eption.

_"The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed.
And the heavy night hung dark,
The hills and waters o'er
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea;--
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!"_

I stood behind the screens of the royal palace on the 30th of January,
1649, in the presence of the cruel Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, and the
fanatical Milton, and saw their glee when the axe of the executioner
severed the head of King Charles the First, for the delectation of the
beastly and vulgar multitude that howled approbation of the bloody scene;
and yet, only twelve years after, I saw the crumbling, dead, naked bodies
of Oliver Cromwell, his son, Ireton and Bradshaw, trundled along the
streets of London, grappled by Parliamentary order from their graves, and
hung on the gallows of Tyburn, their broken bones buried at the foot of the
scaffold, while their withered, rotten heads were placed on the southern
coping of Westminster Hall.

Thus, the compensating balances of life and death, right and wrong, forever
tip the beam of justice.

_The prince and the pauper,
The serf and the slave,
Are equal at last--
In the dust of the grave!_

I saw the wonderful Muscovite monarch,

PETER THE GREAT,

as he rose out of the huge, brutal giant of Russian force, flash on the
world like a zigzag meteor, lighting up his imperial dominions with
barbaric splendor.

At the age of twenty-six, 1698, I saw him working with hammer, chisel, saw
and axe as a common ship carpenter at Amsterdam and Deptford, entertaining
ambassadors and kings, while he sat on the crosstrees of a new built ship.
I met him again on the barren swamps of the Neva and icy shores of the
Baltic, giving orders for the building of his new capital, St. Petersburg,
in May, 1703, and in June, 1708, watched the compact columns of the great
Czar rush down upon Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, and on the plains of
Pultowa, scatter forever the hitherto unconquerable hosts of Scandinavia;
and then after a great reign he crowned the peasant girl, Catherine of
Livonia, Empress of all the Russias, the most energetic and remarkable
female ruler since the days of Semiramis, Isabella and Elizabeth.

I w