s, except perhaps Bartenstein," [Robinson to Lord
Warrington, 5th July, 1735 (in State-Paper Office).]--who is not much
of a support either, though a gnarled weighty old stick in his way
("Professor at Strasburg once"): not interesting to us here. The rest
his Imperial Majesty considers to be of sublimated blockhead type,
it appears. Prince Eugene had died lately, and with Eugene all good
fortune.

And then, close following, the miseries of that Turk War, crashing
down upon a man! They say, Duke Franz, Maria Theresa's Husband, nominal
Commander in those Campaigns, with the Seckendorfs and Wallises under
him going such a road, was privately eager to have done with the
Business, on any terms, lest the Kaiser should die first, and leave it
weltering. No wonder the poor Kaiser felt broken, disgusted with the
long Shadow-Hunt of Life; and took to practical field-sports rather.
An Army that cannot fight, War-Generals good only to be locked in
Fortresses, an Exchequer that has no money; after such wagging of the
wigs, and such Privy-Councilling and such War-Councilling:--let us hunt
wild swine, and not think of it! That, thank Heaven, we still have;
that, and Pragmatic Sanction well engrossed, and generally sworn to by
mankind, after much effort!--

The outer Public of that time, and Voltaire among them more deliberately
afterwards, spoke of "mushrooms," an "indigestion of mushrooms;" and
it is probable there was something of mushrooms concerned in the event,
Another subsequent Frenchman, still more irreverent, adds to this of
the "excess of mushrooms," that the Kaiser made light of it. "When the
Doctors told him he had few hours to live, he would not believe it; and
bantered his Physicians on the sad news. 'Look me in the eyes,' said he;
'have I the air of one dying? When you see my sight growing dim, then
let the sacraments be administered, whether I order or not.'" Doctors
insisting, the Kaiser replied: "'Since you are foolish fellows, who know
neither the cause nor the state of my disorder, I command that, once
I am dead, you open my body, to know what the matter was; you can then
come and let me know!"' [_Anecdotes Germaniques_ (Paris, 1769), p.
692.]--in which also there is perhaps a glimmering of distorted truth,
though, as Monsieur mistakes even the day ("18th October," says he, not
20th), one can only accept it as rumor from the outside.

Here, by an extremely sombre domestic Gentleman of great punctuality
and grea