iser than
the last resting-place of a great king. For such a man it seems poor
and mean, but probably Frederick himself did not wish for better. He
must have known that his real monument would be his reputation with
posterity. In fact the chroniclers agree, and the noble statue of
Magnussen confirms the impression, that at the close of his stormy
life he was glad finally to be at rest anywhere. "_Quand je serai
la_," he was wont to say, pointing to where his dogs were buried in
the palace park, "_je serai sans souci_."

In every court there is a disposition on the part of courtiers to
agree with everything the monarch says, to flatter him as dexterously
as they can, to minister to princely vanity, if vanity there be, to
"crawl on their bellies," in the choice language of hostile court
critics, or "wag their tails" and double up their bodies at every bow;
show, in short, in different ways, often all unconsciously, the
presence of a servile and self-interested mind. The disposition is not
to be found in courts alone. It is one of the commonest and most
malignant qualities of humanity, and can any day and at any hour be
observed in action in any Ministry of State, any mercantile office,
any great warehouse, any public institution, in every scene, in fact,
where one or many men are dependent for their living on the favour or
caprice of another. On the other hand, let it not be forgotten that
this innate tendency of human nature is at times replaced by another
which has frequently the same outward manifestations, but is not the
same feeling, the sentiment, namely, of embarrassment arising from the
fear of being servile, and the equally frequent embarrassment arising
from that principle which is always at work in the mind, the
association of ideas, which in the case of a monarch presents him to
the ordinary mortal as embodying ideas of grandeur, power, might, and
intellect to which the latter is unaccustomed. Education, economic
changes, and the art of manners have done much to conceal, if not
eradicate, human proneness to servility, and the Byzantinism of the
time of Caligula and Nero, of Tiberius, Constantine, or Nikiphoros, of
the Stuarts and the Bourbons, has long been modified into respect for
oneself as well as for the person one addresses. There are, however,
still traces of the old evil in the German atmosphere, and in especial
a tendency among officials of all grades to be humble and submissive
to those above them a