enes here as wicked and
bloody as any that were ever heard of since the creation of the
world.' 'Will sacrifice his whole family,' not the Crown-Prince alone;
'everybody except Grumkow being, as he fancies, in conspiracy against
him.' Poor enchanted King!--'And all these things he said with such
imprecations and disordered looks, foaming at the mouth all the while,
as it was terrible either to see or hear.'" That is Ginkel's report, as
Dickens conveys it. [Despatch, 7th September, 1730.] Another time, on
new order, a month later, when Ginkel went again to speak a word for the
poor Prisoner, he found his Majesty clothed not in delirious thunder,
but in sorrowful thick fog; Ginkel "was the less able to judge what the
King of Prussia meant to do with his Son, as it was evident the King
himself did not know." [Ib. 10th October.]

Poor Friedrich Wilhelm, through these months, wanders about, shifting
from room to room, in the night-time, like a man possessed by evil
fiends; "orders his carriage for Wusterhausen at two in the morning,"
but finds he is no better there, and returns; drinks a great deal, "has
not gone to bed sober for a month past." [Ib. 19th December, 1730.] One
night he comes gliding like a perturbed ghost, about midnight, with his
candle in his hand, into the Queen's apartment; says, wildly staring,
"He thinks there is something haunting him:"--O Feekin, erring
disobedient Wife, wilt not thou protect me, after all? Whither can I
fly when haunted, except to thee? Feekin, like a prudent woman, makes
no criticism; orders that his Majesty's bed be made up in her apartment
till these phenomena cease. [Ib. 27th February, 1731.] A much-agitated
royal Father.

The question what is to be done with this unhappy Crown-Prince, a
Deserter from the army, a rebel against the paternal Majesty, and a
believer in the doctrine of Election by Free Grace, or that a man's good
or ill conduct is foredoomed upon him by decree of God,--becomes more
intricate the longer one thinks of it. Seckendorf and Grumkow, alarmed
at being too victorious, are set against violent high methods; and
suggest this and that consideration: "Who is it that can legally try,
condemn, or summon to his bar, a Crown-Prince? He is Prince of the
Empire, as well as your Majesty's Son!"--"Well, he is Heir of the
Sovereign Majesty in Prussia, too; and Colonel in the Potsdam Guards!"
answers Friedrich Wilhelm.

At length, after six or seven weeks of abstruse medi