Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia" BOOK VIII.
Page: 17

then. Who knows but, of all the offers she had, "four" or three
"crowned heads" among them, this final modest honest one may be
intrinsically the best? Take your portion, if inevitable, and
be thankful!--

The Betrothal follows in about a week: Sunday, 3d June, 1731; with
great magnificence, in presence of the high guests and all the
world: and Wilhelmina is the affianced Bride of Friedrich of
Baireuth:--and that enormous Double-Marriage Tragi-comedy, of Much
Ado about Nothing, is at last ended. Courage, friends; all things
do end!--

The high guests hereupon go their ways again; and the Court of
Berlin, one cannot but suppose, collapses, as after a great effort
finished. Do not Friedrich Wilhelm and innumerable persons--the
readers and the writer of this History included--feel a stone
rolled off their hearts?--It is now, and not till now, that Queen
Sophie falls sick, and like to die; and reproaches Wilhelmina with
killing her. Friedrich Wilhelm hopes confidently, not; waits out
at Potsdam, for a few days, till this killing danger pass;
then departs, with double impetuosity, for Preussen, and despatch
of Public Business; such a mountain of Domestic Business being
victoriously got under.

Poor King, his life, this long while, has been a series of
earthquakes and titanic convulsions. Narrow miss he has had, of
pulling down his house about his ears, and burying self, son,
wife, family and fortunes, under the ruin-heap,--a monument to
remote posterity. Never was such an enchanted dance, of
well-intentioned Royal Bear with poetic temperament, piped to by
two black-artists, for the Kaiser's and Pragmatic Sanction's sake!
Let Tobacco-Parliament also rejoice; for truly the play was
growing dangerous, of late. King and Parliament, we may suppose,
return to Public Business with double vigor.



Chapter IV.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN AND ELSEWHERE.

Not that his Majesty, while at the deepest in domestic
intricacies, ever neglects Public Business. This very summer he is
raising Hussar Squadrons; bent to introduce the Hussar kind of
soldiery into his Army;--a good deal of horse-breaking and new