upon its course depended very much the
aspect of affairs in Prussia.

Grumkow, whom the king in the Tobacco
Parliament much trusted, was in the Kaiser's
pay, and he had cunningly and quietly insinuated
into a good place in the same parliament
Ordnance Master Seckendorf, the Kaiser's
envoy, who for seven years stuck to Friedrich
Wilhelm like his shadow, riding in that time
twenty-five thousand miles, or a trifle more
than the length of the terrestrial equator,
always at his elbow during the reviews and
promenade, and other journeys. These men
were two black-artists, who knew how, while
they blew their tobacco-cloud, by judicious
speechings and judicious silences to raise, as
the emergencies of the Kaiser's shadow-hunt
demanded, any storm they pleased in the
mind of a simple, passionate, and honest king.
Friedrich Wilhelm fell into a low state of
mind, and talked about Abdication. The
black-artists had gone too far, and whisked
him to a carnival at Dresden, where he was
the guest of the King of Saxony, a strong
man, and a dissolute. His festive reception
had to be returned. It was not festive, in
truth, for the Crown Prince, whose light mind
was inflamed by what he saw and heard at
the licentious Dresden court, and he brought
home with him the worst vices of France.
His own health failed, his disappointed
father's love now seemed to be turned to
hatred. He slighted him, sneered at him,
left him unserved at dinner; rebuked him,
young man of eighteen, harshly before
company; struck him, even gave him beatings
with his cane. Frederick had learnt to keep
his own counsel, and to bear much; but this
was intolerable, and at last he planned a
flight. The plan was discovered, he was
arrested by his angered father, condemned
to death as a soldier and deserter by
court- martial, and imprisoned at Cüstrin, saw one
of the young friends who was to have helped
him led to execution.

There were scenes of terrible anger and
brutal violence within the palace; the mother
wept, Wilhelmina was beaten. The king's
mind was shaken by the trial. He raved of
apparitions in his slumbers; by day he was
now seen in thunderous tornado, now in
sorrowful fog. For a month together he had
not gone to bed sober. Grumkow and
Seckendorf had done their work too well,
and laboured to avert the threatened end of
it. But frown as he might, this father could
not slay his son; neither was this son a man
to fight on obstinately against fate. His
worst offence was the holding of a certain
doctrine of predestination, which, to the
king's eye, placed him in the claws of
Satan. A chaplain was sent to him, to
whom he listened, and with whom he
argued. He was convinced, and also upon
other points made contrite submission to his
father. Slowly he was forgiven, and restored
to favour.

First, he was placed in an establishment of
his own in Ruppin, free within the bounds of
Ruppin; further favour to be had, if he
deserved it. A year and a day after his
offence, his father saw him, reasoned with
him in his own way, received his filial
submission, and gave him his pardon.

Open quarrel ceased. In prison, with the
sword hanging over his head, Frederick had
to a certain extent been sobered. He had
learned at least to contain himself, and from
that time forward he was distinguished
among men for skill in hiding his own mind
from those about him, without use of falsehood.
He submitted to his father; saw,
doubtless, his rough excellence, and the use
of his apprenticeship to a man faithfully
stubborn at realities of life. He won his
father's favour, married, and liked— better
than he had believed he should— the wife his
father chose for him. He was a married man
not only restored to the army, but with a
campaign to look back upon; corresponding
with Voltaire, writing innumerable letters in
the castle his contented father had not long
since given him at Reinsberg; was issuing
from the press his political work against the
doctrines of Macchiavel— Anti-Macchiavel—
when the Potsdam grenadiers fired their
three volleys over the grave of Friedrich
Wilhelm, and the Apprentice was required to
show his cunning as a Master King.

FRIGHTFUL; BUT FASHIONABLE.

"WE were staying at Sir Walter de
Courcy's, when it happened," she said. "Do
you know Sir Walter? Charming person;
a most distinguished person; a person whom
if you met in the street, you could turn
round and say to yourself, 'that is certainly
a person of consequence.' He was made a
baronet, I believe, by Edward the Black
Prince; that is to say, at least, there was a
baronetcy in the family so early as the battle
of Crecy: well, if there were no such title, it
may have been a knighthood,— indeed it
must have been; but odd it must have
seemed (one can scarcely fancy it!) to have
been entirely without baronets. He lives at
Doon Hall, you know, in Suffolk; a most
charming spot; quite an ancestral spot, as it
were; deer and fern, and park and glade, and
armorial bearings in stone all over the front
door. We went there in the late September.
Do you sketch? Only photograph? Ah!
you might have made a beautiful picture of
that harvest moon shining upon those
magnificent monarchs of the forest— I mean the
oaks, of course— and also upon the elms.
There was a very large party at the hall,
besides ourselves, composed entirely of the
first people of the county; and there were
several great people from London, in addition
to distinguished foreigners, and so on, whom
one has read of in the Morning Post. There
was the Count de Milletonneres, for instance;