The desperate notion of giving up government altogether, as a relief from human blockheadism in your governors, and their want even of a wish to be just or wise, had not entered into the thoughts of Friedrich; nor driven him upon trying to believe that such, in regard to any Human Interest whatever, was, or could be except for a little while in extremely developed cases, the true way of managing it. How disgusting, accordingly, is the Prussia of Friedrich to a Hanbury Williams; who has bad eyes and dirty spectacles, and hates Friedrich: how singular and lamentable to a Mirabeau Junior, who has good eyes, and loves him! No knave, no impertinent blockhead even, can follow his own beautiful devices here; but is instantly had up, or comes upon a turnpike strictly shut for him. 'Was the like ever heard of?' snarls Hanbury furiously (as an angry dog might, in a labyrinth it sees not the least use for): 'What unspeakable want of liberty!'--and reads to you as if he were lying outright; but generally is not, only exaggerating, tumbling upside down, to a furious degree;knocking against the labyrinth HE sees not the least use for.
Mirabeau's Gospel of Free-Trade, preached in 1788, [MONARCHIEPRUSSIENNE he calls it (A LONDRES, privately Paris, 1788), 8 vols.
8vo; which is a Dead-Sea of Statistics, compiled by industrious Major Mauvillon, with this fresh current of a "Gospel" shining through it, very fresh and brisk, of few yards breadth;--dedicated to Papa, the true PROTevangelist of the thing.]--a comparatively recent Performance, though now some seventy or eighty years the senior of an English (unconscious) Fac-simile, which we have all had the pleasure of knowing,--will fall to be noticed afterwards [not by this Editor, we hope!]
"Many of Friedrich's restrictive notions,--as that of watching with such anxiety that 'money' (gold or silver coin) be not carried out of the Country,--will be found mistakes, not in orthodox Dismal Science as now taught, but in the nature of things; and indeed the Dismal Science will generally excommunicate them in the lump,--too.
heedless that Fact has conspicuously vindicated the general sum-total of them, and declared it to be much truer than it seems to the Dismal Science. Dismal Science (if that were important to me)takes insufficient heed, and does not discriminate between times past and times present, times here and times there."Certain it is, King Friedrich's success in National Husbandry was very great. The details of the very many new Manufactures, new successful ever-spreading Enterprises, fostered into existence by Friedrich; his Canal-makings, Road-makings, Bog-drainings, Colonizings and unwearied endeavorings in that kind, will require a Technical Philosopher one day; and will well reward such study, and trouble of recording in a human manner; but must lie massed up in mere outline on the present occasion. Friedrich, as Land-Father, Shepherd of the People, was great on the Husbandry side also;and we are to conceive him as a man of excellent practical sense, doing unweariedly his best in that kind, all his life long.
Alone among modern Kings; his late Father the one exception;and even his Father hardly surpassing him in that particular.
In regard to Embden and the Shipping interests, Ost-Friesland awakened very ardent speculations, which were a novelty in Prussian affairs; nothing of Foreign Trade, except into the limited Baltic, had been heard of there since the Great Elector's time. The Great Elector had ships, Forts on the Coast of Africa; and tried hard for Atlantic Trade,--out of this same Embden; where, being summoned to protect in the troubles, he had got some footing as Contingent Heir withal, and kept a "Prussian Battalion" a good while. And now, on much fairer terms, not less diligently turned to account, it is his Great-Grandson's turn. Friedrich's successes in this department, the rather as Embden and Ost-Friesland have in our time ceased to be Prussian, are not much worth speaking of; but they connect themselves with some points still slightly memorable to us.
How, for example, his vigilantes and endeavors on this score brought him into rubbings, not collisions, but jealousies and gratings, with the English and Dutch, the reader will see anon.
Law-reform is gloriously prosperous; Husbandry the like, and Shipping Interest itself as yet. But in the Third grand Head, that of realizing the Reinsberg Program, beautifying his Domesticities, and bringing his own Hearth and Household nearer the Ideal, Friedrich was nothing like so successful; in fact had no success at all. That flattering Reinsberg Program, it is singular how Friedrich cannot help trying it by every new chance, nor cast the notion out of him that there must be a kind of Muses'-Heaven realizable on Earth! That is the Biographic Phenomenon which has survived of those Years; and to that we will almost exclusively address ourselves, on behalf of ingenuous readers.
Chapter IX.
SECOND ACT 0F TEE VOLTAIRE VISIT.
Voltaire's Visit lasted, in all, about Thirty-two Months; and is divisible into Three Acts or Stages. The first we have seen: how it commenced in brightness as of the sun, and ended, by that Hirsch business, in whirlwinds of smoke and soot,--Voltaire retiring, on his passionate prayer, to that silent Country-house which he calls the Marquisat; there to lie in hospital, and wash himself a little, and let the skies wash themselves.