Much a laughing-stock to this King hitherto, such a "War of the Confederates,"--consisting of the noisiest, emptiest bedlam tumults, seasoned by a proportion of homicide, and a great deal of battery and arson. But now, with a Russian-Turk War springing from it, or already sprung, there are quite serious aspects rising amid the laughable. By Treaty, this War is to cost the King either a 12,000 of Auxiliaries to the Czarina, or a 72,000 pounds (480,000 thalers) annually; [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 13.]--which latter he prefers to pay her, as the alternative: not an agreeable feature at all; but by no means the worst feature. Suppose it lead to Russian conquests on the Turk, to Austrian complicacies, to one knows not what, and kindle the world round one again! In short, we can believe Friedrich was very willing to stand well with next-door neighbors at present, and be civil to Austria and its young Kaiser's civilities. FIRST INTERVIEW BETWEEN FRIEDRICH AND KAISER JOSEPH (Neisse, 25th-28th August, 1769). In 1766, the young Kaiser, who has charge of the Military Department, and of little else in the Government, and is already a great traveller, and enthusiastic soldier, made a pilgrimage over the Bohemian and Saxon Battle-fields of the Seven-Years War. On some of them, whether on all I do not know, he set up memorial-stones; one of which you still see on the field of Lobositz;--of another on Prag field, and of reverent salutation by Artillery to the memory of Schwerin there, we heard long ago. Coming to Torgau on this errand, the Kaiser, through his Berlin Minister, had signified his "particular desire to make acquaintance with the King in returning;" to which the King was ready with the readiest;--only that Kaunitz and the Kaiserinn, in the interim, judged it improper, and stopped it. "The reported Interview is not to take place," Friedrich warns the Newspapers; "having been given up, though only from courtesy, on some points of ceremonial." ["FRIEDRICH TO ONE OF HIS FOREIGN AMBASSADORS" (the common way of announcing in Newspapers): Preuss, iv. 22 n.]