“None whatever,” replied an elderly naval officer,

As for the young English gentleman passionately attached, he followed, it is understood; faithful, constant as shadow to the sun, always a stage behind; arrived in Berlin two hours after his Barberina, still passionately attached; and now, as the rumor goes, was threatening even to marry her, and so save the matter. Supremely indifferent to my readers and me. But here now is the circumstance that makes it mentionable. The young English is properly a young Scotch gentleman; James Mackenzie the name of him,--a grandson of the celebrated Advocate, Sir George Mackenzie; and younger Brother of a personage who, as Earl of Bute, became extremely conspicuous in this Kingdom in after years. That makes it mentionable,--if only in the shape of MYTH. For Friedrich, according to rumor, being still like to lose his Dancer in that manner, warned the young gentleman's friends; and had him peremptorily summoned home, and the light fantastic toe left free in that respect. Which procedure the indignant young gentleman (thinks my Author) never forgave; continuing a hater of Friedrich all his days; and instilling the same sentiment into the Earl of Bute at a period which was very critical, as we shall see. This is my Author's, the often fallacious though not mendacious Dr. Zimmermann's, rather deliberate account; a man not given to mendacity, though filled with much vague wind, which renders him fallacious in historical points.

Readers of Walpole's George the Third know enough of this Mackenzie, "Earl's Brother, MACKINSY," and the sorrowful difficulties about his Scotch law-office or benefice; in which matter "Mackinsy" behaves always in a high way, and only the Ministerial Outs and Inns higgle pedler-like, vigilant of the Liberties of England, as they call them. In the end, Mackinsy kept his law-office or got it restored to him; 3,000 pounds a year without excess of work; a man much the gentleman, according to the rule then current: in contemplative rare moments, the man, looking back through the dim posterns of the mind, might see afar off a certain pirouetting Figure, once far from indifferent, and not yet quite melted into cheerless gray smoke, as so much of the rest is-- to Mr. Mackinsy and us. I have made, in the Scotch Mackenzie circles, what inquiry was due; find no evidence, but various likelihoods, that this of the Barberina and him is fact, and a piece of his biography. As to the inference deduced from it, in regard to Friedrich and the Earl of Bute, on a critical occasion,-- that rests entirely with Zimmermann; and the candid mind inclines to admit that, probably, it is but rumor and conjecture; street-dust sticking to the Doctor's shoes, and demanding merely to be well swept out again. Heigho!--

Barberina, though a dancer, did not want for more essential graces. Very sprightly, very pretty and intelligent; not without piquancy and pungency: the King himself has been known to take tea with her in mixed society, though nothing more; and with passionate young gentlemen she was very successful. Not long after her coming to Berlin, she made conquest of Cocceji, the celebrated Chancellor's Son; who finding no other resource, at length privately married her. Voltaire's Collini, when he came to Berlin, in 1750, recommended by a Signora Sister of the Barberina's, found the Barberina and her Mother dining daily with this Cocceji as their guest: [Collini, Mon Sejour aupres de Voltaire (a Paris, 1807), pp. 13-19.] Signora Barberina privately informed Collini how the matter was; Signorina still dancing all the same,--though she had money in the English funds withal; and Friedrich had been so generous as give her the fixing of her own salary, when she came to him, this-side-uppermost, in the way we described. She had fixed, too modestly thinks Collini, on 5,000 thalers (about 750 pounds) a year; having heart and head as well as heels, poor little soul. Perhaps her notablest feat in History, after all, was her leading this Collini, as she now did, into the service of Voltaire, to be Voltaire's Secretary. As will be seen. Whereby we have obtained a loyal little Book, more credible than most others, about that notable man.

At a subsequent period, Barberina decided on declaring her marriage with Cocceji; she drew her money from the English funds, purchased a fine mansion, and went to live with the said Cocceji there, giving up the Opera and public pirouettes. But this did not answer either. Cocceji's Mother scorned irreconcilably the Opera alliance; Friedrich, who did not himself like it in his Chancellor's Son, promoted the young man to some higher post in the distant Silesian region. But there, alas, they themselves quarrelled; divorced one another; and rumor again was busy. "You, Cocceji yourself, are but a schoolmaster's grandson [Barberina, one easily supposes, might have a temper withal]; and it is I, if you will recollect, that drew money from the English funds!" Barberina married again; and to a nobleman of sixteen quarters this time, and with whom at least there was no divorce. Successful with passionate gentlemen; having money from the English funds. Her last name was Grafinn--I really know not what. Her descendants probably still live, with sixteen quarters, in those parts. It was thus she did her life-journey, waltzing and walking; successfully holding her own against the world. History declares itself ashamed of spending so many words on such a subject. But the Dancer of Friedrich, and the authoress, prime or proximate, of Collini's Voltaire, claims a passing remembrance. Let us, if we can easily help it, never speak of her more.

CONQUEST SECOND IS OST-FRIESLAND, OF A SOLID NATURE.

May 25th, 1744, just while Barberina began her pirouettings at Berlin, poor Karl Edzard, Prince of East Friesland, long a weak malingering creature, died, rather suddenly; childless, and the last of his House, which had endured there about 300 years. Our clever Wilhelmina at Baireuth, though readers have forgotten the small circumstance, had married a superfluous Sister-in-law of hers to this Karl Edward; and, they say, it was some fond hope of progeny, suddenly dashed into nothingness, that finished the poor man, that night of May 25th. In any case, his Territory falls to Prussia, by Reich's Settlement of long standing (1683-1694); which had been confirmed anew to the late King, Friedrich Wilhelm: --we remember how he returned with it, honest man, from that KLADRUP JOURNEY in 1732, and was sniffed at for bringing nothing better. And in the interim, his royal Hanover Cousins, coveting East Friesland, had clapt up an ERBVERBRUDERUNG with the poor Prince there (Father, I think, of the one just dead): "A thing ULTRA VIRES," argued Lawyers; "private, quasi-clandestine; and posterior (in a sense) to Reich's CONCLUSUM, 1694."

On which ground, however, George II. now sued Fricdrich at Reich's Law,--Friedrich, we need not say, having instantly taken possession of Ost-Friesland. And there ensued arguing enough between them, for years coming; very great expenditure of parchment, and of mutual barking at the moon (done always by proxy, and easy to do); which doubtless increased the mutual ill-feeling, but had no other effect. Friedrich, who had been well awake to Ost-Friesland for some time back, and had given his Official people (Cocceji his Minister of Justice, Chancellor by and by, and one or two subordinates) their precise Instructions, laid hold of it, with a maximum of promptitude; thereby quashing a great deal of much more dangerous litigation than Uncle George's.

"In all Germany, not excepting even Mecklenburg, there had been no more anarchic spot than Ost-Friesland for the last sixty or seventy years. A Country with parliamentary-life in extraordinary vivacity (rising indeed to the suicidal or internecine pitch, in two or three directions), and next to no regent-life at all. A Country that had loved Freedom, not wisely but too well! Ritter Party, Prince's Party, Towns' Party;--always two or more internecine Parties: 'False Parliament you: traitors!' 'We? False YOU, traitors!'--The Parish Constable, by general consent, kept walking; but for Government there was this of the Parliamentary Eloquences (three at once), and Freedom's battle, fancy it, bequeathed from sire to son! 'The late Karl Edzard never once was in Embden, his chief Town, though he lived within a dozen miles of it.'--And then, still more questionable, all these energetic little Parties had applied to the Neighboring Governments, and had each its small Foreign Battalion, 'To protect US and our just franchises!' Imperial Reich's-Safeguard Battalion, Dutch Battalion, Danish Battalion,--Prussian, it first of all was (year 1683, Town of Embden inviting the Great Elector), but it is not so now. The Prussians had needed to be quietly swift, on that 25th day of May, 1744.