d management on the
part of the Great Elector.

Of all his Ancestors, our little Fritz, when he grew big, admired this
one. A man made like himself in many points. He seems really to have
loved and honored this one. In the year 1750 there had been a new
Cathedral got finished at Berlin; the ancestral bones had to be shifted
over from the vaults of the old one,--the burying-place ever since
Joachim II., that Joachim who drew his sword on Alba. "King Friedrich,
with some attendants, witnessed the operation, January, 1750. When the
Great Kurfurst's coffin came, he made them open it; gazed in silence on
the features for some time, which were perfectly recognizable; laid his
hand on the hand long dead, and said, _'Messieurs, celui-ci a fait de
grandes choses_ (This one did a great work)!'" [See Preuss, i. 270.]

He died 29th April, 1688;--looking with intense interest upon Dutch
William's preparations to produce a Glorious Revolution in this Island;
being always of an ardent Protestant feeling, and a sincerely religious
man. Friedrich, Crown-Prince, age then thirty-one, and already married
a second time, was of course left Chief Heir;--who, as we see, has not
declined the Kingship, when a chance for it offered. There were four
Half-brothers of Friedrich, too, who got apanages, appointments. They
had at one time confidently looked for much more, their Mother being
busy; but were obliged to be content, and conform to the GERA BOND and
fundamental Laws of the Country. They are entitled Margraves; two of
whom left children, Margraves of Brandenburg-Schwedt, HEERMEISTERS (Head
of the Malta-Knighthood) at Sonnenburg, Statthalters in Magdeburg, or
I know not what; whose names turn up confusedly in the Prussian Books;
and, except as temporary genealogical puzzles, are not of much moment to
the Foreign reader. Happily there is nothing else in the way of Princes
of the Blood, in our little Friedrich's time; and happily what concern
he had with these, or how he was related to them, will not be abstruse
to us, if occasion rise.

Chapter XIX. -- KING FRIEDRICH I. AGAIN.

We said the Great Elector never could work his Silesian Duchies out of
Kaiser Leopold's grip: to all his urgencies the little Kaiser in red
stockings answered only in evasions, refusals; and would quit nothing.
We noticed also what quarrels the young Electoral Prince, Friedrich,
afterwards King, had got into with his Stepmother; suddenly feeling
poisoned after