was not a busier King in those days, if perhaps a better directed.
It is a thing wonderful to us, but sorrowful and undeniable.
We perceive the Britannic Majesty's own little mind pulsing with
this Pragmatic Matter, as the biggest volcano would do;--shooting
forth dust and smoke (subsidies, diplomatic emissaries, treaties,
offers of treaty, plans, foolish futile exertions), at an immense
rate. When the Celestial Balances are canting, a man ought to exert
himself. But as to this of saving the House of Austria from
France,--surely, your Britannic Majesty, the shortest way to that,
if that is so indispensable, were: That the House of Austria should
consent to give up its stolen goods, better late than never; and to
make this King of Prussia its friend, as he offers to be! Joined
with this King, it would manage to give account of France and its
balloon projects, by and by. Could your Britannic Majesty but take
Mr. Viner's hint; and, in the interim, mind your OWN business!--
His Britannic Majesty intends immediate fighting; and, both in
England and Hanover, is making preparation loud and great. Nay, he
will in his own person fight, if necessary, and rather likes the
thought of it: he saw Oudenarde in his young days; and, I am told,
traces in himself a talent for Generalship. Were the Britannic
Majesty to draw his own puissant sword!-His own puissant purse he
has already drawn; and is subsidizing to right and left; knocking
at all doors with money in hand, and the question, "Any fighting
done here?" In England itself there goes on much drilling,
enlisting; camping, proposing to camp; which is noisy enough in the
British Newspapers, much more in the Foreign. One actual Camp there
was "on Lexden Heath near Colchester," from May till October of
this 1741, [Manifold but insignificant details about it, in the old
Newspapers of those Months.]--Camp waiting always to be shipped
across to the scene of action, but never was:--this actual Camp,