CROWN-PRINCE BECOMES A FREEMASON; AND IS HARANGUED BY MONSIEUR DE
BIELFELD.

His Majesty, we said, had three pleasant days at Loo; discoursing, as
with friends, on public matters, or even on more private matters, in
a frank unconstrained way. He is not to be called "Majesty" on this
occasion; but the fact, at Loo, and by the leading Mightinesses of
the Republic, who come copiously to compliment him there, is well
remembered. Talk there was, with such leading Mightinesses, about the
Julich-and-Berg question, aim of this Journey: earnest enough private
talk with some of them: but it availed nothing; and would not be worth
reporting now to any creature, if we even knew it. In fact, the Journey
itself remains mentionable chiefly by one very trifling circumstance;
and then by another, not important either, which followed out of that.
The trifling circumstance is,--That Friedrich, in the course of this
Journey, became a Freemason: and the unimportant sequel was, That he
made acquaintance with one Bielfeld, on the occasion; who afterwards
wrote a Book about him, which was once much read, though never much
worth reading, and is still citable, with precaution, now and then.
[Monsieur le Baron de Bielfeld, _Lettres Familieres et Autres,_
1763;--second edition, 2 vols. a Leide, 1767, is the one we use here.]
Trifling circumstance, of Freemasonry, as we read in Bielfeld and in
many Books after him, befell in manner following.

Among the dinner-guests at Loo, one of those three days, was a Prince of
Lippe-Buckeburg,--Prince of small territory, but of great speculation;
whose territory lies on the Weser, leading to Dutch connections; and
whose speculations stretch over all the Universe, in a high fantastic
style:--he was a dinner-guest; and one of the topics that came up was
Freemasonry; a phantasmal kind of object, which had kindled itself, or
rekindled, in those years, in England first of all; and was now hovering
about, a good deal, in Germany and other countries; pretending to be
a new light of Heaven, and not a bog-meteor of phosphorated hydrogen,
conspicuous in the murk of things. Bog-meteor, foolish putrescent
will-o'-wisp, his Majesty promptly defined it to be: Tom-foolery and
KINDERSPIEL, what else? Whereupon ingenious Buckeburg, who was himself
a Mason, man of forty by this time, and had high things in him of the
Quixotic type, ventured on defence; and was so respectful, eloquent,
dexterous, ingenious, he quite cap