accidental, was returned by blows, which he did not always forbear to the queen and princeffes.

From fuch a king and fuch a father it was not any enormous violation of duty in the immediate heir of a kingdom fometimes to differ in opinion, and to maintain that difference with decent pertinacity. A prince of a quick fagacity and comprehenfive knowledge must find many practices in the conduct of affairs which he could not approve, and fome which he could scarcely forbear to oppose.

The chief pride of the old king was to be mafter of the tallest regiment in Europe. He therefore brought together from all parts men above the common military ftandard. To exceed the height of fix feet was a certain recommendation to notice, and to approach that of feven a claim to diftinction. Men will readily go where they are fure to be careffed; and he had therefore fuch a collection of giants as perhaps was never seen in the world before.

To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure, and to perpetuate it was fo much his care, that when he met a tall woman, he immediately commanded one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that they might propagate procerity, and produce heirs to the father's habiliments.

In all this there was apparent folly, but there was no crime. The tall regiment made a fine fhew at an expence not much greater, when once it was collected, than would have been beftowed upon common men. But the king's military paftimes were fometimes more pernicious. He maintained a numerous army, which he made no other ufe than to review and to talk of it; and when he, or perhaps his emiffaries, faw a boy,

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boy, whofe form and fprightlinefs promifed a future foldier, he ordered a kind of a badge to be put about his neck, by which he was marked out for the fervice, like the fons of Chriftian captives in Turkey; and his parents were forbidden to deftine him to any other mode of life.

This was fufficiently oppreffive, but this was not the utmost of his tyranny. He had learned, though otherwife perhaps no very great politician, that to be rich was to be powerful; but that the riches of a king ought to be seen in the opulence of his fubjects, he wanted either ability or benevolence to understand. He therefore raifed exorbitant taxes from every kind of commodity and poffeffion, and piled up the money in his treasury, from which it iffued no more. How the land which had paid taxes once was to pay them a fecond time, how impofts could be levied without commerce, or commerce continued without money, it was not his cuftom to enquire. Eager to fnatch at money and delighted to count it, he felt new joy at every receipt, and thought himself enriched by the impoverishment of his dominions.

By which of thefe freaks of royalty the prince was offended, or whether, as perhaps more frequently happens, the offences of which he complained were of a domestic and perfonal kind, it is not eafy to discover. But his refentment, whatever was its caufe, rofe fo high, that he refolved not only to leave his father's court, but his territories, and to feek a refuge among the neighbouring or kindred princes. It is generally believed that his intention was to come to England, and live under the protection of his uncle, till his father's

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ther's death, or change of conduct, should give him liberty to return.

His defign, whatever it was, he concerted with an officer of the army whofe name was Kat, a man in whom he placed great confidence, and whom, having chofen him for the companion of his flight, he neceffarily trufted with the preparatory measures. A prince cannot leave his country with the speed of a meaner fugitive. Something was to be provided, and fomething to be adjufted. And, whether Kat found the agency of others neceffary, and therefore was conftrained to admit fome partners of the fecret; whether levity or vanity incited him to disburden himself of a truft that fwelled in his bofom, or to fhew to a friend or mistress his own importance; or whether it be in itfelf difficult for princes to tranfact any thing in fecret; fo it was, that the king was informed of the intended flight, and the prince and his favourite, a little before the time fettled for their departure, were arrefted, and confined in different places.

The life of princes is feldom in danger, the hazard of their irregularities falls only on those whom ambition or affection combines with them. The king, after an imprisonment of fome time, fet his fon at liberty; but poor Kat was ordered to be tried for a capital crime. The court examined the caufe, and acquitted him; the king remanded him to a fecond trial, and obliged his judges to condemn him. In confequence of the fentence thus tyrannically extorted, he was publicly beheaded, leaving behind him fome papers of reflections made in the prifon, which were afterwards printed, and among others an admonition to the prince, for whose fake he suffered, not to fofter in himfelf the opinion

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opinion of destiny, for that a Providence is difcoverable in every thing round us.

This cruel profecution of a man who had committed no crime, but by compliance with influence not easily to be refifted, was not the only act by which the old king irritated his fon. A lady with whom the prince was fufpected of intimacy, perhaps more than virtue allowed, was feized, I know not upon what accufation, and, by the king's order, notwithstanding all the reafons of decency and tenderness that operate in other countries and other judicatures, was publicly whipped

in the streets of Berlin.

At last, that the prince might feel the power of a king and a father in its utmost rigour, he was in 1733 married against his will to the princess Elizabetha Christina of Brunswick Lunenburg Beveren. He married her indeed at his father's command, but without profeffing for her either efteem or affection, and, confidering the claim of parental authority fully fatisfied by the external ceremony, obftinately and perpetually during the life of his father refrained from her bed. The poor princess lived about feven years in the court of Berlin, in a state which the world has not often seen, a wife without a husband, married fo far as to engage her perfon to a man who did not defire her affection, and of whom it was doubtful whether he thought himfelf restrained from the power of repudiation by an act performed under evident compulfion.

Thus he lived fecluded from public business, in contention with his father, in alienation from his wife. This state of uneafiness he found the only means of foftening. He diverted his mind from the fcenes about him by ftudies and liberal amufements. The

ftudies of princes feldom produce great effects, for princes draw with meaner mortals the lot of underflanding; and fince of many ftudents not more than one can be hoped to advance far towards perfection, it is fcarcely to be expected that we should find that one a prince; that the defire of fcience fhould overpower in any mind the love of pleasure when it is always prefent or always within call; that laborious meditation should be preferred in the days of youth to amusements and feftivity; or that perfeverance fhould prefs forward in contempt of flattery; and that he, in whom moderate acquifitions would be extolled as prodigies, fhould exact from himfelf that excellence of which the whole world confpires to fpare him the neceffity.

In every great performance, perhaps in every great character, part is the gift of nature, part the contribution of accident, and part, very often not the greatest part, the effect of voluntary election, and regular defign. The king of Pruffia was undoubtedly born with more than common abilities; but that he has cultivated them with more than common diligence was probably the effect of his peculiar condition, of that which he then confidered as cruelty and miffortune.

In this long interval of unhappiness and obfcurity he acquired fkill in the mathematical fciences, fuch as is faid to put him on the level with those who have made them the bufinefs of their lives. This is probably to fay too much: the acquifitions of kings are always magnified. His skill in poetry and in the French language have been loudly praised by Voltaire, a judge without exception, if his honefty were equal to

his