f generally
taking the second step without having taken the first."

A troublesome neighbor he proved to everybody, not by his reforms
alone;--and ended, pretty much as here in the FURSTENBUND, by having,
in all matters, to give in and desist. In none of his foreign Ambitions
could he succeed; in none of his domestic Reforms. In regard to these
latter, somebody remarks: "No Austrian man or thing articulately
contradicted his fine efforts that way; but, inarticulately, the
whole weight of Austrian VIS INERTIAE bore day and night against
him;--whereby, as we now see, he bearing the other way with the force of
a steam-ram, a hundred tons to the square inch, the one result was, To
dislocate every joint in the Austrian Edifice, and have it ready for the
Napoleonic Earthquakes that ensued." In regard to ambitions abroad it
was no better. The Dutch fired upon his Scheld Frigate: "War, if
you will, you most aggressive Kaiser; but this Toll is ours!"
His Netherlands revolted against him, "Can holy religion, and old
use-and-wont be tumbled about at this rate?" His Grand Russian
Copartneries and Turk War went to water and disaster. His reforms, one
and all, had to be revoked for the present. Poor Joseph, broken-hearted
(for his private griefs were many, too), lay down to die. "You may put
for epitaph," said he with a tone which is tragical and pathetic to us,
"Here lies Joseph," the grandly attempting Joseph, "who could succeed
in nothing." [Died, at Vienna, 20th February, 1790, still under
fifty;--born there 13th March, 1741. Hormayr, _OEsterreichischer
Plutarch,_ iv. (2tes) 125-223 (and five or six recent LIVES of Joseph,
none of which, that I have seen, was worth reading, in comparison).] A
man of very high qualities, and much too conscious of them. A man of
an ambition without bounds. One of those fatal men, fatal to themselves
first of all, who mistake half-genius for whole; and rush on the second
step without having made the first. Cannot trouble the old King or us
any more.

Chapter IX.--FRIEDRICH'S LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH.

To the present class of readers, Furstenbund is become a Nothing; to all
of us the grand Something now is, strangely enough, that incidental item
which directly followed, of Reviewing the Silesian soldieries, who had
so angered his Majesty last year. "If I be alive next year!" said
the King to Tauentzien. The King kept his promise; and the Fates had
appointed that, in doing so, he was to find hi