[16th
April, 1734 (Ib. part 1st, p. 14 n).] he thirty, she fifteen. He too
will go; as will the other pair of Cousin Margraves,--Karl, who was once
our neighbor in Custrin; and the Younger Friedrich Wilhelm, whose fate
lies at Prag if he knew it. Majesty himself will go as volunteer. Are
not great things to be done, with Eugene for General?--To understand
the insignificant Siege of Philipsburg, sum-total of the Rhine Campaign,
which filled the Crown-Prince's and so many other minds brimful; that
Summer, and is now wholly out of every mind, the following Excerpt may
be admissible:--

"The unlucky little Town of Philipsburg, key of the Rhine in that
quarter, fortified under difficulties by old Bishops of Speyer who
sometimes resided there, [Kohler, _Munzbelustigungen,_ vi. 169.] has
been dismantled and refortified, has had its Rhine-bridge torn down and
set up again; been garrisoned now by this party, now by that, who had
'right of garrison there;' nay France has sometimes had 'the right of
garrison;'--and the poor little Town has suffered much, and been tumbled
sadly about in the Succession-wars and perpetual controversies between
France and Germany in that quarter. In the time we are speaking of, it
has a 'flying-bridge' (of I know not what structure), with fortified
'bridge-head (TETE-DE-PONT,)' on the western or France-ward side of the
River. Town's bulwarks, and complex engineering defences, are of good
strength, all put in repair for this occasion: Reich and Kaiser have an
effective garrison there, and a commandant determined on defence to the
uttermost: what the unfortunate Inhabitants, perhaps a thousand or so in
number, thought or did under such a visitation of ruin and bombshells,
History gives not the least hint anywhere. 'Quite used to it!' thinks
History, and attends to other points.

"The Rhine Valley here is not of great breadth: eastward the heights
rise to be mountainous in not many miles. By way of defence to this
Valley, in the Eugene-Marlborough Wars, there was, about forty miles
southward, or higher up the River than Philipsburg, a military line or
chain of posts; going from Stollhofen, a boggy hamlet on the Rhine, with
cunning indentations, and learned concatenation of bog and bluff, up
into the inaccessibilities,--LINES OF STOLLHOFEN, the name of it,--which
well-devised barrier did good service for certain years. It was not
till, I think, the fourth year of their existence, year 1707, that
Villars