of the small dukedom of Lorraine, more justly entitled to the appellation of the great, than the Alexanders, the Cæsars, and the Louis's, who filled the page of history with praises, and the world with tears.*

If Gustavus Adolphus puts in his undisputed claim to the title of the great, it is not merely on the ground of his glorious victories at the battles of Leipsic and of Lutzen; but because that amidst the din of arms, and the tumult of those battles, he was never diverted from snatching some portion of every day for prayer, and reading the scriptures. It is because, with all his high spirit, he was so far from thinking it derogated from the dignity of a gentleman, or the honour of an officer, to refuse a challenge, that he punished with death whoever presumed to decide a quarrel with the sword; to prevent the necessity of which, he made a law, that all disputes should be settled by a court of honour.+ He deserved the appellation of great, when he wished to carry commerce to the West Indies, that he might carry thither also by those means the pure doctrines of the Reformation. He deserved it, when he invited by an edict all the persecuted protestants from every part of Europe, to an asylum in Sweden, offering them not only an immunity from taxes, but full permission to return home when the troubles of their respective countries should be healed.

See Siécle de Louis XIV. for a fuller account of Leopold. This excellent prince, who was the son of Charles the Fifth, duke of Lorraine, was born in 1679, and died in 1729.-ED.

The king of France, at this same military period, severely prohibited duelling, the practice of which he was so far from considering as an indication of courage, that he took a solemn oath to bestow rewards on such military men as had THE COURRAGE TO REFUSE A CHALLENGE. It was an indication that this prince understood wherein true magnanimity consisted. See also Sir Francis Bacon's charge, when attorney-general, against duels.

When such was the union of piety and heroism in the gallant monarch himself, it was the less wonderful to find the same rare combination in the associates of his triumphs. Hence, the pious meditations of the celebrated leader of the Scotch brigade in the service of Gustavus! Compositions which would scarcely be a discredit to a father of the church, and which exalt his character as highly in a religious and moral view, as it was raised, by his bravery and skill in war, in the annals of mili tary glory.

If Alexander deserved the title in question, it was when he declared, in a letter to his immortal master, that "he thought it a truer glory to excel in knowledge than in power." It was in that equally moral and poetical reprehension of those flatterers who had ascribed divine honours to him, when, on the bleeding of his wounds, he said, "Look! this is my blood! This is not that divine liquor of which Homer speaks, which ran from the hand of Venus when Diomedes pierced it!" His generous treatment of the family of the conquered Darius, was, perhaps, eclipsed by the equally magnanimous, and more disinterested, moderation of our own heroic Edward the Black Prince to the captive king of France. This gallant prince seems to have merited, without obtaining, the appellation of the great.

But, if splendid parade and costly magnificence be really considered as unequivocal proofs of exalted greatness, then must the Trajans the Gustavus's, the Alfreds, the Peters, the Williams, and the Elizabeths, submit their claims to this appellation to those of Louis XIV. Louis himself must, without contest, yield the palm of greatness to Pope Alexander the Sixth, and Cæsar Borgia; and they, in their turn, must hide their diminished heads, in reverence to the living exhibiter of the late sur

* Monro.

passing pomp and unparalleled pageantry in a neighbouring nation, displayed in the most gorgeous and costly farce that was ever acted before the astonished and indignant world!

If, to use the very words of the historian and panegyrist of Louis, "to despoil, disturb, and humble almost all the states of Europe,"-if this appeared in the eyes of that panegyrist a proof of greatness; in the eye of reason and humanity, such a course of conduct will rather appear insolence, injustice, and oppression. Yet, as such irreligious authors commonly connect the idea of glory with that of success, they themselves ought not to vindicate it even on their own principle of expediency; since this passion for false glory, carried to the last excess, became, at length, the means of stirring up the other European powers; the result of whose confederacy terminated in the disgrace of Louis.

If ever this vain-glorious prince appeared truly great, it was in his dying speech to his infant successor, when, taking him in his arms, he magnanimously entreated him not to follow his example in his love of war, and taste for expense; exhorting him to follow moderate counsels, to fear God, reduce the taxes, spare his subjects, and to do whatever he himself had not done to relieve them.

In like manner, our illustrious Henry V. in the midst of his French conquests, conquests founded on injustice, (unpopular as is the assertion to an English ear,) never so truly deserved to be called the great, as in that beautiful instance of his reverence for the laws, when he submitted, as Prince of Wales, to the magistrate who put him under confinement for some irregularities; as when, afterwards, being sovereign, he not only pardoned, but commended and promoted him.

If ever Henry IV. of France peculiarly deserved the appellation of great, it was after the victory at

Coutras, for that noble magnanimity in the very moment of conquest, which compelled a pious divine, then present, to exclaim-" Happy and highly favoured of Heaven is that prince, who sees his enemies humbled by the hand of God, his table surrounded by his prisoners, his room hung with the ensigns of the vanquished, without the slightest emotion of vanity or insolence! who can maintain, in the midst of such glorious successes, the same moderation with which he has borne the severest adversity!" He deserved it, when, as he was besieging Paris, which was perishing with famine, he commanded the besiegers to admit supplies to the besieged. He deserved it, at the battle of Ivri, not when he gallantly ordered his soldiers to follow his white plume, which would be the sig nal of victory, nor afterwards, when that victory was complete; but it was when, just before the engagement, he made a solemn renunciation of his own might and his own wisdom, and submitted the event to God in this incomparable prayer:

"O Lord God of hosts, who hast in thy hand all events; if thou knowest that my reign will promote thy glory, and the safety of thy people; if thou knowest that I have no other ambition, but to advance the honour of thy name, and the good of the state; favour, O great God, the justice of my arms. But if thy good providence has decreed otherwise, if thou seest that I should prove one of those kings whom thou givest in thine anger; take from me, O merciful God, my life and my crown. Make me this day a sacrifice to thy will; let my death end the calamities of my country, and let my blood be the last that shall be spilt in this quarrel."

O si sic omnia!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Books.

"CONVERSATION," says the sagacious Verulam, "makes a ready man.' It is, indeed, one of the practical ends of study. It draws the powers of the understanding into exercise, and brings into circulation the treasures which the memory has been amassing. Conversation will be always an instrument particularly important in the cultivation of those talents which may one day be brought into public exercise. And as it would not be easy to start profitable topics of discourse between the pupil and those around her, without inventing some little previous introduction, it might not be useless to suggest a simple preparation for the occasional discussion of topics, somewhat above the ordinary cast of familiar intercourse.

To burden the memory with a load of dry matter would, on the one hand, be dull; and with a mass of poetry, which she can have little occasion to use, would, on the other, be superfluous. But, as the understanding opens, and years advance, might she not occasionally commit to memory, from the best authors in every department, one select passage, one weighty sentence, one striking precept, which, in the hours devoted to society and relaxation, might form a kind of thesis for interesting conversation? For instance, a short specimen of eloquence from South, or of reasoning from Barrow; a detached reflection on the analogy of religion to the constitution of nature, from Butler; a political character from Clarendon; a maxim of prudence from the Proverbs; a precept of government from Bacon; a moral document from the Rambler; a passage of ancient history from Plutarch; a sketch