onsoles me for all I
have come through. Think only what a coil I shall be in, before a month
hence [Campaign opened by that time, horrid Game begun again]; and
what a pass we had come to, in December last: Country at its last gasp
(AGONISAIT), as if waiting for extreme unction: and now--!" [Ib. xix.
323.]...

JUNE 8th (To Madame Camas,--Russian ALLIANCE now come): "I know well,
my good Mamma, the sincere part you take in the lucky events that befall
us. The mischief is, we are got so low, that we want at present all
manner of fortunate events to raise us again; and Two grand conclusions
of Peace [the Russian, the Swedish], which might re-establish Peace
throughout, are at this moment only a step towards finishing the War
less unfortunately." [Ib. xviii. 146, 147.]*

Same day, JUNE 8th (To D'Argens): "Czernichef is on march to join us.
Our Campaign will not open till towards the end of this month [did
open July 1st]; but think then what a pretty noise in this poor Silesia
again! In fine, my dear Marquis, the job ahead of me is hard and
difficult; and nobody can say positively how it will all go. Pray for
us; and don't forget a poor devil who kicks about strangely in his
harness, who leads the life of one damned; and who nevertheless loves
you sincerely.--Adieu." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xix. 327.] D'Argens (May
24th) has heard, by Letters from very well-informed persons in Vienna,
that "Imperial Majesty, for some time past, spends half of her time in
praying to the Virgin, and the other half in weeping." "I wish her,"
adds the ungallant D'Argens, "as punishment for the mischiefs her
ambition has cost mankind these seven years past, the fate of Phaethon's
Sisters, and that she melt altogether into water!" [Ib. xix. 320 ("24th
May, 1762").]--Take one other little utterance; and then to Colonel
Hordt and the Petersburg side of things.

JUNE 19th (still to D'Argens); "What is now going on in Russia no Count
Kaunitz could foresee: what has come to pass in England,--of which
the hatefulest part [Bute's altogether extraordinary attempts, in the
Kaunitz, in the Czar Peter direction, to FORCE a Peace upon me] is not
yet known to you,--I had no notion of, in forming my plans! The Governor
of a State, in troublous times, never can be sure. This is what disgusts
me with the business, in comparison. A Man of Letters operates on
something certain; a Politician can have almost no data of that kind."
[Ib. xix. p. 329.] (How easy every