ing it, renders this
Book interesting to the supreme degree.... I send you a fragment of my
correspondence with the most illustrious Sieur Crochet," some French
Envoy or Emissary, I conclude: "you perceive we go on very sweetly
together, and are in a high strain. I am sorry I burnt one of his
Letters, wherein he assured me he would in the Versailles Antechamber
itself speak of me to the King, and that my name had actually been
mentioned at the King's Levee. It certainly is not my ambition to choose
this illustrious mortal to publish my renown; on the contrary, I
should think it soiled by such a mouth, and prostituted if he were the
publisher. But enough of the Crochet: the kindest thing we can do for
so contemptible an object is to say nothing of him at all." [_OEuvres de
Frederic,_ xvi. 49, 51.]--...

Letter SECOND is to Jaagermeister Hacke, Captain of the Potsdam Guard;
who stands in great nearness to the King's Majesty; and, in fact,
is fast becoming his factotum in Army-details. We, with the Duke of
Lorraine and Majesty in person, saw his marriage to the Excellency
Creutz's Fraulein Daughter not long since; who we trust has made him
happy;--rich he is at any rate, and will be Adjutant-General before
long; powerful in such intricacies as this that the Prince has fallen
into.

The Letter has its obscurities; turns earnestly on Recruits tall and
short; nor have idle Editors helped us, by the least hint towards
"reading" it with more than the EYES. Old Dessauer at this time is
Commandant at Magdeburg; Buddenbrock, perhaps now passing by Ruppin, we
know for a high old General, fit to carry messages from Majesty,--or,
likelier, it may be Lieutenant Buddenbrock, his Son, merely returning to
Ruppin? We can guess, that the flattering Dessauer has sent his Majesty
five gigantic men from the Magdeburg regiments, and that Friedrich is
ordered to hustle out thirty of insignificant stature from his own, by
way of counter-gift to the Dessauer;--which Friedrich does instantly,
but cannot, for his life, see how (being totally cashless) he is to
replace them with better, or replace them at all!

2. TO CAPTAIN HACKE, OF THE POTSDAM GUARD.

"RUPPIN, 15th July, 1732.

"MEIN GOTT, what a piece of news Buddenbrock has brought me! I am to get
nothing out of Brandenburg, my dear Hacke? Thirty men I had to shift out
of my company in consequence [of Buddenbrock's order]; and where am I
now to get other thirty? I would gladly give the Ki