mysterious ways of Divine Providence in this Universe, or what he
calls writing History, has done uncountable havoc upon the best
interests of mankind. Hapless godless dullard that he is;
driven and driving on courses that lead only downward, for him as
for us! But one could forgive him all things, compared with this
doctrine of devils which he has contrived to get established,
pretty generally, among his unfortunate fellow-creatures for the
time!--I must insert the following quotation, readers guess from
what author:--

"In an impudent Pamphlet, forged by I know not whom, and published
in 1766, under the title of Matinees du Roi de Prusse,
purporting to be 'Morning Conversations' of Frederick
the Great with his Nephew the Heir-Apparent, every line of which
betrays itself as false and spurious to a reader who has made any
direct or effectual study of Frederick or his manners or affairs,
--it is set forth, in the way of exordium to these pretended royal
confessions, that 'notre maison,' our Family
of Hohenzollern, ever since the first origin of it among the
Swabian mountains, or its first descent therefrom into the Castle
and Imperial Wardenship of Nurnberg, some six hundred years ago or
more, has consistently travelled one road, and this a very notable
one. 'We, as I myself the royal Frederick still do, have all along
proceeded,' namely, 'in the way of adroit Machiavelism, as skilful
gamblers in this world's business, ardent gatherers of this
world's goods; and in brief as devout worshippers of Beelzebub,
the grand regulator and rewarder of mortals here below.
Which creed we, the Hohenzollerns, have found, and I still find,
to be the true one; learn it you, my prudent Nephew, and let all
men learn it. By holding steadily to that, and working late and