forth. Cornelius de Pauw, the rich Canon of Xanten
(Uncle of Anacharsis Klootz, the afterwards renowned), came on those
principles; hung on for six months, not liked, not liking; and was
then permitted to go home for good, his pension with him. Another,
a Frenchman, whose name I forget, sat gloomily in Potsdam, after his
rejection; silent (not knowing German), unclipt, unkempt, rough as
Nebuchadnezzar, till he died. De Catt is still a resource; steady till
almost the end, when somebody's tongue, it is thought, did him ill with
the King.

Alone, or almost alone, of the ancient set is Bastiani; a tall,
black-browed man, with uncommonly bright eyes, now himself old, and a
comfortable Abbot in Silesia; who comes from time to time, awakening
the King into his pristine topics and altitudes. Bastiani's history is
something curious: as a tall Venetian Monk (son of a tailor in Venice),
he had been crimped by Friedrich Wilhelm's people; Friedrich found him
serving as a Potsdam Giant, but discerned far other faculties in the
bright-looking man, far other knowledges; and gradually made him what
we see. Banters him sometimes that he will rise to be Pope one day, so
cunning and clever is he: "What will you say to me, a Heretic, when you
get to be Pope; tell me now; out with it, I insist!" Bastiani parried,
pleaded, but unable to get off, made what some call his one piece of
wit: "I will say: O Royal Eagle, screen me with thy wings, but spare me
with thy sharp beak!" This is Bastiani's one recorded piece of wit; for
he was tacit rather, and practically watchful, and did not waste his
fine intellect in that way.

Foreign Visitors there are in plenty; now and then something brilliant
going. But the old Generals seem to be mainly what the King has for
company. Dinner always his bright hour; from ten to seven guests daily.
Seidlitz, never of intelligence on any point but Soldiering, is long
since dead; Ziethen comes rarely, and falls asleep when he does; General
Gortz (brother of the Weimar-Munchen Gortz); Buddenbrock (the King's
comrade in youth, in the Reinsberg times), who has good faculty;
Prittwitz (who saved him at Kunersdorf, and is lively, though stupid);
General and Head-Equerry Schwerin, of headlong tongue, not witty, but
the cause of wit; Major Graf von Pinto, a magniloquent Ex-Austrian ditto
ditto: these are among his chief dinner-guests. If fine speculation
do not suit, old pranks of youth, old tales of war, become the stapl