And, let me assure you, it is an invaluable element in any man's Religion, and highly indispensable, though so often dispensed with! Readers, especially in our time English readers, who would gain the least knowledge about Friedrich, in the extinct Bedlam where his work now lay, have a great many things to forget, and sad strata of Owl-droppings, ancient and recent, to sweep away!-- To Friedrich a bargain with Austria, which would be a getting into port, in comparison to going with the French in that distracted voyage of theirs, is highly desirable.

"Shall I join with the English, in hope of some tolerable bargain from Austria?
Shall I have to join with the French, in despair of any ?" Readers may consider how stringent upon Friedrich that question now was, and how ticklish to solve.

And it must be solved soon,--under penalty of "being left with no ally at all" (as Friedrich expresses himself), while the whole world is grouping itself into armed heaps for and against! If the English would but get me a bargain--?
Friedrich dare not think they will.

Nay, scanning these English incoherences, these contradictions between what they say here and what they do and say elsewhere, he begins to doubt if they zealously wish it,--and at last to believe that they sincerely do not wish it; that "they mean to amuse me" (as he said to Hyndford)--till my French chance too is over.

"To amuse me: but, PAR DIEU--!" His Notes to Podewils, of which Ranke, who has seen them, gives us snatches, are vivid in that sense: "I should be ashamed if the cunningest Italian could dupe me; but that a lout of a Hanoverian should do it!"-- and Podewils has great difficulty to keep him patient yet a little; Valori being so busy on the other side, and the time so pressing.