manage. So soon as the Drawcansir equipments are well torn off,
and the shilling-gallery got to silence, it will be found that
there were great kings before Napoleon,--and likewise an Art of
War, grounded on veracity and human courage and insight, not upon
Drawcansir rodomontade, grandiose Dick-Turpinism, revolutionary
madness, and unlimited expenditure of men and gunpowder. "You may
paint with a very big brush, and yet not be a great painter,"
says a satirical friend of mine! This is becoming more and more
apparent, as the dust-whirlwind, and huge uproar of the last
generation, gradually dies away again.


2. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

One of the grand difficulties in a History of Friedrich is, all
along, this same, That he lived in a Century which has no History
and can have little or none. A Century so opulent in accumulated
falsities,--sad opulence descending on it by inheritance, always
at compound interest, and always largely increased by fresh
acquirement on such immensity of standing capital;--opulent in
that bad way as never Century before was! Which had no longer the
consciousness of being false, so false had it grown; and was so
steeped in falsity, and impregnated with it to the very bone,
that--in fact the measure of the thing was full, and a French
Revolution had to end it. To maintain much veracity in such an
element, especially for a king, was no doubt doubly remarkable.
But now, how extricate the man from his Century? How show the
man, who is a Reality worthy of being seen, and yet keep his
Century, as a Hypocrisy worthy of being hidden and forgotten,
in the due abeyance?