bronze and lacquer," so as it then stood,--relieved truly by a backbone of real Spartan IRON (of right battle STEEL when needed): this was all the world he ever got to dream of. His ideal, compared to that of some, was but low; his existence a hard and barren, though a genuine one, and only worth much memory in the absence of better. Enough of all that.

THE PHYSICALLY STRONG PAYS HIS COUNTER-VISIT.

August the Strong paid his Return-visit in May following. Of which sublime transaction, stupendous as it then was to the Journalistic mind, we should now make no mention, except for its connection with those points,--and more especially for a foolish rumor, which now rose about Prince Fred and the Double-Marriage, on occasion of it. The magnificence of this visit and reception being so extreme,--King August, for one item, sailing to it, with sound of trumpet and hautbois, in silken flotillas gayer than Cleopatra's, down the Elbe,--there was a rush towards Berlin of what we will not call the scum, but must call the foam of mankind, rush of the idle moneyed populations from all countries; and such a crowd there, for the three weeks, as was seldom seen. Foam everywhere is stirred up, and encouraged to get under way.

Prince Frederick of Hanover and England, "Duke of Edinburgh" as they now call him, "Duke of Gloucester" no longer, it would seem, nor "Prince of Wales" as yet; he, foamy as another, had thoughts of coming; and rumor of him rose very high in Berlin,--how high we have still singular proof. Here is a myth, generated in the busy Court-Imagination of Berlin at this time; written down by Pollnitz as plain fact afterwards; and from him idly copied into COXE [Coxe's Walpole (London, 1798), i. 520.] and other English Books. We abridge from watery Pollnitz, taking care of any sense he has. This is what ran in certain high-frizzled heads then and there: and was dealt out in whispers to a privileged few, watery Pollnitz's informers among them, till they got a myth made of it. Frederick Duke of Edinburgh, second hope of England at this time, he is the hero.

It appears, this loose young gentleman, standing in no favor with his sovereign Father, had never yet been across to England, the royal Parent preferring rather not to have him in sight; and was living idle at Hanover; very eager to be wedded to Wilhelmina, as one grand and at present grandest resource of his existence. It is now May, 1728; and Frederick Duke of Edinburgh is twenty-one. He writes to his Aunt and intended Mother-in-law, Queen Sophie (date not ascertainable to a day, Note burnt as soon as read): "That he can endure this tantalizing suspense no longer; such endless higgling about a supreme blessedness, virtually agreed upon, may be sport to others, but is death to him. That he will come privately at once, and wed his Wilhelmina; and so make an end; the big-wigs to adjust it afterwards as they can and may." Whereupon Sophie Dorothee, gladdest of women, sends for Dubourgay the British Ambassador (Brigadier Dubourgay, the respectable old gentleman who spells ill, who is strong for the Double-Marriage always), to tell him what fine news there is, and what answer she has sent. Respectable Dubourgay stands silent, with lengthening face: "Your Majesty, how unfortunate that I of all men now hear it! I must instantly despatch a courier with the news to London!" And the respectable man, stoically deaf to her Majesty's entreaties, to all considerations but that of his evident duty, "sends the courier" (thinks Pollnitz);--nips thereby that fine Hanover speculation in the bud, sees Prince Fred at once summoned over to England, and produces several effects. Nearly the whole of which, on examining the Documents, [Dubourgay's Despatches (1728: 29 May, 1 June, 5 October), in the State-Paper Office here.] proves to be myth.

Pollnitz himself adds two circumstances, in regard to it, which are pretty impossible: as, first, that Friedrich Wilhelm had joyfully consented to this clandestine marriage, and was eagerly waiting for it; second, that George II. too had privately favored or even instigated the adventure, being at heart willing to escape the trouble of Messages to Parliament, to put his Son in the wrong, and I know not what. [Pollnitz, ii. 272-274.] The particles of fact in the affair are likewise two: First, that Queen Sophie, and from her the Courtier Public generally, expected the Hanover Royal Highness, who probably had real thoughts of seeing Berlin and his Intended, on this occasion; Dubourgay reports daily rumors of the Royal Highness being actually "seen" there in an evanescent manner; and Wilhelmina says, her Mother was so certain of him, "she took every ass or mule for the Royal Highness,"--heartily indifferent to Wilhelmina. This is the first particle of fact. The Second is, that a subaltern Official about the Royal Highness, one Lamothe of Hanover, who had appeared in Berlin about that time, was thrown into prison not long after, for what misbehavior none knew,--for encouraging dissolute Royal Highness in wild schemes, it was guessed. And so the Myth grew, and was found ready for Pollnitz and his followers. Royal Highness did come over to England; not then as the Myth bears, but nine months afterwards in December next; and found other means of irritating his imperative, flighty, irascible and rather foolish little Father, in an ever-increasing degree. "Very coldly received at Court," it is said: ill seen by Walpole and the Powers; being too likely to become a focus of Opposition there.

The Visit, meanwhile, though there came no Duke of Edinburgh to see it, was sublime in the extreme; Polish Majesty being magnificence itself; and the frugal Friedrich Wilhelm lighting up his dim Court into insurpassable brilliancy, regardless of expense; so that even the Smoking Parliament (where August attended now and then) became luminous. The Crown-Prince, who in late months had languished in a state of miserable health, in a manner ominous to his physicians, confined mostly to his room or his bed, was now happily on foot again;--and Wilhelmina notes one circumstance which much contributed to his recovery: That the fair Orzelska had attended her natural (or unnatural) Parent, on this occasion; and seemed to be, as Wilhelmina thinks, uncommonly kind to the Crown-Prince. The Heir-Apparent of Saxony, a taciturn, inoffensive, rather opaque-looking gentleman, now turned of thirty, and gone over to Papistry long since, with views to be King of Poland by and by, which proved effectual as we shall find, was also here: Count Bruhl, too, still in a very subaltern capacity, and others whom we and the Crown-Prince shall have to know. The Heir-Apparent's Wife (actual Kaiser's Niece, late Kaiser Joseph's Daughter, a severe Austrian lady, haughtier than lovely) has stayed at home in Dresden.

But here, at first hand, is a slight view of that unique Polish Majesty, the Saxon Man of Sin; which the reader may be pleased to accept out of idle curiosity, if for no better reason. We abridge from Wilhelmina; [i. 124.] whom Fassmann, kindled to triple accuracy by this grand business, is at hand to correct where needful: [Des glorwurdigsten Fursten und Herrn, Herrn Friedrich Augusti des Grossen Leben und Helden-Thaten (Of that most glorious Prince and Lord, Lord Friedrich August the Great, King of Poland, &c., the Life and Heroic Deeds), by D. F. (David Fassmann), Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1734; 12mo, pp. 1040. A work written with upturned eyes of prostrate admiration for "DERO MAJESTAT ('Theiro' Majesty) AUGUST THE GREAT;" exact too, but dealing merely with the CLOTHES of the matter, and such a matter: work unreadable, except on compulsion, to the stupidest mortal. The same Fassmann, who was at the Fair of St. Germain, who lodged sometimes with the Potsdam Giant, and whose ways are all fallen dark to us.] "The King of Poland arrived upon us at Berlin on the 29th of May," says Wilhelmina; had been at Potsdam, under Friedrich Wilhelm's care, for three days past: Saturday afternoon, 29th May, 1728; that is with exactitude the ever-memorable date.

He paid his respects in her Majesty's apartment, for an instant, that evening; but made his formal visit next day. Very grand indeed. Carried by two shining parti-colored creatures, heyducs so-called, through double rows of mere peerages and sublimities, in a sublime sedan (being lame of a foot, foot lately amputated of two toes, sore still open): "in a sedan covered with red velvet gallooned with gold," says the devout Fassmann, tremblingly exact, "up the grand staircase along the grand Gallery;" in which supreme region (Apartments of the late King Friedrich of gorgeous memory) her Majesty now is for the occasion. "The Queen received him at the door of her third Antechamber," says Wilhelmina; third or outmost Antechamber, end of that grand Gallery and its peerages and shining creatures: "he gave the Queen his hand, and led her in." We Princesses were there, at least the grown ones of us were. All standing, except the Queen only. "He refused to sit, and again refused;" stoically talked graciosities, disregarding the pain of his foot; and did not, till refusal threatened to become uncivil, comply with her Majesty's entreaties. "How unpolite!" smiled he to us young ones. "He had a majestic port and physiognomy; an affable polite air accompanied all his movements, all his actions." Kind of stereotyped smile on his face; nothing of the inner gloom visible on our Charles II. and similar men of sin. He looked often at Wilhelmina, and was complimentary to a degree,--for reasons undivinable to Wilhelmina. For the rest, "much broken for his age;" the terrible debaucheries (LES DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES) having had their effect on him. He has fallen Widower last year. His poor Wife was a Brandenburg-Baireuth Princess; a devout kind of woman; austerely witnessing the irremediable in her lot. He has got far on with his three hundred and fifty-four; is now going fifty-five;--lame of a foot, as we see, which the great Petit of Paris cannot cure, neither he nor any Surgeon, but can only alleviate by cutting off two toes. Pink of politeness, no doubt of it; but otherwise the strangest dilapidated hulk of a two-legged animal without feathers; probably, in fact, the chief Natural Solecism under the Sun at that epoch;--extremely complimentary to us Princesses, to me especially. "He quitted her Majesty's Apartment after an hour's conversation: she rose to reconduct him, but he would by no manner of means permit that,"--and so vanished, carried off doubtless by the shining creatures again. The "Electoral Prince" Heir-Apparent, next made his visit; but he was a dry subject in comparison, of whom no Princess can say much. Prince Friedrich will know him better by and by.

Young Maurice, "Count of Saxony," famed afterwards as MARECHAL DE SAXE, he also is here with his Half-Sister Orzelska and the others, in the train of the paternal Man of Sin; and makes acquaintance with Friedrich. He is son of the female Konigsmark called Aurora ("who alone of mortals could make Charles Twelfth fly his ground"); nephew, therefore, of the male Konigsmark who was cut down long ago at Hanover, and buried in the fireplace. He resembles his Father in strength, vivacity, above all things in debauchery, and disregard of finance. They married him at the due years to some poor rich woman; but with her he has already ended; with her and with many others. Courland, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Anne Iwanowna with the big cheek:--the reader has perhaps searched out these things for himself from the dull History-Books;--or perhaps it was better for him if he never sought them? Dukedom of Courland, connected with Polish sovereignty, and now about to fall vacant, was one of Count Maurice's grand sallies in the world. Adrienne Lecouvreur, foolish French Actress, lent him all the 30,000 pounds she had gathered by holding the mirror up to Nature and otherwise, to prosecute this Courland business; which proved impossible for him. He was adventurous enough, audacious enough; fought well; but the problem was, To fall in love with the Dowager Anne Iwanowna, Cousin of Czar Peter II.; big brazen Russian woman (such a cheek the Pictures give her, in size and somewhat in expression like a Westphalia ham!), who was Widow of the last active Duke:--and this, with all his adventurous audacity, Count Maurice could not do. The big Widow discovered that he did not like Westphalia hams in that particular form; that he only pretended to like them; upon which, in just indignation, she disowned and dismissed him; and falling herself to be Czarina not long afterwards, and taking Bieren the Courlander for her beloved, she made Bieren Duke, and Courland became impossible for Count Maurice.

However, he too is a dashing young fellow; "circular black eyebrows, eyes glittering bright, partly with animal vivacity, partly with spiritual;" stands six feet in his stockings, breaks horse-shoes with his hands; full of irregular ingenuity and audacity; has been soldiering about, ever since birth almost; and understands many a thing, though the worst SPELLER ever known. With him too young Fritz is much charmed: the flower, he, of the illegitimate three hundred and fifty-four, and probably the chief achievement of the Saxon Man of Sin in this world, where he took such trouble. Friedrich and he maintained some occasional correspondence afterwards; but, to judge by Friedrich's part of it (mere polite congratulations on Fontenoy, and the like), it must have been of the last vacuity; and to us it is now absolute zero, however clearly spelt and printed. [Given altogether in OEuvres de Frederic le Grand, xvii. 300-309. See farther, whoever has curiosity, Preuss, Friedrichs Lebensgeschichte, iii. 167-169; Espagnac, Vie du Comte de Saxe (a good little military Book, done into German, Leipzig, 1774, 2 vols.); Cramer, Denkwurdigkeiten der Grafin Aurora von Konigsmark (Leipzig, 1836); &c. &c.]

The Physically Strong, in some three weeks, after kindling such an effulgence about Berlin as was never seen before or since in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, went his way again,--"towards Poland for the Diet," or none of us cares whither or for what. Here at Berlin he has been sublime enough. Some of the phenomena surpassed anything Wilhelmina ever saw: such floods and rows of resplendent people crowding in to dinner; and she could not but contrast the splendor of the Polish retinues and their plumages and draperies, with the strait-buttoned Prussian dignitaries, all in mere soldier uniform, succinct "blue coat, white linen gaiters," and no superfluity even in the epaulettes and red facings. At table, she says, they drank much, talked little, and bored one another a great deal (S'ENNUYOIENT BEAUCOUP).

OF PRINCESS WHILHELMINA'S FOUR KINGS AND OTHER INEFFECTUAL SUITORS.

Dilapidated Polish Majesty, we observed, was extremely attentive to Wilhelmina; nor could she ascertain, for long after, what the particular reason was. Long after, Wilhelmina ascertained that there had been the wonderfulest scheme concocting, or as good as concocted, in these swearings of eternal friendship: no other than that of marrying her, Wilhelmina, now a slim maiden coming nineteen, to this dilapidated Saxon Man of Sin going (or limping) fifty-five, and broken by DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES (rivers of champagne and tokay, for one item), who had fallen a Widower last year! They had schemed it all out, Wilhelmina understands: Friedrich Wilhelm to advance such and such moneys as dowry, and others furthermore as loan, for the occasions of his Polish Majesty, which are manifold; Wilhelmina to have The Lausitz (LUSATIA) for jointure, Lausitz to be Friedrich Wilhelm's pledge withal; and other intricate conditions; [Wilhelmina, i. 114.] what would Wilhelmina have thought? One shudders to contemplate;--hopes it might mostly be loose brain-web and courtier speculation, never settled towards fact.

It is certain, the dilapidated Polish Majesty having become a Widower, questions would rise, Will not he marry again? And with whom? Certain also, he wants Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance; having great schemes on the anvil, which are like to be delicate and perilous,--schemes of "partitioning Poland," no less; that is to say, cutting off the outskirts of Poland, flinging them to neighboring Sovereigns as propitiation, or price of good-will, and rendering the rest hereditary in his family. Pragmatic Sanction once acceded to, would probably propitiate the Kaiser? For which, and other reasons, Polish Majesty still keeps that card in his hand. Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance, with such an army and such a treasury, the uses of that are evident to the Polish Majesty.--By the blessing of Heaven, however, his marriage with Wilhelmina never came to anything: his Electoral Prince, Heir-Apparent, objected to the jointures and alienations, softly, steadily; and the project had to drop before Wilhelmina ever knew of it.

And this man is probably one of the "Four Kings" she was to be asked by? A Swedish Officer, with some skill in palmistry, many years ago, looked into her innocent little hand, and prophesied, "She was to be in terms of courtship, engagement or as good as engagement, with Four Kings, and to wed none of them." Wilhelmina counts them in her mature days. The FIRST will surprise everybody,--Charles XII. of Sweden;--who never can have been much of a suitor, the rather as the young Lady was then only six gone; but who, might, like enough, be talked of, by transient third-parties, in those old Stralsund times. The SECOND,--cannot WE guess who the second is? The THIRD is this August the dilapidated Strong. As to the SECOND, Wilhelmina sees already, in credulous moments, that it may be Hanover Fred, whom she will never marry either;--and does not see (nor did, at the time of writing her Memoires, "in 1744" say the Books) that Fred never would come to Kingship, and that the Palmistry was incomplete in that point. The FOURTH, again, is clearly young Czar Peter II.; of whom there was transient talk or project, some short time after this of the dilapidated THIRD. But that too came to nothing; the poor young lad died while only fifteen; nay he had already "fallen in love with his Aunt Elizabeth" (INFAME CATIN DU NORD in time coming), and given up the Prussian prospect. [He was the Great Peter's Grandson (Son having gone a tragical road )]; Czar, May, 1727--January, 1730: Anne Iwanowna (Great Peter's Niece, elder Brother's Daughter), our Courland friend with the big cheek, succeeded; till her death, October, 1740: then, after some slight shock of revolution, the Elizabeth just mentioned, who was Daughter of the Great Peter by his little brown Czarina Catherine whom we once met. See Mannstein, Memoirs of Russia (London, 1770), pp. 1-23, for some account of Peter II.; and the rest of the Volume for a really intelligent History of this Anne, at least of her Wars, where Mannstein himself usually had part.

All which would be nothing, or almost less, to Wilhelmina, walking fancy-free there,--were it not for Papa and Mamma, and the importunate insidious by-standers. Who do make a thing of it, first and last! Never in any romance or stage-play was young Lady, without blame, without furtherance and without hindrance of her own, so tormented about a settlement in life;--passive she, all the while, mere clay in the hands of the potter; and begging the Universe to have the extreme goodness only to leave her alone!--

Thus too, among the train of King August in this Berlin visit, a certain Soldier Official of his, Duke of Sachsen Weissenfels, Johann Adolf by name, a poor Cadet Cousin of the Saxon House,--another elderly Royal Highness of small possibility,--was particularly attentive to Wilhelmina; now and on subsequent occasions. Titular Duke of Weissenfels, Brother of the real Duke, and not even sure of the succession as yet; but living on King August's pay; not without capacity of drink and the like, some allege:--otherwise a mere betitled, betasselled elderly military gentleman, of no special qualities, evil or good;--who will often turn up again in this History; but fails always to make any impression on us except that of a Serene Highness in the abstract; unexceptionable Human Mask, of polite turn, behung with titles, and no doubt a stomach in the inside of it: he now, and afterwards, by all opportunities, diligently continued his attentions in the Wilhelmina quarter. For a good while it was never guessed what he could be driving at; till at last Queen Sophie, becoming aware of it, took him to task; with cold severity, reminded him that some things are on one's level, and some things not. To which humbly bowing, in unfeigned penitence, he retired from the audacity, back foremost: Would never even in dreams have presumed, had not his Prussian Majesty authorized; would now, since HER Prussian Majesty had that feeling, withdraw silently, and live forgotten, as an obscure Royal Highness in the abstract (though fallen Widower lately) ought to do. And so at least there was an end of that matter, one might hope,--though in effect it still abortively started up now and then, on Papa's part, in his frantic humors, for years to come.

Then there is the Margraf of Schwedt, Friedrich Wilhelm by name, chief Prince of the Blood, his Majesty's Cousin, and the Old Dessauer's Nephew; none of the likeliest of men, intrinsically taken: he and his Dowager Mother--the Dessauer's Sister, a high-going, tacitly obstinate old Dowager (who dresses, if I recollect, in flagrant colors)--are very troublesome to Wilhelmina. The flagrant Dame--she might have been "Queen-Mother" once forsooth, had Papa and my Brother but been made away with!--watches her time, and is diligent by all opportunities.

Chapter IV. -- DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT IS NOT DEAD.

And the Double-Marriage, in such circumstances, are we to consider it as dead, then? In the soul of Queen Sophie and those she can influence, it lives flame-bright; but with all others it has fallen into a very dim state. Friedrich Wilhelm is still privately willing, perhaps in a degree wishful; but the delays, the supercilious neglects have much disgusted him; and he, in the mean while, entertains those new speculations. George II., never a lover of the Prussian Majesty's nor loved by him, has been very high and distant ever since his Accession; offensive rather than otherwise. He also is understood to be vaguely willing for the thing; willing enough, would it be so kind as accomplish itself without trouble to him. But the settlements, the applications to Parliament:--and all for this perverse Fred, who has become unlovely, and irritates our royal mind? George pushes the matter into its pigeon-holes again, when brought before him. Higher thoughts occupy the soul of little George. Congress of Soissons, Convention of the Pardo, [Or, in effect, "Treaty of Madrid," 6th March, 1728. This was the PREFACE to Soissons; Termagant at length consenting there, "at her Palace of the Pardo" (Kaiser and all the world urging her for ten months past), to accept the Peace, and leave off besieging Gibraltar to no purpose (Coxe, i. 303).] Treaty of Seville; a part to be acted on the world-theatre, with applauses, with envies, almost from the very demi-gods? Great Kaisers, overshadowing Nature with their Pragmatic Sanctions, their preternatural Diplomacies, and making the Terrestrial Balance reel hither and thither;--Kaisers to be clenched perhaps by one's dexterity of grasp, and the Balance steadied again? Prussian Double-Marriage!

One royal soul there is who never will consent to have the Double-Marriage die: Queen Sophie. She had passed her own private act-of-parliament for it; she was a very obstinate wife, to a husband equally obstinate. "JE BOULEVERSERAI L'EMPIRE," writes she once; "I will overturn the German Empire," if they drive me to it, in this matter. [Letter copied by Dubourgay (in Despatch, marked PRIVATE, to Lord Townshend, 3d-14th May, 1729); no clear address given,--probably to Dubourgay himself, CONVEYED by "a Lady" (one of the Queen's Ladies), as he dimly intimates.] What secret manoeuvring and endeavoring went on unweariedly on royal Sophie's part, we need not say; nor in what bad element, of darkness and mendacity, of eavesdropping, rumoring, backstairs intriguing, the affair now moved. She corresponds on it with Queen Caroline of England; she keeps her two children true to it, especially her Son, the more important of them.

CROWN-PRINCE FRIEDRICH WRITES CERTAIN LETTERS.

Queen Sophie did not overturn the Empire, but she did almost overturn her own and her family's existence, by these courses; which were not wise in her case. It is certain she persuaded Crown-Prince Friedrich, who was always his Mother's boy, and who perhaps needed little bidding in this instance, "to write to Queen Caroline of England;" Letters one or several: thrice-dangerous Letters; setting forth (in substance), His deathless affection to that Beauty of the world, her Majesty's divine Daughter the Princess Amelia (a very paragon of young women, to judge by her picture and one's own imagination); and likewise the firm resolution he, Friedrich Crown-Prince, has formed, and the vow he hereby makes, Either to wed that celestial creature when permitted, or else never any of the Daughters of Eve in this world. Congresses of Soissons, Smoking Parliaments, Preliminaries of the Pardo and Treaties of Seville may go how they can. If well, it shall be well: if not well, here is my vow, solemn promise and unchangeable determination, which your gracious Majesty is humbly entreated to lay up in the tablets of your royal heart, and to remember on my behalf, should bad days arise!--

It is clear such Letters were sent; at what date first beginning, we do not know;--possibly before this date? Nor would matters rise to the vowing pitch all at once. One Letter, supremely dangerous should it come to be known, Wilhelmina has copied for us, [Wilhelmina, i. 183.]--in Official style (for it is the Mother's composition this one) and without date to it:--the guessable date is about two years hence; and we will give the poor Document farther on, if there be place for it.

Such particulars are yet deeply unknown to Friedrich Wilhelm; but he surmises the general drift of things in that quarter; and how a disobedient Son, crossing his Father's will in every point, abets his Mother's disobedience, itself audacious enough, in regard to this one. It is a fearful aggravation of Friedrich Wilhelm's ill-humor with such a Son, which has long been upon the growing hand. His dislikes, we know, were otherwise neither few nor small. Mere "disLIKES" properly so called, or dissimilarities to Friedrich Wilhelm, a good many of them; dissimilarities also to a Higher Pattern, some! But these troubles of the Double-Marriage will now hurry them, the just and the unjust of them, towards the flaming pitch. The poor youth has a bad time; and the poor Father too, whose humor we know! Surly gusts of indignation, not unfrequently cuffs and strokes; or still worse, a settled aversion, and rage of the chronic kind; studied neglect and contempt,--so as not even to help him at table, but leave him fasting while the others eat; [Dubourgay, SCAPIUS.] this the young man has to bear. The innumerable maltreatments, authentically chronicled in Wilhelmina's and the other Books, though in a dateless, unintelligible manner, would make a tragic sum!--Here are two Billets, copied from the Prussian State-Archives, which will show us to what height matters had gone, in this the young man's seventeenth year.

TO HIS MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).

"WUSTERHAUSEN, 11th September, 1728.

MY DEAR PAPA,--I have not, for a long while, presumed to come to my dear Papa; partly because he forbade me; but chiefly because I had reason to expect a still worse reception than usual: and, for fear of angering my dear Papa by my present request, I have preferred making it in writing to him.

I therefore beg my dear Papa to be gracious to me; and can here say that, after long reflection, my conscience has not accused me of any the least thing with which I could reproach myself. But if I have, against my will and knowledge, done anything that has angered my dear Papa, I herewith most submissively beg forgiveness; and hope my dear Papa will lay aside that cruel hatred which I cannot but notice in all his treatment of me. I could not otherwise suit myself to it; as I always thought I had a gracious Papa, and now have to see the contrary. I take confidence, then, and hope that my dear Papa will consider all this, and again be gracious to me. And, in the mean while, I assure him that I will never, all my days, fail with my will; and, notwithstanding his disfavor to me, remain

"My dear Papa's

"Most faithful and obedient Servant and Son,

"FRIEDRICH."

To which Friedrich Wilhelm, by return of messenger, writes what follows. Very implacable, we may perceive;--not calling his Petitioner "Thou," as kind Paternity might have dictated; infinitely less by the polite title "They (SIE)," which latter indeed, the distinguished title of "SIC," his Prussian Majesty, we can remark, reserves for Foreigners of the supremest quality, and domestic Princes of the Blood; naming all other Prussian subjects, and poor Fritz in this place, "He (ER)," in the style of a gentleman to his valet,--which style even a valet of these new days of ours would be unwilling to put up with. "ER, He," "His" and the other derivatives sound loftily repulsive in the German ear; and lay open impassable gulfs between the Speaker and the Spoken-to. "His obstinate"--But we must, after all, say THY and THOU for intelligibility's sake:--

"Thy obstinate perverse disposition [KOPF, head], which does not love thy Father,--for when one does everything [everything commanded] and really loves one's Father, one does what the Father requires, not while he is there to see it, but when his back is turned too [His Majesty's style is very abstruse, ill-spelt, intricate, and in this instance trips itself, and falls on its face here, a mere intricate nominative without a verb!]--For the rest, thou know'st very well that I can endure no effeminate fellow (EFEMINIRTEN KERL), who has no human inclination in him; who puts himself to shame, cannot ride nor shoot; and withal is dirty in his person; frizzles his hair like a fool, and does not cut it off. And all this I have, a thousand times, reprimanded; but all in vain, and no improvement in nothing (KEINE BESSERUNG IN NITS IST). For the rest, haughty, proud as a churl; speaks to nobody but some few, and is not popular and affable; and cuts grimaces with his face, as if he were a fool; and does my will in nothing unless held to it by force; nothing out of love;--and has pleasure in nothing but following his own whims [own KOPF],--no use to him in anything else. This is the answer.

"FRIEDRICH WILHELM."

[Preuss, i. 27; from Cramer, pp. 33, 34.]

DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT RE-EMERGES IN AN OFFICIAL SHAPE.

These are not favorable outlooks for the Double-Marriage. Nevertheless it comes and goes; and within three weeks later, we are touched almost with a kind of pity to see it definitely emerging in a kind of Official state once more. For the question is symbolical of important political questions. The question means withal, What is to be done in these dreadful Congress-of-Soissons complexities, and mad reelings of the Terrestrial Balance? Shall we hold by a dubious and rather losing Kaiser of this kind, in spite of his dubieties, his highly inexplicit, procedures (for which he may have reasons) about the Promise of Julich and Berg? Or shall we not clutch at England, after all,--and perhaps bring him to terms? The Smoking Parliament had no Hansard; but, we guess its Debates (mostly done in dumb-show) were cloudy, abstruse and abundant, at this time! The Prussian Ministers, if they had any power, take different sides; old Ilgen, the oldest and ablest of them, is strong for England.

Enough, in the beginning of October, Queen Sophie, "by express desire of his Majesty," who will have explicit, Yes or No on that matter, writes to England, a Letter "PRIVATE AND OFFICIAL," of such purport,--Letter (now invisible) which Dubourgay is proud to transmit. [Despatch, 5th October, 1728, in State-Paper Office.] Dubourgay is proud; and old Ilgen, her Majesty informed me on the morrow, "wept for joy," so zealous was he on that side. Poor old gentleman,--respectable rusty old Iron Safe with seven locks, which nobody would now care to pick,--he died few weeks after, at his post as was proper; and saw no Double-Marriage, after all. But Dubourgay shakes out his feathers; the Double-Marriage being again evidently alive.

For England answers, cordially enough, if not, with all the hurry Friedrich Wilhelm wanted, "Yea, we are willing for the thing;"--and meets, with great equanimity and liberality, the new whims, difficulties and misgivings, which arose on Friedrich Wilhelm's part, at a wearisome rate, as the negotiation went on; and which are always frankly smoothed away again by the cooler party. Why did not the bargain close, then? Alas, one finds, the answer YEA had unfortunately set his Prussian Majesty on viewing, through magnifiers, what advantages there might have been in NO: this is a difficulty there is no clearing away! Probably, too, the Tobacco-Parliament was industrious. Friedrich Wilhelm, at last, tries if Half will not do; anxious, as we all too much are, "to say Yes AND No;" being in great straits, poor man:--"Your Prince of Wales to wed Wilhelmina at once; the other Match to stand over?" To which the English Government answers always briefly, "No; both the Marriages or none!"--Will the reader consent to a few compressed glances into the extinct Dubourgay Correspondence; much compressed, and here and there a rushlight stuck in it, for his behoof. Dubourgay, at Berlin, writes; my Lord Townshend, in St. James's reads, usually rather languid in answering:--

BERLIN, 9th NOVEMBER, 1728. "Prussian Majesty much pleased with English Answers" to the Yes-or-No question: "will send a Minister to our Court about the time his Britannic Majesty may think of coming over to his German Dominions. Would Finkenstein (Head Tutor), or would Knyphausen (distinguished Official here), be the agreeable man?" "Either," answer the English; "either is good."

BERLIN, SAME DATE. "Queen sent for me just now; is highly content with the state of things. 'I have now,' said her Majesty, 'the pleasure to tell you that I am free, God be blessed, of all the anguish I have labored under for some time past, which was so great that I have several times been on the point of sending for you to procure my Brother's protection for my Son, who, I thought, ran the greatest danger from the artifices of Seckendorf and'"--Poor Queen!

NOV, 16th. "Queen told me: When the Court was at Wusterhausen," two months ago, hunting partridges and wild swine, [Fassmann, p. 386.] "Seckendorf and Grumkow intrigued for a match between Wilhelmina and the Prince of Weissenfels," elderly Royal Highness in the Abstract, whom we saw already, "thereby to prevent a closer union between the Prussian and English Courts,--and Grumkow having withal the private view of ousting his antagonist the Prince of Anhalt [Old Dessauer, whom he had to meet in duel, but did not fight], as Weissenfels, once Son-in-law, would certainly be made Commander-in-Chief," [Dubourgay, in State-Paper Office (Prussian Despatches, vol. XXXV.)] to the extrusion of Anhalt from that office. Which notable piece of policy her Majesty, by a little plain speech, took her opportunity of putting an end to, as we saw. For the rest, "the Dutch Minister and also the French Secretaries here," greatly interested about the peace of Europe, and the Congress of Soissons in these weeks, "have had a communication from this Court, of the favorable disposition ours is in with respect to the Double Match,"--beneficent for the Terrestrial Balance, as they and I hope. So that things look well? Alas,--

DECEMBER 25th. "Queen sent for me yesterday: Hopes she does no wrong in complaining of her Husband to her Brother. King shows scruples about the Marriages; does not relish the expense of an establishment for the Prince; hopes, at all events, the Marriage will not take place for a year yet;--would like to know what Dowry the English Princess is to bring?"--"No Dowry with our Princess," the English answer; "nor shall you give any with yours."

NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1729. "Queen sent for me: King is getting intractable about the Marriages; she reasoned with him from two o'clock till eight," without the least permanent effect. "It is his covetousness," I Dubourgay privately think!--Knyphausen, who knows the King well, privately tells me, "He will come round." "It is his avarice," thinks Knyphausen too; "nay it is also his jealousy of the Prince, who is very popular with the Army. King does everything to mortify him, uses him like a child; Crown-Prince bears it with admirable patience." This is Knyphausen's weak notion; rather a weak creaky official gentleman, I should gather, of a cryptosplenetic turn. "Queen told me some days later, His Majesty ill-used the Crown-Prince, because he did not drink hard enough; makes him hunt though ill;" is very hard upon the poor Crown-Prince,--who, for the rest, "sends loving messages to England," as usual; [Dubourgay, 16th January.] covertly meaning the Princess Amelia, as usual. "Some while ago, I must inform your Lordship, the Prince was spoken to," by Papa as would appear, "to sound his inclination as to the Princess Caroline," Princess likewise of England, and whose age, some eighteen months less than his own, might be suitabler, the Princess Amelia being half a year his elder; [Caroline born 10th June 1713; Amelia, 10th July, 1711.] "but,"--mark how true he stood,--"his Royal Highness broke out into such raptures of love and passion for the Princess Amelia, and showed so much impatience for the conclusion of that Match, as gave the King of Prussia a great deal of surprise, and the Queen as much satisfaction." Truth is, if an old Brigadier Diplomatist may be judge, "The great and good qualities of that young Prince, both of person and mind, deserve a distinct and particular account, with which I shall trouble your Lordship another day;" [Despatch, 25th December, 1728.]--which unluckily I never did; his Lordship Townshend having, it would seem, too little curiosity on the subject.

And so the matter wavers; and in spite of Dubourgay's and Queen Sophie's industry, and the Crown-Prince's willing mind, there can nothing definite be made of it at this time. Friedrich Wilhelm goes on visits, goes on huntings; leaves the matter to itself to mature a little. Thus the negotiation hangs fire; and will do so,--till dreadful waterspouts come, and perhaps quench it altogether?

HIS MAJESTY SLAUGHTERS 3,602 HEAD OF WILD SWINE.

His Majesty is off for a Hunting Visit to the Old Dessauer,--Crown-Prince with him, who hates hunting. Then, "19th January, 1729," says the reverential Fassmann, he is off for a grand hunt at Copenick; then for a grander in Pommern (Crown-Prince still with him): such a slaughter of wild swine as was seldom heard of, and as never occurred again. No fewer than "1,882 head (STUCK) of wild swine, 300 of them of uncommon magnitude," in the Stettin and other Pommern regions; "together with 1,720 STUCK in the Mark Brandenburg, once 450 in a day: in all, 3,602 STUCK." Never was his Majesty in better spirits: a very Nimrod or hunting Centaur; trampling the cobwebs of Diplomacy, and the cares of life, under his victorious hoofs. All this slaughter of swine, 3,602 STUCK by tale, was done in the season 1729. "From which," observes the adoring Fassmann, [p. 387.] "is to be inferred the importance," at least in wild swine, "of those royal Forests in Pommern and the Mark;" not to speak of his Majesty's supreme talent in hunting, as in other things.

What Friedrich Wilhelm did with such a mass of wild pork? Not an ounce of it was wasted, every ounce of it brought money in. For there exist Official Schedules, lists as for a window-tax or property-tax, drawn up by his Majesty's contrivance, in the chief Localities: every man, according to the house he keeps, is bound to take, at a just value by weight, such and such quotities of suddenly slaughtered wild swine, one or so many,--and consume them at his leisure, as ham or otherwise,--cash payable at a fixed term, and no abatement made. [Forster, Beneckendorf (if they had an Index I).] For this is a King that cannot stand waste at all; thrifty himself, and the Cause of thrift.

FALLS ILL, IN CONSEQUENCE; AND THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE CANNOT GET FORWARD.

This was one of Friedrich Wilhelm's grandest hunting-bouts, this of January, 1729; at all events, he will never have another such. By such fierce riding, and defiance of the winter elements and rules of regimen, his Majesty returned to Potsdam with ill symptoms of health;--symptoms never seen before; except transiently, three years ago, after a similar bout; when the Doctors, shaking their heads, had mentioned the word "Gout."--"NARREN-POSSEN!" Friedrich Wilhelm had answered, "Gout?"--But now, February, 1729, it is gout in very deed. His poor Majesty has to admit: "I am gouty, then! Shall have gout for companion henceforth. I am breaking up, then?" Which is a terrible message to a man. His Majesty's age is not forty-one till August coming; but he has hunted furiously.

Adoring Fassmann gives a quite touching account of Friedrich Wilhelm's performances under gout, now and generally, which were begun on this occasion. How he suffered extremely, yet never neglected his royal duties in any press of pain. Could seldom get any sleep till towards four or five in the morning, and then had to be content with an hour or two; after which his Official Secretaries came in with their Papers, and he signed, despatched, resolved, with best judgment,--the top of the morning always devoted to business. At noon, up if possible; and dines, "in dressing-gown, with Queen and children." After dinner, commonly to bed again; and would paint in oil; sometimes do light joiner-work, chiselling and inlaying; by and by lie inactive with select friends sitting round, some of whom had the right of entry, others not, under penalties. Buddenbrock, Derschau, rough old Marlborough stagers, were generally there; these, "and two other persons,"--Grumkow and Seckendorf, whom Fassmann does not name, lest he get into trouble,--"sat, well within earshot, round the bed. And always at the head was TheirO Majesty the Queen, sometimes with the King's hand laid in hers, and his face turned up to her, as if he sought assuagement"--O my dim old Friend, let us dry our tears!

"Sometimes the Crown-Prince read aloud in some French Book," Title not given; Crown-Prince's voice known to me as very fine. Generally the Princess Louisa was in the room, too; Louisa, who became of Anspach shortly; not Wilhelmina, who lies in fever and relapse and small-pox, and close at death's door, almost since the beginning of these bad days. The Crown-Prince reads, we say, with a voice of melodious clearness, in French more or less instructive. "At other times there went on discourse, about public matters, foreign news, things in general; discourse of a cheerful or of a serious nature," always with some substance of sense in it,--"and not the least smut permitted, as is too much the case in certain higher circles!" says adoring Fassmann; who privately knows of "Courts" (perhaps the GLORWURDIGSTE, Glory-worthiest, August the Great's Court, for one?) "with their hired Tom-Fools," not yet an extinct species attempting to ground wit on that bad basis. Prussian Majesty could not endure any "ZOTEN:" profanity and indecency, both avaunt. "He had to hold out in this way, awake till ten o'clock, for the chance of night's sleep." Earlier in the afternoon, we said, he perhaps does a little in oil-painting, having learnt something of that art in young times;--there is a poor artist in attendance, to mix the colors, and do the first sketch of the thing. Specimens of such Pictures still exist, Portraits generally; all with this epigraph, FREDERICUS WILHELMUS IN TORMENTIS PINXIT (Painted by Friedrich Wilhelm in his torments); and are worthy the attention of the curious. [Fassmann, p. 392; see Forster, &c.] Is not this a sublime patient?

Fassmann admits, "there might be spurts of IMpatience now and then; but how richly did Majesty make it good again after reflection! He was also subject to whims even about people whom he otherwise esteemed. One meritorious gentleman, who shall be nameless, much thought of by the King, his Majesty's nerves could not endure, though his mind well did: 'Makes my gout worse to see him drilling in the esplanade there; let another do it!'--and vouchsafed an apologetic assurance to the meritorious gentleman afflicted in consequence."--O my dim old Friend, these surely are sublimities of the sick-bed? "So it lasted for some five weeks long," well on towards the summer of this bad year 1729. Wilhelmina says, in briefer business language, and looking only at the wrong side of the tapestry, "It was a Hell-on-Earth to us, Les peines du Purgatoire ne pouvaient egaler celles que NOUS endurions;" [i. 157.] and supports the statement by abundant examples, during those flamy weeks.

For, in the interim, withal, the English negotiation is as good as gone out; nay there are waterspouts brewing aloft yonder, enough to wash negotiation from the world. Of which terrible weather-phenomena we shall have to speak by and by: but must first, by way of commentary, give a glance at Soissons and the Terrestrial LIBRA, so far as necessary for human objects,--not far, by any means.

Chapter V. -- CONGRESS OF SOISSONS, SIXTH CRISIS IN THE SPECTRE-HUNT.

The so-called Spanish War, and dangerous futile Siege of Gibraltar, had not ended at the death of George I.; though measures had already been agreed upon, by the Kaiser and parties interested, to end it,--only the King of Spain (or King's Wife, we should say) made difficulties. Difficulties, she; and kept firing, without effect, at the Fortress for about a year more; after which, her humor or her powder being out, Spanish Majesty signed like the others. Peace again for all and sundry of us: "Preliminaries" of Peace signed at Paris, 31st May, 1727, three weeks before George's death; "Peace" itself finally at the Pardo or at Madrid, the Termagant having spent her powder, 6th March, 1728; [Scholl, ii. 212, 213.] and a "Congress" (bless the mark!) to settle on what terms in every point.

Congress, say at Aix-la-Chapelle; say at Cambrai again,--for there are difficulties about the place. Or say finally at Soissons; where Fleury wished it to be, that he might get the reins of it better in hand; and where it finally was,--and where the ghost or name of it yet is, an empty enigma in the memories of some men. Congress of Soissons did meet, 14th June, 1728; opened itself, as a Corporeal Entity in this world; sat for above a year;--and did nothing; Fleury quite declining the Pragmatic Sanction, though the anxious Kaiser was ready to make astonishing sacrifices, give up his Ostend COMPANY (Paper Shadow of a Company), or what you will of that kind,--if men would have conformed.

These Diplomatic gentlemen,--say, are they aught? They seem to understand me, by each at once his choppy finger laying on his skinny lips! Princes of the Powers of the Air, Shall we define them? It is certain the solid Earth or her facts, except being held in perpetual terror by such workings of the Shadow-world, reaped no effect from those Twenty Years of Congressing; Seckendorf himself might as well have lain in bed, as ridden those 25,000 miles, and done such quantities of double-distillations. No effect at all: only some futile gunpowder spent on Gibraltar, and splinters of shot and shells (salable as old iron) found about the rocks there; which is not much of an effect for Twenty Years of such industry.

The sublime Congress of Soissons met, as we say, at the above date (just while the Polish Majesty was closing his Berlin Visit); but found itself no abler for work than that of Cambrai had been. The Deputies from France I do not mention; nor from Spain, nor from Austria. The Deputies from England were Colonel or now properly Brigadier-General Stanhope, afterwards Lord Harrington; Horace Walpole (who is Robert's Brother, and whose Secretary is Sir Thomas Robinson, "QUOI DONE, CRUSOE?" whom we shall hear of farther); and Stephen Poyntz, a once bright gentleman, now dim and obsolete, whom the readers of Coxe's Walpole have some nominal acquaintance with. Here, for Chronology's sake, is a clipping from the old English newspapers to accompany them: "There is rumor that POLLY PEACHUM is gone to attend the Congress at Soissons; where, it is thought, she will make as good a figure, and do her country as much service, as several others that shall be nameless." [Mist's Weekly Journal, 29th June, 1728.]

Their task seemed easy to the sanguine mind. The Kaiser has agreed with Spain in the Italian-Apanage matter; with the Sea-Powers in regard to his Ostend Company, which is abolished forever: what then is to prevent a speedy progress, and glad conclusion? The Pragmatic Sanction. "Accept my Pragmatic Sanction," said the Kaiser, "let that be the preliminary of all things."--"Not the preliminary," answered Fleury; "we will see to that as we go on; not the preliminary, by any means!" There was the rub. The sly old Cardinal had his private treaties with Sardinia; views of his own in the Mediterranean, in the Rhine quarter; and answered steadily, "Not the preliminary, by any means!" The Kaiser was equally inflexible. Whereupon immensities of protocolling, arguing, and the Congress "fell into complete languor," say the Histories. [Scholl, ii. 215.] Congress ate its dinner heartily, and wrote immensely, for the space of eighteen months; but advanced no hair's-breadth any-whither; no prospect before it, but that of dinner only, for unlimited periods.

Kaiser will have his Pragmatic Sanction, or not budge from the place; stands mulelike amid the rain of cudgellings from the by-standers; can be beaten to death, but stir he will not.--Hints, glances of the eye, pass between Elizabeth Farnese and the other by-standers; suddenly, 9th November, 1729, it is found they have all made a "TREATY OF SEVILLE" with Elizabeth Farnese; France, England, Holland, Spain, have all closed,--Italian Apanages to be at once secured, Ostend to be at once suppressed, with what else behooves;--and the Kaiser is left alone; standing upon his Pragmatic Sanction there, nobody bidding him now budge!

At which the Kaiser is naturally thrice and four times wroth and alarmed;--and Seckendorf in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM had need to be doubly busy. As we shall find he is (though without effect), when the time comes round:--but we have not yet got to November of this Year 1729; there are still six or eight important months between us and that. Important months; and a Prussian-English "Waterspout," as we have named it, to be seen, with due wonder, in the political sky!--

Congress of Soissons, now fallen mythical to mankind, and as inane as that of Cambrai, is perhaps still memorable in one or two slight points. First, it has in it, as one of the Austrian Deputies, that Baron von Bentenrieder, tallest of living Diplomatists, who was pressed at one time for a Prussian soldier;--readers recollect it? Walking through the streets of Halberstadt, to stretch his long limbs till his carriage came up, the Prussian sentries laid hold of him, "Excellent Potsdam giant, this one!"--and haled him off to their guard-house; till carriage and lackeys came; then, "Thousand humblest pardons, your Excellenz!" who forgave the fellows. Barely possible some lighter readers might wish to see, for one moment, an Excellenz that has been seized by a Press-gang? Which perhaps never happened to any other Excellenz;--the like of which, I have been told, might merit him a soiree from strong-minded women, in some remoter parts of the world. Not to say that he is the tallest of living Diplomatists; another unique circumstance!--Bentenrieder soon died; and had his place at Soissons filled up by an Excellenz of the ordinary height, who had never been pressed. But nothing can rob the Congress of this fact, that it once had Bentenrieder for member; and, so far, is entitled to the pluperfect distinction in one particular.

Another point is humanly interesting in this Congress; but cannot fully be investigated for want of dates. Always, we perceive, according to the news of it that reach Berlin,--of England going right for the Kaiser or going wrong for him,--his Prussian Majesty's treatment of his children varies. If England go right for the Kaiser, well, and his Majesty is in good-humor with Queen, with Crown-Prince and Wilhelmina. If England go wrong for the Kaiser, dark clouds gather on the royal brow, in the royal heart; explode in thunder-storms; and at length crockery goes flying through the rooms, blows descend on the poor Prince's back; and her Majesty is in tears, mere Chaos come again. For as a general rule, unless the English Negotiation have some prospering fit, and produce exceptional phenomena, Friedrich Wilhelm, ever loyal in heart, stands steadfast by his Kaiser; ever ready "to strike out (LOS ZU SCHLAGEN," as he calls it) with his best strength in behalf of a cause which, good soul, he thinks is essentially German;--all the readier if at any time it seem now exclusively German, the French, Spanish, English, and other unlovely Foreign world being clean cut loose from it, or even standing ranked against it. "When will it go off, then (WANN GEHT ES LOS)?" asks Friedrich Wilhelm often; diligently drilling his sixty thousand, and snorting contempt on "Ungermanism (UNDEUTSCHHEIT)," be it on the part of friends or of enemies. Good soul, and whether he will ever get Julich and Berg out of it, is distractingly problematical, and the Tobacco-Parliament is busy with him!

Curious to see, so far as dates go, how Friedrich Wilhelm changes his tune to Wife and Children in exact correspondence to the notes given out at Soissons for a Kaiser and his Pragmatic Sanction. Poor Prussian Household, poor back, and heart, of Crown-Prince; what a concert it is in this world, Smoking Parliament for souffleur! Let the big Diplomatist Bassoon of the Universe go this way, there are caresses for a young Soldier and his behavior in the giant regiment; let the same Bassoon sound that way, bangs and knocks descend on him; the two keep time together,--so busy is the Smoking Parliament with his Majesty of Prussia. The world has seen, with horror and wonder, Friedrich Wilhelm's beating of his grown children: but the pair of MEERKATZEN, or enchanted Demon-Apes, disguised as loyal Councillors, riding along with him the length of a Terrestrial Equator, have not been so familiar to the world. Seckendorf, Grumkow: we had often heard of Devil-Diplomatists; and shuddered over horrible pictures of them in Novels; hoping it was all fancy: but here actually is a pair of them, transcending all Novels;--perhaps the highest cognizable fact to be met with in Devil-Diplomacy. And it may be a kind of comfort to readers, both to know it, and to discern gradually what the just gods make of it withal. Devil-Diplomatists do exist, at least have existed, never doubt it farther; and their astonishingly dexterous mendacities and enchanted spider-webs,--CAN these go any road but one in this Universe?

That the Congress of Cambrai was not a myth, we convinced ourselves by a letter of Voltaire's, who actually saw it dining there in the Year 1722, as he passed that way. Here, for Soissons, in like manner, are two Letters, by a less celebrated but a still known English hand; which, as utterances in presence of the fact itself, leave no doubt on the subject. These the afflicted reader will perhaps consent to take a glance of. If the Congress of Soissons, for the sake of memorable objects concerned there, is still to be remembered, and believed in, for a little while,--the question arises, How to do it, then?

The writer of these Letters is a serious, rather long-nosed young English gentleman, not without intelligence, and of a wholesome and honest nature; who became Lord Lyttelton, FIRST of those Lords, called also "the Good Lord," father of "the Bad:" a lineal descendant of that Lyttelton UPON whom Coke sits, or seems to sit, till the end of things: author by and by of a History of Henry the Second and other well-meant books: a man of real worth, who attained to some note in the world. He is now upon the Grand Tour,--which ran, at that time, by Luneville and Lorraine, as would appear; at which point we shall first take him up. He writes to his Father, Sir Thomas, at Hagley among the pleasant Hills of Worcestershire,--date shortly after the assembling of that Congress to rear of him;--and we strive to add a minimum of commentary. The "piece of negligence," the "Mr. D.,"--none of mortals now knows who or what they were:--

TO SIR THOMAS LYTTELTON, BART., AT HAGLEY.

"LUNEVILLE 21st July" 1728.

"DEAR SIR,--I thank you for so kindly forgiving the piece of negligence I acquainted you of in my last. Young fellows are often guilty of voluntary forgetfulness in those affairs; but I assure you mine was quite accidental:"--Never mind it, my Son!

"Mr. D. tells you true that I am weary of losing money at cards; but it is no less certain that without them I shall soon be weary of Lorraine. The spirit of quadrille [obsolete game at cards] has possessed the land from morning till midnight; there is nothing else in every house in Town.

"This Court is fond of strangers, but with a proviso that strangers love quadrille. Would you win the hearts of the Maids of Honor, you must lose your money at quadrille; would you be thought a well-bred man, you must play genteelly at quadrille; would you get a reputation of good sense, show judgment at quadrille. However in summer one may pass a day without quadrille; because there are agreeable promenades, and little parties out of doors. But in winter you are reduced to play at it, or sleep, like a fly, till the return of spring.

"Indeed in the morning the Duke hunts,"--mark that Duke, and two Sons he has. "But my malicious stars have so contrived it, that I am no more a sportsman than a gamester. There are no men of learning in the whole Country; on the contrary, it is a character they despise. A man of quality caught me, the other day, reading a Latin Author; and asked me, with an air of contempt, Whether I was designed for the Church? All this would be tolerable if I was not doomed to converse with a set of English, who are still more ignorant than the French; and from whom, with my utmost endeavors, I cannot be absent six hours in the day. Lord" BLANK--Baltimore, or Heaven-knows-who,--"is the only one among them who has common sense; and he is so scandalously debauched, in his principles as well as practice, that his conversation is equally shocking to my morals and my reason."--Could not one contrive to get away from them; to Soissons, for example, to see business going on; and the Terrestrial Balance settling itself a little?

"My only improvement here is in the company of the Duke," who is a truly distinguished Duke to his bad Country; "and in the exercise of the Academy,"--of Horsemanship, or what? "I have been absent from the latter near three weeks, by reason of a sprain I got in the sinews of my leg. My duty to my dear Mother; I hope you and she continue well. I am, Sir, your dutiful Son.--G. L." [The Works of Lord George Lyttelton, by Ayscough (London, 1776), iii. 215.]

These poor Lorrainers are in a bad way; their Country all trampled to pieces by France, in the Louis-Fourteenth and still earlier times. Indeed, ever since the futile Siege of Metz; where we saw the great Kaiser, Karl V., silently weeping because he could not recapture Metz, [Antea, vol. v. p. 211.] the French have been busy with this poor Country;--new sections of it clipt away by them; "military roads through it, ten miles broad," bargained for; its Dukes oftenest in exile, especially the Father of this present Duke: [A famed Soldier in his day;] under Kaiser Leopold, "the little Kaiser in red stockings," one of whose Daughters he had to wife. He was at the Rescue of Vienna (Sobieski's), and in how many far fiercer services; his life was but a battle and a march. Here is his famed Letter to the Kaiser, when death suddenly called, Halt!

"WELS NEAR LINZ ON THE DONAU, 17th April, 1690.

"SACRED MAJESTY,--According to your Orders, I set out from Innspruck to come to Vienna; but I am stopped here by a Greater Master. I go to render account to Him of a life which I had wholly consecrated to you. Remember that I leave a Wife with whom you are concerned [QUI ROUS TOUCHE,--who is your lawful Daughter]; Children to whom I can bequeath nothing but my sword; and Subjects who are under Oppression.

"CHARLES OF LORRAINE."

(Henault, Abrege Chronologique, Paris, 1775, p. 850).[--Charles "V." the French uniformly call this one; Charles "IV." the Germans, who, I conclude, know better.]--and they are now waiting a good opportunity to swallow it whole, while the people are so busy with quadrille parties. The present Duke, returning from exile, found his Land in desolation, much of it "running fast to wild forest again;" and he has signalized himself by unwearied efforts in every direction to put new life into it, which have been rather successful. Lyttelton, we perceive, finds improvement in his company. The name of this brave Duke is Leopold; age now forty-nine; life and reign not far from done: a man about whom even Voltaire gets into enthusiasm. [Siecle de Louis XIV. (OEuvres, xxvi. 95-97); Hubner, t. 281.]

The Court and Country of Lorraine, under Duke Leopold, will prove to deserve this brief glance from Lyttelton and us. Two sons Duke Leopold has: the elder, Franz, now about twenty, is at Vienna, with the highest outlooks there: Kaiser Karl is his Father's cousin-german; and Kaiser Karl's young Daughter, high beautiful Maria Theresa,--the sublimest maiden now extant,--yes, this lucky Franz is to have her: what a prize, even without Pragmatic Sanction! With the younger son, Karl of Lorraine, Lyttelton may have made acquaintance, if he cared: a lad of sixteen; by and by an Austrian General, as his father had been; General much noised of,--whom we shall often see beaten, in this world, at the head of men.--But let us now get to Soissons itself, skipping an intermediate Letter or two:--

TO SIR THOMAS LYTTELTON, BART., AT HAGLEY.

"SOISSONS, 28th October," 1728.

"I thank you, my dear Sir, for complying so much with my inclinations as to let me stay some time at Soissons: but as you have not fixed how long, I wait for farther orders.

"One of my chief reasons for disliking Luneville was the multitude of English there; who, most of them, were such worthless fellows that they were a dishonor to the name and Nation. With these I was obliged to dine and sup, and pass a great part of my time. You may be sure I avoided it as much as possible; but MALGRE MOI I suffered a great deal. To prevent any comfort from other people, they had made a law among themselves, not to admit any foreigner into their company: so that there was nothing but English talked from June to January.--On the contrary, my countrymen at Soissons are men of virtue and good sense; they mix perpetually with the French, and converse for the most part in that language. I will trouble you no more upon this subject: but give me leave to say that, however capricious I may have been on other subjects, my sentiments in this particular are the strongest proofs I ever gave you of my strong and hereditary aversion to vice and folly.

"Mr. Stanhope," our Minister, the Colonel or Brigadier-General, "is always at Fontainebleau. I went with Mr. Poyntz," Poyntz not yet a dim figure, but a brilliant, who hints about employing me, "to Paris for four days, when the Colonel himself was there, to meet him; he received me with great civility and kindness. We have done expecting Mr. Walpole," fixed he in the Court regions; "who is obliged to keep strict guard over the Cardinal," sly old Fleury, "for fear the German Ministers should take him from us. They pull and haul the poor old gentleman so many ways, that he does not know where to turn, or into whose arms to throw himself." Never fear him!--

"Ripperda's escape to England,"--grand Diplomatic bulldog that was, who took refuge in Colonel Stanhope's at Madrid to no purpose, and kindled the sputtering at Gibraltar, is now got across to England, and will go to Morocco and farther, to no purpose,--"will very much embroil affairs; which did not seem to want another obstacle to hinder them from coming to an accommodation. If the Devil is not very much wanting to his own interests in this Business, it is impossible that the good work of Peace, should go on much longer. After all, most young fellows are of his party; and wish he may bring matters to a War; for they make but ill Ministers at a Congress, but would make good Soldiers in a Campaign.

"No news from Madam "BLANK" and her beloved Husband. Their unreasonable fondness for each other can never last: they will soon grow as cold to one another as the Town to The Beggars' Opera. And cannot warm again, you think? Pray Heaven I may prove a false prophet; but Married Love and English Music are too domestic to continue long in favor."...

NOVEMBER 20th, SOISSONS still. "This is one of the agreeablest Towns in France. The people are infinitely obliging to strangers: we are of all their parties, and perpetually share with them in their pleasures. I have learnt more French since I came hither, than I should have picked up in a twelvemonth in Lorraine....

"A fool with a majority on his side is the greatest tyrant in the world:--how can I go back to loiter in Lorraine, honored Father, where fools are in such majority? Then the extraordinary civilities I receive from Mr. Poyntz: He has in a manner taken me into his family; will evidently make an Apprentice of me. The first Packet that comes from Fontainebleau, I expect to be employed. Which is no small pleasure to me: and will I hope be of service."...

DECEMBER 20th. "A sudden order to Mr. Poyntz has broken all my measures. He goes to-morrow to Paris, to stay there in the room of Messrs. Stanhope and Walpole, who are on their return for England." Congress falling into complete languor, if we knew it! But ought not I to accompany this friendly and distinguished Mr. Poyntz, "who has already given me papers to copy;"--in fact I am setting off with him, honored Father!...

"Prince Frederick's journey,"--first arrival in England of dissolute Fred from Hanover, who had NOT been to Berlin to get married last summer,--"was very secret: Mr. Poyntz did not hear of it till Friday last; at least he had no public notice of it." Why should he? "There will be fine struggling for places" in this Prince's new Household. "I hope my Brother will come in for one." [Ayscough's Lyttelton, iii. 200-231.]--

But here we pull the string of the curtain upon Lyttelton, and upon his Congress falling into complete languor; Congress destined, after dining for about a year more, to explode, in the Treaty of Seville, and to leave the Kaiser sitting horror-struck, solitary amid the wreck of Political Nature,--which latter, however, pieces itself together again for him and others. Beneficent Treaty of Vienna was at last achieved; Treaty and Treaties there, which brought matters to their old bearing again,--Austria united with the Sea-Powers, Pragmatic Sanction accepted by them, subsidies again to be expected from them; Baby Carlos fitted with his Apanages, in some tolerable manner; and the Problem, with which Creation had groaned for some twenty years past, finally accomplished better or worse.

Lyttelton himself will get a place in Prince Frederick's Household, and then lose it; place in Majesty's Ministry at last, but not for a long while yet. He will be one of Prince Frederick's men, of the Carterets, Chesterfields, Pitts, who "patronize literature," and are in opposition to dark Walpole; one of the "West-Wickham set;"--and will be of the Opposition party, and have his adventures in the world. Meanwhile let him go to Paris with Mr. Poyntz; and do his wisest there and elsewhere.

"Who's dat who ride astride de pony, So long, so lean, so lank and bony? Oh, he be de great orator, Little-ton-y." [Caricature of 1741, on Lyttelton's getting into the Ministry, with Carteret, Chesterfield, Argyll, and the rest: see Phillimore's Lyttelton (London, 1845), i. 110; Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ? Lyttelton; &c. &c.]

For now we are round at Friedrich Wilhelm's Pomeranian Hunting again, in the New-year's time of 1729; and must look again into the magnanimous sick-room which ensued thereon; where a small piece of business is going forward. What a magnanimous patient Friedrich Wilhelm was, in Fassmann's judgment, we know: but, it will be good to show both sides of the tapestry, and let Wilhelmina also speak. The small business is only, a Treaty of Marriage for one of our Princesses: not Wilhelmina, but Louisa the next younger, who has been asked, and will consent, as appears.

Fassmann makes a very touching scene of it. King is in bed, ill of his gout after that slaughter of the 3,602 wild swine: attendants are sitting round his Majesty, in the way we know; Queen Sophie at his head, "Seckendorf and several others" round the bed. Letters arrive; Princess Frederika Louisa, a very young Lady, has also had a Letter; which, she sees by the seal, will be interesting, but which she must not herself open. She steps in with it; "beautiful as an angel, but rather foolish, and a spoilt child of fifteen," says Wilhelmina: trips softly in with it; hands it to the King. "Give it to thy Mother, let her read it," says the King. Mother reads it, with audible soft voice: Formal demand in marriage from the Serenity of Anspach, as foreseen.

"Hearken, Louisa (HORE, LUISE), it is still time," said the King: "Tell us, wouldst thou rather go to Anspach, now, or stay with me? If thou choose to stay, thou shalt want, for nothing, either, to the end of thy life. Speak!"--"At such unexpected question," says Fassmann, "there rose a fine blush over the Princess's face, who seemed to be at a loss for her answer. However, she soon collected herself; kissed his Majesty's hand, and said: 'Most gracious Papa, I will to Anspach!' To which the King: 'Very well, then; God give thee all happiness and thousand blessings!--But, hearken, Louisa,' the King's Majesty was pleased at the same time to add, 'We will make a bargain, thou and I. You have excellent, Flour at Anspach (SCHONES MEHL); but in Hams and Smoked Sausages you don't, come up, either in quality or quantity, to us in this Country. Now I, for my part, like good pastries. So, from time to time, thou shalt send me a box of nice flour, and I will keep thee in hams and sausages. Wilt thou, Louisa?' That the Princess answered Yea," says poor Fassmann with the tear in his eye, "may readily be supposed!" Nay all that heard the thing round the royal bed there--simple humanities of that kind from so great, a King--had almost or altogether tears in their eyes. [Fassmann, pp. 393, 394.]

This surely is a very touching scene. But now listen to Wilhelmina's account of another on the same subject, between the same parties. "At table;" no date indicated, or a wrong one, but evidently after this: in fact, we find it was about the beginning of March, 1729; and had sad consequences for Wilhelmina.

"At table his Majesty told the Queen that he had Letters from Anspach; the young Margraf to be at Berlin in May for his wedding; that M. Bremer his Tutor was just coming with the ring of betrothal for Louisa. He asked my Sister, If that gave her pleasure? and How she would regulate her housekeeping when married? My Sister had got into the way of telling him whatever she thought, and home-truths sometimes, without his taking it ill. She answered with her customary frankness, That she would have a good table, which should be delicately served; and, added she, 'which shall be better than yours. And if I have children, I will not maltreat them like you, nor force them to eat what they have an aversion to.'--'What do you mean by that?' replied the King: 'what is there wanting at my table?'--'There is this wanting,' she said, 'that one cannot have enough; and the little there is consists of coarse potherbs that nobody can eat.' The King," as was not unnatural, "had begun to get angry at her first answer: this last put him quite in a fury; but all his anger fell on my Brother and me. He first threw a plate at my Brother's head, who ducked out of the way; he then let fly another at me, which I avoided in like manner. A hail-storm of abuse followed these first hostilities. He rose into a passion against the Queen; reproaching her with the bad training she gave her children; and, addressing my Brother: 'You have reason to curse your Mother,' said he, 'for it is she that causes your being an ill-governed fellow (UN MAL GOUVERNE). I had a Preceptor,' continued he, 'who was an honest man. I remember always a story he told me in my youth. There was a man, at Carthage, who had been condemned to die for many crimes he had committed. While they were leading him to execution, he desired he might speak to his Mother. They brought his Mother: he came near, as if to whisper something to her;--and bit away a piece of her ear. I treat you thus, said he, to make you an example to all parents who take no heed to bring up their children in the practice of virtue!--Make the application,' continued he, always addressing my Brother: and getting no answer from him, he again set to abusing us till he could speak no longer. We rose from table. As we had to pass near him in going out, he aimed a great blow at me with his crutch; which, if I had not jerked away from it, would have ended me. He chased me for a while in his wheel-chair, but the people drawing it gave me time to escape into the Queen's chamber." [Wilhelmina, i. 159.]

Poor Wilhelmina, beaten upon by Papa in this manner, takes to bed in miserable feverish pain, is ordered out by Mamma to evening party, all the same; is evidently falling very ill. "Ill? I will cure you!" says Papa next day, and makes her swallow a great draught of wine. Which completes the thing: "declared small-pox," say all the Doctors now. So that Wilhelmina is absent thenceforth, as Fassmann already told us, from the magnanimous paternal sick-room; and lies balefully eclipsed, till the paternal gout and some other things have run their course. "Small-pox; what will Prince Fred think? A perfect fright, if she do live!" say the English Court-gossips in the interim. But we are now arrived at a very singular Prussian-English phenomenon; and ought to take a new Chapter.

Chapter VI. -- IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND

Chapter VI. -- IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES.

The Double-Marriage negotiation hung fire, in the end of 1728; but everybody thought, especially Queen Sophie thought, it would come to perfection; old Ilgen, almost the last thing he did, shed tears of joy about it. These fine outlooks received a sad shock in the Year now come; when secret grudges burst out into open flame; and Berlin, instead of scenic splendors for a Polish Majesty, was clangorous with note of preparation for imminent War. Probably Queen Sophie never had a more agitated Summer than this of 1729. We are now arrived at that thrice-famous Quarrel, or almost Duel, of Friedrich Wilhelm and his Britannic Brother-in-law little George II.; and must try to riddle from those distracted Paper-masses some notice of it, not wholly unintelligible to the reader. It is loudly talked of, loudly, but alas also loosely to a degree, in all manner of dull Books; and is at once thrice-famous and extremely obscure. The fact is, Nature intended it for eternal oblivion;--and that, sure enough, would have been its fate long since, had not persons who were then thought to be of no importance, but are now seen to be of some, stood connected with it more or less.

Friedrich Wilhelm, for his own part, had seen in the death of George I. an evil omen from the English quarter; and all along, in spite of transient appearances to the contrary, had said to himself, "If the First George, with his solemnities and tacit sublimities, was offensive now and then, what will the Second George be? The Second George has been an offence from the beginning!" In which notions the Smoking Parliament, vitally interested to do it, in these perilous Soissons times, big with the fate of the Empire and Universe, is assiduous to confirm his Majesty. The Smoking Parliament, at Potsdam, at Berlin, in the solitudes of Wusterhausen, has been busy; and much tobacco, much meditation and insinuation have gone up, in clouds more abstruse than ever, since the death of George I.

It is certain, George II. was a proud little fellow; very high and airy in his ways; not at all the man to Friedrich Wilhelm's heart, nor reciprocally. A man of some worth, too; "scrupulously kept his word," say the witnesses: a man always conscious to himself, "Am not I a man of honor, then?" to a punctilious degree. For the rest, courageous as a Welf; and had some sense withal,--though truly not much, and indeed, as it were, none at all in comparison to what he supposed he had!--One can fancy the aversion of the little dapper Royalty to this heavy-footed Prussian Barbarian, and the Prussian Barbarian's to him. The bloody nose in childhood was but a symbol of what passed through life. In return for his bloody nose, little George, five years the elder, had carried off Caroline of Anspach; and left Friedrich Wilhelm sorrowing, a neglected cub,--poor honest Beast tragically shorn of his Beauty. Offences could not fail; these two Cousins went on offending one another by the mere act of living simultaneously. A natural hostility, that between George II. and Friedrich Wilhelm; anterior to Caroline of Anspach, and independent of the collisions of interest that might fall out between them. Enmity as between a glancing self-satisfied fop, and a loutish thick-soled man of parts, who feels himself the better though the less successful. House-Mastiff seeing itself neglected, driven to its hutch, for a tricksy Ape dressed out in ribbons, who gets favor in the drawing-room.

George, I perceive by the very State-Papers, George and his English Lords have a provoking slighting tone towards Friedrich Wilhelm; they answer his violent convictions, and thoroughgoing rapid proposals, by brief official negation, with an air of superiority,--traces of, a polite sneer perceptible, occasionally. A mere Clown of a King, thinks George; a mere gesticulating Coxcomb, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. "MEIN BRUDER DER COMODIANT, My Brother the Play-actor" (parti-colored Merry-Andrew, of a high-flying turn)! was Friedrich Wilhelm's private name for him, in after days. Which George repaid by one equal to it, "My Brother the Head-Beadle of the Holy Roman Empire,"--"ERZ-SANDSTREUER," who solemnly brings up the SANDBOX (no blotting-paper yet in use) when the Holy Roman Empire is pleased to write. "ERZ-SANDSTREUER, Arch-Sandbox-Beadle of the HEILIGE ROMISCHE REICH;" it is a lumbering nickname, but intrinsically not without felicity, and the wittiest thing I know of little George.

Special cause of quarrel they had none that was of the least significance; and, at this time, prudent friends were striving to unite them closer and closer, as the true policy for both; English Townshend himself rather wishing it, as the best Prussian Officials eagerly did; Queen Sophie passionate for it; and only a purchased Grumkow, a Seckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament set against it. The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not known; but the fact of some Treaty made or making, some Imperial negotiation always going on, was too evident; and Friedrich Wilhelm's partialities to the Kaiser and his Seckendorf could be a secret nowhere.

Negotiation always going on, we say; for such indeed was the case,--the Kaiser striving always to be loose again (having excellent reasons, a secret bargain to the contrary, to wit!) in regard to that Julich-and-Berg Succession; proposing "substitutes for Julich and Berg;" and Friedrich Wilhelm refusing to accept any imaginable substitute, anything but the article itself. So that, I believe, the Treaty of Wusterhausen was never perfectly ratified, after all; but hung, for so many years, always on the point of being so. These are the uses of your purchased Grumkow, and of riding the length of a Terrestrial Equator keeping a Majesty in company. If, by a Double-Marriage with England, that intricate web of chicanery had been once fairly slit in two, and new combinations formed, on a basis not of fast-and-loose, could it have been of disadvantage to either of the Countries, or to either of their Kings?--Real and grave causes for agreement we find; real or grave causes for quarrel none anywhere. But light or imaginary causes, which became at last effectual, can be enumerated, to the length of three or four.

CAUSE FIRST: THE HANOVER JOINT-HERITAGES, WHICH ARE NOT IN A LIQUID STATE.

FIRST, the "Ahlden Heritage" was one cause of disagreement, which lasted long. The poor Mother of George II. and of Queen Sophie had left considerable properties; "three million THALERS," that is 900,000 pounds, say some; but all was rather in an unliquid state, not so much as her Will was to be had. The Will, with a 10,000 pounds or so, was in the hands of a certain Graf von Bar, one of her confidants in that sad imprisonment: "money lent him," Busching says, [Beitrage zur Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen (Halle, 1783-1789), i. 306, ? NUSSLER. Some distracted fractions of Business Correspondence with this Bar, in Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea,--unintelligible as usual there.] "to set up a Wax-Bleachery at Cassel:"--and the said Count von Bar was off with it, Testamentary Paper and all; gone to the REICHSHOFRATH at Vienna, supreme Judges, in the Empire, of such matters. Who accordingly issued him a "Protection," to start with: so that when the Hanover people attempted to lay hold of the questionable wax-bleaching Count, at Frankfurt-on-Mayn,--secretly sending "a lieutenant and twelve men" for that object,--he produces his Protection Paper, and the lieutenant and twelve men had to hasten home again. [Ibid.] Count von Bar had to be tried at law,--never ask with what results;--and this itself was a long story. Then as to the other properties of the poor Duchess, question arises, Are they ALLODIA, or are they FEUDA,--that is to say, shall the Son have them, or the Daughter? In short, there was no end to questions. Friedrich Wilhelm has an Envoy at Hanover, one Kannegiesser, laboring at Hanover, the second of such he has been obliged to send; who finds plenty of employment in that matter. "My Brother the COMODIANT quietly put his Father's Will in his pocket, I have heard; and paid no regard to it (except what he was compelled to pay, by Chesterfield and others): will he do the like with his poor Mother's Will?" Patience, your Majesty: he is not a covetous man, but a self-willed and a proud,--always conscious to himself that he is the soul of honor, this poor Brother King!

Nay withal, before these testamentary bickerings are settled, here has a new Joint-Heritage fallen: on which may rise discussions. Poor Uncle Ernst of Osnabruck--to whom George I., chased by Death, went galloping for shelter that night, and who could only weep over his poor Brother dead--has not survived him many months. The youngest Brother of the lot is now gone too. Electress Sophie's Seven are now all gone. She had six sons: four became Austrian soldiers, three of whom perished in war long since; the other three, the Bishop, the King, the eldest of the Soldiers, have all died within two years (1726-1728): [Michaelis, i. 153. See Feder, Kurfurstinn Sophie; Hoppe, Geschichte der Stadt Hannover; &c.] Sophie Charlotte, "Republican Queen" of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, whom we knew long since, was the one Daughter. Her also Uncle Ernst saw die, in his youth, as we may remember. They are all dead. And now the Heritages are to settle, at least the recent part of them. Let Kannegiesser keep his eyes open. Kannegiesser is an expert high-mannered man; but said to be subject to sharpness of temper; and not in the best favor with the Hanover people. That is Cause FIRST.

CAUSE SECOND: THE TROUBLES OF MECKLENBURG.

Then, secondly, there is the business of Mecklenburg; deplorable Business for Mecklenburg, and for everybody within wind of it,--my poor readers included. Readers remember--what reader can ever forget?--that extraordinary Duke of Mecklenburg, the "Unique of Husbands," as we had to call him, who came with his extraordinary Duchess, to wait on her Uncle Peter, the Russian (say rather SAMOEIDIC) Czar, at Magdeburg, a dozen years ago? We feared it was in the fates we might meet that man again; and so it turns out! The Unique of Husbands has proved also to be the unluckiest of Misgoverning Dukes in his Epoch; and spreads mere trouble all round him. Mecklenburg is in a bad way, this long while, especially these ten years past. "Owing to the Charles-Twelfth Wars," or whatever it was owing to, this unlucky Duke had fallen into want of more money; and impoverished Mecklenburg alleged that it was in no condition to pay more. Almost on his accession, while the tar-barrels were still blazing, years before we ever saw him, he demanded new subvention from his RITTERS (the "Squires" of the Country); subvention new in Mecklenburg, though common in other sovereign German States, and at one time in Mecklenburg too. The Ritters would not pay; the Duke would compel them: Ritters appeal to Kaiser in Reichshofrath, who proves favorable to the Ritters. Duke still declines obeying Kaiser; asserts that "he is himself in such matter the sovereign:" Kaiser fulminates what of rusty thunder he has about him; to which the Duke, flung on his back by it, still continues contumacious in mind and tongue: and so between thunder and contumacy, as between hammer and stithy, the poor Country writhes painfully ever since, and is an affliction to everybody near it.

For ten years past, the unluckiest of Misgoverning Dukes has been in utter controversy with his Ritters;--at law with them before the Courts of the Empire, nay occasionally trying certain of them himself, and cutting off their heads; getting Russian regiments, and then obliged to renounce Russian regiments;--in short, a very great trouble to mankind thereabouts. [Michaelis, ii. 416-435.] So that the Kaiser in Reichshofrath, about the date indicated (Year 1719), found good to send military coercion on him; and intrusted that function to the Hanover-Brunswick people, to George I. more especially; to whom, as "KREIS-HAUPTMANN" ("Captain of the Circle," Circle of Lower-Saxony, where the contumacy had occurred), such function naturally fell. The Hanover Sovereignty, sending 13,000 men, horse, foot and artillery into Mecklenburg, soon did their function, with only some slight flourishes of fighting on the part of the contumacious Duke,--in which his chief Captain, one Schwerin, distinguishes himself: Kurt von Schwerin, whom we shall know better by and by, for he went into the Prussian service shortly after. Colonel von Schwerin did well what was in him; but could not save a refractory Duke, against such odds. The contumacious Duke was obliged to fly his country;--deposed, or, to begin with, suspended, a Brother of his being put in as interim Duke:--and the Unique of Husbands and paragon of Mismanaging Dukes lives about Dantzig ever since, on a Pension allowed him by his interim Brother; contumacious to the last; and still stirring up strife, though now with diminished means, Uncle Peter being now dead, and Russian help much cut off.

The Hanover Sovereignties did their function soon enough: but their "expenses for it," these they have in vain demanded ever since. No money to be got from Mecklenburg; and Mecklenburg owes us "ten tons of gold,"--that is to say, 1,000,000 thalers, "tou" being the tenth part of a million in that coin. Hanover, therefore, holds possession--and has held ever since, with competent small military force--of certain Districts in Mecklenburg: Taxes of these will subsist our soldiery in the interim, and yield interest; the principal once paid, we at once give them up; principal, by these schedules, if you care to count them, is one million thalers (ten TONNEN GOLDES, as above said), or about 150,000 pounds. And so it has stood for ten years past; Mecklenburg the most anarchic of countries, owing to the kind of Ritters and kind of Duke it has. Poor souls, it is evident they have all lost their beaten road, and got among the IGNES FATUI and peat-pools: none knows the necessities and sorrows of this poor idle Duke himself! In his young years, before accession, he once tried soldiering; served one campaign with Charles XII., but was glad to "return to Hamburg" again, to the peaceable scenes of fashionable life there. [See German Spy (London, 1725, by Lediard, Biographer of Marlborough) for a lively picture of the then Hamburg,--resort of Northern Moneyed Idleness, as well as of better things.] Then his Russian Unique of Wives:--his probable adventures, prior and subsequent, in Uncle Peter's sphere, can these have been pleasant to him? The angry Ritters, too, their country had got much trampled to pieces in the Charles-Twelfth Wars, Stralsund Sieges: money seemed necessary to the Duke, and the Ritters were very scarce of it. Add, on both sides, pride and want of sense, with mutual anger going on CRESCENDO; and we have the sad phenomenon now visible: A Duke fled to Dantzig, anarchic Ritters none the better for his going; Duke perhaps threatening to return, and much flurrying his poor interim Brother, and stirring up the Anarchies:--in brief, Mecklenburg become a house on fire, for behoof of neighbors and self.

In these miserable brabbles Friedrich Wilhelm did not hitherto officially interfere; though not uninterested in them; being a next neighbor, and even, by known treaties, "eventual heir," should the Mecklenburg Line die out. But we know he was not in favor with the Kaiser, in those old years; so the military coercion had been done by other hands, and he had not shared in the management at all. He merely watched the course of things; always advised the Duke to submit to Law, and be peaceable; was sometimes rather sorry for him, too, as would appear.

Last year, however (1728),--doubtless it was one of Seckendorf's minor measures, done in Tobacco-Parliament,--Friedrich Wilhelm, now a pet of the Kaiser's, is discovered to be fairly concerned in that matter; and is conjoined with the Hanover-Brunswick Commissioners for Mecklenburg; Kaiser specially requiring that his Prussian Majesty shall "help in executing Imperial Orders" in the neighboring Anarchic Country. Which rather huffed little George,--hitherto, since, his Father's death, the principal, or as good as sole Commissioner,--if so big a Britannic Majesty COULD be huffed by paltry slights of that kind! Friedrich Wilhelm, who has much meditated Mecklenburg, strains his intellect, sometimes to an intense degree, to find out ways of settling it: George, who has never cared to meditate it, nor been able if he had, is capable of sniffing scornfully at Friedrich Wilhelm's projects on the matter, and dismissing them as moonshine. [Dubourgay Despatches and the Answers to them (more than once).] To a wise much-meditative House-Mastiff, can that be pleasant, from an unthinking dizened creature of the Ape species? The troubles of Mecklenburg, and discrepancies thereupon, are capable of becoming a SECOND source of quarrel.

CAUSES THIRD AND FOURTH:--AND CAUSE FIFTH, WORTH ALL THE OTHERS.

Cause THIRD is the old story of recruiting; a standing cause between Prussia and all its neighbors. And the FOURTH cause is the tiniest of all: the "Meadow of Clamei." Meadow of Clamei, some square yards of boggy ground; which, after long study, one does find to exist in the obscurest manner, discoverable in the best Maps of Germany,--some twenty miles south of the Elbe river, on the boundary between Hanover-Luneburg and Prussia-Magdeburg, dubious on which side of the boundary. Lonesome unknown Patch of Meadow, lying far amid peaty wildernesses in those Salzwedel regions: unknown to all writing mortals as yet; but which threatens, in this summer of 1729, to become famous as Runnymead among the Meadows of History! And the FIFTH cause--In short, there was no real "cause" of the least magnitude; the effect was produced by the combination of many small and imaginary ones. For if there is a will to quarrel, we know there is a way. And perhaps the FIFTH namable cause, in efficiency worth all the others together, might be found in the Debates of the Smoking Parliament that season, were the Journal of its Proceedings extant! We gather symptoms, indisputable enough, of very diligent elaborations and insinuations there; and conclude that to have been the really effective cause. Clouds had risen between the two Courts; but except for the Tobacco-Parliament, there never could have thunder come from them.

Very soon after George's accession there began clouds to rise; the perfectly accomplished little George assuming a severe and high air towards his rustic Brother-in-Law. "We cannot stand these Prussian enlistments and encroachments; rectify these, in a high and severe manner!" says George to his Hanover Officials. George is not warm on his throne till there comes in, accordingly, from the Hanover Officials a Complaint to that effect, and even a List of Hanoverian subjects who are, owing to various injustices, now serving in the Prussian ranks: "Your Prussian Majesty is requested to return us these men!"

This List is dated 22d January, 1728; George only a few months old in his new authority as yet. The Prussian Majesty grumbles painfully responsive: "Will, with eagerness, do whatever is just; most surely! But is his Britannic Majesty aware? Hanover Officials are quite misinformed as to the circumstances;"--and does not return any of the men. Merely a pacific grumble, and nothing done in regard to the complaints. Then there is the Meadow of Clamei which we spoke of: "That belongs to Brandenburg, you say? Nevertheless the contiguous parts of Hanover have rights upon it. Some 'eight cart-loads of hay,' worth say almost 5 pounds or 10 pounds sterling: who is to mow that grass, I wonder?"--

Friedrich Wilhelm feels that all this is a pettifogging vexatious course of procedure; and that his little Cousin the COMODIANT is not treating him very like a gentleman. "Is he, your Majesty!" suggests the Smoking Parliament.--About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears Borck, an Official not of the Grumkow party, sulkily commenting on "the constant hostility of the Hanover Ministry to us" in all manner of points;---inquires withal, Could not Mecklenburg be somehow settled, his Prussian Majesty being somewhat anxious upon it? [Despatch, 17th March, 1729.] Anxious, yes: his poor Majesty, intensely meditative of such a matter in the night-watches, is capable of springing out of bed, with an "Eureka! I have found what will do!" and demanding writing materials. He writes or dictates in his shirt, the good anxious Majesty; despatches his Eureka by estafette on the wings of the wind: and your Townshend, your UNmeditative George, receives it with curt official negative, and a polite sneer. [Dubourgay, 12th-14th April, 1729; and the Answer from St. James's.]

A few weeks farther on, this is what the Newspapers report of Mecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian Majesty's desire to have some mercy shown the poor infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel," his Britannic Majesty and Squire in that sad business, "REFUSE to withdraw their forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entire satisfaction be given them for the arrears of the Charges they have been at in putting the Sentence of the Aulic Council [Kaiser's REICHSHOFRATH and rusty thunder] into execution against the said Duke." [Salmon's Chronological Historian (London, 1748,--a Book never to be quoted without caution), ii. 216;--date (translated into new style), 10th July, 1729.]

Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his first Visit to Hanover in character of King, early in the Summer of 1729. Part of his road lies through Prussian Territory: "Shall he have free post-horses, as his late Majesty was wont?" asks the Prussian Official person. "If he write to request them, yes," answers Friedrich Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no." George does not write; pays for his post-horses;--flourishes along to Hanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish Brother-in-Law. You would say he looks over the head of him, as if there were no such clown in existence;--he has never yet so much as notified his arrival. "What is this? There exists no Prussia, then, for little George?" Friedrich Wilhelm's inarticulate, interjectionary utterances, in clangorous metallic tone, we can fancy them, now and then; and the Tobacco-Parliament is busy! British Minister Dubourgay, steady old military gentleman, who spells imperfectly, but is intent to keep down mischief, writes at last to Hanover, submissively suggesting, "Could not, as was the old wont, some notification of the King's arrival be sent hither, which would console his Prussian Majesty?" To which my Lord Townshend answers, "Has not been the custom, I am informed [WRONG informed, your Lordship]; not necessary in the circumstances." Which is a high course between neighbors and royal gentlemen and kinsfolk. The Prussian Court hereupon likewise shuts its lips; no mention of the Hanoverian Court, not even by her Majesty and to Englishmen, for several weeks past. [Dubourgay.] Some inarticulate metallic growl, in private, at dinner or in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM: the rest is truculent silence. Nor are our poor Hanover Recruits (according to our List of Pressed Hanoverians) in the least sent back; nor the Clamei Meadows settled; "Big Meadow" or "Little one," both of which the Brandenburgers have mown in the mean time.

Hanover Pressed men not coming home,--I think, not one of them,--the Hanover Officials decide to seize such Prussian Soldiers as happen to be seizable, in Hanover Territory. The highway in that border-country runs now on this side of the march, now on that;--watch well, and you will get Prussian Soldiers from time to time! Which the Hanover people do; and seize several, common men and even officers. Here is once more a high course of proceeding. Here is coal to raise smoke enough, if well blown upon,--which, with Seckendorf and Grumkow working the bellows, we may well fancy it was! But listen to what follows, independently of bellows.

On the 28th June, 1729, hay lying now quite dry upon the Meadow of Clamei, lo, the Bailiff of Hanoverian Buhlitz, Unpicturesque Traveller will find the peat-smoky little Village of Buhlitz near by a dusty little Town called Luchow, midway from Hamburg to Magdeburg; altogether peaty, mossy country; in the Salzwedel district, where used to be Wendic populations, and a Marck or Border Fortress of Salzwedel set up against them:--Bailiff of Buhlitz, I say, sallies forth with several carts, with all the population of the Village, with a troop of horse to escort, and probably flags flying and some kind of drums beating;--publicly rakes together the hay, defiant of the Prussian Majesty and all men; loads it on his carts, and rolls home with it; leaving to the Brandenburgers nothing but stubble and the memory of having mown for Hanover to eat. This is the 28th June, 1729; King of Prussia is now at Magdeburg, reviewing his troops; within a hundred miles of these contested quag-countries: who can blame him that he flames up now into clear blaze of royal indignation? The correspondence henceforth becomes altogether lively: but in the Britannic Archives there is nothing of it,--Dubourgay having received warning from my Lord Townshend to be altogether ignorant of the matter henceforth, and let the Hanover Officials manage it. His Prussian Majesty returns home in the most tempestuous condition.

We may judge what a time Queen Sophie had of it; what scenes there were with Crown-Prince Friedrich and Wilhelmina, in her Majesty's Apartment and elsewhere! Friedrich Wilhelm is fast mounting to the red-hot pitch. The bullyings, the beatings even, of these poor Children, love-sick one of them, are lamentable to hear of, as all the world has heard:--"Disobedient unnatural whelps, biting the heels of your poor old parent mastiff in his extreme need, what is to be done with you?" Fritz he often enough beats, gives a slap to with his rattan; has hurled a plate at him, on occasion, when bad topics rose at table; nay at Wilhelmina too, she says: but the poor children always ducked, and nothing but a little noise and loss of crockery ensued. Fritz he deliberately detests, as a servant of the Devil, incorrigibly rebelling against the paternal will, and going on those dissolute courses: a silly French cockatoo, suspected of disbelief in Scripture; given to nothing but fifing and play-books; who will bring Prussia aud himself to a bad end. "God grant he do not finish on the gallows!" sighed the sad Father once to Grumkow. The records of these things lie written far and wide, in the archives of many countries as well as in Wilhelmina's Book.

To me there was one undiplomatic reflection continually present: Heavens, could nobody have got a bit of rope, and hanged those two Diplomatic swindlers; clearly of the scoundrel genus, more than common pickpockets are? Thereby had certain young hearts, and honest old ones too, escaped being broken; and many a thing might have gone better than it did. JARNI-BLEU, Herr Feldzeugmeister, though you are an orthodox Protestant, this thousand-fold perpetual habit of distilled lying seems to me a bad one. I do not blame an old military gentleman, with a brow so puckered as yours, for having little of the milk of human kindness so called: but this of breaking, by force of lies merely, and for your own uses, the hearts of poor innocent creatures, nay of grinding them slowly in the mortar, and employing their Father's hand to do it withal; this--Herr General, forgive me, but there are moments when I feel as if the extinction of probably the intensest scoundrel of that epoch might have been a satisfactory event!--Alas, it could not be. Seckendorf is lying abroad for his Kaiser; "the only really able man we have," says Eugene sometimes. Snuffles and lisps; and travels in all, as they count, about 25,000 miles, keeping his Majesty in company. Here are some glimpses into the interior, dull but at first-hand, which are worth clipping and condensing from Dubourgay, with their dates:--

30th JULY, 1729. To the respectable old Brigadier, this day or yesterday, "her Majesty, all in tears, complained of her situation: King is nigh losing his senses on account of the differences with Hanover; goes from bed to bed in the night-time, and from chamber to chamber, 'like one whose brains are turned.' Took a fit, at two in the morning, lately, to be off to Wusterhausen:"--about a year ago Seckendorf and Grumkow had built a Lodge out there, where his Majesty, when he liked, could be snug and private with them: thither his Majesty now rushed, at two in the morning; but seemingly found little assuagement. "Since his return, he gives himself up entirely to drink:--Seckendorf," the snuffling Belial, "is busy, above ground and below; has been heard saying He alone could settle these businesses, Double-Marriage and all, would her Majesty but trust him!"--

"The King will not suffer the Prince-Royal to sit next his Majesty at table, but obliges him to go to the lower end; where things are so ordered," says the sympathetic Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince often rises without getting one bit,"--woe's me! "Insomuch that the Queen was obliged two days ago [28th July, 1729, let us date such an occurrence] to send, by one of the servants who could be trusted, a Box of cold fowls and other eatables for his Royal Highness's subsistence!" [Dubourgay, 30th July, 1729.]

In the first blaze of the outrage at Clamei, Friedrich Wilhelm's ardent mind suggested to him the method of single combat: defiance of George, by cartel, To give the satisfaction of a gentleman. There have been such instances on the part of Sovereigns; though they are rare: Karl Ludwig of the Pfalz, Winter-king's Son, for example, did, as is understood, challenge Turenne for burning the Pfalz (FIRST burning that poor country got); but nothing came of it, owing to Turenne's prudence. Friedrich Wilhelm sees well that it all comes from George's private humor: Why should human blood be shed except George's and mine? Friedrich Wilhelm is decisive for sending off the cartel; he has even settled the particulars, and sees in his glowing poetic mind how the transaction may be: say, at Hildesheim for place; Derschau shall be my second; Brigadier Sutton (if anybody now know such a man) may be his. Seconds, place and general outline he has schemed out, and fixed, so far as depends on one party; will fairly fence and fight this insolent little Royal Gentleman; give the world a spectacle (which might have been very wholesome to the world) of two Kings voiding their quarrel by duel and fair personal fence.

In England the report goes, "not without foundation," think Lord Hervey and men of sarcastic insight in the higher circles, That it was his Britannic Majesty who "sent or would have sent a challenge of single combat to his Prussian Majesty," the latter being the passive party! Report flung into an INVERSE posture, as is liable to happen; "going" now with its feet uppermost; "not without foundation," thinks Lord Hervey. "But whether it [the cartel] was carried and rejected, or whether the prayers and remonstrances of Lord Townshend prevented the gauntlet being actually thrown down, is a point which, to me [Lord Hervey] at least, has never been cleared." [Lord Hervey, Memoirs of George II. (London, 1848), i. 127.]

The Prussian Ministers, no less than Townshend would, feel well that this of Duel will never do. Astonishment, FLEBILE LULIBRIUM, tragical tehee from gods and men, will come of the Duel! But how to turn it aside? For the King is determined. His truculent veracity of mind points out this as the real way for him; reasoning, entreating are to no purpose. "The true method, I tell you! As to the world and its cackling,--let the world cackle!" At length Borck hits on a consideration: "Your Majesty has been ill lately; hand perhaps not so steady as usual? Now if it should turn out that your Majesty proved so inferior to yourself as to--Good Heavens!" This, it is said, was the point that staggered his Majesty. Tobacco-Parliament, and Borck there, pushed its advantage: the method of duel (prevalent through the early part of July, I should guess) was given up. [Bielfeld, Lettres familieres et autres (Second edition, 2 vols. Leide, 1767), i. 117, 118.] Why was there no Hansard in that Institution of the Country? Patience, idle reader! We shall get some scraps of the Debates on other subjects, by and by.--But hear Dubourgay again, in the absence of Morning Newspapers:--

AUGUST 9th, 1729. "Berlin looks altogether warlike. At Magdeburg they are busy making ovens to bake Ammunition-bread; Artillery is getting hauled out of the Arsenal here;" all is clangor, din of preparation. "It is said the King will fall on Mecklenburg;" can at once, if he like. "These intolerable usages from England [Seckendorf is rumored to have said], can your Majesty endure them forever? Why not marry the Prince-Royal, at once, to another Princess, and have done with them!"--or words to that effect, as reported by Court-rumor to her Majesty and Dubourgay. And there is a Princess talked of for this Match, Russian Princess, little Czar's Sister (little Czar to have Wilhelmina, Double-Marriage to be with Russia, not with England); but the little Czar soon died, little Czar's Sister went out of sight, or I know not what happened, and only brief rumor came of that.

As for the Crown-Prince, he has not fallen desperate; no; but appears to have strange schemes in him, deep under cover. "He has said to a confidant [Wilhelmina, it is probable], 'As to his ill-treatment, he well knew how to free himself of that [will fly to foreign parts, your Highness?], and would have done so long since, were it not for his Sister, upon whom the whole weight of his Father's resentment would then fall. Happen what will, therefore, he is resolved to share with her all the hardships which the King his Father may be pleased to put upon her." [Dubourgay, 11th August, 1729.] Means privately a flight to England, Dubourgay sees, and in a reticent diplomatic way is glad to see.

I possess near a dozen Hanoverian and Prussian Despatches upon this strange Business; but should shudder to inflict them on any innocent reader. Clear, grave Despatches, very brief and just, especially on the Prussian side: and on a matter too, which truly is not lighter than any other Despatch matter of that intrinsically vacant Epoch:--O reader, would I could bury all vacant talk and writing whatsoever, as I do these poor Despatches about the "eight cart-loads of hay"! Friedrich Wilhelm is fair-play itself; will do all things, that Earth or Heaven can require of him. Only, he is much in a hurry withal; and of this the Hanover Officials take advantage, perhaps unconsciously, to keep him in provocation. He lies awake at night, his heart is sore, and he has fled to drink. Towards the middle of August,--here again is a phenomenon,--"he springs out of bed in the middle of night," has again an EUREKA as to this of Clamei: "Eureka, I see now what will bring a settlement!" and sends off post-haste to Kannegiesser at Hanover. To Kannegiesser,--Herr Reichenbach, the special Envoy in this matter, being absent at the moment, gone to the Gohrde, I believe, where Britannic Majesty itself is: but Kannegiesser is there, upon the Ahlden Heritages; acquainted with the ground, a rather precise official man, who will serve for the hurry we are in. Post-haste; dove with olive-branch cannot go too quick;--Kannegiesser applying for an interview, not with the Britannic Majesty, who is at Gohrde, hunting, but with the Hanover Council, is--refused admittance. Here are Herr Kannegiesser's official Reports; which will themselves tell the rest of the story, thank Heaven:--

TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (From Herr Kannegiesser).

No. 1. "DONE AT HANOVER, 15th AUGUST, 1729.

"On the 15th day of August, at ten o'clock in the morning, I received Two Orders of Council [these are THE EUREKA, never ask farther what they are]; despatched on the 13th instant at seven in the evening; whereupon I immediately went to the Council-chamber here; and informed the Herr von Hartoff, Private Secretary, who met me in a room adjoining, 'That, having something to propose to his Ministry [now sitting deliberative in the interior here; something to propose to his Ministry] on the part of the Prussian Ministers, it was necessary I should speak to them.' Herr von Hartoff, after having reported my demand, let me know, 'He had received orders from the Ministry to defer what I had to say to another time.'

"I replied, 'That, since I could not be allowed the honor of an audience at that time, I thought myself obliged to acquaint him I had received an Order from Berlin to apply to the Ministry of this place, in the name of the Ministers of Prussia, and make the most pressing instances for a speedy Answer to a Letter lately delivered to them by Herr Hofrath Reichenbath [my worthy Assistant here; Answer to his Letter in the first place]; and to desire that the Answer might be lodged in my hands, in order to remit it with safety.'

"Herr von Hartoff returned immediately to the Council-chamber; and after having told the Ministers what I had said, brought me the following answer, in about half-a-quarter of an hour [seven minutes by the watch]: 'That the Ministers of this Court would not fail answering the said Letter as soon as possible; and would take care to give me notice of it, and send the Answer to me.'"

That was all that the punctual Kannegiesser could get out of them. "But," continues he, "not thinking this reply sufficient, I added, 'That delays being dangerous, I would come again the next day for a more precise answer.'"

Rather a high-mannered positive man, this Kannegiesser, of the Ahlden Heritages; not without sharpness of temper, if the Hanover Officials drive it too far.

No. 2.--"AT HANOVER, 16th AUGUST, 1729.

"According to the orders received from the King my Master, and pursuant of my promise of yesterday, I went at noon this day to the Castle (SCHLOSS), for the purpose, of making appearance in the Council-chamber, where the Ministers were assembled.

"I let them know I was there, by Van Hartoff, Privy Secretary; and, in the mildest terms, desired to be admitted to speak with them. Which was refused me a second time; and the following answer delivered me by Van Hartoff: 'That since the Prussian Ministers had intrusted me with this Commission, the Ministers of this Court had directed him to draw up my yesterday's Proposals in writing, and report them to the Council.'

"Whereupon I said, 'I could not conceive any reason why I was the only person who could not be admitted to audience. That, however, as the Ministers of this Court were pleased to authorize him, Herr von Hartoff, to receive my Proposals, I was obliged to tell him,' as the first or preliminary point of my Commission, 'I had received orders to be very pressing with the said Ministers of this Court, for an Answer to a Letter from the Prussian Ministry, lately delivered by Herr Legationsrath von Reichenbach; and finding that the said Answer was not yet finished, I would stay two days for it, that I might be more secure of getting it. But that then I should come to put them in mind of it, and desire audience in order to acquit myself of the REST of my Commission.'

"The Privy Secretary drew up what I said in writing. Immediately afterwards he reported it to the Ministry, and brought me this answer: 'That the Ministers of this Court would be as good as their word of yesterday, and answer the above-mentioned Letter with all possible expedition.' After which we parted."

No. 3.--"AT HANOVER, 17th AUGUST, 1729

"At two in the afternoon, this day, Herr von Hartoff came to my house; and let me know 'He had business of consequence from the Ministry, and that he would return at five.' By my direction he was told, 'I should expect him.'

"At the time appointed he came; and told me, 'That the Ministers of the Court, understanding from him that I designed to ask audience to-morrow, did not doubt but my business would be to remind them of the Answer which I had demanded yesterday and the day before. That such applications were not customary among sovereign Princes; that they, the Ministers; 'dared not treat farther in that affair with me; that they desired me not to mention it to them again till they had received directions from his Britannic Majesty, to whom they had made their report; and that as soon as they received their instructions, the result of these should be communicated to me.'

"To this I replied, 'That I did not expect the Ministers of this Court would refuse me the audience which I designed to ask to-morrow; and that therefore I would not fail of being at the Council-chamber at eleven, next day,' according to bargain, 'to know their answer to the rest of my Proposals.'--Secretary Von Hartoff would not hear of this resolution; and assured me positively he had orders to listen to nothing more on the subject from me. After which he left me?"

No. 4.--"AT HANOVER, 18th AUGUST, 1729.

"At eleven, this day, I went to the Council-chamber, for the third time; and desired Secretary Hartoff 'To prevail with the Ministry to allow me to speak with them, and communicate what the King of Prussia had ordered me to propose.'

"Herr von Hartoff gave them an account of my request; and brought me for answer, 'That I must wait a little, because the Ministers were not yet all assembled.'" Which I did. "But after having made me stay almost an hour, and after the President of the Council was come, Herr von Hartoff came out to me; and repeated what he had said yesterday, in very positive and absolute terms, 'That the Ministers were resolved not to see me, and had expressly forbid him taking any Paper at my hands.'

"To which I replied, 'That this was very hard usage; and the world would see how the King of Prussia would relish it. But having strict orders from his Majesty, my most gracious Master, to make a Declaration to the Ministers of Hanover in his name; and finding Herr von Hartoff would neither receive it, nor take a copy of it, I had only to tell him that I was under the necessity of leaving it in writing,--and had brought the Paper with me,'" let Herr von Hartoff observe!--"'And that now, as the Council were pleased to refuse to take it, I was obliged to leave the said Declaration on a table in an adjoining room, in the presence of Herr von Hartoff and other Secretaries of the Council, whom I desired to lay it before the Ministry.'

"After this I went home; but had scarcely entered my apartment, when a messenger returned me the Declaration, still sealed as I left it, by order of the Ministers: and perceiving I was not inclined to receive it, he laid it on my table, and immediately left the house." [A Letter from an English Traveller to his Friend at London, relating to the Differences betwixt the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, with Copies of, &c. Translated from the French (London, A. Millar, at Buchanan's Head, 1730), pp. 29-34. An excellent distinct little Pamphlet; very explanatory in this matter,--like the smallest rushlight in a dark cellar of shot-lumber.]

Whereupon Kannegiesser, without loss of a moment, returns to Berlin, 19th August; and reports progress.

Simple honest Orson of a Prussian Majesty, what a bepainted, beribboned insulting Play-actor Majesty has he fallen in with!--"Hm, so? Hm, na!" and I see the face of him, all colors of the prism, and eyes in a fine frenzy; betokening thundery weather to some people! Instantly he orders 44,000 men to get on march; [Friedrich Wilhelm's "Manifesto" is in Mauvillon, ii. 210-215, dated "20th August, 1729" (the day after Kannegieseer's return).] and these instantly begin to stir; small preparation needed, ever-ready being the word with them. From heavy guns, ammunition-wagons and draught-horses, down to the last buckle of a spatterdash, things are all ticketed and ready in his Majesty's country; things, and still more evidently men. Within a week, the amazed Gazetteers (Newspaper Editors we now call them) can behold the actual advent of horse, foot and artillery regiments at Magdeburg; actual rendezvous begun, and with a frightful equable velocity going on day after day. On the 15th day of September, if Fate's almanac hold steady, there will be 44,000 of them ready there. Such a mass of potential-battle as George or the Hanover Officiality are--ready to fight?

Alas, far enough from that. Forces of their own they have, after a sort; subsidized Hessians, Danes, these they can begin to stir up; but they have not a regiment ready for fighting; and have NOTHING, if all were ready, which this 44,000 cannot too probably sweep out of the world. I suppose little George must have exhibited some prismatic colors of countenance, too. This insulted Orson is swinging a tremendous club upon the little peruked ribboned high gentleman, promenading loftily in his preserves yonder! The Prussian forces march, steady, continual; Crown-Prince Friedrich's regiment of Giants is on march, expressly under charge of Friedrich himself:--the young man's thoughts are not recorded for us; only that he gets praise from his Father, so dexterous and perfect is he with the Giants and their getting into gear. Nor is there, says our Foreign Correspondent, the least truth, in your rumor that the Prussian forces, officers or men, marched with bad will; "conspicuously the reverse is the truth, as I myself can testify." [Pamphlet cited above.] And his Britannic Majesty, now making a dreadful flutter to assemble as fast as possible, is like to get quite flung into the bogs by this terrible Orson!--

What an amazement, among the Gazetteers: thunder-clouds of war mounting up over the zenith in this manner, and blotting out the sun; may produce an effect on the Congress of Soissons? Presumably: and his Imperial Majesty, left sitting desolate on his Pragmatic Sanction, gloomily watching events, may find something turn up to his advantage? Prussia and England are sufficiently in quarrel, at any rate; perhaps almost too much.--The Pope, in these circumstances, did a curious thing. The Pope, having prayed lately for rain and got it, proceeds now, in the end of September, while such war-rumors are still at their height in Rome, to pray, or even do a Public Mass, or some other so-called Pontificality, "in the Chapel of Philip Neri in the New Church," by way of still more effectual miracle. Prays, namely, That Heaven would be graciously pleased to foment, and blow up to the proper degree, this quarrel between the two chief Heretic Powers, Heaven's chief enemies, whereby Holy Religion might reap a good benefit, if it pleased Heaven. But, this time, the miracle did not go off according to program. ["Extract of a Letter from Rome, 24th September, 1729," in Townshend's Despatch, Whitehall, 10th Outober, 1729.]

For at this point, before the Pope had prayed, but while the troops and artillery were evidently all on march ("Such an artillery as I," who am Kaiser's Artillery-Master, "for my poor part, never had the happiness to see before in any country," snuffles Seckendorf in the Smoking Parliament), and now swords are, as it were, drawn, and in the air make horrid circles,--the neighbors interfere: "Heavens I put up your swords!"--and the huge world-wide tumult suddenly (I think, in the very first days of this month September) collapses, sinks into something you can put into a snuff-box.

Of course it could never come to actual battle, after all. Too high a pickle-herring tragedy that. Here is a COMODIANT not wanting to be smitten into the bogs; an honest Orson who wants nothing, nor has ever wanted, but fair-play. Fair-play; and not to be insulted on the streets, or have one's poor Hobby quite knocked from under one!--Neighbors, as we say, struck in; France, Holland, all the neighbors, at this point: "Do it by arbitration; Wolfenbuttel for the one, Sachsen-Gotha for the other; Commissioners to meet at Brunswick!" And that, accordingly, was the course fixed upon; and settlement, by that method, was accomplished, without difficulty, in some six months hence. [16th April, 1730 (Forster, ii. 105).] Whether Clamei was awarded to Hanover or to Brandenburg, I never knew, or how the hay of it is cut at this moment. I only know there was no battle on the subject; though at one time there was like to be such a clash of battle as the old Markgraves never had with their old Wends; not if we put all their battlings into one.

Seckendorf's radiant brow has to pucker itself again: this fine project, of boiling the Kaiser's eggs by setting the world on fire, has not prospered after all. The gloomy old villain came to her Majesty one day, [Dubourgay, 30th July, 1729.] while things were near the hottest; and said or insinuated, He was the man that could do these businesses, and bring about the Double-Marriage itself, if her Majesty were not so harsh upon him. Whereupon her Majesty, reporting to Dubourgay, threw out the hint, "What if we (that is, you) did give him a forty or fifty thousand thalers verily, for he will do anything for money?" To which Townshend answers from the Gohrde, to the effect: "Pooh, he is a mere bag of noxious futilities; consists of gall mainly, and rusty old lies and crotchets; breathing very copperas through those old choppy lips of his: let him go to the--!" Next Spring, at the happy end of the Arbitration, which he had striven all he could to mar and to retard, he fell quite ill; took to his bed for two days,--colics, or one knows not what;--"and I can't say I am very sorry for him," writes the respectable Dubourgay. [25th April, 1730.] On the 8th day of September, 1729, Friedrich Crown-Prince re-enters Potsdam [Ib. 11th Sept. 1729.] with his two battalions of Giants; he has done so well, the King goes out from Berlin to see him march in with them; rejoicing to find something of a soldier in the young graceless, after all. "The King distributed 100,000 thalers (15,000 pounds) among his Army;" being well pleased with their behavior, and doubtless right glad to be out of such a Business. The Ahlden Heritages will now get liquidated; Mecklenburg,--our Knyphausen, with the Hanover Consorts, will settle Mecklenburg; and all shall be well again, we hope!--

The fact, on some of these points, turned out different; but it was now of less importance. As to Knyphausen's proceedings at Mecklenburg, after the happy Peace, they were not so successful as had been hoped. Need of quarrel, however, between the Majesties, there henceforth was not in Mecklenburg; and if slight rufflings and collisions did arise, it was not till after our poor Double-Marriage was at any rate quite out of the game, and they are without significance to us. But the truth is, though Knyphausen did his best, no settlement came; nor indeed could ever come. Shall we sum up that sorry matter here, and wash our hands of it?

TROUBLES OF MECKLENBURG, FOR THE LAST TIME.

Knyphausen, we say, proved futile; nor could human wit have succeeded. The exasperated Duke was contumacious, irrational; the two Majesties kept pulling different ways upon him. Matters grew from very bad to worse; and Mecklenburg continued long a running sore. Not many months after this (I think, still in 1729), the irrational Duke, having got money out of Russia, came home again from Dantzig; to notable increase of the Anarchies in Mecklenburg, though without other result for himself. The irrational Duke proved more contumacious than ever, fell into deeper trouble than ever;--at length (1733) he made Proclamation to the Peasantry to rise and fight for him; who did turn out, with their bill-hooks and bludgeons, under Captains named by him, "to the amount of 18,000 Peasants,"--with such riot as may be fancied, but without other result. So that the Hanover Commissioners decided to seize the very RESIDENZ Cities (Schwerin and Domitz) from this mad Duke, and make the country clear of him,--his Brother being Interim Manager always, under countenance of the Commissioners. Which transactions, especially which contemplated seizure of the Residence Cities, Friedrich Wilhelm, eventual heir, could not see with equanimity at all. But having no forces in the country, what could he do? Being "Joint-Commissioner" this long while past, though without armed interference hitherto, he privately resolves that he will have forces there; the rather as the poor Duke professes penitence, and flies to him for help. Poor soul, his Russian Unique of Wives has just died, far enough away from him this long while past: what a life they have had, these two Uniques!--

Enough, "on the 19th of October, 1733, Lieutenant-General Schwerin,"--the same who was Colonel Schwerin, the Duke's chief Captain here, at the beginning of these troubles, now Lientenant-General and a distinguished PRUSSIAN officer,--"marches into Mecklenburg with three regiments, one of foot, two of horse:" [Buchholz, i. 122, 142; Michaelis, ii. 433, 437.] he, doubtless, will help in quelling those Peasant and other Anarchies? Privately his mission is most delicate. He is not to fight with the Hanoverians; is delicately but effectually to shove them well away from the Residence Cities, and fasten himself down in those parts. Which the Lieutenant-General dexterously does. "A night's quarter here in Parchim,"--such is the Lieutenant-General's request, polite but impressive, from the outskirts of that little Town, a Town essential to certain objects, and in fact the point he is aiming at: "night's quarter; you cannot refuse it to this Prussian Company marching under the Kaiser's Commission?" No, the Hanoverian Lieutenant of Foot dare not take upon him to refuse:--but next morning, he is himself invited to withdraw, the Prussians having orders to continue here in Parchim! And so with the other points and towns, that are essential in the enterprise on hand. A dexterous Lieutenant-General this Schwerin:--his two Horse-Colonels are likewise men to be noted; Colonel Wreech, with a charming young Wife, perhaps a too charming; Colonel Truchsess von Waldburg, known afterwards, with distinction, in London Society and widely otherwise. And thus, in the end of 1733, the Mecklenburg Residence Cities, happen what may, are secured for their poor irrational Duke. These things may slightly ruffle some tempers at Hanover; but it is now 1733, and our poor Double-Marriage is clean out of the game by that time!--

The irrational Duke could not continue in his Residence Cities, with the Brother administering over him; still proving contumacious, he needed absolutely to be driven out, to Wismar or I know not whither; went wandering about for almost twenty years to come; disturbed, and stirring up disturbance. Died 1747, still in that sad posture; Interim Brother, with Posterity, succeeding. [Michaelis, ii. 434-440.] But Hanover and Prussia interfered no farther; the brother administered on his own footing, "supported by troops hired from Hamburg. Hanover and Prussia, 400 Hanoverians, 200 Prussians, merely retained hold of their respective Hypothecs [Districts held in pawn] till the expenses should be paid,"--million of THALERS, and by those late anarchies a new heavy score run up.

Prussia and Hanover retained hold of their Hypothecs; for as to the expenses, what hope was there? Fifty years hence we find the Prussian Hypothecs occupied as at first; and "rights of enlistment exercised." Never in this world were those expenses paid;--nor could be, any part of them. The last accounts were: George III. of England, on marrying, in 1761, a Mecklenburg Princess,--"Old Queen Charlotte," then young enough,--handsomely tore up the bill; and so ended that part of a desperate debt. But of the Prussian part there was no end, nor like to be any: "down to this day [says Buchholz, in 1775], two squadrons of the Ziethen Hussars usually lie there," and rights of enlisting are exercised. I conclude, the French Revolution and its Wars wiped away this other desperate item. And now let us hope that Mecklenburg is better off than formerly,--that, at least, our hands are clear of it in time coming. I add only, with satisfaction, that this Unique of Dukes was no ancestor of Old Queen Charlotte's, but only a remote Welsh-Uncle, far enough apart;--cannot be too far.

ONE NUSSLER SETTLES THE AHLDEN HERITAGES; SENDS THE MONEY HOME IN BOXES.

Knyphausen did not settle Mecklenburg, as we perceive! Neither did Kannegiesser and the unliquidated Heritages prosper, at Hanover, quite to perfection. One Heritage, that of Uncle Osnabruck, little George flatly refused to share: FEUDUM the whole of that, not ALLODIUM any part of it, so that a Sister cannot claim. Which, I think, was confirmed by the Arbitrators at Brunswick; thereby ending that. Then as to the Ahlden ALLODIA or FEUDA,--Kannegiesser, blamably or not, never could make much of the business. A precise strict man, as we saw at the Hanover Council-room lately; whom the Hanover people did not like. So he made little of it. Nay at the end of next year (December, 1730), sending in his accounts to Berlin, he demands, in addition to the three thalers (or nine shillings) daily allowed him, almost a second nine shillings for sundries, chiefly for "hair-powder and shoe-blacking"! And is instantly recalled; and vanishes from History at this point. [Busching, Beitrage, i. 307, &c.? Nussler.]

Upon which Friedrich Wilhelm selects another; "sends deal boxes along with him," to bring home what cash there is. This one's name is Nussler; an expectant Prussian Official, an adroit man, whom we shall meet again doing work. He has the nine shillings a day, without hair-powder or blacking, while employed here; at Berlin no constant salary whatever,--had to "borrow 75 pounds for outfit on this business;"--does a great deal of work without wages, in hope of effective promotion by and by. Which did follow, after tedious years; Friedrich Wilhelm finding him, on such proof (other proof will not do), FIT for promoting to steady employment.

Nussler was very active at Hanover, and had his deal boxes; but hardly got them filled according to hope. However, in some eighteen months he had actually worked out, in difficult instalments, about 13,000 pounds, and dug the matter to the bottom. He came home with his last instalment, not disapproved of, to Berlin (May, 1732); six years after the poor Duchess's death, so the Ahlden ALLODIA too had their end.

Chapter VII. -- A MARRIAGE: NOT THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE: CROWN-PRINCE DEEP

Chapter VII. -- A MARRIAGE: NOT THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE: CROWN-PRINCE DEEP IN TROUBLE.

While the Hanover Imminency was but beginning, and horrid crisis of War or Duel--was yet in nobody's thoughts, the Anspach Wedding [30th May, 1729] had gone on at Berlin. To Friedrich Wilhelm's satisfaction; not to his Queen's, the match being but a poor one. The bride was Frederika Louisa, not the eldest of their Daughters, but the next-eldest: younger than Wilhelmina, and still hardly fifteen; the first married of the Family. Very young she: and gets a very young Margraf,--who has been, and still is a minor; under his Mother's guardianship till now: not rich, and who has not had a good chance to be wise. The Mother--an excellent magnanimous Princess, still young and beautiful, but laboring silently under some mortal disease--has done her best to manage for him these last four or five years; [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters (English Translation, London, 1745), i. 200-204. There are "MEMOIRS of Pollnitz," then "MEMOIRS AND LETTERS," besides the "MEMOIRS of Brandenburg" (posthumous, which we often cite); all by this poor man. Only the last has any Historical value, and that not much. The first two are only worth consulting, cautiously, as loose contemporary babble,--written for the Dutch Booksellers, one can perceive.] and, as I gather, is impatient to see him settled, that she may retire and die.

Friday forenoon, 19th May, 1729, the young Margraf arrived in person at Berlin,--just seventeen gone Saturday last, poor young soul, and very foolish. Sublime royal carriage met him at the Prussian frontier; and this day, what is more interesting, our "Crown-Prince rides out to meet him; mounts into the royal carriage beside him;" and the two young fools drive, in such a cavalcade of hoofs and wheels,--talking we know not what,--into Potsdam; met by his Majesty and all the honors. What illustrious gala there then was in Potsdam and the Court world, read,--with tedium, unless you are in the tailor line,--described with minute distinctness by the admiring Fassmann. [pp.396-401.] There are Generals, high Ladies, sons of Bellona and Latona; there are dinners, there are hautboys,--"two-and-thirty blackamoors," in flaming uniforms, capable of cymballing and hautboying "up the grand staircase, and round your table, and down again," in a frightfully effective manner, while you dine. Madame Kamecke is to go as Oberhofmeisterinn to Anspach; and all the lackeys destined thither are in their new liveries, blue turned up with red velvet. Which is delightful to see. Review of the Giant grenadiers cannot fail; conspicuous on parade with them our Crown-Prince as Lieutenant-Colonel: "the beauty of this Corps as well as the perfection of their EXERCITIA,"--ah yes, we know it, my dim old friend. The Marriage itself followed, at Berlin, after many exercitia, snipe-shootings, feastings, hautboyings; on the 30th of the month; with torch-dance and the other customary trimmings; "Bride's garter cut in snips" for dreaming upon "by his Royal Majesty himself." The LUSTBARKEITEN, the stupendous public entertainments having ended, there is weeping and embracing (MORE HUMANO); and the happy couple, so-called happy, retire to Anspach with their destinies and effects.

A foolish young fellow, this new Brother-in-law, testifies Wilhelmina in many places. Finances in disorder; Mother's wise management, ceasing too soon, has only partially availed. King "has lent some hundreds of thousands of crowns to Anspach [says Friedrich at a later period], which there is no chance of ever being repaid. All is in disorder there, in the finance way; if the Margraf gets his hunting and his heroning, he laughs at all the rest; and his people pluck him bare at every hand." [Schulenburg's Letter (in Forster, iii. 72).] Nor do the married couple agree to perfection;--far from it: "hate one another like cat and dog (like the fire, COMME LE FEU)," says Friedrich: [Correspondence (more than once).] "his Majesty may see what comes of ill-assorted marriages!"--In fact, the union proved none of the most harmonious; subject to squalls always;--but to squalls only; no open tempest, far less any shipwreck: the marriage held together till death, the Husband's death, nearly thirty years after, divided it. There was then left one Son; the same who at length inherited Baireuth too,--inherited Lady Craven,--and died in Bubb Doddington's Mansion, as we often teach our readers.

Last year, the Third Daughter was engaged to the Heir-Apparent of Brunswick; will be married, when of age. Wilhelmina, flower of them all, still hangs on the bush, "asked," or supposed to be "asked by four Kings," but not attained by any of them; and one knows not what will be her lot. She is now risen out of the sickness she has had,--not small-pox at all, as malicious English rumor gave it in England;--and "looks prettier than ever," writes Dubourgay.

Here is a marriage, then; first in the Family;--but not the Double-Marriage, by a long way! The late Hanover Tornado, sudden Waterspout as we called it, has quenched that Negotiation; and one knows not in what form it will resuscitate itself. The royal mind, both at Berlin and St. James's, is in a very uncertain state after such a phenomenon.

Friedrich Wilhelm's favor for the Crown-Prince, marching home so gallantly with his Potsdam Giants, did not last long. A few weeks later in the Autumn we have again ominous notices from Dubourgay. And here, otherwise obtained, is a glimpse into the interior of the Berlin Schloss; momentary perfect clearness, as by a flash of lightning, on the state of matters there; which will be illuminative to the reader.

CROWN-PRINCE'S DOMESTICITIES SEEN IN A FLASH OF LIGHTNING.

This is another of those tragi-comic scenes, tragic enough in effect, between Father and Son; Son now about eighteen,--fit to be getting through Oxford, had he been an English gentleman of private station. It comes from the irrefragable Nicolai; who dates it about this time, uncertain as to month or day.

Fritz's love of music, especially of fluting, is already known to us. Now a certain Quantz was one of his principal instructors in that art, and indeed gave him the last finish of perfection in it. Quantz, famed Saxon music-master and composer, Leader of the Court-Band in Saxony, king of flute-players in his day,--(a village-farrier's son from the Gottingen region, and himself destined to shoe horses, had not imperative Nature prevailed over hindrances);--Quantz, ever from Fritz's sixteenth year, was wont to come occasionally, express from Dresden, for a week or two, and give the young man lessons on the flute. The young man's Mother, good Queen Feekin, had begged this favor for him from the Saxon Sovereignties; and pleaded hard for it at home, or at worst kept it secret there. It was one of the many good maternities, clandestine and public, which she was always ready to achieve for him where possible;--as he also knew full well in his young grateful heart, and never forgot, however old he grew! Illustrious Quantz, we say, gives Fritz lessons on the flute; and here is a scene they underwent;--they and a certain brisk young soldier fellow, Lieutenant von Katte, who was there too; of whom the reader will tragically hear more in time.

On such occasions Fritz was wont to pull off the tight Prussian coat or COATIE, and clap himself into flowing brocade of the due roominess and splendor,--bright scarlet dressing-gown, done in gold, with tags and sashes complete;--and so, in a temporary manner, feel that there was such a thing as a gentleman's suitable apparel. He would take his music-lessons, follow his clandestine studies, in that favorable dress:--thus Buffon, we hear, was wont to shave, and put on clean linen, before he sat down to write, finding it more comfortable so. Though, again, there have been others who could write in considerable disorder; not to say litter, and palpable imperfection of equipment: Samuel Johnson, for instance, did some really grand writing in a room where there was but one chair, and that one incapable of standing unless you sat on it, having only three feet. A man is to fit himself to what is round him: but surely a Crown-Prince may be indulged in a little brocade in his leisure moments!--

Fritz and Quantz sat doing music, an unlawful thing, in this pleasant, but also unlawful costume; when Lieutenant Katte, who was on watch in the outer room, rushes in, distraction in his aspect: Majesty just here! Quick, double quick! Katte snatches the music-books and flutes, snatches Quantz; hurries with him and them into some wall-press, or closet for firewood, and stands quaking there. Our poor Prince has flung aside his brocade, got on his military coatie; and would fain seem busy with important or indifferent routine matters. But, alas, he cannot undo the French hairdressing; cannot change the graceful French bag into the strict Prussian queue in a moment. The French bag betrays him; kindles the paternal vigilance,--alas, the paternal wrath, into a tornado pitch. For his vigilant suspecting Majesty searches about; finds the brocade article behind a screen; crams it, with loud indignation, into the fire; finds all the illicit French Books; confiscates them on the spot, confiscates all manner of contraband goods:--and there was mere sulphurous whirlwind in those serene spaces for about an hour! If his Majesty had looked into the wood-closet? His Majesty, by Heaven's express mercy, omitted that. Haude the Bookseller was sent for; ordered to carry off that poisonous French cabinet-library in mass; sell every Book of it, to an undiscerning public, at what price it will fetch. Which latter part of his order, Haude, in deep secrecy, ventured to disobey, being influenced thereto. Haude, in deep secrecy, kept the cabinet-library secure; and "lent" the Prince book after book from it, as his Royal Highness required them.

Friedrich, it is whispered in Tobacco-Parliament, has been known, in his irreverent impatience, to call the Grenadier uniform his "shroud (STERBEKITTEL, or death-clothes);" so imprisoning to the young mind and body! Paternal Majesty has heard this blasphemous rumor; hence doubtless, in part, his fury against the wider brocade garment.

It was Quantz himself that reported this explosion to authentic Nicolai, many years afterwards; confessing that he trembled, every joint of him, in the wood-closet, during that hour of hurricane; and the rather as he had on "a red dress-coat," whioh color, foremost of the flaring colors, he knew to be his Majesty's aversion, on a man's back. [Nicolai, Anekdoten (Berlin, 1790), ii. 148.] Of incomparable Quantz, and his heart-thrilling adagios, we hope to hear again, under joyfuler circumstances. Of Lieutenant von Katte,--a short stout young fellow, with black eyebrows, pock-marked face, and rather dissolute manners,--we shall not fail to hear.

Chapter VIII. -- CROWN-PRINCE GETTING BEYOND HIS DEPTH IN TROUBLE.

It is not certain that the late Imminency of Duel had much to do with such explosions. The Hanover Imminency, which we likened to a tropical waterspout, or sudden thunderous blotting-out of the sky to the astonished Gazetteers, seems rather to have passed away as waterspouts do,--leaving the earth and air, if anything, a little REFRESHED by such crisis. Leaving, that is to say, the two Majesties a little less disposed for open quarrel, or rash utterance of their ill humor in time coming. But, in the mean while, all mutual interests are in a painful state of suspended animation: in Berlin there is a privately rebellious Spouse and Household, there is a Tobacco-Parliament withal;--and the royal mind, sensitive, imaginative as a poet's, as a woman's, and liable to transports as of a Norse Baresark, is of uncertain movement. Such a load of intricacies and exaggerated anxieties hanging on it, the royal mind goes like the most confused smoke-jack, sure only to HAVE revolutions; and we know how, afar from Soissons, and at home in Tobacco-Parliament, the machine is influenced! Enough, the explosive procedures continue, and are on the increasing hand.

Majesty's hunting at Wusterhausen was hardly done, when that alarming Treaty of Seville came to light (9th November, 1729), France and England ranked by the side of Spain, disposing of Princes and Apanages at their will, and a Kaiser left sitting solitary,--which awakens the domestic whirlwinds at Berlin, among other results. "CANAILLE ANGLAISE, English Doggery!" and similar fine epithets, addressed to Wilhelmina and the Crown-Prince, fly about; not to speak of occasional crockery and other missiles. Friedrich Wilhelm has forbidden these two his presence altogether, except at dinner: Out of my sight, ye Canaille Anglaise; darken not the sunlight for me at all!

This is in the Wusterhausen time,--Hanover Imminency only two months gone. And Mamma sends for us to have private dialogues in her Apartment there, with spies out in every direction to make signal of Majesty's return from his hunt,--who, however, surprises as on one occasion, so that we have to squat for hours, and almost get suffocated. [Wilhelmina, i. 172.] Whereupon the Crown-Prince, who will be eighteen in a couple of months, and feels the indignity of such things, begs of Mamma to be excused in future. He has much to suffer from his Father again, writes Dubourgay in the end of November: "it is difficult to conceive the vile stratagems that are made use of to provoke the Father against the Son." [Dubourgay, 28th November, 1729.] Or again, take this, as perhaps marking an epoch in the business, a fortnight farther on:--

DECEMBER 10th 1729. "His Prussian Majesty cannot bear the sight of either the Prince or Princess Royal: The other day, he asked the Prince: 'Kalkstein makes you English; does not he?' Kalkstein, your old Tutor, Borck, Knyphausen, Finkenstein, they are all of that vile clique!" To which the Prince answered, 'I respect the English because I know the people there love me;' upon which the King seized him by the collar, struck him fiercely with his cane," in fact rained showers of blows upon him; "and it was only by superior strength," thinks Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince escaped worse. There is a general apprehension of something tragical taking place before long."

Truly the situation is so violent, it cannot last. And in effect a wild thought, not quite new, ripens to a resolution in the Crown-Prince under such pressures: In reference to which, as we grope and guess, here is a Billet to Mamma, which Wilhelmina has preserved. Wilhelmina omits all trace of date, as usual; but Dubourgay, in the above Excerpt, probably supplies that defect:--

FRIEDRICH TO HIS MOTHER (Potsdam, December, 1729).

"I am in the uttermost despair. What I had always apprehended has at last come on me. The King has entirely forgotten that I am his Son. This morning I came into his room as usual; at the first sight of me," or at the first passage of Kalkstein-dialogue with me, "he sprang forward, seized me by the collar, and struck me a shower of cruel blows with his rattan. I tried in vain to screen myself, he was in so terrible a rage, almost out of himself; it was only weariness," not my superior strength, "that made him give up."

"I am driven to extremity. I have too much honor to endure such treatment; and I am resolved to put an end to it in one way or another." [Wilhelmina, i. 175.]

Is not this itself sufficiently tragical? Not the first stroke he had got, we can surmise; but the first torrent of strokes, and open beating like a slave;--which to a proud young man and Prince, at such age, is indeed INtolerable. Wilhelmina knows too well what he meaus by "ending it in one way or another;" but strives to reassure Mamma as to its meaning "flight," or the like desperate resolution. "Mere violence of the moment," argues Wilhelmina; terribly aware that it is deeper-rooted than that.

Flight is not a new idea to the Crown-Prince; in a negative form we have seen it present in the minds of by-standers: "a Crown-Prince determined NOT to fly," whispered they. [Dubourgay (9th August, 1729), supra, p. 129.] Some weeks ago, Wilhelmina writes: "The King's bad treatments began again on his reappearance" at Potsdam after the Hunting; "he never saw my Brother without threatening him with his cane. My Brother told me day after day, He would endure everything from the King, only not blows; and that if it ever came to such extremity, he would be prepared to deliver himself by running off." And here, it would seem, the extremity has actually come.

Wilhelmina, pitying her poor Brother, but condemning him on many points, continues: [i. 173, 174.] "Lieutenant Keith," that wild companion of his, "had been gone some time, stationed in Wesel with his regiment." Which fact let us also keep in mind. "Keith's departure had been a great joy to me; in the hope my Brother would now lead a more regular life: but it proved quite otherwise. A second favorite, and a much more dangerous, succeeded Keith. This was a young man of the name of Katte, Captain-Lieutenant in the regiment GENS-D'ARMES. He was highly connected in the Army; his Mother had been a daughter of Feldmarschall Graf von Wartensleben,"--a highest dignitary of the last generation. Katte's Father, now a General of distinction, rose also to be Feldmarschall; Cousins too, sons of a Kammer-President von Katte at Magdeburg, rose to Army rank in time coming; but not this poor Katte,--whom let the reader note!

"General Katte his Father," continues Wilhelmina, "had sent him to the Universities, and afterwards to travel, desiring he should be a Lawyer. But as there was no favor to expect out of the Army, the young man found himself at last placed there, contrary to his expectation. He continued to apply himself to studies; he had wit, book-culture, acquaintance with the world; the good company which he continued to frequent had given him polite manners, to a degree then rare in Berlin. His physiognomy was rather disagreeable than otherwise. A pair of thick black eyebrows almost covered the eyes of him; his look had in it something ominous, presage of the fate he met with: a tawny skin, torn by small-pox, increased his ugliness. He affected the freethinker, and carried libertinism to excess; a great deal of ambition and headlong rashness accompanied this vice." A dangerous adviser here in the Berlin element, with lightnings going!"Such a favorite was not the man to bring back my Brother from his follies. This I learned at our [Mamma's and my] return to Berlin," from the Wusterhausen and the Potsdam tribulations;--and think of it, not without terror, now that the extremity seems coming or come.

Chapter IX. -- DOUBLE-MARRIAGE SHALL BE OR SHALL NOT BE.

For one thing, Friedrich Wilhelm, weary of all this English pother and futility, will end the Double-Marriage speculation; Wilhelmina shall be disposed of, and so an end. Friedrich Wilhelm, once the hunting was over at Wusterhausen, ran across, southward,--to "Lubnow," Wilhelmina calls it,--to Lubben in the Nether Lausitz, [25th October, 1729 (Fassmann, p. 404).] a short day's drive; there to meet incognito the jovial Polish Majesty, on his route towards Dresden; to see a review or so; and have a little talk with the ever-cheerful Man of Sin. Grumkow and Seckendorf, of course these accompany; Majesty's shadow is not surer.

Review was held at Lubben, Weissenfels Commander-in-chief taking charge; dinner also, a dinner or two, with much talk and drink;--and there it was settled, Wilhelmina has since known, that Weissenfels, Royal Highness in the Abstract, was to be her Husband, after all. Weissenfels will do; either Weissenfels or else the Margraf of Schwedt, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm; somebody shall marry the baggage out of hand, and let us have done with that. Grumkow, as we know, was very anxious for it; calculating thereby to out the ground from under the Old Dessauer, and make this Weissenfels Generalissimo of Prussia; a patriotic thought. Polish Majesty lent hand, always willing to oblige.

Friedrich Wilhelm, on his return homewards, went round by Dahme for a night:--not "Dam," O Princess, there is no such town or schloss! Round by Dahme, a little town and patch of territory, in the Saxon Countries, which was Weissenfels's Apanage;--"where plenty of Tokay" cheered the royal heart; and, in such mood, it seemed as if one's Daughter might do very well in this extremely limited position. And Weissenfels, though with dark misgivings as to Queen Sophie, was but too happy to consent: the foolish creature; a little given to liquor too! Friedrich Wilhelm, with this fine project in his head, drove home to Potsdam;--and there laid about him, on the poor Crown-Prince, in the way we have seen; terrifying Queen and Princess, who are at Berlin till Christmas and the Carnival be over. Friedrich Wilhelm means to see the Polish Majesty again before long,--probably so soon as this of Weissenfels is fairly got through the Female Parliament, where it is like there will be difficulties.

Christmas came to Berlin, and the King with it; who did the gayeties for a week or two, and spoke nothing about business to his Female Parliament. Dubourgay saw him, at Parade, on New-Year's morning; whither all manner of Foreign Dignitaries had come to pay their respects: "Well," cried the King to Dubourgay, "we shall have a War, then,"--universa1 deadly tug at those Italian Apanages, for and against an insulted Kaiser,--"War; and then all that is crooked will be pulled straight!" So spake Friedrich Wilhelm on the New-Year's morning; War in Italy, universal spasm of wrestle there, being now the expectation of foolish mankind: Crooked will be pulled straight, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm; and perhaps certain high Majesties, deaf to the voice of Should-not, will understand that of Can-not, Excellenz!--Crooked will become straight? "Indeed if so, your Majesty, the sooner the better!" I ventured to answer. [Dubourgay, 8th January, 1730.]

New Year's day is not well in, and the ceremonial wishes over, when Friedrich Wilhelm, his mind full of serious domestic and foreign matter, withdraws to Potsdam again; and therefrom begins fulminating in a terrible manner on his womankind at Berlin, what we called his Female Parliament,--too much given to opposition courses at present. Intends to have his measures passed there, in defiance of opposition; straightway; and an end put to this inexpressible Double-Marriage higgle-haggle. Speed to him! we will say.--Three high Crises occur, three or even four, which can now without much detail be made intelligible to the patient reader: on the back of which we look for some catastrophe and finis to the Business;--any catastrophe that will prove a finis, how welcome will it be!

WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS FIRST: ENGLAND SHALL SAY YES OR SAY NO.

Still early in January, a few days after his Majesty's return to Potsdam, three high Official gentlemen, Count Fink van Finkenstein, old Tutor to the Prince, Grumkow and General Borck announce themselves one morning; "Have a pressing message from the King to her Majesty." [Wilhelmina, i. 180.] Queen is astonished; expecting anything sooner.--"This regards me, I have a dreading!" shuddered Wilhelmina to Mamma. "No matter," said the Queen, shrugging her shoulders; "one must have firmness; and that is not what I shall want;"--and her Majesty went into the Audience-chamber, leaving Wilhelmina in such tremors.

Finkenstein, a friendly man, as Borck too is, explains to her Majesty, "That they three have received each a Letter overnight,--Letter from the King, enjoining in the FIRST place 'silence under pain of death;' in the SECOND place, apprising them that he, the King, will no longer endure her Majesty's disobedience in regard to the marriage of his Daughter, but will banish Daughter and Mother 'to Oranienburg,' quasi-divorce, and outer darkness, unless there be compliance with his sovereign will; THIRDLY, that they are accordingly to go, all three, to her Majesty, to deliver the enclosed Royal Autograph [which Finkenstein presents], testifying what said sovereign will is, and on the above terms expect her Majesty's reply;"--as they have now sorrowfully done, Finkenstein and Borck with real sorrow; Grumkow with the reverse of real.

Sovereign will is to the effect: "Write to England one other time, Will you at once marry, or not at once; Yea or No? Answer can be here within a fortnight; three weeks, even in case of bad winds. If the answer be not Yea at once; then you, Madam, you at once choose Weissenfels or Schwedt, one or the other,--under what penalties you know; Oranienburg and worse!"

Here is a crisis. But her Majesty did not want firmness. "Write to England? Yes, willingly. But as to Weissenfels and Schwedt, whatever answer come from England,--Impossible!" steadily answers her Majesty. There was much discourse, suasive, argumentative; Grumkow "quoting Scripture on her Majesty, as the Devil can on occasion," says Wilhelmina. Express Scriptures, Wives, be obedient to your husbands, and the like texts: but her Majesty, on the Scripture side too, gave him as good as he brought. "Did not Bethuel the son of Milcah, [Genesis xxiv. 14-58.] when Abraham's servant asked his daughter in marriage for young Isaac, answer, We will call the damsel and inquire of her mouth. And they called Rebecca, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go." Scripture for Scripture, Herr von Grumkow! "Wives must obey their husbands; surely yes. But the husbands are to command things just and reasonable. The King's procedure is not accordant with that law. He is for doing violence to my Daughter's inclination, and rendering her unhappy for the rest of her days;--will give her a brutal debauchee," fat Weissenfels, so describable in strong language; "a younger brother, who is nothing but the King of Poland's Officer; landless, and without means to live according to his rank. Or can it be the State that will profit from such a marriage? If they have a Household, the King will have to support it.--Write to England; Yes; but whatever the answer of England, Weissenfels never! A thousand times sooner see my child in her grave than hopelessly miserable!" Here a qualm overtook her Majesty; for in fact she is in an interesting state, third month of her time: "I am not well; You should spare me, Gentlemen, in the state I am in.--I do not accuse the King," concluded she: "I know," hurling a glance at Grumkow, "to whom I owe all this;"--and withdrew to her interior privacies; reading there with Wilhelmina "the King's cruel Letter," and weeping largely, though firm to the death. [Wilhelmina, i. 179-182. Dubourgay has nothing,--probably had heard nothing, there being "silence under pain of death" for the moment.]

What to do in such a crisis? Assemble the Female Parliament, for one thing: good Madam Finkenstein (old Tutor's wife), good Mamsell Bulow, Mamsell Sonsfeld (Wilhelmina's Governess), and other faithful women:--well if we can keep away traitresses, female spies that are prowling about; especially one "Ramen," a Queen's soubrette, who gets trusted with everything, and betrays everything; upon whom Wilhelmina is often eloquent. Never was such a traitress; took Dubourgay's bribe, which the Queen had advised; and, all the same, betrays everything,--bribe included. And the Queen, so bewitched, can keep nothing from her. Female Parliament must, take precautions about the Ramen!--For the rest, Female Parliament advises two things: 1. Pressing Letter to England; that of course, written with the eloquence of despair: and then 2. That in case of utter extremity, her Majesty "pretend to fall ill." That is Crisis First; and that is their expedient upon it.

Letter goes to England, therefore; setting forth the extremity of strait, and pinch: "Now or never, O my Sister Caroline!" Many such have gone, first and last; but this is the strongest of all. Nay the Crown-Prince too shall write to his Aunt of England: you, Wilhelmina, draw out, a fit brief Letter for him: send it to Potsdam, he will copy it there! [Wilhelmina, i. 183.] So orders the Mother: Wilhelmina does it, with a terrified heart; Crown-Prince copies without scruple: "I have already given your Majesty my word of honor never to wed any one but the Princess Amelia your Daughter; I here reiterate that Promise, in case your Majesty will consent to my Sister's Marriage,"--should that alone prove possible in the present intricacies. "We are all reduced to such a state that"--Wilhelmina gives the Letter in full; but as it is professedly of her own composition, a loose vague piece, the very date of which you have to grope out for yourself, it cannot even count among the several Letters written by the Crown-Prince, both before and after it, to the same effect, which are now probably all of them lost, [TRACE of one, Copy of ANSWER from Queen Caroline to what seems to have been one, Answer rather of dissuasive tenor, is in State-Paper Office: Prussian Despatches, vol. xl,--dateless; probably some months later in 1780.] without regret to anybody; and we will not reckon it worth transcribing farther. Such Missive, such two Missives (not now found in any archive) speed to England by express; may the winds be favorable. Her Majesty waits anxious at Berlin; ready to take refuge in a bed of sickness, should bad come to worse.

DUBOURGAY STRIKES A LIGHT FOR THE ENGLISH COURT.

In England, in the mean while, they have received a curious little piece of secret information. One Reichenbach, Prussian Envoy at London--Dubourgay has long marvelled at the man and at the news he sends to Berlin. Here, of date 17th January, 1730, is a Letter on that subject from Dubourgay, official but private as yet, for "George Tilson, Esq.:"--Tilson is Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, whose name often turns up on such occasions in the DUBOURGAY, the ROBINSON and other extinct Paper-heaps of that time. Dubourgay dates doubly, by old and new style; in general we print by the new only, unless the contrary be specified.

"TO GEORGE TILSON, ESQ. (Private.)

"BERLIN, 6th Jan. 1729 (by new style, 17th Jan. 1730).

"SIR,--I believe you may remember that we have for a long time suspected that most of Reichenbach's Despatches were dictated by some people here. About two days ago a Paper fell into my hands," realized quietly for a consideration, "containing an Account of money charged to the 'Brothers Jourdan and Lautiers,' Merchants here, by their Correspondent in London, for sending Letters from," properly in, or through, "your City to Reichenbach.

"Jourdan and Lautiers's London Correspondents are Mr. Thomas Greenhill in Little Bell Alley and Mr. John Motteux in St. Mary Axe. Mr. Guerin my Agent knows them very well; having paid them several little bills on my account:"--Better ask Mr. Guerin. "I know not through the hands of which of those Merchants the above-mentioned Letters have passed; but you have ways enough to find it out, if you think it worth while. I make no manner of doubt but Grumkow and his party make use of this conveyance to (SIC) their instructions to Reichenbach. In the Account which I have seen, 'eighteen-pence' is charged for carrying each Letter to Reichenbach: the charge in general is for 'Thirty-two Letters;' and refers to a former Account." So that they must have been long at it.

"I am, with the greatest truth,

"DUBOURGAY."

Here is a trail which Tilson will have no difficulty in running down. I forget whether it was in Bell Alley or St. Mary Axe that the nest was found; but found it soon was, and the due springes were set; and game came steadily dropping in,--Letters to and Letters from,--which, when once his Britannic Majesty had, with reluctance, given warrant to open and decipher them, threw light on Prussian Affairs, and yielded fine sport and speculation in the Britannic Majesty's Apartment on an evening.

This is no other than the celebrated "Cipher Correspondence between Grumkow and Reichenbach;" Grumkow covertly instructing his slave Reichenbach what the London news shall be: Reichenbach answering him, To hear is to obey! Correspondence much noised of in the modern Prussian Books; and which was, no doubt, very wonderful to Tilson and Company;--capable of being turned to uses, they thought. The reader shall see specimens by and by; and he will find it unimportant enough, and unspeakably stupid to him. It does show Grumkow as the extreme of subtle fowlers, and how the dirty-fingered Seckendorf and he cooked their birdlime: but to us that is not new, though at St. James's it was. Perhaps uses may lie in it there? At all events, it is a pretty topic in Queen Caroline's apartment on an evening; and the little Majesty and she, with various laughters and reflections, can discern, a little, How a poor King of Prussia is befooled by his servants, and in what way a fierce Bear is led about by the nose, and dances to Grumkow's piping. Poor soul, much of his late raging and growling, perhaps it was only Grumkow's and not his! Does not hate us, he, perhaps; but only Grumkow through him? This doleful enchantment, and that the Royal Wild Bear dances only to tunes, ought to be held in mind, when we want anything with him.--Those, amid the teheeings, are reflections that cannot escape Queen Caroline and her little George, while the Prussian Express, unknown to them, is on the road.

WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS SECOND: ENGLAND SHALL HAVE SAID NO.

The Prussian Express, Queen Sophie's Courier to England, made his best speed: but he depends on the winds for even arriving there; and then he depends on the chances for an answer there; an uncertain Courier as to time: and it was not in the power of speed to keep pace with Friedrich Wilhelm's impatience. "No answer yet?" growls Friedrich Wilhelm before a fortnight is gone. "No answer?"--and January has not ended till a new Deputation of the same Three Gentlemen, Finkenstein, Borck, Grumkow, again waits on the Queen, for whom there is now this other message. "Wednesday, 25th January, 1730," so Dubourgay dates it; so likewise Wilhelmina, right for once: "a day I shall never forget," adds she.

Finkenstein and Borck, merciful persons, and always of the English party, were again profoundly sorry. Borck has a blaze of temper in him withal; we hear he apprised Grumkow, at one point of the dialogue, that he, Grumkow, was a "scoundrel," so Dubourgay calls it,--which was one undeniable truth offered there that day. But what can anything profit? The Message is: "Whatever the answer now be from England, I will have nothing to do with it. Negative, procrastinative, affirmative, to me it shall be zero. You, Madam, have to choose, for Wilhelmina, between Weissenfels and Schwedt; otherwise I myself will choose: and upon you and her will alight Oranienburg, outer darkness, and just penalties of mutiny against the Authority set over you by God and men. Weissenfels or Schwedt: choose straightway." This is the King's message by these Three.

"You can inform the King," replied her Majesty, [Wilhelmina, i. 188.] "that he will never make me consent to render my Daughter miserable; and that, so long as a breath of life (UN SOUFFLE DE VIE) remains in me, I will not permit her to take either the one or the other of those persons." "Is that enough? For you, Sir," added her Majesty, turning to Grumkow, "for you, Sir, who are the author of my misfortunes, may my curse fall upon you and your house! You have this day killed me. But I doubt not, Heaven will hear my prayer, and avenge these wrongs." [Dubourgay, 28th January, 1730; Wilhelmina, i. 188 (who suppresses the maledictory part).]--And herewith to a bed of sickness, as the one refuge left!

Her Majesty does now, in fact, take to bed at Berlin; "fallen very ill," it would appear; which gives some pause to Friedrich Wilhelm till he ascertain. "Poorly, for certain," report the Doctors, even Friedrich Wilhelm's Doctor. The humane Doctors have silently given one another the hint; for Berlin is one tempest of whispers about her Majesty's domestic sorrows, "Poorly, for interesting reasons:--perhaps be worse before she is better, your Majesty!"--"Hmph!" thinks Friedrich Wilhelm out at Potsdam. And then the treacherous Ramen reports that it is all shamming; and his Majesty, a Bear, though a loving one, is driven into wrath again; and so wavers from side to side.

It is certain the Queen held, faster or looser, by her bed of sickness, as a main refuge in these emergencies: the last shift of oppressed womankind;--sanctioned by Female Parliament, in this instance. "Has had a miscarriage!" writes Dubourgay, from Berlin gossip, at the beginning of the business. Nay at one time she became really ill, to a dangerous length; and his Majesty did not at first believe it; and then was like to break his heart, poor Bear; aud pardoned Wilhelmina and even Fritz, at the Mother's request,--till symptoms mended again. [Wilhelmina, i. 207.] JARNI-BLEU, Herr Seckendorf, "Grumkow serves us honorably (DIENET EHRLICH)"--does not he!--Ambiguous bed of sickness, a refuge in time of trouble, did not quite terminate till May next, when her Majesty's time came; a fine young Prince the result; [23d May, 1730, August Ferdinand; her last child.] and this mode of refuge in trouble ceased to be necessary.

WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS THIRD: MAJESTY HIMSELF WILL CHOOSE, THEN.

Directly on the back of that peremptory act of disobedience by the womankind on Wednesday last, Friedrich Wilhelm came to Berlin himself. He stormfully reproached his Queen, regardless of the sick-bed; intimated the infallible certainty, That Wilhelmina nevertheless would wed without delay, and that either Weissenfels or Schwedt would be the man. And this said, he straightway walked out to put the same in execution.

Walked, namely, to the Mother Margravine of Schwedt, the lady in high colors, Old Dessauer's Sister; and proposed to her that Wilhelmina should marry her Son.--"The supreme wish of my life, your Majesty," replied she of the high colors: "But, against the Princess's own will, how can I accept such happiness? Alas, your Majesty, I never can!"--and flatly refused his Majesty on those terms: a thing Wilhelmina will ever gratefully remember of her. [Wilhelmina, i. 197.]

So that the King is now reduced to Weissenfels; and returns still more indignant to her Majesty's apartment. Weissenfels, however, it shall be; and frightful rumors go that he is written to, that he is privately coming, and that there will be no remedy. [Wilhelmina, i. 197.] Wilhelmina, formerly almost too florid, is gone to a shadow; "her waist hardly half an ell;" worn down by these agitations. The Prince and she, if the King see either of them,--it is safer to run, or squat behind screens.

HOW FRIEDRICH PRINCE OF BAIREUTH CAME TO BE THE MAN, AFTER ALL.

In this high wind of extremity, the King now on the spot and in such temper, Borck privately advises, "That her Majesty bend a little,--pretend to give up the English connection, and propose a third party, to get rid of Weissenfels."--"What third party, then?"--"Well, there is young Brandenburg-Culmbach, for example, Heir-Apparent of Baireuth; Friedrich, a handsome enough young Prince, just coming home from the Grand Tour, we hear; will have a fine Territory when his Father dies: age is suitable; old kinship with the House, all money-quarrels settled eight or ten years ago: why not him?"--"Excellent!" said her Majesty; and does suggest him to the King, in the next Schwedt-Weissenfels onslaught. Friedrich Wilhelm grumbles an assent, "Well, then:--but I will be passive, observe; not a GROSCHEN of Dowry, for one thing!"--

And this is the first appearance of the young Margraf Friedrich, Heir-Apparent of Baireuth; who comes in as a hypothetic figure, at this late stage;--and will carry off the fair prize, as is well known. Still only doing the Grand Tour; little dreaming of the high fortune about to drop into his mouth. So many wooers, "four Kings" among them, suing in vain; him, without suing, the Fates appoint to be the man.

Not a bad young fellow at all, though no King. Wilhelmina, we shall find, takes charmingly to him, like a good female soul; regretless of the Four Kings;--finds her own safe little island there the prettiest in the world, after such perils of drowning in stormy seas.--Of his Brandenburg genealogy, degree of cousinship to Queen Caroline of England, and to the lately wedded young gentleman of Anspach Queen Caroline's Nephew, we shall say nothing farther, having already spoken of it, and even drawn an abstruse Diagram of it, [Antea, vol. v. p. 309c.] sufficient for the most genealogical reader. But in regard to that of the peremptory "Not a GROSCHEN of Dowry" from Friedrich Wilhelm (which was but a bark, after all, and proved the reverse of a bite, from his Majesty), there may a word of explanation be permissible.

The Ancestor of this Baireuth Prince Friedrich,--as readers knew once, but doubtless have forgotten again,--was a Younger Son; and for six generations so it stood: not till the Father of this Friedrich was of good age, and only within these few years, did the Elder branch die out, and the Younger, in the person of said Father, succeed to Baireuth. Friedrich's Grandfather, as all these progenitors had done, lived poorly, like Cadets, on apanages and makeshifts.

So that the Young Prince's Father, George Friedrich, present incumbent, as we may call him, of Baireuth, found himself--with a couple of Brothers he has, whom also we may transiently see by and by--in very straitened circumstances in their young years. THEIR Father, son of younger sons as we saw, was himself poor, and he had Fourteen of them as family. Now, in old King Friedrich I.'s time, it became apparent, as the then reigning Margraf of Baireuth's children all died soon after birth, that one of these necessitous Fourteen was likely to succeed in Baireuth, if they could hold out. Old King Friedrich thereupon said, "You have chances of succession; true enough,--but nobody knows what will become of that. Sell your chance to me, who am ultimate Heir of all: I will give you a round sum,--the little 'Domain of Weverlingen' in the Halberstadt Country, and say 'Half a Million Thalers;' there you can live comfortably, and support your Fourteen Children,"--"Done," said the necessitous Cousin; went to Weverlingen accordingly; and there lived the rest of his days, till 1708; leaving his necessitous Fourteen, or about Ten of them that were alive and growing up, still all minors, and necessitous enough.

The young men, George Friedrich at the top of them, kept silence in Weverlingen, and conformed to Papa; having nothing to live upon elsewhere. But they had their own thoughts; especially as their Cousin of Baireuth was more and more likely to die childless. And at length, being in the Kaiser's service as soldiers some of them, and having made what interest was feasible, they, early in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, burst out. That is to say, appealed to the REICHSHOFRATH (Imperial Aulic Council at Vienna; chief Court of the Empire in such cases); openly protesting there, That their Papa had no power to make such a bargain, selling their birthright for immediate pottage; and that, in brief, they would not stand by it at all;--and summoned Friedrich Wilhelm to show cause why they should.

Long lawsuit, in consequence; lengthy law-pleadings, and much parchment and wiggery, in that German Triple-Elixir of Chancery;--little to the joy of Friedrich Wilhelm. Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first, was fairness itself: "Pay me back the money; and let it be, in all points, as you say!" answered Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first. Alas, the money was eaten; how could the money be paid back? The Reichshofrath dubitatively shook its wig, for years: "Bargain bad in Law; but Money clearly repayable: the Money was and is good;--what shall be done about the Money!" At length, in 1722, Friedrich Wilhelm, of himself, settled with this present Margraf, then Heir-Presumptive, How, by steady slow instalments, it could be possible, from the revenues of Baireuth, thriftily administered, to pay back that Half-Million and odd Thalers; and the now Margraf, ever since his accession in 1726, has been annually doing it. So that there is, at this time, nothing but composed kinship and friendship between the two Courts, the little and the big: only Friedrich Wilhelm, especially with his will crossed in this matter of the Baireuth Marriage, thinks to himself, "Throw more money into such a gulf? The 600,000 Thalers had better be got out first!" and says, he will give no Dowry at all, nor take any charge, not so much as give away the Bride, but be passive in the matter.

Queen Sophie, delighted to conquer Grumkow at any rate, is charmed with this notion of Baireuth; and for a moment forgets all other considerations: Should England prove slack and fail, what a resource will Baireuth be, compared with Weissenfels! And Wilhelmina entering, her Majesty breaks forth into admiration over the victory, or half-victory, just gained: What a husband for you this, my dear, in comparison! And as Wilhelmina cannot quite join in the rapture on a sudden; and cannot even consent, unless Papa too give his real countenance to the match, Mamma flies out upon the poor young Lady: [Wilhelmina, i. 201.] "Take the Grand Turk or the Great Mogul, then," said the Queen, "and follow your own caprice! I should not have brought so many sorrows on myself, had I known you better. Follow the King's bidding, then; it is your own affair. I will no longer trouble myself about your concerns;--and spare me, please, the sorrow of your odious presence, for I cannot stand it!" Wilhelmina wished to reply, but the answer was, "Silence! Go, I tell you!" "And I retired all in tears."

"All in tears." The Double-Marriage drifting furiously this long while, in such a sea as never was; and breakers now Close a-lee,--have the desperate crew fallen to staving-in the liquor-casks, and quarrelling with one another?--Evident one thing is, her Majesty cannot be considered a perfectly wise Mother! We shall see what her behavior is, when Wilhelmina actually weds this respectable young Prince. Ungrateful creature, to wish Papa's consent as well as mine! that is the maternal feeling at this moment; and Wilhelmina weeps bitterly, as one of the unluckiest of young Ladies.

Nay, her Brother himself, who is sick of this permanent hurricane, and would fain see the end of it at any price, takes Mamma's part; and Wilhelmina and he come to high words on the matter. This was the unkindest cut of all:--but, of course, this healed in a day. Poor Prince, he has his own allowance of insults, disgraces, blows; has just been found out in some plan, or suspicion of a plan; found out to be in debt at least, and been half miraculously pardoned;--and, except, in flight, he still sees no deliverance ahead. Five days ago, 22d January, 1730, there came out a Cabinet-Order (summary Act of Parliament, so to speak) against "lending money to Princes of the Blood, were it even to the Prince-Royal." A crime and misdemeanor, that shall now be; and Forfeiture of the Money is only part of the penalty, according to this Cabinet-Order. Rumor is, the Crown-Prince had purchased a vehicle and appurtenances at Leipzig, and was for running off. Certainty is, he was discovered to have borrowed 1,000 Thalers from a certain moneyed man at Berlin (money made from French scrip, in Mississippi Law's time);--which debt Friedrich Wilhelm instantly paid. "Your whole debt, then, is that? Tell me the whole!"--"My whole debt," answered the Prince; who durst not own to about 9,000 other Thalers (1,500 pounds) he has borrowed from other quarters, first and last. Friedrich Wilhelm saw perhaps some premonition of flight, or of desperate measures, in this business; and was unexpectedly mild: paid the 1,000 Thalers instantly; adding the Cabinet-Order against future contingencies. [Ranke, i. 296; Forster, &c.] The Prince was in this humor when he took Mamma's side, and redoubled Wilhelmina's grief.

DOUBLE-MARRIAGE, ON THE EDGE OF SHIPWRECK, FLIES OFF A KIND OF CARRIER-PIGEON, OR NOAH'S-DOVE, TO ENGLAND, WITH CRY FOR HELP.

Faithful Mamsell Bulow consoles the Princess: "Wait, I have news that will put her Majesty in fine humor!"--And she really proved as good as her word. Her news is, Dubourgay and Knyphausen, in this extremity of pinch, have decided to send off not letters merely; but a speaking Messenger to the English Court. One Dr. Villa; some kind of "English Chaplain" here, [Wilhelmina, i. 203; Dubourgay's Despatch, 28th January, 1730.] whose chief trade is that he teaches Wilhelmina English; Rev. Dr. Villa, who honors Wilhelmina as he ought, shall be the man. Is to go instantly; will explain what the fatal pass we are reduced to is, and whether Princess Wilhelmina is the fright some represent her there or not.

Her Majesty is overjoyed to hear it: who would not be? Her Majesty "writes Letters" of the due vehemency, thinks Wilhelmina,--dare not write at all, says Dubourgay;--but loads Villa with presents, with advices; with her whole heart speeds him under way. "Dismissed, turned off for some fault or other--or perhaps because the Princess knows enough of English?" so the rumor goes, in Villa's Berlin circle.

"The Chaplain set out with his despatches," says Wilhelmina, who does not name him, but is rather eloquent upon his errand; "loaded with presents from the Queen. On taking leave of me he wept warm tears. He said, saluting in the English fashion,"--I hope with bended knee, and the maiden's fingers at his lips--"'He would deny his Country, if it did not do its duty on this occasion.'" And so hastened forth on his errand. Like a Carrier-Pigeon sent in extremity;--like Noah's-Dove in the Deluge: may he revisit our perishing Ark with Olive in his bill!

END OF BOOK VI.

======================================================================== VOLUME 07 — Project Gutenberg #2107 ========================================================================

Produced by D.R. Thompson

HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle

Volume VII.

BOOK VII. -- FEARFUL SHIPWRECK OF THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT. -- Feb.-Nov., 1730.

Chapter I. -- ENGLAND SENDS THE EXCELLENCY HOTHAM TO BERLIN.

Things, therefore, are got to a dead-lock at Berlin: rebellious Womankind peremptorily refuse Weissenfels, and take to a bed of sickness; inexpugnable there, for the moment. Baireuth is but a weak middle term; and there are disagreements on it. Answer from England, affirmative or even negative, we have yet none. Promptly affirmative, that might still avail, and be an honorable outcome. Perhaps better pause till that arrive, and declare itself?--Friedrich Wilhelm knows nothing of the Villa mission, of the urgencies that have been used in England: but, in present circumstances, he can pause for their answer.

Majesty And Crown-Prince With Him Make A Run To Dresden

To outward appearance, Friedrich Wilhelm, having written that message to Baireuth, seems easier in mind; quiet with the Queen; though dangerous for exploding if Wilhelmina and the Prince come in view. Wilhelmina mostly squats; Prince, who has to be in view, gets slaps and strokes "daily (JOURNELLEMENT)," says the Princess,--or almost daily. For the rest, it is evident enough, Weissenfels, if not got passed through the Female Parliament, is thrown out on the second reading, and so is at least finished. Ought we not to make a run to Dresden, therefore, and apprise the Polish Majesty? Short run to Dresden is appointed for February 18th; [Fassmann, p. 404.] and the Prince-Royal, perhaps suspected of meditating something, and safer in his Father's company than elsewhere, is to go. Wilhelmina had taken leave of him, night of the 17th, in her Majesty's Apartment; and was in the act of undressing for bed, when,--judge of a young Princess's terror and surprise,--

"There stept into the anteroom," visible in the half-light there, a most handsome little Cavalier, dressed, not succinctly as Colonel of the Potsdam Giants, but "in magnificent French style.--I gave a shriek, not knowing who it was; and hid myself behind a screen. Madam de Sonsfeld, my Governess, not less frightened than myself, ran out" to see what audacious person, at such undue hour, it could be. "But she returned next moment, accompanying the Cavalier, who was laughing heartily, and whom I recognized for my Brother. His dress so altered him, he seemed a different person. He was in the best humor possible.

"'I am come to bid you farewell once more, my dear Sister,' said he: 'and as I know the friendship you have for me, I will not keep you ignorant of my designs. I go, and do not come back. I cannot endure the usage I suffer; my patience is driven to an end. It is a favorable opportunity for flinging off that odious yoke; I will glide out of Dresden, and get across to England; where I do not doubt I shall work out your deliverance too, when I am got thither. So I beg you, calm yourself, We shall soon meet again in places where joy shall succeed our tears, and where we shall have the happiness to see ourselves in peace, and free from these persecutions.'" [Wilhelmina, i. 205.]

Wilhelmina stood stupefied, in silence for some moments;--argued long with her Brother; finally got him to renounce those wild plans, or at least postpone them; and give her his word that he would attempt nothing on the present occasion. This small Dresden Excursion of February, 1730, passed, accordingly, without accident, It was but the prelude to a much grander Visit now agreed upon between the neighboring Majesties. For there is a grand thing in the wind. Something truly sublime, of the scenic-military kind, which has not yet got a name; but shall soon have a world-wide one,--"Camp of Muhlberg," "Camp of Radewitz," or however to be named,--which his Polish Majesty will hold in those Saxon parts, in a month or two. A thing that will astonish all the world, we may hope; and where the King and Prince of Prussia are to attend as chief guests.

It was during this brief absence in February, or directly after Friedrich Wilhelm had returned, that Queen Sophie had that fit of real sickness we spoke of. Scarcely was his Majesty got home, when the Queen, rather ambiguous in her sicknesses of late, fell really and dangerously ill: so that Friedrich Wilhelm, at last recognizing it for real, came hurrying in from Potsdam; wept loud and abundantly, poor man; declared in private, "He would not survive his Feekin;" and for her sake solemnly pardoned Wilhelmina, and even Fritz,--till the symptoms mended. [Wilhelmina, i. 306.]

HOW VILLA WAS RECEIVED IN ENGLAND.

Meanwhile Dr. Villa, in England, has sped not ill. Villa's eloquence of truth; the Grumkow-Reichenbach Correspondence in St. Mary Axe: these two things produce their effect. These on the one hand; and then on the other, certain questionable aspects of Fleury, after that fine Soissons Catastrophe to the Kaiser; and certain interior quarrels in the English Ministry, partly grounded thereon:--"On the whole, why should not we detach Friedrioh Wilhelm from the Kaiser, if we could, and comply with a Royal Sister?" think they at St. James's.

Political men take some interest in the question; "Why neglect your Prince of Wales?" grumbles the Public: "It is a solid Protestant match, eligible for Prince Fred and us!"--"Why bother with the Kaiser and his German puddles?" asks Walpole: "Once detach Prussia from him, the Kaiser will perhaps sit still, and leave the world and us free of his Pragmatics and his Sanctions and Apanages."--"Quit of him? German puddles?" answers Townshend dubitatively,--who has gained favor at headquarters by going deeply into said puddles; and is not so ardent for the Prussian Match; and indeed is gradually getting into quarrel with Walpole and Queen Caroline. [Coxe, i. 332-339.] These things are all favorable to Dr. Villa.

In fact, there is one of those political tempests (dreadful to the teapot, were it not experienced in them) going on in England, at this time,--what we call a Change of Ministry;--daily crisis laboring towards fulfilment, or brewing itself ripe. Townshend and Walpole have had (how many weeks ago Coxe does not tell us) that meeting in Colonel Selwyn's, which ended in their clutching at swords, nay almost at coat-collars: [Ib. p. 335.] honorable Brothers-in-law: but the good Sister, who used to reconcile them, is now dead. Their quarrels, growing for some years past, are coming to a head. "When the firm used to be Townshend and Walpole, all was well; when it had to become Walpole and Townshend, all was not well!" said Walpole afterwards.

Things had already gone so far, that Townshend brought Chesterfield over from the Hague, last Autumn;--a Baron de Montesquieu, with the ESPRIT DE LOIS in his head, sailed with Lord Chesterfield on that occasion, and is now in England "for two years;"--but Chesterfield could not be made Secretary; industrious Duke of Newcastle stuck so close by that office, and by the skirts of Walpole. Chesterfield and Townshend VERSUS Walpole, Colonel Stanhope (Harrington) and the Pelhams: the Prussian Match is a card in that game; and Dr. Villa's eloquence of truth is not lost on Queen Caroline, who in a private way manages, as always, to rule pretty supreme in it.

There lies in the State-Paper Office, [Close by Despatch (Prussian): "London, 8th February (o.s.) 1729-1730."] without date or signature, a loose detached bit of writing, in scholastic style, but brief and to the purpose, which is evidently the Memorial of Villa; but as it teaches us nothing that we do not already know, it need not be inserted here. The man, we can perceive farther, continued useful in those Official quarters, answering questions about Prussia, helping in the St.-Mary-Axe decipherings, and in other small ways, for some time longer; after which he vanishes again from all record,--whether to teach English farther, or live on some modicum of pension granted, no man knows. Poor old Dove, let out upon the Deluge in serge gown: he did bring back a bit of olive, so to speak;--had the presage but held, as it did in Noah's case!

In a word, the English Sovereignties and Ministries have determined that an Envoy Extraordinary (one Hotham, they think of), with the due solemnity, be sent straightway to Berlin; to treat of those interesting matters, and officially put the question there. Whom Dubourgay is instructed to announce to his Prussian Majesty, with salutation from this Court. As Dubourgay does straightway, with a great deal of pleasure. [Despatches: London, 8th February; Berlin, 2d March, 1780] How welcome to his Majesty we need not say.

And indeed, after such an announcement (1st March, 1730, the day of it), they fell into cheerful dialogue; and the Brigadier had some frank conversation with his Majesty about the "Arbitration Commission" then sitting at Brunswick, and European affairs in general. Conversation which is carefully preserved for us in the Brigadier's Despatch of the morrow. It never was intrinsically of much moment; and is now fallen very obsolete, and altogether of none: but as a glance at first-hand into the dim old thoughts of Friedrich Wilhelm, the reader may take it with him:--

"The King said next, That though we made little noise, yet he knew well our design--was to kindle a fire in other parts of Lower Germany. To which I answered, That if his Majesty would give me favorable hearing, I could easily persuade him of the peaceable intentions of our Allies. 'Well,' says he, 'the Emperor will abandon the Netherlands, and who will be master of them? I see the day when you will make France so powerful, that it will be difficult to bring them to reason again.'--DUBOURGAY: 'If the Emperor abandoned the Netherlands, they would be governed by their own Magistrate, and defended by their own Militia. As to the French, we are too well persuaded of the benefit of our Allies, to--' Upon which the King of Prussia said, 'It appeared plainly we had a mind to dispose as we pleased of Kingdoms and provinces in Italy, so that probably our next thought would be to do the same in Germany.'--DUBOURGAY: 'The allotments made in favor of Don Carlos have been made with the consent of the Emperor and the whole Empire. We could not suffer a longer interruption of our commerce with Spain, for the sake of the small difference between the Treaty of Seville and the Quadruple Alliance, in regard to the Garrison,'"--to the introducing of Spanish Garrisons, at once, into Parma and Piacenza; which was the special thunder-bolt of the late Soissons Catastrophe, or Treaty of Seville.--"'Well, then,' says his Prussian Majesty, 'you must allow, then, there IS an infraction of the Quadruple Alliance, and that the Emperor will make war!' 'I hope not,' said I: 'but if so, a Ten-Years War, in conjunction with the Allies of Seville, never would be so bad as the interruption of our Commerce with Old and New Spain for one year.'

"The King of Prussia's notion about our DISPOSING OF PROVINCES IN GERMANY," adds Dubourgay, "is, I believe, an insinuation of Seckendorf, who, I doubt not, has made him believe we intended to do so with respect to Berg and Julich."

Very probably:--but Hotham is getting under way, hopeful to spoil that game. Prussian Majesty, we see, is not insensible to so much honor; and brightens into hopefulness and fine humor in consequence. What radiancy spread over the Queen's side of the House we need not say. The Tobacco-Parliament is like to have a hard task.--Friedrich Wilhelm privately is well inclined to have his Daughter married, with such outlooks, if it can be done. The marriage of the Crown-Prince into such a family would also be very welcome; only--only--There are considerations on that side. There are reasons; still more there are whims, feelings of the mind towards an unloved Heir-Apparent: upon these latter chiefly lie the hopes of Seckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament.

What the Tobacco-Parliament's specific insinuations and deliberations were, in this alarming interim, no Hansard gives us a hint. Faint and timid they needed, at first, to be; such unfavorable winds having risen, blowing off at a sad rate the smoke of that abstruse Institution.--"JARNI-BLEU!" snuffles the Feldzeugmeister to himself. But "SI DEUS EST NOBISCUM," as Grumkow exclaims once to his beautiful Reichenbach, or NOSTI as he calls him in their slang or cipher language, "If God is with us, who can prevail against us?" For the Grumkow can quote Scripture; nay solaces himself with it, which is a feat beyond what the Devil is competent to.

EXCELLENCY HOTHAM ARRIVES IN BERLIN.

The Special Envoy to be sent to Berlin on this interesting occasion is a dignified Yorkshire Baronet; Sir Charles Hotham, "Colonel of the Horse-Grenadiers;" he has some post at Court, too, and is still in his best years. His Wife is Chesterfield's Sister; he is withal a kind of soldier, as we see;--a man of many sabre-tashes, at least, and acquainted with Cavalry-Drill, as well as the practices of Goldsticks: his Father was a General Officer in the Peterborough Spanish Wars. These are his eligibilities, recommending him at Berlin, and to Official men at home. Family is old enough: Hothams of Scarborough in the East Riding; old as WILHELMUS BASTARDUS; and subsists to our own day. This Sir Charles is lineal Son of the Hothams who lost their heads in the Civil War; and he is, so to speak, lineal UNCLE of the Lords Hotham that now are. For the rest, a handsome figure, prompt in French, and much the gentleman. So far has Villa sped.

Hotham got to Berlin on Sunday, 2d April, 1730. He had lingered a little, waiting to gather up some skirts of that Reichenbach-Grumkow Correspondence, and have them ready to show in the proper Quarter. For that is one of the chief arrows in his quiver. But here he is at last: and on Monday, he is introduced at Charlottenburg to the Prussian Majesty; and finds an abundant welcome to himself and his preliminaries. "Marriage into that fine high Country (MAGNIFIKE LAND) will be welcome to my Daughter, I believe, as flowers in May: to me also how can it be other than welcome!--'Farther instructions,' you say? Yes, surely; and terms honorable on both sides. Only say nothing of it, I had rather tell the girl myself." [Ranke, i. 284.] To that frank purport spoke his Majesty;--and invites the Excellency Hotham to stay dinner.

Great dinner at Charlottenburg, accordingly; Monday, 3d April, 1730: the two English Excellencies Hotham and Dubourgay, then General Borck, Knyphausen, Grumkow, Seckendorf and others;--"where," says Hotham, giving Despatch about it, "we all got immoderately drunk." Of which dinner there is sordid narrative, from Grumkow to his NOSTI (to his Reichenbach, in cant speech), still visible through St. Mary Axe, were it worth much attention from us. Passages of wit, loaded with allusion, flew round the table: "A German ducat is change for an English half-guinea," and the like sprightly things. Nay at one time, Hotham's back being turned, they openly drink,--his Majesty in a state of exhilaration, having blabbed the secret:--"To the health of Wilhelmina Princess of Wales!" Upon which the whole Palace of Charlottenburg now bursts into tripudiation; the very valets cutting capers, making somersets,--and rushing off with the news to Berlin. Observable, only, that Hotham and Dubourgay sat silent in the tripudiation; with faces diplomatically grave. Several points to be settled first; no hallooing till we are out of the wood.

News came to Berlin Schloss, doubtless at full gallop, which would only take a quarter of an hour. This is Wilhelmina's experience of it. Afternoon of Monday, 3d of April, 1730, in the Schloss of Berlin,--towards sunset, some ornamental seam in one's hand:--

"I was sitting quiet in my Apartment, busy with work, and some one reading to me, when the Queen's Ladies rushed in, with a torrent of domestics in the rear; who all bawled out, putting one knee to the ground, 'They were come to salute the Princess of Wales.' I fairly believed these poor people had lost their wits; they would not cease overwhelming me with noise and tumult, their joy was so great they knew not what they did. When the farce had lasted some time, they at last told me"--what our readers know. What the demure Wilhelmina professes she cared next to nothing about. "I was so little moved by it, that I answered, going on with my work, 'Is that all?' Which greatly surprised them. A while afterwards my Sisters and several Ladies came also to congratulate me. I was much loved; and I felt more delighted at the proofs each gave me of that than at what occasioned them. In the evening I went to the Queen's: you may readily conceive her joy. On my first entrance, she called me 'her dear Princess of Wales;' and addressed Madam de Sonsfeld as 'Milady.' This latter took the liberty of hinting to her, that it would be better to keep quiet; that the King having yet given no notice of this business, might be provoked at such demonstration, and that the least trifle could still ruin all her hopes. The Countess Finkenstein joining her remonstrances to Sonsfeld's, the Queen, though with regret, promised to moderate herself." [Wilhelmina, i. 215.]

This is the effulgent flaming-point of the long-agitated English Match, which we have so often caught in a bitterly smoking condition. "The King indeed spoke nothing of it to us, on his return to Berlin in a day or two," says Wilhelmina; "which we thought strange." But everybody considered it certain, nothing but the details left to settle. "Hotham had daily conferences with the King." "Every post brought letters from the Prince of Wales:" of which Wilhelmina saw several,--this for one specimen, general purport of the whole: "I conjure you, my dear Hotham, get these negotiations finished! I am madly in love (AMOUREUX COMME UN FOU), and my impatience is unequalled." [Ib. i. 218.] Wilhelmina thought these sentiments "very, romantic" on the part of Prince Fred, "who had never seen me, knew me only by repute:"--and answered his romances and him with tiffs of laughter, in a prettily fleecing manner.

Effulgent flame-point;--which was of very brief duration indeed, and which sank soon into bitterer smoke than ever, down almost to the choking state. There are now six weeks of Diplomatic History at the Court of Berlin, which end far otherwise than they began. Weeks well-nigh indecipherable; so distracted are they, by black-art and abstruse activities above ground and below, and so distractedly recorded for us: of which, if it be humanly possible, we must try to convey some faint notion to mankind.

Chapter II. -- LANGUAGE OF BIRDS: EXCELLENCY HOTHAM PROVES UNAVAILING.

Already next morning, after that grand Dinner at Charlottenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, awakening with his due headache, thought, and was heard saying, He had gone too far! Those gloomy looks of Hotham and Dubourgay, on the occasion; they are a sad memento that our joyance was premature. The English mean the Double-Marriage; and Friedrich Wilhelm is not ready, and never fairly was, for more than the Single. "Wilhelmina Princess of Wales, yes with all my heart; but Friedrich to an English Princess--Hm, na;"--and in a day more: ["Instruction to his Ministers, 5th April," cited by Ranke, i. 285 n.] plainly "No." And there it finally rests; or if rocked about, always settles there again.

And why, No?--Truly, as regarded Crown-Prince Friedrich's marriage, the question had its real difficulties: and then, still more, it had its imaginary; and the subterranean activities were busy! The witnesses, contemporaneous and other, assign three reasons, or considerations and quasi-reasons, which the Tobacco-Parliament and Friedrich Wilhelm's lively fancy could insist upon it till they became irrefragable:--

FIRST, his rooted discontent with the Crown-Prince, some even say his jealousy of the Crown-Prince's talents, render it unpleasant to think of promoting him in any way. SECOND, natural German loyalty, enlivened by the hope of Julich and Berg, attaching Friedrich Wilhelm to the Kaiser's side of things, repels him with a kind of horror from the Anti-Kaiser or French-English side. "Marry my Daughter, if you like; I shall be glad to salute her as Princess of Wales; but no union in your Treaty-of-Seville operations: in politics go you your own road, if that is it, while I go mine; no tying of us, by Double or other Marriages, to go one road." THIRD, the magnificence of those English. "Regardless of expense," insinuates the Tobacco-Parliament; "they will send their grand Princess hither, with no end of money; brought up in grandeur to look down on the like of us. She can dazzle, she can purchase: in the end, may there not be a Crown-Prince Party, capable of extinguishing your Majesty here in your own Court, and making Prussia a bit of England; all eyes being turned to such sumptuous Princess and her Crown-Prince,--Heir-Apparent, or 'Rising Sun' as we may call him!"--

These really are three weighty almost dreadful considerations to a poetic-tempered King and Smoking Parliament. Out of which there is no refuge except indeed this plain fourth one: "No hurry about Fritz's marriage; [Friedrich Wilhelm to Reichenbach (13th May), infra.] he is but eighteen gone; evidently too young for housekeeping. Thirty is a good time for marrying. 'There is, thank God, no lack of royal lineage; I have two other Princes,'"--and another just at hand, if I knew it.

To all which there is to be added that ever-recurring invincible gravitation towards the Kaiser, and also towards Julich and Berg, by means of him,--well acted on by the Tobacco-Parliament for the space of those six weeks. During which, accordingly, almost from the first day after that Hotham Dinner of April 3d, the answer of the royal mind, with superficial fluctuations, always is: "Wilhelmina at once, if you choose; likely enough we might agree about Crown-Prince Friedrich too, if once all were settled; but of the Double-Marriage, at this present time, HORE NIT, [Ranke, i. 285 n.] I will have nothing to say." And as the English answer steadily, "Both or none!"--meaning indeed to draw Prussia away from the Kaiser's leading-strings, and out of his present enchanted condition under the two Black-Artists he has about him, the Negotiation sinks again into a mere smoking, and extinct or plainly extinguishing state.

The Grumkow-NOSTI Cipher Correspondence might be reckoned as another efficient cause; though, in fact, it was only a big concomitant symptom, much depended on by both parties, and much disappointing both. In the way of persuading or perverting Friedrich Wilhelm's judgment about England, this deep-laid piece of machinery does not seem to have done much, if anything; and Hotham, who with the English Court had calculated on it (on their detection of it) as the grand means of blowing Grumkow out of the field, produced a far opposite result on trying, as we shall see! That was a bit of heavy ordnance which disappointed everybody. Seized by the enemy before it could do any mischief; enemy turned it round on the inventor; fired it off on the inventor, and--it exploded through the touch-hole; singeing some people's whiskers: nothing more!--

A PEEP INTO THE NOSTI-GRUMKOW CORRESPONDENCE CAUGHT UP IN ST. MARY AXE.

Would the reader wish to look into this Nosti-Grumkow Correspondence at all? I advise him, not. Good part of it still lies in the Paper-Office here; [Prussian Despatches, vols. xl. xli.: in a fragmentary state; so much of it as they had caught up, and tried to make use of;--far too much.] likely to be published by the Prussian Dryasdust in coming time: but a more sordid mass of eavesdroppings, kitchen-ashes and floor-sweepings, collected and interchanged by a pair of treacherous Flunkies (big bullying Flunky and little trembling cringing one, Grumkow and Reichenbach), was never got together out of a gentleman's household. To no idlest reader, armed even with barnacles, and holding mouth and nose, can the stirring-up of such a dust-bin be long tolerable. But the amazing problem was this Editor's, doomed to spell the Event into clearness if he could, and put dates, physiognomy and outline to it, by help of such Flunky-Sanscrit!--That Nosti-Grumkow Correspondence, as we now have it in the Paper-Office,--interpretable only by acres of British Despatches, by incondite dateless helpless Prussian Books ("printed Blotches of Human Stupor," as Smelfungus calls them): how gladly would one return them all to St. Mary Axe, there to lie through Eternity! It is like holding dialogue with a rookery; asking your way (perhaps in flight for life, as was partly my own case) by colloquy with successive or even simultaneous Rookeries. Reader, have you tried such a thing? An adventure, never to be spoken of again, when once DONE!

Wilhelmina pretends to give quotations [Wilhelmina, i. 233-235.] from this subterranean Grumkow-Reichenbach Correspondence; but hers are only extracts from some description or remembrance; hardly one word is close to the original, though here and there some outline or shadow of a real passage is traceable. What fractional elements, capable of gaining some vestige of meaning when laid together in their cosmic order, I could pick from the circumambient immensity not cosmic, are here for the reader's behoof. Let him skip, if, like myself, he is weary; for the substance of the story is elsewhere given. Or perhaps he has the curiosity to know the speech of birds? With abridgment, by occasional change of phrase, above all by immense omission,--here, in specimen, is something like what the Rookery says to poor Friedrich Wilhelm and us, through St. Mary Axe and the Copyists in the Foreign Office! Friedrich Wilhelm reads it (Hotham gives him reading of it) some weeks hence; we not till generations afterwards. I abridge to the utmost;--will mark in single commas what is not Abridgment but exact Translation;--with rigorous attention to dates, and my best fidelity to any meaning there may be:--

TO NOSTI (the so-called Excellenz Reichenbach) IN LONDON:

Gumkow from Berlin LOQUITUR, Reichenbach listening with both his ears (words caught up in St. Mary Axe).

BERLIN, 3d MARCH, 1730. "The time has now come when Reichenbach must play his game. Let him write that the heads of the Opposition, who play Austria as a card in Parliament, 'are in consternation, Walpole having hinted to them that he was about to make friends with the King of Prussia;' 'that by means of certain ministers at Berlin, and by other subterranean channels (AUTRES SOUTERRAINS), his Prussian Majesty had been brought to a disposition of that kind' [Knyphausen, Borck and others will be much obliged to Reichenbach for so writing!], That Reichenbach knows they intend sending a Minister to Berlin; but is certain enough, as perhaps they are, his Prussian Majesty will not let himself be lured or caught in the trap: but that the very rumor of its being possible for him to change" from Austria, "would be an infinite gain to the English Ministry,"--salvation of them, in fact, in the Parliamentary cockpit. "That they had already given out in the way of rumor, How sure they were of the Court of Berlin whenever it came to the point. That Reichenbach had tried to learn from 73 [An Indecipherable.] what the real result from Berlin was; and did not think it much, though the Walpole people," all hanging so perilously upon Prussia for their existence, 'affected a great gayety; and indeed felt what a gain it was even to have renewed the Negotiation with his Prussian Majesty.' Here is a King likely to get himself illuminated at first-hand upon English affairs; by Ministers lying abroad for him, and lying at home!--

'And so the King,' concludes Grumkow, 'will think Reichenbach is a witch (SORVIER) to be so well informed about all that, and will redouble the good opinion he has of Reichenbach. And so, if Reichenbach second my ideas, we will pack Borck and Knyphausen about their business; and will do the King faithful service,'--having, some of us, our private 500 pounds a year from Austria for doing it. 'The King perceives only too well that the Queen's sickness is but sham (MOMERIE): judge of the effect that has! I am yours entirely (TOUT A VOUS). I wait in great impatience to hear your news upon all this: for I inform you accurately how the land lies here; so that it only depends upon yourself to shine, and to pass for a miracle of just insight,'--"SORCIER," or witch at guessing mysteries, Grumkow calls it again. He continues in another Missive:--

BERLIN, 7th MARCH. (Let us give the original for a line or two): 'Queen Sophie will soon rise from her bed of sickness, were this marriage done; La Mere du Prince-Royal affecte toujours d'etre bien mal; mais des que l'affaire entre le Prince de Galles et la Princesse-Royale sera faite, on la verra bientot sur pied.' "It will behoove that Reichenbach signify to the Prince-Royal's Father that all this affair has been concocted at Berlin with Borck and by 71 [An Indecipherable.] with Knyphausen and 103. [An Indecipherable.] That they never lose sight of an alliance with the English Princess and the Prince of Prussia; and flatter themselves the Prince-Royal of Prussia will accompany the Princess-Royal," Wilhelmina, "on HER marriage there." "In a word, that all turns on this latter point," marriage of the PRINCE-Royal as well; and "that Villa has given so favorable a description of this Prince, that the English Princess will have him at what price soever. Nosti can also allege the affair of 100,"--whom we at last decipher to be LORD HARRINGTON, once Colonel Stanhope, of Soissons, of the Madrid Embassy, of the descent on Vigo; a distinguished new Lord, with whom Newcastle hopes to shove out Townshend,--"Lord Harrington, and the division among the Ministers:"--great question, Shall the firm be Townshend and Walpole, or Walpole and Townshend? just going on; brewing towards decision; in which the Prussian Double-Marriage is really a kind of card, and may by Nosti be represented as a trump card.

"The whole Town of Berlin said, This Villa was dismissed by order of the King, for he taught the eldest Princess English; but I see well it was Borck, 107, [An Indecipherable.] Knyphausen and Dubourgay that despatched him, to give a true picture of the situation here. And if Nosti has written to his Majesty to the same effect as he does to his Friend [Despatch to Majesty has not yet come under Friend's eye] on the Queen of England's views about the Prince-Royal of Prussia, it will answer marvellously (CELA VIENT A MERVEILLE). I have apprised Seckendorf of all that Nosti writes to me." 'For the rest, Nosti may perfectly assure himself that the King never will abandon Reichenbach; and if the Prince-Royal,' sudden Fate interfering, 'had the reins in his hand,--in that case, Seckendorf promises to Reichenbach, on the part of the Kaiser, all or more than all he can lose by the accession of the Prince. Monsieur Reichenbach may depend upon that.' [Prussian Despatches, vol. xl. The second of these two Letters is copied, we perceive, by VILLA; who transmits it to Hotham's Secretary at Berlin, with great hopes from it. Letter "unsigned," adds Villa (POINT SIGNEE). First was transmitted by Townshend.--Following are transmitted by &c. &c. It is in that way they have got into the State-Paper Office,--as ENCLOSURES in the varions Despatches that carried them out to Berlin to serve as Diplomatic Ammunition there.]

Slave Reichenbach at London, when this missive comes to hand, is busy copying scandal according to former instructions for behoof of his Prussian Majesty, and my Bashaw Grumkow; for example:--

TO THE HERR GRUMKOW AT BERLIN:

Excellenz Reichenbach LOQUITUR;--snatched in St. Mary Axe.

LONDON, 10th MARCH, 1730. "... Reichenbach has told his Prussian Majesty to-day by a Courier who is to pass through Brussels [Austrian Kinsky's Courier, no doubt], what amours the Prince of Wales," dissolute Fred, "has on hand at present with actresses and opera-girls. The King of Prussia will undoubtedly be astonished. The affair merits some attention at present,"--especially from an Excellenz like me.--

[MISSIVE (body of important Grumkow Instructions just read by us) COMES TO HAND.]

LONDON, 14th MARCH, 1730. 'Reichenbach will write by the first, Ordinary [so they name Post, in those days] all that Glumkow orders. Reichenbach sees well, they mean to play the deuce here (jouent le diable a quatre ici): but Reichenbach will tell his Prussian Majesty what Grumkow finds fit.' Good Excellenz Reichenbach 'flatters himself the King will remain firm, and not let his enemies deceive him. If Grumkow and Seckendorf have opportunity they may tell his Prussian Majesty that the whole design of this Court is to render his Country a Province dependent on England. When once the Princess-Royal of England shall be wedded to the Prince-Royal of Prussia, the English, by that means, will form such a party at Berlin, that they will altogether tie his Prussian Majesty's hands.' A comfortable piece of news to his Prussian Majesty in Tobacco-Parliament. 'Reichenbach will assuredly be vigilant; depend on his answering Grumkow always by the first post.'

Continues;--turning his rook-bill towards Majesty now. Same date (14th March), same time, place and bird:--

TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from Excellenz Reichenbach).

'... P.S. I had closed this Letter when a person of confidence came in [the fact being, my Grumkow's Missive of instructions came in, or figuratively speaking, my Grumkow himself], and undertook to give me in a few days a thorough insight into the intrigues which are concealed under the sending of this new Minister,' Hotham, 'to Berlin; which, and how they have been concocted, he says, it will astonish me to hear. Of all this I shall immediately inform your Majesty in a letter of my own hand; being ever eager to serve your Majesty alone.'

Hotham is now fairly gone, weeks ago; concluded to be now in Berlin,--to the horror of both rooks. Here is a croak from NOSTI:--

TO THE HERR GRUMKOW AT BERLIN.

LONDON, APRIL, 1730. "... Hotham is no such conjurer as they fancy in Berlin;--singular enough, how these English are given to undervalue the Germans; whilst we in Germany overvalue them" (avons une idee trop vaste, they trap petite). 'There is, for instance, Lord Chesterfield, passes here for a fair-enough kind of man (BON HOMME), and is a favorite with the King [not with Walpole or the Queen, if Nosti knew it]; but nobody thinks him such a prodigy as you all do in Germany,'--which latter bit of Germanism is an undoubted fact; curious enough to the English, and to the Germans that now read in extinct Books.

Hotham, as we said, got to Berlin on the 2d of April. From Berlin comes thereupon, at great length, sordid description by Grumkow, of that initiatory Hotham Dinner, April Third, with fearful details of the blazing favor Hotham is in. Which his Majesty (when Hotham hands it to him, in due time) will read with painful interest; as Reichenbach now does;--but which to us is all mere puddle, omissible in this place.

To which sad Strophe, there straightway follows due Anti-strophe, Reichenbach croaking responsive;--and we are to note, the rooks always speak in the third person and by ambiguous periphrasis; never once say "I" or "You," unless forced by this Editor, for brevity's sake, to do it. Reichenbach from his perch thus hoarsely chants:--

TO THE HERR GRUMKOW AT BERLIN.

LONDON, 11th APRIL. 'Reichenbach EST COUP-DE-FOUDRE,--is struck by lightning,--to hear these Berlin news;'--and expresses, in the style of a whipt dog, his sorrows, uncertainties and terrors, on the occasion. "Struck with lightning. Feel myself quite ill, and not in a condition to write much today. It requires another head than mine to veer round so often (changer si souvent de systame). In fine, Nosti est au bout de son latin (is at his wit's end, poor devil)! Both Majesties have spoken openly of the favorable news from Berlin; funds rose in consequence. New Minister [Walpole come to the top of the Firm, Townshend soon to withdraw, impatient of the bottom] is all-powerful now: O TEMPORA, O MORES!" "I receive universal congratulations, and have to smile" in a ghastly manner. "The King and Queen despise me. I put myself in their way last Levee, bowing to the ground; but they did not even condescend to look." 'Notre grand petit-maitre,' little George, the Olympian Jove of these parts, "passed on as if I had not been there." 'Chesterfield, they say, is to go, in great pomp, as Ambassador Extraordinary, and fetch the Princess over. And'--Alas, in short, Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I'm MEEserable!

LONDON, 14th APRIL. "Slave Reichenbaoh cannot any longer write secret Letters to his Prussian Majesty according to the old strain, of your prescribing; but must stand by his vacant Official Despatches: the scene being entirely changed, he also must change his manner of writing"--poor knave. "He will have to inform his Majesty, however, by and by, though it is not safe at present,"--for example,--'That his Britannic Majesty is becoming from day to day more hated by all the world; and that the Prince of Wales is no longer liked by the Public, as at first; because he begins to give himself airs, and takes altogether the manners of his Britannic Majesty, that is to say of a puppy (PETIT-MAITRE); let my Amiable [Grumkow] be aware of that'--

Yes, let him be aware of that, to his comfort,--and still more, and all readers along with him, of what follows:--

'Reichenbach likewise with great confidence informs the Greatest Confidant he has in the world [same amiable Glumkow], that he has discovered within this day or two,' a tremendous fact, known to our readers some time ago, 'That the Prince-Royal of Prussia has given his written assurances to the Queen here, Never to many anybody in the world except the Princess Amelia of England, happen what will [Prussian Majesty will read this with a terrible interest! Much nearer to him than it is to us]. In consideration of which Promise, the Queen of England is understood,' falsely, 'to have answered that they should, at present, ask only the Princess-Royal of Prussia for their Prince of Wales,' and let the Double-Marriage BE, seemingly, as his Prussian Majesty wishes it. 'Monsieur de Reichenbaoh, did not speak of this to his Prussian Majesty; feeling it too dangerous just now.--

'Lord Townshend is still at his place in the country [Rainham in Norfolk]: but it is said he will soon come to Town; having heard the great news that they had already got his Prussian Majesty by the nose. Reichenbach forgets if he already told Grumkow that the rumor runs, Lord Chesterfield, in quality of Ambassador to Berlin, is to bring the Princess Wilhelmina over hither:'--you did already, poor confused wretch; unusually bewildered, and under frightful eclipse at present.

Continues after four days:--

APRIL 18th. "... Lord Stratford [to me an unknown Lordship] and heads of Opposition would like to ascertain what Hotham's offer to the King of Prussia IS."

Truly, yes; they mean to ask in Parliament (as poor gamblers in that Cockpit are wont), 'And why did not you make the offer sooner, then? Friendship with his Prussian Majesty, last year, would have saved the whole of that large Waterspout about the Meadows of Clamei! Nay need we, a few months ago, have spent such loads of gold subsidizing those Hessians and Danes against him? The treasures of this Country go a strange road, Mr. Speaker! What is the use of our industries and riches?' Heavens, yes, what! But we continue to excerpt and interpret:--

Reichenbach "has said nothing of this to his Prussian Majesty, Reichenbach has not; too dangerous in own present down-pressed state:--though amazingly exact always in news, and attached to his Prussian Majesty as mortal seldom was. Need he fear their new Hotham, then? Does not fear Hotham, not he him, being a man so careful of truth in his news. Dare not, however, now send any intelligence about the Royal Family here; Prussian Majesty having ordered him not to write gossip like a spiteful woman: What is he to do? Instruct him, O my Amiable.

"Know for the rest, and be aware of it, O Amiable, that Queen Caroline here is of opinion, The Amiable Grumkow should be conciliated; and that Queen Sophie and Hotham are understood to have been trying it. Do not abandon me, O Amiable; nay I know you will not, you and Seckendorf, never, though I am a poor man.

"Have found out a curious story, HISTOIRE FORT CRIEUSE,--about one of Prince Fred's amourettes." Story which this Editor, in the name of the whole human species, will totally suppress, and sweep into the cesspool, to herald Reichenbach thither. Except only that this corollary by the Duchess of Kendal may be appended to the thing:--

"Duchess of Kendal [Hop-pole EMERITA, now gone to devotion, whom we know, piously turns up her eyes at such doings], thinks the Princess Wilhelmina will have a bad life of it with Fred, and that she 'will need the wisdom of Solomon to get on here.' Not a good bargain, this Prince Fred and his Sister. A dissolute fellow he, not liked by the Public" (I should hope). 'Then as to Princess Amelia, she, who was always haughty, begins to give herself airs upon the Prince-Royal of Prussia; she is as ill-tempered as her Father, and still more given to backbiting (PLUS RAILLEUSE), and will greatly displease the Potsdam Majesty.'

These are cheering thoughts. "But what is to become of Nosti? Faithful to his Grumkow, to his Seckendorf--to his pair of sheep-stealers, poor dog. But if trouble rise;--oh, at least do not hang me, ye incomparable pair!"--

THE HOTHAM DESPATCHES.

Slave Nosti's terrors, could he see behind the scenes, are without foundation! the tremendous Hotham Negotiation, all ablaze at that Charlottenburg Dinner, is sunk low enough into the smoking state, threatening to go out altogether. Smoke there may still be, perceptible vestiges of smoke; which indeed, for a long time, fitfully continued: but, at the time while Nosti, quaking in every joint of him, writes these terrors, Hotham perceives that his errand is vain; that properly there has as good as extinction supervened. April 3d was the flame-point; which lasted in its brightness only for a few days or hours. April is not gone, or half gone, when flaming has quite ceased, and the use of bellows, never so judicious, is becoming desperate: and long before the end of May, no red is to be seen in the affair at all, and the very bellows are laid down.

Here--are the epochs: riddled out of such a mass of extinct rubbish as human nature seldom had to deal with;--here are certain extracts in a greatly condensed state, from the authentic voluminous Hotham Despatches and Responses;--which may conveniently interrupt the Nosti Babblement at this point.

TO MY LORD TOWNSHEND AT LONDON:

Excellency Hotham LOQUITUR (in a greatly condensed form).

BERLIN, 12th APRIL, 1730. "... Of one or two noteworthy points I have to apprise your Lordship. So soon as his Majesty was sober, he found that he had gone too far at that grand dinner of Monday 3d; and was in very bad humor in consequence. Crown-Prince has written from Potsdam to his Sister, 'No doubt I am left here lest the English wind get at me (de peur que le vent anglais ne me touchat).' Saw King at Parade, who was a little vague; 'is giving matters his consideration.' Majesty has said to Borck and Knyphausen, 'If they want the Double-Marriage, and to detach me from the Kaiser, let them propose something about Julich and Berg.' Sits the wind in that quarter? King has said since, to one Marschall, a Private-Secretary who is in our interest: 'I hate my Son, and my Son hates me: we are best asunder;--let them make him STATTHALTER (Vice-regent) of Hanover, with his Princess!' Commission might be made out in the Princess Amelia's name; proper conditions tied, and so on:--Knyphausen suggests it could be done. Knyphausen is true to us; but he stands alone [not alone, but cannot much help]; does not even stir in the NOSTI or ST.-MARY-AXE Affair as yet."

Prince Friedrich to be STATTHALTER in Hanover with his English Princess? That would save the expense of an Establishment for him at home. That has been suggested by the Knyphausen or English party: and no doubt it looked flattering to his Prussian Majesty for moments. This may be called Epoch first, after that grand Charlottenburg Dinner.

Then as to the NOSTI Affair, in which Knyphausen "does not stir as yet,"--the fact is, it was only put into Knyphausen's hands the day before YESTERDAY, as we soon discover; and Knyphausen is not so sure about it as some are! That Hotham Despatch is of Wednesday, 12th April. And not till yesterday could Guy Dickens report performance of the other important thing. Captain Guy Dickens, a brisk handy military man, Secretary to Dubourgay this good while past, "Has duly received from Headquarters the successive NOSTI-GRUMKOW documents, caught up in St. Mary Axe; has now delivered them to Knyphausen, to be laid before his Prussian Majesty in a good hour; and would fain (Tuesday, April 11th) hope some result from this step." Not for almost a month does Hotham himself say anything of it to the Prussian Majesty, good hour for Knyphausen not having come. But now, in regard to that Hanover Statthaltership, hear Townshend,--condensed, but not nearly so much so, my Lord being a succinct man who sticks always creditably to the point:--

TO THE EXCELLENCY HOTHAM AT BERLIN (from Lord Townshend).

LONDON, 27th APRIL. "Yes, you shall have the Hanover Vice-regency. We will set up the Crown-Prince Friedrich in Hanover as desired; but will give the Commission to our own Princess, that being more convenient for several reasons: Crown-Prince, furthermore, must promise to come over to England when we require him; ITEM may repay us our expenses hereafter, As to Marriage-Portions, we will give none with our Princess, nor ask any with theirs. Both marriages or none." Ann so enough.

Alas, nothing came of this; Prussian Majesty, in spite of thrift, perceiving that, for several reasons, it would not do. Meanwhile Grumkow, we learn from a secret source, [NOSTI, supra (18th April), p. 185; infra, p. 101.] has been considerably courted by Botham and her Prussian Majesty; Queen Caroline having signified from England, That they ought to gain that knave,--what price did he charge for himself? But this also proves quite unavailing; never came to PRICING. And so,--hear Hotham once more:--

TO LORD TOWNSHEND AT LONDON (from Excellency Hotham).

BERLIN, 18th APRIL. "... Grumkow is a thorn in my side: one would like to do him some service in return." 'Cannot you stop an ORIGINAL Letter of his' (we have only deciphered Copies as yet) to that Reichenbach or NOSTI, 'strong enough to break his back?--They will try. Hotham continues in next Despatch:--

BERLIN, 22d APRIL. "Dined with the King again; Crown-Prince was present: dreadfully dejected,--'at which one cannot help being moved; there is something so engaging in the Prince, and everybody says so much good of him.'" Hear Hotham! Who again, three days after, says of our Fritz: 'If I am not much mistaken, this young Prince will one day make a very considerable figure.' "Wish we could manage the Marriage; but this Grumkow, this"--Cannot they contrive to send an ORIGINAL strong enough?

Alas, from the same secret source we learn, within a week, that Grumkow's back is very strong; the Tobacco-Parliament in full blast again, and Seckendorf's Couriers galloping to Vienna with the best news. Nay his Majesty looks expressly "sour upon Hotham," or does not look at all; will not even speak when he sees him;--for a reason we shall hear. [NOSTI, infra (29th April), p. 191.] can it, be thought that any liberality in use of the bellows or other fire-implements will now avail with his Majesty?

Second And Last Peep Into The Nosti-Grumkow Correspondence Caught Up In

SECOND AND LAST PEEP INTO THE NOSTI-GRUMKOW CORRESPONDENCE CAUGHT UP IN ST. MARY AXE.

But at this point let our Two Rooks recommence a little: Nosti, on the 18th, we left quaking in every joint of him;--and good news was almost at the door, had afflicted Nosti known it. Grumkow's strain (suppressed by us here), all this while, is in general, almost ever since the blaze of that Hotham Dinner went off into repentant headache: 'Pshaw, don't fear!' Nay after a fortnight or so, it is again: 'Steady! we are all right?' Tobacco-Parliament and the Royal Imagination making such progress. This is still but the third week since that grand Dinner at Charlottenburg:--

TO THE EXCELLENZ REICHENBACH AT LONDON (from Grumkow).

BERLIN, 22d APRIL. 'King wants to get rid of the Princess' Wilhelmina, 'who is grown lean, ugly, with pimples on her face (qui est devenue maigre, laide, couperosee,' [This is one of the sentences Wilhelmina has got hold of (Wilhelmina, i. 234).]--dog: will nobody horsewhip that lie out of him!)--'judge what a treat that will be to a Prince of Wales, who has his amourettes!' All is right, Nosti, is it not?

BERLIN, 25th APRIL. "King declared to Seckendorf yesterday again, He might write to the Kaiser, That while he lived, nothing should ever part his Majesty from the Kaiser and his Cause; that the French dare not attack Luxembourg, as is threatened; and if they do--! Upon which Seckendorf despatched a Courier to Vienna.

"As to Hotham, he explains himself upon nothing,"--stalks about with his nose in the air, as if there were nothing farther to be explained. "I spoke yesterday of the Single Match, Wilhelmina and Prince of Wales; King answered, even of the Single Match, Devil fly away with it!"--or a still coarser phrase.

'Meanwhile the Queen, though at the end of her eighth month, is cheery as a fish in water; [Wilhelmina has this too, in a disfigured state (i. 233).] and always forms grand project of totally ruining Seckendorf, by Knyphausen's and other help.' "Hotham yesterday, glancing at Nosti no doubt, said to the SIEUR DE POTSDAM [cant phrase for the King], 'That great Princes were very unlucky to have ministers that durst not show themselves in good society; for the result was, they sent nothing but false news and rumors picked up in coffee-houses.'"

"Coffee-houses?" answers Reichenbach, by and by: "Reichenbach is in English society of the first distinction, and receives visits from Lords and Dukes. This all the world knows"--to be nothing like the case, as Townshend too has occasionally mentioned.

At any rate, continues Grumkow, "the Queen's Husband said, aside, to Nosti's Friend, 'I see he is glancing at Reichenbach; but he won't make much of that (cynically speaking, ne fera que de l'eau claire).' Hotham is by no means a man of brilliant mind, and his manners are rough: but Ginkel," the Dutchman, "is cleverer (PLUS SOUPLE), and much better liked by Nosti's Master."

ANTISTROPHE soon follows; London Raven is himself again;--Nosti LOQUITUR:--

LONDON, 25th APRIL. "... King has written to me, I AM to report to him any talk there may be in the Court here about his Majesty! My Amiable and his Seckendorf, need they ask if Nosti will, and in a way to give them pleasure?"...

STROPHE (allegro by the Berlin Raven or Rook, who has not yet heard the above);--Grumkow LOQUITUR:--

BERLIN, 29th APRIL. "... Wrong not to write entertaining news of the English Court as heretofore. King likes it.

"What you say of the Prince-Royal of Prussia's writing to the Queen of England, is very curious; and you did well to say nothing of it to the Father; the thing being of extreme delicacy, and the proof difficult. But it seems likely. And I insinuated something of it to his Majesty, the day before yesterday [27th April, 1730, therefore? One momentary glance of Hansard into the Tobacco-Parliament], as of a thing I had learned from a spy" (such my pretence, O Nosti)--spy "who is the intimate friend of Knyphausen and plays traitor: you may fancy that it struck terribly. "Yes!" And his Majesty has looked sour upon Hotham ever since; and passed above an hour in colloquy with Seckendorf and me, in sight both of English Hotham and Dutch Ginkel without speaking to them.

"It was true enough what Nosti heard of the Queen's fair speeches, and Hotham's, to the Friend of Nosti. But it is all ended: the Queen's, weeks ago, being in vain: Hotham too, after some civilities, seems now indifferent. 'ENFIN ['Afin' he always writes it, copying the indistinct gurgle of his own horse-dialect]--AFIN FILOUTERIE TOUT PURE' (whole of it thimblerig, on their part).

"Admirable story, that of Prince Fred's amourette [sent to the cesspool by us, herald of Reichenbach thither]: let his Majesty know it, by all means. What the Duchess of Kendal [lean tall female in expensive brocades, with gilt prayer-books, visible in the body to Nosti at that time], what the Duchess of Kendal says to you is perfectly just; and as the Princess Wilhelmina is very ill-looking [LAIDE,--how dare you say so, dog?], I believe she will have a bad life of it, the Prince of Wales being accustomed to daintier meats. Yes truly, she will, as the Duchess says, 'need to be wiser than Solomon' to conciliate the humors down there (LA BAS) with the genius of his Prussian Majesty and Queen.--'As for your Princess Amelia, depend upon it, while the Commandant of Potsdam lives, she will never get hold of the Prince-Royal, though he is so furiously taken with the Britannic Majesties.'"

[Continues; in answer to a Nosti "Caw! Caw!" which we omit.]

BERLIN, 2d MAY.--"Wish you had not told the King so positively that the English say, it shall be Double Match or none. Hotham said to the Swedish Ambassador: 'Reichenbach, walking in the dark, would give himself a fine knock on the nose (aurait un furieux pied de nez), when,' or IF, 'the thing was done quite otherwise.' Have a caution what you write."

Pooh, pooh! Hotham must have said "if," not "when;" Swede is quite astray!--And indeed we will here leave off, and shut down this magazine of rubbish; right glad to wash ourselves wholly from it (in three waters) forevermore. Possibly enough the Prussian Dryasdust will, one day, print it IN EXTENSO, and with that lucidity of comment and arrangement which is peculiar to him; exasperated readers will then see whether I have used them ILL or not, according to the opportunity there was!--Here, at any rate, my reader shall he free of it. Indeed he may perceive, the negotiation was by this time come to a safe point, the Nosti-Grumkows triumphant, and the interest of the matter mainly out. Farther transient anxieties this amiable couple had,--traceable in that last short croak from Grumkow,--lest the English might consent to that of the "Single-Marriage in the mean time" (which the English never did, or meant to do). For example, this other screech of Nosti, which shall be his final last-screech:--

LONDON, 12th MAY.--"Lord Townshend alarmingly hinted to me: Better have done with your Grumkow-and-Seckendorf speculations: the ill-intentioned are perfectly sure to be found out at the end of the account; and their tools will get ruined along with them. Nosti endeavored to talk big in reply: but he shakes in his shoes nevertheless; and with a heart full of distraction exclaims now, Save yourselves, save me!--If Hotham speak of the Single-Marriage only, it is certain the Prince-Royal must mean to run away," and so make it a Double one in time.

Yes, indeed! But these were transient terrors. The day is our own, my Grumkow; yes, our own, my Nosti:--and so our Colloquy of Rookeries shall be suppressible henceforth.

HIS MAJESTY GETS SIGHT OF THE ST.-MARY-AXE DOCUMENTS; BUT NOTHING FOLLOWS FROM IT.

We have only to add what Hotham reports (Berlin, May 6th), That he "has had an interview with his Majesty, and spoken of the St.-Mary-Axe affair; Knyphausen having found a moment to lay it before his Majesty." So that the above Excerpts from St. Mary Axe (all but the last two),--the above, and many more suppressed by us,--are in his Majesty's hands: and he is busy studying them; will, it is likely, produce them in an amazed Tobacco-Parliament one of these evenings!--

What the emotions of the royal breast were during the perusal of this extraordinary dialogue of birds, which has come to him through St. Mary Axe--? Manifold probably: manifold, questionable; but not tragical, or not immediately so. Certainly it is definable as the paltriest babble; no treason visible in it, nor constructive treason; but it painfully indicates, were his Majesty candid, That his Majesty is subject to spies in his own House; nay that certain parties do seem to fancy they have got his Majesty by the nose, and are piping tunes with an eye to his dancing, thereto. This is a painful thought, which, I believe, does much agitate his Majesty now and afterwards.--A painful thought or suspicion, rising sometimes (in that temperament of his) to the pitch of the horrible. I believe it occasionally, ever henceforth, keeps haunting the highly poetic temperament of his Majesty, nor ever quits him again at all; stalking always, now and then, through the vacant chambers of his mind, in what we may call the night-season (or time of solitude and hypochondriacal reflection),--though in busy times again (in daylight, so to speak) he impatiently casts it from him. Poor Majesty!

But figure Grumkow, figure the Tobacco-Parliament when Majesty laid these Papers on the Table! A HANSARD of that night would be worth reading. There is thunderous note of interrogation on his Majesty's face;--what a glimmer in the hard puckery eyes of Feldzeugmeister Seckendorf, "JARNI-BLEU!" No doubt, an excessively astonished Parliament. Nothing but brass of face will now serve the principal Honorable Gentleman there; but in that happily he is not wanting.

Of course Grumkow denies the Letters point-blank: Mere forgeries, these, of the English Court, plotting to ruin your Majesty's faithful servant, and bring in other servants they will like better! May have written to Reichenbach, nay indeed has, this or that trifling thing: but those Copyists in St. Mary Axe, "deciphering,"--garbling, manufacturing, till they make a romance of it,--alas, your Majesty? Nay, at any rate, what are the Letters? Grumkow can plead that they are the foolishest insignificant rubbish of Court-gossip, not tending any bad road, if they have a tendency. That they are adapted to the nature of the beast, and of the situation,--this he will carefully abstain from remarking.

We have no HANSARD of this Session; all is conjecture and tobacco-smoke. What we know is, not the least effect, except an internal trouble, was produced on the royal mind by the St.-Mary-Axe Discovery. Some Question there might well be, inarticulately as yet, of Grumkow's fidelity, at least of his discretion; seeds of suspicion as to Grumkow, which may sprout up by and by; resolution to keep one's eye on Grumkow. But the first practical fruit of the matter is, fierce jealousy that the English and their clique do really wish to interfere in our ministerial appointments; so that, for the present, Grumkow is firmer in his place than ever. And privately, we need not doubt, the matter continues painful to his Majesty.

One thing is certain, precisely a week after, his Majesty,--much fluctuating in mind evidently, for the Document "has been changed three or four times within forty-eight hours,"--presents his final answer to Hotham. Which runs to this effect ("outrageous," as Hotham defines it):--

"1. For Hanover and your great liberality on that score, much obliged; but upon reconsideration think it will not do. 2. Marriage FIRST, Prince of Wales to Wilhelmina,--Consent with pleasure. 3. Marriage SECOND, Crown-Prince Friedrich with your Amelia,--for that also we are extremely wishful, and trust it will one day take effect: but first these Seville-Treaty matters, and differences between the Kaiser and allied English and French will require to be pulled straight; that done, we will treat about the terms of Marriage SECOND. One indispensable will be,--That the English guarantee our Succession in Julich and Berg." [Hotham's Despatch, 18th May, 1730.]

"Outrageous" indeed!--Crown-Prince sends, along with this, a loving message by Hotham, of earnestly deprecating tenor, to the Britannic Majesty; "begs his Britannic Majesty not to reject the King's Proposals, whatever they may be,--this for poor Sister Wilhelmina's sake. 'For though he, the Crown-Prince, was determined to lose his life sooner than marry anybody but the Princess Amelia, yet if this Negotiation were broken off, his Father would go to extremities to force him and his poor Sister into other engagements.'"--Which, alas, what can it avail with the Britannic Majesty, in regard to such outrageous Propositions from the Prussian?

Britannic Majesty's Ministry, as always, answers by return of Courier:--"MAY 22d. Both Marriages, or none: Seville has no concern with both, more than with one: DITTO Julich and Berg,--of which latter indeed we know nothing,--nor (ASIDE TO HOTHAM) mean to know." [Despatch, Whitehall, 11th May (22d by N.S.)]. Whereby Hotham perceives that it is as good to throw away the bellows, and consider the matter extinct. Hotham makes ready for an Excursion into Saxony, to a thing called CAMP OF RADEWITZ, or ENCAMPMENT OF RADEWITZ; a Military Spectacle of never-imagined magnificence, to be given by August the Strong there, whither all the world is crowding;--and considers any Business he had at Berlin to be as good as done.

Evidently Friedrich Wilhelm has not been much wrought upon by the St.-Mary-Axe Documents! One week they have been revolving in the royal mind; part of a week in the Smoking Parliament (we know not what day they were laid on the table there, but it must have been a grand occurrence within those walls!)--and this already (May 13th) is the result arrived at: Propositions, changed three or four times within forty-eight hours, and definable at last as "outrageous;" which induce Hotham to lay down the bellows, and prepare to go his ways. Our St.-Mary-Axe discovery seems to have no effect at all!--

One other public result there is from it, and as yet one only: Reichenbach, "from certain causes thereto moving Us (aus gewissen Uns dazu bewegenden Grunden)," gets a formal Letter of Recall. Ostensible Letter, dated Berlin, 13th May, and signed Friedrich Wilhelm; which the English may read for their comfort. Only that along with this, of the same date and signature, intended for Reichenbach's comfort, the same Leather Bag brings a Private Letter (which Dickens or another has contrived to get sight of and copy), apprising Reichenbach, That, unostensibly, his proceedings are approved of; that he is to continue at his post till further orders, all the same, "and keep watch on these Marriages, about which there is such debating in the world (wovon in der Welt so viel debattirt wird); things being still in the same state as half a year ago. That is to say, I am ready for my Daughter's Marriage with the Prince of Wales: but for my Son, he is too young yet; und hat es damit keine Eile, weil ich Gottlob noch zwei Sohne hab (nor is there any haste, as I have, thank God, two other sons,"--and a third coming, if I knew it):--"besides one indispensable condition will be, that the English guarantee Julich and Berg," which perhaps they are not in the least hurry for, either!--

What does the English Court think of that? Dated "Berlin, 13th May:" it is the same day when his Majesty's matured Proposals, "changed thrice or oftener within the forty-eight hours," were handed to Hotham for transmission to his Court. An interesting Leather Bag, this Ordinary from Berlin. Reichenbach, we observe, will get his share of it some ten days after that alarming rebuke from Townshend; and it will relieve the poor wretch from his worst terrors: "Go on with your eavesdroppings as before, you alarmed wretch!"--There does one Degenfeld by and by, a man of better quality (and on special haste, as we shall see) come and supersede poor Nosti, and send him home:--there they give Nosti some exiguous Pension, with hint to disappear forevermore. Which he does; leaving only these St.-Mary-Axe Documents for his Lifemark in the History of Mankind.

What the English Answer to his Majesty's Proposals of Berlin, May 13th, was, we have already seen;--dated "London, 22d May," probably few hours after the Courier arrived. Hotham, well anticipating what it would be, had already, as we phrased it, "laid down the bellows;" left the Negotiation, as essentially extinct;--and was preparing for the "Camp at Radewitz," Britannic Majesty being anxious to hear what Friedrioh Wilhelm and August the Strong have on hand there.

"The King of Prussia's unsteadiness and want of resolution," writes Hotham (Berlin, 20th May), "will hinder him from being either very useful to his friends, or very formidable to his enemies." And from the same place, just about quitting it for Radewitz, he writes again, exactly a week after ("Berlin, 27th May"), to enclose Copy of a remarkable Letter; remarkable to us also;--but which, he knows and we, cannot influence the English Answer now close at hand. Here is the copied Letter; copied in Guy Dickens's hand; from which we translate,--and also will give the original French in this instance, for behoof of the curious:--

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE CHEVALIER HOTHAM.

[POTSDAM, End of May, 1730.]

"MONSIEUR,--Je crois que c'est de la derniere importance que je vous ecrive; et je suis assez triste d'avoir des chases a vous dire que je devrois cacher a toute la terre: mais il faut franchir ce mauvais pas la; et vous comptant de mes amis, je me resouds plus facilement a vous le dire. C'est que je suis traite d'une maniere inouie du Roi, et que je sais qu'a present ils se trament de terribles choses contre moi, touchant certaines Lettres que j'ai ecrites l'hiver passe, dont je crois que vous serez informe. Enfin pour vous parler franchement, la vraie raison que le Roi a de ne vouloir point donner les mains a ce Mariage est, qu'il me veut toujours tenir sur un bas pied, et me faire enrager toute sa vie, quand l'envie lui en prend; ainsi il ne l'accordera jamais. Si l'on consent de votre cote que cette Princesse soit aussi traitee ainsi, vous pouvez comprendre aisement que je serai fort triste de rendre malheureuse une personne que j'estime, et de rester toujours dans le meme etat ou je suis. Pour moi done je crois qu'il vaudroit mieux finir le Mariage de ma Soeur ainsi auparavant, et ne point demander au Roi seulement des assurances sur mon sujet, d'autant plus que sa parole n'y fait rien: suffit que je reitere les promesses que j'ai deja fait au Roi mon Oncle, de ne prendre jamais d'autre epouse que sa seconde fille la Princess Amelie. Je suis une personne de parole, qui pourra faire reussir ce que j'avance, pourvu que l'on se fie a moi. Je vous le promets, et a present vous pouvez en avertir votre Cour; et je saurai tenir ma promesse. Je suis toujours tout a vous,

FREDERIC."

[State-Paper Office: Prussian Despatches, vol. xli. (enclosed in Sir Charles Hotham's Despatch, Berlin, 27th-16th May, 1730).]

"Monsieur,--I believe it is of the last importance that I should write to you; and I am very sad to have things to say which I ought to conceal from all the earth. But one must take that bad leap; and reckoning you among my friends, I the more easily resolve to open myself to you.

"The case is this: I am treated in an unheard-of manner by the King; and I know there are terrible things in preparation against me, touching certain letters which I wrote last winter, of which I believe you are informed. In a word, to speak frankly to you, the real secret reason why the King will not consent to this Marriage is, That he wishes to keep me on a low footing constantly, and to have the power of driving me mad, whenever the whim takes him, throughout his life; thus he never will give his consent. If it were possible that you on your side could consent that your Princess too should be exposed to such treatment, you may well comprehend that I should be very sad to bring misery on a Person whom I esteem, and to remain always in the same state as now.

"For my own part, therefore, I believe it would be better to conclude my Sister's Marriage in the first place, and not, even to ask from the King any assurances in regard to mine; the rather as his word has nothing to do with it: it is enough that I here reiterate the promises which I have already made to the King my Uncle, Never to take another wife than his second Daughter the Princess Amelia. I am a person of my word; and shall be able to bring about what I set forth, provided there is trust put in me. I promise it you; and now you may give your Court notice of it; and I shall manage to keep my promise. I remain yours always."

The Crown-Prince, for Wilhelmina's sake and everybody's, is extremely anxious they should agree to the Single Marriage in the interim: but the English Court--perhaps for no deep reason, perhaps chiefly because little George had the whim of standing grandly immovable upon his first offer--never would hear of that. Which was an angry thought to the Crown-Prince in after times, as we sometimes notice.

Here, to the like effect, is another Fragment from his Royal Highness, copied in the Dickens hand, and enclosed in the same Despatch from Hotham;--giving us a glance into the inner workshop of his Royal Highness, and his hidden assiduities and endeavorings at that time:--

"... Vous pouvez croire que je ferai tout ce que je peux pour faire reussir mon plan; mais l'on n'en remarquera rien em dehors;--que l'on m'en laisse agir en suite, je ferai bien moi seul reussir le reste. Je finis la par vous assurer encore, Monsieur, que je suis tout a vous.

"FREDERIC PRINCE R."

"... You may believe I will exert all my resources to succeed in my plan; but there will be no outward sign visible:--leave me to act in this way, I will myself successfully bring it through. I end by again assuring you, Monsieur, that I am yours always."--Which again produces no effect; the English Answer being steadily, "Both Marriages, or none."

And this, then, is what the Hotham mission is come to? Good Dubourgay is home, recalled about a month ago, "for the sake of his health," [Townshend's polite Despatch to him, Whitehall, 21st April, 1730.]--good old gentleman, never to be heard of in Diplomatic History more. Dubourgay went in the first days of May; and the month is not out, when Hotham is off to the Camp of Radewitz; leaving his Negotiation, as it were, extinct. To the visible regret of the Berlin public generally; to the grievous disappointment of Queen Sophie, of the Crown-Prince and some others,--not to speak of Wilhelmina's feelings, which are unknown to us.

Regretful Berlin, Wilhelmina and Mamma among the others, had, by accident, in these dejected circumstances, a strange Sign from the Heavens provided them, one night,--if we may be permitted to notice it here. Monday, 29th May;--and poor Queen Sophie, we observe withal, is in the hands of the MONTHLY NURSE since Tuesday last! ["Prince Ferdinand (her last child, Father of him whose fate lay at Jenz seventy-six years afterwards), born 23d May, 1730."]

ST. PETER'S CHURCH IN BERLIN HAS AN ACCIDENT.

Monday 29th May, 1730, Friedrich Wilhelm and the Crown-Prince and Party were at Potsdam, so far on their way towards Radewitz. All is peaceable at Potsdam that night: but it was a night of wild phenomena at Berlin; or rather of one wild phenomenon, the "Burning of the SANCT-PETERS KIRCHE," which held the whole City awake and in terror for its life. Dim Fassmann becomes unusually luminous on this affair (probably an eye-witness to it, poor old soul); and enables us to fish up one old Night of Berlin City and its vanished populations into clear view again, if we like.

For two years back Berlin had been diligently building a non-plus-ultra of Steeples to that fine Church of St. Peter's. Highest Steeple of them all; one of the Steeples of the World, in a manner;--and Berlin was now near ending it. Tower, or shaft, has been complete some time, interior fittings going on; and is just about to get its ultimate apex, a "Crown-Royal" set on it by way of finis. For his Majesty, the great AEdile, was much concerned in the thing; and had given materials, multifarious helps: Three incomparable Bells, especially, were his gift; melodious old Bells, of distinguished tone, "bigger than the Great Bell of Erfurt," than Tom of Lincoln,--or, as brief popular rumor has it, the biggest Bells in the World, at least of such a TONE. These Bells are hung, silent but ready in their upper chamber of the Tower, and the gigantic Crown or apex is to go on; then will the basket-work of scaffolding be peeled away, and the Steeple stretch, high and grand, into the air, for ages it is hoped.

Far otherwise. On Monday evening, between eight and nine, there gathered thunder over Berlin; wild tumult of the elements: thunder-bolt "thrice in swift succession" struck the unfinished Steeple; in the "hood" of which men thereupon noticed a light, as of a star, or sparkle of the sun; and straight-way, in spite of the rain-torrents, there burst out blazes of flame. Blazes unquenchable; grand yet perilous to behold. The fire-drums beat, the alarm-bells clanged, and ceased not; all Berlin struggling there, all night, in vain. Such volumes of smoke: "the heavens were black as if you had hung them with mortcloth:" such roaring cataracts of flame, "you could have picked up a copper doit at the distance of 800 yards."--"Hiss-s-s!" what hissing far aloft is that? That is the incomparable big Bells melting. There they vanish, their fine tones never to be tried more, and ooze through the red-hot ruin, "Hush-sh-sht!" the last sound heard from them. And the stem for holding that immense Crown-royal,--it is a bar and bars of iron, "weighing sixteen hundred-weight;" down it comes thundering, crashing through the belly of St. Peter's, the fall of it like an earthquake all round. And still the fire-drums beat, and from all surviving Steeples of Berlin goes the clangor of alarm; "none but the very young children can have slept that night," says our vigilant old friend.

Wind was awake, too; kindling the neighboring streets;--storming towards the Powder-Magazine; where labor innumerable Artillerymen, "busy with hides from the tan-pits, with stable-dung, and other material;" speed to them, we will say! Forty dwelling-houses went; but not the Powder-Magazine; not Berlin utterly (so to speak) by the Powder-Magazine. On the morrow St. Peter's and neighborhood lay black, but still inwardly burning; not for three days more could the ruins be completely quenched.

That was the news for Friedrich Wilhelm, before sunrise, on the point of his departure for Muhlberg and King August's scenic exhibitions. "HM;--but we must go, all the same! We will rebuild it!" said he.--And truly he did so. And the polite King August, sorry to hear of the Peterskirche, "gave him excellent sandstone from the quarries of Pirna," says: Fassmann: "great blocks came boating down the Elbe" from that notable Saxon Switzerland Country, notable to readers here in time coming; and are to be found, as ashlar, in the modern St. Peter's at Berlin; a fact which the reader, till Pirna be better known to him, may remember if he likes. [Fassmann, pp. 406-409.]

And now let us to Radewitz without delay.

Chapter III. -- CAMP OF RADEWITZ.

The Camp of Muhlberg, called more properly the Camp of Radewitz, towards which Friedrich Wilhelm, with English Hotham and many dignitaries are now gone, was one of the sublimest scenic military exhibitions in the history of the world; leaving all manner of imitation tournaments, modern "tin-tournaments," out of sight; and perhaps equalling the Field of the Cloth of Gold, or Barbarossa's Mainz Tournament in ancient times. It lasted for a month, regardless of expense,--June month of the year 1730;--and from far and wide the idle of mankind ran, by the thousand, to see it. Shall the thing be abolished utterly,--as perhaps were proper, had not our Crown-Prince been there, with eyes very open to it, and yet with thoughts very shut;--or shall some flying trace of the big Zero be given? Riddling or screening certain cart-loads of heavy old German printed rubbish, [Chiefly the terrible compilation called Helden-Staats und Lebens-Geschichte des, &c. Friedrichs des Andern (History Heroical, Political and Biographical of Friedrich the Second), Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1759-1760, vol, i. first HALF, pp. 171-210. There are ten thick and thin half-volumes, and perhaps more. One of the most hideous imbroglios ever published under the name of Book,--without vestige of Index, and on paper that has no margin and cannot stand ink,--yet with many curious articles stuffed blindly into the awful belly of it, like jewels into a rag-sack, or into TEN rag-sacks all in one; with far more authenticity than you could expect in such case. Let us call it, for brevity, Helden-Geschichte, in future references.] to omit the Hotham Despatches, we obtained the following shovelful of authentic particulars, perhaps not quite insupportable to existing mankind.

The exact size of the Camp of Radewitz I nowhere find measured; but to judge on the map, [At p. 214.] it must have covered, with its appendages, some ten or twelve square miles of ground. All on the Elbe, right bank of the Elbe; Town of Muhlberg, chief Town of the District, lying some ten miles northwest; then, not much beyond it, Torgau; and then famed Wittenberg, all on the northwest, farther down the River: and on the other side, Meissen with its Potteries not far to the southeast of you, up the River, on the Dresden hand. Nay perhaps many of my readers have seen the place, and not known, in their touring expeditions; which are now blinder than ever, and done by steam, without even eyesight, not to say intelligence. Precisely where the railway from Leipzig to Dresden crosses the Elbe,--there, if you happen to have daylight, is a flat, rather clayey country, dirty-greenish, as if depastured partly by geese; with a big full River Elbe sweeping through it, banks barish for a mile or two; River itself swift, sleek and of flint-color; not unpleasant to behold, thus far on its journey from the Bohemian Giant-Mountains seaward: precisely there, when you have crossed the Bridge, is the south-most corner of August the Strong's Encampment,--vanished now like the last flock of geese that soiled and nibbled these localities;--and, without knowing it, you are actually upon memorable ground.

Actually, we may well say; apart from August and his fooleries. For here also it was, on the ground now under your eye, that Kurfurst Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, having been surprised the day before at public worship in the abovementioned Town of Muhlberg, and completely beaten by Kaiser Karl the Fifth and his Spaniards and Duke of Alba, did, on Monday 25th April, 1547, ride forth as Prisoner to meet the said Kaiser; and had the worst reception from him, poor man. "Take pity on me, O God! This is what it is come to?" the magnanimous beaten Kurfurst was heard murmuring as he rode. At sight of the Kaiser, he dismounted, pulled off his iron-plated gloves, knelt, and was: for humbly taking the Kaiser's hand, to kiss it. Kaiser would not; Kaiser looked thunderous tornado on him, with hands rigidly in the vertical direction. The magnanimous Kurfurst arose therefore; doffed his hat: "Great-mightiest (GROSSMACHTIGSTER) all-gracious Kaiser, I am your Majesty's prisoner," said he, confining himself to the historical. "I AM Kaiser now, then?" answered the sullen Tornado, with a black brow and hanging under-jaw.--"I request my imprisonment may be prince-like," said the poor Prince. "It shall be as your deserts have been!"--"I am in your power; you will do your pleasure on me," answered the other;--and was led away, to hard durance and peril of life for five years to come; his Cousin Moritz, having expertly jockeyed his Electoral dignities and territories from him in the interim; [De Wette, Kursgefasste Lebensgeschichte der Herzoge zu Sachsen (Weimar, 1770), pp. I, 33, 73.]--as was told above, long since.

Expert Cousin Moritz: in virtue of which same Moritz, or rather perhaps in VICE of him, August the Strong is even now Elector of Saxony; Papist, Pseudo-Papist Apostate King of Poland, and Non-plus-ultra of "gluttonous Royal Flunkies;" doomed to do these fooleries on God's Earth for a time. For the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children,--in ways little dreamt of by the flunky judgment,--to the sixth generation and farther. Truly enough this is memorable ground, little as King August, thinks of it; little as the idle tourists think, or the depasturing geese, who happen to be there.

The ten square miles have been industriously prepared for many months past; shaved, swept by the best engineer science: every village of it thoroughly cleaned, at least; the villages all let lodgings at a Californian rate; in one village, Moritz by name, [Map at page 214.] is the slaughter-house, killing oxen night and day; and the bakehouee, with 160 mealy bakers who never rest: in another village, Strohme, is the playhouse of the region; in another, Glaubitz, the post-office: nothing could excel the arrangements; much superior, I should judge, to those for the Siege of Troy, and other world-great enterprises. Worthy really of admiration, had the business not been zero. Foreign Courts: European Diplomacy at large, wondered much what cunning scheme lay hidden here. No scheme at all, nor purpose on the part of poor August; only that of amusing himself, and astonishing the flunkies of Creation,--regardless of expense. Three temporary Bridges, three besides the regular ferry of the country, cross the Elbe; for the high officers, dames, damosels and lordships of degree, and thousandfold spectators, lodge on both sides of the Elbe: three Bridges, one of pontoons, one of wood-rafts, one of barrels; immensely long, made for the occasion. The whole Saxon Army, 30,000 horse and foot with their artillery, all in beautiful brand-new uniforms and equipments, lies beautifully encamped in tents and wooden huts, near by Zeithayn, its rear to the Elbe; this is the "ARMEE LAGER (Camp of the Army)" in our old Rubbish Books. Northward of which,--with the Heath of Gorisch still well beyond, and bluish to you, in the farther North,--rises, on favorable ground, a high "Pavilion" elaborately built, elaborately painted and gilded, with balcony stages round it; from which the whole ground, and everything done in it, is surveyable to spectators of rank.

Eastward again, or from the Pavilion southeastward, at the right flank of the Army, where again rises a kind of Height, hard by Radewitz, favorable for survey,--there, built of sublime silk tents, or solid well-painted carpentry, the general color of which is bright green, with gilt knobs and gilt gratings all about, is the: "HAUPT-LAGER," Head-quarters, Main LAGER, Heart of all the LAGERS; where his Prussian Majesty, and his Polish ditto, with their respective suites, are lodged. Kinglike wholly, in extensive green palaces ready gilt and furnished; such drawing-rooms, such bedrooms, "with floors of dyed wicker-work;" the gilt mirrors, pictures, musical clocks; not even the fine bathing-tubs for his Prussian Majesty have been forgotten. Never did man or flunky see the like. Such immense successful apparatus, without and within; no end of military valetaille, chiefly "janizaries," in Turk costume; improvised flower-gardens even, and walks of yellow sand,--the whole Hill of Radewitz made into a flower-garden in that way. Nay, in the Army LAGER too, many of the Captains have made little improvised flower-gardens in that Camp of theirs, up and down. For other Captains not of a poetical turn, there are billiards, coffee-houses, and plenty of excellent beer and other liquor. But the mountains of cavalry hay, that stand guarded by patrols in the rearward places, and the granaries of cavalry oats, are not to be told. Eastward, from their open porticos and precincts, with imitation "janizaries" pacing silent lower down, the Two Majesties oversee the Army, at discretion; can survey all things,--even while dining, which they do daily, like very kings! Fritz is lodged there; has a magnificent bed: poor young fellow, he alone now makes the business of any meaning to us. He is curious enough to see the phenomena, military and other; but oppressed with black care: "My Amelia is not here, and the tyrant Father is--tyrannous with his rattan: ye gods!"

We could insist much on the notable people that were there; for the Lists of them are given. Many high Lordships; some of whom will meet us again. Weissenfels, Wilhelmina's unfavored lover, how busy is he, commanding gallantly (in the terrific Sham-Battle) against Wackerbarth; General Wackerbarth, whose house we saw burnt on a Dresden visit, not so long ago. Old Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau is there, the Old Dessauer; with four of his Princes; instructed in soldiering, left without other instruction; without even writing, unless they can pick it up for themselves. Likely young fellows too, with a good stroke of work in them, of battle in them, when called for. Young Anspach, lately wedded, comes, in what state he can, poor youth; lodges with the Prussian Majesty his Father-in-law; should keep rather quiet, his share of wisdom being small. Seckendorf with his Grumkow, they also are here, in the train of Friedrich Wilhelm. Grumkow shoves the bottle with their Polish and Prussian Majesties: in jolly hours, things go very high there. I observe they call King August "LE PATRON," the Captain, or "Patroon;" a fine jollity dwelling in that Man of Sin. Or does the reader notice Holstein-Beck, Prussian Major-General; Prince of Holstein-Beck; a solid dull man; capable of liquor, among other things: not wiser than he should be; sold all his Apanage or Princeship; for example, and bought plate with it, wherefore they call him ever since "Holstein-VAISSELLE (Holstein PLATE)" instead of Holstein-Beck. [Busching's Beitrage, iv. 109.] His next Brother, here likewise I should think, being Major-General in the Saxon service, is still more foolish. He, poor soul, is just about to marry the Orzelska; incomparable Princess known to us, who had been her Father's mistress:--marriage, as was natural, went asunder again (1733) after a couple of years.--But mark especially that middle-aged heavy gentleman, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, Prussian Commandant of Stettin. Not over rich (would not even be rich if he came to be reigning Duke, as he will do); attentive at his post in those parts, ever since the Siege-of-Stralsund time; has done his orders, fortified Stettin to perfection; solid, heavy taciturn man:--of whom there is nothing notable but this only, That last year his Wife brought him a little Daughter, Catharine the name of her. His Wife is a foolish restless dame, highborn and penniless; let her nurse well this little Catharine: little Catharine will become abundantly distinguished in a thirty years hence; Empress of all the Russias that little girl; the Fates have so appointed it, mocking the prophecies of men! Here too is our poor unmentionable Duke of Mecklenburg: poor soul, he has left his quarrels with the Ritterschaft for a week or two, and is here breathing the air of the Elbe Heaths. His wild Russian Wife, wild Peter's niece and more, we are relieved to know is dead; for her ways and Peter's have been very strange! To this unmentionable Duke of Mecklenburg she has left one Daughter, a Princess Elizabeth-Catherine, who will be called Princess ANNE, one day: whose fortunes in the world may turn out to be tragical. Potential heiress of all the Russias, that little Elizabeth or Anne. Heiress by her wily aunt, Anne of Courland,--Anne with the swollen cheek, whom Moritz, capable of many things, and of being MARECHAL DE SAXE by and by, could not manage to fall in love with there; and who has now just quitted Courland, and become Czarina: [Peter II., her Cousin-german, died January, 1730 (Mannstein's Russia).]--if Aunt Anne with the big cheek should die childless, as is likely, this little Niece were Heiress. WAS THUT'S, What matter!--

In the train of King August are likewise splendors of a sort, if we had time for them. Dukes of Sachsen-Gotha, Dukes of Meiningen, most of the Dukes that put Sachsen to their name;--Sachsen-Weimar for one; who is Grandfather of Goethe's Friend, if not otherwise distinguished. The Lubomirskis, Czartoryskis, and others of Polish breed, shall be considered as foreign to us, and go unnoticed. Nor are high Dames wanting, as we see: vast flights of airy bright-hued womankind, Crown-Princess at the head of them, who lodges in Tiefenau with her Crown-Prince,--and though plain-looking, and not of the sweetest temper, is a very high Lady indeed. Niece of the present Kaiser Karl, Daughter of the late Kaiser, Joseph of blessed memory;--for which reason August never yet will sign the Pragmatic Sanction, his Crown-Prince having hereby rights of his own in opposition thereto. She is young; to her is Tiefenau, northward, on the edge of the Gorisch Heath, probably the choicest mansion in these circuits, given up: also she is Lady of "the Bucentaur," frigate equal to Cleopatra's galley in a manner; and commands, so to speak, by land and water. Supreme Lady, she, of this sublime world-foolery regardless of expense: so has the gallantry of August ordered it. Our Friedrich and she will meet again, on occasions not like this!--What the other Princesses and Countesses, present on this occasion, were to Crown-Prince Friedrich, except a general flower-bed of human nature,--ask not; nor even whether the Orzelska was so much as here! The Orzelska will be married, some two months hence, [10th August, 1730 (Sir T. Robinson: Despatch from Dresden; in State-Paper Office).] to a Holstein-Beck; not to Holstein PLATE, but to his Brother the unfortunate Saxon Major-General: a man surely not of nice tastes in regard to marriage;--and I would recommend him to keep his light Wife at home on such occasions. They parted, as we said, in a year or two, mutually indignant; and the Orzelska went to Avignon, to Venice and else-whither, and settled into Catholic devotion in cheap countries of agreeable climate. [See Pollnitz ( Memoirs, &c.), whoever is curious about her.]

Crown-Prince Friedrich, doubtless, looking at this flower-bed of human nature, and the reward of happy daring paid by Beauty, has vivid images of Princess Amelia and her Vice-regency of Hanover; bright Princess and Vice-regency, divided from him by bottomless gulfs, which need such a swim as that of Leander across the material Hellespont was but a trifle to!--In which of the villages Hotham and Dickens lodged, I did not learn or inquire; nor are their copious Despatches, chronicling these sublime phenomena from day to day for behoof of St. James's, other than entirely inane to us at this time. But one thing we do learn from them: Our Crown-Prince, escaping the paternal vigilance, was secretly in consultation with Dickens, or with Hotham through Dickens; and this in the most tragic humor on his side. In such effulgences of luxury and scenic grandeur, how sad an attendant is Black Care,--nay foul misusage, not to be borne by human nature! Accurate Professor Ranke has read somewhere,--does not comfortably say where, nor comfortably give the least date,--this passage, or what authorizes him to write it. "In that Pleasure-Camp of Muhlberg, where the eyes of so many strangers were directed to him, the Crown-Prince was treated like a disobedient boy, and one time even with strokes (KORPERLICH MISSHANDELT), to make him feel he was only considered as such. The enraged King, who never weighed the consequences of his words, added mockery to his manual outrage. He said, 'Had I been treated so by my Father, I would have blown my brains out: but this fellow has no honor, he takes all that comes!'" [Ranke, Neun Bucher Preussischer Geschichte (Berlin, 1847), i. 297.] EINMAL KORPERLICH MISSHANDELT: why did not the Professor give us time, occasion, circumstances, and name of some eye-witness? For the fact, which stands reported in the like fashion in all manner of Histories, we shall otherwise find to be abundantly certain; and it produced conspicuous definite results. It is, as it were, the one fact still worth human remembrance in this expensive Radewitz and its fooleries; and is itself left in that vague inert state,--irremediable at present.

Beaten like a slave; while lodged, while figuring about, like a royal highness, in this sumptuous manner! It appears clearly the poor Prince did hereupon, in spite of his word given to Wilhelmina, make up his mind to run. Ingenious Ranke, forgetting again to date, knows from the Archives, that Friedrich went shortly afterwards to call on Graf von Hoym, one day. Speaking to Graf von Hoym, who is Saxon First-Minister, and Factotum of the arrangements here, he took occasion cursorily to ask, Could not a glimpse of Leipzig, among all these fine things, be had? Order for horses to or at Leipzig, for "a couple of officers" (Lieutenant Keith and self),--quietly, without fuss of passes and the like, Herr Graf?--The Herr Graf glances into it with eyes which have a twinkle in them: SCHWERLICH, Royal Highness. They are very strict about passes. Do not try it, Royal Highness! [Ranke, ib.; Forster, i. 365, and more especially iii. 4 (Seckendorf's Narrative there).] And Friedrich did desist, in that direction, poor youth; but tried it the more in others. Very busy, in deep secrecy, corresponding with Lieutenant Katte at Berlin, consulting tragically with Captain Guy Dickens here.--Whether any hint or whisper came to the Prussian Majesty from Graf von Hoym? Lieutenant Keith was, shortly after, sent to Wesel to mind his soldiering there, far down the Rhine Country in the Garrison of Wesel; [Wilhelmina told us lately (supra, p. 149), Keith HAD been sent to Wesel; but she has misdated as usual.] better there than colleaguing with a Fritz, and suggesting to him idle truancies or worse.

With Katte at Berlin the desperate Prince has concocted another scheme of Flight, this Hoym one being impossible; scheme executable by Katte and him, were this Radewitz once over. And as for his consultations with Guy Dickens, the result of them is: Captain Dickens, on the 16th of June, with eyes brisk enough, and lips well shut, sets out from Radewitz express for London. This is what I read as abstract of HOTHAM'S DESPATCH, 16th June, 1730, which Dickens is to deliver with all caution at St. James's: "Crown-Prince has communicated to Dickens his plan of escape; 'could no longer bear the outrages of his Father.' Is to attend his Father to Anspath shortly (JOURNEY TO THE REICH, of which we shall hear anon), and they are to take a turn to Stuttgard: which latter is not very far from Strasburg on the French side of the Rhine. To Strasburg he will make his escape; stay six weeks or a couple of months (that his Mother be not suspected); and will then proceed to England. Hopes England will take such measures as to save his Sister from ruin." These are his fixed resolutions: what will England do in such abstruse case?--Captain Dickens speeds silently with his Despatch; will find Lord Harrington, not Townshend any more; [Resigned 15th May, 1730: Despatch to Hotham, as farewell, of that date.] will copiously open his lips to Harrington on matters Prussian. A brisk military man, in the prime of his years; who might do as Prussian Envoy himself, if nothing great were going on? Harrington's final response will take some deliberating.

Hotham, meanwhile, resumes his report, as we too must do, of the Scenic Exhibitions;--and, we can well fancy, is getting weary of it; wishing to be home rather, "as his business here seems ended." [Preceding Despatch (of 16th June).] One day he mentions a rumor (inane high rumors being prevalent in such a place); "rumor circulated here, to which I do not give the slightest credit, that the Prince-Royal of Prussia is to have one of the Archduchesses," perhaps Maria Theresa herself! Which might indeed have saved immensities of trouble to the whole world, as well as to the Pair in question, and have made a very different History for Germany and the rest of us. Fancy it! But for many reasons, change of religion, had there been no other, it was an impossible notion. "May be," thinks Hotham, "that the Court of Vienna throws out this bait to continue the King's delusion,"--or a snuffle from Seckendorf, without the Court, may have given it currency in so inane an element as Radewitz.

Of the terrific Sham-Battles, conducted by Weissenfels on one side and Wackerbarth on the other; of the charges of cavalry, play of artillery, threatening to end in a very doomsday, round the Pavilion and the Ladies and the Royalties assembled on the balconies there (who always go to dinner safe, when victory has declared itself), I shall say nothing. Nor of that supreme "attack on the intrenchments:" blowing-up of the very Bridges; cavalry posted in the woods; host doing its very uttermost against host, with unheard-of expenditure of gunpowder and learned manoeuvre; in which "the Fleet" (of shallops on the Elbe, rigged mostly in silk) took part, and the Bucentaur with all its cannon. Words fail on such occasions. I will mention only that assiduous King August had arranged everything like the King of Playhouse-Managers; was seen, early in the morning, "driving his own curricle" all about, in vigilant supervision and inspection; crossed the Tub-bridge, or perhaps the Float-bridge (not yet blown up), "in a WURSTWAGEN;" giving himself (what proved well founded) the assurance of success for this great day;--and finally that, on the morrow, there occurred an illumination and display of fire-works, the like of which is probably still a desideratum.

For the Bucentaur and Fleet were all hung with colored lamplets; Headquarters (HAUPT-LAGER) and Army-LAGER ditto ditto; gleaming upwards with their golden light into the silver of the Summer Twilight:--and all this is still nothing to the scene there is across the Elbe, on our southeast corner. You behold that Palace of the Genii; wings, turrets, mainbody, battlements: it is "a gigantic wooden frame, on which two hundred carpenters have been busy for above six months," ever since Christmas last. Two hundred carpenters; and how many painters I cannot say: but they have smeared "six thousand yards of linen canvas;" which is now nailed up; hung with lamps, begirt with fire-works, no end of rocket-serpents, catherine-wheels; with cannon and field-music, near and far, to correspond;--and is now (evening of the 24th June, 1730) shining to men and gods. Pinnacles, turrets, tablatures, tipt with various fires and emblems, all is there:

[SMALL MAP IN HERE------missing]

symbolic Painting, six hundred yards of it, glowing with inner light, and legible to the very owls! Arms now piled useless; Pax, with her Appurtenances; Mars resting (in that canvas) on trophies of laurel honorably won: and there is an Inscription, done in lamplets, every letter taller than a man, were you close upon it, "SIC FULTA MANEBIT (Thus supported it will stand),"--the it being either PAX (Peace) or DOMUS (the Genii-Palace itself), as your weak judgment may lead you to interpret delicate allusions. Every letter bigger than a man: it may be read almost at Wittenberg, I should think; flaming as PICA written on the sky, from the steeple-tops there. THUS SUPPORTED IT WILL STAND; and pious mortals murmur, "Hope so, I am sure!"--and the cannons fire, almost without ceasing; and the field-music, guided by telegraphs, bursts over all the scene, at due moments; and the Catherine-wheels fly hissing; and the Bucentaur and silk Brigantines glide about like living flambeaus;--and in fact you must fancy such a sight. King August, tired to the bone, and seeing all successful, retired about midnight. Friedrich Wilhelm stood till the finale; Saxon Crown-Prince and he, "in a window of the highest house in Promnitz;" our young Fritz and the Margraf of Anspach, they also, in a neighboring window, [24th-25th June: Helden-Geschichte (above spoken of), i. 200] stood till the finale: two in the morning, when the very Sun was not far from rising.

Or is not the ultimate closing day perhaps still notabler; a day of universal eating? Debauchee King August had a touch of genuine human good-humor in him; poor devil, and had the best of stomachs. Eighty oxen, fat as Christmas, were slain and roasted, subsidiary viands I do not count; that all the world might have one good dinner. The soldiers, divided into proper sections, had cut trenches, raised flat mounds, laid planks; and so, by trenching and planking, had made at once table and seat, wood well secured on turf. At the end of every table rose a triglyph, two strong wooden posts with lintel; on the lintel stood spiked the ox's head, ox's hide hanging beneath it as drapery: and on the two sides of the two posts hung free the four roasted quarters of said ox; from which the common man joyfully helped himself. Three measures of beer he had, and two of wine;--which, unless the measures were miraculously small, we may take to be abundance. Thus they, in two long rows, 30,000 of them by the tale, dine joyfully SUB DIO. The two Majesties and two Crown-Princes rode through the ranks, as dinner went on: "King of Prussia forever!" and caps into the air;--at length they retire to their own HAUPT-QUARTIER, where, themselves dining, they can still see the soldiers dine, or at least drink their three measures and two. Dine, yea dine abundantly: let all mortals have one good dinner!--

Royal dinner is not yet done when a new miracle appears on the field: the largest Cake ever baked by the Sons of Adam. Drawn into the Head-quarter about an hour ago, on a wooden frame with tent over it, by a team of eight horses; tent curtaining it, guarded by Cadets; now the tent is struck and off;--saw mortals ever the like? It is fourteen ells (KLEINE ELLEN) long, by six broad; and at the centre half an ell thick. Baked by machinery; how otherwise could peel or roller act on such a Cake? There are five thousand eggs in it; thirty-six bushels (Berlin measure) of sound flour; one tun of milk, one tun of yeast, one ditto of butter; crackers, gingerbread-nuts, for fillet or trimming, run all round. Plainly the Prince of Cakes! A Carpenter with gigantic knife, handle of it resting on his shoulder,--Head of the Board of Works, giving word of command,--enters the Cake by incision; cuts it up by plan, by successive signal from the Board of Works. What high person would not keep for himself, to say nothing of eating, some fraction of such a Nonpareil? There is cut and come again for all. Carpenter advances, by main trench and by side trenches, steadily to word of command.

I mention, as another trait of the poor devil of an August, full of good-humor after all, That he and his Royalties and big Lordships having dined, he gave the still groaning table with all its dishes, to be scrambled for by "the janizaries." Janizaries, Imitation-Turk valetaille; who speedily made clearance,--many a bit of precious Meissen porcelain going far down in society by that means.

Royal dinner done, the Colonel and Officers of every regiment, ranked in high order, with weapons drawn, preceded by their respective bands of music, came marching up the Hill to pay their particular respects to the Majesty of Prussia. Majesty of Prussia promised them his favor, everlasting, as requested; drank a glass of wine to each party (steady, your Majesty!), who all responded by glasses of wine, and threw the glasses aloft with shouts. Sixty pieces of artillery speaking the while, and the bands of music breathing their sweetest;--till it was done, and his Majesty still steady on his feet. He could stand a great deal of wine.

And now--? Well, the Cake is not done, many cubic yards of cake are still left, and the very corporals can do no more: let the Army scramble! Army whipt it away in no time. And now, alas now--the time IS come for parting. It is ended; all things end. Not for about an hour could the HERRSCHAFTEN (Lordships and minor Sovereignties) fairly tear themselves away, under wailing music, and with the due emotion.

The Prussian Royalties, and select few, took boat down the River, on the morrow; towards Lichtenburg Hunting-Palace, for one day's slaughtering of game. They slaughtered there about one thousand living creatures, all driven into heaps for them,--"six hundred of red game" (of the stag species), "four hundred black," or of the boar ditto. They left all these creatures dead; dined immensely; then did go, sorrowfully sated; Crown-Prince Friedrich in his own carriage in the rear; Papa in his, preceding by a few minutes; all the wood horns, or French horns, wailing sad adieu;--and hurried towards Berlin through the ambrosial night. [28th June, 1730: Helden-Geschichte, i. 205.]

And so it is all ended. And August the Strong--what shall we say of August? History must admit that he attains the maximum in several things. Maximum of physical strength; can break horse-shoes, nay half-crowns with finger and thumb. Maximum of sumptuosity; really a polite creature; no man of his means so regardless of expense. Maximum of Bastards, three hundred and fifty-four of them; probably no mortal ever exceeded that quantity. Lastly, he has baked the biggest Bannock on record; Cake with 5,000 eggs in it, and a tun of butter. These things History must concede to him. Poor devil, he was full of good-humor too, and had the best of stomachs. His amputated great-toe does not mend: out upon it, the world itself is all so amputated, and not like mending! August the Strong, dilapidated at fifty-three, is fast verging towards a less expensive country: and in three years hence will be lodged gratis, and need no cook or flunky of either sex.

"This Camp of Radewitz," says Smelfungus, one of my Antecessors, finishing his long narrative of it, "this Camp is Nothing; and after all this expense of King August's and mine, it flies away like a dream. But alas, were the Congresses of Cambrai and Soissons, was the life-long diplomacy of Kaiser Karl, or the History of torpid moribund Europe in those days, much of a Something? The Pragmatic Sanction, with all its protocolling, has fled, like the temporary Playhouse of King August erected there in the village of Strohme. Much talk, noise and imaginary interest about both; but both literally have become zero, WERE always zero. As well talk about the one as the other."---Then why not SILENCE about both, my Friend Smelfnngus? He answers: "That truly is the thing to be aimed at;--and if we had once got our own out of both, let both be consumed with fire, and remain a handful of inarticulate black ashes forevermore." Heavens, will I, of all men, object!

Smelfungus says elsewhere:--

"The moral to be derived, perhaps the chief moral visible at present, from all this Section of melancholy History is: Modern Diplomacy is nothing; mind well your own affairs, leave those of your neighbors well alone. The Pragmatic Sanction, breaking Fritz's, Friedrich Wilhelm's, Sophie's, Wilhelmina's, English Amelia's and I know not how many private hearts, and distracting with vain terrors and hopes the general soul of Europe for five-and-twenty years, fell at once into dust and vapor, and went wholly towards limbo on the storm-winds, doing nothing for or against any mortal. Friedrich Wilhelm's 80,000 well-drilled troops remained very actual with their firelocks and iron ramrods, and did a thing or two, there being a Captain over them. Friedrich Wilhelm's Directorium, well-drilled Prussian Downing Street, every man steady at his duty, and no wind to be wasted where silence was better, did likewise very authentically remain,--and still remains. Nothing of genuine and human that Friedrich Wilhelm did but remained and remains an inheritance, not the smallest item of IT lost or losable;--and the rude foolish Boor-King (singular enough!) is found to be the only one that has gained by the game."--

Chapter IV. -- EXCELLENCY HOTHAM QUITS BERLIN IN HASTE.

While the Camp at Radewitz is dissolving itself in this manner, in the last days of June, Captain Guy Dickens, the oracles at Windsor having given him their response as to Prince Friedrich's wild project, is getting under way for Berlin again,--whither also Hotham has returned, to wait for Dickens's arrival, and directly thereupon come home. Dickens is henceforth to do the British Diplomacy here, any Diplomacy there can well be; Dickens once installed, Hotham will, right gladly, wash his hands of this Negotiation, which he considers to be as good as dead for a longish while past. First, however, he has one unexpected adventure to go through in Berlin; of most unexpected celebrity in the world: this once succinctly set forth, History will dismiss him to the shades of private life.

Guy Dickens, arriving we can guess about the 8th or 9th of July, brings two important Documents with him to Berlin, FIRST, the English Response (in the shape of "Instructions" to himself, which may be ostensible in the proper quarter) in regard to the Crown-Prince's project of flight into England. Response which is no other than might have been expected in the circumstances: "Britannic Majesty sorry extremely for the Crown-Prince's situation; ready to do anything in reason to alleviate it. Better wait, however: Prussian Majesty will surely perhaps relent a little: then also the affairs of Europe are in a ticklish state. Better wait. As to that of taking temporary refuge in France, Britannic Majesty thinks that will require a mature deliberation (MURE DELIBERATION). Not even time now for inquiry of the French Court how they would take it; which his Britannic Majesty thinks an indispensable preliminary,"--and so terminates. The meaning, we perceive, is in sum: "Hm, you won't, surely? Don't; at least Don't yet!" But Dryasdust, and any readers who have patience, can here take the Original Paper; which is written in French (or French of Stratford at the Bow), probably that the Crown-Prince, if needful, might himself read it, one of these days:--

"Monsieur Guy Dickens pourrait donner au Prince les assurances les plus fortes de la compassion que le Roi a du triste etat ou il se trouve, et du desir sincere de Sa Majeste de concourir par tout ce qui dependra d'elle a l'en tirer. M. Guy Dickens pourrait lui communiquer en meme terns les Instructions donnees a Monsieur Hotham [our Answer to the Outrageous propositions, which amounts to nothing, and may be spared the reader], et lui marquer qu'on avait lieu d'esperer que Sa Majeste Prussienne ne refuserait pas au moins de s'expliquer un peu plus en detail qu'elle n'a fait jusqu'ici. Qu'en attendant les suites que cette negociation pourrait avoir, Sa Majeste etait d'avis que le Prince ferait bien de differer un peu l'execution de son dessein connu: Que la situation ou les affaires de l'Europe se trouvaient dans ce moment critique ne paraissait pas propre a l'execution d'un dessein de cette nature: Que pour ce qui est de l'intention ou le Prince a temoigne etre, de se retirer en France, Sa Majeste croit qu'elle demande une mure deliberation, et que le peu de tems qui reste ne promet pas meme qu'on puisse s'informer de ce que la Cour de France pourrait penser la-dessus; dont Sa Majeste trouvait cependant absolument necessaire de l'assurer, avant de pouvoir conseiller a un Prince qui lui est si cher de se retirer en ce pays la." [Prussian Despatches, vol. xii.: No date or signature; bound up along with Harrington's Despatch, "Windsor, 20th June [1st July] 1730,"--on the morrow of which day we may fancy Captain Dickens took the road for Berlin again,--where we auspiciously see him on Monday, 10th July, probably a night or two after his arrival.] This is Document FIRST; of no concernment to Hotham at this stage; but only to us and our Crown-Prince. Document SECOND would at one time have much interested Hotham: it is no other than a Grumkow Original seized at St. Mary Axe, such as Hotham once solicited, "strong enough to break Grumkow's back." Hotham now scarcely hopes it will be "strong enough." No matter; he presents it as bidden. On introducing Dickens as successor, Monday, 10th July, he puts the Document into his Prussian Majesty's hand: and--the result was most unexpected! Here is Hotham's Despatch to Lord Harrington; which it will be our briefest method to give, with some minimum of needful explanation intercalated here and there:--

"TO THE LORD HARRINGTON (from Sir Charles Hotham).

"BERLIN, 30th June (11th July), 1730.

"MY LORD,--Though the conduct of his Prussian Majesty has been such, for some time past, that one ought to be surprised at nothing he does,--it is nevertheless with great concern that I now have to acquaint your Lordship with an extravagancy of his which happened yesterday," Monday, 10th July, 1730.

"The King of Prussia, had appointed me to be with him about noon, with Captain Guy Dickens [who has just returned from England, on what secret message your Lordship knows!].--We both attended his Prussian Majesty, and I presented Captain Guy Dickens to him, who delivered his credentials: after which the King talked to us a quarter of an hour about indifferent matters. Seeing him in a very good humor, I took that opportunity of telling him, 'That as General Grumkow had denied his having held a Secret Correspondence with Reichenbach, or having written the Letters I had some time ago delivered to his Majesty, I was now ordered by the King my Master to put into his hands an Original Letter of General Grumkow'"----Where is that Original Letter? ask some minute readers. Minute readers, the IPSISSIMUM CORPUS of it is lost to mankind. Official Copy of it lies safe here in the State-Paper Office (Prussian Despatches, volume xli.; without date of its own, but near a Despatch dated 20th June, 1730); has, adjoined to it, an Autograph jotting by George Second to the effect, "Yes, send it," and also some preliminary scribbles by Newcastle, to the like purport. No date of its own, we say, though, by internal evidence and light of FASSMANN, [p. 404.] it is conclusively datable "Berlin, 20th May," if anybody cared to date it. The Letter mentions lightly that "pretended discovery [the St.-Mary-Axe one, laid on the table of Tobacco-Parliament, 6th May or soon after], innocent trifles all I wrote; hope you burnt them, nevertheless, according to promise: yours to me I did burn as they came, and will defy the Devil to produce;" brags of his Majesty's fine spirits;--and is, Jotting and all, as insignificant a Letter as any other portion of the "Rookery Colloquy," though its fate was a little more distinguished. Prussian Dryasdust is expected to give it in FAC-SIMILE, one day,--surely no British Under-Secretary will exercise an unwise discretion, and forbid him that small pleasure!--"which was an undeniable proof of all the rest, and could not but convince his Prussian Majesty of the truth of them."--Well?

"He took the Letter from me, cast his eye upon it; and seeing it to be Grumkow's hand, said to me with all the anger imaginable [fancy the thunder-burst!], 'Messieurs, j'ai eu assez de ces choses la;' threw the Letter upon the ground, and immediately turning his back went out of the room, and shut the door upon us,"--probably with a slam! And that is the naked truth concerning this celebrated Intercepted Letter. Majesty answered explosively,--his poor heart being in a burdened and grieved condition, not unlike growing a haunted one,--"I have had enough of that stuff before!" pitched the new specimen away, and stormily whirled out with a slam of the door. That he stamped with his foot, is guessable. That he "lifted his foot as if to kick the Honorable English Excellency," [Wilhelmina, i. 228.] which the English Excellency never could have stood, but must have died on the spot,--of this, though several Books have copied it from Wilhelmina, there is no vestige of evidence: and the case is bad enough without this.

"Your Lordship will easily imagine that Captain Guy Dickens and I were not a little astonished at this most extraordinary behavior. I took up the Letter he had thrown upon the floor [IPSISSIMUM CORPUS of it lost to mankind, last seen going into Hotham's pocket in this manner]; and returning home, immediately wrote one to his Prussian Majesty, of which a copy is here enclosed."--Let us read that essential Piece: sound substance, in very stiff indifferent French of Stratford,--which may as well be made English at once:--

"TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF PRUSSIA.

"SIRE,--It is with the liveliest grief that I find myself under the necessity,--after what has passed today at the audience I had of your Majesty, where I neither did nor said anything in regard to that Letter of Monsieur Grumkow's or to putting it into your Majesty's hands, that was not by my Master's order,--it is, I say, Sire, with the liveliest grief that I am obliged to inform your Majesty of the necessity there lies on me to despatch a Courier to London to apprise the King my Master of an incident so surprising as the one that has just happened. For which reason I beg (SUPPLIE) your Majesty will be pleased to cause the necessary Orders for Post-horses to be furnished me, not only for the said Courier, but also for myself,--since, after what has just happened, it is not proper for me to prolong my stay here (faire un plus long sejour ici).

"I have the honor to be, your Majesty's, &c. &c. &c.

"CHARLES HOTHAM."

"About two hours afterwards, General Borck came to me; and told me He was in the utmost affliction for what had happened; and beseeched me to have a little patience, and that he hoped means would be found to make up the matter to me. Afterwards he communicated to me, by word of mouth, the Answer the King of Prussia had given to the last Orders I had received by Captain Guy Dickens,"--Orders, "Come home immediately," to which the "Answer" is conceivable.

"I told him that, after the treatment I had received at noon, and the affront put upon the King my Master's character, I could no longer receive nor charge myself with anything that came from his Prussian Majesty. That as to what related to me personally, it was very easily made up; but having done nothing but in obedience to the King my Master's orders, it belonged to him only to judge what satisfaction was due for the indignity offered to his character. Wherefore I did not look upon myself as authorized to listen to any expedients till I knew his Majesty's pleasure upon the matter.

"In the evening, General Borck wrote a Letter to Captain Guy Dickens and two to me, the Copies of which are enclosed,"--fear not, reader! "The purport of them was to desire That I would take no farther notice of what had happened, and that the King of Prussia desired I would come and dine with him next day."--Engaged otherwise, your Majesty, next day!" The Answer to these Letters I also enclose to your Lordship,"--reader not to be troubled with it. "I excused myself from dining with the King of Prussia, not thinking myself at liberty to appear any more at Court till I received his Majesty's," my own King's, "commands, and told General Borck that I looked upon myself as indispensably obliged to acquaint the King my Master with everything that had passed, it being to no purpose to think of concealing it, since the thing was already become public, and would soon be known in all the Courts of Europe.

"This, my Lord, is the true state of this unaccountable accident. You will see, by General Borck's Letter, that the King of Prussia, being now returned to his senses, is himself convinced of the extravagancy of this proceeding; and was very desirous of having it concealed;--which was impossible; for the whole Town knew it an hour after it had happened.

"As to my own part, I am not a little concerned at this unfortunate incident. As it was impossible to foresee this fit of madness in the King of Prussia, there was no guarding against it: and after it had happened, I thought I could do no less than resent it in the manner I have done,--without prostituting the character with which the King has been pleased to honor me. I hope, however, this affair will be attended with no ill consequences: for the King of Prussia himself is at present so ashamed of his behavior, that he says, He will order Count Degenfeld [Graf von Degenfeld, going at a leisurely pace to remove NOSTI from his perch among you] [Supra, p. 197.] to hasten his journey to England, with orders to endeavor to make up the affair immediately.

"As I had already received the King's Orders, by Captain Guy Dickens, To return home forthwith, I thought, after what had happened, the sooner I left this place the better; and the rather because it might be proper I should make a report of it to his Majesty. I shall therefore set out a few hours after this Messenger; and will make all the expedition possible.

"The King of Prussia sets out for Anspach on Saturday next,"--11th July is Tuesday, Saturday next will be 15th July, which proves correct. [Fassmann, p. 410.] "I am, with the utmost respect, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient and most humble servant,

CHARLES HOTHAM."

[State-Paper Office: Prussian Despatches, vol. xli.] No sooner was the door slammed to than his Majesty began to repent. At sight of the demand for Post-horses, he repented bitterly; sent Borck to ask Hotham to dinner, with what success we have seen. Sent Borck to negotiate, to correspond, to consult with Dickens, to do his utmost in pacifying Hotham. All which Correspondence exists, but is not worth giving. Borck's remonstrances are in rugged soldier-like style, full of earnestness and friendliness. Do not wreck, upon trifles, a noble interest we have in common; King is jealous about foreign interference with his Ministers, but meant nothing; I tell you it is nothing I--Hotham is polite, good-tempered; but remains inflexible: With myself, on my own score, it were soon settled, or is already settled; but with the King my Master,--no expedient but post-horses! The Diplomatist world of Berlin is in a fuss; Queen Sophie and "the Minister of Denmark," with other friendly Ministers, how busy! "All day," this day and the next, "they spent in comings and goings" [Wilhelmina, i. 229, 230.] advising Hotham to relent: Hotham could not relent. The Crown-Prince himself writes, urged by a message from his Mother; Crown-Prince sends Katte off from Potsdam with this Billet [Ib. i. 230.] (if this be a correct copy to translate from)

TO HIS EXCELLENCY MONSIEUR THE CHEVALIER HOTHAM.

"POTSDAM, 11th July, 1730.

"MONSIEUR,--Having learned by M. de Leuvener," the Danish Minister, a judicious well-affected man, "what the King my Father's ultimate intentions are, I cannot doubt but you will yield to his desires. Think, Monsieur, that my happiness and my Sister's depend on the resolution you shall take, and that your answer will mean the union or the disunion forever of the two Houses! I flatter myself that it will be favorable, and that you will yield to my entreaties. I never shall forget such a service, but recognize it all my life by the most perfect esteem," with which I now am, TOUT A VOUS,

"FREDERIC."

This Billet Katte delivers: but to this also Hotham remains inexorable; polite, hopeful even: No harm will come; Degenfeld will go, I myself will help when at home; but for the present, no resource but post-horses! Which they at last yield him, the very post-horses ready to weep.

And so Hotham, spirited judicious English gentleman, rolls off homewards, ["Wednesday," 12th (Dickens).] a few hours after his Courier,--and retires honorably into the shades of private life, steady there thenceforth. He has not been successful in Berlin: surely his Negotiation is now OUT in all manner of senses! Long ago (to use our former ignoble figure) he had "laid down the bellows, though there was still smoke traceable:" but now, by this Grumkow Letter, he has, as it were, struck the POKER through the business; and that dangerous manoeuvre, not proving successful, has been fatal and final! Queen Sophie and certain others may still flatter themselves; but it is evident the Negotiation is at last complete. What may lie in flight to England and rash desperate measures, which Queen Sophie trembles to think of, we do not know: but by regular negotiation this thing can never be.

It is darkly apprehended the Crown-Prince still meditates Flight; the maternal heart and Wilhelmina's are grieved to see Lieutenant Katte so much in his confidence--could wish him a wiser councillor in such predicaments and emergencies! Katte is greatly flattered by the Prince's confidence; even brags of it in society, with his foolish loose tongue. Poor youth, he is of dissolute ways; has plenty of it "unwise intellect," little of the "wise" kind; and is still under the years of discretion. Towards Wilhelmina there is traceable in him something,--something as of almost loving a bright particular star, or of thrice-privately worshipping it for his own behoof. And Wilhelmina, during the late Radewitz time, when Mamma "gave four Apartments (or Royal Soirees) weekly," was severe upon him, and inaccessible in these Court Soirees. A rash young fool; carries a loose tongue:--still worse, has a Miniature, recognizable as Wilhelmina; and would not give it up, either for the Queen's Majesty or me!--"Thousand and thousand pardons, High Ladies both; my loose tongue shall be locked: but these two Miniatures, the Prince and Princess Royal, I copied them from two the Prince had lent me and has got back, ask me not for these;--never, oh, I cannot ever!"--Upon which Wilhelmina had to take a high attitude, and pass him speechless in the Soirees. The foolish fellow:--and yet one is not heartily angry either; only reserved in the Soirees; and anxious about one's Brother in such hands.

Friedrich Wilhelm repents much that Hotham explosion; is heard saying that he will not again treat in person with any Envoy from foreign parts, being of too hot temper, but will leave his Ministers to do it. [Dickens's Despatch, Berlin, 22d July (n.s.), 1730.] To Queen Sophie he says coldly, "Wilhelmina's marriage, then, is off; an end to IT. Abbess of Herford [good Protestant refuge for unprovided Females of Quality, which is in our gift], let her be Abbess there;"--and writes to the then extant Abbess to make Wilhelmina "Coadjutress," or Heir-Apparent to that Chief-Nunship! Nay what is still more mortifying, my Brother says, "On the whole, I had better, had not I?" The cruel Brother; but indeed the desperate!--for things are mounting to a pitch in this Household.

Queen Sophie's thoughts,--they are not yet of surrender; that they will never be, while a breath of life is left to Queen Sophie and her Project: we may fancy Queen Sophie's mood. Nor can his Majesty be in a sweet temper; his vexations lately have been many. First, England is now off, not off-and-on as formerly: that comfortable possibility, hanging always in one's thoughts, is fairly gone; and now we have nothing but the Kaiser to depend on for Julich and Berg, and the other elements of our salvation in this world! Then the St.-Mary-Axe discoveries, harassing shadows of suspicion that will rise from them, and the unseemly Hotham catastrophe and one's own blame in it; Womankind and Household still virtually rebellious, and all things going awry; Majesty is in the worst humor;--bullies and outrages his poor Crown-Prince almost worse than ever. There have been rattan-showers, hideous to think of, descending this very week [Guy Dickens's Despatch, 18th July, 1730.] on the fine head, and far into the high heart of a Royal Young Man; who cannot, in the name of manhood, endure, and must not, in the name of sonhood, resist, and vainly calls to all the gods to teach him WHAT he shall do in this intolerable inextricable state of matters.

Fate and these two Black-Artists have driven Friedrich Wilhelm nearly mad; and he, in turn, is driving everybody so. He more than suspects Friedrich of an intention to fly; which is horrible to Friedrich Wilhelm: and yet he bullies him occasionally, as a spiritless wretch, for bearing such treatment. "Cannot you renounce the Heir-Apparentship, then; your little Brother is a fine youth. Give it up; and go, unmolested, to the--in fact to the Devil: Cannot you?"--"If your Majesty, against the honor of my Mother, declare that I am not your eldest son: Yes, so; not otherwise, ever!" modestly but steadily persists the young man, whenever this expedient is proposed to him,--as perhaps it already sometimes is. Whereat the desperate Father can only snort indignantly futile. A case growing nearly desperate. Desperate, yes, on all hands: unless one had the "high mast" above alluded to, with two pulleys and ropes; and could see a certain Pair of Scoundrels mount rapidly thither, what hope is there for anybody? A violent crisis does not last, however; that is one certainty in it. Either these agonistic human beings, young and old, will all die, all go to Bedlam, with their intolerable woes; or else something of explosive nature will take place among them. The maddest boil, unless it kill you with its torments, does at length burst, and become an abscess.

Of course Captain Dickens, the instant Hotham was gone, hastened privily to see the Crown-Prince; saw Katte and him "at the Gate of the Potsdam Palace at midnight," [Wilhelmina; Ranke, i. 301.] or in some other less romantic way;--read him the Windsor Paper of "INSTRUCTIONS" known to us; and preached from that text. No definite countenance from England, the reverse rather, your Highness sees;--how can there be? Give it up, your Highness; at least delay it!--Crown-Prince does not give it up a whit; whether he delays it, we shall see.

A busy week for the Crown-Prince and Katte, this of the Hotham Catastrophe; who have many consultations, the Journey to Anspach being on Saturday next! Crown-Prince has given him in keeping a writing-case with private letters; 1,000 ducats of money, money raised by loan, by picking jewels off some miniatures of honor, and the like sore methods. Katte has his very coat, a gray top-coat or travelling roquelaure, in keeping;--and their schemes are many. Off we must and will be, by some opportunity. Could not Katte get a "Recruiting Furlough," leave to go into the REICH on that score; and join one there? Lieutenant Keith is at Wesel; ready, always ready. Into France, into Holland, England? If the English would not,--there is war to be in Italy, say all the Newspapers: why not a campaign as Volunteers in Italy, till we saw how matters went? Anything and all things are preferable to ignominy like this. No dog could, endure it!

Chapter V. -- JOURNEY TO THE REICH.

On Saturday the 15th July, 1730, early in the morning as his wont was, Friedrich Wilhelm, with a small train of official military persons, rolled off from Potsdam, towards Leipzig, on that same journey of his, towards Anspach and the Reich. To Anspach, to see our poor young daughter, lately married there; therefrom we can have a run into the Reich, according to circumstances. In this wide route there lie many Courts and scenes, which it might behoove us to look into; Courts needing to be encouraged to stand for the Kaiser's rights, against those English, French and intrusive Foreigners of the Seville Treaty. We may hope at least to ease our own heavy mind, and have the chaff somewhat blown out of it, by this rushing through the open atmosphere.--Such, so far as I can gather, were Friedrich Wilhelm's objects in this Journey; which turned out to be a more celebrated one than he expected. The authentic records of it are slight, the rumors about it have been many. [Forster (iii. 1-11) contains Seckendorf's Narrative, as sent to Vienna; Preuss (iv. 470), a Prussian RELATIO EX ACTIS: these are the only two ORIGINAL pieces which I have seen; Excerpts of others (correct doubtless, but not in a very distinct condition) occur in Ranke, i. 294-340.] After painful sifting through mountains of dust and ashes for a poor cinder of a fact here and there, our duty is, to tell the English reader one good time, what certainties, or available cinders, have anywhere turned up. Crown-Prince Friedrich, it has been decided, after some consultation, shall go with his Majesty. Better he go with us, to be under our own eyes, lest he run away, or do other mischief. Old General Buddenbrock, old Colonel Waldau, and Lieutenant-Colonel Rochow travel in the same carriage with the Prince; are to keep a strict watch over him, one of them at least to be always by him. Old General Buddenbrock, a grim but human old military gentleman, who has been in all manner of wars: he fought at Steenkirk even, and in the Siege of Namur, under Dutch William; stood, through Malplaquet and much else, under Marlborough; did the Siege of Stralsund too, and descent on Rugen there, which was not his first acquaintance with Karl of Sweden; and is a favorite old friend of Friedrich Wilhelm's. A good old gentleman, though very strict; now hard on sixty. He is chief of the Three.

Old Waldau, not younger, though still only Colonel of Horse, likewise celebrates the Malplaquet anniversary; a Pomeranian man, and silent smoker in the Tabagie, well seen by the master there. To these two elderly authorities, Lieutenant-Colonel Rochow, still only about forty, and probably sharper of eye, is adjoined as active partner. I conclude, the Prince and Buddenbrock ride face forward; Buddenbrock can tell him about so many things, if he is conversable: about Dutch William; about Charles XII., whose Polish fights he witnessed, as an envoy from Berlin, long ago. A Colonel Krocher, I find, is general manager of the Journey;--and it does not escape notice that Friedrich, probably out of youthful curiosity, seems always very anxious to know, to the uttermost settled point, where our future stages are to be. His Royal Highness laid in a fair stock of District Maps, especially of the Rhine Countries, at Leipzig, too; [Forster, iii. 2.] and is assiduous in studying them,--evidently very desirous to know the face of Germany, the Rhine Countries in particular?

Potsdam, Wittenberg, Leipzig, the wheels rush rapidly on, stage succeeding stage; and early in the afternoon we are at Leipzig,--never looking out at Luther's vestiges, or Karl V.'s, or thinking about Luther, which thou and I, good English reader, would surely have done, in crossing Wittenberg and the birthplace of Protestantism. At Leipzig we were thinking to have dined. At the Peter's Gate there,--where at least fresh horses are, and a topographic Crown-Prince can send hastily to buy maps,--a General Hopfgarten, Commandant of the Town, is out with the military honors; he has, as we privately know, an excellent dinner ready in the Pleissenburg Fortress yonder, [Fassmann, p. 410.]--but he compliments to a dreadful extent! Harangues and compliments in no end of florid inflated tautologic ornamental balderdash; repeating and again repeating, What a never-imagined honor it is; in particular saying three times over, How the Majesty of Saxony, King August, had he known, would have wished for wings to fly hither; and bowing to the very ground, "as if, in the Polish manner, he wished to clasp your feet," said Friedrich Wilhelm afterwards. I can fancy Friedrich Wilhelm somewhat startled! How, at the first mention of this idea of big August, with his lame foot, taking wing, and coming like a gigantic partridge, with lame foot and cocked-hat, Friedrich Wilhelm grinned. How, at the second mention, and Polish threat of your feet, Friedrich Wilhelm, who hates all lies, and cares not for salutations in the market-place, jerks himself impatiently and saves his feet. At the third mention, clear it is, Friedrich Wilhelm utters the word, "ANSPANNEN, Horses!"--and in very truth takes to the road again; hungry indeed, but still angrier; leaving Hopfgarten bent into the shape of a parabola, and his grand dinner cooling futile, in what tragic humor we can imagine. [Ib. p. 411.] Why has no Prussian Painter done that scene? Let another Chodowiecki, when another comes, try whether he cannot.

Friedrich Wilhelm regretted the dinner, regretted to hurt the good man's feelings; but could stand it no longer. He rushes off for Meuselwitz, where Seckendorf, with at least silence, and some cold collation instead of dinner, is awaiting him. Twenty miles off is Meuselwitz; up the flat valley of the Pleisse River towards Altenburg; through a region memorable, were we not so hungry. Famed fights have had their arena here; Lutzen, the top of its church-steeple visible on your right, it is there where the great Gustavus fell two hundred years ago: on that wide champaign, a kind of Bull-ring of the Nations, how many fights have been, and will be! Altenburg one does not see to-night: happy were we but at Meuselwitz, a few miles nearer; and had seen what dinner the old Feldzeugmeister has.

Dinner enough, we need not doubt. The old Feldzeugmeister has a big line Schloss at Meuselwitz; his by unexpected inheritance; with uncommonly fine gardens; with a good old Wife, moreover, blithe though childless;--and he is capable of "lighting more than one candle" when a King comes to visit him. Doubtless the man hurls his thrift into abeyance; and blazes out with conspicuous splendor, on this occasion. A beautiful Castle indeed, this Meuselwitz of his; the towers of Altenburg visible in the distance; Altenburg, where Kunz von Kauffungen stole the two little Princes; centuries ago;--where we do not mean to pause at this time. On the morrow morning,--unless they chose to stay over Sunday; which I cannot affirm or deny,--Seckendorf also has made his packages; and joins himself to Friedrich. Wilhelm's august travelling party. Doing here a portion of the long space (length of the Terrestrial Equator in all) which he is fated to accomplish in the way of riding with that Monarch.

From Meuselwitz, through Altenburg, Gera, Saalfeld, to Coburg, is our next day's journey. Up one fork of the Leipzig Pleisse, then across the Leipzig Elster, these streams now dwindling to brooks; leading us up to the water-shed or central Hill-countries between the Mayn and Saale Rivers; where the same shower will run partly, on this hand, northward by the Elster, Pleisse or other labyrinthic course, into the Saale, into the Elbe; and partly, on the other hand, will flow southward into the Mayn; and so, after endless windings in the Fir Mountains (FICHTEL-GEBIRGE), get by Frankfurt into the Rhine at Mainz. Mayn takes the south end of your shower; Saale takes the north,--or farther east yonder, shower will roll down into the same grand Elbe River by the Mulde (over which the Old Dessauer is minded to build a new stone bridge; Wallenstein and others, as well as Time, have ruined many bridges there). That is the line of the primeval mountains, and their ever-flowing rain-courses, in those parts.

At Gera, dim, old Town,--does not your Royal Highness well know the "Gera Bond (GERAISCHE VERTRAG)"? Duhan: did not forget to inform you of that? It is the corner-stone of the House of Brandenburg's advancement in the world. Here, by your august ancestors, the Law of Primogeniture was settled, and much rubbish was annihilated in the House of Brandenburg: Eldest Son always to inherit the Electorate unbroken; after Anspach and Baireuth no more apanages, upon any cause or pretext whatsoever; and these themselves to lapse irrevocable to the main or Electoral House, should they ever fall vacant again. Fine fruit of the decisive sense that was in the Hohenzollerns; of their fine talent for annihilating rubbish,--which feat, if a man can do it, and keep doing it, will more than most others accelerate his course in this world. It was in this dim old Town of Gera, in the Year 1598, by him that had the twenty-three children, that the "GERA BOND" was brought to parchment. But indeed it was intrinsically only a renewal, more solemnly sanctioned, of Albert Achilles's HAUS ORDNUNG (House-Order), done in 1478, above a century earlier.--

But see, we are under way again. His Prussian Majesty rushes forward without pause; will stop nowhere, except where business demands; no Majesty of his day travels at such a speed. Orlamunde an hour hence,--your Royal Highness has heard of Orlamunde and its famed Counts of a thousand years back, when Kaiser Redbeard was in the world, and the Junior Hohenzollern, tired of hawking, came down from the Hills to him? Orlamunde (OrlaMOUTH) is not far off, on our right; and this itself is the Orla; this pleasant streamlet we are now quitting, which has borne us company for some time: this too will get into the Saale, and be at Magdeburg, quite beyond the Dessauer's Bridge, early to-morrow. Ha, here at last is Saalfeld, Town and Schloss, and the incipient Saal itself: his Serene Highness Saalfeld-Coburg's little REZIDENZ;--probably his Majesty will call on him, in passing? I have no doubt he does; and transacts the civilities needful.

Christian Ernst, whose Schloss this is, a gentleman of his Majesty's age (born 1683), married an amiable FRAULEIN not of quality, whom indeed the Kaiser has ennobled: he lives here,--I think, courting the shade rather; and rules conjointly with his younger Brother, or Half-Brother, Franz Josias, who resides at Coburg. Dukes of Saalfeld-Coburg, such is their style, and in good part their possession; though, it is well known to this travelling party and the world, there has been a Lawsuit about Coburg this half-century and more; and though somewhere about 200 "CONCLUSA," [Michaelis, i. 524, 518; Busching, Erdbeschreibung, vi. 2464; OErtel, t. 74; Hubner, t. 166.] or Decrees of Aulic Council, have been given in favor of the Saalfelders, their rivals of Meiningen never end. Nor will end yet, for five years more to come; till, in 1735, "206 CONCLUSA being given," they do end, and leave the Saalfelders in peaceable possession; who continue so ever since to this day. [Carlyle's _ Miscellanies,_ vi.? PRINZENRAUB.] How long his Majesty paused in that Schloss of Saalfeld, or what he there did, or what he spake,--except perhaps encourage Christian Ernst to stand by a Kaiser's Majesty against these French insolences, and the native German, Spanish, English derelictions of duty,--we are left to the vaguest guess of fancy, And must get on to Coburg for the night.

At Coburg, in its snug valley, under the FESTUNG or Hill Castle,--where Martin Luther sat solitary during the Diet of Augsburg (Diet known to us, our old friend Margraf George of Anspach hypothetically "laying his head on the block? there, and the great Kaiser, Karl V., practically burning daylight, with pitiable spilling of wax, in the CORPUS-CHRISTI procession there), [Antea, vol. v. p. 197.]--where Martin Luther sat solitary, and wrote that celebrated Letter about 16 Crows holding THEIR Parliament all round," and how "the pillars of the world were never seen by anybody, and yet the world is held up, in these dumb continents of space;"--at Coburg, we will not doubt, his Majesty found Franz Josias at home, and illuminated to receive him. Franz Josias, a hearty man of thirty-five, he too will stand by the Kaiser in these coming storms? With a weak contingent truly, perhaps some score or two of fighters: but many a little makes a mickle!--remark, however; two points, of a merely genealogical nature. First, that Franz Josias has, or rather is going to have, a Younger Son, [Friedrich Josias: 1737-1815.] who in some sixty years hence will become dreadfully celebrated in the streets of Paris, as "Austrian Coburg." The Austrian Coburg of Robes-Pierre and Company. An immeasurable terror and portent,--not much harm in him, either, when he actually comes, with nothing but the Duke of York and Dunkirk for accompaniment,--to those revolutionary French of 1792-1794. This is point FIRST. Point SECOND is perhaps still more interesting; this namely: That Franz Josias has an Eldest Son (boy of six when Friedrich Wilhelm makes his visit),--a GRANDSON'S GRANDSON of whom is, at this day, Prince of Wales among the English People, and to me a subject of intense reflection now and then!--

From Coburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, after pause again unknown, rushed on to Bamberg; new scenes and ever new opening on the eyes of our young Hero and his Papa. The course is down the valley of the Itz, one of the many little valleys in the big slope of the Rodach; for the waters are now turned, and all streams and brooks are gurgling incessantly towards the Mayn. Towards Frankfurt, Mainz and the Rhine,--far enough from the Saale, Mulde, or the Old Dessauer's Bridge to-day; towards Rotterdam and the uttermost Dutch swamps today. Near upon Bamberg we cross the Mayn itself; Red Mayn and White conjoined, coming from Culmbach and Baireuth,--mark that, your Highness. A country of pleasant hills and vines: and in an hour hence, through thick fir woods,--each side of your road horribly decked with gibbeted thieves swinging aloft, [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters (English Translation, London, 1745), i. 209. Let me say again, this is a different Book from the "MEMOIRS of Pollnitz;" and a still different from the MEMOIREN, or "Memoirs of Brandenburg BY Pollnitz:" such the excellence of nomenclature in that old fool!]--you arrive at Bamberg, chief of Bishoprics, the venerable town; whose Bishop, famous in old times, is like an Archbishop, and "gets his pallium direct from the Pope,"--much good may it do him! "Is bound, however, to give up his Territory, if the Kaiser elected is landless,"--far enough from likely now. And so you are at last fairly in the Mayn Valley; River Mayn itself a little step to north;--long course and many wide windings between you and Mainz or Frankfurt, not to speak of Rotterdam, and the ultimate Dutch swamps.

At Bamberg why should a Prussian Majesty linger, except for picturesque or for mere baiting purposes? At Bamberg are certain fat Catholic Canons, in indolent, opulent circumstances; and a couple of sublime Palaces, without any Bishop in them at present. Nor indeed does one much want Papist Bishops, wherever they get their pallium; of them as well keep to windward! thinks his Majesty. And indeed there is no Bishop here. The present Bishop of Bamberg--one of those Von Schonborns, Counts, sometimes Cardinals, common in that fat Office,--is a Kaiser's Minister of State; lives at Vienna, enveloped in red tape, as well as red hat and stockings; and needs no exhortation in the Kaiser's favor. Let us yoke again, and go.--Fir woods all round, and dead malefactors blackening in the wind: this latter point I know of the then Bamberg; and have explanation of it. Namely, that the Prince-Bishop, though a humane Catholic, is obliged to act so. His small Domain borders on some six or seven bigger sovereignties; and, being Ecclesiastical, is made a cesspool to the neighboring scoundrelism; which state of things this Prince Bishop has said shall cease. Young Friedrich may look, therefore, and old Friedrich Wilhelm and Suite; and make of it what they can.

"Bamberg, through Erlangen, to Nurnberg;" so runs the way. At Erlangen there loiters now, recruiting, a certain Rittmeister von Katte, cousin to our Potsdam Lieutenant and confidant; to him this transit of the Majesty and Crown-Prince must be an event like few, in that stagnant place. French Refugees are in Erlangen, busy building new straight streets; no University as yet;--nay a high Dowager of Baireuth is in it, somewhat exuberant Lady (friend Weissenfels's Sister) on whom Friedrich Wilhelm must call in passing. This high Widow of Baireuth is not Mother of the present Heir-Apparent there, who will wed our Wilhelmina one day;--ah no, his Mother was "DIVORCED for weighty reasons;"[Hubner, t. 181.] and his Father yet lives, in the single state; a comparatively prosperous gentleman these four years last past; Successor, since four years past, of this Lady's Husband, who was his Cousin-german. Dreadfully poor before that, the present Margraf of Baireuth, as we once explained; but now things are looking up with him again, some jingle of money heard in the coffers of the man; and his eldest Prince, a fine young fellow, only apt to stammer a little when agitated, is at present doing the return part of the Grand Tour,--coming home by Geneva they say.

Rittmeister von Katte, I doubt not, witnesses this transit of the incognito Majesty, this call upon the exuberant Dowager; but can have little to say to it, he. I hope he is getting tall recruits here in the Reich; that will be the useful point for him. He is our Lieutenant Katte's Cousin, an elder and wiser man than the Lieutenant. A Reichsgraf's and Field-marshal's nephew, he ought to get advanced in his profession;--and can hope to do so when he has deserved it, not sooner at all, in that thrice-fortunate Country. Let the Rittmeister here keep himself well apart from what is NOT his business, and look out for tall men.

Bamberg is halfway-house between Coburg and Nurnberg; whole distance of Coburg and Nurnberg,--say a hundred and odd miles,--is only a fair day's driving for a rapid King. And at Nurnberg, surely, we must lodge for a night and portion of a day, if not for more. On the morrow, it is but a thirty-five miles drive to Anspach; pleasant in the summer evening, after all the sights in this old Nurnberg, "city of the Noricans (NORICORUM BURGUN)." Trading Staple of the German world in old days; Toy-shop of the German world in these new. Albert Durer's and Hans Sach's City,--mortals infinitely indifferent to Friedrich Wilhelm. But is it not the seed-ground of the Hohenzollerns, this Nurnberg, memorable above cities to a Prussian Majesty? Yes, there in that old white Castle, now very peaceable, they dwelt; considerably liable to bickerings and mutinous heats; and needed all their skill and strength to keep matters straight. It is now upon seven hundred years since the Cadet of Hohenzollern gave his hawk the slip, patted his dog for the last time, and came down from the Rough-Alp countries hitherward. And found favor, not unmerited I fancy, with the great Kaiser Redbeard, and the fair Heiress of the Vohburgs; and in fact, with the Earth and with the Heavens in some degree. A loyal, clever, and gallant kind of young fellow, if your Majesty will think? Much has grown and waned since that time: but the Hohenzollerns, ever since, are on the waxing hand;--unless this accursed Treaty of Seville and these English Matches put a stop to them?

Alas, it is not likely Friedrich Wilhelm, in the hurry and grating whirl of things, had many poetic thoughts in him, or pious aurora memories from the Past Ages, instead of grumbly dusty provocations from the present,--his feeling, haste mainly, and need of getting through! The very Crown-Prince, I should guess, was as good as indifferent to this antique Cadet of the Hohenzollerns; and looked on Nurnberg and the old white Castle with little but ENNUI: the Princess of England, and black cares on her beautiful account and his own, possess him too exclusively. But in truth we do not even know what day they arrived or departed; much less what they did or felt in that old City. We know only that the pleasant little town of Anspach, with its huge unfinished SCHLOSS, lay five-and-thirty miles away; and that thither was the next and quasi-final bit of driving. Southwestward thirty-five miles; through fine summer hills and dales; climbing always, gently, on the southward hand; still drained by the Mayn River, by the Regnitz and other tributaries of the Mayn:--half-way is Heilsbronn, [Not Heilbronn, the well-known, much larger Town, in Wurtemberg, 80 or 100 miles to westward. Both names (which are applied to still other places) signify HEALTH-WELL, or even HOLY-WELL,--these two words, HEALTHY and HOLY (what is very remarkable), being the same in old Teutonic speech.] with its old Monastery; where the bones of our Hohenzollern Forefathers rest, and Albert Achilles's "skull, with no sutures visible." On the gloomy Church-walls their memorials are still legible: as for the Monastery itself, Margraf George, tour memorable Reformation friend, abolished that,--purged the monks away, and put Schoolmasters in their stead; who were long of good renown in those parts, but have since gone to Erlangen, so to speak. The July sunset streaming over those old spires of Heilsbronn might awaken thoughts in a Prussian Majesty, were he not in such haste.

At Anspach, what a thrice-hospitable youthfully joyful welcome from the young married couple there! Margravine Frederika is still not quite sixteen; "beautiful as Day," and rather foolish: fancy her joy at sight of Papa's Majesty and Brother Fritz; and how she dances about, and perhaps bakes "pastries of the finest Anspach flour." Ah, DID you send me Berlin sausages, then, you untrue Papa? Well, I will bake for you, won't I;--Sarah herself not more loyally {whom we read of in GENESIS), that time the Angels entered HER tent in a hungry condition!--

Anspach, as we hint, has an unfinished Palace, of a size that might better beseem Paris or London; Palace begun by former Margraves, left off once and again for want of cash; stands there as a sad monument of several things;--the young family living meanwhile in some solid comfortable wing, or adjacent edifice, of natural dimensions. They are so young, as we say, and not too wise. By and by they had a son, and then a second son; which latter came to manhood, to old age; and made some noise in the foolish parts of the Newspapers,--winding up finally at Hammersmith, as we often explain;--and was the last of the Anspach-Baireuth Margraves. I have heard farther that Frederika did not want for temper, as the Hohenzollerns seldom do; that her Husband likewise had his own stock of it, rather scant of wisdom withal; and that their life was not quite symphonious always,--especially cash being short. The Dowager Margravine, Margraf's Mother, had governed with great prudence during her Son's long minority. I think she is now, since the marriage, gone to reside at her WITTWENSITZ (Dowager-Seat) of Feuchtwang (twenty miles southwest of us); but may have come up to welcome the Majesties into these parts. Very beautiful, I hear; still almost young and charming, though there is a mortal malady upon her, which she knows of. [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters, i. 209 (date, 29th September, 1729;--needs WATCHING before believing).] Here are certain Seckendorfs too, this is the Feldzeugmeister's native country;--and there are resources for a Royal Travelling-Party. How long the Royal Party stayed at Anspach I do not know; nor what they did there,--except that Crown-Prince Friedrich is said to have privately asked the young Margraf to lend him a pair of riding-horses, and say nothing of it; who, suspecting something wrong, was obliged to make protestations and refuse.

As to the Crown-Prince, there is no doubt but here at last things are actually coming to a crisis with him. To say truth, it has been the young man's fixed purpose ever since he entered on this Journey, nay was ever since that ignominy in the Camp of Radewitz, to run away;--and indeed all this while he has measures going on with Katte at Berlin of the now-or-never sort. Rash young creatures, elder of them hardly above five-and-twenty yet: not good at contriving measures. But what then? Human nature cannot stand this always; and it is time there were an end of deliberating. Can we ever have such a chance again?--What I find of certain concerning Friedrich while at Anspach is, That there comes by way of Erlangen, guided forward from that place by the Rittmeister von Katte, a certain messenger and message, which proved of deep importance to his Royal Highness. The messenger was Lieutenant Katte's servant: who has come express from Berlin hither. He inquired, on the road, as he was bidden, at Erlangen, of Master's Cousin, the experienced Rittmeister, Where his Royal Highness at present was, that he might deliver a Letter to him? The Master's Cousin, who answered naturally, "At Anspach," knew nothing, and naturally could get to know nothing, of what the message in this Letter was. But he judged, from cross-questionings, added to dim whispering rumors he had heard, that it was questionable, probably in an extreme degree. Wherefore, along with his Cousin the Lieutenant's messenger to Anspach, the Rittmeister forwarded a Note of his own to Lieutenant-Colonel Rochow, of this purport, "As a friend, I warn you, have a watchful eye on your high charge!"--and, for his own share, determined to let nothing escape him in his corner of the matter. This note to Rochow, and the Berlin Letter for the Crown-Prince reach Anspach by the same hand; Lieutenant Katte's express, conscious of nothing, delivering them both. Rochow and the Rittmeister, though the poor Prince does not know it, are broad awake to all movements he and the rash Lieutenant may make.

Lieutenant Katte, in this Letter now arrived, complains: "That he never yet can get recruiting furlough; whether it be by accident, or that Rochow has given my Colonel a hint, no furlough yet to be had: will, at worst, come without furlough and in spite of all men and things, whenever wanted. Only--Wesel still, if I might advise!" This is the substance of Katte's message by express. Date must be the end of July, 1730; but neither Date nor Letter is now anywhere producible, except from Hearsay.

Deeply pondering these things, what shall the poor Prince do? From Canstatt, close by Stuttgard, a Town on our homeward route,--from Canstatt, where Katte was to "appear in disguise," had the furlough been got, one might have slipt away across the Hills. It is but eighty miles to Strasburg, through the Kniebiss Pass, where the Murg, the Kinzig, and the intricate winding mountain streams and valleys start Rhine-ward: a labyrinthic rock-and-forest country, where pursuit or tracking were impossible. Near by Strasburg is Count Rothenburg's Chateau; good Rothenburg, long Minister in Berlin,--who saw those PROFOSSEN, or Scavenger-Executioners in French Costume long since, and was always good to me:--might not that be a method? Lieutenant Keith indeed is in Wesel, waiting only a signal. Suppose he went to the Hague, and took soundings there what welcome we should have? No, not till we have actually run; beware of making noise!--The poor Prince is in unutterable perplexity; can only answer Katte by that Messenger of his, to the effect (date and Letter burnt like the former): "Doubt is on every hand; doubt,--and yet CERTAINTY. Will write again before undertaking anything."

And there is no question he did write again; more than once: letters by the post, which his faithful Lieutenant Katte in Berlin received; one of which, however, stuck on the road; and this one,--by some industry of postmasters spirited into vigilance, as is likeliest, though others say by mere misaddressing, by "want of BERLIN on the address,"--fell into the hands of vigilant RITTMEISTER Katte at Erlangen. Who grew pale in reading it, and had to resolve on a painful thing! This was, I suppose, among the last Letters of the series; and must have been dated, as I guess, about the 29th of July, 1730; but they are now all burnt, huddled rapidly into annihilation, and one cannot say!--

Certain it is that the Royal Travelling-Party left Anspach in a few days, to go, southward still, "by the OEttingen Country towards Augsburg." [Fassmann, p. 410.] Feuchtwang (WET Wang, not Durrwang or DRY Wang) is the first stage; here lives the Dowager Margravine of Anspach: here the Prince does some inconceivably small fault "lets a knife, which he is handing to or from the Serene Lady, fall," [Ranke, i. 304 ("from a Letter the Prince had written to Katte").] who, as she is weak, may suffer by the jingle; for which Friedrich Wilhelm bursts out on him like the Irish Rebellion,--to the silent despair of the poor Prince. The poor Prince meditates desperate resolutions, but has to keep them strictly to himself.

Doubtless the Buddenbrock Trio, good old military gentlemen, would endeavor to speak comfort to him, when they were on the road again. Here is Nordlingen, your Highness, where Bernhard of Weimar, for his over-haste, got so beaten in the Thirty-Years War; would not wait till the Swedes were rightly gathered: what general, if he have reinforcement at hand, would not wait for it? The waters now, you observe, run all into the Wornitz, into the Donau: it is a famed war-country this; known to me well in my young Eugene-Marlborough days!--"Hm, Ha, yes!" For the Prince is preoccupied with black cares; and thinks Blenheim and the Schellenberg businesses befell long since, and were perhaps simple to what he has now on hand. That Feuchtwang scene, it would appear, has brought him to a resolution. There is a young page Keith of the party, Lieutenant Keith of Wesel's Brother; of this page Keith, who is often busy about horses, he cautiously makes question, What help may be in him? A willing mind traceable in this poor lad, but his terrors great.

To Donauworth from Anspach, through Feuchtwang and Nordlingen, is some seventy or eighty miles. At Donauworth one surely ought to lodge, and see the Schellenberg on the morrow; nay drive to the Field of Hochstadt (Blenheim, BLINDHEIM), which is but a few miles farther up the River? Buddenbrock was there, and Anhalt-Dessau: for their very sake, were there nothing farther, one surely ought to go? Such was the probability, a visit to Blenheim field in passing. And surely, somewhere in those heart-rending masses of Historical Rubbish, I did at last find express evanescent mention of the fact,--but cannot now say where;--the exact record, or conceivable image of which, would have been a perceptible pleasure to us. Alas, in those dim dreary Books, all whirling dismal round one's soul, like vortices of dim Brandenburg sand, how should anything human be searched out and mentioned to us; and a thousand, things not-human be searched out, and eternally suppressed from us, for the sake of that? I please myself figuring young Friedrich looking at the vestiges of Marlborough, even in a preoccupied uncertain manner. Your Majesty too, this is the very "Schellenberg (or JINGLE-HILL)," this Hill we are now skirting, on highways, on swift wheels; which overhangs Donauworth, our resting-place this hot July evening. Yes, your Majesty, here was a feat of storming done,--pang, pang!--such a noise as never jingled on that Hill before: like Doomsday come; and a hero-head to rule the Doomsday, and turn it to heroic marching music. A very pretty feat of war, your Majesty! His Majesty well knows it; feat of his Marlborough's doing, famed everywhere for the twenty-six years last past; and will go to see the Schellenberg and its Lines. The great Duke is dead four years; sank sadly, eclipsed under tears of dotage of his own, and under human stupidity of other men's! But Buddenbrock is still living, Anhalt-Dessau and others of us are still alive a little while!

Hochstadt itself--Blenheim, as the English call it, meaning BLINDHEIM, the other village on the Field--is but a short way up the River; well worth such a detour. By what way they drove to the field of honor and back from it, I do not know. But there, northward, towards the heights, is the little wood where Anhalt-Dessau stood at bay like a Molossian dog, of consummate military knowledge; and saved the fight in Eugene's quarter of it. That is visible enough; and worth looking at. Visible enough the rolling Donau, Marlborough's place; the narrow ground, the bordering Hills all green at this season;--and down old Buddenbrock's cheek, end Anhalt's, there would roll an iron tear or two. Augsburg is but some thirty miles off, once we are across the Donau,--by the Bridge of Donauworth, or the Ferry of Hochstadt,--swift travellers in a long day, the last of July, are soon enough at Augsburg.

As for Friedrich, haunted and whipt onwards by that scene at Feuchtwang, he is inwardly very busy during this latter part of the route. Probably there is some progress towards gaining Page Keith, Lieutenant Keith of Wesel's Brother; some hope that Page Keith, at the right moment, can be gained: the Lieutenant at Wesel is kept duly advised. To Lieutenant Katte at Berlin Friedrich now writes, I should judge from Donauworth or Augsburg, "That he has had a scene at Feuchtwang; that he can stand it no longer. That Canstatt being given up, as Katte cannot be there to go across the Kniebiss with us, we will endure till we are near enough the Rhine. Once in the Rhineland, in some quiet Town there, handy for Speyer, for French Landau,"--say Sinzheim; last stage hitherward of Heidelberg, but this we do not write,--"there might it not be? Be, somewhere, it shall and must! You, Katte, the instant you hear that we are off, speed you towards the Hague; ask for 'M. le Comte d'Alberville;' you will know that gentleman WHEN you see him: Keith, our Wesel friend, will have taken the preliminary soundings;--and I tell you, Count d'Alberville, or news of him, will be there. Bring the great-coat with you, and the other things, especially the 1,000 gold ducats. Count d'Alberville at the Hague, if all have gone right:--nay if anything go wrong, cannot he, once across the Rhine, take refuge in the convents in those Catholic regions? Nobody, under the scapulary, will suspect such a heretic as him. Speed, silence, vigilance! And so adieu!" A letter of such purport Friedrich did write; which Letter, moreover, the Lieutenant Katte received: it was not this, it was another, that stuck upon the road, and fell into the Rittmeister's hand. This is the young Prince's ultimate fixed project, brought to birth by that slight accident of dropping the knife at Feuchtwang; [Ranke, i. 304.] and hanging heavy on his mind during this Augsburg drive. At Augsburg, furthermore, "he bought, in all privacy, red cloth, of quantity to make a top-coat;" red, the gray being unattainable in Katte's hands: in all privacy; though the watchful Rochow had full knowledge of it, all the same.

Chapter VI. -- JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY

Homewards

The travelling Majesty of Prussia went diligently up and down, investigating ancient Augsburg: saw, I doubt not, the FUGGEREI, or ancient Hospice of the Fuggers,--who were once Weavers in those parts, and are now Princes, and were known to entertain Charles V. with fires of cinnamon, nay with transient flames of Bank-bills on one old occasion. Saw all the Fuggeries, I doubt not; the ancient Luther-and-Melanchthon relics, Diet-Halls and notabilities of this renowned Free Town;--perhaps remembered Margraf George, and loud-voiced Kurfurst Joachim with the Bottle-nose (our DIRECT Ancestor, though mistaken in opinion on some points!), who were once so audible there.

One passing phenomenon we expressly know he saw; a human, not a historically important one. Driving through the streets from place to place, his Majesty came athwart some questionable quaint procession, ribbony, perhaps musical; Majesty questioned it: "A wedding procession, your Majesty!"--"Will the Bride step out, then, and let us see how she is dressed!" "VOM HERZEN GERN; will have the honor." Bride stept out, with blushes,--handsome we will hope; Majesty surveyed her, on the streets of Augsburg, having a human heart in him; and (says Fassmann, as if with insidious insinuation) "is said to have made her a present." She went her way; fulfilled her destiny in an anonymous manner: Friedrich Wilhelm, loudly named in the world, did the like; and their two orbits never intersected again.--Some forty-five miles south of Augsburg, up the Wertach River, more properly up the Mindel River, lies Mindelheim, once a name known in England and in Prussia; once the Duke of Marlborough's "Principality:" given him by a grateful Kaiser Joseph; taken from him by a necessitous Kaiser Karl, Joseph's Brother, that now is. I know not if his Majesty remembers that transaction, now while in these localities; but know well, if he does, he must think it a shabby one.

On the same day, 1st August, 1730, we quit Augsburg; set out fairly homewards again. The route bends westward this time; towards Frankfurt-on-Mayn; there yachts are to be ready; and mere sailing thenceforth, gallantly down the Rhine-stream,--such a yacht-voyage, in the summer weather, with no Tourists yet infesting it,--to end, happily we will hope, at Wesel, in the review of regiments, and other business. First stage, first pause, is to be at Ludwigsburg, and the wicked old Duke of Wurtemberg's; thither first from Augsburg. We cross the Donau at Dillingen, at Gunzberg, or I know not where; and by to-morrow's sunset, being rapid travellers, find ourselves at Ludwigsburg,--clear through Canstatt, Stuttgard, and certainly no Katte waiting there! Safe across the intermediate uplands, here are we fairly in the Neckar Country, in the Basin of the Rhine again; and old Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wurtemberg bidding us kindly welcome, poor old bewildered creature, who has become the talk of Germany in those times. Will English readers consent to a momentary glance into his affairs and him? Strange things are going on at Lndwigsburg; nay the origin of Ludwigsburg, and that the Duke should be there and not at Stuttgard, is itself strange. Let us take this Excerpt, headed LUDWIGSBURG in 1730, and then hasten on:--

LUDWIGSBURG IN 1730.

"Duke Eberhard Ludwig, now an elderly gentleman of fifty-four, has distinguished himself in his long reign, not by political obliquities and obstinacies, though those also were not wanting, but by matrimonial and amatory; which have rendered him conspicuous to his fellows-creatures, and still keep him mentionable in History, briefly and for a sad reason. Duke Eberhard Ludwig was duly wedded to an irreproachable Princess of Baden-Durlach (Johanna Elizabeth) upwards of thirty years ago; and he duly produced one Son in consequence, with other good results to himself and her. But in course of time Duke Eberhard Ludwig took to consorting with bad creatures; took, in fact, to swashing about at random in the pool of amatory iniquity, as if there had been no law known, or of the least validity, in that matter.

"Perceiving which, a certain young fellow, Gravenitz by name, who had come to him from the Mecklenbnrg regions, by way of pushing fortune, and had got some pageship or the like here in Wurtemberg, recollected that he had a young Sister at home; pretty and artful, who perhaps might do a stroke of work here. He sends for the young Sister; very pretty indeed, and a gentlewoman by birth, though penniless. He borrows clothes for her (by onerous contract with the haberdashers, it is said, being poor to a degree); he easily gets her introduced to the Ducal Soirees; bids her--She knows what to do? Right well she knows what; catches, with her piquant face, the dull eye of Eberhard Ludwig, kindles Eberhard Ludwig, and will not for something quench him. Not she at all: How can SHE; your Serene Highness, ask her not! A virtuous young lady, she, and come of a stainless Family!--In brief, she hooks, she of all the fishes in the pool, this lumber of a Duke; enchants him, keeps him hooked; and has made such a pennyworth of him, for the last twenty years and more, as Germany cannot match. [Michaelis, iii. 440.] Her brother Gravenitz the page has become Count Gravenitz the prime minister, or chief of the Governing Cabal; she Countess Gravenitz and Autocrat of Wurtemberg. Loaded with wealth, with so-called honors, she and hers, there go they, flaunting sky-high; none else admitted to more than the liberty of breathing in silence in this Duchy;--the poor Duke Eberhard Ludwig making no complaint; obedient as a child to the bidding of his Gravenitz. He is become a mere enchanted simulacrum of a Duke; bewitched under worse than Thessalian spells; without faculty of willing, except as she wills; his People and he the plaything of this Circe or Hecate, that has got hold of him. So it has lasted for above twenty years. Gravenitz has become the wonder of Germany; and requires, on these bad grounds, a slight mention in Human History for some time to come. Certainly it is by the Gravenitz alone that Eberhard Ludwig is remembered; and yet, down since Ulrich with the Thumb, [Ulricus POLLEX (right thumb bigger than left); died A.D. 1265 (Michaelis, iii. 262).] which of those serene abstruse Beutelsbachers, always an abstruse obstinate set, has so fixed himself in your memory?--

"Most persons in Wurtemberg, for quiet's sake, have complied with the Gravenitz; though not without protest, and sometimes spoken protest. Thus the Right Reverend Osiander (let us name Osiander, Head of the Church in Wurtemberg) flatly refused to have her name inserted in the Public Prayers; 'Is not she already prayed for?' said Osiander: 'Do we not say, DELIVER US FROM EVIL?' said the indignant Protestant man. And there is one other person that never will comply with her: the lawful Wife of Eberhard Ludwig. Serene Lady, she has had a sad existence of it; the voice of her wrongs audible, to little purpose, this long while, in Heaven and on Earth. But it is not in the power of reward or punishment to bend her female will in the essential point: 'Divorce, your Highness? When I am found guilty, yes. Till then, never, your Highness, never, never,' in steady CRESCENDO tone:--so that his Highness is glad to escape again, and drop the subject. On which the Serene Lady again falls silent. Gravenitz, in fact, hopes always to be wedded with the right, nay were it only with the left hand: and this Serene Lady stands like a fateful monument irremovably in the way. The Serene Lady steadily inhabits her own wing of the Ducal House, would not exchange it for the Palace of Aladdin; looks out there upon the grand equipages, high doings, impure splendors of her Duke and his Gravenitz with a clear-eyed silence, which seems to say more eloquently than words, 'MENE, MENE, YOU are weighed!' In the land of Wurtemberg, or under the Sun, is no reward or punishment that can abate this silence. Speak of divorce, the answer is as above: leave divorce lying, there is silence looking forth clear-eyed from that particular wing of the Palace, on things which the gods permit for a time.

"Clear-eyed silence, which, as there was no abating of it, grew at last intolerable to the two sinners. 'Let us remove,' said the Gravenitz, 'since her Serene Highness will not: build a new charming Palace,--say at our Hunting Seat, among those pleasant Hills in the Waiblingen region,--and take the Court, out thither.' And they have done so, in these late bad years; taking out with them by degrees all the Courtier Gentry, all the RATHS, Government Boards, public businesses; and building new houses for them, there. ["From 1727 to 1730" was this latter removal. A hunting-lodge, of Eberhard Ludwig's building, and named by him LUGWIGSBURG, stood here since 1705; nucleus of the subsequent palace, with its "Pheasantries," its "Favoritas," &c. &c. The place had originally been monastic (Busching, Erdbeschreibung, vi. 1519).] Founding, in fact, a second Capital for Wurtemberg, with what distress, sulky misery and disarrangement, to Stuttgard and the old Capital, readers can fancy. There it stands, that Ludwigsburg, the second Capital of Wurtemberg, some ten or twenty miles from Stuttgard the first: a lasting memorial of Circe Gravenitz and her Ludwig. Has not she, by her incantations, made the stone houses dance out hither? It remains to this day a pleasant town, and occasional residence of sovereignty. WAIBLINGEN, within an hour's ride, has got memorability on other grounds;--what reader has not heard of GHIBELLINES, meaning Waiblingens? And in another hour up the River, you will come to Beutelsbach itself, where Ulrich with the Thumb had his abode (better luck to him!), and generated this Lover of the Gravenitz, and much other nonsense loud now and then for the last four centuries in the world!--

"There is something of abstruse in all these Beutelsbachers, from Ulrich with the Thumb downwards: a mute ennui, an inexorable obstinacy; a certain streak of natural gloom which no illumination can abolish. Veracity of all kinds is great in them; sullen passive courage plenty of it; active courage rarer; articulate intellect defective: hence a strange stiff perversity of conduct visible among them, often marring what wisdom they have;--it is the royal stamp of Fate put upon these men. What are called fateful or fated men; such as are often seen on the top places of the world, making an indifferent figure there. Something of this, I doubt not, is concerned in Eberhard Ludwig's fascination; and we shall see other instances farther down in this History.

"But so, for twenty years, the absurd Duke, transformed into a mere Porcus by his Circe in that scandalous miraculous manner, has lived; and so he still lives. And his Serene Wife, equally obstinate, is living at Stuttgard, happily out of his sight now. One Son, a weakly man, who had one heir, but has now none, is her only comfort. His Wife is a Prussian Margravine (Friedrich Wilhelm's HALF-AUNT), and cultivates Calvinism in the Lutheran Country: this Husband of hers, he too has an abstruse life, not likely to last. We need not doubt 'the Fates' are busy, and the evil demons, with those poor fellow-beings! Nay it is said the Circe is becoming much of a Hecate now; if the bewitched Duke could see it. She is getting haggard beyond the power of rouge; her mind, any mind she has, more and more filled with spleen, malice, and the dregs of pride run sour. A disgusting creature, testifies one Ex-Official gentleman, once a Hofrath under her, but obliged to run for life, and invoke free press in his defence: [Apologie de Monsieur Forstner de Breitembourg, &c. (Paris, 1716; or "a Londres, aux depens de la Compagnie, 1745"): in Spittler, Geschichte Wurtembergs (Spittlers WERKE, Stuttgard und Tubingen, 1828; vol. v.), 497-539. Michaelis, iii. 428-439, gives (in abstruse Chancery German) a Sequel to this fine affair of Forstner's.] no end to the foul things she will say, of an unspeakable nature, about the very Duke her victim, testifies this Ex-Official: malicious as a witch, says he, and as ugly as one in spite of paint,--'TOUJOURS UN LAVEMENT A SES TROUSSES.' Good Heavens!"

But here is the august Prussian Travelling-Party: shove aside your bewitchments and bewilderments; hang a decent screen over many things! Poor Eberhard Ludwig, who is infinitely the gentleman, bestirs himself a good deal to welcome old royal friends; nor do we hear that the least thing went awry during this transit of the royalties. "Field of Blenheim, says your Majesty? Ah me!"--For Eberhard Ludwig knows that ground; stood the World-Battle there, and so much has come and gone since then: Ah me indeed!

Friedrich Wilhelm and he have met before this, and have much to tell one another; Treaty of Seville by no means their only topic. Nay the flood of cordiality went at length so far, that at last Friedrich Wilhelm, the conscientious King, came upon the most intimate topics: Gravenitz; the Word of God; scandal to the Protestant Religion: no likely heir to your Dukedom; clear peril to your own soul. Is not her Serene Highness an unexceptionable Lady, heroic under sore woes; and your wedded Wife above all?--'M-NA, and might bring Heirs too: only forty come October:--Ah Duke, ah Friend! AVISEZ LA FIN, Eberhard Ludwig; consider the end of it all; we are growing old fellows now! The Duke, I conceive, who was rather a fat little man, blushed blue, then red, and various colors; at length settling into steady pale, as it were, indicating anthracitic white-heat: it is certain he said at length, with emphasis, "I will!" And he did so, by and by. Friedrich Wilhelm sent a messenger to Stuttgard to do his reverence to the high injured Lady there, perhaps to show her afar off some ray of hope if she could endure. Eberhard Ludwig, raised to a white-heat, perceives that in fact he is heartily tired of this Circe-Hecate; that in fact she has long been an intolerable nightmare to him, could he but have known it.

And his Royal Highness the Crown-Prince all this while? Well, yes; his Royal Highness has got a Court Tailor at Ludwigsburg; and, in all privacy (seen well by Rochow), has had the Augsburg red cloth cut into a fine upper wrappage, over coat or roquelaure for himself; intending to use the same before long. Thus they severally, the Father and the Son; these are their known acts at Ludwigsburg, That the Father persuaded Eberhard Ludwig of the Gravenitz enormity, and that the Son got his red top-coat ready. On Thursday, 3d of August (late in the afternoon, as I perceive), they, well entertained, depart towards Mannheim, Kur-Pfalz (Elector Palatine) old Karl Philip of the Pfalz's place; hope to be there on the morrow some time, if all go well. Gloomy much enlightened Eberhard takes leave of them, with abstruse but grateful feelings; will stand by the Kaiser, and dismiss that Gravenitz nightmare by the first opportunity.

As accordingly he did. Next Summer, going on a visit northward, specially to Berlin, [There for some three weeks, "till 9th June, 1731, with a suite of above fifty persons" (Fassmann, pp. 421, 422).] he left order that the Gravenitz was to be got out of his sight, safe stowed away, before his return. Which by the proper officers, military certain of them, was accomplished,--by fixed bayonets at last, and not without futile demur on the part of the Gravenitz. Poor Eberhard Ludwig, "he published in the pulpits, That he was now minded to lead a better life,"--had time now been left him. Same year, 1731, November being come, gloomy Eberhard Ludwig lost, not unexpectedly, his one Son,--the one Grandson was gone long since. The serene steadfast Duchess now had her Duke again, what was left of him: but he was fallen into the sere and yellow leaf; in two years more, he died childless; [31st October, 1733: Michaelis, iii. 441.] and his Cousin, Karl Alexander, an Austrian Feldmarschall of repute, succeeded in Wurtemberg. With whom we may transiently meet, in time coming; with whom, and perhaps less pleasantly with certain of his children; for they continue to this day,--with the old abstruse element still too traceable in them.

Old Karl Philip, Kurfurst of the Pfalz, towards whom Friedrich Wilhelm is now driving, with intent to be there to-morrow evening, is not quite a stranger to readers here; and to Friedrich Wilhelm he is much the reverse, perhaps too much. This is he who ran away with poor Prince Sobieski's Bride from Berlin, at starting in life; who fell upon his own poor Protestant Heidelbergers and their Church of the Holy Ghost (being himself Papist, ever since that slap on the face to his ancestor); and who has been in many quarrels with Friedrich Wilhelm and others. A high expensive sovereign gentleman, this old Karl Philip; not, I should suppose, the pleasantest of men to lodge with. One apprehends, he cannot be peculiarly well disposed to Friedrich Wilhelm, after that sad Heidelberg passage of fence, twelve or eleven years ago. Not to mention the inextricable Julich-and-Berg business, which is a standing controversy between them.

Poor old Kurfurst, he is now within a year of seventy. He has had crosses and losses; terrible campaignings against the Turk, in old times; and always such a stock of quarrels, at home, as must have been still worse to bear. A life of perpetual arguing, squabbling and battling,--one's neighbors being such an unreasonable set! Brabbles about Heidelberg Catechism, and Church of the Holy Ghost, so that foreign Kings interfered, shaking their whips upon us. Then brabbles about boundaries; about inheritances, and detached properties very many,--clearly mine, were the neighbors reasonable! In fact this sovereign old gentleman has been in the Kaiser's courts, or even on the edge of fight, oftener than most other men; and it is as if that first adventure, of the Sobieski wedding turned topsy-turvy, had been symbolical of much that followed in his life.

We remember that unpleasant Heidelberg affair: how hopeful it once looked; fact DONE, Church of the Holy Ghost fairly ours; your CORPUS EVANGELICORUM fallen quasi-dead; and nothing now for it but protocolling by diplomatists, pleading in the Diets by men in bombazine, never like ending at all;--when Friedrich Wilhelm did suddenly end it; suddenly locked up his own Catholic establishments and revenues, and quietly inexorable put the key in his pocket; as it were, drew his own whip, with a "Will you whip MY Jew?"--and we had to cower out of the affair, Kaiser himself ordering us, in a most humiliated manner! Readers can judge whether Kur-Pfalz was likely to have a kindly note of Friedrich Wilhelm in that corner of his memory. The poor man felt so disgusted with Heidelberg, he quitted it soon after. He would not go to Dusseldorf (in the Berg-and-Julich quarter), as his Forefathers used to do; but set up his abode at Mannheim, where he still is. Friedrich Wilhelm, who was far from meaning harm or insolence in that Heidelberg affair, hopes there is no grudge remaining. But so stand the facts: it is towards Mannheim, not towards Heidelberg that we are now travelling!--For the rest, this scheme of reprisals, or whipping your Jew if you whip mine, answered so well, Friedrich Wilhelm has used it, or threatened to use, as the real method, ever since, where needful; and has saved thereby much bombazine eloquence, and confusion to mankind, on several occasions.

But the worst between these two High Gentlemen is that Julich-and-Berg controversy; which is a sore still running, and beyond reach of probable surgery. Old Karl Philip has no male Heir; and is like to be (what he indeed proved) the last of the NEUBERG Electors Palatine. What trouble there rose with the first of them, about that sad business; and how the then Brandenburger, much wrought upon, smote the then Neuburger across the very face, and drove him into Catholicism, we have not forgotten; how can we ever?--It is one hundred and sixteen years since that after-dinner scene; and, O Heavens, what bickering and brabbling and confused negotiation there has been; lawyers' pens going almost continually ever since, shadowing out the mutual darkness of sovereignties; and from time to time the military implements brandishing themselves, though loath generally to draw blood! For a hundred and sixteen years:--but the Final Bargain, lying on parchment in the archives of both parties, and always acknowledged as final, was to this effect: "You serene Neuburg keep what you have got; we serene Brandenburg the like: Cleve with detached pertinents ours; Julich-and-Berg mainly yours. And let us live in perpetual amity on that footing. And, note only furthermore, when our Line fails, the whole of these fine Duchies shall be yours: if your Line fail, ours." That was the plain bargain, done solemnly in 1624, and again more solemnly and brought to parchment with signature in 1666, as Friedrich Wilhelm knows too well. And now the very case is about to occur; this old man, childless at seventy, is the last of the Neuburgs. May not one reasonably pretend that a bargain should be kept?

"Tush," answers old Karl Philip always: "Bargain?" And will not hear reason against himself on the subject; not even when the Kaiser asks him,--as the Kaiser really did, after that Wusterhausen Treaty, but could get only negatives. Karl Philip has no romantic ideas of justice, or of old parchments tying up a man. Karl Philip had one Daughter by that dear Radzivil Princess, Sobieski's stolen Bride; and he never, by the dear Radzivil or her dear successor, [See Buchholz, i. 61 n.] had any son, or other daughter that lived to wed. One Daughter, we say; a first-born, extremely precious to him. Her he married to the young fortunate Sulzbach Cousin, Karl Joseph Heir-Apparent of Sulzbach, who, by all laws, was to succeed in the Pfalz as well,--Karl Philip thinking furthermore, "He and she, please Heaven, shall hold fast by Dusseldorf too, and that fine Julich-and-Berg Territory, which is mine. Bargains?" Such was, and is, the old man's inflexible notion. Alas, this one Daughter died lately, and her Husband lately; [She in 1728; he in 1729: their eldest Daughter was born 1721 (Hubner, t. 140; Michaelis, ii. 101, 123).] again leaving only Daughters; will not this change the notion? Not a whit,--though Friedrich Wilhelm may have fondly hoped it by possibility might, Not a whit: Karl Philip cherishes his little Grand-daughter, now a child of nine, as he did her Mother and her Mother's Mother; hopes one day to see her wedded (as he did) to a new Heir-Apparent of the Pfalz and Sulzbach; and, for her behoof, will hold fast by Berg and Julich, and part with no square inch of it for any parchment.

What is Friedrich Wilhelm to do? Seek justice for himself by his 80,000 men and the iron ramrods? Apparently he will not get it otherwise. He is loath to begin that terrible game. If indeed Europe do take fire, as is likely at Seville or elsewhere--But in the meanwhile how happy if negotiation would but serve! Alas, and if the Kaiser, England; Holland and the others, could be brought to guarantee me,--as indeed they should (to avoid a CASUS BELLI), and some of them have said they will! Friedrich Wilhelm tried this Julich-and-Berg Problem by the pacific method, all his life; strenuously, and without effect. Result perhaps was coming nevertheless; at the distance of another hundred years!--One thing I know: whatever rectitude and patience, whatever courage, perseverance, or other human virtue he has put into this or another matter, is not lost; not it nor any fraction of it, to Friedrich Wilhelm and his sons' sons; but will well avail him and them, if not soon, then later, if not in Berg and Julich, then in some other quarter of the Universe, which is a wide Entity and a long-lived! Courage, your Majesty!

So stand matters as Friedrich Wilhelm journeys towards Mannheim: human politeness will have to cloak well, and keep well down, a good many prickly points in the visit ahead. Alas, poor Friedrich Wilhelm has got other matter to think of, by the time we arrive in Mannheim.

CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS.

The Royal Party, quitting Ludwigsburg,--on Thursday, 3d August, 1730, some hours after dinner, as I calculate it,--had but a rather short journey before them: journey to a place called Sinzheim, some fifty or sixty miles; a long way short of Heidelberg; the King's purpose being to lodge in that dilapidated silent Town of Sinzheim, and leave both Heidelberg and Mannheim, with their civic noises, for the next day's work. Sinzheim, such was the program, as the Prince and others understood it; but by some accident, or on better calculation, it was otherwise decided in the royal mind: not at Sinzheim, intricate decayed old Town, shall we lodge to-night, but five or six miles short of it, in the naturally silent Village of Steinfurth, where good clean empty Barns are to be found. Which latter is a favorite method of his Majesty, fond always of free air and the absence of fuss. Shake-downs, a temporary cooking apparatus, plenty of tobacco, and a tub to wash in: this is what man requires, and this without difficulty can be got. His Majesty's tastes are simple; simple, and yet good and human. Here is a small Royal Order, which I read once, and ever since remember,--though the reference is now blown away, and lost in those unindexed Sibylline Farragos, the terror of human nature;--let us copy it from memory, till some deliverer arise with finger on page. [Probably in Rodenbeck's Beitrage,--but long sad searching there, and elsewhere, proves unavailing at present. Historical Farragos without INDEX; a hundred, or several hundred, blind sacks of Historical clippings, generally authentic too if useless, and not the least scrap of LABEL on them:--are not these a handy article!] "At Magdeburg, on this Review-Journey, have dinner for me, under a certain Tree you know of, outside the ramparts." Dinner of one sound portion solid, one ditto liquid, of the due quality; readied honestly,--and to be eaten under a shady Tree; on the Review-ground itself, with the summer sky over one's head. Could Jupiter Tonans, had he been travelling on business in those parts, have done better with his dinner?--

"At Sinzheim?" thinks his Royal Highness; and has spoken privily to the Page Keith. To glide out of their quarters there, in that waste negligent old Town (where post-horses can be had), in the gray of the summer's dawn? Across the Rhine to Speyer is but three hours riding; thence to Landau, into France, into--? Enough, Page Keith has undertaken to get horses, and the flight shall at last be. Husht, husht. To-morrow morning, before the sparrow wake, it is our determination to be upon the road!

Ruins of the Tower of Stauffen, HOHEN or High STAUFFEN, where Kaiser Barbarossa lived once, young and ruddy, and was not yet a MYTH, "winking and nodding under the Hill at Salzburg,"--yes, it is but a few miles to the right there, were this a deliberate touring party. But this is a rapid driving one; knows nothing about Stauffen, cares nothing.--We cannot fancy Friedrich remembered Barbarossa at all; or much regarded Heilbronn itself, the principal and only famous Town they pass this day. The St. Kilian's Church, your Highness, and big stone giant at the top of the steeple yonder,--adventurous masons and slater people get upon the crown of his head, sometimes, and stand waving flags. [Buddaus, Lexicon, ii.? Heilbronn.] The Townhouse too (RATHHAUS), with its amazing old Clock? And Gotz von Berlichingen, the Town-Councillors once had him in prison for one night, in the "Gotz's Tower" here; your Highness has heard of "Gotz with the Iron Hand"? Berlichingens still live at Jaxthausen, farther down the Neckar Valley, in these parts; and show the old HAND, considerably rusted now. Heilbronn, the most famous City on the Neckar; and its old miraculous Holy Well--? What cares his Highness! Weinsberg again, which is but a few miles to the right of us,--there it was that the Besieged Wives did that astonishing feat, 600 years ago; coming out, as the capitulation bore, "with their most valuable property," each brought her Husband on her back (were not the fact a little uncertain!)--whereby the old Castle has, to this day, the name "WEIBERTREUE, Faithfulness of Women." Welf's Duchess, Husband on back, was at the head of those women; a Hohenzollern ancestor of yours, I think I have heard, was of the besieging party. [Siege is notorious enough; A.D. 1140: Kohler Reichshistorie, p. 167, who does not mention the story of the women; Menzel (Wolfgang), Geschichte der Deutschen, p. 287, who takes no notice that it is a highly mythical story,--supported only by the testimony of one poor Monk in Koln, vaguely chronicling fifty years after date and at that good distance.] Alas, thinks his Royal Highness, is there not a flower of Welfdom now in England; and I, unluckiest of Hohenzollerns, still far away from her here! It is at Windsor, not in Weinsberg, or among the ruins of WEIBERTREUE, that his Highness wishes to be.

At Heilbronn our road branches off to the left; and we roll diligently towards Sinzheim, calculating to be there before nightfall. Whew! Something has gone awry at Sinzheim: no right lodging in the waste Inns there; or good clean Barns, of a promising character, are to be had nearer than there: we absolutely do not go to Sinzheim to-night; we are to stop at Steinfurth, a small quiet Hamlet with Barns, four or five miles short of that! This was a great disappointment to the Prince,--and some say, a highly momentous circumstance in his History: ["Might perhaps have succeeded at Sinzheim" (Seckendorf's Relation of the Crown-Prince's meditated Flight, p. 2;--addressed to Prince Eugene few days afterwards; given in Forster, iii. 1-13).]--however, he rallies in the course of the evening; speaks again to Page Keith. "Steinfurth [STONY-FORD, over the Brook here]; be it at Steinfurth, all the same!" Page Keith will manage to get horses for us here, no less. And Speyer and the Ferry of the Rhine are within three hours. Favor us, Silence and all ye good genii!--

On Friday morning, 4th August, 1730, "usual hour of starting, 3 A.M.," not being yet came, the Royal Party lies asleep in two clean airy Barns, facing one another, in the Village of Steinfurth; Barns facing one another, with the Heidelberg Highway and Village Green asleep in front between them; [Compare Wilhelmina, i. 259 (her Account of the Flight: "Heard it from my Brother,"--and report it loosely after a dozen years!).] for it is little after two in the morning, the dawn hardly beginning to break. Prince Friedrich, with his Trio of Vigilance, Buddenbrock, Waldau, Rochow, lies in one Barn; Majesty, with his Seckendorf and party, is in the other: apparently all still locked in sleep? Not all: Prince Friedrich, for example, is awake;--the Trio is indeed audibly asleep; unless others watch for them, their six eyes are closed. Friedrich cautiously rises; dresses; takes his money, his new red roquelaure, unbolts the Barn-door, and walks out. Trio of Vigilance is sound asleep, and knows nothing: alas, Trio of Vigilance, while its own six eyes are closed, has appointed another pair to watch.

Gummersbach the Valet comes to Rochow's bolster: "Hst, Herr Oberst-Lieutenant, please awaken! Prince Royal is up, has on his top-coat, and is gone out of doors!" Rochow starts to his habiliments, or perhaps has them ready on; in a minute or two, Rochow also is forth into the gray of the morning;--finds the young Prince actually on the Green there; in his red roquelaure, leaning pensively on one of the travelling carriages. "Guten Morgen, Ihro Konigliche Hoheit!" [Ranke, 1. 305.]--Fancy such a salutation to the young man! Page Keith, at this moment, comes with a pair of horses, too: "Whither with the nags, Sirrah?" Rochow asked with some sharpness. Keith, seeing how it was, answered without visible embarrassment, "Herr, they are mine and Kunz the Page's horses" (which, I suppose, is true); "ready at the usual hour!" Keith might add.--"His Majesty does not go till five this morning;--back to the stables!" beckoned Rochow; and, according to the best accounts, did not suspect anything, or affected not to do so.

Page Keith returned, trembling in his saddle. Friedrich strolled towards the other Barn,--at least to be out of Rochow's company. Seckendorf emerges from the other Barn; awake at the common hour: "How do you like his Royal Highness in the red roquelaure?" asks Rochow, as if nothing had happened. Was there ever such a baffled Royal Highness; or young bright spirit chained in the Bear's Den in this manner? Our Steinfurth project has gone to water; and it is not to-day we shall get across the Rhine!--Not to-day; nor any other day, on that errand, strong as our resolutions are! For new light, in a few hours afterwards, pours in upon the project; and human finesse, or ulterior schemes, avail nothing henceforth. "The Crown-Prince's meditated Flight" has tried itself, and failed. Here and so that long meditation ENDS; this at Steinfurth was all the over-act it could ever come to. In few hours more it will melt into air; and only the terrible consequences will remain!--

By last night's arrangement, the Prince with his Trio was to set out an hour before his Father, which circumstance had helped Page Keith in his excuses. Naturally the Prince had now no wish to linger on the Green of Steinfurth, in such a posture of affairs: "Towards Heidelberg, then; let us see the big Tun there: ALLONS!" How the young Prince and his Trio did this day's journey; where he loitered, what he saw, said or thought, we have no account: it is certain only that his Father, who set out from Steinfurth an hour after him, arrived in Mannheim several hours before him; and, in spite of Kurfurst Karl Philip's welcome, testified the liveliest inquietude on that unaccountable circumstance. Beautiful Rhine-stream, thrice-beautiful trim Mannheim;--yes, all is beautiful indeed, your Serenity! But where can the Prince be? he kept ejaculating. And Karl Philip had to answer what he could. Of course the Prince may be lingering about Heidelberg, looking at the big Tun and other miracles:--"I had the pleasure to repair that world-famous Tub or Tun, as your Majesty knows; which had lain half burnt, ever since Louis XIV. with his firebrand robberies lay upon us, and burnt the Pfalz in whole, small honor to him! I repaired the Tun: [Kohler, Munzbelustigungen (viii. 418-424; 145-152), who gives a view of the world's wonder, lying horizontal with stairs running up to it. Big Tuns of that kind were not uncommon in Germany; and had uses, if multiplex dues of wine were to be paid IN NATURA: the Heidelberg, the biggest of them, is small to the Whitbread-and-Company, for porter's-ale, in our time.] it is probably the successfulest feat I did hitherto; and well worth looking at, had your Majesty had time!"--"JA WOHL;--but he came away an hour before me!"--The polite Karl Philip, at length, sent off one of his own Equerries to ride towards Heidelberg, or even to Steinfurth if needful, and see what was become of the Prince. This Official person met the Prince, all in order, at no great distance; and brought him safe to Papa's presence again.

Why Papa was in such a fuss about this little circumstance? Truly there has something come to Papa's knowledge since he started, perhaps since he arrived at Mannheim. Page Keith, who rides always behind the King's coach, has ridden this day in an agony of remorse and terror; and at length (probably in Mannheim, once his Majesty is got to his Apartments, or now that he finds his Majesty so anxious there) has fallen on his knees, and, with tears and obtestations, made a clean breast. Page Keith has confessed that the Crown-Prince and he were to have been in Speyer, or farther, at this time of the day; flying rapidly into France. "God's Providence alone prevented it! Pardon, pardon: slay me, your Majesty; but there is the naked truth, and the whole of it, and I have nothing more to say!" Hereupon ensues despatch of the Equerry; and hereupon, as we may conjecture, the Equerry's return with Fritz and the Trio is an unspeakable relief to Friedrich Wilhelm.

Friedrich Wilhelm now summons Buddenbrock and Company straightway; shows, in a suppressed-volcanic manner, with questions and statements,--obliged to SUPPRESS oneself in foreign hospitable Serene Houses,--what atrocity of scandal and terror has been on the edge of happening: "And you three, Rochow, Waldau, Buddenbrock, mark it, you three are responsible; and shall answer, I now tell you, with your heads. Death the penalty, unless you bring HIM to our own Country again,--'living or dead,'" added the Suppressed-Volcano, in low metallic tone; and the sparkling eyes of him, the red tint, and rustling gestures, make the words too credible to us. [Ranke, i. 307.]

What Friedrich Wilhelm got to speak about with the old Kur-Pfalz, during their serene passages of hospitality at Mannheim, is not very clear to me; his Prussian Majesty is privately in such a desperate humor, and the old Kur-Pfalz privately so discrepant on all manner of points, especially on the Julich-and-Berg point. They could talk freely about the old Turk Campaigns, Battle of Zentha, [11th September, 1697; Eugene's crowning feat;--breaking of the Grand Turk's back in this world; who has staggered about, less and less of a terror and outrage, more and more of a nuisance growing unbearable, ever since that day. See Hormayr (iii. 97-101) for some description of this useful bit of Heroism.] and Prince Eugene; very freely about the Heidelberg Tun. But it is known old Karl Philip had his agents at the Congress of Soissons, to secure that Berg-and-Julich interest for the Sulzbachs and him: directly in the teeth of Friedrich Wilhelm. How that may have gone, since the Treaty of Seville broke out to astonish mankind,--will be unsafe to talk about. For the rest, old Karl Philip has frankly adopted the Pragmatic Sanction; but then he has, likewise, privately made league with France to secure him in that Julich-and-Berg matter, should the Kaiser break promise;--league which may much obstruct said Sanction. Nay privately he is casting glances on his Bavarian Cousin, elegant ambitious Karl Albert. Kurfurst of Baiern,--are not we all from the same Wittelsbach stock, Cousins from of old?--and will undertake, for the same Julich-and-Bergobject, to secure Bavaria in its claims on the Austrian Heritages in defect of Heirs Male in Austria. [Michaelis, ii. 99-101.] Which runs directly into the throat of said Pragmatic Sanction; and engages to make it, mere waste sheepskin, so to speak! Truly old Karl Philip has his abstruse outlooks, this way, that way; most abstruse politics altogether:--and in fact we had better speak of the Battle of Zentha and the Heidelberg Tun, while this Visit lasts.

On the morrow, Saturday, August 5th, certain Frenchmen from the Garrison of Landau come across to pay their court and dine. Which race of men Friedrich Wilhelm does not love; and now less than ever, gloomily suspicious they may be come on parricide Fritz's score,--you Rochow and Company keep an eye! By night and by day an eye upon him! Friedrich Wilhelm was, no doubt, glad to get away on the morrow afternoon; fairly out into the Berg-Strasse, into the summer breezes and umbrageous woods, with all his pertinents still safe about him; rushing towards Darmstadt through the Sunday stillness, where he will arrive in the evening, time enough. ["Sunday Evening arrive at Darmstadt," says Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 3), but by mistake calls it the "7th" instead of "6th."]

The old Prince of Darmstadt, Ernst Ludwig, Landgraf of Hessen-Darmstadt, age now sixty-three, has a hoary venerable appearance, according to Pollnitz, "but sits a horse well, walks well, and seems to enjoy perfect health,"--which we are glad to hear of. What more concerns us, "he lives usually, quite retired, in a small house upon the Square," in this extremely small Metropolis of his, "and leaves his Heir-Apparent to manage all business in the Palace and elsewhere." [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters, ii. 66.] poor old Gentleman, he has the biggest Palace almost in the world; only he could not finish it for want of funds; and it lies there, one of the biggest futilities, vexatious to look upon. No doubt the old Gentleman has had vexations, plenty of them, first and last. He is now got disgusted with the affairs of public life, and addicts himself very much to "turning ivory," as the more eligible employment. He lives in that small house of his, among his turning-lathes and ivory shavings; dines in said small house, "at a table for four persons:" only on Sunday, and above all on this Sunday, puts off his apron; goes across to the Palace; dines there in state, with his Heir and the Grandees. He has a kinship by affinity to Friedrich Wilhelm; his Wife (dead long years since), Mother of this Heir-Apparent, was an Anspach Princess, Aunt to the now Queen Caroline of England. Poor old fellow, these insignificancies, and that he descends direct from Philip the Magnanimous of Hessen (Luther's Philip, who insisted on the supplementary Wife), are all I know of him; and he is somewhat tragic to me there, turning ivory in this extremely anarchic world. What the passages between him and Friedrich Wilhelm were, on this occasion, shall remain conjectural to all creatures. Friedrich Wilhelm said, this Sunday evening at Darmstadt to his own Prince: "Still here, then? I thought you would have been in Paris by this time!"--To which the Prince, with artificial firmness, answered, He could certainly, if he had wished; [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii.), p. 3.] and being familiar with reproaches, perhaps hoped it was nothing.

From Darmstadt to Frankfurt-on-Mayn is not quite forty miles, an easy morning drive; through the old Country called of Katzen-ellenbogen; CATS-ELBOW, a name ridiculous to hear. [CATTIMELIBOCUM, that is, CATTUM-MELIBOCUM (CATTI a famed Nation, MELIBOCUS the chief Hill or Fortress of their Country), is said to be the original;--which has got changed; like ABALLABA into "Appleby," or GOD ENCOMPASS US into "The Goat and Compasses," among ourselves.] Berg-Strasse and the Odenwald (FOREST of the OTTI) are gone; but blue on the northeast yonder, if your Royal Highness will please to look, may be seen summits of the SPESSART, a much grander forest,--tall branchy timbers yonder, one day to be masts of admirals, when floated down as far as Rotterdam, whitherward one still meets them going. Spessart;--and nearer, well hidden on the right, is an obscure village called DETTINGEN, not yet become famous in the Newspapers of an idle world; of an England surely very idle to go thither seeking quarrels! All which is, naturally, in the highest degree indifferent to a Crown-Prince so preoccupied.--They reach Frankfurt, Monday, still in good time.

Behold, at Frankfurt, the Trio of Vigilance, Buddenbrock and Company (horrible to think of!) signify, "That we have the King's express orders Not to enter the Town at all with your Royal Highness. We, for our part, are to go direct into one of the Royal Yachts, which swing at anchor here, and to wait in the same till his Majesty have done seeing Frankfurt, and return to us." Here is a message for the poor young Prince: Detected, prisoner, and a volcanic Majesty now likely to be in full play when he returns!--Gilt weathercock on the Mayn Bridge (which one Goethe used to look at, in the next generation)--this, and the steeple-tops of Frankfurt, especially that steeple-top with the grinning skull of the mutinous malefactor on it, warning to mankind what mutiny leads to; this, then, is what we are to see of Frankfurt; and with such a symphony as our thoughts are playing in the background. Unhappy Son, unhappy Father, once more!

Nay Friedrich Wilhelm got new lights in Frankfurt: Rittmeister Katte had an estafette waiting for him there. Estafette with a certain Letter, which the Rittmeister had picked up in Erlangen, and has shot across by estafette to wait his Majesty here. Majesty has read with open eyes and throat: Letter from the Crown-Prince to Lieutenant Katte in Berlin: treasonous Flight-project now indisputable as the sun at noon!--His Majesty stept on board the Yacht in such humor as was never seen before: "Detestable rebel and deserter, scandal of scandals--!"--it is confidently written everywhere (though Seckendorf diplomatically keeps silence), his Majesty hustled and tussled the unfortunate Crown-Prince, poked the handle of his cane into his face and made the nose bleed,--"Never did a Brandenburg face suffer the like of this!" cried the poor Prince, driven to the edge of mad ignition and one knows not what: when the Buddenbrocks, at whatever peril interfered; got the Prince brought on board a different Yacht; and the conflagration moderated for the moment. The Yachts get under way towards Mainz and down the Rhine-stream. The Yachts glide swiftly on the favoring current, taking advantage of what wind there may be: were we once ashore at Wesel in our own country,--wait till then, thinks his Majesty!

And so it was on these terms that Friedrich made his first acquaintance with the beauties of the Rhine;--readers can judge whether he was in a temper very open to the picturesque. I know not that they paused at Mainz, or recollected Barbarossa's World-Tournament, or the Hochheim vineyards at all: I see the young man's Yacht dashing in swift gallop, not without danger, through the Gap of Bingen; dancing wildly on the boiling whirlpools of St. Goar, well threading the cliffs;--the young man gloomily insensible to danger of life, and charm of the picturesque. Coblenz (CONFLUENTIA), the Moselle and Ehrenbreitstein: Majesty, smoking on deck if he like, can look at these through grimly pacifying tobacco; but to the Crown-Prince life itself is fallen haggard and bankrupt.

Over against Coblenz, nestled in between the Rhine and the foot of Ehrenbreitstein, [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters, iii. 180.] there, perhaps even now, in his Hunting Lodge of Kerlich yonder, is his Serene Highness the fat little Kurfurst of Trier, one of those Austrian Schonborns (Brother to him of Bamberg); upon whom why should we make a call? We are due at Bonn; the fortunate young Kurfurst of Koln, richest Pluralist in the Church, expects us at his Residence there. Friedrich Wilhelm views the fine Fortress of Ehrenbreitstein:--what would your Majesty think if this were to be yours in a hundred years; this and much else, by way of compound-interest for the Berg-and-Julich and other outstanding debts? Courage, your Majesty!--On the fat little Kurfurst, at Kerlich here, we do not call: probably out hunting; "hunts every day," [Busching, Beitrage, iv. 201.] as if it were his trade, poor little soul.

At Bonn, where we do step ashore to lodge with a lean Kurfurst, Friedrich Wilhelm strictly charges, in my (Seckendorf's) hearing, the Trio of Vigilance to have an eye; to see that they bring the Prince on board again, "LIVING OR DEAD."--No fear, your Majesty. Prince listened with silent, almost defiant patience, "MIT GROSSER GEDULD." [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 4).] At Bonn the Prince contrived to confide to Seckendorf, "That he had in very truth meant to run away: he could not, at the age he was come to, stand such indignities, actual strokes as in the Camp of Radewitz;--and he would have gone long since, had it not been for the Queen and the Princess his Sister's sake. He could not repent what he had done: and if the King did not cease beating him in that manner, &c., he would still do it. For loss of his own life, such a life as his had grown, he cared little; his chief misery was, that those Officers who had known of the thing should come to misfortune by his means. If the King would pardon these poor gentlemen, he would tell him everything. For the rest, begged Seckendorf to help him in this labyrinth;--nothing could ever so oblige him as help now;" and more of the like sort. These things he said, at Bonn, to Seckendorf, the fountain of all his woes. [Ibid.] What Seckendorf's reflections on this his sad handiwork now were, we do not know. Probably he made none, being a strong-minded case-hardened old stager; but resolved to do what he could for the poor youth. Somewhere on this route, at Bonn more likely than elsewhere, Friedrich wrote in pencil three words to Lieutenant Keith at Wesel, and got it to the Post-Office: "SAUVEZ-VOUS, TOUT EST DECOUVERT (All is found out;--away)!" [Wilhelmina (i. 265) says it was a Page of the Old Dessauer's, a comrade of Keith's, who, having known in time, gave him warning. Certain it is, this Note of Friedrich's, which the Books generally assign as cause, could not have done it (infra, p. 275, and the irrefragable date there).]

Clement August, expensive Kurfurst of Koln (Elector of Cologne, as we call it), who does the hospitalities here at Bonn, in a grand way, with "above a hundred and fifty chamberlains" for one item,--glance at him, reader; perhaps we shall meet the man again. He is younger Brother of the elegant ambitious Karl Albert, Kurfurst of Bavaria, whom we have transiently heard of: sons both of them are of that "Elector of Bavaria" who haunts us in the Marlborough Histories,--who joined Louis XIV. in the Succession War, and got hunted about at such a rate, after Blenheim especially. His Boys, prisoners of the Kaiser, were bred up in a confiscated state, as sons of a mere private gentleman; nothing visibly ahead of them, at one time, but an obscure and extremely limited destiny of that kind;--though now again, on French favor, and the turn of Fortune's inconstant wheel, they are mounting very high. Bavaria came all back to the old Elector of Bavaria; even Marlborough's "Principality of MINDELHEIM" came. [At the Peace of Baden (corollary to UTRECHT), 1714. Elector had been "banned" (GEACHTET, solemnly drummed out), 1706; nothing but French pay to live upon, till he got back: died 26th February, 1726, when Karl Albert succeeded (Michaelis, ii. 255).] And the present Kurfurst, who will not do the Pragmatic Sanction at all,--Kurfurst Karl Albert of Baiern, our old Karl Philip of Mannheim's genealogical "Cousin;"--we heard of abstruse colleaguings there, tendencies to break the Pragmatic Sanction altogether, and reduce it to waste sheepskin! Not impossible Karl Albert will go high enough. And this Clement August the cadet, he is Kurfurst of Koln; by good election-tactics, and favor of the French, he has managed to succeed an Uncle here: has succeeded at Osnabruck in like fashion;--poor old Ernst August of Osnabruck (to whom we once saw George I. galloping to die, and who himself soon after died), his successor is this same Clement August, the turn for a CATHOLIC Bishop being come at Osnabruck, and the French being kind. Kurfurst of Koln, Bishop of Osnabruck, ditto of Paderborn and Munster, ditto now of Hildesheim; richest Pluralist of the Church. Goes about here in a languid expensive manner; "in green coat trimmed with narrow silver-lace, small bag-wig done with French garniture (SCHLEIFE) in front; and has red heels to his shoes." A lanky indolent figure, age now thirty; "tall and slouching of person, long lean face, hook-nose, black beard, mouth somewhat open." [Busching (Beitrage, iv. 201-204: from a certain Travelling Tutor's MS. DIARY of 1731; where also is detail of the Kurfurst's mode of Dining,--elaborate but dreary, both mode and detail). His Schloss is now the Bonn University.] Has above one hundred and fifty chamberlains;--and, I doubt not, is inexpressibly wearisome to Friedrich Wilhelm in his Majesty's present mood. Patience for the moment, and politeness above all things!--The Trio of Vigilance had no difficulty with Friedrich; brought him on board safe again next day, and all proceeded on their voyage; the Kurfurst in person politely escorting as far as Koln.

Koln, famed old City of the Three Kings, with its famed Cathedral where those three gentlemen are buried, here the Kurfurst ceases escorting; and the flat old City is left, exciting what reflections it can. The architectural Dilettanti of the world gather here; St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins were once massacred here, your Majesty; an English Princess she, it is said. "NARREN-POSSEN (Pack of nonsense)!" grumbles Majesty.--Pleasant Dusseldorf is much more interesting to his Majesty; the pleasant Capital of Berg, which ought to be ours, if right could be done; if old Pfalz would give up his crotchets; and the bowls, in the big game playing at Seville and elsewhere, would roll fair! Dusseldorf and that fine Palace of the Pfalzers, which ought to be mine;--and here next is Kaiserswerth, a place of sieges, cannonadings, known to those I knew. 'M-NA, from father to son and grandson it goes on, and there is no end to trouble and war!--

His Majesty's next lodging is at Mors; old gaunt Castle in the Town of Mors, which (thanks to Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau and the Iron Ramrods) is now his Majesty's in spite of the Dutch. There the lodging is, at an hour's drive westward from the Rhine-shore:--where his Majesty quitted the River, I do not know; nor whether the Crown-Prince went to Mors with him, or waited in his Yacht; but guess the latter. His Majesty intends for Geldern on the morrow, on matters of business thither, for the Town is his: but what would the Prince, in the present state of things, do there?--At Mors, Seckendorf found means to address his Majesty privately, and snuffled into him suggestions of mercy to the repentant Prince, and to the poor Officers whom he was so anxious about. "Well, if he WILL confess everything, and leave off his quirks and concealments: but I know he won't!" answered Majesty.

In that dilapidated Castle of Mors,--look at it, reader, though in the dark; we may see it again, or the shadow of it, perhaps by moonlight. A very gaunt old Castle; next to nothing living in it, since the old Dessauer (by stratagem, and without shot fired) flung out the Dutch, in the Treaty-of-Utrecht time; Mors Castle and Territory being indisputably ours, though always withheld from us on pretexts. [Narrative of the march thither (Night of 7th November, 1712), and dexterous surprisal of the place, in Leopoldi von Anhalt-Dessau Leben und Thaten (Anonymous, by RANFFT), pp. 85-90;--where the Despatch of the astonished Dutch Commandant himself, to their High Mightinesses, is given. Part of the Orange Heritage, this Mors,--came by the Great Elector's first Wife;--but had hung SUB LITE (though the Parchments were plain enough) ever since our King William's death, and earlier. Neuchatel, accepted instead of ORANGE, and not even of the value of Mors, was another item of the same lot. Besides which, we shall hear of old Palaces at Loo and other dilapidated objects, incidentally in time coming.]

At Geldern, in the pressure of business next day, his Majesty got word from Wesel, that Lieutenant Keith was not now to be found in Wesel. "Was last seen there (that we can hear of) certain hours before your Majesty's All-gracious Order arrived. Had saddled his own horse; came ambling through the Brunen Gate, 'going out to have a ride,' he said; and did not return."--"Keith gone, scandalous Keith, whom I pardoned only few weeks ago; he too is in the Plot! Will the very Army break its oath, then?" His Majesty bursts into fire and flame, at these new tidings; orders that Colonel Dumoulin (our expertest rogue-tracer) go instantly on the scent of Keith, and follow him till found and caught. Also, on the other hand, that the Crown-Prince be constituted prisoner; sail down to Wesel, prisoner in his Yacht, and await upon the Rhine there his Majesty's arrival. Formidable omens, it is thought.

His Majesty, all business done in Geldern, drives across to Wesel; can see Fritz's Yacht waiting duly in the River, and black Care hovering over her. It is on the evening of the 12th of August, 1730. And so his Majesty ends this memorable Tour into the Reich; but has not yet ended the gloomy miseries, for himself and others, which plentifully sprung out of that.

Chapter VII. -- CATASTROPHE, AND MAJESTY, ARRIVE IN BERLIN.

At Berlin dark rumors of this intended flight, and actual Arrest of the Crown-Prince, are agitating all the world; especially Lieutenant Katte, and the Queen and Wilhelmina, as we may suppose. The first news of it came tragically on the young Princess. [Apparently some rumor FROM FRANKFURT, which she confuses in her after-memory with the specific news FROM WESEL; for her dates here, as usual, are all awry (Wilhelmina, i. 246; Preuss, i. 42, iv. 473; Seckendorf, in Forster, iii. 6).]

"Mamma had given a ball in honor of Papa's Birthday,"--Tuesday, 15th August, 1730;--and we were all dancing in the fine saloons of Monbijou, with pretty intervals in the cool boscages and orangeries of the place: all of us as happy as could be; Wilhelmina, in particular, dancing at an unusual rate. "We recommenced the ball after supper. For six years I had not danced before; it was new fruit, and I took my fill of it, without heeding much what was passing. Madame Bulow, who with others of them had worn long faces all night, pleading 'illness' when one noticed it, said to me several times: 'It is late, I wish you had done,'--'EH, MON DIEU!' I answered, 'let me have enough of dancing this one new time; it may be long before it comes again.'--'That may well be!' said she. I paid no regard, but continued to divert myself. She returned to the charge half an hour after: 'Will you end, then!' said she with a vexed air: 'you are so engaged, you have eyes for nothing.'--'You are in such a humor,' I replied, 'that I know not what to make of it.'--'Look at the Queen, then, Madam; and you will cease to reproach me!' A glance which I gave that way filled me with terror. There sat the Queen, paler than death, in a corner of the room, in low conference with Sonsfeld and Countess Finkenstein. As my Brother was most in my anxieties, I asked, If it concerned him? Bulow shrugged her shoulders, answering, 'I don't know at all!' A moment after, the Queen gave Good-night; and got into her carriage with me,--speaking no word all the way to the Schloss; so that I thought my Brother must be dead, and I myself took violent palpitations, and Sonsfeld, contrary to orders, had at last to tell me in the course of the night." Poor Wilhelmina, and poor Mother of Wilhelmina!

The fact, of Arrest, and unknown mischief to the Prince, is taken for certain; but what may be the issues of it; who besides the Prince have been involved in it, especially who will be found to have been involved, is matter of dire guess to the three who are most interested here. Lieutenant Katte finds he ought to dispose of the Prince's effects which were intrusted to him; of the thousand gold Thalers in particular, and, beyond and before all, of the locked Writing-desk, in which lies the Prince's correspondence, the very Queen and Princess likely to be concerned in it! Katte despatches these two objects, the Money and the little Desk, in all secrecy, to Madam Finkenstein, as to the surest hand, with a short Note shadowing out what he thinks they are: Countess Finkenstein, old General von Finkenstein's Wife, and a second mother to the Prince, she, like her Husband, a sworn partisan of the Prince and his Mother, shall do with these precious and terrible objects what, to her own wise judgment, seems best.

Madam Finkenstein carries them at once, in deep silence, to the Queen. Huge dismay on the part of the Queen and Princess. They know too well what Letters may be there: and there is a seal on the Desk, and no key to it; neither must it, in time coming, seem to have been opened, even if we could now open it. A desperate pinch, and it must be solved. Female wit and Wilhelmina did solve it, by some pre-eminently acute device of their despair; [Wilhelmina, i. 253-257.] and contrived to get the Letters out: hundreds of Letters, enough to be our death if read, says Wilhelmina. These Letters they burnt; and set to writing fast as the pen would go, other letters in their stead. Fancy the mood of these two Royal Women, and the black whirlwind they were in. Wilhelmina's despatch was incredible; pen went at the gallop night and day: new letters, of old dates and of no meaning, are got into the Desk again; the Desk closed, without mark of injury, and shoved aside while it is yet time.--Time presses; his Majesty too, and the events, go at gallop. Here is a Letter from his Majesty, to a trusty Mistress of the Robes, or whatever she is; which, let it arrive through what softening media it likes, will complete the poor Queen's despair:--

"MY DEAR FRAU VON KAMECKE,--Fritz has attempted to desert. I have been under the necessity to have him arrested. I request you to tell my Wife of it in some good way, that the news may not terrify her. And pity an unhappy Father.

"FRIEDRICH WILHELM."

[No date: "ARRIVED" (from Wesel, we conclude), Sunday, "20th August," at the Palace of Berlin (Preuss, i. 42).]

The same post brought an order to the Colonel of the Gerns-d'Armes to put that Lieutenant Katte of his under close confinement:--we hope the thoughtless young fellow has already got out of the way? He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that; does not consider what danger he is in. This same Sunday, his Major met him on the street of Berlin; said, in a significant tone, "You still HERE, Katte!"--"I go this night," answered Katte; but he again put it off, did not go this night; and the order for his arrest did come in. On the morrow morning, Colonel Pannewitz, hoping now he was not there, went with the rhadamanthine order; and finding the unlucky fellow, was obliged to execute it. Katte lies in ward, awaiting what may be prepared for him.

Friedrich Wilhelm at Wesel has had rough passages with the Prince and others. On the Saturday evening, 12th August 1730, [Preuss, iv. 473; Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 6) says 13th, but WRONG.] his Majesty had the Culprit brought on shore, to the Commandant's House, for an interview. Culprit proving less remorseful than was expected, and evidently not confessing everything, a loud terrible scene ensued; which Friedrich Wilhelm, the unhappy Father, winded up by drawing his sword to run the unnatural Son through the body. Old General Mosel, Commandant of Wesel, sprang between them, "Sire, cut me to death, but spare your Son!" and the sword was got back to its scabbard; and the Prince lodged in a separate room, two sentries with fixed bayonets keeping watch over him. Friedrich Wilhelm did not see his face again for twelve months to come,--"twelve months and three days."

Military gentlemen of due grimness interrogated the Prince next evening, [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 5).] from a Paper drawn up by his Majesty in the interim. Prince confesses little: Did design to get across the Rhine to Landau; thence to Strasburg, Paris, in the strictest incognito; intended to volunteer there, thought he might take French service, profoundly incognito, and signalize himself in the Italian War (just expected to break out), which might have recovered him some favor from his Majesty: does not tell clearly where his money came from; shy extremely of elucidating Katte and Keith;--in fact, as we perceive, struggles against mendacity, but will not tell the whole truth. "Let him lie in ward, then; and take what doom the Laws have appointed for the like of him!" Divine Laws, are they not? Well, yes, your Majesty, divine and human;--or are there perhaps no laws but the human sort, completely explicit in this case? "He is my Colonel at least," thinks Friedrich Wilhelm, "and tried to desert and make others desert. If a rebellious Crown-Prince, breaking his Father's heart, find the laws still inarticulate; a deserting Colonel of the Potsdam Regiment finds them speak plain enough. Let him take the answer they give him?"

Dumoulin, in the mean while, can make nothing of Keith, the runaway Lieutenant. Dumoulin, with his sagacious organ, soon came upon the scent of Keith; and has discovered these things about him: One evening, a week before his Majesty arrived, Sunday evening, 6th August, 1730, [RELATIO EX ACTIS: in Preuss, iv. 473.] Lieutenant Keith, doubtless smelling something, saddled his horse as above mentioned, decided to have a ride in the country this fine evening, and issued out at the Brunen Gate of Wesel. He is on the right bank of the Rhine; pleasant yellow fields on this hand and that. He ambles slowly, for a space; then gradually awakens into speed, into full speed; arrives, within a couple of hours, at Dingden, a Village in the Munster Territory, safe over the Prussian Border, by the shortest line: and from Dingden rides at more leisure, but without losing time, into the Dutch Overyssel region, straight towards the Hague. He must be in the Hague? said Dumoulin to the Official persons, on arriving there,--to Meinertshagen the Prussian Ambassador there, [Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 7).] and to Keppel, Dutch Official gentleman who was once Ambassador at Berlin. Prussian Ambassador applies, and again applies, in the highest quarters; but we fear they are slack. Dumoulin discovers that the man was certainly here; Keppel readily admits, He had Keith to dinner a few days ago: but where Keith now is, Keppel cannot form the least guess.

Dumoulin suspects he is with Lord Chesterfield, the English Ambassador here. A light was seen, for a night or two, in one of the garret-rooms of Lord Chesterfield's house,--probably Keith reading?--but Keith is not to be heard of, on inquiry there; and the very light has now gone out. The Colonel at least, distinguished English Lord is gone to England in these days; but his German Secretary is not gone: the House is inviolable, impregnable to Prussia. Who knows, in spite of the light going out, but Keith is still there, merely with a window shutter to screen him? One morning, it becomes apparent Keith is not there. One morning, a gentleman at the seaside is admiring Dutch fishing-skiffs, and how they do sail, "Pooh, Sir, that is nothing!" answers a man in multiplex breeches: "the other night I went across to England in one, with an Excellency's Messenger who could not wait!"--Truth is, the Chesterfield Secretary, who forbade lights, took the first good night for conveying Keith to Scheveningen and the seaside; where a Fisher-boat was provided for him; which carried him, frail craft as it was, safe across to England. Once there, the Authorities took pity on the poor fellow;--furnished the modicum of cash and help; sent him with Admiral Norris to assist the Portuguese, menaced with Spanish war at this time; among whom he gradually rose to be Major of Horse. Friedrich Wilhelm cited him by tap of drum three times in Wesel, and also in the Gazettes, native and Dutch; then, as he did not come, nailed an Effigy of him (cut in four, if I remember) on the gallows there; and confiscated any property he had. Keith had more pedigree than property; was of Poberow in Pommern; son of poor gentlefolks there. He sent no word of himself to Prussia, for the next ten years; so that he had become a kind of myth to many people; to his poor Mother among the rest, who has her tragical surmises about him. He will appear again; but not to much purpose. His Brother, the Page Keith, is packed into the Fusileer Regiment, at Wesel here; and there walks sentry, unheard of for the rest of his life. So much for the Keiths. [Preuss: Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden, pp. 330, 392.--See, on this and the other points, Pollnitz, Memoiren, ii. 352-374 (and correct his many blunders).]

Other difficulty there is as to the Prison of the Prince. Wesel is a strong Town; but for obvious reasons one nearer Berlin, farther from the frontier, would be preferable. Towards Berlin, however, there is no route all on Prussian ground: from these divided Cleve Countries we have to cross a bit of Hanover, a bit of Hessen-Cassel: suppose these Serene Highnesses were to interfere? Not likely they will interfere, answer ancient military men, of due grimness; at any rate, we can go a roundabout road, and they need not know! That is the method settled on; neighborhood of Berlin, clearly somewhere there, must be the place? Old Castle of Mittenwalde, in the Wusterhausen environs, let that be the first resting-point, then; Rochow, Waldau, and the Wesel Fusileer-Colonel here, sure men, with a trooper or two for escort, shall conduct the Prisoner. By Treuenbrietzen, by circuitous roads: swift, silent, steady,--and with vigilance, as you shall answer!--These preliminaries settled, Friedrich Wilhelm drives off homewards, black Care riding behind him. He reaches Berlin, Sunday, 27th August; finds a world gone all to a kind of doomsday with him there, poor gentleman.

SCENE AT BERLIN ON MAJESTY'S ARRIVAL.

On Sunday evening, 27th August, 1730, his Majesty, who had rested overnight at Potsdam from his rapid journey, drove into Berlin between four and five in the afternoon. Deserter Fritz is following, under escort of his three military gentlemen, at a slower rate and by circuitous routes, so as to avoid the territories of Hanover and Hessen,--towards Mittenwalde in the Wusterhausen neighborhood. The military gentlemen are vigilant as Argus, and, though pitying the poor Prince, must be rigorous as Rhadamanthus. His attempts at escape, of which tradition mentions more than one, they will not report to Papa, nor even notice to the Prince himself; but will take care to render futile, one and all: his Majesty may be secure on that score.

The scenes that follow are unusual in royal history; and having been reported in the world with infinite noise and censure, made up of laughter and horror, it will behoove us to be the more exact in relating them as they actually befell. Very difficult to pull, out of that ravelled cart-load of chaotic thrums, here a thread and there a thread, capable of being brought to the straight state, and woven into legible narrative! But perhaps, by that method the mingled laughter and horror will modify itself a little. What we can well say is, that pity also ought not to be wanting. The next six months were undoubtedly by far the wretchedest of Friedrich Wilhelm's life. The poor King, except that he was not conscious of intending wrong, but much the reverse, walked in the hollow night of Gehenna, all that while, and was often like to be driven mad by the turn things had taken.

Here is scene first: Wilhelmina reports his Majesty's arrival that Sunday afternoon, to the following effect; she was present in the adventure, and not a spectatress only:--

"The Queen was alone in his Majesty's Apartment, waiting for him as he approached. At sight of her, in the distance, he called out: 'Your losel of a Son (VOTRE INDIGNE FILS) has ended at last; you have done with HIM,' or words to that effect. 'What,' cried the Queen, 'you have had the barbarity to kill him?' 'Yes, I tell you,--but where is the sealed Desk?' The Queen went to her own Apartment to fetch it; I ran in to her there for a moment: she was out of herself, wringing her hands, crying incessantly, and said without ceasing: 'MON DIEU, MON FILS (O God, my Son)!' Breath failed me; I fell fainting into the arms of Madame de Sonsfeld."--The Queen took away the Writing-case; King tore out the letters, and went off; upon which the Queen came down again to us.

"We learned from some attendant that, at least, my Brother was not dead. The King now came back. We all ran to kiss his hands; but me he no sooner noticed than rage and fury took possession of him. He became black in the face, his eyes sparkling fire, his mouth foaming. 'Infamous CANAILLE,' said he; 'darest thou show thyself before me? Go, keep thy scoundrel of a Brother company!' And so saying, he seized me with one hand, slapping me on the face with the other,'--clenched as a fist (POING),--'several blows; one of which struck me on the temple, so that I fell back, and should have split my head against a corner of the wainscot, had not Madame de Sonsfeld caught me by the head-dress and broken the fall. I lay on the ground without consciousness. The King, in a frenzy, was for striking me with his feet; had not the Queen, my Sisters, and the rest, run between, and those who were present prevented him. They all ranked themselves round me, which gave Mesdames de Kamecke and Sonsfeld time to pick me up. They put me in a chair in the embrasure of a window; threw water on my face to bring me to life: which care I lamentably reproached them with, death being a thousand times better, in the pass things had come to. The Queen kept shrieking, her firmness had quite left her: she wrung her hands, and ran in despair up and down the room. The King's face was so disfigured with rage, it was frightful to look upon. The little ones were on their knees, begging for me,"--[Wilhelmina, i. 265-267.]--poor little beings, what a group: Amelia, the youngest girl, about six; Henri, in his bits of trousers, hardly over four!--For the rest, I perceive, this room was on the first or a lower floor, and such noises were very audible. The Guard had turned out at the noise; and a crowd was collecting to see and hear: "Move on! Move on!"

"The King had now changed his tune: he admitted that my Brother was still alive; but vowed horribly he would put him to death, and lay me fast within four walls for the rest of my life. He accused me of being the Prince's accomplice, whose crime was high treason;--also of having an intrigue of love with Katte, to whom, he said, I had borne several children." The timid Gouvernante flamed up at this unheard-of insult: "'That is not true,' said she, fiercely; 'whoever has told your Majesty such a thing has told a lie!' 'Oh, spare my Brother, and I will marry the Duke of Weissenfels,' whimpered I; but in the great noise he did not hear; and while I strove to repeat it louder, Sonsfeld clapt her handkerchief on my face.

"Hustling aside to get rid of the handkerchief, I saw Katte crossing the Square. Four soldiers were conducting him to the King; trunks, my Brother's and his own, sealed, were coming on in the rear. Pale and downcast, he took off his hat to salute me,"--poor Katte, to me always so prostrate in silent respect, and now so unhappy! A moment after, the King, hearing he was come, went out exclaiming, 'Now I shall have proof about the scoundrel Fritz and the offscouring (CANAILLE) Wilhelmina; clear proofs to cut the heads off them.'"--The two Hofdames again interfered; and one of them, Kamecke it was, rebuked him; told him, in the tone of a prophetess, To take care what he was doing. Whom his Majesty gazed into with astonishment, but rather with respect than with anger, saying, "Your intentions are good!"

And so his Majesty flung out, seeking Katte; and vanished: Wilhelmina saw no more of him for about a year after; being ordered to her room, and kept prisoner there on low diet, with sentries guarding her doors, and no outlook but the worst horror her imagination pleased to paint.

This is the celebrated assault of paternal Majesty on Wilhelmina; the rumor of which has gone into all lands, exciting wonder and horror, but could not be so exact as this account at first hand. Naturally the crowd of street-passengers, once dispersed by the Guard, carried the matter abroad, and there was no end of sympathetic exaggerations. Report ran in Berlin, for example, that the poor Princess was killed, beaten or trampled to death; which we clearly see she was not. Voltaire, in that mass of angry calumnies, very mendacious indeed, which he calls VIE PRIVEE DU ROI DE PRUSSE, mentions the matter with emphasis; and says farther, The Princess once did him (Voltaire) the "honor to show him a black mark she carried on her breast ever after;"--which is likelier to be false than true. Captain Guy Dickens, the Legationary Captain, who seems a clear, ingenuous and ingenious man, and of course had access to the highest circles of refined rumor, reports the matter about ten days after, with several errors, in this manner:--

"BERLIN, 5th SEPTEMBER, 1730. Four or five days ago [by the Almanac nine, and directly on his Majesty's return, which Dickens had announced a week ago without that fact attached], the King dreadfully ill-treated Wilhelmina in bed [not in bed at all]; whole Castle (SCHLOSS or Palace) was alarmed; Guard turned out,"--to clear away the crowd, as we perceive. Not properly a crowd, such was not permissible there: but a stagnation of the passers-by would naturally ensue on that esplanade; till the Guard turned out, and indicated with emphasis, "Move on!" Dickens hears farther that "the Queen fares no better;"--such is the state of rumor in Berlin at present.

Poor Katte had a hard audience of it too. He fell at Friedrich Wilhelm's feet; and was spurned and caned;--for the rest, beyond what was already evident, had little or nothing to confess: Intention of flight and of accompanying in flight very undeniable; although preliminaries and ulterior conditions of said flight not perfectly known to Katte; known only that the thought of raising trouble in foreign Courts, or the least vestige of treason against his Majesty, had not entered even into their dreams. A name or two of persons who had known, or guessed, of these operations, is wrung from Katte;--name of a Lieutenant Spaen, for one; who, being on guard, had admitted Katte into Potsdam once or twice in disguise:--for him and for the like of him, of whatever rank or whichever sex, let arrests be made out, and the scent as with sleuth-hounds be diligently followed on all sides; and Katte, stript of his uniform, be locked up in the grimmest manner. Berlin, with the rumor of these things, is a much-agitated city.

Chapter VIII. -- SEQUEL TO CROWN-PRINCE AND FRIENDS.

As for the Crown-Prince, prosecuting his circuitous route, he arrives safe at Mittenwalde; is lodged in the old Castle there, I think, for two nights (but the date, in these indexless Books, is blown away again), in a room bare of all things, with sentries at the door; and looks out, expecting Grumkow and the Officials to make assault on him. One of these Officials, a certain "Gerber, Fiscal General," who, as head of Prussian Fiscals (kind of Public Prosecutor, or supreme Essence of Bailiffs, Catchpoles and Grand-Juries all in one), wears a red cloak,--gave the Prince a dreadful start. Red cloak is the Berlin Hangman's or Headsman's dress; and poor Friedrich had the idea his end had summarily come in this manner. Soon seeing it was otherwise, his spirits recovered, perhaps rose by the shock.

He fronted Grumkow and the Officials, with a high, almost contemptuous look; answered promptly,--if possible, without lying, and yet without telling anything;--showed self-possession, pride; retorted sometimes, "Have you nothing more to ask?" Grumkow finding there was no way made into anything, not even into the secret of the Writingcase and the Royal Women's operations there, began at last, as Wilhelmina says, to hint, That in his Majesty's service there were means of bringing out the truth in spite of refractory humors; that there was a thing called the rack, not yet abolished in his Prussian Majesty's dominions! Friedrich owned afterwards, his blood ran cold. However, he put on a high look: "A Hangman, such as you, naturally takes pleasure in talking of his tools and his trade: but on me they will not produce any effect. I have owned everything;--and almost regret to have done so. For it is not my part to stand questionings and bandy responses with a COQUIN COMME VOUS, scoundrel like you," reports Wilhelmina, [i. 280.] though we hope the actual term was slightly less candid!--Grumkow gathered his notes together; and went his ways, with the man in red cloak and the rest; thus finishing the scene in Mittenwalde. Mittenwalde, which we used to know long since, in our Wusterhausen rides with poor Duhan; little thinking what awaited us there one day.

Mittenwalde being finished, Friedrich, on Monday, 6th September, 1730, is sent forward to Custrin, a strong little town in a quiet Country, some sixty or seventy miles eastward of Berlin. On the evening of the 5th he finds himself lodged in a strong room of the Fortress there,--room consisting af bare walls lighted from far up; no furniture, not even the needfulest; everything indicating that the proud spirit and the iron laws shall here have their duel out at leisure, and see which is stronger.

His sword was taken from him at Wesel; sword, uniform, every mark of dignity, all are now gone: he is clad in brown prison-dress of the plainest cut and cloth; his diet is fixed at tenpence a day ("to be got from the cook's shop, six groschen for dinner, four for supper"); [Order, 14th September, 1730 (in Forster, i. 372).] food to be cut for him, no knife allowed. Room is to be opened, morning, noon and evening, "on the average not above four minutes each time;" lights, or single tallow-light, to be extinguished at seven P.M. Absolute solitude; no flute allowed, far from it; no books allowed, except the Bible and a Prayer-Book,--or perhaps Noltenius's MANUAL, if he took a hankering for it. There, shut out from the babble of fools, and conversing only with the dumb Veracities, with the huge inarticulate meanings of Destiny, Necessity and Eternity, let the fool of a Fritz bethink himself, if there is any thought in him! There, among the Bogs of the Oder, the very sedges getting brown all round him, and the very curlews flying off for happier climes, let him wait, till the question of his doom, rather an abstruse question, ripen in the royal breast.

As for Wilhelmina, she is close prisoner in her apartments in the Berlin Palace, sentries pacing at every outlet, for many months to come. Wilhelmina almost rather likes it, such a dog of an existence has she had hitherto, for want of being well let alone. She plays, reads; composes music; smuggles letters to and from Mamma,--one in Pencil, from my Brother even, O Heavens! Wilhelmina weeps, now and then, with her good Sonsfeld; hopes nevertheless there will be some dawn to this RAGNAROK, or general "twilight of the gods." Friedrich Wilhelm, convinced that England has had a hand in this treason, signifies officially to his Excellency Captain Dickens, That the English negotiations are concluded; that neither in the way of Single-Marriage nor of Double-Marriage will he have anything more to do with England. "Well," answers England, "who can help it? Negotiation was not quite of our seeking. Let it so end!" [Dickens's Despatch, 25th September, 1730; and Harrington's Answer to it, of 6th October: Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 9), 23d September.]--Nay at dinner one day (Seckendorf reports, while Fritz was on the road to Custrin) he proposes the toast, "Downfall of England!" [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 11).] and would have had the Queen drink it; who naturally wept, but I conjecture could not be made to drink. Her Majesty is a weeping, almost broken-hearted woman; his Majesty a raging, almost broken-hearted man. Seckendorf and Grumkow are, as it were, too victorious; and now have their apprehensions on that latter score. But they look on with countenances well veiled, and touch the helm judiciously in Tobacco-Parliament, intent on the nearest harbor of refuge.

Her Majesty nevertheless steadily persists; merely sinks deeper out of sight with her English schemes; ducking till the wave go by. Messages, desperate appeals still go, through Mamsell Bulow, Wilhelmina's Hofdame, and other channels; nay Wilhelmina thinks there were still intentions on the part of England, and that the non-fulfilment of them at the last moment turned on accident; English "Courier arrived some hours too late," thinks Wilhelmina. [Wilhelmina (i. 369, 384), and Preuss and others after her.] But that is a mistake. The negotiation, in spite of her Majesty's endeavors, was essentially out; England, after such a message, could not, nor did, stir farther in the matter.

In that Writing-case his Majesty found what we know; nothing but mysterious effects of female art, and no light whatever. It is a great source of wrath and of sorrow to him, that neither in the Writing-case, nor in Katte's or the Prince's so-called "Confessions," can the thing be seen into. A deeper bottom it must have, thinks his Majesty, but knows not what or where. To overturn the Country, belike; and fling the Kaiser, and European Balance of Power, bottom uppermost? Me they presumably meant to poison! he tells Seckendorf one day. [Dickens's Despatch, 16th September, 1730.] Was ever Father more careful for his children, soul and body? Anxious, to excess, to bring them up in orthodox nurture and admonition: and this is how they reward me, Herr Feldzeugmeister! "Had he honestly confessed, and told me the whole truth, at Wesel, I would have made it up with him quietly there. But now it must go its lengths; and the whole world shall be judge between us." [Seckendorf (Forster, ubi supra), 23d September.]

His Majesty is in a flaming height. He arrests, punishes and banishes, where there is trace of cooperation or connection with Deserter Fritz and his schemes. The Bulows, brother and sister, brother in the King's service, sister in Wilhelmina's, respectable goldstick people, originally of Hanover, are hurled out to Lithuania and the world's end: let them live in Memel, and repent as they can. Minister Knyphausen, always of English tendencies, he, with his Wife,--to whom it is specially hard, while General Schwerin, gallant witty Kurt, once of Mecklenburg, stays behind,--is ordered to disappear, and follow his private rural business far off; no minister, ever more. The Lieutenant Spaen of the Giant Regiment, who kept false watch, and did not tell of Katte, gets cashiering and a year in Spandau. He wandered else-whither, and came to something afterwards, poor Spaen. [Preuss, i. 63, 66.] Bookseller Hanau with this bad Fritz's Books: To Memel with him also; let him deal in more orthodox kinds of Literature there.

It is dangerous to have lent the Crown-Prince money, contrary to the Royal Edict; lucky if loss of your money will settle the account. Witness French Montholieu, for one; Count, or whatever he styled himself; nailed to the gallows (in effigy) after he had fled. It is dangerous to have spoken kindly to the Crown-Prince, or almost to have been spoken to by him. Doris Ritter, a comely enough good girl, nothing of a beauty, but given to music, Potsdam CANTOR'S (Precentor's) daughter, has chanced to be standing in the door, perhaps to be singing within doors, once or twice, when the Prince passed that way: Prince inquired about her music, gave her music, spoke a civility, as young men will,--nothing more, upon my honor; though his Majesty believes there was much more; and condemns poor Doris to be whipt by the Beadle, and beat hemp for three years. Rhadamanthus is a strict judge, your Majesty; and might be a trifle better informed!--Poor Doris got out of this sad Pickle, on her own strength; and wedded, and did well enough,--Prince and King happily leaving her alone thenceforth. Voltaire, twenty years after, had the pleasure of seeing her at Berlin: "Wife of one Shommers, Clerk of the Hackney-Coach Office,"--read, Schomer, FARMER of the Berlin Hackney-Coach Enterprise in general; decidedly a poor man. Wife, by this time, was grown hard enough of feature: "tall, lean; looked like a Sibyl; not the least appearance how she could ever have deserved to be whipt for a Prince." [Voltaire, OEuvres (calumnious Vie Privee du Roi de Prusse), ii. 51, 52. Preuss, i. 64, 66.]

The excellent Tutor of the Crown-Prince, good Duhan de Jandun, for what fault or complicity we know not, is hurled off to Memel; ordered to live there,--on what resources is equally unknown. Apparently his fault was the general one, of having miseducated the Prince, and introduced these French Literatures, foreign poisonous elements of thought and practice into the mind of his Pupil, which have ruined the young man. For his Majesty perceives that there lies the source of it; that only total perversion of the heart and judgment, first of all, can have brought about these dreadful issues of conduct. And indeed his Majesty understands, on credible information, that Deserter Fritz entertains very heterodox opinions; opinion on Predestination, for one;--which is itself calculated to be the very mother of mischief, in a young mind inclined to evil. The heresy about Predestination, or the "FREIE GNADENWAHL (Election by Free Grace)," as his Majesty terms it, according to which a man is preappointed from all Eternity either to salvation or the opposite (which is Fritz's notion, and indeed is Calvin's, and that of many benighted creatures, this Editor among them), appears to his Majesty an altogether shocking one; nor would the whole Synod of Dort, or Calvin, or St. Augustine in person, aided by a Thirty-Editor power, reconcile his Majesty's practical judgment to such a tenet. What! May not Deserter Fritz say to himself, even now, or in whatever other deeps of sin he may fall into, "I was foredoomed to it: how could I, or how can I, help it?" The mind of his Majesty shudders, as if looking over the edge of an abyss. He is meditating much whether nothing can be done to save the lost Fritz, at least the soul of him, from this horrible delusion:--hurls forth your fine Duhan, with his metaphysics, to remote Memel, as the first step. And signifies withal, though as yet only historically and in a speculative way, to Finkenstein and Kalkstein themselves, That their method of training up a young soul, to do God's will, and accomplish useful work in this world, does by no means appear to the royal mind an admirable one! [His Letter to them (3d December, 1730) in Forster, ii. 382.] Finkenstein and Kalkstein were always covertly rather of the Queen's party, and now stand reprimanded, and in marked disfavor.

That the treasonous mystery of this Crown-Prince (parricidal, it is likely, and tending to upset the Universe) must be investigated to the very bottom, and be condignly punished, probably with death, his Majesty perceives too well; and also what terrible difficulties, formal and essential, there will be, But whatever become of his perishable life, ought not, if possible, the soul of him to be saved from the claws of Satan! "Claws of Satan;" "brand from the burning;" "for Christ our Saviour's sake;" "in the name of the most merciful God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen:"--so Friedrich Wilhelm phrases it, in those confused old documents and Cabinet Letters of his; [Forster, i. 374, 379, &c.] which awaken a strange feeling in the attentive reader; and show us the ruggedest of human creatures melted into blubbering tenderness, and growling huskily something which we perceive is real prayer. Here has a business fallen out, such as seldom occurred before!--

Chapter IX. -- COURT-MARTIAL ON CROWN-PRINCE AND CONSORTS.

The rumor of these things naturally fills all minds, and occupies all human tongues, in Berlin and Prussia, though an Edict threatens, That the tongues shall be cut out which speak of them in any way, [Dickens, of 7th November, 1730.] and sounds far and wide into foreign Courts and Countries, where there is no such Edict. Friedrich Wilhelm's conduct, looked at from without, appears that of a hideous royal ogre, or blind anthropophagous Polyphemus fallen mad. Looked at from within, where the Polyphemus has his reasons, and a kind of inner rushlight to enlighten his path; and is not bent on man-eating, but on discipline in spite of difficulties,--it is a wild enough piece of humanity, not so much ludicrous as tragical. Never was a royal bear so led about before by a pair of conjuring pipers in the market, or brought to such a pass in his dancing for them!

"General Ginkel, the Dutch Ambassador here," writes Dickens, "told me of an interview he had with the King;" being ordered by their High Mightinesses to solicit his Majesty in this matter. King "harbors 'most monstrous wicked designs, not fit to be spoken of in words,' reports Ginkel. 'It is certain,' added he, 'if the King of Prussia continue in the mind he is in at present, we shall see scenes here as wicked and bloody as any that were ever heard of since the creation of the world.' 'Will sacrifice his whole family,' not the Crown-Prince alone; 'everybody except Grumkow being, as he fancies, in conspiracy against him.' Poor enchanted King!--'And all these things he said with such imprecations and disordered looks, foaming at the mouth all the while, as it was terrible either to see or hear.'" That is Ginkel's report, as Dickens conveys it. [Despatch, 7th September, 1730.] Another time, on new order, a month later, when Ginkel went again to speak a word for the poor Prisoner, he found his Majesty clothed not in delirious thunder, but in sorrowful thick fog; Ginkel "was the less able to judge what the King of Prussia meant to do with his Son, as it was evident the King himself did not know." [Ib. 10th October.]

Poor Friedrich Wilhelm, through these months, wanders about, shifting from room to room, in the night-time, like a man possessed by evil fiends; "orders his carriage for Wusterhausen at two in the morning," but finds he is no better there, and returns; drinks a great deal, "has not gone to bed sober for a month past." [Ib. 19th December, 1730.] One night he comes gliding like a perturbed ghost, about midnight, with his candle in his hand, into the Queen's apartment; says, wildly staring, "He thinks there is something haunting him:"--O Feekin, erring disobedient Wife, wilt not thou protect me, after all? Whither can I fly when haunted, except to thee? Feekin, like a prudent woman, makes no criticism; orders that his Majesty's bed be made up in her apartment till these phenomena cease. [Ib. 27th February, 1731.] A much-agitated royal Father.

The question what is to be done with this unhappy Crown-Prince, a Deserter from the army, a rebel against the paternal Majesty, and a believer in the doctrine of Election by Free Grace, or that a man's good or ill conduct is foredoomed upon him by decree of God,--becomes more intricate the longer one thinks of it. Seckendorf and Grumkow, alarmed at being too victorious, are set against violent high methods; and suggest this and that consideration: "Who is it that can legally try, condemn, or summon to his bar, a Crown-Prince? He is Prince of the Empire, as well as your Majesty's Son!"--"Well, he is Heir of the Sovereign Majesty in Prussia, too; and Colonel in the Potsdam Guards!" answers Friedrich Wilhelm.

At length, after six or seven weeks of abstruse meditation, it is settled in Tobacco-Parliament and the royal breast, That Katte and the Crown-Prince, as Deserters from the Prussian Army, can and shall be tried by Court-Martial; to that no power, on the earth or out of it, can have any objection worth attending to. Let a fair Court-Martial of our highest military characters be selected and got ready. Let that, as a voice of Rhadamanthus, speak upon the two culprits; and tell us what is to be done. By the middle of October, things on Friedrich Wilhelm's side have got so far.

CROWN-PRINCE IN CUSTRIN.

Poor Friedrich meanwhile has had a grim time of it, these two months back; left alone, in coarse brown prison-dress, within his four bare walls at Custrin; in uninterrupted, unfathomable colloquy with the Destinies and the Necessities there. The King's stern orders must be fulfilled to the letter; the Crown-Prince is immured in that manner. At Berlin, there are the wildest rumors as to the state he has fallen into; "covered with rags and vermin, unshaven, no comb allowed him, lights his own fire," says one testimony, which Captain Dickens thinks worth reporting. For the truth is, no unofficial eye can see the Crown-Prince, or know what state he is in. And we find, in spite of the Edict, "tongues," not "cut out," kept wagging at a high rate. "People of all ranks are unspeakably indignant" at certain heights of the business: "Margravine Albert said publicly, 'A tyrant as bad as Nero!'" [Dickens, 7th November, 2d December, 1730.]

How long the Crown-Prince's defiant humor held out, we are not told. By the middle of October there comes proposal of "entire confession" from the Prince; and though, when Papa sends deputies accordingly, there is next to nothing new confessed, and Papa's anger blazes out again, probably we may take this as the turning-point on his Son's part. With him, of course, that mood of mind could not last. There is no wildest lion but, finding his bars are made of iron, ceases to bite them. The Crown-Prince there, in his horror, indignation and despair, had a lucid human judgment in him, too; loyal to facts, and well knowing their inexorable nature, Just sentiments are in this young man, not capable of permanent distortion into spasm by any form of injustice laid on them. It is not long till he begins to discern, athwart this terrible, quasi-infernal element, that so the facts are; and that nothing but destruction, and no honor that were not dishonor, will be got by not conforming to the facts. My Father may be a tyrant, and driven mad against me: well, well, let not me at least go mad!

Grumkow is busy on the mild side of the business; of course Grumkow and all official men. Grumkow cannot but ask himself this question among others: How if the King should suddenly die upon us! Grumkow is out at Custrin, and again out; explaining to the Prince, what the enormous situation is; how inflexible, inexorable, and of peril and horror incalculable to Mother and Sister and self and royal House; and that there is one possibility of good issue, and only one: that of loyally yielding, where one cannot resist. By degrees, some lurid troublous but perceptible light-gleam breaks athwart the black whirlwind of our indignation and despair; and saner thoughts begin to insinuate themselves. "Obey, thou art not the strongest, there are stronger than thou! All men, the highest among them, are called to learn obedience."

Moreover, the first sweep of royal fury being past, his Majesty's stern regulations at Custrin began to relax in fulfilment; to be obeyed only by those immediately responsible, and in letter rather than in spirit even by those. President von Munchow who is head of the Domain-Kammer, chief representative of Government at Custrin, and resides in the Fortress there, ventures after a little, the Prince's doors being closed as we saw, to have an orifice bored through the floor above, and thereby to communicate with the Prince, and sympathetically ask, What he can do for him? Many things, books among others, are, under cunning contrivance, smuggled in by the judicious Munchow, willing to risk himself in such a service. For example, Munchow has a son, a clever boy of seven years old; who, to the wonder of neighbors, goes into child's-petticoats again; and testifies the liveliest desire to be admitted to the Prince, and bear him company a little! Surely the law of No-company does not extend to that of an innocent child? The innocent child has a row of pockets all round the inside of his long gown; and goes laden, miscellaneously, like a ship of the desert, or cockboat not forbidden to cross the line. Then there are stools, one stool at least indispensable to human nature; and the inside of this, once you open it, is a chest-of-drawers, containing paper, ink, new literature and much else. No end to Munchow'a good-will, and his ingenuity is great. [Preuss, i. 46.]

A Captain Fouquet also, furthered I think by the Old Dessauer, whose man he is, comes to Custrin Garrison, on duty or as volunteer, by and by. He is an old friend of the Prince's;--ran off, being the Dessauer's little page, to the Siege of Stralsund, long ago, to be the Dessauer's little soldier there:--a ready-witted, hot-tempered, highly estimable man; and his real duty here is to do the Prince what service may be possible. He is often with the Prince; their light is extinguished precisely at seven o'clock: "Very well, Lieutenant," he would say, "you have done your orders to the Crown-Prince's light. But his Majesty has no concern with Captain Fouquet's candles!" and thereupon would light a pair. Nay, I have heard of Lieutenants who punctually blew out the Prince's light, as a matter of duty and command; and then kindled it again, as a civility left free to human nature. In short, his Majesty's orders can only be fulfilled to the letter; Commandant Lepel and all Officers are willing not to see where they can help seeing. Even in the letter his Majesty's orders are severe enough.

SENTENCE OF COURT-MARTIAL.

Meanwhile the Court-Martial, selected with intense study, installs itself at Copenick; and on the 25th of October commences work. This Deserter Crown-Prince and his accomplices, especially Katte his chief accomplice, what is to be done with them? Copenick lies on the road to Custrin, within a morning's drive of Berlin; there is an ancient Palace here, and room for a Court-Martial. "QUE FAIRE? ILS ONT DES CANONS!" said the old Prussian Raths, wandering about in these woods, when Gustavus and his Swedes were at the door. "QUE FAIRE?" may the new military gentlemen think to themselves, here again, while the brown leaves rustle down upon them, after a hundred years!

The Court consists of a President, Lieutenant-General Schulenburg, an elderly Malplaquet gentleman of good experience; one of the many Schulenburgs conspicuous for soldiering, and otherwise, in those times. He is nephew of George I.'s lean mistress; who also was a Schulenburg originally, and conspicuous not for soldiering. Lean mistress we say; not the Fat one, or cataract of tallow, with eyebrows like a cart-wheel, and dim coaly disks for eyes, who was George I.'s half-sister, probably not his mistress at all; and who now, as Countess of Darlington so called, sits at Isleworth with good fat pensions, and a tame raven come-of-will,--probably the SOUL of George I. in some form. [See Walpole, Reminiscences.] Not this one, we say:--but the thread-paper Duchess of Kendal, actual Ex-mistress; who tore her hair on the road when apoplexy overtook poor George, and who now attends chapel diligently, poor old anatomy or lean human nail-rod. For the sake of the English reader searching into what is called "History," I, with indignation, endeavor to discriminate these two beings once again; that each may be each, till both are happily forgotten to all eternity. It was the latter, lean may-pole or nail-rod one, that was Aunt of Schulenburg, the elderly Malplaquet gentleman who now presides at Copenick. And let the reader remember him; for he will turn up repeatedly again.

The Court consisted farther of three Major-Generals, among whom I name only Grumkow (Major-General by rank though more of a diplomatist and black-artist than a soldier), and Schwerin, Kurt von Schwerin of Mecklenburg (whom Madam Knyphausen regrets, in her now exile to the Country); three Colonels, Derschau one of them; three Lieutenant-Colonels, three Majors and three Captains, all of whom shall be nameless here. Lastly come three of the "Auditor" or the Judge-Advocate sort: Mylius, the Compiler of sad Prussian Quartos, known to some; Gerber, whose red cloak has frightened us once already; and the Auditor of Katte's regiment. A complete Court-Martial, and of symmetrical structure, by the rule of three;--of whose proceedings we know mainly the result, nor seek much to know more. This Court met on Wednesday, 25th October, 1730, in the little Town of Copenick; and in six days had ended, signed, sealed and despatched to his Majesty; and got back to Berlin on the Tuesday next. His Majesty, who is now at Wusterhausen, in hunting time, finds conclusions to the following effect:--

Accomplices of the Crown-Prince are two: FIRST, Lieutenant Keith, actual deserter (who cannot be caught): To be hanged in effigy, cut in four quarters, and nailed to the gallows at Wesel:--GOOD, says his Majesty. SECONDLY, Lieutenant Katte of the Gens-d'Armes, intended deserter, not actually deserting, and much tempted thereto: All things considered, Perpetual Fortress Arrest to Lieutenant Katte:--NOT GOOD this; BAD this, thinks Majesty; this provokes from his Majesty an angry rebuke to the too lax Court-Martial. Rebuke which can still be read, in growling, unlucid phraseology; but with a rhadamanthine idea clear enough in it, and with a practical purport only too clear: That Katte was a sworn soldier, of the Gens-d'Armes even, or Body-guard of the Prussian Majesty; and did nevertheless, in the teeth of his oath, "worship the Rising Sun" when minded to desert; did plot and colleague with foreign Courts in aid of said Rising Sun, and of an intended high crime against the Prussian Majesty itself on Rising Sun's part; far from at once revealing the same, as duty ordered Lieutenant Katte to do. That Katte's crime amounts to high-treason (CRIMEN LOESOE MAJESTATIS); that the rule is, FIAT JUSTITIA, ET PEREAT MUNDUS;--and that, in brief, Katte's doom is, and is hereby declared to be, Death. Death by the gallows and hot pincers is the usual doom of Traitors; but his Majesty will say in this case, Death by the sword and headsman simply; certain circumstances moving the royal clemency to go so far, no farther. And the Court-Martial has straightway to apprise Katte of this same: and so doing, "shall say, That his Majesty is sorry for Katte: but that it is better he die than that justice depart out of the world." [Preuss, i. 44.]

This is the iron doom of Katte; which no prayer or influence of mortal will avail to alter,--lest justice depart out of the world. Katte's Father is a General of rank, Commandant of Konigsberg at this moment; Katte's Grandfather by the Mother's side, old Fieldmarshal Wartensleben, is a man in good favor with Friedrich Wilhelm, and of high esteem and mark in his country for half a century past. But all this can effect nothing. Old Wartensleben thinks of the Daughter he lost; for happily Katte's Mother is dead long since. Old Wartensleben writes to Friedrich Wilhelm; his mournful Letter, and Friedrich Wilhelm's mournful but inexorable answer, can be read in the Histories; but show only what we already know.

Katte's Mother, Fieldmarshal Wartensleben's Daughter, died in 1706; leaving Katte only two years old. He is now twenty-six; very young for such grave issues; and his fate is certainly very hard. Poor young soul, he did not resist farther, or quarrel with the inevitable and inexorable. He listened to Chaplain Muller of the Gens-d'Armes; admitted profoundly, after his fashion, that the great God was just, and the poor Katte sinful, foolish, only to be saved by miracle of mercy; and piously prepared himself to die on these terms. There are three Letters of his to his Grandfather, which can still be read, one of them in Wilhelmina's Book, [Wilhelmina, i. 302.] the sound of it like that of dirges borne on the wind, Wilhelmina evidently pities Katte very tenderly; in her heart she has a fine royal-maiden kind of feeling to the poor youth. He did heartily repent and submit; left with Chaplain Muller a Paper of pious considerations, admonishing the Prince to submit. These are Katte's last employments in his prison at Berlin, after sentence had gone forth.

KATTE'S END, 6th NOVEMBER, 1780.

On Sunday evening, 6th November, it is intimated to him, unexpectedly at the moment, that he has to go to Custrin, and there die;--carriage now waiting at the gate. Katte masters the sudden flurry; signifies that all is ready, then; and so, under charge of his old Major and two brother Officers, who, and Chaplain Muller, are in the carriage with him, a troop of his own old Cavalry Regiment escorting, he leaves Berlin (rather on sudden summons); drives all night, towards Custrin and immediate death. Words of sympathy were not wanting, to which Katte answered cheerily; grim faces wore a cloud of sorrow for the poor youth that night. Chaplain Muller's exhortations were fervent and continual; and, from time to time, there were heard, hoarsely melodious through the damp darkness and the noise of wheels, snatches of "devotional singing," led by Muller.

It was in the gray of the winter morning, 6th November, 1730, that Katte arrived in Custrin garrison. He took kind leave of Major and men: Adieu, my brothers; good be with you evermore!--And, about nine o'clock he is on the road towards the Rampart of the Castle, where a scaffold stands. Katte wore, by order, a brown dress exactly like the Prince's; the Prince is already brought down into a lower room to see Katte as he passes (to "see Katte die," had been the royal order; but they smuggled that into abeyance); and Katte knows he shall see him. Faithful Muller was in the death-car along with Katte: and he had adjoined to himself one Besserer, the Chaplain of the Garrison, in this sad function, since arriving. Here is a glimpse from Besserer, which we may take as better than nothing:--

"His (Katte's) eyes were mostly directed to God; and we (Muller and I), on our part, strove to hold his heart up heavenwards, by presenting the examples of those who had died in the Lord,--as of God's Son himself, and Stephen, and the Thief on the Cross,--till, under such discoursing, we approached the Castle. Here, after long wistful looking about, he did get sight of his beloved Jonathan," Royal Highness the Crown-Prince, "at a window in the Castle; from whom he, with the politest and most tender expression, spoken in French, took leave, with no little emotion of sorrow." [Letter to Katte's Father (Extract, in Preuss, Friedrich mit Freunden und Verwandten, p. 7).]

President Munchow and the Commandant were with the Prince; whose emotions one may fancy; but not describe. Seldom did any Prince or man stand in such a predicament. Vain to say, and again say: "In the name of God, I ask you, stop the execution till I write to the King!" Impossible that; as easily stop the course of the stars. And so here Katte comes; cheerful loyalty still beaming on his face, death now nigh. "PARDONNEZ-MOI, MON CHER KATTE!" cried Priedrich in a tone: Pardon me, dear Katte; oh, that this should be what I have done for you!--"Death is sweet for a Prince I love so well," said Katte, "LA MORT EST DOUCE POUR UN SI AIMABLE PRINCE;" [Wilhelmina, i. 307; Preuss, i. 45.] and fared on,--round some angle of the Fortress, it appears; not in sight of Friedrich; who sank into a faint, and had seen his last glimpse of Katte in this world.

The body lay all day upon the scaffold, by royal order; and was buried at night obscurely in the common churchyard; friends, in silence, took mark of the place against better times,--and Katte's dust now lies elsewhere, among that of his own kindred.

"Never was such a transaction before or since, in Modern History," cries the angry reader: "cruel, like the grinding of human hearts under millstones, like--" Or indeed like the doings of the gods, which are cruel, though not that alone? This is what, after much sorting and sifting, I could get to know about the definite facts of it. Commentary, not likely to be very final at this epoch, the reader himself shall supply at discretion.

END OF BOOK 7

======================================================================== VOLUME 08 — Project Gutenberg #2108 ========================================================================

Produced by D.R. Thompson

HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle

Volume VII.

BOOK VIII. -- CROWN-PRINCE REPRIEVED: LIFE AT CUSTRIN -- November, 1730-February, 1732.

Chapter I. -- CHAPLAIN MULLER WAITS ON THE CROWN-PRINCE.

Friedrich's feelings at this juncture are not made known to us by himself in the least; or credibly by others in any considerable degree. As indeed in these confused Prussian History-Books, copulent in nugatory pedantisms and learned marine-stores, all that is human remains distressingly obscure to us; so seldom, and then only as through endless clouds of ever-whirling idle dust, can we catch the smallest direct feature of the young man, and of his real demeanor or meaning, on the present or other occasions! But it is evident this last phenomenon fell upon him like an overwhelming cataract; crushed him down under the immensity of sorrow, confusion and despair; his own death not a theory now, but probably a near fact,--a welcome one in wild moments, and then anon so unwelcome. Frustrate, bankrupt, chargeable with a friend's lost life, sure enough he, for one, is: what is to become of him? Whither is he to turn, thoroughly beaten, foiled in all his enterprises? Proud young soul as he was: the ruling Powers, be they just, be they unjust, have proved too hard for him! We hear of tragic vestiges still traceable of Friedrich, belonging to this time: texts of Scripture quoted by him, pencil-sketches of his drawing; expressive of a mind dwelling in Golgothas, and pathetically, not defiantly, contemplating the very worst.

Chaplain Muller of the Gens-d'Armes, being found a pious and intelligent man, has his orders not to return at once from Custrin; but to stay there, and deal with the Prince, on that horrible Predestination topic and his other unexampled backslidings which have ended so. Muller stayed accordingly, for a couple of weeks, intensely busy on the Predestination topic, and generally in assuaging, and mutually mollifying, paternal Majesty and afflicted Son. In all which he had good success; and especially on the Predestination point was triumphantly successful. Muller left a little Book in record of his procedures there; which, had it not been bound over to the official tone, might have told us something. His Correspondence with the King, during those two weeks, has likewise been mostly printed; [Forster, i. 376-379.] and is of course still more official,--teaching us next to nothing, except poor Friedrich Wilhelm's profoundly devotional mood, anxieties about "the claws of Satan" and the like, which we were glad to hear of above. In Muller otherwise is small help for us.

But, fifty years afterwards, there was alive a Son of this Muller's; an innocent Country Parson, not wanting in sense, and with much simplicity and veracity; who was fished out by Nicolai, and set to recalling what his Father used to say of this adventure, much the grandest of his life. In Muller Junior's Letter of Reminiscences to Nicolai we find some details, got from his Father, which are worth gleaning:--

"When my Father first attempted, by royal order, to bring the Crown-Prince to acknowledgment and repentance of the fault committed, Crown-Prince gave this excuse or explanation: 'As his Father could not endure the sight of him, he had meant to get out of the way of his displeasure, and go to a Court with which his Father was in friendship and relationship,'"--clearly indicating England, think the Mullers Junior and Senior.

"For proof that the intention was towards England this other circumstance serves, that the one confidant--Herr van Keith, if I mistake not [no, you don't mistake], had already bespoken a ship for passage out."--Here is something still more unexpected:--

"My Father used to say, he found an excellent knowledge and conviction of the truths of religion in the Crown-Prince. By the Prince's arrangement, my Father, who at first lodged with the Commandant, had to take up his quarters in the room right above the Prince; who daily, often as early as six in the morning, rapped on the ceiling for him to come down; and then they would dispute and discuss, sometimes half-days long, about the different tenets of the Christian Sects;--and my Father said, the Prince was perfectly at home in the Polemic Doctrines of the Reformed (Calvinistic) Church, even to the minutest points. As my Father brought him proofs from Scripture, the Prince asked him one time, How he could keep chapter and verse so exactly in his memory? Father drew from his pocket a little Hand-Concordance, and showed it him as one help. This he had to leave with the Prince for some days. On getting it back, he found inside on the fly-leaf, sketched in pencil,"--what is rather notable to History,--"the figure of a man on his knees, with two swords hanging crosswise over his head; and at the bottom these words of Psalm Seventy-third (verses 25, 26), Whom have I in Heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart fainteth and faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever."--Poor Friedrich, this is a very unexpected pen-sketch on his part; but an undeniable one; betokening abstruse night-thoughts and forebodings in the present juncture!--

"Whoever considers this fine knowledge of religion, and reflects on the peculiar character and genius of the young Herr, which was ever struggling towards light and clearness (for at that time he had not become indifferent to religion, he often prayed with my Father on his knees),--will find that it was morally impossible this young Prince could have thought [as some foolish persons have asserted] of throwing himself into the arms of Papal Superstition [seeking help at Vienna, marrying an Austrian Archduchess, and I know not what] or allow the intrigues of Catholic Priests to"--Oh no, Herr Muller, nobody but very foolish persons could imagine such a thing of this young Herr.

"When my Father, Herr von Katte's execution being ended, hastened to the Crown-Prince; he finds him miserably ill (SEHR ALTERIRT); advises him to take a cooling-powder in water, both which materials were ready on the table. This he presses on him: but the Prince always shakes his head." Suspects poison, you think? "Hereupon my Father takes from his pocket a paper, in which he carried cooling-powder for his own use; shakes out a portion of it into his hand, and so into his mouth; and now the Crown-Prince grips at my Father's powder, and takes that." Privately to be made away with; death resolved upon in some way! thinks the desperate young man? [Nicolai, Anekdoten, vi. 183-189.]

That scene of Katte's execution, and of the Prince's and other people's position in regard to it, has never yet been humanly set forth, otherwise the response had been different. Not humanly set forth,--and so was only barked at, as by the infinitude of little dogs, in all countries; and could never yet be responded to in austere VOX HUMANA, deep as a DE PROFUNDIS, terrible as a Chorus of AEschylus,--for in effect that is rather the character of it, had the barking once pleased to cease. "King of Prussia cannot sleep," writes Dickens: "the officers sit up with him every night, and in his slumbers he raves and talks of spirits and apparitions." [Despatch, 3d October, 1730.] We saw him, ghost-like, in the night-time, gliding about, seeking shelter with Feekin against ghosts; Ginkel by daylight saw him, now clad in thunderous tornado, and anon in sorrowful fog. Here, farther on, is a new item,--and joined to it and the others, a remarkable old one:--

"In regard to Wilhelmina's marriage, and whether a Father cannot give his daughter in wedlock to whom he pleases, there have been eight Divines consulted, four Lutheran, four Reformed (Calvinist); who, all but one [he of the Garrison Church, a rhadamanthine fellow in serge], have answered, 'No, your Majesty!' It is remarkable that his Majesty has not gone to bed sober for this month past." [Dickens, 9th and 19th December, 1730.]

What Seckendorf and Grumkow thought of all these phenomena? They have done their job too well. They are all for mercy; lean with their whole weight that way,--in black qualms, one of them withal, thinking tremulously to himself, "What if his now Majesty were to die upon us, in the interim!"

Chapter II. -- CROWN-PRINCE TO REPENT AND NOT PERISH.

In regard to Friedrich, the Court-Martial needs no amendment from the King; the sentence on Friedrich, a Lieutenant-Colonel guilty of desertion, is, from President and all members except two, Death as by law. The two who dissented, invoking royal clemency and pardon, were Major-Generals by rank,--Schwerin, as some write, one of them, or if not Schwerin, then Linger; and for certain, Donhof,--two worthy gentlemen not known to any of my readers, nor to me, except as names, The rest are all coldly of opinion that the military code says Death. Other codes and considerations may say this and that, which it is not in their province to touch upon; this is what the military code says: and they leave it there.

The Junius Brutus of a Royal Majesty had answered in his own heart grimly, Well then! But his Councillors, Old Dessauer, Grumkow, Seckendorf, one and all interpose vehemently. "Prince of the Empire, your Majesty, not a Lieutenant-Colonel only! Must not, cannot;"--nay good old Buddenbrock, in the fire of still unsuccessful pleading, tore open his waistcoat: "If your Majesty requires blood, take mine; that other you shall never get, so long as I can speak!" Foreign Courts interpose; Sweden, the Dutch; the English in a circuitous way, round by Vienna to wit; finally the Kaiser himself sends an Autograph; [Date, 11th October, 1730 (Forster, i. 380).] for poor Queen Sophie has applied even to Seckendorf, will be friends with Grumkow himself, and in her despair is knocking at every door. Junius Brutus is said to have had paternal affections withal. Friedrich Wilhelm, alone against the whispers of his own heart and the voices of all men, yields at last in this cause. To Seckendorf, who has chalked out a milder didactic plan of treatment, still rigorous enough, [His Letter to the King, 1st November, 1730 (in Forster, i. 375, 376).] he at last admits that such plan is perhaps good; that the Kaiser's Letter has turned the scale with him; and the didactic method, not the beheading one, shall be tried. That Donhof and Schwerin, with their talk of mercy, with "their eyes upon the Rising Sun," as is evident, have done themselves no good, and shall perhaps find it so one day. But that, at any rate, Friedrich's life is spared; Katte's execution shall suffice in that kind. Repentance, prostrate submission and amendment,--these may do yet more for the prodigal, if he will in heart return. These points, some time before the 8th of November, we find to be as good as settled.

The unhappy prodigal is in no condition to resist farther. Chaplain Muller had introduced himself with Katte's dying admonition to the Crown-Prince to repent and submit. Chaplain Muller, with his wholesome cooling-powders, with his ghostly counsels, and considerations of temporal and eternal nature,--we saw how he prospered almost beyond hope. Even on Predestination, and the real nature of Election by Free Grace, all is coming right, or come, reports Muller. The Chaplain's Reports, Friedrich Wilhelm's grimly mollified Responses on the same: they are written, and in confused form have been printed; but shall be spared the English reader. And Grumkow has been out at Custrin, preaching to the same purport from other texts: Grumkow, with the thought ever present to him, "What if Friedrich Wilhelm should die?" is naturally an eloquent preacher. Enough, it has been settled (perhaps before the day of Katte's death, or at the latest three days after it, as we can see), That if the Prince will, and can with free conscience, take an Oath ("no mental reservation," mark you!) of contrite repentance, of perfect prostrate submission, and purpose of future entire obedience and conformity to the paternal mind in all things, "GNADENWAHL" included,--the paternal mind may possibly relax his durance a little, and put him gradually on proof again. [King's Letter to Muller, 8th November (Forster, i. 379).]

Towards which issue, as Chaplain Muller reports, the Crown-Prince is visibly gravitating, with all his weight and will. The very GNADENWAHL is settled; the young soul (truly a lover of Truth, your Majesty) taps on his ceiling, my floor being overhead, before the winter sun rises, as a signal that I must come down to him; so eager to have error and darkness purged away. Believes himself, as I believe him, ready to undertake that Oath; desires, however, to see it first, that he may maturely study every clause of it.--Say you verily so? answers Majesty. And MAY my ursine heart flow out again, and blubber gratefully over a sinner saved, a poor Son plucked as brand from the burning?"God, the Most High, give His blessing on it, then!" concludes the paternal Majesty: "And as He often, by wondrous guidances, strange paths and thorny steps, will bring men into the Kingdom of Christ, so may our Divine Redeemer help that this prodigal son be brought into His communion. That his godless heart be beaten till it is softened and changed; and so he be snatched from the claws of Satan. This grant us the Almighty God and Father, for our Lord Jesus Christ and His passion and death's sake! Amen!--I am, for the rest, your well-affectioned King, FRIEDRICH WILHELM (WUSTERHAUSEN, 8th NOVEMBER, 1730)." [Forster, i. 379.]

CROWN-PRINCE BEGINS A NEW COURSE.

It was Monday, 6th November, when poor Katte died. Within a fortnight, on the second Sunday after, there has a Select Commission, Grumkow, Borck, Buddenbrock, with three other Soldiers, and the Privy Councillor Thulmeyer, come out to Custrin: there and then, Sunday, November 19th, [Nicolai, exactest of men, only that Documents were occasionally less accessible in his time, gives (ANEKDOTEN, vi. 187), "Saturday, November 25th," as the day of the Oath; but, no doubt, the later inquirers, Preuss (i. 56) and others, have found him wrong in this small instance.] these Seven, with due solemnity, administer the Oath (terms of Oath conceivable by readers); Friedrich being found ready. He signs the Oath, as well as audibly swears it: whereupon his sword is restored to him, and his prison-door opened. He steps forth to the Town Church with his Commissioners; takes the sacrament; listens, with all Custrin, to an illusive Sermon on the subject; "text happily chosen, preacher handling it well." Text was Psalm Seventy-seventh, verse eleventh (tenth of our English version), And I said, This is my infirmity; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Host High; or, as Luther's version more intelligibly gives it, This I have to suffer; the right hand of the Most High can change all. Preacher (not Muller but another) rose gradually into didactic pathos; Prince, and all Custrin, were weeping, or near weeping, at the close of the business. [Preuss, i. 56.]

Straight from Church the Prince is conducted, not to the Fortress, but to a certain Town Mansion, which he is to call his own henceforth, under conditions: an erring Prince half liberated, and mercifully put on proof again. His first act here is to write, of his own composition, or helped by some official hand, this Letter to his All-serenest Papa; which must be introduced, though, except to readers of German who know the "DERE" (TheirO), "ALLERDURCHLAUCHTIGSTER," and strange pipe-clay solemnity of the Court-style, it is like to be in great part lost in any translation:--

"CUSTRIN, 19th November, 1730.

"ALL-SERENEST AND ALL-GRACIOUSEST FATHER,--To your Royal Majesty, my All-graciousest Father, have,"--I.E. "I have," if one durst write the "I,"--"by my disobedience as TheirO [YourO] subject and soldier, not less than by my undutifulness as TheirO Son, given occasion to a just wrath and aversion against me. With the All-obedientest respect I submit myself wholly to the grace of my most All-gracious Father; and beg him, Most All-graciously to pardon me; as it is not so much the withdrawal of my liberty in a sad arrest (MALHEUREUSEN ARREST), as my own thoughts of the fault I have committed, that have brought me to reason: Who, with all-obedientest respect and submission, continue till my end,

"My All-graciousest King's and Father's faithfully obedientest Servant and Son,

"FRIEDRICH."

[Preuss, i. 56, 57; and Anonymous, Friedrichs des Grossen Briefe an seinen Vater (Berlin, Posen und Bromberg, 1838), p. 3.]

This new House of Friedrich's in the little Town of Custrin, he finds arranged for him on rigorously thrifty principles, yet as a real Household of his own; and even in the form of a Court, with Hofmarschall, Kammerjunkers, and the other adjuncts;--Court reduced to its simplest expression, as the French say, and probably the cheapest that was ever set up. Hafmarschall (Court-marshal) is one Wolden, a civilian Official here. The Kammerjunkers are Rohwedel and Natzmer; Matzmer Junior, son of a distinguished Feldmarschall: "a good-hearted but foolish forward young fellow," says Wilhelmina; "the failure of a coxcomb (PETIT-MAITRE MANQUE)." For example, once, strolling about in a solemn Kaiser's Soiree in Vienna, he found in some quiet corner the young Duke of Lorraine, Franz, who it is thought will be the divine Maria Theresa's husband, and Kaiser himself one day. Foolish Natzmer found this noble young gentleman in a remote corner of the Soiree; went up, nothing loath, to speak graciosities and insipidities to him: the noble young gentleman yawned, as was too natural, a wide long yawn; and in an insipid familiar manner, foolish Natzmer (Wilhelmina and the Berlin circles know it) put his finger into the noble young gentleman's mouth, and insipidly wagged it there. "Sir, you seem to forget where you are!" said the noble young gentleman; and closing his mouth with emphasis, turned away; but happily took no farther notice. [Wilhelmina, i. 310.] This is all we yet know of the history of Natzmer, whose heedless ways and slap-dash speculations, tinted with natural ingenuity and good-humor, are not unattractive to the Prince.

Hofmarschall and these two Kammerjunkers are of the lawyer species; men intended for Official business, in which the Prince himself is now to be occupied. The Prince has four lackeys, two pages, one valet. He wears his sword, but has no sword-tash (PORTE EPEE), much less an officer's uniform: a mere Prince put upon his good behavior again; not yet a soldier of the Prussian Army, only hoping to become so again. He wears a light-gray dress, "HECHTGRAUER (pike-gray) frock with narrow silver cordings;" and must recover his uniform, by proving himself gradually a new man.

For there is, along with the new household, a new employment laid out for him in Custrin; and it shall be seen what figure he makes in that, first of all. He is to sit in the DOMANEN-KAMMER or Government Board here, as youngest Rath; no other career permitted. Let him learn Economics and the way of managing Domain Lands (a very principal item of the royal revenues in this Country): humble work, but useful; which he had better see well how he will do. Two elder Raths are appointed to instruct him in the Economic Sciences and Practices, if he show faculty and diligence;--which in fact he turns out to do, in a superior degree, having every motive to try.

This kind of life lasted with him for the next fifteen months, all through the year 1731 and farther; and must have been a very singular, and was probably a highly instructive year to him, not in the Domain Sciences alone. He is left wholly to himself. All his fellow-creatures, as it were, are watching him. Hundred-eyed Argus, or the Ear of Dionysius, that is to say, Tobacco-Parliament with its spies and reporters,--no stirring of his finger can escape it here. He has much suspicion to encounter: Papa looking always sadly askance, sadly incredulous, upon him. He is in correspondence with Grumkow; takes much advice from Grumkow (our prompter-general, president in the Dionysius'-Ear, and not an ill-wisher farther); professes much thankfulness to Grumkow, now and henceforth. Thank you for flinging me out of the six-story window, and catching me by the coat-skirts!--Left altogether to himself, as we said; has in the whole Universe nothing that will save him but his own good sense, his own power of discovering what is what, and of doing what will be behooveful therein.

He is to quit his French literatures and pernicious practices, one and all. His very flute, most innocent "Princess," as he used to call his flute in old days, is denied him ever since he came to Custrin;--but by degrees he privately gets her back, and consorts much with her; wails forth, in beautiful adagios, emotions for which there is no other utterance at present. He has liberty of Custrin and the neighborhood; out of Custrin he is not to lodge, any night, without leave had of the Commandant. Let him walk warily; and in good earnest study to become a new creature, useful for something in the Domain Sciences and otherwise.

Chapter III. -- WILHELMINA IS TO WED THE PRINCE OF BAIREUTH.

Crown-Prince Friedrich being settled so far, his Majesty takes up the case of Wilhelmina, the other ravelled skein lying on hand. Wilhelmina has been prisoner in her Apartment at Berlin all this while: it is proper Wilhelmina be disposed of; either in wedlock, filially obedient to the royal mind; or in some much sterner way, "within four walls," it is whispered, if disobedient.

Poor Wilhelmina never thought of disobeying her parents: only, which of them to obey? King looks towards the Prince of Baireuth again, agreed on before those hurly-burlies now past; Queen looks far otherwards. Queen Sophie still desperately believes in the English match for Wilhelmina; and has subterranean correspondences with that Court; refusing to see that the negotiation is extinct there. Grumkow himself, so over-victorious in his late task, is now heeling towards England; "sincere in his wish to be well with us," thinks Dickens: Grumkow solaces her Majesty with delusive hopes in the English quarter: "Be firm, child; trust in my management; only swear to me, on your eternal salvation, that never, on any compulsion, will you marry another than the Prince of Wales;--give me that oath!" [Wilhelmina, i. 314.] Such was Queen Sophie's last proposal to Wilhelmina,--night of the 27th of January, 1731, as is computable,--her Majesty to leave for Potsdam on the morrow. They wept much together that night, but Wilhelmina dexterously evaded the oath, on a religious ground. Prince of Baireuth, whom Papa may like or may not like, has never yet personally made appearance: who or what will make appearance, or how things can or will turn, except a bad road, is terribly a mystery to Wilhelmina.

What with chagrin and confinement, what with bad diet (for the very diet is bad, quality and quantity alike unspeakable), Wilhelmina sees herself "reduced to a skeleton;" no company but her faithful Sonsfeld, no employment but her Books and Music;--struggles, however, still to keep heart. One day, it is in February, 1731, as I compute, they are sitting, her Sonsfeld and she, at their sad mess of so-called dinner, in their remote upper story of the Berlin Schloss, tramp of sentries the one thing audible; and were "looking mournfully at one another, with nothing to eat but a soup of salt and water, and a ragout of old bones full of hairs and slopperies [nothing else; that was its real quality, whatever fine name they might give it, says the vehement Princess], we heard a sharp tapping at the window; and started up in surprise, to see what it could be. It was a raven, carrying in its beak a bit of bread, which it left on the window-sill, and flew away." [Ib. i. 316.]

"Tears came into our eyes at this adventure." Are we become as Hebrew Elijahs, then; so that the wild ravens have to bring us food? Truth is, there was nothing miraculous, as Wilhelmina found by and by. It was a tame raven,--not the soul of old George I., which lives at Isleworth on good pensions; but the pet raven of a certain Margravine, which lost its way among the intricate roofs here. But the incident was touching. "Well," exclaimed Wilhelmina, "in the Roman Histories I am now reading, it is often said those creatures betoken good luck." All Berlin, such the appetite for gossip, and such the famine of it in Berlin at present, talked of this minute event: and the French Colony--old Protestant Colony, practical considerate people--were so struck by it, they brought baskets of comfortable things to us, and left them daily, as if by accident, on some neutral ground, where the maid could pick them up, sentries refusing to see unless compelled. Which fine procedure has attached Wilhelmina to the French nation ever since, as a dexterous useful people, and has given her a disposition to help them where she could.

The omen of the raven did not at once bring good luck: however, it did chance to be the turning-point, solstice of this long Greenland winter; after which, amid storms and alarms, daylight came steadily nearer. Storms and alarms: for there came rumors of quarrels out at Potsdam, quarrels on the old score between the Royal Spouses there; and frightful messages, through one Eversmann, an insolent royal lackey, about wedding Weissenfels, about imprisonment for life and other hard things; through all which Wilhelmina studied to keep her poor head steady, and answer with dignity yet discreetly. On the other hand, her Sisters are permitted to visit her, and perceptible assuagements come. At length, on the 11th of May, there came solemn Deputation, Borck, Grumkow, Thulmeyer in it, old real friends and pretended new; which set poor Wilhelmina wringing her hands (having had a Letter from Mamma overnight); but did bring about a solution. It was Friday, 11th of May; a day of crisis in Wilhelmina's history; Queen commanding one thing, King another, and the hour of decision come.

Entering, announcing themselves, with dreadful solemnity, these gentlemen, Grumkow the spokesman, in soft phrase, but with strict clearness, made it apparent to her, That marry she must,--the Hereditary Prince of Baireuth,--and without the consent of both her parents, which was unattainable at present, but peremptorily under the command of one of them, whose vote was the supreme. Do this (or even say that you will do it, whisper some of the well-affected), his Majesty's paternal favor will return upon you like pent waters;--and the Queen will surely reconcile herself (or perhaps turn it all her own way yet! whisper the well-affected). Refuse to do it, her Majesty, your Royal Brother, you yourself Royal Highness, God only knows what the unheard-of issue will be for you all! Do it, let us advise you: you must, you must!--Wilhelmina wrung her hands; ran distractedly to and fro; the well-affected whispering to her, the others "conversing at a window." At length she did it. Will marry whom her all-gracious Papa appoints; never wished or meant the least disobedience; hopes, beyond all things, his paternal love will now return, and make everybody blessed;--and oh, reconcile Mamma to me, ye well-affected! adds she.--Bravissimo! answer they: her Majesty, for certain, will reconcile herself; Crown-Prince get back from Custrin, and all will be well. [Wilhelmina, i. 327-333.]

Friedrich Wilhelm was overjoyed; Queen Sophie Dorothee was in despair. With his Majesty, who "wept" like a paternal bear, on re-embracing Wilhelmina the obedient some days hence, it became a settled point, and was indicated to Wilhelmina as such, That the Crown-Prince would, on her actual wedding, probably get back from Custrin. But her Majesty's reconcilement,--this was very slow to follow. Her Majesty was still in flames of ire at their next interview; and poor Wilhelmina fainted, on approaching to kiss her hand. "Disgraced, vanquished, and my enemies triumphing!" said her Majesty; and vented her wrath on Wilhelmina; and fell ill (so soon as there was leisure), ill, like to die, and said, "Why pretend to weep, when it is you that have killed me!"--and indeed was altogether hard, bitter, upon the poor Princess; a chief sorrow to her in these trying months. Can there be such wrath in celestial minds, venting itself so unreasonably?--At present there is no leisure for illness; grand visitors in quantity have come and are coming; and the Court is brilliant exceedingly;--his Majesty blazing out into the due magnificence, which was very great on this occasion, domestic matters looking up with him again. The Serenities of Brunswick are here, young and old; much liked by Friedrich Wilhelm; and almost reckoned family people,--ever since their Eldest Son was affianced to the Princess Charlotte here, last visit they made. To Princess Charlotte, Wilhelmina's second junior,--mischievous, coquettish creature she, though very pretty and insinuating, who seems to think her Intended rather a phlegmatic young gentleman, as Wilhelmina gradually discovers. Then there is old Duke Eberhard Ludwig, of Wurtemberg, whom we saw at Ludwigsburg last year, in an intricate condition with his female world and otherwise, he too announces himself,--according to promise then given. Old Duke Eberhard Ludwig comes, stays three weeks in great splendor of welcome;--poor old gentleman, his one son is now dead; and things are getting earnest with him. On his return home, this time, he finds, according to order, the foul witch Gravenitz duly cleared away; reinstates his injured Duchess, with the due feelings, better late than never; and dies in a year or two, still childless.--

These are among the high guests at Berlin; and there are plenty of others whom we do not name. Magnificent dining; with "six-and-twenty blackamoors," high-colored creatures, marching up the grand staircase, round the table, round it, and then down again, melodious, doing "janizary music," if you happen to prefer that kind;--trained creatures these blackamoors, all got when boys, and set to cymballing and fifing betimes, adds my authority. [Fassmann, p. 726, &c.] Dining, boar-hunting (if the boar be huntable), especially reviewing, fail not in those fine summer days.

One evening, it is Sunday, 27th of May, latish, while the high guests, with Queen and Wilhelmina, are just passing in to supper (King's Majesty having "gone to bed at seven," to be well astir for the review to-morrow), a sound of wheels is heard in the court. Modest travelling-equipage rolls up into the inner court; to the foot of the grand staircase there, whither only Princes come:--who can it be? The Queen sends to inquire. Heavens, it is the Hereditary Prince of Baireuth! "Medusa's Head never produced such effect as did this bit of news: Queen sat petrified; and I," by reflex, was petrified too! Wilhelmina passed the miserablest night, no wink of sleep; and felt quite ill in the morning;--in dread, too, of Papa's rough jests,--and wretched enough. She had begged much, last night! to be excused from the review. But that could not be: "I must go," said the Queen after reflection, "and you with me." Which they did;--and diversified the pomp and circumstance of mock-war by a small unexpected scene.

Queen, Princess and the proper Dames had, by his Majesty's order, to pass before the line: Princess in much trouble, "with three caps huddled on me, to conceal myself," poor soul. Margraf of Schwedt, at the head of his regiment, "looked swollen with rage," high hopes gone in this manner;--and saluted us with eyes turned away. As for his Mother, the Dessau Margravine in high colors, she was "blue in the face" all day. Lines passed, and salutations done, her Majesty and Dames withdrew to the safe distance, to look on:--Such a show, for pomp and circumstance, Wilhelmina owns, as could not be equalled in the world. Such wheeling, rhythmic coalescing and unfolding; accurate as clock-work, far and wide; swift big column here, hitting swift big column there, at the appointed place and moment; with their volleyings and trumpeting, bright uniforms and streamers and field-music,--in equipment and manoeuvre perfect all, to the meanest drummer or black kettle-drummer:--supreme drill-sergeant playing on the thing, as on his huge piano, several square miles in area! Comes of the Old Dessauer, all this; of the "equal step;" of the abstruse meditations upon tactics, in that rough head of his. Very pretty indeed.--But in the mean while an Official steps up: cap in hand, approaches the Queen's carriage; says, He is ordered to introduce his Highness the Prince of Baireuth. Prince comes up accordingly; a personable young fellow; intelligent-looking, self-possessed; makes obeisance to her Majesty, who answers in frosty politeness; and--and Wilhelmina, faint, fasting, sleepless all night, fairly falls aswoon. Could not be helped: and the whole world saw it; and Guy Dickens and the Diplomatists wrote home about it, and there rose rumor and gossip enough! [Dickens, of 2d June, 1731 (in pathetic terms); Wilhelmina, i. 341 (without pathos).] But that was the naked truth of it: hot weather, agitation, want of sleep, want of food; not aversion to the Hereditary Prince, nothing of that. Rather the contrary, indeed; and, on better acquaintance, much the contrary. For he proved a very rational, honorable and eligible young Prince: modest, honest, with abundance of sense and spirit; kind too and good, hot temper well kept, temper hot not harsh; quietly holds his own in all circles; good discourse in him, too, and sharp repartee if requisite,--though he stammered somewhat in speaking. Submissive Wilhelmina feels that one might easily have had a worse husband. What glories for you in England! the Queen used to say to her in old times: "He is a Prince, that Frederick, who has a good heart, and whose genius is very small. Rather ugly than handsome; slightly out of shape even (UN PEU CONTREFAIT). But provided you have the complaisance to suffer his debaucheries, you will quite govern him; and you will be more King than he, when once his Father is dead. Only see what a part you will play! It will be you that decide on the weal or woe of Europe, and give law to the Nation," [Wilhelmina, i. 143.]--in a manner! Which Wilhelmina did not think a celestial prospect even then. Who knows but, of all the offers she had, "four" or three "crowned heads" among them, this final modest honest one may be intrinsically the best? Take your portion, if inevitable, and be thankful!--

The Betrothal follows in about a week: Sunday, 3d June, 1731; with great magnificence, in presence of the high guests and all the world: and Wilhelmina is the affianced Bride of Friedrich of Baireuth:--and that enormous Double-Marriage Tragi-comedy, of Much Ado about Nothing, is at last ended. Courage, friends; all things do end!--

The high guests hereupon go their ways again; and the Court of Berlin, one cannot but suppose, collapses, as after a great effort finished. Do not Friedrich Wilhelm and innumerable persons--the readers and the writer of this History included--feel a stone rolled off their hearts?--It is now, and not till now, that Queen Sophie falls sick, and like to die; and reproaches Wilhelmina with killing her. Friedrich Wilhelm hopes confidently, not; waits out at Potsdam, for a few days, till this killing danger pass; then departs, with double impetuosity, for Preussen, and despatch of Public Business; such a mountain of Domestic Business being victoriously got under.

Poor King, his life, this long while, has been a series of earthquakes and titanic convulsions. Narrow miss he has had, of pulling down his house about his ears, and burying self, son, wife, family and fortunes, under the ruin-heap,--a monument to remote posterity. Never was such an enchanted dance, of well-intentioned Royal Bear with poetic temperament, piped to by two black-artists, for the Kaiser's and Pragmatic Sanction's sake! Let Tobacco-Parliament also rejoice; for truly the play was growing dangerous, of late. King and Parliament, we may suppose, return to Public Business with double vigor.

Chapter IV. -- CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN AND ELSEWHERE.

Not that his Majesty, while at the deepest in domestic intricacies, ever neglects Public Business. This very summer he is raising Hussar Squadrons; bent to introduce the Hussar kind of soldiery into his Army;--a good deal of horse-breaking and new sabre-exercise needed for that object. [Fassmann, pp. 417, 418.] The affairs of the Reich have at no moment been out of his eye; glad to see the Kaiser edging round to the Sea-Powers again, and things coming into their old posture, in spite of that sad Treaty of Seville.

Nay, for the last two years, while the domestic volcanoes were at their worst, his Majesty has been extensively dealing with a new question which has risen, that of the SALZBURG PROTESTANTS; concerning which we shall hear more anon. Far and wide, in the Diets and elsewhere, he has been diligently, piously and with solid judgment, handling this question of the poor Salzburgers; and has even stored up moneys in intended solace of them (for he foresees what the end will be);--moneys which, it appears about this time, a certain Official over in Preussen has been peculating! In the end of June, his Majesty sets off to Preussen on the usual Inspection Tour; which we should not mention, were it not in regard to that same Official, and to something very rhadamanthine and particular which befell him; significant of what his Majesty can do in the way of prompt justice.

CASE OF SCHLUBHUT.

The Konigsberg Domain-Board (KRIEGS-UND DOMANEN-KAMMER) had fallen awry, in various points, of late; several things known to be out-at-elbows in that Country; the Kammer Raths evidently lax at their post; for which reason they have been sharply questioned, and shaken by the collar, so to speak. Nay there is one Rath, a so-called Nobleman of those parts, by name Schlubhut, who has been found actually defaulting; peculating from that pious hoard intended for the Salzburgers: he is proved, and confesses, to have put into his own scandalous purse no less than 11,000 thalers, some say 30,000 (almost 5,000 pounds), which belonged to the Public Treasury and the Salzburg Protestants! These things, especially this latter unheard-of Schlubhut thing, the Supreme Court at Berlin (CRIMINAL-COLLEGIUM) have been sitting on, for some time; and, in regard to Schlubhut, they have brought out a result, which Friedrich Wilhelm not a little admires at. Schlubhut clearly guilty of the defamation, say they; but he has moneys, landed properties: let him refund, principal and interest; and have, say, three or four years' imprisonment, by way of memento. "Years' imprisonment? Refund? Is theft in the highest quarters a thing to be let off for refunding?" growls his Majesty; and will not confirm this sentence of his Criminal-Collegium; but leaves it till he get to the spot, and see with his own eyes. Schlubhut, in arrest or mild confinement all this while, ought to be bethinking himself more than he is!

Once on the spot, judge if the Konigsberg Domain-Kammer had not a stiff muster to pass; especially if Schlubhut's drill-exercise was gentle! Schlubhut, summoned to private interview with his Majesty, carries his head higher than could be looked for: Is very sorry; knows not how it happened; meant always to refund; will refund, to the last penny, and make all good.--"Refund? Does He (ER) know what stealing means, then? How the commonest convicted private thief finds the gallows his portion; much more a public Magistrate convicted of theft? Is He aware that He, in a very especial manner, deserves hanging, then?"--Schlubhut looks offended dignity; conscious of rank, if also of quasi-theft: "ES IST NICHT MANIER (it is not the polite thing) to hang a Prussian Nobleman on those light terms!" answers Schlubhut, high mannered at the wrong time: "I can and will pay the money back!"--NOBLE-man? Money back? "I will none of His scoundrelly money." To strait Prison with this SCHURKE!--And thither he goes accordingly: unhappiest of mortals; to be conscious of rank, not at the right place, when about to steal the money, but at the wrong, when answering to Rhadamanthus on it!

And there, sure enough, Schlubhut lies, in his prison on the SCHLOSSPLATZ, or Castle Square, of Konigsberg, all night; and hears, close by the DOMANEN-KAMMER, which is in the same Square, DOMANEN-KAMMER where his Office used to be, a terrible sound of carpentering go on;--unhappiest of Prussian Noblemen. And in the morning, see, a high gallows built; close in upon the Domain-Kammer, looking into the very windows of it;--and there, sure enough, the unfortunate Schlubhut dies the thief's death, few hours hence, speaking or thinking what, no man reports to me. Death was certain for him; inevitable as fate. And so he vibrates there, admonitory to the other Raths for days,--some say for weeks,--till by humble petition they got the gallows removed. The stumps of it, sawed close by the stones, were long after visible in that Schlossplatz of Konigsberg. Here is prompt justice with a witness! Did readers ever hear of such a thing? There is no doubt about the fact, [Benekendorf (Anonymous), Karakterzuge aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm I. (Berlin, 1788), vii. 15-20; Forster (ii. 268), &c. &c.] though in all Prussian Books it is loosely smeared over, without the least precision of detail; and it was not till after long searching that I could so much as get it dated: July, 1731, while Friedrich Crown-Prince is still in eclipse at Custrin, and some six weeks after Wilhelmina's betrothal. And here furthermore, direct from the then Schlubhut precincts, is a stray Note, meteorological chiefly; but worth picking up, since it is authentic. "Wehlau," we observe, is on the road homewards again,--on our return from uttermost Memel,--a day's journey hitherwards of that place, half a day's thitherwards of Konigsberg:--

"TUESDAY, 10th JULY, 1731. King dining with General Dockum at Wehlau,"--where he had been again reviewing, for about forty hours, all manner of regiments brought to rendezvous there for the purpose, poor "General Katte with his regiment" among them;--King at dinner with General Dockum after all that, "took the resolution to be off to Konigsberg; and arrived here at the stroke of midnight, in a deluge of rain." This brings us within a day, or two days, of Schlubhut's death, Terrible "combat of Bisons (URI, or AUEROCHSEN, with such manes, such heads), of two wild Bisons against six wild Bears," then ensued; and the Schlubhut human tragedy; I know not in what sequence,--rather conjecture the Schlubhut had gone FIRST. Pillau, road to Dantzig, on the narrow strip between the Frische Haf and Baltic, is the next stage homewards; at Pillau, General Finkenstein (excellent old Tutor of the Crown-Prince) is Commandant, and expects his rapid Majesty, day and hour given, to me not known, Majesty goes in three carriages; Old Dessauer, Grumkow, Seckendorf, Ginkel are among his suite; weather still very electric:--

"At Fischhausen, half-way to Pillau, Majesty had a bout of elk-hunting; killed sixty elks [Melton-Mowbray may consider it],--creatures of the deer sort, nimble as roes, but strong as bulls, and four palms higher than the biggest horse,--to the astonishment of Seckendorf, Ginkel and the strangers there. Half an hour short of Pillau, furious electricity again; thunder-bolt shivered an oak-tree fifteen yards from Majesty's carriage. And at Pillau itself, the Battalion in Garrison there, drawn out in arms, by Count Finkenstein, to receive his Majesty [rain over by this time, we can hope], had suddenly to rush forward and take new ground; Frische Haf, on some pressure from the elements, having suddenly gushed out, two hundred paces beyond its old watermark in that place." [See Mauvillon, ii. 293-297;--CORRECTING by Fassmann, p. 422.]

Pillau, Fischhausen,--this is where the excellent old Adalbert stamped the earth with his life "in the shape of a crucifix" eight hundred years ago: and these are the new phenomena there!--The General Dockum, Colonel of Dragoons, whom his Majesty dined with at Wehlau, got his death not many months after. One of Dockum's Dragoon Lieutenants felt insulted at something, and demanded his discharge: discharge given, he challenged Dockum, duel of pistols, and shot him dead. [7th April, 1732 (Militair-Lexikon, i. 365).] Nothing more to be said of Dockum, nor of that Lieutenant, in military annals.

CASE OF THE CRIMINAL-COLLEGIUM ITSELF.

And thus was the error of the Criminal-Collegium rectified IN RE Schlubhut. For it is not in name only, but in fact, that this Sovereign is Supreme Judge, and bears the sword in God's stead,--interfering now and then, when need is, in this terrible manner. In the same dim authentic Benekendorf (himself a member of the Criminal-Collegium in later times), and from him in all the Books, is recorded another interference somewhat in the comic vein; which also we may give. Undisputed fact, again totally without precision or details; not even datable, except that, on study, we perceive it may have been before this Schlubhut's execution, and after the Criminal-Collegium had committed their error about him,--must have been while this of Schlubhut was still vividly in mind; Here is the unprecise but indubitable fact, as the Prussian Dryasdust has left us his smear of it:--

"One morning early" (might be before Schlubhut was hanged, and while only sentence of imprisonment and restitution lay on him), General Graf von Donhof, Colonel of a Musketeer Regiment, favorite old soldier,--who did vote on the mild side in that Court-Martial on the Crown-Prince lately; but I hope has been forgiven by his Majesty, being much esteemed by him these long years past;--this Donhof, early one morning, calls upon the King, with a grimly lamenting air. "What is wrong, Herr General?"--"Your Majesty, my best musketeer, an excellent soldier, and of good inches, fell into a mistake lately,--bad company getting round the poor fellow; they, he among them, slipt into a house and stole something; trifle and without violence: pay is but three halfpence, your Majesty, and the Devil tempts men! Well, the Criminal-Collegium have condemned him to be hanged; an excellent soldier and of good inches, for that one fault. Nobleman Schlubhut was 'to make restitution,' they decreed: that was their decree on Schlubhut, one of their own set; and this poor soldier, six feet three, your Majesty, is to dance on the top of nothing for a three-halfpenny matter!"--So would Donhof represent the thing,--"fact being," says my Dryasdust, "it was a case of house-breaking with theft to the value of 6,000 thalers and this musketeer the ringleader!"--Well; but was Schlubhut sentenced to hanging? Do you keep two weights and two measures, in that Criminal-Collegium of yours, then?

Friedrich Wilhelm feels this sad contrast very much; the more, as the soldier is his own chattel withal, and of superlative inches: Friedrich Wilhelm flames up into wrath; sends off swift messengers to bring these Judges, one and all instantly into his presence. The Judges are still in their dressing-gowns, shaving, breakfasting; they make what haste they can. So soon as the first three or four are reported to be in the anteroom, Friedrich Wilhelm, in extreme impatience has them called in; starts discoursing with them upon the two weights and two measures. Apologies, subterfuges do but provoke him farther; it is not long till he starts up, growling terribly: "IHR SCHURKEN (Ye Scoundrels), how could you?" and smites down upon the crowns of them with the Royal Cudgel itself. Fancy the hurry-scurry, the unforensic attitudes and pleadings! Royal Cudgel rains blows, right and left: blood is drawn, crowns cracked, crowns nearly broken; and "several Judges lost a few teeth, and had their noses battered," before they could get out. The second relay meeting them in this dilapidated state, on the staircases, dashed home again without the honor of a Royal interview. [Benekendorf, vii. 33; Forster, ii. 270.] Let them learn to keep one balance, and one set of weights, in their Law-Court hence forth.--This is an actual scene, of date Berlin, 1731, or thereby; unusual in the annals of Themis. Of which no constitutional country can hope to see the fellow, were the need never so pressing.--I wish his Majesty had been a thought more equal, when he was so rhadamanthine! Schlubhut he hanged, Schlubhut being only Schlubhut's chattel; this musketeer, his Majesty's own chattel, he did not hang, but set him shouldering arms again, after some preliminary dusting!--

His Majesty was always excessively severe on defalcations; any Chancellor, with his Exchequer-bills gone wrong, would have fared ill in that country. One Treasury dignitary, named Wilke (who had "dealt in tall recruits," as a kind of by-trade, and played foul in some slight measure), the King was clear for hanging; his poor Wife galloped to Potsdam, shrieking mercy; upon which Friedrich Wilhelm had him whipt by the hangman, and stuck for life into Spandau. Still more tragical--was poor Hesse's case. Hesse, some domain Rath out at Konigsberg, concerned with moneys, was found with account-books in a state of confusion, and several thousands short, when the outcome was cleared up. What has become of these thousands, Sir? Poor old Hesse could not tell: "God is my witness, no penny of them eyer stuck to me," asseverated poor old Hesse; "but where they are--? My account-books are in such a state;--alas, and my poor old memory is not what it was!" They brought him to Berlin; in the end they actually hanged the poor old soul;--and then afterwards in his dusty lumber-rooms, hidden in pots, stuffed into this nook and that, most or all of the money was found! [Forster (ii. 269), &c. &c.] Date and document exist for all these cases, though my Dryasdust gives none; and the cases are indubitable; very rhadamanthine indeed. The soft quality of mercy,--ah, yes, it is beautiful and blessed, when permissible (though thrice-accursed, when not): but it is on the hard quality of justice, first of all, that Empires are built up, and beneficent and lasting things become achievable to mankind, in this world!--

SKIPPER JENKINS IN THE GULF OF FLORIDA.

A couple of weeks before Schlubhut's death, the English Newspapers are somewhat astir,--in the way of narrative merely, as yet. Ship Rebecca, Captain Robert Jenkins Master, has arrived in the Port of London, with a strange story in her log-book. Of which, after due sifting, this is accurately the substance:--

"LONDON, 23d-27th JUNE, 1731. Captain Jenkins left this Port with the Rebecca, several months ago; sailed to Jamaica, for a cargo of sugar. He took in his cargo at Jamaica; put to sea again, 6th April, 1731, and proceeded on the Voyage homewards; with indifferent winds for the first fortnight. April 20th, with no wind or none that would suit, he was hanging about in the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, not far from the Havana,"--almost too near it, I should think; but these baffling winds!--"not far from the Havana, when a Spanish Guarda-Costa hove in sight; came down on Jenkins, and furiously boarded him: 'Scoundrel, what do YOU want; contrabanding in these seas? Jamaica, say you? Sugar? Likely! Let us see your logwood, hides, Spanish pieces-of-eight!' And broke in upon Jenkins, ship and person, in a most extraordinary manner. Tore up his hatches; plunged down, seeking logwood, hides, pieces-of-eight; found none,--not the least trace of contraband on board of Jenkins. They brought up his quadrants, sextants, however; likewise his stock of tallow candles: they shook and rummaged him, and all things, for pieces-of-eight; furiously advised him, cutlass in hand, to confess guilt. They slashed the head of Jenkins, his left ear almost off. Order had been given, 'Scalp him!'--but as he had no hair, they omitted that; merely brought away the wig, and slashed:--still no confession, nor any pieces-of-eight. They hung him up to the yard-arm,--actual neck-halter, but it seems to have been tarry, and did not run:--still no confession. They hoisted him higher, tied his cabin-boy to his feet; neck-halter then became awfully stringent upon Jenkins; had not the cabin-boy (without head to speak of) slipt through, noose being tarry; which was a sensible relief to Jenkins. Before very death, they lowered Jenkins, 'Confess, scoundrel, then!' Scoundrel could not confess; spoke of 'British Majesty's flag, peaceable English subject on the high seas.'--'British Majesty; high seas!' answered they, and again hoisted. Thrice over they tried Jenkins in this manner at the yard-arm, once with cabin-boy at his feet: never had man such a day, outrageous whiskerando cut-throats tossing him about, his poor Rebecca and him, at such rate! Sun getting low, and not the least trace of contraband found, they made a last assault on Jenkins; clutched the bloody slit ear of him; tore it mercilessly off; flung it in his face, 'Carry that to your King, and tell him of it!' Then went their way; taking Jenkins's tallow candles, and the best of his sextants with them; so that he could hardly work his passage home again, for want of latitudes;--and has lost in goods 112 pounds, not to speak of his ear. Strictly true all this; ship's company, if required, will testify on their oath." [Daily Journal (and the other London Newspapers), 12th-17th June (o.s.), 1731. Coxe's Walpole, i. 579, 560 (indistinct, and needing correction).]

These surely are singular facts; calculated to awaken a maritime public careful of its honor. Which they did,--after about eight years, as the reader will see! For the present, there are growlings in the coffee-houses; and, "THURSDAY, 28th JUNE," say the Newspapers, "This day Captain Jenkins with his Owners," ear in his pocket, I hope, "went out to Hampton Court to lay the matter before his Grace of Newcastle:" "Please your Grace, it is hardly three months since the illustrious Treaty of Vienna was signed; Dutch and we leading in the Termagant of Spain, and nothing but halcyon weather to be looked for on that side!" Grace of Newcastle, anxious to avoid trouble with Spain, answers I can only fancy what; and nothing was done upon Jenkins and his ear;

["The Spaniards own they did a witty thing, Who cropt our ears, and sent them to the King." --POPE (date not given me).]

--may "keep it in cotton," if he like; shall have "a better ship" for some solacement. This is the first emergence of Jenkins and his ear upon negligent mankind. He and it will marvellously re-emerge, one day!--

BABY CARLOS GETS HIS APANAGE.

But in regard to that Treaty of Vienna, seventh and last of the travail-throes for Baby Carlos's Apanage, let the too oblivious reader accept the following Extract, to keep him on a level with Public "Events," as they are pleased to denominate themselves:--

"By that dreadful Treaty of Seville, Cardinal Fleury and the Spaniards should have joined with England, and coerced the Kaiser VI ET ARMIS to admit Spanish Garrisons [instead of neutral] into Parma and Piacenza, and so secure Baby Carlos his heritage there, which all Nature was in travail till he got. 'War in Italy to a certainty!' said all the Newspapers, after Seville: and Crown-Prince Friedrich, we saw, was running off to have a stroke in said War;--inevitable, as the Kaiser still obstinately refused. And the English, and great George their King, were ready. Nevertheless, no War came. Old Fleury, not wanting war, wanting only to fish out something useful for himself,--Lorraine how welcome, and indeed the smallest contributions are welcome!--Old Fleury manoeuvred, hung back; till the Spaniards and Termagant Elizabeth lost all patience, and the very English were weary, and getting auspicious. Whereupon the Kaiser edged round to the Sea-Powers again, or they to him; and comfortable AS-YOU-WERE was got accomplished: much to the joy of Friedrich Wilhelm and others. Here are some of the dates to these sublime phenomena:

"MARCH 16th, 1731, Treaty of Vienna, England and the Kaiser coalescing again into comfortable AS-YOU-WERE. Treaty done by Robinson [Sir Thomas, ultimately Earl of Grantham, whom we shall often hear of in time coming]; was confirmed and enlarged by a kind of second edition, 22d July, 1731; Dutch joining, Spain itself acceding, and all being now right. Which could hardly have been expected.

"For before the first edition of that Treaty, and while Robinson at Vienna was still laboring like Hercules in it,--the poor Duke of Parma died. Died; and no vestige of a 'Spanish Garrison' yet there, to induct Baby Carlos according to old bargain. On the contrary, the Kaiser himself took possession,--'till once the Duke's Widow, who declares herself in the family-way, be brought to bed! If of a Son, of course he must have the Duchies; if of a Daughter only, then Carlos SHALL get them, let not Robinson fear.' The due months ran, but neither son nor daughter came; and the Treaty of Vienna, first edition and also second, was signed; and, "OCTOBER 20th, 1731, Spanish Garrisons, no longer an but a bodily fact, 6,000 strong, 'convoyed by the British Fleet,' came into Leghorn, and proceeded to lodge themselves in the long-litigated Parma and Piacenza;--and, in fine, the day after Christmas, blessed be Heaven.

"DECEMBER 26th, Baby Carlos in highest person came in: Baby Carlos (more power to him!) got the Duchies, and we hope there was an end. No young gentleman ever had such a pother to make among his fellow-creatures about a little heritable property. If Baby Carlos's performance in it be anything in proportion, he will be a supereminent sovereign!--

"There is still some haggle about Tuscany, the Duke of which is old and heirless; Last of the Medici, as he proved. Baby Carlos would much like to have Tuscany too; but that is a Fief of the Empire, and might easily be better disposed of, thinks the Kaiser. A more or less uncertain point, that of Tuscany; as many points are! Last of the Medici complained, in a polite manner, that they were parting his clothes before he had put them off: however, having no strength, he did not attempt resistance, but politely composed himself, 'Well, then!' [Scholl, ii. 219-221; Coxe's Walpole, i. 346; Coxe's House of Austria (London, 1854), iii. 151.] Do readers need to be informed that this same Baby Carlos came to be King of Naples, and even ultimately to be Carlos III. of Spain, leaving a younger Son to be King of Naples, ancestor of the now Majesty there?"

And thus, after such Diplomatic earthquakes and travail of Nature, there is at last birth; the Seventh Travail-throe has been successful, in some measure successful. Here actually is Baby Carlos's Apanage; there probably, by favor of Heaven and of the Sea-Powers, will the Kaiser's Pragmatic Sanction be, one day. Treaty of Seville, most imminent of all those dreadful Imminencies of War, has passed off as they all did; peaceably adjusts itself into Treaty of Vienna: A Termagant, as it were, sated; a Kaiser hopeful to be so, Pragmatic Sanction and all: for the Sea-Powers and everybody mere halcyon weather henceforth,--not extending to the Gulf of Florida and Captain Jenkins, as would seem! Robinson, who did the thing,--an expert man, bred to business as old Horace Walpole's Secretary, at Soissons and elsewhere, and now come to act on his own score,--regards this Treaty of Vienna (which indeed had its multiform difficulties) as a thing to immortalize a man.

Crown-Prince has, long since, by Papa's order, written to the Kaiser, to thank Imperial Majesty for that beneficent intercession, which has proved the saving of his life, as Papa inculcates. We must now see a little how the saved Crown-Prince is getting on, in his eclipsed state, among the Domain Sciences at Custrin.

Chapter V. -- INTERVIEW OF MAJESTY AND CROWN-PRINCE AT CUSTRIN.

Ever since the end of November last year, Crown-Prince Friedrich, in the eclipsed state, at Custrin, has been prosecuting his probationary course, in the Domain Sciences and otherwise, with all the patience, diligence and dexterity he could. It is false, what one reads in some foolish Books, that Friedrich neglected the functions assigned him as assessor in the KRIEGS-UND DOMANEN-KAMMER. That would not have been the safe course for him! The truth still evident is, he set himself with diligence to learn the Friedrich-Wilhelm methods of administering Domains, and the art of Finance in general, especially of Prussian Finance, the best extant then or since;--Finance, Police, Administrative Business;--and profited well by the Raths appointed as tutors to him, in the respective branches. One Hille was his Finance-tutor; whose "KOMPENDIUM," drawn up and made use of on this occasion, has been printed in our time; and is said to be, in brief compass, a highly instructive Piece; throwing clear light on the exemplary Friedrich-Wilhelm methods. [Preuss, i. 59 n.] These the Prince did actually learn; and also practise, all his life,--"essentially following his Father's methods," say the Authorities,--with great advantage to himself, when the time came.

Solid Nicolai hunted diligently after traces of him in the Assessor business here; and found some: Order from Papa, to "make Report, upon the Glass-works of the Neumark:" Autograph signatures to common Reports, one or two; and some traditions of his having had a hand in planning certain Farm-Buildings still standing in those parts:--but as the Kammer Records of Custrin, and Custrin itself, were utterly burnt by the Russians in 1758, such traces had mostly vanished thirty years before Nicolai's time. [Nicolai, Anekdoten, vi. 193.] Enough have turned up since, in the form of Correspondence with the King and otherwise: and it is certain the Crown-Prince did plan Farm-Buildings;--"both Carzig and Himmelstadt (Carzig now called FRIEDRICHSFELDE in consequence)," [See Map] dim mossy Steadings, which pious Antiquarianism can pilgrim to if it likes, were built or rebuilt by him:--and it is remarkable withal how thoroughly instructed Friedrich Wilhelm shows himself in such matters; and how paternally delighted to receive such proposals of improvement introducible at the said Carzig and Himmelstadt, and to find young Graceless so diligent, and his ideas even good. [Forster, ii. 390, 387, 391.] Perhaps a momentary glance into those affairs may be permitted farther on.

The Prince's life, in this his eclipsed state, is one of constraint, anxiety, continual liability; but after the first months are well over, it begins to be more supportable than we should think. He is fixed to the little Town; cannot be absent any night, without leave from the Commandant; which, however, and the various similar restrictions, are more formal than real. An amiable Crown-Prince, no soul in Custrin but would run by night or by day to serve him. He drives and rides about, in that green peaty country, on Domain business, on visits, on permissible amusement, pretty much at his own modest discretion. A green flat region, made of peat and sand; human industry needing to be always busy on it: raised causeways with incessant bridges, black sedgy ditch on this hand and that; many meres, muddy pools, stagnant or flowing waters everywhere; big muddy Oder, of yellowish-drab color, coming from the south, big black Warta (Warthe) from the Polish fens in the east, the black and yellow refusing to mingle for some miles. Nothing of the picturesque in this country; but a good deal of the useful, of the improvable by economic science; and more of fine productions in it, too, of the floral, and still more interesting sorts, than you would suspect at first sight. Friedrich's worst pinch was his dreadful straitness of income; checking one's noble tendencies on every hand: but the gentry of the district privately subscribed gifts for him (SE COTISIRENT, says Wilhelmina); and one way and other he contrived to make ends meet. Munchow, his President in the Kammer, next to whom sits Friedrich, "King's place standing always ready but empty there," is heartily his friend; the Munchows are diligent in getting up balls, rural gayeties, for him; so the Hilles,--nay Hille, severe Finance Tutor, has a Mamsell Hille whom it is pleasant to dance with; [Preuss, i. 59.] nor indeed is she the only fascinating specimen, or flower of loveliness, in those peaty regions, as we shall see. On the whole, his Royal Highness, after the first paroxysms of Royal suspicion are over, and forgiveness beginning to seem possible to the Royal mind, has a supportable time of it; and possesses his soul in patience, in activity and hope.

Unpermitted things, once for all, he must avoid to do: perhaps he will gradually discover that many of them were foolish things better not done. He walks warily; to this all things continually admonish. We trace in him some real desire to be wise, to do and learn what is useful if he can here. But the grand problem, which is reality itself to him, is always, To regain favor with Papa. And this, Papa being what he is, gives a twist to all other problems the young man may have, for they must all shape themselves by this; and introduces something of artificial,--not properly of hypocritical, for that too is fatal if found out,--but of calculated, reticent, of half-sincere, on the Son's part: an inevitable feature, plentifully visible in their Correspondence now and henceforth. Corresponding with Papa and his Grumkow, and watched, at every step, by such an Argus as the Tobacco-Parliament, real frankness of speech is not quite the recommendable thing; apparent frankness may be the safer! Besides mastery in the Domain Sciences, I perceive the Crown-Prince had to study here another art, useful to him in after life: the art of wearing among his fellow-creatures a polite cloak-of-darkness. Gradually he becomes master of it as few are: a man politely impregnable to the intrusion of human curiosity; able to look cheerily into the very eyes of men, and talk in a social way face to face, and yet continue intrinsically invisible to them. An art no less essential to Royalty than that of the Domain Sciences itself; and,--if at all consummately done, and with a scorn of mendacity for help, as in this case,--a difficult art. It is the chief feature in the Two or Three Thousand LETTERS we yet have of Friedrich's to all manner of correspondents: Letters written with the gracefulest flowing rapidity; polite, affable,--refusing to give you the least glimpse into his real inner man, or tell you any particular you might impertinently wish to know.

As the History of Friedrich, in this Custrin epoch, and indeed in all epochs and parts, is still little other than a whirlpool of simmering confusions, dust mainly, and sibylline paper-shreds, in the pages of poor Dryasdust, perhaps we cannot do better than snatch a shred or two (of the partly legible kind, or capable of being made legible) out of that hideous caldron; pin them down at their proper dates; and try if the reader can, by such means, catch a glimpse of the thing with his own eyes. Here is shred first; a Piece in Grumkow's hand.

This treats of a very grand incident; which forms an era or turning-point in the Custrin life. Majesty has actually, after hopes long held out of such a thing, looked in upon the Prodigal at Custrin, in testimony of possible pardon in the distance;--sees him again, for the first time since that scene at Wesel with the drawn sword, after year and day. Grumkow, for behoof of Seckendorf and the Vienna people, has drawn a rough "Protocol" of it; and here it is, snatched from the Dust-whirlwinds, and faithfully presented to the English reader. His Majesty is travelling towards Sonnenburg, on some grand Knight-of-Malta Ceremony there; and halts at Custrin for a couple of hours as he passes:--

GRUMKOW'S "PROTOKOLL" OF THE 15th AUGUST, 1731; OR SUMMARY OF WHAT TOOK PLACE AT CUSTRIN THAT DAY.

"His Majesty arrived at Custrin yesterday [GESTERN Monday 15th,--hour not mentioned], and proceeded at once to the Government House, with an attendance of several hundred persons. Major-General Lepel," Commandant of Custrin, "Colonel Derschau and myself are immediately sent for to his Majesty's apartment there. Privy-Councillor Walden," Prince's Hofmarschall, a solid legal man, "is ordered by his Majesty to bring the Crown-Prince over from his house; who accordingly in a few minutes, attended by Rohwedel and Natzmer," the two Kammerjunkers, "entered the room where his Majesty and we were.

"So soon as his Majesty, turning round, had sight of him, the Crown-Prince fell at his feet. Having bidden him rise, his Majesty said with a severe mien:--

"'You will now bethink yourself what passed year and day ago; and how scandalously you saw fit to behave yourself, and what a godless enterprise you took in hand. As I have had you about me from the beginning, and must know you well, I did all in the world that was in my power, by kindness and by harshness, to make an honorable man of you. As I rather suspected your evil purpose, I treated you in the harshest and sharpest way in the Saxon Camp,' at Radewitz, in those gala days, 'in hopes you would consider yourself, and take another line of conduct; would confess your faults to me, and beg forgiveness. But all in vain; you grew ever more stiffnecked. When a young man gets into follies with women, one may try to overlook it as the fault of his age: but to do with forethought basenesses (LACHETEEN) and ugly actions; 'that is unpardonable. You thought to carry it through with your headstrong humor: but hark ye, my lad (HORE, MEIN KERL), if thou wert sixty or seventy instead of eighteen, thou couldst not cross my resolutions.' It would take a bigger man to do that, my lad! 'And as, up to this date (BIS DATO) I have managed to sustain myself against any comer, there will be methods found of bringing thee to reason too!--

"'How have not I, on all occasions, meant honorably by you! Last time I got wind of your debts, how did I, as a Father, admonish you to tell me all; I would pay all, you were only to tell me the truth. Whereupon you said, There were still two thousand thalers beyond the sum named. I paid these also at once; and fancied I had made peace with you. And then it was found, by and by, you owed many thousands more; and as you now knew you could not pay, it was as good as if the money had been stolen;--not to reckon how the French vermin, Montholieu and partner, cheated you with their new loans.' Pfui!--'Nothing touched me so much [continues his Majesty, verging towards the pathetic], as that you had not any trust in me. All this that I was doing for aggrandizement of the House, the Army and Finances, could only be for you, if you made yourself worthy of it! I here declare I have done all things to gain your friendship;--and all has been in vain!' At which words the Crown-Prince, with a very sorrowful gesture, threw himself at his Majesty's feet,"--tears (presumably) in both their eyes by this time.

"'Was it not your intention to go to England?' asked his Majesty farther on. The Prince answered 'JA!'--'Then hear what the consequences would have been. Your Mother would have got into the greatest misery; I could not but have suspected she was the author of the business. Your Sister I would have cast, for life, into a place where she never would have seen sun and moon again. Then on with my Army into Hanover, and burn and ravage; yes, if it had cost me life, land and people. Your thoughtless and godless conduct, see what it was leading to. I intended to employ you in all manner of business, civil, military; but how, after such an action, could I show the face of you to my Officers (soldiers) and other servants?--The one way of repairing all this is, That you seek, regardless of your very life in comparison, to make the fault good again!' At which words the Crown-Prince mournfully threw himself at his Royal Majesty's feet; begging to be put upon the hardest proofs: He would endure all things, so as to recover his Majesty's grace and esteem.

"Whereupon the King asked him: 'Was it thou that temptedst Katte; or did Katte tempt thee?' The Crown-Prince without hesitation answered, 'I tempted him.'--'I am glad to hear the truth from you, at any rate.'"

The Dialogue now branches out, into complex general form; out of which, intent upon abridging, we gather the following points. King LOQUITUR:--

"How do you like your Custrin life? Still as much aversion to Wusterhausen, and to wearing your shroud [STERBEKITTEL, name for the tight uniform you would now be so glad of, and think quite other than a shroud!] as you called it?" Prince's answer wanting.--"Likely enough my company does not suit you: I have no French manners, and cannot bring out BON-MOTS in the PETIT-MAITRE way; and truly regard all that as a thing to be flung to the dogs. I am a German Prince, and mean to live and die in that character. But you can now say what you have got by your caprices and obstinate heart; hating everything that I liked; and if I distinguished any one, despising him! If an Officer was put in arrest, you took to lamenting about him. Your real friends, who intended your good, you hated and calumniated; those that flattered you, and encouraged your bad purpose, you caressed. You see what that has come to. In Berlin, in all Prussia for some time back, nobody asks after you, Whether you are in the world or not; and were it not one or the other coming from Custrin who reports you as playing tennis and wearing French hair-bags, nobody would know whether you were alive or dead."

Hard sayings; to which the Prince's answers (if there were any beyond mournful gestures) are not given. We come now upon Predestination, or the GNADENWAHL; and learn (with real interest, not of the laughing sort alone) how his "Majesty, in the most conclusive way, set forth the horrible results of that Absolute-Decree notion; which makes out God to be the Author of Sin, and that Jesus Christ died only for some! Upon which the Crown-Prince vowed and declared (HOCH UND THEUER), he was now wholly of his Majesty's orthodox opinion."

The King, now thoroughly moved, expresses satisfaction at the orthodoxy; and adds with enthusiasm, "When godless fellows about you speak against your duties to God, the King and your Country, fall instantly on your knees, and pray with your whole soul to Jesus Christ to deliver you from such wickedness, and lead you on better ways. And if it come in earnest from your heart, Jesus, who would have all men saved, will not leave you unheard." No! And so may God in his mercy aid you, poor son Fritz. And as for me, in hopes the time coming will show fruits, I forgive you what is past.--To which the Crown-Prince answered with monosyllables, with many tears; "kissing his Majesty's feet;"--and as the King's eyes were not dry, he withdrew into another room; revolving many things in his altered soul.

"It being his Majesty's birthday [4th August by OLD STYLE, 15th by NEW, forty-third birthday], the Prince, all bewept and in emotion, followed his Father; and, again falling prostrate, testified such heartfelt joy, gratitude and affection over this blessed anniversary, as quite touched the heart of Papa; who at last clasped him in his arms [poor soul, after all!], and hurried out to avoid blubbering quite aloud. He stept into his carriage," intending for Sonnenburg (chiefly by water) this evening, where a Serene Cousin, one of the Schwedt Margraves, Head Knight of Malta, has his establishment.

"The Crown-Prince followed his Majesty out; and, in the presence of many hundred people, kissed his Majesty's feet" again (linen gaiters, not Day-and-Martin shoes); "and was again embraced by his Majesty, who said, 'Behave well, as I see you mean, and I will take care of you,' which threw the Crown-Prince into such an ecstasy of joy as no pen can express;" and so the carriages rolled away,--towards the Knights-of-Malta business and Palace of the Head Knight of Malta, in the first place. [Forster, iii. 50-54.]

These are the main points, says Grumkow, reporting next day; and the reader must interpret them as he can, A Crown-Prince with excellent histrionic talents, thinks the reader. Well; a certain exaggeration, immensity of wish becoming itself enthusiasm; somewhat of that: but that is by no means the whole or even the main part of the phenomenon, O reader. This Crown-Prince has a real affection to his Father, as we shall in time convince ourselves. Say, at lowest, a Crown-Prince loyal to fact; able to recognize overwhelming fact, and aware that he must surrender thereto. Surrender once made, the element much clears itself; Papa's side of the question getting fairly stated for the first time. Sure enough, Papa, is God's Vicegerent in several undeniable respects, most important some of them: better try if we can obey Papa.

Dim old Fassmann yields a spark or two,--as to his Majesty's errand at Sonnenburg. Majesty is going to preside to-morrow "at the Installation of young Margraf Karl, new HERRMEISTER (Grand-Master) of the Knights of St. John" there; "the Office having suddenly fallen vacant lately." Office which is an heirloom;--usually held by one of the Margraves, half-uncles of the King,--some junior of them, not provided for at Schwedt or otherwise. Margraf Albert, the last occupant, an old gentleman of sixty, died lately, "by stroke of apoplexy while at dinner;" [21st June, 1731: Fassmann, p. 423; Pollnitz, ii. 390.]--and his eldest Son, Margraf Karl, with whom his Majesty lodges to-night, is now Herrmeister. "Majesty came at 6 P.M. to Sonnenburg [must have left Custrin about five]; forty-two Ritters made at Sonnenburg next day,"--a certain Colonel or Lieutenant-General von Wreech, whom we shall soon see again, is one of them; Seckendorf another. "Fresh RITTER-SCHLAG ["Knight-stroke," Batch of Knights dubbed] at Sonnenburg, 29th September next," which shall not the least concern us. Note Margraf Karl, however, the new Herrmeister; for he proves a soldier of some mark, and will turn up again in the Silesian Wars;--as will a poor Brother of his still more impressively, "shot dead beside the King," on one occasion there.

We add this of Dickens, for all the Diplomatists, and a discerning public generally, are much struck with the Event at Custrin; and take to writing of it as news;--and "Mr. Ginkel," Dutch Ambassador here, an ingenious, honest and observant man, well enough known to us, has been out to sup with the Prince, next day; and thus reports of him to Dickens: "Mr. Ginkel, who supped with the Prince on Thursday last," day after the Interview, "tells me that his Royal Highness is extremely improved since he had seen him; being grown much taller; and that his conversation is surprising for his age, abounding in good sense and the prettiest turns of expression." [Despatch, 18th August, 1731.]

Here are other shreds, snatched from the Witch-Caldron, and pinned down, each at its place; which give us one or two subsequent glimpses:--

POTSDAM, 21st AUGUST, 1731 (King to Wolden the Hofmarschall).... "Crown-Prince shall travel over, and personally inspect, the following Domains: Quartschen, Himmelstadt, Carzig, Massin, Lebus, Gollow and Wollup," dingy moor-farms dear to Antiquarians; "travel over these and not any other. Permission always to be asked, of his Royal Majesty, in writing, and mention made to which of them the Crown-Prince means to go. Some one to be always in attendance, who can give him fit instruction about the husbandry; and as the Crown-Prince has yet only learned the theory, he must now be diligent to learn the same practically. For which end it must be minutely explained to him, How the husbandry is managed,--how ploughed, manured, sown, in every particular; and what the differences of good and bad husbandry are, so that he may be able of himself to know and judge the same. Of Cattle-husbandry too, and the affairs of Brewing (VIEHZUCHT UND BRAUWESEN), the due understanding to be given him; and in the matter of Brewing, show him how things are handled, mixed, the beer drawn off, barrelled, and all how they do with it (WIE UBERALL DABEI VERFAHREN); also the malt, how it must be prepared, and what like, when good. Useful discourse to be kept up with him on these journeys; pointing out how and why this is and that, and whether it could not be better:"--O King of a thousand!--"Has liberty to shoot stags, moorcocks (HUHNER) and the like; and a small-hunt [KLEINE JAGD, not a PARFORCE or big one] can be got up for his amusement now and then;" furthermore "a little duck-shooting from boat," on the sedgy waters there,--if the poor soul should care about it. Wolden, or one of the Kammerjunkers, to accompany always, and be responsible. "No MADCHEN or FRAUENSMENSCH," no shadow of womankind;--"keep an eye on him, you three!"

These things are in the Prussian Archives; of date the week after that interview. In two weeks farther, follows the Prince's speculation about Carzig and the Building of a Farmstead there; with Papa's "real contentment that you come upon such proposals, and seek to make improvements. Only"--

WUSTERHAUSEN, 11th SEPTEMBER (King to Crown-Prince).... "Only you must examine whether there is meadow-ground enough, and how many acres can actually be allotted to that Farm. [Hear his Majesty!] Take a Land-surveyor with you; and have all well considered; and exactly inform yourself what kind of land it is, whether it can only grow rye, or whether some of it is barley-land: you must consider it YOURSELF, and do it all out of your own head, though you may consult with others about it. In grazing-ground (HUTHUNG) I think it will not fail; if only the meadow-land"--in fact, it fails in nothing; and is got all done ("wood laid out to season straightway," and "what digging and stubbing there is, proceeded with through the winter"): done in a successful and instructive manner, both Carzig and Himmelstadt, though we will say nothing farther of them. [Forster, i. 387-392.]

CUSTRIN, 22d SEPTEMBER (Crown-Prince to Papa).... "Have been at Lebus; excellent land out there; fine weather for the husbandman." "Major Roder," unknown Major, "passed this way; and dined with me, last Wednesday. He has got a pretty fellow (SCHONEN KERL) for my Most All-Gracious Father's regiment [the Potsdam Giants, where I used to be]; whom I could not look upon without bleeding heart. I depend on my Most All-Gracious Father's Grace, that he will be good to me: I ask for nothing and no happiness in the world but what comes from You; and hope You will, some day, remember me in grace, and give me the Blue Coat to put on again!" [BRIEFWECHSEL MIT VATER (OEuvres, xxvii. part 3d, p. 27).]--To which Papa answers nothing, or only "Hm, na, time MAY come!"

Carzig goes on straightway; Papa charmed to grant the moneys; "wood laid out to season," and much "stubbing and digging" set on foot, before the month ends. Carzig; and directly on the heel of it, on like terms, Himmelstadt,--but of all this we must say no more. It is clear the Prince is learning the Domain Sciences; eager to prove himself a perfect son in the eyes of Papa. Papa, in hopeful moments, asks himself: "To whom shall we marry him, then; how settle him?" But what the Prince, in his own heart, thought of it all; how he looked, talked, lived, in unofficial times? Here has a crabbed dim Document turned up, which, if it were not nearly undecipherable to the reader and me, would throw light on the point:--

SCHULENBURG'S THREE LETTERS TO GRUMKOW, ON VISITS TO THE CROWN-PRINCE, DURING THE CUSTRIN TIME.

The reader knows Lieutenant-General Schulenburg; stiff little military gentleman of grave years, nephew of the maypole EMERITA who is called Duchess of Kendal in England. "Had a horse shot under him at Malplaquet;" battlings and experiences enough, before and since. Has real sense, abundant real pedantry; a Prussian soldier every inch. He presided in the Copenick Court-martial; he is deeply concerned in these Crown-Prince difficulties. His Majesty even honors him by expecting he should quietly keep a monitorial eye upon the Crown-Prince;--being his neighbor in those parts; Colonel-Commandant of a regiment of Horse at Landsberg not many miles off. He has just been at Vienna [September, 1731 (Militair-Lexikon, iii. 433).] on some "business", (quasi-diplomatic probably, which can remain unknown to us); and has reported upon it, or otherwise finished it off, at Berlin;--whence rapidly home to Landsberg again. On the way homewards, and after getting home, he writes these three Letters; off-hand and in all privacy, and of course with a business sincerity, to Grumkow;--little thinking they would one day get printed, and wander into these latitudes to be scanned and scrutinized! Undoubtedly an intricate crabbed Document to us; but then an indubitable one. Crown-Prince, Schulenburg himself, and the actual figure of Time and Place, are here mirrored for us, with a business sincerity, in the mind of Schulenburg,--as from an accidental patch of water; ruffled bog-water, in sad twilight, and with sedges and twigs intervening; but under these conditions we do look with our own eyes!

Could not one, by any conceivable method, interpret into legibility this abstruse dull Document; and so pick out here and there a glimpse, actual face-to-face view, of Crown-Prince Friedrich in his light-gray frock with the narrow silver tresses, in his eclipsed condition there in the Custrin region? All is very mysterious about him; his inward opinion about all manner of matters, from the GNADENWAHL to the late Double-Marriage Question. Even his outward manner of life, in its flesh-and-blood physiognomy,--we search in vain through tons of dusty lucubration totally without interest, to catch here and there the corner of a feature of it. Let us try Schulenburg. We shall know at any rate that to Grumkow, in the Autumn 1731, these words were luculent and significant: consciously they tell us something of young Friedrich; unconsciously a good deal of Lieutenant-General Schulenburg, who with his strict theologies, his military stiffnesses, his reticent, pipe-clayed, rigorous and yet human ways, is worth looking at, as an antique species extinct in our time. He is just home from Vienna, getting towards his own domicile from Berlin, from Custrin, and has seen the Prince. He writes in a wretched wayside tavern, or post-house, between Custrin and Landsberg,--dates his letter "WIEN (Vienna)," as if he were still in the imperial City, so off-hand is he.

No. 1. TO HIS EXCELLENZ (add a shovelful of other titles) LIEUTENANT-GENERAL HERR BARON VON GRUMKOW, PRESIDENT OF THE KRIEGES-UND DOMANEN-DIRECTORIUM, OF THE (in fact, Vice-President of the Tobacco-Parliament) IN BERLIN.

"WIEN [properly Berlin-Landsberg Highway, other side of Custrin], 4th October, 1731.

"I regret much to have missed the pleasure of seeing your Excellency again before I left Berlin. I set off between seven and eight in the morning yesterday, and got to Custrin [seventy miles or so] before seven at night. But the Prince had gone, that day, to the Bailliage of Himmelstadt" (up the Warta Country, eastward some five-and-thirty miles, much preparatory digging and stubbing there); and he "slept at Massin [circuitous road back], where he shot a few stags this morning. As I was told he might probably dine at Kammin [still nearer Custrin, twelve miles from it; half that distance east of Zorndorf,--mark that, O reader (see Map)] with Madam Colonel Schoning, I drove thither. He had arrived there a moment before me." And who is Madam Schoning, lady of Kammin here?--Patience, reader.

"I found him much grown; an air of health and gayety about him. He caressed me greatly (ME GRACIEUSA FORT); afterwards questioned me about my way of life in Vienna; and asked, if I had diverted myself well there? I told him what business had been the occasion of my journey, and that this rather than amusements had occupied me; for the rest, that there had been great affluence of company, and no lack of diversions. He spoke a long time to Madam de Wreech "--

"Wrochem" Schulenburg calls her: young Wife of Lieutenant-General von Wreech, a Marlborough Campaigner, made a Knight of Malta the other day; [Militair-Lexikon, iv. 269.]--HIS charming young Wife, and Daughter of Madam Colonel Schoning our hostess here; lives at Tamsel, in high style, in these parts: mark the young Lady well,--"who did not appear indifferent to him." No!--"and in fact she was in all her beauty; a complexion of lily and rose."

Charming creature; concerning whom there are anecdotes still afloat, and at least verses of this Prince's writing; not too well seen by Wreech, lately made a Knight of Malta, who, though only turning forty, is perhaps twice her age. The beautifulest, cleverest,--fancy it; and whether the peaty Neumark produces nothing in the floral kind!

"We went to dinner; he asked me to sit beside him. The conversation fell, among other topics, on the Elector Palatine's Mistress," crotchety old gentleman, never out of quarrels, with Heidelberg Protestants, heirs of Julich and Berg, and in general with an unreasonable world, whom we saw at Mannheim last year; has a Mistress,--"Elector Valatine's Mistress, called Taxis. Crown-Prince said: 'I should like to know what that good old gentleman does with a Mistress?' I answered, that the fashion had come so much in vogue, Princes did not think they were Princes unless they had mistresses; and that I was amazed at the facility of women, how they could shut their eyes on the sad reverse of fortune nearly inevitable for them;--and instanced the example of Madam Gravenitz"--

"Gravenitz;" example lately fallen out at Wurtemberg, as we predicted. Prayers of the Country, "Deliver us from evil," are now answered there: Gravenitz quite over with it! Alas, yes; lately fallen from her high estate in Wurtemberg, and become the topic of dinner-tables; seized by soldiers in the night-time; vain her high refusals, assurances of being too unwell to dress, "Shall go in your shift, then,"--is in prison, totally eclipsed. [Michaelis, iii. 440; Pollnitz, i. 297.] Calming her fury, she will get out; and wearisomely wander about in fashionable capitals, TOUJOURS UN LAVEMENT A SES TROUSSES!

"There were other subjects touched upon; and I always endeavored to deduce something of moral instruction from them," being a military gentleman of the old school.

"Among other things, he said, He liked the great world, and was charmed to observe the ridiculous weak side of some people. 'That is excellent,' said I, 'if one profit by it oneself: but if it is only for amusement, such a motive is worth little; we should rather look out for our own ridiculous weak side.' On rising, Hofmarschall Wolden said to me," without much sincerity, "'YOU have done well to preach a little morality to him.' The Prince went to a window, and beckoned me thither.

"'You have learned nothing of what is to become of me?' said he. I answered: 'It is supposed your Royal Highness will return to Berlin, when the Marriage [Wilhelmina's] takes place; but as to what will come next, I have heard nothing. But as your Highness has friends, they will not fail to do their endeavor; and M. de Grumkow has told me he would try to persuade the King to give you a regiment, in order that your Highness might have something to do.' It seemed as if that would give him pleasure. I then took the liberty of saying: 'Monseigneur, the most, at present, depends on yourself.--'How so?' asked he. I answered, 'It is only by showing good conduct, and proofs of real wisdom and worth, that the King's entire favor can be gained First of all, to fear God'"--And, in fact, I launched now into a moral preachment, or discursive Dialogue, of great length; much needing to have the skirts of it tucked up, in a way of faithful abridgment, for behoof of poor English readers. As follows:--

"SCHULENBURG: If your Highness behave well, the King will accord what you want: but it is absolutely necessary to begin by that.--PRINCE: I do nothing that can displease the King.--SCHULENBURG: It would be a little soon yet! But I speak of the future. Your Highness, the grand thing I recommend is to fear God! Everybody says, you have the sentiments of an honest man; excellent, that, for a beginning; but without the fear of God, your Highness, the passions stifle the finest sentiments. Must lead a life clear of reproach; and more particularly on the chapter of women! Need not imagine you can do the least thing without the King's knowing it: if your Highness take the bad road, he will wish to correct it; the end will be, he will bring you back to live beside him; which will not be very agreeable.--PRINCE: Hmph, No!--SCHULENBURG: Of the ruin to health I do not speak; I--PRINCE: Pooh, one is young, one is not master of that;"--and, in fact, on this delicate chapter, which runs to some length, Prince answers as wildish young fellows will; quizzing my grave self, with glances even at his Majesty, on alleged old peccadilloes of ours. Which allegations or inferences I rebutted with emphasis. "But, I confess, though I employed all my rhetoric, his mind did not seem to alter; and it will be a miracle if he change on this head." Alas, General! Can't be helped, I fear!

"He said he was not afraid of anything so much as of living constantly beside the King.--SCHULENBURG: Arm yourself with patience, Monseigneur, if that happen. God has given you sense enough; persevere to use it faithfully on all occasions, you will gain the good graces of the King.--PRINCE: Impossible; beyond my power, indeed, said he; and made a thousand objections.--SCHULENBURG: Your Highness is like one that will not learn a trade because you do not already know it. Begin; you will certainly never know it otherwise! Before rising in the morning, form a plan for your day,"--in fact, be moral, oh, be moral!

His Highness now got upon the marriages talked of for him; an important point for the young man. He spoke, hopefully rather, of the marriage with the Princess of Mecklenburg,--Niece of the late Czar Peter the Great; Daughter of that unhappy Duke who is in quarrel with his Ritters, and a trouble to all his neighbors, and to us among the number. Readers recollect that young Lady's Serene Mother, and a meeting she once had with her Uncle Peter,--at Magdeburg, a dozen years ago, in a public drawing-room with alcove near; anecdote not lightly to be printed in human types, nor repeated where not necessary. The Mother is now dead; Father still up to the eyes in puddle and trouble: but as for the young Lady herself, she is Niece to the now Czarina Anne; by law of primogeniture Heiress of all the Russias; something of a match truly!

"But there will be difficulties; your Highness to change your religion, for one thing?--PRINCE: Won't, by any means:--SCHULENBURG: And give up the succession to Prussia?--PRINCE: A right fool if I did!--SCHULENBURG: Then this marriage comes to nothing.--Thereupon next he said, If the Kaiser is so strong for us, let him give me his second Daughter;" lucky Franz of Lorraine is to get the first.--"SCHULENBURG: Are you serious?--PRINCE: Why not? with a Duchy or two it would do very well.--SCHULENBURG: No Duchies possible under the Pragmatic Sanction, your Highness: besides, your change of religion?--PRINCE: Oh, as to that, never!--Then this marriage also comes to nothing Of the English, and their Double-Marriage, and their Hotham brabble, he spoke lightly, as of an extinct matter,--in terms your Excellency will like.

"But, said I, since you speak so much of marriages, I suppose you wish to be married?--PRINCE: No; but if the King absolutely will have it, I will marry to obey him. After that, I will shove my wife into the corner (PLANTERAI LA MA FEMME), and live after my own fancy.--SCHULENBURG: Horrible to think of! For, in the first place, your Highness, is it not written in the Law of God, Adulterers shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven?" And in the second place; and in the third and fourth place!--To all which he answered as wild young fellows do, especially if you force marriage on them. "I can perceive, if he marries, it will only be to have more liberty than now. It is certain, if he had his elbows free, he would strike out (S'EN DONNERAIT A GAUCHE). He said to me several times: 'I am young; I want to profit by my youth.'" A questionable young fellow, Herr General; especially if you force marriage on him.

"This conversation done," continues the General, "he set to talking with the Madam Wreech," and her complexion of lily and rose; "but he did not stay long; drove off about five [dinner at the stroke of twelve in those countries], inviting me to see him again at Custrin, which I promised."

And so the Prince is off in the Autumn sunset, driving down the peaty hollow of the Warta, through unpicturesque country, which produces Wreechs and incomparable flowers nevertheless. Yes; and if he look a six miles to the right, there is the smoke of the evening kettles from Zorndorf, rising into the sky; and across the River, a twenty miles to the left, is Kunersdorf: poor sleepy sandy hamlets; where nettles of the Devil are to be plucked one day!--

"The beautiful Wreech drove off to Tamsel," her fine house; I to this wretched tavern; where, a couple of hours after that conversation, I began writing it all down, and have nothing else to do for the night. Your Excellency's most moral, stiff-necked, pipe-clayed and extremely obedient,

"VON SCHULENBUBG."

[Forster, iii. 65-71.]

This young man may be orthodox on Predestination, and outwardly growing all that a Papa could wish; but here are strange heterodoxies, here is plenty of mutinous capricious fire in the interior of him, Herr General! In fact, a young man unfortunately situated; already become solitary in Creation; has not, except himself, a friend in the world available just now. Tempestuous Papa storms one way, tempestuous Mamma Nature another; and between the outsids and the inside there are inconsistencies enough.

Concerning the fair Wreech of Tamsel, with her complexion of lily and rose, there ensued by and by much whispering, and rumoring underbreath; which has survived in the apocryphal Anecdote-Books, not in too distinct a form. Here, from first hand, are three words, which we may take to be the essence of the whole. Grumkow reporting, in a sordid, occasionally smutty, spy manner, to his Seckendorf, from Berlin, eight or ten months hence, has this casual expression: "He [King Friedrich Wilhelm] told me in confidence that Wreech, the Colonel's Wife, is--to P. R. (Prince-Royal); and that Wreech vowed he would not own it for his. And his Majesty in secret is rather pleased," adds the smutty spy. [Grumkow to Seckendorf, Berlin, 20th August, 1732 (Forster, iii. 112).] Elsewhere I have read that the poor object, which actually came as anticipated (male or female, I forget), did not live long;--nor had Friedrich, by any opportunity, another child in this world. Domestic Tamsel had to allay itself as it best could; and the fair Wreech became much a stranger to Friedrich,--surprisingly so to Friedrich the KING, as perhaps we may see.--

Predestination, GNADENWAHL, Herr General: what is orthodoxy on Predestination, with these accompaniments! [For Wreech, see Benekendorf, v. 94; for Schulenburg, ib. 26;--and Militair-Lexikon, iii. 432, 433, and iv. 268, 269. Vacant on the gossiping points; cautiously official, both these.] We go now to the Second Letter and the Third,--from Landsberg about a fortnight later:--

No. 2. TO HIS EXCELLENCY (shovelful of titles) VON GRUMKOW, IN BERLIN.

"LANDSBERG, 19th October, 1731.

"The day before yesterday [that is, Wednesday, 17th October] I received an Order, To have only fifty Horse at that post, and"--Order which shows us that there has fallen out some recruiting squabble on the Polish Frontier hereabouts; that the Polack gentlemen have seized certain Corporals of ours, but are about restoring them; Order and affair which we shall omit. "Corporals will be got back: but as these Polack gentlemen: will see, by the course taken, that we have no great stomach for BITING, I fancy they will grow more insolent; then, 'ware who tries to recruit there for the future!

"On the same day I was apprised, from Custrin, That the Prince-Royal had resolved on an excursion to Carzig, and thence to the Bailliage of Himmelstadt [digging and stubbing now on foot at Himmelstadt too], which is but a couple of miles ["DEMI-MILLE" German.] from this; that there would be a little hunt between the two Bailliages; and that if I chose to come, I might, and the Prince would dine with me."--Which I did; and so, here again, Thursday, 18th October, 1731, in those remote Warta-Oder Countries, is a glimpse of his Royal Highness at first hand. Schulenburg continues; not even taking a new paragraph, which indeed he never does:--

"They had shut up a couple of SPIESSER (young roes), and some stags, in the old wreck of a SAUGARTEN [Boar-park, between Carzig and Himmelstadt; FAST RUINIRTEN SAUGARTEN, he calls it, daintily throwing in a touch of German here]: the Prince shot one or two of them, and his companions the like; but it does not seem as if this amusement were much to his taste. He went on to Himmelstadt; and at noon he arrived here," in my poor Domicile at Landsberg.

"At one o'clock we went to table, and sat till four. He spoke only of very indifferent things; except saying to me: 'Do you know, the King has promised 400,000 crowns (60,000 pounds) towards disengaging those Bailliages of the Margraf of Baireuth's,'"--old Margraf, Bailliages pawned to raise ready cash; readers remember what interminable Law-pleading there was, till Friedrich Wilhelm put it into a liquid state, "Pay me back the moneys, then!" [Supra, pp. 161-163.]--"'400,000 thalers to the old Margraf, in case his Prince (Wilhelmina's now Bridegroom) have a son by my Sister.' I answered, I had heard nothing of it.--'But,' said he, 'that is a great deal of money! And some hundred thousands more have gone the like road, to Anspach, who never will be able to repay. For all is much in disorder at Anspach. Give the Margraf his Heron-hunt (CHASSE AU HERON), he cares for nothing; and his people pluck him at no allowance.' I said: That if these Princes would regulate their expenditure, they might, little by little, pay off their debts; that I had been told at Vienna the Baireuth Bailliages were mortgaged on very low terms, those who now held them making eight or ten per cent of their money;"--that the Margraf ought to make an effort; and so on. "I saw very well that these Loans the King makes are not to his mind.

"Directly on rising from table, he went away; excusing himself to me, That he could not pass the night here; that the King would not like his sleeping in the Town; besides that he had still several things to complete in a Report he was sending off to his Majesty. He went to Nassin, and slept there. For my own share, I did not press him to remain; what I did was rather in the way of form. There were with him President Munchow," civil gentleman whom we know, "an Engineer Captain Reger, and the three Gentlemen of his Court," Wolden, Rohwedel, Katzmer who once twirled his finger in a certain mouth, the insipid fellow.

[MAP GOES HERE----------------missing]

"He is no great eater; but I observed he likes the small dishes (PETITS PLATS) and the high tastes: he does not care for fish; though I had very fine trouts, he never touched them. He does not take brown soup (SOUPE AU BOUILLON). It did not seem to me he cared for wine: he tastes at all the wines; but commonly stands by burgundy with water.

"I introduced to him all the Officers of my Regiment who are here; he received them in the style of a king [EN ROI, plenty of quiet pride in him, Herr General]. It is certain he feels what he is born to; and if ever he get to it, will stand on the top of it. As to me, I mean to keep myself retired; and shall see of him as little as I can. I perceive well he does not like advice," especially when administered in the way of preachment, by stiff old military gentlemen of the all-wise stamp;--"and does not take pleasure except with people inferior to him in mind. His first aim is to find out the ridiculous side of every one, and he loves to banter and quiz. It is a fault in a Prince: he ought to know people's faults, and not to make them known to anybody whatever,"--which, we perceive, is not quite the method with private gentlemen of the all-wise type!--

"I speak to your Excellency as a friend; and assure you he is a Prince who has talent, but who will be the slave of his passions (SE FERA DOMINER PAR SES PASSIONS,"--not a felicitous prophecy, Herr General); "and will like nobody but such as encourage him therein. For me, I think all Princes are cast in the same mould; there is only a more and a less.

"At parting, he embraced me twice; and said, 'I am sorry I cannot stay longer; but another time I will profit better.' Wolden [one of the Three] told me he could not describe how well-intentioned for your Excellency the Prince-Royal is [cunning dog!], who says often to Wolden [doubtless guessing it will be re-said], 'If I cannot show him my gratitude, I will his posterity:'"--profoundly obliged to the Grumkow kindred first and last!--"I remain your Excellency's" most pipe-clayed

"VON SCHULENBURG."

[Forster, iii. 71-73.]

And so, after survey of the spademen at Carzig and Himmelstadt (where Colonel Wreech, by the way, is AMTS-HAUPTMANN, official Head-Man), after shooting a SPIESSER or two, and dining and talking in this sort, his Royal Highness goes to sleep at Massin; and ends one day of his then life. We proceed to Letter No. 3.

A day or two after No. 2, it would appear, his Majesty, who is commonly at Wusterhausen hunting in this season, has been rapidly out to Crossen, in these Landsberg regions (to south, within a day's drive of Landsberg), rapidly looking after something; Grumkow and another Official attending him;--other Official, "Truchsess," is Truchsess von Waldburg, a worthy soldier and gentleman of those parts, whom we shall again hear of. In No. 3 there is mention likewise of the "Kurfurst of Koln,"--Elector of Cologne; languid lanky gentleman of Bavarian breed, whom we saw last year at Bonn, richest Pluralist of the Church; whom doubtless our poor readers have forgotten again. Mention of him; and also considerable sulky humor, of the Majesty's-Opposition kind, on Schulenburg's part; for which reason, and generally as a poor direct reflex of time and place,--reflex by ruffled bog-water, through sedges, and in twilight; dim but indubitable,--we give the Letter, though the Prince is little spoken of in it:--

No. 3. TO THE EXCELLENCY GRUMKOW (as above), IN BERLIN.

"LANDSBERG, 22d October (Monday), 1731.

"MONSIEUR,--I trust your Excellency made your journey to Crossen with all the satisfaction imaginable. Had I been warned sooner, I would have come; not only to see the King, but for your Excellency's sake and Truchsess's: but I received your Excellency's Letter only yesterday morning; so I could not have arrived before yesternight, and that late; for it is fifty miles off, and one has to send relays beforehand; there being no post-horses on that road.

"We are,--not to make comparisons,--like Harlequin! No sooner out of one scrape, than we get into another; and all for the sake of those Big Blockheads (L'AMOUR DE CES GRANDS COLOSSES). What the Kurfurst of Koln has done, in his character of Bishop of Osnabruck,"--a deed not known to this Editor, but clearly in the way of snubbing our recruiting system,--"is too droll: but if we avenge ourselves, there will be high play, and plenty of it, all round our borders! If such things would make any impression on the spirit, of our Master: but they do not; they"--in short, this recruiting system is delirious, thinks the stiff Schulenburg; and scruples not to say so, though not in his place in Parliament, or even Tobacco-Parliament. For there is a Majesty's Opposition in all lands and times. "We ruin the Country," says the Honorable Member, "sending annually millions of money out of it, for a set of vagabond fellows (GENS A SAC ET A CORDE), who will never do us the least service. One sees clearly it is the hand of God," darkening some people's understanding; "otherwise it might be possible their eyes would open, one time or another!"--A stiff pipe-clayed gentleman of great wisdom, with plenty of sulphur burning in the heart of him. The rest of his Letter is all in the Opposition strain (almost as if from his place in Parliament, only far briefer than is usual "within these walls"); and winds up with a glance at Victor Amadeus's strange feat, or rather at the Son's feat done upon Victor, over in Sardinia; preceded by this interjectionary sentence on a Prince nearer home:--

"As to the Prince-Royal, depend on it he will do whatever is required of him [marry anybody you like &c.], if you give him more elbow-room, for that is whither he aims.--Not a bad stroke that, of the King of Sardinia"--Grand news of the day, at that time; now somewhat forgotten, and requiring a word from us:

Old King Victor Amadeus of Sardinia had solemnly abdicated in favor of his Son; went, for a twelvemonth or more, into private felicity with an elderly Lady-love whom he had long esteemed the first of women;--tired of such felicity, after a twelvemonth; demanded his crown back, and could not get it! Lady-love and he are taken prisoners; lodged in separate castles: [2d September, 1730 abdicated, went to Chambery; reclaims, is locked in Rivoli, 8th October, 1731 (news of it just come to Schulenburg); dies there, 31st October, 1732, his 67th year.] and the wrath of the proud old gentleman is Olympian in character,--split an oak table, smiting it while he spoke (say the cicerones);--and his silence, and the fiery daggers he looks, are still more emphatic. But the young fellow holds out; you cannot play handy-dandy with a king's crown, your Majesty! say his new Ministers. Is and will continue King. "Not a bad stroke of him," thinks Schulenburg,----"especially if his Father meant to play him the same trick," that is, clap him in prison. Not a bad stroke;--which perhaps there is another that could imitate, "if HIS Papa gave him the opportunity! But THIS Papa will take good care; and the Queen will not forget the Sardinian business, when he talks again of abdicating," as he does when in ill-humor.--

"But now had not we better have been friends with England, should war rise upon that Sardinian business? General Schulenburg,"--the famed Venetian Field-marshal, bruiser of the Turks in Candia, [Same who was beaten by Charles XII. before; a worthy soldier nevertheless, say the Authorities: LIFE of him by Varnhagen von Ense (Biographische Denkmale, Berlin, 1845).] my honored Uncle, who sometimes used to visit his Sister the Maypole, now EMERITA, in London, and sip beer and take tobacco on an evening, with George I. of famous memory,--he also "writes me this Victor-Amadeus news, from Paris;" so that it is certain; Ex-King locked in Rivoli near a fortnight ago: "he, General Schulenburg, says farther, To judge by the outside, all appears very quiet; but many think, at the bottom of the bag it will not be the same."--

"I am, with respect," your Excellency's much in buckram,

"LE COMTE DE SCHOULENBOURG."

[Forster, iii. 73-75.]

So far Lieutenant-General Schulenburg; whom we thank for these contemporary glimpses of a young man that has become historical, and of the scene he lived in. And with these three accidental utterances, as if they (which are alone left) had been the sum of all he said in the world, let the Lieutenant-General withdraw now into silence: he will turn up twice again, after half a score of years, once in a nobler than talking attitude, the close-harnessed, stalwart, slightly atrabiliar military gentleman of the old Prussian school.

These glimpses of the Crown-Prince, reflected on us in this manner, are not very luculent to the reader,--light being indifferent, and mirror none of the best:--but some features do gleam forth, good and not so good; which, with others coming, may gradually coalesce into something conceivable. A Prince clearly of much spirit, and not without petulance; abundant fire, much of it shining and burning irregularly at present; being sore held down from without, and anomalously situated. Pride enough, thinks Schulenburg, capricious petulance enough,--likely to go into "a reign of the passions," if we live. As will be seen!--

Wilhelmina was betrothed in June last: Wilhelmina, a Bride these six months, continues to be much tormented by Mamma. But the Bridegroom, Prince of Baireuth, is gradually recommending himself to persons of judgment, to Wilhelmina among others. One day he narrowly missed an unheard-of accident: a foolish servant, at some boar-hunt, gave him a loaded piece on the half-cock; half-cock slipped in the handling; bullet grazed his Majesty's very temple, was felt twitching the hair there;--ye Heavens! Whereupon impertinent remarks from some of the Dessau people (allies of Schwedt and the Margravine in high colors); which were well answered by the Prince, and noiselessly but severely checked by a well-bred King. [Wilhelmina, i. 356.] King has given the Prince of Baireuth a regiment; and likes him tolerably, though the young man will not always drink as could be wished. Wedding, in spite of clouds from her Majesty, is coming steadily on.

HIS MAJESTY'S BUILDING OPERATIONS.

"This year," says Fassmann, "the building operations both in Berlin and Stettin,"--in Stettin where new fortifications are completed, in Berlin where gradually whole new quarters are getting built,--"were exceedingly pushed forward (AUSSERST POUSSIRT)." Alas, yes; this too is a questionable memorable feature of his Majesty's reign. Late Majesty, old King Friedrich I., wishful,--as others had been, for the growth of Berlin, laid out a new Quarter, and called it Friedrichs Stadt; scraggy boggy ground, planned out into streets, Friedrichs Strasse the chief street, with here and there a house standing lonesomely prophetic on it. But it is this present Majesty, Friedrich Wilhelm, that gets the plan executed, and the Friedrichs Strasse actually built, not always in a soft or spontaneous manner. Friedrich Wilhelm was the AEdile of his Country, as well as the Drill-sergeant; Berlin City did not rise of its own accord, or on the principle of leave-alone, any more than the Prussian Army itself. Wreck and rubbish Friedrich Wilhelm will not leave alone, in any kind; but is intent by all chances to sweep them from the face of the Earth, that something useful, seemly to the Royal mind, may stand there instead. Hence these building operations in the Friedrich Street and elsewhere, so "exceedingly pushed forward."

The number of scraggy waste places he swept clear, first and last, and built tight human dwellings upon, is almost uncountable. A common gift from him (as from his Son after him) to a man in favor, was that of a new good House,--an excellent gift. Or if the man is himself able to build, Majesty will help him, incite him: "Timber enough is in the royal forests; stone, lime are in the royal quarries; scraggy waste is abundant: why should any man, of the least industry or private capital, live in a bad house?" By degrees, the pressure of his Majesty upon private men to build with encouragement became considerable, became excessive, irresistible; and was much complained of, in these years now come. Old Colonel Derschau is the King's Agent, at Berlin, in this matter; a hard stiff man; squeezes men, all manner of men with the least capital, till they build.

Nussler, for example, whom we once saw at Hanover, managing a certain contested Heritage for Friedrich Wilhelm; adroit Nussler, though he has yet got no fixed appointment, nor pay except by the job, is urged to build;--second year hence, 1733, occurs the case of Nussler, and is copiously dwelt upon by Busching his biographer: "Build yourself a house in the Friedrichs Strasse!" urges Derschau. "But I have no pay, no capital!" pleads Nussler.--"Tush, your Father-in-law, abstruse Kanzler von Ludwig, in Halle University, monster of law-learning there, is not he a monster of hoarded moneys withal? He will lend you, for his own and his Daughter's sake. [Busching, Beitrage, i. 324.] Or shall his Majesty compel him?" urges Derschau. And slowly, continually turns the screw upon Nussler, till he too raises for himself a firm good house in the Friedrichs Stadt,--Friedrichs Strasse, or STREET, as they now call it, which the Tourist of these days knows. Substantial clear ashlar Street, miles or half-miles long; straight as a line:--Friedrich Wilhelm found it scrag and quagmire; and left it what the Tourist sees, by these hard methods. Thus Herr Privy-Councillor Klinggraf too, Nussler's next neighbor: he did not want to build; far from it; but was obliged, on worse terms than Nussler. You have such work, founding your house;--for the Nussler-Klinggraf spot was a fish-pool, and "carps were dug up" in founding;--such piles, bound platform of solid beams; "4,000 thalers gone before the first stone is laid:" and, in fact, the house must be built honestly, or it will be worse for the house and you. "Cost me 12,000 thalers (1,800 pounds) in all, and is worth perhaps 2,000!" sorrowfully ejaculates Nussler, when the job is over. Still worse with Privy-Councillor Klinggraf: his house, the next to Nussler's, is worth mere nothing to him when built; a soap-boiler offers him 800 thalers (120 pounds) for it; and Nussler, to avoid suffocation, purchases it himself of Klinggraf for that sum. Derschau, with his slow screw-machinery, is very formidable;--and Busching knows it for a fact, "that respectable Berlin persons used to run out of the way of Burgermeister Koch and him, when either of them turned up on the streets!"

These things were heavy to bear. Truly, yes; where is the liberty of private capital or liberty of almost any kind, on those terms? Liberty to ANNIHILATE rubbish and chaos, under known conditions, you may have; but not the least liberty to keep them about you, though never so fond of doing it! What shall we say? Nussler and the Soap-boiler do both live in houses more human than they once had. Berlin itself, and some other things, did not spring from Free-trade. Berlin City would, to this day, have been a Place of SCRUBS ("the BERLIN," a mere appellative noun to that effect), had Free-trade always been the rule there. I am sorry his Majesty transgresses the limits;--and we, my friends, if we can make our Chaos into Cosmos by firing Parliamentary eloquence into it, and bombarding it with Blue-Books, we will much triumph over his Majesty, one day!--

Thus are the building operations exceedingly pushed forward, the Ear of Jenkins torn off, and Victor Amadeus locked in ward, while our Crown-Prince, in the eclipsed state, is inspected by a Sage in pipe-clay, and Wilhelmina's wedding is coming on.

Chapter VI. -- WILHELMINA'S WEDDING.

Tuesday, 20th November, 1731, Wilhelmina's wedding-day arrived, after a brideship of eight months; and that young Lady's troublesome romance, more happily than might have been expected, did at last wind itself up. Mamma's unreasonable humors continued, more or less; but these also must now end. Old wooers and outlooks, "the four or three crowned heads,"--they lie far over the horizon; faded out of one's very thoughts, all these. Charles XII., Peter II. are dead; Weissenfels is not, but might as well be. Prince Fred, not yet wedded elsewhere, is doing French madrigals in Leicester House; tending forwards the "West Wickham" set of Politicians, the Pitt-Lyttelton set; stands ill with Father and Mother, and will not come to much. August the Dilapidated-Strong is deep in Polish troubles, in Anti-Kaiser politics, in drinking-bouts;--his great-toe never mended, never will mend. Gone to the spectral state all these: here, blooming with life in its cheeks, is the one practical Fact, our good Hereditary Prince of Baireuth,--privately our fate all along;--which we will welcome cheerfully; and be thankful to Heaven that we have not died in getting it decided for us!--

Wedding was of great magnificence; Berlin Palace and all things and creatures at their brightest: the Brunswick-Beverns here, and other high Guests; no end of pompous ceremonials, solemnities and splendors,--the very train of one's gown was "twelve yards long." Eschewing all which, the reader shall commodiously conceive it all, by two samples we have picked out for him: one sample of a Person, high Guest present; one of an Apartment where the sublimities went on.

The Duchess Dowager of Sachsen-Meiningen, who has come to honor us on this occasion, a very large Lady, verging towards sixty; she is the person. A living elderly Daughter of the Great Elector himself; half-sister to the late King, half-aunt to Friedrich Wilhelm; widow now of her third husband: a singular phenomenon to look upon, for a moment, through Wilhelmina's satirical spectacles. One of her three husbands, "Christian Ernst of Baireuth" (Margraf there, while the present Line was but expectant), had been a kind of Welsh-Uncle to the Prince now Bridegroom; so that she has a double right to be here. "She had found the secret of totally ruining Baireuth," says Wilhelmina; "Baireuth, and Courland as well, where her first wedlock was;"--perhaps Meiningen was done to her hand? Here is the Portrait of "my Grand-Aunt;" dashed off in very high colors, not by a flattering pencil:--

"It is said she was very fond of pleasing, in her youth; one saw as much still by her affected manners. She would have made an excellent actress, to play fantastic parts of that kind. Her flaming red countenance, her shape, of such monstrous extent that she could hardly walk, gave her the air of a Female Bacchus. She took care to expose to view her"--a part of her person, large but no longer beautiful,--"and continually kept patting it with her hands, to attract attention thither. Though sixty gone,"--fifty-seven in point of fact,--"she was tricked out like a girl; hair done in ribbon-locks (MARRONNES), all filled with gewgaws of rose-pink color, which was the prevailing tint in her complexion, and so loaded with colored jewels, you would have taken her for the rainbow." [Wilhelmina, i. 375.]

This charming old Lady, daughter of the GROSSE KURFURST, and so very fat and rubicund, had a Son once: he too is mentionable in his way,--as a milestone (parish milestone) in the obscure Chronology of those parts. Her first husband was the Duke of Courland; to him she brought an heir, who became Duke in his turn,--and was the final Duke, LAST of the "Kettler" or native Line of Dukes there. The Kettlers had been Teutsch Ritters, Commandants in Courland; they picked up that Country, for their own behoof, when the Ritterdom went down; and this was the last of them. He married Anne of Russia with the big cheek (Czar Peter's Niece, who is since become Czarina); and died shortly after, twenty years ago; with tears doubtless from the poor rose-pink Mother, far away in Baireuth and childless otherwise; and also in a sense to the sorrow of Courland, which was hereby left vacant, a prey to enterprising neighbors. And on those terms it was that Saxons Moritz (our dissolute friend, who will be MARECHAL DE SAXE one day) made his clutch at Courland, backed by moneys of the French actress; rumor of which still floats vaguely about. Moritz might have succeeded, could he have done the first part of the feat, fallen in love with Swoln-cheeked Anne, Dowager there; but he could not; could only pretend it: Courland therefore (now that the Swoln-cheek is become Czarina) falls to one Bieren, a born Courlander, who could. [Last Kettler, Anne's Husband, died (leaving only an old Uncle, fallen Into Papistry and other futility, who, till his death some twenty years after, had to reside abroad and be nominal merely), 1711; Moritz's attempt with Adrienne Lecouvreur's cash was, 1726; Anne became Sovereign of all the Russias (on her poor Cousin Peter II.'s death), 1730; Bieren (BIRON as he tried to write himself, being of poor birth) did not get installed till 1737; and had, he and Courland both, several tumbles after that before getting to stable equilibrium.]--We hurry to the "Grand Apartment" in Berlin Schloss, and glance rapidly, with Wilhelmina (in an abridged form), how magnificent it is:--

Royal Apartment, third floor of the Palace at Berlin, one must say, few things equal it in the world. "From the Outer Saloon or Antechamber, called SALLE DES SUISSES [where the halberdier and valet people wait] you pass through six grand rooms, into a saloon magnificently decorated: thence through two rooms more, and so into what they call the Picture-Gallery, a room ninety feet long. All this is in a line." Grand all this; but still only common in comparison. From the Picture-Gallery you turn (to right or left is not said, nor does it matter) into a suite of fourteen great rooms, each more splendid than the other: lustre from the ceiling of the first room, for example, is of solid silver; weighs, in pounds avoirdupois I know not what, but in silver coin "10,000 crowns:" ceilings painted as by Correggio; "wall-mirrors between each pair of windows are twelve feet high, and their piers (TRUMEAUX) are of massive silver; in front of each mirror, table can be laid for twelve;" twelve Serenities may dine there, flanked by their mirror, enjoying the Correggiosities above, and the practical sublimities all round. "And this is but the first of the fourteen;" and you go on increasing in superbness, till, for example, in the last, or superlative Saloon, you find "a lustre weighing 50,000 crowns; the globe of it big enough to hold a child of eight years; and the branches (GUERIDONS) of it," I forget how many feet or fathoms in extent: silver to the heart. Nay the music-balcony is of silver; wearied fiddler lays his elbow on balustrades of that precious metal. Seldom if ever was seen the like. In this superlative Saloon the Nuptial Benediction was given. [Wilhelmina, i. 381; Nicolai, ii. 881.]

Old King Friedrich, the expensive Herr, it was he that did the furnishing and Correggio-painting of these sublime rooms: but this of the masses of wrought silver, this was done by Friedrich Wilhelm,--incited thereto by what he saw at Dresden in August the Strong's Establishment; and reflecting, too, that silver is silver, whether you keep it in barrels in a coined form, or work it into chandeliers, mirror-frames and music-balconies.--These things we should not have mentioned, except to say that the massive silver did prove a hoard available, in after times, against a rainy day. Massive silver (well mixed with copper first) was all melted down, stamped into current coins, native and foreign, and sent wandering over the world, before a certain Prince got through his Seven-Years Wars and other pinches that are ahead!--

In fine, Wilhelmina's Wedding was magnificent; though one had rubs too; and Mamma was rather severe. "Hair went all wrong, by dint of overdressing; and hung on one's face like a boy's. Crown-royal they had put (as indeed was proper) on one's head: hair was in twenty-four locks the size of your arm: such was the Queen's order. Gown was of cloth-of-silver, trimmed with Spanish gold-lace (AVEC UN POINT D'ESPAGNE D'OR); train twelve yards long;--one was like to sink to the earth in such equipment." Courage, my Princess!--In fact, the Wedding went beautifully off; with dances and sublimities, slow solemn Torch-dance to conclude with, in those unparalleled upper rooms; Grand-Aunt Meiningen and many other stars and rainbows witnessing; even the Margravine of Schwedt, in her high colors, was compelled to be there. Such variegated splendor, such a dancing of the Constellations; sublunary Berlin, and all the world, on tiptoe round it! Slow Torchdance, winding it up, melted into the shades of midnight, for this time; and there was silence in Berlin.

But, on the following nights, there were Balls of a less solemn character; far pleasanter for dancing purposes. It is to these, to one of these, that we direct the attention of all readers. Friday, 23d, there was again Ball and Royal Evening Party--"Grand Apartment" so called. Immense Ball, "seven hundred couples, all people of condition:" there were "Four Quadrilles," or dancing places in the big sea of quality-figures; each at its due distance in the grand suite of rooms: Wilhelmina presides in Quadrille NUMBER ONE; place assigned her was in the room called Picture-Gallery; Queen and all the Principalities were with Wilhelmina, she is to lead off their quadrille, and take charge of it. Which she did, with her accustomed fire and elasticity;--and was circling there, on the light fantastic toe, time six in the evening, when Grumkow, whom she had been dunning for his bargain about Friedrich the day before, came up:--

"I liked dancing," says she, "and was taking advantage of my chances. Grumkow came up, and interrupted me in the middle of a minuet: 'EH, MON DIEU MADAME!' said Grumkow, 'you seem to have got bit by the tarantula! Don't you see those strangers who have just come in?' I stopt short; and looking all round, I noticed at last a young man dressed in gray, whom I did not know. 'Go, then, embrace the Priuce-Royal; there he is before you!' said Grumkow. All the blood in my body went topsy-turvy for joy. 'O Heaven, my Brother?' cried I: 'But I don't see him; where is he? In God's name, let me see him!' Grumkow led me to the young man in gray. Coming near, I recognized him, though with difficulty: he had grown amazingly stouter (PRODIGIEUSEMENT ENGRAISSE), shortened about the neck; his face too had much changed, and was no longer so beautiful as it had been. I sprang upon him with open arms (SAUTAI AU COU); I was in such a state, I could speak nothing but broken exclamations: I wept, I laughed, like one gone delirious. In my life I have never felt so lively a joy.

"The first sane step was to throw myself at the feet of the King: King said, 'Are you content with me? You see I have kept my word!' I took my Brother by the hand; and entreated the King to restore him his friendship. This scene was so touching, it drew tears from the eyes of everybody. I then approached the Queen. She was obliged to embrace me, the King being close opposite; but I remarked that her joy was only affected."--Why then, O Princess? Guess, if you can, the female humors of her Majesty!--

"I turned to my Brother again; I gave him a thousand caresses, and said the tenderest things to him: to all which he remained cold as ice, and answered only in monosyllables. I presented the Prince (my Husband); to whom he did not say one word. I was astonished at this fashion of procedure! But I laid the blame of it on the King, who was observing us, and who I judged might be intimidating my Brother. But even his countenance surprised me: he wore a proud air, and seemed to look down on everybody."

A much-changed Crown-Prince. What can be the meaning of it? Neither King nor he appeared at supper: they were supping elsewhere, with a select circle; and the whisper ran among us, His Majesty was treating him with great friendliness. At which the Queen, contrary to hope, could not conceal her secret pique. "In fact," says Wilhelmina, again too hard on Mamma, "she did not love her children except as they served her ambitious views." The fact that it was I, and not she, who had achieved the Prince's deliverance, was painful to her Majesty: alas, yes, in some degree!

"Ball having recommenced, Grumkow whispered to me, 'That the King was pleased with my frank kind ways to my Brother; and not pleased with my Brother's cold way of returning it: Does he simulate, and mean still to deceive me? Or IS that all the thanks he has for Wilhelmina? thinks his Majesty. Go on with your sincerity, Madam; and for God's sake admonish the Crown-Prince to avoid finessing!' Crown-Prince, when I did, in some interval of the dance, report this of Grumkow, and say, Why so changed and cold, then, Brother of my heart? answered, That he was still the same; and that he had his reasons for what he did." Wilhelmina continues; and cannot understand her Crown-Prince at all:--

"Next morning, by the King's order, he paid me a visit. The Prince," my Husband, "was polite enough to withdraw, and left me and Sousfeld alone with him. He gave me a recital of his misfortunes; I communicated mine to him,"--and how I had at last bargained to get him free again by my compliance. "He appeared much discountenanced at this last part of my narrative. He returned thanks for the obligations I had laid on him,--with some caressings, which evidently did not proceed from the heart. To break this conversation, he started some indifferent topic; and, under pretence of seeing my Apartment, moved into the next room, where the Prince my Husband was. Him he ran over with his eyes from head to foot, for some time; then, after some constrained civilities to him, went his way. "What to make of all this?" Madam Sonsfeld shrugged her shoulders; no end of Madam Sousfeld's astonishment at such a Crown-Prince.

Alas, yes, poor Wilhelmina; a Crown-Prince got into terrible cognizance of facts since we last met him! Perhaps already sees, not only what a Height of place is cut out for him in this world, but also in a dim way what a solitude of soul, if he will maintain his height? Top of the frozen Schreckhorn;--have you well considered such a position! And even the way thither is dangerous, is terrible in this case. Be not too hard upon your Crown-Prince. For it is certain he loves you to the last!

Captain Dickens, who alone of all the Excellencies was not at the Wedding,--and never had believed it would be a wedding, but only a rumor to bring England round,--duly chronicles this happy reappearance of the Prince-Royal: "about six, yesterday evening, as the company was dancing,--to the great joy and surprise of the whale Court;"--and adds: "This morning the Prince came to the public Parade; where crowds of people of all ranks flocked to see his Royal Highness, and gave the most open demonstrations of pleasure." [Despatch 24th November, 1731.]

Wilhelmina, these noisy tumults, not all of them delightful, once done, gets out of the perplexed hurly-burly, home towards still Baireuth, shortly after New-year. [11th January, 1732 (Wilhelmina, ii. 20.] "Berlin was become as odious to me as it had once been dear. I flattered myself that, renouncing grandeurs, I might lead a soft and tranquil life in my new Home, and begin a happier year than the one that had just ended." Mamma was still perverse; but on the edge of departure Wilhelmina contrived to get a word of her Father, and privately open her heart to him. Poor Father, after all that has come and gone:--

"My discourse produced its effect; he melted into tears, could not answer me for sobs; he explained his thoughts by his embracings of me. Making an effort, at length, he said: 'I am in despair that I did not know thee. They had told me such horrible tales, I hated thee as much as I now love thee. If I had addressed myself direct to thee, I should have escaped much trouble, and thou too. But they hindered me from speaking; said thou wert ill-natured as the Devil, and wouldst drive me to extremities I wanted to avoid. Thy Mother, by her intriguings, is in part the cause of the misfortunes of the family; I have been deceived and duped on every side. But my hands are tied; and though my heart is torn in pieces, I must leave these iniquities unpunished!'"--The Queen's intentions were always good, urged Wilhelmina. "Let us not enter into that detail," answered he: "what is past is past; I will try to forget it;" and assured Wilhelmina that she was the dearest to him of the family, and that he would do great things for her still,--only part of which came to effect in the sequel. "I am too sad of heart to take leave of you," concluded he: "embrace your Husband on my part; I am so overcome that I must not see him." [Wilhelmina, ii. 4; who dates 11th January, 1732.] And so they rolled away.

Crown-Prince was back to Custrin again, many weeks before. Back to Custrin; but under totally changed omens: his history, after that first emergence in Wilhelmina's dance "23d November about six P.M.," and appearance at Parade on the morrow (Saturday morning), had been as follows. (Monday November 26th) there was again grand Ball, and the Prince there, not in gray this time. Next day, the old Dessauer and all the higher Officers in Berlin petitioned, "Let us have him in the Army again, your Majesty!" Majesty consented: and so, Friday, 30th, there was grand dinner at Seckendorf's, Crown-Prince there, in soldier's uniform again; a completely pardoned youth. His uniform is of the Goltz Regiment, Infantry: Goltz Regiment, which lies at Ruppin,--at and about, in that moory Country to the Northeast, some thirty or forty miles from Berlin;--whither his destination now is.

Crown-Prince had to resume his Kammer work at Custrin, and see the Buildings at Carzig, for a three months longer, till some arrangements in the Regiment Goltz were perfected, and finishing improvements given to it. But "on the last day of February" (29th) (1732 being leap-year), his Royal Highness's Commission to be Colonel Commandant of said Regiment is made out; and he proceeds, in discharge of the same, to Ruppin, where his men lie. And so puts off the pike-gray coat, and puts on the military blue one, [Preuss, i. 69.]--never to quit it again, as turned out.

Ruppin is a little Town, in that northwest Fehrbellin region: Regiment Goltz had lain in detached quarters hitherto; but is now to lie at Ruppin, the first Battalion of it there, and the rest within reach. Here, in Ruppin itself, or ultimately at Reinsberg in the neighborhood, was Friedrich's abode, for the next eight years. Habitual residence: with transient excursions, chiefly to Berlin in Carnival time, or on other great occasions, and always strictly on leave; his employment being that of Colonel of Foot, a thing requiring continual vigilance and industry in that Country. Least of all to be neglected, in any point, by one in his circumstances. He did his military duties to a perfection satisfactory even to Papa; and achieved on his own score many other duties and improvements, for which Papa had less value. These eight years, it is always understood, were among the most important of his life to him.

END OF BOOK VIII.

======================================================================== VOLUME 09 — Project Gutenberg #2109 ========================================================================

Produced by D.R. Thompson

HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle

Volume IX.

BOOK IX. -- LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. -- 1732-1736.

Chapter I. -- PRINCESS ELIZABETH CHRISTINA OF BRUNSWICK-BEVERN.

We described the Crown-Prince as intent to comply, especially in all visible external particulars, with Papa's will and pleasure;--to distinguish himself by real excellence in Commandantship of the Regiment Goltz, first of all. But before ever getting into that, there has another point risen, on which obedience, equally essential, may be still more difficult.

Ever since the grand Catastrophe went off WITHOUT taking Friedrich's head along with it, and there began to be hopes of a pacific settlement, question has been, Whom shall the Crown-Prince marry? And the debates about it in the Royal breast and in Tobacco-Parliament, and rumors about it in the world at large, have been manifold and continual. In the Schulenburg Letters we saw the Crown-Prince himself much interested, and eagerly inquisitive on that head. As was natural: but it is not in the Crown-Prince's mind, it is in the Tobacco-Parliament, and the Royal breast as influenced there, that the thing must be decided. Who in the world will it be, then? Crown-Prince himself hears now of this party, now of that. England is quite over, and the Princess Amelia sunk below the horizon. Friedrich himself appears a little piqued that Hotham carried his nose so high; that the English would not, in those life-and-death circumstances, abate the least from their "Both marriages or none,"--thinks they should have saved Wilhelmina, and taken his word of honor for the rest. England is now out of his head;--all romance is too sorrowfully swept out: and instead of the "sacred air-cities of hope" in this high section of his history, the young man is looking into the "mean clay hamlets of reality," with an eye well recognizing them for real. With an eye and heart already tempered to the due hardness for them. Not a fortunate result, though it was an inevitable one. We saw him flirting with the beautiful wedded Wreech; talking to Lieutenant-General Schulenburg about marriage, in a way which shook the pipe-clay of that virtuous man. He knows he would not get his choice, if he had one; strives not to care. Nor does he, in fact, much care; the romance being all out of it. He looks mainly to outward advantages; to personal appearance, temper, good manners; to "religious principle," sometimes rather in the reverse way (fearing an OVERPLUS rather);--but always to likelihood of moneys by the match, as a very direct item. Ready command of money, he feels, will be extremely desirable in a Wife; desirable and almost indispensable, in present straitened circumstances. These are the notions of this ill-situated Coelebs.

The parties proposed first and last, and rumored of in Newspapers and the idle brains of men, have been very many,--no limit to their numbers; it MAY be anybody: an intending purchaser, though but possessed of sixpence, is in a sense proprietor of the whole Fair! Through Schulenburg we heard his own account of them, last Autumn;--but the far noblest of the lot was hardly glanced at, or not at all, on that occasion. The Kaiser's eldest Daughter, sole heiress of Austria and these vast Pragmatic-Sanction operations; Archduchess Maria Theresa herself,--it is affirmed to have been Prince Eugene's often-expressed wish, That the Crown-Prince of Prussia should wed the future Empress [Hormayr, Allgemeine Geschichte der neueslen Zeit (Wien, 1817), i. 13; cited in Preuss, i. 71.] Which would indeed have saved immense confusions to mankind! Nay she alone of Princesses, beautiful, magnanimous, brave, was the mate for such a Prince,--had the Good Fairies been consulted, which seldom happens:--and Romance itself might have become Reality in that case: with high results to the very soul of this young Prince! Wishes are free: and wise Eugene will have been heard, perhaps often, to express this wish; but that must have been all. Alas, the preliminaries, political, especially religious, are at once indispensable and impossible: we have to dismiss that daydream. A Papal-Protestant Controversy still exists among mankind; and this is one penalty they pay for not having settled it sooner. The Imperial Court cannot afford its Archduchess on the terms possible in that quarter.

What the Imperial Court can do is, to recommend a Niece of theirs, insignificant young Princess, Elizabeth Christina of Brunswick-Bevern, who is Niece to the Empress; and may be made useful in this way, to herself and us, think the Imperial Majesties;--will be a new tie upon the Prussians and the Pragmatic Sanction, and keep the Alliance still surer for our Archduchess in times coming, think their Majesties. She, it is insinuated by Seckendorf in Tobacco-Parliament; ought not she, Daughter of your Majesty's esteemed friend,--modest-minded, innocent young Princess, with a Brother already betrothed in your Majesty's House,--to be the Lady? It is probable she will.

Did we inform the reader once about Kaiser Karl's young marriage adventures; and may we, to remind him, mention them a second time? How Imperial Majesty, some five-and-twenty years ago, then only King of Spain, asked Princess Caroline of Anspach, who was very poor, and an orphan in the world. Who at once refused, declining to think of changing her religion on such a score;--and now governs England, telegraphing with Walpole, as Queen there instead. How Karl, now Imperial Majesty, then King of Spain, next applied to Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel; and met with a much better reception there. Applied to old Anton Ulrich, reigning Duke, who writes big Novels, and does other foolish good-natured things;--who persuaded his Grand-daughter that a change to Catholicism was nothing in such a case, that he himself should not care in the least to change. How the Grand-daughter changed accordingly, went to Barcelona, and was wedded;--and had to dun old Grandpapa, "Why don't you change, then?" Who did change thereupon; thinking to himself, "Plague on it I must, then!" the foolish old Herr. He is dead; and his Novels, in six volumes quarto, are all dead: and the Grand-daughter is Kaiserinn, on those terms, a serene monotonous well-favored Lady, diligent in her Catholic exercises; of whom I never heard any evil, good rather, in her eminent serene position. Pity perhaps that she had recommended her Niece for this young Prussian gentleman; whom it by no means did "attach to the Family" so very careful about him at Vienna! But if there lay a sin, and a punishment following on it, here or elsewhere, in her Imperial position, surely it is to be charged on foolish old Anton Ulrich; not on her, poor Lady, who had never coveted such height, nor durst for her soul take the leap thitherward, till the serene old literary gentleman showed her how easy it was.

Well, old Anton Ulrich is long since dead, [1714, age 70. Huber, t. 190.] and his religious accounts are all settled beyond cavil; and only the sad duty devolves on me of explaining a little what and who his rather insipid offspring are, so far as related to readers of this History. Anton Ulrich left two sons; the elder of whom was Duke, and the younger had an Apanage, Blankenburg by name. Only this younger had children,--serene Kaiserinn that now is, one of them: The elder died childless, [1731, Michaelis, i. 132.] precisely a few months before the times we are now got to; reigning Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, ["Welf-BOOTHS" (Hunted Camp of the Welfs), according to Etymology. "Brunswick," again, is BRAUN'S-Wick; "Braun" (Brown) being an old militant Welf in those parts, who built some lodge for himself, as a convenience there,--Year 880, say the uncertain old Books. Hubner, t. 149; Michaelis, &c.] all but certain Apanages, and does not concern us farther. To that supreme dignity the younger has now come, and his Apanage of Blankenburg and children with him;--so that there is now only one outstanding Apanage (Bevern, not known to us yet); which also will perhaps get reunited, if we cared for it. Ludwig Rudolf is the name of this new sovereign Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, or Duke in chief; age now sixty; has a shining, bustling, somewhat irregular Duchess, says Wilhelmina; and a nose--or rather almost no nose, for sad reasons! [Wilhelmina, ii. 121.] Other qualities or accidents I know not of him,--except that he is Father of the Vienna Kaiserinn; Grandfather of the Princess whom Seckendorf suggests for our Friedrich of Prussia.

In Ludwig Rudolf's insipid offspring our readers are unexpectedly somewhat interested; let readers patiently attend, therefore. He had three Daughters, never any son. Two of his Daughters, eldest and youngest, are alive still; the middle one had a sad fate long ago. She married, in 1711, Alexius the Czarowitz of Peter the Great: foolish Czarowitz, miserable and making others miserable, broke her heart by ill conduct, ill usage, in four years; so that she died; leaving him only a poor small Peter II., who is now dead too, and that matter ended all but the memory of it. Some accounts bear, that she did not die; that she only pretended it, and ran and left her intolerable Czarowitz. That she wedded, at Paris, in deep obscurity, an Officer just setting out for Louisiana; lived many years there as a thrifty soldier's wife; returned to Paris with her Officer reduced to half-pay; and told him--or told some select Official person after him, under seven-fold oath, being then a widow and necessitous--her sublime secret. Sublime secret, which came thus to be known to a supremely select circle at Paris; and was published in Books, where one still reads it. No vestige of truth in it,--except that perhaps a necessitous soldier's widow at Paris, considering of ways and means, found that she had some trace of likeness to the Pictures of this Princess, and had heard her tragic story.

Ludwig Rudolf's second Daughter is dead long years ago; nor has this fable as yet risen from her dust. Of Ludwig Rudolf's other two Daughters, we have said that one, the eldest, was the Kaiserinn; Empress Elizabeth Christina, age now precisely forty; with two beautiful Daughters, sublime Maria Theresa the elder of them, and no son that would live. Which last little circumstance has caused the Pragmatic Sanction, and tormented universal Nature for so many years back! Ludwig Rudolf has a youngest Daughter, also married, and a Mother in Germany,--to this day conspicuously so;--of whom next, or rather of her Husband and Family-circle, we must say a word.

Her Husband is no other than the esteemed Friend of Friedrich Wilhelm; Duke of Brunswick-Bevern, by title; who, as a junior branch, lives on the Apanage of Bevern, as his Father did; but is sure now to inherit the sovereignty and be Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel at large, he or his Sons, were the present incumbent, Ludwig Rudolf, once out. Present incumbent, we have just intimated, is his Father-in-law; but it is not on that ground that he looks to inherit. He is Nephew of old Anton Ulrich, Son of a younger Brother (who was also "Bevern" in Anton's time); and is the evident Heir-male; old Anton being already fallen into the distaff, with nothing but three Grand-daughters. Anton's heir will now be this Nephew; Nephew has wedded one of the Grand-daughters, youngest of the Three, youngest Daughter of Ludwig Rudolf, Sovereign Duke that now is; which Lady, by the family she brought him, if no otherwise, is memorable or mentionable here, and may be called, a Mother in Germany.

[ANTON ULRICH (1833-1714). Duke in Chief; that is, Duke of Brunswick-WOLFENBUTTEL. AUGUST WILHELM, elder Son and Heir (1662, 1714, 1731); had no children. LUDWIG RUDOLF, the younger Son (1671, 1731, 1735), apanagad in Blankenburg: Duke of Brunswick-BLANKENBURG; became WOLFENBUTTEL. 1731, died, 1st March, 1735. No Son; so that now the Bevern succeeded. Three Daughters: Elizabeth Christina, the Kaiserinn (1691, 1708, 1750). Charlotte Christina (1694, 1711, 1715), Alexius of Russia's, had a FABULOUS end. Antoinette Amelia (1695, 1712, 1762); Bevern's Wife,--a "Mother in Germany." FERDINAND ALBERT (1636-1687), his younger Brother apanaged in Bevern; that is, Duke of Brunswick-BEVERN. FERDINAND ALBERT, eldest Son (an elder had perished, 1704, on the Schellenberg under Marlborough), followed in Bevern (1680, 1687-1704, 1735); Kaiser's soldier, Friedrich Wilhelm's friend; married his Cousin, Antoinette Amelia ("Mother in Germany," as we call her). Duke in Chief, 1st March, 1785, on Ludwig Rudolf's decease; died himself, 3d September same year. BORN 1713, Karl the Heir (to marry our Friedrich's Sister). 1714, Anton Ulrich (Russia; tragedy of Czar Iwan). 1715, 8th November, Elizabeth Christina (Crown Prince's). 1718, Ludwig Ernst (Holland, 1787). 1721, Ferdinand (Chatham's and England's) of the Seven Years War. 1722, 1724, 1725, 1732, Four others; Boys the youngest Two, who were both killed in Friedrich's Wars.]

Father Bevern her Husband, Ferdinand Albert the name of him, is now just fifty, only ten years younger than his serene Father-in-law, Ludwig Rudolf:--whom, I may as well say here, he does at last succeed, three years hence (1735) and becomes Duke of Brunswick in General, according to hope; but only for a few months, having himself died that same year. Poor Duke; rather a good man, by all the accounts I could hear; though not of qualities that shone. He is at present "Duke of Brunswick-Bevern,"--such his actual nomenclature in those ever-fluctuating Sibyl's-leaves of German History-Books, Wilhelmina's and the others;--expectant Duke of Brunswick in General; much a friend of Friedrich Wilhelm. A kind of Austrian soldier he was formerly, and will again be for brief times; General-Feldmarschall so styled; but is not notable in War, nor otherwise at all, except for the offspring he had by this serene Spouse of his. Insipid offspring, the impatient reader says; but permits me to enumerate one or two of them:--

1. Karl, eldest Son; who is sure to be Brunswick in General; who is betrothed to Princess Charlotte of Prussia,--"a satirical creature, she, fonder of my Prince than of him," Wilhelmina thinks. The wedding nevertheless took effect. Brunswick in General duly fell in, first to the Father; then, in a few months more, to Karl with his Charlotte: and from them proceeded, in due time, another Karl, of whom we shall hear in this History;--and of whom all the world heard much in the French Revolution Wars; in 1792, and still more tragically afterwards. Shot, to death or worse, at the Battle of Jena, October, 1806; "battle lost before it was begun,"--such the strategic history they give of it. He peremptorily ordered the French Revolution to suppress itself; and that was the answer the French Revolution made him. From this Karl, what NEW Queens Caroline of England and portentous Dukes of Brunswick, sent upon their travels through the anarchic world, profitable only to Newspapers, we need not say!--

2. Anton Ulrich; named after his august Great-Grandfather; does not write novels like him. At present a young gentleman of eighteen; goes into Russia before long, hoping to beget Czars; which issues dreadfully for himself and the potential Czars he begot. The reader has heard of a potential "Czar Iwan," violently done to death in his room, one dim moonlight night of 1764, in the Fortress of Schlusselburg, middle of Lake Ladoga; misty moon looking down on the stone battlements, on the melancholy waters, and saying nothing.--But let us not anticipate.

3. Elizabeth Christina; to us more important than any of them. Namesake of the Kaiserinn, her august Aunt; age now seventeen; insipid fine-complexioned young lady, who is talked of for the Bride of our Crown-Prince. Of whom the reader will hear more. Crown-Prince fears she is "too religious,"--and will have "CAGOTS" about her (solemn persons in black, highly unconscious how little wisdom they have), who may be troublesome.

4. A merry young Boy, now ten, called Ferdinand; with whom England within the next thirty years will ring, for some time, loud enough: the great "Prince Ferdinand" himself,--under whom the Marquis of Granby and others became great; Chatham superintending it. This really was a respectable gentleman, and did considerable things,--a Trismegistus in comparison with the Duke of Cumberland whom he succeeded. A cheerful, singularly polite, modest, well-conditioned man withal. To be slightly better known to us, if we live. He at present is a Boy of ten, chasing the thistle's beard.

5. Three other sons, all soldiers, two of them younger than Ferdinand; whose names were in the gazettes down to a late period;--whom we shall ignore in this place. The last of them was marched out of Holland, where he had long been Commander-in-chief on rather Tory principles, in the troubles of 1787. Others of them we shall see storming forward on occasion, valiantly meeting death in the field of fight, all conspicuously brave of character; but this shall be enough of them at present.

It is of these that Ludwig Rudolf's youngest daughter, the serene Ferdinand Albert's wife, is Mother in Germany; highly conspicuous in their day. If the question is put, it must be owned they are all rather of the insipid type. Nothing but a kind of albuminous simplicity noticeable in them; no wit, originality, brightness in the way of uttered intellect. If it is asked, How came they to the least distinction in this world?--the answer is not immediately apparent. But indeed they are Welf of the Welfs, in this respect as in others. One asks, with increased wonder, noticing in the Welfs generally nothing but the same albuminous simplicity, and poverty rather than opulence of uttered intellect, or of qualities that shine, How the Welfs came to play such a part, for the last thousand years, and still to be at it, in conspicuous places? Reader, I have observed that uttered intellect is not what permanently makes way, but unuttered. Wit, logical brilliancy, spiritual effulgency, true or FALSE,--how precious to idle mankind, and to the Newspapers and History-Books, even when it is false: while, again, Nature and Practical Fact care next to nothing for it in comparison, even when it is true! Two silent qualities you will notice in these Welfs, modern and ancient; which Nature much values: FIRST, consummate human Courage; a noble, perfect, and as it were unconscious superiority to fear. And then SECONDLY, much weight of mind, a noble not too conscious Sense of what is Right and Not-Right, I have found in some of them;--which means mostly WEIGHT, or good gravitation, good observance of the perpendicular; and is called justice, veracity, high-honor, and other such names. These are fine qualities indeed, especially with an "albuminous simplicity" as vehicle to them. If the Welfs had not much articulate intellect, let us guess they made a good use, not a bad or indifferent, as is commoner, of what they had.

WHO HIS MAJESTY'S CHOICE IS; AND WHAT THE CROWN-PRINCE THINKS OF IT.

Princess Elizabeth Christina, the insipid Brunswick specimen, backed by Seckendorf and Vienna, proves on consideration the desirable to Friedrich Wilhelm in this matter. But his Son's notions, who as yet knows her only by rumor, do not go that way. Insipidity, triviality; the fear of "CAGOTAGE" and frightful fellows in black supremely unconscious what blockheads they are, haunts him a good deal. And as for any money coming,--her sublime Aunt the Kaiserinn never had much ready money; one's resources on that side are likely to be exiguous. He would prefer the Princess of Mecklenburg, Semi-Russian Catharine or Anna, of whom we have heard; would prefer the Princess of Eisenach (whose name he does not know rightly); thinks there are many Princesses preferable. Most of all he would prefer, what is well known of him in Tobacco-Parliament, but known to be impossible, this long while back, to go upon a round of travel,--as for instance the Prince of Lorraine is now doing,--and look about him a little.

These candid considerations the Crown-Prince earnestly suggests to Grumkow, and the secret committee of Tobacco-Parliament; earnestly again and again, in his Correspondence with that gentleman, which goes on very brisk at present. "Much of it lost," we hear;--but enough, and to spare, is saved! Not a beautiful correspondence: the tone of it shallow, hard of heart; tragically flippant, especially on the Crown-Prince's part; now and then even a touch of the hypocritical from him, slight touch and not with will: alas, what can the poor young man do? Grumkow--whose ground, I think, is never quite so secure since that Nosti business--professes ardent attachment to the real interests of the Prince; and does solidly advise him of what is feasible, what not, in head-quarters; very exemplary "attachment;" credible to what length, the Prince well enough knows. And so the Correspondence is unbeautiful; not very descriptive even,--for poor Friedrich is considerably under mask, while he writes to that address; and of Grumkow himself we want no more "description;" and is, in fact, on its own score, an avoidable article rather than otherwise; though perhaps the reader, for a poor involved Crown-Prince's sake, will wish an exact Excerpt or two before we quite dismiss it.

Towards turning off the Brunswick speculation, or turning on the Mecklenburg or Eisenach or any other in its stead, the Correspondence naturally avails nothing. Seckendorf has his orders from Vienna: Grumkow has his pension,--his cream-bowl duly set,--for helping Beckendorf. Though angels pleaded, not in a tone of tragic flippancy, but with the voice of breaking hearts, it would be to no purpose. The Imperial Majesties have ordered, Marry him to Brunswick, "bind him the better to our House in time coming;" nay the Royal mind at Potsdam gravitates, of itself, that way, after the first hint is given. The Imperial will has become the Paternal one; no answer but obedience. What Grumkow can do will be, if possible, to lead or drive the Crown-Prince into obeying smoothly, or without breaking of harness again. Which, accordingly, is pretty much the sum of his part in this unlovely Correspondence: the geeho-ing of an expert wagoner, who has got a fiery young Arab thoroughly tied into his dastard sand-cart, and has to drive him by voice, or at most by slight crack of whip; and does it. Can we hope, a select specimen or two of these Documents, not on Grumkow's part, or for Grumkow's unlovely sake, may now be acceptable to the reader? A Letter or two picked from that large stock, in a legible state, will show us Father and Son, and how that tragic matter went on, better than description could.

Papa's Letters to the Crown-Prince during that final Custrin period,--when Carzig and Himmelstadt were going on, and there was such progress in Economics, are all of hopeful ruggedly affectionate tenor; and there are a good few of them: style curiously rugged, intricate, headlong; and a strong substance of sense and worth tortuously visible everywhere. Letters so delightful to the poor retrieved Crown-Prince then and there; and which are still almost pleasant reading to third-parties, once you introduce grammar and spelling. This is one exact specimen; most important to the Prince and us. Suddenly, one night, by estafette, his Majesty, meaning nothing but kindness, and grateful to Seckendorf and Tobacco-Parliament for such an idea, proposes,--in these terms (merely reduced to English and the common spelling):--

"TO THE CROWN-PRINCE AT CUSTRIN (from Papa). "POTSDAM, 4th February, 1732

"MY DEAR SON FRITZ,--I am very glad you need no more physic. But you must have a care of yourself, some days yet, for the severe weather; which gives me and everybody colds; so pray be on your guard (NEHMET EUCH KUBSCH IN ACHT).

"You know, my dear Son, that when my children are obedient, I love them much: so, when you were at Berlin, I from my heart forgave you everything; and from that Berlin time, since I saw you, have thought of nothing but of your well-being and how to establish you,--not in the Army only, but also with a right Step-daughter, and so see you married in my lifetime. You may be well persuaded I have had the Princesses of Germany taken survey of, so far as possible, and examined by trusty people, what their conduct is, their education and so on: and so a Princess has been found, the Eldest one of Bevern, who is well brought up, modest and retiring, as women ought to be.

"You will without delay (CITO) write me your mind on this. I have purchased the Von Katsch House; the Feldmarschall," old Wartensleben, poor Katte's grandfather, "as Governor" of Berlin, "will get that to live in: and his Government House, [Fine enough old House, or Palace, built by the Great Elector; given by him to Graf Feldmarschall von Schomberg, the "Duke Schomberg" who was killed in the Battle of the Boyne: "same House, opposite the Arsenal, which belongs now (1855) to his Royal Highness Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia." (Preuss, i. 73; and _ OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvi. 12 n.)] I will have made new for you, and furnish it all; and give you enough to keep house yourself there; and will command you into the Army, April coming [which is quite a subordinate story, your Majesty!].

"The Princess is not ugly, nor beautiful. You must mention it to no mortal;--write indeed to Mamma (DER MAMA) that I have written to you. And when you shall have a Son, I will let you go on your Travels,--wedding, however, cannot be before winter next. Meanwhile I will try aud contrive opportunity that you see one another, a few times, in all honor, yet so that you get acquainted with her. She is a God-fearing creature (GOTTESFURCHTIGES MENSCH), which is all in all; will suit herself to you [be COMPORTABLE to you] as she does to the Parents-in-law.

"God give his blessing to it; and bless You and your Posterity, and keep Thee as a good Christian. And have God always before your eyes;--and don't believe that damnable PARTICULAR tenet [Predestination]; and be obedient and faithful: so shall it, here in Time and there in Eternity, go well with thee;--and whoever wishes that from the heart, let him say Amen.

"Your true Father to the death,

"FRIEDRICH WILHELM.

"When the Duke of Lorraine comes, I will have thee come. I think thy Bride will be here then. Adieu; God be with you." [_ OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvii, part 3d, p. 55.]

This important Missive reached Custrin, by estafette, that same midnight, 4th-5th February; when Wolden, "Hofmarschall of the Prince's Court" (titular Goldstick there, but with abundance of real functions laid on him), had the honor to awaken the Crown-Prince into the joy of reading. Crown-Prince instantly despatched, by another estafette, the requisite responses to Papa and Mamma,--of which Wolden does not know the contents at all, not he, the obsequious Goldstick;--but doubtless they mean "Yes," Crown-Prince appearing so overjoyed at this splendid evidence of Papa's love, as the Goldstick could perceive. [Wolden's LETTER to Friedrich Wilhelm, "5th February, 1732:" in Preuss, ii. part 2d (or URKUNDENOUCH), p. 206. Mamma's answer to the message brought her by this return estafette, a mere formal VERY-WELL, written from the fingers outward, exists (OEuvres, xxvi. 65); the rest have happily vanished.]

What the Prince's actual amount of joy was, we shall learn better from the following three successive utterances of his, confidentially despatched to Grumkow in the intermediate days, before Berlin or this "Duke of Lorraine" (whom our readers and the Crown-Prince are to wait upon), with actual sight of Papa and the Intended, came in course. Grumkow's Letters to the Crown-Prince in this important interval are not extant, nor if they were could we stand them: from the Prince's Answers it will be sufficiently apparent what the tenor of them was. Utterance first is about a week after that of the estafette at midnight:--

TO GENERAL FELDMARSCHALL VON GRUMKOW, AT POTSDAM (from the Crown-Prince).

"CUSTRIN, 11th February, 1732.

"MY DEAR GENERAL AND FRIEND,--I was charmed to learn by your Letter that my affairs are on so good a footing [Papa so well satisfied with my professions of obedience]; and you may depend on it I am docile to follow your advice. I will lend myself to whatever is possible for me; and provided I can secure the King's favor by my obedience, I will do all that is within my power.

"Nevertheless, in making my bargain with the Duke of Bevern, manage that the CORPUS DELICTI [my Intended] be brought up under her Grandmother [Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, Ludwig Rudolf's Spouse, an airy coquettish Lady,--let her be the tutoress and model of my Intended, O General]. For I should prefer being made a"--what shall we say? by a light wife,--"or to serve under the haughty FONTANGE [Species of topknot; so named from Fontange, an unfortunate female of Louis Fourteenth's, who invented the ornament.] of my Spouse [as Ludwig Rudolf does, by all accounts], than to have a blockhead who would drive me mad by her ineptitudes? and whom I should be ashamed to produce.

"I beg you labor at this affair. When one hates romance heroines as heartily as I do, one dreads those 'virtues' of the ferocious type [LES VERTUS FAROUCHES, so terribly aware that they are virtuous]; and I had rather marry the greatest--[unnamable]--in Berlin, than a devotee with half a dozen ghastly hypocrites (CAGOTS) at her beck. If it were still MOGLICH [possible, in German] to make her Calvinist [REFORMEE; our Court-Creed, which might have an allaying tendency, and at least would make her go with the stream]? But I doubt that:--I will insist, however, that her Grandmother have the training of her. What you can do to help in this, my dear Friend, I am persuaded you will do.

"It afflicted me a little that the King still has doubts of me, while I am obeying in such a matter, diametrically opposite to my own ideas. In what way shall I offer stronger proofs? I may give myself to the Devil, it will be to no purpose; nothing but the old song over again, doubt on doubt.--Don't imagine I am going to disoblige the Duke, the Duchess or the Daughter, I beseech you! I know too well what is due to them, and too much respect their merits, not to observe the strictest rules of what is proper,--even if I hated their progeny and them like the pestilence.

"I hope to speak to you with open heart at Berlin.--You may think, too, how I shall be embarrassed, having to do the AMOROSO perhaps without being it, and to take an appetite for mute ugliness,--for I don't much trust Count Seckendorf's taste in this article,"--in spite of his testimonies in Tobacco-Parliament and elsewhere. "Monsieur! Once more, get this Princess to learn by heart the ECOLE DES MARIS and the ECOLE DES FEMMES; that will do her much more good than TRUE CHRISTIANITY by the late Mr. Arndt! [Johann Arndt ("late" this long while back), Von wahren Christenthum, Magdeburg, 1610.] If, besides, she would learn steadiness of humor (TOUJOURS DANSER SUR UN PIED), learn music; and, NOTA BENE, become rather too free than too virtuous,--ah then, my dear General, then I should feel some liking for her, and a Colin marrying a Phyllis, the couple would be in accordance: but if she is stupid, naturally I renounce the Devil and her.--It is said she has a Sister, who at least has common sense. Why take the eldest, if so? To the King it must be all one. There is also a Princess Christina Marie of Eisenach [real name being Christina WILHELMINA, but no matter], who would be quite my fit, and whom I should like to try for. In fine, I mean to come soon into your Countries; [Did come, 26th February, as we shall see.] and perhaps will say like Caesar, VENI, VIDI, VICI."...

Paragraph of tragic compliments to Grumkow we omit. Letter ends in this way:--

"Your Baireuth News is very interesting; I hope, in September next [time of a grand problem coming there for Wilhelmina], my Sister will recover her first health. If I go travelling, I hope to have the consolation of seeing her for a fortnight or three weeks; I love her more than my life; and for all my obediences to the King, surely I shall deserve that recompense. The diversions for the Duke of Lorraine are very well schemed; but"--but what mortal can now care about them? Close, and seal. [Forster, iii. 160-162; OEuvres de Frederic, xvi, 37-39.]

As to this Duke of Lorraine just coming, he is Franz Stephan, a pleasant young man of twenty-five, son of that excellent Duke Leopold Joseph, whom young Lyttelton of Hagley was so taken with, while touring in those parts in the Congress-of-Soissons time. Excellent Duke Leopold Joseph is since dead; and this Franz has succeeded to him,--what succession there was; for Lorraine as a Dukedom has its neck under the foot of France this great while, and is evidently not long for this world. Old Fleury, men say, has his eye upon it. And in fact it was, as we shall see, eaten up by Fleury within four years' time; and this Franz proved the last of all the Dukes there. Let readers notice him: a man of high destiny otherwise, of whom we are to hear much. For ten years past he has lived about Vienna, being a born Cousin of that House (Grandmother was Kaiser Leopold's own Sister); and it is understood, nay it is privately settled he is to marry the transcendent Archduchess, peerless Maria Theresa herself; and is to reap, he, the whole harvest of that Pragmatic Sanction sown with such travail of the Universe at large. May be King of the Romans (which means successor to the Kaisership) any day; and actual Kaiser one day.

We may as well say here, he did at length achieve these dignities, though not quite in the time or on the terms proposed. King of the Romans old Kaiser Karl never could quite resolve to make him,--having always hopes of male progeny yet; which never came. For his peerless Bride he waited six years still (owing to accidents), "attachment mutual all the while;" did then wed, 1738, and was the happiest of men and expectant Kaisers:--but found, at length, the Pragmatic Sanction to have been a strange sowing of dragon's-teeth, and the first harvest reapable from it a world of armed men!--For the present he is on a grand Tour, for instruction and other objects; has been in England last; and is now getting homewards again, to Vienna, across Germany; conciliating the Courts as he goes. A pacific friendly eupeptic young man; Crown-Prince Friedrich, they say, took much to him in Berlin; did not quite swear eternal friendship; but kept up some correspondence for a while, and "once sends him a present of salmon."--But to proceed with the utterances to Grumkow.

Utterance SECOND is probably of prior date; but introducible here, being an accidental Fragment, with the date lost:--

TO THE FELDMARSCHALL VON GRUMKOW (from the Crown-Prince; exact date lost).

"... As to what you tell me of the Princess of Mecklenburg," for whom they want a Brandenburg Prince,--"could not I marry her? Let her come into this Country, and think no more of Russia: she would have a dowry of two or three millions of roubles,--only fancy how I could live with that! I think that project might succeed. The Princess is Lutheran; perhaps she objects to go into the Greek Church?--I find none of these advantages in this Princess of Bevern; who, as many people, even of the Duke's Court, say, is not at all beautiful, speaks almost nothing, and is given to pouting (FAISANT LA FACHEE). The good Kaiserinn has so little herself, that the sums she could afford her Niece would be very moderate." [Fragment given in Sechendorfs Leben, iii. 249 u.]

"Given to pouting," too! No, certainly; your Insipidity of Brunswick, without prospects of ready money; dangerous for CAGOTAGE; "not a word to say for herself in company, and given to pouting:" I do not reckon her the eligible article!--

Seckendorf, Schulenburg, Grumkow and all hands are busy in this matter: geeho-ing the Crown-Prince towards the mark set before him. With or without explosion, arrive there he must; other goal for him is none!--In the mean while, it appears, illustrious Franz of Lorraine, coming on, amid the proper demonstrations, through Magdeburg and the Prussian Towns, has caught some slight illness and been obliged to pause; so that Berlin cannot have the happiness of seeing him quite so soon as it expected. The high guests invited to meet Duke Franz, especially the high Brunswicks, are already there. High Brunswicks, Bevern with Duchess, and still more important, with Son and with Daughter:--insipid CORPUS DELICTI herself has appeared on the scene; and Grumkow, we find, has been writing some description of her to the Crown-Prince. Description of an unfavorable nature; below the truth, not above it, to avert disappointment, nay to create some gleam of inverse joy, when the actual meeting occurs. That is his art in driving the fiery little Arab ignominiously yoked to him; and it is clear he has overdone it, for once. This is Friedrich's THIRD utterance to him; much the most emphatic there is:--

TO THE GENERAL FELDMARSCHALL VON GRUMKOW.

"CUSTRIN, 19th February, 1732.

"Judge, my dear General, if I can have been much charmed with the description you give of the abominable object of my desires! For the love of God, disabuse the King in regard to her [show him that she is a fool, then]; and let him remember well that fools commonly are the most obstinate of creatures.

"Some months ago he wrote a Letter to Walden," the obsequious Goldstick, "of his giving me the choice of several Princesses: I hope he will not give himself the lie in that. I refer you entirely to the Letter, which Schulenburg will have delivered,"--little Schulenburg called here, in passing your way; all hands busy. "For there is no hope of wealth, no reasoning, nor chance of fortune that could change my sentiment as expressed there [namely, that I will not have her, whatever become of me]; and miserable for miserable, it is all one! Let the King but think that it is not for himself that he is marrying me, but for MYself; nay he too will have a thousand chagrins, to see two persons hating one another, and the miserablest marriage in the world;--to hear their mutual complaints, which will be to him so many reproaches for having fashioned the instrument of our yoke. As a good Christian, let him consider, If it is well done to wish to force people; to cause divorces, and to be the occasion of all the sins that an ill-assorted marriage leads us to commit! I am determined to front everything in the world sooner: and since things are so, you may in some good way apprise the Duke" of Bevern "that, happen what may, I never will have her.

"I have been unfortunate (MALHEUREUX) all my life; and I think it is my destiny to continue so. One must be patient, and take the time as it comes. Perhaps a sudden tract of good fortune, on the back of all the chagrins I have made profession of ever since I entered this world, would have made me too proud. In a word, happen what will, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I have suffered sufficiently for an exaggerated crime [that of "attempting to desert;"--Heavens!]--and I will not engage myself to extend my miseries (CHAGRINS) into future times. I have still resources:--a pistol-shot can deliver me from my sorrows and my life: and I think a merciful God would not damn me for that; but, taking pity on me, would, in exchange for a life of wretchedness, grant me salvation. This is whitherward despair can lead a young person, whose blood is not so quiescent as if he were seventy. I have a feeling of myself, Monsieur; and perceive that, when one hates the methods of force as much as I, our boiling blood will carry us always towards extremities.

... "If there are honest people in the world, they must think how to save me from one of the most perilous passages I have ever been in. I waste myself in gloomy ideas; I fear I shall not be able to hide my grief, on coming to Berlin. This is the sad state I am in;--but it will never make me change from being,"--surely to an excessive degree, the illustrious Grumkow's most &c. &c.

"FREDERIC."

"I have received a Letter from the King; all agog (BIEN COIFFE) about the Princess. I think I may still finish the week here. [26th, did arrive in Berlin: Preuss (in OEuvres, xxvii. part 3d, p. 58 n).] When his first fire of approbation is spent, you might, praising her all the while, lead him to notice her faults. Mon Dieu, has he not already seen what an ill-assorted marriage comes to,--my Sister of Anspach and her Husband, who hate one another like the fire! He has a thousand vexations from it every day.... And what aim has the King? If it is to assure himself of me, that is not the way. Madam of Eisenach might do it; but a fool not (POINT UNE BETE);--on the contrary, it is morally impossible to love the cause of our misery. The King is reasonable; and I am persuaded he will understand this himself." [OEuvres de Frederic, xvi. 41, 42.]

Very passionate pleading; but it might as well address itself to the east-winds. Have east-winds a heart, that they should feel pity? JARNI-BLEU, Herr Feldzeugmeister,--only take care he don't overset things again!

Grumkow, in these same hours, is writing a Letter to the Prince, which we still have, [Ib. xvi. 43.] How charmed his Majesty is at such obedience; "shed tears of joy," writes Grumkow, "and said it was the happiest day of his life." Judge Grumkow's feelings soon after, on this furious recalcitration breaking out! Grumkow's Answer, which also we still have [Ib. xvi. pp. 44-46.] is truculence itself in a polite form:--horror-struck as a Christian at the suicide notion, at the--in fact at the whole matter; and begs, as a humble individual, not wishful of violent death and destruction upon self and family, to wash his poor hands of it altogether. Dangerous for the like of him; "interfering between Royal Father and Royal Son of such opposite humors, would break the neck of any man," thinks Grumkow; and sums up with this pithy reminiscence: "I remember always what, the King said to me at Wusterhausen, when your Royal Highness lay prisoner in the Castle of Custrin, and I wished to take your part: 'Nein Grumkow, denket an diese Stelle, Gott gebe dass ich nicht wahr rede, aber mein Sohn stirht nicht eines naturlichen Todes; und Gott gebe dass er nicht unter Henkers Hande komme. No, Grumkow, think of what I now tell you: God grant it do not come true,--but my Son won't die a natural death; God grant he do not come into the Hangman's hands yet!' I shuddered at these words, and the King repeated them twice to me: that is true, or may I never see God's face, or have part in the merits of our Lord."--The Crown-Prince's "pleadings" may fitly terminate here.

DUKE OF LORRAINE ARRIVES IN POTSDAM AND IN BERLIN.

Saturday, 23d February, 1732, his Serene Highness of Lorraine did at length come to hand. Arrived in Potsdam that day; where the two Majesties, with the Serene Beverns, with the Prince Alexander of Wurtemberg, and the other high guests, had been some time in expectation. Suitable persons invited for the occasion: Bevern, a titular Austrian Feldmarschall; Prince Alexander of Wurtemberg, an actual one (poor old Eberhard Ludwig's Cousin, and likely to be Heir there soon); high quasi-Austrian Serenities;--not to mention Schulenburg and others officially related to Austria, or acquainted with it. Nothing could be more distinguished than the welcome of Duke Franz; and the things he saw and did, during his three weeks' visit, are wonderful to Fassmann and the extinct Gazetteers. Saw the Potsdam Giants do their "EXERCITIA," transcendent in perfection; had a boar-hunt; "did divine service in the Potsdam Catholic Church; "--went by himself to Spandau, on the Tuesday (26th), where all the guns broke forth, and dinner was ready: King, Queen and Party having made off for Berlin, in the interim, to be ready for his advent there "in the evening about, five." Majesties wait at Berlin, with their Party,--among whom, say the old Newspapers, "is his Royal Highness the Crown-Prince:" Crown-Prince just come in from Custrin; just blessed with the first sight of his Charmer, whom he finds perceptibly less detestable than he expected.

Serene Highness of Lorraine arrived punctually at five, with outburst of all the artilleries and hospitalities; balls, soirees, EXERCITIA of the Kleist Regiment, of the Gerns-d'Armes; dinners with Grumkow, dinners with Seckendorf, evening party with the Margravine Philip (Margravine in high colors);--one scenic miracle succeeding another, for above a fortnight to come.

The very first spectacle his Highness saw, a private one, and of no intense interest to him, we shall mention here for our own behoof. "An hour after his arrival the Duke was carried away to his Excellency Herr Creutz the Finance-Minister's; to attend a wedding there, along with his Majesty. Wedding of Excellency Creutz's only Daughter to the Herr HOFJAGERMEISTER von Hacke."--HOFJAGERMEISTER (Master of the Hunt), and more specifically Captain Hacke, of the Potsdam Guard or Giant regiment, much and deservedly a favorite with his Majesty. Majesty has known, a long while, the merits military and other of this Hacke; a valiant expert exact man, of good stature, good service among the Giants and otherwise, though not himself gigantic; age now turned of thirty;--and unluckily little but his pay to depend on. Majesty, by way of increment to Hacke, small increment on the pecuniary side, has lately made him "Master of the Hunt;" will, before long, make him Adjutant-General, and his right-hand man in Army matters, were he only rich;--has, in the mean while, made this excellent match for him; which supplies that defect. Majesty was the making of Creutz himself; who is grown very rich, and has but one Daughter: "Let Hacke have her!" his Majesty advised;--and snatches off the Duke of Lorraine to see it done. [Fassmann, p. 430.]

Did the reader ever hear of Finance-Minister Creutz, once a poor Regiment's Auditor, when his Majesty, as yet Crown-Prince, found talent in him? Can readers fish up from their memory, twenty years back, anything of a terrific Spectre walking in the Berlin Palace, for certain nights, during that "Stralsund Expedition" or famed Swedish-War time, to the terror of mankind? Terrific Spectre, thought to be in Swedish pay,--properly a spy Scullion, in a small concern of Grumkow VERSUS Creutz? [Antea, vol. v. pp. 356-358; Wilhelmina.] This is the same Creutz; of whom we have never spoken more, nor shall again, now that his rich Daughter is well married to Hacke, a favorite of his Majesty's and ours. It was the Duke's first sight in Berlin; February 26th; prologue to the flood of scenic wonders there.

But perhaps the wonderfulest thing, had he quite understood it, was that of the 10th March, which he was invited to. Last obligation laid upon the Crown-Prince, "to bind him to the House of Austria," that evening. Of which take this account, external and internal, from authentic Documents in our hand.

BETROTHAL OF THE CROWN-PRINCE TO THE BRUNSWICK CHARMER, NIECE OF IMPERIAL MAJESTY, MONDAY EVENING, 10th MARCH, 1732.

Document FIRST is of an internal nature, from the Prince's own hand, written to his Sister four days before:--

TO THE PRINCESS WILHELMINA AT BAIREUTH.

"BERLIN, 6th March, 1732.

"MY DEAREST SISTER,--Next Monday comes my Betrothal, which will be done just as yours was. The Person in question is neither beautiful nor ugly, not wanting for sense, but very ill brought up, timid, and totally behind in manners and social behavior (MANIERES DU SAVOIR-VIVRE): that is the candid portrait of this Princess. You may judge by that, dearest Sister, if I find her to my taste or not. The greatest merit she has is that she has procured me the liberty of writing to you; which is the one solacement I have in your absence.

"You never can believe, my adorable Sister, how concerned I am about your happiness; all my wishes centre there, and every moment of my life I form such wishes. You may see by this that I preserve still that sincere friendship which has united our hearts from our tenderest years:--recognize at least, my dear Sister, that you did me a sensible wrong when you suspected me of fickleness towards you, and believed false reports of my listening to tale-bearers; me, who love only you, and whom neither absence nor lying rumors could change in respect of you. At least don't again believe such things on my score, and never mistrust me till you have had clear proof,--or till God has forsaken me, and I have lost my wits. And being persuaded that such miseries are not in store to overwhelm me, I here repeat how much I love you, and with what respect and sincere veneration,--I am and shall be till death, my dearest Sister,--Your most humble and faithful Brother and Valet,

FRIDERICH."

[OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 1st, p. 5]

That was on the Thursday; Betrothal is on the Monday following. Document SECOND is from poor old Fassmann, and quite of external nature; which we much abridge:--

"Monday evening, all creatures are in gala, and the Royal Apartments upstairs are brilliantly alight; Duke of Lorraine with the other high strangers are requested to take their place up there, and wait for a short while. Prussian Majesty, Queen and Crown-Prince with him, proceeds then, in a solemn official manner, to the Durchlaucht of Bevern's Apartment, in a lower floor of the Palace; where the Bevern Party, Duke, Duchess, Son and intended Charmer are. Prussian Majesty asks the Durchlaucht and Spouse, 'Whether the Marriage, some time treated of, between that their Princess here present, and this his Crown-Prince likewise here, is really a thing to their mind?' Serene Spouses answer, to the effect, 'Yea, surely, very much!' Upon which they all solemnly ascend to the Royal Apartments [upstairs where we have seen Wilhelmina dancing before now], where Lorraine, Wurtemberg and the other sublimities are in waiting. Lorraine and the sublimities form a semicircle; with the two Majesties, and pair of young creatures, in the centre. You young creatures, you are of one intention with your parents in this matter? Alas, there is no doubt of it. Pledge yourselves, then, by exchange of rings! said his Majesty with due business brevity. The rings are exchanged: Majesty embraces the two young creatures with great tenderness;" as do Queen and Serenities; and then all the world takes to embracing and congratulating; and so the betrothal is a finished thing. Bassoons and violins, striking up, whirl it off in universal dancing,--in "supper of above two hundred and sixty persons," princely or otherwise sublime in rank, with "spouses and noble ladies there" in the due proportion. [Fassmann, pp. 432, 433.]

Here is fraction of another Note from the Crown-Prince to his Sister at Baireuth, a fortnight after that event:--

BERLIN, 24th MARCH, 1732 (to Princess Wilhelmina).--... "God be praised that you are better, dearest Sister! For nobody can love you more tenderly than I do.--As to the Princess of Bevern [my Betrothed], the Queen [Mamma, whom you have been consulting on these etiquettes] bids me answer, That you need not style her `Highness,' and that you may write to her quite as to an indifferent Princess. As to 'kissing of the hands,' I assure you I have not kissed them, nor will kiss them; they are not pretty enough to tempt one that way. God long preserve you in perfect health! And you, preserve for me always the honor of your good graces; and believe, my charming Sister, that never brother in the world loved with such tenderness a sister so charming as mine; in short, believe, dear Sister, that without compliments, and in literal truth, I am yours wholly (TOUT A VOUS),

"FRIDERICH."

[Ib. xxvii. part 1st, p. 5.]

This is the Betrothal of the Crown-Prince to an Insipidity of Brunswick. Insipidity's private feelings, perhaps of a languidly glad sort, are not known to us; Crown-Prince's we have in part seen. He has decided to accept his fate without a murmur farther. Against his poor Bride or her qualities not a word more. In the Schloss of Berlin, amid such tempests of female gossip (Mamma still secretly corresponding with England), he has to be very reserved, on this head especially. It is understood he did not, in his heart, nearly so much dislike the insipid Princess as he wished Papa to think he did.

Duke Franz of Lorraine went off above a week ago, on the Saturday following the Betrothal; an amiable serene young gentleman, well liked by the Crown-Prince and everybody. "He avoided the Saxon Court, though passing near it," on his way to old Kur-Mainz; "which is a sign," thinks Fassmann, "that mutual matters are on a weak footing in that quarter;"--Pragmatic Sanction never accepted there, and plenty of intricacies existing. Crown-Prince Friedrich may now go to Ruppin and the Regiment Goltz; his business and destinies being now all reduced to a steady condition;--steady sky, rather leaden, instead of the tempestuous thunder-and-lightning weather which there heretofore was. Leaden sky, he, if left well to himself, will perhaps brighten a little. Study will be possible to him; improvement of his own faculties, at any rate. It is much his determination. Outwardly, besides drilling the Regiment Goltz, he will have a steady correspondence to keep up with his Brunswick Charmer;--let him see that he be not slack in that.

Chapter II. -- SMALL INCIDENTS AT RUPPIN.

Friedrich, after some farther pause in Berlin, till things were got ready for him, went to Ruppin. This is in the Spring of 1732; [Still in Berlin, 6th March; dates from NAUEN (in the Ruppin neighborhood) for the first time, 25th April, 1732, among his LETTERS yet extant: Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part lst, p. 4; xvi. 49.] and he contin his residence there till August, 1736. Four important years of young life; of which we must endeavor to give, in some intelligible condition, what traces go hovering about in such records as there are.

Ruppin, where lies the main part of the Regiment Goltz, and where the Crown-Prince Colonel of it dwells, is a quiet dull, little Town, in that northwestern region; inhabitants, grown at this day to be 10,000, are perhaps guessable then at 2,000. Regiment Goltz daily rolls its drums in Ruppin: Town otherwise lifeless enough, except on market-days: and the grandest event ever known in it, this removal of the Crown-Prince thither,--which is doubtless much a theme, and proud temporary miracle, to Ruppin at present. Of society there or in the neighborhood, for such a resident, we hear nothing.

Quiet Ruppin stands in grassy flat country, much of which is natural moor, and less of it reclaimed at that time than now. The environs, except that they are a bit of the Earth, and have a bit of the sky over them, do not set up for loveliness. Natural woods abound in that region, also peat-bogs not yet drained; and fishy lakes and meres, of a dark complexion: plenteous cattle there are, pigs among them;--thick-soled husbandmen inarticulately toiling and moiling. Some glass-furnaces, a royal establishment, are the only manufactures we hear of. Not a picturesque country; but a quiet and innocent, where work is cut out, and one hopes to be well left alone after doing it. This Crown-Prince has been in far less desirable localities.

He had a reasonable house, two houses made into one for him, in the place. He laid out for himself a garden in the outskirts, with what they call a "temple" in it,--some more or less ornamental garden-house,--from which I have read of his "letting off rockets" in a summer twilight. Rockets to amuse a small dinner-party, I should guess,--dinner of Officers, such as he had weekly or twice a week. On stiller evenings we can fancy him there in solitude; reading meditative, or musically fluting;--looking out upon the silent death of Day: how the summer gloaming steals over the moorlands, and over all lands; shutting up the toil of mortals; their very flocks and herds collapsing into silence, and the big Skies and endless Times overarching him and them. With thoughts perhaps sombre enough now and then, but profitable if he face them piously.

His Father's affection is returning; would so fain return if it durst. But the heart of Papa has been sadly torn up: it is too good news to be quite believed, that he has a son grown wise, and doing son-like! Rumor also is very busy, rumor and the Tobacco-Parliament for or against; a little rumor is capable of stirring up great storms in the suspicious paternal mind. All along during Friedrich's abode at Ruppin, this is a constantly recurring weather-symptom; very grievous now and then; not to be guarded against by any precaution;--though steady persistence in the proper precaution will abate it, and as good as remove it, in course of time. Already Friedrich Wilhelm begins to understand that "there is much in this Fritz,"--who knows how much, though of a different type from Papa's?--and that it will be better if he and Papa, so discrepant in type, and ticklishly related otherwise, live not too constantly together as heretofore. Which is emphatically the Crown-Prince's notion too.

I perceive he read a great deal at Ruppin: what Books I know not specially: but judge them to be of more serious solid quality than formerly; and that his reading is now generally a kind of studying as well. Not the express Sciences or Technologies; not these, in any sort,--except the military, and that an express exception. These he never cared for, or regarded as the noble knowledges for a king or man. History and Moral Speculation; what mankind have done and been in this world (so far as "History" will give one any glimpse of that), and what the wisest men, poetical or other, have thought about mankind and their world: this is what he evidently had the appetite for; appetite insatiable, which lasted with him to the very end of his days. Fontenelle, Rollin, Voltaire, all the then French lights, and gradually others that lay deeper in the firmament:--what suppers of the gods one may privately have at Ruppin, without expense of wine! Such an opportunity for reading he had never had before.

In his soldier business he is punctual, assiduous; having an interest to shine that way. And is, in fact, approvable as a practical officer and soldier, by the strictest judge then living. Reads on soldiering withal; studious to know the rationale of it, the ancient and modern methods of it, the essential from the unessential in it; to understand it thoroughly,--which he got to do. One already hears of conferences, correspondences, with the Old Dessauer on this head: "Account of the Siege of Stralsund," with plans, with didactic commentaries, drawn up by that gunpowder Sage for behoof of the Crown-Prince, did actually exist, though I know not what has become of it. Now and afterwards this Crown-Prince must have been a great military reader. From Caesar's COMMENTARIES, and earlier, to the Chevalier Folard, and the Marquis Feuquiere; [Memoires sur la Guerre (specially on the Wars of Louis XIV., in which Feuquiere had himself shone): a new Book at this time (Amsterdam, 1731; first COMPLETE edition is, Paris, 1770, 4 vols. 4to); at Ruppin, and afterwards, a chief favorite with Friedrich.] from Epaminondas at Leuctra to Charles XII. at Pultawa, all manner of Military Histories, we perceive, are at his finger-ends; and he has penetrated into the essential heart of each, and learnt what it had to teach him. Something of this, how much we know not, began at Ruppin; and it did not end again.

On the whole, Friedrich is prepared to distinguish himself henceforth by strictly conforming, in all outward particulars possible, to the paternal will, and becoming the most obedient of sons. Partly from policy and necessity, partly also from loyalty; for he loves his rugged Father, and begins to perceive that there is more sense in his peremptory notions than at first appeared. The young man is himself rather wild, as we have seen, with plenty of youthful petulance and longings after forbidden fruit. And then he lives in an element of gossip; his whole life enveloped in a vast Dionysius'-Ear, every word and action liable to be debated in Tobacco-Parliament. He is very scarce of money, too, Papa's allowance being extremely moderate, "not above 6,000 thalers (900 pounds)," says Seckendorf once. [Forster, iii. 114 (Seckendorf to Prince Eugene).] There will be contradictions enough to settle: caution, silence, every kind of prudence will be much recommendable.

In all outward particulars the Crown-Prince will conform; in the inward, he will exercise a judgment, and if he cannot conform, will at least be careful to hide. To do his Commandant duties at Ruppin, and avoid offences, is much his determination. We observe he takes great charge of his men's health; has the Regiment Goltz in a shiningly exact condition at the grand reviews;--is very industrious now and afterwards to get tall recruits, as a dainty to Papa. Knows that nothing in Nature is so sure of conciliating that strange old gentleman; corresponds, accordingly, in distant quarters; lays out, now and afterwards, sums far too heavy for his means upon tall recruits for Papa. But it is good to conciliate in that quarter, by every method, and at every expense;--Argus of Tobacco-Parliament still watching one there; and Rumor needing to be industriously dealt with, difficult to keep down. Such, so far as we can gather, is the general figure of Friedrich's life at Ruppin. Specific facts of it, anecdotes about it, are few in those dim Books; are uncertain as to truth, and without importance whether true or not. For all his gravity and Colonelship, it would appear the old spirit of frolic has not quitted him. Here are two small incidents, pointing that way; which stand on record; credible enough, though vague and without importance otherwise. Incident FIRST is to the following feeble effect; indisputable though extremely unmomentous: Regiment Goltz, it appears, used to have gold trimmings; the Colonel Crown-Prince petitioned that they might be of silver, which he liked better. Papa answers, Yes. Regiment Goltz gets its new regimentals done in silver; the Colonel proposes they shall solemnly BURN their old regimentals. And they do it, the Officers of them, SUB DIO, perhaps in the Prince's garden, stripping successively in the "Temple" there, with such degree of genial humor, loud laughter, or at least boisterous mock-solemnity, as may be in them. This is a true incident of the Prince's history, though a small one.

Incident SECOND is of slightly more significance; and intimates, not being quite alone in its kind, a questionable habit or method the Crown-Prince must have had of dealing with Clerical Persons hereabouts when they proved troublesome. Here are no fewer than three such Persons, or Parsons, of the Ruppin Country, who got mischief by him. How the first gave offence shall be seen, and how he was punished: offences of the second and the third we can only guess to have been perhaps pulpit-rebukes of said punishments: perhaps general preaching against military levities, want of piety, nay open sinfulness, in thoughtless young men with cockades. Whereby the thoughtless young men were again driven to think of nocturnal charivari? We will give the story in Dr. Busching's own words, who looks before and after to great distances, in a way worth attending to. The Herr Doctor, an endless Collector and Compiler on all manner of subjects, is very authentic always, and does not want for natural sense: but he is also very crude,--and here and there not far from stupid, such his continual haste, and slobbery manner of working up those Hundred and odd Volumes of his:--[See his Autobiography, which forms Beitrage, B. vi. (the biggest and last volume).]

"The sanguine-choleric temperament of Friedrich," says this Doctor, "drove him, in his youth, to sensual enjoyments and wild amusements of different kinds; in his middle age, to fiery enterprises; and in his old years to decisions and actions of a rigorous and vehement nature; yet so that the primary form of utterance, as seen in his youth, never altogether ceased with him. There are people still among us (1788) who have had, in their own experience, knowledge of his youthful pranks; and yet more are living, who know that he himself, at table, would gayly recount what merry strokes were done by him, or by his order, in those young years. To give an instance or two.

"While he was at Neu-Ruppin as Colonel of the Infantry Regiment there, the Chaplain of it sometimes waited upon him about the time of dinner,--having been used to dine occasionally with the former Colonel. The Crown-Prince, however, put him always off, did not ask him to dinner; spoke contemptuously of him in presence of the Officers. The Chaplain was so inconsiderate, he took to girding at the Crown-Prince in his sermons. 'Once on a time,' preached he, one day, 'there was Herod who had Herodias to dance before him; and he,--he gave her John the Baptist's head for her pains!'" This HEROD, Busching says, was understood to mean, and meant, the Crown-Prince; HERODIAS, the merry corps of Officers who made sport for him; JOHN THE BAPTIST'S HEAD was no other than the Chaplain not invited to dinner! "To punish him for such a sally, the Crown-Prince with the young Officers of his Regiment went, one night, to the Chaplain's house," somewhere hard by, with cow's-grass adjoining to it, as we see: and "first, they knocked in the windows of his sleeping-room upon him [HINGE-windows, glass not entirely broken, we may hope]; next there were crackers [SCHWARMER, "enthusiasts," so to speak!] thrown in upon him; and thereby the Chaplain, and his poor Wife," more or less in an interesting condition, poor woman, "were driven out into the court-yard, and at last into the dung-heap there;"--and so left, with their Head on a Charger to that terrible extent!

That is Busching's version of the story; no doubt substantially correct; of which there are traces in other quarters,--for it went farther than Ruppin; and the Crown-Prince had like to have got into trouble from it. "Here is piety!" said Rumor, carrying it to Tobacco-Parliament. The Crown-Prince plaintively assures Grumkow that it was the Officers, and that they got punished for it. A likely story, the Prince's!

"When King Friedrich, in his old days, recounted this after dinner, in his merry tone, he was well pleased that the guests, and even the pages and valets behind his back, laughed aloud at it." Not a pious old King, Doctor, still less an orthodox one! The Doctor continues: "In a like style, at Nauen, where part of his regiment lay, he had--by means of Herr von der Groben, his First-Lieutenant," much a comrade of his, as we otherwise perceive--"the Diaconus of Nauen and his Wife hunted out of bed, and thrown into terror of their lives, one night:"--offence of the Diaconus not specified. "Nay he himself once pitched his gold-headed stick through Salpius the Church Inspector's window,"--offence again not specified, or perhaps merely for a little artillery practice?--"and the throw was so dexterous that it merely made a round hole in the glass: stick was lying on the floor; and the Prince," on some excuse or other, "sent for it next morning." "Margraf Heinrich of Schwedt," continues the Doctor, very trustworthy on points of fact, "was a diligent helper in such operations. Kaiserling," whom we shall hear of, "First-Lieutenant von der Groben," these were prime hands; "Lieutenant Buddenbrock [old Feldmarschall's son] used, in his old days, when himself grown high in rank and dining with the King, to be appealed to as witness for the truth of these stories." [Busching, Beitrage zu der Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen, v. 19-21. Vol. v.--wholly occupied with Friedrich II. King of Prussia (Halle, 1788),--is accessible in French and other languages; many details, and (as Busching's wont is) few or none not authentic, are to be found in it; a very great secret spleen against Friedrich is also traceable,--for which the Doctor may have had his reasons, not obligatory upon readers of the Doctor. The truth is, Friedrich never took the least special notice of him: merely employed and promoted him, when expedient for both parties; and he really was a man of considerable worth, in an extremely crude form.]

These are the two Incidents at Ruppin, in such light as they have. And these are all. Opulent History yields from a ton of broken nails these two brass farthings, and shuts her pocket on us again. A Crown-Prince given to frolic, among other things; though aware that gravity would beseem him better. Much gay bantering humor in him, cracklings, radiations,--which he is bound to keep well under cover, in present circumstances.

Chapter III. -- THE SALZBURGERS.

For three years past there has been much rumor over Germany, of a strange affair going on in the remote Austrian quarter, down in Salzburg and its fabulous Tyrolese valleys. Salzburg, city and territory, has an Archbishop, not theoretically Austrian, but sovereign Prince so styled; it is from him and his orthodoxies, and pranks with his sovereign crosier, that the noise originates. Strange rumor of a body of the population discovered to be Protestant among the remote Mountains, and getting miserably ill-used, by the Right Reverend Father in those parts. Which rumor, of a singular, romantic, religious interest for the general Protestant world, proves to be but too well founded. It has come forth in the form of practical complaint to the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM at the Diet, without result from the CORPUS; complaint to various persons;--in fine, to his Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm, WITH result.

With result at last; actual "Emigration of the Salzburgers:" and Germany--in these very days while the Crown-Prince is at Berlin betrothing himself, and Franz of Lorraine witnessing the EXERCITIA and wonders there--sees a singular phenomenon of a touching idyllic nature going on; and has not yet quite forgotten it in our days. Salzburg Emigration was all in motion, flowing steadily onwards, by various routes, towards Berlin, at the time the Betrothal took place; and seven weeks after that event, when the Crown-Prince had gone to Ruppin, and again could only hear of it, the First Instalment of Emigrants arrived bodily at the Gates of Berlin, "30th April, at four in the afternoon;" Majesty himself, and all the world going out to witness it, with something of a poetic: almost of a psalmist feeling, as well as with a practical on the part of his Majesty. First Instalment this; copiously followed by others, all that year; and flowing on, in smaller rills and drippings, for several years more, till it got completed. A notable phenomenon, full of lively picturesque and other interest to Brandenburg and Germany;--which was not forgotten by the Crown-Prince in coming years, as we shall transiently find; nay which all Germany still remembers, and even occasionally sings. Of which this is in brief the history.

The Salzburg Country, northeastern slope of the Tyrol (Donau draining that side of it, Etsch or Adige the Italian side), is celebrated by the Tourist for its airy beauty, rocky mountains, smooth green valleys, and swift-rushing streams; perhaps some readers have wandered to Bad-Gastein, or Ischl, in these nomadic summers; have looked into Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and the Bavarian-Austrian boundary-lands; seen the wooden-clock makings, salt-works, toy-manufactures, of those simple people in their slouch-hats; and can bear some testimony to the phenomena of Nature there. Salzburg is the Archbishop's City, metropolis of his bit of sovereignty that then was. [Tolerable description of it in the Baron Riesbeck's Travels through Germany (London, 1787, Translation by Maty, 3 vols. 8vo), i. 124-222;--whose details otherwise, on this Emigration business, are of no authenticity or value. A kind of Play-actor and miscellaneous Newspaper-man in that time (not so opulent to his class as ours is); who takes the title of "Baron" on this occasion of coming, out with a Book of Imaginary "Travels." Had personally lived, practising the miscellaneous arts, about Lintz and Salzburg,--and may be heard on the look of the Country, if on little else.] A romantic City, far off among its beautiful Mountains, shadowing (itself in the Salza River, which rushes down into the Inn, into the Donau, now becoming great with the tribute of so many valleys. Salzburg we have not known hitherto except as the fabulous resting-place of Kaiser Barbarossa: but we are now slightly to see it in a practical light; and mark how the memory of Friedrich Wilhelm makes an incidental lodgment for itself there.

It is well known there was extensive Protestantism once in those countries. Prior to the Thirty-Years War, the fair chance was, Austria too would all become Protestant; an extensive minority among all ranks of men in Austria too, definable as the serious intelligence of mankind in those countries, having clearly adopted it, whom the others were sure to follow. In all ranks of men; only not in the highest rank, which was pleased rather to continue Official and Papal. Highest rank had its Thirty-Years War, "its sleek Fathers Lummerlein and Hyacinth in Jesuit serge, its terrible Fathers Wallenstein in chain-armor;" and, by working late and early then and afterwards, did manage at length to trample out Protestantism,--they know with what advantage by this time. Trample out Protestantism; or drive it into remote nooks, where under sad conditions it might protract an unnoticed existence. In the Imperial Free-Towns, Ulm, Augsburg, and the like, Protestantism continued, and under hard conditions contrives to continue: but in the country parts, except in unnoticed nooks, it is extinct. Salzburg Country is one of those nooks; an extensive Crypto-Protestantism lodging, under the simple slouch-hats, in the remote valleys there. Protestantism peaceably kept concealed, hurting nobody; wholesomely forwarding the wooden-clock manufacture, and arable or grazier husbandries, of those poor people. More harmless sons of Adam, probably, did not breathe the vital air, than those dissentient Salzburgers; generation after generation of them giving offence to no creature.

Successive Archbishops had known of this Crypto-Protestantism, and in remote periods had made occasional slight attempts upon it; but none at all for a long time past. All attempts that way, as ineffectual for any purpose but stirring up strife, had been discontinued for many generations; [Buchholz, i. 148-151.] and the Crypto-Protestantism was again become a mythical romantic object, ignored by Official persons. However, in 1727, there came a new Archbishop, one "Firmian", Count Firmian by secular quality, of a strict lean character, zealous rather than wise; who had brought his orthodoxies with him in a rigid and very lean form.

Right Reverend Firmian had not been long in Salzburg till he smelt out the Crypto-Protestantism, and determined to haul it forth from the mythical condition into the practical; and in fact, to see his law-beagles there worry it to death as they ought. Hence the rumors that had risen over Germany, in 1729: Law-terriers penetrating into human cottages in those remote Salzburg valleys, smelling out some German Bible or devout Book, making lists of Bible-reading cottagers; haling them to the Right Reverend Father-in-God; thence to prison, since they would not undertake to cease reading. With fine, with confiscation, tribulation: for the peaceable Salzburgers, respectful creatures, doffing their slouch-hats almost to mankind in general, were entirely obstinate in that matter of the Bible. "Cannot, your Reverence; must not, dare not!" and went to prison or whithersoever rather; a wide cry rising, Let us sell our possessions and leave Salzburg then, according to Treaty of Westphalia, Article so-and-so. "Treaty of Westphalia? Leave Salzburg?" shrieked the Right Reverend Father: "Are we getting into open mutiny, then? Open extensive mutiny!" shrieked he. Borrowed a couple of Austrian regiments,--Kaiser and we always on the pleasantest terms,--and marched the most refractory of his Salzburgers over the frontiers (retaining their properties and families); whereupon noise rose louder and louder.

Refractory Salzburgers sent Deputies to the Diet; appealed, complained to the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM, Treaty of Westphalia in hand,--without result. CORPUS, having verified matters, complained to the Kaiser, to the Right Reverend Father. The Kaiser, intent on getting his Pragmatic Sanction through the Diet, and anxious to offend nobody at present, gave good words; but did nothing: the Right Reverend Father answered a Letter or two from the CORPUS; then said at last, He wished to close the Correspondence, had the honor to be,--and answered no farther, when written to. CORPUS was without result. So it lasted through 1730; rumor, which rose in 1729, waxing ever louder into practicable or impracticable shape, through that next year; tribulation increasing in Salzburg; and noise among mankind. In the end of 1730, the Salzburgers sent Two Deputies to Friedrich Wilhelm at Berlin; solid-hearted, thick-soled men, able to answer for themselves, and give real account of Salzburg and the phenomena; this brought matters into a practicable state.

"Are you actual Protestants, the Treaty of Westphalia applicable to you? Not mere fanatic mystics, as Right Reverend Firmian asserts; protectible by no Treaty?" That was Friedrich Wilhelm's first question; and he set his two chief Berlin Clergymen, learned Roloff one of them, a divine of much fame, to catechise the two Salzburg Deputies, and report upon the point. Their Report, dated Berlin, 30th November, 1730, with specimens of the main questions, I have read; [Fassmann, pp. 446-448.] and can fully certify, along with Roloff and friend, That here are orthodox Protestants, apparently of very pious peaceable nature, suffering hard wrong;--orthodox beyond doubt, and covered by the Treaty of Westphalia. Whereupon his Majesty dismisses them with assurance, "Return, and say there shall be help!"--and straightway lays hand on the business, strong swift steady hand as usual, with a view that way.

Salzburg being now a clear case, Friedrich Wilhelm writes to the Kaiser; to the King of England, King of Denmark;--orders preparations to be made in Preussen, vacant messuages to be surveyed, moneys to be laid up;--bids his man at the Regensburg Diet signify, That unless this thing is rectified, his Prussian Majesty will see himself necessitated to take effectual steps: "reprisals" the first step, according to the old method of his Prussian Majesty. Rumor of the Salzburg Protestants rises higher and higher. Kaiser intent on conciliating every CORPUS, Evangelical and other, for his Pragmatic Sanction's sake, admonishes Right Reverend Firmian; intimates at last to him, That he will actually have to let those poor people emigrate if they demand it; Treaty of Westphalia being express. In the end of 1731 it has come thus far.

"Emigrate, says your Imperial Majesty? Well, they shall emigrate," answers Firmian; "the sooner the better!" And straightway, in the dead of winter, marches, in convenient divisions, some nine hundred of them over the frontiers: "Go about your business, then; emigrate--to the Old One, if you like!"--"And our properties, our goods and chattels?" ask they.--"Be thankful you have kept your skins. Emigrate, I say.!" And the poor nine hundred had to go out, in the rigor of winter, "hoary old men among them, and women coming near their time;" and seek quarters in the wide world mostly unknown to them. Truly Firmian is an orthodox Herr; acquainted with the laws of fair usage and the time of day. The sleeping Barbarossa does not awaken upon him within the Hill here:--but in the Roncalic Fields, long ago, I should not have liked to stand in his shoes!

Friedrich Wilhelm, on this procedure at Salzburg, intimates to his Halberstadt and Minden Catholic gentlemen, That their Establishments must be locked up, and incomings suspended; that they can apply to the Right Reverend Firmian upon it;--and bids his man at Regensburg signify to the Diet that such is the course adopted here. Right Reverend Firmian has to hold his hand; finds both that there shall be Emigration, and that it must go forward on human terms, not inhuman; and that in fact the Treaty of Westphalia will have to guide it, not he henceforth. Those poor ousted Salzburgers cower into the Bavarian cities, till the weather mend, and his Prussian Majesty's arrangements be complete for their brethren and them.

His Prussian Majesty has been maturing his plans, all this while;--gathering moneys, getting lands ready. We saw him hanging Schlubhut in the autumn of 1731, who had peculated from said moneys; and surveying Preussen, under storms of thunder and rain on one occasion. Preussen is to be the place for these people; Tilsit and Memel region, same where the big Fight of Tannenberg and ruin of the Teutsch Ritters took place: in that fine fertile Country there are homes got ready for this Emigration out of Salzburg.

Long ago, at the beginning of this History, did not the reader hear of a pestilence in Prussian Lithuania? Pestilence in old King Friedrich's time; for which the then Crown-Prince, now Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm, vainly solicited help from the Treasury, and only brought about partial change of Ministry and no help. "Fifty-two Towns" were more or less entirely depopulated; hundreds of thousands of fertile acres fell to waste again, the hands that had ploughed them being swept away. The new Majesty, so soon as ever the Swedish War was got rid of, took this matter diligently in hand; built up the fifty-two ruined Towns; issued Proclamations once and again (Years 1719, 1721) to the Wetterau, to Switzerland, Saxony, Schwaben; [Buchholz, i. 148.] inviting Colonists to come, and, on favorable terms, till and reap there. His terms are favorable, well-considered; and are honestly kept. He has a fixed set of terms for Colonists: their road-expenses thither, so much a day allowed each travelling soul; homesteads, ploughing implements, cattle, land, await them at their journey's end; their rent and services, accurately specified, are light not heavy; and "immunities" from this and that are granted them, for certain years, till they get well nestled. Excellent arrangements: and his Majesty has, in fact, got about 20,000 families in that way. And still there is room for thousands more. So that if the tyrannous Firmian took to tribulating Salzburg in that manner, Heaven had provided remedies and a Prussian Majesty. Heaven is very opulent; has alchemy to change the ugliest substances into beautifulest. Privately to his Majesty, for months back, this Salzburg Emigration is a most manageable matter. Manage well, it will be a god-send to his Majesty, and fit, as by pre-established harmony, into the ancient Prussian sorrow; and "two afflictions well put together shall become a consolation," as the proverb promises! Go along then, Right Reverend Firmian, with your Emigration there: only no foul-play in it,--or Halberstadt and Minden get locked:--for the rest of the matter we will undertake.

And so, February 2d, 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm's Proclamation [Copy of it in Mauvillon, February, 1732, ii. 311.] flew abroad over the world; brief and business-like, cheering to all but Firmian;--to this purport: "Come, ye poor Salzburgers, there are homes provided for you. Apply at Regensburg, at Halle: Commissaries are appointed; will take charge of your long march and you. Be kind, all Christian German Princes: do not hinder them and me." And in a few days farther, still early in February (for the matter is all ready before proclaiming), an actual Prussian Commissary hangs out his announcements and officialities at Donauworth, old City known to us, within reach of the Salzburg Boundaries; collects, in a week or two, his first lot of Emigrants, near a thousand strong; and fairly takes the road with them.

A long road and a strange: I think, above five hundred miles before we get to Halle, within Prussian land; and then seven hundred more to our place there, in the utmost East. Men, women, infants and hoary grandfathers are here;--most of their property sold,--still on ruinous conditions, think of it, your Majesty. Their poor bits of preciosities and heirlooms they have with them; made up in succinct bundles, stowed on ticketed baggage-wains; "some have their own poor cart and horse, to carry the too old and the too young, those that cannot walk." A pilgrimage like that of the Children of Israel: such a pilgrim caravan as was seldom heard of in our Western Countries. Those poor succinct bundles, the making of them up and stowing of them; the pangs of simple hearts, in those remote native valleys; the tears that were not seen, the cries that were addressed to God only: and then at last the actual turning out of the poor caravan, in silently practical condition, staff in hand, no audible complaint heard from it; ready to march; practically marching here:--which of us can think of it without emotion, sad, and yet in a sort blessed!

Every Emigrant man has four GROSCHEN a day (fourpence odd) allowed him for road expenses, every woman three groschen, every child two: and regularity itself, in the shape of Prussian Commissaries, presides over it. Such marching of the Salzburgers: host after host of them, by various routes, from February onwards; above seven thousand of them this year, and ten thousand more that gradually followed,--was heard of at all German firesides, and in all European lands. A phenomenon much filling the general ear and imagination; especially at the first emergence of it. We will give from poor old authentic Fassmann, as if caught up by some sudden photograph apparatus, a rude but undeniable glimpse or two into the actuality of this business: the reader will in that way sufficiently conceive it for himself.

Glimpse FIRST is of an Emigrant Party arriving, in the cold February days of 1732, at Nordlingen, Protestant Free-Town in Bavaria: three hundred of them; first section, I think, of those nine hundred who were packed away unceremoniously by Firmian last winter, and have been wandering about Bavaria, lodging "in Kaufbeuern" and various preliminary Towns, till the Prussian arrangements became definite. Prussian Commissaries are, by this time, got to Donauworth; but these poor Salzburgers are ahead of them, wandering under the voluntary principle as yet. Nordlingen, in Bavaria, is an old Imperial Free-Town; Protestantism not suppressed there, as it has been all round; scene of some memorable fighting in the Thirty-Years War, especially of a bad defeat to the Swedes and Bernhard of Weimar, the worst they had in the course of that bad business. The Salzburgers are in number three hundred and thirty-one; time, "first days of February, 1732, weather very cold and raw." The charitable Protestant Town has been expecting such an advent:--

"Two chief Clergymen, and the Schoolmaster and Scholars, with some hundreds of citizens and many young people" went out to meet them; there, in the open field, stood the Salzburgers, with their wives and their little ones, with their bullock-carts and baggage-wains," pilgriming towards unknown parts of the Earth. "'Come in, ye blessed of the Lord! Why stand ye without?' said the Parson solemnly, by way of welcome; and addressed a Discourse to them," devout and yet human, true every word of it, enough to draw tears from any Fassmann that were there;--Fassmann and we not far from weeping without words. "Thereupon they ranked themselves two and two, and marched into the Town," straight to the Church, I conjecture, Town all out to participate; "and there the two reverend gentlemen successively addressed them again, from appropriate texts: Text of the first reverend gentleman was, And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life. [Matthew xix. 29.] Text of the second was, Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee." [Genesis xii. 1.] Excellent texts; well handled, let us hope,--especially with brevity. After which the strangers were distributed, some into public-houses, others taken home by the citizens to lodge.

"Out of the Spital there was distributed to each person, for the first three days, a half-pound of flesh-meat, bread, and a measure of beer. The remaining days they got in money six CREUTZERS (twopence) each, and bread. On Sunday, at the Church-doors there was a collection; no less than eight hundred GULDEN [80 pounds; population, say, three thousand] for this object. At Sermon they were put into the central part of the Church," all Nordlingen lovingly encompassing them; "and were taught in two sermons," texts not given, What the true Church is built of, and ought to have; Nordlingen copiously shedding tears the while (VIELE THRANEN VERGOSSEN), as it well might. "Going to Church, and coming from it, each Landlord walked ahead of his party; party followed two and two. On other days, there was much catechising of them at different parts of the Town;"--orthodox enough, you see, nothing of superstition or fanaticism in the poor people;--"they made a good testimony of their Evangelical truth.

"The Baggage-wagons which they had with them, ten in number, upon which some of their old people sat, were brought into the Town. The Baggage was unloaded, and the packages, two hundred and eighty-one of them in all [for Fassmann is Photography itself], were locked in the Zoll-Haus. Over and above what they got from the Spital, the Church-collection and the Town-chest, Citizens were liberal; daily sent them food, or daily had them by fours and fives to their own houses to meat." And so let them wait for the Prussian Commissary, who is just at hand: "they would not part from one another, these three hundred and thirty-one," says Fassmann, "though their reunion was but of that accidental nature." [Fassmann, pp. 439, 440.]

Glimpse SECOND: not dated; perhaps some ten days later; and a Prussian Commissary with this party:--

"On their getting to the Anspach Territory, there was so incredible a joy at the arrival of these exiled Brothers in the Faith (GLAUBENS-BRUDER) that in all places, almost in the smallest hamlets, the bells were set a-tolling; and nothing was heard but a peal of welcome from far and near." Prussian Commissary, when about quitting Anspach, asked leave to pass through Bamberg; Bishop of Bamberg, too orthodox a gentleman, declined; so the Commissary had to go by Nurnberg and Baireuth. Ask not if his welcome was good, in those Protestant places. "At Erlangen, fifteen miles from Nurnberg, where are French Protestants and a Dowager Margravine of Baireuth,"--Widow of Wilhelmina's Father-in-law's predecessor (if the reader can count that); DAUGHTER of Weissenfels who was for marrying Wilhelmina not long since!--"at Erlangen, the Serene Dowager snatched up fifty of them into her own House for Christian refection; and Burghers of means had twelve, fifteen and even eighteen of them, following such example set. Nay certain French Citizens, prosperous and childless, besieged the Prussian Commissary to allow them a few Salzburg children for adoption; especially one Frenchman was extremely urgent and specific: but the Commissary, not having any order, was obliged to refuse." [Fassmann, p. 441.] These must have been interesting days for the two young Margravines; forwarding Papa's poor pilgrims in that manner.

"At Baireuth," other side of Nurnberg, "it was towards Good Friday when the Pilgrims under their Commissarius arrived. They were lodged in the villages about, but came copiously into the Town; came all in a body to Church on Good Friday; and at coming out, were one and all carried off to dinner, a very scramble arising among the Townsfolk to get hold of Pilgrims and dine them. Vast numbers were carried to the Schloss:" one figures Wilhelmina among them, figures the Hereditary Prince and old Margraf: their treatment there was "beyond belief," says Fassmann; "not only dinner of the amplest quality and quantity, but much money added and other gifts." From Baireuth the route is towards Gera and Thuringen, circling the Bamberg Territory: readers remember Gera, where the Gera Bond was made?--"At Gera, a commercial gentleman dined the whole party in his own premises, and his wife gave four groschen to each individual of them; other two persons, brothers in the place, doing the like. One of the poor pilgrim women had been brought to bed on the journey, a day or two before: the Commissarius lodged her in his own inn, for greater safety; Commissarius returning to his inn, finds she is off, nobody at first can tell him whither: a lady of quality (VORMEHME DAME) has quietly sent her carriage for the poor pilgrim sister, and has her in the right softest keeping. No end to people's kindness: many wept aloud, sobbing out, 'Is this all the help we can give?' Commissarius said, 'There will others come shortly; them also you can help.'"

In this manner march these Pilgrims. "From Donauworth, by Anspach, Nurnberg, Baireuth, through Gera, Zeitz, Weissenfels, to Halle," where they are on Prussian ground, and within few days of Berlin. Other Towns, not upon the first straight route to Berlin, demand to have a share in these grand things; share is willingly conceded: thus the Pilgrims, what has its obvious advantages, march by a good variety of routes. Through Augsburg, Ulm (instead of Donauworth), thence to Frankfurt; from Frankfurt some direct to Leipzig: some through Cassel, Hanover, Brunswick, by Halberstadt and Magdeburg instead of Halle. Starting all at Salzburg, landing all at Berlin; their routes spread over the Map of Germany in the intermediate space.

"Weissenfels Town and Duke distinguished themselves by liberality: especially the Duke did;"--poor old drinking Duke; very Protestant all these Saxon Princes, except the Apostate or Pseudo-Apostate the Physically Strong, for sad political reasons. "In Weissenfels Town, while the Pilgrim procession walked, a certain rude foreign fellow, flax-pedler by trade, ["HECHELTRAGER," Hawker of flax-combs or HECKLES;--is oftenest a Slavonic Austrian (I am told).] by creed Papist or worse, said floutingly, 'The Archbishop ought to have flung you all into the river, you--!' Upon which a menial servant of the Duke's suddenly broke in upon him in the way of actuality, the whole crowd blazing into flame; and the pedler would certainly have got irreparable damage, had not the Town-guard instantly hooked him away."

April 21st, 1732, the first actual body, a good nine hundred strong, [Buchholz, i. 156.] got to Halle; where they were received with devout jubilee, psalm-singing, spiritual and corporeal refection, as at Nordlingen and the other stages; "Archidiaconus Franke" being prominent in it,--I have no doubt, a connection of that "CHIEN DE FRANKE," whom Wilhelmina used to know. They were lodged in the Waisenhaus (old Franke's ORPHAN-HOUSE); Official List of them was drawn up here, with the fit specificality; and, after three days, they took the road again for Berlin. Useful Buchholz, then a very little boy, remembers the arrival of a Body of these Salzburgers, not this but a later one in August, which passed through his native Village, Pritzwalk in the Priegnitz: How village and village authorities were all awake, with opened stores and hearts; how his Father, the Village Parson, preached at five in the afternoon. The same Buchholz, coming afterwards to College at Halle, had the pleasure of discovering two of the Commissaries, two of the three, who had mainly superintended in this Salzburg Pilgrimage. Let the reader also take a glance at them, as specimens worth notice:--

COMMISSARIUS FIRST: "Herr von Reck was a nobleman from the Hanover Country; of very great piety; who, after his Commission was done, settled at Halle; and lived there, without servant, in privacy, from the small means he had;--seeking his sole satisfaction in attendance on the Theological and Ascetic College-Lectures, where I used to see him constantly in my student time."

COMMISSARIUS SECOND: "Herr Gobel was a medical man by profession; and had the regular degree of Doctor; but was in no necessity to apply his talents to the gaining of bread. His zeal for religion had moved him to undertake this Commission. Both these gentlemen I have often seen in my youth," but do not tell you what they were like farther; "and both their Christian names have escaped me."

A third Commissarius was of Preussen, and had religious-literary tendencies. I suppose these three served gratis;--volunteers; but no doubt under oath, and tied by strict enough Prussian law. Physician, Chaplain, Road-guide, here they are, probably of supreme quality, ready to our hand. [Buchholz, Neueste Preussisch-Brandenburgische Geschichte (berlin, 1775, 2 vols. 4to), i. 155 n.]

Buchholz, after "his student time," became a poor Country-schoolmaster, and then a poor Country-Parson, in his native Altmark. His poor Book is of innocent, clear, faithful nature, with some vein of "unconscious geniality" in it here and there;--a Book by no means so destitute of human worth as some that have superseded it. This was posthumous, this "NEWEST HISTORY," and has a LIFE of the Author prefixed. He has four previous Volumes on the "Ancient History of Brandenburg," which are not known to me.--About the Year 1745, there were four poor Schoolmasters in that region (two at Havelberg, one at Seehausen, one at Werben), of extremely studious turn; who, in spite of the Elbe which ran between, used to meet on stated nights, for colloquy, for interchange of Books and the like. One of them, the Werben one, was this Buchholz; another, Seehausen, was the Winckelmann so celebrated in after years. A third, one of the Havelberg pair, "went into Mecklenburg in a year or two, as Tutor to Karl Ludwig the Prince of Strelitz's children,"--whom also mark. For the youngest of these Strelitz children was no other than the actual "Old Queen Charlotte" (ours and George III.'s), just ready for him with her Hornbooks about that time: Let the poor man have what honor he can from that circumstance! "Prince Karl Ludwig," rather a foolish-looking creature, we may fall in with personally by and by.

It was the 30th April, 1732, seven weeks and a day since Crown-Prince Friedrich's Betrothal, that this first body of Salzburg Emigrants, nine hundred strong, arrived at Berlin; "four in the afternoon, at the Brandenburg Gate;" Official persons, nay Majesty himself, or perhaps both Majesties, waiting there to receive them. Yes, ye poor footsore mortals, there is the dread King himself; stoutish short figure in blue uniform and white wig, straw-colored waistcoat, and white gaiters; stands uncommonly firm on his feet; reddish, blue-reddish face, with eyes that pierce through a man: look upon him, and yet live if you are true men. His Majesty's reception of these poor people could not but be good; nothing now wanting in the formal kind. But better far, in all the essentialities of it, there had not been hitherto, nor was henceforth, the least flaw. This Salzburg Pilgrimage has found for itself, and will find, regulation, guidance, ever a stepping-stone at the needful place; a paved road, so far as human regularity and punctuality could pave one. That is his Majesty's shining merit. "Next Sunday, after sermon, they [this first lot of Salzburgers] were publicly catechised in church; and all the world could hear their pertinent answers, given often in the very Scripture texts, or express words of Luther."

His Majesty more than once took survey of these Pilgrimage Divisions, when they got to Berlin. A pleasant sight, if there were leisure otherwise. On various occasions, too, her Majesty had large parties of them over to Monbijou, to supper there in the fine gardens; and "gave them Bibles," among other gifts, if in want of Bibles through Firmian's industry. Her Majesty was Charity itself, Charity and Grace combined, among these Pilgrims. On one occasion she picked out a handsome young lass among them, and had Painter Pesne over to take her portrait. Handsome lass, by Pesne, in her Tyrolese Hat, shone thenceforth on the walls of Monbijou; and fashion thereupon took up the Tyrolese Hat, "which has been much worn since by the beautiful part of the Creation," says Buchholz; "but how many changes they have introduced in it no pen can trace."

At Berlin the Commissarius ceased; and there was usually given the Pilgrims a Candidatus Theologiae, who was to conduct them the rest of the way, and be their Clergyman when once settled. Five hundred long miles still. Some were shipped at Stettin; mostly they marched, stage after stage,--four groschen a day. At the farther end they found all ready; tight cottages, tillable fields, all implements furnished, and stock,--even to "FEDERVIEH," or Chanticleer with a modicum of Hens. Old neighbors, and such as liked each other, were put together: fields grew green again, desolate scrubs and scrags yielding to grass and corn. Wooden clocks even came to view,--for Berchtesgaden neighbors also emigrated; and Swiss came, and Bavarians and French:--and old trades were revived in those new localities.

Something beautifully real-idyllic in all this, surely:--Yet do not fancy that it all went on like clock-work; that there were not jarrings at every step, as is the way in things real. Of the Prussian Minister chiefly concerned in settling this new Colony I have heard one saying, forced out of him in some pressure: "There must be somebody for a scolding-stock and scape-goat; I will be it, then!" And then the Salzburg Officials, what a humor they were in! No Letters allowed from those poor Emigrants; the wickedest rumors circulated about them: "All cut to pieces by inroad of the Poles;" "Pressed for soldiers by the Prussian drill-sergeant;" "All flung into the Lakes and stagnant waters there; drowned to the last individual;" and so on. Truth nevertheless did slowly pierce through. And the "GROSSE WIRTH," our idyllic-real Friedrich Wilhelm, was wanting in nothing. Lists of their unjust losses in Salzburg were, on his Majesty's order, made out and authenticated, by the many who had suffered in that way there,--forced to sell at a day's notice, and the like:--with these his Majesty was diligent in the Imperial Court; and did get what human industry could of compensation, a part but not the whole. Contradictory noises had to abate. In the end, sound purpose, built on fact and the Laws of Nature, carried it; lies, vituperations, rumors and delusion sank to zero; and the true result remained. In 1738, the Salzburg Emigrant Community in Preussen held, in all their Churches, a Day of Thanksgiving; and admitted piously that Heaven's blessing, of a truth, had been upon this King and them. There we leave them, a useful solid population ever since in those parts; increased by this time we know not how many fold.

It cost Friedrich Wilhelm enormous sums, say the Old Histories; probably "ten TONS OF GOLD,"--that is to say, ten hundred thousand thalers; almost 150,000 pounds, no less! But he lived to see it amply repaid, even in his own time; how much more amply since;--being a man skilful in investments to a high degree indeed. Fancy 150,000 pounds invested there, in the Bank of Nature herself; and a hundred millions invested, say at Balaclava, in the Bank of Newspaper rumor: and the respective rates of interest they will yield, a million years hence! This was the most idyllic of Friedrich Wilhelm's feats, and a very real one the while.

We have only to add or repeat, that Salzburgers to the number of about 7,000 souls arrived at their place this first year; and in the year or two following, less noted by the public, but faring steadily forward upon their four groschen a day, 10,000 more. Friedrioh Wilhelm would have gladly taken the whole; "but George II. took a certain number," say the Prussian Books (George II., or pious Trustees instead of him), "and settled them at Ebenezer in Virginia,"--read, Ebenezer IN GEORGIA, where General Oglethorpe was busy founding a Colony. [Petition to Parliament, 10th (21st) May, 1733, by Oglethorpe and his Trustees, for 10,000 pounds to carry over these Salzburgers; which was granted; Tindal's RAPIN (London, 1769), xx. 184.] There at Ebenezer I calculate they might go ahead, too, after the questionable fashion of that country, and increase and swell;--but have never heard of them since.

Salzburg Emigration was a very real transaction on Friedrich Wilhelm's part; but it proved idyllic too, and made a great impression on the German mind. Readers know of a Book called Hermann and Dorothea? It is written by the great Goethe, and still worth reading. The great Goethe had heard, when still very little, much talk among the elders about this Salzburg Pilgrimage; and how strange a thing it was, twenty years ago and more. [1749 was Goethe's birth-year.] In middle life he threw it into Hexameters, into the region of the air; and did that unreal Shadow of it; a pleasant work in its way, since he was not inclined for more.

Chapter IV. -- PRUSSIAN MAJESTY VISITS THE KAISER.

Majesty seeing all these matters well in train,--Salzburgers under way, Crown-Prince betrothed according to his Majesty's and the Kaiser's (not to her Majesty's, and high-flying little George of England my Brother the Comedian's) mind and will,--begins to think seriously of another enterprise, half business, half pleasure, which has been hovering in his mind for some time. "Visit to my Daughter at Baireuth," he calls it publicly; but it means intrinsically Excursion into Bohmen, to have a word with the Kaiser, and see his Imperial Majesty in the body for once. Too remarkable a thing to be omitted by us here.

Crown-Prince does not accompany on this occasion; Crown-Prince is with his Regiment all this while; busy minding his own affairs in the Ruppin quarter;--only hears, with more or less interest, of these Salzburg-Pilgrim movements, of this Excursion into Bohmen. Here are certain scraps of Letters; which, if once made legible, will assist readers to conceive his situation and employments there. Letters otherwise of no importance; but worth reading on that score. The FIRST (or rather first three, which we huddle into one) is from "Nauen," few miles off Ruppin; where one of our Battalions lies; requiring frequent visits there:--

1. TO GRUMKOW, AT BERLIN (from the Crown-Prince).

"NAUEN, 26th April, 1732.

"MONSIEUR MY DEAREST FRIEND,--I send you a big mass of papers, which a certain gentleman named Plotz has transmitted me. In faith, I know not in the least what it is: I pray you present it [to his Majesty, or in the proper quarter], and make me rid of it.

"To-morrow I go to Potsdam [a drive of forty miles southward], to see the exercise, and if we do it here according to pattern. NEUE BESEN KEHREN GUT [New brooms sweep clean, IN GERMAN]; I shall have to illustrate my new character" of Colonel; "and show that I am EIN TUCHTIGER OFFICIER (a right Officer). Be what I may, I shall to you always be", &c. &c.

NAUEN, 7th MAY, 1732. "... Thousand thanks for informing me how everything goes on in the world. Things far from agreeable, those leagues [imaginary, in Tobacco-Parliament] suspected to be forming against our House! But if the Kaiser don't abandon us;... if God second the valor of 80,000 men resolved to spend their life,... let us hope there will nothing bad happen.

"Meanwhile, till events arrive, I make a pretty stir here (ME TREMOUSSE ICI D'IMPORTANCE), to bring my Regiment to its requisite perfection, and I hope I shall succeed. The other day I drank your dear health, Monsieur; and I wait only the news from my Cattle-stall that the Calf I am fattening there is ready for sending to you. I unite Mars and Housekeeping, you see. Send me your Secretary's name, that I may address your Letters that way,"--our Correspondence needing to be secret in certain quarters.

... "With a" truly infinite esteem, "FREDERIC."

NAUEN, 10th MAY, 1732. "You will see by this that I am exact to follow your instruction; and that the SCHULZ of Tremmen [Village in the Brandenburg quarter, with a SCHULZ or Mayor to be depended on], becomes for the present the mainspring of our correspondence. I return you all the things (PIECES) you had the goodness to communicate to me,--except Charles Douze, [Voltaire's new Book; lately come out, "Bale, 1731."] which attaches me infinitely. The particulars hitherto unknown which he reports; the greatness of that Prince's actions, and the perverse singularity (BIZARRERIE) of his fortune: all this, joined to the lively, brilliant and charming way the Author has of telling it, renders this Book interesting to the supreme degree.... I send you a fragment of my correspondence with the most illustrious Sieur Crochet," some French Envoy or Emissary, I conclude: "you perceive we go on very sweetly together, and are in a high strain. I am sorry I burnt one of his Letters, wherein he assured me he would in the Versailles Antechamber itself speak of me to the King, and that my name had actually been mentioned at the King's Levee. It certainly is not my ambition to choose this illustrious mortal to publish my renown; on the contrary, I should think it soiled by such a mouth, and prostituted if he were the publisher. But enough of the Crochet: the kindest thing we can do for so contemptible an object is to say nothing of him at all." [OEuvres de Frederic, xvi. 49, 51.]--...

Letter SECOND is to Jaagermeister Hacke, Captain of the Potsdam Guard;

Letter SECOND is to Jaagermeister Hacke, Captain of the Potsdam Guard; who stands in great nearness to the King's Majesty; and, in fact, is fast becoming his factotum in Army-details. We, with the Duke of Lorraine and Majesty in person, saw his marriage to the Excellency Creutz's Fraulein Daughter not long since; who we trust has made him happy;--rich he is at any rate, and will be Adjutant-General before long; powerful in such intricacies as this that the Prince has fallen into.

The Letter has its obscurities; turns earnestly on Recruits tall and short; nor have idle Editors helped us, by the least hint towards "reading" it with more than the EYES. Old Dessauer at this time is Commandant at Magdeburg; Buddenbrock, perhaps now passing by Ruppin, we know for a high old General, fit to carry messages from Majesty,--or, likelier, it may be Lieutenant Buddenbrock, his Son, merely returning to Ruppin? We can guess, that the flattering Dessauer has sent his Majesty five gigantic men from the Magdeburg regiments, and that Friedrich is ordered to hustle out thirty of insignificant stature from his own, by way of counter-gift to the Dessauer;--which Friedrich does instantly, but cannot, for his life, see how (being totally cashless) he is to replace them with better, or replace them at all!

2. TO CAPTAIN HACKE, OF THE POTSDAM GUARD.

"RUPPIN, 15th July, 1732.

"MEIN GOTT, what a piece of news Buddenbrock has brought me! I am to get nothing out of Brandenburg, my dear Hacke? Thirty men I had to shift out of my company in consequence [of Buddenbrock's order]; and where am I now to get other thirty? I would gladly give the King tall men, as the Dessauer at Magdeburg does; but I have no money; and I don't get, or set up for getting, six men for one [thirty short for five tall], as he does. So true is that Scripture: To him that hath shall be given; and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that he hath.

"Small art, that the Prince of Dessau's and the Magdeburg Regiments are fine, when they have money at command, and thirty men GRATIS over and above! I, poor devil, have nothing; nor shall have, all my days. Prithee, dear Hacke (BITTE IHN, LIEBER HACKE), think of all that: and if I have no money allowed, I must bring Asmus [Recruit unknown to me] alone as Recruit next year; and my Regiment will to a certainty be rubbish (KROOP). Once I had learned a German Proverb--

'VERSPRECHEN UND HALTEN (To promise and to keep) ZIEMT WOHL JUNGEN UND ALTEN (Is pretty for young and for old)!'

"I depend alone on you (IHN), dear Hacke; unless you help, there is a bad outlook. To-day I have knocked again [written to Papa for money]; and if that does not help, it is over. If I could get any money to borrow, it would do; but I need not think of that. Help me, then, dear Hacke! I assure you I will ever remember it; who, at all times, am my dear Herr Captain's devoted (GANZ ERGEBENER) servant and friend,

"FRIDERICH."

[In German: OEuvres, xxvii. part 3d, p. 177.]

To which add only this Note, two days later, to Seckendorf; indicating that the process of "borrowing" has already, in some form, begun,--process which will have to continue: and to develop itself;--and that his Majesty, as Seckendorf well knows, is resolved upon his Bohemian journey:--

3. TO THE GENERAL FELDZEUGMEISTER GRAF VON SECKENDORF.

"RUPPIN, 17th July, 1732.

"MY VERY DEAR GENERAL,--I have written to the King, that I owed you 2,125 THALERS for the Recruits; of which he says there are 600 paid: there remain, therefore, 1,525, which he will pay you directly.

"The King is going to Prague: I shall not be of the party [as you will]. To say truth, I am not very sorry; for it would infallibly give rise to foolish rumors in the world. At the same time, I should have much wished to see the Emperor, Empress, and Prince of Lorraine, for whom I have a quite particular esteem. I beg you, Monsieur, to assure him of it;--and to assure yourself that I shall always be,--with a great deal of consideration, MONSIEUR, MON TRES-CHER GENERAL, &c. FREDERIC."

And now--for the Bohemian Journey, "Visit at Kladrup" as they call it;--Ruppin being left in this assiduous and wholesome, if rather hampered condition.

Kaiser Karl and his Empress, in this summer of 1732, were at Karlsbad, taking the waters for a few weeks. Friedrich Wilhelm, who had long, for various reasons, wished to see his Kaiser face to face, thought this would be a good opportunity. The Kaiser himself, knowing how it stood with the Julich-and-Berg and other questions, was not anxious for such an interview; still less were his official people; among whom the very ceremonial for such a thing was matter of abstruse difficulty. Seckendorf accordingly had been instructed to hunt wide, and throw in discouragements, so far as possible;--which he did, but without effect. Friedrich Wilhelm had set his heart upon the thing; wished to behold for once a Head of the Holy Roman Empire, and Supreme of Christendom;--also to see a little, with his own eyes, into certain matters Imperial.

And so, since an express visit to Karlsbad might give rise to newspaper rumors, and will not suit, it is settled, there shall be an accidental intersection of routes, as the Kaiser travels homeward,--say in some quiet Bohemian Schloss or Hunting-seat of the Kaiser's own, whither the King may come incognito; and thus, with a minimum of noise, may the needful passage of hospitality be done. Easy all of this: only the Vienna Ministers are dreadfully in doubt about the ceremonial, Whether the Imperial hand can be given (I forget if for kissing or for shaking)?--nay at last they manfully declare that it cannot be given; and wish his Prussian Majesty to understand that it must be refused. [Forster, i. 328.] "RES SUMMAE CONSEQUENTIAE," say they; and shake solemnly their big wigs.--Nonsense (NARRENPOSSEN)! answers the Prussian Majesty: You, Seckendorf, settle about quarters, reasonable food, reasonable lodgings; and I will do the ceremonial.

Seckendorf--worth glancing into, for biographical purposes, in this place--has written to his Court: That as to the victual department, his Majesty goes upon good common meat; flesh, to which may be added all manner of river-fish and crabs: sound old Rhenish is his drink, with supplements of brown and of white beer. Dinner-table to be spread always in some airy place, garden-house, tent, big clean barn,--Majesty likes air, of all things;--will sleep, too, in a clean barn or garden-house: better anything than being stifled, thinks his Majesty. Who, for the rest, does not like mounting stairs. [Seckendorf's Report (in Forster, i. 330).] These are the regulations; and we need not doubt they were complied with.

Sunday, 27th July, 1732, accordingly, his Majesty, with five or six carriages, quits Berlin, before the sun is up, as is his wont: eastward, by the road for Frankfurt-on-Oder; "intends to look at Schulenburg's regiment," which lies in those parts,--Schulenburg's regiment for one thing: the rest is secret from the profane vulgar. Schulenburg's regiment (drawn up for Church, I should suppose) is soon looked at; Schulenburg himself, by preappointment, joins the travelling party, which now consists of the King and Eight:--known figures, seven, Buddenbrock, Schulenburg, Waldau, Derschau, Seckendorf; Grumkow, Captain Hacke of the Potsdam Guard; and for eighth the Dutch Ambassador, Ginkel, an accomplished knowing kind of man, whom also my readers have occasionally seen. Their conversation, road-colloquy, could it interest any modern reader? It has gone all to dusk; we can know only that it was human, solid, for most part, and had much tobacco intermingled. They were all of the Calvinistic persuasion, of the military profession; knew that life is very serious, that speech without cause is much to be avoided. They travelled swiftly, dined in airy places: they are a FACT, they and their summer dust-cloud there, whirling through the vacancy of that dim Time; and have an interest for us, though an unimportant one.

The first night they got to Grunberg; a pleasant Town, of vineyards and of looms, across the Silesian frontier. They are now turning more southeastward; they sleep here, in the Kaiser's territory, welcomed by some Official persons; who signify that the overjoyed Imperial Majesty has, as was extremely natural, paid the bill everywhere. On the morrow, before the shuttles awaken, Friedrich Wilhelm is gone again; towards the Glogau region, intending for Liegnitz that night. Coursing rapidly through the green Silesian Lowlands, blue Giant Mountains (RIESENGEBIRGE) beginning to rise on the southwestward far away. Dines, at noon, under a splendid tent, in a country place called Polkwitz, ["Balkowitz," say Pollnitz (ii. 407) and Forster; which is not the correct name.] with country Nobility (sorrow on them, and yet thanks to them) come to do reverence. At night he gets to Liegnitz.

Here is Liegnitz, then. Here are the Katzbach and the Blackwater (SCHWARZWASSER), famed in war, your Majesty; here they coalesce; gray ashlar houses (not without inhabitants unknown to us) looking on. Here are the venerable walls and streets of Liegnitz; and the Castle which defied Baty Khan and his Tartars, five hundred years ago. [1241, the Invasion, and Battle here, of this unexpected Barbarian.]--Oh, your Majesty, this Liegnitz, with its princely Castle, and wide rich Territory, the bulk of the Silesian Lowland, whose is it if right were done? Hm, his Majesty knows full well; in Seckendorf's presence, and going on such an errand, we must not speak of certain things. But the undisputed truth is, Duke Friedrich II., come of the Sovereign Piasts, made that ERBVERBRUDERUNG, and his Grandson's Grandson died childless: so the heirship fell to us, as the biggest wig in the most benighted Chancery would have to grant;--only the Kaiser will not, never would; the Kaiser plants his armed self on Schlesien, and will hear no pleading. Jagerndorf too, which we purchased with our own money---No more of that; it is too miserable! Very impossible too, while we have Berg and Julich in the wind!--

At Liegnitz, Friedrich Wilhelm "reviews the garrison, cavalry and infantry," before starting; then off for Glatz, some sixty miles before we can dine. The goal is towards Bohemia, all this while; and his Majesty, had he liked the mountain-passes, and unlevel ways of the Giant Mountains, might have found a shorter road and a much more picturesque one. Road abounding in gloomy valleys, intricate rock-labyrinths, haunts of Sprite RUBEZAHL, sources of the Elbe and I know not what. Majesty likes level roads, and interesting rock-labyrinths built by man rather than by Nature. Majesty makes a wide sweep round to the east of all that; leaves the Giant Mountains, and their intricacies, as a blue Sierra far on his right,--had rather see Glatz Fortress than the caverns of the Elbe; and will cross into Bohemia, where the Hills are fallen lowest. At Glatz during dinner, numerous Nobilities are again in waiting. Glatz is in Jagerndorf region; Jagerndorf, which we purchased with our own money, is and remains ours, in spite of the mishaps of the Thirty-Years War;--OURS, the darkest Chancery would be obliged to say, from under the immensest wig! Patience, your Majesty; Time brings roses!--

From Glatz, after viewing the works, drilling the guard a little, not to speak of dining, and despatching the Nobilities, his Majesty takes the road again; turns now abruptly westward, across the Hills at their lowest point; into Bohemia, which is close at hand. Lewin, Nachod, these are the Bohemian villages, with their remnant of Czechs; not a prosperous population to look upon: but it is the Kaiser's own Kingdom: "King of Bohemia" one of his Titles ever since Sigismund SUPER-GRAMMATICAM'S time. And here now, at the meeting of the waters (Elbe one of them, a brawling mountain-stream) is Jaromierz, respectable little Town, with an Imperial Officiality in it,--where the Official Gentlemen meet us all in gala, "Thrice welcome to this Kingdom, your Majesty!"--and signify that they are to wait upon us henceforth, while we do the Kaiser's Kingdom of Bohemia that honor.

It is Tuesday night, 29th July, this first night in Bohemia. The Official Gentlemen lead his Majesty to superb rooms, new-hung with crimson velvet, and the due gold fringes and tresses,--very grand indeed; but probably not so airy as we wish. "This is the way the Kaiser lodges in his journeys; and your Majesty is to be served like him." The goal of our journey is now within few miles. Wednesday, 30th July, 1732, his Majesty awakens again, within these crimson-velvet hangings with the gold tresses and fringes, not so airy as he could wish; despatches Grumkow to the Kaiser, who is not many miles off, to signify what honor we would do ourselves.

It was on Saturday last that the Kaiser and Kaiserinn, returning from Karlsbad, illuminated Prag with their serene presence; "attended high-mass, vespers," and a good deal of other worship, as the meagre old Newspapers report for us, on that and the Sunday following. And then, "on Monday, at six in the morning," both the Majesties left Prag, for a place called Chlumetz, southwestward thirty miles off, in the Elbe region, where they have a pretty Hunting Castle; Kaiser intending "sylvan sport for a few days," says the old rag of a Newspaper, "and then to return to Prag." It is here that Grumkow, after a pleasant morning's drive of thirty miles with the sun on his back, finds Kaiser Karl VI.; and makes his announcements, and diplomatic inquiries what next.

Had Friedrich Wilhelm been in Potsdam or Wusterhausen, and heard that Kaiser Karl was within thirty miles of him, Friedrich Wilhelm would have cried, with open arms, Come, come! But the Imperial Majesty is otherwise hampered; has his rhadamanthine Aulic Councillors, in vast amplitude of wig, sternly engaged in study of the etiquettes: they have settled that the meeting cannot be in Chlumetz; lest it might lead to night's lodgings, and to intricacies. "Let it be at Kladrup," say the Ample-wigged; Kladrup, an Imperial Stud, or Horse-Farm, half a dozen miles from this; where there is room for nothing more than dinner. There let the meeting be, to-morrow at a set hour; and, in the mean time, we will take precautions for the etiquettes. So it is settled, and Grumkow returns with the decision in a complimentary form.

Through Konigsgratz, down the right bank of the Upper Elbe, on the morrow morning, Thursday, 31st July, 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm rushes on towards Kladrup; finds that little village, with the Horse-edifices, looking snug enough in the valley of Elbe;--alights, welcomed by Prince Eugenio von Savoye, with word that the Kaiser is not come, but steadily expected soon. Prinoe Eugenio von Savoye: ACH GOTT, it is another thing, your Highness, than when we met in the Flanders Wars, long since;--at Malplaquet that morning, when your Highness had been to Brussels, visiting your Lady Mother in case of the worst! Slightly grayer your Highness is grown; I too am nothing like so nimble; the great Duke, poor man, is dead!--Prince Eugenio von Savoye, we need not doubt, took snuff, and answered in a sprightly appropriate manner.

Kladrup is a Country House as well as a Horse-Farm: a square court is the interior, as I gather; the Horse-buildings at a reverent distance forming the fourth side. In the centre of this court,--see what a contrivance the Aulic Councillors have hit upon,--there is a wooden stand built, with three staircases leading up to it, one for each person, and three galleries leading off from it into suites of rooms: no question of precedence here, where each of you has his own staircase and own gallery to his apartment! Friedrich Wilhelm looks down like a rhinoceros on all those cobwebberies. No sooner are the Kaiser's carriage-wheels heard within the court, than Friedrich Wilhelm rushes down, by what staircase is readiest; forward to the very carriage-door; and flings his arms about the Kaiser, embracing and embraced, like mere human friends glad to see one another. On these terms, they mount the wooden stand, Majesty of Prussia, Kaiser, Kaiserinn, each by his own staircase; see, for a space of two hours, the Kaiser's foals and horses led about,--which at least fills up any gap in conversation that may threaten to occur. The Kaiser, a little man of high and humane air, is not bright in talk; the Empress, a Brunswick Princess of fine carriage, Grand-daughter of old Anton Ulrich who wrote the Novels, is likewise of mute humor in public life; but old Nord-Teutschland, cradle of one's existence; Brunswick reminiscences; news of your Imperial Majesty's serene Father, serene Sister, Brother-in-law the Feldmarschall and Insipid Niece whom we have had the satisfaction to betroth lately,--furnish small-talk where needful.

Dinner being near, you go by your own gallery to dress. From the drawing-room, Friedrich Wilhelm leads out the Kaiserinn; the Kaiser, as Head of the world, walks first, though without any lady. How they drank the healths, gave and received the ewers and towels, is written duly in the old Books, but was as indifferent to Friedrich Wilhelm as it is to us; what their conversation was, let no man presume to ask. Dullish, we should apprehend,--and perhaps BETTER lost to us? But where there are tongues, there are topics: the Loom of Time wags always, and with it the tongues of men. Kaiser and Kaiserinn have both been in Karlsbad lately; Kaiser and Kaiserinn both have sailed to Spain, in old days, and been in sieges and things memorable: Friedrich Wilhelm, solid Squire Western of the North, does not want for topics, and talks as a solid rustic gentleman will. Native politeness he knows on occasion; to etiquette, so far as concerns his own pretensions, he feels callous altogether,--dimly sensible that the Eighteenth Century is setting in, and that solid musketeers and not goldsticks are now the important thing. "I felt mad to see him so humiliate himself," said Grumkow afterwards to Wilhelmina, "J'ENRAGEAIS DANS MA PEAU:" why not?

Dinner lasted two hours; the Empress rising, Friedrich Wilhelm leads her to her room; then retires to his own, and "in a quarter of an hour" is visited there by the Kaiser; "who conducts him," in so many minutes exact by the watch, "back to the Empress,"--for a sip of coffee, as one hopes; which may wind up the Interview well. The sun is still a good space from setting, when Friedrich Wilhelm, after cordial adieus, neglectful of etiquette, is rolling rapidly towards Nimburg, thirty miles off on the Prag Highway; and Kaiser Karl with his Spouse move deliberately towards Chlumetz to hunt again. In Nimburg Friedrich Wilhelm sleeps, that night;--Imperial Majesties, in a much-tumbled world, of wild horses, ceremonial ewers, and Eugenios of Savoy and Malplaquet, probably peopling his dreams. If it please Heaven, there may be another private meeting, a day or two hence.

Nimburg, ah your Majesty, Son Fritz will have a night in Nimburg too;--riding slowly thither amid the wrecks of Kolin Battle, not to sleep well;--but that happily is hidden from your Majesty. Kolin, Czaslau (Chotusitz), Elbe Teinitz,--here in this Kladrup region, your Majesty is driving amid poor Villages which will be very famous by and by. And Prag itself will be doubly famed in war, if your Majesty knew it, and the Ziscaberg be of bloodier memory than the Weissenberg itself!--His Majesty, the morrow's sun having risen upon Nimburg, rolls into Prag successfully about eleven A.M., Hill of Zisca not disturbing him; goes to the Klein-Seite Quarter, where an Aulic Councillor with fine Palace is ready; all the cannon thundering from the walls at his Majesty's advent; and Prince Eugenio, the ever-present, being there to receive his Majesty,--and in fact to invite him to dinner this day at half-past twelve. It is Friday, 1st of August, 1732.

By a singular chance, there is preserved for us in Fassmann's Book, what we may call an Excerpt from the old Morning Post of Prag, bringing that extinct Day into clear light again; recalling the vanished Dinner-Party from the realms of Hades, as a thing that once actually WAS. The List of the Dinner-guests is given complete; vanished ghosts, whom, in studying the old History-Books, you can, with a kind of interest, fish up into visibility at will. There is Prince Eugenio von Savoye at the bottom of the table, in the Count-Thun Palace where he lodges; there bodily, the little man, in gold-laced coat of unknown cut; the eyes and the tempers bright and rapid, as usual, or more; nose not unprovided with snuff, and lips in consequence rather open. Be seated, your Majesty, high gentlemen all.

A big chair-of-state stands for his Majesty at the upper end of the table: his Majesty will none of it; sits down close by Prince Eugene at the very bottom, and opposite Prince Alexander of Wurtemberg, whom we had at Berlin lately, a General of note in the Turkish and other wars: here probably there will be better talk; and the big chair may preside over us in vacancy. Which it does. Prince Alexander, Imperial General against the Turks, and Heir-Apparent of Wurtemberg withal, can speak of many things,--hardly much of his serene Cousin the reigning Duke; whose health is in a too interesting state, the good though unlucky man. Of the Gravenitz sitting now in limbo, or travelling about disowned, TOUJOURS UN LAVEMENT SES TROUSSES, let there be deep silence. But the Prince Alexander can answer abundantly on other heads. He comes to his inheritance a few months hence; actual reigning Duke, the poor serene Cousin having died: and perhaps we shall meet, him transiently again.

He is Ancestor of the Czars of Russia, this Prince Alexander, who is now dining here in the body, along with Friedrich Wilhelm and Prince Eugene: Paul of Russia, unbeautiful Paul, married the second time, from Mumpelgard (what the French call Montbeillard, in Alsace), a serene Grand-daughter of his, from whom come the Czars,--thanks to her or not. Prince Alexander is Ancestor withal of our present "Kings of Wurtemberg," if that mean anything: Father (what will mean something) to the serene Duke, still in swaddling-clothes, [Born 21st January, 1732; Carl Eugen the name of him (Michaelis, iii. 450).] who will be son-in-law to Princess Wilhelmina of Baireuth (could your Majesty foresee it); and will do strange pranks in the world, upon poet Schiller and others. Him too, and Brothers of his, were they born and become of size, we shall meet. A noticeable man, and not without sense, this Prince Alexander; who is now of a surety eating with us,--as we find by the extinct Morning Post in Fassmann's old Book.

Of the others eating figures, Stahrembergs, Sternbergs, Kinsky Ambassador to England, Kinsky Ambassador to France, high Austrian dignitaries, we shall say nothing;--who would listen to us? Hardly can the Hof-Kanzler Count von Sinzendorf, supreme of Aulic men, who holds the rudder of Austrian State-Policy, and probably feels himself loaded with importance beyond most mortals now eating here or elsewhere,--gain the smallest recognition from oblivious English readers of our time. It is certain he eats here on this occasion; and to his Majesty he does not want for importance. His Majesty, intent on Julich and Berg and other high matters, spends many hours next day, in earnest private dialogue with him. We mention farther, with satisfaction, that Grumkow and Ordnance-Master Seckendorf are both on the list, and all our Prussian party, down to Hacke of the Potsdam grenadiers, friend Schulenburg visibly eating among the others. Also that the dinner was glorious (HERRLICH), and ended about five. [Fassmann, p. 474.] After which his Majesty went to two evening parties, of a high order, in the Hradschin Quarter or elsewhere; cards in the one (unless you liked to dance, or grin idle talk from you), and supper in the other.

His Majesty amused himself for four other days in Prag, interspersing long earnest dialogues with Sinzendorf, with whom he spent the greater part of Saturday, [Pollnitz, ii. 411.]--results as to Julion and Berg of a rather cloudy nature. On Saturday came the Kaiser, too, and Kaiserinn, to their high Nouse, the Schloss in Prag; and there occurred, in the incognito form, "as if by accident," three visits or counter-visits, two of them of some length. The King went dashing about; saw, deliberately or in glimpses, all manner of things,--from "the Military Hospital" to "the Tongue of St. Nepomuk" again. Nepomuk, an imaginary Saint of those parts; pitched into the Moldau, as is fancied and fabled, by wicked King Wenzel (King and Deposed-Kaiser, whom we have heard of), for speaking and refusing to speak; Nepomuk is now become the Patron of Bridges, in consequence; stands there in bronze on the Bridge of Prag; and still shows a dried Tongue in the world: [Die Legende vom heiligen Johann von Nepomuk, von D. Otto Abel (Berlin, 1855); an acute bit of Historical Criticism.] this latter, we expressly find, his Majesty saw.

On Sunday, his Majesty, nothing of a strait-laced man, attended divine or quasi-divine worship in the Cathedral Church,--where high Prince Bishops delivered PALLIUMS, did histrionisms; "manifested the ABSURDITAT of Papistry" more or less. Coming out of the Church, he was induced to step in and see the rooms of the Schloss, or Imperial Palace. In one of the rooms, as if by accident, the Kaiser was found lounging:--"Extremely delighted to see your Majesty!"--and they had the first of their long or considerable dialogues together; purport has not transpired. The second considerable dialogue was on the morrow, when Imperial Majesty, as if by accident, found himself in the Count-Nostitz Palace, where Friedrich Wilhelm lodges. Delighted to be so fortunate again! Hope your Majesty likes Prag? Eternal friendship, OH JA:--and as to Julich and Berg? Particulars have not transpired.

Prag is a place full of sights: his Majesty, dashing about in all quarters, has a busy time; affairs of state (Julich and Berg principally) alternating with what we now call the LIONS. Zisca's drum, for instance, in the Arsenal here? Would your Majesty wish to see Zisca's own skin, which he bequeathed to be a drum when HE had done with it?"NARRENPOSSEN!"--for indeed the thing is fabulous, though in character with Zisca. Or the Council-Chamber window, out of which "the Three Prag Projectiles fell into the Night of things," as a modern Historian expresses it? Three Official Gentlemen, flung out one morning, [13th (23d) May, 1618 (Kohler, p. 507).] 70 feet, but fell on "sewerage," and did not die, but set the whole world on fire? That is too certain, as his Majesty knows: that brought the crowning of the Winter-King, Battle of the Weissenberg, Thirty-Years War; and lost us Jagerndorf and much else.

Or Wallenstein's Palace,--did your Majesty look at that? A thing worth glancing at, on the score of History and even of Natural-History. That rugged son of steel and gunpowder could not endure the least noise in his sleeping-room or even sitting-room,--a difficulty in the soldiering way of life;--and had, if I remember, one hundred and thirty houses torn away in Prag, and sentries posted all round in the distance, to secure silence for his much-meditating indignant soul. And yonder is the Weissenberg, conspicuous in the western suburban region: and here in the eastern, close by, is the Ziscaberg;--O Heaven, your Majesty, on this Zisca-Hill will be a new "Battle of Prag," which will throw the Weissenberg into eclipse; and there is awful fighting coming on in these parts again!

The THIRD of the considerable dialogues in Prag was on this same Monday night; when his Majesty went to wait upon the Kaiserinn, and the Kaiser soon accidentally joined them. Precious gracious words passed;--on Berg and Julich nothing particular, that we hear;--and the High Personages, with assurances of everlasting friendship, said adieu; and met no more in this world. On his toilet-table Friedrich Wilhelm found a gold Tobacco-box, sent by the highest Lady extant; gold Tobacco-box, item gold Tobacco-stopper or Pipe-picker: such the parting gifts of her Imperial Majesty. Very precious indeed, and grateful to the honest heart;--yet testifying too (as was afterwards suggested to the royal mind) what these high people think of a rustic Orson King; and how they fling their nose into the air over his Tabagies and him.

On the morrow morning early, Friedrich Wilhelm rolls away again homewards, by Karlsbad, by Baireuth; all the cannon of Prag saying thrice, Good speed to him. "He has had a glorious time," said the Berlin Court-lady to Queen Sophie one evening, "no end of kindness from the Imperial Majesties: but has he brought Berg and Julich in his pocket?"--Alas, not a fragment of them; nor of any solid thing whatever, except it be the gold Tobacco-box; and the confirmation of our claims on East-Friesland (cheap liberty to let us vindicate them if we can), if you reckon that a solid thing. These two Imperial gifts, such as they are, he has consciously brought back with him;--and perhaps, though as yet unconsciously, a third gift of much more value, once it is developed into clearness: some dim trace of insight into the no-meaning of these high people; and how they consider US as mere Orsons and wild Bisons, whom they will do the honor to consume as provision, if we behave well!

The great King Friedrich, now Crown-Prince at Ruppin, writing of this Journey long afterwards,--hastily, incorrectly, as his wont is, in regard to all manner of minute outward particulars; and somewhat maltreating, or at least misplacing, even the inward meaning, which was well known to him WITHOUT investigation, but which he is at no trouble to DATE for himself, and has dated at random,--says, in his thin rapid way, with much polished bitterness:--

"His [King Friedrich Wilhelm's] experience on this occasion served to prove that good-faith and the virtues, so contrary to the corruption of the age, do not succeed in it. Politicians have banished sincerity (LA CANDEUR) into private life: they look upon themselves as raised quite above the laws which they enjoin on other people; and give way without reserve to the dictates of their own depraved mind.

"The guaranty of Julich and Berg, which Seckendorf had formally promised in the name of the Emperor, went off in smoke; and the Imperial Ministers were in a disposition so opposed to Prussia, the King saw clearly [not for some years yet] that if there was a Court in Europe intending to cross his interests, it was certainly that of Vienna. This Visit of his to the Emperor was like that of Solon to Croesus [Solon not I recognizable, in the grenadier costume, amid the tobacco-smoke, and dim accompaniments?]--and he returned to Berlin, rich still in his own virtue. The most punctilious censors could find no fault in his conduct, except a probity carried to excess. The Interview ended as those of Kings often do: it cooled [not for some time yet], or, to say better, it extinguished the friendship there had been between the two Courts. Friedrich Wilhelm left Prag full of contempt [dimly, altogether unconsciously, tending to have some contempt, and in the end to be full of it] for the deceitfulness and pride of the Imperial Court: and the Emperor's Ministers disdained a Sovereign who looked without interest on frivolous ceremonials and precedences. Him they considered too ambitious in aiming at the Berg-and-Julich succession: them he regarded [came to regard] as a pack of knaves, who had broken their word, and were not punished for it."

Very bitter, your Majesty; and, in all but the dates, true enough. But what a drop of concentrated absinthe follows next, by way of finish,--which might itself have corrected the dating!

"In spite of so many subjects of discontent, the King wedded his Eldest Son [my not too fortunate self], out of complaisance to the Vienna Court, with a Princess of Brunswick-Bevern, Niece to the Empress:"--bitter fact; necessitating change of date in the paragraphs just written. [OEuvres de Frederic (Memoires de Brandenbourg), i. 162, 163.]

Friedrich Wilhelm, good soul, cherishes the Imperial gifts, Tobacco-box included;--claps the Arms of East-Friesland on his escutcheon; will take possession of Friesland, if the present Duke die heirless, let George of England say what he will. And so he rolls homeward, by way of Baireuth. He stayed but a short while in Karlsbad; has warned his Wilhelmina that he will be at Baireuth on the 9th of the month. [Wilhelmina, ii. 55.]

Wilhelmina is very poorly; "near her time," as wives say; rusticating in "the Hermitage," a Country-House in the vicinity of Baireuth; Husband and Father-in-law gone away, towards the Bohemian frontier, to hunt boars. Oh, the bustle and the bother that high Lady had; getting her little Country House stretched out to the due pitch to accommodate everybody,--especially her foolish Sister of Anspach and foolish Brother-in-law and suite,--with whom, by negligence of servants and otherwise, there had like to have risen incurable quarrel on the matter. But the dexterous young Wife, gladdest; busiest and weakliest of hopeful creatures, contrived to manage everything, like a Female Fieldmarshal, as she was. Papa was delighted; bullied the foolish Anspach people,--or would have done so, had not I intervened, that the matter might die. Papa was gracious, happy; very anxious about me in my interesting state. "Thou hast lodged me to perfection, good Wilhelmina. Here I find my wooden stools, tubs to wash in; all things as if I were at Potsdam:--a good girl; and thou must take care of thyself, my child (MEIN KIND)."

At dinner, his Majesty, dreading no ill, but intent only on the practical, got into a quiet, but to me most dreadful, lecture to the old Margraf (my Father-in-law) upon debt and money and arrears: How he, the Margraf, was cheated at every turn, and led about by the nose, and kept weltering in debt: how he should let the young Margraf go into the Offices, to supervise, and withal to learn tax-matters and economics betimes. How he (Friedrich Wilhelm) would send him a fellow from Berlin who understood such things, and would drill his scoundrels for him! To which the old Margraf, somewhat flushed in the face, made some embarrassed assent, knowing it in fact to be true; and accepted the Berlin man:--but he made me (his poor Daughter-in-law) smart for it afterwards: "Not quite dead YET, Madam; you will have to wait a little!"--and other foolish speech; which required to be tempered down again by a judicious female mind.

Grumkow himself was pleasant on this occasion; told us of Kladrup, the Prag etiquettes; and how he was like to go mad seeing his Majesty so humiliate himself. Fraulein Grumkow, a niece of his, belonging to the Austrian court, who is over here with the rest, a satirical intriguing baggage, she, I privately perceive, has made a conquest of my foolish Brother-in-law, the Anspach Margraf here;--and there will be jealousies, and a cat-and-dog life over yonder, worse than ever! Tush, why should we talk?--These are the phenomena at Baireuth; Husband and Father-in-law having quitted their boar-hunt and hurried home.

After three days, Friedrich Wilhelm rolled away again; lodged, once more, at Meuselwitz, with abstruse Seckendorf, and his good old Wife, who do the hospitalities well when they must, in spite of the single candle once visible. On the morrow after which, 14th August, 1732, his Majesty is off again, "at four in the morning," towards Leipzig, intending to be home that night, though it is a long drive. At Leipzig, not to waste time, he declines entering the Town; positively will not, though the cannon-salvos are booming all round;--"breakfasts in the suburbs, with a certain Horse-dealer (ROSS-HANDLER) now deceased:" a respectable Centaur, capable, no doubt, of bargaining a little about cavalry mountings, while one eats, with appetite and at one's ease. Which done, Majesty darts off again, the cannon-salvos booming out a second time;--and by assiduous driving gets home to Potsdam about eight at night. And so has happily ENDED this Journey to Kladrup: [Fassmann, pp. 474-479; Wilhelmina, ii. 46-55; Pollnitz, ii. 407-412; Forster, i. 328-334.]