were a passion of the King, which in his latter years amounted almost to madness, and for which he forgot his family, justice, honour, conscience, and what had stood highest with him all his life, the advantage of his State. They were his dear blue children; he was perfectly acquainted with each individual; took a lively interest in their personal concerns, and tolerated long speeches and dry answers from them. It was difficult for a civilian to obtain justice against these favourites, and they were with good reason feared by the people. Wherever in any part of Europe a tall man was to be found, the King traced him out, and secured him either by bounty or force for his guard. There was the giant Mueller, who had shown himself in Paris and London for money--two groschen a person--he was the fourth or fifth in the line; still taller was Jonas, a smith's journeyman from Norway; then the Prussian Hohmann, whose head King Augustus of Poland,--though a man of fine stature--could not reach with his outstretched hand; finally later there was James Kirckland, an Irishman, whom the Prussian Ambassador Von Borke had carried off by force from England, and on account of whom diplomatic intercourse was nearly broken off; he had cost the King about nine thousand thalers. They were collected together from every vocation of life, adventurers of the worst kind, students, Roman Catholic priests, monks, and even some noblemen stood in rank and file. The Crown Prince Frederic, in his letters to his confidential friends, spoke often with aversion and scorn of this passion of the King, but he had inherited it to a certain extent, and the Prussian army have not yet ceased to take pride in it. It extended to other princes also, especially to such as were attached to the Hohenzollerns, the Dessauers, and Brunswickers. In 1806, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, who was mortally wounded at Auerstadt, carried on a systematic dealing in men for his regiment at Halberstadt; in his own company the first rank were six foot, and the smallest man was five foot nine; all the companies were taller than the first regiment of guards is now. But in other armies also there was somewhat of this predilection. At the end of the last century, an able Saxon officer lamented that the first and tallest regiment in the Saxon army could not measure with the smallest of the Prussians.[6]