d's hand. "It was the 17th of April, 1733, [All
the Books (Forster, ii. 142, for one) mention this utterance of his
Majesty, on what occasion we shall see farther on; and give the date
"1732," not 1733: but except as amended above, it refuses to have any
sense visible at this distance. The Village of Priort is in the Potsdam
region.] riding through Priort, a man said something to me: it was as if
you had turned a dagger about in my heart. That man was he that killed
me; there and then I got my death!"

A strange passion in that utterance: the deep dumb soul of his Majesty,
of dumb-poetic nature, suddenly brought to a fatal clearness about
certain things. "O Kaiser, Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire; and this is
your return for my loyal faith in you? I had nearly killed my Fritz, my
Wilhelmina, broken my Feekin's heart and my own, and reduced the world
to ruins for your sake. And because I was of faith more than human, you
took me for a dog? O Kaiser, Kaiser!"--Poor Friedrich Wilhelm, he spoke
of this often, in excited moments, in his later years; the tears running
down his cheeks, and the whole man melted into tragic emotion: but if
Fritz were there, the precious Fritz whom he had almost killed for their
sake, he would say, flashing out into proud rage, "There is one that
will avenge me, though; that one! DA STEHT EINER, DER MICH RACHEN
WIRD!" [Forster, ii. 153.] Yes, your Majesty; perhaps that one. And it
will be seen whether YOU were a rotatory Clothes-horse to dry their
Pragmatic linen upon, or something different a good deal.

Chapter VI. -- KING AUGUST MEDITATING GREAT THINGS FOR POLAND.

In the New-year's days of 1733, the topic among diplomatic gentlemen,
which set many big wigs wagging, and even tremulously came out in the
gray leaves of gazetteers and garreteers of the period, was a royal
drama, dimly supposed to be getting itself up in Poland at this time.
Nothing known about it for certain; much guessed. "Something in the
rumor!" nods this wig; "Nothing!" wags that, slightly oscillating; and
gazetteers, who would earn their wages, and have a peck of coals apiece
to glad them in the cold weather, had to watch with all eagerness the
movements of King August, our poor old friend, the Dilapidated-Strong,
who is in Saxony at present; but bound for Warsaw shortly,--just about
lifting the curtain on important events, it is thought and not thought.
Here are the certainties of it, now clear enough, so far as they