The Norrstrom And The Royal Palace.

The Stromparterre.

Bern's' Salong.

In a small, sunny square of Stockholm stands a marble column, surmounted by a fine bronze statue of the city's founder,

Hasselbacken Restaurant.

Statle Of Birger Jarl.

Birger Jarl. Jarl, in the Scandinavian tongue, means earl, or chief; and Birger, one of the powerful princes of the land, in 1255 A.D.,ified three contiguous islands, lying between Lake Malar and the Baltic, and made of them his capital. The chieftain's choice has never ceased to be commended. Not only is this insular stronghold the key to the great lake behind it, into whose sheltered waters Birger was resolved no pirate fleets should thenceforth come, but all the moats surrounding it are rushing streams. In front of it, too, a maze of winding channels makes the approach of a naval enemy practically impossible; while from innumerable islands scattered broadcast between Stockholm and the sea, masked batteries could harass to destruction any hapless ships that should be caught within the meshes of that Baltic net.

A very different statue from the sombre, mediaeval figure of old Birger Jarl, is the lithe, slender form of Charles XII., standing in a pretty garden by the Norrstrom Called at the age of fifteen to the throne, and killed on a Norwegian battle-field at thirty-six, this monarch's short life of adventure, brilliant triumphs, and disastrous failures gave to Voltaire the theme for a biography far more exciting than most novels. For, when not yet nineteen, the youthful hero had destroyed by force of arms a coalition of three hostile nations, compelling first the Danes to make an advantageous peace with him, and in the same year incting on the Russians a crushing defeat at Narva, although his army numbered only eighty-four hundred men, as against forty thousand soldiers of Peter the Great. His third antagonist, Poland, he disposed of in the following year, and forced it to give up to him the province of C u r 1 a n d. Then came, however, the sad years when Fortune proved as cruel to him as she had been kind; and the astonished world beheld his own defeat by Peter at Pultava; the tragic death of his ally, Mazeppa; his flight into Turkey; his imprisonment there by the Sultan; his escape from the Orient, and return to Sweden; and finally his death, in the winter of 1718, before the walls of Fredrikshald. It would be hard to find in ancient or modern times a royal life so thoroughly adventurous and dramatic as that of Charles XII. Fearless and chivalrous, virile and virtuous, the Swedes forgive him for his youthful rashness, and recall his memory with indulgent pride. He touched the imagination of the people, and he who does that is remembered by them for all time.

In the Museum at Stockholm hangs a noble painting by Cedarstrom, portraying a company of Swedish soldiers bringing back the body of their idolized king, whose singularly varied life had come to its untimely close. Homeward, through storm and sleet, the heroes, many of them wounded, bear the lifeless monarch on their shoulders, while the mute peasants stand with bowed heads by the roadside in their reverent sorrow, and even Nature's face is veiled in mist, and her form shrouded with a winding sheet of snow. All that is mortal of Charles XII. reposes now at Stockholm in the famous Riddarholm's church, which has for centuries been the burial place of Sweden's royal dead. Neither the exterior nor the interior of this mortuary temple can be truthfully called beautiful; yet, seen at a distance, its tapering, openwork spire, piercing the air to a height of two hundred and ninety feet, is picturesque and pleasing; and the great nave within, whose pave-ment is composed of tombstones, and on whose walls hang hundreds of armorial bearings, is solemn and impressive. No ceremonies of religious worship have been celebrated here for nearly a century, except when members of the reigning family have been brought within its walls for burial. At other times the silence of the sepulchre is undisturbed, save for the footsteps of occasional visitors. Conspicuous among these tombs is that of Gustavus Adolphus, whose military fame is even more illustrious than that of Charles; while his beneficent reforms at home, together with his victories abroad, raised Sweden to the highest point of influence and glory she has ever known.