The "eventual succession to East Friesland," which had been promised by the Reich, some ten years ago, to the Great Elector, "for what he had done against the Turks, and what he had suffered from those Swedish Invasions, in the Common Cause:" this shadow of Succession, the Kaiser now said, should not be haggled with any more; but be actually realized, and the Imperial sanction to it now given,--effect to follow IF the Friesland Line died out. Let this be some consolation for the loss of Schwiebus and your Silesian Duchies. Here in Friesland is the ghost of a coming possession; there in Schwiebus was the ghost of a going one: phantasms you shall not want for; but the Hand of Power parts not with its realities, however come by. HIS REAL CHARACTER. Poor Friedrich led a conspicuous life as Elector and King; but no public feat he did now concerns us like this private one of Schwiebus. Historically important, this, and requiring to be remembered, while so much else demands mere oblivion from us. He was a spirited man; did soldierings, fine Siege of Bonn (July-October, 1689), sieges and campaignings, in person,--valiant in action, royal especially in patience there,--during that Third War of Louis-Fourteenth's, the Treaty-of-Ryswick one. All through the Fourth, or Spanish Succession-War, his Prussian Ten-Thousand, led by fit generals, showed eminently what stuff they were made of. Witness Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau (still a YOUNG Dessauer) on the field of Blenheim;--Leopold had the right wing there, and saved Prince Eugene who was otherwise blown to pieces, while Marlborough stormed and conquered on the left. Witness the same Dessauer on the field of Hochstadt the year before, [Varnhagen von Ense, _Biographische Denkmale_ (Berlin, 1845), ii, 155.] how he managed the retreat there. Or see him at the Bridge of Cassano (1705); in the Lines of Turin (1706); [_ Des weltheruhnden Furstens Leopoldi von Anhult-Dessau Leben und Thaten_ (Leipzig, 1742, anonymous, by one MICHAEL RANFFT), pp. 53, 61.] wherever hot service was on hand. At Malplaquet, in those murderous inexpugnable French Lines, bloodiest of obstinate Fights (upwards of thirty thousand left on the ground), the Prussians brag that it was they who picked their way through a certain peat-bog, reckoned impassable; and got fairly in upon the French wing,--to the huge comfort of Marlborough, and little Eugene his brisk comrade on that occasion. Marlborough knew well the worth of these Prussian troops, and also how to stroke his Majesty into continuing them in the field.