is, and leaving all the ordinary
affairs of the State in the hands of agents, amused himself with his
violin and in chasing rabbits. As more serious employment, he gave
pompous receptions, and enveloped himself in imperial ceremony and the
most approved courtly etiquette. He still, however, insisted upon giving
his approval to all measures adopted by his ministers, before they were
carried into execution. But as he was too busy with his entertainments,
his music and the chase, to devote much time to the dry details of
government, papers were accumulating in a mountainous heap in his
cabinet, and the most important business was neglected.

Charles XII. was now King of Sweden; Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia;
George I., King of England; and the shameful regency had succeeded, in
France, the reign of Louis XIV. For eighteen years a bloody war had been
sweeping the plains of Poland, Russia and Sweden. Thousands had been
torn to pieces by the enginery of war, and trampled beneath iron hoofs.
Millions of women and children had been impoverished, beggared, and
turned out houseless into the fields to moan and starve and die. The
claims of humanity must ever yield to the requisitions of war. This
fierce battle of eighteen years was fought to decide which of three men,
Peter of Russia, Charles of Sweden, or Augustus of Poland, should have
the right to exact tribute from Livonia. This province was a vast
pasture on the Baltic, containing about seventeen thousand square miles,
and inhabited by about five hundred thousand poor herdsmen and tillers
of the soil.

Peter the Great was in the end victorious in this long conflict; and
having attached large portions of Sweden to his territory, with a navy
upon the Baltic, and a disciplined army, began to be regarded as a
European power, and was quite disposed to make his voice heard in the
diplomacy of Europe. Queen Anne having died, leaving no children, the
law of hereditary descent carried the crown of England to Germany, and
placed it upon the brow of the Elector of Hanover, who, as grandson of
James I., was the nearest heir, but who could not speak a word of
English, who knew nothing of constitutional law, and who was about as
well qualified to govern England as a Patagonian or Esquimaux would have
been. But obedience to this law of hereditary descent was a political
necessity. There were thousands of able men in England who could have
administered the government with honor to them