of events; it is sufficient to state that by untiring diligence through twelve years, success was obtained. Nearly all the Protestant states of Europe had given their consent, and on the 19th of January, 1701, Frederick placed the crown on his own head, and took rank accordingly as King of Prussia.

Frederic 1. had, before his assumption of the crown, married a second wife, Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, daughter of Ernest Augustus, afterwards George 1,, and sister of George II., kings of England. This truly great woman was rather depressed than elevated by her change of title from Electress to Queen. Instructed by travel, admired for her personal beauty and for genius which raised her to a higher sphere than a throne, she introduced polished manners into the Court of Berlin, far above what prevailed there before her marriage, and formed around her love of letters, science, and arts, In a word, the simple fact of her being not simply the friend, but the scientific friend, of Liebnitz, the rival of Newton, decides the exalted character of Sophia Charlotte. Among the other sex she had few, and among her own sex no equal then on earth. Four years after the coronation of her husband in 1705, Sophia paid a visit to Hanover, where she ended her days in the bosom of her family. Frederick honored her memory by splendid obsequies-her real loss he was incapable to appreciate. The contrast was, indeed, so striking as to sink below its proper level the character of William I. Thongh vain and ostentatious, there was a foundation of political sagacity in his mind. The vassal dependence on the empire or rather on Austria, if not entirely removed, was rendered nominal after Frederick assumed the crown.

There was, however, more apparent enlargement of the new kingdom than what arose from the mere influence of its title. The county of Lingen, as part of the dependencies of Nassau Orange, fell to Prussia at the death of William III., 1702. Tecklenberg, in Wesphalia, was acquired in 1707. But in the same year Prussia obtained by purchase the most remarkable of its acquisitions. This was the united territories of Neufchatel and Valengin, between France and Switzerland, and one hundred and fifty miles from any other Prussian province. This most singular province of Prussia is also a canton of Switzerland, and thus an anomaly in Eu. ropean geography and policy, as connected polity with a monarchy and republic,

having no mutual dependence on each other.

The administrative ability of Frederick I. was shown in an honorable light in the war which distracted Northern Europe during nearly the whole of his reign. To preserve the peace of his scattered territories, exposed at so many points to attack, when threatened by such neighbors as Charles XII. of Sweden, and Peter the Great of Russia, demanded talents and prudence of a very high order. Freder ic 11., his grandson, for reasons history has not revealed, contributed in his Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, to depreciate the character of Frederic I., by representations very much at variance with the facts. There was a disposition evinced by the first king of Prussia to place more attention on show than was to the taste of either his son or grandson, and more, perhaps, than show was ever worth; but there must have been a mass of solid gold below the dross. Be that as it may, with all his extravagance, Frederic I., on the 25th of February, 1713, at his death, left a kingdom with all the germs of power unimpaired, and about a year before his demise saw the infant face of that grandson which was destined to give such lustre to his family and kingdom.

If there was ever a contrast more strong than any other between either his father or his son, such a contrast was shown between Frederic William I., and Frederic I. and II. An observation may be here premised, that the immense superiority of Frederic the Great was prejudicial to the characters of both his predeces

sors.

Frederic William, mature of years when the sceptre was placed in his hands-with a temperament in an extraordinary degree stern, rough, and unamiable. The amenities of life, and the improvement of the human mind by education, he not simply held in contempt, but seemed to regard with hate. Men of letters fled his presence, and the most eminent of them, Wolf, was actually banished. Yet this man, by a truly singular coincidence, had in another semi-barbarian, Peter I. of Russia, the only cotemporary monarch to whom he could be compared as an administrator of government, to secure and enhance national prosperity. To do real justice to Frederic William I., he ought to be contrasted with George I. and II. of England, and with Louis XV. of France. Under Frederic William the new kingdom

annually increased in strength. Economy in every branch public and domestic was pushed to parsimony, except in what regarded the military. An army of seventy thousand disciplined troops, and all the other attendant military arrangements and material were the fruits, and consolidated the throne. Stettin, a part of Guelderland, Kessel, and Limbourg, were annexed to Prussia. A treaty with Charles XII. of Sweden secured to his power that part of Pomerania, between the Oder and Peene, and Frederic William saw himself and kingdom treated with marked respect at the Conferences of Utrecht and Ras

tadt.

In the interior administration this king, so generally regarded as little above a savage, gave every encouragement in his power to agriculture and commerce. In 1733, in the twentieth year of his reign, the manufactures of the kingdom were so flourishing, that large quantities of woollen cloth were exported, as were lace, velvets, goldsmiths' work and carriages.

While thus securing the means, the main bent of Frederic William was military. Berlin resembled an immense arsenal, where every necessary branch of military preparation was in activity, and arms and warlike supplies became so abundant as to become objects of export. An orphan asylum was created for the reception of three thousand children of the military, and in its organization reigned that rigid order which characterized every institution under the influence of this monarch. Avaricious in everything else, his determination to give efficiency to his army, induced him to disregard expense to secure that object.

With a fixed plan to raise and complete in every respect, an army of seventy thousand men, Frederic William swerved not, and more than accomplished his object. Strange as it may seem, he was not endowed, except as to personal courage, with any attribute of a great general. By his tastes, narrow views in too many respects, and his obstinate prejudices, he stood an obstacle to intellectual improvement. But if his views were not grand they were useful. His excessive economy had, if not a full, at least a reasonable excuse, in the circumstances under which he was placed. His common sense was strong, and his sense of honesty and integrity unbending, and evinced in every act of his life. In his "Memoirs of Twenty Years' Residence at Berlin," Thiebault gives an instance of the inflex

ibility of Frederick William in money transactions, which affords a true picture of the man.

"One of the Receivers of Public Money at Königsberg, having in his hands a considerable amount of money for which he did not expect an immediate demand, drew from the strong box a sum of two thousand crowns, and put in its place his own obligation for prompt reimbursement. The king unexpectedly arrived, discovered the deficit, and though the officer was rich, and ready to replace the money, and though a man of unimpeach able integrity, he was tried, condemned, and executed." This was certainly extending justice to the borders of cruelty, to speak as mildly as the case admits; but we read no more of inroads on the deposits during the residue of the reign of Frederic William.

Time was advancing and an immensely superior genius was rising to use to effect, beyond all human foresight, the element for peace and war amassed by the second king of Prussia. Frederic William was only Prince Royal when, on the 24th of January, 1712, his princess, Maria Dorothy of Zell, presented to him that infant, Charles Frederic, whose name stands enrolled undoubtedly among the greatest of the children of men.

We may close our notice of the father briefly, before entering on that of the son. In fact, from what has been already stated, it must be evident that the policy and labors of Frederic William were employed in preparation rather than present use, and that, in sketching that policy and describing those labors we have already given the most important acts of that king. During the twenty years which followed the death of Frederic I., the internal affairs of Prussia were but little influenced by the neighboring states, and the hero of the succeeding age was left to rise in silence to manhood, under circumstances we shall more particularly descant upon in another article. On the 1st February, 1733, the king of distracted Poland, Augustus II., died, and left the nation, as had been the case for centuries, in a state of confusion. The son of the defunct monarch, was only one of the competitors for the crown of thorns. A party in Poland attempted to restore Stanislaus, the creature of Charles XII. of Sweden, thirty years before-an accomplished man as a private noble, and father-in-law to the king of France, but now advanced far in life, and long de