Keith himself takes the rear-guard, the most ticklish post of all, and manages it well, and with success, as his wont is. Under sickness at the time, but with his usual vigilance, prudence, energy; qualities apt to be successful in War. Some brushes of Croat fighting he had from Loudon; but they did not amount to anything. It was at Holitz, within a march of Konigsgratz, that Loudon made his chief attempt; a vehement, well-intended thing; which looked well at one time. But Keith heard the cannonading ahead; hurried up with new cavalry, new sagacity and fire of energy; dashed out horse-charges, seized hill-tops, of a vital nature; and quickly ended the affair. A man fiery enough, and prompt with his stroke when wanted, though commonly so quiet. "Tell Monsieur,"--some General who seemed too stupid or too languid on this occasion,--"Tell Monsieur from me," said Keith to his Aide-de-camp, "he may be a very pretty thing, but he is not a man (QU'IL PEUT ETRE UNE BONNE CHOSE, MAIS QU'IL N'EST PAS UN HOMME)!" [Varnhagen, _Leben des &c. Jakob von Keith,_ p. 227.] The excellent vernacular Keith;--still a fine breadth of accent in him, one perceives! He is now past sixty; troubled with asthma; and I doubt not may be, occasionally, thinking it near time to end his campaigns. And in fact, he is about ending them; sooner than he or anybody had expected. Daun, picking his steps and positions, latterly with threefold precaution, got into Konigsgratz neighborhood, a week after Friedrich; and looked down with enigmatic wonder upon Friedrich's new settlement there. Forage abundant all round, and the corn-harvest growing white;--here, strange to say, has Friedrich got planted in the inside of those innumerable Daun redoubts, and "woods of abatis;" and might make a very pretty "Bohemian Campaign" of it, after all, were Daun the only adversary he had! Judges are of opinion, that Daun, with all his superiority of number, could not have disrooted Friedrich this season. [Tempelhof, ii. 170-176, 185;--who, unluckily, in soldier fashion, here as too often elsewhere, does not give us the Arithmetical Numbers of each, but counts by "Battalions" and "Squadrons," which, except in time of Peace, are a totally uncertain quantity:--guess vaguely, 75,000 against 30,000.] Daun did try him by the Pandour methods, "1,000 Croats stealing in upon Konigsgratz at one in the morning," and the like; but these availed nothing. By the one effectual method, that of beating him in battle, Daun never would have tried. What did disroot Friedrich, then?--Take the following dates, and small hints of phenomena in other parts of the big Theatre of War. "Konitz" is a little Polish Town, midway between Dantzig and Friedrich's Dominions:--