on this occasion,--"Tell
Monsieur from me," said Keith to his Aide-de-camp, "he may be a very
pretty thing, but he is not a man (QU'IL PEUT ETRE UNE BONNE CHOSE, MAIS
QU'IL N'EST PAS UN HOMME)!" [Varnhagen, _Leben des &c. Jakob von Keith,_
p. 227.] The excellent vernacular Keith;--still a fine breadth of accent
in him, one perceives! He is now past sixty; troubled with asthma; and
I doubt not may be, occasionally, thinking it near time to end his
campaigns. And in fact, he is about ending them; sooner than he or
anybody had expected.

Daun, picking his steps and positions, latterly with threefold
precaution, got into Konigsgratz neighborhood, a week after Friedrich;
and looked down with enigmatic wonder upon Friedrich's new settlement
there. Forage abundant all round, and the corn-harvest growing
white;--here, strange to say, has Friedrich got planted in the inside of
those innumerable Daun redoubts, and "woods of abatis;" and might make
a very pretty "Bohemian Campaign" of it, after all, were Daun the
only adversary he had! Judges are of opinion, that Daun, with all his
superiority of number, could not have disrooted Friedrich this season.
[Tempelhof, ii. 170-176, 185;--who, unluckily, in soldier fashion, here
as too often elsewhere, does not give us the Arithmetical Numbers of
each, but counts by "Battalions" and "Squadrons," which, except in
time of Peace, are a totally uncertain quantity:--guess vaguely, 75,000
against 30,000.] Daun did try him by the Pandour methods, "1,000 Croats
stealing in upon Konigsgratz at one in the morning," and the like; but
these availed nothing. By the one effectual method, that of beating
him in battle, Daun never would have tried. What did disroot Friedrich,
then?--Take the following dates, and small hints of phenomena in other
parts of the big Theatre of War. "Konitz" is a little Polish Town,
midway between Dantzig and Friedrich's Dominions:--

"KONITZ, 16th JUNE, 1758. This day Feldmarschall Fermor arrives in his
principal Camp here. For many weeks past he has been dribbling across
the Weichsel hitherward, into various small camps, with Cossack Parties
flying about, under check of General Platen. But now, being all across,
and reunited, Fermor shoots out Cossack Parties of quite other weight
and atrocity; and is ready to begin business,--still a little uncertain
how. His Cossacks, under their Demikows, Romanzows; capable of no good
fighting, but of endless incendiary mischief in th