History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 11 [26]
much as he wished it; and he is capable of pranks!--Enough, on
Monday morning, 15th August, 1740, [Rodenbeck, p. 15, slightly in
error: see Dickens's Interview, supra, p. 187.] Friedrich and
Suite leave Potsdam; early enough; go, by Leipzig, by the route
already known to readers, through Coburg and the Voigtland
regions; Wilhelmina has got warning, sits eagerly expecting her
Brother in the Hermitage at Baireuth, gladdest of shrill sisters;
and full of anxieties how her Brother would now be. The travelling
party consisted, besides the King, of seven persons: Prince August
Wilhelm, King's next Brother, Heir-apparent if there come no
children, now a brisk youth of eighteen; Leopold Prince of Anhalt-
Dessau, Old Dessauer's eldest, what we may call the "Young
Dessauer;" Colonel von Borck, whom we shall hear of again;
Colonel von Stille, already heard of (grave men of fifty, these
two); milk-beard Munchow, an Adjutant, youngest of the promoted
Munchows; Algarotti, indispensable for talk; and Fredersdorf, the
House-Steward and domestic Factotum, once Private in Schwerin's
Regiment, whom Bielfeld so admired at Reinsberg, foreseeing what
he would come to. One of Friedrich's late acts was to give
Factotum Fredersdorf an Estate of Land (small enough, I fancy, but
with country-house on it) for solace to the leisure of so useful a
man,--studious of chemistry too, as I have heard. Seven in all,
besides the King. [Rodenbeck, p. 19 (and for Chamberlain
Fredersdorf's estate, p. 15).] Direct towards Baireuth, incognito,
and at the top of their speed. Wednesday, 17th, they actually
arrive. Poor Wilhelmina, she finds her Brother changed; become a
King in fact, and sternly solitary; alone in soul, even as a King
must be! [Wilhelmina, ii. 322, 323.]--
"Algarotti, one of the first BEAUX-ESPRITS of this age," as
Wilhelmina defines him,--Friend Algarotti, the young Venetian
gentleman of elegance, in dusky skin, in very white linen and
frills, with his fervid black eyes, "does the expenses of the
conversation." He is full of elegant logic, has speculations on
the great world and the little, on Nature, Art, Papistry, Anti-
Papistry, and takes up the Opera in an earnest manner, as capable
of being a school of virtue and the moral sublime. His respectable
Books on the Opera and other topics are now all forgotten, and
crave not to be mentioned. To me he is not supremely beautiful,
though much the gentleman in manners as in ruffles, and
ingeniously logical:--rather yellow to me, in mind as in skin, and
with a taint of obsolete Venetian Macassar. But to Friedrich he is
thrice-dear; who loves the Sharp faceted cut of the man, and does
not object to his yellow or Extinct-Macassar qualities of mind.
Thanks to that wandering Baltimore for picking up such a jewel and
carrying him Northward! Algarotti himself likes the North: here in
our hardy climates,--especially at Berlin, and were his loved
Friedrich NOT a King,--Algarotti could be very happy in the
liberty allowed. At London, where there is no King, or none to
speak of, and plenty of free Intelligences, Carterets, Lytteltons,
young Pitts and the like, he is also well, were it not for the
horrid smoke upon one's linen, and the little or no French of
those proud Islanders.
Wilhelmina seems to like him here; is glad, at any rate, that he
does the costs of conversation, better or worse. In the rest is no
hope. Stille, Borck are accomplished military gentlemen; but of
tacit nature, reflective, practical, rather than discursive, and
do not waste themselves by incontinence of tongue. Stille, by his
military Commentaries, which are still known to soldiers that
read, maintains some lasting remembrance of himself: Borck we
shall see engaged in a small bit of business before long. As to
Munchow, the JEUNE MORVEUX of an Adjutant, he, though his manners
are well enough, and he wears military plumes in his hat, is still
an unfledged young creature, "bill still yellow," so to speak;--
and marks himself chiefly by a visible hankering after that
troublesome