than luminous condition, could not do anything; except retire into
the strong posts of the background; and send express on express,
swifter than the wind if you can, to a victorious King overturning
the Dutch Barrier: 'Help, your Majesty, or we are lost; and France
is--what shall I say!'"

"Admirable feat of Strategy! What a General, this Prince Karl!"
exclaimed mankind,--Cause-of-Liberty mankind with special
enthusiasm; and took to writing LIVES of Prince Karl, [For
instance, The Life of his Highness Prince Charles of &c.,
with &c. &c. (London, 1746); one of the most
distracted Blotches ever published under the name of Book;--
wakening thoughts of a public dimness very considerable indeed, to
which this could offer itself as lamp!] as well as tar-burning and
TE-DEUM-ing on an extensive scale. For it had sent the Cause of
Liberty bounding up again to the top of things, this of crossing
the Rhine, in such fashion. And, in effect, the Cause of Liberty,
and Prince Karl himself, had risen hereby to their acme or
culminating point in World-History; not to continue long at such
height, little as they dreamt of that, among their tar-burnings.
The feat itself--contrived by Nadasti, people say, and executed
(what was the real difficulty) by Traun--brought Prince Karl very
great renown, this Year; and is praised by Friedrich himself, now
and afterwards, as masterly, as Julius Caesar's method, and the
proper way of crossing rivers (when executable) in face of an
enemy. And indeed Prince Karl, owing to Traun or not, is highly
respectable in the way of Generalship at present; and did in these
Five Months, from June onward, really considerable things. At his
very acme of Life, as well as of Generalship; which, alas, soon
changed, poor man; never to culminate again. He had got, at the