Now that Friedrich's Military Department is got completely into trim again, which he reckons to have been about 1770, his annual Reviews are becoming very famous over Europe; and intelligent Officers of all Countries are eager to be present, and instruct themselves there. The Review is beautiful as a Spectacle; but that is in no sort the intention of it. Rigorous business, as in the strictest of Universities examining for Degrees, would be nearer the definition. Sometimes, when a new manoeuvre or tactical invention of importance is to be tried by experiment, you will find for many miles the environs of Potsdam, which is usually the scene of such experiments, carefully shut in; sentries on every road, no unfriendly eye admitted; the thing done as with closed doors. Nor at any time can you attend without leave asked; though to Foreign Officers, and persons that have really business there, there appears to be liberality enough in granting it. The concourse of military strangers seems to keep increasing every year, till Friedrich's death. [Rodenbeck, iii. IN LOCIS.] French, more and more in quantity, present themselves; multifarious German names;generally a few English too,--Burgoyne (of Saratoga finally), Cornwallis, Duke of York, Marshal Conway,--of which last we have something farther to say at present.
In Summer, 1774, Conway--the Marshal Conway, of whom Walpole is continually talking as of a considerable Soldier and Politician, though he was not in either character considerable, but was Walpole's friend, and an honest modest man--had made up his mind, perhaps partly on domestic grounds (for I have noticed glimpses of a "Lady C." much out of humor), to make a Tour in Germany, and see the Reviews, both Austrian and Prussian, Prussian especially.
Two immense LETTERS of his on that subject have come into my hands, [Kindly presented me by Charles Knight, Esq., the well-known Author and Publisher (who possesses a Collection by the same hand):
these Two run to fourteen large pages in my Copy!] and elsewhere incidentally there is printed record of the Tour; [In Keith (Sir Robert Murray), <italic> Memoirs and Correspondence, <end italic>
ii. 21 et, seq.] unimportant as possible, both Tour and Letters, but capable, if squeezed into compass, of still being read without disadvantage here.
Sir Robert Murray Keith--that is, the younger Excellency Keith, now Minister at Dresden, whom we have sometimes heard of--accompanies Conway on this Tour, or flies alongside of him, with frequent intersections at the principal points; and there is printed record by Sir Robert, but still less interesting than this of Conway, and perfectly conformable to it:--so that, except for some words about the Lord Marischal, which shall be given, Keith must remain silent, while the diffuse Conway strives to become intelligible.
Indeed, neither Conway nor Keith tell us the least thing that is not abundantly, and even wearisomely known from German sources;but to readers here, a pair of English eyes looking on the matter (put straight in places by the help there is), may give it a certain freshness of meaning. Here are Conway's Two Letters, with the nine parts of water charitably squeezed out of them, by a skilful friend of mine and his.
CONWAY TO HIS BROTHER, MARQUIS OF HERTFORD (in London).
"BERLIN, July 17th, 1774.
"DEAR BROTHER,--In the hurry I live in--... Leaving Brunswick, where, in absence of most of the Court, who are visiting at Potsdam, my old Commander," Duke Ferdinand, now estranged from Potsdam, [Had a kind of quarrel with Friedrich in 1766 (rough treatment by Adjutant von Anhalt, not tolerable to a Captain now become so eminent), and quietly withdrew,--still on speaking terms with the King, but never his Officer more.] and living here among works of Art, and speculations on Free Masonry, "was very kind to me, I went to Celle, in Hanover, to pay my respects to the Queen of Denmark [unfortunate divorced Matilda, saved by my friend Keith,--innocent, I will hope!] ... She is grown extremely fat. ...
At Magdeburg, the Prussian Frontier on this side, one is not allowed, without a permit, even to walk on the ramparts,--such the strictness of Prussian rule. ... Driving through Potsdam, on my way to Berlin, I was stopped by a servant of the good old Lord Marischal, who had spied me as I passed under his window. He came out in his nightgown, and insisted upon our staying to dine with him--[worthy old man; a word of him, were this Letter done].
We ended, on consultation about times and movements of the King, by staying three days at Potsdam, mostly with this excellent old Lord.
"On the third day [yesterday evening, in fact], I went, by appointment, to the New Palace, to wait upon the King of Prussia.
There was some delay: his Majesty had gone, in the interim, to a private Concert, which he was giving to the Princesses [Duchess of Brunswick and other high guests [Rodenbeck (IN DIE) iii. 98.]];but the moment he was told I was there, he came out from his company, and gave me a most flattering gracious audience of more than half an hour; talking on a great variety of things, with an ease and freedom the very reverse of what I had been made to expect. ... I asked, and received permission, to visit the Silesian Camps next month, his Majesty most graciously telling me the particular days they would begin and end [27th August-3d September, Schmelwitz near Breslau, are time and place [Ib. iii. 101.]].
This considerably deranges my Austrian movements, and will hurry my return out of those parts: but who could resist such a temptation!
--I saw the Foot-Guards exercise, especially the splendid 'First Battalion;' I could have conceived nothing so perfect and so exact as all I saw:--so well dressed, such men, and so punctual in all they did.