he began badly, according
to his own admission. But it was in the Seven Years' War that his fame
as a soldier was won, and that contest began when he was in his
forty-fifth year. He was close upon forty-six when he gained the Battles
of Rossbach and Leuthen. Whatever opinion others may entertain as to his
age, it is certain that he counted himself an old man in those days.
Writing to the Marquis d'Argens, a few days before he was forty-eight,
he said, "In my old age I have come down almost to be a theatrical
king"; and not two years later he wrote to the same friend, "I have
sacrificed my youth to my father, and my manhood to my fatherland. I
think, therefore, I have acquired the right to my old age." He reckoned
by trials and events, and he had gone through enough to have aged any
man. Those were the days when he carried poison on his person, in order
that, should he be completely beaten, or captured, he might not adorn
Maria Theresa's triumph, but end his life "after the high Roman
fashion." When the question of the Bavarian succession threatened to
lead to another war with Austria, Frederick's action, though he was in
his sixty-seventh year, showed, to use the homely language of the
English soldier at St. Helena when Napoleon arrived at that famous
watering place, that he had many campaigns in his belly yet. The
youthful Emperor, Joseph II., would have been no match for the old
soldier of Liegnitz and Zorndorf.

Some of Frederick's best generals were old men. Schwerin, who was killed
in the terrible Battle of Prague, was then seventy-three, and a soldier
of great reputation. Sixteen years before he had won the Battle of
Mollwitz, one of the most decisive actions of that time, from which
Frederick himself is said to have run away in sheer fright. General
Ziethen, perhaps the best of all modern cavalry commanders, was in his
fifty-eighth year when the Seven Years' War began, and he served through
it with eminent distinction, and most usefully to his sovereign. He
could not have exhibited more dash, if he had been but eight-and-twenty,
instead of eight-and-fifty, or sixty-five, as he was when peace was
made. Field-Marshal Keith, an officer of great ability, was sixty when
he fell at Hochkirchen, after a brilliant career.

American military history is favorable to old generals. Washington was
in his forty-fourth year when he assumed command of the Revolutionary
armies, and in his fiftieth when he took Yorktown. Wayne an