the name of several electors of Brandenburg and kings of Prussia. By far the most remarkable member of the royal family of Prussia is Frederick II., surnamed the Great—the greatest king who in modern times has succeeded by right of birth to a throne. He was the son of Frederick-William I. and Sophia-Dorothea, princess of Hanover, and was born January 24, 1712. His father, Frederick-William, was a man of ill-regulated mind, but possessing considerable administrative ability. He first conceived the idea of gaining for his country, by means of a strong military organization, a place among the great European powers quite out of proportion to its size and internal resources. With this view he maintained, even in times of peace, a force of 60,000 men, whom he trained to a perfection of discipline unknown in Europe since the days of the Roman Republic. He took especial pride in collecting tall soldiers. He had crimps in every capital in Europe to purchase gigantic recruits at prices more than three times the salaries of his best-paid ambassadors. He took equal delight in disciplining them, and indeed seems to have thought that the whole business of life ought to consist in drilling and being drilled. To defray the expenses of this army he was obliged to exercise in the other departments of government a strictness of economy that degenerated into the most sordid avarice. Avarice, however, was one of the most venial of his bad qualities. His nature was essentially bad and coarse, even to brutality. He delighted to make his power felt in the most galling manner, even by the weakest and most harmless of his own subjects. He knew Frederick nothing of literature and the fine arts, and utterly despised them both. He banished the celebrated scholar and philosopher Wolf from his dominions, because he ventured to speculate on metaphysics, and almost made up his mind to put an end to the Berlin Academy and the universities. On the other hand, however, he encouraged all the industrial arts, and himself founded some of the richest manufactories, and most famous hospitals and medical colleges, of which Prussia has now to boast. His temper was violent to savageness, and against none was it shown with more ferocious cruelty than the young prince.

The education which the heir-apparent to the throne received from this parent was calculated to make him nothing better than a good drill-serjeant. But he had the good fortune when a boy to be allowed the society of a French lady, whose mother-tongue he speedily picked up; and his first tutor, M. Duhan, succeeded in early imbuing his mind with a love of polite literature. In the society of these persons, and his own mother and sister, Frederick enjoyed a precarious immunity from the tyrannical maltreatment of his father. Reduced at length to despair by the misery of his condition, the young prince determined to fly to England, and seek shelter at the court of his maternal uncle. He communicated his design to the only two friends he ever had, Keith and a young lieutenant by name Katt. The plot was discovered. Keith escaped in safety to Holland. Katt was taken and hung before the eyes of his royal comrade. Frederick himself was only saved from a like fate by the urgent intercession of the emperor of Austria, the kings of Sweden and Poland, and the States of Holland. He was merely confined as a state prisoner in the castle of Custrin, where he was detained till he had nearly completed his twenty-first year. The treatment he had undergone had soured his temper and hardened his heart, but it had also matured his understanding, and made him an adept in the arts of dissimulation. He affected to submit himself in all things to the will of his father; and in 1733, in token of this submission, accepted as a wife at his father's orders the Princess Elizabeth Christina, daughter of Frederick Albrecht, duke of Brunswick Bevern, who was his wife in name only. Till the death of the king in 1740 the favourite residence of the crown-prince was at Rheinsberg, on the frontiers of Mecklenburg. There he surrounded himself with a select literary society, consisting chiefly of Frenchmen, and solaced his leisure hours with his flute, of which he was a perfect master. He also kept up a correspondence with a number of eminent foreign literati, especially with Voltaire, and this correspondence afterwards led to strange results. In his retreat at Rheinsberg Frederick wrote an immense quantity of prose and verse, which he sent to Voltaire to correct and prepare for press. The most notable of these compositions is the Anti-Machiavel, a refutation of the Princepe of the great Florentine diplomatist, in which that policy is condemned with especial severity which the writer pursued from the very day he assumed the Prussian crown. Early in the year 1740 Frederick-William died, and Frederick, who had just entered on his twenty-ninth year, ascended the throne. He found the treasury full, the army in the most perfect discipline, and the commerce and manufactures of the country flourishing and prosperous. The splendid army, which the old king had collected merely for the purpose of looking at, his successor determined to turn to practical account as soon as an opportunity offered. And such a chance was not long in presenting itself. The Pragmatic Sanction had guaranteed Maria Theresa in the peaceful succession to all her father's dominions, and none of the potentates who signed that instrument had been more profuse of his professions to abide by its terms than Frederick. He was now the very first to perjure himself by violating them. Availing himself of the fact that Silesia had originally belonged to the house of Brandenburg, he poured his troops into that province in 1740, and possessed himself of it before his hostile intentions were declared or even suspected. In the following spring the Austrians advanced in force to the relief of such strongholds as still held out. Frederick met them at Mollwitz, and after an obstinate engagement the steadiness and discipline of the Prussian troops carried the day, and the Austrians fled, leaving 8000 men on the field of battle. The victory was not due either to the generalship or personal gallantry of Frederick himself. He had taken command of the cavalry, which had been put to flight early in the action, and, believing that all was lost, had fled with his staff many miles from the scene of action. The victory was really gained by Marshal Schwerin and the Prussian infantry. The success of Frederick tempted the other powers who had had a share in the Pragmatic Sanction to imitate his example, in the hope of profiting like him by the dismemberment of the Austrian empire. The French and Bavarians entered Bohemia, and were joined by the Saxons. Prague was taken; and Frederick, for the second time, inflicted a signal defeat on the Austrian troops at Czaslau, May 17, 1742. By the advice of the English, Maria Theresa resolved to negotiate with Frederick, the most active and dangerous of her enemies. She consented to cede to him Upper and Lower Silesia, and some outlying portions of her wide dominions. Frederick abandoned his allies; Saxony soon followed his example; and the empress-queen, now at liberty to concentrate her forces against the French and Bavarians, speedily drove these invaders across the frontiers. Alarmed, however, at the successes of the Austrians, Frederick once more played the traitor, allied himself with France, and, before his intentions could be guessed, marched through Saxony into Bohemia, took Prague, and threatened Vienna. But he was compelled to retreat as suddenly as he had advanced; but on the 4th of June 1745 he defeated the combined forces of the Austrians and Saxons at Hohenfriedberg in Silesia, and shortly after at Sorr in Bohemia. The result of these victories was to confirm Frederick in the possession of Silesia; while he acknowledged Francis of Lorraine, husband of Maria Theresa, as emperor of Germany. To the second Silesian war, brought to a close by the treaty of Dresden in 1745, succeeded a peace of eleven years. During this interval Frederick was not idle. He reformed and simplified judicial proceedings in all parts of his kingdom, and with the aid of his chancellor Cocceii drew up the Frederickian code. He fostered hearts and manufactures as zealously as his own father had done; and though his great military expenditure prevented him from maintaining a navy, yet he secured the right of free navigation for Prussian merchantmen. In the intervals of public business, which he transacted without ministers and with the assistance of only a few clerks, he found time to write a history of the House of Brandenburg, which possesses very considerable literary merit; and a didactic poem on the art of war, which is still highly valued. These, like all his other compositions, are written in French, which language he employed to the utter exclusion of his native tongue. Of German he always spoke with the bitterest contempt, and it has been said that he barely knew enough of that tongue to swear correctly at his grenadiers when they made some false moves on parade. His rigid economy did not prevent him from expending large sums of money in gratifying his taste for architecture; and the splendid palaces of Berlin and Potsdam remain to attest his munificence in this respect. Some of the most splendid buildings in his kingdom were set apart for the accommodation of his troops, which now numbered 160,000 men. This splendid army was not destined to remain long inactive. In the month of August 1756 began the Seven Years' War. The causes that led to it are rather to be sought in the intense aversion and fear with which Frederick was personally regarded by his continental neighbours. Diplomatic skill readily suggested some more specious pretext for deluging Europe with blood. Frederick's agents at the various continental courts made him aware of the storm that was brewing. He saw that he could appeal for help to England alone; and his claims even upon her were none of the strongest. With a prudent temerity he resolved to anticipate his enemies, and strike the first blow. Saxony was overrun with 60,000 Prussian troops; Dresden was taken; Pirna invested; and Marshal Brown, the Austrian commander, who was hastening through Bohemia to its relief, was met by Frederick at Lowositz and utterly defeated. Returning to Pirna, Frederick made himself master of it, and half compelled, half persuaded the Saxon garrison to enlist under his banner. The approach of winter put an end to hostilities; but the advantage of the first campaign lay decidedly with Frederick. Early in 1757 the Prussian troops were marched into Bohemia; and on the 6th May the Austrians under Brown were routed with great slaughter at Prague. Leaving a large force behind him to invest the Bohemian capital, Frederick pushed on to attack the army of Daun, which lay encamped in an almost impregnable position at Kolin. After a protracted and bloody engagement, Frederick was driven back, and compelled to evacuate Bohemia. The position of the Prussian king was at this time desperate. His army had lost its prestige; the members of his own family had begun to lose their confidence in himself; Europe was in arms against him; the English, his only allies, had been defeated by the French at Hastenbeck; and his mother, whom he really loved, had just died. His own resolution had nearly given way under these accumulated disasters; and he seriously thought of poison as an escape from his misery. After a short interval, however, his mind recovered its tone, and he was once more steeled against all the reverses of fortune. Collecting his forces once more, he descended like an avalanche upon the combined armies of France and Austria, which he annihilated at Rosbach. Without a moment's delay he flew to Silesia, routed the Austrians, first at Lissa, and still more signally at Leuthen, where he achieved his most glorious victory, recovered Breslau, and expelled the Austrians from Silesia. England marked her sense of Frederick's gallantry by contributing an annual grant of £700,000 towards the expenses of the war; and this subsidy soon enabled the Prussian king to repair the gaps which his numerous battles made in his ranks. The campaign of 1758 was signalized by a splendid but dearly-bought victory over the Russians at Zorndorf, and by some minor engagements, in which Frederick was less fortunate; and that of the following year by the battle of Kunersdorf, in which, though at first victorious, he was finally defeated with great loss. Berlin next fell into the hands of the enemy, and was only saved from plunder by a heavy ransom. Next spring, however, fortune once more smiled on the Prussian king, who relieved Berlin, and drove the Austrians out of Saxony, after a sanguinary conflict at Torgau. During the winter of that year he repaired his losses as usual, and in spring presented an unbroken front to his many foes. His army, however, was very inferior to what it had been, and his position was hourly becoming more critical. He had actually begun once more to think himself of taking poison, when the death of the czarina of Russia, and the accession of Peter III., an enthusiastic admirer of Frederick, completely changed the aspect of affairs. Peace was at once concluded with Russia and Sweden. Being thus freed from his most formidable foes, Frederick was free to concentrate his forces against the Austrians, whom he routed at Buckersdorf, and drove for the last time out of Silesia. Danger now began to menace the house of Hapsburg from another quarter. The Turks had assembled a mighty army on the frontiers of Hungary, and were threatening Vienna; and in February 1763 the Frederick, peace of Hubertusburg put an end to the Seven Years' War. Frederick yielded nothing. Silesia has ever since his day been an appanage of the Prussian crown.

After an absence of six years, Frederick entered Berlin in triumph. The houses were splendidly illuminated, and the multitude greeted him with acclaim as he rode through the streets. With unremitting energy he set himself to repair the losses and devastation caused by the war. He distributed corn from his own magazines both for seed and food, rebuilt the houses (of which fifteen thousand had been burned to the ground), and apportioned his cavalry and artillery horses among the farmers for the tillage of the soil. Silesia and Pomerania were exempted from all taxes for a certain term of years. The bank of Berlin was instituted, canals were constructed, and manufactories erected with various privileges from the king; and though the true principles of commerce do not seem to have been well understood, he did his best to restore and promote the ruined trade of Prussia.

In 1772 he agreed to the first partition of Poland, and in 1778 incorporated the Franconian principalities, thus making large and valuable accessions to his power. In 1785 he organized the famous "Fürstenbund," which frustrated the attempts of the Austrian emperor to exchange the Low Countries for Bavaria; and in the following year concluded a commercial treaty with the United States of America. Though his career was now drawing to a close, he still bestowed as much time and care on the details of government as he had done in the prime of life, and persisted in this policy till within two days of his death, which happened on the 17th August, 1786, after he had entered on the seventy-fifth year of his age, and the forty-seventh of his reign.

Frederick comes before posterity to be judged in the twofold capacity of author and ruler. Even though he had never distinguished himself in the political world, his claims to posthumous renown as a writer would have been entitled to a careful consideration. Some of his compositions we have already alluded to. Though his most elaborate works, they were not such as he prided himself most upon. He believed himself to be a poet, and was as sensitive on the subject of his verses as the humblest poetaster. We have already mentioned Frederick's partiality for everything French. He even adopted the French tongue in preference to his own, and used it as the vehicle of his thoughts in all his works prose and poetical. Like all writers who have written in a tongue of which they have not the full command, Frederick seldom rises above mediocrity in his poetical effusions. Even had he been thorough master of any one form of speech, it is doubtful if he would ever have attained particular distinction as a poet. The "vision and the faculty divine" were not his. He had plenty of wit, chiefly of the satiric kind, and no small abundance of ideas; but he lacked the fancy, the imagination, and the refinement of thought which go to make the real poet. In his prose works he shows to far greater advantage. Besides those formal works which have been already characterized, he wrote a vast number of letters, which have been published among his posthumous writings, and form on the whole the most readable and agreeable of his works. They are always sensible, direct, and concise, and, considering the position of the author, very fair and impartial. Not the least interesting in the collection are those addressed to Voltaire, whom at one time he almost worshipped as a demigod, and at another branded as a knave and rascal. The whole episode, indeed, of Frederick's connection with the patriarch of French literature is one of the most interesting, amusing, and humiliating in the history of letters.

But Frederick the ruler was a very different being from Frederick the author. Except Cromwell, no such governor had appeared in Europe since the days of the old Plantagenets; and in the history of the last two hundred years, no single name stands higher than his, but that of the first Napoleon. Like Napoleon, Frederick in his youth professed himself a warm admirer of constitutional governments, and upheld them as the model of a well-governed state. But he was at heart a tyrant in the old Greek sense of that term, and the single aim of all his policy was to establish a tyranny that should be feared and respected throughout Europe. How successfully he carried out his plan is shown by the results he achieved. The kingdom he received from his father comprised only about 2000 German square miles, and only took rank as a fifth-rate power in Europe. When he died, he bequeathed it to his successor almost doubled in extent, and ranking on equal terms with the oldest and most powerful of the surrounding monarchies. In adapting his means to this end, he was as unscrupulous as a Jesuit. In his proclamations, issued before the Seven Years' War, he paraded, for form's sake, his ancient claims on Silesia; but in his memoirs he coolly describes his real motives when he says, "Ambition, interest, and the desire of making people talk about me carried the day, and I decided for war." The barren glory of military renown was little to his taste unless he saw a fair prospect of securing some solid advantage from the confusion of a general European war; and he always managed to balance his opponents so nicely against each other, that whoever lost he was sure to be a gainer. To say nothing of the strong imprint of his own character which he left upon his nation, the material advantages which his policy secured for it were such as to make Prussia the envy of surrounding nations. Besides the increase of territory already mentioned, Frederick left his successor ten millions sterling in the exchequer, and not a farthing of national debt, an army of 200,000 of the best disciplined troops in the world, and a contented people enjoying wholesome laws and a fairly administered judicial system.

As is often the case with men brought up under the stern rigour of an unreasoning fanaticism, Frederick became in his old age an avowed disbeliever in revelation; and though he was fond of speculating on natural religion, he does not seem to have had any fixed or definite ideas on the subject. His early training had soured his temper as well as blunted his religious sensibilities; and to this must be attributed many of the acts of harshness and cruelty with which he has been taxed, especially in the discipline of his army. The severity of his discipline was such as sometimes led to strange consequences. The royal guard at Potsdam found it so intolerable that they preferred death to life. As, however, by the tenets of their church, suicide was looked upon as an unpardonable sin, they were led to commit what they considered the more venial sin of murder, and always selected as a victim some young and innocent child. They thus gained their object, which was to die without committing suicide. The cases of child-murder by soldiers of the guard became at length so numerous that it was found necessary to devise some means to put a stop to the practice which the punishment had failed to do. The penalty was changed to branding and lashing, and from that day the murders ceased. If, however, Frederick was often guilty of cruelty, the recorded instances of his clemency and generosity are still more numerous and striking.—(Life of Frederic the Great, by Lord Dover; Memoirs of the Court of Prussia, by Dr Edward Velse; Essay on Frederic the Great, by T. B. Macaulay; &c., &c.)

a city, capital of a cognominal county in the state of Maryland, North America, stands on the Carroll Creek, a tributary of the Monocacy, 63 miles W.N.W. of Annapolis. It is well and regularly built, and being situated in a rich agricultural district it carries on an extensive trade. It is connected by a branch with the Baltimore and Ohio railway. The public buildings include a courthouse, county jail, market-house, and a college chartered in 1850. Pop. (1850) 6028.