y, Guichard came with the book [what "Book" nobody would ever
yet tell me], and putting his finger on the passage, 'See, your Majesty:
Quintus CAEcilius!' extinguished his royal opponent. 'Hm,' answered
Friedrich: 'so?--Well, you shall be Quintus Icilius, at any rate!'
And straightway had him entered on the Army Books 'as Major Quintus
Icilius;' his Majorship is to be dated '10th April, 1758' (to give him
seniority); and from and after this '26th May, 1759,' he is to
command the late Du Verger's Free-Battalion. All which was done:--the
War-Offices somewhat astonished at such advent of an antique Roman
among them; but writing as bidden, the hand being plain, and the man an
undeniable article. Onward from which time there is always a 'Battalion
Quintus' on their Books, instead of Battalion Du Verger; by degrees
two Batallions Quintus, and at length three, and Quintus become a
Colonel:--at which point the War ended; and the three Free-Battalions
Quintus, like all others of the same type, were discharged." This is
the authentic origin of the new name Quintus, which Guichard got, to
extinction of the old; substantially this, as derived from Quintus
himself,--though in the precise details of it there are obscurities,
never yet solved by the learned. Nicolai, for example, though he had
the story from Quintus in person, who was his familiar acquaintance, and
often came to see him at Berlin, does not, with his usual punctuality,
say, nor even confess that he has forgotten, what Book it was that
Quintus brought with him to confute the King on their Icilius-Caecilius
controversy; Nicolai only says, that he, for his part, in the fields of
Roman Literature and History, knows only three Quintus-Iciliuses,
not one of whom is of the least likelihood; and in fact, in the above
summary, I have had to INVERT my Nicolai on one point, to make the story
stick together. [Nicolai, _Anekdoten,_ vi. 129-145.]

"Quintus had been bred for the clerical profession; carefully, at
various Universities, Leyden last of all; and had even preached, as
candidate for license,--I hope with moderate orthodoxy;--though he soon
renounced that career. Exchanged it for learned and vigorous general
study, with an eye to some College Professorship instead. He was still
hardly twenty-three, when, in 1747, the new Stadtholder," Prince of
Orange, whom we used to know, "who had his eye upon him as a youth of
merit, graciously undertook to get him placed at Utrecht, in a