should guess, till something more categorical come
from you! His Prussian Majesty is careful not to spoil anything by
over-haste; but will wait and try farther to the utmost, Whether England
or France is the likelier bargain for him.

Better still, the Prussian Majesty is intent to do something for himself
in that Berg-Julich matter: we find him silently examining these Wesel
localities for a proper "entrenched Camp," Camp say of 40,000, against a
certain contingency that may be looked for. Camp which will much occupy
the Gazetteers when they get eye on it. This is one of the concerns
he silently attends to, on occasion, while riding about in the Cleve
Countries. Then there is another small item of business, important to
do well, which is now in silence diligently getting under way at Wesel;
which also is of remarkable nature, and will astonish the Gazetteer and
Diplomatic circles. This is the affair with the Bishop of Liege, called
also the Affair of Herstal, which his Majesty has had privately laid up
in the corner of his mind, as a thing to be done during this Excursion.
Of which the reader shall hear anon, to great lengths,--were a certain
small preliminary matter, Voltaire's Arrival in these parts, once off
our hands.

Friedrich's First Meeting with Voltaire! These other high things were
once loud in the Gazetteer and Diplomatic circles, and had no doubt
they were the World's History; and now they are sunk wholly to the
Nightmares, and all mortals have forgotten them,--and it is such a task
as seldom was to resuscitate the least memory of them, on just cause
of a Friedrich or the like, so impatient are men of what is putrid and
extinct:--and a quite unnoticed thing, Voltaire's First Interview,
all readers are on the alert for it, and ready to demand of me
impossibilities about it! Patience, readers. You shall see it, without
and within, in such light as there was, and form some actual notion
of it, if you will co-operate. From the circumambient inanity of Old
Newspapers, Historical shot-rubbish, and unintelligible Correspondences,
we sift out the following particulars, of this First Meeting, or actual
Osculation of the Stars.

The Newspapers, though their eyes were not yet of the Argus quality now
familiar to us, have been intent on Friedrich during this Baireuth-Cleve
Journey, especially since that sudden eclipse of him at Strasburg
lately; forming now one scheme of route for him, now another;
Newspapers, and e