his knowledge. Mufick he not only understands, but practises on the German flute in the highest perfection; fo that, according to the regal cenfure of Philip of Macedon, he may be afhamed to play fo well.

He may be faid to owe to the difficulties of his youth an advantage less frequently obtained by princes than literature and mathematics. The neceffity of paffing his time without pomp, and of partaking of the pleafures and labours of a lower station, made him acquainted with the various forms of life, and with the genuine paffions, interefts, defires, and diftreffes, of mankind. Kings without this help from temporary infelicity see the world in a mist, which magnifies every thing near them, and bounds their view to a narrow compafs, which few are able to extend by the mere force of curiofity. I have always thought that what Cromwell had more than our lawful kings, he owed to the private condition in which he first entered the world, and in which he long continued; in that state he learned his art of fecret tranfaction, and the knowledge by which he was able to oppofe zeal to zeal, and make one enthusiast destroy another.

The king of Pruffia gained the fame arts, and, being born to fairer opportunities of using them, brought to the throne the knowledge of a private man without the guilt of ufurpation. Of this general acquaintance with the world there may be found fome traces in his whole life. His converfation is like that of other men upon common topics, his letters have an air of familiar elegance, and his whole conduct is that of a man who has to do with men, and who is ignorant what motives will prevail over friends or enemies.

In 1740 the old king fell fick, and spoke and acted in his illness with his ufual turbulence and roughness, reproaching his physicians in the groffeft terms with their unskilfulness and impotence, and imputing to their ignorance or wickedness the pain which their prescriptions failed to relieve. These infults they bore with the fubmiffion which is commonly paid to defpotic monarchs; till at laft the celebrated Hoffman was confulted, who, failing like the rest to give ease to his majefty, was like the reft treated with injurious language. Hoffman, conscious of his own merit, replied, that he could not bear reproaches which he did not deferve; that he had tried all the remedies that art could fupply, or nature could admit; that he was indeed a profeffor by his majesty's bounty; but that, if his abilities or integrity were doubted, he was willing to leave not only the university but the kingdom, and that he could not be driven into any place where the name of Hoffman would want respect. The king, however unaccustomed to fuch returns, was ftruck with conviction of his own indecency, told Hoffman that he had spoken well, and requested him to continue his attendance.

The king, finding his diftemper gaining upon his ftrength, grew at laft fenfible that his end was approaching, and, ordering the prince to be called to his bed, laid feveral injunctions upon him, of which one was to perpetuate the tall regiment by continual recruits, and another to receive his efpoufed wife. The prince gave him a respectful answer, but wifely avoided to diminish his own right or power by an abfolute promife; and the king died uncertain of the fate of the tall regiment.

The

The young king began his reign with great expectations, which he has yet furpaffed. His father's faults produced many advantages to the first years of his reign. He had an army of seventy thousand men well difciplined, without any imputation of severity to himself, and was master of a vast treasure without the crime or reproach of raifing it. It was publicly faid in our house of commons, that he had eight millions fterling of our money; but, I believe, he that said it had not confidered how difficultly eight millions would be found in all the Pruffian dominions. Men judge of what they do not fee by that which they fee. We are ufed to talk in England of millions with great familiarity, and imagine that there is the fame affluence of money in other countries, in countries whofe manufac tures are few, and commerce little.

Every man's first cares are neceffarily domeftic. The king, being now no longer under influence or its appearance, determined how to act towards the unhappy lady who had poffeffed for seven years the empty title of the princefs of Pruffia. The papers of those times exhibited the converfation of their first interview; as if the king, who plans campaigns in filence, would not accommodate a difference with his wife, but with writers of news admitted as witneffes. It is certain that he received her as queen, but whether he treats her as a wife is yet in difpute.

In a few days his refolution was known with regard to the tall regiment; for fome recruits being offered him, he rejected them; and this body of giants, by continued difregard, mouldered away.

He treated his mother with great refpect, ordered that she should bear the title of Queen-mother, and that,

instead

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instead of addreffing him as His Majesty, the should only call him Son.

As he was paffing foon after between Berlin and Potsdam, a thousand boys who had been marked out for military fervice, furrounded his coach, and cried out, "Merciful king, deliver us from our flavery." He promised them their liberty, and ordered the next day that the badge fhould be taken off.

He ftill continued that correfpondence with learned men which he began when he was prince; and the eyes of all scholars, a race of mortals formed for dependence, were upon him, as a man likely to renew the times of patronage, and to emulate the bounties of Lewis the Fourteenth.

It foon appeared that he was refolved to govern with very little minifterial affiftance: he took cognizance of every thing with his own eyes; declared that, in all contrarieties of intereft between him and his fubjects, the public good fhould have the preference; and in one of the first exertions of regal power banished the prime minifter and favourite of his father, as one that had betrayed his mafter, and abufed his truft.

He then declared his refolution to grant a general toleration of religion, and among other liberalities of conceffion allowed the profeffion of Free Masonry. It is the great taint of his character, that he has given reason to doubt, whether this toleration is the effect of charity or indifference, whether he means to fupport good men of every religion, or confiders all religions as equally good.

There had fubfifted for fome time in Pruffia an order called the Order for favour, which, according to its denomination, had been conferred with very little dif

tinction,

tinction. The king inftituted the Order for merit, with which he honoured thofe whom he confidered as deferving. There were fome who thought their merit not fufficiently recompenfed by this new title; but he was not very ready to grant pecuniary rewards. Thofe who were most in his favour he fometimes prefented with fnuff-boxes, on which was inscribed Amitie augmente le prix.

He was, however, charitable if not liberal, for he ordered the magiftrates of the feveral diftricts to be very attentive to the relief of the poor; and, if the funds established for that ufe were not fufficient, permitted that the deficiency fhould be fupplied out of the revenues of the town.

One of his firft cares was the advancement of learning. Immediately upon his acceffion, he wrote to Rollin and Voltaire, that he defired the continuance of their friendship; and fent for Mr. Maupertuis, the principal of the French academicians, who passed a winter in Lapland, to verify, by the menfuration of a degree near the Pole, the Newtonian doctrine of the form of the earth. He requested of Maupertuis to come to Berlin, to fettle an academy, in terms of great ardour and great condefcenfion.

At the fame time, he fhewed the world that literary amusements were not likely, as has more than once happened to royal ftudents, to withdraw him from the care of the kingdom, or make him forget his interest. He began by reviving a claim to Herstal and Hermal, two districts in the poffeffion of the bifhop of Liège. When he fent his commiffary to demand the homage of the inhabitants, they refused him admiffion, declaring that they acknowledged no fovereign but the bishop.