LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DDDDSbflflH4T *' .*'% - . ...!** /\ '-W •*•_ •" Q^ *°-^*. \/ -?; .^^% •^ Napoleon '^\_ ---•^^ HISTORICAL SERIES— BOOK 111 PART II STORIES OF OTHER LANDS COMPILED AND ARRANGED By JAMES JOHONNOT NEW YORK /^9/-5" D. APPLE TON AND COMPANY 1888 COPYEIGHT, 1888, Bt d. appleton and company. PREFACE. Pupils who have read the lower numbers of this se- ries are already acquainted with the methods pursued. A story interesting to children is given in the language of daily life, the lessons gradually rising into the more stately style of what is called literature. The language used is usually of such a character as to enable the pupil to con- tinually enlarge his vocabulary and correct the mistakes and provincialism of his own speech and writing by a study of the masterpieces of history and biography. In the lower books the stories were mostly of our own country, and the articles chosen were those which with no uncertain sound taught the elements of patriotism. In the " Stories of other Lands " it will be seen that all through the later history of Europe the battle for human freedom has gone on, each nation in turn seeming to be the custodian of the brightest interests of humanity. The story is the thought, with the proper explana- tion and presentations of each of the lessons. The pupils from the first can not help being interested in the work, and in consequence of this interest much of the difficulty usually experienced in learning to read is overcome. The preparation needed is the study of unfamiliar 4 PREFACE. words and the use of these words in original sentences, both in speech and in writing ; then, when all obstacles in regard to the language have been removed, the read- ing goes on through the intellectual activity aroused by the interest of the stories themselves. Familiarity with w^ords comes from the use and repe- tition of them in sentences ; errors disappear before ex- perience, and a habit is acquired of looking through text to the thought which the text conveys. The fragments of history here given are designed to excite such an interest as to lead the pupil to more exten- sive reading, and especially of such as will open to his view the succession of the peoples who have ruled the world, and the philosophy which has obtained in the de- velopment of the human race. COISTTEIS^TS STORIES OF SPAIN. PAGE I. The Return of Columbus 7 II. Ferdinand Magellan 15 III. Hernando Cortes 20 IV. Francisco Pizarro 28 V. The Maid of Zaragoza 40 STORIES OF FRANCE. VI. The Maid of Orleans 51 VII. St. Vincent de Paul 60 VIII. Waterloo \[ 69 STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. IX. A Legend of Bregenz 79 X. The Troublesome Burghers 87 XL Marlborough at Blenheim 95 XII. A Winter Campaign 105 STORIES OF BRITAIN. XIII. Charles and Oliver _ 113 XIV. Sir John Moore ,...,, ,.,...., 124 CONTENTS. STORIES OF ARTISTS. XV. Michael Angelo Buonarotti 130 XVI. Raffaelle 142 STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. XVII. Sir Isaac Newton 151 XVIIl. William Oaxton 160 XIX, George Stephenson 163 XX. The Blackburn Farmer 176 MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. XXL Samuel Johnson's Repentance . . 184 XXII. Flora Macdonald 191 XXIII. Grace Darling 194 XXIV. The Indian Mutiny 204 XXV. The Rescue Party 220 STOEIES OF SPAIK I. THE RETURN OF COLUMBUS. 1. The letter of Columbus to tlie Spaiiisli monarclis, announcing his discovery, had produced the greatest sensation at court. The event it com- municated was considered the most extraordinary of their prosperous reign, and, following so close upon the conquest of Granada, was pronounced a signal mark of divine favor for that triumph achieved in the cause of the true faith. The sov- ereigns themselves were for a time dazzled and bewildered by this sudden and easy acquisition of a new empire of indefinite extent and apparently boundless wealth, and their first idea was to secure it beyond the reach of question or competition. Shortly after his arrival in Seville, Columbus re- ceived a letter from them expressing their great delight, and requesting him to repair immediately to court to concert plans for a second and more extensive expedition. STORIES OF OTHER LANDS 2. As the summer was already advancing, the time favorable for a voyage, they desired him to make any arrangements at Seville or elsewhere that might hasten the expedi- tion, and to inform them by the return of the courier what w^as necessary to be done on their part. This letter was addressed to him ^' by the title of " Don Chris- ^^^ topher Columbus, our Ad- Christopher Columbus. • t /» ii /^ o i miral ot the Ocean feea, and Viceroy and Governor of the Islands discovered in the Indies " ; at the same time he was promised still further rewards. Columbus lost no time in complying with the commands of the sovereigns. He sent a memorandum of the ships, men, and munitions that would be requisite, and, having made such dispositions at Seville as circumstances permitted, set out on his journey for Barcelona, taking with him six Indians and the various curi- osities and productions he had brought from the New World. 3. The fame of his discovery had resounded throughout the nation, and, as his route lay through several of the finest and most po])ulous provinces of Spain, his journey appeared like the progress of STORIES OF SPAIN. 9 a sovereign. Wherever lie passed, the surround- ing country poured forth its inhabitants, who lined the road and thronged the villages. In the large towns, the streets, windows, and balconies were filled with eager spectators, who rent the air with acclamations. His Journey was continually im- peded by the multitude pressing to gain a sight of him and of the Indians, who were regarded with as much admiration as if they had been na- tives of another planet. It was impossible to sat- isfy the craving curiosity which assailed himself and his attendants at every stage with innumer- able questions. Popular rumor as usual had ex- aggerated the truth and had filled the newly-found country with all kinds of wonders. 4. It was about the middle of April that Co- lumbus arrived at Barcelona, where every prepara- tion had been made to give him a solemn and magnificent reception. The beauty and serenity of the weather in that genial season and favored climate contributed to give splendor to this memo- rable ceremony. As he drew near the place, many of the more youthful courtiers and hidalgos of gal- lant bearing came forth to meet and welcome him. His entrance into this noble city has been com- pared to one of those triumphs which the Romans were accustomed to decree to conquerors. First, were paraded the Indians, painted according to STORIES OF SPAIK H their savage fashion, and decorated with tropical feathers and wdth their national ornaments of gold. After these were borne various kinds of live par- rots, together with stuffed birds and animals of unknown species, and rare plants supposed to be of precious qualities, while great care was taken to make a conspicuous display of Indian coronets^ bracelets, and other decorations of gold which might give an idea of the wealth of the newly discovered regions. After these followed Colum- bus on horseback, surrounded by a brilliant caval- cade of Spanish chivalry. 5. The streets were almost impassable from the countless multitude ; the windows and balco- nies were crowded with the fair ; the very roofs were covered with spectators. It seemed as if the public eye could not be sated with gazing on these tro23hies of an unknown world or on the remark- able man by whom it had been discovered. There was a sublimity in this event that mingled a sol- emn feeling with the public joy. It was looked upon as a vast and signal dispensation of Provi- dence in reward for the piety of the monarchs ; and the majestic and venerable appearance of the discoverer, so different from the youth and buoy- ancy that are generally expected from roving en- terprise, seemed in harmony with the grandeur and dignity of his achievement. 12 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. To receive Mm witli suitable pomp and dis- tinction, the sovereio^ns had ordered their throne to be placed in public, under a rich canopy of bro- cade of gold, in a vast and splendid saloon. Here the king and queen awaited his arrival, seated in state, with the Piince Juan beside them, and at- tended by the dignitaries of their court and the principal nobility of Castile, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon, all impatient to behold the man who had conferred so incalculable a benefit upon the nation. 6. At length Columbus entered the hall sur- rounded by a brilliant crowd of cavaliers, among whom, says Las Casas, he w^as conspicuous for his stately and commanding person, which, with his countenance rendered venerable by his gray hairs, gave him the august appearance of a senator of Rome. A modest smile lighted up his features, showing that he enjoyed the state and glory in which he came ; and certainly nothing could be more deeply moving to a mind inflamed by noble ambition, and conscious of having greatly deserved, than these testimonials of the admiration and grati- tude of a nation or rather of a world. As Colum- bus approached, the sovereigns rose as if receiving a person of the highest rank. Bending his knees, he requested to kiss their hands ; but there was some hesitation on the part of their majesties to STORIES OF SPAIN. 13 permit this act of vassalage. Raising him in the most gracious manner, they ordered him to seat Reception of Columbus by Ferdinand and. Isabella. himself in their presence — a rare honor in this proud and punctilious court. 7. At the request of their majesties, Columbus now gave an account of the most striking events of his voyage and a description of the islands which he had discovered. He displayed the speci- 14 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. mens he had brought of unknown birds and other animals, of rare plants of medicinal and aromatic virtue ; of native gold in dust, in crude masses, or labored into barbaric ornaments; and, above all, the natives of these countries, who were objects of intense and inexhaustible interest, since there is nothing to man so curious as the varieties of his own species. All these he pronounced mere har- bingers of great discoveries he had yet to make, which would add realms of incalculable wealth to the dominions of their majesties, and whole nations of proselytes to the true faith. 8. The words of Columbus were listened to with profound emotion by the sovereigns. When he had finished they sunk on their knees, and, raising their clasped hands to Heaven, their eyes filled with tears of joy and gratitude, they poured forth thanks and praises to God for so great a providence. All present followed their example. A deep and solemn enthusiasm pervaded that splendid assembly and prevented all common ac- clamations of triumph. The anthem of Te Deum Laudamus, chanted by the choir of the royal chapel, with the melodious accompaniments of the instruments, rose up from the midst in a full body of sacred harmony, bearing up, as it were, the feel- ings and thoughts of the auditors to Heaven ; " so that," says the venerable Las Casas, ^' it seemed as STORIES OF SPAIN. 15 if iu that hour they communicated with celestial delights." Such was the solemn and pious man- ner in which the brilliant court of Spain cele- brated this sublime event, offering up a grateful tribute of melody and praise, and giving glory to God for the discovery of another world. Washington Irving. n. FERDINAND MAGELLAN. 1. Commercial rivalry had thus passed from Venice and Genoa to Spain and Portugal. The circumnavigation of the earth originated in a dis- pute between these kingdoms respecting the Molucca Islands, from which nutmegs, cloves, and mace were obtained. Ferdinand Magellan had been in the service of the King of Portugal ; but an application he had made for an increase of half a ducat a month in his stipend having been re- fused, he passed into the service of the King of Spain, along with one Ray Falero, a friend of his, who, among the vulgar, bore the reputation of conjurer, or magician, but who really possessed considerable astronomical attainments, devoting: 16 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. himself to tlie discovery of improved means for finding the place of a shijD at sea. 2. Magellan persuaded the Spanish govern- ment that the Spice Islands could be reached by sailing to the west, the Portuguese having previ- ously reached them by sailing to the east, and if this were accomplished Spain would have as good a title to them, under the bull of Alexander VI, as Portugal. Five ships, carrying 237 men, were accordingly equipped, and on August 10, 1519, Magellan sailed for Seville. The Semite was the admiral's ship, but the San Viltoria was destined for immortality. He struck boldly for the south- west, not crossing the trough of the Atlantic as Columbus had done, but passing down the length of it, his aim being to find some cleft or passage in the American continent through which he might sail into the Great South Sea. 3. For seventy days he was becalmed under the line. He then lost sight of the north star, but courageously held on toward the "pole antartike." He nearly foundered in a storm, "which did not abate till the three fires, called St. Helen, St. Nicholas, and St. Clare, appeared playing in the rigging of the ships." In a new land, to which he gave the name of Patagoni, he found giants "of good corporature," clad in skins. One of them, a very pleasant and tractable STORIES OF SPAIN. 17 giant, were terrified at liis own visage in a look- ino^.o^lass. 4. Among the sailors, alarmed at the distance they had come, mutiny broke out, requiring the most unflinching resolution in the commander for its suppression. In spite of his watchfulness, one ship deserted him and stole to Spain. His perse- verance and resolution were at last rewarded by the discovery of the strait named by him San Vil- toria, in affectionate honor of his ship, but which, with a worthy sentiment, other sailors soon changed to the '' Strait of Magellan." 5. On November 28, 1520, after a year and a quarter of struggling, he issued forth from its western portals and entered the Great South Sea, shedding tears of joy, as Pigafelts, an eye-witness, relates, when he recognized its infinite expanse — tears of stern joy that it had pleased God to bring him at length where he might grapple with its unknown dangers. Admiring its illimitable but placid surface, and exulting in the meditation of its secret perils soon to be tried, he courteously imposed on it the name it is forever to bear, " the Pacific Ocean." While buffing for an entry to it, he observed with surprise that in the month of October the nights are only four hours long, and ^' considered, in this his navigation, that the pole antartike hath no notable star like the pole artike. 18 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS but that tlie pole antartike hatli no notable star like tlie pole arsike, but that there be two clouds of little stars, somewhat dark in the midst, also a cross of fine, clear stars, but that here the needle becomes so sluggish that it needs must be moved with a bit of load-stone before it will rightly point." 6. And now the great sailor, having burst throuo^h the barrier of the American continent, steered for the northwest, attempting to regain the equator. For three months and twenty days he sailed on the Pacific, and never saw inhabited land. He was compelled by famine to strip oif the pieces of skin and leather wherewith his rig- ging was here and there bound, to soak them in the sea, and then soften them with warm water, so as to make a wretched food ; to eat the sweep- ings of the ship and other loathsome matter ; to drink water grown putrid by keeping ; and yet he resolutely held on his course, though his men were dying daily. As is quaintly observed, their gums grew over their teeth, and so they could not eat. He estimated that he sailed over this unfathom- able sea not less than twelve thousand miles. 7. This unparalleled resolution met its reward at last. Magellan reached a group of islands north of the equator — the Ladrones. In a few days more he became aware that his labors had STORIES OF 8PA1K 19 been successful ; lie met with adventurers from Sumatra. But, thougli lie liad tlius grandly ac- complished his object, it was not given to him to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. At an island called Leba, or Mutan, he was killed, either, as has been variously related, in a mutiny of his men, or, as they declared, in a conflict with the savages, or insidiously by poison. "The general," they said, " was a very brave man, and received his death- wound in his front, nor would the savages yield up his body for any ransom." Through treason and revenge, it is not unlikely that he fell, for he was a stern man ; none but a very stern man could have accomplished so daring a deed. Hardly was he gone when his crew learned that they were actually in the vicinity of the Moluccas, and that the object of their voyage was fulfilled. On the morning of November 8, 1521, having been at sea two years and three months, as the sun was rising, they entered Lidore, the chief port of the Spice Islands. The King of Lid ore swore upon the Koran alliance to the King of Spain. 8. I need not allude to the wonderful objects, destined soon to become common to voyagers in the Indian Archipelago, that greeted their eyes ; elephants in trappings ; vases and vessels of porce- lain ; birds of Paradise, " that fly not, but be 20 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS, blown by the wind " ; exhaustless stores of the coveted spices, nutmegs, mace, cloves. And now they prepared to bring the news of their success back to Spain. Magellan's lieutenant, Sebastian de Elcano, directed his course for the Cape of Good Hope, again encountering the most fearful hardships. Out of his slender crew he lost twen- ty-one men. He doubled the cape at last, and on September 7, 1522, in the port of St. Lucar, near Seville, under his orders, the good ship San Vil- toria came safely to an anchor. She had accom- plished the greatest achievement in the history of the human racec She had circumnavio^ated the earth. Draper. IIL HERNANDO CORTES. 1. Columbus, and many others of the early discoverers, brought back to Spain accounts of countries far in the interior of America that were inhabited by a race very different from tlie In- dians, a race that had large and populous cities, fine farms, an extensive trade, various manufactures, and who lived in much the same manner as did the people of Europe. These countries were also STORIES OF SPAIN. 21 represented as rich in silver and gold, specimens of wliich were found among the people of the coast. As it was known that the natives of the country knew nothing about guns and /; powder, but used bows and spears, the weapons of the old time, instead, it was thought to be a safe plan to ^y^^:^:\ A\ undertake to conquer the V^ / countries and so obtain the • 1 1 • 1 xi J Hernando Cortes. riches which they possessed. 2. Among those who were most interested in these projects was Hernando Cortes, a Spanish gentleman residing upon one of the islands. He had heard of the riches of these countries, had seen the gold which came from them, and he planned to go out on a voyage of discovery, and to see for himself the strange things reported to him. In this undertaking his motives seem to be about equally divided between the greed for gold, the love of adventure, and the desire to convert the natives to his own religion. 3. So Cortes raised a force of three hundred men, mostly old soldiers, used to fighting and plunder, and set sail for the coast of Central Amer- ica in 1519, eighteen years after the discovery of Columbus. After numerous adventures, and 22 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. fighting several severe battles w^itli the natives at different places along the coast, Cortes landed at the port, now Vera Cruz, on the 21st of April. Here he founded a colony, then, burning his ships so there could be no retreat, he started for the in- terior. In every step of his ^^rogress he saw evi- dences of an advanced but crude civilization. The rich soil brought forth abundant crops, and the population was more dense than in any part of Europe. They literally swarmed on all sides, and the little band of Cortes made their way through crowds of wonderinsr natives. 4. The one thing about the Spaniards that most aft'ected the Mexicans was the horsemen. They regarded the horse and his rider as a mon- ster that could vomit forth fire, and fled at his ap- proach. Messengers from Montezuma, the king, forbid Cortes from advancing into the country, but to this the Spaniards j)^i^l ^o heed. Then war began in earnest. The invading army was attacked by the natives numbering thousands, and for many days, through nearly all hours between sunrise and sunset, it was a scene of continued slauo-hter. The lis^ht arrows of the Mexicans could make no impression upon the armor of the Spaniards, while every discharge of artillery lit- erally cut them down by the hundreds. 5. At length, tired of this bloodshed, a tribe, STORIES OF SPAIN. 23 lately conquered by tlie Mexicans, made peace witli Cortes, and sent an army of several thousand to help him against Montezumao Upon the 7th The meeting of Cortes and Montezuma. of November the Spaniards arrived at Mexico and were welcomed by Montezuma, who gave them quarters in a public square in one of the richest parts of the city. He also sent his unwelcome visitors all the provisions they needed. This state of affairs continued for ten days, friendly meetings taking place daily between Cortes and the king. At last the treacherous Spaniard seized Montezu- 24 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS, ma when he made a friendly call, loaded him with irons, and held him as a prisoner. 6. At first the Mexicans seemed stunned at the terrible blow, but, as Cortes made no further ad- vances, peace continued for several months. Then Cortez heard that a Spanish force of more than a thousand men, under the command of one of his personal enemies, had been sent out to arrest him, and had arrived and taken possession of his colony at Vera Cruz. Prompt in his actions, he left enough of his force to guard his quarters in the city, and with the remainder he marched rapidly back to the coast. Here he surprised his enemies, and captured the entire army sent out to arrest him. After his victory, he induced the whole number to join his army, and so strengthened he marched back to the capital. 7. His arrival was none too soon. The Mexi- cans were under arms. The draw-bridges across the marshes that surrounded the city were broken down. On the day after Cortes's return, June 24, 1520, the attack began. For seven days untold thousands of the Mexicans advanced upon the Spanish quarters, fearlessly exposing their naked bodies to the cannon and musketry of their ene- mies. As thousands were killed, other thousands took their place. In the assault Montezuma was killed by an arrow from his own people. So de- STORIES OF SPA IK 25 termined and continuous was the attack that even Spanish endurance gave way, and at last Cortes determiued to retreat. Toward midnight on the first of July he stole out of the city, but in the causeways the enemy suddenly appeared, and during the long hours of the night the conflict continued. Hardly in the history of the world has there been a scene so bloody as that upon the Mexican causeways and lakes upon that memorable night. The rear guard of the Spanish force were enabled to pass over the chasms in the causeways upon a bridge made up of the dead bodies of Mexicans and Spaniards. 8. In the morning Cortes, with a loss of three fourths of his army, continued his retreat. He reached the countiy of his native allies, where he was kindly received and protected. While lying here, he was informed of the arrival of a Spanish ship at the port of his colony on the coast. This he seized and induced the crew to join him. In the course of a few months he succeeded in capturing three more vessels in the same way, and thus re-enforced he fearlessly advanced again to the attack upon the capital. 9. At length all was ready, and on the 28th of December, 1520, with six hundred Spaniards and sixteen thousand native troops, he set out on his enterprise. For four months he and his lieuten- 26 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS ants were engaged in subduing the provinces and cities lying about the capital, and on the 10th of May, 1521, he laid siege to the capital. During all this period there had been a nearly incessant battle, and the people were daily slaughtered by hundreds. When all the causeways were taken, Cortes could not restrain the impatience of his troops, and he ordered a general assault upon the city. Some division of his army succeeded in fighting their way into the streets, but so bravely were they met that at last they were obliged to retreat with a loss of more than one hundred Span- ish soldiers, sixty of whom were taken prisoners. These prisoners were, one by one, sacrificed to the gods in sight of their countrymen. 10. After a rest of eight days, active opera- tions again commenced, and the Spaniards slowly gained ground on every side. On August 14th the final assault began, which lasted two days. The Mexicans were driven from street to street, and toward evening of the second day the few sur- vivors, weakened by famine, endeavored to escape by their canoes across the lake. They were pur- sued and captured, and one of the prisoners was found to be the King Guatimozin, the successor of Montezuma. The Spaniards took possession of a ruined city. The population had been reduced to about forty thousand, and in a few days these STORIES OF SPAIN. 27 gradually disappeared until there was not left one native in the city. 11. Cortes was successful in accompl.isMng Ms objects. With a mere handful of Spaniards he had conquered a country more populous than all Spain. With a force that never exceeded one thousand trained men, he had destroyed the lives of more than one million of human beings. To gratify his greed and his bigotry, the monuments, the cities, and the homes of a great empire were broken up. That he might achieve a name, a race was devoted to destruction. The Mexican people have passed out of existence, or only live as sav- ages in the fastnesses of the mountains. The fame Cortes coveted he achieved ; but it is the fame of the wolf that invades the shepherd's fold, of the tiger that gluts himself upon the blood of helpless women and children. History is pitiless, and Cortes lives as one of the most inhuman monsters that ever cumbered the earth. 12. The conquest of Cortes also proved a curse to all who were in any way engaged in it. The great empire of Charles Y dissolved, and Spain, having dissipated the proceeds of her robberies, was stricken with delirium and paralysis. Her commerce was broken up, her industries decayed, and she so sunk in physical and spiritual prostra- tion as to become a by-word among nations. The 28 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. Spanish people who have settled upon Mexican soil have shared a similar fate. The blood of the slaughtered Aztecs has never ceased to cry from the ground. The homes built over their graves seem haunted still. The government, based upon the wholesale murders of Cortes, has reeled as with tremens for three hundred and fifty years. Nor is the expiation yet ended. The winds from the south come to our ears constantly laden with the notes of intrigue, rebellion, and robbery in that unhappy country, and it is left for the future his- torian to record what justice at last exacts for the crimes of Cortes. IV. FRANCISCO PIZARRO. 1. Stimulated by the success of Pizarro in his murderous career in Mexico, a multitude of ad- venturers from Spain flocked to the New World, each urged on by the most insatiable greed, and each governed by a code of morals that exalted the Inquisition and the auto de fe. Among those who was ready to engage in any scheme of false- hood, treachery, or murder to secure riches, was Francisco Pizarro. He was born a peasant, and STORIES OF SPAIN. '29 passed the first years of his life as a swineherd. Joining some of the expeditions which followed the wake of Columbus, he made his way to the New World. After some years of adventure, he came in possession of knowledge of the wonderful country of the In cas, lying upon the great Peru- vian plateau, and shut out from the world by the snow-clad ridges and summits of the Andes. 2. Gatherinof a force of about two hundred iv^ll^. ''^^'f Pizarro and his Men. men, mail-clad and mounted on powerful horses, Pizarro set out to invade a distant region with a 30 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. population of millions. After innumerable hard- ships his little band emerged from the mountain- passes and made their way to Cuzco, the capital of the Incas. The Spaniards were received by the natives as friends, and quarters were assigned them in large buildings facing the principal square of the city. Food was furnished them in plenty, and they were regarded by the simple natives as supreme beings. Hui, the Inca, and his attendants came to pay the strangers a friendly visit. The person of the Inca, Pizarro determined to secure. Let Prescott tell the remainder of the terrible story : 3. " The clouds of the evening had passed away and the sun rose bright on the following morning, the most remarkable epoch in the annals of Peru. It was Saturday, the 16th of November, 1532. The loud cry of the trumpet called the Spaniards to arms with the first streak of dawn ; and Pizarro, briefly acquainting them with the plan of the assault, made the necessary disposi- tions. 4. " The plaza was defended on its three sides by low ranges of buildings, consisting of spacious halls with wide doors or vomitories opening into the square. In these halls he stationed his cav- alry in two divisions, one under his brother Her- nando, the other under De Soto. The infantry STORIES OF SPAIN. 31 he plac^ed in anotlier of the buildings, reserving twenty chosen men to act with himself as occasion might re(]mre. Pedro de Candia, with a few sol- diers and the artillery, comprehending under this imposing name tw^o small pieces of ordnance called falconets, he established in the fortress. 5. '' All received orders to wait at their posts till the arrival of the Inca. After his entrance into the great square they were still to remain un- der cover, withdiawn from observation, till the signal was given by the discharge of a gun, when they were to cry their war-cries, to rush out in a body from their covert, and, putting the Peruvians to the sword, bear off the person of the Inca. Pi- zarro particularly inculcated order and implicit obedience, that in the hurry of the moment there should be no confusion. Everything depended on their acting with concert, coolness, and celerity. 6. " The chief next saw that their arms were in good order, and that the breast-plates of their horses were garnished with bells to add by their noise to the consternation of the Indians. Re- freshments were also liberally provided that the troops should be in condition for the conflict. These arrangements being completed, mass was performed with great solemnity by the ecclesias. tics who attended the expedition. The God of battles was invoked to spread his shield over the 32 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS, soldiers who were fighting to extend the empire of the cross, and all joined with enthusiasm in the chant, ' Rise, O Lord ! and judge thine own cause.' One might have supposed them a company of martyrs about to lay down their lives in defense of their faith instead of a licentious band of ad- venturers meditatino; one of the most atrocious acts of perfidy on the record of history. 7. " It was noon before the Indian procession was on its mai^ch, when it was seen occupying the great causeway for a long extent. In front came a large body of attendants, whose ofiice seemed to be to sweep away every particle of rubbish from the road. High above the crowd appeared the Inca, borne on the shoulders of his principal no- bles, while others of the same rank marched by the sides of his litter, displaying such a dazzling show of ornaments on their ^^ersons that, in the language of one of the conquerors, ' they blazed like the sun.' But the greater part of the Inca's forces mustered along the fields that lined the road, and were spread over the broad meadows as far as the eye could reach. 8. " It was not long before sunset when the van of the royal jDrocession entered the gates of the city. First came some hundreds of the meni- als, employed to clear the path from every obsta- cle, and singing songs of triumph as they came. STORIES OF SPAIK 33 ^ which in our ears,' says one of the conquerors, ' sounded like the song-s of hell ! ' Then followed other bodies of different ranks and dressed in dif- ferent liveries. Some wore a showy stuff, check- ered w^hite and red like the squares of a chess- board. Others were clad in pure white, bearing hammers or maces of silver or copper ; and the guards, together with those in immediate attend- ance on the prince, were distinguished by a rich azure livery and a profusion of gay ornaments, while the large pendants attached to the ears indi- cated the Peruvian noble. 9. " Elevated high above his vassals came the Inca Atahuallpa, borne on a sedan or open litter, on which was a sort of throne made of massive gold of inestimable value. The palanquin was lined with the richly -colored j^lumes of tropical birds and studded with shining plates of gold and silver. The monarch's attire was much richer than on the preceding evening. Kound his neck was suspended a collar of emeralds of uncommon size and brilliancy. His short hair was decorated ^?vdth golden ornaments, and the imperial horla encircled his temples. The bearing of the Inca was sedate and dignified, and from his lofty station he looked down on the multitudes below with an air of com- posure like one accustomed to command. lOo ^^ As the leading lines of the procession en- 34: STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. tered the great square, larger, says an old chroni- cler, than any square in Spain, they opened to the right and left for the royal retinue to jjass. Every- thing was conducted with admirable order. The monarch was permitted to traverse the plaza in si- lence, and not a Spaniard was to be seen. When some five or six thousand of his people had. en- tered the place, Atahuallpa halted, and, turning round with an inquiring look, demanded, ' Where are the strangers ? ' 11. ^' At this moment Fray Vicente de Val- verde, a Dominican friar, Pizarro's chaplain, and afterw^ard Bishop of Cuzco, came forward with his breviary, or, as other accounts say, a Bible, in one hand and a crucifix in the other, and, approaching the Inca, told him that he came by order of his commander to expound to him the doctrines of the true faith, for which purpose the Spaniards had come from a great distance to his country. The friar then explained, as clearly as he could, the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity, and, ascend- ing high in his account, began with the creation of man, thence passed to his fall, to his subsequent redemption by Jesus Christ, to the crucifixion and the ascension, when the Saviour left the Apostle Peter as his vicegerent upon earth. 12. ^^ This power had been transmitted to the successors of the apostle, good and wise men, who. STORIES OF SPAIN. 35 uuder the title of popes, held authority over all powers and potentates on earth. One of the last of these popes had commissioned the Spanish em- peror, the most mighty monarch in the world, to conquer and convert the natives in this western hemisphere; and his general, Francisco Pizarro, had now come to execute this important mission. The friar concluded with beseeching the Peruvian monarch to receive him kindly, to abjure the errors of his own faith and embrace that of the Christians now proifered to him, the only one by which he could hope for salvation ; and, furthermore, to ac- knowledge himself a tributary of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who, in that event, wT)uld aid and protect him as his loyal vassal. 13. "The eyes of the Indian monarch flashed fire and his dark brow grew darker as he replied : ' I will be no man's tributary ! I am greater than any prince upon earth. Your emperor may be a great prince ; I do not doubt it when I see that he has sent his subjects so far across the waters, and I am willing to hold him as a brother. As for the Pope of whom you speak, he must be crazy to talk of giving away countries which do not be- long to him. For my faith,' he continued, ' I will not change it. Your own God, as you say, was put to death by the very men whom he created ; but mine,' he concluded, pointing to his deity — 36 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS then, alas ! sinking in glory behind the mountains — ' my God still lives in the heavens and looks down on his children.' 14. ^' He then demanded of Valverde by what authority he had said these things. The friar pointed to the book which he held as his authori- ty. Atahuallpa, taking it, turned over the pages a moment ; then, as the insult he had received probably flashed across his mind, he threw it down with vehemence and exclaimed : ' Tell your com- rades that they shall give me an account of their doings in my land. I wdll not go from here till they have made me full satisfaction for all the wrongs they have committed.' 15. "The friar, greatly scandalized by the in- dignity offered to the sacred volume, stayed only to pick it up, and, hastening to Pizarro, informed him of w^hat had been done, exclaiming at the same time : ' Do you not see that, while w^e stand here wasting our breath in talking with this dog, full of pride as he is, the fields are iilling with In- dians ? Set on at once ! I absolve you.' Pizarro saw that the hour had come. He waved a white scarf in the air, the appointed signal. The fatal gun was flred from the fortress. Then, springing into the square, the Spanish captain and his fol- lowers shouted the old war-cry of ^ St. Jago and at them ! ' It w^as answered by the battle-cry of STORIES OF SPAIN. 37 every Spaniard in the city as, rusliing from the avenues of the great halls in which they were con- cealed, they poured into the plaza., horse and foot, each in his own dark column, and threw them- selves into the midst of the Indian crowd. 16. " The latter, taken by surprise, stunned by the report of artillery and muskets, the echoes of which reverberated like thunder from the sur- rounding buildings, and blinded by the smoke which rolled in sulphurous volumes along the square, were seized with a panic. They knew not whither to fly for refuge from the coming ruin. Nobles and commoners, all were trampled do^vn under the fierce charge of the cavaLy, who dealt their blows right and left without sparing, while their swords, flashing through the thick gloom, carried dismay into the hearts of the wretched na- tives, who now for the first time saw the horse and his rider in all their terrors. They made no resistance, as, indeed, they had no weapons with which to make it. Every avenue to escape was closed, for the entrance to the square was choked up with the dead bodies of men who had perished in vain efforts to fly ; and such was the agony of the survivors under the terrible pressure of their assailants, that a large body of Indians by their convulsive struo-s^les burst through the wall of stone and dried clay which formed part of the 38 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. boundary of the plaza ! It fell, leaving an open- ing of more tlian a hundred paces, through which multitudes now found their way into the country, still hotly pursued by the cavalry, who, leaping the fallen rubbish, hung on the rear of the fugi- tives, strikino^ them down in all directions. 17. '■ Meanwhile the fight, or rather massacre, continued hot around the Inca, whose person ^\ as the great object of the assault. His faithful no- bles, rallying about him, threw themselves in the way of the assailants, and strove, by tearing them from their saddles, or at least by offering their own bosoms as a mark for their venireance, to shield their beloved master. It is said by some authorities that they carried weapons concealed under their clothes. If so it availed them little, as it is not pretended that they used them. But the most timid animal will defend itself w^hen at bay. That they did not do so in the present instance is proof that they had no weapons to use. Yet they still continued to force back the cavaliers, clinging to their horses with dying grasp, and, as one was cut down, another taking the place of his fallen comrade with a loyalty truly affecting. 18. " The Indian monarch, stunned and bewil- dered, saw his faithful subjects falling round him without hardly comprehending his situation. The STORIES OF SPAIX. 39 litter on which he rode heaved to and fro as the mighty press swayed backward and forward, and he gazed on the overwhehning ruin like some for- lorn mariner, who, tossed about in his bark by the furious elements, sees the lightning's flash and hears the thunder bursting around him with the consciousness that he can do nothing to avert his fate. At length, weary with the work of de- struction, the Spaniards, as the shades of evening grew deeper, felt afraid that the royal prize might, after all, elude them, and some of the cavaliers made a desperate effort to end the affray at once by taking Atahuallpa's life. But Pizarro, who was nearest his person, called out with stentorian voice, ^ Let no one who values his life strike at the Inca,' and, stretching out his arm to shield him, received a Avound on the hand from one of his own men — the only wound received by a Spaniard in the action. 19. " The strusrsfle now became fiercer than ever round the royal litter. It reeled more and more, and at length, several of the nobles who supported it having been slain, it w^as overturned, and the Indian prince would have come with vio- lence to the ground had not his fall been broken by the efforts of Pizarro and some other of the cavaliers, who caught him in their arms. The im- perial horla was instantly snatched from his tern- 40 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. pies by a soldier named Estete, and the unhappy monarch, strongly secured, was removed to a neighboring building, where he was carefully guarded. 20. "All attempt at resistance now ceased. The fate of the Inca soon spread over town and country. The charm which might have held the Peruvians together was dissolved. Every man thought only of his ow^i safety. Even the sol- diery encamped on the adjacent fields took alarm, and, learning the fatal tidings, were seen flying in every direction before their pursuers, who in the heat of triumph showed no touch of mercy. At length night, more pitiful than man, threw her friendly mantle over the fugitives, and the scat- tered troops of Pizarro rallied once more at the sound of the trumpet in the bloody square of Caxamalca." W. H. Prescott. V. THE MAID OF ZARAGOZA. 1. One of the worst acts of Napoleon's grasp- ing policy was the manner in which he entrapped the poor, foolish, weak Spanish royal family into his power, and then kept them in captivity and gave STORIES OF SPAIN, 41 their kingdom to his brother Joseph. The whole Spanish people were roused to resistance by this transfer, and the whole of the peasantry lose as one man to repel this shameful aggression. A long course of bad ofovernment had done much to de- stroy the vigor of the nation, and as soldiers in the open field they were utterly worthless; but still there were high qualities of patience and per- severance among them, and these were never more fully shown than in the defense of Zaragoza, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Aragon, ' 2. This city stands in an open plain, covered with olive grounds and closed by high mountains. About a mile to the southwest of the city was some high ground called the Torrero, upon which stood a convent, and close beside the city flowed the Ebro, crossed by two bridges, one of which was made of wood and said to be the most beauti- ful specimen of the kind of fabric in Europe. The water is of a dirty red, but grows clear when it has stood long enough, and is then excellent to drink. 3. There were no regular fortifications, only an old brick wall ten or twelve feet high and three feet thick and often encroached upon by houses. Part of it, however, was of old Roman workman- ship, having been built under Augustus, by whom the town was called Csesarea Aug;usta, a name 42 STORIES OF OTHER LAXBS since corrupted into Zaragoza. Four of the twelve gates were in this old wall, which was so well built as to put to shame all modern buildings, 4. The houses were generally three stories high, the streets very narrow and crooked, except one long and wide one called the Calle Santa. Zaragoza was highly esteemed as the hrst seat of Christianity in Spain ; indeed, legend declared that St. James the Great had preached there and had a vision of the blessed Vii^gin, standing upon a marble pillar, and bidding him there build a church in honor of her. The pillar was the great object of veneration in Aragon ; and there was a- double cathedral, with service performed alter- nately in the two parts. So much venerated was our Lady of the Pillar, that Pilar became a com- mon name for a girl in the surrounding country. 5. As is well said by Southey, in the fiery trial of the Zaragozans, ''the dross and tinsel of their faith disappeared and its pure gold remained." The inhabitants appeared, like most Spaniards since the blight of Philip II.'s policy had fallen on them, dull, apathetic beings, too proud and indo- lent for exertion, the men smoking cigaritos at their doors, the women only coming out with black silk mantillas over their heads to go to church. The French, on first seizing it with the rest of Spain, thought it the dullest place they STORIES OF SPAIN. 43 had ever yet entered, and greatly despised the in- habitants. 6. General Lefebvre was sent to quiet tlie in- surrection ao;ainst the French in Arag^on, and on the 18th and 14th of June, 1808, he easily routed the bodies of Spaniards who tried to oppose him. The %ing Spanish troops were pursued into Zara- goza by the French cavalry ; but here the inhabi- tants were able from their houses to drive back the enemy. Don Jose Palafox, a Spanish noble- man, took the command of the garrison, who were only two hundred and twenty soldiers, and en- deavored to arm the inhabitants, about sixty thou- sand in number, and all full of the most deter- mined spirit of resistance to the invaders. He had only sixteen cannon and a few muskets ; but fowling-pieces were collected and pikes were forged by all the smiths in the town. 7. The siege began on the 27th of June. The French army was in considerable force and had a great supply of mortars and battering cannon, such as could by their shells and shot rend the poor back city from end to end. The Torrero quickly fell into their hands, and from that height there was a constant discharge of those terrible shells and grenades that burst in pieces as they fall and carry destruction everywhere. 8. Not one building in the city could with- 44: STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. stand them, and tbey were iired not at the walls, but into tlie town. All that could be done was to place beams slanting against the houses so that there might be a shelter under them from the shells. The awnings that sheltered the wdndows from the summer sun were taken down, sewn up into sacks, and filled with earth, then piled up be- fore the gates with a deep trench dug before them. The houses on the walls were pulled down, and every effort w^as made to strengthen the defenses, the whole of the lately quiet, lazy population toil- ing earnestly together in the midst of the deadly shower that ^vas always falling from the Torrero and striking down numbers as they w^orked. 9. The same spirit animated every one. The Countess Bonita, a beautiful young lady, formed the women into an organized company for carrying food, water, and wine to the soldiers on guard and for relieving the wounded. Her courage and perseverance never failed. She was continuously seen in the places most exposed to the enemy's fire, bringing help and refreshment wherever she appeared among the hard-pressed warriors. The nuns became nurses of the sick and wounded and made cartridges, which w^ere carried to the defend- ers by the children of the place. The monks at- tended the sick and the dying or else bore arms, feeling that this — the cause of their country, tlieir STORIES OF SPAIN. 45 king, and their faitli — had become to them a holy war. 10. Thus men, women, and children alike seemed full of the same loyal spirit; but some traitor must have been among them, for on the night of the 28th the powder-magazine in the cen- ter of the town was blown up, destroying fourteen houses and killing two hundred people. At the same time the French appeared before three of the gates and a dreadful fire was opened from the Torrero, shells bursting everywhere among the citizens, who were striving in the dark to dig their friends out of the ruined houses. 11. The worst attack was at the Portillo gate, and it lasted the whole day. The sand-bag de- fense was frequently destroyed, and under the dreadful shot was as often renewed by the un« daunted Spaniards. So dreadful was the carnage that at one moment every man among the defend- ers lay dead. At that moment one of the women who were carrying refreshments came up. Her name was Angus tina Zaragoza. She was a fine- looking woman of two-and-twenty, and was full of determined spirit. She saw the citizens hesitate to step forward to man the defenses when certain death awaited them, and, springing forward, she caught the match from the hand of a dead gunner, fired his twenty-six pounder, and, seating herself 46 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. upon it, declared tliat it was her charge for the rest of the siege ; and she kept her word. She was the heroine of the sieo^e where all were hero- ines. 12. She is generally called the Maid of Zara- goza, but she seems to have been the widow of one of the artillerymen who was here killed, and that she continued to serve the gun not solely as a patriot, but because she thus obtained a right to provisions for her little children, who otherwise might have starved in the famine that began to prevail. If this lessens the romance, it seems to us to add to the beauty and womanliness of Augusti- na's character, that for the sake of her children she should have run into the hottest of the peril and taken up the work in which her husband had died. 13. Her readiness saved the Portillo for that time ; but the attacks were renew ed again and again with equal fury and fearful bloodshed. The French general had fancied that he could easily take such an unfortified place, and, finding it so difficult, he had lost his temper, and was thus throwing away his men's lives ; but after several such failures he began to invest the city regularly. Gunpowder was failing the besieged until they supplied its place by wonderful ingenuity. All the sulphur of the place was collected, nitre w\ns 48 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. obtained by washing it out of the soil of the streets, and charcoal was jirepared by charring the stalks of a very large variety of the hemp which growls in that part of Spain. At the end of forty- six days the city was entirely surrounded, provis- ions were nearly exhausted, and there was not a single place safe from shot and shell. 14. On the 2d of August a hospital caught fire, and the courage of the women was again shown by their exertions in carrying out the sick and wounded from the flames in spite of the continued shot from the enemy's batteries. On the 4th of August the French opened a battery within pistol shot of one of the gates. The mud Avails were leveled at the first discharge, and after a deadly struggle the besiegers forced their way into the convent, and before the end of the day they had gained all of that side of the city up to the main street. General Lefebvre thought that resistance was now over, and summoned Palafox to surren- der in a note containing only these words : " Head- quarters, St. Engracia. Capitulation." The an- swer was equally brief : " Headquarters, Zaragoza. War to the knife." 15. There they were, a narrow street only be- tween the besieged and the besiegers ! Soon the space was heaped with dead bodies. The French let them lie and fired on the Spaniards whenever STORIES OF SFAIiV. 49 they ventured out to bury tlieiu. Upon tliis Pala- fox tied ropes to his French prisoners and sent them out to bring in the dead for burial. The manufacture of powder could no longer be car- ried on ; but happily Don Francisco, brother of Palafox, was able to make his way into the city with a convoy of arms and ammunition. 16. Padre Santiago Sass, the curate of one of the parishes of Zaragoza, show^ed himself one of the bravest of all the brave, fighting at every haz- ardous point, and then moving about among the sick and the dying to administer the last rites of the Church. No one's heart failed in that eleven days of continuous battle from house to house, from room to room, where the nights were times of more dreadful conflict than the days. Often, under cover of the darkness, a party would rush across the street to seize a battery, and once a Spaniard made his way across and fastened a rope to one of the French guns. It was dragged almost across the street, but the rope broke and it was lost. ' 17. On the 8th of August the Spaniards saw that soon their last defense in the city would be destroyed, and they resolved to cross the Ebro, blow up the bridge, and defend the suburbs as they had defended the streets. Only an eighth part of the city now remained to them, and on the 50 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. 13th the enemy's fire was more destructive and constant than ever. The great convent of St. En- gracia w^as blown up, and the whole of the French part of the city glared with flaming houses ; but the reports of the batteries gradually ceased, and with the early morning light the garrison beheld the road to Pamplon filled with French troops in full retreat. 18. Their fortitude had won the day. The carnage had ended, and it remained for the sur- vivors to clear the streets from the remains of the deadly strife and to give thanks for their deliver- ance. In testimony of her courage she was to re- ceive for life the pay of an artilleryman and to wear a little shield of honor embroidered on her sleeve. Charlotte M. Yonge. STORIES OF FRANCE. VI. THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 1. Jeanne d'Aec was the child of a laborer of Domreniy, a little village in the neighborhood of Vaucouleurs, on the borders of Lorraine and Champagne. Just without the cottage where she was born began the great woods of the Volges, where the children of Domremy drank in poetry and legend from fairy-ring and haunted well, hung their floral garlands on the sacred trees, and sang songs to the " good people " who might not drink of the fountain because of their sins. Jeanne loved the forest ; its birds and beasts came lov- ingly to her at her childish call. But at home men saw nothing in her but " a good girl, sim23le and pleasant in her ways," spinning and sewing by her mother's side while the other girls went to the fields. Tender to the poor and sick, fond of church, and listening to the church-bell with a 52 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS dreamy passion of delight whicli never left lier. This quiet life was broken by the storm of war as it at last came home to Domremy. As the out- casts and wounded passed by the little village, the young peasant-girl gave them her bed and nursed them in their sickness. Her whole nature summed itself up in one absorbing passion : she " had pity," to use the phrase forever on her lip, ^' on the fair realm of France." As her passion grew, she re- called old prophecies that a maid from the Lor- raine border should save the land. She saw visions. St. Michael appeared to her in a flood of blinding light and bade her go to the help of the king and restore to him his realm. '^ Messire," answered the girl, " I am but a poor maiden ; I know not how to ride to the wars or to lead men- at-arms." The archangel returned to give her courage and to tell her of ^' the pity " that there was in heaven for the fair realm of France. 2. The girl wept and longed that the angels who appeared to her would carry her away ; but her mission was clear. It was in vain that her father, when he heard of her purpose, swore to drown her ere she should go to the field with men- at-arms. It was in vain that the priest, the wise people of the village, the captain of Vaucouleurs, doubted and refused to aid her. '' I must go to the king," persisted the peasant-girl, " even if I STORIES OF FRANCE. 53 wear my limbs to the very iaiees." "I had far rather rest and spin by my mother's side,'' she pleaded, with a touching pathos, " for this is no work of my choosing ; but I must go and do it, for my Lord wills it." " And who," they asked, " is your Lord ? " " He is God." Words such as these touched the rough captain at last. He took Jeanne by the hand and swore to lead her to the king. She reached Chinon in the opening of March; but here, too, she found hesitation and doubt. The theologians proved from their books that thev ouo-ht not to believe her. "There is more in God's book than in yours," Jeanne an- swered, simply. At last Charles himself received her in the midst of a throng of nobles and soldiers. "Gentle Dauphin," said the girl, "my name is Jeanne the Maid. The heavenly King sends me to tell you that you shall be anointed and crowned in the town of Rheims, and you shall be lieutenant of the heavenly King, who is the King of France." 3. Orleans had already been driven by famine to offers of surrender when Jeanne appeared in the French court, and a force was gathering under the Count of Dunois at Blois for a final effort at its relief. It was at the head of this force that Jeanne placed herself. The girl was in her eighteenth year, tall, finely formed, wdth all the vigor and activity of her peasant rearing, able to The people crowded around her as she rode along. STORIES OF FRANCE. 55 stay from dawn to niglitfall on horseback without meat or drink. As she mounted her charger, clad in white armor from head to foot, with the great white banner studded with fleur-de-lys waving over her head, she seemed " a thing wholly divine, whether to see or hear." 4. The ten thousand men-at-arms who followed her from Blois, rough plunderers whose only prayer was that of La Hire, '' Sire Dieu, I pray you to do for La Hire what La Hire would do for you were you captain-at-arms and he God," left oif their oaths and foul living at her word and gath- ered round the altars on their march. Her shrewd peasant humor helped her to manage the wild sol- diery, and her followers laughed over their camp- fires at an old warrior who had been so puzzled by her prohibition of oaths that she suffered him still to swear by his baton, for in the midst of her en- thusiasm her good sense never left her. The peo- ple crowded round her as she rode along, praying her to work miracles, and biinging crosses and chaplets to be blessed by her touch. " Touch them yourself," she said to an old Dame Marga- ret ; " your touch will be just as good as mine." 5. But her faith in her mission remained as firm as ever. " The Maid prays and requires you," she wrote to Bedford, " to work no more dis- traction in France, but to come in her company to 56 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Turk." " I bring you," she told Dunois, when he sallied out of Orleans to meet her after her two days' march from Blois, " I bring you the best aid ever sent to any one, the aid of the King of heaven." The be- siegers looked on overawed as she entered Orleans, and, riding round the walls, bade the people shake oif their fear of the forts which surrounded them. Her enthusiasm drove the hesitating generals to enofasre the handful of besies^ers, and the enormous disproportion of the forces at once made itself felt. 6. Fort after fort was taken, till only the strongest remained, and then the council of war resolved to adjourn the attack. " You have taken your counsel," replied Jeanne, " and I take mine." Placing herself at the head of the men-at-arms, she ordered the gates to be thrown open, and led them against the fort. Few as they were, the English fought desperately, and the Maid, who had fallen wounded while endeavoring to scale its walls, was borne into a vineyard while Dunois sounded the retreat. ^' Wait a w^hile," the girl imperiously pleaded ; " eat and drink. So soon as my stand- ard touches the wall you shall enter the fort." It touched, and the assailants burst in. On the next day the siege w^as abandoned, and on the 8th of May the force which had conducted it withdrew in sfood order to the north. STORIES OF FRANCE. 57 7. Ill the midst of her triumph Jeanne still re- mained the pure, tender-hearted peasant-girl of the Vosges. Her first visit as she entered Orleans was to the great church, and there, as she knelt at mass, she wept in such a passion of devotion that all people wept with her. Her tears burst forth afresh at her first sight of bloodshed and of the corpses strewn over the battle-field. She grew frightened at her first wound, and only threw off the touch of womanly fear when she heard the signal for retreat. But all thought of herself was lost in the thouo:ht of her mission. It was in vain that the French generals strove to remain on the Loire. Jeanne was resolute to complete her task, and while the English remained panic-stricken around Paris she besought Charles to march upon Rheims, the old crowning-place of the King of France. Troyes and Chalons submitted as she reached them ; Rheims drove out the English gar- rison and threw open her gates to the king. 8. With the coronation of the Dauphin the Maid felt her errand to be over. " O gentle King, the pleasure of God is done," she cried, as she flung herself at the feet of Charles the Seventh and asked leave to go home. '^ Would it were his pleasure," she pleaded with the archbishop, as he forced her to remain, "that I might go and keep sheep once more with my sisters and my 58 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. brothers ; they would be so glad to see me again." 9. The policy of the French court detained her while the cities of the north of France opened their gates to the newly-consecrated kin-g. Bed- ford, however, who had been left withcdit money- or men, had now received reinforcements, and Charles, after a repulse before the walls of Paris; fell back behind the Loire, while thfe towns ,on the Oise submitted again to the Duke of Bur- gundy. In this later struggle Jeanne fought again with her usual bravery, but with the fatal con- sciousness that her mission was at an end, and during the defense of Compiegne she fell into the hands of the English. To the English her tri- umphs were victories of sorcery, and after a year's imprisonment she was brought to trial on a chai'ge of heresy before an ecclesiastical court with the Bishop of Beauvais at its head. Throughout the long process wdiich followed, every art was em- ployed to entangle her in her talk ; but the simple shrewdness of the peasant-girl foiled the efforts of her judges. " Do you believe," they asked, " that you are in a state of peace ? " ^' If I am not," she replied, '' God will put me in it. If I am, God will keep me in it." Her capture, they argued, showed that God had forsaken her. "Since it has pleased God that I should be taken," she an- STORIES OF FRANCE. 59 swered, meekly, ^ it is for the best." '' Will you submit," they demanded at last, " to the judgment of the Church Militant V "I have come to the King of France," Jeanne rej)lied, " by commission from God and from the Church Triumphant above. To that church I submit. I had far rather die," she ended, passionately, ''than renounce what I have done by my Lord's command." They de- prived her of mass. " Our Lord can make me hear it without your aid," she said, weeping. "Do your voices," asked the Judges, " forbid you to sub- mit to the Church and Pope 'I " '' Ah, no ! Our Lord first served." 10. Sick and deprived of all religious aid, it was no wonder that, as the long trial dragged on and question followed question, Jeanne's firmness wavered. On the charge of sorcery and diabolical possession, she still appealed firmly to God. " I hold to my Judge," she said, as her earthly Judges gave sentence against her, " to the King of heaven and earth. God has always been my Lord in all that I have done. The devil has never had power over me." In the eyes of the Church her mascu- line dress was a crime, and she abandoned it ; but a renewed insult forced her to resume the one safeguard left her, and the return to it was treated as a relapse into heresy which doomed her to death. A great pile was raised in the market- 00 STORIES OF OTHEB LANDS. place of Rouen, where her statue stands now. Even the brutal soldiers, who snatched the hated " witcli " from the hands of the clergy and hurried lier to her doom, were hushed as she reached the stake. One, indeed, passed to her a rough cross he had made from a stick he held, and she clasped it to her bosom. " Oh, Rouen, Rouen," she was heard to murmur, as her eyes ranged over the city from the lofty scaffold, " I have great fear lest you suft'er for my death. Yes, my voices were of God ! " she suddenly cried as the last moment came. '' They have never deceived me ! " Soon the flames reached her ; the girl's head sank on her breast ; there was one cry of " Jesus ! " " We are lost," an English soldier muttered as the crowd broke up ; " we have burned a saint." F. E. Green, VII. ST. VINCENT DE PAUL 1. In the early summer of the year 1605 a coasting -vessel was sailing along the beautiful Gulf of L^^ons, the wind blowing gently in the sails, the blue Mediterranean lying glittering to the south, and the curved line of the French shore STORIES OF FRANCE. 61 rising in purple and green tints, dotted witli white towns and villages. Suddenly three light, white- sailed ships appeared in the offing, and the cap- tain's 23racticed eye detected that the wings that bore them were those of a bird of prey. He knew them for African brigantines, and, though he made all sail, it was impossible to run into a French port, as on they came, not entirely depending on the wind, but, like steamers, impelled by unseen powers within them. Alas ! that power was not the force of innocent steam, but the arms of Chris- tian rowers chained to the oar. Sure as the pounce of a hawk upon a partridge was the swoop of the corsairs upon the French vessel. A signal to surrender followed, but the captain boldly re- fused and armed his crew, bidding them stand to their guns. But the fight was too unequal, the brave little ship was disabled. The pirates boarded her, and, after a sharp fight on deck, three of the crew lay dead, all the rest were wounded, and the vessel was the prize of the pirates. The captain was at once killed in revenge for his resistance, and all the rest of the crew and passengers were put in chains. 2. Among these passengers was a young priest named Vincent cle Paul, the son of a farmer in Languedoc, who had used his utmost endeavors to educate his son for the ministry, even selling 62 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS tlie oxen from the plow to provide for the col- lege expenses. A small legacy had just fallen to the young man from a relative who had died at Marseilles. He had been thither to receive it, and had been persuaded by a friend to return home by sea ; and this was the result of the pleasant voy- age. The legacy was the prey of the pirates, and Vincent, severely wounded by an arrow and heavi- ly chained, lay stifled in a corner of the hold of the shij), a captive probably for life to the enemies of the faith. It was true that France had scandal- ized -Europe by making peace with the Dey of Tunis ; but this was a trifle to the corsairs, and when, after seven days' further cruising, they put into the harbor of Tunis, they drew up an account of their capture, calling it a Spanish vessel to pre- vent the French consul from claiming the pris- oners. 3. The captives had the coarse blue-and-white garments of slaves given them, and \vere walked fiYe or six times through the streets of Tunis by way of exhibition. They were then brought back to their ship, and the purchasers came thither to bargain for them. They were examined at their meals to see if they had good appetites ; their sides were felt like those of oxen; their teeth looked at like those of horses ; their wounds were searched, and they were made to run and walk to STORIES OF FRANCE. 63 show tlie play of tlieir limbs. All this Vincent endured with patient submission, constantly sup- ported by thought of Him who took upon Him the form of a servant for our sakes ; and he did his best, ill as he was, to give his companions the same confidence. 4. Weak and unwell, Vincent was sold cheap to a fisherman ; but in his new service it soon be- came apparent that the sea made him so ill as to be of no use, so he was sold again to one of the Moorish physicians, the like of whom may still be seen, smoking their pipes sleepily under their white turbans, cross-legged, among the drugs in their shop-windows, these being the small open spaces between the beautiful lace- work of Moorish lattices. The physician was a great chemist and distiller, and for four years had been seeking the philosopher's stone, which was supposed to be the secret of making gold. He found his slave's learn- ing and intelligence so useful that he grew very fond of him and tried hard to persuade him to turn Mohammedan, offering him not only liberty, but the inheritance of all his wealth and the se- crets that he had discovered. 5. The Christian priest felt the temptation sufficiently to be always grateful for the grace that had carried him through it. At the end of a year the old doctor died and his nephew sold Vim 64 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS cent again. His next master was a native of- Nice, who liad not lield oat against the temptation to renounce his faith in order to avoid a life of slavery, but had become a renegade and had charge of one of the farms of the Dey of Tunis. The farm was on a hillside, in an extremely hot and exposed region, and Vincent suffered much from being there set to held-labor ; but he endured all without a murmur. 6. His master had three wives, and one of them, who was of Turkish birth, used often to come out and talk to him, asking him many questions about his religion. Sometimes she asked him to sing, and he would then chant the psalm of the captive Jews, "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept," and others of the " songs " of his Zion. The woman at last told her husband that he must have been wrong in forsak- ing a religion of which her slave had told her such wonderful things. Her words had such an effect on the renegade that he sought the slave, and in conversation with him soon came to a full sense of his own miserable position as an apostate. A change of religion on the part of a Mohammedan is, however, always visited with death both to the convert and his instructor. 7. An Algerine, who was discovered to have become a Christian, was about this time said to STORIES OF FRANCE. 65 have been walled up at once in the fortification he had been building ; and the story has been con- firmed by the recent discovery by the French en- gineers of the remains of a man within a huge block of clay that had taken a perfect cast of his Moorish features and of the surface of his gar- ments, and even had his black hair adhering to it. Vincent's master, terrified at such perils, resolved to make his escape in secret with his slave. 8. It is disappointing to hear nothing of the wife, and not to know whether she would not or could not accompany them. All we know is that master and slave trusted themselves alone to a small bark, and, safely crossing the Mediterranean, landed at Aignes Mortes on the 28th of June, 1607, and that the renegade at once abjured his false faith and soon after entered a brotherhood at Eome, whose office it was to wait on the sick in hospitals. 9. This part of Vincent de Paul's life Jias been told at length because it shows from what the knights of St. John strove to protect the inhabi- tants of the coasts. We next find Vincent visit- ing at a hospital at Paris, where he gave such ex- ceeding comfort to the patients that all with one voice declared him a messenger from Heaven. 10. He afterward became a tutor in the family of the Count de Joigni, a very excellent man, who 66 S TOBIES OF OTHER LANDS. was very easily led by him to many good works. M. de Joigni was inspector-general of the "ga- leres/' or hulks — the ships in the chief harbors of France, such as Brest and Marseilles, where the convicts, closely chained, were kept at hard labor and often made to toil at the oar like the slaves of the Africans. Going the round of these prison- ships, the horrible state of the convicts, their half- naked misery, and still more their fiendisk ferocity, went to the heart of the Count and of the Abbe de Paul; and, with full authority from the in- spector, the tutor worked among these wretched beings with such good effect that, on his doings being represented to the King, Louis XIII, he was made almoner-general to the galleys. 11. While visiting those at Marseilles, he was much struck by the broken-down looks and ex- ceedino; sorrowfulness of one of the convicts. He entered into conversation with him, and, after many kind words, persuaded him to tell his trou- bles. His sorrow was far less for his own condi- tion than for the misery to which his absence must needs reduce his wife and children. And what was Vincent's reply to this ? His action was so striking: that, thouo^h in itself it could hardly be safe to propose it as an example, it must be mentioned as the very height of self -sacrifice. 12. He absolutely changed places with the con- STORIES OF FRANCE. 67 vict. Probably some arrangement was made witli the immediate jailor of the gang, who by the ex- change of the priest for the convict conld make up his full tale of men to show when his numbers were counted. At any rate the prisoner went free and returned to his home, while Vincent wore a convict's chain, did a convict's work, lived on con- vict fare, and, what was worse, had only convict society. He was soon sought out and released, but the hurts he had received from the pressure of the chain lasted all his life. 13. He never spoke of this event ; it was kept a strict secret, and, once when he had referred to it in a letter to a friend, he became so much afraid that the story would become known that he sent to ask for the letter back again. It was, however, not returned, and it makes the fact certain. It would be a dangerous precedent if prison chap- lains were to change places with their charges, and, beautiful as was Vincent's spirit, the act can hardly be justified ; but it should also be remem- bered that, among the galleys of France, there were then many who had been condemned for re- sistance to the arbitrary will of Cardinal de Riche- lieu, men not necessarily corrupt and degraded like the thieves and murderers with whom they were associated. At any rate M. de Joigni did not displace the almoner, and Vincent worked on 68 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. the consciences of the convicts with infinitely more force for having been for a time one of themselves. Many and many were won back to penitence, a hospital was fonnded for them, better regulations established, and for a time both prisons and gal- leys were wonderfully improved, although only for the lifetime of the good inspector and saintly almoner. 14. He established the order of the Sisters of Charity, the excellent women who have for two hundred years been the prime workers in every charitable task in France, nursing the sick, teach- ing the young, tending deserted children, ever to be found where there is distress or pain. 15. The redemption of the prisoners in Africa might have secured his first thought, but that he did so much in other quarters. At different times with the alms that he collected, and out of the revenues of his benefices, he ransomed no less than twelve hundred slaves from their captivity. At one time the French Consul at Tunis wrote to him that for a certain sum a large number might be set free, and he raised enough to release not only these but seventy more, and he further wrought upon the king to obtain the consent of the Dey of Tunis that a party of Christian clergy should be permitted to reside in the consul's house and to minister to the souls and bodies of the Christian STORIES OF FRANCE. 69 slaves^ of whom there were six thousand in Tunis alone, besides those in Algiers, Tangier, and Tripoli. 16. Permission was gained, and a mission of Lazarist Brothers arrived. This, too, was an order founded by Vincent, consisting of priestly nurses like the Hospitallers, though not like them, war- riors. They came in the midst of a dreadful visita- tion of the plague, and nursed and tended the sick, both Christians and Mohammedans, with fearless devotion day and night till they won the honor and love of the Moors themselves. 1 7. The good Vincent de Paul died in the year 1660, but his Brothers of St. Lazarus and the Sisters of Charity still tread in the paths he marked out for them, and his name scarcely needs the saintly epithet the Church has affixed to it to stand among the most honorable and charitable of men. Charlotte M, Yonge. VIII. WATERLOO. 1. Napoleot^ landed from Elba on the 1st of March, 1815, on the coast near Cannes, and, fol- lowed only by a thousand of his guards, he marched over the mountains to Grenoble and Lyons. He 70 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS counted, and Justly, on the indifference of tlie country to its new Bourbon rulers, on the longing of the army for a fresh struggle which should re- store its glory, and, above all, on the S23ell of his name over soldiers whom he had so often led to victory. In twenty days from his landing he reached the Tuileries unopposed, while Louis XVIII fled helplessly to Ghent. But whatever hopes he had drawn from the divisions of the allied powers were at once dispelled by their resolute action on the news of his return to France. Their strife was hushed, and their old union re- stored by the consciousness of a common danger. 2. A declaration adopted instantly by all put Napoleon under the ban of Europe. An engage- ment to supply a million of men for the purposes of the war and a recall of their armies to the Rhine, gave practical effect to the words of the allies. England furnished subsidies to the amount of eleven millions of pounds to support these enor- mous hosts, and hastened to place an army on the frontier of the Netherlands. 3. The best troops of the force which had been employed in the Peninsula, however, were still across the Atlantic, and of the eighty thousand men who gathered round Wellington only about half were Englishmen, the rest principally raw levies from Belgium and Hanover. The Duke's STORIES OF FRANCE. n plan was to unite with the one hundred and fifty thousand Prussians under Marshal Blucher, who were advancing on the Lower Rhine, and to enter France by Bons and Na- mur, while the forces of Austria and Rus- sia closed in upon Paris by way of Bel- fort and Elsass. 4. Napoleon threw aside all thoughts of a defensive war. By amazing efforts he raised an army of two hundred and fifty thousand men in the three months since his arrival at Paris, and in the open- ing of June one hundred and twenty thousand Frenchmen were concentrated on the Sambre, while Wellington's troops still lay on the line of the Scheldt, and Blucher's on that of the Meuse, Both the allied armies hastened to unite, but their Junction was nearly impossible. Blucher with eighty thousand men was himself attacked on the 16th by Napoleon at Ligny, and after a desperate contest was driven back with terrible loss. 5. On the same day Ney, with twenty thou- Wellington. 72 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. sand men and about the same number in reserve, ap23eared before Quatre Bras, where as yet only ten thousand English and the same force of Bel- gian troops had been able to assemble. The Bel- gians broke before the charges of the French horse; but the dogged resistance of the English infantry gave time for Wellington to bring up corps after corps, till at the close of day Ney saw himself heavily outnumbered, and withdrew baf- fled from the held. 6. About five thousand men had fallen on either side in this fierce engagement ; but, heavy as was Wellington's loss, the forerunners of the English army had already done much to foil Napo- leon's effort at breaking through the lines of the allies. Blucher's retreat, however, left the Eng- lish flank uncovered, and on the follo^^'ing day Wellington, with nearly seventy thousand men, withdrew in good order upon Waterloo, followed by the mass of the French forces under the Em- peror himself. 7. Napoleon had detached Marshal Grouchy with thirty thousand men to hang upon the rear of the beaten Prussians, while with a force of eighty thousand men he resolved to brins; Wellino-ton to battle. On the morning of the 18th of June the two armies faced each other on the field of A¥a- terloo. Napoleon's one fear had been that of con- STORIES OF FRANCE. 73 tinued retreat. " I have them ! '' he cried, as he saw the English line drawn up on a low rise of ground which stretched across the high-road. He had some grounds for his confidence of success. 8. On either side the forces numbered between seventy and eighty thousand men ; but the French were superior in guns and cavahy, and a consid- erable portion of Wellington's force consisted of Belgian levies, who broke and fled at the outset of the fight. A fierce attack upon the English right opened the battle at eleven, but it was not until midday that the French advanced upon the center, which from that time bore the main brunt of the struggle. 9. Never has greater courage, whether of at- tack or endurance, been shown upon any field than was shown by both columns at Waterloo. The advanced corps of the French, repulsed by the English foot, were hurled back in disorder by a charge of the Scotch Grrays ; but the victorious horsemen were crushed in their turn by the French cuirassiers, and the mass of the French cavahy, twelve thousand strong, flung itself in charge after charge on the English front, carrying the English guns and sweeping with desperate bravery round the unbroken squares, whose fire thinned their ranks. With equal bravery the French columns of the center again advanced, wrested at last the 74 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS form of La Haye Sainte from their opponents, and pushed on vigorously, though in vain, under Ney against the troops in the rear. 10. Terrible as was the English loss — and many of the regiments were reduced to a mere handful of men — Wellington stubbornly held his ground, while the Prussians, advancing as they promised from Havre through deep and miry forest-roads, were slowly gathering to his support, disregarding the attack in their rear, by which Grouchy strove to hold them back from the field. At half -past four their advanced guard deployed at last from the woods ; but the main body was still far behind, and Napoleon was able to hold his ground against them till their increasing masses forced him to stake all on a desperate effort against the English front. 11. The Imperial Guard, his only reserve, and which as yet had taken no part in the battle, was drawn up at seven in two columns of attack. The first, with Ney himself at its head, swept all be- fore it as it mounted the rise beside La Haye Sainte, on which the thin English line still held its ground, and all but touched the English front when its mass, torn by the terrible fire of mus- ketry with which it was secured, gave way before the charge of the English guards. 12. The second, three thousand strong, ad- STORIES OF FRANCE. 75 vanced witli the same courage upon the right, only to be repulsed and shattered in the same way. At the moment when these masses, broken but still unconquered, fell slowly and doggedly back down the Held-rise, the Prussians pushed forward some forty thousand men on Napoleon's right. Their guns swept the field, and Wel- lington seized the moment for a general ad- vance. 13. From that moment all was lost to the oTeat conqueror of Europe. Only the Old Guard stood firm in the wreck of the French army, and nothing but nio:ht and exhaustion checked the Eno^lish in their pursuit of the broken masses who hurried from the field. The Prussian horse continued the chase through the night, and only forty thousand Frenchmen with some thirty guns recrossed the Sambre. Napoleon fled hurriedly to Paris, and his second abdication was followed by the tri- umphant entry of the English and Prussian armies into the French capital. THE EVE BEFORE WATERLOO. 1. There was a sound of revelry by night. And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. 76 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell. Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell. But, hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! 2. Did ye not hear it? — No ; 'twas but the wind. Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet ! But, hark ! that heavy sound breaks in once more. As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! Arm ! arm ! it is — it is the cannon's opening roar ! 8. Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro. And gathering tears, and tremblings of dis-= tress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour "ago Blushed at the praise of their own loveli- ness ; And there were sudden partings, such as press STORIES OF FRANCE. 77 The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated ; who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ! And there was mounting in hot haste; the steed. The mustering squadron, and the clattering car. Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Eoused up the soldier ere the morning star ; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering with white lips, " The foe ! They come ! they come ! " And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves. Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass. Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves. Over the unreturning brave — alas ! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 78 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. Of living valor, rolling on tlie foe. And burning with high hope, shall molder cold and low. 6. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay ; The midnight brought the signal -sound of strife — The morn, the marshaling in arms — the day, Battle's magnificently stern array ! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent The earth is covered thick with other clay. Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse — friend, foe — in one red burial blent ! Byron, STOEIES OF CENTRAL EUEOPE. IX. A LEGEND OF BREGENZ. 1. GiKT round witli rugged mountains The fair Lake Constance lies ; In her blue heart reflected, Shine back the starry skies ; And watching each white cloudlet Float silently and slow^ You think a piece of heaven Lies on our earth below ! 2. Midnight is there ; and silence, Enthroned in heaven, looks down Upon her own calm mirror. Upon a sleeping town ; For Bregenz, that quaint city Upon the Tyrol shore. Has stood above Lake Constance, A thousand years and more. 6 80 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS 3. Her battlements and towers Upon this rocky steep, Have cast their trembling shadow For ages on the deep ; Mountain, and lake, and valley, A sacred legend know. Of how the town was saved one night, Three hundred years ago. 4„ Far from her home and kindred, A Tyrol maid had fled. To serve in the Swiss valleys, And toil for daily bread , And every year that fleeted So silently and fast, Seemed to bear farther from her The memory of the past. 5. She served kind, gentle masters, Nor asked for rest or change ; Her friends seemed no more new ones. Their S23eech seemed no more strange ; And when she led the cattle To pasture every day. She ceased to look and wonder On which side Bregenz lay. 6. She spoke no more of Bregenz With longing and with tears ; STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 81 Her Tyrol* home seemed faded In a deep mist of years ; She heeded not the rumors Of Austrian war or strife ; Each day she rose contented To the calm toils of life. 7. Yet^ when he^- master's children Would clustering round her stand^ She sang them the old ballads Of her own native land ; And when at morn and evening She knelt before God's throne, The accents of her childhood Rose to her lips alone. 8. And so she dwelt ; the valley, More peaceful year by year, When suddenly strange portents Of some great deed seemed near. The golden corn was bending Upon its fragile stalk, While farmers, heedless of their fields, Paced up and down in talk. 9. The men seemed stern and altered. With looks cast on the ground ; With anxious faces, one by one. The women gathered round ; 82 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. All talk of flax, or spinning, Or work, was put away ; The very children seemed afraid To go alone to play. 10. One day, out in the meadow. With strangers from the town, Some secret plan discussing. The men walked up and down. Yet, now and then seemed watching A strange uncertain gleam, That looked like lances 'mid the trees^ That stood below the stream. 11. At eve they all assembled. All care and doubt were fled ; With jovial laugh they feasted. The board was nobly spread. The elder of the village Rose up, his glass in hand, \ And cried, " We drink the downfall | Of an accursed land ! 12. "The night is grooving darker. Ere one more day is flown, Bregenz, our foemen's stronghold, Bregenz shall be our own ! " The women shrank in terror (Yet Pride, too. had her part)^ STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 83 But one poor Tyrol maiden Felt death within her heart. 13. Before her stood fair Bregenz, Once more her towers rose ! What were her friends beside her ? Only her country's foes ! The faces of her kinsfolk, The days of childhood flown, The echoes of her mountains, Reclaimed her as their own ! 14. Nothing she heard around her (Though shouts rang forth again), Gone were the green Swiss valleys. The pasture, and the plain ; Before her eyes one vision, And in her heart one cry. That said, " Go forth, save Bregenz, And then, if need be, die ! " 15. With trembling haste and breathless, With noiseless step she sped ; Horses and weary cattle Were standing in the shed ; She loosed the strong white charger. That fed from out her hand, She mounted and she turned his head Toward her native land. 84 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. 16. Out — out into the darkness — Faster, and still more fast ; The smooth grass flies behind her, The chestnut woods are passed ! She looks up ; clouds are heavy ; Why is her steed so slow ? Scarcely the wind beside them, Can pass them as they go. 17. " Faster ! " she cries, " oh, faster ! " Eleven the church-bells chime ; " O God ! " she cries, " help Bregenz, And bring me there in time ! " But louder than bells' ringing. Or lowing of the kine. Grows nearer in the midnight The rushino^ of the Rhine, 18. Shall not the roaring waters Their headlong gallop check ? The steed draws back in terror. She leans upon his neck To watch the flowing darkness. The bank is high and steep ; One pause — he staggers forward, And plunges in the deep. 19. She strives to pierce the blackness, And looser throws the rein ; Aiul out come serf and soldier To meet the news she 86 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS Her steed must breast the waters That dash above his mane. How gallantly, how nobly, He struggles through the foam, And see — in the far distance — Shine out the lights of home ! 20o Up the steep bank he bears her, And now they rush again Toward the heights of Bregenz, That tower above the plain. They reach the gate of Bregenz Just as the midnight rings. And out come serf and soldier To meet the news she brings. 21. Bregenz is saved ! Ere daylight Her battlements are manned ! Defiance greets the army That marches on the land. And if to deeds heroic Should endless fame be paid, Bregenz does well to honor The noble Tyrol maid. 22. Three hundred years are vanished, And yet upon the hill An old stone gateway rises, To do her honor still. STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 87 And there, wlien Bregenz women Sit spinning in the shade, They see in quaint old carving The charger and the maid. 23. And when, to guard old Bregenz, By gateway, street, and tower, The warder paces all night long. And calls each passing hour : " Nine," " ten," " eleven," he cries aloud, And then (oh, crown of Fame !), When midnight pauses in the skies. He calls the maiden's name ! Adelaide ProctoVo X. THE TROUBLESOME BURGHERS. 1. Philip Van Aetevelde was a Dutchman. He lived and died in the fourteenth century, when feuds were rife, and great walls were built about the cities to keep out meddlesome and marauding neighbors. Philip's father, Jacob, a popular and influential leader, had been Governor of Ghent, and had made himself a great name by leading a revolt against the Count of Flanders, and driving 88 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS that tyrant out of the country on one occasion. Philip was a quiet man, who attended to his own affairs and took no part in public business ; but in the year 1381 the good people of Ghent found themselves in a very great difficulty. Their city was subject to the Count of Flanders, who op- pressed them in every way. He and his nobles thought nothing of the common people, but taxed them heavily and intej'fered with their business. The city of Bruges was the rival of Ghent, and in those days rivals in trade were enemies. The Bruges people were not satisfied with trying to make more money and get more business than Ghent could, but they wanted Ghent destroyed, and so they supported Count Louis in all that he did to injure their neighboring city. 2. Having this quarrel on their hands, the Ghent people did not know what to do. Count Louis was too strong for them, and they were very much afraid he would destroy their town and put the people to death. 3. A public meeting was held, and, remember- ing how w^ell old Jacob Van Artevelde had served them against the father of Count Louis, they made his son Philip their captain, and told him he must manage this quarrel for them. 4. Philip undertook this duty, and tried to settle the trouble in some peaceable way ; but the STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 89 Couut was angry, and would not listen to any- thing that Van Artevelde proposed. He said the Ghent people were rebels, and must submit with- out any conditions at all, and this the sturdy Ghent burghers refused to do. 5. Count Louis would not march against the town and give the people a fail* chance to light the matter out. He preferred to starve them, and for that purpose he put soldiers on all the roads leading toward Ghent, and refused to allow any provisions to be taken to the city. 6. The people soon ate up nearly all the food they had, and when the spring of 1382 came they were starving. Something must be done at once, and Philip Van Artevelde decided that it was of no use to resist any longer. He took twelve depu- ties with him, and went to beg the Count for mercy. He offered to submit to any terms the Count might propose, if he w^ould only promise not to put any of the people to death. Philip even offered him- self as a victim, agreeing that the Count should banish him from the country as a punishment, if he would spare the people of the town. But the haughty Count would promise nothing. He said that all the people of Ghent, from fifteen to sixty years old, must march half-way to Bruges bare- headed, with no clothes on but their shirts, and each with a rope around his neck, and then he 90 - STORIES OF OTHER LANDS would decide liow mauy of them he would put to death and how many he would spare. 7. The Count thought the poor Ghent people would have to submit to this, and he meant to put them all to death when they should thus come out without arms to surrender. He therefore called on his vassals to meet him in Bruges at Easter, and to go out with him to " destroy these troublesome bui'ghers." 8. But the "troublesome burghers," as we shall see presently, were not the kind of men to walk out bare-headed, with ropes around their necks, and submit to destruction. 9. Philip Van Artevelde returned sadly to Ghent on the 29th of April, and told the people what the Count had said. Then the gallant old soldier, Peter van den Bossche, exclaimed : " In a few days the town of Ghent shall be the most honored or the most humbled town in Christen- dom." 10. Van Artevelde called the burghers to- gether, and told them what the situation was. There were thirty thousand people in Ghent, and there was no food to be had for them. There was no hope that the Count would offer any better terms, or that anybody would come to their assistance. They mu^t decide quickly what they would do, and Philij) said there were three The march from Ghent. 92 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS courses open to them. First, if they chose, they could wall up the gates of the town and die of starvation. Secondly, they could accept the Count's terms, march out wdth ropes around their necks, and take whatever punishment the Count might put upon them. If they should decide to do that, Philip said he would oifer himself to the Count to be hanged first. Thirdly, they could get together ^\q thousand of their best men, march to Bruges', and fight the quarrel out. 11. The answer of the people w^as that Philip must decide for them, and he at once said, " Then we will fight." The ^ye thousand men were got together, and on the 1st of May they marched out of the town to win or lose the desperate battle. The priests of the city stood at the gates as the men marched out, and prayed for blessings upon them. The old men, the women, and the children cried out : " If you lose the battle you need not return to Ghent, for you will find your families dead in their homes." 12. The only food there was for these five thousand men was carried in five little carts, while on another cart two casks of wine were taken. 13. The next day Van Artevelde placed his little army in line on the common of Be verh outs- veld, at- Oedelem, near Bruges. There was a STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 93 marsh in front of them, and Van Artevelde pro- tected their flank by a fortification consisting of the carts and some stakes driven into the ground. He then sent a messenger to the Count, begging him to pardon the people of Ghent, and, having done this, he ordered his men to go to sleep for the night. 14. At daybreak the next morning tlie little army was aroused to make final preparations for the desperate work before them. The priests ex- horted the men to fight to the death, showing them how useless it would be to surrender or to run away, as they w ere sure to be put to death at any rate. Their only hope for life was in victory, and, if they could not win that, it would be better to die fighting like men than to surrender and be put to death like dogs. 15. After these exhortations were given, seven gray friars said mass, and gave the sacrament to all the soldiers. Then the fiYe cart-loads of pro- visions and the two casks of wine were divided amono^ the men for their last breakfast. When that meal was eaten, the soldiers of Ghent had not an ounce of food left anywhere. 16. Meanwhile the Count called his men to- gether in Bruges^ and got them ready for battle ; but the people of Bruges were so sure of easily destroying the little Ghent army that they would 94 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. not wait for orders, but marclied out shouting and singing and making merry. 17. As their column marched along the road in this noisy fashion, the " troublesome burghers " of Ghent suddenly sprang upon them, crying '^ Ghent ! Ghent ! " The charge was so sudden and so fierce that the Bruges people gave way and fled in a panic toward the town, with Van Artevelde's men at their heels in hot pursuit. The Count's regular troops tried to make a stand, but the burghers of Ghent came upon them so fu- riously that they became panic-stricken and fled. The Count himself ran with all his might, and as soon as he entered the city he ordered the gates to be shut. He was so anxious to save himself from the fury of Van Artevelde's soldiers that he wanted to close the gates at once and leave those of his own people who were still outside to their fate. But it was already too late. Van Arte- velde's column had followed the retreating crowd so fast that it had already pushed its head into the town, and there was no driving it back. 18. The five thousand " troublesome burgh- ers," with their swords in their hands^ and still crying '^ Ghent ! " swarmed into Bruges, and quick- ly took possession of the town. The Count's army was utterly routed and scattered, and the Count himself would have been taken prisoner if one of STORIES OB' CENTRAL EUROPE. 95 the Ghent burghers had not hidden him and helped him to escape from the city. Van Arte- velde's soldiers, who had eaten the last of their food that morning in the belief that they would never eat another meal on earth, supped that night on the richest dishes that Bruges could sup- ply ; and, now that the Count was overthrown, great wagon-trains of provisions poured into poor, starving Ghent. 19. There was a great golden dragon on the bellfry of Bruges, of which the Bruges people were very proud. That dragon had once stood on the church of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, and the Emperor Baldwin had sent it as a present to Bruges. In token of the victory. Van Artevelde's " troublesome burghers " took down the golden drao^on and carried it to Ghent. George Gary Eggleston. XI. MARLBOROUGH AT BLENHEIM. 1. Upon his appointment, Marlborough has- tened to the Hague, received the command of the Dutch as well as of the English forces, and drew 7 96 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS, the German powers into the confederacy with a skill and adroitness which even William (Will- iam III) might have envied. Never was great- ness more quickly recognized than in the case of Marlborough. In a few months he was regarded by all as the guiding spirit of the alliance, and princes whose jealousy had worn out the patience of William yielded without a struggle to the coun- sels of his successor. The temper, indeed, of Marl- borough, fitted him in an especial ^vay to be the head of a great confederacy. Like William, he owed little of his power to any early training. The trace of his neglected education was seen to the last in his reluctance to write. '' Of all things," he said to his wife, " I do not love writing." To pen a dispatch, indeed, was a far greater trouble to him than to plan a campaign. But Nature had given him qualities which in other men spring specially from culture. 2. His capacity for business was immense. Dur- ing the next ten years he assumed the general di- rection of the war in Flanders and in Spain. He managed every negotiation with the courts of the allies. He watched over the shifting phases of English politics. He had to cross the Channel to win over Anne to a change in the cabinet, or to hurry to Berlin to secure the due contingent of Electoral troo^^s from Brandenburg. At the same STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 97 moment he was reconciling tlie Emperor witli tlie Protestants of Hungary, stirring the Calvinists of the Cevennes into revolt, arranging the affairs of Portugal, and providing for the protection of the Duke of Savoy. But his air showed no trace of fatigue, or haste, or vexation. He retained to the last the indolent grace of his youth. His natural dignity was never ruffled by an outbreak of tem- per. Amid the storm of battle men saw him "without fear of danger, or in the least hurry, giving his orders with all the calmness imagi- nable." 3. In the cabinet he was as cool as on the bat- tle field. He met with the same equable serenity the pettishness of the German princes, the phlegm of the Dutch, the ignorant opposition of his officers, and the libels of his political opponents. There was a touch of irony in the simple expedients by which he sometimes solved problems which had baffled cabinets. The King of Prussia was one of the most vexatious among the allies, but all difficulty with him ceased when Marlborough rose at a state banquet and handed to him a napkin. 4. As a statesman the high qualities of Marl- borough were owned by his bitterest foes. " Over the confederacy," says Bolingbroke, " he, a new, a private man, acquired by meiit and management a more decided influence than hisrh birth, confirmed 98 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. authority, and even tlie crown of Great Britain had given to King William." But, great as he was in the council, he was even greater in the field. He stands alone among the masters of the art of war as a captain whose victories began at an age when the work of most men is done. Thouo-h he served as a young officer under Turenne and for a few months in Ireland and the Netherlands, he had held no great command till he took the field in Flanders at the age of fifty-two. He stands alone, too, in his unbroken good fortune. Voltaire notes that he never besieged a fortress which he did not take, or fought a battle which he did not win. 5. In spite of victories on the Danube, the blunders of his adversaries on the Rhine, and the sudden aid of an insurrection which broke out in Hungary, the difficulties of Louis XIV were hourly increasing. The accession of Savoy to the grand alliance threatened his armies in Italy wdth de- struction. That of Portugal gave the allies a base of operations against Spain. His energy, however, rose with the pressure, and while the Duke of Ber- wick was dispatched against Portugal, and three small armies closed round Savoy, the flower of the French troops joined the army of Bavaria on the Danube, for the bold plan of Louis was to decide the fortunes of the war by a victory which would STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 99 wrest peace from the empire under the walls of Vienna. 6. The master-stroke of Louis roused Marl- borough at the opening of 1704 to a master-stroke in return ; but the secrecy and boldness of the Duke's plans deceived both his enemies and his allies. The French army in Flanders saw in his march upon Mentz only a transfer of the war into Alsace. The Dutch were lured into suffering their troops to be drawn as far from Flanders as Coblentz by proposals of a campaign on the Moselle. It was only when Marlborough crossed the Neckar and struck through the heart of Germany for the Dan- ube that the true aim of his operations was re- vealed. 7. After struggling through the hill-country of Wurtemberg, he joined the imperial army under the Prince of Baden, stormed the heights of Donau- worth, crossed the Danube and the Lech, and pene- trated into the heart of Bavaria. The crisis drew the two armies which were facing each other on the Upper Ehine to the scene. The arrival of Marshal Tallard with thirty thousand French troops saved the Elector of Bavaria for the mo- ment from the need of submission. But the junc- tion of his opponent Prince Eugene, the command- er of the Austrian army, with Marlborough raised the contending forces again to an equality; and 100 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS after a few marches the armies met ou the north bank of the Danube near the little town of Hoch- stadt and the village of Blenheim, which have given their names to the battle. 8. In one respect the struggle which followed stands unrivaled in history, for the whole of the Teutonic race was represented in the strange med- ley of Englishmen, Dutchmen, Hanoverians, Danes, Wlirtembergers, and Austrians, who followed Marl- borough and Eugene. The French and Bavarians, who numbered, like their opponents, some fifty thousand men, lay behind a little stream which ran through some swampy ground to the Danube. The position was a strong one, for its front was covered by the swamp, its right by the Danube, its left by the hill-country in which the stream rose, and Tallard had not only entrenched him- self but was far superior to his rival in artillery. But for once Marlborouo-h's hands were free. '^ I have great reason," he wrote calmly home, "to hope that everything will go well, for I have the pleasure to find all the officers willing to obey without knowing any other reason than that it is my desire, which is very different from v/hat it was in Flanders, where I was obliged to have the consent of a council of war for everything I under- took." 9. So formidable were the obstacles, however, STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 101 that, though the allies were in motion at sunrise on the 2d of August, it was not till midday that Eugene, who commanded on the right, succeeded in crossing the stream. The English foot at once forded it on the left and attacked the village of Blenheim, in which the bulk of the French infant- ry were intrenched, but after a furious struggle the attack was repulsed, while as gallant a resistance at the other end of the line held Eugene in check. The center, however, which the French believed to be unassailable, had been chosen by Marlborough for the chief point of attack, and by making an artificial road across the morass he was at last en- abled to throw his eight thousand horsemen on the French horse which lay covered by it. Two des- perate charges which the Duke headed in person decided the day. The French center was ilung back on the Danube and forced to surrender. Their left fell back in confusion on Hochstadt ; their right, cooped up in Blenheim and cut off from retreat, became prisoners of war. 10. Of the defeated army only twenty thousand escaped. Twelve thousand were slain, fourteen thousand were captured. Germany was finally freed from the French, and Marlborough, who fol- lowed the wreck of the French host in its flight to Alsace, soon made himself master of the Lower Moselle. But the loss of France could not be 102 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS, measured by men or fortresses. A liuudred victo- ries since Rocroi had taught the world to regard the French army as invincible when Blenheim and the surrender of the French soldiery broke the spell. From that moment the terror of victory passed to the side of the allies^ and "Malbrook" became a name of fear to every child in France. Green, THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM- 11. It was a summer evening — Old Kaspar's work was done, And he before his cottage-door Was sitting in the sun ; And by him sported on the green His little grandchild, Wilhelmine. 12. She saw^ her brother Peterkin Roll something large and round, Which he beside the rivulet, In playing there, had found ; He came to ask what he had found, That was so large, and smooth, and round. 13. Old Kaspar took it from the boy. Who stood expectant by ; And then the old man shook his head, And with a natural sigh — " 'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, "Who fell in that great \dctory. • STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 103 14. "I find tliem in the garden, For tliere's many hereabout ; And often when I go to plow, The plowsliare turns them out ; For many thousand men," said he, '' Were slain in that great victory." 15. ''Now tell us what 'twas all about," Young Peterkin he cries ; And little Wilhelmine looks up With wonder- waiting eyes — " Now tell us all about the war. And wdiat they fought each other for." 16. " It was the English," Kaspar cried, '' Who put the French to rout ; But what they fought each other for I could not well make out ; But everybody said," quoth he, " That 'twas a famous victory." 17. "My father lived at Blenheim then. Yon little stream hard by ; They burned his dwelling to the ground, And he was forced to fly ; So with his wife and child he fled. Nor had he where to rest his head. 18. ''With Are and sword the country round Was wasted far and wide : 104 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS, And many a childing motlier there, And new-born baby died ; But things like that, you know, must be At every famous victory. 19. ^'They say it was a shocking sight After the field was won — For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun ; But things like that, you know, must be After a famous victory. 20. " Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won. And our good Prince Eugene." " Why, 'twas a very wicked thing ! ' Said little Wilhelmine. " Nay, nay, my little girl ! " quoth he, " It was a famous victory. 21. "And everybody praised the Duke Who this great light did win." " But what good came of it at last ? " Quoth little Peterkin. " Why, that I can not tell," said he ; " But 'twas a famous victory." Robert Soutliey. STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 105 XII. A WINTER CAMPAIGN. 1. Nearly all tlie countries in Europe were making war upon France in 1795. The French people had set up a republic, and all the king- doms round about were trying to make them submit to a king again. This had been going on for several years, and sometimes it looked as though the French would be beaten in spite of their brave struggles to keep their enemies back and manage their own affairs in their own way. 2. At one time everything went against the French. Their armies were worn out with fight- ing, their supply of guns had run short, they had no powder, and their money matters w^ere in so bad a state that it seemed hardly possible for France to hold out any longer. In the mean time, England, Austria, Spain, Holland, Piedmont, and Prussia, besides many of the small German states, had joined together to fight France, and their ar- mies were on every side of her. 3. A country in such a state as that, with so many powerful enemies on every side, might well have given up ; but the French are a brave peo- ple, and they were fighting for their liberties. 106 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. Instead of giving up in des]3air, they set to work with all their might to cany on the war. 4. The first thing to be done was to raise new armies, and so they called for men, and the men came forward in great numbers from every part of the country. In a little while they had more men to make soldiers of than had ever before been brought together in France. But this was only a beginning. The men were not yet trained sol- diers, and even if they had been they had no guns and no powder ; no clothing was to be had, and there was very little food for them to eat. Still tlie French did not despair. Knowing that there would not be time enough to train the new men, they put some of their old soldiers in each regi- ment of new ones, so that the new men might learn from the veterans how to march and how to light. 5. In the mean time they had set up armories, and were making guns as fast as they could. Their greatest trouble was about powder. They had chemists who knew how to make it, but they had no niter to make it of, and did not know at first how to get any. At last one of their chem- ists said that there was some niter — from a few ounces to a pound or two — in the earth of every cellar floor ; and that, if all the niter in all the cellar floors of France could be coll ected, it would be enough to make plenty of powder. STORIES OF CENIRAL EUROPE. 107 6. But how to get the niter was a question. The cellar floors must be dug up, the earth must be carefully passed through a course of chemical treatment in order to get the niter free from earth and from all other things with which it was mixed. It would take many days for a chemist to extract the niter from the earth of a sino;le eel- lar, and then he would get only a j^ound or two of it at most. 7. It did not seem likely that much could be done in this way, but all the people were anxious to help, and so the cry went up from every part >f the country, "Send us chemists to teach us iiow and we will do the work and get the niter ourselves." This was (piickly done. All the chemists were set at work teaching the people how to get a little niter out of a great deal of earth, and then every family went to work. In a little while the niter began to come to the powder fac- tories. Each family sent its little parcel of the precious salt as a free gift to the country. Some of them were so proud and glad of the chance to help that they dressed their little packages of niter in ribbons of the national colors, and wrote patriotic words upon them. Each little parcel held only a few ounces, or at most a pound or two, of the white salt ; but the parcels came in by tens of thousands, and in a few weeks 108 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS there were hundreds of tons of niter at the pow- der-mills. ' 8. As soon as there was powder enough the new armies began to press their enemies, and, during the summer and fall of 1794, they stead- ily drove them back. When they met the foes in battle they always forced them to give way. They charged upon forts and took them at the point of the bayonet; cities and towns every- where fell into their hands, and by the time that winter set in they were so used to winning bat- tles that nothing seemed too hard for them to un- dertake. 9. But the French soldiers were in a very bad condition to stand the cold of winter. One great army under General Pichegru, which had driven the English and Dutch far into the Netherlands, was really almost naked. The shoes of the sol- diers were worn out, and so they had to wrap their feet in wisps of straw to keep them from freezing. Many of the men had not clothing enough to cover theii^ nakedness, and, for decency's sake, had to plait straw into mats, which they wore around their shoulders like blankets. 10. They had no tents to sleep in, but, nearly naked as they were, had to lie down in the snow or on the hard frozen ground, and sleep as well as they could in the bitter winter weather. There STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 109 never was an army more in need of a good rest in winter quarters, and, as two great rivers lay in front of tliem, it seemed impossible to do any- thing more until spring. The English and Dutch were already safely housed for the winter, feel- ing perfectly sure that the French could not cross the rivers or march in any direction until the be2:innino; of the next summer. 11. The French generals, therefore, put their men into the best quarters they could get for them, and the poor, half -naked, barefooted sol- diers were glad to think that their work for that year was done. 12. Day by day the weather grew colder. The ground w^as frozen hard, and ice began running in the rivers. After a little while the floating ice became so thick that the rivers were choked with it. When Christmas came, the stream nearest the French was frozen over, and three days later the ice was so hard that the surface of the river was as firm as the solid ground. 13. Then came an order from General Piche- gru to shoulder arms and march. In the bitter- est months of that terrible winter the barefooted, half-clad French soldiers left their huts, and marched asrainst their foes. Crossing^ the first river on the ice, they fell upon the surprised Dutch, and utterly routed them. About the same time STORIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE. m they made a dasli at the strong fortified posts along the river, and captured them. 14. The French were now masters of the large island that lay between the two rivers, for they are really only two branches of one river, and the land between them is an island. But the ice in the farther stream was not yet hard enough to bear the weight of cannon, so Pichegru had to stay where he was for a time. Both sides now watched the weather, the French hoping for still harder frosts, while their enemies prayed for a thaw. 15. The cold weather continued, and day by day the ice became firmer. On the 8th of January, 1795, Pichegru began to cross, and on the 10th his whole army had passed the stream, while his enemies were rapidly retreating. He pushed for- ward into the country, sending his columns in different directions to press the enemy at every point. The bare-footed, half-naked French sol- diers were full of spirit, and in spite of frost and snow and rough frozen roads they marched stead- ily and rapidly. 16. City after city fell before them, and on the 20th of January they marched into Amster- dam itself, and were complete conquerors. Hun- gry and half frozen as they were, it would not have been strange if these poor soldiers had rushed into the warm houses of the city and 112 STORIES OF OTHER LAJ^DS helped themselves to food and clothing. But they did nothing of the kind. They stacked their arms in the streets and public squares, and quietly waited in the snow, patiently bearing the bitter cold of the wind for several hours, while the mao^istrates were o;ettini>: houses and food and clothing ready for them. 17. This whole campaign was wonderful,- and on almost every day some strange thing happened. Pichegru, learning that there was a fleet of the enemy's vessels lying at anchor near the island of Texel^ sent a column of cavalry, with some can- non, in that direction, to see if anything coukl be done. The cavalry found the Zuyder Zee hard frozen, and the ships firmly locked in the ice. So they put spurs to their horses, galloped over the frozen surface of the sea, marched up to the ships and called on them to surrender. It was a nev/ thing in war for ships to be charged by men on horseback; but there the horsemen were, with strong ice under them, and the ships could not sail away from them. The sailors could make a fight, of course, but the cavalry, with their cannon, were too strong for them, and so they surrendered without a battle, and for the first time in history a body of hussars captured a squadron of ships at anchor. G. C. Eggleston. STORIES OF BRITAIN. XIII. CHARLES AND OLIVER. 1. Not long after King James I took the place of Queen Elizabetli on the throne of England, there lived an English knight at a place called Hinchin brook. His name was Sir Olivier Crom- well. He spent his life, I suppose, pretty much like other English knights and squires in those days, hunting hares and foxes, and drinking large quantities of ale and wine. The old house in which he dwelt had been occupied by his ances- tors before him for a good many years. In it there was a OTeat hall huno; round with coats of arms and helmets, cuirasses and swords, which his forefathers had used in battle, and with horns of deer and tails of foxes which they or Sir Oliver himself had killed in the chase, 2. This Sir Oliver Cromwell had a nephew who had been called Oliver, after himself, but who was generally known in the family by the name 114 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. of little Noll. His fatlier was a voung;er brother of Sir Oliver. Tlie child was of teu sent to visit his uncle, who probably found him a trouble- some little fellow to take care of. He was forever in mischief, and always running into some danger or other, from which he seemed to escape only by miracle. 3. One morning, when Noll was five or six years old, a royal messenger arrived at Hinchin- brook with tidings that King James was coming to dine with Sir Oliver Cromwell. This was a high honor, to be sure, but a very great trouble ; for all the lords and ladies, knights, squires, guards and yeomen who waited on the king, were to be feasted as well as himself ; and more provisions would be eaten and more wine drunk in that one day than generally in a month. However, Sir Oliver expressed much thankfulness for the king's intended visit, and ordered his butler and cook to make the best preparations in their power. So a great fire was kindled in the kitchen ; and the neighbors knew, by the smoke which poured out of the chimney, that boiling, baking, stewing, roast- ing, and frying, were going on merrily. 4. By-and-by the sound of trumpets was heard approaching nearer and nearer ; a heavy, old-fash- ioned coach, surrounded by guards on horseback, drove up to the house.' Sir Oliver, with his hat STORIES OF BRITAIN. 115 in Ms hand, stood at the gate to receive the king. His Majesty was dressed in a suit of green, not very new ; he had a feather in his hat and a triple ruff round his neck, and over his shoulder was sluno; a huntino;-horn instead of a sword. Alto- gether he had not the most dignified aspect in the world ; but the spectators gazed at him as if there were something superhuman and divine in his person. They even shaded their eyes with their hands, as if they were dazzled by the glory of his countenance. 5. " How are ye, man ? " cried King James, speak- ing in a Scotch accent ; for Scotland was his na- tive country. "By my crown, Sir Oliver, but I am glad to see ye ! " 6. The good knight thanked the king, at the same time kneeling down while his Majesty alighted. When King James stood on the ground he directed Sir Oliver's attention to a little boy who had come with him in the coach. He was six or seven years old, and wore a hat and feather, and was more richly dressed than the king him- self. Though by no means an ill-looking child, he seemed shy or even sulky, and his cheeks were rather pale, as if he had been kept moping within- doors, instead of being sent out to play in the sun and wind. 7. " I have brought my son Charlie to see ye/' 116 STORIES OF OTHER LAJ^BS said the king ; ^' I hope, Sir Oliver, ye have a son of your own to be his playmate." Sir Oliver Cromwell made a reverential bow to the little prince, whom one of the attendants had now taken out of the coach. It was wonderful to see how all the spectators, even the aged men with their gray beards, humbled themselves before this child. They bent their bodies till their beards almost swept the dust. They looked as if they were ready to kneel down and worship him. 8. " What a noble little prince he is ! " ex- claimed Sir Oliver, lifting his hands in admiration, " No, please your Majesty, I have no son to be the playmate of his Royal Highness ; but there is a nephew of mine somewhere about the house. He is near the prince's age, and will be but too happy to wait upon his royal highness." 9. " Send for him, man ! send for him ! " said the king. But as it happened there ^v^as no need of sending for Master Noll. While King James was speaking, a rugged, bold-faced, sturdy little urchin thrust himself through the throng of court- iers and attendants and greeted the prince with a broad stare. His doublet and hose, which had been put on new and clean in honor of the king's visit, were already soiled and torn with the rough play in which he had spent the morning. He looked no more abashed than if Kino^ James were STORIES OF BRITAIN. 117 Ms uncle, and the piince one of his customary play- fellows. This was little Noli himself. 10. " Here, please your Majesty, is my nejDh- ew," said Sir Oliver, somewhat ashamed of Noll's appearance and demeanor. — " Olivei*, make your obeisance to the king's majesty." The boy made a pretty respectful obeisance to the king; for in those days children were taught to pay rev- erence to their elders. King James, who prided himself greatly on his scholarship, asked Noll a few questions in the Latin grammar, and then introduced him to his son. The little prince, in a very grave and dignified manner, extended his hand, not for Noll to shake, but that he might kneel down and kiss it. 1 J . " Nephew," said Sir Oliver, " pay your duty to the prince." " I owe him no duty," cried Noll, thrusting aside the prince's hand with a rude laugh. '' Why should I kiss that boy's hand ? " All the courtiers were amazed and confounded, and Sir Oliver the most of all. But the king laughed heart- ily, sa}ang that little Noll had a stubborn English spirit, and that it was well for his son to learn be- times what sort of a*people he was to rule over. 12. So King James and his train entered the house ; and the prince with Noll and some other children were sent to play in a separate room while his Majesty was at dinner. The young 118 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS people soon became acquainted ; for boys, wbetlier tlie sons of monarchs or of peasants, all like play, and are pleased with one another's society. What games they diverted themselves with I can not tell. Perhaps they played at ball, perhaps at blind-man's-buff, perhaps at leap-frog, perhaps at prison-bars. Such games have been in use for hundreds of years ; and princes as well as poor children have spent some of their happiest hours in playing at them. 18. Meanwhile King James and his nobles were feasting with Sir Oliver in the great hall. The king sat in a gilded chair, under a canopy, at the head of a long table. All of a sudden there arose a terrible uproar in the room where the chil- dren were at play. Angry shouts and shrill cries of alarm were mixed up together ; while the voices of elder persons were likewise heard, trying to re- store order among the children. The king and everybody else at table looked aghast; for per- haps the tumult made them think that a general rebellion had broken out. ^' Mercy on us ! " ut- tered Sir Oliver ; " that graceless nephew of mine is in some mischief or other. The naughty little whelp ! " Getting up from table, he ran to see what was the matter, followed by many of the guests, and the king among them. They all crowd- ed to the door of the play-room. There stood his siunly little figure, hold as a lion:' 120 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. 14. On looking in they beheld the little Prince Charles, with his rich dress all torn, and covered v^ ith the dust of the floor. His royal blood was streaming from his nose in great abundance. He gazed at Noll with a mixture of rage and aifright, and at the same time a puzzled expression, as if he could not understand how any mortal boy should dare to give him a beating. As for Noll, there stood his sturdy little figure, bold as a lion, looking as if he were ready to fight, not only the prince, but the king and kingdom too, 15. ^' You little villain!" cried his uncle, " what have you been about ? Down on your knees this instant, and ask the prince's pardon ! How dare you lay your hand on the king's majes- ty's royal son ? " '' He struck me first," grumbled the valiant little Noll ; " and I have only given him his due." 16. Sir Oliver and the guests lifted up their hands in astonishment and horror. No punish- ment seemed severe enough for this wicked little varlet, who had dared to resent a blow from the king's own son. Some of the courtiers were of opinion that Noll should be sent prisoner to the Tower of London and brouo-ht to trial for hio^h treason. Others, in their great zeal for the king's service, were about to lay hands on the boy and chastise him in the royal presence. STORIES OF BRITAIN. 121 17. But King James, who sometimes showed a good deal of sagacity, ordered them to desist. '^ Thou art a boki boy," said he, looking fixedly at little Noll ; " and if thou live to be a man, my son Charlie would do wisely to be friends with thee." " I never will ! " cried the little prince, stamping his foot. 18. ''Peace, Charlie, peace!" said the king; then addressing Sir Oliver and the attendants : " Harm not the urchin ; for he has taught my son a good lesson, if Heaven do but give him grace to profit by it. Hereafter, should he be tempted to tyrannize over the stubborn race of Englishmen, let him remember little Noll Cromwell and his own bloody nose." So the king finished his din- ner and departed ; and for many a long year the childish quarrel between Prince Charles and Noll Cromwell was forgotten. The prince, indeed, might have lived a happier life, and have met a more peaceful death, had he remembered that quarrel and the moral which his father drew from it. But when old King James was dead, and Charles sat upon his throne, he seemed to forget that he was but a man, and that his meanest sub- jects were men as well as he. He wished to have the property and lives of the people of England entirely at his own disposal. But the Puritans, and all who loved libertv, rose against him and 122 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. beat him in many battles, and pulled him down from his throne. 19. Throughout this war between the king and nobles on one side and the people of England on the other there was a famous leader, who did more toward the ruin of royal authority than all the rest. The contest seemed like a wrestling-match between Kino: Charles and this strong; man. And the kins: was overthrown. 20. When the discrowned monarch was brous^ht to trial, that warlike leader sat in the judgment- halL Many judges were present besides himself ; but he alone had the power to save King Charles or to doom him to the scaffold. After sentence was pronounced, this victorious general was en- treated by his own children, on their knees, to res- cue his Majesty from death. " IN o !'' said he, stern- ly ; " better that one man should perish than that the whole country should be ruined for his sake. It is resolved that he shall die ! " 21. When Charles, no longer a king, was led to the scaffold, his great enemy stood at a window of the royal palace of Whitehall. He beheld the poor victim of pride, and an evil education, and misused power, as he laid his head upon the block. He looked on with a steadfast gaze while a black- veiled executioner lifted the fatal axe and smote off that anointed head at a single blow. " It is a STORIES OF BRITAIN, 123 righteous deed," perhaps he said to himself. "Now Englishmen may enjoy their rights." 22. At night, when the body of Charles was laid in the coffin, in a gloomy chamber, the gen- eral entered, lio^htino; himself with a torch. Its gleam showed that he was now growing old ; his visage was scarred with the many battles in which he had led the van ; his brow was wrinkled with care, and with the continual exercise of stern au- thority. Probably there was not a single trait, either of aspect or manner, that belonged to the little Noll who had battled so stoutly with Prince Charles. Yet this was he ! 23. He lifted the coffin-lid, and caused the light of his torch to fall upon the dead monarch's face. Then, probably, his mind went back over all the marvelous events that had brought the hereditary King of England to this dishonored coffin, and had raised himself, an humble individual, to the pos- session of kingly power. He was a king, though without the empty title or the glittering crown. 24. " Why was it ? " said Cromwell to himself, or might have said, as he gazed at the pale features in the coffin — " why was it that this great king fell, and that poor Noll Cromwell has gained all the power of the realm?" And, indeed, why was it ? 25. King Charles had fallen, because, in his 124 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS manliood, the same as when a child, he disdained to feel that every human creature was his brother. He deemed himself a superior being, and fancied that his subjects were created only for a king to rule over. And Cromwell rose, because, in spite of his many faults, he mainly fought for the rights and freedom of his fellow-men ; and therefore the poor and the oppressed all lent their strength to him. Hawthorne. XIV. SIR JOHN MOORE. 1. Sir John Moore was one of the most distin- guished officers of the British army that took part in the wars that o^rew out of the French Eevolution and of the reign of Napoleon. He was born in Glas- gow, in 1761, and after serving faithfully through campaigns in Corsica, in the West Indies, in Hol- land, in Sweden, and in Egypt, he was knighted and promoted to the position of major-general. 2. In 1808, when Napoleon dethroned the Sj^an- ish princes and placed his brother Joseph upon the throne of Spain, the British Government sent an expedition of twenty-five thousand men, under Sir John Moore, to assist the Spaniards in their STORIES OF BRITAIN. 125 struo'ofle asrainst the Frencho He landed at Lisbon and inarclied tlirougli Portugal to Spain. For a time tlie Spaniards were successful, and Joseph was driven over the border into France. This reverse aroused Napoleon, and he led an army of three hundred thousand men personally into Spain. 3. The Spanish armies were defeated, and the whole peninsula was soon overrun. In this emer= gency Sir John Moore found himself without allies, surrounded by victorious enemies, and several hun- dred miles from any seaport where he could em- bark his army. Choosing Corunna as his objective point, he commenced a retreat which has no parah lei in history save the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon. His little army consist- ed of about twenty thousand men. Napoleon, at the head of one hundred and seventy-five thousand Frenchmen, was using his almost superhuman pow- ers of strategy and action to cut him off. From the first of November to the middle of January the retreat continued. Now facing the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, now racing for life to se- cure some pass in the mountains or to anticipate a flank movement, the little army at last came in sight of the port of embarkation. The fleet lay in the harbor, and the French generals could see the Cross of St. George waving defiance in perfect se- 126 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. curity. Nelson liad broken the naval power of France, and Britain dominated the seas. Napo- leon's power ceased with the tide. 4. On the morning of the 16th of January Mar- shal Soult, the French commander, pressed forward and attacked the English along their whole lines ; but so skillful had been the dispositions of troops by Sir John Moore, that each attack was easily re- pulsed with great loss to the enemy, and sufficient time was gained for the embarkation of the army without molestation. 5. Near the close of the engagement Sir John was struck by a cannon-ball, which inflicted a mor- tal wound, but he lived long enough to know that the English were everywhere victorious^ and that his masterly management had secured the safety of the army. 6. In the history of the Peninsular War, Na- pier thus sums up his character : " Thus ended the career of Sir John Moore, a man whose uncommon capacity was sustained by the purest virtue, and governed by a disinterested patriotism, more in keeping with the primitive than with the luxuri- ous age of a great nation. His tall, graceful per- son, his dark, searching eyes, his strongly defined forehead, and singularly expressive mouth, indi- cated a noble disposition and a refined feeling, while the lofty sentiments of honor habitual to his STORIES OF BRITAIN, 127 mind, being adorned by a playful mt, gave liim in conversation an ascendency that lie always pre- served by the decisive vigor of his actions. 7. " He maintained the right with a vehemenc^ bordering on fierceness, and every important trans- action in which he was engaged increased his repu- tation for talent, and confirmed his character as a stern enemy to vice, a steadfast friend to merit, a Just and faithful servant to his country. The hon- est loved him, the dishonest feared him ; for, while he lived he not only shunned but spurned the base, and with characteristic propriety they spurned at him when he was dead. 8. " Confiding in the strength of his genius, he disregarded the clamors of presumptuous igno- rance, and conducted his long and arduous retreat with sagacity, intelligence, and fortitude ; no in- sult disturbed, no falsehood deceived him ; no remonstrance shook his determination ; fortune frowned without subduing his constancy; death struck, but the spirit of the man remained un- broken when !iis shattered body scarcely afforded it a habitation." 9. The beautiful lines of the Rev. Charles Wolfe, on the ^^ Burial of Sir John Moore," is a fitting tribute to his memory : 128 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. 10. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero was buried. 11. We buried him darkly, at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning ; By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, And the lantern dimly burning. ''^^ - ^-- 12. No useless coffin inclosed his breast, Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him ; But he lay, like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him. STORIES OF BBITAIK 129 18. Few and sliort were tlie 23rayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorro^v ; But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow. 14. We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, And smoothed down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,v^ And we far away on the billow. 15. Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ; But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on. In the grave where a Briton has laid him ! 16. But half of our heavy work was done. When the ^lock struck the hour for retirins;, And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. 17. Slowly and sadly we laid him down. From the i5eld of his fame fresh and gory ! We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, But we left him alone in his glory. Charles Wolfe. STORIES OF AETISTS. XV. MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI. 1. On March 6, 1474, at Caprese or Chiiisi, in Tuscany, was born the child who was afterward to become so renowned. Michael Angelo was noble by birth ; his father was descended from the Counts of Canossa. Probably his w^ealth did not equal his patrician ancestry, for the proud no- bleman sent his son to a grammar-school at Flor- ence. A public school is no unusual place for gen- ius to develop itself, and here it was that Michael Angelo's soon shone forth. His facility in sketch- ing — a talent alw^ays appreciated by school-boys — made him popular among his young companions ; they encouraged him, and their praises fostered the love of art in his bosom. This j)assion for drawing, however, was pursued in secret ; for his father used all his efforts to discourage the boy, thinking, poor man ! in his foolish pride, that it would disgrace the noble house of Canossa to pro- Michael Angela. 132 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. duce an artist ! He did not know that, but for that great artist, his ancient house ivould have been forgotten; and that now Michael Angelo is re- membered for his genius, not for his nobility. 2. The first story of the boy's progress in art is told of him in his thirteenth year. He borrowed a picture from a friend, and copied it with such exactitude that it could hardly be distinguished from the original. A plan for a boyish deception came into his head ; he confided the secret to one of his playfellows, and the two boys, with grave faces and many thanks, brought to the lender, not his own picture, but Michael's copy. He, worthy soul, did not discover the cheat put upon him, and was restoring with perfect composure the fac- simile to the place of the original, when Michael's playfellow could resist his mirth no longer, and his irrepressible laughter revealed the jest. The story became known ; his undoubted success en- couraged the boy, and, to his father's horror, he declared his resolution to be an artist. 3. Most likely the incident of the borrow^ed picture influenced 'greatly Michael's future life; for in his fourteenth year we find him a pupil of Domenico Ghirlandaio, one of the best paint- ers of the day, who had studied under Giotto. Doubtless it was only after many struggles with his prejudiced father that Michael Angelo ob- STOEIES OF ARTISTS. 133 tallied this favor ; but, when gained, he profited by it in proportion to the difficulty with which he had secured it. When fifteen, he one day saw a figure on his master's easel drawn in a style which he considered far from perfect. He made outlines of the incorrect portions of the dramng on its margin. These outlines were far superior to the picture itself, and his own consciousness of this, and a mean Jealousy unworthy of the noble art he followed, made Ghirlandaio ever after strive to depress and injure the bold and talented boy who had dared thus openly to compete with his master. 4. Michael Angelo remained with Ghirlandaio only three years, during which time his improve- ment was owing to his own exertions, and not to his jealous master, who scarcely ever condescended to give him the least instruction. But persever- ance often fully atones for the want of imparted knowledge ; and so it was with Michael. Before he left the studio of Ghirlandaio, he had availed himself of permission given to the pupils of that painter, by Lorenzo de' Medici, to study in an academy which that wise and generous nobleman had instituted for the advancement of sculpture. Here Michael still continued to improve himself, and attracted the attention of Lorenzo the Mag- nificent by his beautiful drawings. The academy 134 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS was held, like those of ancient Athens, in a garden. This garden Lorenzo supplied with beautiful sculpture, chiefly ancient — for the moderns were very far from perfection until Da Vinci's time — and hither the good nobleman often walked among the objects of his taste and delight, supplied by his own munificent hand, or amused himself in watching the progress of the young artists whom he had invited to study in his grounds. 5, In this garden of art the young Michael Angelo one day saw a fellow-student modeling in clay — a branch of art then very uncommon. He felt a wish to do the same, and attempted an imi- tation, which Lorenzo, who happened to pass by, praised with such warmth that the young artist determined to try his skill in marble. He begged a piece of broken marble and a tool from some workmen who were employed in ornamenting the palace, and cheerfully and eagerly set to work. He chose as his model a mask of a " Laughing Faun," which was lying in the garden, much mu- tilated by time. But Michael remedied all these defects in his copy, and likewise added some im- provements from his OAvn powers of invention. The mask was nearly finished, when a few days after Lorenzo again visited his garden. 6. "This is wonderful in a youth like you," cried the delisrhted nobleman. He examined the STORIES OF ARTISTS. 135 work, compared it with the original, and praised the several additions which Michael's genius had prompted. 7. " But," said this acute patron and lover of art, with a good-humored smile, "there is one thing I do not quite approve, though it is but a slight fault in so good a work — you have restored all the old man's teeth ; whereas, you know, a person of that age has generally some wanting." 8. The young man acquiesced in this sensi- ble remark ; and, when Lorenzo had departed, he broke a tooth from the upper jaw of the mask, and drilled a hole in the gum to show that it had decayed and fallen out in course of nature. On Lorenzo's next visit he was so delighted with the ingenious way in which Michael Angelo had fol- lowed up his patron's hint that he gave the young artist an apartment in his house, made him a guest at his table, introduced him to the noble, wealthy, and learned that thronged the pal- ace of the greatest of the Medici, and, in shorty adopted him as his own son. 9. When only seventeen, Michael Angelo exe- cuted for Lorenzo a basso-rilievo in bronze; the subject was the " Battle of Centaurs." When very old, the great painter once came to see this work of his early youth, and was heard to say that he regretted that he had not entirely devoted 136 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. liimself to sculpture. His next work was a " Sleeping Cupid." The wdse of that age thought it impossible for modern art to produce anything equal to the antique ; and they were not far wrong, for Michael Angelo had not then arisen ; so the dealer who purchased his Cupid had the cunning adroitness to stain it in imitation of the de- facements of time, and bury it in a vineyard. He afterward pretended to discover it by accident, and sold it as an antique statue to Cardinal San Giorgio. The praise it obtained induced him to reveal the secret ; the deceived public generously forgave the trick, and the artist w^s invited to Rome, where Pope Julius II commissioned him to erect a mausoleum. Michael's design was mag- niiicent. When he showed it to the Pope, his Holiness inquired the cost of such a splendid work. Michael answered that it would amount to a hun- dred thousand crowns ; and the Pope liberally gave him permission to expend twice that sum. 10. The mausoleum was commenced. Pope Ju- lius was so delighted with it, that he had a covered way from his palace erected, that he might visit the artist at his work incognito. This was too great a favor not to excite the envy of a court. Ill words and unkind slanders wei'e spoken of Mi- chael. They reached the Pope^s ear, as it was in= tended, and he visited Buonarotti no more. Mi- STORIES OF ARTISTS 137 chael came to the Vatican, wliicli had been at all times open to him ; but it was not so now. A groom of the chamber stopped his entrance. " Do you know to whom you speak ? " asked the indig- nant 2^ainter. ''Perfectly well," said the man; " and I only do my duty in obeying the orders my master has given." " Then tell the Pope," re- plied Michael, " if he wants me, he may come and seek me elsewhere himself." 11. The insulted artist returned immediately to his house, ordered his servants to sell his furni- ture, and follow him to Florence ; and left Rome that very night. Great was the Pope's consterna- tion. Couriers were immediately sent after Mi- chael. Bat it was too late ; he had already passed the boundary of the Po2:)e's jurisdiction, and force was of no avail. The couriers reached Florence, and delivered the Pope's letter. Michael's answer was this : " I have been expelled from the ante- chaml3er of your Holiness without meriting dis- grace ; therefore I have left Home to preserve my reputation. I will not return, as your Holiness commands. If I have been deemed worthless one day, how can I be valued the next, except by a caprice alike discreditable to the one who shows it, and the one toward whom it is shown?" 12. Julius next wrote to the government of Florence, using these conciliatory words : '' We 138 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. know tlie humor of men like Michael Angelo. If he will return, we promise that none shall offend him or interfere with him, and he shlall be rein- stated in our apostolic grace." But Michael was inflexible. Again and again the Pope wrote, and still this proud and high-spirited man refused to heed him. At last the chief mao-istrate of Flor- ence became alarmed. He sent for the artist, and said : '' You have treated the Pope as the King of France himself would not have dared. We can not bring him to war against the state on your account ; therefore yon must obey his will," The magistrate ]^romised also, if Michael feared for his personal safety, to send him as embassador to Eome, in which case his person would be invio- lable. At last Michael relented and met the Pope at Bologna. Julius glanced at him with displeas- ure, and did not for some time deign to speak. At last he said, " Instead of your coming to us, yon seem to have expected that we should wait upon you," 13. Michael answered with a slight apology for his conduct, which, however, was so haughtily expressed that a prelate, who had introduced him, thought it necessary to observe, " One must needs make allowance for such men, who are ig^norant of everything except their art." 14. Wise and generous, too, was the Pope's STORIES OF ARTISTS. 139 indignant reply to this speech. He turned to the prelate : ^' Foolish man, it is thou who hast vili- fied Michael Angelo ; I have not. He is a man of genius, and thou art an ignorant fellow. Depart from my sight this moment ! " And the contemner of art was forcibly driven from the room. 15. His next great work was when the Sistine Chapel was built. This chapel Michael was to adorn with fresco-paintings. His first attempt showed how universal were his powers of mind. He began to paint the ceiling ; but the only scaf- folding which the architect, Bramante, could con- trive was suspended by ropes passed through holes in the roof. Michael Angelo asked how he was to paint a ceiling thus pierced with holes. Bramante could arrange no other plan; and Buonarotti in- vented some machinery, so complete that the car- penter who made it under his direction realized a large fortune, through Michael's generosity in al- lowing him to profit by the invention. In twenty months the frescoes were completed, to the de- lighted wonder of his friends and the envy of his enemies ; all being the work of Michael Angelo's own hand, unassisted by any one. The Pope had almost daily climbed to the top of the platform to watch the artist's progress; and by his persua- sions Michael took down the scaffolding almost before the frescoes were finished. Crowds of the 140 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS, learned rushed to the building to see this wonder- ful work. 16. But when the Pope had gratified his im- patience by viewing the painted ceiling from be- low, he began to wish for more ornaments on the drapery of some figures, more gilding and show. But Michael's reproof was not long wanting. " I have painted," said he, ^' men who were poor, nor wished for riches — holy men, to whom gold was an object of contempt. I will add nothing." 17. The Sistine Chapel was publicly opened on All-Saints' day, 1512. From that time to the present, Michael Angelo's frescoes have been ac- knowledged the most glorious triumph of art in any age. They consist of a series of colossal paint- ings, descriptive of the progress of the Christian religion from the creation of the world until the last judgment of all men. To particularize them is impossible ; and their praise has been a universal theme. Most of them are painted on the arched ceiling ; and it is said that many figures were exe- cuted by the artist lying on his back on a heap of cushions, this being the only position in which he could reach them. 18. At the age of seventy -two he was nomi- nated architect of St. Peter's. This undertaking had been begun nearly a hundred years before ; but little progress had been made, and every new STORIES OF ARTISTS. 141 architect proposed a new design. Michael de- sio-ned the dome, and had the satisfaction before his death of seeing it nearly completed. His plans for the other parts of the building were unhappily departed from in many things after his death. While laboring at this work, the artist had to con- tend with the poverty and illiberality of his pa- trons ; and once they endeavored to displace him. He had, in their opinions, not given light enough to the church in one portion of it. " Three more windows will be placed there," said Michael Angelo. " You never told us of that before," replied a cardinal. "Nor will I be accountable to you for declar- ing all that I do, or intend to do ! " cried the high- spirited painter. " It is yours to provide money, and keep oif thieves : to build St. Peter's is mine !" 19. Michael Ano^elo's countenance was like his mind — full of noble grandeur. Straight, Greek feat- ures, a high and rather projecting forehead, with clustering hair and beard, give his portrait a char- acter of sublimity which is like his works. These works were the grandest in conception and execu- tion that mortal man could do — not beautiful, but sublime. It is often a reproach to a great man that his life is far inferior to his works ; but Mi- chael Angelo was in every way a noble and good 142 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. man, not winning, bnt austere in his virtue and simplicity of character at an age when the con- trary was most in fashion. He was never mar- ried, and used to say that his works were his chil- dren, who must bear his name to posterity. In his old age he was found one day by Cardinal Sar- nite walking alone in the ruins of the Coliseum. The cardinal expressed surprise. "I go yet to school," said Michael, ^'that I may continue to learn." Chambers^s Miscellany. XVI. RAFFAELLE. 1. In 1483 there lived in the little city of Urbino, in Italy, a poor artist named Giovanni Sanzio. He had little genius to boast of, and less fame. He lived in a quiet, humble way, not far removed from poverty, yet he was a good man, and his humility and simplicity of character pre- vented his being despised for want of talent. He married a worthy and loving wife, and for a long time they were childless. At length, on Good- Friday of 1485, a son was born unto them, whom they christened Raffaelle, after the angel Eaphael, of the Bible — a name of sfood omen : but little did STORIES OF ARTISTS. 143 the parents think that the name thus given would go down to posterity as Raffaelle the Divine. 2. His father had suffered so much in his youth from being left to brave the world alone, that he would not part with his son even to a nurse. Raffaelle vvas brought up at his parents' house — his mother being his constant nurse, his father his in- structor. He was never sent to school, but spent his time in his father's studio, living among the beautiful forms, having for his playthings brushes and easels, thus familiarizing him with the tools of art from his very cradle. No other children came to divide with him his parents' care and af- fection, and life was all sunshine to the gentle and beautiful child. Even in manhood his portrait, with his soft, mild eyes, and long, flowing hair, is like the face of one of his own angels. In youth, his beauty is said to have attracted the attention of every beholder. 3. Surrounded by art, it is not wonderful that Raifaelle should have been a painter when a mere boy. His father was delighted to see this bent, and instructed him to the utmost of his power, and Raffaelle was soon of great assistance to him in pict- ures which he sold to his few patrons in Urbino. But the father soon recognized the great genius of his son, and he went to Perugia, where lived Pietro Perugino, one of the great painters of the day. 10 144 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS Pietro, however, had gone to Eome, and Sanzio had to wait a long time for his return. At last Pietro arrived, and the humble painter of Urbino obtained an interview wdth his higher brother in art. Sanzio had a winning manner, and Pietro readily consented to take little Raifaelle as a pupil. 4. Giovanni returned home, having accom- plished his object. One can w^ell imagine what a hard struggle it was for the father to place his boy in other hands, and how many tears the mother shed at parting from her only child. Giovanni took his son to Perugia, left him in the care of Pietro, who had conceived a sincere friendship for the father of his new pupil, and then returned to his lonely home in Urbino. 5. Raffaelle had an excellent master in Peru- gino, as far as kindness went ; from his instruc- tions, how^ever, he did not profit much. Perugino's style was hard and formal ; now and then his atti- tudes were graceful, but his works, though praised in his day, were very inferior compared to those of his successors, and his one great contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Raffaelle copied his master's style so exactly that his pictures, at that period of his life, can not be distinguished from those of Perugino's. Having never known a highei* style, the young artist went on in this beaten track, win- ning much praise from the inhabitants of his na- STORIES OF ARTISTS. 145 tive city and of Perugia. But a change was soon to come over the spirit of Raffaelle the Divine. 6. He had a friend and fellow-pupil who had been chosen to ornament the Pope's library at Siena. This young man invited Raffaelle to join him, and the latter assented, as he had now left Perugino, though the friendship between master and pupil continued undiminished until the death of the former. Raffaelle was only eighteen when he arrived at Siena ; there he and his friend painted ten large pictures, the subjects being taken from the life of Pope Pius II. While at Siena, Raff aelle heard of the wonderful works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo, then on exhibition at Flor- ence. He resolved to go thither, and judge for himself of their perfection. Great, indeed, were his delight and wonder when he beheld these masterpieces of genius. 7. Leonardo's particularly attracted him, for Michael Angelo had not then arrived at the zenith of his power ; and the inclination of Raffaelle was more to the beautiful than to the severe and grand. He saw that he was yet on the threshold of art ; and he felt his own w^eakness, and the defects of his master so vividly, that from that hour he changed his style and followed Perugino no more. 8. His delight in these pictures which Flor- ence contained, and his likino; for the beautiful STORIES OF ARTISTS. 147 city, determined RaJffaelle to remain there for some time. He formed many fi^iendships with young artists there. His greatest friend was Lorenzo Nati, for whom he painted a beautiful picture of the " Holy Family." The virgin mother holds the infant Jesus in her arms, to w^iom the infant St. John is presenting a bird in childish delight. This painting was preserved by Lorenzo during his lifetime with affectionate care and veneration. After his death it was kept for a long time by his heirs. But a disaster took place : a falling of earth from a neiochborins^ mountain laid the house in ruins, and the " Holy Family " was buried beneath the rubbish. The son of Lorenzo, however, rescued the fragments, and carefully restored them. The picture still exists. 9. Raffaelle's stay at Florence was sorrowfully terminated. He had news of the illness of his aged parents ; he went to Urbino, but both were no more. They had lived to see only the dawn- ing of their son's glory, which was enough for their unseliish affection. Raifaelle gathered to- gether all their worldly goods which they had left him and quitted his native place forever. He stayed some time at Perugia, where he painted a picture for a chapel, and another for a monastery. One of these he left to be finished by his old mas- ter, Perugino, and returned to Florence in 1505. 148 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS There he studied his beloved art Avith patience and enthusiasm combined, by means of which his reputation increased yearly. 10. At this time Bramante d' Urbino, a fellow- citizen and distant relative of Raffaelle's, w^as in high favor with Pope Julius II, and was engaged as architect of St. Peter's. He invited his young kinsman to Rome, where Julius received him with great kindness, and appointed him one of the art- ists who were employed in painting the Vatican. Raffaelle surpassed his competitors so much, that the Pope immediately ordered all the other pict- tures to be effaced, and the work to be intrusted to Raft'aelle alone ; and here the generous and grateful spirit of the young artist had an oppor- tunity of shining forth. Among the doomed j)ict- ures was one by Pietro Perugino ; but Raffaelle could not bear that such an insult should be offered to his kind old master : he entreated earnestly that it might be spared. The Pope, touched by this unselfish request, granted it, and the picture still remains untouched, except by the hand of Time. 11. The death of Julius II happened while Eaft'aelle was engaged in this great work ; but his successor, Leo X, by equal encouragement, enabled the artist to continue with a brave heart, and the paintings were finished at the end of nine years. The rooms they adorn are called the Chambers of STORIES OF ARTISTS. 149 Raffaelle. They consist cliieily of Scripture sub- jects, and almost rival the works of Michael An- gelo in the Sistine Chapel. During those nine years, Raif aelle found time to paint other pictures, and to study architecture under Bramante ; so that, on the death of this relative, he was appoint- ed architect of St. Peter's in his stead. 12. For Leo X Raff aelle also executed a set of twelve cartoons — a species of painting on large sheets of stiffened paper — representing passages in the New Testament. These cartoons were de- signed to be copied in tapestry in the Netherlands. Some of them are still preserved at Hampton Court, near London. 13. Raffaelle's fame was now at its height, and reached the ears of Albert Dlirer, the great Ger- man painter and engraver on copper. Albert sent his own portrait and some of his engravings to Raffaelle, who was so delighted with them, that he studied the art himself, and caused to be en- graved several of his own pictures. He also, in return, sent to Albert Diirer some beautiful de- signs of his own, which were held most precious by the German artist. 14. Raffaelle's greatest work, and alas ! his last, was " The Transfiguration of Christ," which lie painted for Cardinal de' Medici. In this he put forth all his powers, and it remains a lasting 150 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. memorial of his genius. While engaged upon it, a sudden fever seized him, which, for want of proper treatment, proved fatal, and terminated his life in the prime of his youth and talents. KaflPaelle died on the day of his birth, Good-Friday, in 1520, aged only thirty-seven. His body was laid in state in his own studio, his scarcely finished picture of " The Transfiguration " being placed above it, that his sorrowful friends might look from the lifeless form of the painter to his immortal work. Chambers's Miscellany. STORIES OF SCIEl^OE AND IK- DUSTEY. XVII. SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 1. On Christmas-day, in the year 1642, Isaac Newton was born at the small village of Wools- thorpe, in England. Little did his mother think, when she beheld her new-born babe, that he was destined to explain many matters which had been a mystery since the creation of the world. 2. Isaac's father being dead, Mrs. Newton was married again to a clergyman, and went to reside at North Witham. Her son was left to the care of his good old grandmother, who was very kind to him and sent him to a school. In his early years Isaac did not appear to be a very bright scholar, but was chiefly remarkable for his ingenuity in all mechanical occupations. He had a set of little tools and saws of various sizes manufactured by himself. With the aid of these Isaac contrived to make many curious articles, at which he worked 152 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS with so much skill that he seemed to have been born with a saw or chisel in his hand. 3. The neisrhbors looked with vast admiration at the things which Isaac manufactured. And his old grandmothei*, I suppose, was never weary of talking about him. '' He'll make a capital workman one of these days," she would probably say. " No fear but that Isaac will do well in the world, and be a rich man before he dies." 4. It is amusing to conjecture what were the an- ticipations of his grandmother and the neighbors about Isaac's future life. Some of them, perhaps, fancied that he would make beautiful furniture of mahogany, rose- wood, or polished oak, inlaid with ivory and ebony, and magnificently gilded. And then, doubtless, all the rich people would purchase these fine things to adorn their drawing-rooms. Others, probably, thought that little Isaac was des- tined to be an architect, and would build splendid mansions for the nobility and gentry, and churches, Sir Isaac Newton. STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 153 too, witli the tallest steeples tliat had ever been seen in England. 5. Some of his friends, no donbt, advised Isaac's grandmother to apprentice him to a clock-maker ; for, besides his mechanical skill, the boy seemed to have a taste for mathematics, which would be very useful to him in that profession. And then, in due time, Isaac would set up for himself, and would manufacture curious clocks, like those that contain sets of dancing figures, which issue from the dial-plate when the hour is struck ; or like those where a ship sails across the face of the clock, and is seen tossing up and down on the waves as often as the pendulum vibrates. 6. Indeed, there was some ground for suppos- ing that Isaac would devote himself to the manu- facture of clocks, since he had already made one of a kind which nobody had ever heard of before. It was set a-going, not by wheels and weights like other clocks, but by the dropping of water. This was an object of much wonderment to all the people round about ; and it must be confessed that there are few boys, or men either, who could contrive to tell what o'clock it is by means of a bowl of water. 7. Besides the water-clock, Isaac made a sun- dial. Thus his grandmother was never at a loss to know the hour : for the water-clock would tell 154 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS it in the shade, and tlie dial in the sunshine. The sun-dial is said to be still in existence at Wools- thorpe, on the corner of the house where Isaac dwelt. If so, it must have marked the passage of every sunny hour that has elapsed since Isaac Newton was a boy. It marked all the famous moments of his life ; it marked the hour of his death ; and still the sunshine cree^^s slowly over it, as regularly as when Isaac first set it up. 8. Yet we must not say that the sun-dial has lasted longer than its maker ; for Isaac Newton will exist long after the dial — yea, and long after the sun itself — shall have crumbled to decay, 9. Isaac possessed a wonderful faculty of ac- quiring knowledge by the simplest means. For instance, what method do you suppose he took to find out the strength of the wdnd ? You will never guess how the boy could compel that unseen, in- constant, and ungovernable wonder, the wind, to tell him the measure of its strens^th. Yet nothino: can be more simple. He jumped against the wind ; and by the length of his Jump he could calculate the force of a gentle breeze, a brisk gale, or a tem- pest. Thus, even in his boyish sports he was con- tinually searching out the secrets of philosophy. 10. Not far from his grandmother's residence there was a windmill which operated on a new plan. Isaac was in the habit of going thither fre- STORTES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 155 quently, and would spend whole hours in examin- ing its various parts. While the mill was at rest, he pried into its internal machinery. When its broad sails were set in motion by the wdnd, he watched the process by which the mill-stones were made to revolve and crush the grain that was put into the hopper. After gaining a thorough knowl- edge of its construction he was observed to be un- usually busy with his tools. It was not long be- fore his grandmother and all the neighborhood knew what Isaac had been about. He had con- structed a model of the windmill. Though not so large, I suppose, as one of the box-traps which boys set to catch squirrels, yet every part of the mill and its machinery was complete. Its little sails were neatly made of linen, and whirled round very swiftly when the mill was placed in a draught of air. Even a puff of wind from Isaac's mouth or from a pair of bellows was sufficient to set the sails in motion. And, what w^as most curious, if a handful of grains of wheat were put into the little hopper, they would soon be converted into snow- white flour. 11. Isaac's playmates were enchanted with his new windmill. They thought that nothing so pretty and so wonderful had ever been seen in the whole world. ^' But, Isaac," said one of them, ^^ you have forgotten one thing that belongs to a 156 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. mill." " What is that ? " asked Isaac ; for he sup- posed that from the roof of the mill to its founda- tion he had forgotten nothing. " Why, where is the miller ? " said his friend. " That is true — I must look out for one," said Isaac ; and he set himself to consider how the deficiency should be supplied. He might easily have made the minia- ture hOTre of a man ; but then it would not have been able to move about and perform the duties of a miller. As Captain Lemuel Gulliver had not yet discovered the island of Lilliput, Isaac did not know that there were little men in the world whose size was Just suited to his windmill. It so hap- pened, however, that a mouse had just been caught in the trap ; and, as no other miller could be found, Mr. Mouse was aj^pointed to that important office. The new miller made a very respectable appear- ance in his dark-gray coat. To be sure, he had not a very good character for honesty, and was suspected of sometimes stealing a portion of the grain which was given him to grind. But per- haps some two-legged millers are quite as dishon- est as this small quadruped. 12. As Isaac grew older, it was found that he had far more important matters in his mind than the manufacture of toys like the little windmill. All day long, if left to himself, he was either ab- sorbed in thought, or engaged in some book of STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 157 mathematics or natural philosopliy. At niglit, I think it probable, he looked up with reverential curiosity to the stars, and wondered w hether they were worlds like our own, and how great was their distance from the earth, and what was the power that kept them in their courses. Perhaps, even so early in life, Isaac Newton felt a presentiment that he should be able, hereafter, to answer all these questions. 13. When Isaac was fourteen years old, his mother's second husband being now dead, she wished her son to leave school and assist her in managing the farm at Woolsthorpe. For a year or two, therefore, he tried to turn his attention to farming. But his mind was so bent on becoming a scholar, that his mother sent him back to school, and afterward to the University of Cambridge. 14. I have now finished my anecdotes of Isaac Newton's boyhood. My story would be far too long were I to mention all the splendid discoveries which he made after he came to be a man. He was the first that found out the nature of light ; for, before his day, nobody could tell what the sunshine w^as composed of. You remember, I sup- pose, the story of an apple's falling on his head, and thus leading him to discover the force of grav- itation, which keeps the heavenly bodies in their courses. When he had once got hold of this idea, 158 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS, he never permitted liis mind to rest until he had searched out all the laws by which the planets are guided through the sky. This he did as thoroughly as if he had gone up among the stars and tracked them in their orbits. The boy had found out the mechanism of a windmill ; the man explained to his fellow-men the mechanism of the universe. 15. While makins: these researches he was ac- customed to spend night after night in a lofty tower, gazing at the heavenly bodies through a telescope. His mind was lifted far above the things of this world. He may be said, indeed, to have spent the greater part of his life in worlds that lie millions of miles away ; for where the thoughts and the heart are, there is our true ex- istence. 16. Did you never hear the story of Newton and his little dog Diamond ? One day, when he was fifty years old, and had been hard at work more than twenty years studying the theory of light, he went out of his chamber, leaving his little dog asleep before the iire. On the table lay a heap of manuscript papers, containing all the discoveries which Newton had made during those twenty years. When his master was gone, up rose little Diamond, jumped upon the table, and over- threw the lighted candle. The papers immediately caught fire. STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 159 17. Just as the destruction was completed, JS'ewton opened tlie cliamber-door, and perceived that the labor of twenty years was reduced to a heap of ashes. There stood little Diamond, the author of all the mischief. Almost any other man would have sentenced the dog to immediate death. But Newton patted him on the head with his usual kindness, although grief was at his heart. '' O Diamond, Diamond," exclaimed he, " thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done ! " This incident affected his health and spirits for some time afterward ; but, from his conduct toward the little dog, you may judge what was the sweetness of his temper. 18. Newton lived to be a very old man, ac- quii'ed great renown, was made a member of Par- liament, and received the honor of knighthood from the king. But he cared little for earthly fame and honors, and felt no pride in the vastness of his knowledge. All that he had learned only made him feel how little he knew in comparison with what remained to be known. 19. "I seem to myself like a child," observed he, " playing on the sea-shore, and picking up here and there a curious shell or a pretty pebble, while the boundless ocean of Truth lies undiscovered before me." 20. At last, in 1727, when he was fourscore u 160 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS and five years old, Sir Isaac Newton died — or, rather, he ceased to live on earth. We may be permitted to believe that he is still searching out the infinite wisdom and goodness of the Creator as earnestly, and with even more success, than while his spirit animated a mortal body. He has left a fame behind him which will be as enduring as if his name were written in letters of light formed by the stars upon the midnight sky. Hawthorne. XVIII. WILLIAM CAXTON. 1. It was probably at the press of Colard Mansion, in a little room over the porch of St. Donat's, at Bruges, that William Caxton learned the art which he was the first to introduce into England. A Kentish boy by birth, but appren- ticed to a London mercer, Caxton had already spent thirty years of his manhood in Flanders as governor of the English guild of merchant ad- venturers there, when we find him engaged as copyist in the service of Edward IV's sister. Duchess Maro-aret of Buro^undv. But the tedious process of copying was soon thrown aside for the STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 161 new art which Colard Mansion had introduced into Bruges. 2. '' Forasmuch as in the writing of the same," Caxton tells in the preface to his first printed w^ork, the " Tales of Troy," "my pen is worn, my hand is w^eary and not steadfast, mine eyes dimmed with overmuch looking on the white paper, and my courage not so prone and ready to labor as it hath been, and that age creepeth on me daily and feebleth all the body, and also because I have promised to divers gentlemen and to my friends to address to them as hastily as I might the said book, therefore I have practised and learned at my great charge and dispense to ordain this said book in print after the manner and form as ye may see, and is not written with pen and ink as other books be, to the end that every man may have them at once, for all the books of this story here emprynted as ye see were begun in one day and also finished in one day." 3. The printing-press was the precious freight he brought back to England in 1476, after an ab- sence of five-and-thirty years. Through the next fifteen, at an age when other men look for ease and retirement, we see him plunging with charac- teristic energy into his new occupation. His red "pale," or heraldic shield, marked with a red bar down the middle, invited buyers to the press he 162 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. established in tlie almonry at Westminster, a little inclosure containing a cliapel and almshouses near the west end of the church, where the alms of the abbey were distributed to the poor. 4. "If it please you, any man, spiritual or temporal," runs his advertisement, ''to buy any pyes of two or three commemorations of Salis- bury, all emprynted after the form of the present letter, which be well and truly correct, let him come to Westminster in the almonry at the red pale, and he shall have them good chepe." Caxton was a practical man of business, as this advertisement shows, no rival of the Venetian Aldi, or of the classical printers of Rome, but resolved to get a living from his trade; supplying priests with service-books and preachers with sermons, f urnish- ins: the clerk with his " Golden Les^end," and knight and baron with "joyous and pleasant his- tories of chivalry." 5. But, while careful to win his daily bread, he found time to do much for what of hio^her literature lay fairly at hand. He printed all the English poetry of any moment which was then in existence. His reverence for that " worshipful man, Geoffrey Chaucer," who " ought to be eter- nally remembered," is shown not merely by his edition of the " Canterbury Tales," but by his re- print of them when a purer text of the poem STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 163 offered itself. The poems of Lydgate and Gower were added to tliose of Chaucer. The " Chronicle of Brut " and Higden's " Polychronicus " were the only available works of an historical character then existing in the English tongue, and Caxton not only printed them, but himself continued the latter up to his own time. A translation of Boethius, a version of the '^ Eneid " from the French, and a tract or two from Cicero, were the stray first-fruits of the classical press of England. J. R. Green. XIX. GEORGE STEPHENSON. 1. GrEORGE Stepheis^sok, the perfecter of the locomotive, had a very humble beginning. His father, Robert Stephenson, with his wife Mabel, were a decent couple, living at a small colliery village called Wylam, situated on the north bank of the Tyne, about eight miles from Newcastle. Here " Old Bob," as Robert was usually styled by the neighbors, was employed as fireman to the engine which pumped water from the coalpit, an employment of a toilsome kind, but requiring no great skill, and accordingly requited by the 164 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. wage of a common laborer. He had six children, of whom George was the second, born Jnne 9, _ 1781. The lot of '1?^^ N^ the family was to \vork, and work they did. • We do not know whether the father had any wish to give his children a fair coun- try education. Per- haps there were no schools near at hand ; but, be this as it may, Bob's children, like their neighbors in like circumstances, were left entirely to themselves in the way of book-learning. When Geoi'ge was about eight years of age, his father removed to another colliery concern at Dewley Burn, where he filled a similar situation — that of shoveling in coal to a furnace which kept a steam- engine at work. 2. Shortly after coming to Dewley Burn, George was put to work, as he was now eight years old, and it was believed he could earn some- thing to help on the family. A job was found for him; it was to herd a few cows, for which (jrcorge StepJu STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 165 liglit duty lie was paid twopence a day. We are now, as it \vere, introduced to George. He comes on the stage as a barelegged herd-boy, driving cows, chasing butterflies, and amusing himself by making water-mills with reeds and straws, and even going the length of modeling small steam- engines with clay. Brought up among coal-pits and pumps, and wheels and engines, it was not surprising that his mind should have a bias to mechanics. Some boys, indeed, are so dull or heed- less, that they may see the most curious works of art without giving them any sort of attention; but George Stephenson pried into every mechan- ical contrivance that came under his notice, and acquired a knack of making things, with no other help than an old knife. He did not stare at things stupidly, or with an affected air of indiiference ; neither did he pretend to take an interest in works of art in order to appear clever. He liked to work out his own ideas in his simple way without a thought of results. 3. From being a herd-boy, he was promoted to lead horses when plowing, hoe turnips, and do other farm-work, by which he rose from two- pence to fourpence a day. He might have ad- vanced to be an able-bodied plowman, but his tastes did not lie in the agricultural line. What he wished was to be employed about a colliery, so 166 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS as to be among the bustle of wheels, gins, and pul- leys. Accordingly, quitting farm-work, he got em- ployment at Dewley Burn to drive a gin-horse, by which change he had another rise of twopence a day, his wages being now three shillings a week. In a short time he went as gin-horse driver to the colliery of Black Callerton ; and as this was two miles from the parental home, he walked that dis- tance morning and evening. This walk, however, was nothing to George, who was getting to be a big, stout boy, fond of rambling about after birds' nests, and keeping tame rabbits, and always taking a part in country sports. His next rise was to act as an assistant fireman to his father at Dewley. Gladly he accepted this situation, for, besides that he was allowed a shilling a day, he looked to being promoted to be engine-man, which now in his four- teenth year was the height of his ambition. George did not long remain here. The coal-pit was wrought out and deserted, and the workmen and apparatus were removed to a colliery at Jol- ly's Close, a few miles distant. The Stephenson family removed with the others, and now occupied a cottage of only a single apartment, situated in a row of similar dwellings, with a run of water in front, and heaps of debris all around. 4. In this miserably confined cottage there were accommodated the father and mother and II STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 167 six children, some of them pretty well grown up ; and, as all helped by their work, there was nothing like poverty in the household. George and his elder brother James were assistant firemen, two younger boys performed some humble labor about the pit, and two girls assisted their mother in household affairs. The total earnings of the father and sons amounted to from thirty-five to forty shillings a week. As this was equal to about one hundred pounds per annum, we are entitled to say that on that sum Old Bob ought to have brought up his family respectably, and given them at least the elements of education, but George, at fifteen years of age, when working as assistant fireman, and forming one of a family who were earning about a hundred pounds a year, and paying no house-rent, did not know a letter. From Dewley he went to Mid Mill, and after that to the colliery of Throckly-bridge, at w^hich his wages were twelve shillings a week. He felt that he was get- ting on. It was a proud moment for him when one Saturday evening he got his first twelve shillings. ^' Now," said he, enthusiastically, ^' I am a made man for life." By way of occupying his idle minutes he began to model miniature steam-en- gines in clay, in which he had already some expe- rience, and w^hile so eno^ao:ed he was told of en- gines of a form and character he had never seen. 168 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. They were not within reach, but were described in books. If he read these he would learn all about them ; but alas ! though now eighteen years of age he was still ignorant of the alphabet, and he set- tled in his own mind that he would go to school, cost what it might. 5. He found out a poor teacher, named Robin Cowens, in the village of Walbottle, who agreed to give him lessons in the evening at the rate of threepence a week, a fee which he cheerfully ])aid. By Robin he was advanced so far as to be able to write h]s own name, which he did for the first time when he was nineteen years of age. To im- prove his acquirements he afterward, in the win- ter of 1799, went to an evening-school, kept by Andrew Robertson, a Scotch dominie, in the vil- lage of Newburn. Here he was advanced in a regular way to penmanship and arithmetic. But as there was not much time for arithmetical study during the limited school-hours, George got ques- tions in figures set on his slate, which next day he ^vorked out while attendins: the ensrine. And that was all the education in the way of school- ing he ever got. Very imperfect it was in quality and extent, but it admitted him within the portals of knowledge, and getting that length, he was enabled to pick up and learn as he went on. 6. The next event in his life was his removal, STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 169 in 1801, to the Dolly pit, at Callerton, where he received somewliat higher wages, a point of some importance, for at this time the cost of living was very high. Perhaps it was owing to this dearth of food that George fell upon the expedient of devoting his leisure hours in the evening to the making and mending of shoes. Some may think that the craft of shoemaking was quite out of his way, but we have known several instances of shepherds and plowmen being makers and mend- ers of shoes in a homely style for their families, and therefore the " gentle craft " is not so very difficult to learn as might be imagined. George Stephenson became a tolerable shoemaker, though he kept chiefly to cobbling or mending. If any- thing could have spurred him on it was the desire to sole the shoes of his sweetheart, Fanny Hen- derson, and of these he is said to have made a " capital job." By means of his cobbling, he was able to save a guinea, which is I'ecorded as being the nest-egg of his fortune. 7. No one ever saw him the worse for drink ; and while others were soaking in taverns, or amusing themselves with cock-fighting, he was at home, either trying to increase his sum of knowl- edge or applying himself to some useful occupa- tion which was in itself an amusement. His sobri- ety and industry had their reward. He was ena- 170 STORIES OF OTHER LASDS bled to furnisli a house decently, and to many Fanny Henderson. The marriage was celebrated on November 28, 1802, and the pair betook them- selves to the neat home that had been prepared at Willington Ballast Quay, a place on the Tyne, about six miles from Newcastle. 8. Settling down as a married man, George con- tinued to devote leisure hours to study or to some handicraft employment. From making and mend- ing shoes he proceeded to mend clocks, and became known among his neighbors as a wonderfully clev- er clock-doctor. It is said that he was led into this kind of employment by an accident. His chimney having got on fire, the neighbors, in putting it out, deluged the house with water, and damaged the eight-day clock. Handy at machinery, and wishing to save money, George determined to set the clock to rights. He took it to pieces, cleaned it, reorganized it, and made it go as well as ever. There was a triumph ! After this he was often employed as a repairer of clocks, by which he added a little to his income. 9. On the 16th of December, 1803, was born his only son, Robert, who lived to be at the head of the railway engineering profession. But before either George or his son could arrive at distinction, there was not a little to be done. As a brakesman, George had charge of the coal-lifting machinery at STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 171 Willington, and subseqiieutly at Killingwortli, and in this department, as well as engine-man, he grad- ually but surely gained the reputation of being an ingenious and trustworthy workman. At Killing- worth, which is about seven miles north of New- castle, he suffered the. great misfortune of losing his wife. This sad blow fell upon him in 1804, with his son still an infant. 10. In one of his public speeches late in life, he observed : " In the earlier period of my career, when Robert was a little boy, I saw^ how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he should not labor under the same defect, but that I would put him to a good school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor man ; and how do you think I managed ? I be- took myself to mending my neighbors' clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labor was done, and thus I procured the means of educating my son." 11. In 1810 an opportunity occurred for George Stephenson signalizing himself. A badly construct- ed steam-engine at Killingworth High pit could not do its work ; one engineer after another tried to set it to rights, but all failed ; and at last, in de- spair, they were glad to let '' Geordie " try his hand, though, even with his reputation for cleverness, they did not expect him to succeed. To their mor- 172 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS tification and astonishment, he was perfectly suc- cessful. He took the engine to pieces, rearranged it skillfully, and set it to work in the most effectual manner. Besides receiving a present of ten pounds for this useful service, he was placed on the foot- ing of a regular engineer, and afterward consulted in cases of defective pumping apparatus. 12. Although thus rising in public estimation, he still knew his deficiencies, and strove to im- prove by renewed evening studies. One of his ac- quaintances, named John Wigham, gave him some useful instruction in branches of arithmetic, of which he had an imperfect knowledge, and the two together, with the aid of books, spent many pleasant evenings in getting an insight into chem- istry and other departments of practical science. His steadiness was at times sorely tried by the so- licitations of neighbors in his own rank ^^ to come and take a glass of yill " ; bat resolutions to be temperate, and to save for the sake of Robert's education, enabled him to withstand tempters of all kinds. By dint of such reserve he was able to save a hundred guineas, which, in consequence of the demand for bullion during the French AVar, he sold to money-brokers for twenty-six shillings each. At intervals in his ordinary labor he em- ployed himself in building an oven and some ad- ditional rooms to his cottage, which he likewise STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 173 rendered attractive by a garden cultured with his own hands. 13. Railroads were just beginning to be used, but no working locomotive had yet been invented. In this work George Stephenson took great inter- est, and after a variety of experiments he was sat- isfied that there would be sufficient adhesion in the wheels to overcome any tendency to slip, so that teeth or cogs were unnecessary. In July, 1814, he was able to begin running his locomotive, called the Blucher, on the Killingworth Railway. It was still only a coal-drag, and at best a clumsy apparatus, but it hauled eight loaded wagons, weighing thirty tons, at about four miles an hour. This was undoubtedly a success ; the thing could be done ; yet, as the cost of working was about as great as that by horses, little was gained. There must be fresh trials. As by a flash of inspiration Stephenson saw the leading defect and the method of curing it. The furnace wanted draught, which he gave by sending the waste steam into the chim ney ; and at once, by increased evolution of steam the power of the engine was doubled or tripled In 1815 he had a new locomotive at work, com bining this and some minor imjorovements. Still there was much to be done to perfect the machine The cost of working was so considerable that loco motive power did not meet with general approval 174 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. the fact was, that railways at this period were not so accurately finished as they now are, and smooth and easy running ought not to have been expected. It was only step by step that both rails and mov- ing apparatus were brought to a comparatively perfect state. 14. At the Killing worth colliery, Stephenson continued to plan his improvements, and also to advance in general knowledge in the society of his SOD, who, on leaving school in 1818, was j)laced as an apprentice to learn practically, underground, the business of a viewer of coal- mines ; and in 1820 he went for a session of six months to the Univer- sity of Edinburgh. The cost of this piece of edu- cation was eighty pounds, which the father could not well spare ; but the prize for skill in mathe- matics which his son broug-ht home with him at the end of the session was thought to be ample re- payment. 15. Acquiring a knowledge of railways, Rob- ert was appointed to proceed to Colombia, South America, to superintend some railway operations. One day, previous to setting out, he dined with his father, and a young man named Dixon was of the party. An anecdote is related to show the strong faith which George Stephenson at this time entertained regarding railway progress. " Now, lads," said he to the two young men after dinner, STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 175 " I will tell you that I think you will live to see the day, though I may not live so long, when rail- ways will come to supersede almost all other meth- ods of conveyance in this country — when mail- coaches will go by railway, and railways will be- come the great highway for the king and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheajDer for a workingman to travel on a railway than to walk on foot. I know there are great and almost insurmountable difficulties that will have to be encountered ; but what I have said will come to pass as sure as we live. I only wish I may live to see the day, though that I can scarcely hope for, as I know how slow all human progress is, and with what difficulty I have been able to get the locomotive adopted, notwithstanding my more than ten years' successful experiment at Killing- worth." 16. Soon after, Stephenson constructed the safety-lamp, and brought it into use at about the same time that it was invented by Sir Humphry Davy. The principle of construction of the two was the same. When a prize was offered for the best locomotive, the Rocket, made by Stephenson, was found so much superior to all others, that it was adopted at once. From that time onward the career of George Stephenson was one of continued prosperity. 12 176 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS 17. In 1830, from Liverpool to Manchester he built the first general railroad ever constructed for commercial purposes. In this work his success was so great that for a long time all enterprises of the kind were committed to his charge. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne he built his locomotive- works, which for many years supplied all the rail- ways of the British kino-dom. Wealth and infiu- ence came from his success, and long before his death he was regarded as the greatest engineer of England. He died in 1848, at the age of sixty- seven, having lived to see his railway system in practical use in every civilized country on the globe. XX. THE BLACKBURN FARMER. 1. About the middle of last century there re- sided in the village of Blackburn, in Lancashire, a farmer of small means, but of good natural capaci- ty, of a reflective habit, and endowed with a spirit of persistent perseverance rarely found in his walk of life. He tilled a few acres of land, the produce of which sufficed to su^^port his family, wliom he accustomed to fare humbly and labor hard. As STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 177 for himself, lie cared uot how much he worked, nor to what employment he turned his hand. Any- thing that promised a remuneration for his indus- try he would attempt : if it prospered, and he ob- tained the proposed remuneration, it was well ; and if it failed, and he got no remuneration, still he extracted experience out of it, and was in a con- dition to enter on a new experiment with a better chance of success. 2. This patience and good-humored self-posses- sion under all circumstances, was inherent in the man, and it proved in the end a most valuable quality, as we shall see. He was naturally fond of experiment ; and in the long evenings of win- ter, w^hen farming operations were unavoidably suspended, was accustomed to exercise his inge- nuity, of which he possessed a more than average share, in mechanical contrivances either for dimin- ishing labor or for rendering its operations more satisfactory and complete. 3. At that period, all Lancashire and the man- facturing districts of the north w^ere more or less excited on the subject of the cotton manufactures, which the inventions of Hargreaves and others had brought to a state of perfection that promised to make Great Britain the commercial center of the w^orld. It is no wonder, therefore, that the farmer turned his attention to this branch of manufacture. 178 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS Being struck with the clumsy tediousness of the process by which the cotton- wool was brought into a state fit for spinning, he set about contriving a quicker and more satisfactory method of doing the work. Before long he was led to the adoption of a cylinder, instead of the common hand-cards then in use ; and in the end produced machines of simple construction, by which the work of carding was not only performed more effectually, but at a much more expeditious rate. 4. The cotton fabrics which were produced at this period were far different in appearance from those with which the last three generations have been familiar; they Avere, in fact, only cotton cloths, either indifferently white, or dyed in such homely colors as the dyers of the time could im- part to them. Though useful for a variety of do- mestic purposes and for under-garments, the idea of making them the materials of personal adorn- ment and elegant attire seems as yet to have sug- gested itself to no one. But now the Blackburn farmer conceived that idea, and, inspirited by his success in the wool-carding department, resolved to carry it out with all the energy at his command. 5. To talking he was not much given, and to boasting not at all, and on this occasion, especially, he shrewdly kept his plans to himself. Procuring a stout block of wood, ten inches long by five inch- STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 179 es wide, and some two inclies thick, lie drew witli a j)encil on the smooth side of it the exact repre- sentation of a parsley-leaf gathered from his gar- den. He then set to work with penknife and small chisels, and such other tools as he could pur- chase, and with his own hands cut away all those parts of the wood not covered by the drawing, leaving the spray of parsley standing in relief ; or, in other words, he made a wood-engraving of the leaf, differing in no other respect from the wood- engravings of the artist of to-day but in the rough coarseness of the work, unavoidable in a first at- tempt. In the back of the block he fixed a handle, and at each of the four corners of it he inserted a little pin of stout wire. 6. His next step was to mix a lively green color, well ground up with alum, to a consistency fit for printing. The color was contained in a tub, and upon its surface lay a thick woolen cloth, which, of course, became thoroughly saturated with the coloring-matter. Laying a blanket on a stout kitchen-table, and stretching the white calico cloth on the top of that, the ingenious farmer applied his wooden block to the saturated woolen cloth, dabbing it repeatedly until it had taken up a suffi- cient quantity of the color. He then laid the block squarely on the stretched cloth, and gave it a smart blow on the back with a mallet, thus printing the 180 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. impression of the parsley-leaf. The four little pins fixed at the corners of the block served to guide him in applying it squarely at each consecu- tive impression ; and thus he worked away, until the whole surface of the cloth was covered with the parsley -leaves, and he had produced the first piece of printed cotton the world had ever seen. 7. The parsley-leaf pattern succeeded so well that he soon found himself called- on for others of various designs, which also he made with his own hands, thus keeping his secret to himself, and shut- ting out rivals in the trade which his owm ingenu- ity had created. And now the demand for his novel wares grew so urgent that he could not pro- duce them fast enough for his customers. As a matter of course, he had impressed the services of his whole family — his sons aiding in the printing, and his wife and daughters working early and late in ironing out the printed cloths after the coloring- matter was dry. This ironing process took a great deal of time ; and though the women bent over the flat-irons early and late, they could not meet the urgency of the case, and thus the execution of the orders that poured in was continually delayed. 8. To overcome this obstacle the farmer set his wits to work to contrive a machine to supersede the use of the flat-irons. Rememberino; the advan- tage he had derived from the use of a cylinder in STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 181 carding the cotton- wool, he turned again to the cyl- inder to effect his present purpose. He instruct- ed a carpenter to make a large oblong frame, with a smooth bed of solid planking, supported on up- right posts, and with a raised rail or ledge on either side. Running from side to side he placed a roller, with a handle to turn it, and round the roller he wound a rope spirally. Each end of the rope was fastened to a strong, oblong box, as large as the bed of the frame ; and the box being filled with bricks and paving-stones, was heavy enough to im- part a powerful pressure. Instead of ironing his pieces of printed cloth, the farmer now wound them carefully round small wooden rollers, which he placed in the smooth bed beneath the box of stones, drew that backward and forward over them, by means of the handle affixed to the cylinder, which had the rope coiled round it, and so, with- out the use of the hot flat-irons, gave the desired finish to his work. And thus it was that the^^\9^ niarigle came into the world. 9. This machine answered its purpose admira- bly, and, by releasing the wife and daughters from the ironing-table, increased by so much the pro- ducing power of the family. The farmer worked on now with redoubled dilio:ence : the more cot- tons he printed, the more people wanted them ; and as he had taken especial care that no man 182 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. should become master of liis mystery, he retained the trade in his own hands. As years flowed on wealth poured in, and the small farmer of the vil- lage became the principal of one of the largest and most prosperous manufacturing houses in the country. He took his eldest sou into partnership, and applying his capital to the production of ma- chinery to facilitate cotton-printing, was enabled to transfer his patterns from blocks to cylinders, and thus to print, in a few minutes only, a piece of cloth which it would have taken a week to com- plete under the old process of a mallet and blocks. 10. The farmer's son became a man of vast wealth and influence. It was but a trifle to him^ when the burden of war weighed heavily upon his country and the national emergencies were most oppressively felt, to raise and equip, at his own expense, a regiment of horse for the defense of the country, and present them to the Govern- ment. This he did ; and the Government, in return for his generous j)atriotism, made him a baronet. 11. The patriotic baronet had a son, who, though inheriting the thorough-working faculty and persistent perseverance of the family, was not brought up to the manufacturing business with the view of adding to the family wealth. The grandson of the Blackburn farmer was placed un- der skillful instructors, and in due time sent to STORIES OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 183 college, where lie set a noble example of subor- dination and diligence, displayed abilities of the highest order, and won distinguished honors. He afterward obtained a seat in Parliament, where he served his country for a period exceeding the av^er- age duration of human life, and served it, too, with a fidelity, proof not only against the seductive in- fluence of party, but against his personal interests, and in opposition to the cherished friendships of a whole life. 12. He obtained, and for a long period en- joyed, the greatest lion or which it is possible for a sovereign to confer upon a subject. As the Prime Minister of England, he devoted himself to the welfare of the people, working steadily for the emancipation of industry, the amelioration of the poor man's lot, and the cheapening of the poor man's loaf. In this cause he signally triumphed, dying in the midst of his success, by what seemed the sudden stroke of accident, and leaving behind him a name and a fame dear to Britain and hon- ored throughout the world. 13. We need scarcely add that the name of the small Blackburn farmer, of the wealthy and patri- otic baronet, and of the champion of free trade, is one and the same, and that it will be found carved on the pedestal of the statue of Robert Peel. Charnbers's Miscellanies. MISCELLANEOUS STOEIES. XXI. SAMUEL JOHNSON'S REPENTANCE. 1. " Sam," said Mr. Michael Johnson, of Lieh- iield, one morning, " I am very feeble and ailing to-day. You must go to Uttoxeter in my stead, and tend the book-stall in the market-place there." This was spoken above a hundred years ago, by an elderly man, who had once been a thriving bookseller at Lichiield, in England. Being now in reduced circumstances, he was forced to go every market-day and sell books at a stall in the neighboring village of Uttoxeter. 2. When Mr. Michael Johnson spoke, Sam pouted and made an indistinct grumbling in his throat ; then he looked his old father in the face and answered him loudly and deliberately '^ Sir," said he, " I will not go to Uttoxeter market ! " 3. " Well, Sam," said Mr. Johnson, as he took his hat and staff, " if for the sake of your foolish pride you can suffer your poor sick father to MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 185 stand all day in the noise and confusion of the market when he ought to be in his bed, I have no more to say. But you will think of this, Sam, when I am dead and gone." So the poor old man set forth toward Uttoxeter. The gray - haired, feeble, melancholy Michael Johnson, how sad a thing that he should be forced to go, in his sick- ness, and toil for the support of an ungrateful son who was too proud to do anything for his father, or his mother, or himself ! Sam looked after Mr. Johnson with a sullen countenance till he was out of sight. 4. '' My poor father ! " thought Sam to him- self, '' how his head will ache, and how heavy his heart will be ! I am almost sorry that I did not do as he bade me." Then the boy went to his mother, who was busy about the house. She did not know what had passed between Mr. John- son and Sam. " Mother," said he, " did you think father seemed very ill to-day ? " '^ Yes, Sam," an- swered his mother, turning with a flushed face from the fire, where she was cooking their scanty dinner, " your father did look very ill ; and it is a pity he did not send you to Uttoxeter in his stead. You are a great boy now, and would re- joice, I am sure, to do something for your poor father, who has done so much for you." 5. After sunset old Michael Johnson came 186 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS slowly home and sat down in his customary chair. He said nothing to Sam ; nor do I know that a single word ever passed between them on the sub- ject of the son's disobedience. In a few years his father died, and left Sam to fight his way through the world by himself. Well, my children, fifty years had passed away since young Sam Johnson had shown himself so hard-hearted toward his father. It was now market-day in the village of Uttoxeter. 6. In the street of the village you might see cattle-dealers with cows and oxen for sale, and pig- drovers with herds of squeaking swine, and farmers with cart-loads of cabbages, turnips, onions, and all other produce of the soil. Now and then a farm- er's red-faced wife trotted along on horseback, with butter and cheese in two large panniers. The people of the village, with country squires and other visitors from the neighborhood, walked hither and thither, trading, jesting, quarreling, and making just such a bustle as their fathers and grandfathers had made half a century before. 7. In one part of the street there was a pup- pet-show, with a ridiculous merry-andrew, who kept both grown people and children in a roar of laughter. On the opposite site was the old stone church of Uttoxeter, with ivy climbing up its walls and partly obscuring its Gothic windows. MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 187 There was a clock in the gray tower of the an- cient church, and the hands on the dial-plate had now almost reached the honr of noon. At this busiest hour of the market a strange old gentle- man was seen making his way among the crowd. He was very tall and bulky, and wore a brown coat and small-clothes, with black worsted stock- ings and buckled shoes. On his head was a three- cornered hat, beneath which a bushy gray wig thrust itself out, all in disorder. The old gentle- man elbowed the people aside and forced his way through the midst of them with a singular kind of gait, rolling his body hither and thither, so that he needed twice as much room as any other person there. 8. But when they looked into the venerable stranger's face, not the most thoughtless among them dared to offer him the least impertinence. Though his features were scarred and distorted, and though his eyes were dim and bleared, yet there w^as something of authority and wisdom in his looks which impressed them all with awe. So they stood aside to let him pass, and the old gen- tleman made his way across the market-place, and paused near the corner of the ivy-mantled church. Just as he reached it the clock struck twelve. 9. On the very spot of ground where the stranger now stood some aged people remembered 188 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS that old Michael Johnson had formerly kept his book-stall. The little children who had once bought picture-books of him were grandfathers now. 10. "Yes, here is the very spot!" muttered the old gentleman to himself. There this un- known personage took his stand and removed the three-cornered hat from his head. It was the busi- est hour of the day. What with the lium of human voices, the lowing of cattle, the squeaking of j)igs, and the laughter caused by the merry-andrews, the market-place was in very great confusion. But the stranger seemed not to notice it any more than if the silence of a desert were around him. He was wrapped in his own thoughts. Sometimes he raised his furrowed brow to heaven, as if in prayer ; sometimes he bent his head, as if an in- supportable weight of sorrow were apon him. It increased the awfulness of his aspect that there was a motion of his head and an almost continual tremor throughout his frame, with singular twitch- ings and contortions of his features. 11. The hot sun blazed upon his unprotected head ; but he seemed not to feel its power. A dark cloud swept across the sky, and rain -drops pattered into the market-place ; but the stranger heeded not the shower. The people began to gaze at the mysterious old gentleman with superstitious I There this unkyiown personage took his stand and removed the three-cornered hat from his head. 190 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS fear and wonder. Who could he be ? Whence did he come ? Wherefore was he standing bare- headed in the market-place? Even the school- boys left the merry-andrew and came to gaze, with wide-open eyes, at this tall, strange-looking old man. 12. Yes, the poor boy, the friendless Sam, with whom we began our story, had become the famous Doctor Samuel Johnson. He was universally ac- knowledged as the wisest man and greatest writer in all England. But all his fame could not extin- guish the bitter remembrance which had tor- mented him through life. Never, never had he forgotten his father's sorrowful and upbraiding look. Never, though the old man's troubles had been over so many years, had he forgiven himself for inflicting such a pang upon his heart. And now, in his old age, he had come hither to do pen- ance, by standing at noonday, in the market-place of Uttoxeter, on the very spot where Michael Johnson had once kept his book-stall. The aged and illustrious man had done what the poor boy refused to do. By thus expressing his deep re- pentance of heart, he hoped to gain peace of con- science and the forgiveness of God. Hawthorne. MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 19,1 XXII. FLORA MACDONALD. 1, After the battle of Culloden in 1746, the Pretender Charles Edward fled to the Highlands of Scotland, and for some weeks was concealed there while the soldiers were raiding the whole country in search of him. A large price was set upon his head, yet none of the many w^ho knew of his places of concealment would betray him. At one time he fled in an open boat to South Wist, an island on the west coast, where he found refuge with Laird Macdonald. His pursuers discovered his retreat, and three thousand English soldiers were sent to search every nook and dell, crag and cottage, on the island. A cordon of armed vessels surrounded South Wist, so that escape appeared impossible. 2. But escape from the island was necessary for the safety of the prince. Lady Macdonald proposed that he should put on the garb of a serv- ant-woman, and, in company with a lady as wait- ing-maid, leave the island. Who had the courage? Flora Macdonald, from Mill burg, a beautiful girl, just from school at Edinburgh, was then on a visit. Her step-father was on the island, in com- mand of a corps of soldiers searching for the 13 192 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS prince. Regardless of the certain displeasure of her father, and the extreme peril of the undertak- ing, Flora acceded to the proposal of Lady Mac- donald to save the prince, and that very night, in company with a trusty officer, she went among the crags of Carrodale, to the cave where the royal fugitive was concealed. 3. Great was the delight of the prince when he was informed of the plan of escape. Within a day or two Flora procured from her step-father a passport for herself, a young companion, a boat's crew, and Betsey Bourke, an Irishwoman whom Flora pretended she had engaged as a spinster for her mother. The prince, attired as Betsey Bourke, embarked with Flora and her companions, on the 28th of June, 1746, for the Isle of Skye. A furious tempest tossed them about all night, and a band of soldiers prevented their landing in the morning. They finally landed near the residence of Sir Al- exander Macdonald, where the prince was con- cealed in a cavity in the rock, for the laird was his enemy, and his hall was filled with soldiers seeking the fugitive. Flora touched the heart of Lady Mac- donald, and by her aid the prince and the maiden made a safe journey of twelve miles on foot to Potarce. Here they parted forever, the prince to escape to France, and Flora to be soon afterward car- ried a prisoner to London and cast into the Tower„ MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 193 4. The story of her adventure excited the ad- miration of all classes, and as she was not a parti- san of the Pretender, nor of his religious faith, the nobility interfered in her behalf. The father of George III visited her in prison, and so much was he interested in her that he procured her re- lease. While she remained in London, her resi- dence was surrounded by the carriages of the no- bility, and Lady Primrose, a friend of the Pre- tender, introduced her to court society. When presented to old King George II, he said to her, *^How could you dare to succor the enemy of my crown and kingdom?" Flora replied with great simplicity, " It was no more than I would have done for your Majesty, had you been in a like situation." A chaise-and-four w^ere fitted up for her return to Scotland, and her escort was Mal- colm McLeod, who often said afterwaid, " I went to London to be hanged, but rode back in a chaise- and-four with Flora Macdonald." 5. Four years afterward she married Allan, the son of Laird Macdonald, and became mistress of the mansion where the prince passed the first night on the Isle of Skye. In 1775 she and her hus- band with several children came to this country and settled in North Carolina. Upon the break- ing out of the Eevolution she espoused the royal- ist cause, and was very active in inducing her coun- 194 STORIES OF OTHER LAXDS tiymen to enlist in the British army. As the for- tunes of war declared against her, she embarked with her family for Scotland, where she lived until 1790, when she died full of years and honors. Lossing. XXIII. GRACE DARLING. 1. Grace Darling was born November 24, 1815, at Bamborough, on the Northumberland coast, being the seventh child of her parents. Of the events of her early years, whether she was edu- cated on the mainland, or lived constantly in the solitary abode of her parents, first at the Browns- man, and afterward on the Longstone Island, we are not particularly informed. During her child- ish years, and till the time of her death, her resi- dence in the Longstone lighthouse was constant, or only broken by occasional visits to the coast. She and her mother managed the little household at Longstone. She is described as having been at that time, as indeed during her whole life, remark- able for a retiring and somewhat reserved disposi- tion. In person she was about the middle size, of fair complexion, and a comely countenance, with MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 195 nothing masculine in her appearance ; but, on the contrary, gentle in aspect, and with an expression of the greatest mildness and benevolence. 2. William Howitt, the poet, who visited her after the deed which made her so celebrated, found her a realization of his idea of Jeanie Deans, the amiable and true-spirited heroine of Sir Walter Scott's novel, who did and suffered so much for her unfortunate sister. She had the sweetest smile, he said, that he had ever seen in a person of her sta- tion and appearance. " You see," says he, " that she is a thoroughly good creature, and that under her modest exterior lies a spirit capable of the most exalted devotion — a devotion so entire, that daring is not so much a quality of her nature, as that the most perfect sympathy with suffering or endangered humanity swallows up and annihilates everything like fear or self -consideration — puts out, in fact, every sentiment but itself." 3. Throuo^h the channels between the smaller Fame Islands the sea rushes with great force ; and many a shipwreck of which there is no record must have happened here in former times, when no bea- con existed to guide the mariner in his path through the deep. Mr. Howitt, speaking of his visit to Longstone, says : " It was like the rest of these desolate isles, all of dark whinstone, cracked in every direction, and worn with the action of winds, 196 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. waves, and tempests since the world began. Over the greater part of it was not a blade of grass nor a grain of earth ; it was bare and iron-like stone, crusted, round all the coast, as far as high- water mark, with limpet and still smaller shells. We ascended wrinkled hills of black stone, and de- scended into worn and dismal dells of the same ; into some of Avhich, where the tide got entrance, it came pouring and roaring in raging whiteness, and chuining the loose fragments of whinstone into round pebbles, and piling them up in deep crevices with sea-weeds, like great round ropes and heaps of fucus. Over our heads screamed hun- dreds of hovering birds, the gull mingling its hideous laughter most wildly." 4. Living in that lonely spot in the midst of the ocean, witli the horrors of the tempest famil- iarized to her mind, her constant lullaby the sound of the everlasting deep, her only prospect that of tlie wide-spreading sea, with the distant sail on the horizon, Grace Darling was shut out, as it were, from the active scenes of life, and debarred from those innocent enjoyments of society and compan- ionship which, as a female, must have been dear to her, unaccustomed though she was to their in- dulgence. 5. She had reached her twenty-second year M^hen the incident occurred by which her name MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 197 has been rendered so famous. The Forfarshire steamer, a vessel of about three hundred tons bur- den, under the command of Captain John Humble, sailed from Hull, on her voyage to Dundee, on the evening of Wednesday, September 5, 1838, with a valuable cargo of bale-goods and sheet-iron, and having on board about twenty-two cabin and nineteen steerage passengers, as nearly as could be ascertained — Captain Humble and his wife, ten seamen, four firemen, two engineers, two coal- trimmers, and two stewards; in all sixty-three persons. 6. The Forfarshire was only two years old ; but there can be no doubt that her boilers were in a culpable state of disrepair. In this ineffi- cient state the vessel proceeded on her voyage, and passed through the '' Fairway," between the Fame Islands and the land, about six o'clock on Thursday evening. She entered Berwick Bay about eight o'clock the same evening, the sea run- ning high and the wind blowing strong from the north. From the motion of the vessel, a small leak in the boilers which it was thoug-ht had been thoroughly repaired, was reopened, and increased to such a degree that the hremen could not keep the fires burning. Two men were then emj^loyed to pump water into the boilers, but it escaped through the leak as fast as they pumped it in. 198 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS About ten o'clock, slie bore up off St. Abb's Head, the storm still raging witli unabated fury. Tlie engines soon after became entirely useless, and the engineer reported that they would not work. There being great danger of drifting ashore, the sails were hoisted fore and aft, and the vessel got about, in order to get her before the wind, and keep her off the land. No attempt was made to anchor. 7. The vessel soon became unmanageable, and the tide setting strong to the south, she proceeded in that direction. It rained heavily during the whole time, and the fog was so dense that it be- came impossible to tell the situation of the vessel. At leno^th breakers were discovered close to lee- ward ; and the Fame lights, which about the same period became visible, left no doubt as to the im- minent peril of all on board. Captain Humble vainly attempted to avert the catastrophe by run- nino^ the vessel between the islands and the main- land ; but she would not answer her helm, and was impelled to and fro by a furious sea. Be- tween three and four o'clock she struck with her bows foremost on the rock, the ruggedness of w^hich is such that, at periods when it is dry, it is scarcely possible for a person to stand erect upon it ; and the edge which met the Forfarshire's tim- bers descends sheer down a hundred fathoms deep or more. MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 199 8. Very soon after the first shock a powerful wave struck the vessel on the quarter, and raising her off the rock allowed her immediately after to fall violently down upon it, the sharp edge strik- ing her about midships. She was by this fairly broken in two pieces ; and the after-part, contain- ing the cabin, with many passengers, was instantly carried off through a tremendous current called the Pifa Gut, which is considered dangerous even in good weather, while the forepart remained on the rock. The captain and his wife seem to have been among those who perished in the hinderpart of the vessel. 9. At the moment when the boat parted, sev- eral of the passengers betook themselves to the windlass in the forepart of the vessel, which they conceived to be the safest place. Here also a few sailors took their station, although despairing of relief. The sufferers, nine in number (five of the crew and four passengers) remained in their dreadful situation till daybreak — exposed to the buffeting of the waves amid darkness, and fear- ful that every rising surge would sweep the frag- ment of wreck on which they stood into the deep. Such was their situation when, as day broke on the morning of the 7th, they were descried from the Longstone by the Darlings, at a distance of nearly a mile. A mist hovered over the island ; 200 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS and though the wind had somewhat abated its vio- lence, the sea, ^vhich even in the calmest weather is never at rest among the gorges between these iron pinnacles, still raged fearfully. At the light- house there were only Mr. and Mrs. Darling and their heroic daughter. 10. To have braved the perils of that terrible passage then, would have done the highest honor to the well-tried nerves of even the stoutest of the male sex. But what shall be said of the errand of mercy being undertaken and accomplished mainly through the strength of a female heart and arm ? Through the dim mist, with the aid of the glass, the figures of the sufferers were seen cling- ing to the wreck. But who could dare to tempt the raging abyss that intervened, in the hope of succoring them ? Mr. Darling, it is said, shrank from the attempt — not so his daughter. At her solicitation the boat was launched, with the assist- ance of her mother, and father and daughter en- tered it, each taking an oar. It is worthy of being noticed that Grace never had occasion to assist in the boat previous to the wreck of the Forfarshire, others of the family being always at hand. 11. It could only have been by the exertion of great muscular power, as Avell as of determined courage, that the father and daughter carried the boat up to the rock; and when there, a danger. MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 201 greater even than that which they had encountered in ap- proaching it, arose from the difficulty of steadying the boat, and prevented its being destroyed on those sharp ridges by the ever-restless chafing and heaving of ^the billows. However, the nine sufferers were safely rescued. The deep sense 202 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. which one of the poor fellows entertained of the generous conduct of Darling and his daughter was testified by his eyes filling with tears when he described it. The thrill of delight, which he ex- perienced when the boat was observed approach- ing the rock, was converted into a feeling of amazement, which he could not find language to express, when he became aware of the fact that one of their deliverers was a woman ! The suffer- ers were conveyed at once to the lighthouse, which was in fact their only place of refuge at the time ; and owins: to the violent seas that continued to prevail among the islands, they were obliged to remain there for thi'ee days. 12. The subsequent events of Grace Darling's life are soon told. The deed she had done may be said to have wafted her name over all Europe. Immediately, on the circumstances being made known through the newspapers, that lonely light- house became the center of attraction to curious and sympathizing thousands, including many of the wealthy and the great, who, in most instances, testified by substantial tokens the feelings with which they regarded the young heroine. The Duke and Duchess of Northumberland invited her and her father over to Alnwick Castle, and presented her with a gold watch, which she always afterward wore when visitors came. MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 203 18. The Humane Society sent her a most flat- tering vote of thanks ; the president presented her with a handsome silver teapot ; and she received almost innumerable testimonials of greater or less value from admiring; strans^ers. With the view of rewarding her for her bravery and humanity, a public subscription was raised which is said to have amounted to about £700. Her name was echoed with applause among all ranks, portraits of her were eagerly sought for, and to such a pitch did the enthusiasm reach, that a large nightly sum Avas offered her by the j^roprietors of one or more of the metropolitan theatres and other places of amusement, on condition that she would merely sit in a boat, for a brief space, during the perform- ance of a piece whose chief attraction she was to be. All such offers were, however, promjjtly and steadily declined. It is, indeed, gratifying to state that, amid all this tumult of applause, Grace Darling never for a moment forgot the modest dignity of conduct which became her sex and sta- tion. The flattering testimonials of all kinds which were showered upon her never produced in her mind any feeling but a sense of wonder and grateful pleasure. She continued, notwithstand- ing the improvement of her circumstances, to re- side at the Longstone lighthouse with her father and mother, finding, in her limited sphere of do- 204 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. mestic duty on that sea-girt islet, a more honor- able and more rational enjoyment than could be found in the crowded haunts of the mainland, and thus affording by her conduct the best proof that the liberality of the public had not been unwor- thily bestowed. Chmnherss Miscellany. XXIV. THE INDIAN MUTINY. 1, Ojn^ February 24, 1857, there commenced in British India the most formidable mutiny that had ever broken out in that vast country — a mu- tiny which taxed the utmost powers of the state to quell, and called forth brilliant examples of heroic suffering and daring valor. It had more the form of a mutiny of the native soldiery than a general rebellion of the people, although the latter element was not altogether wanting. 2. The extreme length of India is about 1,900 miles, the extreme breadth about 1,600 — an area a hundred and fifty times as large as Great Britain ; and the natives are broadly distinguished by their religion into Hindoos and Mohammedans. The MISGELLANEOUti STORIES. 205 vast population of nearly 240,000,000 is made up of many nations and tribes. 3. In tlie year IBOO Queen Elizabeth gave a charter to a company of merchants to be called the East India Company, who were at first only traders, but gradually mixed themselves up with the quarrels of the native princes, and usually contrived to gain something out of each (quarrel. In this way they gradually acquired power over a large part of the country, and Lord Clive by splendid victories over the French in the Madras Presidency, and the native princes in Bengal, gained large dominions for the company, and, be- fore he finally left India, virtually established what might be called the British Empire in the East. A governor-general for all the British pos- sessions in India was first appointed in 1773, and, during the subsequent period of a century, this post has been occupied by a succession of eminent men 4. The portion of India which was in British hands at the time of the mutiny extended from the Himalayas on the north to Ceylon on the south, and from the Ganges on the east to the mouths of the Indus on the west, and was dotted here and there by independent or semi-independ- ent states. There were 132,000,000 natives of In- dia subject to British rule. 206 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS 5. These wide-spreading territories were de- fended by 280,000 soldiers in the pay of the com- pany, most of them being natives commanded by British officers. The most perilous element in this great force was the native regular infantry, com- prising one hundred and fifty-five complete regi ments. The Mohammedans joined in the mutiny with the hope of re-establishing a great Moslem empire, while the Hindoos had special motives of their own, connected chiefiy with religion and caste. Both races were alarmed and irritated upon the subject of the cartridges used for the recently introduced Enfield rifle — the Hindoos, lest the cartridges should be greased w4th the fat of the bullock or cow, and their mouths should be defiled in biting oif the ends, and they should lose caste ; while the Mohammedans feared that the lubricating grease contained the much-abhorred swine's fat — the swine being too vile for the one and the cow too sacred for the other to touch with their lips. 6. The first actual outbreak was at Berham- pore on February 24th, but was soon put down. On Sunday, May 10th, the real mutiny was begun at Meerut, not many miles from the famous city of Delhi. The native troops rose suddenly in arms, wounded or drove away their officers, and estab- lished a reign of terror, English ladies and chil- MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 207 dren were going to evening cliurcli when the tu- mult began, but almost all were massacred, wdiile City of Delhi. the officers' residences and government offices were burned to the ground. The English troops sta- tioned there were so distant from the native troops, and so utterly unprepared for such a scene, that they could not come to the rescue in time, and the native regiments, after the season of fire and slaughter, marched off to Delhi. This city at that time contained not a single British regiment, and all the Europeans in the place were a mere hand- ful. Not one single European was in a position 14 208 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS to give a connected account of that terrible day at Delhi. The families of the English officers and civilians were hunted about like wild beasts. Some took refuge in the jungle, some fled into the open plain, and some wandered they knew not whither, but all were followed up and cruelly murdered, and some were burned in their own buno^alows. The sufferin2:s were far more terrible than those at Meerut. 7. At the time of the breaking out of the mu- tiny British troops were comparatively few, were scattered all over the country, and were compara- tively tens among thousands. In the first half of May more than thirty native regiments suddenly turned their arms against their former masters, and by September twenty more had followed their example. Almost every one of these acts of mu- tiny were attended with misery and danger to English civilians, ladies and children, and the tales of suffering were often of the most touching and harrowing kind. 8. Of all the sad events which took place at this time, the most terrible was the slaughter of British soldiers, civilians, delicate women, and little children, at Cawnpore, by the miscreant Nana Sa- hib. Cawnpore, which is a large town on the river Ganges, six hundred and fifty miles from Calcutta, was under the command of Sir Hugh Wheeler, who MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 209 had very few English among his troops, and little hopes that re-enforcements could reach him from other quarters, while in the city were four native regiments. He caused a square plot of ground to be laid out on the grand military parade, and into this inclosure he caused to be conveyed a large amount of treasure, and enough provisions for thirty days' consumption for one thousand per- sons. There was near Cawnpore one Nana Sahib, a Mahratta prince, who conceived that the East India Company had wronged him, and, resolved upon revenge, he took the lead of the mutineers, and his leadership was all the more terrible be- cause he simulated friendship to the English. On June 5th the open mutiny began, and Wheeler di- rected all whom he could trust to come into the intrenchment. Nana Sahib openly took command of the insurgents, brought re-enforcements with him, and commenced a siege of the Europeans. There were upward of nine hundred people with- in the intrenchment, about one third of whom were women and children, and about two hundred were English soldiers. There they remained for three weeks, withstanding a siege from the muti- nied regiments, and enduring sufferings that can with difficulty be realized. The oxen were driven away because there was no water for them, the meat rations fell off, the native servants ran away ; 210 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. hogsheads of mm and beer were burst in by the enemy's cannon-balls, and then thirst followed in the train of fatigue, sickness, and wounds. 9. These three weeks were a terrible time, but the worst was yet to comeo Nana Sahib sent a messenger to say that all the English might retire to Allahabad, in boats down the Ganges, if they would give up the intrenchment, treasure, guns, and ammunition ; and, hopeless and worn down, they agreed to the proposal. On June 27th the remnant of the nine hundred started to embark in about twenty boats, when the Nana's villainous plan showed itself. Guns were brought down to the river-banks, rebel soldiers rushed into the ^vater and killed most of the men, while the women and children, exceeding two hundred in number, were conveyed on shore, w^here, after sufferings and cruel privations for eighteen days, they were put to death. 10. Seldom has a government been placed in such a position as the India authorities found them- selves. Measures were at once begun for the sup- pression of the mutiny, but the military move- ments which followed the foregoing events were so numerous and complicated that only a brief notice of some of the more important can be given. Gen- eral Neill advanced from Madras, and marched rap- idly to Benares, where a plot had been formed by MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 211 the sepoys to repeat the drama of Meeriit and Delhi. He had only two hundred and forty men and three Benares. guns with him, but he defeated the rebels and saved Benares. When this was known at Allaha- 212 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS bad, the native soldeirs there suddenly mutinied, and all the Europeans in the city were put to death, excepting a few who were fortunate enough to seek refuo;e in the fort. No soonor did Neill hear of this, than he started with only forty -four men, marched seventy -five miles in two days, and succeeded in entering the fort at Allahabad, where, by incessant activity, he kept in awe the thousands of insurgents who surrounded him. 11. General Havelock came from the Persian Gulf to Calcutta, from which he at once started with the few troops that could be hastily got to- gether, joining Neill at Allabahad, from which place he shortly afterward set off with less than two thousand men, and marched to Cawnpore, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, through a country infested by rebels in enormous numbers, whom he defeated every time he could get them to risk a fio^ht ; but he was so much delaved in his march that Nana Sahib's fiendish work was done before he arrived — the hapless women and chil- dren having been put to death just two days be- fore Havelock entered Cawnpore. 12. At Lucknow there was six months' display of heroism, military skill, and untiring patience- The British troops were a few hundreds in num- ber, while the native were many thousands. Just outside the city was a building which became very MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 213 famous — tlie Residency, It was a large inclosure, walled, and contaiuincr the cliief commissioner's r= '''S-^/t/^'^^^-^/.-^ The Residency. house and other public buildings. On July 1st Sir Henry Lawrence, who was in command, aban- doned all the outposts, blew up a vast magazine, to prevent it from falling into the enemy's hands, and shut himself up with all the Europeans in the Residency, there to make a stout resistance till aid might come. On the next day he was killed by a shot from the enemy, and was succeeded by Sir 214 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. Joliu Inglis. Their situatiou was critical in the extreme. No one could leave without danger of instant death, no friends could succor them, no food, drink, medicines, clothing, or ammunition could be brought in ; and within the inclosure were cooped up about twelve hundred people. The rebels kept up a continuous pouring in of shot and shell, and not for a single hour could the garrison relax their watchfulness. The sufferings were very great, and of a multifarious kind. In- glis tried every means of sending messengers to Cawnpore, with entreaties for aid, but very few escaped the alertness of the enemy. 13. In the mean time General Havelock was getting ready to succor them. He marched from Cawnpore on July 25th with fifteen hundred men, and engaged and defeated the rebels almost every day for about three weeks, when, in consequence of the loss of men, which he saw would, before he reached Lucknow, reduce his small force to too small a number to relieve the gallant band at the Residency, he recrossed the Ganges to Cawnpore to wait until re-enforcements reached him. Hear- ing that Nana Sahib had collected a large number of rebels to attack him, he and Neill marched out and thoroughly defeated them at Bithoor. On September 15th he was re-enforced by some troops under General Sir James Outram, and crossed again MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 215 into Oude. He beat back tlie enemy day after day, and on the 25tli he marched into Lucknow, and after hours' struggle, where every inch of ground had to be fought for, the British reached the Resi- dency, within which there was ahnost a frenzy of joy. A story is tokl that one Jessie Brown cheered the little baud, in the depth of their despair, by de- claring that she heard the slogan or war-cry of the approaching Highlanders long before the besieged had any idea that help was so near them. 14. The British soon found that they were still in a very perilous position. They could not take the women and children to a place of safety, and constant watchfulness was required to maintain their own position. For two months longer they were hemmed in, when they were relieved by Sir Colin Campbell. 15. The great point for the British was now the recapture of the city of Delhi, which was oc- cupied by twenty thousand rebel troops, and a force of eight thousand men commenced a siege of the city on June 8th. For more than three months the siege progressed, the British gradually getting re-enforced, until, in September, they were ten thousand men, and on the 14th of that month the city was stormed and captured after a desperate struggle. 16. The subsequent troubles and fightings in 216 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. India lasted until November, 1858, wlien Britisli power was finally re-established ; but it was done gradually, and at a lieavy sacrifice of life. The East India Company was abolished by act of Par- liament, and British India placed under the direct government of Queen Victoria. THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW. 17. Oh, that last day in Lucknow fort ! We knew it was the last, That the enemy's lines crept surely on. And the end was coming fast. 18. To yield to that foe meant worse than death. And the men and we all worked on ; It was one moi'e day of smoke and roar, And then it would all be done. 19. There was one of us, a corporal's wife, A fair, young, gentle thing, Wasted with fever in the siege, And her mind was wandering. 20. She lay on the ground, in her Scottish plaid, And I took her head on my knee ; " When my father comes hame fi^ae the pleugh," she said, " Oh ! then please w^auken me." MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 217 21. She slept like a cliild on lier father's flock, In the flecking of woodbine-shade, When the house-dog sp^a^vls by the open door, And the mother's wheel is stayed. 22. It was smoke and roar and powder-stench, And hopeless waiting for death ; And the soldier's wife, like a full- tired child, Seemed scarce to draw her breath. 23. I sank to sleep ; and I had my dream Of an English village lane, And wall and garden — but one wild scream Brought me back to the roar again ! 24. There Jessie Brown stood listening, Till a sudden srladness broke All over her face ; and she caught my hand And drew me near, as she spoke : 25. "The Hielanders ! Oh ! dinna ye hear The slogan far awa' ? The McGregors. Oh ! I ken it weel ; It's the grandest o' them a' ! 26. " God bless the bonnie Hielanders ! We're saved — we're saved ! " she cried. And fell on her knees ; and thanks to God Flowed forth like a full flood-tide. ^ MTSCELLANEOU.'^ STORIES. 219 27. Along the battery -line her cry Had fallen among the men^ And they started back — they were there to die ; And was life so near them, then ? 28. They listened for life ; the rattling fire Far off, and the far-oif roar, Were all ; and the colonel shook his head, And they turned to their guns once more. 29. But Jessie said : " The slogan's done. But winna ye hear it noo ? The Omnpbells are cmnin^ ! It's no a dream ; Our succors hae broken through ! " 30. We heard the roar and the rattle afar, But the pipes we could not hear ; So the men plied their work of hojjeless war, And knew that the end was near. 31. It was not long ere it made its way, A thrilling, ceaseless sound ; It was no noise from the strife afar. Or the sappers underground. 32. It was the pipes of the Highlanders, And now they played Atdd Lang Syne ; It came to our men like the voice of God, And they shouted along the line ! 220 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. 38. And they wept, and shook one another's hands, And the women sobbed in a crowd ; And every one knelt down where he stood, And we all thanked God aloud. 34. That happy thne, when we welcomed them, Our men put Jessie first ; And the general gave her his hand, and cheers Like a storm from the soldiers burst. 35. And the pipers' ribbons and tartans streamed. Marching round and round our line ; And our joyful cheers were broken with tears, As the pipes played Auld Lang Syne, Robert Lowell, XXV. THE RESCUE PARTY. 1. Dr. Edward Kat^e, an American naval surgeon, in 1853, volunteered to command an ex- pedition in search of the lost vessels of Sir John Franklin, which some supposed to be shut up by the ice in a basin of clearer, warmer water, such MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 221 as it was tlioiiglit iiiiglit exist round tlie nortli pole, aud the way to which might be opened or closed accoi'ding to the shifting of the icebergs. 2. His vessel was the brig Advance, and his course was directed through Davis Strait ; and on the way past the Danish settlements, in Grreenland, they provided themselves with a partially edu- cated young Esqui- mau as a hunter, and with a team of dogs, which were to be used in drawing sledges over the ice in explorations. 3. The whole expedition was one golden deed, but there is not space to describe it in all its de- tails ; we must confine ourselves to the most strik- ing episode in their adventures, hoping that it may send our readers to the book itself. The ship was brought to a standstill in Rafaelner Bay, on the west side of Smith Strait, between the seventy- ninth and eig-htieth desfrees of latitude. It was only the 10 th of September when the ice closed in Dr. Kane. 222 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS SO as to render further progress of the ship impos- sible. On the 7th of November the sun was seen for the last time, and darkness set in for one hun- dred and forty-one days — sucli darkness, at times, as was misery even to the dogs, who used to con- tend with one another for the power of lying with- in sight of the crack of light under the cabin-door. 4. Before the light failed, however, Dr. Kane had sent out parties to make caclies^ or stores of provisions at various intervals. These were to be used by the exploring companies whom he pro- posed to send out in sledges, while the ice was still unbroken, in hopes of thus discovering the way to the Polynia, or polar basin, in which he thought Franklin might be shut up. The same work was resumed with the first gleams of return- ing light in early spring ; and on the 18th of March a sledge was dispatched with eight men to arrange one of these depots for future use. 5. Toward midnight on the 29th, Dr. Kane and those who had remained in the ship were sewing moccasins in their warm cabin by lamp- light, when steps were heard above, and down came three of the absent ones, staggering, swollen, haggard, and scarcely able to speak. Four of their companions were lying under their tent frozen and disabled, ^' somewhere among the hummocks, to the north and east ; it was drifting heavily." A MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 223 brave Irishman, Thomas Hickey, had remained at the peril of his life to feed them, and these three had set out to try to obtain aid, but they were so utterly exhausted and bewildered, that they could hardly be restored sufficiently to explain them- selves. 6 Instantly to set out to the rescue was, of course, Dr. Kane's first thought, and, as soon as the facts had been ascertained, a sledge, a small tent, and some pemmican, or pounded and spiced meat, were packed up ; Mr. Ohlsen, who was the least disabled of the sufferers, was put into a fur bag, with his legs rolled up in dog-skins and eider- down, and strapped upon the sledge, in the hope that he would serve as a guide, and nine men, with Dr. Kane, set forth across the ice, in cold seventy- eight degrees below the freezing-point. 7. Mr. Ohlsen, who had not slept for fifty hours, dropped asleep as soon as the sledge began to move, and thus he continued for sixteen hours, during which the ten proceeded with some knowl- edge of their course, since huge icebergs of noted forms, stretching in " long beaded lines " across the bay served as a sort of guide-posts. But just when they had come beyond their knowledge, ex- cept that their missing comrades must be some- where within forty miles round, he awoke, evi- dently delirious and perfectly useless. Presently 15 224 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. they came to a long, level floe, or field of ice, and Dr. Kane, thinking it might hav^e been attractive to weary men unable to stagger over the wild hummocks and rugged surface of the other parts, he decided to search it thoroughly. He left the sledge, raised the tent, buried the pemmican, and took poor Ohlsen out of his bag, as he was just able to keep his legs, and the theiTQometer had sunk three degrees lower, so that to halt would have been certain death. The thirst was dread- ful, for there was no waiting to melt the snow, and in such a temperature, if it be not thawed be- fore touching the mouth, it burns like caustic, and leaves the lips and tongue bleeding. 8. The men were ordered to spread themselves, so as to search completely ; but though they read- ily obeyed, they could not help continually closing up together — either. Dr. Kane thought, from get- ting bewildered by the forms of the ice, or from the invincible awe and dread of solitude, acting on their shattered nerves in that vast field of in- tense, lonely whiteness, and in the atmosphere of deadly cold. The two strongest were seized with shortness of breath and trembling-fits, and Dr. Kane himself fainted twice on the snow. Thus they had spent two hours, having been nearly eighteen without water or food, when Hans, their Esquimau hunter, thought he saw a sledge-track MISCELLANEOUS STORIES. 225 in tlie snow, and thougli there was still a doubt whether it were not a mere rift made by the wind, they followed it for another hour, till at length they beheld the stars and stripes of the American flag fluttering on a hummock of snow, and close behind it was the tent of the lost. 9. Dr. Kane was among the last to come up ; his men were all standing in file beside the tent, waiting in a sort of awe for him to be the first to enter it and see whether their messmates still lived. He crawled into the darkness, and heard a burst of welcome from four poor helpless figures lying stretched on their backs. " We expected you ! We were sure you would come ! " and then burst out a hearty cheer outside ; and for the first time Dr. Kane was well-nigh overcome by strong feeling. 10. Here were fifteen souls in all to be brought back to the ship. The new-comers had traveled Avithout rest for twenty-one hours, and the tent would barely hold eight men, while outside, mo- tion was the only means of sustaining life. By turns, then, the rescue-party took two hours of sleep each, while those who remained awake paced the snow outside, and food having been taken, the homeward journey began, but not till all the sick had been undressed, rubbed, and newly packed in double buifalo-skins, in which — having had each limb swathed in reindeer-skins, they were laid on 226 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. their own sledge, and sewed up in one huge bale, with an opening over each mouth for breathing. This took four hours, and gave almost all the rescuers frost-bitten fingers ; and then, all hands standing round, a prayer was said, and the ten set out to drag the four in their sledge over ice and snow, now^ in ridges, now in hummocks, up and down, hard and wild beyond conception. Ohlsen was sufficiently restored to walk, and all went cheerfully for about six hours, when every one be- came sensible of a sudden failure of his powers. 11. ''Bonsall and Horton, two of our stoutest men, came to me, begging permission to sleep ; they were not cold, the wind did not enter them now ; a little sleep was all that they wanted." Presently Hans was found nearly stiff under a drift, and Thomas, bolt upright, had his eyes closed, and could hardly articulate. At last John Blake threw himself on the snow, and refused to rise. " They did not complain of feeling cold ; but it was in vain that I wrestled, boxed, ran, argued, jeered, or reprimanded, an immediate halt could not be avoided." So the tent was pitched again with much difficulty, for their hands w^ere too powerless to strike a light, and even the whis- ky, which had been put under all the coverings of the sledge, at the men's feet, was frozen. Into the tent all the sick and failing were put, and MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 227 James McGary was left in charge of them, with orders to come on after a halt of four hours, while Dr. Kane and William Godfrey pushed on ahead, meaning to reach the tent that had been left half- way, and thaw some food by the time the rest came up. 12. Happily, they were on a level tract of ice, for they could hardly have contended with difficulties in the nine miles they had still to go to this tent. They were neither of them in their right senses, but had resolution enough to keep moving, and imposing on one another a continued utterance of words ; but they lost all count of time, and could only remember having seen a bear walking leisurely along, and tearing up a fur garment that had been dropped the day before. The beast rolled it into a ball, but took no notice of them, and they proceeded steadily, so '^ drunken with cold " that they hardly had power to care for the sight of their half-way tent un- dergoing the same fate. However, their approach frightened away the bear, after it had done no worse than overthrowing: the tent. The exhausted pair raised it with much difficulty, crawled in, and slept for three hours. When they awoke. Dr. Kane's beard was frozen so fast to the buffalo- skin over him, that Godfrey had to cut him out with his jackknife ; but they had recovered their 228 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. faculties, and had time to make a fire, thaw some ice, and make some soup with the pemmican, be- fore the rest of the party arrived. 13. After having given them this refreshment, the last stage of the journey began, and the most severe ; for the ice was wild and rough, and ex- haustion was leading to the most grievous of losses — that of self-control. In their thirst, some could no longer abstain from eating snow : their mouths swelled, and they became sjDeechless ; and all were overpowered by the deadly sleep of cold, dropping torpid upon the snow. But Dr. Kane found that, when roused by force at the end of three minutes, these snatches of sleep did them good, and each in turn was allowed to sit on the runners of the sledge, watched, and awakened. The day was without mnd and sunshiny, other- wise they must have perished ; for the whole be- came so nearly delirious, that they retained no recollection of their proceedings ; they only traced their course afterward by their foot-marks. But when perception and memory w ere lost, obedience and self-devotion lived on; still these hungry, frost-bitten, senseless men, tugged at the sledge that bore their comrades, still held together and obeyed their leader, who afterward continued the soundest of the party. One was sent staggering forward, and was proved by the marks in the snow 230 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. to have repeatedly fallen ; but lie readied tlie brig safely, and was capable of repeating with perfect accuracy tlie messages Dr. Kane had charged him with for the surgeon. 14. A dog-team, with a sledge and some re- storatives, was at once sent out to meet the others, with the surgeon. Dr. Hayes, who was shocked at the condition in which he encountered them — four lying, sewed up in furs, on the sledge, which the other ten were drawing. These ten, three days since hardy, vigorous men, were covered with frost, feeble, and bent. They gave not a glance of recognition, but only a mere vacant, wild stare, and still staggered on, every one of them deliri ous. It was one o'clock in the afternoon of the third day that they arrived, after sixty-six hours exposure, during which they had been almost constantly on foot. Most of those who still kept their footing stumbled straight on, as if they saw and heard nothing, till they came to the ship's side, when, on Dr. Kane's word to halt, they dropped the lines, mounted the ship's side, and each made straight for his own bed, when he rolled in Just as he was, in all his icy furs, and fell into a heavy sleep. 15. There were only the seven who had been left with the ship (five of them being invalids) to carry up the four helpless ones, and attend to all MISCELLANEOUS STORIES 231 tlie rest. Dr. Kane, indeed^ retained bis faculties, assisted in carrying ttiem in, and saw them attend- ed to, after wliich lie lay down in his cot ; but after an hour or two he shouted, '' Halloo, on deck there ! " and when Dr. Hayes came to him, he gave orders "' to call all hands to lay aft, and take two reefs in the stove-pipe." In like manner, each of the party, as he awoke, began to rave, and for two days the ship was an absolute mad-house, the greater part of its inmates frantic in their several cots. Dr. Kane was the first to recover — Ohlsen the last, his mind constantly running upon the search for his comrades in the tent, which he thought himself the only person able to discover. Of those whom the party had gone to assist, good " Irish Tom " soon recovered ; but two died in the course of a few days, and the rest suffered very severely. 16. The rest of Dr. Kane's adventures can not here be told ; suffice it to say that his ship re- mained immovable, and, after a second winter of terrible suffering from the diseases induced by the want of fresh meat and vegetables — the place of which was ill-supplied by rats, puppies, and scurvy- grass — it was decided to take to the boats ; and^ between these and sledges, the ship's company of the Advance at last found their way to Greenland, after so long a seclusion from all European news 232 STORIES OF OTHER LANDS. that, when first they heard of the Crimean War, they thought an alliance between England and France a mere hallucination of their ignorant in- formant. Dr. Kane — always an unhealthy man — died soon after his return ; but he survived long enough to put on record one of the most striking and beautiful histories of patience and unselfish- ness that form part of the best treasury this world has to show. THE END. JOHONNOT'S WORKS The Sentence and Word Book. A GUIDE TO WRITING, SPELLING, AND COMPOSITION BY THE WORD AND SENTENCE METHODS. By James Johonnot. 12mo. 184 pages. In teaching reading, those who practice the word and sentence methods have met with a serious difficulty. Thev can not find, m sufficient number, simple lessons with words expressing the' ideas of home and of youthful experience. The ordinary reading-lessons do not contain these words, and the teacher lias not time to search them out and arrange them in proper sentences. Johonnot s "Sentence and Word Book" has been prepared with special reference to the dif- ficulty here encountered. It selects and arranges words. It deals with familiar topics. It groups words that express ides^s upon the same topic. It uses new words in such combinations that their meanings are understood. It is designed to help the teacher in all elementary lauguage-instructioD, and especially in spelling-lessons. A Geographical Reader, A COLLECTION OF GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTIONS AND EXPLANATIONS FROM THE BEST WRITERS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. Classified and arranged to meet the wants of Geo- graphical Students, and the higher grades of reading classes. By James Johonnot. It is original and unique in conception and execution. It is varied in style, and treats of everrj variet)/ of geographical topic. It supplements the geographical text-books, and, by giving additional interest to the study, it leads tlie pupil to more extensive geographical reading and research. It is not simply a collection of dry statistics and outline descriptions, but mvid narrations of great literary merit, that convey nseful information and promote general culture. It conforms to the philosophic ideas upon which the new education is based. Its selections are from the best standard anthorities. It Is embellished with thirty-one beautiful and instructive illustrations. Principles and Practice of Teaching. By James Johonnot. Contents: I. What is Education ; II. The Mental Powers : their Order of De- velopment, and the Methods most conducive to Normal Growth ; III. Objective Teaching: its Methods, Aims, and Principles: IV. Subjective Teaching: its Aims and Place in the Course of Instruction; V. Object-Lessons : their \alue and Limitations ; VI. Relative Value of the Difi"erent Studies in a Course of II- strnction ; VIT. Pestalozzi, and his Contributions to Educational Science; VIII. Froebel and the Kindergarten; IX. Agassiz; and Science in its Relation to Teaching; X. Contrasted Systems of Education; XI. Physical Culture; XII. Esthetic Culture ; XIII. Moral Culture ; XIV. A Course of Study ; XV. Country Schools. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, Boston, Chicago, NEW YORK, Atlanta, San Francisco APPLETONS' SCHOOL READERS, BY WM. T. HARRIS, L'... D., Sup't of Schools, St. Louis, Mo. A. J. RICKOFF, A. M., Sup't of Instruction, Cleveland, Ohio. MARK BAILEY, A.M., Inst?'Uctor i7i Elocution, Yale College. CONSISTING OF FIVE BOOKS, SUPERBLY ILLUSTRATED, Appletons' First Reader. Child's Quarto. 90 pages. In the First Reader the combined word and phonic methods are ad mirably developed and carefully graded. In the first 52 pages (Part I), in connection with beautiful and child-life reading-lessons, are taught the names of all the letters, the short sounds of the vowels, and the sounds of the consonants and diphthongs. In Part II are found a systematic marking of silent letters and the more easily distinguished sounds of vowels, and a continued drill in the sounds of consonants. The aim is to make the pupil acquainted with the forms and powers of letters, and the sound, construction, and meaning of words. The pictorial illustra- tions have been made a feature not only of unusual attractiveness, but are instructive and interesting adjuncts to the text, as subjects for study and oral exercises. Appletons' Second Reader. 12mo. 143 pages. This continues the plan of the First, and gives a complete table of all the vowel and consonant sounds with their markings according to Webster — "A Key to Pronunciation." Preceding each reading-lesson the new words of that lesson are carefully marked for a spelling-exercise. This Reader gives prominence to the phonic analysis and the noting of silent letters, to the placing of diacritical marks, which must be learned by practice in marking words ; also, to the spelling of words and to sentence, making, using the words occurring in the reading-lessons. A.ppletons' Third Reader. 12mo. 214 pages. In this Reader the plan of the second is continued, with the addition of some important features, notably the lessons " How to read,'' placed at intervals through the book. They form the preliminary instruction in elocution which Professor Bailey has developed in this and the succeed ing volumes in a masterly and unique manner. The selection of "comparatively common words," yet such as are easily and usually misspelled, numberiug about five hundred, given at the close, is a feature of very great practical value, and answers beyond cavil the question sometimes asked, " Ought not a speller to accompany or precede the series ? " [see next page.] APPLET ON 8' SCHOOL READERS.— (Contmned.) Introductory Fourth Beader. I'imo. Desi"-ned for those pupils who have finished the Third Reader, and are yet too young or too immature to take up the Fourth. Appletons' Fourth Reader. 12mo. 248 pages. It is here that the student enters the domain of literature proper and makes the acquaintance of the standard writers of " Enghsh undetiled in their best style. Having received adequate preparation m the previous books, he is now able to appreciate as well as to assimilate the higher classics now before him. A new and invaluable feature in the editorship of this and the next volume is the "Preparatory Notes" appended to each selection, for the aid of both teacher and pupil. The elocutionary work commenced in the Third Reader is continued and gradually advanced to the higher phases of the subject. Spelling- exercises are also appended, introducing " Words difficult to spell," with both phonic and what are usually known as orthographic principles for- mulated into rules. Beautifully engraved full-page illustrations embeUisb the interior of the book, and render it artistically chaste and attractive. Appletons' Fifth Reader. 12mo. 4V1 pages. This Reader is the one to which the editors have given their choicest efforts. The elementary principles of the earlier volumes are not forgot- ten in this, but are subordinated to matters germane to more advanced teaching. The " Preparatory Notes " are more advanced than those of the preceding Reader, and seek to direct the mind more to style and the literary character, and lastly to the logical element of the thought. Liter- ary history and criticism are woven into the work in such way as to evoke thought and inquiry in the mind of the young. Extracts are given from Webster Jefferson, Irving, Audubon, Cooper, Emerson, Wirt, and Wash- ington, along with others from De Quincey, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Byron, Shelley, Milton, Coleridge, and Shakespeare ; and with these is a vast amount of valuable information of every kind. It is, indeed, a text-book of bclles-letfres, as well as of reading and spelling. Professor Bailey's lessons in elocution are fuller than in })receding volumes, and can probably not be equaled in the language for perspicuous brevity and completeness. All the departments of recitation — the earnest and plain, the noble, the joyous, the sad — sarcasm, scorn, humor, passion, poetry — are given clearly and practically. The collection of " Unusual and Difficult Words " at the close comprises fifty-four lists of words which should always be kept in mind by the student. D. APPLETON d CO., Publishers, NEW YORK, BOSTON, CHICAGO, ATLANTA, SAN FRANCISCO. KRtiSrS FREE-HAND, INVENTIVE, AND INDUSTRIAL DRAWING. Adapted to the Requirements of all Grades of Schools. By Hermann Krusi, a. M., Instructor in the Philosophy of Education at the Normal and Training tSchool, Oswego, N. Y. ; and formerly Teacher of Drawing in the Home and Colonial Training School, London. EASY DRAWING LESSONS, for Kindergarten and Primary Schools. Three Series, Twelve Cards each, with Instructions. GRADED COURSE. New revised edition. Part I. Synthetic Series. (Primary.) Four Drawing-Books and a Manual for Teachers. Part II. Analytic Series, (Intermediate.) Four Books and Manual. Part III. Perspective Series. (Grammar and High School.) Four Books and Manual. Kriisi's New System of Drawing is pre-eminently adapted to meet the wants of our public-school instruction in this branch. It is strictly progressive, and adapted to every grade, from the pri- mary classes to the higher departments of the high-school. It has for its basis a knowledge of the actual forms in Nature, lead- ing the mind to accurate observation, as well as training the hand to skillful and artistic representation. It acknowledges the fact that children have a great deal of ingenuity and power of combination, and like to wander in the regions of fancy. It therefore supplies an Inventive Course, restricted only by the laws of taste and order. It applies art to all the wants and requirements of industry. In short, it is the only system which has fully, philosophically, and practically, developed the subject for public instruction in our common schools. SUPPLEMENTARY SERIES. No. 1. Elementary Leaves and Flowers. No. 2. Animals in Outline. No. 3. Studies of the Human Form. No. 4. Exercises in Shading, Foliage, and Trees. No. 6. Landscapes. No. 6. Flowers. THE ORIGINAL-DRAWING BOOK. By Edward L. Chi- chester. Designed as a Supplementary Drawing-Book, and especially adapted to Kriisi's Synthetic Drawing Series. The author tells the story of " Tim's Journey," and the pupil illustrates it by drawing the objects described, in blank spaces left for the purpose. It is arranged for twenty-nine large illustrations. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. KRtJSrS INDUSTRIAL DRAWING, ELEMENTARY MECHANICAL DRAWING. By Frank B. Morse, Instructor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Six Books. This course gives a knowledge of the uses of different drawing instru- ments, with practical exercises, line and brush shading, and the conven- tional methods of representing different materials used in construction, as earth, stone, wood, and metals. It then presents and explains all the useful problems in geometrical drawing, with their practical applications. ELEMENTARY ARCHITECTURE. By Charles Babcock, Professor of Architecture, Cornell University. Nine Books. The series includes the course pursued by the students in the archi- tectural department of the University, and contains the practice necessary for every student in architecture. It is eminently practical, and the work furnishes that training of the muscles and knowledge of the use of instru- ments which practical life demands. OUTLINE AND RELIEF DESIGNS, representing Architectural and Sculptural Ornaments, and their Historical Development. By E. C. Cleaves, Professor of Di-awing and Designing, Cornell Uni- versity, Six Books. This series is a companion to that upon the Elements of Architecture, and, while serving its purpose of furnishing valuable drawing-lessons, and instruction in the decorative art, it will also be found of great value as illustrating the successive steps in aesthetic attainment, and the effect of natural environment in determining the taste of a people. TEXTILE DESIGNS, for Calico and other Print Goods, Carpets, Wall-Paper, Silks, Laces, Cashmeres, and the like. By Charles Kastner, Lowell Professor of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Six Books. The series upon Textile Designs is intended to show the application of the general principles of drawing to designing ; to give practical instruc- tion in the technical preparation of designs for the various fabrics ; and to cultivate the taste, so that a higher art may result. KRUSI'S DRAWING TABLETS, for Elementary Exercises in Drawing. Prepared especially to accompany the Easy Drawing Les- sons and the Synthetic Course. Oblong 16mo. 36 sheets, ruled on one side in quarter-inch spaces. PRIMARY DRAWING CARDS. For Slate and Blackboard Exercises, In two Parts of twelve Cards and thirty-six Exercises each. Accompanied by instructions for drawing, and a test ruler. By M. J. Green. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 8, & 5 Bond Street. APPLETONS' NEW ARITHMETICS TWO VOLUMES. Magnificently Illustrated. Philosophically Treated. THE SERIES: L NUMBERS ILLUSTRATED And applied in Language, Drawing, and Beading Lessons. An Arithmetic for Primary Schools. By ANDREW J. RICKOFF and E. C. DAVIS. II. NUMBERS APPLIED. A Complete Arithmetic for all Grades. Prepared on the Lnductive Method, with many new and especially practical features. By ANDREW J. RICKOFF, |^W° These books are the result of extended research as to the best methods no\v in use, and many years' practical experience in class-room work and school supervision. The appearance of this series has been awaited with great interest by leading educators, as it is intended to give all that has proved most successful in arithmetical work, while it presents some new methods of illustration, pictorially and otherwise, that will make the introduction to the study especially interesting and instructive. Send for full particulars at once. A glance, even, through these books will he instructive to any teacher. D. Appleton & Co., Publishers, NEW YORK, BOSTON, CHICAGO, ATLANTA, SAN FRANCISCO. W 6 0, - N ^-t \.*^'?^''/ V'*^'*<** %'^-**/ .. ^o yj^^\ ^. AT .'^%i>]