The King of PRUSSIA seems fairly to have given up
his impossi- ble enterprise of making Prussia a free country under the paternal control of a despotism. Like the anxious mother who could not trust her boy in the water until be could swim, FREDERICK
mein will not fully liberate Prussia until she has learned liberty under arbitrary sway. As she cannot manage that, he indignantly relinquishes the ungracious task, surprised at the contumacy of " my people." The States of Posen have ventured to remind the King that they had been promised a development of the repre- sentative system, and to complain of the rigorous censorship, which is assuredly one of the most glaring badges of national serfdom. He replies by declaring their allusion to past promises "indeco- rous," and threatening to withdraw favours already accorded ! The King is a very benevolent man—quite one of Mrs. FRY'S friends ; he is also an accomplished man, with a collection of HUMBOLDTS and other tame literati in his train enough to make his suite a scientific society ; yet the man does not know when he is breeding a revolution !
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