HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
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thought, her delicacy of expression," her felicity of utterance
and management, are great. Foreign courtiers call her "the
Republican Queen." She detects you a sophistry at one glance;
pierces down direct upon the weak point of an opinion: never
in my whole life did I, Toland, come upon a swifter or sharper
intellect. And then she is so good withal, so bright and cheerful;
and "has the art of uniting what to the rest of the world are
antagonisms, mirth and learning,"--say even, mirth and good sense.
Is deep in music, too; plays daily on her harpsichord, and
fantasies, and even composes, in an eminent manner. [ An
Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, sent to a Minister
of State in Holland, by Mr. Toland (London, 1705),
p. 322. Toland's other Book, which has reference to her, is of
didactic nature ("immortality of the soul," "origin of idolatry,"
&c.), but with much fine panegyric direct and oblique:
Letters to Serena ("Serena" being Queen
), a thin 8vo, London, 1704.] Toland's admiration,
deducting the high-flown temper and manner of the man, is sincere
and great.

Beyond doubt a bright airy lady, shining in mild radiance in those
Northern parts; very graceful, very witty and ingenious; skilled
to speak, skilled to hold her tongue,--which latter art also was
frequently in requisition with her. She did not much venerate her
Husband, nor the Court population, male or female, whom he chose
to have about him: his and their ways were by no means hers,
if she had cared to publish her thoughts. Friedrich I., it is
admitted on all hands, was "an expensive Herr;" much given to
magnificent ceremonies, etiquettes and solemnities; making no
great way any-whither, and that always with noise enough, and with
a dust vortex of courtier intrigues and cabals encircling him,--
from which it is better to stand quite to windward. Moreover,
he was slightly crooked; most sensitive, thin of skin and liable
to sudden flaws of temper, though at heart very kind and good.
Sophie Charlotte is she who wrote once, "Leibnitz talked to me of
the infinitely little ( de l'infiniment petit): mon Dieu,