second line in reserve, and posted troops on the wings to fire into the flanks of the Highlanders as they charged. The impetuous Highland charge broke as usual through the first line, but made no impression on the second. Between four and five hundred fell dead or desperately wounded between the two lines of the English. This was almost all the fighting at Culloden; the rest was little more than pursuit, slaughter, and butchery. The prince himself, after much suffering and many dangers, got safely back to France.

FREDERIC THE GREAT.

Frederic, surnamed the Great, son of Frederic William, King of Prussia, was born in January, 1712. He received from nature a strong and sharp understanding and a rare firmness of temper and intensity of will. The history of his boyhood is painfully interesting. His father was the most eccentric king in Europe. His great pride was his army, especially his regiment of giants, and for him the one business of life was to drill and be drilled. The prince royal showed little inclination for the serious employments or the amusements of his father. He shirked the duties of the parade, he performed skilfully on the flute, and had a strong passion for French literaHe was constantly ill-treated by his father. His flute was broken, his French books were sent away, and he was himself kicked and cudgelled. At last the unhappy youth tried to run away, was seized and tried as a deserter, and was condemned to death. One of his companions was actually shot, and the prince himself was long kept a prisoner in close confinement.

ture.

In 1740 he became king of Prussia, and within a few months died Charles, the emperor of Germany. The emperor's only child was the beautiful and famous Archduchess Maria Theresa.

For many years past the constant anxiety of the emperor had been to secure the succession in all his dominions to his daughter, and nearly every country of Europe had become bound to maintain this succession. But Frederic determined to revive certain ancient claims. which Prussia had to the rich province of Silesia. He assembled a great army with speed and secrecy. It was the depth of winter. The cold was severe, and the roads heavy with mire. But the Prussians pressed on. Resistance was impossible, and before the end of January, 1741, Frederic returned in triumph to Berlin.

This was the signal for the breaking out of a great war. France and Bavaria united in an attack upon Austria-George II. of England was the only ally left to Maria Theresa. The war lasted till 1748, though Frederic made peace in 1745. Many battles were lost and won, England, for her share, winning at Dettingen and losing at Fontenoy. Prague was taken twice by the Prussians, and in the end Frederic kept firm hold of Silesia.

Prussia enjoyed ten years of peace, in which Frederic laboured earnestly for the improvement of his country. He secured to his people the great blessing of cheap and speedy justice. He abolished the cruel and absurd practice of torture. No sentence of death was executed without his sanction, and his sanction, except in cases of murder, was rarely given. Religious persecution was unknown under his government. Every form of religion and irreligion found an asylum in his states. The Jesuit, who could show his face nowhere else in Europe, found

safety and the means of subsistence in the Prussian dominions.

In August, 1756, war broke out again-the terrible Seven Years' War. Maria Theresa, now the Empress of Germany, never surrendered the hope of recovering Silesia, and had now secured the alliance of Russia, and even of Austria's ancient rival, France. Such odds had never been heard of in war. The people whom Frederic ruled were not five millions. The population of the countries which were leagued against him amounted to a hundred millions. His long, scattered, straggling territory was protected by no sea, by no chain of hills. Scarcely any corner of it was a week's march from the territory of the enemy. All the world expected the war would be terminated in a very few days. Frederic himself anticipated nothing short of his own ruin, and of the ruin of his family.

One bright spot only could Frederic discern. England was struggling with France both in India and in America, and now became the ally of Frederic. The fighting which the English did in Europe was comparatively unimportant, but the subsidies she gave to Prussia were an immense help.

Frederic, as was his wont, did not wait to be attacked. He demanded of the empress a distinct explanation of her intentions. He received an answer at once haughty and evasive. In an instant the rich electorate of Saxony was overflowed by sixty thousand Saxon troops. Before the year was out all Saxony was firmly in his grasp.

The year 1757 was a memorable one. Frederic plunged into Bohemia, and fought under the walls of Prague a battle more bloody than any which Europe had seen since Malplaquet. His loss was tremendous, and within a month he was defeated at Kolin by Marshal Daun, the

most cautious of all the Austrian generals. The stroke seemed to be final. The siege of Prague was raised, and the Prussian army was hurried by different routes out of Bohemia. Troubles from other quarters gathered thick upon Frederic, and his face was so haggard and his form. so thin that as he passed through Leipsic the people hardly knew him again. At the beginning of November the net seemed to have closed completely round him. The Russians were spreading devastation through his eastern provinces. Silesia was overrun by the Austrians. A great French army was advancing from the west under the command of Marshal Soubise. Berlin itself had been taken and plundered by the Croatians. Such was the situation from which Frederic extricated himself with dazzling glory in the short space of thirty days.

He marched first against Soubise. On the 5th of November the armies met at Rosbach. The French were two to one, but they were completely defeated. Seven thousand of the invaders were made prisoners. Their guns, their colours, their baggage, fell into the hands of the conquerors. Victorious in the west, the king turned his arms towards Silesia. On the 5th of December, with forty thousand men, he met the Austrians at Leuthen with sixty thousand. When the armies were set in battle array the Prussian troops were in a state of fierce excitement. The columns moved to the attack chanting, to the sound of drums and fifes, the rude hymns of the old Saxon Sternholds. They had never fought so well, nor had the genius of their chief ever been so conspicuous. "That battle," said Napoleon, "was a masterpiece. Of itself it is sufficient to entitle Frederic to a place in the first rank among generals." The victory was complete. Twenty-seven thousand Austrians were killed, wounded,

or taken; fifty stand of colours and a hundred guns fell into the hands of the Prussians.

The war went on for six years longer, and Frederic's fortunes were chequered with victory and defeat. The miseries suffered by the country were horrible. Berlin was again taken by the enemy, and there was hardly a province that had not suffered invasion and desolation. The empress at length gave way. Russia had already withdrawn from the strife, and France and England paired off together. In February, 1763, peace was made. Frederic ceded nothing. The whole continent in arms had proved unable to tear Silesia from that iron grasp.

He entered Berlin in triumph, after an absence of more than six years. The streets were brilliantly lighted up; and the multitude saluted him with loud praises and blessings. He was moved by those marks of attachment, and repeatedly exclaimed, "Long live my dear people! Long live my children!"-Macaulay.

LORD CLIVE.

Robert Clive, the founder of the British empire in India, was born in 1725 at Market Drayton in Shropshire. As a lad he was wild and daring, and it was long remembered how he climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of Market Drayton, and sat on a stone spout near the summit. At school he was a dunce, and at eighteen a writership in the service of the East India Company was procured for him, and he was shipped off to make a fortune or to die of a fever at Madras.

His situation at Madras was most painful. His funds were exhausted. His pay was small. He had contracted