Majesty's
coat [snuff-colored or purple, I cannot recollect] cost 1,500 pounds
apiece;" by this one feature judge what an expensive Herr. Streets were
hung with cloth, carpeted with cloth, no end of draperies and cloth;
your oppressed imagination feels as if there was cloth enough, of
scarlet and other bright colors, to thatch the Arctic Zone. With
illuminations, cannon-salvos, fountains running wine. Friedrich had made
two Bishops for the nonce. Two of his natural Church-Superintendents
made into Quasi-Bishops, on the Anglican model,--which was always a
favorite with him, and a pious wish of his;--but they remained mere cut
branches, these two, and did not, after their haranguing and anointing
functions, take root in the country. He himself put the crown on his
head: "King here in my own right, after all!"--and looked his royalest,
we may fancy; the kind eyes of him almost partly fierce for moments, and
"the cheerfulness of pride" well blending with something of awful.

In all which sublimities, the one thing that remains for human memory is
not in these Folios at all, but is considered to be a fact not the less:
Electress Charlotte's, now Queen Charlotte's, very strange conduct
on the occasion. For she cared not much about crowns, or upholstery
magnificences of any kind; but had meditated from of old on the
infinitely little; and under these genuflections, risings, sittings,
shiftings, grimacings on all parts, and the endless droning eloquence
of Bishops invoking Heaven, her ennui, not ill-humored or offensively
ostensible, was heartfelt and transcendent. At one turn of the
proceedings, Bishop This and Chancellor That droning their empty
grandiloquences at discretion, Sophie Charlotte was distinctly seen to
smuggle out her snuff-box, being addicted to that rakish practice, and
fairly solace herself with a delicate little pinch of snuff. Rasped
tobacco, _ tabac rape, _ called by mortals _ rape _ or rappee: there is
no doubt about it; and the new King himself noticed her, and hurled back
a look of due fulminancy, which could not help the matter, and was only
lost in air. A memorable little action, and almost symbolic in the first
Prussian Coronation. "Yes, we are Kings, and are got SO near the stars,
not nearer; and you invoke the gods, in that tremendously long-winded
manner; and I--Heavens, I have my snuff-box by me, at least!" Thou
wearied patient Heroine; cognizant of the infinitely little!--This
symbolic pinch of s