The poor old Grandfather, Friedrich I. (the first King of Prussia),--for, as we intimate, he was still alive, and not very old, though now infirm enough, and laden beyond his strength with sad reminiscences, disappointments and chagrins,--had taken much to Wilhelmina, as she tells us; [_ Memoires de Frederique Sophie Wilhelmine de Prusse, Margrave de Bareith, Soeur d Frederic-le-Grand _ (London, 1812), i. 5.] and would amuse himself whole days with the pranks and prattle of the little child. Good old man: he, we need not doubt, brightened up into unusual vitality at sight of this invaluable little Brother of hers; through whom he can look once more into the waste dim future with a flicker of new hope. Poor old man: he got his own back half-broken by a careless nurse letting him fall; and has slightly stooped ever since, some fifty and odd years now: much against his will; for he would fain have been beautiful; and has struggled all his days, very hard if not very wisely, to make his existence beautiful,--to make it magnificent at least, and regardless of expense;--and it threatens to come to little. Courage, poor Grandfather: here is a new second edition of a Friedrich, the first having gone off with so little effect: this one's back is still unbroken, his life's seedfield not yet filled with tares and thorns: who knows but Heaven will be kinder to this one? Heaven was much kinder to this one. Him Heaven had kneaded of more potent stuff: a mighty fellow this one, and a strange; related not only to the Upholsteries and Heralds' Colleges, but to the Sphere-harmonies and the divine and demonic powers; of a swift far-darting nature this one, like an Apollo clad in sunbeams and in lightnings (after his sort); and with a back which all the world could not succeed in breaking!--Yes, if, by most rare chance, this were indeed a new man of genius, born into the purblind rotting Century, in the acknowledged rank of a king there,--man of genius, that is to say, man of originality and veracity; capable of seeing with his eyes, and incapable of not believing what he sees;--then truly!--But as yet none knows; the poor old Grandfather never knew.