He storms and rages forward, again and again, now here, now there; but is met everywhere by steady deadly musketry; and has to retire, fruitless, about daybreak, himself wounded, and leaving his eight cannons, and four hundred slain.
Poor Charles, there had been no sleep for him that night, and little for very many nights: "on getting to horse, on the shore at Stralsund, he fainted repeatedly; fell out of one faint into another; but such was his rage, he always recovered himself, and got on horseback again." [Buchholz, i.

36.] Poor Charles: a bit of right royal Swedish-German stuff, after his kind; and tragically ill bested now at last! This is his exit he is now making,--still in a consistent manner.

It is fifteen years now since he waded ashore at Copenhagen, and first heard the bullets whistle round him.

Since which time, what a course has he run; crashing athwart all manner of ranked armies, diplomatic combinations, right onward, like a cannon-ball; tearing off many solemn wigs in those Northern parts, and scattering them upon the winds,--even as he did his own full-bottom wig, impatiently, on that first day at Copenhagen, tiding it unfurthersome for actual business in battle.

[Kohler, _Munzbelustigungen,_ xiv.