THE GREAT ELECTOR: FEHRBELLIN AND GILGE. BY THOMAS CARLYLE. (From "Frederick the Great.") [THOMAS CARLYLE, Scotch moralist, essayist, and historian, was born at Ecclefechan, December 4, 1795. He studied for the ministry at Edinburgh University, taught school, studied law, became a hack writer and tutor; in 1826 married Jane Welsh, and in 1828 removed to a farm at Craigenputtoch, where he wrote essays and "Sartor Resartus"; in 1834 removed to his final home in Cheyne Row, Chelsea. His "French Revolution" was issued in 1837. He lectured for three years, "Heroes and Hero Worship" gathering up one course. His chief succeeding works were "Chartism Past and Present," "Cromwell's Letters," "Latter-day Pamphlets," "Life of Sterling," and "Frederick the Great." He died February 4, 1881.] ONWARD from this time, Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the world; public men watching his procedure; Kings anxious to secure him, Dutch printsellers sticking-up his Portraits for a hero-worshiping Public. Fighting hero, had the Public known it, was not his essential character, though he had to fight a great deal. He was essentially an Industrial man: great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic heaps to become cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles colonies in the waste-places of his Dominions, cuts canals; unweariedly encourages trade and work. The Friedrich Wilhelm's Canal, which still carries tonnage from the Oder to the Spree, is a monument of his zeal in this way; creditable, with the means he had. To the poor French Protestants, in the Edict-ofNantes affair, he was like an express Benefit of Heaven: one Helper appointed, to whom the help itself was profitable. He munificently welcomed them to Brandenburg; showed really a noble piety and human pity, as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their reward. Some 20,000 nimble French Souls, evidently of the best French quality, found a home there;-made "waste sands about Berlin into pot-herb gardens"; and in the spiritual Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture, which is still noticeable. Certainly this Elector was one of the shiftiest of men. Not an unjust man either. A pious, God-fearing man rather, Staunch to his Protestantism and his Bible; not unjust by any means, nor, on the other hand, by any means thick-skinned in his interpretings of justice: Fairplay to myself always; or VOL. XIV. — -26 occasionally even the Height of Fairplay! On the whole, by constant energy, vigilance, adroit activity, by an ever-ready insight and audacity to seize the passing fact by its right handle, he fought his way well in the world; left Brandenburg a flourishing and greatly increased Country, and his own name famous enough. His Two grand Feats that dwell in the Prussian memory are perhaps none of his greatest, but were of a kind to strike the imagination. They both relate to what was the central problem of his life—the recovery of Pommern from the Swedes. Exploit First is the famed "Battle of Fehrbellin (Ferry of Belleen)," fought on the 18th June 1675. Fehrbellin is an inconsiderable Town still standing in those peaty regions, some five-and-thirty miles northwest of Berlin; and had for ages plied its poor Ferry over the oily-looking, brown, sluggish stream called Rhin, or Rhein in those parts, without the least notice from mankind till this fell out. It is a place of pilgrimage to patriotic Prussians, ever since Friedrich Wilhelm's exploit there. The matter went thus: Friedrich Wilhelm was fighting far South in Alsace, on Kaiser Leopold's side, in the Louis-Fourteenth War; that second one, which ended in the treaty of Nimwegen. Doing his best there when the Swedes, egged on by Louis XIV., made war upon him; crossed the Pomeranian marches, troop after troop, and invaded his Brandenburg Territory with a force which at length amounted to some 16,000 men. No help for the moment: Friedrich Wilhelm could not be spared from his post. The Swedes, who had at first professed well, gradually went into plunder, roving, harrying, at their own will; and a melancholy time they made of it for Friedrich Wilhelm and his People. Lucky if temporary harm were all the ill they were likely to do; lucky if! He stood steady, however; in his solid manner finishing the thing in hand first, since that was feasible. He even then retired into winter-quarters, to rest his men and seemed to have left the Swedish 16,000 autocrats of the situation; who accordingly went storming about at a great rate. Not so, however; very far indeed from so. Having rested his men for certain months, Friedrich Wilhelm silently in the first days of June (1675) gets them under march again; marches, his Cavalry and he as first installment, with best speed from Schweinfurt, which is on the river Mayn, to Magdeburg; a distance of |