488 
knee or solicit an explanation, and the 
triumph which his dignified conduct 
eventually gained was complete. 
When Frederick saw the political ho- 
rizon of Prussia again begin to darken’; 
when he saw those vast preparations for 
hostility, which, on the eve of the seven 
years’ war, threatened his kingdom with 
destruction, he remembered Zieten. The 
great Frederick had his littlenesses : he 
could listen to the idle slanders of envi- 
ous flatterers, and in the day of trouble 
-was not ashamed to court the man who 
had eminently contributed to that period 
of prosperity, during which he had the 
baseness to neglevt and depreciate him. 
General Zieten’s health had so materially 
suffered from the death of his wife and 
only son, and from the constant vexation 
he nad experienced by the ingratitude 
of his king, that he expressed a desire 
to obtain his discharge. 
If Frederick was not stung with re- 
morse, at least he was not indifferent to 
his interests: an impending war, and 
the apprehension of losing one of his 
best officers, restored him to himself. 
He made every possible advance to re- 
concile the offended warrior; but the 
steps which he at first took, were not 
those to conciliate such aman as Zieten. 
His kind enquiries after the health of 
Zieten were thrown away, and all his 
smiles were laughed at. Frederick was 
so imprudent as to employ de Winter- 
field himself, the man who had done 
him so much injury, to conciliate him. 
He was received with coolness, and dis- 
missed with dignity: but Zieten’s return 
to the service was necessary to Frede- 
rick, and he resolved to call upon him 
himself, and alone. At first he at- 
tempted to make him acknowledge his 
faults, and was desirous to persuade him 
that he himself had been the sole.cause of 
the misunderstanding, and closed his 
harangue with a promise of forgetting 
every thing that had passed, holding out 
his hand in token of reconciliation. 
Zieten receded—he scorned to acknow- 
ledge faults of which he had not. been 
guilty, and mS 
« —The moment of reconciliation began 
to. appear more distant than ever, when the 
good genius of Prussia prompted the king 
with the following words: ‘No; it cannot 
be possible that Zieten, my faithful general, 
on the ie ea of a perilous war, should 
abandon his king and his country, whose 
confidence he so fully possesses !” 
BIOGRAPHY. 
«© These few words triumphed’ over the 
firmness of our hero, and found the way to 
his heart. He threw himself at the’ mos 
narch’s feet, and vowed to shed the last 
drop of his blood in his service.” 
Before the opening of the campaign, . 
the king raised him to the rank of nra- 
jor-general, and the reconciliation now 
effected produced a zealous friendship 
between the monarch and his officer, 
which never abated to the hour of their 
death. 
Throughout her narrative, the par- 
tiality of Madame de Blumenthal to the 
hero of her story has led her to speak 
contemptuously of general Winterfield ; 
if he employed those artifices which are 
here attributed to him, in order to in- 
tercept the rays of royalty, and prevent 
them from illuminating the retreat of 
Zieten, he is justly censurable. But it 
ought to be mentioned, that after Fre~ 
derick’s reconcitiation with his general, 
who had not concealed from him his 
suspicion as to the malicious interference 
of certain individuals, Frederick to the 
last continued his attachment to Win- 
terfield, whom he considered as an officer 
of great talent and courage. Winter- 
field was killed by acannon ball in the 
campaign of 1757, as he was leading 
up succours to some battalions who were 
engaged with the enemy: the king was 
much affected at his death; “ Imay find 
resources,” said he, “ against the mul- 
titude of my enemies, but how few men 
are to be found equal to Winterfield!” 
Madame de Blumenthal’s enthusiasm 
requires considerable abatement. 
We are now come to the seven years” 
war; a war nominally undertaken for the 
recovery of Silesia, in favour of the house 
of Austria, but, in fact, as it is observed 
here, to palsy a political body, which 
the creative genius of its sovereign had 
indued with such energy as to excite 
perpetual jealousy and alarm. Zieten 
was as remarkable for his prudence and 
foresight as he was for his gallantry, 
and to enumerate the instances in which 
he displayed the one and the cther, 
would be to detail the events of the. war. 
We must refer our readers to the histo-— 
rians of that bloody pericd; contenting 
ourselves with noticing a very few only 
of those scenes in which he was engaged. 
He covered the Prussian army in their 
dangerous passage of the Moldaw, and 
turned the fortune of the day in fayour 
of the Prussians at the celebrated battle 
