HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
Page: 22

which, however, he survived. The name given him was Karl Friedrich
(Charles Frederick); Karl perhaps, and perhaps also not, in
delicate compliment to the chief gossip, the above-mentioned.
Kaiser, Karl or Charles VI.? At any rate, the KARL, gradually or
from the first, dropped altogether out of practice, and went as
nothing: he himself, or those about him, never used it; nor,
except in some dim English pamphlet here and there, have I met
with any trace of it. Friedrich (RICH-in-PEACE, a name of old
prevalence in the Hohenzollern kindred), which he himself wrote
FREDERIC in his French way, and at last even FEDERIC (with a very
singular sense of euphony), is throughout, and was, his sole
designation. Sunday 31st January, 1712, age then precisely one
week: then, and in this manner, was he ushered on the scene,
and labelled among his fellow-creatures. We must now look round
a little; and see, if possible by any method or exertion, what
kind of scene it was.



Chapter III.

FATHER AND MOTHER: THE HANOVERIAN CONNECTION.

Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown-Prince of Prussia, son of Friedrich I.
and Father of this little infant who will one day be Friedrich
II., did himself make some noise in the world as second King of
Prussia; notable not as Friedrich's father alone; and will much
concern us during the rest of his life. He is, at this date,
in his twenty-fourth year: a thick-set, sturdy, florid, brisk
young fellow; with a jovial laugh in him, yet of solid grave ways,
occasionally somewhat volcanic; much given to soldiering, and
out-of-door exercises, having little else to do at present. He has
been manager, or, as it were, Vice-King, on an occasional absence
of his Father; he knows practically what the state of business is;
and greatly disapproves of it, as is thought. But being bound to
silence on that head, he keeps silence, and meddles with nothing
political. He addicts himself chiefly to mustering, drilling and
practical military duties, while here at Berlin; runs out, often
enough, wife and perhaps a comrade or two along with him, to hunt,
and take his ease, at Wusterhausen (some fifteen or twenty miles