It was the eighteenth of June, a day which, if the Greek superstition still retained its influence, would be held sacred to Nemesis, a day on which the two greatest princes of modern times were taught, by a terrible experience, that neither skill nor valour can fix the inconstancy of fortune.The battle began before noon; and part of the Prussian army maintained the contest till after the midsummer sun had gone down.But at length the King found that his troops, having been repeatedly driven back with frightful carnage, could no longer be led to the charge.He was with difficulty persuaded to quit the field.The officers of his personal staff were under the necessity of expostulating with him, and one of them took the liberty to say, "Does your Majesty mean to storm the batteries alone?" Thirteen thousand of his bravest followers had perished.Nothing remained for him but to retreat in good order, to raise the siege of Prague, and to hurry his army by different routes out of Bohemia.
This stroke seemed to be final.Frederic's situation had at best been such, that only an uninterrupted run of good luck could save him, as it seemed, from ruin.And now, almost in the outset of the contest he had met with a check which, even in a war between equal powers, would have been felt as serious.He had owed much to the opinion which all Europe entertained of his army.Since his accession, his soldiers had in many successive battles been victorious over the Austrians.But the glory had departed from his arms.All whom his malevolent sarcasms had wounded, made haste to avenge themselves by scoffing at the scoffer.His soldiers had ceased to confide in his star.In every part of his camp his dispositions were severely criticised.Even in his own family he had detractors.His next brother, William, heir-presumptive, or rather, in truth, heir-apparent to the throne, and great-grandfather of the present King, could not refrain from lamenting his own fate and that of the House of Hohenzollern, once so great and so prosperous, but now, by the rash ambition of its chief, made a by-word to all nations.These complaints, and some blunders which William committed during the retreat from Bohemia, called forth the bitter displeasure of the inexorable King.The prince's heart was broken by the cutting reproaches of his brother; he quitted the army, retired to a country seat, and in a short time died of shame and vexation.
It seemed that the King's distress could hardly be increased.Yet at this moment another blow not less terrible than that of Kolin fell upon him.The French under Marshal D'Estrees had invaded Germany.The Duke of Cumberland had given them battle at Hastembeck, and had been defeated.In order to save the Electorate of Hanover from entire subjugation, he had made, at Closter Seven, an arrangement with the French Generals, which left them at liberty to turn their arms against the Prussian dominions.
That nothing might be wanting to Frederic's distress, he lost his mother just at this time; and he appears to have felt the loss more than was to be expected from the hardness and severity of his character.In truth, his misfortunes had now cut to the quick.The mocker, the tyrant, the most rigorous, the most imperious, the most cynical of men, was very unhappy.His face was so haggard, and his form so thin, that when on his return from Bohemia he passed through Leipsic, the people hardly knew him again.His sleep was broken; the tears, in spite of himself, often started into his eyes; and the grave began to present itself to his agitated mind as the best refuge from misery and dishonour.His resolution was fixed never to be taken alive, and never to make peace on condition of descending from his place among the powers of Europe.He saw nothing left for him except to die; and he deliberately chose his mode of death.He always carried about with him a sure and speedy poison in a small glass case; and to the few in whom he placed confidence, he made no mystery of his resolution.
But we should very imperfectly describe the state of Frederic's mind, if we left out of view the laughable peculiarities which contrasted so singularly with the gravity, energy, and harshness of his character.It is difficult to say whether the tragic or the comic predominated in the strange scene which was then acting.In the midst of all the great King's calamities, his passion for writing indifferent poetry grew stronger and stronger.Enemies all round him, despair in his heart, pills of corrosive sublimate hidden in his clothes, he poured forth hundreds upon hundreds of lines, hateful to gods and men, the insipid dregs of Voltaire's Hippocrene, the faint echo of the lyre of Chaulieu.It is amusing to compare what he did during the last months of 1757, with what he wrote during the same time.It may be doubted whether any equal portion of the life of Hannibal, of Caesar, or of Napoleon, will bear a comparison with that short period, the most brilliant in the history of Prussia and of Frederic.Yet at this very time the scanty leisure of the illustrious warrior was employed in producing odes and epistles, a little better than Cibber's, and a little worse than Hayley's.
Here and there a manly sentiment which deserves to be in prose makes its appearance in company with Prometheus and Orpheus, Elysium and Acheron, the Plaintive Philomel, the poppies of Morpheus, and all the other frippery which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty to her waiting woman, has long been contemptuously abandoned by genius to mediocrity.We hardly know any instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking, and so grotesque, as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.