tivated, if not his Majesty, at
least the Crown-Prince, who was more enthusiastic for high things.
Crown-Prince, after table, took his Durchlaucht of Buckeburg
aside; talked farther on the subject, expressed his admiration, his
conviction,--his wish to be admitted into such a Hero Fraternity.
Nothing could be welcomer to Durchlaucht. And so, in all privacy, it
was made up betweeen them, That Durchlaucht, summoning as many mystic
Brothers out of Hamburg as were needful, should be in waiting with them,
on the Crown-Prince's road homeward,--say at Brunswick, night before
the Fair, where we are to be,--and there make the Crown-Prince a Mason.
[Bielfeld, i. 14-16; Preuss, i. 111; Preuss, _Buch fur Jedermann,_ i.
41.]

This is Bielfeld's account, repeated ever since; substantially correct,
except that the scene was not Loo at all: dinner and dialogue, it now
appears, took place in Durchlaucht's own neighborhood, during the Cleve
Review time; "probably at Minden, 17th July;" and all was settled into
fixed program before Loo came in sight. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
xvs. 201: Friedrich's Letter to this Durchlaucht, "Comte de
Schaumbourg-Lippe" he calls him; date, "Moyland, 26th July, 1738:
"Moyland, a certain SCHLOSS, or habitable Mansion, of his Majesty's,
few miles to north of Mors in the Cleve Country; where his Majesty
used often to pause;--and where (what will be much more remarkable to
readers) the Crown-Prince and Voltaire had their first meeting,
two years hence.] Bielfeld's report of the subsequent procedure at
Brunswick, as he saw it and was himself part of it, is liable to no
mistakes, at least of the involuntary kind; and may, for anything we
know, be correct in every particular.

He says (veiling it under discreet asterisks, which are now decipherable
enough), The Durchlaucht of Lippe-Buckeburg had summoned six Brethren of
the Hamburg Lodge; of whom we mention only a Graf von Kielmannsegge, a
Baron von Oberg, both from Hanover, and Bielfeld himself, a Merchant's
Son, of Hamburg; these, with "Kielmannsegge's Valet to act as Tiler,"
Valet being also a Mason, and the rule equality of mankind,--were to
have the honor of initiating the Crown-Prince. They arrived at the
Western Gate of Brunswick on the 11th of August, as prearranged;
Prussian Majesty not yet come, but coming punctually on the morrow. It
is Fair-time; all manner of traders, pedlers, showmen rendezvousing;
many neighboring Nobility too, as was still the hab