great commander from the banks of the Scheldt to the opposite shore of Essex, at the head of the veterans who had been trained in the Dutch war.  In an evil hour, Charles II., bought by French gold and seduced by French mistresses, entered into alliance with Louis XIV. for the coercion of Holland; the Lillies and the Leopards, the navies of France and England, assembled together at Spithead, and made sail for the French coast, while the armies of the Grande Monarque advanced across the Rhine into the heart of the United Provinces; and the consequence was, such a prodigious addition to the power of France, as it took all the blood and treasure expended in the war of the Succession and all the victories of Marlborough, to reduce to a scale at all commensurate with the independence of the other European states.

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THE GATHERER.

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Fleurus is a village in France, in the department of the Sombre and Meuse, where the Austrians and the French fought a battle in the year 1794, in which the former were defeated.  This victory is ascribed to the information obtained in consequence of reconnoitering the army of the enemy by the elevation of a balloon.  The balloon employed on this occasion was called the Entreprenent; and it was under the direction of M. Coutel, the captain of the aeronauts at Meudon, accompanied by an adjutant and a general.  He ascended twice in the same day, to the height of 220 fathoms, for the purpose of observing the position and manoeuvres of the enemy.  He continued each time four hours in the air, and corresponded with General Jourdan, who commanded the French army, by means of pre-concerted signals.  The enterprise was discovered by the enemy; and a battery opened its fire against the ascending aeronauts, but they soon gained an elevation which was beyond the reach of their fire.  This balloon was prepared under the direction of the Aerostatic Institute, for the use of the army of the north; as were also another, called Celeste, for the army of the Sombre and Meuse; and the Hercule and Intrepide, for the army of the Rhine and Moselle.  Another, thirty feet in circumference, and weighing 160 lbs., was destined for the army of Italy.  A new machine, invented by M. Coutel, the director of the Aerostatic Institute, was designed to aid the aeronauts in communicating intelligence, and denominated the Aerostatic Telegraph.

P.T.W.

Muscular Strength.—­It is asserted by travellers, that a Turkish porter will run along carrying a weight of 600 lbs.  Milo, of Crotona, is said to have lifted an ox, weighing upwards of 1,000 Ibs.  Haller mentions that he saw an instance of a man, whose finger being caught in a chain at the bottom of a mine, by keeping it forcibly bent, supported by that means the weight of his whole body, 150 lbs., till he was drawn up to the surface, a height