“Kings are like stars,—they rise and set, they have The worship of the world, but no repose.”—SHELLEY. “A man’s a man; But when you see a king, you see the work Of many thousand men.”—GEORGE ELIOT. CARLYLE accused Schiller of “oversetting fact, disregarding reality, and tumbling time and space topsy-turvy.” That there is great danger of doing the latter, in condensing such a life as that of Frederick the Great into the small space allotted to these sketches, cannot be denied; but fiction itself could scarcely overstate the facts connected with this weird but most fascinating glimpse of historical events. Carlyle says: “With such wagon-loads of books and printed records as exist on the subject of Frederick, it has always seemed possible, even for a stranger, to acquire some real understanding of him; though practically, here and now, I have to own it proves difficult beyond conception. Alas! the books are not cosmic; they are chaotic.” [Illustration: FREDERICK II., KING OF PRUSSIA, ÆT. 58.] True it is, it is not want of material, but the overwhelming multiplicity of documents, which renders it difficult to trace out a clear-cut sketch of Frederick the Great; and that we may do it more concisely, and yet entertainingly, a series of panoramic pictures will perhaps be the best method of achieving the desired end. “About one hundred years ago there used to be seen sauntering on the terraces of Sans Souci for a short time in the afternoon—or you might have met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a rapid business manner on the open roads, or through the scraggy woods and avenues of that intricate, amphibious Potsdam region—a highly interesting, lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping figure, whose name among strangers was _King Friedrich the Second_, or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, who much loved and esteemed him, was _Vater Fritz_, Father Fred. “He is a king, every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king. He presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture: no crown but an old military cocked hat, generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute softness if new; no sceptre but one like Agamemnon’s—a walking-stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick; and for royal robes a mere soldier’s blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or cut, ending in high over-knee military boots, which may be brushed, but are not permitted to be blackened or varnished.