p. x, xix. 137 n., 138;
especially in PREUSS, i. 467, 468 (if you will compare him with
HIMSELF on these different occasions, and patiently wind out his bit
of meaning), all manner of minutest details.] The diligent Pirate
Booksellers, at Amsterdam, at London, copiously reproduced this
authorized Berlin Edition too,--or added excerpts from it to their
reprints of the Paris one, by way of various-readings. And everybody
read and compared, what nobody will now do; theme, and treatment of
theme, being both now so heartily indifferent to us.

Who the Perpetrator of this Parisian maleficence was, remained
dark;--and would not be worth inquiring into at all, except for two
reasons intrinsically trifling, but not quite without interest to
readers of our time. First, that Voltaire, whom some suspected (some,
never much Friedrich, that I hear of), appears to have been perfectly
innocent;--and indeed had been incapacitated for guilt, by Schmidt and
Freytag, and their dreadful Frankfurt procedures! This is reason FIRST;
poor Voltaire mutely asking us, Not to load him with more sins than his
own. Reason SECOND is, that, by a singular opportunity, there has, in
these very months, [Spring, 1863.] a glimmering of light risen on it to
this Editor; illustrating two other points as well, which readers here
are acquainted with, some time ago, as riddles of the insignificant
sort. The DEMON NEWSWRITER, with his "IDEA" of Friedrich, and the
"MATINEES DU ROI DE PRUSSE:" readers recollect both those Productions;
both enigmatic as to authorship;--but both now become riddles which can
more or less be read.

For the surprising circumstance (though in certain periods, when the
realm of very Chaos re-emerges, fitfully, into upper sunshine now and
then, nothing ought to surprise one as happening there) is, That, only
a few months ago, the incomparable MATINEES (known to my readers five
years since) has found a new Editor and reviver. Editor illuminated "by
the Secretary of the Great Napoleon," "by discovery of manuscripts," "by
the Duc de Rovigo," and I know not what; animated also, it is said, by
religious views. And, in short, the MATINEES is again abroad upon the
world,--"your London Edition twice reprinted in Germany, by the Jesuit
party since" (much good may it do the Jesuit party!)--a MATINEES again
in comfortable circumstances, as would seem. Probably the longest-eared
Platitude now walking the Earth, though there are a good many with ears