to notice it here. Monday, 29th May;—and poor Queen Sophie, we observe withal, is in the hands of the MONTHLY NURSE since Tuesday last! ["Prince Ferdinand (her last child, Father of him whose fate lay at Jenz seventy-six years afterwards), born 23d May, 1730."]
ST. PETER'S CHURCH IN BERLIN HAS AN ACCIDENT.
Monday 29th May, 1730, Friedrich Wilhelm and the Crown-Prince and Party were at Potsdam, so far on their way towards Radewitz. All is peaceable at Potsdam that night: but it was a night of wild phenomena at Berlin; or rather of one wild phenomenon, the "Burning of the SANCT-PETERS KIRCHE," which held the whole City awake and in terror for its life. Dim Fassmann becomes unusually luminous on this affair (probably an eye-witness to it, poor old soul); and enables us to fish up one old Night of Berlin City and its vanished populations into clear view again, if we like.
For two years back Berlin had been diligently building a non-plus-ultra of Steeples to that fine Church of St. Peter's. Highest Steeple of them all; one of the Steeples of the World, in a manner;—and Berlin was now near ending it. Tower, or shaft, has been complete some time, interior fittings going on; and is just about to get its ultimate apex, a "Crown-Royal" set on it by way of finis. For his Majesty, the great AEdile, was much concerned in the thing; and had given materials, multifarious helps: Three incomparable Bells, especially, were his gift; melodious old Bells, of distinguished tone, "bigger than the Great Bell of Erfurt," than Tom of Lincoln—or, as brief popular rumor has it, the biggest Bells in the World, at least of such a TONE. These Bells are hung, silent but ready in their upper chamber of the Tower, and the gigantic Crown or apex is to go on; then will the basket-work of scaffolding be peeled away, and the Steeple stretch, high and grand, into the air, for ages it is hoped.
Far otherwise. On Monday evening, between eight and nine, there gathered thunder over Berlin; wild tumult of the elements: thunder-bolt "thrice in swift succession" struck the unfinished Steeple; in the "hood" of which men thereupon noticed a light, as of a star, or sparkle of the sun; and straight-way, in spite of the rain-torrents, there burst out blazes of flame. Blazes unquenchable; grand yet perilous to behold. The fire-drums beat, the alarm-bells clanged, and ceased not; all Berlin struggling there, all night, in vain. Such volumes of smoke: "the heavens were black as if you had hung them with mortcloth:" such roaring cataracts of flame, "you could have picked up a copper doit at the distance of 800 yards."—"Hiss-s-s!" what hissing far aloft is that? That is the incomparable big Bells melting. There they vanish, their fine tones never to be tried more, and ooze through the red-hot ruin, "Hush-sh-sht!" the last sound heard from them. And the stem for holding that immense Crown-royal—it is a bar and bars of iron, "weighing sixteen hundred-weight;" down it comes thundering, crashing through the belly of St. Peter's, the fall of it like an earthquake all round. And still the fire-drums beat, and from all surviving Steeples of Berlin goes the clangor of alarm; "none but the very young children can have slept that night," says our vigilant old friend.
Wind was awake, too; kindling the neighboring streets;—storming towards the Powder-Magazine; where labor innumerable Artillerymen, "busy with hides from the tan-pits, with stable-dung, and other material;" speed to them, we will say! Forty dwelling-houses went; but not the Powder-Magazine; not Berlin utterly (so to speak) by the Powder-Magazine. On the morrow St. Peter's and neighborhood lay black, but still inwardly burning; not for three days more could the ruins be completely quenched.
That was the news for Friedrich Wilhelm, before sunrise, on the point of his departure for Muhlberg and King August's scenic exhibitions. "HM;—but we must go, all the same! We will rebuild it!" said he.—And truly he did so. And the polite King August, sorry to hear of the Peterskirche, "gave him excellent sandstone from the quarries of Pirna," says: Fassmann: "great blocks came boating down the Elbe" from that notable Saxon Switzerland Country, notable to readers here in time coming; and are to be found, as ashlar, in the modern St. Peter's at Berlin; a fact which the reader, till Pirna be better known to him, may remember if he likes. [Fassmann, pp. 406–409.]
And now let us to Radewitz without delay.
Chapter III. — CAMP OF RADEWITZ.
The Camp of Muhlberg, called more properly the Camp of Radewitz, towards which Friedrich Wilhelm, with English Hotham and many dignitaries are now gone, was one of the sublimest scenic military exhibitions in the history of the world; leaving all manner of imitation tournaments, modern "tin-tournaments," out of sight; and perhaps equalling the Field of the Cloth of Gold, or Barbarossa's Mainz Tournament in ancient times. It lasted for a month, regardless of expense—June month of the year 1730;—and from far and wide the idle of mankind ran, by the thousand, to see it. Shall the thing be abolished utterly—as perhaps were proper, had not our Crown-Prince been there, with eyes very open to it, and yet with thoughts very shut;—or shall some flying trace of the big Zero be given? Riddling or screening certain cart-loads of heavy old German printed rubbish, [Chiefly the terrible compilation called Helden-Staats und Lebens-Geschichte des, &c. Friedrichs des Andern (History Heroical, Political and Biographical of Friedrich the Second), Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1759–1760, vol, i. first HALF, pp. 171–210. There are ten thick and thin half-volumes, and perhaps more. One of the most hideous imbroglios ever published under the name of Book—without vestige of Index, and on paper that has no margin and cannot stand ink—yet with many curious articles stuffed blindly into the awful belly of it, like jewels into a rag-sack, or into TEN rag-sacks all in one; with far more authenticity than you could expect in such case. Let us call it, for brevity, Helden-Geschichte, in future references.] to omit the Hotham Despatches, we obtained the following shovelful of authentic particulars, perhaps not quite insupportable to existing mankind.
The exact size of the Camp of Radewitz I nowhere find measured; but to judge on the map, [At p. 214.] it must have covered, with its appendages, some ten or twelve square miles of ground. All on the Elbe, right bank of the Elbe; Town of Muhlberg, chief Town of the District, lying some ten miles northwest; then, not much beyond it, Torgau; and then famed Wittenberg, all on the northwest, farther down the River: and on the other side, Meissen with its Potteries not far to the southeast of you, up the River, on the Dresden hand. Nay perhaps many of my readers have seen the place, and not known, in their touring expeditions; which are now blinder than ever, and done by steam, without even eyesight, not to say intelligence. Precisely where the railway from Leipzig to Dresden crosses the Elbe—there, if you happen to have daylight, is a flat, rather clayey country, dirty-greenish, as if depastured partly by geese; with a big full River Elbe sweeping through it, banks barish for a mile or two; River itself swift, sleek and of flint-color; not unpleasant to behold, thus far on its journey from the Bohemian Giant-Mountains seaward: precisely there, when you have crossed the Bridge, is the south-most corner of August the Strong's Encampment—vanished now like the last flock of geese that soiled and nibbled these localities;—and, without knowing it, you are actually upon memorable ground.
Actually, we may well say; apart from August and his fooleries. For here also it was, on the ground now under your eye, that Kurfurst Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, having been surprised the day before at public worship in the abovementioned Town of Muhlberg, and completely beaten by Kaiser Karl the Fifth and his Spaniards and Duke of Alba, did, on Monday 25th April, 1547, ride forth as Prisoner to meet the said Kaiser; and had the worst reception from him, poor man. "Take pity on me, O God! This is what it is come to?" the magnanimous beaten Kurfurst was heard murmuring as he rode. At sight of the Kaiser, he dismounted, pulled off his iron-plated gloves, knelt, and was: for humbly taking the Kaiser's hand, to kiss it. Kaiser would not; Kaiser looked thunderous tornado on him, with hands rigidly in the vertical direction. The magnanimous Kurfurst arose therefore; doffed
