ried on the war as no war was ever before carried on, as no war has since been carried on, except that of the Committee of Safety during the French Revolution, or that carried on by the Southern Confederacy during its last year. Let us again quote Macaulay: "Frederick governed his kingdom as he would have governed a besieged town, not caring to what extent property was destroyed, or the pursuits of civil life suspended, so that he did but make head against the enemy. As long as there was a man left, that man might carry a musket; as long as there was a horse left, that horse might draw artillery. The coin was debased, the civil functionaries were left unpaid; in some provinces civil government altogether ceased to exist. But there were still potatoes and bread; rye there were still lead and gunpowder; and while the means of sustaining and destroying life remained, Frederick was determined to fight it out to the very last."

The fifth year of the war, 1760, was a terrible one. Frederick, indeed, gained two great victories; but the enormous losses suffered by the enemy seemed hardly to be felt by them. They pressed him close on every side, and he was baited into savage and almost insane fury. "It is hard," he wrote to a friend, "for man to bear what I bear. I begin to feel that, as the

Italians say,

'revenge is a pleasure to the gods.' My philosophy is worn out by suffering. I am no saint, like

those of whom we read in the legends; and I will own that I could die content if only I could first inflict a portion of the misery which I endure." The results of the next year, 1761, were much the same, only the fiery circle was drawn still more closely around Frederick. The country was so completely ravaged by the enemy and by his own exactions, that he himself acknowledged that he was almost in despair, and unable to imagine where recruits, horses, or provisions were to be found.

That Frederick was not crushed at this time came, according to all human seeming, from two events, almost simultaneous, in which he had no part. Pitt was displaced from his post as British Prime Minister, and his successors looked about for some pretext to rid themselves of the costly Prussian alliance. This of itself was of ill omen to Frederick; but there was a compensation. France had won little glory in this war, and was not disposed to do more by way of asserting the virtue of the king's mistress. So it was not long before England and France wisely paired off together, binding themselves by treaty to observe a strict neutrality with respect to the German war. Elizabeth of Russia died at about this time, and Peter, her successor, was a warm admirer of Frederick. He not only broke off from the coalition, but actually sent fifteen thousand troops to the aid of Frederick. So now, at the end of six

bloody years, only the original parties, Austria and Prussia, remained confronting each other. Of the two, Austria was to appearance the more powerful. But it seemed hardly likely that she alone could perform what she had been unable to effect when she had France and Russia to aid her. After trying it another year, the proud spirit of Maria Theresa gave way, and early in 1763 she consented to a peace which left Silesia in the hands of Frederick, from which half of it had been already wrested.

Frederick had passed his fiftieth year, and had no more fighting to do. It is hardly possible to conceive a more thoroughly ruined country than Prussia seemed when peace at last was made. Macaulay shall picture for us the condition of the kingdom:

"The war was over, Frederick was safe. His glory was beyond the reach of envy. He had given an example unrivaled in history of what capacity and resolution can effect against the greatest superiority of power and the utmost spite of fortune. He entered Berlin in triumph, after an absence of more than six years. The streets were brilliantly lighted up, and as he passed along in an open carriage the multitude saluted him with loud praises and blessings. Yet even in the midst of that gay spectacle he could not but perceive everywhere the traces of destruction and decay. The city had been more than once plundered. The population had considerably diminished.

"Berlin, however, had suffered little when compared

with most parts of the kingdom. The ruin of private fortunes, the distress of all ranks, was such as might appall the firmest mind. Almost every province had been the seat of war, and of war conducted with the most merciless ferocity. The fields lay uncultivated. The very seed-corn had been devoured in the madness of hunger. Famine, and contagious maladies produced by famine, had swept away the herds and flocks; and there was reason to fear that a great pestilence among the human race was likely to follow in the train of that tremendous war. The population of the kingdom had in seven years decreased to the frightful extent of ten per cent. A sixth of the males capable of bearing arms had actually perished on the field of battle. In some districts no laborers except women were seen in the fields in harvest time. In others the traveler passed shuddering through a succession of silent villages in which not a single inhabitant remained. The currency had been debased; the authority of laws and magistrates had been suspended; the whole social system was deranged. For during that convulsive struggle everything that was not military violence was anarchy. It was hardly to be hoped that thirty years of repose and industry would repair the ruin produced by seven years of havoc. One consolatory circumstance indeed there was. No debt had been incurred. The burdens of war had been terrible, almost insupportable; but no arrear was left to embarrass the finances in time of peace."

No debt had indeed been incurred; and for this, we imagine, the reason is not far to seek. There was nobody in all the wide world from whom Frederick could, in those dark years, have

borrowed anything. But what is equivalent to a debt of the most intolerable nature had been incurred. The currency had been debased. We ourselves know by sad experience what that means; though in our case this actual debasement did not take its most onerous form, that of actually debasing the existing coin, but that of introducing a fictitious currency. With us what purported to be a dollar in gold or silver was still a dollar, and would buy a dollar's worth in any market in the world.

That Frederick possessed high merits as an administrator as well as a military commander is not to be disputed. Proof enough of this is to be found in the fact that in far less than thirty years the ruin of the seven years of havoc had been repaired. He lived but fifteen years after the close of the Seven Years' War. At his accession he found Prussia occupying a doubtful place among the minor kingdoms of Europe; he left it undisputably one of the five Great Powers; the lowest indeed in population and nominal revenue, but the third-perhaps the second-in art, science, and civilization.

It was well that Carlyle should have written this "History of Frederick"; but it is not well that he should have endeavored to present him as a hero in any higher way than any man may be a hero who has by nature a keen understanding, a firm temper, an indomitable will, and an absolute