ing, and leaves them to their
TE-DEUM." [C. Hildebrandt's Modern Edition of the (mostly dubious)
_Anekdoten und Charakterzuge aus dem Leben Friedrichs des Grossen_ (and
a very ignorant and careless Edition it is; 6 vols. 12mo, Halberstadt,
1829), ii. 160; Laveaus (whom we already cited), _Vie de Frederic;_
&c. &c. Nicolai's _Anekdoten_ alone, which are not included in this
Hildebrandt Collection, are of sure authenticity; the rest, occasionally
true, and often with a kind of MYTHIC truth in them worth attending to,
are otherwise of all degrees of dubiety, down to the palpably false and
absurd.]

Mournful state of the Catholic Religion so called! How long must
these wretched Monks go on doing their lazy thrice-deleterious torpid
blasphemy; and a King, not histrionic but real, merely signify that he
laughs at them and it? Meseems a heavier whip than that of satire might
be in place here, your Majesty? The lighter whip is easier;--Ah yes,
undoubtedly! cry many men. But horrible accounts are running up, enough
to sink the world at last, while the heavier whip is lazily withheld,
and lazy blasphemy, fallen torpid, chronic, and quite unconscious of
being blasphemous, insinuates itself into the very heart's-blood of
mankind! Patience, however; the heavy whip too is coming,--unless
universal death be coming. King Friedrich is not the man to wield such
whip. Quite other work is in store for King Friedrich; and Nature will
not, by any suggestion of that terrible task, put him out in the one
he has. He is nothing of a Luther, of a Cromwell; can look upon fakirs
praying by their rotatory calabash, as a ludicrous platitude; and grin
delicately as above, with the approval of his wiser contemporaries.
Speed to him on his own course!

What answer Friedrich found to his English proposals,--answer due here
on the 24th from Captain Dickens,--I do not pointedly learn; but can
judge of it by Harrington's reply to that Despatch of Dickens's,
which entreated candor and open dealing towards his Prussian Majesty.
Harrington is at Herrenhausen, still with the Britannic Majesty there;
both of them much at a loss about their Spanish War, and the French
and other aspects upon it: "Suppose his Prussian Majesty were to give
himself to France against us!" We will hope, not. Harrington's reply
is to the effect, "Hum, drum:--Berg and Julich, say you? Impossible to
answer; minds not made up here:--What will his Prussian Majesty do for
US?" Not much, I