HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
Page: 13

black-hole, by an Artist whom you had locked up there (not quite
without reason) overnight.

Poor Voltaire wrote that Vie Privee in a
state little inferior to the Frenzy of John Dennis,--how brought
about we shall see by and by. And this is the Document which
English readers are surest to have read, and tried to credit as
far as possible. Our counsel is, Out of window with it, he that
would know Friedrich of Prussia! Keep it awhile, he that would
know Francois Arouet de Voltaire, and a certain numerous
unfortunate class of mortals, whom Voltaire is sometimes
capable of sinking to be spokesman for, in this world!--Alas,
go where you will, especially in these irreverent ages,
the noteworthy Dead is sure to be found lying under infinite dung,
no end of calumnies and stupidities accumulated upon him. For the
class we speak of, class of "flunkies doing saturnalia
below stairs," is numerous, is innumerable; and can
well remunerate a "vocal flunky" that will serve their purposes on
such an occasion!--

Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demigods; and there
are various things to be said against him with good ground. To the
last, a questionable hero; with much in him which one could have
wished not there, and much wanting which one could have wished.
But there is one feature which strikes you at an early period of
the inquiry, That in his way he is a Reality; that he always means
what he speaks; grounds his actions, too, on what he recognizes
for the truth; and, in short, has nothing whatever of the
Hypocrite or Phantasm. Which some readers will admit to be an
extremely rare phenomenon. We perceive that this man was far
indeed from trying to deal swindler-like with the facts around
him; that he honestly recognized said facts wherever they
disclosed themselves, and was very anxious also to ascertain their
existence where still hidden or dubious. For he knew well, to a
quite uncommon degree, and with a merit all the higher as it was
an unconscious one, how entirely inexorable is the nature of
facts, whether recognized or not, ascertained or not; how vain all