f-brothers, who
are comrades of his. For the Great Elector, as we saw, was twice
wedded, and had a second set of sons and daughters: two of the sons
had children; certain of these are about the Crown-Prince's own age,
"Cousins" of his (strictly speaking, Half-cousins of HIS FATHER'S),
who are much about him in his young days,--and more or less afterwards,
according to the worth they proved to have. Margraves and Margravines
of Schwedt,--there are five or six of such young Cousins. Not to mention
the eldest, Friedrich Wilhelm by name, who is now come to manhood (born
1700);--who wished much in after years to have had Wilhelmina to wife;
but had to put up with a younger Princess of the House, and ought to
have been thankful. This one has a younger Brother, Heinrich, slightly
Fritz's senior, and much his comrade at one time; of whom we shall
transiently hear again. Of these two the Old Dessauer is Uncle: if both
his Majesty and the Crown-Prince should die, one of these would be king.
A circumstance which Wilhelmina and the Queen have laid well to heart,
and build many wild suspicions upon, in these years! As that the Old
Dessauer, with his gunpowder face, has a plot one day to assassinate
his Majesty,--plot evident as sunlight to Wilhelmina and Mamma, which
providentially came to nothing;--and other spectral notions of theirs.
[Wilhelmina, i. 35, 41.] The Father of these two Margraves (elder of
the two Half-brothers that have children) died in the time of Old King
Friedrich, eight or nine years ago. Their Mother, the scheming old
Margravine, whom I always fancy to dress in high colors, is still
living,--as Wilhelmina well knows!

Then, by another, the younger of those old Half-brothers, there is
a Karl, a second Friedrich Wilhelm, Cousin Margraves: plenty of
Cousins;--and two young Margravines among them, [Michaelis, i. 425.] the
youngest about Fritz's own age. [NOTE OF THE COUSIN MARGRAVES.--Great
Elector, by his Second Wife, had five Sons, two of whom left
Children;]--as follows (so far as they concern us,--he others omitted):--

1. Son PHILIP'S Children (Mother the Old Dessauer's Sister) are:
Friedrich Wilhelm (1700), who wished much, but in vain, to marry
Wilhelmina. Heinrich Friedrich (1709), a comrade of Fritz's in youth;
sometimes getting into scrapes;--misbehaved, some way, at the Battle of
Molwits (first of Friedrich's Battles), 1741, and was inexorably CUT
by the new King, and continued under a cloud thencefor