Laveaux), _Vie de Frederic II., Roi de
Prusse_ (Strasbourg, 1787), iv. 82. A worthless, now nearly forgotten
Book; but competent on this point, if on any; Laveaux (a handy fellow,
fugitive Ex-Monk, with fugitive Ex-Nun attached) having lived much at
Berlin, always in the pamphleteering line.] To the end of his life,
disgusting Satires against him, _Vie Privee_ by Voltaire, _Matinees du
Roi de Prusse,_ and still worse Lies and Nonsenses, were freely sold
at Berlin, and even bore to be printed there, Friedrich saying nothing,
caring nothing. He has been known to burn Pamphlets publicly,--one
Pamphlet we shall ourselves see on fire yet;--but it was without the
least hatred to them, and for official reasons merely. To the last, he
would answer his reporting Ministers, "LE PRESSE EST LIBRE (Free press,
you must consider)!"--grandly reluctant to meddle with the press, or go
down upon the dogs barking at his door. Those ill effects of Free Press
(first stage of the ill effects) he endured in this manner; but the good
effects seem to have fallen below his expectation. Friedrich's enthusiam
for freedom of the press, prompt enough, as we see, never rose to the
extreme pitch, and it rather sank than increased as he continued his
experiences of men and things. This of Formey and the two Newspapers
was the only express attempt he made in that direction; and it proved a
rather disappointing one. The two Newspapers went their way thenceforth,
Friedrich sometimes making use of them for small purposes, once or twice
writing an article himself, of wildly quizzical nature, perhaps to
be noticed by us when the time comes; but are otherwise, except for
chronological purposes, of the last degree of insignificance to gods or
men.

"Freedom of the Press," says my melancholic Friend, "is a noble
thing; and in certain Nations, at certain epochs, produces glorious
effects,--chiefly in the revolutionary line, where that has grown
indispensable. Freedom of the Press is possible, where everybody
disapproves the least abuse of it; where the 'Censorship' is, as it
were, exercised by all the world. When the world (as, even in the freest
countries, it almost irresistibly tends to become) is no longer in
a case to exercise that salutary function, and cannot keep down loud
unwise speaking, loud unwise persuasion, and rebuke it into silence
whenever printed, Freedom of the Press will not answer very long, among
sane human creatures: and indeed, in Nations