History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XVI Part 9

A thing of more importance to us, two months after that catastrophe in London, is Friedrich's first Visit to Ost-Friesland. May 31st, having done his Berlin-Potsdam Reviews and other current affairs, Friedrich sets out on this Excursion. With Ost-Friesland for goal, but much business by the way. Towards Magdeburg, and a short visit to the Brunswick Kindred, first of all. There is much reviewing in the Magdeburg quarter, and thereafter in the Wesel; and reviewing and visiting all along: through Minden, Bielfeld, Lingen: not till July 13th does he cross the Ost-Friesland Border, and enter Embden. His three Brothers, and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, were with him.

[--Helden-Geschichte,--iii. 506; Seyfarth, ii. 145; Rodenbeck, i. 216 (who gives a foolish German myth, of Voltaire's being pa.s.sed off for the King's Baboon, &c.; Voltaire not being there at all).] On catching view of Ost-Friesland Border, see, on the Border-Line, what an Arch got on its feet: Triumphal Arch, of frondent ornaments, inscriptions and insignia; "of quite extraordinary magnificence;" Arch which "sets every one into the agreeablest admiration." Above a hundred such Arches spanned the road at different points; mult.i.tudinous enthusiasm reverently escorting, "more than 20,000" by count: till we enter Embden; where all is cannon-salvo, and three-times-three; the thunder-shots continuing, "above 2,000 of them from the walls, not to speak of response from the s.h.i.+ps in harbor." Embden glad enough, as would appear, and Ost-Friesland glad enough, to see their new King. July 13th, 1751; after waiting above six years.

Next day, his Majesty gave audience to the new "Asiatic s.h.i.+pping Company" (of which anon), to the Stande, and Magisterial persons;--with many questions, I doubt not, about your new embankments, new improvements, prospects; there being much procedure that way, in all manner of kinds, since the new Dynasty came in, now six years ago.

Embankments on your River, wide s.p.a.ces changed from ooze to meadow; on the Dollart still more, which has lain 500 years hidden from the sun. Does any reader know the Dollart? Ost-Friesland has awakened to wonderful new industries within these six years; urged and guided by the new King, who has great things in view for it, besides what are in actual progress.

That of dikes, sea-embankments, for example; to Ost-Friesland, as to Holland, they are the first condition of existence; and, in the past times, of extreme Parliamentary vitality, have been slipping a good deal out of repair. Ems River, in those flat rainy countries, has ploughed out for itself a very wide embouchure, as boundary between Groningen and Ost-Friesland. Muddy Ems, bickering with the German Ocean, does not forget to act, if Parliamentary Commissioners do. These dikes, 120 miles of dike, mainly along both banks of this muddy Ems River, are now water-tight again, to the comfort of flax and clover: and this is but one item of the diking now on foot. Readers do not know the Dollart, that uppermost round gulf, not far from Embden itself, in the waste embouchure of Ems with its continents of mud and tide. Five hundred years ago, that ugly whirl of muddy surf, 100 square miles in area, was a fruitful field, "50 Villages upon it, one Town, several Monasteries and 50,000 souls:" till on Christmas midnight A.D. 1277, the winds and the storm-rains having got to their height, Ocean and Ems did, "about midnight," undermine the place, folded it over like a friable bedquilt or monstrous doomed griddle-cake, and swallowed it all away. Most of it, they say, that night, the whole of it within ten years coming; [Busching,--Erdbeschreibung,--v. 845, 846; Preuss, i. 308, 309.]--and there it has hung, like an unlovely GOITRE at the throat of Embden, ever since. One little dot of an Island, with six houses on it, near the Embden sh.o.r.e, is all that is left. Where probably his Majesty landed (July 15th, being in a Yacht that day); but did not see, afar off, the "sunk steeple-top," which is fabled to be visible at low-water.

Upon this Dollart itself there is now to be diking tried; King's Domain-Kammer showing the example. Which Official Body did accordingly (without Blue-Books, but in good working case otherwise) break ground, few months hence; and victoriously achieved a POLDER, or Diked Territory, "worth about 2,000 pounds annually;" "which, in 1756, was sold to the STANDE;" at twenty-five years purchase, let us say, or for 50,000 pounds. An example of a convincing nature; which many others, and ever others, have followed since; to gradual considerable diminution of the Dollart, and relief of Ost-Friesland on this side. Furtherance of these things is much a concern of Friedrich's. The second day after his arrival, those audiences and ceremonials done, Friedrich and suite got on board a Yacht, and sailed about all over this Dollart, twenty miles out to sea; dined on board; and would have, if the weather was bright (which I hope), a pleasantly edifying day. The harbor is much in need of dredging, the building docks considerably in disrepair; but shall be refitted if this King live and prosper. He has declared Embden a "Free-Haven," inviting trade to it from all peaceable Nations;--and readers do not know (though Sir Jonas Hanway and the jealous mercantile world well did) what magnificent s.h.i.+pping Companies and Sea-Enterprises, of his devising, are afoot there. Of which, one word, and no second shall follow:

"September 1st, 1750, those Carrousel gayeties scarce done, 'The Asiatic Trading Company' stept formally into existence; Embden the Head-quarters of it; [Patent, or FREYHEITS-BRIEF in--Helden-Geschichte,--iii. 457, 458.] chief Manager a Ritter De la Touche; one of the Directors our fantastic Bielfeld, thus turned to practical value. A Company patronized, in all ways, by the King; but, for the rest, founded, not on his money; founded on voluntary shares, which, to the regret of Hanway and others, have had much popularity in commercial circles. Will trade to China. A thing looked at with umbrage by the English, by the Dutch.

A shame that English people should encourage such schemes, says Hanway. Which nevertheless many Dutch and many English private persons do,--among the latter, one English Lady (name unknown, but I always suspect 'Miss Barbara Wyndham, of the College, Salisbury'), concerning whom there will be honorable notice by and by.

"At the time of Friedrich's visit, the Asiatic Company is in full vogue; making ready its first s.h.i.+p for Canton. First s.h.i.+p, KONIG VON PREUSSEN (tons burden not given), actually sailed 17th February next (1752); and was followed by a second, named TOWN OF EMBDEN, on the 19th of September following; both of which prosperously reached Canton, and prosperously returned with cargoes of satisfactory profit. The first of them, KONIG VON PREUSSEN, had been boarded in the Downs by an English Captain Thomson and his Frigate, and detained some days,--till Thomson 'took Seven English seamen out of her.' 'Act of Parliament, express!' said his Grace of Newcastle. Which done, Thomson found that the English jealousies would have to hold their hand; no farther, whatever one's wishes may be.

"Nay within a year hence, January 24th, 1753, Friedrich founded another Company for India: 'BENGALISCHE HANDELS-GESELLSCHAFT;' which also sent out its pair of s.h.i.+ps, perhaps oftener than once; and pointed, as the other was doing, to wide fields of enterprise, for some time. But luck was wanting. And, 'in part, mismanagement,' and, in whole, the Seven-Years War put an end to both Companies before long. Friedrich is full of these thoughts, among his other Industrialisms; and never quits them for discouragement, but tries again, when the obstacles cease to be insuperable. Ever since the acquisition of Ost-Friesland, the furtherance of Sea-Commerce had been one of Friedrich's chosen objects.

'Let us carry our own goods at least, Silesian linens, Memel timbers, stock-fish; what need of the Dutch to do it?' And in many branches his progress had been remarkable,--especially in this carrying trade, while the War lasted, and crippled all Anti-English belligerents. Upon which, indeed, and the conduct of the English Privateers to him, there is a Controversy going on with the English Court in those years (began in 1747), most distressful to his Grace of Newcastle;--which in part explains those stingy procedures of Captain Thomson ('Home, you seven English sailors!') when the first Canton s.h.i.+p put to sea. That Controversy is by no means ended after three years, but on the contrary, after two years more, comes to a crisis quite shocking to his Grace of Newcastle, and defying all solution on his Grace's side,--the other Party, after such delays, five years waiting, having settled it for himself!" Of which, were the crisis come, we will give some account.

On the third day of his Visit, Friedrich drove to Aurich, the seat of Government, and official little capital of Ost-Friesland; where triumphal arches, joyful reverences, concourses, demonstrations, sumptuous Dinner one item, awaited his Majesty: I know not if, in the way thither or back, he pa.s.sed those "Three huge Oaks [or the rotted stems or roots of them] under which the Ancient Frisians, Lords of all between Weser and Rhine, were wont to a.s.semble in Parliament" (WITHOUT Fourth Estate, or any Eloquence except of the purely Business sort),--or what his thoughts on the late Ost-Friesland Bandbox Parliaments may have been! He returned to Embden that night; and on the morrow started homewards; we may fancy, tolerably pleased with what he had seen.

"King Friedrich's main Objects of Pursuit in this Period," says a certain Author, whom we often follow, "I define as being Three. 1.

Reform of the Law; 2. Furtherance of Husbandry and Industry in all kinds, especially of s.h.i.+pping from Embden; 3. Improvement of his own Domesticities and Household Enjoyments,"--renewal of the Reinsberg Program, in short.

"In the First of these objects," continues he, "King Friedrich's success was very considerable, and got him great fame in the world. In his Second head of efforts, that of improving the Industries and Husbandries among his People, his success, though less noised of in foreign parts, was to the near observer still more remarkable. A perennial business with him, this; which, even in the time of War, he never neglects; and which springs out like a stemmed flood, whenever Peace leaves him free for it. His labors by all methods to awaken new branches of industry, to cherish and further the old, are incessant, manifold, unwearied; and will surprise the uninstructed reader, when he comes to study them.

An airy, poetizing, bantering, lightly brilliant King, supposed to be serious mainly in things of War, how is he moiling and toiling, like an ever-vigilant Land-Steward, like the most industrious City Merchant, hardest-working Merchant's Clerk, to increase his industrial Capital by any the smallest item!

"One day, these things will deserve to be studied to the bottom; and to be set forth, by writing hands that are competent, for the instruction and example of Workers,--that is to say, of all men, Kings most of all, when there are again Kings. At present, I can only say they astonish me, and put me to shame: the unresting diligence displayed in them, and the immense sum-total of them,--what man, in any the n.o.blest pursuit, can say that he has stood to it, six-and-forty years long, in the style of this man? Nor did the harvest fail; slow sure harvest, which sufficed a patient Friedrich in his own day; harvest now, in our day, visible to everybody: in a Prussia all shooting into manufactures, into commerces, opulences,--I only hope, not TOO fast, and on more solid terms than are universal at present! Those things might be didactic, truly, in various points, to this Generation; and worth looking back upon, from its high LAISSEZ-FAIRE alt.i.tudes, its triumphant Scrip-transactions and continents of gold-nuggets,--pleasing, it doubts not, to all the G.o.ds.

To write well of what is called 'Political Economy' (meaning thereby increase of money's-worth) is reckoned meritorious, and our nearest approach to the rational sublime. But to accomplish said increase in a high and indisputable degree; and indisputably very much by your own endeavors wisely regulating those of others, does not that approach still nearer the sublime?

"To prevent disappointment, I ought to add that Friedrich is the reverse of orthodox in 'Political Economy;' that he had not faith in Free-Trade, but the reverse;--nor had ever heard of those ultimate Evangels, unlimited Compet.i.tion, fair Start, and perfervid Race by all the world (towards 'CHEAP-AND-NASTY,' as the likeliest winning-post for all the world), which have since been vouchsafed us. Probably in the world there was never less of a Free-Trader! Constraint, regulation, encouragement, discouragement, reward, punishment; these he never doubted were the method, and that government was good everywhere if wise, bad only if not wise. And sure enough these methods, where human justice and the earnest sense and insight of a Friedrich preside over them, have results, which differ notably from opposite cases that can be imagined! The desperate notion of giving up government altogether, as a relief from human blockheadism in your governors, and their want even of a wish to be just or wise, had not entered into the thoughts of Friedrich; nor driven him upon trying to believe that such, in regard to any Human Interest whatever, was, or could be except for a little while in extremely developed cases, the true way of managing it. How disgusting, accordingly, is the Prussia of Friedrich to a Hanbury Williams; who has bad eyes and dirty spectacles, and hates Friedrich: how singular and lamentable to a Mirabeau Junior, who has good eyes, and loves him!

No knave, no impertinent blockhead even, can follow his own beautiful devices here; but is instantly had up, or comes upon a turnpike strictly shut for him. 'Was the like ever heard of?' snarls Hanbury furiously (as an angry dog might, in a labyrinth it sees not the least use for): 'What unspeakable want of liberty!'--and reads to you as if he were lying outright; but generally is not, only exaggerating, tumbling upside down, to a furious degree; knocking against the labyrinth HE sees not the least use for. Mirabeau's Gospel of Free-Trade, preached in 1788, [MONARCHIE PRUSSIENNE he calls it (A LONDRES, privately Paris, 1788), 8 vols. 8vo; which is a Dead-Sea of Statistics, compiled by industrious Major Mauvillon, with this fresh current of a "Gospel" s.h.i.+ning through it, very fresh and brisk, of few yards breadth;--dedicated to Papa, the true PROTevangelist of the thing.]--a comparatively recent Performance, though now some seventy or eighty years the senior of an English (unconscious) Fac-simile, which we have all had the pleasure of knowing,--will fall to be noticed afterwards [not by this Editor, we hope!]

"Many of Friedrich's restrictive notions,--as that of watching with such anxiety that 'money' (gold or silver coin) be not carried out of the Country,--will be found mistakes, not in orthodox Dismal Science as now taught, but in the nature of things; and indeed the Dismal Science will generally excommunicate them in the lump,--too. heedless that Fact has conspicuously vindicated the general sum-total of them, and declared it to be much truer than it seems to the Dismal Science. Dismal Science (if that were important to me) takes insufficient heed, and does not discriminate between times past and times present, times here and times there."

Certain it is, King Friedrich's success in National Husbandry was very great. The details of the very many new Manufactures, new successful ever-spreading Enterprises, fostered into existence by Friedrich; his Ca.n.a.l-makings, Road-makings, Bog-drainings, Colonizings and unwearied endeavorings in that kind, will require a Technical Philosopher one day; and will well reward such study, and trouble of recording in a human manner; but must lie ma.s.sed up in mere outline on the present occasion.

Friedrich, as Land-Father, Shepherd of the People, was great on the Husbandry side also; and we are to conceive him as a man of excellent practical sense, doing unweariedly his best in that kind, all his life long. Alone among modern Kings; his late Father the one exception; and even his Father hardly surpa.s.sing him in that particular.

In regard to Embden and the s.h.i.+pping interests, Ost-Friesland awakened very ardent speculations, which were a novelty in Prussian affairs; nothing of Foreign Trade, except into the limited Baltic, had been heard of there since the Great Elector's time. The Great Elector had s.h.i.+ps, Forts on the Coast of Africa; and tried hard for Atlantic Trade,--out of this same Embden; where, being summoned to protect in the troubles, he had got some footing as Contingent Heir withal, and kept a "Prussian Battalion" a good while. And now, on much fairer terms, not less diligently turned to account, it is his Great-Grandson's turn.

Friedrich's successes in this department, the rather as Embden and Ost-Friesland have in our time ceased to be Prussian, are not much worth speaking of; but they connect themselves with some points still slightly memorable to us. How, for example, his vigilantes and endeavors on this score brought him into rubbings, not collisions, but jealousies and gratings, with the English and Dutch, the reader will see anon.

Law-reform is gloriously prosperous; Husbandry the like, and s.h.i.+pping Interest itself as yet. But in the Third grand Head, that of realizing the Reinsberg Program, beautifying his Domesticities, and bringing his own Hearth and Household nearer the Ideal, Friedrich was nothing like so successful; in fact had no success at all. That flattering Reinsberg Program, it is singular how Friedrich cannot help trying it by every new chance, nor cast the notion out of him that there must be a kind of Muses'-Heaven realizable on Earth! That is the Biographic Phenomenon which has survived of those Years; and to that we will almost exclusively address ourselves, on behalf of ingenuous readers.

Chapter IX.--SECOND ACT OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT.

Voltaire's Visit lasted, in all, about Thirty-two Months; and is divisible into Three Acts or Stages. The first we have seen: how it commenced in brightness as of the sun, and ended, by that Hirsch business, in whirlwinds of smoke and soot,--Voltaire retiring, on his pa.s.sionate prayer, to that silent Country-house which he calls the Marquisat; there to lie in hospital, and wash himself a little, and let the skies wash themselves.

The Hirsch business having blown over, as all things do, Voltaire resumed his place among the Court-Planets, and did his revolutions; striving to forget that there ever was a Hirsch, or a soot-explosion of that nature. In words n.o.body reminded him of it, the King least of all: and by degrees matters were again tolerably glorious, and all might have gone well enough; though the primal perfect splendor, such fuliginous reminiscence being ineffaceable, never could be quite re-attained. The diamond Cross of Merit, the Chamberlain gold Key, hung bright upon the man; a man the admired of men. He had work to do: work of his own which he reckoned priceless (that immortal SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE; which he stood by, and honestly did, while here; the one fixed axis in those fooleries and whirlings of his);--work for the King, "two hours, one hour, a day," which the King reckoned priceless in its sort. For Friedrich himself Voltaire has, with touches of real love coming out now and then, a very sincere admiration mixed with fear; and delights in s.h.i.+ning to him, and being well with him, as the greatest pleasure now left in life. Besides the King, he had society enough, French in type, and brilliant enough: plenty of society; or, at his wish, what was still better, none at all. He was bedded, boarded, lodged, as if beneficent fairies had done it for him; and for all these things no price asked, you might say, but that he would not throw himself out of window! Had the man been wise--But he was not wise. He had, if no big gloomy devil in him among the bright angels that were there, a mult.i.tude of ravening tumultuary imps, or little devils very ILL-CHAINED; and was lodged, he and his restless little devils, in a skin far too thin for him and them!--

Reckoning up the matter, one cannot find that Voltaire ever could have been a blessing at Berlin, either for Friedrich or himself; and it is to be owned that Friedrich was not wise in so longing for him, or clasping him so frankly in his arms. As Friedrich, by this time, probably begins to discover;--though indeed to Friedrich the thing is of finite moment; by no means of infinite, as it was to Voltaire. "At worst, nothing but a little money thrown away!" thinks Friedrich: "Sure enough, this is a strange Trismegistus, this of mine: star fire-work shall we call him, or terrestrial smoke-and-soot work? But one can fence oneself against the blind vagaries of the man; and get a great deal of good by him, in the lucid intervals." To Voltaire himself the position is most agitating; but then its glories, were there nothing more! Besides he is always thinking to quit it shortly; which is a great sedative in troubles.

What with intermittencies (safe hidings in one's MARQUISAT, or vacant interlunar cave), with alternations of offence and reconcilement; what with occasional actual flights to Paris (whitherward Voltaire is always busy to keep a postern open; and of which there is frequent talk, and almost continual thought, all along), flights to be called "visits,"

and privately intending to be final, but never proving so,--the Voltaire-Friedrich relation, if left to itself, might perhaps long have staggered about, and not ended as it did.

But, alas, no relation can be left to itself in this world,--especially if you have a porous skin! There were other French here, as well as Voltaire, revolving in the Court-circle; and that, beyond all others, proved the fatal circ.u.mstance to him. "NE SAVEZ-VOUS PAS, Don't you know," said he to Chancellor Jarriges one day, "that when there are two Frenchmen in a Foreign Court or Country, one of them must die (FAUT QUE L'UN DES DEUX PERISSE)?" [Seyfarth, ii. 191; &c. &c.] Which shocked the mind of Jarriges; but had a kind of truth, too. Jew Hirsch, run into for low smuggling purposes, had been a Cape of Storms, difficult to weather; but the continual leesh.o.r.e were those French,--with a heavy gale on, and one of the rashest pilots! He did strike the breakers there, at last; and it is well known, total s.h.i.+pwreck was the issue. Our Second Act, holding out dubiously, in continual perils, till Autumn, 1752, will have to pa.s.s then into a Third of darker complexion, and into a Catastrophe very dark indeed.

Catastrophe which, by farther ill accident, proved noisy in the extreme; producing world-wide shrieks from the one party, stone-silence from the other; which were answered by unlimited hooting, catcalling and haha-ing from all parts of the World-Theatre, upon both the shrieky and the silent party; catcalling not fallen quite dead to this day. To Friedrich the catcalling was not momentous (being used to such things); though to poor Voltaire it was unlimitedly so:--and to readers interested in this memorable Pair of Men, the rights and wrongs of the Affair ought to be rendered authentically conceivable, now at last. Were it humanly possible,--after so much catcalling at random! Smelfungus has a right to say, speaking of this matter:--

"Never was such a jumble of loud-roaring ignorances, delusions and confusions, as the current Records of it are. Editors, especially French Editors, treating of a Hyperborean, Cimmerian subject, like this, are easy-going creatures. And truly they have left it for us in a wonderful state. Dateless, much of it, by nature; and, by the lazy Editors, MISdated into very chaos; jumbling along there, in mad defiance of top and bottom; often the very Year given wrong:--full everywhere of lazy darkness, irradiated only by stupid rages, ill-directed mockeries:--and for issue, cheerfully malicious hootings from the general mob of mankind, with unbounded contempt of their betters; which is not pleasant to see. When mobs do get together, round any signal object; and editorial gentlemen, with talent for it, pour out from their respective barrel-heads, in a persuasive manner, instead of knowledge, ignorance set on fire, they are capable of carrying it far!--Will it be possible to pick out the small glimmerings of real light, from this mad dance of will-o'-wisps and fire-flies thrown into agitation?"

It will be very difficult, my friend;--why did not you yourself do it?

Most true, "those actual Voltaire-Friedrich LETTERS of the time are a resource, and pretty much the sole one: Letters a good few, still extant; which all HAD their bit of meaning; and have it still, if well tortured till they give it out, or give some glimmer of it out:"--but you have not tortured them; you have left it to me, if I would! As I a.s.suredly will not (never fear, reader!)--except in the thriftiest degree.

DETACHED FEATURES (NOT FABULOUS) OF VOLTAIRE AND HIS BERLIN-POTSDAM ENVIRONMENT IN 1751-1752.

To the outside crowd of observers, and to himself in good moments, Voltaire represents his situation as the finest in the world:--

"Potsdam is Sparta and Athens joined in one; nothing but reviewing and poetry day by day. The Algarottis, the Maupertuises, are here; have each his work, serious for himself; then gay Supper with a King, who is a great man and the soul of good company."... Sparta and Athens, I tell you: "a Camp of Mars and the Garden of Epicurus; trumpets and violins, War and Philosophy. I have my time all to myself; am at Court and in freedom,--if I were not entirely free, neither an enormous Pension, nor a Gold Key tearing out one's pocket, nor a halter (LICOU), which they call CORDON of an ORDER, nor even the Suppers with a Philosopher who has gained Five Battles, could yield me the least happiness."

[--OEuvres,--lxxiv. 325, 326, 333 (Letters, to D'Argental and others, "27th April-8th May, 1751").] Looked at by you, my outside friends,--ah, had I health and YOU here, what a situation!

But seen from within, it is far otherwise. Alongside of these warblings of a heart grateful to the first of Kings, there goes on a series of utterances to Niece Denis, remarkable for the misery driven into meanness, that can be read in them. Ill-health, discontent, vague terror, suspicion that dare not go to sleep; a strange vague terror, shapeless or taking all shapes--a body diseased and a mind diseased.

Fear, quaking continually for nothing at all, is not to be borne in a handsome manner. And it pa.s.ses, often enough (in these poor LETTERS), into transient malignity, into gusts of trembling hatred, with a tendency to relieve oneself by private scandal of the house we are in.

Seldom was a miserabler wrong-side seen to a bit of royal tapestry. A man hunted by the little devils that dwell unchained within himself; like Pentheus by the Maenads, like Actaeon by his own Dogs. Nay, without devils, with only those terrible bowels of mine, and s...o...b..tic gums, it is bad enough: "Glorious promotions to me here," sneers he bitterly; "but one thing is indisputable, I have lost seven of my poor residue of teeth since I came!" In truth, we are in a sadly s...o...b..tic state; and that, and the devils we lodge within ourselves, is the one real evil.

Could not Suspicion--why cannot she!--take her natural rest; and all these terrors vanish? Oh, M. de Voltaire!--The practical purport, to Niece Denis, always is: Keep my retreat to Paris open; in the name of Heaven, no obstruction that way!

Miserable indeed; a man fatally unfit for his present element! But he has Two considerable Sedatives, all along; two, and no third visible to me. Sedative FIRST: that, he can, at any time, quit this ill.u.s.trious Tartarus-Elysium, the envy of mankind;--and indeed, practically, he is always as if on the slip; thinking to be off shortly, for a time, or in permanence; can be off at once, if things grow too bad. Sedative SECOND is far better: His own labor on LOUIS QUATORZE, which is steadily going on, and must have been a potent quietus in those Court-whirlwinds inward and outward.

From Berlin, already in Autumn, 1750, Voltaire writes to D'Argental: "I sha'n't go to Italy this Autumn [nor ever in my life], as I had projected. But I will come to see YOU in the course of November" (far from it, I got into STEUER-SCHEINE then!)--And again, after some weeks: "I have put off my journey to Italy for a year. Next Winter too, therefore, I shall see you," on the road thither. "To my Country, since you live in it, I will make frequent visits," very!" Italy and the King of Prussia are two old pa.s.sions with me; but I cannot treat Frederic-le-Grand as I can the Holy Father, with a mere look in pa.s.sing." [To D'Argental, "Berlin, 14th September,--Potsdam, 15th October, 1750" (--OEuvres,--lxxiv. 220, 237).] Let this one, to which many might be added, serve as sample of Sedative First, or the power and intention to be off before long.

In regard to Sedative Second, again:... "The happiest circ.u.mstance is, brought with me all my LOUIS-FOURTEENTH Papers and Excerpts. 'I get from Leipzig, if no nearer, whatever Books are needed;'" and labor faithfully at this immortal Production. Yes, day by day, to see growing, by the cunning of one's own right hand, such perennial Solomon's-Temple of a SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE:--which of your Kings, or truculent, Tiglath-Pilesers, could do that? To poor me, even in the Potsdam tempests, it is possible: what ugliest day is not beautiful that sees a stone or two added there!--Daily Voltaire sees himself at work on his SIECLE, on those fine terms; trowel in one hand, weapon of war in the other. And does actually accomplish it, in the course of this Year 1751,--with a great deal of punctuality and severe painstaking; which readers of our day, fallen careless of the subject, are little aware of, on Voltaire's behalf. Voltaire's reward was, that he did NOT go mad in that Berlin element, but had throughout a bower-anchor to ride by. "The King of France continues me as Gentleman of the Chamber, say you; but has taken away my t.i.tle of Historiographer? That latter, however, shall still be my function. 'My present independence has given weight to my verdicts on matters. Probably I never could have written this Book at Paris.' A consolation for one's exile, MON ENFANT." [To Niece Denis (--OEuvres,--lxxiv. 247, &c. &c.), "28th October, 1750," and subsequent dates.]

It is proper also to observe that, besides s.h.i.+ning at the King's Suppers like no other, Voltaire applies himself honestly to do for his Majesty the small work required of him,--that of Verse-correcting now and then.

Two Specimens exist; two Pieces criticised, ODE AUX PRUSSIENS, and THE ART OF WAR: portions of that Reprint now going on ("to the extent of Twelve Copies,"--woe lies in one of them, most unexpected at this time!) "AU DONJON DU CHATEAU;"--under benefit of Voltaire's remarks. Which one reads curiously, not without some surprise. [In--OEuvres de Frederic,--x. 276-303.] Surprise, first at Voltaire's official fidelity; his frankness, rigorous strictness in this small duty: then at the kind of correcting, instructing and lessoning, that had been demanded of him by his Royal Pupil. Mere grammatical stylistic skin-deep work: nothing (or, at least, in these Specimens nothing) of attempt upon the interior structure, or the interior harmony even of utterance: solely the Parisian niceties, graces, laws of poetic language, the FAS and the NEFAS in regard to all that: this is what his Majesty would fain be taught from the fountain-head;--one wonders his Majesty did not learn to spell, which might have been got from a lower source!--And all this Voltaire does teach with great strictness. For example, in the very first line, in the very first word, set, before him:--

"PRUSSIENS, QUE LA VALEUR CONDUISIT A LA GLOIRE," so Friedrich had written (ODE AUX PRUSSIENS, which is specimen First); and thus Voltaire criticises: "The Hero here makes his PRUSSIENS of two syllables; and afterwards, in another strophe, he grants them three. A King is master of his favors. At the same time, one does require a little uniformity; and the IENS are usually of two syllables, as LIENS, SILESIENS, AUTRICHIENS; excepting the monosyllables BIEN, RIEN"--Enough, enough!--A severe, punctual, painstaking Voltaire, sitting with the schoolmaster's bonnet on head; ferula visible, if not actually in hand. For which, as appears, his Majesty was very grateful to the Trismegistus of men.

Voltaire's flatteries to Friedrich, in those scattered little Billets with their s.n.a.t.c.hes of verse, are the prettiest in the world,--and approach very near to sincerity, though seldom quite attaining it.

Something traceable of false, of suspicious, feline, nearly always, in those seductive warblings; which otherwise are the most melodious bits of idle ingenuity the human brain has ever spun from itself. For instance, this heading of a Note sent from one room to another,--perhaps with pieces of an ODE AUX PRUSSIENS accompanying:--

--"Vou gui daignez me departir Les fruits d'une Muse divine, O roi! je ne puis consentir Que, sans daigner m'en avertir, Vous alliez prendre medecine.

Je suis votre malade-ne, Et sur la ca.s.se et le sene, J'ai des notions non communes.

Nous sommes de mene metier; Faut-il de moi vous defier, Et cacher vos bonnes fortunes?"--

Was there ever such a turn given to taking physic! Still better is this other, the topic worse,--HAEMORRHOIDS (a kind of annual or periodical affair with the Royal Patient, who used to feel improved after):--