air. 'Thou art a brave little
fellow; they won't get Silesia out of thee!' cried he laughing, and
flinging him his ball." [Fischer, ii. 445 ("year 1780").]

Of the elder Prince, afterwards Friedrich Wilhelm III. (Father of the
now King), there is a much more interesting Anecdote, and of his own
reporting too, though the precise terms are irrecoverable: "How the
King, questioning him about his bits of French studies, brought down a
LA FONTAINE from the shelves, and said, 'Translate me this Fable;' which
the Boy did, with such readiness and correctness as obtained the King's
praises: praises to an extent that was embarrassing, and made the honest
little creature confess, 'I did it with my Tutor, a few days since!' To
the King's much greater delight; who led him out to walk in the Gardens,
and, in a mood of deeper and deeper seriousness, discoursed and exhorted
him on the supreme law of truth and probity that lies on all men, and on
all Kings still more; one of his expressions being, 'Look at this high
thing [the Obelisk they were passing in the Gardens], its UPRIGHTness
is its strength (SA DROITURE FAIT SA FORCE);' and his final words,
'Remember this evening, my good Fritz; perhaps thou wilt think of it,
long after, when I am gone.' As the good Friedrich Wilhelm III. declares
piously he often did, in the storms of fate that overtook him." [R.
F. Eylert, _Charakterzuge und historische Fragmente aus dem Leben
des Konigs von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm III._ (Magdeburg, 1843), i.
450-456. This is a "King's Chaplain and Bishop Eylert:" undoubtedly he
heard this Anecdote from his Master, and was heard repeating it; but the
dialect his Editors have put it into is altogether tawdry, modern,
and impossible to take for that of Friedrich, or even, I suppose, of
Friedrich Wilhelm III.]

Industrial matters, that of Colonies especially, of drainages,
embankments, and reclaiming of waste lands, are a large item in the
King's business,--readers would not guess how large, or how incessant.
Under this head there is on record, and even lies at my hand translated
into English, what might be called a Colonial DAY WITH FRIEDRICH (Day of
July 23d, 1779; which Friedrich, just come home from the Bavarian War,
spent wholly, from 5 in the morning onward, in driving about, in earnest
survey of his Colonies and Land-Improvements in the Potsdam-Ruppin
Country); curious enough Record, by a certain Bailiff or Overseer, who
rode at his chariotside, of a