than that thrice-famous "Double-Marriage" of Prussia with England;
which once had such a sound in the ear of Rumor, and still bulks
so big in the archives of the Eighteenth Century; which worked
such woe to all parties concerned in it; and is, in fact, a
first-rate nuisance in the History of that poor Century, as
written hitherto. Nuisance demanding urgently to be abated;--
were that well possible at present. Which, alas, it is not, to any
great degree; there being an important young Friedrich
inextricably wrapt up in it, to whom it was of such vital or
almost fatal importance! Without a Friedrich, the affair could be
reduced to something like its real size, and recorded in a few
pages; or might even, with advantage, be forgotten altogether, and
become zero. More gigantic instance of much ado about nothing has
seldom occurred in human annals;--had not there been a Friedrich
in the heart of it.

Crown-Prince Friedrich is still very young for
marriage-speculations on his score: but Mamma has thought good to
take matters in time. And so we shall, in the next ensuing parts
of this poor History, have to hear almost as much about Marriage
as in the foolishest Three-volume Novel, and almost to still less
purpose. For indeed, in that particular, Friedrich's young Life
may be called a ROMANCE FLUNG HELLS-OVER-HEAD;--Marriage being the
one event there, round which all events turn,--but turn in the
inverse or reverse way (as if the Devil were in them); not only
towards no happy goal for him or Mamma, or us, but at last towards
hardly any goal at all for anybody! So mad did the affair grow;--
and is so madly recorded in those inextricable, dateless, chaotic
Books. We have now come to regions of Narrative, which seem to
consist of murky Nothingness put on boil; not land, or water, or