Mr. Carlyle's last Pet.

He would be a bold man who ventured to gainsay Mr. Carlyle's merits as an historian, for they are distinguished by most of the qualities which are now considered indispensable for the historic writer. He possesses an almost Teutonic patience in research, a happy knack of sifting evidence, and an apparently unbounded power of language. But his greatest merit, in spite of his affectation and neologism, is the clearness of his descriptions; and he is probably the only man in England, since we lost Sir W. Napier, who is able to convey to a civilian a precise idea of a battle-scene. As we read the account of the fight of Möllwitz, we fancy that we hear the booming of the heavy guns and the sharp spatter of the file-firing; and amid the accessories and vivid descriptions of side-scenes, we never lose the hero of the day thoroughly out of sight.

Unfortunately, however, great as Mr. Carlyle's merits are, he is not free from the defect of nearly every historian, partiality. Far be it from us to say that he would wilfully distort facts, as a Macaulay has been accused of doing, in order to mould them to his own views. On the contrary, Mr. Carlyle's honesty leads him straight into the trap; a man of strong passions, and more than ordinarily Scotch in his adherence to a preconceived opinion, he has no sooner formed what he conceives to be the true idea of a person or an event than he adheres to it through good and evil report, and no evidence will induce him to swerve. This idiosyncrasy is most strikingly shown in his History of Frederick the Great, where, in the teeth of all evidence to the contrary, he asks our admiration for such a monarch as Frederick William I. of Prussia, and holds him up as a thorough man. Every body knows that Mr. Carlyle has a preference for an autocratic form of government; but it is difficult to credit that so shrewd a writer should exalt the reign of King Bamboo Dei gratiâ. We allow that the character of Frederick William I. was made up of the strangest contrasts: on one side we have coarseness, violence, avarice, and unbridled passion; on the other, piety, purity of morals, and cautious and conscientious care for his nation. While his courtiers might fairly say of him, "Procul à Jove, procul à fulmine," and though very few eyes were wet at his decease, we are bound to do Frederick William I. the justice of saying, that through his economy and organising talent he laid the foundation of Prussia's growing greatness. We may go even further, and say, that had it not been for Frederick William I., there would hardly have been a Frederick the Great. Still, this must not cause us to superexalt him, and some recently-published documents will enable us to explode all Mr. Carlyle's theories.*

To Dr. von Weber, the indefatigable record-keeper of the Saxon

* Aus Vier Jahrhunderten. Von Dr. Karl von Weber. Second series. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz.

archives, we are indebted for a thorough knowledge of this eccentric King. In the year 1734, Count von Manteuffel, after being turned out of the Saxon Cabinet, and let down easily with a pension of 2000 thalers,* emigrated to Berlin, whence he maintained a very regular correspondence with the all-powerful minister Count von Brühl. Manteuffel lived on terms of intimacy with the Prussian King and nobility, and had in his pay a valet at court, who brought him all the floating scandal, which was faithfully reported to Dresden. From this correspondence, which has been duly preserved in the Saxon archives, we will cull such anecdotes as throw a new light on the royal character.

In the autumn of 1734 the King was very ill, and on Grumkow calling to express his regret, his majesty replied, "I trust to give a sound thrashing, before I die, to many a scoundrel who is hoping for my death." The Crown Prince coming in a few minutes after, the persons present prepared to retire; but the King recalled three of his valets, who were in hopes that he was about to recommend them to his successor, but they were greatly deceived. Said the King: "My son, these three fellows are the greatest scoundrels whom I have in my service. They all three deserve hanging, and I hope you will have it done after my death." Upon this one of the valets, who had served the King from his childhood, spoke up, after getting a safe distance from the royal bamboo, and said: "So that is the reward of my long service, and for my having hardly dry bread to eat after forty years' slavery! If we have deserved the rope, why does not your majesty have us hung at once? You would have the pleasure of seeing it, and we should be freed from the harshest and most ungrateful master in the world.” His two comrades expressed their opinion much in the same way. The King fell into a furious passion; but as he could not then seize and punish the daring fellows, he contented himself with a threat of making them eat stick when he got well again. A few days after, the King, falling into a passion with his servants, asked for his pistols, and ordered them to be loaded. No one would obey, however, for each feared lest he might be the target, until an armourer completed the job. The King at once raised his salary by fifty thalers, and laid the loaded pistols by his bedside. The valets, however, straightway fled, and refused to enter the sick-room until the King consented to the pistols being removed.

On August 22d, 1736, the King was walking in the garden at Potsdam, smoking his pipe, when the wife of a hautbois-player appeared before him in tears, and accused her husband of adultery with her maid-servant. The accused man, who was under arrest for another offence, was at once sent for and placed before his accuser. The couple overwhelmed one another with abuse, and a scene took place better suited

The Count's dismissal was thus recorded by King Frederick Augustus, in a note to Baron Gaultier: "Vous orrez (aurez) à demander os (au) Conte Mandeivel qu'il vous remete le sot (sceau) du cabinet ans des affaires estrangères."

for Billingsgate than a royal park. The husband persistently denied his guilt, and was at length sent by his angry monarch to the fortress of Spandau. On the wife stating that her son, a lad of fourteen, was her husband's confidant, he was fetched, and by turns coaxed and threatened, but to no effect. During the investigation a sharp breeze sprang up, and the King ordered a tent to be pitched, in which he resolved to hold a lit de justice. As the boy still refused to confess, Nossig and Hammering, two of the King's buffoons, stripped him and flogged him. The poor boy, to escape the martyrdom, piled one falsehood on the other, but gave no satisfactory answer; and so they were obliged to let him go, if they did not wish to see him die under the lash. As the King, however, had resolved to bring the important affair to a conclusion, Fischbach the musician was again sent for, and as he still refused to tell the truth, four non-commissioned officers were ordered to flog him, which they did with such barbarity that Manteuffel declares, "it will be a marvel if he escape with his life; he had never seen such a martyr of love; the man did not utter a word, but would sooner be beaten to death than betray his beloved." The beaten man was taken back to Spandau, where he in all probability ended his days. The reporter concludes with the words: "I confess that this execution has inspired me with a terror, from which I have not yet recovered; the obstinacy of the hautbois and his son struck me, but less than the tranquillity with which the torture of the unhappy beings was regarded."

The King, when desirous of making any person a present that should cost himself nothing, was wont to give him a privilege in blank for the settlement of a Jew, which the recipient could sell and then introduce the name. These privileges were at first valuable, but fell in price as their number increased. Chamberlain von Pöllnitz, in 1736, became again a member of the Reformed Church, after he had joined the Catholic faith at Paris. The great hopes, however, which he built on this step were awfully disappointed; he only received, as he assured Manteuffel, "with tears in his eyes," two of these privileges, which would not produce more than 700 thalers under the best circumstances.

A clerk in the Excise accused some general officers who stood well with the King of defrauding the revenue, but was unable to substantiate his charges, and was at once dismissed. As he had no private fortune, he was almost starving, when he sent a petition to the King, imploring employment. The King sent him back the letter with the marginal note, manu propriâ, "Go to the devil." The next day, September 30th, 1738, the poor wretch blew out his brains. "Cela s'appelle," Manteuffel remarks, "être exact à exécuter les ordres de son maître."

A theological candidate at Berlin was affected at times by attacks of mania, during which he fancied that he was King of Prussia; but when the attack had passed over, he was the most sensible man in the world. One day, in July 1739, while in a state of madness, he met the King in the street. He addressed him, and told him most seriously that he had

occupied the throne long enough, and it was time for him to surrender it to the rightful owner. The King, who happened to be in a very good temper, asked the stranger to whom he had to give up the throne. Candidate. A pretty question! Why, to me!

King. Who is he, then?

Candidate. I am the King of Prussia.

King. That is strange; he believes that he is the King, and I believe that I am. Does he know what must happen? One of us must go to the madhouse; and the question is, whether it shall be he or I. What is his opinion?

At this moment the candidate came to himself again, and reverently answered the King: "I believe I must go to the madhouse; and if your royal majesty command it, I will proceed there at once, and save your royal majesty the trouble of having me taken there." "He will act wisely in so doing," said the King. The candidate at once walked to the Charité, stated his case to the superintendent, and was admitted.

The King was not very gallant in his behaviour to ladies. Fräulein von Kameke was not pretty, but clever; had a fortune of 100,000 thalers. Of course she had plenty of admirers, but refused them all, as she was resolved to die an old maid. At length Major Count von Dönhoff offered his hand, which was respectfully declined. But the gallant Major did not understand defeat, and applied to the King, who, always delighted to interfere in matters of this nature, readily acted as intermediator. He spoke to the mother and daughter, who replied, with all proper respect, that the Count could entertain no hopes. A few hours after the interview, the ladies were informed that the King left them the choice, whether they would accept the Count's offer, or leave the court and city as beggars. The marriage-ceremony was performed on the same day, to the great regret of the Queen, who was attached to the young lady.

The older the King grew, the more arbitrary became his actions; and nearly every letter of Manteuffel contains some flagrant case of injustice or harshness. The procurator Neander, a highly-respected man, had drawn up a petition on behalf of a clergyman at Halberstadt, and sent it to the King by the usual course, namely, through the hands of a courtier. It so happened that, on the very day when the petition reached the King, he had issued an order prohibiting the custom. Neander, of course, could not anticipate this; but the King, who was in an awful temper, resolved to make a warning example of the innocent man. He had him arrested, and condemned him to wear the Spanish cloak for three days. In vain did the Queen interfere,—in vain did Neander offer to build a new house in Berlin (a mode by which many a man, Manteuffel tells us, escaped the gallows); the King remained obstinate, and the poor man underwent his punishment.

*The cloak was a bell-shaped wooden machine, through openings in which the head and arms issued.

Attacks of mental derangement, to which the King—so Manteuffel was assured by the royal physician-was subjected during the last years of his life, occurred repeatedly in 1740. As a rule, however, they did not last long; and as the King, after such attacks, had moments of perfect lucidity, no one dared to take the measures which would have been for the benefit of the country and the Crown Prince. The bitterness of the King against his son had attained such a height at this time that serious apprehensions were entertained. A trifling incident was the cause. The Prince dined, in January 1740, with the Duke of Brunswick Wolfenbüttel; the conversation turned on the art of governing, and Frederick expressed his opinion, how unjust it was for a regent to oppress his subjects. "Quand je viendrais," he added, “un jour au trône, je serais un vrai roi des gueux." Adjutant-General von Hacke, commonly called " Long Hacke," harmlessly repeated the Prince's remark to the King, who took it very badly. Other circumstances were added: the King wished that the Prince should pledge himself on oath to make no change after his father's death in the colleges, army, and regulations; not attack the treasury; and only employ persons of whom the King drew up a list. The Prince, though he did not generally dare to contradict his father, refused to subscribe to these conditions, which would have rendered governing an impossibility. While the King's avarice seemed to be augmented by his illness, and he took a delight in going through the list and cutting away small pensions or reducing salaries, the Prince tried to alleviate this severity from his own restricted means. Manteuffel gives numerous instances of this charity, and tells how the Prince once gave his last ten thalers to a poor woman, whose pension the King had stopped; and he even ran considerably into debt, in order to help the unfortunate. If in this way he gained the affections of the people, he irritated his father, who heard of it through the spies whom he had in his son's palace. He therefore sought to insult the Prince in every possible way, and spoke about him with the utmost bitterness. On January 31st, 1740, he said: "I am not at all sorry that I am going to die, for the man who fears death is a cur; but what I really regret is, that I shall have such a monster as my son to succeed me." Another of his expressions was: "I know very well what is the meaning of the many bows; but I will have some heads cut off like turnips, and then it will be proved whether the boy or I am Burgomaster of Berlin." Even the display of ordinary civility to the Prince offended him. One evening, when Frederick entered his father's room, and all the persons present rose, the King shouted angrily: "Sit down again;" and when the Prince did not at once obey, and the others consequently remained standing, he cried: "Sit down again, in the fiend's name, or else go to the devil." Another time he declared that he had only one thing to reproach himself with,-that he had not had the Prince executed ten years before. In order to arouse the Crown Prince, who never forgot his reverence for his father, he would call him sarcastically sire and