"other products, beside making a saving of 500,000 crowns in our "home consumption."

f

In another dissertation he enumerates the different sums expended by the king in agricultural improvements, in bounties for the encouragement of them, in establishing and promoting manufactures and erecting buildings for carrying them on and houses for the workmen, and other public uses, during the last year of his life, the sum total of which amounted to 2,901,756 crowns.

Among other obstructions to commerce before Frederic came to the throne was the difficulty of conveying materials and merchandise from different parts of his extensive dominions. To remove this, and facilitate trade, he improved the navigation of several rivers, and caused several canals to be formed, the great utility of which will be obvious to any one who, after attending to the description of them in the note, shall observe the course of the rivers which they were to connect, and the situation of the countries between which they were to open or improve the intercourse.*

*

JUDICIAL

It

We have the following account of the canals in the Prussian dominions in Busching. "The canal of Plauen shortens the water-passage between Berlin and Magdeburg by about one"half, and was carried on, by order of king Frederic the Second, till finished; that is to say, "from june 1, 1743, to june 5, 1745, under the direction of the engineer Mahistre. "begins near Parei on the Elbe, intersects the Ihle and the Stremme, having three sluices on it which check the fall of the water out of the Elbe into the Havel, which is twenty-one feet in "height, and promote its passage; after which it passes on by Plauen into the Havel. This canal "is 8,655 perches, or four German miles and a quarter, in length; being beneath generally twenty-two; above, that is to say, at the surface of the water, twenty-six, and in some places "between forty and fifty, feet broad, with bridges laid over it at nine different places. The Spree "and Oder are joined by means of a new canal which was ordered to be cut by the elector Fre"deric William, and completed between the years 1662 and 1668. This canal issues out of the "Spree into the lake near Mulrose in the Middle-Mark, and from thence runs partly along the "Schlubbe, partly through it and into the Oder, being three German miles in length, five Rhein"land perches broad, and six feet deep. The Havel and Oder are joined immediately by the "canal of Finow. This canal begins at Liebenwalde in the Havel, passes on into the river Fino, 66 or Finow, and below Lower-Fino runs into the Oder. King Frederic the Second caused it to be "completed between the years 1743 and 1746, and on it are thirteen sluices. The Oder canal 68 runs out of the Oder from the village of Gustebiese to the prefecturate of Nuenhagen, falling 66 again near Wutzo, or about one German mile below Oderberg into the Oder. This canal was "opened in 1753."-Busching. 5. 627.

JUDICIAL SYSTEM.

Among the measures adopted by Frederic the Second for the public good we must not omit to mention the improvements in the judicial system under the direction of his chancellor, Coceius, and the code of laws framed by that able and upright lawyer. The design was to form a consistent digest of laws, to simplify and expedite legal processes, to render them less expensive, and, as much as possible to prevent abuses.† -This reform is said to have produced salutary effects during the reign of the monarch who was the author of it, and especially during the administration of the minister who was his instrument in it: but what the eventual effect of such simplification and such dispatch will be under other circumstances remain to be proved.

SCIENCES AND LITERATURE.

Frederic the Second is well-known to have been the companion of men of science and learning: he was the historian of his own reign: and Voltaire does him the honour to say, that some of his verses were pretty well written for a northern king."

The sciences experienced his regard and patronage.—A royal academy of sciences and belles lettres had been founded in the reign of the first king of Prussia, under the auspices of his queen, Sophia of Brunswick Lunenburg, a princess of distinguished talents, who prevailed on Leibnitz to accept the appointment of president.-It had been neglected during the reign of Frederic William the First, who had no taste for letters. But Frederic the Second, in 1743, restored the academy; caused a fresh body of institutes to be drawn up; and, three years after, placed Maupertuis at the head of it. +

i

Frederic would have had much greater merit as a German patriot, if, instead of adopting the French language, he had endeavoured to improve his own vernacular tongue.-By his contemptuous neglect of this, and

+ In 1746. Memoires de Voltaires. 157.

In 1743.

other

i Towers's Memoirs. 1. 179. 260.

other evidences of his dislike of whatever was German, he disgusted his countrymen, and enabled his successor to court popularity by discovering a taste for German literature, and granting favours to writers who had contributed to its repute.*

REVENUE.

Zimmermann states the king's revenue when he wrote, which was after the first partition of Poland and before the second, as follows:

We cannot but be surprised that with this revenue, which does not much exceed £.5,000,000, Frederic should have been able not only to answer the ordinary expences of government, and to maintain an army of above 2,000,000 men, but to expend vast sums in the improvement of his demesnes and the establishment of manufactures, and to advance very large sums to his nobility and towns. He tells us in his memoirs, and his representation is supported by correspondent accounts, that he had advanced 300,000 crowns to the nobility of Silesia, for the payment of debts incurred by the war of 1756: 500,000 crowns for Pomerania and Brandenburg on the same account, and 500,000 more to enable the proprietors to restore their lands to a state of cultivation to the town of Landshut 200,000; and sums to nearly the same amount in the aggregate to other towns. He had, moreover, expended very large sums in the repair of his fortresses, and had deposited 900,000 crowns at Magdeburg and 4,000,000 at Breslau, for the supply of his magazines: and he always had a large sum in his treasury to answer contingencies.

Segur's Fred. William. 1. 25.

To

To account for this small expenditure, we may observe that the expences of his court, especially during the latter years of his reign, were comparatively small: that it had not the gaiety and brilliancy of other courts, nor the embellishments with which they are adorned; that although the muses were admitted there, the graces were excluded: * that the expences of the military establishment were not in proportion to the nominal greatness of it: that the pay was very low in comparison with that of other states.** By the system of alternate service the number of men in the pay of government in time of peace is comparatively small: and by the system of recruiting which his despotic power enabled him to practise the expence attending that department in a free country was entirely avoided. "The king's dominions," says a writer upon this subject, "are divided into a certain number of cantons, each of which "is obliged to raise a certain number of men. Not only each regiment "therefore, but each company has its particular district: and at the

age

* The king's attention to economy in his personal expences, and other matters which he did not deem essential to greatness in the eyes of the world or fame with posterity, is exemplified in the article of dress. 66 Nothing" says Mr. Wraxall, can be so simple as his dress, which

66

66

66 never varies. It is indeed scarcely exempt from the imputation of meanness, and by no means always entitled to the praise of cleanliness. His coat is a plain uniform of common blue cloth, "without ornament or embroidery of any kind. On his breast appears the star of the Prussian "order of the Black Eagle;' but he very rarely wears the ribband, or other insignia. He is "always booted, as becomes a soldier; and those who see him constantly, have scarcely ever "beheld his legs. Round his middle is tied his sash. Charles the Twelfth of Sweden might "have worn Frederic's sword, without departing from the characteristic simplicity of his dress. "It is a military one, perfectly unornamented, with a plain silver hilt, to which hangs a sword"knot. His hat is of a monstrous size, surmounted with a white panache or plume. Either economy, or carelessness, or both, induce him to wear his clothes as long as decency will permit; "indeed, sometimes, rather longer. He is accustomed to order his breeches to be mended, and "his coat to be pieced under the arms. It was an unusual mark of attention to the great duke of "Russia, when he was here last year, that the king made up a new uniform suit and hat, in "honour of so illustrious a guest. To complete the negligence of his appearance, he takes a "great deal of snuff, and lets no small portion of it slip through his thumb and fingers, upon "his clothes. It must be owned that this custom gives him sometimes almost a disgusting air, 66 yet, across so much neglect and contempt of external forms, I think one may easily, withou 66 any aid of imagination, perceive the hero, the philosopher and the king."—Wraxall's Memoirs. 108,

The pay of a Prussian soldier, according to Dr. Towers, was only two-pence-halfpenny a day when he wrote.

1 Towers's Memoirs. 2. 497.

age of sixteen every peasant, mechanic, merchant or citizen, has his "name inserted in the war-list of his canton, and is obliged, when called

upon, to join the regiment or company to which his district belongs.' -Dr. Moore says "that, whatever number of sons a peasant may have,

they are all liable to be taken into the service, except one, who is " left to assist in the management of his farm."-Such a system of constraint, accompanied with low pay and the severity which must be practised to bring men to that perfect state of machinery which is the object of German discipline, must necessarily dispose them to desert: but how is this possible? "The moment a man is missing," says the author before mentioned, "a certain number of cannons are fired, which "announce the desertion to the whole country. The peasants have a "considerable reward for seizing a deserter, and are liable to severe penalties if they harbour him, or assist in his escape.".

What a picture is here of a despotic government! How wretched would the subject of a free state have felt himself could he have been transplanted at once to a country where his natural rights and his life were at the devotion of a monarch who, with signal talents as a statesman and a soldier, had the cold heart of a politician who was insensible to the endearments of human nature.

It ought here to be remarked, that, although the king's revenue was small when compared with the vast army which he was able, at any time, to bring into the field, with his vast undertakings for the advancement of the national prosperity, and the weight which he had among the powers of Europe, yet it was great when considered with a view to the abilities of those on whom the greater part of it was levied, to the sources from which it was drawn. A great portion of his dominions consisted, at his accession, of lands in an unimproved state: and a great part of these were the property of a nobility who were too poor, to improve them. Silesia was laid waste twice in the course of his reign; and all his dominions once. He gave money to some of his nobles, and advanced it as a loan to others, to enable them to restore and improve their lands. But, even supposing the sums to be properly applied, a considerable

Observ. on the Prussian Military Estab. ap. Towers. 2. 493. • View of Society, &c.

View of Society, &c. 2. 200.