to stammer a little when agitated, is at present
doing the return part of the Grand Tour,--coming home by Geneva they
say.

Rittmeister von Katte, I doubt not, witnesses this transit of the
incognito Majesty, this call upon the exuberant Dowager; but can have
little to say to it, he. I hope he is getting tall recruits here in
the Reich; that will be the useful point for him. He is our Lieutenant
Katte's Cousin, an elder and wiser man than the Lieutenant. A
Reichsgraf's and Field-marshal's nephew, he ought to get advanced in his
profession;--and can hope to do so when he has deserved it, not sooner
at all, in that thrice-fortunate Country. Let the Rittmeister here keep
himself well apart from what is NOT his business, and look out for tall
men.

Bamberg is halfway-house between Coburg and Nurnberg; whole distance of
Coburg and Nurnberg,--say a hundred and odd miles,--is only a fair day's
driving for a rapid King. And at Nurnberg, surely, we must lodge for a
night and portion of a day, if not for more. On the morrow, it is but
a thirty-five miles drive to Anspach; pleasant in the summer evening,
after all the sights in this old Nurnberg, "city of the Noricans
(NORICORUM BURGUN)." Trading Staple of the German world in old days;
Toy-shop of the German world in these new. Albert Durer's and Hans
Sach's City,--mortals infinitely indifferent to Friedrich Wilhelm. But
is it not the seed-ground of the Hohenzollerns, this Nurnberg, memorable
above cities to a Prussian Majesty? Yes, there in that old white Castle,
now very peaceable, they dwelt; considerably liable to bickerings and
mutinous heats; and needed all their skill and strength to keep
matters straight. It is now upon seven hundred years since the Cadet of
Hohenzollern gave his hawk the slip, patted his dog for the last time,
and came down from the Rough-Alp countries hitherward. And found favor,
not unmerited I fancy, with the great Kaiser Redbeard, and the fair
Heiress of the Vohburgs; and in fact, with the Earth and with the
Heavens in some degree. A loyal, clever, and gallant kind of young
fellow, if your Majesty will think? Much has grown and waned since that
time: but the Hohenzollerns, ever since, are on the waxing hand;--unless
this accursed Treaty of Seville and these English Matches put a stop to
them?

Alas, it is not likely Friedrich Wilhelm, in the hurry and grating whirl
of things, had many poetic thoughts in him, or pious aurora memories
from the Past