nor. The Governor, at first a little surly of humor, saw
gradually how it was; sprang out of bed, and embraced the knees of
the snowy man; Stralsund in general sprang out of bed, and illuminated
itself, that same Hallow-Eve:--and in brief, Charles XII., after five
years of eclipse, has reappeared upon the stage of things; and menaces
the world, in his old fashion, from that City. From which it becomes
urgent to many parties, and at last to Friedrich Wilhelm himself, that
he be dislodged.

The root of this Stralsund story belongs to the former reign, as did the
grand apparition of Charles XII. on the theatre of European History,
and the terror and astonishment he created there. He is now thirty-three
years old; and only the winding up, both of him and of the Stralsund
story, falls within our present field. Fifteen years ago, it was like
the bursting of a cataract of bomb-shells in a dull ball-room, the
sudden appearance of this young fighting Swede among the luxurious Kings
and Kinglets of the North, all lounging about and languidly minuetting
in that manner, regardless of expense! Friedrich IV. of Denmark
rejoicing over red wine; August the Strong gradually producing his
"three hundred and fifty-four bastards;" [_Memoires de Bareith_
(Wilhelmina's Book, Londres, 1812), i. 111.] these and other neighbors
had confidently stept in, on various pretexts; thinking to help
themselves from the young man's properties, who was still a minor; when
the young minor suddenly developed himself as a major and maximus, and
turned out to be such a Fire-King among them!

In consequence of which there had been no end of Northern troubles; and
all through the Louis-Fourteenth or Marlborough grand "Succession War,"
a special "Northern War" had burnt or smouldered on its own score;
Swedes VERSUS Saxons, Russians and Danes, bickering in weary intricate
contest, and keeping those Northern regions in smoke if not on fire.
Charles XII., for the last five years (ever since Pultawa, and the
summer of 1709), had lain obstinately dormant in Turkey; urging the
Turks to destroy Czar Peter. Which they absolutely could not, though
they now and then tried; and Viziers not a few lost their heads in
consequence. Charles lay sullenly dormant; Danes meanwhile operating
upon his Holstein interests and adjoining territories; Saxons, Russians,
battering continually at Swedish Pommern, continually marching thither,
and then marching home again, without success,-