Friedrich accordingly is not meddled with, or not openly meddled with;
and has, for the Ten or Eleven Years coming, a time of perfect external
Peace. He himself is decided "not to fight with a cat," if he can get
the peace kept; and for about eight years hopes confidently that this,
by good management, will continue possible;--till, in the last three
years, electric symptoms did again disclose themselves, and such hope
more and more died away. It is well known there lay in the fates a Third
Silesian War for him, worse than both the others; which is now the
main segment of his History still lying ahead for us, were this
Halcyon Period done. Halcyon Period counts from Christmas-day,
Dresden, 1745,--"from this day, Peace to the end of my life!" had been
Friedrich's fond hope. But on the 9th day of September, 1756, Friedrich
was again entering Dresden (Saxony some twelve days before); and the
Crowning Struggle of his Life was, beyond all expectation, found to be
still lying ahead for him, awfully dubious for Seven Years thereafter!--

Friedrich's History during this intervening Halcyon or Peace Period
must, in some way, be made known to readers: but for a great many
reasons, especially at present, it behooves to be given in compressed
form; riddled down, to an immense extent, out of those sad Prussian
Repositories, where the grain of perennial, of significant and still
memorable, lies overwhelmed under rubbish-mountains of the fairly
extinct, the poisonously dusty and forgettable;--ACH HIMMEL! Which
indispensable preliminary process, how can an English Editor, at this
time, do it; no Prussian, at any time, having thought of trying it! From
a painful Predecessor of mine, I collect, rummaging among his dismal
Paper-masses, the following Three Fragments, worth reading here:--

1. "Friedrich was as busy, in those Years, as in the generality of his
life; and his actions, and salutary conquests over difficulties, were
many, profitable to Prussia and to himself. Very well worth keeping in
mind. But not fit for History; or at least only fit in the summary form;
to be delineated in little, with large generic strokes,--if we had the
means;--such details belonging to the Prussian Antiquary, rather than
to the English Historian of Friedrich in our day. A happy Ten Years of
time. Perhaps the time for Montesquieu's aphorism, 'Happy the People
whose Annals are blank in History-Books!' The Prussian Antiquary, had
he once got any image