it lies all now, to Jordan and us, not withered only, but
abolished; compressed into a film of indiscriminate PEAT.
Consider what that peat is made of, O celebrated or uncelebrated
reader, and take a moral from Jordan's Book! Other merit, except
indeed clearness and commendable brevity, the Voyage
Litteraire or other little Books of Jordan's have not
now. A few of his Letters to Friedrich, which exist, are the only
writings with the least life left in them, and this an accidental
life, not momentous to him or us. Dryasdust informs me, "Abbe
Jordan, alone of the Crown-Prince's cavaliers, sleeps in the Town
of Reinsberg, not in the Schloss:" and if I ask, Why?--there is
no answer. Probably his poor little Daughterkin was beside
him there?--

We have to say of Friedrich's Associates, that generally they were
of intelligent type, each of them master of something or other,
and capable of rational discourse upon that at least. Integrity,
loyalty of character, was indispensable; good humor, wit if it
could be had, were much in request. There was no man of shining
distinction there; but they were the best that could be had, and
that is saying all. Friedrich cannot be said, either as Prince or
as King, to have been superlatively successful in his choice of
associates. With one single exception, to be noticed shortly,
there is not one of them whom we should now remember except for
Friedrich's sake;--uniformly they are men whom it is now a
weariness to hear of, except in a cursory manner. One man of
shining parts he had, and one only; no man ever of really high and
great mind. The latter sort are not so easy to get; rarely
producible on the soil of this Earth! Nor is it certain how
Friedrich might have managed with one of this sort, or he with