X.

FREDERICK THE GREAT.

IMMEDIATELY after the completion of the "Life of Sterling," Carlyle set seriously at work upon his "History of Frederick the Great," which grew to be the labor of some fifteen years. The first and second volumes appeared in 1858, the third and fourth in 1862, and the fifth and sixth in 1864. In some respects it is the most important of his works. In volume it constitutes about one third of the whole. It is in every way a most provoking work. In style and manner it embodies all those peculiarities which, if not wholly natural at first, had long come to be a second nature to him. We find fault with this style and manner, but can not bring ourselves to wish that he had written it in any other. We are vexed by the innumerable episodes, which seem at first sight to interrupt the march of the narrative; but we are not willing to omit one of them, and are finally brought to see that every one of them gives us, directly or indirectly, some new insight into the character of Frederick, as Carlyle saw it, and wished others to see it.

Above all, he has fully mastered his subject in all its details and surroundings. He penetrates the tangled maze of the petty politics of the day;

clears up the obscure intrigues and plans of rival courts and cabinets; and demolishes many a highsounding myth which has got itself passed off as veritable history. From countless bushels of chaff he winnows the one grain of wheat. His descriptions of battles and sieges are masterpieces, as scientifically true as those of Napier, and hardly less picturesque than those of Froissart. The very scenery and atmosphere are reproduced as faithfully as though Carlyle had been familiar with them all his life, instead, as we believe, of learning them wholly or mainly through maps and pictures.

In all this Frederick himself is shown as the central point of every movement. We see in the end what idea Carlyle had formed of the man; and we believe that this idea was very far from the true one. It has been said that no man ever produced a good biography of a man who was not in some sort a hero to him. Frederick had indeed few of the qualities which Carlyle would in his earlier and better days have demanded in a hero. But he had an abundance of the lower qualities. He knew perfectly well what he wanted in this world, and for the world to come he seems to have taken no account; he had a clear perception of the means to be used in the attainment of his ends, and had not the slightest scruple in the adoption of any means, good, bad, or indifferent, to attain those ends. He played without any

scruples of conscience that high chess game in which men, or millions of them, were only so many pawns. Let us here give, with some curtailment, Carlyle's estimate of Frederick as he had come to be at the age of about threescore and ten, when his life-work was fairly over, though he was yet to have some years more upon earth :

FREDERICK IN OLD AGE.

"About fourscore years ago,* there used to be seen walking on the terraces of Sans-Souci, for a short time in the afternoon, or you might have met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a rapid business manner, on the open roads or through the scraggy woods and avenues of that intricate amphibious Potsdam region, a highly interesting, lean, little old man, of alert though slightly stooping figure; whose name among strangers was King Frederick the Second, or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, who much loved and esteemed him, was 'Vater Fritz-Father Fred'—a name of familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a King every inch of him, though without the trappings of a King.

"The man is not of god-like physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature or costume; close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears

*This was written in 1856. Frederick was born in 1712, and died in 1786, at the age of seventy-four and a half years.

evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, of much hard labor done in this world; and seems to anticipate nothing but more coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what joy there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconscious and some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humor, are written on that old face, which carries its chin well forward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose, rather flung into the air, under its old cocked hat, like an old snuffy lion on the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man, or lion, or lynx of that century bore elsewhere, according to the testimony we have. Most excellent, potent, brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the sun; gray -of the azure-gray color; large enough, not of glaring size, the habitual expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense, rapidity resting on depth. . . . The voice, if he speaks to you, is of similar physiognomy; clear, melodious, and sonorous; all tones are in it, from that of ingenious inquiry, graceful sociality, light - flowing banter (rather prickly for the most part), up to definite word of command, up to the desolating word of rebuke and condemnation. . .

"This was a man of infinite mark to his contemporaries, who had witnessed surprising feats from him in the world; very questionable notions and ways, which he had contrived to maintain against the world and its criticisms as an original man has always to do; much more an original ruler of men. The world, in fact, had tried to put him down, as it does, unconsciously or consciously, with all such; and after the most conscious exertions, and at one time a dead-lift spasm of all its energies for Seven Years, had not been able. Principalities and Powers, Imperial, Royal, Czarish, Papal; ene

mies innumerable as the sea-sand, had risen against him, only one helper left among the world's Potentates (and that one only while there should be help rendered in return); and he led them such a dance as had astonished mankind and them."

He did indeed, in that Seven Years' War, lead the world a Devil's dance; the net result of which was that it was demonstrated to all, at the cost of something like a million of human lives, that the great Fritz, not the great Theresa, should have Silesia, to which the great Fritz had not the shadow of a claim except that which a highwayman has to the plunder which he has extorted at the pistol's mouth. In truth, never in the world's history was a war undertaken with less of even plausible ground than this Seven Years' War, for which Frederick, and he alone, is responsible. Mr. Carlyle indeed frames apologies enough for it— apologies for which Frederick, we imagine, would not have thanked him. He himself tells the story with cynical frankness, making no pretense to a virtue which everybody knew he did not possess. He says: "Ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me, carried the day and I decided for war." And, to quote the stern words of Macaulay: "On the head of Frederick is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many years, and in every quarter of the globe. The evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was

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