preading Enterprises, fostered into existence by Friedrich; his
Canal-makings, Road-makings, Bog-drainings, Colonizings and unwearied
endeavorings in that kind, will require a Technical Philosopher one day;
and will well reward such study, and trouble of recording in a human
manner; but must lie massed up in mere outline on the present occasion.
Friedrich, as Land-Father, Shepherd of the People, was great on the
Husbandry side also; and we are to conceive him as a man of excellent
practical sense, doing unweariedly his best in that kind, all his life
long. Alone among modern Kings; his late Father the one exception; and
even his Father hardly surpassing him in that particular.

In regard to Embden and the Shipping interests, Ost-Friesland awakened
very ardent speculations, which were a novelty in Prussian affairs;
nothing of Foreign Trade, except into the limited Baltic, had been heard
of there since the Great Elector's time. The Great Elector had ships,
Forts on the Coast of Africa; and tried hard for Atlantic Trade,--out of
this same Embden; where, being summoned to protect in the troubles, he
had got some footing as Contingent Heir withal, and kept a "Prussian
Battalion" a good while. And now, on much fairer terms, not less
diligently turned to account, it is his Great-Grandson's turn.
Friedrich's successes in this department, the rather as Embden and
Ost-Friesland have in our time ceased to be Prussian, are not much worth
speaking of; but they connect themselves with some points still slightly
memorable to us. How, for example, his vigilantes and endeavors on this
score brought him into rubbings, not collisions, but jealousies and
gratings, with the English and Dutch, the reader will see anon.

Law-reform is gloriously prosperous; Husbandry the like, and Shipping
Interest itself as yet. But in the Third grand Head, that of realizing
the Reinsberg Program, beautifying his Domesticities, and bringing his
own Hearth and Household nearer the Ideal, Friedrich was nothing like
so successful; in fact had no success at all. That flattering Reinsberg
Program, it is singular how Friedrich cannot help trying it by every
new chance, nor cast the notion out of him that there must be a kind
of Muses'-Heaven realizable on Earth! That is the Biographic Phenomenon
which has survived of those Years; and to that we will almost
exclusively address ourselves, on behalf of ingenuous readers.

Chapter IX.--SECOND ACT OF THE VOLTAIR