word than column; and the Prussian system did favor the linear rather
than the columnar arrangement of troops, as it "presented a wide front,
less exposed to the fire of the artillery, and more efficient from the
force of its musketry."

Frederick William I. died in 1740. His successor was Frederick II.,
commonly called the Great. His history has been so much discussed of
late years that it would be useless to mention its details. He raised
Prussia to the first rank in Europe. Russia was coming in as a European
power, and Spain was then as great as France or England, partly because
of her former greatness, but as much from the sagacity of her sovereign
and the talents of her statesmen. Louis XV. had lessened the weight of
France, and George III. had degraded England. The Austrian house had
suffered from its failure before Frederick. All things combined to make
of Prussia the most formidable of European nations during the last half
of Frederick's reign. When he died, in 1786, the Prussian population
amounted to six millions,--the increase being chiefly due to the
acquisition of Silesia, which was taken from Austria, and to
Frederick's share in the first partition of Poland. He left $50,000,000,
and his army contained 220,000 men.

Frederick William II., a weak sovereign, reigned till 1797. He took part
in the first coalition against revolutionary France, and in the second
and third partitions of Poland. Frederick William III. reigned from 1797
to 1840, during which time Prussia experienced every vicissitude of
fortune. The first war with imperial France, in 1806-7, led to the
reduction of her territory and population one half; and what was left of
country and people was most mercilessly treated by Napoleon I., who
should either have restored her altogether, or have annihilated her. But
the great Emperor was partial to half-measures,--a folly that had much
to do with his fall. The misery that Prussia then experienced was the
cause of her subsequent greatness; and if she has wrested European
supremacy from Napoleon III., she should thank Napoleon I. for enabling
her to accomplish so great a feat of arms. The Prussian government had
to undertake the task of reform, to save itself and the country from
perishing. The chief man in this great work was the celebrated Baron von
Stein, whose name is of infrequent mention in popular histories of the
Napoleonic age, but who had more to do with the overthrow of the Man of
Destiny th