IV. The Princess, a Medley. By Alfred Tennyson V.-1. Estimates for the Effective and Non-Effective Army Ser- vices, from 1st of April, 1848, to 31st of March, 1849. 2. Ordnance Estimates for the same Year VI.-1. Récits de la Captivité de l'Empereur Napoléon à Sainte Hélène. Par M. le Général Montholon, Compagnon de sa Captivité, et son premier Exécuteur Testamen- 2. History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint Helena. VII.-Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second, from his Ac- cession to the Death of Queen Caroline. By John Lord Hervey. Edited, from the Original Manuscript at Ick- worth, by the Right Hon. J. W. Croker VIII.-1. Histoire de Dix Ans, 1830-1840. Par M. Louis Blanc. 2. Révolution de 1848, Evénemens-Actes du Gouverne- ment Provisoire-Proclamations, &c. 3. Journées de la Révolution de 1848. Par un Garde Na- 4. Histoire de Trente Heures, Février, 1848. Par Pierre 5. French Revolution in 1848--Three Days of February. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-1. Euvres de Frédéric le Grand, Roi de Prusse. Nouvelle Edition. Berlin: chez Rodolphe Decker, Imprimeur du Roi, vols. i., ii, et iii. 1846. 2. Friedrich der Grosse: eine Lebens- Geschichte. Preuss, Berlin, 4 vols. 1832. Von J. D. E. 3. Urkunden-buch zur Lebens-Geschichte. Von J. D. E. Preuss, Berlin, 5 vols. 1834. IN Na Convocation held at Oxford on the 1st of July, 1847, 'it was proposed and agreed that the University Seal should be affixed to a Letter of Thanks to His Majesty the King of Prussia for his Majesty's gracious present of the three first volumes of a magnificent edition of the Works of King Frederick the Great.' We have no doubt that the good taste of the Royal Donor will limit his gift to the earlier volumes, which comprise such writings as the Mémoires de Brandebourg and L'Histoire de Mon Temps. Were his Majesty to send the complete collection, with what feelings could the Reverend Heads of houses be expected to read-or with what expressions to acknowledge -the Commentaire Théologique sur Barbe Bleue, or the Ode, in the style of Petronius, on the French fugitives after Rosbach !* This new edition comes forth with a splendour well beseeming, if not the value of the works, yet certainly the rank of the author. No expense has been spared on the paper or the types; and the editor, Dr. Preuss, is eminently qualified for the task from his most full and valuable, and on the whole impartial and discriminating, Life of King Frederick which appeared in 1832. We shall not be tempted, however, by this opportunity to enter into any minute discussion of the writings of the Prussian monarch. On his general demerits as an author, the department of letterwriting alone excepted, his imperfect mastery of the French in which he chose to write, and his peculiar tediousness both in his prose and verse, or rather in his two kinds of prose, the rhymed and unrhymed-we imagine that all critics of all countries (unless possibly his own) are entirely agreed. Nor do we propose to descant either upon the freaks of his youth or the glories of his Congé de l'Armée des Cercles et des Tonnelliers, Œuvres Posthumes, vol. xv. p. 217. VOL. LXXXII. NO. CLXIII. B wars. wars. Both are sufficiently well known-the former through his own sister, the Margravine de Bareith, and his favourite, Voltaire; -the latter from the pages of more than one historian. But it seems to us that his system of administration in peace has by no means received the same degree of attention as his military exploits. Nor are the habits of his declining age so familiar to us as those of his early manhood. It is therefore to these-the life of Frederick public and private since the Peace of Hubertsburgthat we now desire to apply ourselves. For this investigation the biography of Dr. Preuss, with his five volumes of appended documents, will supply our best, though by no means our only, materials. From the Peace of Hubertsburg in 1763 until his death in 1786, Frederick may be said to have enjoyed uninterrupted peace. For although a declaration of war was called forth by the Bavarian Succession in 1778, it was merely, as he might have termed it in his adopted language, une levée de boucliers; it led scarcely even to a skirmish, far less to a battle or a siege. But these twenty-three years of public peace were to the King himself very far from years of repose. A slight sketch of his daily life at Potsdam or Sans Souci will best portray his unremitting activity. The value of early hours had been felt by Frederick in his campaigns, especially when opposed to indolent and luxurious courtiers like the Prince de Soubise. < Je pense bien,' says Voltaire, 30th March, 1759-(he is addressing Frederick and alluding to Soubise)—'que celui qui met ses bottes à quatre heures du matin a un grand avantage au jeu contre celui qui monte en carrosse à midi.' These early habits of Frederick were continued in his years of peace. In summer he usually rose at three, seldom ever after four; in winter he was scarcely an hour later. During the prime of his manhood five or six hours of sleep sufficed him; but in his old age the term was extended to seven or eight. His ablutions, when performed at all, were slight and few. While still in the hands of his hair-dresser he opened his first packet of letters from Berlin; this packet contained only such letters as, either by their seals or by Post-office notices, were known to come from Prussian nobles. All other letters of subjects not of noble birth were opened by some one of the four Cabinet-Secretaries. would his Prussian Majesty, thus nice in matters of epistolary etiquette, have stared at Sir Robert Walpole, of whom it is recorded that, whenever a batch of letters reached him from the country, that from his gamekeeper was always the first which he perused! How The King next proceeded to dress himself, and put on his hat, which he wore almost constantly within doors, and took off only during interviews with persons of high birth and at dinner time. His strict economy was manifest in his dress, for his uniforms were usually patched and threadbare, while his boots from age and want of blacking appeared of a tawny red. Two of the Cabinet-Secretaries now laid before him extracts of the letters which they had opened, together with various petitions and memorials. The Adjutant of the Royal Guard brought a Report of all strangers who had either arrived at or departed from Potsdam the day before. A similar report as to Berlin had already reached the King, inclosed in the first packet of letters. Next came the Adjutant-General, with whom Frederick was wont day by day to discuss and decide all the affairs of the army. Having despatched these affairs, Frederick passed into his writing-room, where he began by drinking off several glasses of cold water flavoured with fennel-leaves, and employed himself with replies to his letters and notes on his memorials. At intervals he used to sip several cups of coffee, which, in the last twenty years of his life, were always mingled with mustard. Not unfrequently, also, he indulged in a little fruit which stood ready on the side-table; of stone-fruit, above all, he was passionately fond. Parsimonious as he seemed on most occasions, he would buy the earliest forced cherries in the months of December and January for his private eating at the rate of two dollars each. It was the object of Frederick in this, as in other matters, to bring forward hidden merit. In a remote district an avenue of cherry-trees led, and still leads, from the village of Helmsdorf to the village of Heiligenthal. It excited little notice until Frederick, on one of his journeys, having tasted the fruit, was struck with its peculiar richness of flavour; and gave orders that soine basketfuls of it should be sent every summer to Potsdam. While still in his writing-room Frederick allowed himself daily half an hour's relaxation with his flute. But even this short relaxation was by no means lost time so far as business was concerned. He once said to d'Alembert that during his musical exercises he was accustomed to turn over in his mind his affairs of state, and that several of his happiest thoughts for their administration had occurred to him at those times. Between eight and ten o'clock the King received the CabinetSecretaries separately, and gave them his instructions. These men, though inferior both in rank and salary, were the chief instruments of his sovereign will: for it is not the least among the singularities of his government, that only by exception, and on special occasions, did Frederick ever see his own Ministers. It was in writing that they sent him their reports, it was in writing that he sent them his commands. After the Cabinet-Secretaries had been despatched, the occupations of Frederick until dinner were not so uniformly fixed as the preceding. Sometimes he attended the review of his guards at eleven; sometimes took a ride, sometimes a walk, sometimes read aloud to himself, and sometimes granted audiences. In these at least with respect to his own subjects who were not of noble birth, nor admitted to his familiar intercourse-no Eastern Sultan ever maintained more haughty state. We have now lying before us two reports of interviews, as printed in the appendix to one of Dr. Preuss's volumes; the one from a President of the Chambre des Domaines at Cleves, the other from his colleague, a second President at Aurich; and it appears incidentally that although both of them parted from the King with full assurances of his approbation and favour, they were not admitted to kiss his hand, but only his coat! But whatever might be the previous occupations, as the clock struck noon Frederick sat down to dinner. In his youth twelve had been the dinner-hour for all classes at Berlin; nay, his ancestor the Great Elector had always dined at eleven. But before the close of Frederick's reign the people of fashion gradually extended the hour till two; and ever since at Berlin, as elsewhere, it has become later and later. Well may a French novelist of our own time exclaim, Tous les jours on dîne plus tard; incessamment on ne dînera plus du tout! Since the close of the Seven Years' War Frederick had renounced suppers, and dinner became with him, as with Prince Talleyrand, his single daily meal. The King was a gourmand of the first water; and had he survived till 1802, would no doubt have received the honorary presidency of the Jury Dégustateur; or the dedication of Grimod de la Reyniêre's Almanach,' preferably even to the Second Consul Cambacérès. The bill of fare was daily laid before his Majesty, comprising not merely a list of the dishes, but the name of the cook by whom each dish was to be dressed; and these bills of fare were always well considered, and often corrected and amended by the Royal hand. Sometimes, when they gave promise of some novel experiment or favourite dainty-as polentas and eel-pies-the King, in his eagerness, would order the dinner to be brought in ten or twelve minutes earlier than the appointed hour. After dinner he used to mark with a cross the names of those dishes which had afforded him particular pleasure. Of wine he drank sparingly; his favourite vintage being from the banks of the Dordogne, and in general diluted with water. The |