FRIEDERICH SHORTLY AFTER PRAG (To his Mother, Letter still extant in Autograph, without date).--"My Brothers and I are still well. The whole Campaign runs risk of being lost to the Austrians; and I find myself free, with 150,000 men. Add to this, that we are masters of a Kingdom [Bohemia here], which is obliged to furnish us with troops and money. The Austrians are dispersed like straw before the wind. I will send a part of my troops to compliment Messieurs the French; and am going [if I once had Prag!] to pursue the Austrians with the rest of my Army." [Ib. xxvi. 75.] Friedrich, who keeps his emotions generally to himself, does not, as will be seen, remain quite silent to us throughout this great Year; but, by accident, has left us some rather impressive gleanings in that kind;--and certainly in no year could such accident have been luckier to us; this of 1757 being, in several respects, the greatest of his Life. From nearly the topmost heights down to the lowest deeps, his fortunes oscillated this year; and probably, of all the sons of Adam, nobody's outlooks and reflections had in them, successive and simultaneous, more gigantic forms of fear and of hope. He is on a very high peak at this moment; suddenly emerging from his thick cloud, into thunderous victory of that kind; and warning all Pythons what they get by meddling with the Sun-god! Loud enough, far-clanging, is the sound of the silver bow; gazetteers and men all on pause at such new Phoebus Apollo risen in his wrath;--the Victory at Prag considered to be much more annihilative than it really was. At London, Lord Holderness had his Tower-guns in readiness, waiting for something of the kind; and "the joy of the people was frantic." [_Mitchell Papers and Memoirs_ (i. e the PRINTED Selection, 2 vols. London, 1850;--which will be the oftenest cited by us, "Papers AND MEMOIRS"), i. 249: "Holderness to Mitchell, 20th May, 1757." Mitchell is now attending Friedrich; his Letter from Keith's Camp, during the thunder of "Friday, May 6th," is given, ib. i. 248.]