l
remnant left of the kingdom was parted between the greedy aspirants, and
on the 1st of January, 1796, Warsaw was handed over to Prussia, to whose
share of the spoils it appertained.

In this arbitrary manner was a kingdom which had an area of nearly three
hundred thousand square miles and a population of twelve millions, and
whose history dated back to the tenth century, removed from the map of
the world, while the heavy hand of oppression fell upon all who dared to
speak or act in its behalf. One bold stroke for freedom was afterwards
made, but it ended as before, and Poland is now but a name.

_SUWARROW THE UNCONQUERABLE._

Of men born for battle, to whose ears the roar of cannon and the clash
of sabres are the only music, the smoke of conflict their native
atmosphere, Suwarrow (Suvarof, to give him his Russian name) stands
among the foremost. A little, wrinkled, stooping man, five feet four
inches in height and sickly in appearance, he was the last to whom one
would have looked for great deeds in war or mighty exploits in the
embattled field. Yet he had the soul of a hero in his diminutive frame,
and even as a boy the passion for military glory fired his heart, Caesar
and Charles XII. of Sweden (from which country his ancestors came) being
the heroes worshipped by his youthful imagination. Born in 1729, he
entered the army as a private at seventeen, but rapidly rose from the
ranks, made himself famous in the Seven Years' War and in the Polish war
of 1768-71, and from that time until death put an end to his career was
almost constantly in the field. Napoleon, against whose armies he fought
in his later days, was not more enraptured with the breath of battle
than was this war-dog of the Russian army.

Diminutive and sickly as he looked, Suwarrow was strong and hardy, and
so inured to hardship that the severity of the Russian climate failed
to affect his vigorous frame. Disdaining luxury, and ignoring comfort,
he lived like the soldiers under his command, preferring to sleep on a
truss of hay, and accepting every privation which his men might be
called on to endure. He was a man of high intelligence, a clever
linguist, and a diligent reader even when on campaign, and religiously
seems to have been very devout, being ready to kneel and pray before
every wayside image, even when the roads were deep with mud.

In his ordinary manners he carried eccentricity to an extravagant
extent, was brusque and curt in s