l; how very different from his Austrian Cousin!
[Cousins certainly enough; their Progenitors were Brothers, of that
House, about 1568,--when Matthew, the cadet, went "into Livonia,"
into foreign Soldiering (Papa having fallen Prisoner "at the Battle of
Langside," 1568, and the Family prospects being low); from this Matthew
comes, through a scrips of Livonian Soldiers, the famed Austrian
Loudon. Douglas, _Peerage of Scotland,_ p. 425; &c. &c. VIE DE LOUDON
(ill-informed on that point and some others) says, the first Livonian
Loudon came from Ayrshire, "in the fourteenth century".] "Abercrombie
may be better," hopes he;--was better, still not good. But already in
the gloomy imbroglio over yonder, Pitt discerns that one Amherst (the
son of people unimportant at the hustings) has military talent: and
in this puddle of a Rochefort Futility, he has got his eye on a young
Officer named Wolfe, who was Quartermaster of the Expedition; a young
man likewise destitute of Parliamentary connection, but who may be worth
something. Both of whom will be heard of! In a four years' determined
effort of this kind, things do improve: and it was wonderful, to
what amount,--out of these chaotic War-Offices little better than the
Swedish, and ignorant Generalcies fully worse than the Swedish,--Pitt
got heroic successes and work really done.

On Pitt, amid confused clouds, there is bright dawn rising; and
Friedrich too, for the last month, in Breslau, has a cheerful prospect
on that Western side of his horizon. Here is one of his Postscripts,
thrown off in Autograph, which Duke Ferdinand will read with pleasure:
"I congratulate you, MON CHER, with my whole heart! May you FLEUR-DE-LYS
every French skin of them; cutting out on their"--what shall we say
(LEUR IMPRIMANT SUR LE CUE)!--"the Initials of the Peace of Westphalia,
and packing them across the Rhine," tattooed in that latest extremity of
fashion! [Friedrich to Duke Ferdinand, "Grussau, 19th March, 1758:" in
Knesebeck, _ Herzog Ferdinand,_ i. 64. _Herzog Ferdinand wahrend des
7-jahrigen Krieges_ ("from the English and Prussian Archives") is
the full Title of Knesebeck's Book: LETTERS altogether; not very
intelligently edited, but well worth reading by every student, military
and civil: 2 vols. 8vo. Hannover, 1857.]

Friedrich, grounding partly on those Rhine aspects, has his own scheme
laid for Campaign 1758. It is the old scheme tried twice already: to go
home upon your Enemy swiftly, wit