Alexander.—­It happened that their prince was not present in that battle.  But he had not as yet had the time which was necessary to instruct his barbarous soldiers.  You gave him that time, and he made so good a use of it that you found at Pultowa the Muscovites become a different nation.  If you had followed the blow you gave them at Narva, and marched directly to Moscow, you might have destroyed their Hercules in his cradle.  But you suffered him to grow till his strength was mature, and then acted as if he had been still in his childhood.

Charles.—­I must confess you excelled me in conduct, in policy, and in true magnanimity.  But my liberality was not inferior to yours; and neither you nor any mortal ever surpassed me in the enthusiasm of courage.  I was also free from those vices which sullied your character.  I never was drunk; I killed no friend in the riot of a feast; I fired no palace at the instigation of a harlot.

Alexander.—­It may perhaps be admitted, as some excuse for my drunkenness, that the Persians esteemed it an excellence in their kings to be able to drink a great quantity of wine, and the Macedonians were far from thinking it a dishonour.  But you were as frantic and as cruel when sober as I was when drunk.  You were sober when you resolved to continue in Turkey against the will of your host, the Grand Signor.  You were sober when you commanded the unfortunate Patkull, whose only crime was his having maintained the liberties of his country, and who bore the sacred character of an ambassador, to be broken alive on the wheel, against the laws of nations, and those of humanity, more inviolable still to a generous mind.  You were likewise sober when you wrote to the Senate of Sweden, who, upon a report of your death, endeavoured to take some care of your kingdom, that you would send them one of your boots, and from that they should receive their orders if they pretended to meddle in government—­an insult much worse than any the Macedonians complained of from me when I was most heated with wine and with adulation.  As for my chastity, it was not so perfect as yours, though on some occasions I obtained great praise for my continence; but, perhaps, if you had been not quite so insensible to the charms of the fair sex, it would have mitigated and softened the fierceness, the pride, and the obstinacy of your nature.

Charles.—­It would have softened me into a woman, or, what I think still more contemptible, the slave of a woman.  But you seem to insinuate that you never were cruel or frantic unless when you were drunk.  This I absolutely deny.  You were not drunk when you crucified Hephaestion’s physician for not curing a man who killed himself by his intemperance in his sickness, nor when you sacrificed to the manes of that favourite officer the whole nation of the Cusseans—­men, women, and children—­who were entirely innocent of his death—­because you had read in Homer that Achilles had immolated some Trojan captives on the tomb of Patroclus.  I could mention other proofs that your passions inflamed you as much as wine, but these are sufficient.