und of them, and plunge in."

Friedrich had his amusement out of this adventure; liked D'Arget,
the clever Secretary; got D'Arget to himself before long, as will be
seen;--and, in quieter times, dashed off a considerable Explosion of
Rhyme, called LE PALLADION (Valori as Prussia's "Palladium," with
Devils attempting to steal him, and the like), which was once thought an
exquisite Burlesque,--Kings coveting a sight of it, in vain,--but is
now wearisome enough to every reader. [Valori, i. 242; _OEuvres de
Frederic,_ iii. 130: for the Fact. Exquisite Burlesque, PALLADION
itself, is in _OEuvres,_ xi. 192-271 (see IB. 139): a bad copy of
that very bad Original, JEANNE D'ARC,--the only thing now good in it,
Friedrich's polite yet positive refusal to gratify King Louis and his
Pompdour with a sight of it (see IB. PREFACE, x-xiv, Friedrich's Letter
to Louis; date of request and of refusal, March, 1750).]--Let us attend
his Majesty's exit from Bohemia.

Chapter XII.--BATTLE OF SOHR.

The famed beautiful Elbe River rises in romantic chasms, terrible to the
picturesque beholder, at the roots of the Riesengebirge; overlooked
by the Hohe-Kamms, and highest summits of that chain. "Out of eleven
wells," says gentle Dulness, "EILF or ELF QUELLEN, whence its name, Elbe
for ELF." Sure enough, it starts out of various wells; [Description, in
Zollner, _Briefe uber Schlesien,_ ii. 305; in &c. &c.] rushes out, like
a great peacock's or pasha's tail, from the roots of the Giant Mountains
thereabouts; and hurries southward,--or even rather eastward, at first;
for (except the Iser to westward, which does not fall in for a great
while) its chief branches come from the eastern side: Aupa, Metau,
Adler, the drainings of Glatz, and of that rugged Country where
Friedrich has been camping and manoeuvring all summer. On the whole,
its course is southward for the first seventy or eighty miles, washing
Jaromirz, Konigshof, Konigsgratz, down to Pardubitz: at Pardubitz it
turns abruptly westward, and holds on so, bending even northward, by
hill and plain, through the rest of its five or six hundred miles.

Its first considerable branch, on that eastern or left bank, is the
Aupa, which rises in the Pass of Schatzlar (great struggling there, for
convoys, just now); goes next by Trautenau, which has lately been burnt;
and joins the Elbe at Jaromirz, where Valori was stolen, or nearly so,
from under the Prussian left wing. The Aupa runs nearly straig