Chapter VI (2)

"Dear Sir,--I heartily wish you health and success in the new
trade you are going to undertake. However, do not grow too much
a soldier, and set a bad precedent for the rest of your black
brethren of the ink-bottle. Observation is our business, not
fighting. Remember, if you do get a knock of the pate, _vous en
emporterez la peine, et l'on dira--Que diable y avoit-il à faire_.
Yet I would not advise you to follow the steps of the minister of
Mayence at Dettingen, who, during the time of action, came up to
Lord Granville's coach, crying out, '_Je proteste contre toute
violence_.'

"I can find no trace in the office books of any particular
allowance made to Foreign Ministers for such sort of expeditions;
but I am persuaded I shall adjust it easily with the Duke of
Newcastle. Once more, adieu. Our constant toast now here is,
'Success to the King of Prussia.' He grows vastly popular among us.
For my part, I always add a gulp more to my old friend Mitchell."

A letter from the envoy, addressed to the King of Prussia, makes the formal request that he may be allowed to follow the headquarters--a permission which was immediately conceded by the king. The object of this request, (suggested by the English Ministry,) was twofold--to have an intelligent observer of the politics of Prussia on the spot; and to supply George II. with anecdotes of war, for which he conceived himself to have a peculiar talent; and on which subject the despatches of the envoy were always read by him with peculiar interest.

The envoy was not long without material. Before he left Berlin, he had the following despatch to write to the Earl of Holdernesse--

"My Lord,--This morning, about seven o'clock, Monsieur Oppen, an
officer in the Guards, arrived here from the Prussian army. He
had no letters, only a scrap of paper without date, which he was
directed to deliver to the queen-mother, in which was written with
a pencil, in the king's own hand, that his troops had beaten the
Austrians, _platte couture_, that he reckoned his loss about two
thousand, and that of the Austrians at four thousand men."

This was a hard-fought but indecisive action. The Austrians, under Marshal Browne, were the assailants; and the engagement continued from morning till past midday, when they retreated; but they numbered two-thirds more than the Prussians, their force being nearly seventy thousand to about forty thousand.

But a more important success immediately followed. The Saxon army, amounting to sixteen thousand, had been surrounded in their fortified camp at Pirna; the fortifications were so strong that the only hope of reducing them was by famine. To the universal astonishment, they suddenly quitted this impregnable position, and marched into a defile, where they could neither advance nor retreat. The king offered them conditions, which they accepted; and Mitchell, who had waited at Berlin only for the royal permission to join the army, arrived just in time to see the surrender; and what was more curious still, the quiet transfer of their allegiance to the Prussian service. He thus writes--

"_October 21, 1756._

"On Sunday the 17th, the Saxon troops, preceded by their general
officers, crossed the Elbe.... Thence they marched into a plain
in the neighbourhood, and, after passing between two battalions
of Prussian Guards, they were received by the battalions of the
Prince of Prussia's regiments, drawn up on the right and left. They
were then formed into a hollow square, and had the articles of war
read, and the military oath administered to them, in the presence
of Prince Maurice of Anhalt-Dessau, or of Prince Ferdinand, the
King of Prussia's brother. The soldiers were all armed; but the
officers, almost to a man, refused to enter into the Prussian
service.

"The whole Saxon army consisted of sixteen thousand, of which
three thousand were horse and dragoons. The soldiers are extremely
well-looking, mostly young men, and do not seem to have suffered
for want of provisions during the blockade of five weeks. The
cavalry have suffered more--many of their horses are ruined."

But we are not to suppose that this association with the mighty of the earth, and these exhibitions of capitulating armies were without their drawbacks. The Prussian king's politics were always subtle, the English cabinet was already tottering, and the campaign was already prolonged into winter. The envoy's correspondence at length sinks into complaint, and his description of his harassed life might make a man shrink from the honours of travelling diplomacy. He writes in November from Seidlitz--

"I am here in a very awkward situation--quite out of my element;
and though I have great reason to be satisfied with the King of
Prussia's manner of treating me, I wish I was at Berlin again,
or rather in England, notwithstanding the absurd speeches that I
should hear in parliament.

"The Prussian camp is no place of pleasure. Neither convenience nor
luxury dwell here. You are well provided with everything, _if_ you
bring it along with you. I find I must increase my equipage, or
_starve_. _All my family are like spectres._ It is true I am fed
at the king's table, because he desired me to leave my equipage at
Dresden. The Duke of Newcastle has this _encouraging_ paragraph in
his letter: 'I will forward your demands for the expenses of your
journey, whenever you send them over in a _proper manner_ to my
Lord Holdernesse.' I have spent a great deal of money, and have
_hardly_ the necessaries of life, and _none_ of its comforts."

Correspondence of this intimate kind gives us a true view of that life which the world in general sees so gilded and glittering. It thus has a value superior to even its historical interest. It tells the humbler conditions of life to be content with their fate; and perhaps demonstrates that, like the traveller among mountains, the higher man goes, the more slippery is his path, and the more stormy his atmosphere. The Secretary of State thus writes:--

"_November, 1766._

"Mr Pitt [Chatham] has been laid up with a severe fit of the gout
ever since his nomination to office, which has greatly retarded
business. I think his opinions on foreign affairs, _now he is in
place_, are exactly the same with mine, however different they were
some time ago. _Tempora mutantur et nos, &c._--I hope you will
never find that maxim applicable to your old friend in Arlington
Street. I knew long ago of some _private letters_ written to you
by the Duke of Newcastle. You were in the right not to discover
a secret intrusted to you; but though--for reasons you know--I
bore this from _him_, such matters must cease for the future with
_others_. I therefore insist that I may know directly if any other
person in the Administration offers to correspond with you. While I
remain in business, I will do the duty of my office _myself_, and
without submitting to those disagreeable interruptions I have met
with from others; nor will I henceforward be led by persons of my
own age, and less experience.

"In short, dear Mitchell, if I stay in, I must now have my share
of the cake; and if you hear I continue, depend upon it I have
succeeded in what I think just and reasonable pretensions. A volume
would not explain to you the transactions of these last six weeks.
We have five Administrations in one day, and none existing at night.

"The parliament will produce a motley scene next week; you are
happy to be out of the scrape."

The next campaign was one of still greater political perplexity, and of still more desperate fighting. It was signalised by the then unheard-of number of four pitched battles; but the French war has since accustomed history to more ruinous and more frequent conflicts. The first engagement was the battle of Prague, thus hastily sketched in a flying despatch to Lord Holdernesse:--

"_May 6._

"I have the honour to acquaint your lordship that this day, a
little before ten o'clock in the morning, a general engagement
began between the Prussian and Austrian armies, which lasted till
half an hour past two in the afternoon. The fire of the artillery
and small arms was dreadful; but I can yet give no account of
particulars on either side. All we know is, that the left of
the Prussians, commanded by the king, attacked the right of the
Austrians, and, after a very obstinate resistance, drove them from
the field of battle. The Prussian hussars and cavalry are now in
full pursuit of them, and the right wing of the Austrians are now
retiring towards the Zasawa. The right of the Prussians attacked
the left of the Austrians, have likewise defeated them, and drove
them towards the Moldan. A great part of their infantry have thrown
themselves into Prague.

"The place where this action happened is in the high grounds on
the other side of Prague. The King of Prussia's army, after the
junction with Marshal Schwerin, might be seventy or eighty thousand
men; and that of the Austrians upwards of one hundred thousand--the
deserters say one hundred and fifty thousand.

"I can say nothing of the loss on either side, which must be
considerable. But the whole Prussian army are now in tears for
the loss of Marshal Schwerin, one of the greatest officers this,
or perhaps any country, has produced, and one of the best of men.
The King of Prussia is well, but greatly afflicted for the loss of
Marshal Schwerin."

This victory cost a terrible sacrifice of human life. The victors had eighteen thousand men _hors-de-combat_; the vanquished had twenty-four thousand killed, wounded, and taken. The struggle was long doubtful. At one period of the day, the Prussian infantry, moving through a defile, recoiled from the showers of ball which swept the head of the defile; the Marshal rushed forward to the front, and, taking a standard from its bearer, led back the column, and charged the enemy. In this charge the gallant old man was struck by a ball, and fell. He was seventy-two.

This battle was useless, for all its fruits were lost immediately after; but in a military sense it was justifiable, for it was fought to prevent the junction of Marshal Daun with General Browne, whose army protected Prague. Its effects in England, however, were greatly to increase the popular feeling in favour of Frederick. A letter from Lord Holdernesse gives a strong picture of the public excitement:--

"_May 20, 1757._

"Dear Mitchell,--A fishing-boat despatched by Colonel Yorke, (Sir
Joseph,) brought us, last night, the news of the great and glorious
victory obtained by the King of Prussia, near Prague, on the 6th
inst., which fortunate event has filled the Court and the whole
nation with the highest joy, and raised the admiration we already
had of his Prussian Majesty's heroism to the highest pitch. Women
and children are singing his praises; the most frantic marks of
joy appear in the public streets: he is, in short, become the
idol of the people. It only remains that we make a proper use of
those advantages, and neither suffer ourselves to be elated beyond
bounds, or to lose precious moments."

But, from the beginning, the struggle was unequal between Austria and Prussia. Nothing but a miracle could make a country then but of five millions vanquish a country of thirty; and the prodigious rapidity with which the Austrian armies were recruited after the severest losses, made perpetual battles actually necessary to keep them at bay. The Prussians had blockaded Prague. An Austrian force of forty-two thousand, or upwards, was advancing to raise the blockade; and Frederick, with his usual promptitude, rushed to meet it on its march, with thirty-two thousand. The armies met at Kaurzim, (better known as Kolin.) The battle began at noon, and was carried into night. The Prussians attacked: the Austrian positions were too strong for even the impetuosity and the perseverance of their brave assailants. The Prussians, after driving them from two heights, were ascending the _third_, when, from some mistake, their flank was exposed. The Austrian cavalry, then the finest on the Continent, took instant advantage of the misfortune, charged, and threw the whole movement into confusion. The battle was lost; and though the king retained the honour of the day by resting that night on the field, the result was unequivocal, in a retrograde march next day, and the raising of the blockade of Prague.

This battle diminished his army by thirteen thousand men! The king exposed himself with almost desperation. At last his staff remonstrated with him on his gallant obstinacy, and one of his officers even exclaimed, "Does your Majesty mean to storm those batteries alone?"

Frederick was now in the deepest distress. The Austrian hussars had advanced to the gates of Berlin, and even levied a contribution on the city. The scandalous convention by which the Hanoverian army laid down its arms, let loose its French assailants; and Prussia was about to be crushed by a weight of force then unexampled in European hostilities. On this occasion the envoy speaks in the spirit of a man who saw no hope for the king, but to save himself by a negotiation in which he must concede everything, or take his chance of an honourable death in the field. But he strikingly reminds the British Cabinet of the probable consequences of disaster to Prussia.

"If the King of Prussia should be ruined, or obliged, from
necessity, to throw himself into the arms of France, (which he has
no inclination to do,) my duty obliges me to put your lordship
in mind what the situation of England will be next year, without
a single friend on the Continent to resist the whole undiverted
power of France, instigated by the malice of the house of Austria,
against which too early and too vigorous preparations cannot be
made, and I most heartily wish they may be effectual.

"I have but _one_ imagination which comforts me, which arises from
the _insatiable ambition_ of the French. They have already ruined
a great part of Germany and reduced the house of Brandenburg; they
are at this moment masters of Germany, and have the Empress-Queen
almost as much in their power as they have the King of Prussia.
Now, it is not consistent with common sense to leave the house of
Austria possessed of a greater degree of power than it ever had,
and without a rival in the empire. I therefore flatter myself they
will find some pretence to save the King of Prussia, which may
embroil them with their new ally, and give a breathing-time to
England."

The British envoy, sagacious as he certainly was, here adopted the common error of conceiving that the safety of England depended on her Continental allies. The cry has been repeated in every war in which England has been subsequently engaged; and the British diplomatist at foreign courts has habitually employed his ingenuity in the elaborate effort to warn us that the national existence depended at one time on the triumph of Prussia; at another, of Austria; or, at another, of Spain. All these are follies. The whole Continent, not merely alienated from us, but combined against us, was not able to shake the strength of England, during the last and bloodiest of all wars, urged by the last and bloodiest of all ambitions. In this foolish spirit, it has been echoed from one desponding party to another, that England was saved from ruin by the march from Moscow, then by the battle of Leipzig, then by the battle of Waterloo. England would have survived, if Napoleon had grasped every province of Prussia, if Leipzig had been a field of German massacre, and if Waterloo had only exhibited the bravery without the fortune of the British army. This style of talking is trifling and pusillanimous--it exhibits an utter forgetfulness of history, and an utter ignorance of the actual capacities of the country. England, if true to herself, is unconquerable, and might look on Continental battles with no more personal consideration of the consequences than if they were battles in the clouds. Still, it will fully be admitted, that our Continental alliances ought to be scrupulously sustained; that, in the event of war with any of the Continental powers, it must be of importance to have as few enemies, and as many friends as we can; and that there can be no more short-sighted sense of the true interests of England than insult to foreign thrones, under the shallow pretext of forwarding the privileges of the people. Monarchs are the natural allies of a monarchy--rebels are the natural enemies of all government; and the attempt to create liberty on the Continent, by encouraging the absurdities of the rabble, is only to waste the noble influence of England in the most hopeless of all projects, and to degrade the national character by the abuse of the national principles.

The proverbial uncertainty of war was now about to be vividly illustrated by a new phase of Frederick's varied career. The French army, under the Prince Soubise, had poured into the centre of Germany in great force, and Marshal Keith, a gallant Scot, distinguished in the service of Prussia, was sent to check their irruption. The result was one of the most extraordinary victories on record. Frederick had arrived at Rosbach with but eighteen thousand men; the French and Imperialists, amounting to sixty thousand, made sure of his capture. It was even said that the Prince de Soubise had already sent a courier to Paris announcing it, and the ruin of the whole army. The French officers, in the spirit of their nation, actually scoffed at the idea of war with so small a kingdom as Prussia. They said "it was doing Monsieur le Marquis de Brandenbourg too much honour to carry on a _sort_ of war with him."

On the 6th of November, Soubise advanced; the King then formed his plan of attack. It was to fall on the enemy before they had time to form. The general of cavalry, Seydlitz, was to turn the enemy's horse, and fall on their infantry in the act of formation. The two armies moved parallel to each other, until Seydlitz had turned the enemy's right unseen. The Prussian infantry were in movement after him; but seeing, with the quick eye of a thorough soldier, a favourable moment, he galloped in front of his squadrons, threw up his meerschaum in the air, as the signal for attack, and plunged into the enemy's columns. Two Austrian cuirassier regiments and two French battalions fought stoutly, but they were overwhelmed. All thenceforth was confusion. Though the king's infantry had scarcely been engaged, the enemy's infantry had been driven together in a mass, and, on nightfall, had broken up. By six in the evening the victory was complete. Six thousand prisoners were taken, with five generals and three hundred officers. The Allied army lost, on the whole, ten thousand men; the Prussians about four hundred in killed and wounded. They took seventy guns, fifteen standards, &c.

This victory spread universal exultation through Germany. It was scarcely to be called a German defeat, for the weight of the action fell on the French. It was regarded as a trial of strength between the German and the Frenchman. The victory made the king a National champion.

Many years after the battle, the inhabitants of the vicinity erected a pillar as its memorial. In the disastrous days of Prussia in our time, Napoleon, after surveying the scene of the battle, ordered the pillar to be conveyed to Paris. But, on the day before the first entrance of the Allies into Paris, in 1814, the veterans of the Invalides threw the pillar into the Seine, that it might not be restored to the Prussians. After the victory of Leipzig, however, an iron column was placed on the site of the old memorial.

The victory gave occasion to one of Frederick's _bons-mots_. The conversation at table turned on the comparative style of living among the German princes; the king pronounced that of the Prince Hildburg-Hausen to be the most magnificent, "for," said he, "he keeps thirty thousand _runners_." (The prince had commanded the German troops who were beaten along with Soubise.)

But all was vicissitude in this campaign. While the king was triumphing in one quarter, he was all but ruined in another. The Duke of Bevern, commanding in Silesia, was attacked by a force so overpowering that the province was soon in the hands of the Austrians. Their purpose was now to fall upon the king, and extinguish him. Frederick, in this knowledge, made an appeal to the loyalty of his generals; and, declaring that he had no alternative but victory or death, offered to give his dismission to any officer who was unwilling to follow him farther. The whole levée burst into protestations of fidelity; and the king marched to fight the Austrians at Leuthen, under the command of Prince Charles of Lorraine, assisted by the most distinguished of their generals, Marshal Daun. But this was the battle of despair. In the king's last speech to his officers, he said--"Should I fall, and not be able to remunerate the services which you have rendered me, the country must do it. Now, go to the camp, and repeat to the regiments what I have said to you."

On the morning of the 5th, at daybreak, the Prussians moved. On their march they fell in with cavalry pushed forward under the well-known General Wostitz. The Austrians were instantly overwhelmed, and Wostitz, furious at his misfortune, rushing into the midst of the Prussian cavalry, received fourteen wounds, of which he died two days after.

Among the prisoners was a deserter, a Frenchman. The king questioned him, "Why did you leave me?" "The fact is," answered the deserter, "things were going on very badly with us." "Come, come," replied Frederick, probably amused by the fellow's nonchalance in a moment of such peril to himself, "let us fight another battle to-day. If I am beaten, we shall desert together to-morrow." He then sent him back to join his old regiment.

The king's manoeuvre, on his advance, was so dexterous that, even to the experienced eye of Daun, he appeared to be in retreat. "The Prussians are off," said he to Prince Charles; "let us not disturb them." The cautious marshal always practised the maxim of "a bridge of gold for a retreating enemy." But the hasty Prince resolved on a battle. He was speedily to feel the hazard of such an antagonist as Frederick. The manoeuvre was intended to throw the whole force of the Prussians on the Austrian left wing. It succeeded perfectly. The wing was turned, and, after a brief resistance, was driven from the field. The village of Leuthen, the centre of their position, was then stormed; but the Austrian artillery was powerful, and every attack cost great slaughter. The battle was now for a while doubtful--but it was at last decided by a charge of cavalry. The Austrian general, Luchesi, had attempted to fall with his troopers on the Prussian flank; but, in the act, he was unexpectedly charged by the main body of the Prussian cavalry. Luchesi fell, his cavalry were broken, and the battle was at an end. The rest was the capture of the separate posts of the Austrians, and the pursuit of the right wing, which, though not engaged, had disbanded. This success was unexampled. The Prussians took twenty thousand prisoners, one hundred and sixteen guns, fifty-one pair of colours, and four thousand baggage waggons. The Austrians left seven thousand four hundred men on the field. The victors lost, in killed and wounded, six thousand men. This victory produced a prodigious effect on the public opinion of Europe. To have won two pitched battles, with inferior numbers, and in the midst of political difficulties, with all his conquests torn from him, and his capital insulted and laid under contribution, appeared like the work of romance. The king was, from that moment, the first of European generals. He was the invincible Frederick the Great in German lips; the Protestant hero, by a still more honourable title, in England. Germany then first felt that she had poets, and a theme for poetry. Bards sprang up on every side, and the Prussian king's exploits were sung in palace, cottage, and bivouac. The war-songs of Glein exhibited the true fire of poetry, and form stirring and noble records of the time to this day.

Mitchell's correspondence, on this important occasion, was exulting. On the 9th December, he writes--

"My Lord,--This moment a chasseur has arrived from Silesia, with
the news of a complete victory obtained by his Prussian Majesty
on the 5th, between Neumarkt and Lissa. The chasseur was present
in, and despatched from the field of battle.... In a letter from
the king to his brother, Prince Henry, he says he had taken eight
thousand prisoners, many standards, colours, and cannon that he had
attacked with his right, _et qu'il avait refusé la gauche_, which
had succeeded perfectly well, _parce qu'il avait tourné l'ennemi_."

The envoy, in his subsequent letters, collects intelligence from all quarters, and sends it in fragments.

"We have yet no _relation_ of the _victory of victories_, but there
are letters from the King of Prussia which say that he expected
soon to be master of Breslau, and of the garrison and wounded in
that town, amounting to ten thousand men. He computes the loss
of the Austrians at thirty thousand.... What I write is almost
incredible; but two miracles, in the space of one month, two
victories gained by the same handful of men--for the Prussian army,
in the first action of the 5th of November, did not exceed eighteen
thousand, and in the last might be from thirty to thirty-five
thousand--have, I hope, restored affairs to a situation I never
expected to see them in."

The merit of this diligence may be estimated from the difficulty of correspondence in those days of convulsion. In his first despatch on this subject, so important to the English cabinet, he says,--

"In case this letter should be stopped, I have prevailed with a Jew
to write to his correspondent at the Hague a letter in _Hebrew_,
which contains further particulars, &c., which he is directed
forthwith to communicate to Colonel Yorke, (the British Resident
with the States of Holland.)"

We then have a curious specimen of the spirit of diplomacy.

"TO THE EARL OF HOLDERNESSE.

"_December 1757._

"My Lord,--I have had some suspicion that Prince Henry is paving
the way to a negotiation with France, without the knowledge of the
king his brother.

"The prince is very vain, and hates his brother, of whose greatness
he is jealous; at the same time, he has talents, but more cunning
than real parts, and is French to the bone.

"I live well with him, but have carefully watched him. He owned to
me the other day that he had taken upon himself to release Monsieur
Martinfort, _commissaire des vivres_ to Soubise's army, taken at
the battle of the 5th of November. The pretence for releasing him
is, that Martinfort has no rank in the army, and therefore cannot
be exchanged; and that he will prevail on the Prince of Soubise to
release, in his room, a Prussian counsellor, who was carried off as
a hostage by the French.

"I know the prince's way of thinking--ambition is his only
principle. He imagined--looking on the state of the King of
Prussia's affairs as desperate--that he should have the glory of
making peace. For this purpose, he first began to show an enormous
partiality to the French officers, and to hold frequent and long
conferences with Martinfort, who is a shrewd, sensible man; and I
am convinced that the prince flatters himself that he shall bring
about something by his means.... I judge it necessary to give your
lordship these hints, that Martinfort may be _properly watched_ in
Paris."

Napoleon, in his memoirs of the campaigns of the great European generals, gave a high place to the battle of Leuthen, pronounced it a masterpiece, and declared it of itself sufficient to fix Frederick in the foremost rank of generalship.

During this memorable year, the envoy frequently attended the headquarters, and shared not merely the privations but the dangers of the campaign. Of this period he kept a diary, containing the more remarkable particulars, and giving a curious picture of the harassing life, even of the highest rank, once engaged in war. But of this service there was soon to be an interruption. The Hanoverian Convention had soured the King of Prussia's mind against the English cabinet: the failure of the expedition against Rochfort--a failure, however, which arose simply from a precipitate embarkation, (for the English troops had, until that moment, driven everything before them)--and the delay of sending a fleet to the Baltic, were topics of irritation at the Prussian court, which, of course, were first visited on the head of the envoy, and which, in turn, he visited (with whatever reserve) on the head of the British cabinet. But Chatham had then succeeded to the direction of affairs, and he was not a man to take remonstrance patiently. The immediate result was the mission of Yorke to Berlin, and the recall of Mitchell. But another change in the public councils made Yorke's mission only temporary, and Mitchell was ordered to remain "until further orders."

The brilliant successes of Rosbach and Leuthen had raised the King's military name to the highest rank, but they only increased the number of his enemies. The Russians, fresh in the field, admirably equipped for the campaign, and longing to gather German laurels, had poured down upon his army, exhausted as it was by incessant fighting, and almost hopeless of seeing an end to the war, but still proud of their reputation, and confident in their King. A letter from the envoy to Lord Holdernesse gives an animated though brief account of their first collision.

"FIELD OF BATTLE, ZORNDORF,
_26th August 1753_.

"My Lord,--I have the satisfaction to acquaint your Lordship, that
yesterday, after an action which lasted _ten hours_, the King of
Prussia has gained a victory over the Russian army, taken many
pieces of cannon, and many colours and standards.

"The army marched in four columns. The whole cavalry made the
fourth column. They arrived in a large open plain, edged with
woods, about eight o'clock in the morning, and formed very quickly,
as they had marched in order of battle. At nine in the morning, the
whole army was formed. The vanguard began the action before the
village of Zorndorf, which had been set on fire by the enemy; and
as soon as the King of Prussia, thought that he had gained their
flank, he ordered the attack to be made by his left wing, while
he refused his right. The cavalry, commanded by General Seidletz,
formed a fourth line, which, after the infantry should have broken
in upon that of the enemy, were to act on either flank, as occasion
should offer.

"The fire of the artillery was terrible on both sides, and
continued almost without interruption till the end of the battle.
What added to the horror of the spectacle was, that the Cossacks
and Calmucks had set fire to the villages all round, and a great
number of Russian powder-waggons blew up in the woods which
surrounded the field."

This was a tremendous conflict, and the particulars of the loss on both sides made it amount to nearly 24,000, killed and wounded, of which the Prussian loss was about 4000. The Russians lost ninety pieces of cannon, standards, and several military chests, containing 858,000 roubles. The subsequent despatches give us some idea of the feelings of men in the field, even though not actually combatants. In one of these the envoy says,--

"I have had many unpleasant moments of late--we were upon the very
brink of destruction. The Russians fought like devils. The King of
Prussia's presence of mind saved us all. There are many particulars
which I would willingly write, but I am almost dead with fatigue.
_Would to God I were out of this scene of horror and bloodshed._"

All now was anxiety.

"Last night the King of Prussia called me to him, between seven
and eight o'clock, _just after the battle ended_, and told me that
he had not time to write to the King (George II.) that night. He
desired I should delay despatching a courier to England _till the
affair was ended_; that, in the mean time, he would write a short
letter to Berlin to _keep up their spirits_."

Such is the life of kings and generals.

"As the Russians continue firm in their position, I fear we shall
have _another action to-morrow_, for which we are by no means well
prepared."

It is remarkable, in nearly all the great Prussian victories, how much the King owed to his cavalry. The battles of Rosbach and Leuthen were actually won by cavalry charges, and the value of cavalry seems to have been fully appreciated by Frederick. It is equally remarkable, that they scarcely appear to have been used since, except to repulse a charge, or to follow a broken enemy. There is a fashion in those things. Napoleon relied on artillery. Wellington relied on infantry. The Russian and German generals, in the French war, relied upon redoubts and fieldworks--a tactic perhaps partly imposed on them by the nature of their troops, which were new to discipline, and, though brave, were unprepared for manoeuvring. But novelty has great effect in war, and the first general who will try the momentum of cavalry on a large scale will probably beat his enemy. The common objection, that cavalry costs too much to bring it into the field in force, is absurd: nothing can be too costly which wins the battle.

The envoy now went to Dresden, where the Austrian generals had collected a force, and commenced the siege. Here he was the spectator of some severe attacks, and had his share in the wretchedness of war. On the Austrian demonstration, the general commanding in the city ordered the suburbs to be set on fire, to deprive the enemy of their cover for the assault.

"On the 10th, about three in the morning, General Schmettau set
fire to the suburb adjoining the Pirna Gate, and to many of the
houses built on the edge of the fosse, apprehensive that they might
be occupied by the enemy. I will not describe to your Lordship the
_horror of this night_, nor the terror and confusion it struck into
the poor inhabitants, as the whole town seemed to be environed with
flames. I mounted into one of the steeples, from which I saw the
most melancholy prospect--the poor frightened inhabitants running
from the burning suburbs, with the wretched remains of their
furniture, towards the Great Garden, and the whole circuit of the
town appearing in flames, ruins, and smoke."

Marshal Daun next day remonstrated against this act, as contrary to the laws of war. The Prussian general replied "that the Marshal knew better, and that he must do his duty; but that if the Marshal wished to save the rest of the suburbs, he had only to withdraw his troops." Daun replied "that he would receive no directions _how_ he was to attack." The military repartees passed away, but the people were ruined.

The name of Dresden was familiarised to English ears in the last war by the battles fought round it, and the sufferings of its inhabitants. It is difficult to think of those calamities, and of the calamities to which every Continental city is exposed in the first breaking out of hostilities, without a sense of the superior security of our country, and, it is to be hoped, without a sense of the gratitude due for that security to the Supreme Disposer of the fates of nations. Of war England knows little but by her victories.

The close of the Seven Years' War, in 1763, released the envoy from the more arduous part of his service; and in 1765 he returned to England, and was made a Knight of the Bath, then an honour much more restricted than now--the number being few, and the reward unshared, but by public ministers and military men of the first distinction. His health at this period had been declining, and, retaining his envoyship to the last, and with the same vigour of faculties, he died by a short illness in June 1771. Sir Andrew Mitchell was evidently a man of high spirit, clear understanding, and active intelligence. His Journals are brief, yet interesting; and if, instead of writing a Diary, he had given us a History, no man would have rendered a more important account of one of the most important periods of Europe.

The remaining career of Frederick we pass, as a portion of universal history. His battles, his share in the fatal partition of Poland, the vigorous administration which raised Prussia from a third-rate state to a first, and from a population of five millions to one of three times the number, are matters of high interest to the political philosopher. In the character of Frederick II., there was much that no man of religious principle can applaud; but the habits of France had been rendered infidel by the effects of Popery on a lively and ingenious people. The religion which Voltaire and his followers saw from day to day was _not_ Christianity--the miracles of supposed saints, and the worship of a supposed Queen of Heaven, which revolted the common sense of mankind, extinguished the implicit faith of these keen-witted Frenchmen. The infidel was only a scoffer at a graver infidelity. The wit of the Frenchman made his scoff popular; and the German, destined to be always an imitator, was proud to follow the laugh, without attempting to examine the logic, of Voltaire.

The later history of Prussia has grown in importance with the growing pressure of our time. Prussia is no longer a struggling state; she is a great European power. No longer a dependent on the policy of Europe, she constitutes a prime mover of that policy. The French have trampled her under foot, apparently only to give her the great lesson that the strength of a nation is in the national virtue. The cause, which was lost by the army, was restored by the population. There was no army in Europe which fell into such instant ruin; there was no population of Europe which started on its feet with such invincible vigour. No defeat was so desperate, no victory so memorable. The peasant restored the monarchy.

Prussia has since been scourged in the common insurgency of the Continent; yet even that suffering will be of infinite value, if it shall remind her that the safety of thrones is in the religion of the people. The connexion is evident. Revolution is the natural tempter of man; it offers opulence to the poor, rank to the vain, agitation to the active, and power to the ambitious. To resist these original stimulants of our nature, what is there in the arm of kings, in the frowns of law, or in the morals of philosophy? There must be a protector, not to be found among the dubious impulses or infirm decencies of this world. That only protector is Religion!

Germany is irreligious. Its Protestant population is infidel, its Popish is sunk in the depths of superstition. In neither is it _Christian_. Individuals may still _protest_, in the once famous land of Protestantism; but the volumes with which Germany is now inundating the world are hostile to every principle of the Gospel. Germany must return to the Bible before her monarchs can sit safely in their palaces. The offer of Constitutions to their people is only the offer of wine to the intoxicated. It is the abuse of a noble gift, and the conversion of a source of natural vigour into the nutriment of a habitual vice. Prussia has now a great vocation. Whatever share of rational liberty exists in Germany is to be sought for at her hands. She possesses the most enlightened intellect, the most vigorous learning, and the most inquiring spirit of Germany. Every man who wishes well to the progress of the Continent must give his aspirations to the progress of Prussia. But her superior advantages will only insure the keener suffering, unless guided by superior virtue.

Her late interference in the war of the Northern Duchies was suspicious; and the passion for naval power, and the hope of acquiring the protectorate of Northern and Central Germany, may have betrayed her into encroachments on her neighbours. But these dreams seem to be past; and it must depend wholly on herself whether she shall disappoint a noble experiment, or shall establish an imperishable name; whether her emblem shall be the scaffold or the altar; whether she shall be the great magazine of political combustion, or the great armoury of political defence to Europe; whether the shade of the royal tree shall shelter the fugitive principles of rational freedom, or direct the lightnings upon them. There can be no question that we live in times of vast political peril: the pealing of the tempest has scarcely sunk behind our march, when clouds gather on it before. New expedients are required to revive the preservative power of old principles. Religion is on its trial among ourselves; but _here_ it will not meet its catastrophe. The Continent will be the scene of the great conflict; and Prussia, more probably than any other portion of the Continent, will witness the severity of the struggle. It may be decided even within the lapse of a few years, and by the exercise of her own wisdom, whether her throne shall stand forth the barren centre of German revolution, or a magnificent creation of power--a central temple, to which the nations of the Continent shall come for the sacred fire, appointed to administer virtue to the living generation, and illustrate posterity.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Memoirs and Papers of Sir Andrew Mitchell, K.B._, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Court of Great Britain to the Court of Prussia, from 1756 to 1771. By ANDREW BISSET, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. 2 Vols. Chapman & Hall, London.

HOURS IN SPAIN.

The neglect of Spanish literature is perhaps, after the decay of Spanish power, the most striking instance of the precarious tenure of greatness that modern history can supply. Various causes have contributed to this result; none more powerfully perhaps than that ecclesiastical domination which included all that could embellish and exalt our nature in the sphere of its malignant activity, and after poisoning the sources of material prosperity--after making the river, the forest, and the mine useless to their possessors--after turning the land of corn, and wine, and oil into a wilderness--extended its destructive conquest to the informing soul of its inhabitants, and to the ruin of commerce added the extermination of thought itself.

There were many causes which contributed to the triumph of this influence in Spain. The long war against the Moors, carried on with such unequalled pertinacity, and terminated by such complete success, could hardly fail to prolong and exasperate the feelings of religious antipathy, and to make the bigotry, which so many generations had identified with patriotic feeling, precious and venerable to their descendants. And as in France it must for many centuries have been the great object of every true patriot to fortify and to consolidate, at the sacrifice even of constitutional principle, the central power which alone could protect her from invasion, and prevent her from being reduced to the state of wretched insignificance to which a minute subdivision of power into petty principalities had degraded Germany,--so in Spain, national pride mingled itself with religious principle; the hostility of race combined with the hatred of sect; and if the latter made the former furious, the former made the last implacable. The Saxon submitted to the Norman. But the Spaniard, under circumstances far less favourable to resistance, never for one moment abandoned his hostility to the Moor. Again, when Louis the Fourteenth had been compelled by adverse fortune to surrender the cause of his own grandson, the Spanish peasant, without resources, without commerce, without fleets, without armies, adhered with inflexible fidelity to the cause he had once embraced, and in spite of Blenheim and Ramilies and Oudenarde--in spite of Marlborough, Eugene, and Peterborough--kept the sovereign of his affections on the throne;-and finally, when the rest of Continental Europe quailed before the first of conquerors, the spirit which had triumphed at Almanza and Granada showed itself once more to be invincible, and taught mankind the memorable lesson that "all was not lost" where hatred was immortal, and the determination of resistance not to be overcome. Such a nation must leave an imperishable mark in history. As, however, these elements of pride and bigotry acquired an ascendency in the Spanish character, it gradually sank into a sullen apathy of unsocial indolence, which its declining influence and repeated mortifications tended materially to confirm. Shut up behind the barrier of the Pyrenees--living only in the past, consoling itself by the recollections of former grandeur for the consciousness of actual insignificance and decay; the slave of priests, the victim of kings--it clung to habits unknown in the rest of Europe, and to feelings with which all sympathy had long since passed away. The language, which in the sixteenth century had been spoken in every court of Europe, was unknown--the writers, whom the giant intellects that surrounded the throne of our Elizabeth had studied with so much care, were forgotten. In spite of her noble colonies, in spite of her glorious dialect, in spite of writers more nearly approaching the great models of antiquity in the exquisite perfection of style than those of any modern country, in spite of a drama the wealth of which was inexhaustible Spain ceased to have any influence on the progress of human thought and action. Her vast empire was a corpse from which life had fled. So complete was the ignorance of Spanish literature, that Montesquieu said of the Spaniards, without incurring the charge of having sacrificed truth to epigram, "Le seul de leurs livres qui soit bon est celui qui a fait voir le ridicule de tous les autres:" a singular proof of literary ingratitude in the countryman of Molière, Corneille, and Le Sage--and a still more remarkable proof of the fluctuation of national studies in a country where, scarce a century before, ignorance of Spanish would have been looked upon as a proof of the most barbarous rusticity.

In France, says Cervantes, there is no one man or woman who does not learn Spanish. "En Francia, ni varon ni muger dexa de aprender la lengua Castellana."

To the effect of this very circumstance the growing indifference to Spanish literature may, in some measure, be ascribed. During the palmy state of Spanish greatness, the Spaniard, finding his language, as the French is now, the received organ of social intercourse throughout Europe, seldom vouchsafed to study modern languages. Nor, indeed, were such studies congenial to the taste and temper of that fastidious and haughty nation. In earlier days, poetical traditions and popular ballads had wandered across the Pyrenees. The songs of the Troubadours, and the effusions in the tongue of Oc, had, by means of the kindred dialect of Catalonia, exercised great influence over Castilian poetry. But, towards the end of the fifteenth century, the connection between French and Spanish literature was altogether interrupted: as the language of Catalonia sank to the level of a mere provincial dialect, the channel of communication was blocked up. The family relations between the different members of the houses of Hapsburg and Bourbon could not fill up the chasm which nature had placed between the inhabitants of different sides of the Pyrenees, and which centuries of almost incessant warfare had contributed to widen; and as the provinces of Berne and Languedoc became scandalous as the seats of heresy, everything that came from France was looked upon with aversion and distrust. Still stronger and more insurmountable were the barriers against English literature. He who will read the _Dragontea_ of Lope de Vega, the most amiable of authors, and the ode of Gongora, _Al armamento de Felipe segundo contra Inglaterra_, may form some idea of the scorn and hatred with which the Spaniard, proud of his race, proud of his victories, proud of his language, and, above all, tenacious to madness of the unsullied purity of his faith, looked upon the piratical English, twice apostates from the Holy See, who spoke a barbarous dialect, unknown to the nations of the South, clogged with consonants and monosyllables, incapable of sonorous cadences, and in every respect the opposite of his own. Even at the present day, it is remarkable that Southey--with all his faults, the best writer of English prose that our age has produced--was deeply versed in Spanish literature; and in spite of our acquisitions in physical science, a native of the South, to whom his own beautiful dialect is familiar, might be forgiven when he reads the clumsy prose and prosaic verse of the present day, if he reflect with delight on the Ciceronian eloquence of Cervantes, and the finished periods of Saavedra Faxardo. A Spanish artisan would be ashamed to write like our learned men, or to speak like many members of the House of Commons--so true and so universal is the doctrine of compensation. In the year 1754, Velasquez assures us that there was in Spain no single translation of an English author. But the aversion was not reciprocal. In the days of our great Elizabeth, when the English intellect was at a height from which it has ever since been travelling downwards, Spanish novels and romances were diligently studied, and perpetually translated. There is strong evidence to show that the great dramatists of that day were not ignorant of the Spanish stage.

A translation, or rather an abridgment, of the _Celestina_, was printed in London in 1530, and in 1580 the story was acted in a London theatre.

But as all our readers may not have heard--and many of them probably have not read a line of the _Celestina_--we will, before we proceed farther, explain the nature of this most remarkable--and if the age when it was written be considered--this quite unequalled production.

The _Celestina_, or _Tragi-comedia di Calisto y Meliboea_, is the title of a book which appeared at Salamanca in the year 1500. It is named from the principal person, a procuress, who is the instrument by which all the events that it describes are brought about. It is the work of two authors. The name of the first, who wrote the first act only, cannot certainly be determined. Some ascribe it to Juan de Mena, and some to Rodrigo Cota. The language seems to prove that the date of the first act cannot be much earlier than the end of the fifteenth century, or than that of the twenty acts added to it by the Bachelor, Fernando de Rozas, by whom the whole was published. The work was received with universal, but, if its merit be considered, not with excessive approbation. This is testified by the numerous editions which succeeded each other with great rapidity, not only throughout Spain, but in Venice, Milan, and Antwerp; and translations of it were eagerly studied in France, England, Italy, and Germany. The great length of the _Celestina_ proves that it never could have been intended for the stage; but its influence on the dramatic literature of Spain has been, nevertheless, considerable. For the language of the dialogue is so exquisitely beautiful--the representations it contains are so vivid--and the pathos of several passages so touching,--above all, the characters are drawn with so much spirit and truth of colouring, that it became the favourite model of the great Spanish dramatists of the sixteenth century.

To enter into a detailed account of this beautiful composition would be mere pedantry. It might, perhaps, be agreeable to an age which receives with exultation and delight prose translations of the most beautiful poetry, and places equestrian statues over archways; but it must fill every one to whom the rudiments of taste are not absolutely unknown--every one for whom eloquence and poetry are not merely a dead letter--with unspeakable disgust. It would bear the same resemblance to the original that a corpse does to the body animated by an informing spirit. The plot is extremely simple. Calisto, a youth of high birth, cherishes the most passionate love for the beautiful Meliboea. In order to gratify his passion, he has recourse to Celestina, and by her arts and love-potions, and intrigues, he at length accomplishes his object. They meet at her house; and while

"Imparadised in one another's arms,"