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They err, who count it glorious to subdue
Large countries, and in field great battles win
Great cities by assault: what do these worthies,
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave
Peaceable nations, neighbr'ing or remote,
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more
Than these their conqu'rors, who leave behind.
Nothing but ruin wheresoe'er they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy;
Then swell with pride, and must be titled gods,
Great benefactors of mankind, deliv❜rers,
Worshipp'd with temples, priests, and sacrifice;
Till conqu'ror Death discover them scarce men?"

Milton.

-He had not met with Death, but another conqueror, who had furnished him with a second edition of the Acre. After having expelled Eagle Frederic from his manor, the Bantam had marched into Noland, a part of which be longed to the lord of the Bearskins, and there he was encountered by the Bearskin forces. After an almost continued series of very sanguinary battles, the little Man found that he had met with his master again, and he was obliged to begin his retreat, in which his army was harassed by the

conquerors and daily diminished. It appeared that he was an instrument in the hand of Providence, who had hitherto protected him for his wise purposes; and laughed to scorn all the attempts of earthly lords to bring him down. His downfall was to be effected only at his own time, and by such instruments as he should choose; and both the one and the others were when, and by whom it was least expected. It was as if he had said:-The glory shall be mine alone!—The ambitious, sanguinary, haughty despot no sooner experienced that

Victory not always is entail'd:

The wise their conduct lose; the strong, their force • 'Tis heav'n alone the fate of empire weighs;

Whose pow'r, resistless by all human force,
Derides our prudence, and our shallow foresight,
By interposing the minutest accidents,

Unthought-of, unforeseen by man's dim eyes,
Tears from the victor what he thought secure,
And turns the fate of battle."

-He no sooner experienced the truth of all this, and beheld the sanguinary field bestrewed with infinitely greater numbers of his own troops,

than of the enemy, than with affected philan. thropy he bewailed the effects of wild ambi tion, attributing them, however, to his victori ous enemy. But these hypocrites deceive themselves most, who imagine that they deceive the world. The crocodile!

"In Egypt thus, from the fermented mud,
The genial Sun raises a monstrous brood:
Th' amphibious monster quits his wat❜ry den
With hideous rush, and sweeps the trembling plain :
Destroys all round! yet then, with pious tears,
He moans, he murders; weeps, but never spares."

When Xerxes, king of Persia, was leading an army of 200 0000men from Asia into Europe to invade Greece, he is said to have made this humane reflection: "How sad it is to

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think, that, of so many thousand fine men, in an hundred years time, there would not be one remaining!" And he is said to have wept at this instance of the instability and uncertainty of human affairs. He, as well as the Bantam, might have found another subject of reflection, which would have more justly merited tears and affliction; if they had turned their

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thoughts upon themselves, and considered the reproaches which they deserved for being the instruments of shortening the lives of so many millions of their fellow-creatures by unjust and unnecessary wars.

CHAPTER X.

THE BRUSHITES GET INTOXICATED, and UNTHINKINGLY DISCOVER THEIR NAKEDNESS. FARMER GILDRIG'S EYES ARE OPENED, AND HE DISMISSES THE DISTURBERS OF HIS PEACE.

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ALREADY as drunk with popularity, as the Bantam was with victory,-little matters affect light heads) the Brushites were in the situation of men, who, being far gone with liquor, still thirst for more; and, like the Bantam, too, they at length discovered their nakedness.

The arrogance of the former keepers of St. Peter's Keys, in claiming a spiritual and even temporal supremacy over all earthly kingdoms, is well known, and too often repeated in former Romances to find a place in this. The claim, however ridiculous, had been formerly allowed in Freeland, and in Bogland, which we have