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 them to flight. The descent was like one of those contemporaneous Danish invasions, in which the invaders came in light ships, prepared to carry off what they could, and escape when their enemy was too strong. It was not an attack or a siege, as it has been foolishly called; it was a foray. And so successful a foray was it, that the Russians were tempted to repeat it a second, a third, and a fourth time. Lastly, this reign is signalized by the rise and early fortunes of Basil the Macedonian.

Basil was the son of a herdsman of Macedonia. He was carried away as a boy by the Bulgarians, among whom he grew up, living on their wild fare, sharing in their wild sports, becoming as handsome as David and as strong as Samson; fearless and skilled in all the arts which fighting races love. He either escaped, or was allowed to return, or fought his way to freedom, and went to Constantinople, where he entered the service of the emperor's cousin, whom he accompanied to the Peloponnes. There, a Greek matron looked on the comely stripling with eyes of love. She gave him money, horses, and servants, so that from a mere stable-boy young Basil found himself able to maintain a certain appearance at his patron's little court. Perhaps it was then, perhaps later, that he discovered and announced the fact of his royal descent. He was, he said, of the blood of the Arsacidæ, the kings of Parthia. Perhaps he believed in his own descent. There are still, we are told, families in the Greek mountains, which claim hereditary descent from officers of the court of Alex-