ad, were
much in request. There was no man of shining distinction there; but
they were the best that could be had, and that is saying all. Friedrich
cannot be said, either as Prince or as King, to have been superlatively
successful in his choice of associates. With one single exception, to
be noticed shortly, there is not one of them whom we should now remember
except for Friedrich's sake;--uniformly they are men whom it is now a
weariness to hear of, except in a cursory manner. One man of shining
parts he had, and one only; no man ever of really high and great mind.
The latter sort are not so easy to get; rarely producible on the soil of
this Earth! Nor is it certain how Friedrich might have managed with one
of this sort, or he with Friedrich;--though Friedrich unquestionably
would have tried, had the chance offered. For he loved intellect as few
men on the throne, or off it, ever did; and the little he could gather
of it round him often seems to me a fact tragical rather than otherwise.

With the outer Berlin social world, acting and reacting, Friedrich has
his connections, which obscurely emerge on us now and then. Literary
Eminences, who are generally of Theological vesture; any follower of
Philosophy, especially if he be of refined manners withal, or known in
fashionable life, is sure to attract him; and gains ample recognition
at Reinsberg or on Town-visits. But the Berlin Theological or Literary
world at that time, still more the Berlin Social, like a sunk extinct
object, continues very dim in those old records; and to say truth, what
features we have of it do not invite to miraculous efforts for farther
acquaintance. Venerable Beausobre, with his _History of the Manicheans,
[_Histoire critique de Manichee et du Manicheisme:_ wrote also
_Remarques &c. sur le Nouveau Testament,_ which were once famous;
_Histoire de la Reformation;_ &c. &c. He is Beausobre SENIOR; there were
two Sons (one of them born in second wedlock, after Papa was 70), who
were likewise given to writing.--See Formey, _Souvenirs d'un Citoyen
since, in Toland and the Republican Queen's time, as a light of the
world. He is now fourscore, grown white as snow; very serene, polite,
with a smack of French noblesse in him, perhaps a smack of affectation
traceable too. The Crown-Prince, on one of his Berlin visits, wished to
see this Beausobre; got a meeting appointed, in somebody's rooms "in
the French College," and waited for the venerable man. Venerab