Friedrich of Brandenburg-Hohenzollern, who came by course of natural
succession to be Friedrich II. of Prussia, and is known in these ages
as Frederick the Great, was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon,
on the 24th of January, 1712. A small infant, but of great promise or
possibility; and thrice and four times welcome to all sovereign and
other persons in the Prussian Court, and Prussian realms, in those cold
winter days. His Father, they say, was like to have stifled him with his
caresses, so overjoyed was the man; or at least to have scorched him
in the blaze of the fire; when happily some much suitabler female nurse
snatched this little creature from the rough paternal paws,--and saved
it for the benefit of Prussia and mankind. If Heaven will but please
to grant it length of life! For there have already been two little
Princekins, who are both dead; this Friedrich is the fourth child; and
only one little girl, wise Wilhelmina, of almost too sharp wits, and
not too vivacious aspect, is otherwise yet here of royal progeny. It
is feared the Hohenzollern lineage, which has flourished here with such
beneficent effect for three centuries now, and been in truth the very
making of the Prussian Nation, may be about to fail, or pass into
some side branch. Which change, or any change in that respect, is
questionable, and a thing desired by nobody.
Five years ago, on the death of the first little Prince, there had
surmises risen, obscure rumors and hints, that the Princess Royal,
mother of the lost baby, never would have healthy children, or even
never have a child more: upon which, as there was but one other
resource,--a widowed Grandfather, namely, and except the Prince Royal
no son to him,--said Grandfather, still only about fifty, did take the
necessary steps: but they have been entirely unsuccessful; no new son
or child, only new affliction, new disaster has resulted from that third
marriage of his. And though the Princess Royal has had another little
Prince, that too has died within the year;--killed, some say on the
other hand, by the noise of the cannon firing for joy over it! [Forster,
_ Friedrich Wilhelm I., Konig von Preussen _ (Potsdam, 1834), i. 126
(who quotes Morgenstern, a contemporary reporter). But see also Preuss,
_ Friedrich der Grosse mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden _ (Berlin,
1838), pp. 379-380] Yes; and the first baby Prince, these same parties
farther say, was crushed to death by the weighty dress you put upon it
at christening time, especially by the little crown it wore, which had
left a visible black mark upon the poor soft infant's brow! In short, it
is a questionable case; undoubtedly a questionable outlook for Prussian
mankind; and the appearance of this little Prince, a third trump-card in
the Hohenzollern game, is an unusually interesting event. The joy
over him, not in Berlin Palace only, but in Berlin City, and over the
Prussian Nation, was very great and universal;--still testified
in manifold dull, unreadable old pamphlets, records official and
volunteer,--which were then all ablaze like the bonfires, and are now
fallen dark enough, and hardly credible even to the fancy of this new
Time.
The poor old Grandfather, Friedrich I. (the first King of
Prussia),--for, as we intimate, he was still alive, and not very
old, though now infirm enough, and laden beyond his strength with
sad reminiscences, disappointments and chagrins,--had taken much to
Wilhelmina, as she tells us; [_ Memoires de Frederique Sophie Wilhelmine
de Prusse, Margrave de Bareith, Soeur d Frederic-le-Grand _ (London,
1812), i. 5.] and would amuse himself whole days with the pranks and
prattle of the little child. Good old man: he, we need not doubt,
brightened up into unusual vitality at sight of this invaluable little
Brother of hers; through whom he can look once more into the waste dim
future with a flicker of new hope. Poor old man: he got his own back
half-broken by a careless nurse letting him fall; and has slightly
stooped ever since, some fifty and odd years now: much against his will;
for he would fain have been beautiful; and has struggled all his days,
very hard if not very wisely, to make his existence beautiful,--to make
it magnificent at least, and regardless of expense;--and it threatens to
come to little. Courage, poor Grandfather: here is a new second edition
of a Friedrich, the first having gone off with so little effect: this
one's back is still unbroken, his life's seedfield not yet filled with
tares and thorns: who knows but Heaven will be kinder to this one?
Heaven was much kinder to this one. Him Heaven had kneaded of more
potent stuff: a mighty fellow this one, and a strange; related not only
to the Upholsteries and Heralds' Colleges, but to the Sphere-harmonies
and the divine and demonic powers; of a swift far-darting nature this
one, like an Apollo clad in sunbeams and in lightnings (after his sort);
and with a back which all the world could not succeed in breaking!--Yes,
if, by most rare chance, this were indeed a new man of genius, born
into the purblind rotting Century, in the acknowledged rank of a king
there,--man of genius, that is to say, man of originality and veracity;
capable of seeing with his eyes, and incapable of not believing what
he sees;--then truly!--But as yet none knows; the poor old Grandfather
never knew.
Meanwhile they christened the little fellow, with immense magnificence
and pomp of apparatus; Kaiser Karl, and the very Swiss Republic being
there (by proxy), among the gossips; and spared no cannon-volleyings,
kettle-drummings, metal crown, heavy cloth-of-silver, for the poor soft
creature's sake; all of which, however, he survived. The name given him
was Karl Friedrich (Charles Frederick); Karl perhaps, and perhaps also
not, in delicate compliment to the chief gossip, the above-mentioned.
Kaiser, Karl or Charles VI.? At any rate, the KARL, gradually or from
the first, dropped altogether out of practice, and went as nothing:
he himself, or those about him, never used it; nor, except in some
dim English pamphlet here and there, have I met with any trace of it.
Friedrich (RICH-in-PEACE, a name of old prevalence in the Hohenzollern
kindred), which he himself wrote FREDERIC in his French way, and at last
even FEDERIC (with a very singular sense of euphony), is throughout, and
was, his sole designation. Sunday 31st January, 1712, age then precisely
one week: then, and in this manner, was he ushered on the scene, and
labelled among his fellow-creatures. We must now look round a little;
and see, if possible by any method or exertion, what kind of scene it
was.