ght; wretched
inhabitants running with their furniture [what of it they had got flung
out, between 12 o'clock and 3] towards the Great Garden; all Dresden, to
appearance, girt in flames, ruins and smoke." Such a night in Dresden,
especially in the Pirna Suburb, as was never seen before. [Mitchell,
_Memoirs and Papers,_ i. 459. In _Helden-Geschichte,_ v. 295-302, minute
account (corresponding well with Mitchell's); ib. 303-333, the certified
details of the damage done: "280 houses lost;" "4 human lives."] This
was the sad beginning, or attempt at beginning, of Dresden Siege; and
this also was the end of it, on Daun's part at present. For four days
more, he hung about the place, minatory, hesitative; but attempted
nothing feasible; and on the fifth day,--"for a certain weighty reason,"
as the Austrian Gazettes express it,--he saw good to vanish into the
Pirna Rock-Country, and be out of harm's way in the mean while!

The Truth is, Daun's was an intricate case just now; needing, above all
things, swiftness of treatment; what, of all things, it could not get
from Daun. His denunciations on that burnt Suburb were again loud; but
Schmettau continues deaf to all that,--means "to defend himself by the
known rules of war and of honor;" declares, he "will dispute from street
to street, and only finish in the middle of Polish Majesty's Royal
Palace." Denunciation will do nothing! Daun had above 100,000 men in
those parts. Rushing forward with sharp shot and bayonet storm, instead
of logical denunciation, it is probable Daun might have settled his
Schmettau. But the hour of tide was rigorous, withal;--and such an ebb,
if you missed it in hesitating! NOVEMBER 15th, Daun withdrew; the ebbing
come. That same day, Friedrich was at Lauban in the Lausitz, within a
hundred miles again; speeding hitherward; behind him a Silesia brushed
clear, before him a Saxony to be brushed. "Reason weighty" enough, think
Daun and the Austrian Gazettes! But such, since you have missed the
tide-hour, is the inexorable fact of ebb,--going at that frightful rate.
Daun never was the man to dispute facts.

November 20th, Friedrich arrived in Dresden; heard, next day, that Daun
had wheeled decisively homeward from Pirna Country; that the Reichs Army
and he are diligently climbing the Metal Mountains; and that there is
not in Saxony, more than in Silesia, an enemy left. What a Sequel to
Hochkirch! "Neisse and Dresden both!" we had hoped as sequel, if lucky:
"N