745-749.]

What good he did to Friedrich, or could have done with the tongue
of angels in such an audience, we do not accurately know. Some good
he would do even in the Reich's-Diet there; and out of doors, over
a German public, still more; and is worth his frugal wages,--say
1,000 pounds a year, printing and all other expense included!
This is a mere guess of mine, Dryasdust having been incurious:
but, to English readers it is incredible for what sums Friedrich
got his work done, no work ever better. Which is itself an
appreciable advantage, computable in pounds sterling; and is the
parent of innumerable others which no Arithmetic or Book-keeping by
Double Entry will take hold of, and which are indeed priceless for
Nations and for persons. But this poor old bedridden Reich,
starting in agonistic spasm at such rate: is it not touching, in a
Corpus moribund for so many Centuries past! The Reich is something;
though it is not much, nothing like so much as even Kaiser Franz
supposes it. Much or not so much, Kaiser Franz wishes to secure it
for himself; Friedrich to hinder him,--and it must be a poor
something, if not worth Plotho's wages on Friedrich's part.

It would insult the patience of every reader to go into these
spasmodic tossings of the poor paralytic Reich; or to mention the
least item of them beyond what had some result, or fraction of
result, on the world's real affairs. We shall say only, therefore,
that after tempests not a few of porcine squealing, answered always
by counter-latration on the vigilant Plotho's part;--squealing,
chiefly, from the Reich's-Hofrath at Vienna, the Head Tribunal of
Imperial Majesty, which sits judging and denouncing there, touched
to the soul, as if by a knife driven into its side, by those