History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 21Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 21
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
Keith is now Minister at Dresden for some years back; and has, among
other topics, much to say of our brilliant friend the Electress there:
but his grand Diplomatic feat was at Copenhagen, on a sudden sally
out thither (in 1771): [In KEITH, i. 152 &c., nothing of intelligible
Narrative given, hardly the date discoverable.] the saving of Queen
Matilda, youngest Sister of George Third, from a hard doom. Unfortunate
Queen Matilda; one never knows how guilty, or whether guilty at all,
but she was very unfortunate, poor young Lady! What with a mad Husband
collapsed by debaucheries into stupor of insanity; what with a Doctor,
gradually a Prime Minister, Struensee, wretched scarecrow to look
upon, but wiser than most Danes about; and finally, with a
lynx-eyed Step-sister, whose Son, should Matilda mistake, will
inherit,--unfortunate Matilda had fallen into the awfulest troubles;
got divorced, imprisoned, would have lost her head along with
scarecrow Struensee had not her Brother George III. emphatically
intervened,--Excellency Keith, with Seventy-fours in the distance,
coming out very strong on the occasion,--and got her loose. Loose from
Danish axe and jail, at any rate; delivered into safety and solitude
at Celle in Hanover, where she now is,--and soon after suddenly dies of
fever, so closing a very sad short history.
Excellency Keith, famed in the Diplomatic circles ever since, is at
present ahead of Conway on their joint road to the Austrian Reviews.
Before giving Conway's Second Letter, let us hear Keith a little on his
kinsman the Old Marischal, whom he saw at Berlin years ago, and still
occasionally corresponds with, and mentions in his Correspondence. Keith
LOQUITUR; date is Dresden, February, 1770:--
HAS VISITED THE OLD MARISCHAL AT POTSDAM LATELY.... "My stay of three
days with Lord Marischal.... He is the most innocent of God's creatures;
and his heart is much warmer than his head. The place of his abode," I
must say, "is the very Temple of Dulness; and his Female Companion [a
poor Turk foundling, a perishing infant flung into his late Brother's
hands at the Fall of Oczakow, [Supra, vii. 82.]--whom the Marischal has
carefully brought up, and who refuses to marry away from him,--rather
stupid, not very pretty by the Portraits; must now be two-and-thirty
gone] is perfectly calculated to be the Priestess of it! Yet he
dawdles away his day in a manner not unpleasant to him; and I really am
persuaded he has a conscience that would gild the inside of a dungeon.
The feats of our bare-legged warriors in the late War [BERG-SCHOTTEN,
among whom I was a Colonel], accompanied by a PIBRACH [elegiac bagpipe
droning MORE SUO] in his outer room, have an effect on the old Don,
which would delight you." [Keith, i. 129; "Dresden, 25th February,
1770:" to his Sister in Scotland.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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