Who knows what damage the poor creature may have got by that sad operation;--which all Saxony sighed to the heart on hearing of; for it was always hoped he had some real religion, and would deliver them from that Babylonish Captivity again! He married Kaiser Joseph I.'s Daughter,--Maria Theresa's Cousin, and by an Elder Brother;--this, too, ought surely to be something in the Anti-Pragmatic line?
It is true, Kur-Baiern has to Wife another Daughter of Kaiser Joseph's; but she is the younger: "I am senior THERE, at least!" thinks the foolish man.
Too true, he had finally, in past years, to sign Pragmatic Sanction; no help for it, no hope without it, in that Polish-Election time.

He will have to eat his Covenant, therefore, as the first step in Anti-Pragmatism; and he is extremely in doubt as to the How, sometimes as to the Whether.

And shifts and whirls, accordingly, at a great rate, in these months and years; now on Maria Theresa's side, deluded by shadows from Vienna, and getting into Russian Partition-Treaties; anon tickled by Belleisle into the reverse posture; then again reversing.
An idle, easy-tempered, yet greedy creature, who, what with religious apostasy in early manhood, what with flaccid ambitions since, and idle gapings after shadows, has lost helm in this world; and will make a very bad voyage for self and country.
His Palinurus and chief Counsellor, at present and afterwards, is a Count von Bruhl, once page to August the Strong; now risen to such height: Bruhl of the three hundred and sixty-five suits of clothes; whom it has grown wearisome even to laugh at.

A cunning little wretch, they say, and of deft tongue; but surely among the unwisest of all the Sons of Adam in that day, and such a Palinurus as seldom steered before.
Kur-Sachsen, being Reichs-Vicar in the Northern Parts,--( Kur-Baiern and Kur-Pfalz, as friends and good Wittelsbacher Cousins surely ought, in a crisis like this, have agreed to be JOINT-Vicars in the Southern Parts, and no longer quarrel upon it),--Kur-Sachsen has a good deal to do in the Election preludings, formalities and prearrangements; and is capable, as Kur-Pfalz and Cousin always are, of serving as chisel to Belleisle's mallet, in such points, which will plentifully turn up.
5.

KING OF SARDINIA .-- Reichs-Vicar in the Italian Parts is Charles Amadeus King of Sardinia (tough old Victor's Son, whom we have heard of): an office mostly honorary; suitable to the important individual who keeps the Door of the Alps.