which
mix all manner of fables with the considerable history he has. Readers
will see him turn up again in notable forms. A man hitherto unknown
except in his own country; and yet of very considerable significance to
all European countries whatsoever; the fruit of his activities, without
his name attached, being now manifest in all of them. He invented the
iron ramrod; he invented the equal step; in fact, he is the inventor of
modern military tactics. Even so, if we knew it: the Soldiery of every
civilized country still receives from this man, on parade-fields and
battle-fields, its word of command; out of his rough head proceeded
the essential of all that the innumerable Drill-sergeants, in various
languages, daily repeat and enforce. Such a man is worth some transient
glance from his fellow-creatures,--especially with a little Fritz
trotting at his foot, and drawing inferences from him.

Dessau, we should have said for the English reader's behoof, was
and still is a little independent Principality; about the size of
Huntingdonshire, but with woods instead of bogs;--revenue of it, at this
day, is 60,000 pounds, was perhaps not 20, or even 10,000 in Leopold's
first time. It lies some fourscore miles southwest of Berlin, attainable
by post-horses in a day. Leopold, as his Father had done, stood by
Prussia as if wholly native to it. Leopold's Mother was Sister of that
fine Louisa, the Great Elector's first Wife; his Sister is wedded to
the Margraf of Schwedt, Friedrich Wilhelm's half-uncle. Lying in such
neighborhood, and being in such affinity to the Prussian House, the
Dessauers may be said to have, in late times, their headquarters at
Berlin. Leopold and Leopold's sons, as his father before him had done,
without neglecting their Dessau and Principality, hold by the Prussian
Army as their main employment. Not neglecting Dessau either; but going
thither in winter, or on call otherwise; Leopold least of all neglecting
it, who neglects nothing that can be useful to him.

He is General Field-Marshal of the Prussian Armies, the foremost man
in war-matters with this new King; and well worthy to be so. He is
inventing, or brooding in the way to invent, a variety of things,--"iron
ramrods," for one; a very great improvement on the fragile ineffective
wooden implement, say all the Books, but give no date to it; that is the
first thing; and there will be others, likewise undated, but posterior,
requiring mention by and by. Inven