HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
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soldiers were of not far from equal quality; and only the
General was consummately superior, and the defeat a destruction.
Napoleon did indeed, by immense expenditure of men, and gunpowder,
overrun Europe for a time: but Napoleon never, by husbanding and
wisely expending his men and gunpowder, defended a little Prussia
against all Europe, year after year for seven years long, till
Europe had enough, and gave up the enterprise as one it could not
manage. So soon as the Drawcansir equipments are well torn off,
and the shilling-gallery got to silence, it will be found that
there were great kings before Napoleon,--and likewise an Art of
War, grounded on veracity and human courage and insight, not upon
Drawcansir rodomontade, grandiose Dick-Turpinism, revolutionary
madness, and unlimited expenditure of men and gunpowder. "You may
paint with a very big brush, and yet not be a great painter,"
says a satirical friend of mine! This is becoming more and more
apparent, as the dust-whirlwind, and huge uproar of the last
generation, gradually dies away again.


2. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

One of the grand difficulties in a History of Friedrich is, all
along, this same, That he lived in a Century which has no History
and can have little or none. A Century so opulent in accumulated
falsities,--sad opulence descending on it by inheritance, always
at compound interest, and always largely increased by fresh
acquirement on such immensity of standing capital;--opulent in
that bad way as never Century before was! Which had no longer the
consciousness of being false, so false had it grown; and was so
steeped in falsity, and impregnated with it to the very bone,
that--in fact the measure of the thing was full, and a French
Revolution had to end it. To maintain much veracity in such an
element, especially for a king, was no doubt doubly remarkable.
But now, how extricate the man from his Century? How show the
man, who is a Reality worthy of being seen, and yet keep his
Century, as a Hypocrisy worthy of being hidden and forgotten,
in the due abeyance?

To resuscitate the Eighteenth Century, or call into men's view,