we hope he is not LIKE in the Bielfeld Portrait;--otherwise, how happy that we never had the honor of knowing him! Indeed, the Crown-Prince's Household generally, as Bielfeld paints it in flourishes of panegyric, is but unattractive; barren to the modern on-looker; partly the Painter's blame, we doubt not. He gives details about their mode of dining, taking coffee, doing concert;--and describes once an incidental drinking-bout got up aforethought by the Prince; which is probably in good part fiction, though not ill done. These fantastic sketchings, rigorously winnowed into the credible and actual, leave no great residue in that kind; but what little they do leave is of favorable and pleasant nature.
Bielfeld made a visit privately to Potsdam, too: saw the Giants drill; made acquaintance with important Captains of theirs (all in ASTERISKS) at Potsdam; with whom he dined, not in a too credible manner, and even danced. Among the asterisks, we easily pick out Captain Wartensleben (of the Korn's-Hotel operation), and Winterfeld, a still more important Captain, whom we saw dining on cold pie with his Majesty, at a barn-door in Pommern, not long since. Of the Giants, or their life at Potsdam, Bielfeld's word is not worth hearing,--worth suppressing rather; his knowledge being so small, and hung forth in so fantastic a way. This transient sight he had of his Majesty in person; this, which is worth something to us,--fact being evidently lodged in it, "After church-parade," Autumn Sunday afternoon (day uncertain, Bielfeld's date being fictitious, and even impossible), Majesty drove out to Wusterhausen, "where the quantities of game surpass all belief;"and Bielfeld had one glimpse of him:--"I saw his Majesty only, as it were, in passing. If I may judge by his Portraits, he must have been of a perfect beauty in his young time; but it must be confessed there is nothing left of it now.
His eyes truly are fine; but the glance of them is terrible:
his complexion is composed of the strongest tints of red, blue, yellow, green,"--not a lovely complexion at all; "big head; the thick neck sunk between the shoulders; figure short and heavy (COURTE ET RAMASSEE)." [Bielfeld, p. 35.]
"Going out to Wusterhausen," then, that afternoon, "October, 1739." How his Majesty is crushed down; quite bulged out of shape in that sad way, by the weight of time and its pressures:
his thoughts, too, most likely, of a heavy-laden and abstruse nature! The old Pfalz Controversy has misgone with him: Pfalz, and so much else in the world;--the world in whole, probably enough, near ending to him; the final shadows, sombre, grand and mournful, closing in upon him!
TURK WAR ENDS; SPANISH WAR BEGINS. A WEDDING IN PETERSBURG.
Last news come to Potsdam in these days is, The Kaiser has ended his disastrous Turk War; been obliged to end it; sudden downbreak, and as it were panic terror, having at last come upon his unfortunate Generals in those parts. Duke Franz was passionate to be out of such a thing; Franz, General Neipperg and others;and now, "2d September, 1739," like lodgers leaping from a burning house, they are out of it. The Turk gets Belgrade itself, not to mention wide territories farther east,--Belgrade without shot fired;--nay the Turk was hardly to be kept from hanging the Imperial Messenger (a General Neipperg, Duke Franz's old Tutor, and chief Confidant, whom we shall hear more of elsewhere), whose passport was not quite right on this occasion!--Never was a more disgraceful Peace. But also never had been worse fighting;planless, changeful, powerless, melting into futility at every step:--not to be mended by imprisonments in Gratz, and still harsher treatment of individuals. "Has all success forsaken me, then, since Eugene died?" said the Kaiser; and snatched at this Turk Peace; glad to have it, by mediation of France, and on any terms.
Has not this Kaiser lost his outlying properties at a fearful rate? Naples is gone; Spanish Bourbon sits in our Naples;comparatively little left for us in Italy. And now the very Turk has beaten us small; insolently fillips the Imperial nose of us,--threatening to hang our Neipperg, and the like. Were it not for Anne of Russia, whose big horse-whip falls heavy on this Turk, he might almost get to Vienna again, for anything we could do!
A Kaiser worthy to be pitied;--whom Friedrich Wilhelm, we perceive, does honestly pity. A Kaiser much beggared, much disgraced, in late years; who has played a huge life-game so long, diplomatizing, warring; and, except the Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, has nothing to retire upon.
The Russians protested, with astonishment, against such Turk Peace on the Kaiser's part. But there was no help for it. One ally is gone, the Kaiser has let go this Western skirt of the Turk;and "Thamas Kouli Khan" (called also Nadir Shah, famed Oriental slasher and slayer of that time) no longer stands upon the Eastern skirt, but "has entered India," it appears: the Russians--their cash, too, running low--do themselves make peace, "about a month after;" restoring Azoph and nearly all their conquests; putting off the ruin of the Turk till a better time.
War is over in the East, then; but another in the West, England against Spain (Spain and France to help), is about beginning.
Readers remember how Jenkins's Ear re-emerged, Spring gone a year, in a blazing condition? Here, through SYLVANUS URBAN himself, are two direct glimpses, a twelve-month nearer hand, which show us how the matter has been proceeding since:--"LONDON, 19th FEBRUARY, 1739. The City Authorities,"--laying or going to lay "the foundation of the Mansion-House" (Edifice now very black in our time), and doing other things of little moment to us, "had a Masquerade at the Guildhall this night. There was a very splendid appearance at the Masquerade; but among the many humorous and whimsical characters, what seemed most to engage attention was a Spaniard, who called himself 'Knight of the Ear;'