Again they iterate yells of Trenck and death.
Peace to thy anger, peace, thou suffering heart!
Nor indignant beat, adding tenfold pangs to pain.
Ye burthened limbs, arise from momentary Slumbers! Shake your chains! Murmur not, but rise!
And ye! Watch-dogs of Power! let loose your rage:
Fear not, for I am helpless, unprotected.
And yet, not so--The noble mind, within Itself, resources finds innumerable.
Thou, Oh God, thought'st good me t' imprison thus:
Thou, Oh God, in Thy good time, wilt me deliver.
Wake me then, nor fear! My soul slumbers not.
And who can say but those who fetter me, May, ere to-morrow, groan themselves in fetters!
Wake me! For lo! their sleep's less sweet than mine.
Call! Call! From night to morn, from twilight to dawn, Incessant! Yea, in God's name, Call! Call! Call!
Amen! Amen! Thy will, Oh God, be done!
Yet surely Thou at length shalt hear my sighs!
Shalt burst my prison doors! Shalt shew me fair Creation! Yea, the very heav'n of heav'ns!
With whom these orders originated, unexampled in the history even of tyranny, I shall not venture to say. The major, who was my friend, advised me to persist in not answering. I followed his advice; and it produced this good effect that we mutually forced each other to a capitulation: they restored me my bed, and I was obliged to reply.
Immediately after this regulation, the sub-governor, General Borck, my bitter enemy, became insane, was dispossessed of his post, and Lieutenant-General Reichmann, the benevolent friend of humanity, was made sub-governor.
About the same time the Court fled from Berlin, and the Queen, the Prince of Prussia, the Princess Amelia, and the Margrave Henry, chose Magdeburg for their residence. Bruckhausen grew more polite, probably perceiving I was not wholly deserted, and that it was yet possible I might obtain my freedom. The cruel are usually cowards, and there is reason to suppose Bruckhausen was actuated by his fears to treat me with greater respect.
The worthy new governor had not indeed the power to lighten my chains, or alter the general regulations; what he could, he did. If he did not command, he connived at the doors being occasionally at first, and at length, daily, kept open some hours, to admit daylight and fresh air. After a time, they were open the whole day, and only closed by the officers when they returned from their visit to Walrabe.
Having light, I began to carve, with a nail, on the pewter cup in which I drank, satirical verses and various figures, and attained so much perfection that my cups, at last, were considered as master-pieces, both of engraving and invention, and were sold dear, as rare curiosities. My first attempts were rude, as may well be imagined.
My cup was carried to town, and shown to visitors by the governor, who sent me another. I improved, and each of the inspecting officers wished to possess one. I grew more expert, and spent a whole year in this employment, which thus passed swiftly away. The perfection I had now acquired obtained me the permission of candle-light, and this continued till I was restored to freedom.
The King gave orders these cups should all be inspected by government, because I wished, by my verses and devices, to inform the world of my fate. But this command was not obeyed; the officers made merchandise of my cups, and sold them at last for twelve ducats each. Their value increased so much, when I was released from prison, that they are now to be found in various museums throughout Europe. Twelve years ago the late Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel presented one of them to my wife; and another came, in a very unaccountable manner, from the Queen-Dowager of Prussia to Paris. Ihave given prints of both these, with the verses they contained, in my works; whence it may be seen how artificially they were engraved.
A third fell into the hands of Prince Augustus Lobkowitz, then a prisoner of war at Magdeburg, who, on his return to Vienna, presented it to the Emperor, who placed it in his museum. Among other devices on this cup, was a landscape, representing a vineyard and husbandmen, and under it the following words:- By my labours my vineyard flourished, and I hoped to have gathered the fruit; but Ahab came. Alas! for Naboth.
The allusion was so pointed, both to the wrongs done me in Vienna, and my sufferings in Prussia, that it made a very strong impression on the Empress-Queen, who immediately commanded her minister to make every exertion for my deliverance. She would probably at last have even restored me to my estates, had not the possessors of them been so powerful, or had she herself lived one year longer. To these my engraved cups was I indebted for being once more remembered at Vienna. On the same cup, also, was another engraving of a bird in a cage, held by a Turk, with the following inscription:- The bird sings even in the storm; open his cage, break his fetters, ye friends of virtue, and his songs shall be the delight of your abodes!
There is another remarkable circumstance attending these cups. All were forbidden under pain of death to hold conversation with me, or to supply me with pen and ink; yet by this open permission of writing what I pleased on pewter, was I enabled to inform the world of all I wished, and to prove a man of merit was oppressed. The difficulties of this engraving will be conceived, when it is remembered that I worked by candle-light on shining pewter, attained the art of giving light and shade, and by practice could divide a cup into two-and-thirty compartments as regularly with a stroke of the hand as with a pair of compasses. The writing was so minute that it could only be read with glasses. I could use but one hand, both, being separated by the bar, and therefore held the cup between my knees. My sole instrument was a sharpened nail, yet did I write two lines on the rim only.
