pie with his Majesty, at a barn-door
in Pommern, not long since. Of the Giants, or their life at Potsdam,
Bielfeld's word is not worth hearing,--worth suppressing rather; his
knowledge being so small, and hung forth in so fantastic a way. This
transient sight he had of his Majesty in person; this, which is
worth something to us,--fact being evidently lodged in it, "After
church-parade," Autumn Sunday afternoon (day uncertain, Bielfeld's
date being fictitious, and even impossible), Majesty drove out to
Wusterhausen, "where the quantities of game surpass all belief;" and
Bielfeld had one glimpse of him:--

"I saw his Majesty only, as it were, in passing. If I may judge by his
Portraits, he must have been of a perfect beauty in his young time; but
it must be confessed there is nothing left of it now. His eyes truly are
fine; but the glance of them is terrible: his complexion is composed
of the strongest tints of red, blue, yellow, green,"--not a lovely
complexion at all; "big head; the thick neck sunk between the shoulders;
figure short and heavy (COURTE ET RAMASSEE)." [Bielfeld, p. 35.]

"Going out to Wusterhausen," then, that afternoon, "October, 1739." How
his Majesty is crushed down; quite bulged out of shape in that sad way,
by the weight of time and its pressures: his thoughts, too, most likely,
of a heavy-laden and abstruse nature! The old Pfalz Controversy has
misgone with him: Pfalz, and so much else in the world;--the world in
whole, probably enough, near ending to him; the final shadows, sombre,
grand and mournful, closing in upon him!

TURK WAR ENDS; SPANISH WAR BEGINS. A WEDDING IN PETERSBURG.

Last news come to Potsdam in these days is, The Kaiser has ended his
disastrous Turk War; been obliged to end it; sudden downbreak, and as it
were panic terror, having at last come upon his unfortunate Generals in
those parts. Duke Franz was passionate to be out of such a thing; Franz,
General Neipperg and others; and now, "2d September, 1739," like lodgers
leaping from a burning house, they are out of it. The Turk gets Belgrade
itself, not to mention wide territories farther east,--Belgrade without
shot fired;--nay the Turk was hardly to be kept from hanging the
Imperial Messenger (a General Neipperg, Duke Franz's old Tutor, and
chief Confidant, whom we shall hear more of elsewhere), whose passport
was not quite right on this occasion!--Never was a more disgraceful
Peace. But also never had been worse fighting