However, DE CATT, looking at a king from a queer angle,
is extraordinarily diverting. "Reader" was a euphemism for a patient
audience, including _claque_. FREDERICK, _incognito_ on a Dutch barge,
picked up the young scholar and marked him down as one who could be
induced by florins and flattery to take on the job of listening to
his patron's bad French verses and his after-dinner flutings of little
things of his own, his approving observations on his own conduct, his
battles, his philosophy of life and politics, no doubt calculating
that it would all be jotted down on fateful scraps of paper and given
a favourable colouring for the edification of the world. Well, the
great FREDERICK put it over me all right. Frankly I rather liked the
old fellow, his old clothes (there was at least no shining armour
swank at Potsdam in those days), his practice of solemnly cutting
capers for the benefit of his "reader," though I know not explicitly
what a caper is, his Billingsgate language, his real opinion of
VOLTAIRE, his charming, if possibly rare, acts of magnanimity, his
moderation in war, which was not all hypocrisy. In fact, if you
expect an ogre you will be disappointed. He could give the latest
Hohenzollern points in a good many directions. I ought, of course,
to add that a learnedly allusive preface by Lord ROSEBERY graces the
volume, and that the very competent translation is by F.S. FLINT.
* * * * *
These are days when the more we know about Russia and things Russian
the better.
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