Oxford, he facetiously remarked, "If I am a doctor, here is my pill-maker," placing his hand on Gneisenau's head,--which was a frank acknowledgment that few men would have been able to make. Gneisenau was fifty-three when he became associated with Bluecher, and he was fifty-five when he acted with him in 1815. In 1831 he was appointed to an important command, being then seventy-one. The celebrated Scharnhorst, Gneisenau's predecessor, and to whom the Prussians owed so much, was in his fifty-seventh year when he died of the wounds he had received at the Battle of Luetzen. There are some European generals whom it is difficult to class, as they showed great capacity and won great victories as well in age as in youth. Prince Eugene was one of these, and Frederick of Prussia was another. Eugene showed high talent when very young, and won the first of his grand victories over the Turks at thirty-four; but it was not so splendid an affair as that of Belgrade, which he won at fifty-four. He was forty-three when he defeated the French at Turin, under circumstances and with incidents that took attention even from Marlborough, whom he subsequently aided to gain the victories of Oudenarde and Malplaquet, as he had previously aided him at Blenheim. At seventy-one Eugene led an Austrian army against the French; and though no battle was fought, his conduct showed that he had not lost his capacity for command. Frederick began his military life when in his thirtieth year, and was actively engaged until thirty-three, showing striking ability on several occasions, though he began badly, according to his own admission. But it was in the Seven Years' War that his fame as a soldier was won, and that contest began when he was in his forty-fifth year. He was close upon forty-six when he gained the Battles of Rossbach and Leuthen. Whatever opinion others may entertain as to his age, it is certain that he counted himself an old man in those days. Writing to the Marquis d'Argens, a few days before he was forty-eight, he said, "In my old age I have come down almost to be a theatrical king"; and not two years later he wrote to the same friend, "I have sacrificed my youth to my father, and my manhood to my fatherland. I think, therefore, I have acquired the right to my old age." He reckoned by trials and events, and he had gone through enough to have aged any man. Those were the days when he carried poison on his person, in order that, should he be completely beaten, or captured, he might not adorn Maria Theresa's triumph, but end his life "after the high Roman fashion." When the question of the Bavarian succession threatened to lead to another war with Austria, Frederick's action, though he was in his sixty-seventh year, showed, to use the homely language of the English soldier at St. Helena when Napoleon arrived at that famous watering place, that he had many campaigns in his belly yet. The youthful Emperor, Joseph II., would have been no match for the old