FREDERICK THE GREAT.
A.D. 1712-1786.
“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.”
