Note 423 — CANTO THE EIGHTH.
Reading edition
{337}[At the Battle of Mollwitz, April 10, 1741, "the king vanishes for sixteen hours into the regions of Myth 'into Fairyland,' ... of the king's flight ... the king himself, who alone could have told us fully, maintained always rigorous silence, and nowhere drops the least hint. So that the small fact has come down to us involved in a great bulk of fabulous cobwebs, mostly of an ill-natured character, set a-going by Voltaire, Valori, and others."—Carlyle's Frederick the Great, 1862, iii. 314, 322, sq.]