xact, and handled as by an artist
and queen; for "her wit is inimitable," "her justness of thought, her
delicacy of expression," her felicity of utterance and management, are
great. Foreign courtiers call her "the Republican Queen." She detects
you a sophistry at one glance; pierces down direct upon the weak point
of an opinion: never in my whole life did I, Toland, come upon a swifter
or sharper intellect. And then she is so good withal, so bright and
cheerful; and "has the art of uniting what to the rest of the world are
antagonisms, mirth and learning,"--say even, mirth and good sense. Is
deep in music, too; plays daily on her harpsichord, and fantasies, and
even composes, in an eminent manner. [_ An Account of the Courts of
Prussia and Hanover, sent to a Minister of State in Holland, _ by Mr.
Toland (London, 1705), p. 322. Toland's other Book, which has reference
to her, is of didactic nature ("immortality of the soul," "origin of
idolatry," &c.), but with much fine panegyric direct and oblique: _
Letters to Serena _ ("Serena" being _ Queen _), a thin 8vo, London,
1704.] Toland's admiration, deducting the high-flown temper and manner
of the man, is sincere and great.

Beyond doubt a bright airy lady, shining in mild radiance in those
Northern parts; very graceful, very witty and ingenious; skilled to
speak, skilled to hold her tongue,--which latter art also was frequently
in requisition with her. She did not much venerate her Husband, nor the
Court population, male or female, whom he chose to have about him: his
and their ways were by no means hers, if she had cared to publish her
thoughts. Friedrich I., it is admitted on all hands, was "an expensive
Herr;" much given to magnificent ceremonies, etiquettes and solemnities;
making no great way any-whither, and that always with noise enough,
and with a dust vortex of courtier intrigues and cabals encircling
him,--from which it is better to stand quite to windward. Moreover, he
was slightly crooked; most sensitive, thin of skin and liable to sudden
flaws of temper, though at heart very kind and good. Sophie Charlotte is
she who wrote once, "Leibnitz talked to me of the infinitely little
(_ de l'infiniment petit): mon Dieu, _ as if I did not know enough of
that!" Besides, it is whispered she was once near marrying to Louis
XIV.'s Dauphin; her Mother Sophie, and her Cousin the Dowager Duchess of
Orleans, cunning women both, had brought her to Paris in her girlhood,
with t