The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

"The same faith may have made a hero of
"Gustavus Adolphus and a few others. But
" how many heroes have had no faith at all? Was
" not Frederick of Prussia a professed infidel, a
" profligate, a friend and admirer of Voltaire ? "
To these two arguments the present " History
of Frederick the Great " is to constitute a
detailed answer. Mr. Carlyle replies to the first
objection by denying the fact, by asserting that
Silesia and the slice of Poland belonged to the
King of Prussia by right. Whether this can be
made out will appear when the third and fourth
volumes are published. Meanwhile, let the
reader peruse the following general remarks upon
the subject, and judge whether or no Mr. Car-
lyle is still what he was. Speaking of a pam-
phlet published in 1766, under the title of
" Matinees du Roi de Prusse," in which Fre-
derick is represented as declaring to his nephew
that the success of the Hohenzollerns was owing
to their adroit Machiavelistn, Mr. Carlyle, pro-
nouncing the pamphlet an impudent forgery,
goes on to say :
It is very certain if Beelzebub made this world, our paw-
phleteer and the huge portion of mankind that follow him
are right. But if God made the world, and only leads
Beelzebub, as some ugly muzzled bear is led, a longer or
shorter temporary dance in this divine world, and always
draws him home again and peels the unjust gains off him
and ducks him in a certain hot lake, with some intent to
lodge him there to all eternity at last—then our pam-
phleteer and the huge portion of mankind that follow him
are wrong How the Hohenzollerns got their
big territories and came to what they are in the world will
be seen. Probably they were not any of them paragons of
virtue. They did not walk in altogether speekless Sunday
pumps, or much clear-starched into consciousness of the
moral sublime, but in rugged practical boots and by such
roads as there were. Concerning their moralities and
conformities to the laws of the road and of the universe,
there will much remain to be argued by pamphleteers and
others. Men will have their opinion—men of more wisdom
and of less; Apes by the Dead Sea also will have theirs.
But what man that believed in such a universe as that of
this Dead• Sea pamphleteer could consent to lire in it at
all? Who that believed in such a universe and did not
design to live like a Papin's•Digester or Porcus Epicuri in
an extremely ugly manner in it, could avoid one of two
things—going rapidly into Bedlam or else blowing his
brains out? It will not do for me at any rate, this Infinite
Doghouse—not for me, ye Dryasdusts, and omnipotent
Dogmonsters and Mud•go;la, whoever you are. One
honourable thing I can do—take leave of you and your
Dog•establirhment. Enough !

As to the second objection, which is to be re-
futed in detail in the course of the work—the
objection, namely, that Frederick, being an in-
fidel and a profligate, did nevertheless accom-
plish heroic actions—readers who are acquainted
with Mr. Carlyle will easily guess what the tenor
of that refutation will be. For those who are
less acquainted with him we extract this
passage :

Frederick is by uo means one of the perfect demigodal;
and there are various things to be said against him with
good graund. To the last, a questionable hero ; with
much in him which one could have wished not there, and
much wanting which one could have wished. But there
is one feature which strikes you at an early period of the
inquiry, That in his way he is a Reality ; that he always
means what he speaks; grounds his actions, too, on what
he recognizes for the truth ; and, in short, has nothing
whatever of the Hypocrite or Phantasm. Which some
readers will admit to be an extremely rare phenomenon.

We have endeavoured in this article to give
our readers some conception of the scope of
this important work. Of its vivid narrative, its
busy and crowded scene, and, in particular, of
the minute biography of Frederick Wilhelm
which it contains, we have not had space to
speak. We shall have some account of these
things to give in our next number.

The Sweet Psalmist of Israel ; or, the Life of
David, King of Israel. Illustrated by his
own Psalms newly Versified in various Metres.
By the Rev. William Shepherd, B.D. Lon-
don : Bell and Daldy.
AMONGST the best sort of devotional works are
those which furnish strong vehicles of ardent
religious aspiration along with either historical or
didactic illustrations of Scriptural Truth. The
varieties of mood in which the religious spirit
seeks to commune with the Creator should be
carefully attended to by composers of works
of piety. Prayer is so intense and solemn an
exercise of the faculties, that the minds of ordi-
nary mortals cannot long remain in so exalted a
condition; and it is necessary to alternate the
mode of keeping the spirit employed in its reli-
gious exercises. The Church has felt this
obligation, and wisely provided for it in the