amage to the young man, had his natural assimilative
powers, to extract benefit from all things, been less considerable. As
it was, he gained self-help from it; gained reticence, the power to keep
his own counsel; and did not let the hypocrisy take hold of him, or be
other than a hateful compulsory masquerade. At an uncommonly early age,
he stands before us accomplished in endurance, for one thing; a very
bright young Stoic of his sort; silently prepared for the injustices
of men and things. And as for the masquerade, let us hope it was
essentially foreign even to the skin of the man! The reader will judge
as he goes on. _"Je n'ai jamais trompe personne durant ma vie,_ I
have never deceived anybody during my life; still less will I deceive
posterity," [_ Memoires depuis la Paix de Huberrtsbourg,_ 1763-1774
(Avant-Propos), OEUVRES, vii. 8.] writes Friedrich when his head was now
grown very gray.

Chapter XIII. -- RESULTS OF THE CROWN-PRINCE'S SCHOOLING.

Neither as to intellectual culture, in Duhan's special sphere, and with
all Duhan's good-will, was the opportunity extremely golden. It cannot
be said that Friedrich, who spells in the way we saw, "ASTEURE" for
"A CETTE HEURE," has made shining acquisitions on the literary side.
However, in the long-run it becomes clear, his intellect, roving on
devious courses, or plodding along the prescribed tram-roads, had been
wide awake; and busy all the while, bringing in abundant pabulum of an
irregular nature.

He did learn "Arithmetic," "Geography," and the other useful knowledges
that were indispensable to him. He knows History extensively; though
rather the Roman, French, and general European as the French have
taught it him, than that of "Hessen, Brunswick, England," or even the
"Electoral and Royal House of Brandenburg," which Papa had recommended.
He read History, where he could find it readable, to the end of his
life; and had early begun reading it,--immensely eager to learn, in his
little head, what strange things had been, and were, in this strange
Planet he was come into.

We notice with pleasure a lively taste for facts in the little Boy;
which continued to be the taste of the Man, in an eminent degree.
Fictions he also knows; an eager extensive reader of what is called
Poetry, Literature, and himself a performer in that province by and
by: but it is observable how much of Realism there always is in his
Literature; how close, here as elsewhere, he always ha