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when in his own language, he wrote with coolness and circumspection, his diction, which was always perspicuous, was peculiarly elegant and correct. His style is nevertheless extremely variable: he often composed precipitately, and occasionally in a state of high mental irritation; and though there be a character which still adheres to what he wrote and fully deci phers the writer, his compositions uniformly partake of the predominant sensation of the moment. In few words, he was a benevolent man, an accomplished scholar, an indefatigable friend, and a sincere Christian.

"At his own particular desire his remains were interred in Paddington church-yard, being the parish in which he died; and his funeral was

attended by a long procession of carriages, not indecently empty and sent for the mere purpose of external parade, but filled with friends who were strenuously attached to his person, and will long venerate his memory; and who, though divided by different tenets into almost every class of christian and even political society, here consented to forget every nominal separation, and to unite in taking one common and affectionate farewel of a man who had been an honour to the generation in which he lived.

A plain marble monument, with a short inscription engraven on it, selected from his own works, has been erected to his memory by his patron lord Petre, and is affixed to the outside of the entrance into the church."

ACCOUNT of the LIFE of GENERAL DE ZIETEN.

[From his LIFE, by Madame DE BLUMENTHAL, translated from the German by the Reverend B. BERESFORD.]

"JOHN

OHN Joachim de Zieten was born on the 18th of May, 1699, at Wustrau, a village be- longing to his family, situated in the county of Ruppin, seven German miles from Berlin. His father, Joachim Matthias de Zieten, was a country gentleman who resided on his own estate, unemployed either in a civil or military capacity. He married Elizabeth Catherine de Jurgas of the house of Ganzer, by whom he had four daughters and two sons; of the latter, one died in his infancy.

"M. de Zieten's fortune did not exceed five hundred rix-dollars a year, which arose from the produce

of his Wustrau estate *. On this moderate income did this gentleman and his family, whose wants were few, live, as people lived in good old times, towards the close of the seventeenth century. The tricks and chicaneries of his wealthy neighbours, which often bore hard upon him, alone could make him feel the want of fortune, and under the pressure of these injurious proceedings he commonly displayed a command of temper not a little rare among the old Germans.

"Young de Zieten, in his father's house, was utterly unprovided with the means of instruction or culture. Left to himself at a time of life in

"The village of Wustrau was at this time possessed by three different proprie Lors. M. de Zieten's portion amounted to about a sixth part."

which, at the present day, young men of condition are engaged in their studies and various exercises, his natural dispositions alone deve Joped themselves, and gave him that character of originality which the hand of art in polishing would have much defaced.

"He employed the leisure of his early days in forming plans for the future. The void that prevailed in the life of his father, the small fortune which one day was to fall to his share, the narrow and gloomy limits of the mansionhouse, to which he found himself confined, instead of afflicting and. dismaying him, tended only to inflame his courage and foster his ambition. When yet a mere child his imagination was busied in embellishing the inheritance of his ancestors; and, when grown 'old, he has often acknowledged, that the plans he afterwards executed were in part the dreams of his youth. "He betrayed from his early childhood a decided partiality for every thing that related to the military life. Whenever a soldier passed through Wustrau on a furlough, a circumstance that rarely happened, young Zieten followed him closely, could never sufficiently admire him, and was cagerly solicitous of the honour of imitating and resembling him. The Prussian soldiers, it is well known, wear their hair tied in a queue. Every Saturday young Zieten requested his father's leave to go to Ruppin, a German mile from Wustrau, where a soldier of the garrison with whom he had formed an acquaintance, dressed his hair à la Prussieme, and made him a large queue well stiffened and powdered, which, served to ornament him for the ensuing week. He was at this time

nine years

of

age.

"Nature had endowed him with
a quick perception of right and
wrong, and with the strongest pro-
pensity to resist oppression. These
dispositions manifested themselves
from his very childhood, and ren-
dered him a correct and judicious
observer of every thing that passed
within the sphere of his notice.
The unbecoming procedure of his
neighbours irritated his mind, his
father's mortifications became his
own; and, in the bitterness of his
soul, he has been often heard to
swear he would one day put an
end to them.

"When he was thirteen years
old, his parents provided him with
a kind of tutor, a man whose irre-
gularity of conduct ill fitted him
for the task. Young Zieten soon
perceived this and withdrew his
esteem and confidence.
The pre-
ceptor one day preparing to inflict
a bodily correction upon his pupil,
the youth repulsed him with dis-
dain, impeached him to his father;
and having supported his accusa-
tions with proper proof, the peda-
gogue was immediately dismissed.

"At the age of fourteen he left
Wustrau to enter into the service of
Frederick William I., king of Prus-
sia. His father procured him the
post of standard-bearer in the regi-
ment of Schwendy (now Zenge),
which, after having been engaged
in the siege of Stralsund, was gar-
risoned at Spandau, Frankfort on
the Oder, Cottbus, Treuenbrietzen
and Belitz.

"His relations were unable to furnish him either with letters of recommendation or money. He was low of stature and of a puny unhealthy appearance. Without pa tron, friend, or fortune, he felt himself, in his new career, in a strange city, as if he had just dropped from the clouds. His father, indeed,

had

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had some slight knowledge of general de Schwendy; they were neighbours, and their estates bordered upon each other; but they had scarce any intercourse together. M. de Zieten strongly recommended to his son to take the first opportunity of paying his court to the general, and of soliciting his patronage. He promised himself great advantage from this step, and we shall see in what manner it ended. The young man appears before his general; executes his father's commission, and finishes with the usual phrase, that he was come to pay his devoirs to him. Well, pay them then,' said Schwendy with the most insulting coolness; and, without adding a civil word either for the youth or his parents, he opened the window, and looking out of it, turned his back upon his visitor, whom he left standing near the door. Zieten did not long remain in this awkward situation; deeply hurt at the rude reception he had met with, he flung out of the chamber without taking the least pains to dissemble his resentment. He was never able to forget this scene; and even in his old age could never speak of it without the keenest indignation.

"Although unpatronised in his new career, and having entered it under the most unpromising auspices, his zeal for his profession remained uncooled, and his genius lost nothing of its original energy. On the contrary, it seemed as if oppression fortified his breast; and that the neglect in which he was vegetating, nourished his ambition, and imparted new elasticity and vigour to his mind. Thus situated, he was not, however, the less alive to insult, nor less prone to avenge his wrongs. The first

person he chastised, was a veteran serjeant who had behaved improperly to him. He wounded him desperately in the face, and escaped unhurt himself. Soon after this, he crippled one of his comrades. This early courage, though it bordered upon ferocity, acquired young Zieten that esteem for which his diminutive stature and undignified appearance seemed at first to have disqualified him, and procured him a kind of relief.

"After having passed some years in learning the detail of the military service, frequently mounting guard in the capacity of a common sentinel, and in acquitting himself of every duty his station imposed upon him, he was appointed ensign on the 7th of July, 1720. In a short time the regiment to which he belonged was given to count de Schwerin, afterwards field-marshal - general of Prussia. The count, who was a native of the duchy of Mecklenburg, had entered early into the army in the service of his own country; and, after having retired for a while to his paternal estate, he again launched into the military life under the banners of the king of Prussia. He had many imitators among the young and wealthy part of his own countrymen, who were eager to serve in his regiment, into which he admitted them to the prejudice of the senior officers, and of Zieten in particular, whom he disliked on account of his low stature and the shrillness of his voice, which he said was not formed to give the word of command. Zieten, after finding himself, in four successive instances, superseded to make way for others, demanded his dismission with reluctance, and immediately obtained it."

" Some

"Some months after this, being obliged to attend the progress of a law-suit at Berlin, he learnt with great satisfaction, that De Wuthenow's dragoons, who were quartered in Prussia, were shortly to be augmented from five squadrons to ten. This information revived all his hopes. He anticipated the long-wished-for moment of changing the sedentary and inanimate life he now led, for scenes of greater activity and pursuits more adapted to his genius. He was determined, however, not to avail himself of the recommendation or interposition of any one: his fortune, he was resolved, should be his own work ;— such was his unconquerable aversion to every thing that looked like patronage and dependency.

"Thus determined, he frequently appeared on the parade; and though he was aware that his diminutive size would be far from recommending him in the eyes of Frederick William, he was not the less eager to appear before that prince and to attract his notice. To further his design, he had again taken care to dress in regimentals, and the king soon remarked him. His majesty not only asked his name; but having received the same answer as was formerly given, he made him an offer of a new commission. It may be easily imagined with what readiness Zieten accepted the gracious proposal; he ventured, however, to stipulate conditions which might indemnify him in point of rank for the time he had lost in his retreat, and the partiality shown to the Mecklenburg officers, who, as it has been already observed, had been put

over his head. Having received his majesty's assurances that he should rank agreeably to his wishes, he entered into Wuthenow's dragoons as fourth lieutenant.

"It was in the year 1726, that Zieten, now twenty-seven years of age, thus launched for the second time into that element for which nature seemed to have formed him. Full of hope and ardour, and painting in the most vivid colours the picture of his future life, he was far from dreaming that vexations of a more disagreeable nature awaited him in the cavalry, than those he had experienced in the infantry. He repaired to his new quarters; but before he arrived there, he had a disaster to encounter which nearly cost him his life.

"When he was on the point of setting out for his garrison in the month of February, a staff-officer of his own regiment, who had come to Berlin to procure a supply of horses, having been informed that Zieten was appointed lieutenant, consigned a quantity of them to his care. The officer set out a day before him and passed the Vistula with no small difficulty, as the ice was beginning to break up.

When Zieten arrived the next day on the bank of the river, the ice was already afloat, and he was obliged to take a circuitous way of more than twenty German miles to cross the river over the bridge of Naugarten. This tottering structure had been often impaired by the inundation of the Vistula; and at this moment seemed on the point of giving way.

What could he do? It was necessary to avail himself of the present instant; and Zieten ac

• "Tilsit, a town in the Prussian Lithuania."

cordingly

cordingly began to march the horses over the bridge, and remained behind himself to preserve order. During these proceedings, the Polish toll-man shut the gate on the opposite side, and refused to suffer the horses, which were now crowded on the bridge, to pass till the toll was duly paid. This incident rendered the personal interference of Zieten absolutely neces sary; and he was obliged to make his way over the narrow and crazy bridge, justling along by the horses, which now began to grow unruly and much startled at the dashing of the waters. Scarcely had he, by dint of threats and promises, prevailed on the man to throw open the gate, scarcely had the horses in the fear lightened the bridge, which their weight had hitherto tended not a little to keep entire, when one arch after another began to yield to the violence of the current; and the last horse having touched the bank, the last arch gave way, and the whole bridge disappeared in a few minutes.

“Thus did Zieten owe his safety to the merest accident. Had he remained in the rear, and had not the well-timed perverseness of the tollman forced him to quit that dangerous post, he would most probably have been swallowed up with the bridge, and found a grave in the Vistula. But having escaped this danger, he seemed to derive new intrepidity from it, and become the better fitted to encounter the perils that still awaited him."

"The king died in the year 1740. In him Zieten lost a prince whom he loved as the author of his fortune, and whom he respected as the founder of the Prussian army, who from a vigorous judge had become a zealous patron, and

whose severities had been transformed into benefactions and favours. Whenever he spoke of this monarch, it was always with impressions of admiration and gratitude, and with the flattering consciousness of having overcome his prejudices by mere dint of merit.

"On the accession of Frederick II. all the splendid prospects of Zieten seemed on the point of vanishing away, or at least of becoming extremely precarious. On ascending the throne, this prince set about realising the plans which his genius had conceived in the silence of retreat. His system of government was already arranged, and the instruments which were to assist him in carrying it on were already chosen. Zieten, who had always kept aloof and considered every kind of eagerness which bore any resemblance to flattery as beneath himself and incompatible with real desert, had not attracted the notice of that monarch. He was lost in the crowd; but while Frederick on his part was far from foreseeing that their names should one day be blended together in the annals of history, and their glory reflect mutual splendor on each other, Zieten waited patiently for the moment in which his sovereign should mark him out and place him in his true sphere of action. The event has fulfilled his expecta tions, and justified the confidence he had both.in his own worth and the penetration of the monarch.

"The beginning of the reign of Frederick II. was the epoch of the German war. On the decease of Charles VI., the last of the male line of the house of Austria, several powers made pretensions to a great part of his dominions. The commotion soon became universal, and a general war appeared to be in

evitable

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