Chapter II.

DEATH OF GEORGE I.

Gibraltar still keeps sputtering; ardent ineffectual bombardment
from the one side, sulky, heavy blast of response now and then
from the other: but the fire does not spread; nor will, we may
hope. It is true, Sweden and Denmark have joined the Treaty of
Hanover, this spring; and have troops on foot, and money paid
them; But George is pacific; Gibraltar is impregnable; let the
Spaniards spend their powder there.

As for the Kaiser, he is dreadfully poor; inapt for battle
himself. And in the end of this same May, 1727, we hear, his
principal ally, Czarina Catherine, has died;--poor brown little
woman, Lithuanian housemaid, Russian Autocrat, it is now all one;
--dead she, and can do nothing. Probably the Kaiser will sit
still? The Kaiser sits still; with eyes bent on Gibraltar, or
rolling in graud Imperial inquiry and anxiety round the world;
war-outlooks much dimmed for him since the end of May.

Alas, in the end of June, what far other Job's-post is this that
reaches Berlin and Queen Sophie? That George I., her royal Father,
has suddenly sunk dead! With the Solstice, or Summer pause of the
Sun, 21st or 22d June, almost uncertain which, the Majesty of
George I. did likewise pause,--in his carriage, on the road to
Osnabruck,--never to move more. Whereupon, among the simple