Laudohn, eager to improve his victory, besieged Glatz and took it. He was of a nature not to stop in the career of success. The King trembled for Silesia; while, at the same time, he was kept in check by Daun’s superior force. He had no longer leisure to temporize. By a secret and rapid march he crossed the Elbe before the Marshal had notice of his departure. But Daun, however wary, was not dilatory. He followed the King with an expedition which, being assisted by having a shorter cut to make, soon gave him the start of his Majesty. This was the point at which the King had pushed. When he found that the Marshal was advanced before him by a march of two days, the King turned suddenly back, and, while he was supposed on the borders of Silesia, appeared before the walls of Dresden. He commenced the siege with ardour; for it would admit of no delay. The glory of outwitting Daun was all the fruit reaped by this stratagem; and, unless the King flattered himself with a prospect of carrying Dresden by surprise or storm, his manœuvre was, in his circumstances, a puerile stratagem, a game of generalship not adequate to the crisis of his fortune. It seemed one of those vainglorious littlenesses which too often entered into his composition. The same mistaken appetite of applause tempted him in this very campaign to publish his poems; a superficial medley, ungrateful to the Deity that had given him such talents, and who had not given him a genius for poetry. Achilles was a subject for Pindar’s lyre, but could not strike it like Pindar.