"King of Prussia cannot sleep," writes Dickens: "the officers sit up with him every night, and in his slumbers he raves and talks of spirits and apparitions." [Despatch, 3d October, 1730.] We saw him, ghost-like, in the night-time, gliding about, seeking shelter with Feekin against ghosts; Ginkel by daylight saw him, now clad in thunderous tornado, and anon in sorrowful fog.

Here, farther on, is a new item,--and joined to it and the others, a remarkable old one:-- "In regard to Wilhelmina's marriage, and whether a Father cannot give his daughter in wedlock to whom he pleases, there have been eight Divines consulted, four Lutheran, four Reformed (Calvinist); who, all but one [he of the Garrison Church, a rhadamanthine fellow in serge], have answered, 'No, your Majesty!' It is remarkable that his Majesty has not gone to bed sober for this month past." [Dickens, 9th and 19th December, 1730.] What Seckendorf and Grumkow thought of all these phenomena?
They have done their job too well.

They are all for mercy; lean with their whole weight that way,--in black qualms, one of them withal, thinking tremulously to himself, "What if his now Majesty were to die upon us, in the interim!".