French. With these inmates he dined and supped well, drank freely, and amused himself sometimes with concerts, sometimes with holding chapters of a fraternity which he call ed the Order of Bayard; but literature was his chief resource. ner the plates were hurled at his head-some- | midst of the sandy waste of the Marquisate. times he was restricted to bread and water-The mansion, surrounded by woods of oak sometimes he was forced to swallow food so and beech, looks out upon a spacious lake. nauseous that he could not keep it on his sto- There Frederic amused himself by laying out mach. Once his father knocked him down, gardens in regular alleys and intricate mazes, dragged him along the floor to a window, and by building obelisks, temples, and conservawas with difficulty prevented from strangling tories, and by collecting rare fruits and flowers. him with the cord of the curtain. The queen, His retirement was enlivened by a few com. for the crime of not wishing to see her son panions, among whom he seems to have premurdered, was subjected to the grossest indig-ferred those who, by birth or extraction, were nities. The Princess Wilhelmina, who took her brother's part, was treated almost as ill as Mrs. Brownrigg's apprentices. Driven to despair, the unhappy youth tried to run away; then the fury of the old tyrant rose to madness. The prince was an officer in the army; his flight was therefore desertion, and, in the moral code of Frederic William, desertion was the highest of all crimes. Desertion," says this royal theologian, in one of his half-crazy letters, "is from hell. It is a work of the children of the devil. No child of God could possibly be guilty of it." An accomplice of the prince, in spite of the recommendation of a court-martial, was mercilessly put to death. It seemed probable that the prince himself would suffer the same fate. It was with difficulty that the intercession of the States of Holland, of the Kings of Sweden and Poland, and of the Emperor of Germany, saved the House of Brandenburgh from the stain of an unnatural murder. After months of cruel suspense, Frederic learned that his life would be spared. He remained, however, long a prisoner; but he was not on that account to be pitied. He found in his jailers a tenderness which he had never found in his father; his table was not sumptuous, but he had wholesome food in sufficient quantity to appease hunger; he could read the Henriade without being kicked, and play on his flute without having it broken over his head. When his confinement terminated, he was a man. He had nearly completed his twentyfirst year, and could scarcely, even by such a parent as Frederic William be kept much longer under the restraints which had made nis boyhood miserable. Suffering had matured his understanding, while it had hardened his heart and soured his temper. He had learnt self-command and dissimulation; he affected to conform to some of his father's views, and submissively accepted a wife, who was a wife only in name, from his father's hand. He also served with credit, though without any opportunity of acquiring brilliant distinction, under the command of Prince Eugene, during a campaign marked by no extraordinary events. He was now permitted to keep a separate estabiishment, and was therefore able to indulge with caution his own tastes. Partly in order tc conciliate the king, and partly, no doubt, from inclination, he gave up a portion of his time to military and political business, and thus gradually acquired such an aptitude for affairs as his most intimate associates were not aware that he possessed. His favourite abode was at Rheinsberg, near the frontier which separates the Prussian dominions from the duchy of Mecklenburg. Rheinsberg is a fertile and smiling spot, in the His education had been entirely French. The long ascendency which Louis XIV. had enjoyed, and the eminent merit of the tragic and comic dramatists, of the satirists, and of the preachers who had flourished under that magnificent prince, had made the French lan guage predominant in Europe. Even in countries which had a national literature, and w1ich could boast of names greater than those f Racine, of Molière, and of Massillon-in the country of Dante, in the country of Cervantes, in the country of Shakspeare and Milton-the intellectual fashions of Paris had been to a great extent adopted. Germany had not yet produced a single masterpiece of poetry or eloquence. In Germany, therefore, the French taste reigned without rival and without limit. Every youth of rank was taught to speak and write French. That he should speak and write his own tongue with politeness, or even with accuracy and facility, was regarded a comparatively an unimportant object. Ever Frederic William, with all his rugged Saxon prejudices, thought it necessary that his chil dren should know French, and quite unneces sary that they should be well versed in German. The Latin was positively interdicted. “My son," his majesty wrote, “shall not learn Latin; and, more than that, I will not suffer anybody even to mention such a thing to me." One of the preceptors ventured to read the Golden Bull in the original with the Prince-Royal. Frederic William entered the room, and broke out in his usual kingly style. "Rascal, what are you at there?" "Please your majesty," answered the pre ceptor, "I was explaining the Golden Bull to his royal highness." "I'll Golden Bull you, you rascal!" roared the majesty of Prussia. Up went the king's cane, away ran the terrified instructor, and Frederic's classical studies ended forever. He now and then affected to quote Latin sentences, and produced such exquisite Cicero nian phrases as these:-"Stante pede morire," -"De gustibus non est disputandus,"—"Tot verbas tot spondera." Of Italian, he had no. enough to read a page of Metastasio with ease and of the Spanish and English, he did not, as far as we are aware, understand a single word. As the highest human compositions to which he had access were those of the French writers, it is not strange that his admiration for those writers should have been unbounded. His It is not strange that a young man devoted to literature, and acquainted only with the litera ture of France, should have looked with profound veneration on the genius of Voltaire. Nor is it just to condemn him for this feeling. "A man who has never seen the sun," says Calderon in one of his charming comedies, "cannot be blamed for thinking that no glory can exceed that of the moon. A man who has seen neither moon nor sun, cannot be blamed for talking of the unrivalled brightness of the morning star." Had Frederic been able to read Homer and Milton, or even Virgil and Tasso, his admiration of the Henriade would prove that he was utterly destitute of the power of discerning what is excellent in art. Had he been familiar with Sophocles or Shakspeare, we should have expected him to appreciate Zaire more justly. Had he been able to study Thucydides and Tacitus in the original Greek and Latin, he would have known that there were heights in the eloquence of history far beyond the reach of the author of the Life of Charles the Twelfth. But the finest heroic poem, several of the most powerful tragedies, and the most brilliant and picturesque historical work that Frederic had ever read, were Voltaire's. Such high and various excellence moved the young prince almost to adoration. The opinions of Voltaire on religious and philosophical questions had not yet been fully exhibited to the public. At a later period, when an exile from his country, and at open war with the Church, he spoke out. But when Frederic was at Rheinsberg, Voltaire was still a courtier; and, though he could not always curb his petulant wit, he had as yet published nothing that could exclude him from Versailles, and little that a divine of the mild and generous school of Grotius and Tillotson might not read with pleasure. In the Henriade, in Zaire, and in Alzire, Christian piety is exhibited in the most amiable form, and, some years after the period of which we are writing, a Pope condescended to accept the dedication of Mahomet. The real senti ambitious and eager temper early prompted |larly those which are written with earnestness, him to imitate what he admired. The wish, and are not embroidered with verses. perhaps, dearest to his heart was, that he might rank among the masters of French rhetoric and poetry. He wrote prose and verse as indefatigably as if he had been a starving hack of Cave or Osborn; but Nature, which had bestowed on him, in a large measure, the talents of a captain and of an administrator, had withheld from him those higher and rarer gifts, without which industry labours in vain to produce immortal eloquence or song. And, indeed, had he been blessed with more imagination, wit, and fertility of thought, than he appears to have had, he would still have been subject to one great disadvantage, which would, in all probability, have forever prevented him from taking a high place among men of letters. He had not the full command of any language. There was no machine of thought which he could employ with perfect ease, confidence, and freedom. He had German enough to scold his servants, or to give the word of command to his grenadiers; but his grammar and pronunciation were extremely bad. He found it difficult to make out the meaning even of the simplest German poetry On one occasion a version of Racine's Iphigénie was read to him. He held the French original in his hand; but was forced to own that, even with such help, he could not understand the translation. Yet though he had neglected his mother tongue in order to bestow all his attention on French, his French was, after all, the French of a foreigner. It was necessary for him to have always at his beck some men of letters from Paris to point out the solecisms and false rhymes, of which, to the last, he was frequently guilty. Even had he possessed the poetic faculty-of which, as far as we can judge, he was utterly destitute-the want of a language would have prevented him from being a great poet. No noble work of imagination, as far as we recollect, was ever composed by any man, except in a dialect which he had learned without remembering how or when; and which he had spoken with perfect ease before he had ever analyzed its structure.ments of the poet, however, might be clearly Romans of great talents wrote Greek verses; but how many of those verses have deserved to live? Many men of eminent genius have, in modern times, written Latin poems; but, as far as we are aware, none of those poems, not even Milton's, can be ranked in the first The prince wrote to his idol in the style of a class of art, or even very high in the second. worshipper, and Voltaire replied with exquisite It is not strange, therefore, that in the French grace and address. A correspondence followverses of Frederic, we can find nothing be-ed, which may be studied with advantage by yond the reach of any man of good parts and industry-nothing above the level of Newdigate and Seatonian poetry. His best pieces may perhaps rank with the worst in Dodsley's collection. In history, he succeeded better. We do not, indeed, find in any part of his voluminous Memoirs, either deep reflection or vivid painting. But the narrative is distinguished by clearness, conciseness, good sense, and a certain air of truth and simplicity, which is singularly graceful in a man who, having done great things, sits down to relate them. On the whole, however, none of his writings are so agreeable to us as his Letters; particuVOL IV.-64 perceived by a keen eye through the decent disguise with which he veiled them, and could not escape the sagacity of Frederic, who held similar opinions, and had been accustomed to practise similar dissimulation. those who wish to become proficients in the ignoble art of flattery. No man ever paid compliments better than Voltaire. His sweetened confectionary had always a delicate, yet stimulating flavour, which was delightful to palates wearied by the coarse preparations of inferior artists. It was only from his hand that so much sugar could be swallowed without making the swallower sick. Copies of verses, writing-desks, trinkets of amber, were changed between the friends. Frederic confided his writings to Voltaire, and Voltaire applauded, as if Frederic had been Racine and Bossuet in one. One of his royal highness's 2 U ex performances was a refutation of the Principe | prince could be about the efficacy of his army of Machiavelli. Voltaire undertook to convey But this anxiety never degenerated into a mo it to the press. It was entitled the Anti-Machi- nomania, like that which led his father to day avel, and was an edifying homily against rapa-fancy-prices for giants. Frederic was as thrifty city, perfidy, arbitrary government, unjust war about money as any prince or any private man -in short, against almost every thing for which ought to be. But he did not conceive, like his its author is now remembered among men. father, that it was worth while to eat unwholeThe old king uttered now and then a fero- some cabbages for the sake of saving four or cious growl at the diversions of Rheinsberg. five rix-dollars in the year. Frederic was, we But his health was broken, his end was ap-fear, as malevolent as his father; but Fredeproaching, and his vigour was impaired. He ric's wit enabled him often to show his malehad only one pleasure left-that of seeing tall volence in ways more decent than those to soldiers. He could always be propitiated by a which his father resorted, and to inflict misery present of a grenadier of six feet eight or six and degradation by a taunt instead of a blow. feet nine; and such presents were from time Frederic, it is true, by no means relinquished to time judiciously offered by his son. his hereditary privilege of kicking and cudgelEarly in the year 1740, Frederic Williamling. His practice, however, as to that matter, met death with a firmness and dignity worthy of a better and wiser man; and Frederic, who had just completed his twenty-eighth year, became King of Prussia. His character was little understood. That he had good abilities, indeed, no person who had talked with him or corresponded with him could doubt. But the easy Epicurean life which he had led, his love of good cookery and good wine, of music, of conversation, of light literature, led many to regard him as a sensual and intellectual voluptuary. His habit of canting about moderation, peace, liberty, and the happiness which a good mind derives from the happiness of others, had imposed on some who should have known better. Those who thought best of him, expected a Telemachus after Fénélon's pattern. Others predicted the approach of a Medicean age-an age propitious to learning and art, and not unpropitious to pleasure. Nobody had the least suspicion that a tyrant of extraordinary military and political talents, of industry more extraordinary still, without fear, without faith, and without mercy, had ascended the throne. The disappointment of Falstaff at his old boon companion's coronation, was not more bitter than that which awaited some of the inmates of Rheinsberg. They had long looked forward to the accession of their patron, as to the day from which their own prosperity and greatness was to date. They had at last reached the promised land, the land which they had figured to themselves as flowing with milk and honey, and they found it a desert. "No more of these fooleries," was the short, sharp adinonition given by Frederic to one of them. It soon became plain that, in the most important points, the new sovereign bore a strong family likeness to his predecessor. There was a wide difference between the father and the son as respected extent and vigour of intellect, speculative opinions, amusements, studies, outward demeanour. But the groundwork of the character was the same in both. To both were common the love of order, the love of business, the military taste, the parsimony, the imperious spirit, the temper irritable even to ferocity, the pleasure in the pain and humiliation of others. But these propensities had in Frederic William partaken of the general unsoundness of his mind, and wore a very different aspect when found in company with the strong and cultivated understanding of his successor. Thus, for example, Frederic was as anxious as any differed in some important respects from his father's. To Frederic William, the mere circumstance that any persons whatever, men, women, or children, Prussians or foreigners, were within reach of his toes and of his cane, appeared to be a sufficient reason for proceeding to belabour them. Frederic required provocation as well as vicinity; nor was he ever known to inflict this paternal species of correc tion on any but his born subjects; though on one occasion M. Thiébault had reason, during a few seconds, to anticipate the high honour of being an exception to this general rule. The character of Frederic was still very im perfectly understood either by his subjects or by his neighbours, when events occurred which exhibited it in a strong light. A few months after his accession died Charles VI., Emperor of Germany, the last descendant, in the male line, of the house of Austria. Charles left no son, and had, long before his death, relinquished all hopes of male issue. During the latter part of his life, his principal object had been to secure to his descendants in the female line the many crowns of the house of Hapsburg. With this view, he had promul gated a new law of succession, widely cele brated throughout Europe under the name of the "Pragmatic Sanction." By virtue of this decree, his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of Francis of Lorraine, succeed. ed to the dominions of her ancestors. No sovereign has ever taken possession of a throne by a clearer title. All the politics of the Austrian cabinet had, during twenty years, been directed to one single end-the settlement of the succession. From every person whose rights could be considered as injuriously af fected, renunciations in the most solemn form had been obtained. The new law had been ratified by the Estates of all the kingdoms and principalities which made up the great Aus trian monarchy. England, France, Spain, Rus sia, Poland, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, the Germanic body, had bound themselves by treaty to maintain the "Pragmatic Sanction." Tha instrument was placed under the protection of the public faith of the whole civilized world. Even if no positive stipulations on this subject had existed, the arrangement was one which no good man would have been willing to disturb. It was a peaceable arrangement It was an arrangement acceptable to the great population whose happiness was chiefly con cerned. It was an arrangement which made | rantied the integrity of the Austrian .es. I no change in the distribution of power among it not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims the states of Christendom. It was an arrangement which could be set aside only by means of a general war; and, if it were set aside, the effect would be, that the equilibrium of Europe would be deranged, that the loyal and patriotic | after which titles, however illegitimate in their feelings of millions would be cruelly outraged, and that great provinces, which had been united for centuries, would be torn from each other by main force. are to be set up against recent treaties and long possession, the world can never be at peace for a day? The laws of all nations have wisely established a time of limitation, origin, cannot be questioned. It is felt by everybody that to eject a person from his estate on the ground of some injustice committed in the time of the Tudors, would proThe sovereigns of Europe were, therefore, duce all the evils which result from arbitrary bound by every obligation which those who confiscation, and would make all property inare intrusted with power over their fellow-secure. It concerns the commonwealth-so creatures ought to hold most sacred, to respect runs the legal maxim—that there be an end and defend the rights of the Archduchess. Her of litigation. And surely this maxim is at situation and her personal qualities were such as might be expected to move the mind of any generous man to pity, admiration, and chivalrous tenderness. She was in her twenty-fourth year. Her form was majestic, her features beautiful, her countenance sweet and animated, her voice musical, her deportment gracious and dignified. In all domestic relations she was without reproach. She was married to a husband whom she loved, and was on the point of giving birth to a child when death deprived her of her father. The loss of a parent and the new cares of the empire were too much for her in the delicate state of her health. Her spirits were depressed, and her cheek lost its bloom. Yet it seemed that she had little cause for anxiety. It seemed that justice, humanity, and the faith of treaties would have their due weight, and that the settlement so solemnly guarantied would be quietly carried into effect. England, Russia, Poland, and Holland declared in form their intention to adhere to their engagements. The French ministers made a verbal declaration to the same effect. But from no quarter did the young Queen of Hungary receive stronger assurances of friendship and support than from the King of Prussia. Yet the King of Prussia, the "Anti-Machiavel," had already fully determined to commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and desolating war, and all this for no end whatever except that he might extend his dominions and see his name in the gazettes. He determined to assemble a great army with speed and secrecy to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should be apprized of his design, and to add that rich province to his kingdom. We will not condescend to refute at length the pleas which the compiler of the Memoirs hefore us has copied from Doctor Preuss. They amount to this-that the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to Silesia, and had in the previous century been compelled, by hard usage on the part of the court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain that, whoever might originally have been in the right, Prussia had submitted. Prince after prince of the house of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the court of Berlin had recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had gua least equally applicable to the great commonwealth of states, for in that commonwealth litigation means the devastation of provinces, the suspension of trade and industry, sieges like those of Badajoz and St. Sebastian, pitched fields like those of Eylau and Borodino. We hold that the transfer of Norway from Denmark to Sweden was an unjustifiable proceeding; but would the king of Denmark be therefore justified in landing, without any new provocation, in Norway, and commencing military opera tions there? The King of Holland thinks, no doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the Belgian provinces. Grant that it were so. Would he, therefore, be justified in marching with an army on Brussels? The case against Frederic was still stronger, inasmuch as the injustice of which he complained had been committed more than a century before. Nor must it be forgotten that he owed the highest personal obligations to the house of Austria. It may be doubted whether his life had not been preserved by the intercession of the prince whose daughter he was about to plunder. To do the king justice, he pretended to no more virtue than he had. In manifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some idle stories about his antiquated claim on Silesia; but in his conversations and Memoirs he took a very different tone. To quote his own words,--"Am bition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me, carried the day and I decided for war." Having resolved on his course, he acted with ability and vigour. It was impossible wholly to conceal his preparations, for throughout the Prussian territories regiments, guns, and bag. gage were in motion, The Austrian envoy at Berlin apprized his court of these facts, and expressed a suspicion of Frederic's designs; but the ministers of Maria Theresa refused to give credit to so lack an imputation on a young prince who was known chiefly by his high professions of integrity and philanthropy. "We will not,"-they wrote-"we cannot be lieve it." In the mean time the Prussian forces had been assembled. Without any declaration of war, without any demand for reparation, in the very act of pouring forth compliments and assurances of good-will, Frederic commenced hostilities. Many thousands of his troops were actually in Silesia before the Queen of Hun gary knew that he had set up any claim to any part of her territories. At length he sent her a message which could be regarded only den. The evils produced by this wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown; and, in order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America. Silesia had been occupied without a battle; but the Austrian troops were advancing to the relief of the fortresses which still held out. In the spring Frederic rejoined his army. He had seen little of war, and had never commanded any great body of men in the field. It is not, therefore, strange that his first military operations showed little of that skill which, at a later period, was the admiration of Europe. What connoisseurs say of some pictures painted by Raphael in his youth, may be said of this campaign. It was in Frederic's early bad manner. Fortunately for him, the generals to whom he was opposed were men of small capacity. The discipline of his own troops, particularly of the infantry, was unequalled in that age; and some able and experienced offcers were at hand to assist him with their ad vice. Of these, the most distinguished was Field-Marshal Schwerin-a brave adventurer of Pomeranian extraction, who had served half the governments in Europe, had borne the commissions of the States-General of Holland and of the Duke of Mecklenburg, and fought under Marlborough at Blenheim, and had been with Charles the Twelfth at Bender. Frederic's first battle was fought at Molwitz, and never did the career of a great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. Not only, however, did he not establish his title to the character of an able general, but he was so unfortunate as te make it doubtful whether he possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry which he commanded in person, was put t flight. Unaccustomed to the tumult and car nage of a field of battle, he lost his self-posses sion, and listened too readily to those who urged him to save himself. His English gray carried him many miles from the field, while Schwerin, though wounded in two places, man fully upheld the day. The skill of the old Field Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian ba talions prevailed; and the Austrian army was driven from the field with the loss of eight thousand men. Had the Silesian question been merely a question between Frederic and Maria Theresa it would be impossible to acquit the Prussian king of gross perfidy. But when we consider the effects which his policy produced, and could not fail to produce, on the whole community of civilized nations, we are compelled to pronounce a condemnation still more severe. Till he began the war it seemed possible, even probable, that the peace of the world would be preserved. The plunder of the great Austrian heritage was indeed a strong temptation and in more than one cabinet ambitious schemes were already meditated. But the treaties by which the "Pragmatic Sanction" had been guarantied were express and recent. To throw all Europe into confusion for a purpose clearly unjust was no light matter. England was true to her engagements. The voice of Fleury had always been for peace. He had a conscience. He was now in extreme old age, and was unwilling, after a life which, when his situation was considered, must be pronounced singularly pure, to carry the fresh stain of a great crime before the tribunal of his God. Even the vain and unprincipled Belle-Isle, whose whole life was one wild daydream of conquest and spoliation, felt that France, bound as she was by solemn stipulations, could not without disgrace make a direct attack on the Austrian dominions. Charles, Elector of Bavaria, pretended that he had a right to a large part of the inheritance which the "Pragmatic Sanction" gave to the Queen of Hungary, but he was not sufficiently powerful to move with out support. It might, therefore, not unreasonably be expected that, after a short period of restlessness, all the potentates of Christendom would acquiesce in the arrangements made by the late emperor. But the selfish rapacity of the King of Prussia gave the signal to his The battle of Molwitz was the signa. for a neighbours. His example quieted their sense general explosion throughout Europe. Bavaria of shame. His success led them to underrate took up arms. France, not yet declaring her the difficulty of dismembering the Austrian mo- self a principal in the war, took part in it as narchy. The whole world sprang to arms. On an ally of Bavaria. The two great statesmen the head of Frederic is all the blood which was to whom mankind had owed many years of sned in a war which raged during many years tranquillity, disappeared about this time from and in every quarter of the globe-the blood of the scene; but not till they had both been guilty the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the brave of the weakness of sacrificing their sense of mountaineers who were slaughtered at Cullo-justice and their love of peace in the vain hope The news was carried late at night to a mili in which the king had taken shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He was successful; but he owed his success to dispositions which others had made, and to the valour of men who had fought while he was flying. So unpromising was the first appearance of the greatest warrior of that age! |