ll the questions, criticisms and remarks
of Friedrich on persons and objects, till he landed at Ruppin for the
night. Taken down, with forensic, almost with religious exactitude, by
the Bailiff in question; a Nephew of the Poet Gleim,--by whom it was
published, the year after Friedrich's death; [Is in _Anekdoten und
Karakterzuge,_ No. 8 (Berlin, 1787), pp. 15-79.] and by many others
since. It is curiously authentic, characteristic in parts, though in
its bald forensic style rather heavy reading. Luckier, for most readers,
that inexorable want of room has excluded it, on the present occasion!
[Printed now (in Edition 1868, for the first time), as APPENDIX to this
Volume.]

No reader adequately fancies, or could by any single Document be made to
do so, the continual assiduity of Friedrich in regard to these interests
of his. The strictest Husbandman is not busier with his Farm, than
Friedrich with his Kingdom throughout;--which is indeed a FARM leased
him by the Heavens; in which not a gate-bar can be broken, nor a stone
or sod roll into the smallest ditch, but it is to his the Husbandman's
damage, and must be instantly looked after. There are Meetings with the
Silesian manufacturers (in Review time), Dialogues ensuing, several of
which have been preserved; strange to read, however dull. There are many
scattered evidences;--and only slowly does, not the thing indeed, but
the degree of the thing, become fully credible. Not communicable, on the
terms prescribed us at present; and must be left to the languid fancy,
like so much else.

Here is an Ocular View, here are several such, which we yet happily
have, of the actual Friedrich as he looked and lived. These, at a cheap
rate, throw transiently some flare of illumination over his Affairs and
him: these let me now give; and these shall be all.

PRINCE DE LIGNE, AFTER TEN YEARS, SEES FRIEDRICH A SECOND TIME; TIME;
AND REPORTS WHAT WAS SAID.

In Summer, 1780, as we mentioned, Kaiser Joseph was on his first Visit
to the Czarina. They met at Mohilow on the Dnieper, towards the end of
May; have been roving about, as if in mere galas and amusements (though
with a great deal of business incidentally thrown in), for above a month
since, when Prince de Ligne is summoned to join them at Petersburg. He
goes by Berlin, stays at Potsdam with Friedrich for about a week; and
reports to Polish Majesty these new Dialogues of 1780, the year after
sending him those of Mahrisch-Neusta