"From want of memory, and of opportunities to see oftener and longer the Greatest Man that ever existed [Oh, MON PRINCE!], I am obliged to stop. There is not a word in all this but was his own; and those who have seen him will recognize his manner. All I want is, to make him known to those who have not had the happiness to see him. His eyes are too hard in the Portraits: by work in the Cabinet, and the hardships of War, they had become intense, and of piercing quality; but they softened finely in hearing, or telling, some trait of nobleness or sensibility. Till his death, and but quite shortly before it,--notwithstanding many levities which he knew I had allowed myself, both in speaking and writing, and which he surely attributed only to my duty as opposed to my interest,--he deigned to honor me with marks of his remembrance; and has often commissioned his Ministers, at Paris and at Vienna, to assure me of his good-will. "I no longer believe in earthquakes and eclipses at Caesar's death, since there has been nothing of such at that of Friedrich the Great. I know not, Sire, whether great phenomena of Nature will announce the day when you shall cease to reign [great phenomena must be very idle if they do, your Highness!]--but it is a phenomenon in the world, that of a King who rules a Republic by making himself obeyed and respected for his own sake, as much as by his rights" (Hear, hear). [Prince de Ligne, _Memoires et Melanges,_ i. 22-40.] Prince de Ligne thereupon hurries off for Petersburg, and the final Section of his Kaiser's Visit. An errand of his own, too, the Prince had,--about his new Daughter-in-law Massalska, and claims of extensive Polish Properties belonging to her. He was the charm of Petersburg and the Czarina; but of the Massalska Properties could retrieve nothing whatever. The munificent Czarina gave him "a beautiful Territory in the Crim," instead; and invited him to come and see it with her, on his Kaiser's next Visit (1787, the aquatic Visit and the highly scenic). Which it is well known the Prince did; and has put on record, in his pleasant, not untrue, though vague, high-colored and fantastic way,--if it or he at all concerned us farther. HOW GENERAL VON DER MARWITZ, IN EARLY BOYHOOD, SAW FRIEDRICH THE GREAT THREE TIMES (1782-1785).