"The New Palace at Potsdam is extremely noble. Not so perfect, perhaps, in point of taste, but better than I had been led to expect. The King dislikes living there; never does, except when there is high Company about him; for seven or eight months in the year, he prefers Little Sans-Souci, and freedom among his intimates and some of his Generals. ... His Music still takes up a great share of the King's time. On a table in his Cabinet there, I saw, Ibelieve, twenty boxes with a German flute in each; in his Bed-chamber, twice as many boxes of Spanish snuff; and, alike in Cabinet and in Bed-chamber, three arm-chairs in a row for three favorite dogs, each with a little stool by way of step, that the getting up might be easy. ...
"The Town of Potsdam is a most extraordinary and, in its appearance, beautiful Town; all the streets perfectly straight, all at right angles to each other; and all the houses built with handsome, generally elegant fronts. ... He builds for everybody who has a bad or a small house, even the lowest mechanic. He has done the same at Berlin." Altogether, his Majesty's building operations are astonishing. And "from whence does this money come, after a long expensive War? It is all fairyland and enchantment,"--MAGNUMVECTIGAL PARSIMONIA, in fact! ... "At Berlin here, I saw the Porcelain Manufacture to-day, which is greatly improved. I leave presently. Adieu, dear Brother; excuse my endless Letter [since you cannot squeeze the water out of it, as some will!]--Yours most sincerely,"HENRY SEYMOUR CONWAY."Keith is now Minister at Dresden for some years back; and has, among other topics, much to say of our brilliant friend the Electress there: but his grand Diplomatic feat was at Copenhagen, on a sudden sally out thither (in 1771): [In KEITH, i. 152 &c., nothing of intelligible Narrative given, hardly the date discoverable.] the saving of Queen Matilda, youngest Sister of George Third, from a hard doom. Unfortunate Queen Matilda;one never knows how guilty, or whether guilty at all, but she was very unfortunate, poor young Lady! What with a mad Husband collapsed by debaucheries into stupor of insanity; what with a Doctor, gradually a Prime Minister, Struensee, wretched scarecrow to look upon, but wiser than most Danes about; and finally, with a lynx-eyed Step-sister, whose Son, should Matilda mistake, will inherit,--unfortunate Matilda had fallen into the awfulest troubles; got divorced, imprisoned, would have lost her head along with scarecrow Struensee had not her Brother George III.
emphatically intervened,--Excellency Keith, with Seventy-fours in the distance, coming out very strong on the occasion,--and got her loose. Loose from Danish axe and jail, at any rate; delivered into safety and solitude at Celle in Hanover, where she now is,--and soon after suddenly dies of fever, so closing a very sad short history.
Excellency Keith, famed in the Diplomatic circles ever since, is at present ahead of Conway on their joint road to the Austrian Reviews. Before giving Conway's Second Letter, let us hear Keith a little on his kinsman the Old Marischal, whom he saw at Berlin years ago, and still occasionally corresponds with, and mentions in his Correspondence. Keith LOQUITUR; date is Dresden, February, 1770:--HAS VISITED THE OLD MARISCHAL AT POTSDAM LATELY. ... "My stay of three days with Lord Marischal. ... He is the most innocent of God's creatures; and his heart is much warmer than his head. The place of his abode," I must say, "is the very Temple of Dulness;and his Female Companion [a poor Turk foundling, a perishing infant flung into his late Brother's hands at the Fall of Oczakow, [Supra, vii. 82.]--whom the Marischal has carefully brought up, and who refuses to marry away from him,--rather stupid, not very pretty by the Portraits; must now be two-and-thirty gone] is perfectly calculated to be the Priestess of it! Yet he dawdles away his day in a manner not unpleasant to him; and I really am persuaded he has a conscience that would gild the inside of a dungeon. The feats of our bare-legged warriors in the late War [BERG-SCHOTTEN, among whom I was a Colonel], accompanied by a PIBRACH [elegiac bagpipe droning MORE SUO] in his outer room, have an effect on the old Don, which would delight you." [Keith, i. 129; "Dresden, 25th February, 1770:"to his Sister in Scotland.]
AND THEN SEEN HIM IN BERLIN, ON THE SAME OCCASION. ...
