Chapter VIII: Part 8

The short account of Murillo, in Cumberland’s “Anecdotes of eminent Painters in Spain,” is taken from the incorrect but amusing “Parnaso Español pintoresco laureado” of Palomino. A very good general and concise history of the Spanish school (though containing several errors of the press in dates), with an interesting list, not to be found elsewhere, of the early pictures of Murillo, is contained in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 26. There are, probably, no other English works on the subject, except in a Dictionary of Spanish Painters, not yet complete, and the incidental notices in books of travels. The foregoing account is chiefly taken from a Letter by Cean Bermudez, “Sobre el estilo y gusto en la Pintura de la Escuela Sevillana, &c. Cadiz, 1806,” published subsequently to his “Diccionario Histórico de los mas ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes en España, Madrid, 1800,” which has also been consulted.

[Holy Family of Murillo.]
]

_Engraved by E. Mackenzie._

CERVANTES.

_After the Spanish Print, engraved by D. F. Selma._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

CERVANTES.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was baptized October 9, 1547, at Alcalà de Henares, a town of New Castile, not far from Madrid. The exact date of his birth does not appear; and even the locality of it has been disputed by several towns, as the Grecian cities contended for the honour due to the birth-place of Homer. Sprung from noble, but not wealthy parents, he was sent at an early age to the metropolis, to qualify himself for one or other of the only lucrative professions in Spain, the church, the law, or medicine; but his attention was diverted from this object by a strong propensity to writing verses. Juan Lopez de Hoyos, a teacher of some note, under whom he studied ancient and modern literature, thought Cervantes the most promising of his pupils; and inserted an elegy, and other verses of his favourite’s composition, in an account of the funeral of Queen Isabel, wife of Philip II., published in 1569. These, like the greater number of Cervantes’ early poems, which are very numerous, do not rise above mediocrity; though the author, who was a long time in discovering that his real talent lay in prose writing, seems to have thought otherwise. He was an indefatigable reader, and used to stop before the book-stalls in the street, perusing anything that attracted his attention. In this manner he gained that intimate knowledge of the old literature of his country, which is displayed in his works; especially in the “Canto de Caliope,” the “Escrutinio de la libreria de Don Quixote,” and the “Viage al Parnaso.” Thus he spent his time, reading and writing verses, seemingly heedless of his future subsistence, until the pressure of want, and the ill success of his poetry, drove him to quit Spain, and seek his fortune elsewhere. He went to Rome, and entered the service of Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva; but soon after enlisted as a private in the armament which Pope Pius V. fitted out in 1570 for the relief of Cyprus, then attacked by the Turks. In 1571 he fought in the famous battle of Lepanto, when the combined squadrons of the Christian powers, commanded by Don Juan of Austria, defeated and destroyed the Ottoman fleet. On that memorable day Cervantes received a gun-shot wound, which for life deprived him of the use of his left hand. Far however from repining, the generous Spaniard always expressed his joyfulness at having purchased the honour of sharing in that victory at that price. The wounded were landed at Messina, and Cervantes among them. Having recovered his health, he enlisted in the troops of Naples, then subject to the crown of Spain. In 1575, as he was voyaging to Spain, the vessel was taken by corsairs; and being carried to Algiers, Cervantes became a slave to Dali Mami, an Albanian renegade, notorious for cruelty. The high-spirited Spaniard bent all his energies to effect an escape; and contrived to get out of the city of Algiers, and conceal himself in a cave by the sea-coast, near a garden belonging to a renegade, named Hassan, whose gardener and another slave were in the secret. He was there joined by several Christian prisoners; and the party remained in the cave for several months, hoping that the opportune arrival of some vessel might deliver them from their anxious duress. At last a ransomed captive, a native of Majorca and friend of Cervantes, left Algiers, and returning to his country, fitted out a vessel, with the intention of releasing his countrymen. He arrived off the coast in the night, and was on the point of landing near the entrance of the cave, when some Moors, who were passing by, spied him, and raised the alarm, on which the vessel stood out again to sea. One of Hassan’s two servants next day went to the Dey, and, in hopes of a reward, informed him that fifteen Christians were concealed in the cave. They were immediately seized and loaded with chains. Cervantes, who appeared the leader, was closely questioned by the Dey himself, whether he had any accomplices in the city. He answered steadily, that the scheme had been planned and carried on by himself alone. After this examination, he was returned to his master. Nothing disheartened, he devised other means of escape, which likewise failed; until at last he conceived the daring scheme of organising a general rising of the Christian slaves in Algiers, and taking forcible possession of the town. But by the cowardice of some of them, the plot was betrayed; and Cervantes was again seized, and carried to the prison of the Dey, who declared that his capital and his ships were not safe “unless he kept himself a close watch over the crippled Spaniard.” So earnest was he in this feeling, that he even purchased Cervantes from his master, and kept him confined in irons; but he did not otherwise ill treat the prisoner, partly, perhaps, out of respect for so brave a man, partly in the hope of obtaining a high ransom for him. Father Haëdo, in his “Topografia de Argel,” gives an account of Cervantes’ captivity, and of the repeated attempts which he made to escape. Meantime his widowed mother and his sister in Spain had not forgotten him, and they contrived, in the year 1579, to raise a sum of 300 ducats, which they delivered to two monks of the order of Trinity, or Mercy, who were proceeding to Algiers for the ransom of slaves. In 1580 they arrived, and treated with the Dey for Cervantes’ ransom, which, after an extravagant sum had been demanded, was settled at 500 golden scudi. The good fathers made up the deficiency in the sum they had been intrusted with; and at last, in September of that year, Cervantes found himself free. Early in the following year he returned to Spain. Having met nothing but misfortunes and disappointment in his endeavours to make his fortune in the world, he now determined to return to his literary pursuits. In 1584 he published his “Galatea,” a pastoral novel. At the end of that year he married Doña Catalina Palacios de Salazar, a lady of ancient family, of the town of Esquivias. This marriage, however, does not seem to have much improved his fortune, for he began soon after to write for the stage as a means of supporting himself. In the next five years he composed between twenty and thirty plays, which were performed at Madrid, and, it would seem, most of them with success. A few are still remembered, namely, “Los Tratos de Argel,” in which he describes the scenes of Algerine captivity; “La Destruccion de Numancia,” and “La Batalla Naval.” He ceased to write for the stage about 1590, when Lope de Vega was rising into reputation. After this he lived several years at Seville, where he had some wealthy relatives, and where he appears to have been employed as a commercial agent. He was at Seville in 1598, at the time when Philip II. died. The pompous preparations for the funeral, the gorgeous hearse and pall, and the bombastic admiration of the people of Seville at their own magnificence on the occasion, excited the grave and sober Castilian’s vein of irony, and he ridiculed the boastful Andalusians in a sonnet which became celebrated, and which begins

Voto à Dios que me espanta esta grandeza.

“I declare to God that all this magnificence quite overwhelms me,” &c.

He has also given an amusing account of the peculiar character, taste, and habits of the Sevillians in one of his tales, “Rinconete y Cortadillo,” in which he describes the several classes of the inhabitants of that city, which is the second in Spain, and, in many respects, offers a strong contrast to Madrid. It was in one of his journeys between these two cities that he resided some time in the province of La Mancha, which he has rendered famous by his great work. He examined attentively both the country and the people; he saw the cave of Montesinos, the Lagunas de Ruydera, the plain of Montiel, Puerto Lapice, the Batanas, and other places which he has described in Don Quixote. Being intrusted with some commission or warrant for recovering certain arrears of tithe due from the village of Argamasilla to the Prior of St. John of Consuegra, he incurred the hostility of the villagers, who disputed his powers, and threw him into prison; and he seems to have remained in confinement for some time, as during that period he imagined and sketched the first part of Don Quixote, as he himself has stated in the preface. He fixed upon this village of Argamasilla as the native place of his hero, without however mentioning its name, “which,” he says at the beginning of the book, “I have no particular wish to remember.” After this occurrence, we find Cervantes living with his family at Valladolid in 1604–5, while Philip III. and his court were residing there. There is a document among the records of the prison of that city, from which it appears that, in June 1605, Cervantes was taken up on suspicion of being concerned in a night brawl which took place near his house, and in which a knight of Santiago was mortally wounded. The wounded man came to the house in which Cervantes lived, and was helped up-stairs by one of the other lodgers whom he knew, assisted by Cervantes, who had come out at the noise. The magistrate arrested several of the inmates of the house, which contained five different families, living in as many sets of chambers on the different floors. From the examinations taken it appears that Cervantes, his wife and daughter, his widowed sister and her daughter, his half sister, who was a _monja_, or domestic nun, and a female servant, occupied apartments on the first floor; and that Cervantes was in the habit of being visited by several gentlemen, both on commercial business and on account of his literary merit. Cervantes was honourably acquitted; as the wounded man, before he died, acknowledged that he had received the fatal blow from an unknown stranger, who insolently obstructed his passage, upon which they drew their swords. Soon afterwards, in 1605, the first part of Don Quixote appeared at Madrid, whither Cervantes probably removed after the court left Valladolid. It seems at once to have become popular; for four editions were published in the course of the year. But it was assailed with abuse by the fanatical admirers of tales of chivalry, by several dramatic and other poets unfavourably alluded to, and also by some of the partisans of Lope de Vega, who thought that Cervantes had not done justice to their idol.

Cervantes did not publish anything for seven years after the appearance of the first part of Don Quixote. He seems to have spent this long period in studious retirement at Madrid: he had by this time given up all expectations of court favour or patronage, which it would appear that he at one time entertained. Philip III., although remarkably fond of Don Quixote, the perusal of which was one of the few things that could draw a smile from his melancholy countenance, was not a patron of literature, and he thought not of inquiring after the circumstances of the writer who had afforded him some moments of innocent gratification. Cervantes, however, gained two friends among the powerful of the time, Don Pedro de Castro, Count de Lemos, and Don Bernardo de Sandoval, Archbishop of Toledo. To the first he was introduced by his friends, the two brothers and poets Argensola, who were attached to the household and enjoyed the confidence of the Count. In 1610, when De Lemos went as Viceroy to Naples, Cervantes expected to go with him; but he was disappointed; and he attributed his failure to the coldness and neglect with which his application to that effect was treated by the Argensolas. It is certain, however, that he received from the Count de Lemos some substantial marks of favour, and among them a pension for the remainder of his life. To this nobleman Cervantes dedicated the second part of his Don Quixote, and other works, with strong expressions of gratitude. The Spanish biographers say also that he received assistance in money from the Archbishop of Toledo. These benefactions, added to his wife’s little property at Esquivias and the remains of his own small patrimony, kept him above absolute want, though evidently in a state of penury.

In 1613 he published his “Novelas Exemplares,” or moral tales. They have always been much esteemed, both for the purity of the language and for the descriptions of life and character which they contain.

In 1614 Cervantes published his “Viage al Parnaso,” in which he passes in review the poets of former ages, as well as his contemporaries, and discusses their merits. While rendering justice to the Argensolas, he alludes to the above-mentioned disappointment which they had caused him. He complains of his own poverty with poetical exaggeration, and styles himself “the Adam of poets.” He next sold eight of his plays to the bookseller Villaroël, who printed them; after observing, however, that Cervantes’ prose was much better relished by the public than his poetry, a judgment which has been generally confirmed by critics. These plays were dedicated to the Count de Lemos, whom he tells that he was preparing to bring out Don Quixote armed and spurred once more. Cervantes had then nearly finished the second part of his immortal work; but before he had time to send it to press, there appeared a spurious continuation of the Don Quixote, the author of which, apparently an Aragonese, assumed the fictitious name of Avellaneda. It was published at Tarragona towards the end of 1614. It is very inferior in style to the original, which it strives to imitate. The writer was not only guilty of plagiarisms from the first part of Cervantes’ work, already published, but he evidently pirated several incidents from the second part, which was still in MS., and to which, by some means or other, he must have found access. At the same time, he scruples not to lavish vulgar abuse on Cervantes, ridiculing him for the lameness which an honourable wound had entailed upon him, and for his other misfortunes. This disgraceful production was deservedly lashed by the injured author in the second part of Don Quixote, which was published in 1615, and received with universal applause. His fame now stood at the highest, and distinguished strangers arriving at Madrid were eager to be introduced to him. His pecuniary circumstances, however, remained at the same low ebb as before. The Count de Lemos, who was still at Naples, appears to have been his principal friend.

In October, 1615, Cervantes felt the first attacks of dropsy. He bore the slow progress of this oppressive disease with his usual serenity of mind; and occupied himself in preparing for the press his last production, “Persiles y Sigismunda,” an elegant imitation of Heliodorus’s Ethiopian story. The last action of his life was to dictate the affecting dedication of this work to the Count de Lemos. He died without much struggle, April 23, 1616, in his sixty-ninth year. It is a singular coincidence, that Spain and England should have lost on the same day of the same year the peculiar glory of their national literature: for this was the day upon which Shakspeare died. By his will he appointed his wife and a friend as his executors, and requested to be buried in the monastery of the Trinitarios, the good fathers who had released him from captivity. After the custom of pious Spaniards, he had inscribed himself as a brother of the third order of St. Francis, and in the dress of that order he was carried to his grave. No monument was raised to his memory. The house in which he died was in the Calle (or street) de Leon, where the Royal Asylum now stands.

Cervantes’ great work is too generally known to require criticism. It is one of those few productions which immortalize the literature and language to which they belong. The interest excited by such a work never dies, for it is interwoven with the very nature of man. The particular circumstances which led Cervantes to the conception of Don Quixote have long ceased to exist. Books of chivalry have been forgotten, and their influence has died away; but Quixotism, under some form or another, remains a characteristic of the human mind in all ages: man is still the dupe of fictions and of his own imagination, and it is for this, that, in reading the story of the aberrations of the Knight of La Mancha, and of the mishaps that befell him in his attempt to redress all the wrongs of the world, we cannot help applying the moral of the tale to incidents that pass every day before our own eyes, and to trace similarities between Cervantes’ hero and some of our living acquaintances.

The contrast between the lofty, spiritual, single-minded knight, and his credulous, simple, yet shrewd, and earth-seeking squire, is an unfailing source of amusement to the reader. It has been disputed which of the two characters, Don Quixote or Sancho, is most skilfully drawn, and best supported through the story. They are both excellent, both suited to each other. The contrast also between the style of the work and the object of it affords another rich vein of mirth. Cervantes’ object was to extirpate by ridicule the whole race of turgid and servile imitators of the older chivalrous tales; which had become a real nuisance in his time, and exercised a very pernicious effect on the minds and taste of the Spaniards. The perusal of those extravagant compositions was the chief pastime of people of every condition; and even clever men acknowledged that they had wasted whole years in this unprofitable occupation, which had spoiled their taste and perverted their imaginations so much, that they could not for a long time after take up a book of real history or science without a feeling of weariness. Cervantes was well acquainted with the nature and the effects of the disease: he had himself employed much time in such pursuits, and he resolved to prepare a remedy for the public mind. That his example has been taken as a precedent by vulgar and grovelling persons, for the purpose of ridiculing all elevation of sentiment, all enthusiasm and sense of honour, forms no just ground of censure on Cervantes, who waged war against that which was false and improbable, and not against that which is noble and natural in the human mind. Nature and truth have their sublimity, which Cervantes understood and respected.

The best Spanish editions of Don Quixote are that of the Spanish Academy, in four vols. 4to., 1788; the edition by Don Juan Antonio Pellicer, with a good life of Cervantes, five vols. 8vo., 1798; and the edition by Don Martin F. de Navarrete, five vols. 8vo., 1819. The edition published by the Rev. J. Bowle, six volumes in three, 4to. London, 1781, contains a valuable commentary, explanatory of idioms, proverbs, &c. Of the English translations, the oldest by Skelton is still much esteemed; there are also versions by Motteux, Jarvis, and Smollet. A new translation was made for the splendid London edition of 1818, four vols. 4to., enriched with engravings from pictures by Smirke. Le Sage translated Don Quixote into French; but with omissions and interpolations which render this a very unfaithful version.

Next to Don Quixote, Cervantes’ best works are his ‘Novelas.’ They have been translated into English. The language of Cervantes is pure Castilian, and is esteemed by learned Spaniards to be one of the best models for prose composition.

Don Agustin Garcia de Arrieta published in 1814 an inedited comic novel of Cervantes, styled ‘La Tia Fingida,’ or ‘The Feigned Aunt,’ to which he added a dissertation on the spirit of Cervantes and his works. The best biographers of Cervantes are Pellicer and Navarrete, already mentioned.

[Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. From one of a series of designs by
Vanderbanck.]
]

_Engraved by E. Scriven._

FREDERICK II.

_From the original by Carlo Vanloo
in the Private Collection of the King of the French._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

FREDERIC II.

The celebrated King of Prussia was in no respect indebted for his personal greatness to the virtues or example of his immediate progenitors. His grandfather Frederic I., the first of the House of Brandenburg who assumed the title of King, was a weak and empty prince, whose character was taken by his own wife to exemplify the idea of infinite littleness. His father, Frederic William, was a man of a violent and brutal disposition, eccentric and intemperate, whose principal, and almost sole pleasure and pursuit, was the training and daily superintendence of an army disproportionately greater than the extent of his dominions seemed to warrant. It is however to the credit of Frederic William as a ruler, that, notwithstanding this expensive taste, his finances on the whole were well and economically administered; so that on his death he left a quiet and happy, though not wealthy country, a treasure of nine millions of crowns, amounting to more than a year’s revenue, and a well-disciplined army of 76,000 men. Thus on his accession, Frederic II. (or as, in consequence of the ambiguity of his father’s name, he is sometimes called, Frederic III.) found, ready prepared, men and money, the instruments of war; and for this alone was he indebted to his father. He was born January 24, 1712. From Frederic William, parental tenderness was not to be expected. His treatment of his whole family, wife and children, was brutal: but he showed a particular antipathy to his eldest son, from the age of fourteen upwards, for which no reason can be assigned, except that the young prince manifested a taste for literature, and preferred books and music to the routine of military exercises. From this age, his life was embittered by continual contradiction, insult, and even personal violence. In 1730, he endeavoured to escape by flight from his father’s control: but this intention being revealed, he was arrested, tried as a deserter, and condemned to death by an obedient court-martial; and the sentence, to all appearance, would have been carried into effect, had it not been for the interference of the Emperor of Germany, Charles VI. of Austria. The king yielded to his urgent entreaties, but with much reluctance, saying, “Austria will some day perceive what a serpent she warms in her bosom.” In 1732, Frederic procured a remission of this ill treatment by contracting, much against his will, a marriage with Elizabeth Christina, a princess of the house of Brunswick. Domestic happiness he neither sought nor found; for it appears that he never lived with his wife. Her endowments, mental and personal, were not such as to win the affections of so fastidious a man, but her moral qualities and conduct are highly commended; and, except in the resolute avoidance of her society, her husband through life treated her with high respect. From the time of his marriage to his accession, Frederic resided at Rheinsberg, a village some leagues north-east of Berlin. In 1734, he made his first campaign with Prince Eugene, but without displaying, or finding opportunity to display, the military talents by which he was distinguished in after-life. From 1732 however to 1740, his time was principally devoted to literary amusements and society. Several of his published works were written during this period, and among them the ‘Anti-Machiavel’ and ‘Considerations on the Character of Charles XII.:’ he also devoted some portion of his time to the study of tactics. His favourite companions were chiefly Frenchmen: and for French manners, language, cookery and philosophy, he displayed through life a very decided preference.

The early part of Frederic’s life gave little promise of his future energy as a soldier and statesman. The flute, embroidered clothes, and the composition of indifferent French verses, seemed to occupy the attention of the young dilettante. His accession to the throne, May 31, 1740, called his dormant energies at once into action. He assumed the entire direction of government, charging himself with those minute and daily duties which princes generally commit to their ministers. To discharge the multiplicity of business which thus devolved on him, he laid down strict rules for the regulation of his time and employments, to which, except when on active service, he scrupulously adhered. Until an advanced period of life he always rose at four o’clock in the morning; and he bestowed but a few minutes on his dress, in respect of which he was careless, even to slovenliness. But peaceful employments did not satisfy his active mind. His father, content with the possession of a powerful army, had never used it as an instrument of conquest: Frederic, in the first year of his reign, undertook to wrest from Austria the province of Silesia. On that country, which, from its adjoining situation, was a most desirable acquisition to the Prussian dominions, it appears that he had some hereditary claims, to the assertion of which the time was favourable. At the death of Charles VI., in October 1740, the hereditary dominions of Austria devolved on a young female, the afterwards celebrated Maria Theresa. Trusting to her weakness, Frederic at once marched an army into Silesia. The people, being chiefly Protestants, were ill affected to their Austrian rulers, and the greater part of the country, except the fortresses, fell without a battle into the King of Prussia’s possession. In the following campaign, April 10, 1741, was fought the battle of Molwitz, which requires mention, because in this engagement, the first in which he commanded, Frederic displayed neither the skill nor the courage which the whole of his subsequent life proved him really to possess. It was said that he took shelter in a windmill, and this gave rise to the sarcasm, that at Molwitz the King of Prussia had covered himself with glory and with flour. The Prussians however remained masters of the field. In the autumn of the same year they advanced within two days’ march of Vienna; and it was in this extremity of distress, that Maria Theresa made her celebrated and affecting appeal to the Diet of Hungary. A train of reverses, summed up by the decisive battle of Czaslaw, fought May 17, 1742, in which Frederic displayed both courage and conduct, induced Austria to consent to the treaty of Breslaw, concluded in the same summer, by which Silesia, with the exception of a small district, was ceded to Prussia, of which kingdom it has ever since continued to form a part.

But though Prussia for a time enjoyed peace, the state of European politics was far from settled, and Frederic’s time was much occupied by foreign diplomacy, as well as by the internal improvements which always were the favourite objects of his solicitude. The rapid rise of Prussia was not regarded with indifference by other powers. The Austrian government was inveterately hostile, from offended pride, as well as from a sense of injury; Saxony took part with Austria; Russia, if not an open enemy, was always a suspicious and unfriendly neighbour; and George II. of England, the King of Prussia’s uncle, both feared and disliked his nephew. Under these circumstances, upon the formation of the triple alliance between Austria, England, and Sardinia, Frederic concluded a treaty with France and the Elector of Bavaria, who had succeeded Charles VI. as Emperor of Germany; and anticipated the designs of Austria upon Silesia, by marching into Bohemia in August, 1744. During two campaigns the war was continued to the advantage of the Prussians, who, under the command of Frederic in person, gained two signal victories with inferior numbers, at Hohenfriedberg and Soor. At the end of December, 1745, he found himself in possession of Dresden, the capital of Saxony, and in condition to dictate terms of peace to Austria and Saxony, by which Silesia was again recognised as part of the Prussian dominions.

Five years were thus spent in acquiring and maintaining possession of this important province. The next ten years of Frederic II.’s life passed in profound peace. During this period he applied himself diligently and successfully to recruit his army, and renovate the drained resources of Prussia. His habits of life were singularly uniform. He resided chiefly at Potsdam, apportioning his time and his employments with methodical exactness; and, by this strict attention to method, he was enabled to exercise a minute superintendence over every branch of government, without estranging himself from social pleasures, or abandoning his literary pursuits. After the peace of Dresden he commenced his ‘Histoire de mon Temps,’ which, in addition to the history of his own wars in Silesia, contains a general account of European politics. About the same period he wrote his ‘Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg,’ the best of his historical works. He maintained an active correspondence with Voltaire, and others of the most distinguished men of Europe. He established, or rather restored, the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and was eager to enrol eminent foreigners among its members, and to induce them to resort to his capital; and the names of Voltaire, Euler, Maupertuis, La Grange, and others of less note, testify his success. But his avowed contempt for the German, and admiration of the French literature and language, in which all the transactions of the Society were carried on, gave an exotic character to the institution, and crippled the national benefits which might have been expected to arise from it. In 1751, after a considerable expenditure of flattery, Frederic induced Voltaire to take up his residence at Potsdam. From this step he anticipated much pleasure and advantage, and for a time every thing appeared to proceed according to his wishes. The social suppers in which he loved to indulge after the labours of the day, were enlivened by the poet’s brilliant talents; and the poet’s gratitude for the royal friendship and condescension was manifested in his assiduous correction of the royal writings. For a time each was delighted with the other; but the mutual regard which these two singular characters had conceived was soon dissipated upon closer acquaintance, and after many undignified quarrels, they parted in the spring of 1753 in a manner discreditable to both. In the cause of education Frederic was active, both by favouring the universities, to which he sought to secure the services of the best professors, and by the establishment of schools wherever the circumstances of the neighbourhood rendered it desirable. It is said that he sometimes founded as many as sixty schools in a single year. This period of his reign is also marked by the commencement of that revision of the Prussian law (a confused and corrupt mixture of Roman and Saxon jurisprudence) which led to the substitution of an entirely new code. In this important business the Chancellor Cocceii took the lead; but the system established by him underwent considerable alterations from time to time, and at last was remodelled in 1781. For the particular merits or imperfections of the code, the lawyers who drew it up are answerable, rather than the monarch; but the latter possesses the high honour of having proved himself, in this and other instances, sincerely desirous to assure to his subjects a pure and ready administration of justice. Sometimes this desire, joined to a certain love and habit of personal inquiry into all things, led the king to a meddling and mischievous interference with the course of justice, as in the instance of the miller Arnold, which probably is familiar to most readers; but in all cases his intention seems to have been pure, and his conduct proves him sincere in the injunction to his judges:—“If a suit arises between me and one of my subjects, and the case is a doubtful one, you should always decide against me.” If, as in the celebrated imprisonment of Baron Trenck, he chose to perform an arbitrary action, he did it openly, not by tampering with courts of justice: but these despotic measures were not frequent, and few countries have ever enjoyed a fuller practical license of speech and printing, than Prussia under a simply despotic form of government, administered by a prince naturally of impetuous passions and stern and unforgiving temper. That temper, however, was kept admirably within bounds, and seldom suffered to appear in civil affairs. His code is remarkable for the abolition of torture, and the toleration granted to all religions. The latter enactment, however, required no great share of liberality from Frederic, who avowed his indifference to all religions alike. In criminal cases he was opposed to severe punishments, and was always strongly averse to shedding blood. To his subjects, both in person and by letter, he was always accessible, and to the peasantry in particular he displayed paternal kindness, patience, and condescension. But, on the other hand, his military system was frightfully severe, both in its usual discipline and in its punishments. Numbers of soldiers deserted, or put an end to their lives, or committed crimes that they might be given up to justice. Yet his kindness and familiarity in the field, and his fearless exposure of his own person, endeared him exceedingly to his soldiers, and many pleasing anecdotes, honourable to both parties, are preserved, especially during the campaigns of the Seven Years’ War.

During this peace Austria had recruited her strength, and with it her inveterate hostility to Prussia; and it became known to Frederic that a secret agreement for the conquest and partition of his territories existed between Austria, Russia, and Saxony. The circumstances of the times were such that, though neither France nor England were cordially disposed towards him, it was yet open to him to negotiate an alliance with either. Frederic chose that of England; and France, forgetting ancient enmities, and her obvious political interest, immediately took part with Austria. The odds of force apparently were overwhelming; but, having made up his mind, the King of Prussia displayed his usual promptitude. He demanded an explanation of the views of the court of Vienna, and, on receiving an unsatisfactory answer, signified that he considered it a declaration of war. Knowing that the court of Saxony, contrary to existing treaties, was secretly engaged in the league against him, he marched an army into the electorate in August, 1756, and, almost unopposed, took military possession of it. He thus turned the enemy’s resources against himself, and drew from that unfortunate country continual supplies of men and money, without which he could scarcely have supported the protracted struggle which ensued, and which is celebrated under the title of the Seven Years’ War. The events of this war, however interesting to a military student, are singularly unfit for concise narration, and that from the very circumstances which displayed the King of Prussia’s talents to most advantage. Attacked on every side, compelled to hasten from the pursuit of a beaten, to make head in some other quarter against a threatening enemy, the activity, vigilance, and indomitable resolution of Frederic must strike all those who read these campaigns at length, and with the necessary help of maps and plans, though his profound tactical skill and readiness in emergencies may be fully appreciable only by the learned. But when these complicated events are reduced to a bare list of marches and countermarches, victories and defeats, the spirit vanishes, and a mere _caput mortuum_ remains. The war being necessarily defensive, Frederic could seldom carry the seat of action into an enemy’s country. The Prussian dominions were subject to continual ravage, and that country, as well as Saxony, paid a heavy price that the possession of Silesia might be decided between two rival sovereigns. Upon the whole, the first campaigns were favourable to Prussia; but the confessed superiority of that power in respect of generals (for the King was admirably supported by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, Prince Henry of Prussia, Schwerin, Keith, and others) could not always countervail the great superiority of force with which it had to contend. The celebrated victory won by the Prussians at Prague, May 6, 1757, was balanced by a severe defeat at Kolin, the result, as Frederic confesses, of his own rashness; but, at the end of autumn, he retrieved the reverses of the summer, by the brilliant victories of Rosbach, and Leuthen or Lissa. In 1758, Frederic’s contempt of his enemy lulled him into a false security, in consequence of which he was surprised and defeated at Hochkirchen. But the campaigns of 1759 and 1760 were a succession of disasters by which Prussia was reduced to the verge of ruin; and it appears, from Frederic’s correspondence, that, in the autumn of the latter year, his reverses led him to contemplate suicide, in preference to consenting to what he thought dishonourable terms of peace. The next campaign was bloody and indecisive; and in the following year the secession of Russia and France induced Austria, then much exhausted, to consent to a peace, by which Silesia and the other possessions of Frederic were secured to him as he possessed them before the war. So that this enormous expense of blood and treasure produced no result whatever, except that of establishing the King of Prussia’s reputation as the first living general of Europe. Peace was signed at the castle of Hubertsburg, near Dresden, Feb. 15, 1763.

The brilliant military reputation which Frederic had acquired in this arduous contest did not tempt him to pursue the career of a conqueror. He had risked every thing to maintain possession of Silesia; but if his writings speak the real feelings of his mind, he was deeply sensible to the sufferings and evils which attend upon war. “The state of Prussia,” he himself says, in the ‘Histoire de mon Temps,’ “can only be compared to that of a man riddled with wounds, weakened by loss of blood, and ready to sink under the weight of his misfortunes. The nobility was exhausted, the commons ruined, numbers of villages were burnt, of towns ruined. Civil order was lost in a total anarchy: in a word, the desolation was universal.” To cure these evils Frederic applied his earnest attention; and by grants of money to those towns which had suffered most; by the commencement and continuation of various great works of public utility; by attention to agriculture; by draining marshes, and settling colonists in the barren, or ruined portions of his country; by cherishing manufactures (though not always with a useful or judicious zeal), he succeeded in repairing the exhausted population and resources of Prussia with a rapidity the more wonderful, because his military establishment was at the same time recruited and maintained at the enormous number, considering the size and wealth of the kingdom, of 200,000 men. One of his measures deserves especial notice, the emancipation of the peasants from hereditary servitude. This great undertaking he commenced at an early period of his reign, by giving up his own seignorial rights over the serfs on the crown domains: he completed it in the year 1766, by an edict abolishing servitude throughout his dominions. In 1765, he commenced a gradual alteration in the fiscal system of Prussia, suggested in part by the celebrated Helvetius. In the department of finance, though all his experiments did not succeed, he was very successful. He is said, in the course of his reign, to have raised the annual revenue to nearly double what it had been in his father’s time, and that without increasing the pressure of the people; and from his last biographer, he has obtained the praise of having “arrived, as far as any sovereign ever did, at perfection in that part of finance, which consists in the extracting as much as possible from the people, without overburthening or impoverishing them; and receiving into the royal coffers the sums so extracted, with the least possible deductions.”

In such cares and in his literary pursuits, among which we may especially mention his ‘History of the Seven Years War,’ passed the time of Frederic for ten years. In 1772, he engaged in the nefarious project for the first partition of Poland. Of the iniquity of that project it is not necessary to speak; the universal voice of Europe has condemned it. It does not seem, however, that the scheme originated, as has been said, with Frederic: on the contrary, it appears to have been conceived by Catherine II., and matured in conversations with Prince Henry, the King of Prussia’s brother, during a visit to St. Petersburg. By the treaty of partition, which was not finally arranged till 1777, Prussia gained a territory of no great extent, but of importance from its connecting Prussia Proper with the electoral dominions of Brandenburg and Silesia, and giving a compactness to the kingdom, of which it stood greatly in need. Frederic made some amends for his conduct in this matter, by the diligence with which he laboured to improve his acquisition. In this, as in most circumstances of internal administration, he was very successful; and the country, ruined by war, misgovernment, and the brutal sloth of its inhabitants, soon assumed the aspect of cheerful industry.

The King of Prussia once more led an army into the field, when, on the death of the Elector of Bavaria, childless, in 1778, Joseph II. of Austria conceived the plan of re-annexing to his own crown, under the plea of various antiquated feudal rights, the greater part of the Bavarian territories. Stimulated quite as much by jealousy of Austria, as by a sense of the injustice of this act, Frederic stood out as the assertor of the liberties of Germany, and proceeding with the utmost politeness from explanation to explanation, he marched an army into Bohemia in July, 1778. The war, however, which was terminated in the following spring by the peace of Teschen, was one of manœuvres, and partial engagements; in which Frederic’s skill in strategy shone with its usual lustre, and success, on the whole, rested with the Prussians. By the terms of the treaty, the Bavarian dominions were secured, nearly entire, to the rightful collateral heirs, whose several claims were settled, while certain minor stipulations were made in favour of Prussia.

A few years later, in 1785, Frederic again found occasion to oppose Austria, in defence of the integrity of the Germanic constitution. The Emperor Joseph, in prosecution of his designs on Bavaria, had formed a contract with the reigning elector, to exchange the Austrian provinces in the Netherlands for the Electorate. Dissenting from this arrangement, the heir to the succession entrusted the advocacy of his rights to Frederic, who lost no time in negotiating a confederation among the chief powers of Germany, (known by the name of the Germanic League,) to support the constitution of the empire, and the rights of its several princes. By this timely step Austria was compelled to forego the desired acquisition.

At this time Frederic’s constitution had begun to decay. He had long been a sufferer from gout, the natural consequence of indulgence in good eating and rich cookery, to which throughout his life he was addicted. Towards the end of the year he began to experience great difficulty of breathing. His complaints, aggravated by total neglect of medical advice, and an extravagant appetite, which he gratified by eating to excess of the most highly seasoned and unwholesome food, terminated in a confirmed dropsy. During the latter months of his life he suffered grievously from this complication of disorders; and through this period he displayed remarkable patience, and consideration for the feelings of those around him. No expression of suffering was allowed to pass his lips; and up to the last day of his life he continued to discharge with punctuality those political duties which he had imposed upon himself in youth and strength. Strange to say, while he exhibited this extraordinary self-control in some respects, he would not abstain from the most extravagant excesses in diet, though they were almost always followed by a severe aggravation of his sufferings. Up to August 15, 1786, he continued, as usual, to receive and answer all communications, and to despatch the usual routine of civil and military business. On the following day he fell into a lethargy, from which he only partially recovered. He died in the course of the night of August 16.

The published works of the King of Prussia were collected in twenty-three volumes, 8vo. Amsterdam, 1790. We shall here mention, as completing the body of his historical works, the “Mémoires depuis la Paix de Hubertsbourg,” and “Mémoires de la Guerre de 1778.” Among his poems, the most remarkable is the “Art de la Guerre;” but these, as happens in most cases, where the writer has thought fit to employ a foreign language, have been little known or esteemed, since their author ceased to rivet the attention of the world by the brilliance of his actions, and the singularity of his character. A list of Frederic’s works is given at the end of the article in the “Biographie Universelle.” For his campaigns, see the works of Lloyd and Templehoff, and Jomini’s “Histoire critique et militaire des Guerres de Frédéric II.” Among the numerous lives of him, we may refer to the “Essai sur la Vie et le Règne de Frédéric II.,” by the Abbé Denina, who had been employed in the King of Prussia’s service. Much that relates to him is to be found among the writings of Voltaire. The lives by Gillies and Lord Dover will satisfy the curiosity of the English reader.

[Gate of the Palace at Potsdam.]
]

_Engraved by B. Holl._

DELAMBRE.

_From the original by Boilly
in the possession of Delambre’s Family at Amiens._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

DELAMBRE.

The time is not yet come when a memoir of the personal life of Delambre could be attempted with any chance of interesting the reader. The accounts which have been published from authentic sources are very meagre; and, as may be supposed, this country is not the place in which better can be obtained. We must therefore content ourselves with offering a slight table of the principal events of his public career, and proceed to give some account of his extraordinary labours.

Jean Baptist Joseph Delambre was born September 19, 1749, at or near Amiens. He studied under Delille at the college of Plessis, applying himself particularly to the learned languages. His accurate and ready knowledge of Greek afterwards proved an element of no mean importance in the merit of his ‘History of Astronomy.’

Though the extent of his works would give the idea of a very long life applied to one subject in all its bearings, yet Delambre was more than thirty years old before he turned his attention to astronomy. It is said that he accidentally entered the room where Lalande was delivering a lecture on some part of that science, while either waiting for or coming from another on the Greek language. Be that as it may, he commenced his studies under the celebrated astronomer just named before 1785, in which year the calculation of the longitudes and latitudes of the stars in Mayer’s Catalogue, by Delambre, was published, in the ‘Connaissance des Tems’ for 1788. In 1789 he published Tables of Jupiter and Saturn; and in 1790 Tables of Uranus, which gained the prize of the Academy of Sciences; at the same time he was actively engaged in correcting, by observation, the existing tables of right ascensions. In 1791 he published new Tables of Jupiter’s Satellites, which Lalande calls “Un des plus grands travaux astronomiques qu’on ait faits.”

In 1792 Delambre aided Lalande in calculating the planetary tables for the third edition of his ‘Astronomy;’ and was appointed a member of the Institute, and also of the Commission for measuring a Degree of the Meridian. Of his share in this operation we shall presently speak. In the same year he published his first Tables of the Sun, and a second set in 1806, together with Tables of Refraction. In 1817 he again constructed Tables of Jupiter’s Satellites. In 1795 he was appointed to the _Bureau des Longitudes_; in 1802 he was made _Inspecteur Général des Etudes_, in which capacity he formed the Lyceums of Moulins and Lyons. In 1803 he became perpetual secretary of the class of mathematics in the Institute, and the various _éloges_ which are found in the Memoirs of that body till 1822 are from his pen. In 1807 he succeeded Lalande as Professor at the College of France; in 1808 he was appointed Treasurer of the University, and in 1821, Officer of the Legion of Honour. He died August 19, 1822, at the age of seventy-three.

The dry catalogue of tables and works becomes curious and interesting when we consider them all as the production of one man, who was also actively engaged either on the great Survey or in continual observation. But the list is yet far from complete. The Histories of Astronomy (_Ancienne_, _Moyenne_, _Moderne_, _du dix-huitième Siècle_), comprised in six volumes 4to., appeared between 1817 and 1821, with the exception of the last, which was published in 1827, after the author’s death. His large work on astronomy, in three 4to. volumes, came out in 1814, and the ‘Base du Systême Métrique,’ a detailed account of the operations of the Survey, in four volumes 4to. (of which the first three are the work of Delambre), appeared at different times between 1806 and 1810. He had previously (in 1799 if we recollect rightly) published a shorter description of the methods employed. His decimal tables of Logarithms appeared in 1801, and his Report on the Progress of all the Sciences since 1789 was presented to the Emperor Napoleon in 1808, and published in 1810. We have still to add the numerous memoirs which he contributed to the ‘Connaissance des Tems,’ the ‘Memoirs of the Institute,’ and other periodicals, to the list of Delambre’s labours; a list which shows that he possessed a degree of energy rarely surpassed, and a quantity of reading, on the subject of astronomy at least, certainly never equalled.

But though it is only justice to the memory of Delambre to insist upon the amazing _quantity_ of work which he performed, all of the first order of utility, in which he appears to us to stand altogether without a rival in the history of science, we have yet to point out how much of that work was of a more laborious character than is usually necessary to produce the same number of pages. We need not dwell on the planetary tables, &c., or on the ‘Base du Systême Métrique,’ almost every page of which is a separate record of toil and patience. The History of Astronomy is a work of a peculiar kind. It is not merely a digest of ideas which the author had acquired from the perusal of the writings of others, but an actual abstract of every work which has exercised the least influence on the progress of the science, whether Greek, Arabian, or modern European. This task by itself would have been abundantly sufficient to secure to its author the reputation of a long life well spent; for he had to wade through the writings of every age and country, and in particular to acquire a knowledge of the mathematical styles of different times, which are sufficiently distinct to render them, we might almost say, sciences of different species. The student of astronomical history is thus with very little trouble put in possession of all the records of the only science whose history is a part of itself, and must be studied with it. If the author sometimes appears prejudiced or hasty in his conclusions, it must be recollected that (intentional misquotation of course apart, of which he was never suspected) the plan of the work is such as to render the conclusions which a reader may draw from it, to a great degree independent of any colouring arising from the bias or misconception of the author.