balls, as playthings for them, were provided in the several apartments. Even during his campaigns Frederick went attended by these canine companions. Thus, on the 8th of December, 1760, when the Marquis d'Argens entered the King's quarters at Leipsick, he found Frederick seated on the floor with the dogs around, and a dish of fricasseed chicken before him, out of which his Majesty with a stick was pushing the most dainty morsels to his favourite. As these greyhounds died they were buried on the terrace of Sans Souci, with the name of each on a gravestone; and Frederick in his will expressed his desire that his own remains might be interred by their side-a parting token of his attachment to them and of his contempt for mankind! On this point, however, his wishes have not been complied with. Of fine horses, also, Frederick, like most eminent commanders, was fond. Several chargers which he rode were killed or wounded under him during his wars. Many of them bore the names of celebrated and contemporary ministers, as Choiseul, Brühl, Kaunitz, Pitt, and Bute, not as being gifts from these statesmen, but as a compliment to them. But poor Bute's was a hard fate. When his namesake, the Scottish peer, forsook the alliance with Prussia, and concluded a separate peace with France, Bute, the thorough-bred steed, was in requital condemned to be yoked with a mule, and employed in drawing to and fro the orange-trees on the terraces at Potsdam. During the last ten years of his life, Frederick's favourite horse for his own riding was called Condé. Almost every day he was brought before his Royal Master, and fed with his own hand with sugar, figs, and melons. The strict economy of Frederick had been at first enforced from the straits in which his father left him: it was afterwards recommended by the poverty of his provinces. From such provinces it was no light matter to raise the sinews of war against Austria, Russia, and France combined. From such provinces, even during the later years of peace, it was no easy task to maintain the largest standing army in Europe, and to accumulate as treasure in reserve several millions of dollars in the vaults of Magdeburg. Yet still this great virtue of economy, to which, next to his military genius, Frederick owed his triumphs, when it came to be extended to trifles, or applied to points where splendour is one element of usefulness, seems to belong to the domain of Molière, and grow into the part of Harpagon. Thus, at the King's own table, not a bottle of champagne was to be opened without his own special command. Thus again, as we are told by Müller, the historian of Switzerland, Frederick on one occasion, when examining the budget budget of his principality of Neuchatel, detected and exposed an error of only three sous. Thus, also, to the very close of his reign, he never enabled the Prussian Envoys at foreign Courts to assume a state at all commensurate to the importance which their country had acquired, but condemned them to languish in obscurity on most inadequate stipends, as during his father's reign. The tragic fate of Luicius, who had been the Prussian Envoy at the Hague in the time of Frederick William I., is told by Voltaire with much humour, and no doubt some exaggeration. During a severe winter this poor man had no money to buy fuel, and ventured to cut down for fire-wood some trees in the garden of his official residence; but the fact came to the ears of his Royal Master, who by return of post sent him a reprimand, and told him that he should be mulcted on that account a whole year's pay! Upon this, says Voltaire-Luicius désespéré, se coupa la gorge avec le seul rasoir qu'il eut. Un vieux valet vint à son secours, et lui sauva malheureusement la vie.' There were only two of the King's tastes in which he ever allowed himself to step beyond the bounds of the most exact economy-in eating and in building. As to the former, we have shown already that he belonged to the Apician school. But even there he closely weighed the cost. He might sometimes, though rarely, be extravagant beforehand, but when once the dainties were devoured, he would often murmur at the bill. Here is an instance. On the 9th of November, 1784, there were several additional dishes at his table, and an account of the extra expenses then incurred was next day presented to him. It amounted to 25 thaler 10 groschen and 14 pfennigs. But his Majesty, with his own hand, wrote upon the margin: A robbery; for there were at table about an hundred oysters, which would cost 4 thalers ; the cakes 2 thalers; the quab's liver 1 thaler; the cakes of Russian fashion 2 thalers: altogether it might be, perhaps, 11 thalers; the rest a robbery. To-day there was one extra dish; herrings with pease; it may cost 1 thaler; therefore everything above 12 thalers is an impertinent robbery. (Signed) FREDERICK.' As to building-if we observe the passion for it, whenever it is once engaged in, it may perhaps deserve to be ranked among the highest and most engrossing of human pleasures. The case of Frederick was no exception to this rule. He took an ever fresh delight in the construction of new palaces and in the adornment of the old. In this department, as in most others, he had by his indomitable application acquired both knowledge and skill, and was able, though not always quite successfully, to direct his architects. There commonly lay at his side the volumes of Palladio and Piranesi, from which he would give designs, or suggest ideas, for any of of the new constructions in progress. He never issued any order for a building without a previous estimate of its expense. Yet, notwithstanding this wise precaution, when his palace of Sans Souci came to be completed, he was himself startled at the cost, and ordered that the accounts should be burned, so that no exact knowledge of them might reach posterity. The correspondence of Frederick was most multifarious, extending not only to ministers and statesmen but to many eminent authors and familiar friends. On business his letters were always clear, brief, and to the point, and frequently deserve the praise of an humane and benevolent spirit greatly in advance of his age. Thus, when one of his subjects, in 1782, applied for the use of the Prussian flag in carrying on the slave trade, the King replies as follows: : 'La traite des nègres m'a toujours paru flétrissante pour l'humanité, et jamais je ne l'autoriserai ni la favoriserai par mes actions. D'ailleurs vous prétendez acheter et équiper vos vaisseaux en France et décharger vos marchandises de retour dans tel port de l'Europe que vous jugerez à propos, et c'est encore un motif de plus pour vous refuser mon pavillon. Toutefois si ce négoce a tant d'appas pour vous, vous n'avez qu'à retourner en France pour satisfaire votre goût! Sur ce je prie Dieu qu'il vous ait en sa sainte et digne garde. FEDERIC.'* To estimate the full merit of this letter, let it be remembered how far in the rear was still the feeling of England on this subject at this date of 1782. How large a majority amongst ourselves were still firmly determined to maintain that infamous traffic! How many years of unrewarded toil were still in store for Wilberforce and Clarkson! The letters of Frederick to his friends, personal and literary, seem to us greatly superior in merit and interest to any of his other writings. Though sometimes to our misfortune studded with his own mawkish verses, they are often instructive and almost always entertaining. The following may serve as a short but agreeable specimen of his lighter style. It is addressed to one of his Chamberlains, the veteran Baron Pöllnitz, who had just presented him with an unusual dainty-a turkey fattened upon walnuts. 'MONSIEUR LE BARON-Le dindon que votre Sérénité a eu la bonté de m'envoyer a été servi ce midi sur ma table. On l'a pris pour une autruche, tant il était grand et pompeux; le goût s'en est trouvé admirable; et tous les convives ont convenu avec moi que vous étiez fait pour vous acquitter bien de tout ce que vous entrepreniez. Il me serait douloureux, Monsieur le Baron, de rester en arrière vis à vis de vous, et de * Potsdam, ce 18 Avril, 1782. Urkunden-buch, vol. iv. p. 296. ne ne pas songer à votre cuisine comme vous avez eu la bonté de penser à la mienne; mais comme je n'ai pas trouvé parmi les volatiles d'animal assez grand, et digne de vous être offert, je me suis rejeté sur les quadrupèdes. Je vous avoue que si j'avais pu trouver un éléphant blanc du Chah de Perse, que je me serais fait un plaisir de vous l'envoyer. Faute de cela, j'ai eu recours à un bœuf bien engraissé. Je me suis dit à moimême; un bœuf est un animal utile, laborieux et pesant; c'est mon emblême; l'age qui me mine m'apesantit tous les jours; je voudrais être laborieux et utile, et pour vous l'être en quelque façon vous voudrez bien accepter, Monsieur le Baron, le petit meuble de basse-cour que je prends la liberté de vous offrir; et comme je ne me suis pas fié sur ma propre habileté, je l'ai fait choisir chez le plus expert de tous les engraisSur ce, je prie Dieu, &c. FEDERIC.* seurs. à Potsdam, ce 6 Février, 1765.' We will subjoin the Baron's reply : 'SIRE Je supplie très-humblement votre Majesté d'agréer mes très-humbles remercimens pour le bœuf qu'elle a bien voulu m'envoyer. Si je ne l'ai pas adoré comme le Dieu Apis, je l'ai du moins reçu avec toute la vénération que mérite son air respectable. Une foule de peuple l'a admiré à ma porte, et a cru que je l'en régalerais, et l'a vu conduire avec envie dans mon écurie, dont il ne sortira que pour être sacrifié au plus grand des Monarques; cérémonie qui sera accompagnée de cris sincères de Vive le Roi! Votre Majesté me permettra de finir ma lettre par ce cri, que je réunirai toute ma vie au profond respect avec lequel je suis, Sire, &c. PÖLLNITZ.* Berlin, ce 7 Février, 1765.' But the favourite correspondence of Frederick at the time, as the most interesting to us now, was with Voltaire. Considering the violent and public breach between them in 1753-the contumelious arrest on one side, and the biting pleasantries on the other-it might have been supposed that these two eminent men would have ever thenceforth stood asunder; but the King's admiration for his late prisoner at Frankfort was most ardent and sincere. He thoroughly believed, as he says in more than one passage of his writings, that Voltaire, as an epic poet surpassed Homer, as a tragic poet Sophocles, and as a philosopher Plato. He never doubted that the author of the Henriade,' and of the 'Annales de l'Empire,' would be the main dispenser of fame for his own day. On the other hand, Voltaire was by no means insensible to the honour of numbering a monarch amongst the imitators of his versification and the pupils of his philosophy. Nor can any man who writes history be insensible to the higher merits of him who makes it-who, instead of merely commemorating, performs great deeds. Thus, even in the midst of their * Urkunden-buch, vol. iii. pp. 134, 135. quarrel, quarrel, the seeds of reconciliation remained; and within a very brief period there again arose between them a regular correspondence, and an exchange of graceful compliments. In 1775, for example, the King sent to Ferney a bust of Voltaire in Berlin porcelain, with the motto IMMORTALI; and Voltaire replied in the following lines: 'Je dis à ce héros, dont la main Souveraine Me donne l'immortalité, Vous m'accordez, grand homme, avec trop de bonté, Des terres dans votre domaine!' Avoir vécu dans le siècle de Voltaire; cela me suffit!"* exclaims the King. Je mourrai,' cries the philosopher, avec le regret de n'avoir pas achevé ma vie auprès du plus grand homme de l'Europe, que j'ose aimer autant qu'admirer!' The two friends, however, while thus exchanging laurel crowns, knew each other well; and whenever they wrote or spoke to third parties were far from gentle in their epithets. Sir Andrew Mitchell, for many years our Envoy at Berlin, informs us: What surprises me is, that whenever Voltaire's name is mentioned, his Prussian Majesty never fails to give him the epithets he may deserve, which are the worst heart and greatest rascal now living; and yet with all this he continues to correspond with him!' Voltaire, on his part, handled the character of Frederick with more wit, but equal rancour. In his secret correspondence with D'Alembert and others he often-besides other bitter jests-gives the King a covert nickname intended to convey a most foul reproach. And whenever during the Seven Years' War any disaster befell the Prussian arms, there went forth two sets of letters from Ferney-the one to Frederick expressing his sympathy and sorrow-the other to some Minister or General on the opposite side, urging the Allies to pursue their victory and to complete the ruin of his friend. The rich flow of Frederick's conversation is acknowledged and praised by all who had approached him, and chiefly by those who had themselves a similar skill. In that respect there can be no higher testimony than the following from the Prince de Ligne : Il avait un son de voix fort doux, assez bas, et aussi agréable que le mouvement de ses lèvres, qui avait une grâce inexprimable; c'est ce qui faisait je crois qu'on ne s'apercevait pas qu'il fût, ainsi que les héros d'Homère, un peu babillard mais sublime. On ne pouvait certainement pas trouver un plus grand parleur que le Roi, mais on était charmé qu'il le fut!' It is plain, however, that the King, who was, as we shall presently *A Voltaire, le 24 Juillet, 1775. Au Roi de Prusse, le 11 Février, 1775. see, |