f affairs. This was no less a man
than CHARLES XII. KING OF SWEDEN; who, after having defeated the
coalition of the northern sovereigns formed for his destruction,
dictated peace to Denmark at Copenhagen, dethroned the King of Poland,
and wellnigh overturned the empire of Russia--had now advanced his
victorious standards into the centre of Germany, and at the head of an
army hitherto invincible, fifty thousand strong, stationed himself at
Dresden, where he had become the arbiter of Europe, and threatened
destruction to either of the parties engaged in the contest on the Rhine
against whom he chose to direct his hostility.

This extraordinary man approached closer than any warrior of modern
times to the great men of antiquity. More nearly even than Napoleon, he
realized the heroes of Plutarch--a Stoic in pacific, he was a Caesar in
military life. He had all their virtues, and a considerable share of
their barbarism. Achilles did not surpass him in the thirst for warlike
renown, nor Hannibal in the perseverance of his character and the
fruitfulness of his resources; like Alexander, he would have wept
because a world did not remain to conquer. Indefatigable in fatigue,
resolute in determination, a lion in heart, he knew no fear but that of
his glory being tarnished. Endowed by nature with a constitution of
iron, he was capable of undergoing a greater amount of fatigue than any
of his soldiers: at the siege of Stralsund, when some of his officers
were sinking under the exhaustion of protracted watching, he desired
them to retire to rest, and himself took their place. Outstripping his
followers in speed, at one time he rode across Germany, almost alone, in
an incredibly short space of time: at another, he defended himself for
days together, at the head of a handful of attendants, in a barricaded
house, against ten thousand Turks. Wrapt up in the passion for fame, he
was insensible to the inferior desires which usually rouse or mislead
mankind. Wine had no attractions, women no seductions for him: he was
indifferent to personal comforts or accommodations; his fare was as
simple, his dress as plain, his lodging as rude, as those of the meanest
of his followers. To one end alone his attention was exclusively
directed, on one acquisition alone his heart was set. Glory, military
glory, was the ceaseless object of his ambition; all lesser desires
were concentrated in this ruling passion; for this he lived, for this
he died.

Tha