you ignorant of my designs. I go, and do not come back. I cannot
endure the usage I suffer; my patience is driven to an end. It is
a favorable opportunity for flinging off that odious yoke; I will
glide out of Dresden, and get across to England; where I do not
doubt I shall work out your deliverance too, when I am got
thither. So I beg you, calm yourself, We shall soon meet again in
places where joy shall succeed our tears, and where we shall have
the happiness to see ourselves in peace, and free from these
persecutions.'" [Wilhelmina, i. 205.]

Wilhelmina stood stupefied, in silence for some moments;--argued
long with her Brother; finally got him to renounce those wild
plans, or at least postpone them; and give her his word that he
would attempt nothing on the present occasion. This small Dresden
Excursion of February, 1730, passed, accordingly, without
accident, It was but the prelude to a much grander Visit now
agreed upon between the neighboring Majesties. For there is a
grand thing in the wind. Something truly sublime, of the
scenic-military kind, which has not yet got a name; but shall soon
have a world-wide one,--"Camp of Muhlberg," "Camp of Radewitz," or
however to be named,--which his Polish Majesty will hold in those
Saxon parts, in a month or two. A thing that will astonish all the
world, we may hope; and where the King and Prince of Prussia are
to attend as chief guests.

It was during this brief absence in February, or directly after
Friedrich Wilhelm had returned, that Queen Sophie had that fit of
real sickness we spoke of. Scarcely was his Majesty got home, when
the Queen, rather ambiguous in her sicknesses of late, fell really
and dangerously ill: so that Friedrich Wilhelm, at last recognizing