g in a
terrible manner on his womankind at Berlin, what we called his Female
Parliament,--too much given to opposition courses at present. Intends to
have his measures passed there, in defiance of opposition; straightway;
and an end put to this inexpressible Double-Marriage higgle-haggle.
Speed to him! we will say.--Three high Crises occur, three or even four,
which can now without much detail be made intelligible to the patient
reader: on the back of which we look for some catastrophe and finis to
the Business;--any catastrophe that will prove a finis, how welcome will
it be!

WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS FIRST: ENGLAND SHALL SAY
YES OR SAY NO.

Still early in January, a few days after his Majesty's return to
Potsdam, three high Official gentlemen, Count Fink van Finkenstein, old
Tutor to the Prince, Grumkow and General Borck announce themselves
one morning; "Have a pressing message from the King to her Majesty."
[Wilhelmina, i. 180.] Queen is astonished; expecting anything
sooner.--"This regards me, I have a dreading!" shuddered Wilhelmina to
Mamma. "No matter," said the Queen, shrugging her shoulders; "one must
have firmness; and that is not what I shall want;"--and her Majesty went
into the Audience-chamber, leaving Wilhelmina in such tremors.

Finkenstein, a friendly man, as Borck too is, explains to her Majesty,
"That they three have received each a Letter overnight,--Letter from the
King, enjoining in the FIRST place 'silence under pain of death;' in the
SECOND place, apprising them that he, the King, will no longer endure
her Majesty's disobedience in regard to the marriage of his Daughter,
but will banish Daughter and Mother 'to Oranienburg,' quasi-divorce,
and outer darkness, unless there be compliance with his sovereign will;
THIRDLY, that they are accordingly to go, all three, to her Majesty,
to deliver the enclosed Royal Autograph [which Finkenstein presents],
testifying what said sovereign will is, and on the above terms expect
her Majesty's reply;"--as they have now sorrowfully done, Finkenstein
and Borck with real sorrow; Grumkow with the reverse of real.

Sovereign will is to the effect: "Write to England one other time, Will
you at once marry, or not at once; Yea or No? Answer can be here within
a fortnight; three weeks, even in case of bad winds. If the answer be
not Yea at once; then you, Madam, you at once choose Weissenfels or
Schwedt, one or the other,--under what penalti