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58 NOTICES OF BOOKS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
, The Thomas History Carl Of Yle Frederi...
For surely tliere are in history but two chief and noteworthy elements : the development of great constitutional principles or
conditions , such as involve the government , religion , or moral , intellectual , and artistic culture of nations , and the analagous process
in their great men and women . Both elements , be it observed , are biographical , for we cannot estimate the nature of an abstract
political principle , except in connection with a given people , which we figure as a being whose years are measured by passing centuries ,
and the infinite experiences of whose multitudinous members can be summed up into ascertainable results like those of an individual
man . Now Mr . Carlyle assures us that the eighteenth century , in which
our Family existed , was an exceedingly false and unworthy age , quite undeserving of any distinct biographical commemoration ; in
fact a century which has no history and can have little or none . He " considers its poor and sordid personages equally unworthy of
resuscitation , and itself quite confiscate , fallen bankrupt , given up to the auctioneer ; Jew-brokers sorting out of it at this moment in
a confused distressing manner , "what is still valuable or saleable . And on the " dusky chaotic background" of this century of our
own grandfathers , are delineated for us " a small company of figures having some veracity" among whom we chiefly distinguish the
, family of the old Schloss at Berlin . On the 24 th of January , 1712 , when the little hero of our tale
was born , his old grandfather was yet alive . This grandfather , also Friedrich by name , was the first king of Prussia , having teased the
Emperor of Germany into granting him a kingship ; the ancestors before him having * been merely electors of Brandenburgh . Friedrich ,
the first king , had a crooked back from a fall during babyhood , was thin skinnednervous , and " regardless of expense , " much devoted to
, his little granddaughter , elder sister of the new-born babe . The grandmother , dead seven years since , was too remarkable to be
passed over ; she "was sister to our own George I . " the most beautiful princess of her time" said Irish Mr . Toland ; " not very tall and
, somewhat too plump , " had dark hair , blue eyes , was very clever and brilliant , held soirees for theological discussion , and was called by
foreign courtiers " the republican queen . " She actually took a " delicate little pinch of snuff" during the pompous ceremony of
her husband ' s coronation , upon which he gave her a look of " due fulminancy . " This poor lady died when her son Friedrich Wilhelin
was but seventeen , and only concerns us inasmuch as some of her vivacious blood must have flowed through the veins of Frederick
the Great . Friedrich Wilhelni married first a princess , who died very soon ,
and secondly his own first cousin , Sophie Dorothee of Hanover , sister to our George II . and daughter to poor Sophia of Zell .
Friedrich " Feekin , " Wilhelm and among , in the 1 the privacy confusion of domestic of Sophias life , and calle Ch d his arlottes wife
58 Notices Of Books.
58 NOTICES OF BOOKS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 1, 1859, page 58, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01031859/page/58/
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