the functions assigned him as
assessor in the KRIEGS-UND DOMANEN-KAMMER. That would not have been the
safe course for him! The truth still evident is, he set himself with
diligence to learn the Friedrich-Wilhelm methods of administering
Domains, and the art of Finance in general, especially of Prussian
Finance, the best extant then or since;--Finance, Police, Administrative
Business;--and profited well by the Raths appointed as tutors to him,
in the respective branches. One Hille was his Finance-tutor; whose
"KOMPENDIUM," drawn up and made use of on this occasion, has been
printed in our time; and is said to be, in brief compass, a
highly instructive Piece; throwing clear light on the exemplary
Friedrich-Wilhelm methods. [Preuss, i. 59 n.] These the Prince did
actually learn; and also practise, all his life,--"essentially following
his Father's methods," say the Authorities,--with great advantage to
himself, when the time came.

Solid Nicolai hunted diligently after traces of him in the Assessor
business here; and found some: Order from Papa, to "make Report, upon
the Glass-works of the Neumark:" Autograph signatures to common Reports,
one or two; and some traditions of his having had a hand in planning
certain Farm-Buildings still standing in those parts:--but as the
Kammer Records of Custrin, and Custrin itself, were utterly burnt by the
Russians in 1758, such traces had mostly vanished thirty years before
Nicolai's time. [Nicolai, _Anekdoten,_ vi. 193.] Enough have turned up
since, in the form of Correspondence with the King and otherwise: and it
is certain the Crown-Prince did plan Farm-Buildings;--"both Carzig and
Himmelstadt (Carzig now called FRIEDRICHSFELDE in consequence)," [See
Map] dim mossy Steadings, which pious Antiquarianism can pilgrim to if
it likes, were built or rebuilt by him:--and it is remarkable withal how
thoroughly instructed Friedrich Wilhelm shows himself in such matters;
and how paternally delighted to receive such proposals of improvement
introducible at the said Carzig and Himmelstadt, and to find young
Graceless so diligent, and his ideas even good. [Forster, ii. 390, 387,
391.] Perhaps a momentary glance into those affairs may be permitted
farther on.

The Prince's life, in this his eclipsed state, is one of constraint,
anxiety, continual liability; but after the first months are well over,
it begins to be more supportable than we should think. He is fixed to
the little Town; cannot be