passed us by. But the other Crusaders were only half in earnest for
Europe; Frederick was quite in earnest for Prussia; and he sought for
allies, by whose aid this weak revival of good might be stamped out, and
his adamantine impudence endure for ever. The allies he found were the
English. It is not pleasant for an Englishman to have to write the
words.

This was the first act of the tragedy, and with it we may leave
Frederick, for we are done with the fellow though not with his work. It
is enough to add that if we call all his after actions satanic, it is
not a term of abuse, but of theology. He was a Tempter. He dragged the
other kings to "partake of the body of Poland," and learn the meaning of
the Black Mass. Poland lay prostrate before three giants in armour, and
her name passed into a synonym for failure. The Prussians, with their
fine magnanimity, gave lectures on the hereditary maladies of the man
they had murdered. They could not conceive of life in those limbs; and
the time was far off when they should be undeceived. In that day five
nations were to partake not of the body, but of the spirit of Poland;
and the trumpet of the resurrection of the peoples should be blown from
Warsaw to the western isles.



III--_The Enigma of Waterloo_


That great Englishman Charles Fox, who was as national as Nelson, went
to his death with the firm conviction that England had made Napoleon. He
did not mean, of course, that any other Italian gunner would have done
just as well; but he did mean that by forcing the French back on their