The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol.
XIII. (of XXI.), by Thomas Carlyle

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Title: History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.)
Frederick The Great--First Silesian War, Leaving the General
European One Ablaze All Round, Gets Ended--May, 1741-July,
1742.

Author: Thomas Carlyle

Posting Date: June 13, 2008 [EBook #2113]
Release Date: March 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. ***

Produced by D.R. Thompson

HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

by Thomas Carlyle

Volume XIII.

BOOK XIII. -- FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE
ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. -- May, 1741-July, 1742.

Chapter I. -- BRITANNIC MAJESTY AS PALADIN OF THE PRAGMATIC.

Part First of his Britannic Majesty's Sorrows, the Britannic or Domestic
Part, is now perhaps conceivable to readers. But as to the Second,
the Germanic or Pragmatic Part,--articulate History, after much
consideration, is content to renounce attempting these; feels that these
will remain forever inconceivable to mankind in the now altered times.
So small a gentleman; and he feels, dismally though with heroism, that
he has got the axis of the world on his shoulder. Poor Majesty! His
eyes, proud as Jove's, are nothing like so perspicacious; a pair of the
poorest eyes: and he has to scan with them, and unriddle under pain of
death, such a waste of insoluble intricacies, troubles and world-perils
as seldom was,--even in Dreams. In fact, it is of the nature of a long
Nightmare Dream, all this of the Pragmatic, to his poor Majesty and
Nation; and wakeful History must not spend herself upon it, beyond the
essential.

May 12th, betimes this Year, his Majesty got across to Hanover,
Harrington with him; anxious to contemplate near at hand that Camp of
the Old Dessauer's at Gottin, and the other fearful phenomena, French,
Prussian and other, in that Country. His Majesty, as natural, was much
in Germany in those Years; scanning the phenomena; a long while not
knowing what in the world to make of them. Bully Belleis