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Notices of books. 61
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...
From a "boyhood of such rigid discipline , to a youth , of much sad restraint and discontent , which came to a climax in his meditated
flight , and the _execution of poor Lieutenant Katte , one is obliged to broug pass ht rap a severe idly "with indictment this comment against ;—that Friedrich whereas Wilhelm history for has brutal long
treatment of his eldest son , the present book offers mxich extenuation in the motivesThat the king sincerely wished to make an upright
. God-fearing man of the youth , but that partly from intellectual blindness , and partly from the natural despotism of his character ,
in suffering days when and some all parents moral were injury , ipso on > facto his child , despots and , pup he il inflicted , is painfull cruel y
evident . In 1730 , the young Crown Prince , while travelling in the Rhine
districts with his father , made a world-famous attempt to desert , but was frustrated by the vigilance of the old officers who rode in his
carriage ¦ d was 'armes to meet . , had His long him intimate been from negotiatin Berlin friend . Katte The g in , forei court a gn lieutenant -martial quarters which in for the him followed gens , and
the the discovery which of the his p maj lot , or Katte would 's strange willingl carelessness y have afforde in d him delay , ing the escape
terrible sentence of death upon the Crown Prince , and two years of fortress arrest to Katteare all told in the most wonderfully graphic
manner . But Friedrich , Wilhelm , who seemed through these months " like a man possessed by evil fiends , " wandering about in he hauntedand
fl the and ying ni decreed g into ht-time the his from wildest death room excesses as guilty to room of of , anger imag high ining , treason _woiild . was not That spare Frederick Katte , ,
himself did not suffer according to legal sentence seems to have been owing to the desperate interposition of the councillors who
surrounded the king , and that of foreign courts , who all pleaded for The Kaiser sent an autograph letter , and at length the
scale mercy was . turned and the Crown Prince allowed to live . The death of Katteand the cruel order that the prince should
witness the execution , ( , an order evaded into seeing him pass to the scaffold ) the violence with which the queen and Wilhelmina were '
treated , during this unhappy time , owing to their English leanings , and to their long desired scheme for a double marriage with the
English prince and princess—in short , the frantic state of mind into which the king fell , is perhaps the best known episode of the
whole For history a hundred . and thirty years it has stamped Friedrich Wilhelm
in the popular mind as a sort of paternal ogre . We have no wish to extenuate the sin of thus dealing with an offence which was
provoked by his own previous harshness . But it should blind none to the extraordinary and virtues really possessed by this man ,
to his stern sense of powers truth . his unwearied industry , the morality of his private life in an age , when profligacy ran open riot in high
places , and to the general wisdom and conscientious care with
which he sought the welfare of his people .
Notices Of Books. 61
_Notices of books . 61
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 1, 1859, page 61, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01031859/page/61/
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