ish will pacify the Russian CATIN for
me; tie her, with packthreads, bribes and intrigues, from stirring?
Wait, watch!" Fiery Winterfeld, who hates the French, who despises the
Austrians, and thinks the Prussian Army a considerable Fact in Politics,
has great schemes: far too great for a practical Friedrich. "Plunge into
the Austrians with a will: Prussian Soldiery,--can Austrians resist
it? Ruin them, since they are bent on ruining us. Stir up the Hungarian
Protestants; try all things. Home upon our implacable enemies, sword
drawn, scabbard flung away! And the French,--what are the French? Our
King should be Kaiser of Teutschland; and he can, and he may:--the
French would then be quieter!" These things Winterfeld carried in his
head; and comrades have heard them from him over wine. [Retzow, i.
43, &c.] To all which Friedrich, if any whisper of them ever got to
Friedrich, would answer one can guess how.

It is evident, Friedrich had not given up his hope (indeed, for above a
year more, he never did) that England might, by profuse bribery,--"such
the power of bribery in that mad court!"--assuage, overnet with
backstairs packthreads, or in some way compesce the Russian delirium for
him. And England, his sole Ally in the world, still tender of Austria,
and unable to believe what the full intentions of Austria are; England
demands much wariness in his procedures towards Austria; reiterating
always, "Wait, your Majesty! Oh, beware!"--

His own Army, we need not say, is in perfect preparation. The Army--let
us guess, 150,000 regular, or near 200,000 of all arms and kinds
[Archenholtz (i, 8) counts vaguely "160,000" at this date.]--

never was so perfect before or since. Old Captains in it, whom we used
to know, are grayer and wiser; young, whom we heard less of, are grown
veterans of trust. Schwerin, much a Cincinnatus since we last saw
him, has laid down his plough again, a fervid "little Marlborough" of
seventy-two;--and will never see that beautiful Schwerinsburg, and its
thriving woods and farm-fields, any more. Ugly Walrave is not now chief
Engineer; one Balbi, a much prettier man, is. Ugly Walrave (Winterfeld
suspecting and watching him) was found out; convicted of "falsified
accounts," of "sending plans to the Enemy," of who knows all what;--and
sits in Magdeburg (in a thrice-safe prison-cell of his own contriving),
prisoner for life. ["Arrested at Potsdam 12th February, 1748, and after
trial put into the STERN at Ma