s;--and the Kaiser is left alone;
standing upon his Pragmatic Sanction there, nobody bidding him now
budge!

At which the Kaiser is naturally thrice and four times wroth and
alarmed;--and Seckendorf in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM had need to be doubly
busy. As we shall find he is (though without effect), when the time
comes round:--but we have not yet got to November of this Year 1729;
there are still six or eight important months between us and that.
Important months; and a Prussian-English "Waterspout," as we have named
it, to be seen, with due wonder, in the political sky!--

Congress of Soissons, now fallen mythical to mankind, and as inane as
that of Cambrai, is perhaps still memorable in one or two slight points.
First, it has in it, as one of the Austrian Deputies, that Baron von
Bentenrieder, tallest of living Diplomatists, who was pressed at one
time for a Prussian soldier;--readers recollect it? Walking through the
streets of Halberstadt, to stretch his long limbs till his carriage came
up, the Prussian sentries laid hold of him, "Excellent Potsdam giant,
this one!"--and haled him off to their guard-house; till carriage and
lackeys came; then, "Thousand humblest pardons, your Excellenz!" who
forgave the fellows. Barely possible some lighter readers might wish to
see, for one moment, an Excellenz that has been seized by a Press-gang?
Which perhaps never happened to any other Excellenz;--the like of which,
I have been told, might merit him a soiree from strong-minded women, in
some remoter parts of the world. Not to say that he is the tallest of
living Diplomatists; another unique circumstance!--Bentenrieder soon
died; and had his place at Soissons filled up by an Excellenz of the
ordinary height, who had never been pressed. But nothing can rob the
Congress of this fact, that it once had Bentenrieder for member; and, so
far, is entitled to the pluperfect distinction in one particular.

Another point is humanly interesting in this Congress; but cannot fully
be investigated for want of dates. Always, we perceive, according to the
news of it that reach Berlin,--of England going right for the Kaiser or
going wrong for him,--his Prussian Majesty's treatment of his children
varies. If England go right for the Kaiser, well, and his Majesty is in
good-humor with Queen, with Crown-Prince and Wilhelmina. If England go
wrong for the Kaiser, dark clouds gather on the royal brow, in the royal
heart; explode in thunder-storms; and