to by-standers. But the
sad truth was, his Majesty never did recover his sunshine; from Pillau
onwards he was slowly entering into the shadows of the total Last
Eclipse; and his journeyings and reviewings in this world were all done.
Ten months hence, Pollnitz and others knew better what it had been!--

Chapter VII. -- LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER
PERSONS AND THINGS.

Friedrich had not been long home again from Trakehnen and Preussen,
when the routine of things at Reinsberg was illuminated by Visitors, of
brilliant and learned quality; some of whom, a certain Signor Algarotti
for one, require passing mention here. Algarotti, who became a permanent
friend or satellite, very luminous to the Prince, and was much about him
in coming years, first shone out upon the scene at this time,--coming
unexpectedly, and from the Eastward as it chanced.

On his own score, Algarotti has become a wearisome literary man to
modern readers: one of those half-remembered men; whose books seem to
claim a reading, and do not repay it you when given. Treatises, of a
serious nature, ON THE OPERA; setting forth, in earnest, the potential
"moral uses" of the Opera, and dedicated to Chatham; _Neutonianismo per
le Donne_ (Astronomy for Ladies): the mere Titles of such things are
fatally sufficient to us; and we cannot, without effort, nor with it,
recall the brilliancy of Algarotti and them to his contemporary world.

Algarotti was a rich Venetian Merchant's Son, precisely about the
Crown-Prince's age; shone greatly in his studies at Bologna and
elsewhere; had written Poesies (RIME); written especially that
_Newtonianism for the Dames_ (equal to Fontenelle, said Fame, and
orthodox Newtonian withal, not heterodox or Cartesian); and had shone,
respected, at Paris, on the strength of it, for three or four years
past: friend of Voltaire in consequence, of Voltaire and his divine
Emilie, and a welcome guest at Cirey; friend of the cultivated world
generally, which was then laboring, divine Emilie in the van of it,
to understand Newton and be orthodox in this department of things.
Algarotti did fine Poesies, too, once and again; did Classical
Scholarships, and much else: everywhere a clear-headed, methodically
distinct, concise kind of man. A high style of breeding about him,
too; had powers of pleasing, and used them: a man beautifully lucent in
society, gentle yet impregnable there; keeping himself unspotted from
the w