eart,
pills of corrosive sublimate hidden in his clothes, he poured forth
hundreds upon hundreds of lines, hateful to gods and men, the insipid
dregs of Voltaire's Hippocrene, the faint echo of the lyre of Chaulieu.
It is amusing to compare what he did during the last months of 1757 with
what he wrote during the same time. It may be doubted whether any equal
portion of the life of Hannibal, of Caesar, or of Napoleon, will bear a
comparison with that short period, the most brilliant in the history of
Prussia and of Frederic. Yet at this very time the scanty leisure of the
illustrious warrior was employed in producing odes and epistles, a
little better than Cibber's, and a little worse than Hayley's. Here and
there a manly sentiment which deserves to be in prose makes its
appearance in company with Prometheus and Orpheus, Elysium and Acheron,
the plaintive Philomel, the poppies of Morpheus, and all the other
frippery which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty to her
waiting-woman, has long been contemptuously abandoned by genius to
mediocrity. We hardly know any instance of the strength and weakness of
human nature so striking, and so grotesque, as the character of this
haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates
and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of
poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.

Frederic had some time before made advances towards a reconciliation
with Voltaire; and some civil letters had passed between them. After the
battle of Kolin their epistolary intercourse became, at least in
seeming, friendly and confidential. We do not know any collection of
letters which throws so much light on the darkest and most intricate
parts of human nature as the correspondence of these strange beings
after they had exchanged forgiveness. Both felt that the quarrel had
lowered them in the public estimation. They admired each other. They
stood in need of each other. The great King wished to be handed down to
posterity by the great Writer. The great Writer felt himself exalted by
the homage of the great King. Yet the wounds which they had inflicted on
each other were too deep to be effaced, or even perfectly healed. Not
only did the scars remain; the sore places often festered and bled
afresh. The letters consisted for the most part of compliments, thanks,
offers of service, assurances of attachment. But if anything brought
back to Frederic's reco