e is never to be dreamt of, while
strength lasts. Poor Kirkman, does he sometimes think of the Hill of
Howth, and that he will never see it more? Kirkman, I judge, is not
given to thought;--considers that he has tobacco here, and privileges
and perquisites; and that Howth, and Heaven itself, is inaccessible to
many a man.

FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S RECRUITING DIFFICULTIES.

Tall men, not for this regiment only, had become a necessary of life to
Friedrich Wilhelm. Indispensable to him almost as his daily bread, To
his heart there is no road so ready as that of presenting a tall man
or two. Friedrich Wilhelm's regiments are now, by his exact new
regulations, levied and recruited each in its own Canton, or specific
district: there all males as soon as born are enrolled; liable to serve,
when they have grown to years and strength. All grown men (under certain
exceptions, as of a widow's eldest son, or of the like evidently ruinous
cases) are liable to serve; Captain of the Regiment and AMTMANN of the
Canton settle between them which grown man it shall be. Better for you
not to be tall! In fact it is almost a kindness of Heaven to be gifted
with some safe impediment of body, slightly crooked back or the like, if
you much dislike the career of honor under Friedrich Wilhelm. A general
shadow of unquiet apprehension we can well fancy hanging over those
rural populations, and much unpleasant haggling now and then;--nothing
but the King's justice that can be appealed to. King's justice, very
great indeed, but heavily checked by the King's value for handsome
soldiers.

Happily his value for industrial laborers and increase of population is
likewise great. Townsfolk, skilful workmen as the theory supposes, are
exempt; the more ingenious classes, generally, his Majesty exempts in
this respect, to encourage them in others. For, on the whole, he is not
less a Captain of Work, to his Nation, than of other things. What he did
for Prussia in the way of industries, improvements, new manufactures,
new methods; in settling "colonies," tearing up drowned bogs and
subduing them into dry cornfields; in building, draining, digging, and
encouraging or forcing others to do so, would take a long chapter. He is
the enemy of Chaos, not the friend of it, wherever you meet with him.

For example, Potsdam itself. Potsdam, now a pleasant, grassy, leafy
place, branching out extensively in fine stone architecture, with swept
pavements; where, as in ot