KING OF PRUSSIA*.

CH

HARLES FREDERICK the present king of Pruffia, whose actions and defigns now keep Europe in attention, is the eldest fon of Frederick William by Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George the First king of England. He was born January 24, 1711-12. Of his early years nothing remarkable has been tranfmitted to us. As he ad vanced towards manhood, he became remarkable by his difagreement with his father.

The late king of Pruffia was of a difpofition violent and arbitrary, of narrow views, and vehement paffions, earnestly engaged in little purfuits, or in schemes terminating in fome fpeedy confequence, without any plan of lafting advantage to himself or his fubjects, or any profpect of diftant events. He was therefore always bufy though no effects of his activity ever appeared, and always eager though he had nothing to gain. His behaviour was to the last degree rough and favage. The least provocation, whether defigned or accidental, was returned by blows, which he did not always forbear to the queen and princeffes.

*First printed in the Literary Magazine for 1756.

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From fuch a king and fuch a father it was not any enormous violation of duty in the immediate heir of a kingdom fometimes to differ in opinion, and to maintain that difference with decent pertinacity. A prince of a quick fagacity and comprehenfive knowledge muft find many practices in the conduct of affairs which he could not approve, and fome which he could scarcely forbear to oppofe.

The chief pride of the old king was to be mafter of the tallest regiment in Europe. He therefore brought together from all parts men above the common military standard. To exceed the height of fix feet was a certain recommendation to notice, and to approach that of feven a claim to diftinction. Men will readily go where they are fure to be careffed; and he had therefore fuch a collection of giants as perhaps was never feen in the world before.

To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure, and to perpetuate it was fo much his care, that when he met a tall woman, he immediately com manded one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that they might propagate procerity, and produce. heirs to the father's habiliments.

In all this there was apparent folly, but there was no crime. The tall regiment made a fine fhew at an expence not much greater, when once it was collected, than would have been bestowed upon common men. But the king's military paftimes were fometimes more pernicious. He maintained a numerous army, of which he made no other ufe than to review and to talk of it; and when he, or perhaps his emiffaries, faw a boy, whofe form and fprightlinefs promised a future foldier, he ordered a kind of badge

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to be put about his neck, by which he was marked out for the fervice, like the fons of Chriftian captives in Turkey; and his parents were forbidden to deftine him to any other mode of life.

This was fufficiently oppreffive, but this was not the utmost of his tyranny. He had learned, though otherwise perhaps no very great politician, that to be rich was to be powerful; but that the riches of a king ought to be seen in the opulence of his fubjects, he wanted either ability or benevolence to understand. He therefore raised exorbitant taxes from every kind of commodity and poffeffion, and piled up the money in his treasury, from which it iffued no more. How the land which had paid taxes once was to pay them a second time, how impofts could be levied without commerce, or commerce continued without money, it was not his cuftom to enquire. Eager to fnatch at money, and delighted to count it, he felt new joy at every receipt, and thought himself enriched by the impoverishment of his dominions.

By which of these freaks of royalty the prince was offended, or whether, as perhaps more frequently happens, the offences of which he complained were of a domestick and perfonal kind, it is not eafy to discover. But his refentment, whatever was its cause, rofe fo high, that he refolved not only to leave his father's court, but his territories, and to feek a refuge among the neighbouring or kindred princes. It is generally believed that his intention was to come to England, and live under the protection of his uncle, till his father's death, or change of conduct, fhould give him liberty to return.

His defign, whatever it was, he concerted with an officer in the army, whose name was Kat, a man in whom he placed great confidence, and whom, having chosen him for the companion of his flight, he neceffarily trufted with the preparatory measures. A prince cannot leave his country with the speed of a meaner fugitive. Something was to be provided, and fomething to be adjusted. And, whether Kat found the agency of others neceffary, and therefore was conftrained to admit fome partners of the fe cret; whether levity or vanity incited him to dif burden himself of a trust that fwelled in his bofom, or to fhew to a friend or mistress his own importance; or whether it be in itself difficult for princes to tranfact any thing in fecret; fo it was, that the king was informed of the intended flight, and the prince and his favourite, a little before the time fettled for their departure, were arrested, and confined in dif ferent places.

The life of princes is feldom in danger, the hazard of their irregularities falls only on those whom ambition or affection combines with them.

The king, after an imprisonment of fome time, fet his fon at liberty; but poor Kat was ordered to be tried for a capital crime. The court examined the caufe, and acquitted him; the king remanded him to a fecond trial, and obliged his judges to condemn him. In confequence of the fentence thus tyrannically extorted, he was publickly beheaded, leaving behind him fome papers of reflections made in the prifon, which were afterwards printed, and among others an admonition to the prince, for whofe fake he fuffered, not to fofter

in himself the opinion of deftiny, for that a Provi dence is difcoverable in every thing round us.

"This cruel profecution of a man who had committed no crime, but by compliance with influence not easily to be refifted, was not the only act by which the old king irritated his fon. A lady with whom the prince was fufpected of intimacy, perhaps more than virtue allowed, was feized, I know not upon what accufation, and, by the king's order, notwithstanding all the reafon of decency and tenderness that operate in other countries, and other judicatures, was publickly whipped in the streets of Berlin.

At laft, that the prince might feel the power of a king and a father in its utmost rigour, he was in 1733 married against his will to the princefs Elizabetha Chriftina of Brunfwick Lunenburg Beveren. He married her indeed at his father's command, but without profeffing for her either efteem or affection, and, confidering the claim of parental authority fully fatisfied by the external ceremony, obftinately and perpetually during the life of his father refrained from her bed. The poor princefs lived about feven years in the court of Berlin, in a state which the world has not often feen, a wife without a husband, married fo far as to engage her person to a man who did not defire her affection, and of whom it was doubtful whether he thought himself restrained from the power of repudiation by an act performed under evident compulfion.

Thus he lived fecluded from publick bufinefs, in contention with his father, in alienation from his wife. This ftate of uneafinefs he found the only

means