Truly, yes! The Crown-Prince's ANTI-MACHIAVEL, final correct edition (in two forms, Voltaire's as corrected, and the Prince's own as written), stands now in clear type; [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_ viii. 61-163.] and, after all that jumble of printing and counter-printing, we can any of us read it in a few hours; but, alas, almost none of us with the least interest, or, as it were, with any profit whatever. So different is present tense from past, in all things, especially in things like these! It is sixscore years since the ANTI-MACHIAVEL appeared. The spectacle of one who was himself a King (for the mysterious fact was well known to Van Duren and everybody) stepping forth to say with conviction, That Kingship was not a thing of attorney mendacity, to be done under the patronage of Beelzebub, but of human veracity, to be set about under quite Other patronage; and that, in fact, a King was the "born servant of his People" (DOMESTIQUE Friedrich once calls it), rather than otherwise: this, naturally enough, rose upon the then populations, unused to such language, like the dawn of a new day; and was welcomed with such applauses as are now incredible, after all that has come and gone! Alas, in these sixscore years, it has been found so easy to profess and speak, even with sincerity! The actual Hero-Kings were long used to be silent; and the Sham-Hero kind grow only the more desperate for us, the more they speak and profess!--This ANTI-MACHIAVEL of Friedrich's is a clear distinct Treatise; confutes, or at least heartily contradicts, paragraph by paragraph, the incredible sophistries of Machiavel. Nay it leaves us, if we sufficiently force our attention, with the comfortable sense that his Royal Highness is speaking with conviction, and honestly from the heart, in the affair: but that is all the conquest we get of it, in these days. Treatise fallen more extinct to existing mankind it would not be easy to name. Perhaps indeed mankind is getting weary of the question altogether. Machiavel himself one now reads only by compulsion. "What is the use of arguing with anybody that can believe in Machiavel?" asks mankind, or might well ask; and, except for Editorial purposes, eschews any ANTI-MACHIAVEL; impatient to be rid of bane and antidote both. Truly the world has had a pother with this little Nicolo Machiavelli and his perverse little Book:--pity almost that a Friedrich Wilhelm, taking his rounds at that point of time, had not had the "refuting" of him; Friedrich Wilhelm's method would have been briefer than Friedrich's! But let us hope the thing is now, practically, about completed. And as to the other question, "Was the Signor Nicolo serious in this perverse little Book; or did he only do it ironically, with a serious inverse purpose?" we will leave that to be decided, any time convenient, by people who are much at leisure in the world!--