Chapter VI (1)

Mr Egerton glanced over the pile of letters placed beside him, and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and threw them into the waste-basket. Public men have such odd out-of-the-way letters that their waste-baskets are never empty: letters from amateur financiers proposing new ways to pay off the National Debt; letters from America, (never free!) asking for autographs; letters from fond mothers in country villages, recommending some miracle of a son for a place in the king's service; letters from freethinkers in reproof of bigotry; letters from bigots in reproof of freethinking; letters signed Brutus Redivivus, containing the agreeable information that the writer has a dagger for tyrants, if the Danish claims are not forthwith adjusted; letters signed Matilda or Caroline, stating that Caroline or Matilda has seen the public man's portrait at the Exhibition, and that a heart sensible to its attractions may be found at No. -- Piccadilly; letters from beggars, impostors, monomaniacs, speculators, jobbers--all food for the waste-basket.

From the correspondence thus winnowed, Mr Egerton first selected those on business, which he put methodically together in one division of his pocket-book; and secondly, those of a private nature, which he as carefully put into another. Of these last there were but three--one from his steward, one from Harley L'Estrange, one from Randal Leslie. It was his custom to answer his correspondence at his office; and to his office, a few minutes afterwards, he slowly took his way. Many a passenger turned back to look again at the firm figure, which, despite the hot summer day, was buttoned up to the throat; and the black frock-coat thus worn, well became the erect air, and the deep full chest of the handsome senator. When he entered Parliament Street, Audley Egerton was joined by one of his colleagues, also on his way to the cares of office.

After a few observations on the last debate, this gentleman said--

"By the way, can you dine with me next Saturday, to meet Lansmere? He comes up to town to vote for us on Monday."

"I had asked some people to dine with me," answered Egerton, "but I will put them off. I see Lord Lansmere too seldom, to miss any occasion to meet a man whom I respect so much."

"So seldom! True, he is very little in town; but why don't you go and see him in the country? Good shooting--pleasant old-fashioned house."

"My dear Westbourne, his house is '_nimium vicina Cremonæ_,' close to a borough in which I have been burned in effigy."

"Ha--ha--yes--I remember you first came into Parliament for that snug little place; but Lansmere himself never found fault with your votes, did he?"

"He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not presumed to consider me his mouthpiece; and then, too, I am so intimate with L'Estrange."

"Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England?"

"He comes, generally every year, for a few days, just to see his father and mother, and then goes back to the Continent."

"I never meet him."

"He comes in September or October, when you, of course, are not in town, and it is in town that the Lansmeres meet him."

"Why does not he go to them?"

"A man in England but once a year, and for a few days, has so much to do in London, I suppose."

"Is he as amusing as ever?"

Egerton nodded.

"So distinguished as he might be!" continued Lord Westbourne.

"So distinguished as he is!" said Egerton formally; "an officer selected for praise, even in such fields as Quatre Bras and Waterloo; a scholar, too, of the finest taste; and as an accomplished gentleman, matchless!"

"I like to hear one man praise another so warmly in these ill-natured days," answered Lord Westbourne. "But still, though L'Estrange is doubtless all you say, don't you think he rather wastes his life--living abroad?"

"And trying to be happy, Westbourne? Are you sure it is not we who waste our lives? But I can't stay to hear your answer. Here we are at the door of my prison."

"On Saturday, then?"

"On Saturday. Good day."

For the next hour, or more, Mr Egerton was engaged on the affairs of the state. He then snatched an interval of leisure, (while awaiting a report, which he had instructed a clerk to make him,) in order to reply to his letters. Those on public business were soon despatched; and throwing his replies aside, to be sealed by a subordinate hand, he drew out the letters which he had put apart as private.

He attended first to that of his steward: the steward's letter was long, the reply was contained in three lines. Pitt himself was scarcely more negligent of his private interests and concerns than Audley Egerton--yet, withal, Audley Egerton was said by his enemies to be an egotist.

The next letter he wrote was to Randal, and that, though longer, was far from prolix: it ran thus--

"Dear Mr Leslie,--I appreciate your delicacy in consulting me,
whether you should accept Frank Hazeldean's invitation to call at
the Hall. Since you are asked, I can see no objection to it. I
should be sorry if you appeared to force yourself there; and for
the rest, as a general rule, I think a young man who has his own
way to make in life had better avoid all intimacy with those of his
own age who have no kindred objects nor congenial pursuits.

"As soon as this visit is paid, I wish you to come to London. The
report I receive of your progress at Eton renders it unnecessary,
in my judgment, that you should return there. If your father has no
objection, I propose that you should go to Oxford at the ensuing
term. Meanwhile, I have engaged a gentleman who is a fellow of
Baliol, to read with you; he is of opinion, judging only by your
high repute at Eton, that you may at once obtain a scholarship in
that college. If you do so, I shall look upon your career in life
as assured.

"Your affectionate friend, and
sincere well-wisher,

A. E."

The reader will remark that, in this letter, there is a certain tone of formality. Mr Egerton does not call his _protegé_ "dear Randal," as would seem natural, but coldly and stiffly, "Dear Mr Leslie." He hints, also, that the boy has his own way to make in life. Is this meant to guard against too sanguine notions of inheritance, which his generosity may have excited?

The letter to Lord L'Estrange was of a very different kind from the others. It was long, and full of such little scraps of news and gossip as may interest friends in a foreign land; it was written gaily, and as with a wish to cheer his friend; you could see that it was a reply to a melancholy letter; and in the whole tone and spirit there was an affection, even to tenderness, of which those who most liked Audley Egerton would have scarcely supposed him capable. Yet, notwithstanding, there was a kind of constraint in the letter, which perhaps only the fine tact of a woman would detect. It had not that _abandon_, that hearty self-outpouring, which you might expect would characterise the letters of two such friends, who had been boys at school together, and which did breathe indeed in all the abrupt rambling sentences of his correspondent. But where was the evidence of the constraint? Egerton is off-hand enough where his pen runs glibly through paragraphs that relate to others; it is simply that he says nothing about himself--that he avoids all reference to the inner world of sentiment and feeling. But perhaps, after all, the man has no sentiment and feeling! How can you expect that a steady personage in practical life, whose mornings are spent in Downing Street, and whose nights are consumed in watching Government bills through a committee, can write in the same style as an idle dreamer amidst the pines of Ravenna or on the banks of Como.

Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was, when the attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a deputation from a provincial trading town, the members of which deputation he had appointed to meet at two o'clock. There was no office in London at which deputations were kept waiting less than at that over which Mr Egerton presided.

The deputation entered--some score or so of middle-aged, comfortable-looking persons, who nevertheless had their grievance--and considered their own interests, and those of the country, menaced by a certain clause in a bill brought in by Mr Egerton.

The Mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and he spoke well--but in a style to which the dignified official was not accustomed. It was a slap-dash style--unceremonious, free, and easy--an American style. And, indeed, there was something altogether in the appearance and bearing of the Mayor which savoured of residence in the Great Republic. He was a very handsome man, but with a look sharp and domineering--the look of a man who did not care a straw for president or monarch, and who enjoyed the liberty to speak his mind, and "wallop his own nigger!"

His fellow-burghers evidently regarded him with great respect; and Mr Egerton had penetration enough to perceive that Mr Mayor must be a rich man, as well as an eloquent one, to have overcome those impressions of soreness or jealousy which his tone was calculated to create in the self-love of his equals.

Mr Egerton was far too wise to be easily offended by mere manner; and, though he stared somewhat haughtily when he found his observations actually pooh-poohed, he was not above being convinced. There was much sense and much justice in Mr Mayor's arguments, and the statesman civilly promised to take them into full consideration.

He then bowed out the deputation; but scarcely had the door closed before it opened again, and Mr Mayor presented himself alone, saying aloud to his companions in the passage, "I forgot something I had to say to Mr Egerton; wait below for me."

"Well, Mr Mayor," said Audley, pointing to a seat, "what else would you suggest?"

The Mayor looked round to see that the door was closed; and then, drawing his chair close to Mr Egerton's, laid his forefinger on that gentleman's arm, and said, "I think I speak to a man of the world, sir."

Mr Egerton bowed, and made no reply by word, but he gently removed his arm from the touch of the forefinger.

MR MAYOR.--"You observe, sir, that I did not ask the members whom we return to Parliament to accompany us. Do better without 'em. You know they are both in Opposition--out-and-outers."

MR EGERTON.--"It is a misfortune which the Government cannot remember, when the question is whether the trade of the town itself is to be served or injured."

MR MAYOR.--"Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you'd be glad to have two members to support Ministers after the next election."

MR EGERTON, smiling.--"Unquestionably, Mr Mayor."

MR MAYOR.--"And I can do it, Mr Egerton. I may say I have the town in my pocket; so I ought, I spend a great deal of money in it. Now, you see, Mr Egerton, I have passed a part of my life in a land of liberty--the United States--and I come to the point when I speak to a man of the world. I'm a man of the world myself, sir. And if so be the Government will do something for me, why, I'll do something for the Government. Two votes for a free and independent town like ours--that's something, isn't it?"

MR EGERTON, taken by surprise.--"Really, I--"

MR MAYOR, advancing his chair still nearer, and interrupting the official.--"No nonsense, you see, on one side or the other. The fact is that I've taken it into my head that I should be knighted. You may well look surprised, Mr Egerton--trumpery thing enough, I dare say; still, every man has his weakness, and I should like to be Sir Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir Richard, you may just name your two members for the next election--that is, if they belong to your own set, enlightened men, up to the times. That's speaking fair and manful, isn't it?"

MR EGERTON, drawing himself up.--"I am at a loss to guess why you should select me, sir, for this very extraordinary proposition."

MR MAYOR, nodding good-humouredly.--"Why, you see, I don't go all along with the Government; you're the best of the bunch. And maybe you'd like to strengthen your own party. This is quite between you and me, you understand; honour's a jewel!"

MR EGERTON, with great gravity.--"Sir, I am obliged by your good opinion; but I agree with my colleagues in all the great questions that affect the government of the country, and--"

MR MAYOR, interrupting him.--"Ah, of course, you must say so; very right. But I guess things would go differently if you were Prime Minister. However, I have another reason for speaking to you about my little job. You see you were member for Lansmere once, and I think you came in but by two majority, eh?"

MR EGERTON.--"I know nothing of the particulars of that election; I was not present."

MR MAYOR.--"No; but, luckily for you, two relatives of mine were, and they voted for you. Two votes, and you came in by two! Since then, you have got into very snug quarters here, and I think we have a claim on you--"

MR EGERTON.--"Sir, I acknowledge no such claim; I was and am a stranger to Lansmere; and, if the electors did me the honour to return me to Parliament, it was in compliment rather to--"

MR MAYOR, again interrupting the official.--"Rather to Lord Lansmere, you were going to say; unconstitutional doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of the realm. But, never mind, I know the world; and I'd ask Lord Lansmere to do my affair for me, only I hear he is as proud as Lucifer."

MR EGERTON, in great disgust, and settling his papers before him.--"Sir, it is not in my department to recommend to his Majesty candidates for the honour of knighthood, and it is still less in my department to make bargains for seats in Parliament."

MR MAYOR.--"Oh, if that's the case, you'll excuse me; I don't know much of the etiquette in these matters. But I thought that, if I put two seats in your hands, for your own friends, you might contrive to take the affair into your department, whatever it was. But, since you say you agree with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to the same thing. Now, you must not suppose I want to sell the town, and that I can change and chop my politics for my own purpose. No such thing! I don't like the sitting members; I'm all for progressing, but they go _too_ much a-head for me; and, since the Government is disposed to move a little, why I'd as lief support them as not. But, in common gratitude, you see, (added the Mayor, coaxingly,) I ought to be knighted! I can keep up the dignity, and do credit to his Majesty."

MR EGERTON, without looking up from his papers.--"I can only refer you, sir, to the proper quarter."

MR MAYOR, impatiently.--"Proper quarter! Well, since there is so much humbug in this old country of ours, that one must go through all the forms and get at the job regularly, just tell me whom I ought to go to."

MR EGERTON, beginning to be amused as well as indignant.--"If you want a knighthood, Mr Mayor, you must ask the Prime Minister; if you want to give the Government information relative to seats in Parliament, you must introduce yourself to Mr ---- the Secretary of the Treasury."

MR MAYOR.--"And if I go to the last chap, what do you think he'll say?"

MR EGERTON, the amusement preponderating over the indignation.--"He will say, I suppose, that you must not put the thing in the light in which you have put it to me; that the Government will be very proud to have the confidence of yourself and your brother electors; and that a gentleman like you, in the proud position of Mayor, may well hope to be knighted on some fitting occasion. But that you must not talk about the knighthood just at present, and must confine yourself to converting the unfortunate political opinions of the town."

MR MAYOR.--"Well, I guess that chap there would want to do me! Not quite so green, Mr Egerton. Perhaps I'd better go at once to the fountain-head. How d'ye think the Premier would take it?"

MR EGERTON, the indignation preponderating over the amusement.--"Probably just as I am about to do."

Mr Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared.

"Show Mr Mayor the way out," said the Minister.

The Mayor turned round sharply, and his face was purple. He walked straight to the door; but, suffering the attendant to precede him along the corridor, he came back with a rapid stride, and, clenching his hands, and, with a voice thick with passion, cried, "Some day or other I will make you smart for this, as sure as my name's Dick Avenel!"

"Avenel!" repeated Egerton, recoiling, "Avenel!"

But the Mayor was gone.

Audley fell into a deep and musing reverie which seemed gloomy, and lasted till the attendant announced that the horses were at the door.

He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter to Harley L'Estrange open on the table. He drew it towards him, and wrote, "A man has just left me, who calls himself Aven --" in the middle of the name his pen stopped. "No, no," muttered the writer, "what folly to reopen the old wounds there," and he carefully erased the words.

Audley Egerton did not ride in the Park that day, as was his wont, but dismissed his groom; and, turning his horse's head towards Westminster Bridge, took his solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly, as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He was later than usual at the House that evening, and he looked pale and fatigued. But he had to speak, and he spoke well.

THE RISE, POWER, AND POLITICS OF PRUSSIA.[1]

If there is such a thing in diplomacy as a natural ally, Prussia is the natural ally of England. Each possesses exactly what the other wants--the power of Prussia consisting in an immense army, the power of England in an unrivalled fleet: for though the British troops have shown themselves at least equal to any troops in the world, the genius of the nation looks chiefly to naval pre-eminence; and though, in the course of time, Prussia may be in possession of naval honours, nothing can be clearer than that its present strength depends on its soldiery.

The close alliance of England with Prussia is now a century old. We find the great Lord Chatham taking the most open interest in the successes of Frederick II., and establishing the principle that the independence of Prussia is essential to the balance of Europe. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the north of Germany was divided among a cluster of petty sovereignties--of all forms of a national system the surest to foster political intrigues, to invite the intermeddling of foreigners, the one to offer the strongest inducements to invasion, and to provide the feeblest means of defence. The formidable power of France, within twenty miles of England, must always fix the eye of the English statesman; and no more essential operation for our national tranquillity could be conceived than the solid establishment of a kingdom on the northern frontier of France, which might make that proverbially impetuous and ambitious nation aware, that an attempt to assault England could not be made without incurring the hazard of an assault on her own most exposed frontier.

But another power had arisen to render the balance of Europe still more precarious. Russia, at the beginning of the century, known but as a land of semi-barbarism, had suddenly started into a massive force, which threatened the absorption of Germany. Possessing the highest advantages for a great military empire, with harbours commanding the North, a population of sixty millions, a territory almost boundless and almost unassailable, and a government which, under all the changes of individual character in its princes, has retained in its policy the same character of continual progress, of restless interference in European politics, and of bold ambition--Russia must, in all the views of the English statesman, assume an interest of the most pressing order. To interpose an iron barrier to the ambition of Russia necessarily became the principle of English policy, and the English politician naturally looked for that barrier in the vigorous administration and steady strength of the resources of Prussia.

The eighteenth century may be called the Century of Sovereigns. There was no period, before or since, in which so many remarkable personages sat on the thrones of Europe--William III., Louis XIV., Charles XII., the Czar Peter, Maria Theresa of Austria, Catherine II., and Frederick II. of Prussia--each possessed either of great intellectual or great political qualities; all capable of distinction, if they had been born in the humbler conditions of mankind; but all developing, in the duties and labours of thrones, those qualities in a degree which made them, for their day, the great _impulses_ of Europe, and which have placed them in an immovable rank among the high recollections of history.

But, to the Englishman, whether politician or philosopher, Prussia is the most important, from its position, the nature of its connexion with our country, the singularity of its origin, and the especial dependence of its early advance to sovereignty on the vigour of an individual mind.

Gibbon remarks that the oldest royal genealogy of Europe scarcely ascends to the eighth century. The genealogy of the Prussian throne, whether by the zeal of the herald, or the truth of the historian, nearly reaches that cloudy period. Its pedigree is dubiously traced up to the founder of the great Swabian family of Hohenzollern, of whom the first supposed ancestor was a Count Thalasso of Zollern. The family then either fell into obscurity, or rested in contentment with its ancestral possessions, until the thirteenth century, when it started on the national eye as the Burgraves of Nurnberg. But it again slumbered for eight generations, until the difficulties of the Emperor Sigismund drove him to apply to the resources of the family, then probably grown rich, as the chief personages of an opulent German community. The service was repaid by the Viceroyalty of Brandenburg, and the subsequent donation of the actual territory, with the title of Elector, and the office of archchamberlain of the empire.

The imperial gratitude probably continued to be reminded of its duties by fresh loans, for the electorate continued to receive frequent additions of territory, until, early in the seventeenth century, the annexation of the duchy of Prussia placed the Elector in an imposing rank among the dependant princes of the Continent. In the middle of this century a man of distinguished ability, fortunately for Prussia, ascended the electoral throne. Germany was then ravaged by the memorable Thirty Years' War. Frederick the Great afterwards expressed the embarrassments of the new reign in a few pithy words, as was his custom: "My great ancestor," said this graphic describer, "was a prince without territory, an elector without power, and an ally without a friend."

But talent and time are the true elements of success in every condition of life. By economy the Elector restored his finances; by common sense he reclaimed his half-savage subjects; and by sound policy he continued to augment his dominions, without doing violence to his neighbours. The peace of Westphalia, (1648,) which established the imperial system, gave him the additional importance attached to the possession of the archbishopric of Magdeburg, of Halberstadt, and of the actual sovereignty of ducal Prussia, hitherto held as a Polish fief.

But those were the victories of peace; he was at length forced to exhibit his qualities for war. In 1674, as a prince of the empire, he was compelled to furnish his contingent to its army against France. Louis XIV., in revenge, let loose the Swedes in Pomerania to invade Brandenburg. The reputation of the Swedish troops had risen to the highest rank in the Thirty Years' War, and they were regarded as all but invincible. The Prussian Elector, justly alarmed at this new peril of his dominions, appealed to his allies. But German alliances (in those days at least) were slippery, and German succours are habitually slow. Wearied by their delays, the Elector determined to act for himself. Breaking up from Franconia, he transferred his little army of eight thousand men suddenly to Magdeburg. The Swedes, encamped on the Havel, and contemptuous of Prussian strategy, took no trouble to ascertain his movements. The whole expedition was conducted with equal vigour and dexterity. On his arrival in Magdeburg, the gates were kept shut for four-and-twenty hours: thus all intelligence to the enemy was cut off. At nightfall he sallied forth; by daybreak he reached and assaulted the Swedish headquarters, took their baggage and cannon, and hunted the troops from post to post until their dispersion was total.

This battle was one of the instances in which the most important results have followed from slight events. The battle would have been in later times scarcely more than an affair of advanced guards, for the Swedes had but eight thousand, and the Prussians engaged were but five thousand five hundred. But, to have beaten the most distinguished soldiery in Europe, to have surprised the most disciplined, and to have gained the victory with inferior numbers, instantly drew the eyes of Europe on the Elector. His dominions were subjected to no further insult; the character of the Prussian army was raised; and Prussia made the first actual stride to northern supremacy.

This eminent man died in 1688, after a career which earned the panegyric even of his fastidious descendant, Frederick II., who thus described him, almost a hundred years after:--

"He possessed all the qualities which can make a man great, and
Providence afforded him abundant opportunities of developing them.
He gave proofs of prudence at an age when youth, in general,
exhibits nothing but errors. He never abused the heroic virtues,
but applied his valour to the defence of his dominions, and the
assistance of his allies. He had a sound judgment, which made him
a great statesman; and was active and affable, which made him a
good sovereign. His soul was the seat of virtue; prosperity could
not inflate, nor adversity depress it. He was the restorer of his
country, the arbiter of his equals, and the founder of the power of
Brandenburg. _His life was his panegyric._"

Frederick, the eldest son of the great elector, by his marriage with a sister of George I. then Elector of Hanover, became connected with English politics; sent six thousand men to the assistance of the Prince of Orange in his invasion of England; joined the Allies, with twenty thousand men, in revenging the havoc of the Palatinate; and, in the Grand Alliance of 1691, sent fifteen thousand troops to join the army of William III.

But Prussia was continually progressive, and in 1700 she was to make that advance in rank of which nations are as ambitious as their princes. In this year Prussia obtained from the Emperor the long-coveted title of kingdom; and the monarch, as Frederick I., took his place among European sovereigns. He died in 1713, and was succeeded by the prince-royal, Frederick-William. The character of the deceased monarch was, long after, given with epigrammatic contemptuousness by Frederick II.

"In person short and deformed, with a haughty manner and
a commonplace countenance, violent from temper, mild from
carelessness, he confounded vanities with acts of greatness, and
was fonder of show than of utility. He sold the blood of his
subjects to England and Holland, as the Tartars sell their cattle
to the Podolian butchers for slaughter; he oppressed the poor to
make the rich fatter still. He wished to pledge the royal domains
to buy the Pitt diamond; and he sold to the Allies twenty thousand
men, to have it said that he kept thirty thousand."

Royal extravagance is never pardoned, and the memory of this princely spendthrift prepared popularity for his rigid successor. The _Memoirs of the Margravine of Bareith_ have thrown that successor into ridicule; and it must be acknowledged, that his early acts were calculated to throw all the courtiers of Europe into mingled astonishment and indignation. Immediately on his accession, he ordered the grand-marshal of the palace to bring him the list of the royal establishment. The king took a pen, and crossed out the whole. The grand-marshal, in horror at this sweeping style of reform, lost his speech, and fled from the royal presence. Meeting an officer in the antechamber, the latter, seeing his countenance of consternation, asked what had happened. The grand-marshal showed him the list, and the officer translated it for the benefit of the levée--"Gentlemen, our good master is dead, and the new king sends you all to the d--l!"

The twenty-six trumpeters, who supplied the place of conversation at the royal dinners, were scattered among the regiments. The hundred Swiss--the decorated slaves, whom Switzerland, with all her boast of freedom, was in the habit of sending to play the menial to the European sovereigns--were dismissed to do duty in the ranks of the line. The hoards of pearls and diamonds, and gold and silver plate, which it had been the pride and the folly of the late king to amass, were sold to pay his debts and to raise troops.

The old court had been overrun with French fashions, the French language--everything French. The king set about reforming those anti-national propensities: he dressed the regimental provosts, or army floggers and executioners, in the full French costume, to render it ridiculous; the embroidered coats and huge wigs of his privy councillors and chamberlains he ordered to be worn by the court fool on gala days.

But the discipline of the Prussian army was the peculiar distinction of this singular reign. Of all European nations, Prussia is the one to which an army is the most important. The exposed condition of a long and irregular territory, wholly without a natural frontier, with neither mountain range nor bordering river for its protection, and surrounded by warlike and powerful nations, required an army, to keep it in existence. The Alps or Pyrenees, the Rhine and the Danube, the Dniester and the Po, might protect their several countries from invasion; but the levels of Prussia required a force always on foot, prompt and prepared. To _frontierless_ Prussia a powerful army was as peculiarly essential as a Royal Navy is to the British _Isles_. In all the early difficulties of his predecessor's debt, the king had raised the Prussian army to upwards of forty thousand men; and, before he died, his muster-roll amounted to nearly eighty thousand of the finest troops on the Continent. It gives a curious contrast of the nature of belligerency in the nineteenth century, to know that the Prussian army now reckons three hundred thousand men, and that, on the first rumour of war, it would probably number half-a-million.

The new school of finance makes inquiries of this kind important; for since every country must be prepared to defend itself, and troops require to be paid, the whole question of national safety depends on the national force. The Manchester financiers tell us that reduction is the true secret of strength, and that fleets and armies are only provocatives to war. The older school held, that to be prepared for war was the best security for peace; that the reduction which extinguished the national force was only an invitation to insult; and that it was a wiser policy to give the soldier his pay for our protection, than to give an invader every shilling we were worth in the shape of plunder. Frederick-William was of the old school; and, by showing that he was always prepared for war, he secured peace, even in the most quarrelsome of all countries, Germany, through a reign of twenty-seven years. The organisation of the Prussian army was even then a phenomenon in Europe: its provision, its government, its recruiting, and, above all, its manoeuvring, attracted universal admiration, and doubled the impression of its numbers on the general mind.

These facts have an interest beyond their mere effect at the time; they are the testimonials of talent, evidences of the power of mind, encouragements to original conception, substantial declarations that men should always try to invigorate, improve, and advance inventions, however apparently perfect. There is always a field beyond.

Why a German duchy was suffered thus to rise into European influence--to extend from a province into a territory, now containing sixteen millions of souls, and to change from a dependent electorate into a kingdom, now acting as the barrier of Northern Germany against the gigantic monarchy of St Petersburg--is a question which ought to be asked by the politician, and which may well excite the study of the philosopher.

The true value of history consists in developing _principles_. Memoirs and biographies, the anecdotes of vigorous minds, and the narratives of leading events, all have their obvious value; but history has a distinction of its own. It is more than a tissue of striking recollections; it is superior to a fine arrangement of facts; it is the spirit of great facts, a _system_ displaying the _science_ of influential things.

Events are, of course, its material, but it is only as the materials of architecture furnish the means of erecting the palace or the temple: the mind of the architect must supply the beauty and grandeur of the edifice. Without that constructive genius, history is only a compilation.

It is certainly in no superstition, that we strongly incline to account for the rise of Prussia in the necessity of a protection for Protestantism in Northern Germany. The whole tenor of its annals substantiates the conception. Prussia, at an early period, felt a singular sympathy with the Protestantism of Germany. The especial scene of persecution was Poland, where neither royal compact nor popular declaration was able to secure the faith of the Scriptures from the outrages of Romanism. The Treaty of Oliva, in 1660, had, like the Edict of Nantes, been the charter of Protestantism; but, like the Edict, it had been broken, and the life of the Polish Protestant was a scene of suffering. The "Great Elector" had signalised his Christianity, and perhaps raised his country, by giving protection to the sufferers. His descendant, Frederick-William, followed his honourable example. When the Starost Umruh, in 1715, was sentenced to have his tongue cut out, and to be beheaded, for his Protestant opinions, he fled to Prussia, and was protected by Frederick-William. The Diet of Grodno commenced a persecution by declaring the Polish Protestants to have forfeited both their civil and religious privileges. Frederick-William answered this act of infidelity and tyranny by a royal remonstrance to the diet, and by a letter to the King of England, advocating the persecuted cause. In the Treaty of Stockholm, in 1720, he inserted a stipulation, binding the Swedish Government to make common cause with the Protestants of Germany. In Western Germany, persecution had long exhibited its irrational policy, and exercised its cruel power. At Heidelberg, Popish advisers and confessors had poisoned the mind of the Elector, and acts of violence had taken place. The Protestants, in their distress, applied to Prussia. The King, in conjunction with the British monarch, and the Elector of Hesse, adopted their defence; issuing, at the same time, the effective menace that, if the persecution in the Palatinate were not stopped, he would shut up every Romish chapel, convent, and institution, and sequestrate every dollar of their revenue in Prussia, while the persecution lasted.

The same impulse acted throughout the century. Frederick II. was an infidel: the national policy continued unchanged. As a Voltairist, he was an ostentatious advocate of toleration, which, though in both Frederick and his teacher the work of the scoffer, yet produced the effect of forbidding all religious tyranny. Even the war for the possession of Silesia, though difficult to be explained in its question of right, had the result of weakening the Popish influence in Germany. Maria-Theresa was the prop of Popery, while Frederick II. was universally regarded as the champion of Protestantism; and his final success, by enfeebling the supremacy of the empress, showed that a kingdom of Protestantism possessed the means of resisting an empire of Popery hitherto supposed irresistible. If Prussia had been crushed in that contest, the _prestige_ of Popery would again have risen to its old height in Germany, Protestantism would unquestionably have felt the blow to its foundations, and the probable consequence would have been to throw the Continent at the feet of Rome.

Frederick the Great was born on the 24th of January 1712, in the palace at Berlin. At his baptism, the sponsors were at least sufficiently numerous and stately; they were the Emperor Charles VI., the Dowager-empress, the Czar Peter, the States-general of Holland, the Canton of Berne, the Electant Prince of Hanover, and the Dowager-duchess of Mecklenburg.

Frederick was born Prince of Prussia and Orange; but after the cession of Orange to France, by the Peace of Utrecht, the name was given up, though the Crown of Prussia retained the title and the arms.

The popular feeling, on this occasion, was connected with a simple yet curious circumstance. An American Aloe, which had been forty-four years in the royal garden, suddenly threw out a profusion of blossoms. Thousands flocked to see this fine production of nature, which, on a stem thirty-one feet high, exhibited 7277 blossoms! The multitude gave it an almost mystic meaning, and conceived the plant (which, in all this profusion of beauty, was decaying) to be emblematic of the failing health of the old king, and the new prospects of honour under his grandson. Poems and pictures of the Aloe were spread through the kingdom. The omen was as imaginative as one of the poetic superstitions of Greece, and the imagination was realised.

The education of the future possessor of a sceptre is an important topic. In Germany the education of the higher orders generally embraces a sort of encyclopædia of accomplishments. The young heir to the throne thus learned music and painting, in addition to mathematics and languages. In music he became a proficient, and with his favourite instrument, the flute, could sustain his part in an orchestra. But, the chief object of his education, as that of all the German princes, being military, he learned all of the art of war that could be taught; the perfection of the art he was yet to learn in the field, and give evidence of his acquirement only in his memorable victories.

One misfortune of this education possessed and perverted him through life. Germany was, in literature, but a province of France. The licentiousness of French sentiment had tempted the rising generation to abandon the manly feelings of the Reformers. It is to the honour of our country that the principles of true religion, like those of true liberty, then found their defence within her borders; and in the existing, and still darker, period of German infidelity, the battle is still fought by the theology of England.

Adversity seems essential to the education of all great princes. Frederick was not without his share of this stern pupillage. The eccentricities of his royal father, his own waywardness, and the roughness of court discipline, produced continual collisions in the royal family, and the prince remained for some years in a kind of honourable exile from Berlin. During this period, however, he cultivated his powerful understanding to its height; but made the singular mistake of believing that he was born for a hermit, a sentimentalist, and a writer of French verses. In this fantastic spirit, he gave his immediate friends names from Greece and Rome; and was surrounded by Hephæstion, Diophanes, Cæsarion, and Quintus Icilius. Even the place of his retirement, Rheinsberg, was transformed into Remusberg, to meet a tradition that Remus was not killed by Romulus, but, flying from Rome, had settled in the spot which was afterwards to teach sentiment and solitude to the Prince of Prussia.

Those are traits worth remembering in the history of human nature. Who could have conceived the most daring of warriors, the most subtle of politicians, and the most ambitious of kings, in the writer of letters such as these?--

"My house, indeed, is not a place for those who are fond of noisy
pleasures; but are not tranquillity, quiet, and the search for
truth, to be preferred to the giddy and turbulent diversions of
this world?

"On the 25th I am going to Amaltheu, my beloved garden at Ruppin.
I am quite impatient to see again my vines, my cherries, and my
melons; there, free from all useless cares, I shall live entirely
for myself. My whole soul is now intent on philosophy. It renders
me incomparable services, and I am deeply indebted to it. My spirit
is less agitated by impetuous emotions. I repress the first working
of my passions, and I never make a choice until I have maturely
considered it."

All his letters are in the same strain of studious quiet, of steady self-control, and of systematic love of retirement. He sometimes even turns enthusiast, and he thus writes to Voltaire, _then_ known chiefly as the author of the _Henriade_--(his worse celebrity, as the impugner of all religion, was still at a distance.) In a letter, in 1738, he addresses the Frenchman in this rapturous effusion:--

"At Rheinsberg, to be perfectly happy, we want only a Voltaire.
But, though you live far from us, still you are in our midst.
Your portrait adorns my library; it hangs over the bookcase which
contains our Golden Fleece, immediately above your works, and
opposite to the place where I generally sit, that I may always
have it in my view. I might almost say, that your picture is to me
as the statue of Memnon, which, when the sun's rays fell on it,
emitted harmonious sounds, and imparted inspiration to the mind of
every one who looked upon it."

In another letter he writes--

"In pagan antiquity, men offered to the gods the first fruits of
the harvest and of the vintage.... In the Romish church, they
devote not only the firstborn, not only the younger sons, but whole
kingdoms, as we see in the instance of St Louis, who renounced his
in favour of the Virgin Mary. For my part, I have no first fruits
of the earth, no children, and no kingdom to devote; but I devote
to you the first fruits of my muse in the year 1739. Were I a
pagan, I would address you by the name of Apollo; were I a Papist,
I might have chosen you for my patron saint, or my confessor; but,
being none of these, I am content to admire you as a philosopher,
to love you as a poet, and to esteem you as a friend."

But this romance was soon to be exchanged for reality; the elegancies of royal idleness were to be forgotten in the sound of cannon, and the fictions of a pampered fancy were to be thrown into the shade by the vicissitudes of one of the most sanguinary struggles that Europe had ever seen.

In 1740, Frederick had ascended the throne. He was at Potsdam, and confined to his chamber by illness, when the death of the Emperor Charles was announced to him. This event broke up the peace of Germany.

The Emperor, Charles VI., having no issue after a marriage of four years, established a new law of succession, known as the Pragmatic Sanction. The heirship of Austria had hitherto been limited to males; but, by the new law, the undivided monarchy was to devolve first to his own daughters, or, if they should not be living at the time of his death, to the daughters of his elder brother Joseph, Electresses of Saxony and Bavaria, and so on, always to the nearest relatives.

The death of the Emperor obviously threatened to involve all Europe, and especially Germany, in convulsion; for the mere publication of the Pragmatic Sanction, in 1724, had produced counter declarations from no less than three princes of the empire, who regarded their rights as invaded. The Elector of Bavaria, who was married to a daughter of the Emperor Joseph I., founded a claim to the Austrian dominions on the will of Ferdinand I.; France was disposed to enter into an alliance with Prussia; Sweden and Russia would have been inevitably involved in the war. And it was of this complication of events that the young Prussian monarch took advantage to make an assault upon Austria. For one hundred years Prussia had complained of the loss of Silesia. Her successive kings had severally impeached its seizure by Austria, and the Great Elector had still earlier bequeathed the recovery of the province to the gallantry, or the good fortune, of his successors. Frederick, now at the head of a powerful army, with a full treasury, and seeing an approaching contest for the possession of Austria itself, regarded this as a favourable moment for the recovery of his ancestral territory.

Frederick, having now completed all his preparations, sent an envoy to Vienna, to offer his alliance to Maria-Theresa, and his vote to her husband at the election of emperor, provided she would give up Silesia. But knowing the contempt with which the Austrian cabinet regarded the minor princes of Germany, and also knowing the advantage of promptitude, where the object is possession, he at once set his army in motion for the Silesian frontier. His proposal was, as he had foreseen, rejected; and on its rejection, without a moment's delay, he rushed over the frontier. He found, as he had expected, the Austrian government wholly unprepared. The whole disposable force of Austria, for the defence of Silesia, amounted to 3000 men. The invading army amounted to 28,000. Breslau the capital, Glogau the principal fortress, every town, speedily fell before him. In a note to his friend Jordan, who had attempted to dissuade him from the enterprise, he wrote, in a mixture of scoffing and exultation--

"My gentle M. Jordan, my kind, my mild, my peace-loving M. Jordan,
I acquaint your serenity that Silesia is as good as conquered.
I prepare you for most important plans, and announce to you the
greatest luck that the womb of fortune ever produced. For the
present this must be enough for you. Be my Cicero in defending my
enterprise; in its execution I will be your Cæsar."

We now advert to the distinguished public servant whose correspondence throws the principal light on this important period of our foreign policy--the British envoy to the court of Berlin.

Andrew Mitchell was born in Edinburgh in 1708, son of one of the ministers of St Giles's, king's chaplain for Scotland. His mother, Margaret Cunningham, was a descendant of Lord Glencairn. Mitchell adopted the law as his profession, was admitted to the Middle Temple, and was called to the English bar in 1738. Besides a knowledge of the Scotch law, he was a man of general and rather elegant acquirement, having left among his papers observations on the Ciceronian philosophy, on the chief European histories, on morals, models, statues, and classic objects in general. He was also a member of the Royal Society.

Mitchell was evidently either sustained by active interest, or an opinion of his talents; for on the appointment of the Marquis of Tweeddale to the secretaryship for Scotland, he fixed on Mitchell as his undersecretary. In 1747, he was elected member for the county of Aberdeen. In 1756, he was appointed as British representative at the court of Frederick II.

In the more decorous style of modern diplomacy, we can seldom find examples of the court-candour with which the royal personages of the last age spoke of each other. George II. called Frederick-William "my brother the corporal." Frederick-William called George II. "my brother the dancing-master." Of course those opinions made their way to the last ears which ought to have heard them, and they left stings. But the necessities of the time overcame the bitterness of the sarcasms. Some of the letters of the elder Horace Walpole, Sir Robert's brother, who had been ambassador at Paris and the Hague, then the chief scenes of foreign diplomacy, probably expressed the chief feeling of English public men in his day, as they certainly were soon embodied in their policy. Of Frederick II. he says,--

"I know the character of that prince. I know how little he is to
be trusted, and I would not have trusted him without good security
for the execution of his engagements.... I need not tell you that
the house of Brandenburg is a rising house. The economy of the late
king, the spirit of discipline he introduced into his army, the
ambition, talents, and active genius of the present monarch, must
render that house a powerful friend or formidable enemy."

He gives an equally decisive opinion of the Austrian policy--

"I apprehend that the principal object of the court of Vienna
will be to distract, divide, and _devour_ the Prussian dominions.
Their pride, their vengeance, and, above all, their _bigotry_ will
naturally lead them to destroy a _Protestant_ power that has dared
to offend them."

At length it was ascertained that a private negotiation had been commenced between Austria and France, the result of which must expose the Electoral dominions to invasion by France. An alliance with Prussia was immediately concluded. The account subsequently given by Thiébault, in his _Memoirs of the Prussian Court_, gives a strong impression of Mitchell's manliness and intelligence:--

"Sir Andrew Mitchell, Knight of the Order of the Garter, [a mistake
for the Bath,] had been for several years the English ambassador
at Berlin, when I first arrived there. Some time, however, elapsed
before I had the least acquaintance with him, not only because it
was little to be expected that Englishmen should be desirous of
the society of Frenchmen, but also because Sir Andrew Mitchell
was of the number of those meritorious characters who stand in no
need of perpetual society for existence, and have the philosophy
to prefer being occasionally alone. When he first arrived in
Berlin, he had caused the persons who necessarily invited him to
their houses considerable perplexity; for he played at no game of
cards, so that his hosts constantly said,--'What shall we do with
the Englishman, who never plays at cards?' In a few days, however,
the contest was, who should withhold himself from the card-table,
and have the advantage of conversing with a man in whom they had
discovered every requisite to afford the highest pleasure in
colloquial intercourse. In reality, his understanding was no less
admirable than the virtues of his character. Of this I cannot give
a more substantial proof, than by observing that he was united in
the strictest bonds of friendship with the author of _L'Esprit des
Loix_."

Some of the shrewd _bons-mots_ of the diplomatic Scot are given by the Frenchman. On one occasion, when the English mail had three times been due, the king said to him at the levée--"Have you not the spleen, M. Mitchell, when the mail is thus delayed?" The reply was,--"No, Sire, not when it is delayed, but often enough when it duly arrives."

The English cabinet having promised to send a fleet to the Baltic, to prevent the Russians from sending troops against the king, and the fleet not appearing, Frederick was chagrined; at length he ceased to invite the envoy to the royal table. One day some of the servants, meeting him, asked,--"Is it dinner-time, M. Mitchell?" The significant retort was,--"Gentlemen, no fleet, no dinner." This was told to Frederick, and the invitations were renewed.

The next _bon-mot_ is happier still. After the taking of Port Mahon, and the retreat of the unfortunate Admiral Byng, the king, meeting the envoy, said,--"You have made a bad beginning, M. Mitchell; your trial of Admiral Byng is but a bad plaster for the disease; you have made an unlucky campaign." "Sire," observed Mitchell, "we hope, with God's assistance, to make a better one next year."

"With God's assistance, sir! I did not know that you had such an ally," said the king.

"We hope we have, Sire; and he is the _only one_ of our allies that costs us nothing," was the pungent reply.

In the latter portion of the war against Napoleon, it was the custom to send British officers to attend the headquarters of the Allies, and diplomatists frequently moved along with the armies. But the instance of Mitchell's moving along with the Prussian monarch was, we believe, the first example of the kind. On this subject, we have a lively letter from the Earl of Holdernesse, then Secretary of State to the envoy:--