h; and the little there is consists of coarse potherbs
that nobody can eat.' The King," as was not unnatural, "had begun to get
angry at her first answer: this last put him quite in a fury; but
all his anger fell on my Brother and me. He first threw a plate at my
Brother's head, who ducked out of the way; he then let fly another at
me, which I avoided in like manner. A hail-storm of abuse followed these
first hostilities. He rose into a passion against the Queen; reproaching
her with the bad training she gave her children; and, addressing my
Brother: 'You have reason to curse your Mother,' said he, 'for it is she
that causes your being an ill-governed fellow (UN MAL GOUVERNE). I had
a Preceptor,' continued he, 'who was an honest man. I remember always a
story he told me in my youth. There was a man, at Carthage, who had
been condemned to die for many crimes he had committed. While they were
leading him to execution, he desired he might speak to his Mother.
They brought his Mother: he came near, as if to whisper something to
her;--and bit away a piece of her ear. I treat you thus, said he, to
make you an example to all parents who take no heed to bring up their
children in the practice of virtue!--Make the application,' continued
he, always addressing my Brother: and getting no answer from him, he
again set to abusing us till he could speak no longer. We rose from
table. As we had to pass near him in going out, he aimed a great blow at
me with his crutch; which, if I had not jerked away from it, would have
ended me. He chased me for a while in his wheel-chair, but the
people drawing it gave me time to escape into the Queen's chamber."
[Wilhelmina, i. 159.]

Poor Wilhelmina, beaten upon by Papa in this manner, takes to bed in
miserable feverish pain, is ordered out by Mamma to evening party, all
the same; is evidently falling very ill. "Ill? I will cure you!" says
Papa next day, and makes her swallow a great draught of wine. Which
completes the thing: "declared small-pox," say all the Doctors now. So
that Wilhelmina is absent thenceforth, as Fassmann already told us, from
the magnanimous paternal sick-room; and lies balefully eclipsed,
till the paternal gout and some other things have run their course.
"Small-pox; what will Prince Fred think? A perfect fright, if she do
live!" say the English Court-gossips in the interim. But we are now
arrived at a very singular Prussian-English phenomenon; and ought to
take a new Chapte