"Cassel he could not take, after a month's siege under the best of Siege-Captains; Ziegenhayn still less under one of the worst. Provisions, ammunitions, were not to be had by force of wagonry: scant food for soldiers, doubly scant the food of Sieges;"--"the road from Beverungen [where the Weser-boats have to stop, which is 30 miles from Cassel, perhaps 60 from Ziegenhayn, and perhaps 100 from the outmost or southern-most of Ferdinand's parties] is paved with dead horses," nor has even Cassel nearly enough of ammunition:--in a word, Broglio, finding the time come, bursts up from his Frankfurt Position (March 14th-21st) in a sharp and determined manner; drives Ferdinand's people back, beats the Erbprinz himself one day (by surprisal, 'My compliment for Langensalza'), and sets his people running. Ferdinand sees the affair to be over; and deliberately retires; lucky, perhaps, that he still can deliberately: and matters return to their old posture. Broglio resumes his quarters, somewhat altered in shape, and not quite so grasping as formerly; and beyond his half-filled Magazines, has lost nothing considerable, or more considerable than has Ferdinand himself." [Tempelhof, v. 15-45; Mauvillon, ii. 135-148.] The vital element in Ferdinand's Adventure was the Siege of Cassel; all had to fail, when this, by defect of means, under the best of management, declared itself a failure. Siege Captain was a Graf von Lippe-Buckeburg, Ferdinand's Ordnance-Master, who is supposed to be "the best Artillery Officer in the world,"--and is a man of great mark in military and other circles. He is Son and Successor of that fantastic Lippe-Buckeburg, by whom Friedrich was introduced to Free-Masonry long since. He has himself a good deal of the fantast again, but with a better basis of solidity beneath it. A man of excellent knowledge and faculty in various departments; strict as steel, in regard to discipline, to practice and conduct of all kinds; a most punctilious, silently supercilious gentleman, of polite but privately irrefragable turn of mind. A tall, lean, dusky figure; much seen to by neighbors, as he stalks loftily through this puddle of a world, on terms of his own. Concerning whom there circulates in military circles this Anecdote, among many others;--which is set down as a fact; and may be, whether quite believable or not, a symbol of all the rest, and of a man not unimportant in these Wars. "Two years ago, on King Friedrich's birthday, 24th January, 1759, the Count had a select dinner-party in his tent in Ferdinand's Camp, in honor of the occasion. Dinner was well over, and wine handsomely flowing, when somebody at last thought of asking, 'What is it, then, Herr Graf, that whistling kind of noise we hear every now and then overhead?' 'That is nothing,' said the Graf, in his calm, dusky way: 'that is only my Artillery-people practising; I have bidden them hit the pole of our tent if they can: unhappily there is not the slightest danger.