ue in
Brandenburg; but were marriageable girls such a scarcity there? Most
extraordinary new RAPE OF THE SABINES; for which Herr Preuss can find no
basis or source,--nor can I; except in the brain of Reverend Lindsey and
his loud LETTERS ON POLAND above mentioned.

Dantzig too, and the Harbor-dues, what a case! Dantzig Harbor, that
is to say, Netze River, belongs mainly to Friedrich, Dantzig City
not,--such the Czarina's lofty whim, in the late Partition Treatyings;
not good to contradict, in the then circumstances; still less
afterwards, though it brought chicanings more than enough. "And she
was not ill-pleased to keep this thorn in the King's foot for her own
conveniences," thinks the King; though, mainly, he perceives that it is
the English acting on her grandiose mind: English, who were apprehensive
for their Baltic trade under this new Proprietor, and who egged on an
ambitious Czarina to protect Human Liberty, and an inflated Dantzig
Burgermeister to stand up for ditto; and made a dismal shriekery in
the Newspapers, and got into dreadful ill-humor with said Proprietor
of Dantzig Harbor, and have never quite recovered from it to this day.
Lindsey's POLISH LETTERS are very loud again on this occasion, aided
by his SEVEN DIALOGUES ON POLAND; concerning which, partly for extinct
Lindsey's sake, let us cite one small passage, and so wind up.

MARCH 2d, 1775, in answer to Voltaire, Friedrich writes:... "The POLISH
DIALOGUES you speak of are not known to me. I think of such Satires,
with Epictetus: 'If they tell any truth of thee, correct thyself; if
they are lies, laugh at them.' I have learned, with years, to become a
steady coach-horse; I do my stage, like a diligent roadster, and pay
no heed to the little dogs that will bark by the way." And then, three
weeks after:--

"I have at length got the SEVEN DIALOGUES ON POLAND; and the whole
history of them as well. The Author is an Englishman named Lindsey,
Parson by profession, and Tutor to the young Prince Poniatowski,
the King of Poland's Nephew,"--Nephew Joseph, Andreas's Son, NOT the
undistinguished Nephew: so we will believe for poor loud Lindsey's
sake! "It was at the instigation of the Czartoryskis, Uncles of the King,
that Lindsey composed this Satire,--in English first of all. Satire
ready, they perceived that nobody in Poland would understand it, unless
it were translated into French; which accordingly was done. But as their
translator was unskilful, they sen