Stade;--arrived at
Stade, on the tidal Waters of the Elbe, August 5th; and by necessity did
halt there. From Minden onwards, Richelieu, not D'Estrees, has had the
chasing of Royal Highness: one of the simplest functions; only that
the country is getting muddy, difficult for artillery-carriage (thinks
Richelieu), with an Army so dilapidated, hungry, short of pay; and that
Royal Highness, a very furious person to our former knowledge, might
turn on us like a boar at bay, endangering everything; and finally, that
one's desire is not for battle, but for a fair chance of plunder to pay
one's debts.

"Britannic Majesty, in this awful state of his Hanover Armaments,
has been applying at the Danish Court; Richelieu too sends off an
application thither: 'Mediate between us, spare useless bloodshed!'
[Valfons, p. 291.]--Whereupon Danish Majesty (Britannic's son-in-law)
cheerfully undertakes it; bids one Lynar bestir himself upon it. Count
Lynar, an esteemed Official of his, who lives in those neighborhoods;
Danish Viceroy in Oldenburg,--much concerned with the Scriptures, the
Sacred Languages and other seraphic studies,--and a changed man since we
saw him last in the Petersburg regions, making love to Mrs. Anton Ulrich
long ago! Lynar, feeling the axis of the world laid on his shoulder in
this manner, loses not a moment; invokes the Heavenly Powers; goes on
it with an alacrity and a despatch beyond praise. Runs to the Duke of
Cumberland at Stade; thence to Richelieu at Zeven; back to the Duke,
back to Zeven: 'Won't you; and won't YOU?' and in four short days
has the once world-famed 'Convention of Kloster-Zeven' standing on
parchment,--signed, ready for ratifying: 'Royal Highness's Army to go
home to their countries again [routes, methods, times: when, how, and
what next, all left unsettled], and noise of War to cease in those
parts.' Signed cheerfully on both sides 9th September, 1757; and Lynar
striking the stars with his sublime head. [Busching (who alone is exact
in the matter), _ Beitrage,_ iv. 167, 168,? Lynar: see Scholl, iii. 49;
Valfons, pp. 202, 203; _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv. 143 (with correction
of Preuss's Note there).]

"Unaccountable how Lynar had managed such a difficulty. He says
seraphically, in a Letter to a friend, which the Prussian hussars got
hold of, 'The idea of it was inspired by the Holy Ghost:' at which the
whole world haha'd again. For it was a Convention vague, absurd, not
capable of being execute