now called Thurn und Taxis. The festivities were kept up until morning, and the Tsar was most merry, and danced" senza fine e misura." At the supper-table, where there was no precedence, the Emperor and Empress sitting at the foot of the table, Leopold arose, and, filling his glass, drank to Peter's health. This was immediately responded to, and the same ceremony was performed with the King of Rome. The cup used for this purpose-which was of rock crystal, the work of di Rocca, and valued at 2000 guldens —was sent the next day to the Tsar, as a souvenir. This was the first great festivity given at court since the beginning of the war with Turkey. Economy had been the order of the day. Peter Lefort wrote to Geneva:

"I must admit that I was greatly disappointed on my arrival here, for I had expected to see a brilliant court; it is quite the contrary. There are neither the splendid equipages nor the fine liveries we saw at the court of Brandenburg. There are many great lords here, but they are all very modest in their dress."

On St. Peter's Day the embassy gave a great ball, with music and fire-works, which lasted all night, and at which a thousand guests were present.* It is worth notice that, at the state dinner which followed the solemn audience of the embassadors, the healths of the Empress and of the Tsaritsa were omitted, although it had been agreed beforehand to drink them. There were reasons for thinking it might be disagreeable to the Tsar. During the dinner, there being much talk about Hungarian wine, Baron Königsacker sent Lefort a salver, with six kinds as specimens. After tasting them, Lefort begged permission to pass them to his friend, who stood behind his chair. This was the Tsar himself, who had come in this way to witness the feast.

It has been already said that the Papal court was greatly excited at the possibility of converting Russia to Catholicism, and the dispatches of the nuncio and of the Spanish embassador show with what care every movement of the Tsar was watched. The deductions of these prelates seem to us now to be based on very narrow premises. They evidently believed what they wished to believe, and reported what they knew would

Notwithstanding the statements in the dispatches of the nuncio as to the small amount of money given by the Austrian Government for the support of the embassy, we know, from Russian official documents, that the whole expense of the feast was paid by the Emperor's treasury.

"The Tsar is a youth of from twenty-eight to thirty years of age, is tall, of an olive complexion, rather stout than thin, in aspect between proud and grave, and with a lively countenance. His left eye,

poison given him during the life of his brother; but

as well as his left arm and leg, was injured by the

there remain now only a fixed and fascinated look in his eye and a constant movement of his arm and leg, to hide which he accompanies this forced motion with continual movements of his entire body, which, by many people, in the countries which he has visited, has been attributed to natural causes, but really it is artificial. His wit is lively and ready; his manners rather civil than barbarous, the journey he has made having improved him, and the difference from the beginning of his travels and the present time being visible, although his native roughness may still be seen in him; but it is chiefly visible in his followers, whom he holds in check with great severity. has a knowledge of geography and history, and— what is most to be noticed-he desires to know these subjects better; but his strongest inclination is for maritime affairs, at which he himself works mechanically, as he did in Holland; and this work, according to many people who have to do with him, is indispensable to divert the effects of the poison, which still very much troubles him. In person and in aspect, as well as in his manners, there is nothing which would distinguish him or declare him to be a prince."

He

Inquiries were made by the Tsar as to the intentions of the Emperor to conclude a peace with Turkey, to which the Emperor frankly replied that the Sultan had himself proposed a peace through the intervention of Lord Paget, the English embassador at Constantinople, and had requested that the King of England should be a mediator, to which he had assented. At the same time, he showed the Tsar the original letters. Peter then had an interview with Count Kinsky, in which he tried to convince him that it would be better for the Austrians to continue the war, that it was scarcely fair to the allies to make peace without consulting their interests, and that if peace were made, a war would be begun with France about the Spanish succession, and the Turks would take this occasion again to attack them. Kinsky explained that peace was not yet made; that nothing more had been agreed upon than to hold a congress; that it was expected that Russian and Polish representatives would be present at this congress, and would explain their demands; that the only condition which the Emperor had made for the conclusion of peace was that it should be on the basis of keeping what each one had possession of at the date of the treaty. Peter was so far convinced that

he agreed to present his demands in writing, which were simply that, in addition to the places he already occupied, there should be ceded to him the fortress of Kertch, in order that he might have a port on the Black Sea, and thus keep the Tartars in order; that if this condition were not agreed to, the Emperor should not make peace, but continue the war until a more advantageous treaty, or until 1701, by which time he hoped to have gained great advantages over the Turks. The reply which Leopold sent to Peter was that, while he found the demand for the cession of Kertch to be a just one, he saw a great difficulty in the way, "for the Turks are not accustomed to give up their fortresses without a fight, and even what has been extorted from them by arms, they tried in every way to get back." He therefore urged Peter to use his efforts to get possession of Kertch before the treaty should be made, and to send a representative to the congress, and promised again that he would sign no peace without his consent. Peter was so satisfied with this that he was on the point of starting for Venice, and even had ideas of continuing his journey into Italy, and perhaps visiting France before his return.

Passports were obtained, and part of his small suite had already started for Venice, where great preparations were made for his reception, when suddenly a letter was received from Ramodanófsky, announcing that the Streltsi regiments on the frontier had revolted and had marched on Moscow, but that Shéin and Gordon had been sent to put them down. Nothing was said of the cause of the revolt, or of the intentions of the Streltsi. The letter had been on its way for a whole month, and the Tsar was still in ignorance as to whether the revolt had been put down, or whether the rioters were in possession of Moscow, and his sister Sophia ruling in his place. Nevertheless, he decided to start at once, and, to the astonishment of the Austrians, who knew nothing of this news, his post-horses took the road for Moscow, and not for Venice. Before he went, he wrote to Ramodanófsky:

"I have received your letter of the 27th of June, in which your grace writes that the seed of Iván Mikhailovitch (Miloslávsky) is sprouting. I beg you to be severe; in no other way is it possible to put out this flame. Although we are very sorry to give up our present profitable business, yet, for the sake of this, we will be with you sooner than you think."

Peter traveled day and night, and refused even to stop in Cracow, where a banquet

had been prepared for him. Immediately afterward, he received quieting intelligence that the insurrection had been put down, and the ringleaders punished. He was therefore able to travel more leisurely, looked carefully at the great salt-mines of Wieliczka and at Bochnia, and inspected the Polish army which was encamped there. At Rava, a small village of Galicia, he met King Augustus on the 9th of August, and was his guest for four days.

Peter had expected to pass by the way of Warsaw, and it was with great surprise that the King received a courier announcing the Tsar's visit for the same day. Arrangements were at once made, and "the King waited in vain for him all night, for he did not arrive until the next morning at dinner time. As he desired, he was conducted to his lodging without formality or ceremony, and shortly after was visited by the King. The tenderness and mutual embraces, the kisses, and the expressions of love and esteem which they gave each other, are scarcely credible. The Tsar, knowing well · the esteem of the King, was carried away by sympathy, and immediately struck up with him a more than fraternal friendship, never ceasing to embrace and kiss him, and telling him that he had come almost alone, with very few followers, to put himself into his hands, and confide his life to him, being ready, however, to serve him in need with a hundred thousand men or more." Augustus and Peter dined and supped together, and the two following days were taken up with amusements, with reviews of troops, and sham fights, which greatly pleased the Tsar, and with political talk. The Jesuit Votta, who was introduced to the Tsar by the King himself, argued in favor of maintaining the Polish alliance, and continuing the war against Turkey. Peter, after saying that he thought the Russians, Poles and Saxons were sufficient, and that once Otchakóf were taken, Constantinople would be in the death struggle, applied the old fable that it was useless to divide the skin before the bear was killed. The impression produced on Peter by Augustus was strong and lasting Peter had supported the candidacy of Augustus, and had sent an army to the frontier on political grounds, but the sympathy produced by personal contact had an important influence. It was greatly owing to this that Peter two years later was induced to enter the Northern League, and to declare war against Sweden. The day after the Tsar's arrival at Moscow,

in speaking of the foreign sovereigns he had visited, he made honorable mention of the King of Poland. "I prize him more than the whole of you together," he said, addressing his boyárs and magnates that were present, "and that not because of his royal pre-eminence over you, but merely because I like him." He still proudly wore the King's arms, which he had exchanged with that monarch for his own, in order to proclaim that their bond of friendship was more solid than the Gordian knot and never to be severed with the sword.

After leaving the King, Peter went on to Moscow through Zamosc, where he was entertained by the widow of the castellan. He met there the Papal nuncio, who begged permission for missionaries to pass through Russia on their way to China, and was much struck with the amiability of the Tsar, especially as Lefort had put him off with polite excuses. In thanking the Tsar for his promise, he asked him to give him a written document. Peter, replying that .when he arrived at Moscow he would im

mediately send him a diploma, said: "My word is better than ten thousand writings." At Brest-Litófsky there was an unfortunate adventure with the Metropolitan of the Uniates, who, in talking to the Tsar, had the bad taste, to say the least, to use the word schismatic, in regard to the members of the Russian church. The Tsar replied that he could not stand such impertinences of language, and people as indiscreet as he in Moscow would have been whipped or hanged. Not content with this, Peter asked the Governor to send away the Metropolitan, saying that he was not sure that he would be master of his own hands if he met him again.

Notwithstanding these delays, Peter arrived at Moscow much sooner than he was expected on the 4th of September, at six o'clock in the evening. He did not stop at the Krémlin, nor see his wife, but accompanied Lefort and Golovín to their houses, then called to inquire for General Gordon, who was away on his estate, and went that night to Preobrazhensky.

"THERE they come! Don't you see them? Look, look!" These words are caught up and loudly re-echoed, and, glancing in the direction indicated by a dozen shouting boys, we see the first of a line of dust-enveloped stages emerging from a hollow in the road. For a moment, the four horses are outlined against the foliage that borders the highway on either side, then, with eyes flashing and nostrils stretched, they rush forward at full speed. The driver cracks his whip and tightens his grasp on the reins, and with loud clattering of hoofs and rumbling of wheels, the heavily laden vehicle turns the corner before us, burying the yellow brick house opposite beneath a dusty cloud. Another follows, then another; and the children, who have been clinging to their mothers' skirts while the great wooden things rattle by, run out into the street to see the last of the line disappear down the cut which leads to the river's edge. There the passengers, who left the New York boat at Amboy this morning, will re-embark and, let us hope, be safely landed at Philadelphia before the fall of night.

The scene is one of half a century ago. As yet the first railroad from New York to Philadelphia is unlaid, and we are standing, not in the garish sunlight of some newgrown business town, but at the shaded corner of Main street and the Trenton road, in the romantic old village of Bordentown, New Jersey. Though the arrival of "the line " is an event of daily occurrence, the excitement attending it has never lost its charm for old or young; and, the weather fair, one-half the children of the village school may be seen daily at this corner during their noon recess. To-day, as it happens, the gathering is dignified by the presence of some older citizens, whose names, for one reason or another, are familiar far beyond the limits of their town. For instance, in the face of that elderly man in the center of the group you have already

caught a resemblance to Napoleon I.; nor is the likeness to be wondered at, for (as you have guessed) this is none other than the emperor's elder brother, sometime King of Naples and of Spain. Near him stands another aged man, whose face is smoothshaven, and whose hair falls between his shoulders in a ribbon-bound queue. This peculiar head-dress sufficiently identifies its wearer as Judge Joseph Hopkinson, author of "Hail Columbia," and a friend of many of America's first great men. Less distinguished in appearance than either of his companions, though far more famous for his heroic qualities, is Commodore Charles Stewart, the third and last figure in our little group. Soon, however, the trio is joined by a dashing youth, whose words and bearing recall the memory of his unhappy father, the gallant Marshal Joachim Murat. And now, at the invitation of Judge Hopkinson, the new-comer and his friends disappear through the door-way of the yellow house. Leaving them within, in the enjoyment of their host's good cheer, let us overleap the years that separate us from the present day, and glance about us at a place made interesting by association with historic names.

The village of Bordentown (pronounced Burdentown by the old inhabitants of the place) stands on the eastern bank of the Delaware, a few miles below Trenton, at a point where the river bends sharply to the south-west on its course to Philadelphia and Delaware Bay. At one other place only between the cities named are the shores broken by rising ground. Long rows of trees bordering well-cultivated fields; smooth-shaven lawns and dark green groves surrounding old-fashioned houses; the wharves and steeples of low-lying villages on either side-these, elsewhere,

relieve the monotony of the fertile plain. But here the bank rises abruptly to a height of sixty or seventy feet from a water front hardly as many yards in width. The approach by rail or water is not unpicturesque, and the scene from the village bluff is one of quiet beauty. Across the Delaware lies a wide expanse of Pennsylvania farm land, the water's edge shaded by. shrubbery and overhanging trees. As far as the eye can reach, the landscape is dotted with birch and willow trees, rising singly or in groups from the green fields, and often throwing their protecting arms over some old, substantial farm-house. Midway in the stream, and threatening at some future day to destroy its present channel, lie two long, low islands of sand, sparsely covered with shrubs and river-grass. The Pennsylvania Railroad, encircling the base of the plateau on which the village stands, winds on its way from Trenton along the edge of a canal, which is skirted with willow trees. At this point, too, a beautiful creek flows under the railroad bridge, luring the eye along its grassy banks and dark, deep border of foliage. And all these charms are increased a thousand-fold by the gorgeous sunsets over the Pennsylvania shore.

Probably the first white man who surveyed this pleasant scene was Thomas Farnsworth, an English Quaker, once imprisoned in the mother country for his faith. Arriving, in the year 1677, at the mouth of the then recently discovered Delaware, he and his fellow-voyagers built their cabins where Burlington now stands. His wife, Susannah, a preacher in the Society of Friends, followed him to the new world in the winter of 1678. Three years later, taking with them their children and their servants, they pushed a few miles further up the stream, and made the clearing which has