EDRICH TO D'ARGENS AND OTHERS.

TO D'ARGENS (Krogis, 15th November, order for Maxen just given).
"Yesterday I joined the Army [day before yesterday, but took the field
yesterday], and Daun decamped. I have followed him thus far, and will
continue it to the frontiers of Bohemia. Our measures are so taken
[Finck, to wit], that he will not get out of Saxony without considerable
losses. Yesterday cost him 500 men taken at Korgis here. Every movement
he makes will cost him as many." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xix. 101.]

TO VOLTAIRE (Wilsdruf, 17th November). "We are verging on the end of our
Campaign: and I will write to you in eight days from Dresden, with more
composure and coherency than now." [Ib. xxiii. 66.]

TO THE SAME (Wilsdruf, 19th November). "The Austrians are packing off
to Bohemia,--where, in reprisal for the incendiary operations they have
done in my countries, I have burnt them two big magazines. I render the
beatified Hero's retreat as difficult as possible; and I hope he
will come upon some bad adventures within a few days." [_OEuvres de
Frederic,_ xxiii. 66.]

SAME DAY AND PLACE, TO D'ARGENS. A volley of most rough-paced off-hand
Rhyming, direct from the heart; "Ode [as he afterwards terms it, or
irrepressible extempore LILT] TO FORTUNE:"

"MARQUIS, QUEL CHANGEMENT, what a change! I, a poor heretic creature,
never blessed by the Holy Father; indeed, little frequenting Church, nor
serving either Baal or the God of Israel; held down these many months,
and reported by more than one shaven scoundrel [priest-pamphleteer at
Vienna] to be quite extinct, and gone vagabond over the world,--see
how capricious Fortune, after all her hundred preferences of my rivals,
lifts me with helpful hand from the deep, and packs this Hero of the Hat
and Sword,--whom Popes have blessed what they could, and who has walked
in Pilgrimage before now [to Marienzell once, I believe, publicly at
Vienna],--out of Saxony; panting, harassed goes he, like a stranger
dog from some kitchen where the cook had flogged him out!" [Ib. xix.
103-106.]... (A very exultant Lilt, and with a good deal more of the
chanticleer in it than we are used to in this King!)

2. AFTER MAXEN.

TO D'ARGENS (Wilsdruf, 22d November). "Do with that [some small piece
of business] whatever you like, my dear Marquis. I am so stupefied
(E'TOURDI) with the misfortune which has befallen General Finck, that
I cannot recover from my astonishment. It deranges all my mea