xt season, he expects to have a Division of his own, and to do
something considerable.--In regard to Berlin and the Diplomacies, he has
appointed a Nephew of his, a Seckendorf Junior, to take his place there;
to keep the old machinery in gear, if nothing more; and furnish
copious reports during the present crisis. These Reports of Seckendorf
Junior--full of eavesdroppings, got from a KAMMERMOHR (Nigger Lackey),
who waits in the sick-room at Potsdam, and is sensible to bribes--have
been printed; and we mean to glance slightly into them. But as to
Seckendorf Senior, readers can entertain the fixed hope that they have
at length done with him; that, in these our premises, we shall never
see him again;--nay shall see him, on extraneous dim fields, far enough
away, smarting and suffering, till even we are almost sorry for the old
knave!--

Friedrich Wilhelm's own prevailing opinion is, that he cannot recover.
His bodily sufferings are great: dropsically swollen, sometimes like to
be choked: no bed that he can bear to lie on;--oftenest rolls about in a
Bath-chair; very heavy-laden indeed; and I think of tenderer humor than
in former sicknesses. To the Old Dessauer he writes, few days after
getting home to Potsdam: "I am ready to quit the world, as Your
Dilection knows, and has various times heard me say. One ship sails
faster, another slower; but they come all to one haven. Let it be with
me, then, as the Most High has determined for me." [Orlich, _Geschichte
der Schlesischen Kriege_ (Berlin, 1841), i. 14. "From the Dessau
Archives; date, 21st September, 1734."] He has settled his affairs,
Fassmann says, so far as possible; settled the order of his funeral, How
he is to be buried, in the Garrison Church of Potsdam, without pomp or
fuss, like a Prussian Soldier; and what regiment or regiments it is that
are to do the triple volley over him, by way of finis and long farewell.
His soul's interests too,--we need not doubt he is in deep conference,
in deep consideration about these; though nothing is said on that point.
A serious man always, much feeling what immense facts he was surrounded
with; and here is now the summing up of all facts. Occasionally, again,
he has hopes; orders up "two hundred of his Potsdam Giants to march
through the sick-room," since he cannot get out to them; or old
Generals, Buddenbrock, Waldau, come and take their pipe there, in
reminiscence of a Tabagie. Here, direct from the fountain-head, or
Nigger Lac