U, 'Zounds
and the rest of them, which the Devil cannot prosecute you for; whereby
an economic man has the pleasure of swearing on cheap terms.

Herr Pollnitz's account of Seckendorf is unusually emphatic; babbling
Pollnitz rises into a strain of pulpit eloquence, inspired by
indignation, on this topic: "He affected German downrightness, to which
he was a stranger; and followed, under a deceitful show of piety, all
the principles of Machiavel. With the most sordid love of money he
combined boorish manners. Lies [of the distilled kind chiefly] had so
become a habit with him, that he had altogether lost notion of employing
truth in speech. It was the soul of a usurer, inhabiting now the body of
a war-captain, now transmigrating into that of a huckster. False oaths,
and the abominablest basenesses, cost him nothing, so his object might
be reached. He was miserly with his own, but lavish with his Master's
money; daily he gave most striking proofs of both these habitudes. And
this was the man whom we saw, for a space of time, at the head of the
Kaiser's Armies, and at the helm of the State and of the German Empire,"
[Pollnitz, ii. 238.]--having done the Prussian affair so well.

This cunning old Gentleman, to date from the autumn of 1726, may be said
to have taken possession of Friedrich Wilhelm; to have gone into him,
Grumkow and he, as two devils would have done in the old miraculous
times: and, in many senses, it was they, not the nominal proprietor,
that lived Friedrich Wilhelm's life. For the next seven years, a figure
went about, not doubting it was Friedrich Wilhelm; but it was in reality
Seckendorf-and-Grumkow much more. These two, conjurer and his man,
both invisible, have caught their royal wild Bear; got a rope round his
muzzle;--and so dance him about; now terrifying, now exhilarating all
the market by the pranks he plays! Grumkow, a very Machiavel after his
sort, knew the nature of the royal animal as no other did. Grumkow,
purchased by his Pension of 500 pounds, is dog-cheap at the Money, as
Seckendorf often urges at Vienna, Is he not? And they add a touch of
extraordinary gift now and then, 40,000 florins (4,000 pounds) on one
occasion: [In 1732: Forster, iii. 232.] for "Grumkow DIENET EHRLICH
(serves honorably)," urges Seckendorf; and again, "If anybody deserves
favor [GNADE, meaning extra pay], it is this gentleman;"--WAHRLICH!
Purchased Grumkow has ample money at command, to purchase other people
needed; a