which is also called East Prussia, is now a free
sovereignty,--and will become as "Royal" as the other Polish part. Or
perhaps even more so, in the course of time!--Karl Gustav, in a high
frame of mind, informs the Kurfurst, that he has him on his books, and
will pay the debt one day!

A dangerous debtor in such matters, this Karl Gustav. In these same
months, busy with the Danish part of the Controversy, he was doing a
feat of war, which set all Europe in astonishment. In January, 1658,
Karl Gustav marches his Army, horse, foot and artillery, to the extent
of twenty thousand, across the Baltic ice, and takes an Island without
shipping,--Island of Funen, across the Little Belt; three miles of ice;
and a part of the sea open, which has to be crossed on planks. Nay,
forward from Funen, when once there, he achieves ten whole miles more
of ice; and takes Zealand itself, [Holberg's _Danemarkische
Reichs-Historie,_ pp. 406-409.]--to the wonder of all mankind. An
imperious, stern-browed, swift-striking man; who had dreamed of a new
Goth Empire: The mean Hypocrites and Fribbles of the South to be coerced
again by noble Norse valor, and taught a new lesson. Has been known
to lay his hand on his sword while apprising an Ambassador (Dutch
High-Mightiness) what his royal intentions were: "Not the sale or
purchase of groceries, observe you, Sir! My aims go higher!"--Charles
Twelfth's Grandfather, and somewhat the same type of man.

But Karl Gustav died, short while after; [13th February, 1660, age 38.]
left his big wide-raging Northern Controversy to collapse in what way
it could. Sweden and the fighting-parties made their "Peace of Oliva"
(Abbey of Oliva, near Dantzig, 1st May, 1660); and this of Preussen was
ratified, in all form, among the other points. No homage more; nothing
now above Ducal Prussia but the Heavens; and great times coming for
it. This was one of the successfulest strokes of business ever done by
Friedrich Wilhelm; who had been forced, by sheer compulsion, to embark
in that big game.--"Royal Prussia," the Western or POLISH Prussia: this
too, as all Newspapers know, has, in our times, gone the same road as
the other. Which probably, after all, it may have had, in Nature, some
tendency to do? Cut away, for reasons, by the Polish sword, in that
Battle of Tannenberg, long since; and then, also for reasons, cut back
again! That is the fact;--not unexampled in human History.

Old Johann Casimir, not long after that P