The summary of the Friedrich-Peter business is perhaps already known to most readers, and can be very briefly given; nor is Peter's tragical Six Months of Czarship (5th JANUARY-9th JULY, 1762) a thing for us to dwell on beyond need. But it is wildly tragical; strokes of deep pathos in it, blended with the ghastly and grotesque: it is part of Friedrich's strange element and environment: and though the outer incidents are public enough, it is essentially little known. Had there been an AEschylus, had there been a Shakspeare!--But poor Peter's shocking Six Months of History has been treated by a far different set of hands, themselves almost shocking to see: and, to the seriously inquiring mind, it lies, and will long lie, in a very waste, chaotic, enigmatic condition. Here, out of considerable bundles now burnt, are some rough jottings, Excerpts of Notes and Studies,--which, I still doubt rather, ought to have gone in AUTO DA FE along with the others. AUTO DA FE I called it; Act of FAITH, not Spanish-Inquisitional, but essentially Celestial many times, if you reflect well on the poisonous consequences, on the sinfulness and deadly criminality, of Human Babble,--as nobody does nowadays! I label the different Pieces, and try to make legible;--hasty readers have the privilege of skipping, if they like. The first Two are of preliminary or prefatory nature,--perhaps still more skippable than those that will by and by follow. 1. GENEALOGY OF PETER. "His grandfather was Friedrich IV., Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and Schleswig, Karl XII.'s brother-in-law; on whose score it was (Denmark finding the time opportune for a stroke of robbery there) that Karl XII., a young lad hardly eighteen, first took arms; and began the career of fighting that astonished Denmark and certain other Neighbors who had been too covetous on a young King. This his young Brother-in-law, Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp (young he too, though Karl's senior by ten years), had been reinstated in his Territory, and the Danes sternly forbidden farther burglary there, by the victorious Karl; but went with Karl in his farther expeditions. Always Karl's intimate, and at his right hand for the next two years: fell in the Battle of Clissow, 19th July, 1702; age not yet thirty-one.