As Creasy says: “Yet a century and a half (two centuries) have hardly elapsed since Russia was first recognized as a member of the drama of modern European history--, previous to the battle of Pultowa, Russia played no part. Charles V. and his great rival (Francis I.), our Elizabeth and her adversary Philip of Spain, the Guises, Sully, Richelieu, Cromwell, De Witt, William of Orange, and the other leading spirits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thought no more about the Muscovite Czar than we now think about the King of Timbuctoo.” Sweden lost on that dread day when “fortune fled the royal Swede”, all that she had toilsomely gained thro’ the slow centuries. At one blow her fairest provinces were torn from her; and the rival Russian throne ascended to European prominence over the prostrate power of Sweden. Peter the Great even upon the field of victory fully realized that Pultowa was for him the key to the Baltic. Even amid the carnage of the slaughter-field where ten thousand men lay dying or dead and the Vorksla river ran red, his eagle gaze beheld the Russia resultant from the Treaty of Nystadt. Exultantly he cried out that “the sun of the morning had fallen from Heaven, and the foundation of St. Petersburg at length stood firm.” From dread Pultowa’s day even to the hour, Russia has steadily advanced by slow, gigantic strides unto a dominating prominence among the family of nations. The cabinets of Turkey, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, and England are secretly tho’ effectively influenced by Russia. REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE. Napoleon said that all Europe would ultimately become either Muscovite or Republican. Which shall it be? The answer as deduced from present tendencies might be--Republican: but no thoughtful observer can fail to regard attentively and apprehensively that sullen Sclavonic dominance extending insidiously and simultaneously into India, Persia, Mongolia, Turkey, the Balkans, and Central Europe. Amalgamation, the mergence of the many into one, sameness--quiescent and content under a powerful, capable, and just administration, seem to be and ever to have been the ideal form of government. The empires of the past--Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, Roman; the Holy Roman Empire and the Socialistic commune of the future--all include as fundamental principle this solidarity. So far, indeed, it has proved a marsh-light leading to the marsh; but we dream that it will yet lead out of and beyond the muddy, bloody marsh and ultimately light up millennial realms of world-wide oneness, goodness, gladness, peace. CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN. When Charles set out on that expedition having for its object the castigation and possible subjugation of the upstart Tartar hordes weakly held together by Peter of Russia,--all Europe believed that Charles would briefly and successfully accomplish that object.