rts to us and him, dates "November 24th," just while Voltaire
(whom she always likes, and in a beautiful way protects, "FRERE
VOLTAIRE," as she calls him) was despatching Hirsch on that ill-omened
Predatory STEUER-Mission. Her Brother is in real alarm for Wilhelmina,
about this time; sending out Cothenius his chief Doctor, and the like:
but our dear Princess re-emerges from her eclipse; and we shall see her
again, several times, if we be lucky.

And so poor Fred is ended;--and sulky people ask, in their cruel way,
"Why not?" A poor dissolute flabby fellow-creature; with a sad destiny,
and a sadly conspicuous too. Could write Madrigals; be set to make
Opposition cabals. Read this sudden Epitaph in doggerel; an uncommonly
successful Piece of its kind; which is now his main monument with
posterity. The "Brother" (hero of Culloden), the "Sister" (Amelia,
our Friedrich's first love, now growing gossipy and spiteful, poor
Princess), are old friends:--

"Here lies Prince Fred,
Who was alive and is dead:
Had it been his Father,
I had much rather;
Had it been his Brother,
Sooner than any other;

Had it been his Sister,
There's no one would have missed her;
Had it been his whole generation,
Best of all for the Nation:
But since it's only Fred,
There's no more to be said." [Walpole, i. 436.]

FRIEDRIAH VISITS OST-FRIESLAND.

A thing of more importance to us, two months after that catastrophe in
London, is Friedrich's first Visit to Ost-Friesland. May 31st, having
done his Berlin-Potsdam Reviews and other current affairs, Friedrich
sets out on this Excursion. With Ost-Friesland for goal, but much
business by the way. Towards Magdeburg, and a short visit to the
Brunswick Kindred, first of all. There is much reviewing in the
Magdeburg quarter, and thereafter in the Wesel; and reviewing and
visiting all along: through Minden, Bielfeld, Lingen: not till July
13th does he cross the Ost-Friesland Border, and enter Embden. His
three Brothers, and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, were with him.
[--Helden-Geschichte,--iii. 506; Seyfarth, ii. 145; Rodenbeck, i. 216
(who gives a foolish German myth, of Voltaire's being passed off for the
King's Baboon, &c.; Voltaire not being there at all).] On catching view
of Ost-Friesland Border, see, on the Border-Line, what an Arch got
on its feet: Triumphal Arch, of frondent ornaments, inscriptions and
insignia; "of quite extrao