"But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to his lips. It was his father's badge of the Order of Cincinnati. "We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper, at the place where he had marked the text,-- "'They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.' "On this slip of paper he had written,-- "'Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it,-- "'IN MEMORY OF "'PHILIP NOLAN, "'LIEUTENANT IN THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES. "'He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands.'" [Illustration] [Illustration] FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY. There is no great event in modern history, or, perhaps it may be said more broadly, none in all history, from its earliest records, less generally known, or more striking to the imagination, than the flight eastward of a principal Tartar nation across the boundless _steppes_ of Asia in the latter half of the last century. The _terminus a quo_ of this flight and the _terminus ad quem_ are equally magnificent,--the mightiest of Christian thrones being the one, the mightiest of pagan the other; and the grandeur of these two terminal objects is harmoniously supported by the romantic circumstances of the flight. In the abruptness of its commencement and the fierce velocity of its execution we read an expression of the wild, barbaric character of the agents. In the unity of purpose connecting this myriad of wills, and in the blind but unerring aim at a mark so remote, there is something which recalls to the mind those almighty instincts that propel the migrations of the swallow or the life-withering marches of the locust. Then, again, in the gloomy vengeance of Russia and her vast artillery, which hung upon the rear and the skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are reminded of Miltonic images,--such, for instance, as that of the solitary hand pursuing through desert spaces and through ancient chaos a rebellious host, and overtaking with volleying thunders those who believed themselves already within the security of darkness and of distance.