For he was like no other King that then existed, or had ever been discovered. Wilder Son of Nature seldom came into the artificial world; into a royal throne there, probably never. A wild man, wholly in earnest, veritable as the old rocks,--and with a terrible volcanic fire in him too. He would have been strange anywhere; but among the dapper Royal gentlemen of the Eighteenth Century, what was to be done with such an Orson of a King?--Clap him in Bedlam, and bring out the ballot-boxes instead? The modern generation, too, still takes its impression of him from these rumors,--still more now from Wilhelmina's Book; which paints the outside savagery of the royal man, in a most striking manner; and leaves the inside vacant, undiscovered by Wilhelmina or the rumors. Nevertheless it appears there were a few observant eyes even of contemporaries, who discerned in him a surprising talent for "National Economics" at least. One Leipzig Professor, Saxon, not Prussian by nation or interest, recognizes in Friedrich Wilhelm "DEN GROSSEN WIRTH (the great Manager, Husbandry-man, or Landlord) of the epoch;" and lectures on his admirable "works, arrangements and institutions" in that kind. [Rodenbeck's _Beitrage_ (p. 14),--Year, or Name of Lecturer, not mentioned.] Nay the dapper Royal gentlemen saw, with envy, the indubitable growth of this mad savage Brother; and ascribed it to "his avarice," to his mean ways, which were in such contrast to their sublime ones. That he understood National Economics has now become very certain. His grim semi-articulate Papers and Rescripts, on these subjects, are still almost worth reading, by a lover of genuine human talent in the dumb form. For spelling, grammar, penmanship and composition, they resemble nothing else extant; are as if done by the paw of a bear: indeed the utterance generally sounds more like the growling of a bear than anything that could be handily spelt or parsed. But there is a decisive human sense in the heart of it; and there is such a dire hatred of empty bladders, unrealities and hypocritical forms and pretences, what he calls "wind and humbug (WIND UND BLAUER DUNST)," as is very strange indeed. Strange among all mankind; doubly and trebly strange among the unfortunate species called Kings in our time. To whom,--for sad reasons that could be given,--"wind and blue vapor (BLAUER DUNST)," artistically managed by the rules of Acoustics and Optics, seem to be all we have left us!--