at once an unflinching retrospect of the past, and a comfortable assurance of the future. If we turn from the truly great man whom we have been contemplating, to his celebrated contemporary in the Old World, who only affected the philosophy that Franklin possessed, and employed his talents for civil and military affairs, in extinguishing that independence which Franklin's life was consecrated to establish, the contrast is marvellous indeed, between the Monarch and the Printer. FREDERIC II. IN one particular this celebrated Prince may be said to resemble the great Republican. His earlier years were spent in the school of adversity. Whether the influence of this discipline, usually so propitious to the character of great men, was exerted in chastening his principles, and in calling forth and regulating those feelings which the education of a court tends either to stifle or pervert, may be learnt not only from the private history of his reign, but from some anecdotes preserved, of his conduct immediately after he came to the crown; while, as yet, his heart could not have become callous from the habits of uncontrolled dominion, nor his principles unsettled by the cares of his turbulent When William discovered his son's plan for escaping from Prussia, he caused him to be arrested, together with his confidential friend De Catt, and instantly brought to trial before a military commission. The interposition of Austria alone saved the prince's life; but he was thrown into prison at the fort of Custrin, where his friend was beheaded on a scaffold raised before his apartment to the level of the window, from which he was forced to view this afflicting spectacle. He was so much overpowered, that he sunk senseless into the chair which had been placed to keep him at the window, and only recovered to bewail, with every appearance of the most poignant feeling, the fate of this unhappy career. |