History of Friedrich II of Prussia, appendix | Page 4

Fromme riding swiftly at the left wheel of Friedrich's
carriage, and loudly answering questions of his, all day.--Directly on
getting home, Fromme consulted his excellent memory, and wrote
down everything; a considerable Paper, --of which you shall now have
an exact Translation, if it be worth anything. Fromme gave the Paper to
Uncle Gleim; who, in his enthusiasm, showed it extensively about, and
so soon as there was liberty, had it "printed, at his own expense, for the
benefit of poor soldiers' children." ["Gleim's edition, brought out in
1786, the year of Friedrich's death, is now quite gone,--the Book
undiscoverable. But the Paper was reprinted in an ANEKDOTEN-
SAMMLUNG (Collection of Anecdotes, Berlin, 1787, 8tes STUCK,
where I discover it yesterday (17th July, 1852) in a copy of mine, much
to my surprise; having before met with it in one Hildebrandt's
ANEKDOTEN-SAMMLUNG (Halberstadt, 1830, 4tes STUCK, a
rather slovenly Book), where it is given out as one of the rarest of all
rarities, and as having been specially 'furnished by a Dr. W. Korte,'
being unattainable otherwise! The two copies differ slightly here and
there,--not always to Dr. Korte's advantage, or rather hardly ever. I
keep them both before me in translating" (MARGINALE OF 1852).
"The RHYN" or Rhin, is a little river, which, near its higher clearer
sources, we were all once well acquainted with: considerable little
moorland river, with several branches coming down from Ruppin
Country, and certain lakes and plashes there, in a southwest direction,
towards the Elbe valley, towards the Havel Stream; into which latter,
through another plash or lake called GULPER SEE, and a few miles

farther, into the Elbe itself, it conveys, after a course of say 50 English
miles circuitously southwest, the black drainings of those dreary and
intricate Peatbog-and-Sand countries. "LUCH," it appears, signifies
LOCH (or Hole, Hollow); and "Rhyn-Luch" will mean, to Prussian ears,
the Peatbog Quagmire drained by the RHYN.--New Ruppin, where this
beautiful black Stream first becomes considerable, and of steadily black
complexion, lies between 40 and 50 miles northwest of Berlin. Ten or
twelve miles farther north is REINSBERG (properly RHYNSBERG),
where Friedrich as Crown-Prince lived his happiest few years. The
details of which were familiar to us long ago,--and no doubt dwell clear
and soft, in their appropriate "pale moonlight," in Friedrich's memory
on this occasion. Some time after his Accession, he gave the place to
Prince Henri, who lived there till 1802. It is now fallen all dim; and
there is nothing at New Ruppin but a remembrance.
To the hither edge of this Rhyn-Luoh, from Berlin, I guess there may
be five-and-twenty miles, in a northwest direction; from Potsdam,
whence Friedrich starts to-day, about, the same distance north-by-west;
"at Seelenhorst," where Fromme waits him, Friedrich has already had
30 miles of driving,--rate 10 miles an hour, as we chance to observe.
Notable things, besides the Spade- husbandries he is intent on, solicit
his remembrance in this region. Of Freisack and "Heavy-Peg" with her
didactic batterings there, I suppose he, in those fixed times, knows
nothing, probably has never heard: Freisack is on a branch of this same
Rhyn, and he might see it, to left a mile or two, if he cared.
But Fehrbellin ("Ferry of BellEEN"), distinguished by the shining
victory which "the Great Elector," Friedrich's Great-Grandfather,
gained there, over the Swedes, in 1675, stands on the Rhyn itself, about
midway; and Friedrich will pass through it on this occasion. General
Ziethen, too, lives near it at Wusterau (as will be seen): "Old Ziethen,"
a little stumpy man, with hanging brows and thick pouting lips;
unbeautiful to look upon, but pious, wise, silent, and with a terrible
blaze of fighting-talent in him; full of obedience, of endurance, and yet
of unsubduable "silent rage" (which has brooked even the vocal rage of
Friedrich, on occasion); a really curious old Hussar General. He is now
a kind of mythical or demigod personage among the Prussians; and was
then (1779), and ever after the Seven-Years War, regarded popularly as
their Ajax (with a dash of the Ulysses superadded),--Seidlitz, another

Horse General, being the Achilles of that service.
The date of this drive through the moors being "23d July, 1779," we
perceive it is just about two months since Friedrich got home from the
Bavarian War (what they now call "POTATO WAR," so barren was it
in fighting, so ripe in foraging); victorious in a sort;--and that in his
private thought, among the big troubles of the world on both sides of
the Atlantic, the infinitesimally small business of the MILLER
ARNOLD'S LAWSUIT is beginning to rise now and then. [Supra 415,
429. Preuss, i. 362; &c. &c.]
Friedrich is now 67 years old; has reigned 39: the Seven-Years War is
16 years behind us; ever since which time Friedrich