Of Friedrich's Lamentation-Psalms we propose to give the First and the Last: these, with certain Prose Pieces, intermediate and connecting, may perhaps be made intelligible to readers, and throw some light on these tragic weeks of the King's History:-- 1. EPITRE A MA SOEUR (First of the Lamentation-Psalms).--This is the famed "Epistle to Wilhelmina," already spoken of; which the King despatched from Bernstadt "August 24th," just while quitting those parts, on the Erfurt Errand;--though written before, in the tedium of waiting for Keith. The Piece is long, vehement, altogether sincere; lyrically sings aloud, or declaims in rhyme, what one's indignant thought really is on the surrounding woes and atrocities. We faithfully abridge, and condense into our briefest Prose;--readers can add water and the jingle of French rhymes AD LIBITUM. It starts thus:-- "O sweet and dear hope of my remaining days; O Sister, whose friendship, so fertile in resources, shares all my sorrows, and with a helpful arm assists me in the gulf! It is in vain that the Destinies have overwhelmed me with disasters: if the crowd of Kings have sworn my ruin; if the Earth have opened to swallow me,--you still love me, noble and affectionate Sister: loved by you, what is there of misfortune? [Branches off into some survey of it, nevertheless.] "Huge continents of thunder-cloud, plots thickening against me [in those Menzel Documents], I watched with terror; the sky getting blacker, no covert for me visible: on a sudden, from the deeps of Hell, starts forth Discord [with capital letter], and the tempest broke. Ce fut dans ton Senat, O fouqueuse Angleterre! Ou ce monstre inhumain fit eclater la guerre: It was from thy Senate, stormful England, that she first launched out War. In remote climates first; in America, far away;--between France and thee. Old Ocean shook with it; Neptune, in the depths of his caves (SES GROTTES PROFONDES), saw the English subjecting his waves (SES ONDES): the wild Iroquois, prize of these crimes (FORFAITS), bursts out; detesting the tyrants who disturb his Forests,"--and scalping Braddock's people, and the like. "Discord, charmed to see such an America, and feeble mortals crossing the Ocean to exterminate one another, addresses the European Kings: 'How long will you be slaves to what are called laws? Is it for you to bend under worn-out notions of justice, right? Mars is the one God: Might is Right. A King's business is to do something famous in this world.' "O daughter of the Caesars," Maria Theresa, "how, at these words, ambition, burning in thy soul, breaks out uncontrollable! Probity, honor, treaties, duty: feeble considerations these, to a heart letting loose its flamy passions; determining to rob the generous Germans of their liberties; to degrade thy equals; to extinguish 'Schism' (so called), and set up despotism on the wrecks of all."