n has ordered him in,--and not for Lacy's sake, as appears, but for
his own: 'Hitherward, you alert Lacy; to cover my right flank here, my
Hill of Reichenberg,--lest it be not impregnable enough against that
feline enemy!' And there they have taken post, say 60,000 against
30,000; and are palisading to a quite extraordinary degree. No fight
possible with Lacy or Daun."

This is what Mitchell counts the failure of Friedrich's enterprise:
and certainly it grieved Friedrich a good deal. Who, on riding out to
reconnoitre Reichenberg (Quintus Icilius and Battalion QUINTUS part of
his escort, if that be an interesting circumstance), finds Reichenberg
a plainly unattackable post; finds, by Daun's rate of palisading, that
there will be no attack from Daun either. No attack from Daun;--and,
therefore, that Hulsen's people may be sent home to Schlettau again; and
that he, Friedrich, will take post close by, and wearisomely be content
to wait for some new opportunity.

Which he does for a week to come; Daun sitting impregnable, intrenched
and palisaded to the teeth,--rather wishing to be attacked, you would
say; or hopeful sometimes of doing something of the Hochkirch sort again
(for the country is woody, and the enemy audacious);--at all events,
very clear not to attack. A man erring, sometimes to a notable degree,
by over-caution. "Could hardly have failed to overwhelm Friedrich's
small force, had he at once, on Friedrich's crossing the Elbe, joined
Lacy, and gone out against him," thinks Tempelhof, pointing out the form
of operation too. [Tempelhof, iv. 42, 48.] Caution is excellent; but
not quite by itself. Would caution alone do it, an Army all of Druidic
whinstones, or innocent clay-sacks, incapable of taking hurt, would
be the proper one!--Daun stood there; Friedrich looking daily into
him,--visibly in ill humor, says Mitchell; and no wonder; gloomy and
surly words coming out of him, to the distress of his Generals: "Which
I took the liberty of hinting, one evening, to his Majesty;" hint
graciously received, and of effect perceptible, at least to my
imagining.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25th, After nearly a week of this, there rose, towards
sunset, all over the Reichenberg, and far and wide, an exuberant
joy-firing: "For what in the world?" thinks Friedrich. Alas, your
Majesty,--since your own messenger has not arrived, nor indeed ever
will, being picked up by Pandours,--here, gathered from the Austrian
outposts or deserters, are