History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 10 [47]
the comfortable sense that his Royal Highness is speaking with conviction, and honestly from the heart, in the affair: but that is all the conquest we get of it, in these days. Treatise fallen more extinct to existing mankind it would not be easy to name.
Perhaps indeed mankind is getting weary of the question altogether. Machiavel himself one now reads only by compulsion. "What is the use of arguing with anybody that can believe in Machiavel?" asks mankind, or might well ask; and, except for Editorial purposes, eschews any ANTI-MACHIAVEL; impatient to be rid of bane and antidote both. Truly the world has had a pother with this little Nicolo Machiavelli and his perverse little Book: --pity almost that a Friedrich Wilhelm, taking his rounds at that point of time, had not had the "refuting" of him; Friedrich Wilhelm's method would have been briefer than Friedrich's! But let us hope the thing is now, practically, about completed. And as to the other question, "Was the Signor Nicolo serious in this perverse little Book; or did he only do it ironically, with a serious inverse purpose?" we will leave that to be decided, any time convenient, by people who are much at leisure in the world!--
The printing of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL was not intrinsically momentous in Friedrich's history; yet it might as well have been dispensed with. He had here drawn a fine program, and needlessly placarded it for the street populations: and afterwards there rose, as could not fail on their part, comparison between program and performance; scornful cry, chiefly from men of weak judgment, "Is this King an ANTI-Machiavel, then? Pfui!" Of which,--though Voltaire's voice, too, was heard in it, in angry moments,--we shall say nothing: the reader, looking for himself, will judge by and by. And herewith enough of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL. Composition of ANTI-MACHIAVEL and speculation of the Pine HENRIADE lasted, both of them, all through this Year 1739, and farther: from these two items, not to mention any other, readers can figure sufficiently how literary a year it was.
FRIEDRICH IN PREUSSEN AGAIN; AT THE STUD OF TRAKEHNEN. A TRAGICALLY GREAT EVENT COMING ON.
In July this year the Crown-Prince went with Papa on the Prussian Review-journey. ["Set out, 7th July" ( OEuvres, xxvii. part lst, 67 n.).] Such attendance on Review- journeys, a mark of his being well with Papa, is now becoming usual; they are agreeable excursions, and cannot but be instructive as well. On this occasion, things went beautifully with him. Out in those grassy Countries, in the bright Summer, once more he had an unusually fine time;--and two very special pleasures befell him. First was, a sight of the Emigrants, our Salzburgers and other, in their flourishing condition, over in Lithuania yonder. Delightful to see how the waste is blossoming up again; busy men, with their industries, their steady pious husbandries, making all things green and fruitful: horse-droves, cattle-herds, waving cornfields;--a very "SCHMALZGRUBE (Butter- pit)" of those Northern parts, as it is since called. [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, ii. 1049.] The Crown-Prince's own words on this matter we will give; they are in a Letter of his to Voltaire, perhaps already known to some readers;--and we can observe he writes rather copiously from those localities at present, and in a cheerful humor with everybody.
"INSTERBURG, 27th JULY, 1739 (Crown-Prince to Voltaire). ... Prussian Lithuania is a Country a hundred and twenty miles long, by from sixty to forty broad; ["Miles ENGLISH," we always mean, UNLESS &c.] it was ravaged by Pestilence at the beginning of this Century; and they say three hundred thousand people died of disease and famine." Ravaged by Pestilence and the neglect of King Friedrich I.; till my Father, once his hands were free, made personal survey of it, and took it up, in earnest.
"Since that time," say twenty years ago, "there is no expense that the King has been afraid of, in order to succeed in his salutary views. He made, in the first place, regulations full of wisdom;
Perhaps indeed mankind is getting weary of the question altogether. Machiavel himself one now reads only by compulsion. "What is the use of arguing with anybody that can believe in Machiavel?" asks mankind, or might well ask; and, except for Editorial purposes, eschews any ANTI-MACHIAVEL; impatient to be rid of bane and antidote both. Truly the world has had a pother with this little Nicolo Machiavelli and his perverse little Book: --pity almost that a Friedrich Wilhelm, taking his rounds at that point of time, had not had the "refuting" of him; Friedrich Wilhelm's method would have been briefer than Friedrich's! But let us hope the thing is now, practically, about completed. And as to the other question, "Was the Signor Nicolo serious in this perverse little Book; or did he only do it ironically, with a serious inverse purpose?" we will leave that to be decided, any time convenient, by people who are much at leisure in the world!--
The printing of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL was not intrinsically momentous in Friedrich's history; yet it might as well have been dispensed with. He had here drawn a fine program, and needlessly placarded it for the street populations: and afterwards there rose, as could not fail on their part, comparison between program and performance; scornful cry, chiefly from men of weak judgment, "Is this King an ANTI-Machiavel, then? Pfui!" Of which,--though Voltaire's voice, too, was heard in it, in angry moments,--we shall say nothing: the reader, looking for himself, will judge by and by. And herewith enough of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL. Composition of ANTI-MACHIAVEL and speculation of the Pine HENRIADE lasted, both of them, all through this Year 1739, and farther: from these two items, not to mention any other, readers can figure sufficiently how literary a year it was.
FRIEDRICH IN PREUSSEN AGAIN; AT THE STUD OF TRAKEHNEN. A TRAGICALLY GREAT EVENT COMING ON.
In July this year the Crown-Prince went with Papa on the Prussian Review-journey. ["Set out, 7th July" (
"INSTERBURG, 27th JULY, 1739 (Crown-Prince to Voltaire). ... Prussian Lithuania is a Country a hundred and twenty miles long, by from sixty to forty broad; ["Miles ENGLISH," we always mean, UNLESS &c.] it was ravaged by Pestilence at the beginning of this Century; and they say three hundred thousand people died of disease and famine." Ravaged by Pestilence and the neglect of King Friedrich I.; till my Father, once his hands were free, made personal survey of it, and took it up, in earnest.
"Since that time," say twenty years ago, "there is no expense that the King has been afraid of, in order to succeed in his salutary views. He made, in the first place, regulations full of wisdom;