though so often dispensed with! Readers, especially in our time
English readers, who would gain the least knowledge about
Friedrich, in the extinct Bedlam where his work now lay, have a
great many things to forget, and sad strata of Owl-droppings,
ancient and recent, to sweep away!--

To Friedrich a bargain with Austria, which would be a getting into
port, in comparisori to going with the French in that distracted
voyage of theirs, is highly desirable. "Shall I join with the
English, in hope of some tolerable bargain from Austria? Shall I
have to join with the French, in despair of any?" Readers may
consider how stringent upon Friedrich that question now was, and
how ticklish to solve. And it must be solved soon,--under penalty
of "being left with no ally at all" (as Friedrich expresses
himself), while the whole world is grouping itself into armed heaps
for and against! If the English would but get me a bargain--?
Friedrich dare not think they will. Nay, scanning these English
incoherences, these contradictions between what they say here and
what they do and say elsewhere, he begins to doubt if they
zealously wish it,--and at last to believe that they sincerely do
not wish it; that "they mean to amuse me" (as he said to Hyndford)
--till my French chance too is over. "To amuse me: but, PAR
DIEU--!" His Notes to Podewils, of which Ranke, who has seen them,
gives us snatches, are vivid in that sense: "I should be ashamed if
the cunningest Italian could dupe me; but that a lout of a
Hanoverian should do it!"--and Podewils has great difficulty to
keep him patient yet a little; Valori being so busy on the other
side, and the time so pressing. Here are some dates and some
comments, which the reader should take with him;-- here is a very
strange issue to the Joint-Resolution of a strong nature now