2, 10, 63.] And has not been done without strivings and contrivings, hard requisitions on the places liable; and has involved not a little of severity and difficulty,--especially a great deal of haggling with the collecting parties, or at least with Prince Henri, who presides in Saxony, and is apt to complain and mourn over the undoable, rather than proceed to do it.

The King's Correspondence with Henri, this Winter, is curious enough; like a Dialogue between Hope on its feet, and Despair taking to its bed.

"You know there are Two Doctors in MOLIERE," says Friedrich to him once; "a Doctor TANT-MIEUX (So much the Better) and a Doctor TANT-PIS (So much the Worse): these two cannot be expected to agree!"-- Instead of infinite arithmetical details, here is part of a Letter of Friedrich's to D'Argens; and a Passage, one of many, with Prince Henri;--which command a view into the interior that concerns us.
THE KING TO D'ARGENS (at Berlin).
"BRESLAU, 18th January, 1762.
...

"You have lifted the political veil which covered horrors and perfidies meditated and ready to burst out [Bute's dismal procedures, I believe; who is ravenous for Peace, and would fain force Friedrich along with him on terms altogether disgraceful and inadmissible [See D'Argens's Letter (to which this is Answer), _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xix.
281, 282.]]: you judge correctly of the whole situation I am in, of the abysses which surround me; and, as I see by what you say, of the kind of hope that still remains to me.

It will not be till the month of February [Turks, probably, and Tartar Khan; great things coming then!] that we can speak of that; and that is the term I contemplate for deciding whether I shall hold to CATO [Cato,--and the little Glass Tube I have!] or to CAESAR'S COMMENTARIES," and the best fight one can make.
"The School of patience I am at is hard, long-continued, cruel, nay barbarous.