38.)]

And, some days afterwards, here is her Majesty's Official Assent:
"PLACET, since so many great and learned men will have it so: but long
after I am dead, it will be known what this violating of all that was
hitherto held sacred and just will give rise to." [From _"Zietgenossen_
[a Biographical Periodical], lxxi. 29:" cited in PREUSS, iv. 39.] (Hear
her Majesty!)

Friedrich has none of these compunctious visitings; but his account
too, when he does happen to speak on the subject, is worth hearing, and
credible every word. Writing to Voltaire, a good while after (POTSDAM,
9th OCTOBER, 1773)) this, in the swift-flowing, miscellaneous Letter,
is one passage:... "To return to your King of Poland. I am aware that
Europe pretty generally believes the late Partition made (QU'ON A FAIT)
of Poland to be a result of the Political trickeries (MANIGANCES) which
are attributed to me; nevertheless, nothing is more untrue. After in
vain proposing different arrangements and expedients, there was no
alternative left but either that same Partition, or else Europe kindled
into a general War. Appearances are deceitful; and the Public judges
only by these. What I tell you is as true as the Forty-seventh of
Euclid." [_OEuvres de Frederic_, xxiii. 257.]

WHAT FRIEDRICH DID WITH HIS NEW ACQUISITION.

Considerable obloquy still rests on Friedrich, in many liberal circles,
for the Partition of Poland. Two things, however, seem by this time
tolerably clear, though not yet known in liberal circles: first, that
the Partition of Poland was an event inevitable in Polish History; an
operation of Almighty Providence and of the Eternal Laws of Nature, as
well as of the poor earthly Sovereigns concerned there; and secondly,
that Friedrich had nothing special to do with it, and, in the way of
originating or causing it, nothing whatever.

It is certain the demands of Eternal Justice must be fulfilled: in
earthly instruments, concerned with fulfilling them, there may be all
degrees of demerit and also of merit,--from that of a world-ruffian
Attila the Scourge of God, conscious of his own ferocities and
cupidities alone, to that of a heroic Cromwell, sacredly aware that he
is, at his soul's peril, doing God's Judgments on the enemies of God,
in Tredah and other severe scenes. If the Laws and Judgments are verily
those of God, there can be no clearer merit than that of pushing them
forward, regardless of the barkings of Gazetteers and waysid