stein, and Scania. The Swedes were
divested of all their conquests, and one hundred and fifty thousand of
them became prisoners in foreign lands.

Such were the reverses of a man who had resolved to play the part of
Alexander, but who, so long as he contented himself with defending his
country against superior forces, was successful, and won a fame so
great, that his misfortunes could never reduce him to contempt.

[Sidenote: Charles's Return to Sweden.]

When all was lost, he signified to the Turkish vizier his desire to
return to Sweden. The vizier neglected no means to rid his master of
so troublesome a person. Charles returned to his country impoverished,
but not discouraged. The charm of his name was broken. His soldiers
were as brave and devoted as ever, but his resources were exhausted.
He succeeded, however, in raising thirty-five thousand men, in order
to continue his desperate game of conquest, not of defence. Europe
beheld the extraordinary spectacle of this infatuated hero passing, in
the depth of a northern winter, over the frozen hills and ice-bound
rocks of Norway, with his devoted army, in order to conquer that
hyperborean region. So inured was he to cold and fatigue, that he
slept in the open air on a bed of straw, covered only with his cloak,
while his soldiers dropped down dead at their posts from cold. In the
month of December, 1718, he commenced the siege of Fredericshall, a
place of great strength and importance, but, having exposed himself
unnecessarily, was killed by a ball from the fortress. Many, however,
suppose that he was assassinated by his own officers who were wearied
with endless war, from which they saw nothing but disaster to their
exhausted country.

[Sidenote: His Death.]

His death was considered as a signal for the general cessation of
arms; but Sweden never recovered from the mad enterprises of
Charles XII. It has never since been a first class power. The national
finances were disordered, the population decimated, and the provinces
dismembered. Peter the Great gained what his rival lost. We cannot but
compassionate a nation that has the misfortune to be ruled by such an
absolute and infatuated monarch as was Charles XII. He did nothing for
the civilization of his subjects, or to ameliorate the evils he
caused. He was, like Alaric or Attila, a scourge of the Almighty, sent
on earth for some mysterious purpose, to desolate and to destroy. But
he died unlamented and unhonored.