cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

Naturally, Boswell visits the British envoy and his father's old pal in Berlin. Belle de Zuylen is a Dutch intellectual and writer whom Boswell flirted with when studying law at Utrecht. She flirted back but didn't take him seriously (wise her!), and definitely had no intention of marrying him.

I waited on Mr. Mitchell and found him a knowing amiable easy man. He was very polite. Te talked of Mademoiselle de Zuylen 'Elle a beaucoup d' esprit.' Oui said I trop d'esprit pour les Hollandais. And who was in the room but Mr. Verelst the Dutch envoy! Mr. Mitchell turned it off with a smiling reply. 'Monsieur, c'est un beau compliment que vous faites au Ministre d'Holland.' Blockhead that I was. Let never Man blunder out reflections against any country, when he does not very well know his company.

Joseph Yorke: British envoy to The Hague. Should have replaced Mitchell as British envoy to Prussia mid war, but Fritz wouldn't have it.

July 14: I rumbled in the Journaliere to Berin haivng for company amongst others Mademoiselle Dionsicus, daughter to the cook of Prince Ferdinand of Prussia. I talked words of German to this lass. I dined at Froment's, & after dinner went to Mr. Mitchell's. We talked of Sir Joseph Yorke, whom he calls Sir Joe. I told him that he seemed so anxious lest people should not know that he was Ambassador, that he held his head very high & spoke very little. And as i the infancy of painting people generally wrote 'this is a cow'. So from Sir Joe's mouth commeth a label with these words 'I am an Ambassador'. What a difference between this buckram knight & the amiable Mr. Mitchell.

Post-War, Fritz gave Monbijou to Louise to live in. As Schönhausen was getting renovated, EC is with her sister.

July 15: I dined at Mr. Mitchell's. He has an elegant house and a good table. He is polite and easy. His servants are good people, civil and attached to their master. After dinner, I played at billiards with Mr. Burnet, Secretary to Mr. Mitchell, a very good solid clever young fellow. At six the envoy carried me to Monbijou the campagne of the Princess of Prussia. Here I was presented to the Queen with whom the King has never lived. she has been handsome, and is very amiable, altho' she stammers sadly. I was presented to I don't know how many princes and princesses. I was akward, though not afraid.

Lawyers: Mitchell and Boswell's dad both had studied law, if you'll recall. So had Boswell, though he hadn't been too keen originally, he'd dreamt of being a soldier, romantisizing the profession.

Friday 27 July: I dined with Mr. Mitchell, who always give me agreeable views. He said that in living every man must be his own director; for, our tastes are extremely different. He said if lawyers had a fixed salary, they surely could not drudge as they do. But the little refreshing presents keep them alive. He counselled me much to pursue the law in Scotland as I might by that means attain a useful and honorable station. Yet he owned that some people could not follow that profession. I said nothing but had a secret satisfaction to find that my aversion to the law was not absolutely absurd. At six we got into his excellency's coach. I told him that the Abbé Jerusalem had wished to dispute with the King of Prussia, on Religion. Indeed said Mr. Mitchell they had better save themselves the trouble; for, the King has heard all the Abbés arguments, and the Abbé has heard all the King's, and after they have said a great deal, each will retain his own opinion. Then, Sir, said I, you think truth is at the bottom of the well. Yes, said he, and I suppose will remain there some time. We went to Monbijou and payed our respects at court. Dull enough.

So much for royal glamour. :) (Lehndorff agrees, of course.) The next person we've heard of Boswell meets through Mitchell is Formey, aka the writer of all those Academy obituaries, including Peter Keith's.

I dined at Mr. Mitchell's, where was Mr. Formey perpetual Secretary to the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. He was facetious, but vain. He talked of his books, & he talked of his lectures. He said quand vous entender le tambour a neuf heures au soir, vous pouvez dire Formey ies tdans son lit. He told us Mr. Gualteri a French Minister here was so hypochandriac that he caused tie his legs together at night, lest he should get up, and do himself some mischief. How strange a distemper is this!

In time, Boswell finds out Mitchell can get depressed, too:

September 5: We talked of Spleen. Burnet said that Mr. Mitchell was sadly distressed with it; that sometimes he would sit without speaking a word, & say Well I could not have thought that this could get so much the better of me. All this was really owing to his being costive, to prent which he took every proper method. He had his own box, which was constantly tied behind the coach, and with Mr. Locke's regularity did he attempt the necessary operation.

Let never Man blunder out reflections against any country, when he does not very well know his company.

Aw! I'm smiling so hard right now at Boswell in empathy <3
~~for instance, maybe don't diss Schiller when one hasn't even seen the play in question and doesn't know what German academics might be lurking~~
~~well actually this is maybe not a good example because that happened to turn out really REALLY well~~

the infancy of painting people generally wrote 'this is a cow'. So from Sir Joe's mouth commeth a label with these words 'I am an Ambassador'.

OK, this is super cute :D <3

Here I was presented to the Queen with whom the King has never lived. she has been handsome, and is very amiable, altho' she stammers sadly.

It's interesting to get this view of her from someone looking from the outside! I mean, it's consistent with everything else we know about her, it's just nice to know that it's all consistent. ~~unlike everything else in this fandom~~

Indeed said Mr. Mitchell they had better save themselves the trouble; for, the King has heard all the Abbés arguments, and the Abbé has heard all the King's, and after they have said a great deal, each will retain his own opinion. Then, Sir, said I, you think truth is at the bottom of the well. Yes, said he, and I suppose will remain there some time.

LOL forever, Mitchell is the best <3

<3; Mr. Verelst the Dutch envoy must have been a good guy, given he was the envoy who took in as many Berliners as possible and gave them sanctuary when the city was taken by the Russians and Austrians, which is why Fritz singles him out along with Mitchell at the post war party.

Re: EC: see also my reply to Mildred earlier - unbeknowest to Boswell, she was under great stress (and distress) on that occasion, so the fact that she managed to provide a gracious reception is admirable. (Re: her stammering - Lehndorff remarks on both her and Louise as well as their mother "mumbling", not stammering, when talking together ("it's supposed to be German, but not German I ever have been able to understand"); other visitors also vary between thinking she stammered or thinking she mumbled when nervous. It might also have been dialect, since Lehndorff mentions Louise and their mother doing it as well when all three were together. In any case, it was evidently yet another reason why EC when young and first presented to the Hohenzollern kept as silent as possible.

Mitchell being the best is also something consistent in all the descriptions of him I've seen so far. (I.e. Lehndorff and Thiebault praise him as a straight arrow in very similar terms; and then of course there's the recent discovery that Algarotti called a young Andrew "the tastiest dish" *g*)

*nods* I think I had remembered the stammering and not the mumbling, but I would have conflated them all anyway as "not talking very well when nervous or under stress."(E.g., I know someone who has a speech impediment where her voice just stops/skips in the middle of phrases when she is stressed, where I would also kind of not know how to describe it as stammering or mumbling or something between the two.) Huh, interesting it might have been dialect, though.

and then of course there's the recent discovery that Algarotti called a young Andrew "the tastiest dish" *g*)

Lol, that is a... somewhat different being the best, but I will assent that is still the best :D

for instance, maybe don't diss Schiller when one hasn't even seen the play in question and doesn't know what German academics might be lurking
well actually this is maybe not a good example because that happened to turn out really REALLY well

Do it again, do it again! :D :P

the infancy of painting people generally wrote 'this is a cow'. So from Sir Joe's mouth commeth a label with these words 'I am an Ambassador'.

Yeah, this was great. Btw, what infancy of painting is he thinking of here, do we know? Greek vases had people (human and divine) labeled, but not usually cows. I'm drawing a blank on "this is a cow" examples.

He may have meant literally children painting, and writing "this is a cow" next to it?

This is what I parsed it as, as I'm forever asking my 5-year-old what it actually was that he drew (and sometimes he helpfully labels things), although I guess it's true that that's not what the phrase is most likely to mean in modern English (no idea if it's changed since then).

Really? I tried and tried to parse it that way before I said anything, and I'm still trying, and I can't. "Infancy of painting" means "when painting was first being developed" to me, not "when infants paint." I don't think it's changed since then, and even if it has, surely if you meant an ongoing habit of small children you would say "write," not "wrote"?

Maybe he's extrapolating from the practices of small children back to the invention of painting?

Yeah, I don't think it is a parsing that really makes sense. But I did understand it that way because it made more sense with my personal experience :)

Joseph Yorke: British envoy to The Hague. Should have replaced Mitchell as British envoy to Prussia mid war, but Fritz wouldn't have it.

Ah, thank you, would not have caught that.

Formey, aka the writer of all those Academy obituaries, including Peter Keith's.

Lol, I keep running into his name in my readings and researches and going, "I know who that is only because of Peter Keith!" ;)

All this was really owing to his being costive, to prent which he took every proper method. He had his own box, which was constantly tied behind the coach, and with Mr. Locke's regularity did he attempt the necessary operation.

Ah, the 18th century, when you could talk about the ambassador's bowel movements (or lack thereof) with acquaintances. ;)

Followed by the 19th century where such talk causes the vapeurs among editors. Boswell is really lucky his papers weren't discovered until the 20th.

Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell