HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
Page: 6

conflagrations;--wherein, to our terrified imaginations,
were seen, not men, French and other, but ghastly portents,
stalking wrathful, and shapes of avenging gods. It must be owned
the figure of Napoleon was titanic; especially to the generation
that looked on him, and that waited shuddering to be devoured by
him. In general, in that French Revolution, all was on a huge
scale; if not greater than anything in human experience, at least
more grandiose. All was recorded in bulletins, too, addressed to
the shilling-gallery; and there were fellows on the stage with
such a breadth of sabre, extent of whiskerage, strength of
windpipe, and command of men and gunpowder, as had never been seen
before. How they bellowed, stalked and flourished about;
counterfeiting Jove's thunder to an amazing degree! Terrific
Drawcansir figures, of enormous whiskerage, unlimited command of
gunpowder; not without sufficient ferocity, and even a certain
heroism, stage-heroism, in them; compared with whom, to the
shilling-gallery, and frightened excited theatre at large,
it seemed as if there had been no generals or sovereigns before;
as if Friedrich, Gustavus, Cromwell, William Conqueror and
Alexander the Great were not worth speaking of henceforth.

All this, however, in half a century is considerably altered.
The Drawcansir equipments getting gradually torn off, the
natural size is seen better; translated from the bulletin style
into that of fact and history, miracles, even to the shilling-
gallery, are not so miraculous. It begins to be apparent that
there lived great men before the era of bulletins and Agamemnon.
Austerlitz and Wagram shot away more gunpowder,--gunpowder
probably in the proportion of ten to one, or a hundred to one;
but neither of them was tenth-part such a beating to your enemy as
that of Rossbach, brought about by strategic art, human ingenuity
and intrepidity, and the loss of 165 men. Leuthen, too, the battle
of Leuthen (though so few English readers ever heard of it) may
very well hold up its head beside any victory gained by Napoleon
or another. For the odds were not far from three to one; the