e is as much in a copying machine, or a lithographic
press, as he required from a secretary of the cabinet.

His own exertions were such as were hardly to be expected from a human
body or a human mind. At Potsdam, his ordinary residence, he rose at
three in summer and four in winter. A page soon appeared, with a large
basket full of all the letters which had arrived for the King by the
last courier, dispatches from ambassadors, reports from officers of
revenue, plans of buildings, proposals for draining marshes, complaints
from persons who thought themselves aggrieved, applications from persons
who wanted titles, military commissions, and civil situations. He
examined the seals with a keen eye; for he was never for a moment free
from the suspicion that some fraud might be practised on him. Then he
read the letters, divided them into several packets, and signified his
pleasure, generally by a mark, often by two or three words, now and then
by some cutting epigram. By eight he had generally finished this part of
his task. The adjutant-general was then in attendance, and received
instructions for the day as to all the military arrangements of the
kingdom. Then the King went to review his guards, not as kings
ordinarily review their guards, but with the minute attention and
severity of an old drill-sergeant. In the meantime the four cabinet
secretaries had been employed in answering the letters on which the King
had that morning signified his will. These unhappy men were forced to
work all the year round like negro slaves in the time of the sugar crop.
They never had a holiday. They never knew what it was to dine. It was
necessary that, before they stirred, they should finish the whole of
their work. The King, always on his guard against treachery, took from
the heap a handful of letters at random, and looked into them to see
whether his instructions had been exactly followed. This was no bad
security against foul play on the part of the secretaries; for if one of
them were detected in a trick, he might think himself fortunate if he
escaped with five years of imprisonment in a dungeon. Frederic then
signed the replies, and all were sent off the same evening.

The general principles on which this strange government was conducted
deserve attention. The policy of Frederic was essentially the same as
his father's; but Frederic, while he carried that policy to lengths to
which his father never thought of carrying it, cleared it