not addicted to harangues or compliments, _étourdi_, drunken, simple, and good-natured. The man thus satirically painted was however a sturdy specimen of the German race, and could deal hard blows in the field. Maximilian Emanuel, of Bavaria, conspicuous in after years for the misfortunes entailed upon him by his alliance with France against Austria, and the principal victim of Marlborough’s success at Blenheim, came forward now at the age of twenty-one, to save from destruction the sovereign who, after rewarding him with the hand of a daughter, lived to expel him for awhile from his dominions. He had the good sense now to consign the conduct of his troops to experienced hands, and served himself as a volunteer. Among the others were the Dukes of Sachsen Lauenburg, Eisenach, and Weissenfels, of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Wirtemberg and Holstein, Pfalzneuburg and Croy, the Margrave of Baireuth and Louis of Baden afterwards so famous; the Landgrave of Hesse, the Princes of Waldeck, Hohenzollern, Anhalt, and Salm; last and youngest, Eugene of Savoy. The Prince of Waldeck commanded the troops of the Circles. The literature of modern Europe, rich as it is in the correspondence of eminent persons of both sexes, perhaps contains no collection of letters of such engrossing interest as those written at this period by John Sobieski to his wife, which have lately found an eminent translator and commentator in the Count Plater. The familiar correspondence of such a man as Sobieski, even if devoted to ordinary occurrences and insignificant events, would derive an interest from the character and fame of the writer which few such collections could claim. In the case of these, however, the circumstances of the time combine with the character of the man to enhance that interest to the highest degree. They are the letters of an absent lover, pledged to punctual and familiar correspondence, and consequently rich in minute details. They are the military dispatches of one of the greatest soldiers who ever lived, penned in moments snatched from hard-earned repose, often when the night-lamp of his tent was growing pale before the twilight of morning, and dealing with the hourly progress of one of the greatest military transactions in history. Some passages of these documents escaped at the time, and have been quoted by all writers on the subjects concerned, from Voltaire and Madame de Sévigné to the gazette writers of the day; but these passages, principally relating to the great and notorious result, are not of greater interest, and are of less historical value, than the remainder more lately rescued from the obscurity of the Polish language which was the medium of his most familiar intercourse with his absent wife. It is a singular trait of ability in this mischievous woman, especially when we consider the habitual distaste of her countrymen and countrywomen for the acquisition of foreign languages, that she should have so completely