After dinner the Dss. desired I would join her to pass the eve. at Mde. Deodati’s, a dull card assembly. The weather was very hot. Poor Drew fell ill, and kept his bed; a fever and spasms. On Thursday we dined again at Court. In the evening went to the French comedy: a very pretty theatre; afterwards to Mr. Des Arte, merely to please Mr. Kinnaird, who is living with him. Mr. Ridley, a good-humoured young man, K.’s fellow-traveller. On Friday received another invitation to dine at Court; I wrote a letter of acknowledgment and apology to the good Duchess. Drew was better, and we set off to Helmstadt. On the right-hand side of the road a building with four painted towers, which belies its warlike appearance, as it is nominally the seat of peace and bliss--a convent; tho’ in fact hatred and discord sojourn chiefly within such walls, and Ariosto was scarcely satiric when he makes the angel seek discord in a monastery. Upon second thoughts I believe he sought indolence, not discord. He might, however, have named both; one is suspended only by the other. The first night was spent at Helmstadt, the second at Magdeburg. ‘Magdeburg is the frontier town on Prussian territory. It was sacked by the barbarous Tilly at the beginning of the bloody wars under Gustavus Adolphus, and it has since afforded a prison to La Fayette, who lived a year in the citadel, before he was transferred to a more rigorous jailor, the Emperor.’ Zefur, their next halt. ‘We went to the worst inn, where we were abominably cheated and abominably lodged.’ They reached Potsdam at one o’clock the next night. We went to the Palaces. I saw them about four years ago, but as they are very fine I did not dislike another visit to them. The Great Palace contains rooms as superb as any in Versailles, and may vie with those at Rome and Genoa. Sans Souci, the retreat of Frederick, is a delightful habitation. His apartment is entire: his private library (consisting solely of French books) is untouched. In his bedroom the only picture is a portrait of Gustavus Adolphus; in an adjoining room a bronze bust of Charles XII. of Sweden. I paid my homage to the apartment of Voltaire. He occupied it many years, until he capriciously quarrelled with his Royal patron. [Sidenote: SANS SOUCI] Close by the windows of Frederick’s private apartments are the monuments of his dogs--large flat stones with their names simply inscribed upon them. Near is a space he allotted to himself, as he desired to be interred amidst these barking favourites; but his successor wisely disobeyed the injunction, and gave the atheistical Monarch Christian burial. Marsh was furious. I thought the profanation of giving the form of tombstone was the provocation, or the marked contempt of sacred rites in desiring to be buried in the centre of his dogs, but I suspect his anger proceeded from some other cause, his marked preference for those animals above his fellow creatures.