devoted no less than 24,000 to purposes of charity. Like Frederick she had a taste for literature; but, unlike him, loved to encourage the German rather than the French; and, unlike him also, she was embued with a deep and fervent, though unostentatious, feeling of religion. For some years Frederick, dreading the resentment of his imperious and brutal father, had lived with her on apparently good terms; but on his own accession to the throne he allotted to her the château of Schönhausen for her separate residence. To the end of her life she never even saw the new palaces at Potsdam. At Berlin, however, during winter, she had apartments in the Royal Palace: the King used to dine with her in state three or four times every year, and on all occasions showed her, as her character deserved, marks of his high respect and esteem. But the union had been, from the first, a constrained one; and he had little taste for hers, or indeed for any female, society; men were, on all occasions, his chosen and favourite companions.

There are some points however, real or alleged, in Frederick's private life, which we do not wish to discuss at large. We shall waive any further testimony, and merely insert without comment the following extract from a despatch of our own distinguished countryman, Lord Malmesbury, when Envoy at Berlin:

At these moments when he (Frederick) lays aside the Monarch and indulges himself in every kind of debauchery, he never suffers the instruments or partakers of these excesses to have the smallest influence over him. Some few he has rewarded; discarded several; but left most of them in the same situation he found them.'*

The conduct of Frederick, as a master and in his household, cannot be held deserving of praise. Some of his warmest admirers, as Dr. Preuss, acknowledge that he was extremely harsh towards his servants, chary in wages or rewards to them; but, on the other hand, liberal of sharp reproofs and of blows both with his fist and with his cane. These, however, were their lighter punishments: when their offences seemed more serious they were at once discarded, or sent to prison, or enlisted as common soldiers. Thus, for instance, one valet de chambre named Deesen or Deiss was thought to have embezzled some money, and had been ordered to enter the army as a drummer, when, on the 23rd of July, 1775, the unhappy man put a pistol to his head, and fell a corpse in Frederick's own ante-chamber. The King was startled at the noise, and asked what had happened; on being told, he only remarked, 'I did not think that the fellow had so much courage.'+

* Despatch to the Earl of Suffolk, Berlin, March 18, 1776. + Compare Preuss, Lebens-Geschichte, vol. i. p. 424, note, with the despatch of Lord Malmesbury of July 29, 1775, giving a milder version of the King's reply.

Frederick

Frederick used to show especial anger and displeasure whenever any man-servant contracted either matrimony or a less legitimate connexion with the other sex. The same prejudice subsisted against the marriages of his familiar friends and associates, as D'Argens, Quintus Icilius, and Le Catt. It is said, however, that in the last few years of Frederick's life, and when himself probably conscious of decay, he had become in all respects less ungracious and exacting to his household.

But although gusts and sallies of passion were by no means uncommon with Frederick, we scarcely ever find them impel him in the transaction of state-business. A few cases to the contrary might be gathered from Dr. Preuss's volumes, but should be considered as only exceptions. Thus, on one occasion, a young man, a Land-Rath, in Brandenburg, wrote to the King to state that a flight of locusts had appeared in his district. The King, in his answer, expressed his disbelief that any of the plagues of Egypt could have strayed so far north. Upon this the young Land-Rath sent to Court some of the locusts in a box with air-holes, which box was no sooner opened by Frederick than the locusts emerged and flew about the room, to his Majesty's great annoyance and ire. He immediately despatched a Cabinet order, which still exists, under the date of September 27, 1779, directing that in future no man shall be admitted a Land-Rath without being at least thirty-five years of age-his Majesty, it adds, being determined to have henceforth no children nor pert young fellows' in office -[Kinder und junge nase-weise].

Another curious point in Frederick's private life was his passion for snuff and for lap-dogs. Of the former, Lord Malmesbury (Diaries, vol. i. p. 6) speaks as follows:

'The King is a great taker of snuff. I could not even get a sight of his snuff-boxes, of which he has a most magnificent collection. That he carries is of an enormous size; and he takes it not by pinches, but by handfuls. It is difficult to approach him without sneezing. They pretend that the perquisite that comes to the valets de chambre from the snuff they get by drying his handkerchiefs is very considerable.' With respect to his four-footed favourites, the King had always about him several small English greyhounds; but of these only one was in favour at a time, the others being taken merely as companions and playmates to the fondling. Thus the others were carried out at night and brought in again in the morning, while the chosen one slept in his Majesty's own bed, and by day was allowed a special chair, well cushioned, and close at his side. All of them, however, had licence as they pleased to jump over or to sprawl upon the most costly articles of furniture; and stuffed leather

balls,

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