We may compare this eccentricity with that of Charles I. of England, who would bind himself to a particular line of conduct by a secret obligation. One day he drew aside Dr. Sheldon, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and placed in his hands a paper which detailed certain measures he proposed to adopt for the glory of God and for the advancement of the Church, intimating that he “had privately bound himself by the most awful vow to ensure their accomplishment.” And one particular obligation which the document contained was to perform public penance for the injustice he had been guilty of to Lord Strafford, in consenting to his death. In delivering this paper to Dr. Sheldon, Charles solemnly conjured him to remind him of his contract, should he hereafter ever find him in a condition to perform any one of the articles which it contained. In his moments of irritation Peter the Great, like William III. of England, would not hesitate to strike the person who had given him offence, whatever might be his rank; and, as his Majesty was easily upset, he was at times very lavish of his blows. His subjects, it is said, did not consider a blow from the Emperor an affront, and thought themselves honoured by an apology. But this was not the case with foreigners, for Le Blond, a French architect whom the Czar had invited into his dominions, having received the stroke of a cane in the first transport of imperial anger, took it so much to heart that he sickened of a fever and died. The Czar Nicholas was fond of frightening or fascinating people by his eyes, and it is said that one of his terrible glances once terrified a Swedish admiral into the Russian service. On another occasion, we are told how happening to encounter a poor fellow who had strolled into the private part of the Imperial Park, Nicholas gazed at him with so fierce a glance that the trespasser was stricken with brain-fever. This strange peculiarity of the Czar reminds us of Augustus, who, according to Suetonius, was always well pleased with those persons who, when addressing him, looked upon the ground, as though there were a divine splendour in his eyes, too dazzling for them to gaze upon.