ing thoughts; or, when thou awakest in the morning, after the comfortable refreshment of sleep, by laying up the word of Christ in thy heart, thy first thoughts will run upon it, and it will suggest useful directions for the conduct of the day.

Such are the advantages of regarding Divine and parental counsel. May the consideration of these prevail on thee, my young reader, henceforth, if not before, to keep thy father's commandment, and not to forsake the law of thy mother

CHARACTER OF GENERAL DE ZIETEN,

Continued from page 158.

As a general, and a commander in chief, Zieten was never known to neglect any thing which had formerly been the object of his solicitude in the capacity of a subaltern officer. He extended to a whole regiment,to a whole army, the attention he had at first bestow ed upon a single company. On the march, he was either at the head or the rear of the column, and always indefatigably employed in providing for every possible contingency. At one time he would slacken the march, in order to allow the hindermost to regain the ground they had lost; at another he would fill up the gaps, reconnoitre the bridges, the defiles, the face of the country; in a word, it might be said, that he never had a better quarter-master-general than himself.

When the army was encamped, Zieten was not satisfied till he examined and adjusted every thing, entered into the minutest details, supplied every omission, and obviated every inconvenience. Whenever he imagined that the king had neglected a point, he would look to it; he posted or displaced the guards of the camp, augmented or diminished their number. When the ground was, uneven, it was his care to remove all obstructions, facilitate communications, construct bridges, and every other necessary accommodation; and his directions were ever attended to as much as the immediate orders of the king.

After having provided for the interior of the camp, it was his cus¬ tom to take a survey of its environs. By day and by night,while the rest of the army where taking their repose, he was on horseback,examining the face of the country, in order to discover on what point the enemy might probably make an attack, and what spots were best adapted for defence. This was his invariable occupation, on the march, in camp, and in every position; whence the army honoured him with the name of their guardian. When the infirmities of age began to grow upon him, and it sometimes happened that

he fell asleep at the royal table, the king would never allow him to be disturbed. The first time that the company, upon such an occasion, were about to awaken him, his majesty interrupted them, and said, "Let him sleep on; he has watched long enough for us.”

Frederic esteemed him highly for the manly firmness of his character, which the greatest military disasters were never able to shake for a moment. Bred up in the midst of storms, he had learnt to face them without dismay. While others trembled, he remained calm, and put his entire confidence in Heaven. This placid intrepidity, this cool patience, this inexhaustible fund of resolution, had great influence upon the mind of his royal master; who had often, under the pressure of despair, sought the general's quarters, alone and during the night, in quest of consolation and advice. Often has the heart of Zieten been wrung with anguish, when, instead of coinciding in his way of thinking, the desponding monarch has made him no other reply than, "It will not do it cannot possibly succeed!"

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In the various battles in which Zieten took an active or directing part, the youngest officers were well aware that they should not escape the general's observation-that their exploits would be remarked, distinguished, and rewarded.--In the battle of Lignitz, at the attack of Laudon's grenadiers previous to the general engagement, a young lieutenant, named Calbo, of the prince of Prussia's regiment, had received a wound. After the victory, Zieten passed near an officer who was under the hands of the surgeon. The general recognized Calbo, spoke in high terms of his courageous deportment, expressed his concern at his disaster, congratulated him that the wound was not of a dangerous nature, and took occasion to praise the services the regiment had done the army, and the bravery it had just displayed. Such a procedure could not fail to gain every heart. At the present day, M. de Calbo recollects with singular satisfaction this anecdote and the impression it made upon him an impression which upwards of forty years have not been able to efface. Thus could a word from Zieten operate in the breast of the young soldier, and prove a powerful incentive to glory and duty.

Officers of merit, to whatever regiment they belonged, could confidently rely on his kind services and powerful interposition, in cases when, owing to the distance of their residence from the king, or to some unforeseen accident, and not to any fault of their own, they had lost the good graces of that prince. Zieten would watch for and seize the favourable moment to combat his prejudices.

Obliged often to repeat his applications, he would never cease till they were crowned with success. In the campaign of 1761, the king, with a view to hinder the junction of the enemy's two armies, had recourse to several extraordinary movements; and, one day, having ordered Zieten to make an expedition in his presence, in the neighbourhood of Klosten-Whalstadt; the general detached to the left for the purpose of reconnoitring a wood, two squadrons of the regiment of Finkenstein's dragoons,—a corps which his majesty had aversion to. The head of these squadrons met in a valley a body of Austrian cavalry, conisting (as it has since appeared) of forty-two squadrons. As they were confined to a narrow pass, it was possible to attack them with advantage, provided the charge was made in a bold manner, and with all the appearance of being properly supported. The commanding officers of the two squadrons determined upon the attempt. Proud of repeating under the king's immediate inspection the exploits which had rendered them illustrious at Crefedt and Minden, the troops were resolved to force from that monarch the approbation which he had hitherto so unjustly refused them. After having agreed amongst themselves not to waste any time in taking prisoners, and being properly assured that Zieten would not fail to support them, they fell upon the enemy with loud shouts and inconceivable fury. The king had scarcely taken notice of this movement, when he sent one of his aides-de-camp, with all possible expedition, with these orders: "Tell Zieten to prevent the two squadrons from attacking the hostile cavalry, as they are not sufficiently strong for the attempt." The general sent back the officer, with the following reply: "Inform the king that I request him to let them go on, and that he himself will have the goodness to be witness to their success: that I have always said they were brave troops; that it is now their business to show themselves such ; and that I shall take care to spend the rest of the regiment to their support." The dragoons performed the prodigies of valour: the promise of Zieten was realized; and the king, on their return, conferred upon every officer the order of military merit,and gave them leave to wear a particular kind of sabre in honour of the exploits of the day. From this time, Frederic continued to testify the highest esteem for the corps! and Zieten, who had the happiness, or rather the merit, of bringing about this revolution in his majesty's sentiments, never ceased to congratulate himself on having chosen the favourable moment, and turned it to so good account.

Ever serious, often severe, with regard to the officers who were subordinate to him, and particularly when they were men of high

rank, he required the same secrecy on their part, as he himself observed in his most trivial expeditions. He carried his scruples so far on this point, as never to give his troops any intimation of their destined march till the very last minute. On the day preceding any movement, nothing was allowed to transpire, through the whole army; and the instructions or dispositions which he had to give the generals, were dictated to them in private, after having caused their aides-de-camp to withdraw. One day, when general de Bandemer, whose hand shook on account of his great age, had requested that his aides-de-camp should be permitted to sign in his stead, Zieten granted him that indulgence with no small reluctance, and not till the general had made himself responsible for the discretion of that officer.

His new officers, his new aides-de-camp, and especially when they were recommended by powerful patronage, were destined to act at first but passive and secondary parts. He commonly employed them in the most unimportant commissions; and it was not till he had put them to the proof, and had become well acquainted with their several characters, that he gave them his confidence, and did justice to their deserts.

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He made a choice of his aides-de-camp-majors from among the best of his officers. To fill this post, great talents and great activity were always requisite. Severe to an extreme with respect to them, and (at most) pardoning such errors only as resulted from youth and want of experience, he inured them to a rough discipline. Two eminent general officers of the present day were long engaged in this honourable post with him: the one, lieutenant general de Kohler, whom he always called his pupil, his friend; who was tenderly esteemed by him, and whom he particularly recommended to the king; the other, major-general de Lestocq, who succeeded the former. They were both proud to acknowledge, upon every occasion, what they owed to their master, their father, their friend.

[To be continued.]

DIFFERENCE IN MEN.

POVERTY, exile, loss of fame or friends, the death of children, the dearest of all pledges of a man's happiness, make not equal impressions upon every temper. You will see one man undergo, with scarce the expence of a sigh-what another in the bitterness of his soul, would go in mourning for all his life long :-nay, a hasty word, or an unkind look, to a soft and tender nature, will strike

deeper than a sword to the hardened and senseless-if these rë. flections hold true with regard to misfortunes, they are the same with regard to enjoyments:-we are fined differently,-have different tastes and perceptions of things;by the force of habit, education, or a particular cast of mind, it happens that neither the use or possession of the same enjoyments and advantages produce the same happiness and contentment--but that it differs in every man almost according to his temper and complexion: so that the self-same happy accidents in life, which shall give raptures to the choleric or sanguine man, shall be rece. ́ed with indifference by the cold and phlegmatic ;-and so oddly per, 'exed are the accounts of both human happiness and misery in this wo.that trifles light as air, shall be able to make the hearts of some inen for joy at the same time that others, with real blessings and advantages, without the power of using them, have their hearts heavy and discontented.

Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us-the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's statue as to his happiness.

THE CONTRAST.

THINGS are carried on in this world, sometimes so contrary to all our reasonings, and the seeming probabilities of success,-that even the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong;-nay, what is stranger still-nor yet bread to the wise, who should least stand in want of it,-nor yet riches to the men of understanding, who you would think best qualified to acquire them,-not yet favour to men of skill whose merit and pretences bid the fairest for it, but that there are some secret and unforeseen workings in human affairs, which baffle all our endeavours, and turn aside the course of things in such a manner,--that the most likely causes disappoint and fail of producing for us the effect which we wished, and naturally expected from them.

You will see a man, of whom was you to form a conjecture from the appearance of things in his favour,--you would say he was setting out in the world, with the fairest prospect of making his fortune in it; with all the advantages of birth to recommend him, of personal merit to speak for him,--and of friends to push him forwards you will behold him, notwithstanding this, disappointed in every effect you might naturally have looked for, from them; every step he takes towards his advancement, some thing invisible shall pull him back, some unforeseen obstacle shall rise up perpetcally in his way, and keep there-In every application he makes