eace of Oliva, getting tired of
his unruly Polish chivalry and their ways, abdicated;--retired to Paris;
and "lived much with Ninon de l'Enclos and her circle," for the rest of
his life. He used to complain of his Polish chivalry, that there was no
solidity in them; nothing but outside glitter, with tumult and anarchic
noise; fatal want of one essential talent, the talent of Obeying; and
has been heard to prophesy that a glorious Republic, persisting in such
courses, would arrive at results which would surprise it.

Onward from this time, Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the world; public
men watching his procedure; Kings anxious to secure him,--Dutch
printsellers sticking up his Portraits for a hero-worshipping Public.
Fighting hero, had the Public known it, was not his essential character,
though he had to fight a great deal. He was essentially an Industrial
man; great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic heaps
to become cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles colonies in the
waste-places of his Dominions, cuts canals; unweariedly encourages trade
and work. The FRIEDRICH-WILHELM'S CANAL, which still carries tonnage
from the Oder to the Spree, [Executed, 1662-1668; fifteen English miles
long (Busching, ERDBESCHREIBUNG, vi, 2193).] is a monument of his zeal
in this way; creditable, with the means he had. To the poor French
Protestants, in the Edict-of-Nantes Affair, he was like an express
Benefit of Heaven: one Helper appointed, to whom the help itself was
profitable. He munificently welcomed them to Brandenburg; showed really
a noble piety and human pity, as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg
and he want their reward. Some 20,000 nimble French souls, evidently of
the best French quality, found a home there;--made "waste sands about
Berlin into potherb gardens;" and in the spiritual Brandenburg, too,
did something of horticulture, which is still noticeable. [Erman (weak
Biographer of Queen Sophie-Charlotte, already cited), _Memoires pour
sevir a l'Histoire den Refugies Francais dans les Etats du Roi de
Prusse_ (Berlin, 1782-1794), 8 tt. 8vo.]

Certainly this Elector was one of the shiftiest of men. Not an unjust
man either. A pious, God-fearing man rather, stanch to his Protestantism
and his Bible; not unjust by any means,--nor, on the other hand, by any
means thick-skinned in his interpretings of justice: Fair-play to myself
always; or occasionally even the Height of Fair-play! On the whole, by
constant e