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60 NOTICES OP 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...
must square our lives , if they be not broken into fragments . Friedrich Wilhelinamidst much rigor , passion , and even domineering
, tyranny of an unconscious kind , yet held it as a living creed that " the mills of God grind slowly , but they grind exceeding * small . "
Feekin , his wife , is described as having a " pleasant , attractive physiognomywhich may be considered better than strict beauty . "
, In her portraits , Mr . Carlyle finds a " serious , comely , rather plump , maternal lady ; " the eyes are grey , quiet , and almost sad , expressive
of a slow constancy . And Feekin , as our readers will find if they read the book , had a most profound obstinacy of purpose , in which
quality her father , our George I ., and her great-nephew , our George III . also showed no lack . Poor lady , her chief desire lay in
plot-, ting marriages for her children , to her subsequent great grief and discomfiture , since Friedrich Wilhelm was by no means of the
same mind . Nevertheless a pretty picture is painted of * their domestic union , and "it is . to be admitted that their conjugal
relation , though royal , "was always a human one ; * * * * a rare fact among royal wedlocks , and perhaps a unique one in that
epoch . " "Well , to thi 3 loving couple , while yet Prince and Princess Royal ,
was born the little Friedrich whom men now call the Great . Two little " prineekins" had previously , for a short space of time , existed ;
killed respectively , malicious tongues do say , " one by the noise of the cannon firing for joy over it , the other by the weighty dress and
crown it wore at its christening . " The third boy-baby is therefore of immense and accumulated value ; him will they also christen
with no lack of cannon or heavy cloth of silver , but the bright little spirit is not to be quenched . From a book written in later years
by his elder sister Wilhelmina we gather some idea of his infancy and childhood , his nurses and governesses , mostly French ; the
actual guardian being a certain Dame de Honcoulles , a Protestant French lady who had taken similar charge of his father . With her
the pretty , clever , and somewhat delicate little boy remained , eating " beer-soup and bread , " until he was seven years old , and he did not
. forget her in later youthful years , but used to go to her small partiesand call her " chere maman , " and he carried to his last hour
, a deep trace of the French Protestant element of his earliest nurture .
At seven years old he was put to schooling under tutors , and a most wonderfully strict system of schooling it was ; his father ' s
instructions yet remain ; how he was to learn no Latin , but arithmetic , artillery , and economy to the very bottom ; how he was relentlessly got
up early in the morning , and had for pocket-money the slender sum of eighteen pence a monthand was taught to be clean and neat , and
, yet "to get out of and into his clothes as fast as is humanly possible ; " all thisand much more , is given with as much detail as
, if it related to the little boys at Windsor , much happier little boys
as we humbly presume !
60 Notices Op Books.
60 NOTICES OP BOOKS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 1, 1859, page 60, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01031859/page/60/
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