round and round in a species of frantic dance, like ancient Thyades, till they approached the very edge of the cliff; then, with a very loud shout of defiance, and as it were by a preconcerted signal, one and all threw themselves headlong from the precipice. an ancient city, supposed to have been Elatria; here was a small settlement of Suliots, most of whom had fled, except the family of one Giorgaki Botszi, whose wife and children inhabited a large pyrgo, or tower, called the Gula, which was barricaded against attack. The barbarous After the evacuation of Suli, Samuel, soldiers surrounded their habitation, and the caloyer, with four pirates, remained called upon these unhappy females to in the great fortress of Aghia Paraskevi, yield: the mistress, named Despo, then upon Kunghi, 'to deliver up an inven- assembled her family together, and asked tory of its stores to the commissioners them if they preferred death to dishonour? appointed by Veli Pasha, the son of Being unanimously answered in the affirAli. Samuel was a monk of enthu-mative, she ordered them to fire off all siastic character, who went about animating the citizens, with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, cutting off heads, and explaining texts or prophecies. Having received intelligence of the vizier's perfidy towards his countrymen, he determined to take the only revenge that lay in his power. Accordingly, as soon as the Albanian bey and his attendants entered, he descened into the subterranean vaults with a lighted torch, and plunging it into the gunpowder of the magazine, blew up the fortress and all it contained into the air; by which terrible act of retribution, he avoided the horrid fate prepared for him by the vizier, who had sworn, if he took him, to flay him alive, and stuff his skin as a curiosity. The Suliots, in allusion to this desperate act of patriotic devotion, have celebrated it in one of their songs : "For the gallant caloyer was there, And he laughed as he lighted the train; Oh! he laughed as he soared in the air, To escape from the conqueror's chain." the ammunition which had been left in the tower, against the ruffians, except one barrel of gunpowder; to this she herself applied a match, and blew up the tower, with all its tenants, into the air. AN EMPEROR AND HIS COMRADES. A DROLL adventure occurred to the emperor Alexander on the eve of one of the imperial reviews. The emperor was fond of walking about alone and unattended, and he often extended his pedestrian excursions to the distance of two or three leagues from St. Petersburgh. On the occasion here alluded to, he had taken a very long walk, and finding himself very much fatigued, he got into one of the public sledges. "Drive to the Imperial Palace at St. Petersburgh," said he to the iswotschilk (sledge driver). "I will take you as near to it as I can," replied the man; "but the guards will not allow us to approach the gates." On arriving a little distance from the palace the sledge stopped. "We must not go any further," said the sledge-driver. The emperor jumped from the sledge, saying, "Wait there, and I will send some one to pay you." "No, no," replied the man, "that will not do. Your com Those of the Suliot exiles who escaped from Zalongo, pursued their way through storms of wind and rain, aided by the darkness of night, fathers leading their children in one hand, and carrying their naked swords in the other; mothers carrying their infants on their backs, and some even putting them to death, lestrades often make me the same promise, their cries should attract the attention of their pursuers. Next day, however, they were discovered by the Albanians, surrounded and made prisoners, but subsequently were released, and allowed by the vizier to settle at Vurgareli, which is at the foot of Mount Tzumerka, six hours" Here," said he, "take this." On asdistant from Arta. After their surrender, a party of the Albanians withdrew to a place called Rhiniasa, near the ruins of but they always forget to keep it. I will give no more credit. If you have not the money, leave something with me till you get it." The emperor smiled, and unfastening the clasp of his cloak, he threw it into the sledge. cending to his apartments he directed his valet-de-chambre to take fifty roubles to the iswotschilk who had driven 66 him, and bring back his cloak. When and affected at this manly answer. the valet reached the spot where the Say you so, young man," said he, emperor had left the sledge, he found "then we do not part." He immediabout twenty drawn up in a line. ately took him on the quarter-deck, and "Which of you drove the emperor?" advanced him in time to the rank of inquired the valet. No one answered. lieutenant. He was companion of the "Who has got a cloak?" said the valet, late Sir John Laforey at the famous cutpursuing his inquiry. "An officer ting out of the Bienfaisant from the left a cloak with me," exclaimed a harbour of Louisberg, in the island of sledge-driver. "Give it to me, and Cape Breton, and died a yellow adhere is your fare." "Great St. Nicho- miral; for his friend Boscawen died, las!" exclaimed the astonished driver," and other Pharaohs were at the admiand seizing his reins, he drove rapidly ralty who knew not Joseph." away, amidst the shouts of the assembled iswotschilks. This happened on the eve of one of the grand reviews. After the troops had defiled, all the commanders of corps formed a group round the emperor. "Gentlemen," said Alexander, “I am much pleased with the fine appearance and excellent discipline of your troops. But tell your officers from me, that they made me submit to the humiliation of leaving my cloak in pledge for my honesty.' Every one stared with astonishment. "I assure you," resumed the emperor, "the sledgedriver who brought me home refused to trust me, because, he said, my comrades often forgot to pay him." BRITISH SAILORS. WHEN Captain Boscawen was cruising with a single ship in the Bay of Biscay, he was chased and near being captured by a French squadron. A rope of great consequence in the position of the wind, was stranded; it was the fore-topmast studding-sail tack. A young Scotch seaman of the name of Balfour, who saw the officers anxiously looking at it, without ordering any one out to repair it, seized a stopper, ran aloft, and at the imminent risk of his life, went out on the boom and made it fast. Called down on the quarter-deck, the good captain (afterwards Admiral) Boscawen, gently rebuked him for his rashness, and observed, "Had you fallen overboard, I must have hove the ship to, and should probably have been taken in my attempt to save your life." "I hope, sir," said young Balfour, 'your honour would not have considered my life as of any consequence when his majesty's ship was in danger." The captain was delighted BRAVERY OF CAPTAIN HAWKE, AND ITS IN the disgraceful affair off Toulon, LONDON:-Printed by JOSEPH LAST, No. 3, WILLIAM MARK CLARK, 19, Warwick-lane, Paternoster-row; J. PATTIE, Brydges-street, Covent-garden; and may be had, by order, of all Booksellers in town and country. Edward-street, Hampstead-road.-Published by FEW men have attained to equal popularity with Charles XII. of Sweden, and none have done so on a more substantial foundation. He was a wonderful man; and the record of his deeds which remain, if they possessed not the demonstrations of genuine history, might well be supposed to be the work of fiction, and that Charles himself was but the created hero of some powerful imagination. He was a genius of the highest order, and a hero of extraordinary valour and perseverance. Born at a period, and in a nation, but a short remove from barbarous, he rose superior to the impediments which obstructed his way to glory; and like the sun in the heavens, which shines away by its own brightness the mists and clouds by which it may be enveloped, until it blazes forth in resplendent and VOL. III. unobstructed splendour, so he, the conqueror of kingdoms and the renovator of his own, pushed aside the thick films of ignorance, prejudice and superstition, and emerged by the mightiness of his own prowess, from comparative littleness to the highest altitude of fame. The extensive territories which were tributary to Sweden, and the rapacity which had characterised her kings for a long period, had excited the jealousy and roused the malice of various monarchs. At the time that Charles came to the throne, three of the most powerful sovereigns then existed, namely, the kings of Poland and Denmark, and the renowned Peter the Great of Russia, united in a solemn league, to wrest from the youthful king of Sweden the possessions which called him lord. Up to this period, nothing that gave the 2 I slightest indications of future greatness | and when I shall have conquered him, appeared in the character of Charles; I hope to strike terror into the rest." indeed his abilities were considered des- Surprise and shame spread through the picable. He but rarely attended a coun- assembly as the king closed his short cil for any other purpose than to lay but emphatic speech: surprise at findacross on the table: so perfectly absenting such a spirit in Charles, and shame and indifferent was he, as never to appear that they had given evidence of possessto interest himself in anything. But ing a want of confidence in him. His now the innate energies of his mighty orders for a war were received with admind burst forth at once; and although miration; and in less than six weeks but a lad of eighteen, he displayed a the youth of eighteen had finished the magnanimity of courage and patriotism war with Denmark. But now the newwhich appeared to embody the noble made hero had to contend with his rival sentiment of the poet. in glory, Peter Alexiowitz, Peter the Great of Russia. "Worthless were he to rule who dares not claim Pre-eminence in danger." An entire change took place in all that the young monarch said or did; a transformation, as wonderful as it was sudden and apparent, passed upon him. From this moment every youthful recreation was laid aside; all fondness for the softer sex ceased to exist; while a resolution was entered into by him, never again, during his life, to drink wine. The glory to which Alexander and Cæsar had attained, seemed to spread its dazzling brightness before him; and he at once was filled with the idea and determination to emulate the deeds of those distinguished heroes. His own career of glory now commenced, his feats of military enterprise were splendid, and not a few of them astonishing; but scarcely one of them demands particular notice above the battle of Narva. | On the first of October, 1700, Peter appeared before Narva at the head of 80,000 men. The czar, who in this inclement season, would sometimes ride post 400 leagues to see a mine or a canal, was not more careful of his troops than of himself. Besides, he knew that the Swedes, since the time of the renowned Gustavus Adolphus, could make war in the midst of winter as well as in summer; he therefore wished to accustom the Russians likewise to know no distinction of seasons, and to render them one day not in the least inferior to the Swedes. In this disposition of mind, and at a time when the ice and snow obliged other nations, even in temperate climates, to suspend the war and sheathe the murdering sword, the czar Peter laid siege to Narva, within thirty degrees of the pole; while, with equal determination, Charles XII. advanced, While the confederate kings were fiercely as a boar of the forest to relieve making active preparations for their me- it. No sooner had the czar arrived ditated attack upon the dominions of before the place, than he hastened to Charles, a council was called; and put in practice what he had learned while in solemn debate in reference to during his travels. He marked out his the dangerous position in which Sweden camp, fortified it on every side, raised stood, some one of the grave councillors redoubts at proper distances, and openproposed to avoid the impending tem-ed the trenches himself. The command pest by negociations. Scarcely had the proposition dropped from the lips of the mover, before the young prince rose with the grave and assumed air of a man of superior abilities, whose resolution was fixed." Gentlemen," began the youthful hero, "I am resolved never to commence an unjust war; and never to finish an unjust one, but with the destruction of mine enemies. My resolution is fixed, and will march and attack the first who shall declare war; of his army he had given to the Duke de Croi, a German, and a general of acknowledged skill and bravery; but who, at that time, received not the countenance he deserved from the Russian officers. Glory and conquest inspired Peter, and therefore he relinquished for the time mere title, contenting himself with no higher rank in his own troops than that of a lieutenant. By this method he wisely set the example of military obedience to the nobility, who, until | then, were undisciplined, and who were only used to govern ill-armed slaves, without experience or order. No surprise, however, can be felt by any informed, in the least degree, in reference to the character of Peter, at his conduct in this respect; nor was it a strange thing, that he who had turned carpenter at Amsterdam to procure himself fleets, should serve as lieutenant at Narva, to teach his country the art of war. The Russians are robust, indefatigable men, and, perhaps, in bravery, nothing inferior to the Swedes; but time and discipline were required to render them warlike and invincible troops. The only regiments from which any thing was expected on this occasion were commanded by German officers-but they were few in number; the rest were barbarians, forced from their forests, and clad simply in the skins of wild beasts. Some were armed with arrows, and some with clubs; few of them had fusees, none had ever witnessed a regular siege, nor did the whole army possess one good gunner. A hundred and fifty cannon, which ought to have reduced the little town of Narva to ashes, were scarcely able to make a breach; while, on the other hand, the artillery of the city destroyed, at every discharge, whole ranks of the enemy in their trenches. Narva was almost without fortification; and the Baron de Hoorn, who commanded it, had not a thousand regulars, and yet this innumerable army could not reduce it in ten weeks. Early on the morning of the 15th of November, information reached the czar, that the king of Sweden, having crossed the sea with 200 transports, was hastening, by forced marches, to the relief of Narva. The Swedes were but 20,000 strong, yet the czar had no superiority but in numbers; far, then, from despising his approaching enemy, he employed every art he was master of to overpower him. Not content with the overwhelming army of 80,000, with which to meet his rival with 20,000, the czar prepared another army to oppose him, and to cross him at every turn. Peter had already ordered near 30,000 men to this work, who advanced by long marches from Pleskow. Having so arranged his plans, he took a step which would have rendered him contemptible, if a legislator, who had performed so many distinguished acts, could have been made so. He departed from his camp, where his presence was especially necessary, in search of this fresh body of men which would have arrived as well without him, and appeared by this behaviour to be afraid of engaging in an intrenched camp, a young and inexperienced prince, whom he expected to attack him. It would, perhaps, be illiberal and harsh, if not unfair, to state that fear induced the czar to such a mode of procedure; in all probability his wish and aim was, to enclose Charles between the two armies, to accomplish which, he hastened in search of the one expected. This was not all the precaution that Peter had taken to secure a victory; 30,000 men, detached from the camp which lay before Narva, were posted a league from the city, along the road which the king of Sweden had to pass; 20,000 strelitz were planted at a greater distance on the same road, while 5,000 others formed an advanced guard. The whole of the above-mentioned troops, Charles was obliged to pass over before he could arrive at the camp, which was fortified with a rampart and a double ditch. The king of Sweden had landed at Pernaw, in the gulph of Riga, with about 16,000 of his infantry, and a few above 4,000 horse. From Pernaw, he hastened his march; Revel followed with all his cavalry, and only 4,000 foot. Urged by an irresistible impetuosity to the work in which he longed to be engaged, Charles marched on first without waiting for the rest of his troops, and soon found himself, with his 8,000 men only, near the advanced posts of the enemy. Nothing intimidated by the circumstance, the young prince prepared for an immediate attack; one after another received his vigorous charge, without allowing them time to inquire with what number they had to engage. The Muscovites seeing the Swedes thus rush upon them, supposed they had the whole of Charles's army to encounter; and the advanced guard of 5,000 men, who were placed among vast and almost inaccessible rocks, a station in which 100 resolute men might have repulsed a |