And now we must hang up the picture of Frederick the grandfather, for there has another Frederick come to claim our attention. “Courage, poor old grandfather! Poor old man! he got his own back half broken by a careless nurse letting him fall, and has slightly stooped ever since, much against his will, for he would fain have been beautiful. But here is a new edition of a Frederick, the first having gone off with so little effect. This one’s back is still unbroken. Who knows but Heaven may be kinder to this one? Heaven was much kinder to this one. Him Heaven had kneaded of a more potent stuff; a mighty fellow, this one, and a strange; of a swift, far-darting nature this one, like an Apollo clad in sunbeams and in lightnings, and with a back which all the world could not succeed in breaking.” Between the old grandfather and this famous Frederick there hangs the picture of still another Frederick, only a little less famous,—Frederick Wilhelm, crown prince of Prussia when his famous son was born, afterwards second king of Prussia, and withal most ferocious in his nature, part bear and part maniac; his picture is thus graphically sketched. “The new monarch, who assumed the crown with the title of Frederick William, not with that of Frederick II., to the utter consternation of the court dismissed nearly every honorary official of the palace, from the highest dignitary to the humblest page. His flashing eye and determined manner were so appalling that no one ventured to remonstrate. A clean sweep was made, so that the household was reduced to the lowest footing of economy consistent with the supply of indispensable wants. Eight servants were retained at six shillings a week. His father had thirty pages; all were dismissed but three. There were one thousand saddle-horses in the royal stables; Frederick William kept thirty. Three-fourths of the names were struck from the pension list. For twenty-seven years this strange man reigned. He was like no other monarch. Great wisdom and shrewdness were blended with unutterable folly and almost maniacal madness. Though a man of strong powers of mind, he was very illiterate. ‘For spelling, grammar, penmanship, and composition, his semi-articulate papers resemble nothing else extant,—are as if done by the paw of a bear; indeed, the utterance generally sounds more like the growling of a bear than anything that could be handily spelled or parsed. But there is a decisive human sense in the heart of it, and such a dire hatred of empty bladders, unrealities, and hypocritical forms and pretenses, which he calls wind and humbug, as is very strange indeed.’ “His energy inspired the whole kingdom, and paved the way for the achievements of his son. The father created the machine with which the son attained such wonderful results. He commuted the old feudal service into a fixed money payment. He goaded the whole realm into industry, compelling even the apple-women to knit at the stalls.