HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
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Hanover no longer a mere Sovereign Duchy, but an Electorate
henceforth, new "NINTH Electorate," by Ernst's life-long exertion
and good luck ;--which has spread a fine radiance, for the time,
over court and people in those parts; and made Ernst a happier man
than ever, in his old age. Gentleman Ernst and Electress Sophie,
we need not doubt, were glad to see their burly Prussian grandson,
--a robust, rather mischievous boy of five years old;--and
anything that brought her Daughter oftener about her (an only
Daughter too, and one so gifted) was sure to be welcome to the
cheery old Electress, and her Leibnitz and her circle. For Sophie
Charlotte was a bright presence, and a favorite with sage and gay.

Uncle George again, " Kurprinz Georg Ludwig"
(Electoral Prince and Heir-Apparent), who became George I. of
England; he, always a taciturn, saturnine, somewhat grim-visaged
man, not without thoughts of his own but mostly inarticulate
thoughts, was, just at this time, in a deep domestic intricacy.
Uncle George the Kurprinz was painfully detecting, in these very
months, that his august Spouse and cousin, a brilliant not
uninjured lady, had become an indignant injuring one; that she had
gone, and was going, far astray in her walk of life! Thus all is
not radiance at Hanover either, Ninth Elector though we are;
but, in the soft sunlight, there quivers a streak of the blackness
of very Erebus withal. Kurprinz George, I think, though he too is
said to have been good to the boy, could not take much interest in
this burly Nephew of his just now!

Sure enough, it was in this year 1693, that the famed Konigsmark
tragedy came ripening fast towards a crisis in Hanover; and next
year the catastrophe arrived. A most tragic business; of which the
little Boy, now here, will know more one day. Perhaps it was on
this very visit, on one visit it credibly was, that Sophie
Charlotte witnessed a sad scene in the Schloss of Hanover
high words rising, where low cooings had been more appropriate;
harsh words, mutually recriminative, rising ever higher; ending,
it is thought, in THINGS, or menaces and motions towards things