mption. The
English king called the Prussian "my brother the sergeant;" the Prussian
retaliated by calling the English king "my brother the dancing-master."
This hostility amounted to a mixture of the profane and the ludicrous.
When the old king was seized with his mortal illness, he asked whether
"it was necessary to forgive all his enemies." On receiving the proper
answer, he said to the Queen--"Dorothy, write to your brother that I
forgive him all the evil that he has done me; but wait till I'm dead
first." A good repartee of Sir Andrew Mitchell on the battle of Quebec,
is mentioned. "Is it true," said the king to him, "that, after all, you
have taken Quebec?" "Yes, sire," said Sir Andrew Mitchell the envoy, "by
the help of Providence." "What!" said the king, "is Providence among
your allies?" "Yes," said the envoy, "and the only one among then who
demands _no subsidy_."

Sir Charles Williams wrote to one of the queen's marshals a letter
introducing Lord Essex, ludicrously finishing with--"You may be sure
that it is not he who had his head cut off in the time of Elizabeth."
The marshal, not perfectly understanding this, but depending on his
information, introduced him in this style to her majesty--"Madam, my
Lord Essex; and I assure your majesty it is not he who was decapitated
by Queen Elizabeth."

Frederick, sending a minister to Denmark who complained of the smallness
of his salary, and said that he could keep neither an equipage nor a
table; the king's remark to him was--"You are a prodigal; you ought to
know that it is more healthy to go on foot than it is to go in a
carriage; and that, so far as eating is concerned, another man's table
is always the best."

At this period Poland was in a state of great confusion. The Empress of
Russia had marched an army into it for the purpose, as she declared, of
allowing the popular representatives to act freely, while the king
regarded himself as little better than her prisoner. Repnin, the Russian
ambassador, actually commanded every thing; and the principal nobility
of Poland were compelled to be his agents. Of course, this state of
things never could have occurred in any country where the tone of
manners was high; and Poland, though the people were brave, and the
nobility in general patriotic, unquestionably fell by its own vices.
The portrait drawn of Prince Radzivil is the reverse of flattering, but
it is characteristic:--

"Prince Radzivil, the marshal of the con