o be found in Arithmetic which will
express that!--Certain of these advantages, in the new Government, are
seen at once; others, the still more valuable, do not appear, except
gradually and after many days and years. With the one and the other,
Schlesien appears to have been tolerably content. From that Year 1742
to this, Schlesien has expressed by word and symptom nothing but
thankfulness for the Transfer it underwent; and there is, for the
last Hundred Years, no part of the Prussian Dominion more loyal to the
Hohenzollerns (who are the Authors of Prussia, without whom Prussia had
never been), than this their latest acquisition, when once it too got
moulded into their own image. [Preuss, i. 193, and ib. 200 (Note from
Klein, a Silesian Jurist): "Favor not merit formerly;" "Magistracies
a regular branch of TRADE;"--"highway robbers on a strangely familiar
footing with the old Breslau magistrates;" &c. &c.]

OPENING OF THE OPERA-HOUSE AT BERLIN.

... December 7th, this Winter, Carnival being come or just coming,
Friedrich opens his New Opera-House, for behoof of the cultivated Berlin
classes; a fine Edifice, which had been diligently built by Knobelsdorf,
while those Silesian battlings went on. "One of the largest and finest
Opera-houses in the whole world; like a sumptuous Palace rather.
Stands free on all sides, space for 1,000 Coaches round it; Five great
Entrances, five persons can walk abreast through each; and inside--you
should see, you should hear! Boxes more like rooms or boudoirs, free
view and perfect hearing of the stage from every point: air pure and
free everywhere; water aloft, not only for theatrical cascades, but
to drown out any fire or risk of fire." [Seyfarth, i. 234; Nicolai,
_Beschreibung von Berlin,_ i. 169.] This is Seyfarth's account, still
capable of confirmation by travelling readers of a musical turn. I
have seen Operas with much more brilliancy of gas and gilding; but none
nearly so convenient to the human mind and sense; or where the audience
(not now a gratis one) attended to the music in so meritorious a way.

"Perhaps it will attract moneyed strangers to frequent our
Capital?"--some guess, that was Friedrich's thought. "At all events, it
is a handsome piece of equipage, for a musical King and People; not
to be neglected in the circumstances. Thalia, in general,--let us not
neglect Thalia, in such a dearth of worshipable objects." Nor did he
neglect Thalia. The trouble Friedrich to