FREDERICK THE GREAT. 931 
and resolutely refuse the snuff-box to young and beautiful 
women, who ought to preserve their delicate and pretty noses 
for the odors of the mignonette and the rose.” 
With royalty snuff has been a prime favorite. Charles III. 
of Spain hada great predilection for rappee snuff, but only 
indulged his inclination by stealth, and particularly while 
shooting, when he imagined himself to be unnoticed. Fred- 
erick the Great and Napoleon* both loved and used large 
quantities of the “pungent dust.” Of the former the follow- 
ing anecdote is related :— 
“ The cynical temper of Frederick the Great is well known. 
Once when his sister, the Duchess of Brunswick, was at 
Potsdam, Frederick made to the brave Count Schwerin the 
present of a gold snuff-box. On the lid inside was painted 
the head of an ass. Next day, when dining with the king, 
Schwerin, with some ostentation, put his snuff-box on the 
table. Wishing to turn the joke against Schwerin, the king 
called attention to the snuff-box. The Duchess took it up 
and opened it. Immediately she exclaimed, ‘ What a striking 
likeness! In truth, brother, this is one of the best portraits 
I have ever seen of you.’ Frederick, embarrassed, thought 
his sister was carrying the jest too far. She passed the box 
to her neighbor, who uttered similar expressions to her own. 
The box made the round of the table, and every one was 
fervently eloquent about the marvelous resemblance. The 
king was puzzled what to make of all this. When the box 
at last reached his hands, he saw, to his great surprise, that 
his portrait was really there. Count Schwerin had simply, 
with exceeding dispatch, employed an artist to remove the 
ass’s head, and to paint the king’s head instead. Frederick 
could not help laughing at the Count’s clever trick, which 
was really the best rebuke of his own bad taste and want of 
proper and respectful feeling.” 
“ As Frederick William I., of Prussia, was eminently the 
Smoking King, so his son Frederick the Great was eminently 
the Snuffing King. Perhaps smoking harmonizes best with 
action; and it might, without much stretch of fancy, be 
shown that as the Peas monarchy was founded on tobacco 
smoke, it flourished on snuff. Possibly, if Napoleon the 
Great, who like Frederick the Great, was an excessive snuffer, 
2 having been unable to undergo the ordeal of a first pipe, stigmatized it asa 
habit Da atte sere sluggards. What he renounced in smoking, however, he compensated 
in enuff. 
