The Carnival Soon After Ending, And Finding That Change Of Place Was No Defence From Misfortunes Of The Kind She Had Sustained, Without She Could Also Change Her Way Of Thinking, Took The First Convenience That Offered, And Returned To England, Rather In Worse Humour Than She Had Left It.

CHAP. XVII.

Horatio arrives at Warsaw, sees the coronation of Stanislaus and his queen: his reception from the king of Sweden: his promotion: follows that prince in all his conquests thro' Poland, Lithuania and Saxony. The story of count Patkul and madame de Eusilden.

While these things were transacting in Italy, Horatio, animated by love and glory, was pursuing his journey to Poland. His impatience was so great, that he travelled almost night and day, already imitating the example of the master he was going to serve; no wood, no river was impassable to him that shortened the distance to the place he so much longed to approach: and thus by inuring himself to hardship, became fitly qualified to bear his part in all the vast fatigues to which that prince incessantly exposed his royal person.

Not a city, town, or even village he puffed thro', but echoed with the wonders performed by the young king of Sweden: - new victories, new acquisitions met him wherever he came: - all tongues were full of his praises; and even those who had been ruined by his conquests, could not help speaking of him with admiration. - Horatio heard all this with pleasure, but mixed with a kind of pain that he was not present at these great actions. - How glorious is it, cried he to himself, to fight under the banners of this invincible monarch! - What immortal honour has not every private man acquired, who contributed the least part to successes that astonish the whole world!

But notwithstanding his eagerness which carried him thro' marshes, over mountains, and ways, which to an ordinary traveller would have seemed impassable, he met with several delays in his journey, especially when he got into Germany, where they were extremely scrupulous; and he was obliged to wait at some towns two or three days before he could obtain passports: he also met several parties of flying horse and dragoons, who were scouting about the country, as he drew nearer Saxony; but his policy furnished him with stratagems to get over these difficulties, and he got safe to Punitz, in the Palatinate of Posnania, where a great part of the king of Sweden's army was encamped. - He immediately demanded to be brought to the presence of the grand marshal Renchild, to whom he delivered the letter of the baron de la Valiere, and found the good effects of it by the civilities with which that great general vouchsafed to treat him. He would have had him stay with him; but Horatio, knowing the king was at Warsaw, was too impatient of seeing that monarch to be prevailed upon, on which he sent a party of horse to escort him to that city.

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