who could. [Last
Kettler, Anne's Husband, died (leaving only an old Uncle, fallen Into
Papistry and other futility, who, till his death some twenty years
after, had to reside abroad and be nominal merely), 1711; Moritz's
attempt with Adrienne Lecouvreur's cash was, 1726; Anne became Sovereign
of all the Russias (on her poor Cousin Peter II.'s death), 1730; Bieren
(BIRON as he tried to write himself, being of poor birth) did not get
installed till 1737; and had, he and Courland both, several tumbles
after that before getting to stable equilibrium.]--We hurry to the
"Grand Apartment" in Berlin Schloss, and glance rapidly, with Wilhelmina
(in an abridged form), how magnificent it is:--

Royal Apartment, third floor of the Palace at Berlin, one must say, few
things equal it in the world. "From the Outer Saloon or Antechamber,
called SALLE DES SUISSES [where the halberdier and valet people wait]
you pass through six grand rooms, into a saloon magnificently
decorated: thence through two rooms more, and so into what they call the
Picture-Gallery, a room ninety feet long. All this is in a line." Grand
all this; but still only common in comparison. From the Picture-Gallery
you turn (to right or left is not said, nor does it matter) into a suite
of fourteen great rooms, each more splendid than the other: lustre from
the ceiling of the first room, for example, is of solid silver; weighs,
in pounds avoirdupois I know not what, but in silver coin "10,000
crowns:" ceilings painted as by Correggio; "wall-mirrors between each
pair of windows are twelve feet high, and their piers (TRUMEAUX) are of
massive silver; in front of each mirror, table can be laid for twelve;"
twelve Serenities may dine there, flanked by their mirror, enjoying the
Correggiosities above, and the practical sublimities all round. "And
this is but the first of the fourteen;" and you go on increasing in
superbness, till, for example, in the last, or superlative Saloon, you
find "a lustre weighing 50,000 crowns; the globe of it big enough to
hold a child of eight years; and the branches (GUERIDONS) of it," I
forget how many feet or fathoms in extent: silver to the heart. Nay
the music-balcony is of silver; wearied fiddler lays his elbow on
balustrades of that precious metal. Seldom if ever was seen the like. In
this superlative Saloon the Nuptial Benediction was given. [Wilhelmina,
i. 381; Nicolai, ii. 881.]

Old King Friedrich, the expensive Herr, it was he that di