Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-03-05
Frederic the Great.

Frederic character is strange study
in human nature He was r n sat
irized; but he never fell into h-o hands
of satirst who would make the most
of him. To an epigrammatic writer like
Pope he would have been invaluable.
The inconsistencies and contrasts in his
nature are grotesque and puzzling.
The real truth We suspect to have been
that Frederic's whole nature was dis
torted and corrupted by the treatment
of his youth. As boy ne was "one
of the prettiest aSd vividest little boys;
as he grew up he evinced an open,
generous and affectionate nature. But
a love of literature and music, and a
distaste for constant drill, excited mis-
fathers wrath To what length. that
wrath reached-public blows, imprison-
ment, murder of his son $ friend, almost
the murder Of the son himself, is well
known. No mortal could pass through
such an ordeal unscathed None but
rarely beautiful natures can come out OF
an unhappy home otherwise than hurt or
marred. Frederick home was more than
usually unhappy, and the results Of this
were not trihing. Want of sympathy
made him reserved cruelty made him
hard-hearted stern repression made his
nature break out into low practical joking.
So far as we can now judge, he was nat
urally tho very reverse of irreligious, and
indeed he early showed a disposition
toward serious thought. But his father
stormed at him as a Calvinist and pre-
destinarian; forced him on pain Of death
to relinquish those damnable heresies
and ended, as might have been anticipa-
ted, in making him believer in nothing.
Again psternal love sought to exert itself
in arranging a marriage for the prince,
and yielding to the suggestions Of cour-
tiers in Austrian pay, paternal love forced
upon Frederic wife whom he detested,
aud whom he hardly ever saw, condemn
ing him to life of loneliness, without
the affection of woman, or the hope of
posterity. Worst of all was that fear
taught deceit, the only protection Of the
weak. From that sad day on which Katie
was led to death before his eyes, Frede-
ric "shrouded himself in a polite cloak
of darkness" to use Mr. Carlyle's ele-
CANT euphemism for q system of hy-
pocrisy. 1t is painful to read of the
crown prince kissing his fathers dirty
CATERS; but he had to stoop yet lower
His proud heart must have suffered
bitter pang before he endured to write in
terms of fawning affection to such crea-
ture as Crumkow, the most contemplate
of the knot of traitors and toadies who,
under the intellectual reign of Mr.. Car
lyles first hero, ruled the destinies Of
Prussia. The cloak Of darkness, which
then seemed to stand him in good stead,
was never through life thrown aside
Altogether apart from his faithfulness to
his engagements, Frederic's attempt to
deceive, or, in slang phraseology, to
humbug" his adversaries, we're often so
barefaced as to be quite ludicrous. Thus,
at the very time when his armies were
occupying the whole of Silesia, except a
few fortified towns, he had the effrontery
TO write to the Duke of Lorraine, Ny
heart has no share in the mischief which
my hand is doing to your court"
Curiously enough, the domestic vices
generally reappear IN those who have
suffered from them. Frederic had many
of the faults of his father, only in a less
degree But they do not seem to have
been his naturally he acquired them
from the teaching of example By nature
frank, generous, afectionssa; cruel usage
made him deceitful, harsh, unfeeling, im-
placable. He is as hard, said Voitaire
of him; as Churchill said of James II,
"he is as hard as that marble table" In
some points he greatly improved and
softened as he grew older; be grew more
tolerant, more patient, more moderate.
Il would have been an int=uctive study
to mark how many Of his greatest faults
were derived from a cOrrupting educa-
ton, and how many Of these faults age
and experience removed An extrava-
CANT affection for the lower animals has
often been found in men who cared very
little for their fellow creatures Frederic
was a noble example Of this. He had
always some half dozen Italian grey
hounds in the room with him; one the
especial favorite, the rest he kept 70 af-
ford the favorite the pleasure Of society.
To one Of these called Alemena, be was