s,--and will rapidly arrive
at the goal set before it. All was so rapid, on the Polish and on the
Turkish part. The blind Turks, out of mere fanaticism and heat of humor,
have rushed into this adventure;--and go rushing forward into a series
of chaotic platitudes on the huge scale, and mere tragical disasters,
year after year, which would have been comical, had they not been so
hideous and sanguinary: constant and enormous blunders on the Turk
part, issuing in disasters of like magnitude; which in the course of
Two Campaigns had quite finished off their Polish friends, in a very
unexpected way; and had like to have finished themselves off, had not
drowned Poland served as a stepping-stone.

Not till March 26th, 1769, six months after declaring in such haste,
did the blind Turks "display their Banner of Mahomet," that is, begin
in earnest to assemble and make ready. Nor were the Russians shiningly
strategic, though sooner in the field,--a Prince Galitzin commanding
them (an extremely purblind person); till replaced by Romanzow, our old
Colberg acquaintance, who saw considerably better. Galitzin, early in
the season, made a rush on Choczim (ChoTzim), the first Turk Fort beyond
the Dniester; and altogether failed,--not by Turk prowess, but by his
own purblind mal-arrangements (want of ammunition, want of bread, or I
will forget what);--which occasioned mighty grumblings in Russia:
till in a month or two, by favor of Fortune and blindness of the Turk,
matters had come well round again; and Galitzin, walking up to Choczim
the second time, found there was not a Turk in the place, and that
Choczim was now his on those uncommonly easy terms!

Instead of farther details on such a War,--the shadow or reflex of
which, as mirrored in the Austrian mind, has an importance to Friedrich
and us; but the self or substance of which has otherwise little or
none,--we will close here with a bit of Russian satire on it, which is
still worth reading. The date is evidently Spring, 1769; the scene what
we are now treating of: Galitzin obliged to fall back from Choczim;
great rumor--"What a Galitzin; what a Turk War his, in contrast to
the last we had!" [Turk War of 1736-1739, under Munnich (supra, vii.
81-126).]--no Romanzow yet appointed in his room. And here is a small
Manuscript, which was then circulating fresh and new in Russian Society;
and has since gone over all the world (though mostly in an uncertain
condition, in old Jest-Books and t