lines, was covered by a special battalion. Upon this a vast body of the enemy's cavalry now rushed, took both the battery and the battalion captive, and then advanced against the main body of the army, but was here received with so hot a fire as to be speedily obliged to retire. On this the captive battalion broke away, and shouting " Victory! Long live the king!" rode back to the Prussians. Frederick advancing to meet them, cried out, "Children, do not shout victory awhile; I will tell you when it is time for that!" At the same instant new hosts of Russian cavalry rushed on the Prussian left wing, which was composed of the regiments under Count Dohna, some of whom had already fled on the first assault on the left wing. A panic seized them a second time, and they once more fled most shamefully from the field of battle. It was here again reserved for Seidlitz, the hero of the day, to ward off the imminent danger which now threatened. Dashing with his valiant troops down upon the enemy, he drove the Russian cavalry back in wild disorder, and in the face of a well-sustained fire of musketry and grape, charged such of the Russian lines as still stood. Frederick, too, soon came on with the veteran battalions of his infantry; and now a second butchery ensued, similar to that which had already crushed the left wing of the Russians. The fight was now carried on man to man, it being impossible for either division to retain its ranks. Russians and Prussians, cavalry and infantry, all were compressed into one dense mass. Fre-, derick was himself engaged in the middle of the affray, and his pages taken captive, wounded, and killed by his side. The frightful dust of this burning day, together with the smoke perpetually issuing from the cannons' mouths, made it impossible to recognize the face of friend or foe. His' troops could recognize their king solely by his voice. Neither party surpassed the other in point of valour, but the discipline of the Prussians eventually prevailed. Their leader succeeded in again drawing them from out the wild mingled mass; and as evening sank, such of the Russians as had not been slaughtered were driven from the field of battle.

THE EMPRESS MARIA THERESA.

T often happens that a single, well-judged action fixes the future destiny of the agent. This was remarkably the case on that memorable occasion where the celebrated Maria Theresa, "the queen, the beauty," made her appeal to her nobles, and won the hearts of half Europe in a moment. She was indeed a wonderful woman. Her character and actions divided the attention of the world with those of her illustrious antagonist, Frederick the Great, during the whole of his brilliant career; and she has left on the imperishable records of history one among a thousand examples, which serve to illustrate the intellectual equality of the sexes, by exhibiting a female as the counterpart to the man, who is the master spirit of his age. Pericles had such a counterpart; and so had Cæsar. Peter the Great had his Catherine; and the spirit of Napoleon itself quailed under the terrible denunciations of de Stael. We have chosen as one of the subjects of il lustration this most striking incident in female biography -Maria Theresa presenting her son to the Hungarian Diet. We copy from a foreign journal the following notice of her life. It may be regarded as the first of a series of lives of illustrious ladies with which we design to enrich our book.

Maria Theresa, Empress Queen of Bohemia and Hungary, was the daughter of the Emperor Charles VI., who, losing his only son, constituted her the heiress of his dominions. She was born in 1717, and, at the age of nineteen, married Francis of Lorraine; and, on the death of her father, in 1740, ascended the throne. No sooner had she attained that envied, though dangerous position, than the neighbouring princes invaded her domains on all sides; and she, being no longer in safety at Vienna, fled for protection to her Hungarian subjects. She assembled the states, and, presenting herself be