rnished me by Mr. W. H. Doeg,
Barlow Moor, Manchester: whose it now is,--purchased in London, A.D.
1863. The FRH of German CURSIV-SCHRIFT (current hand), which the
woodcutter has appended, shut off by a square, will show English readers
what the King means: an _"Frh"_ done as by a flourish of one's stick,
in the most compendious and really ingenious manner,--suitable for an
economic King, who has to repeat it scores of times every day of his
life!

Chapter VI.--THE BAVARIAN WAR.

At the very beginning of 1778, the chronic quarrel with Austria passed,
by an accident just fallen out, into the acute state; rose
gradually, and, in spite of negotiating, issued in a thing called
Bavarian-Succession War, which did not end till Spring of the following
year. The accident was this. At Munchen, December 30th, 1777, Max
Joseph Kurfurst of Baiern, only Brother of our lively friend the
Electress-Dowager of Saxony, died; suddenly, of small-pox unskilfully
treated. He was in his fifty-second year; childless, the last of that
Bavarian branch. His Heir is Karl Theodor, Kur-Pfalz (Elector Palatine),
who is now to unite the Two Electorates,--unless Austria can bargain
with him otherwise. Austria's desire to get hold of Baiern is of very
old standing; and we have heard lately how much it was an object with
Kaunitz and his young Kaiser. With Karl Theodor they did bargain,--in
fact, had beforehand as good as bargained,--and were greatly astonished,
when King Friedrich, alone of all Teutschland or the world, mildly, but
peremptorily, interfered, and said No,--with effect, as is well known.

Something, not much, must be said of this Bavarian-Succession War; which
occupied, at a pitch of tension and anxiety foreign to him for a long
time, fifteen months of Friedrich's old age (January, 1778-March, 1779);
and filled all Europe round him and it, in an extraordinary manner.
Something; by no means much, now that we have seen the issue of such
mountains all in travail. Nobody could then say but it bade fair to
become a Fourth Austrian-Prussian War, as sanguinary as the Seven-Years
had been; for in effect there stood once more the Two Nations ranked
against each other, as if for mortal duel, near half a million men in
whole; parleying indeed, but brandishing their swords, and ever and anon
giving mutual clash of fence, as if the work had begun, though there
always intervened new parleying first.

And now everybody sees that the work never di