This is the ton of the French nation--if they lose a battle an _epigram_ consoles them; if they are loaded with a new impost, a ballad indemnifies them. They are enlivened with a song, and the most simple and native style is always seasoned with something sarcastic and biting. ❦ [Sidenote: Frederick the Great.] Frederick was endowed with great self-possession and coolness: these were in one instance displayed, when the guards, having been promised an augmentation in their pay, which had not been attended to; they rose in a mutinous spirit, and marched towards the palace in order to obtain redress from the king himself. His Aide-de-Camp, alarmed at their approach, came to inform his royal master of the circumstance. Frederick, who was quietly writing at his desk, ordered his hat and sword, and went to the palace yard to meet them; without manifesting the least surprise he drew his sword, placing himself at their head, at the same moment giving the word of command, “_Linksum kehrt euch marsch_,”--To the left, wheel, march. Surprised by the sudden appearance of their royal master, and electrified by the energy with which this order was given, the men actually obeyed the word of command, and returned quietly to their barracks. ❦ _The Widow of Barnevelt imploring the Mercy of Maurice, Prince of Nassau, for her Son._ “I could not ask mercy for my husband--_he_ was innocent--but I implore it for my son, who _is_ guilty.” This was the observation of the widow of Barnevelt to Maurice of Nassau, when interceding for her son, who in 1624 had engaged in a conspiracy to revenge his father’s death. ❦ [Sidenote: Filial Love.] Filial love; much more, the affection of a son to a mother, where love loses its awe, and veneration is mixed with tenderness! Filial love! the _morality of instinct_, the _sacrament of nature and duty_; or rather miscalled a _duty_, for it flows from the heart without effort, and is its delight, its indulgence, its enjoyment. It is guided, not by the slow dictates of reason; it awaits not encouragement from reflection or from thought; it asks no aid of memory; it is not innate, but active consciousness of having been the object of a thousand tender solicitudes, a thousand waking watchful cares, of meek anxiety and patient sacrifices, unremarked and unrequited by the object. It is a gratitude founded upon a conviction of obligations, not remembered because conferred before the tender reason could acknowledge, or the infant memory record them: a gratitude and affection which no circumstances should subdue, and which few can strengthen. A gratitude in which even injury from the object, though it may blunt regret, should never breed resentment--an affection, which can be increased only by the decay of those to whom we owe it; and which is then most fervent when the tremulous voice of age, resistless in its feebleness, inquires for the natural protection of its cold decline.”