PREFACE.

THIS, my first book, is presented to the public with the usual forebodings of all authors. All I claim for it is a fair and candid perusal, and an impartial criticism. For the historical data I must thank various and many historians; for all else I am responsible. A. P. B.

BROTHERHEAD'S LIRRARY:

205 SOUTH THIRTEENTH STREET.

PHILADELPHIA, January 1, 1871.

'I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in Heaven;
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction."

JULIUS CESAR, I. III.

"So when an angel, by Divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land
(Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed)."

THE CAMPAIGN.

A DEEP silence reigns over London, and although it wants but an hour of midnight, the quietness feels too intense even for so late an hour. The moon hangs in the centre of the ragged clouds, lurid and red, totally unlike its usual radiant light and mellow color; thin leaden clouds scud swiftly before it, and, for a time, dim its glow, making it dull and copperish until they pass. The heavens in every part present an unusual appearance; an opaque, light-colored mist floats between the sky and the earth, and dims the brilliancy of the few stars that cluster around the sun of night. It is, however, beginning to break; wide crevices already yawning and cracks opening, the huge clouds show their threatening ranks, piled mountain high, and filled with

the thunderbolts of Jove's great armorer, Vulcan. People afterwards said that this mist formed itself into the semblance of an immense angel, whose wings covered the half of the city, and whose face was lowering and angry. Be that as it may, they had scant time to notice it before the lightning began; its quick, sharp, blinding flashes push out in bold relief the torn clouds and vaporous banks whence it comes; the low rumbling thunder moans its solemn accompaniment, and the air grows more stifling, sticking in the throat, as do the sulphurous blasts from the depths of Etna, or the mouth of Apollyon. At the corners of the streets, on the old-time roomy porches, and on the sheltered stoops of the coffee-houses and taverns, stand or sit groups of anxious people conversing in subdued, awe-stricken tones on the unusual signs in the firmament; they look constrained and uneasy, as though they feel the awful shadow of this coming event.

Now, there being a momentary cessation of both thunder and lightning, they breathe more freely and begin to hope that after all the storm may blow over; scarcely, however, have they time to exchange their whispered thoughts ere a quicker, but more sustained, more blinding flash deprives them almost of sight, making them see things" as through a glass darkly," and the thunder meanwhile crashing out a sublimely grand symphony. Globes of pink fire coruscate simultaneously in all parts of the heavens, whirling around for a few seconds with inconceivable velocity, bursting with a sharp report, and filling the air with millions of fiery fragments which saturate the atmosphere with an unnatural, suffocating smell. Meteoric flashes scintillate around, mother Nature appearing to be working herself up to an angry, revengeful mood.

Great, heavy drops patter sullenly on the dry pave