ONE:Though Fritz wrote a legible business hand, was well instructed in most points of useful knowledge, and had a very decided taste for elegant literature, he never attained correctness in spelling. The father was bitterly opposed to Latin. Perhaps it was the prohibition which inspired the son with an intense desire to learn that language. He took secret lessons. His vigilant father38 caught him in the very act, with dictionary and grammar, and a teacher by his side. The infuriated king, volleying forth his rage, would have caned the teacher had he not in terror fled.5THE LAST REVIEW.
FORE:Frederick had seen many dark days before, but never one so dark as this. In the frenzy of his exertions to retrieve the lost battle, he cried out to his soldiers, his eyes being flooded with tears, Children, do not forsake me, your king, your father, in this pinch! The retreat became a flight. In endeavoring to cross the little stream called the Hen-Floss, there was such crowding and jamming at the bridges that the Prussians were compelled to leave one hundred and sixty-five guns of various calibre behind them. Had the Russians pursued with any vigor, scarcely a man of the Prussian army could have escaped. But General Soltikof stood in such fear of his opponent, who had often wrested victory out of defeat, that he attempted no pursuit.
FORE:In October, 1723, when the prince was eleven years of age, his grandfather, George I., came to Berlin to visit his daughter and his son-in-law, the mother and father of Fritz. From the windows of his apartment he looked out with much interest upon Fritz, drilling his cadet company upon the esplanade in front of the palace. The clock-work precision of the movements of the boy soldiers greatly surprised him.
FORE:The kings desire always was and is that every body, be he high or low, rich or poor, get prompt justice. Wherefore, in respect to this most unjust sentence against the miller Arnold, pronounced in the Neumark, and confirmed here in Berlin, his majesty will establish an emphatic example, to the end that all559 the courts of justice in the kings provinces may take warning thereby, and not commit the like glaring unjust acts. For let them bear in mind that the least peasant, yea, what is still more, that even a beggar, is, no less than his majesty, a human being, and one to whom due justice must be meted out. All men being equal before the law, if it is a prince complaining against a peasant, or vice versa, the prince is the same as the peasant before the law.The prospects of Frederick were now gloomy. The bright morning of the campaign had darkened into a stormy day. The barren region around afforded no supplies. The inhabitants were all Catholics; they hated the heretics. Inspired by their priests, they fled from their dwellings, taking with them or destroying every thing which could aid the Prussian army. But most annoying of all, the bold, sagacious chieftain, General Bathyani, with hordes of Pandours which could not be countedhorsemen who seemed to have the vitality and endurance of centaurswas making deadly assaults upon every exposed point.
