h his own house and his own doings, are not less worthy of
admiration than the supreme calm and freedom with which he views
events, in spite of the small rhetorical flourishes which belonged to
the taste of the time.

Equally astonishing as his fertility is his versatility. One of the
greatest of military writers, an important historian, a facile poet, a
popular philosopher, and practical statesman, also even an anonymous
and very copious pamphlet writer, and sometimes journalist, he is
always ready for everything: to portray with his pen in the field
whatever fills, warms, and inspires him, and to attack in prose and
verse every one who irritates or vexes him, not only Pope and Empress,
Jesuits and Dutch newspaper writers, but also old friends if they
appear to him lukewarm, which he could never bear, or threaten to fall
away from him. Never--since the time of Luther--has there been so
contentious, reckless, and unwearied a writer. As soon as he puts pen
to paper he is, like Proteus, everything, sage or intriguer, historian
or poet, just as situation required, always an excitable, fiery,
intellectual, and sometimes also an ill-behaved man; but of his kingly
office he thinks little. All that is dear to him he celebrates by poems
and eulogies: the exalted precepts of his philosophy, his friends, his
army, his freedom of faith, independent inquiry, toleration and the
education of the people.

Victoriously did the mind of Frederic extend itself in all directions.
Nothing withheld him when ambition drove him on to conquer. Then came
years of trial, seven years of fearful, heart-rending cares; the period
when the rich soaring spirit undertook the most difficult task that was
ever allotted to man; when almost everything seemed to fall from him
which he possessed for himself, of joy and happiness, hopes and
egotistical comfort; when everything charming and agreeable to him as
man was destined to die to him, that he might become the self-denying
Prince of his people, the great official of the State, the hero of a
nation. It was not with the lust of conquest that he this time entered
upon the combat; it had long been clear to him that he had now to
struggle for his own and his kingdom's life. But so much the loftier
grew his resolution. Like the storm-wind, he wished to break the clouds
which gathered on all sides round his head. By the energy of his
irresistible attacks he thought to dissipate the storm before it burst
upon h