tactics, and proclaimed Frederic a master of the art of war.  But in these battles he simply showed himself to be a great general.  It was not until his reverses came that he showed himself a great man, or earned the sympathy which Europe felt for a humiliated monarch, putting forth herculean energies to save his crown and kingdom.  His easy and great victories in the first year of the war simply saved him from annihilation; they were not great enough to secure peace.  Although thus far he was a conqueror, he had no peace, no rest, and but little hope.  His enemies were so numerous and powerful that they could send large reinforcements:  he could draw but few.  In time it was apparent that he would be destroyed, whatever his skill and bravery.  Had not the Empress Elizabeth died, he would have been conquered and prostrated.  After his defeat at Hochkirch, he was obliged to dispute his ground inch by inch, compelled to hide his grief from his soldiers, financially straitened and utterly forlorn; but for a timely subsidy from England he would have been desperate.  The fatal battle of Kunnersdorf, in his fourth campaign, when he lost twenty thousand men, almost drove him to despair; and evil fortune continued to pursue him in his fifth campaign, in which he lost some of his strongest fortresses, and Silesia was opened to his enemies.  At one time he had only six days’ provisions:  the world marvelled how he held out.  Then England deserted him.  He made incredible exertions to avert his doom:  everlasting marches, incessant perils; no comforts or luxuries as a king, only sorrows, privations, sufferings; enduring more labors than his soldiers; with restless anxieties and blasted hopes.  In his despair and humiliation it is said he recognized God Almighty.  In his chastisements and misfortunes,—­apparently on the very brink of destruction, and with the piercing cries of misery which reached his ears from every corner of his dominions,—­he must, at least, have recognized a Retribution.  Still his indomitable will remained.  His pride and his self-reliance never deserted him; he would have died rather than have yielded up Silesia until wrested from him.  At last the battle of Torgau, fought in the night, and the death of the Empress of Russia, removed the overhanging clouds, and he was enabled to contend with Austria unassisted by France and Russia.  But if Maria Theresa could not recover Silesia, aided by the great monarchies of Europe, what could she do without their aid?  So peace came at last, when all parties were wearied and exhausted; and Frederic retained his stolen province at the sacrifice of one hundred and eighty thousand men, and the decline of one tenth of the whole population of his kingdom and its complete impoverishment, from which it did not recover for nearly one hundred years.  Prussia, though a powerful military state, became and remained one of the poorest countries of Europe; and I can remember when it was rare to see there, except in the houses