the case elsewhere;-in the military and commissariat departments of the State he was conscious of the government being grossly robbed and cheated, but found it necessary to wink at a large amount of peculation and deception, rather than hazard an entire reform which might entail upon him the diminution of his personal authority by the interposition of other tribunals of account. Alexander, more amiable, but less sagacious, played with liberal ideas, and tampered with the structure of despotism, without having the courage to remove it entirely, and evoke a new organisation from the rising spirit of the nation. Nicholas saw clearly how much good he could effect without injury to his autocracy; and was not overpowered with anxious regret because he also saw the great imperfections which he must necessarily allow to remain. In considering the measures which he initiated or carried out, these facts should be remembered, or we may fall into the mistake of considering him much less far-sighted and well-intentioned than he really was. He endeavoured to the utmost of his physical and mental powers to supply the want of other supervision over the administration of the empire; and by rapid and sudden journeys from point to point, tried to impart a sense of that ubiquity in the censorship over abuses which it is the boast of popular systems of government to be able to supply. It is generally allowed that the system and policy of Nicholas were much more Muscovite than that of any of his predecessors. This must be understood always, however, with reference to the double object which Peter the Great had in view, and which his successors still try to carry out, of civilising Russia somewhat after the standard of Western Europe, and of giving her a European territorial and moral preponderance. The leading idea of Sclavism-the patriarchal authority-had been already introduced by the Czars into the modern system of government. Its rival, the ecclesiastical authority, had been effectually crushed by Peter, and has since become a pliant tool in the promulgation among the people of the Sclavonic notion of the sacred character attaching to the person of the great father of the State. The nobility, originally military chiefs, had passed into the stage of proprietors of land-not landed proprietors in our sense of the term-city residents either at Moscow or St. Petersburg, dependent for their revenue on land in the country, but not resident on their estates, and having no territorial influence in their neighbourhoods corresponding to that of an English landed gentleman. Their lands are cultivated by the members of the communes, their serfs, whose allegiance easily passes from one proprietor of the soil and of themselves to another, without any feeling of attachment or fealty to their landlord's family.* Many of * It is said, however, that a change is beginning to take place in the habits of the nobility have become the heads of manufactories in the cities, and in that capacity have gathered around them bodies of workmen, often their own serfs; for the spirit of aggregation holds good as well in the city as in the country, and a Russian citizen of the upper middle-class, in our sense of the term, has been hitherto found to be an impossibility. The native private merchant degenerates rapidly into the mere huckster. Nicholas encouraged the manufactories, which seem more akin to the genius of the country; although they are still very deficient in internal organisation, and in giving that solidity and value to the articles manufactured which honesty and individual pride in the workman can alone secure. He also fostered, by every means in his power, the settlement of foreign merchants in St. Petersburg, either hoping that their spirit would become in time contagious, or wishing thereby to bind more firmly to Russia the commercial interests of the West. He has been accused, indeed, of sacrificing much of the Western trade to his jealousy of England; and in the same point of view, he is said to have endeavoured to establish an eastward trade, which might in time realise the favourite idea of Peter the Great, of a trade with India. Still there can be no doubt, that during his reign, and under the auspices of his general policy, the commercial interests of Russia and the West were much more closely intertwined, and that the fluctuations of the mercantile community in either were much more sensibly felt in the other than was wont to be the case. If projects of railways across Russia, after the English fashion, have been somewhat fallacious and double-faced in the more recent schemes, there can be little doubt that the Czar Nicholas had a more shrewd idea than most of his predecessors as to the best manner in which the arts and inventions of the West might have become acclimated on the soil of his empire. The position of the serfs throughout the empire, with the exception of the Baltic provinces, in which the experiment of enfranchisement had been already tried, could not but arrest the attention of such a prince as Nicholas, and seems to have touched his sympathies more closely than most questions. He even dropped unguarded hints at one time of an enfranchisement, which led to melancholy consequences. Vague reports spread among the serfs that their great father wished to enfranchise them, nay, had even given the orders, but that the nobles withheld its execution. In several quarters the peasants flew to arms, massacred all of their masters whom they could come across, and looked for support and reward, instead of punishment and coercion, from the government of the Czar. Of course they were the nobility in this respect, and that many of them have established themselves in the country, after the English fashion. grievously disappointed; and after that time the Czar maintained a prudent reserve as to his intentions in this respect. He, however, made a considerable advance towards the enfranchisement of the serfs from slavery to individual masters, by increasing largely the number of State-peasants, who had especial privileges, though of course they also were affected by the despotic character of the State-government. The communistic principle is so strong in Russia, that individual enfranchisement becomes a less easy matter than elsewhere; and it is chiefly by moving the peasants forward into more privileged communes that the process of a general removal of serfdom can be satisfactorily achieved. Their personal slavery to their masters especially is being destroyed little by little; and one of the last announcements of the new reign is, that serfs are to be allowed to marry without the consent of their lords. We have left ourselves little space to speak adequately of the increase and reorganisation of the military and naval strength of Russia under the late Czar, and of the foreign policy which the Court of St. Petersburg has pursued during the last quarter of a century. So far as the mind and eye of the Emperor could effect any thing, the army has been greatly improved. There has been (after the fashion of military autocrats) too much stress laid on the freedom of soldiers' coats from creases upon the paradeground, and too little attention paid (from causes we have already alluded to) to the regulation of the commissariat. But on the whole, the experience of the last war, considering the nature of the materials from which the army was drawn, cannot be said to derogate from the reputation of the Russian army. Although they have found themselves unequal to the picked troops of Western Europe, they have not altogether failed in maintaining the honour of their country; and the forced marches and desperate aggressive movements, both so alien to the physical character of the Russian soldier, by which the struggle was marked, prove that the energy of the Czar had succeeded in calling into play new qualities in his army. It must be remembered, that the Russian army has been subdivided into several distinct portions; and that besides the army of reserve, there are distinct services for the frontiers of Western Europe, and for the southern provinces of the empire. The victories of Paskevitch in Hungary and in Persia were gained with quite distinct divisions of the service; and it was not until the last war that any thing like the whole of the military force of Russia was called into service at the same time. The navy has made less progress, although the exploits of one or two Russian captains would seem to imply that there also a new spirit has been called into existence. The foreign policy of Russia requires less careful elucidation on the present occasion, as it has of late years necessarily been the subject of much careful examination and comment. That Nicholas acted in the spirit of the famous will of Peter, there can be little doubt; but he was not hasty or indiscriminate in his plans of aggression. He was content to await the natural course of events; and if he assisted their progress towards the desired point where direct action became possible on his part, he seldom forcibly precipitated them towards it. His most wanton and least excusable aggressions on Turkey had generally some more or less plausible pretext in the ill-regulated councils of the Divan, or in the ambiguous movements of other "protecting" powers. In his Greek policy, he was eminently successful against some of the cleverest of European diplomatists. In the Egyptian affair he was less fortunate, owing probably rather to the subsequent turn of events, which displaced Louis Philippe from the throne of France, than to any other cause. His alliance with England on that occasion was rather a preliminary step towards the meditated attack on Turkey, by effecting a decided breach between the two Western powers, than a distinct policy in itself. In the Menschikoff demands, which precipitated the last European contest, there were good grounds for hoping that no firm alliance could be formed between England and France, and that Prussia would be neutralised by her family alliance, and Austria by the recent service in Hungary and the recollection of her still unsettled position in that country and in Italy. It is very doubtful whether, after all, the Czar was not right in his conjecture respecting the Western alliance; nor is it easy to decide the point whether, had his life been prolonged, and the genius which presided over the destinies of Russia had not been removed in the very crisis of the contest, the alliance between England and France-already growing lukewarm through mutual jealousieswould have outlasted the sustained determination of Nicholas. We must remember, in estimating the late Czar's merits as a foreign statesman, that he had throughout his entire Eastern policy to contend against the excess and hasty fervour of Muscovite zeal, and yet to retain this enthusiasm as a fitting agent in his ultimate design. Looked at in this point of view, his long self-command will probably seem as remarkable as his eventual boldness of action. Persia in a great degree provoked the contest which lost her some valuable provinces. The war in Hungary was a politic step and a politic degradation to Austria; and, as it seemed, at the same time a very convenient mode of getting some sort of footing in the Sclavonic provinces along the Aus trian portion of the Danube. The politic conduct of the Russian officers in the campaign did as much to weaken the respect of the population for their Austrian masters as it enhanced with them the reputation of the northern invaders. This is not the only instance in which Nicholas contrived to intermix political diplomacy with the actual operations of war. The private life of Nicholas may be treated of in a few words; and then our sketch, however imperfect, may be brought to a conclusion. His handsome person and stately demeanour have been spoken of. We believe that the general report of writers and travellers, that these personal advantages were not unattended by some of the sensual habits of his race, is not unfounded. There may be exaggeration in the stories told; but the fact of the infidelity of Nicholas to his marriage-vows has been frequently commented on, and sometimes palliated by the infirm state of health of the Empress. It is agreed, however, that if not a faithful husband, the Czar was a kind one; and that he consulted the actual decencies of society out of regard to her feelings, concealing the extent, though not the fact, of his irregularities. His sons had no reason to complain of a want of paternal affection; and if State considerations to some extent directed the choice of his daughters' consorts, they did not do so in every case. The imperial circle-so far as the tyranny of court etiquette would allow-was a happy one, and there were fewer scandals within its precincts than in many others. The same perhaps cannot be said of the wider circle of the court; but it must be borne in mind, that the corruptions of Western Europe received in this point a strengthening rather than a weakening influence in the natural temperament of the Sclave. As an administrator of that race, and the races associated with them on the extensive soil of Russia, the Czar Nicholas may, on the whole, challenge comparison with any sovereign placed in circumstances of similar difficulty. It would be folly to portray him as either a very mild or entirely just ruler. He has committed many crimes, in a position where the large majority of men would probably have committed many more. His crimes, as well as his errors, have been those of policy and a naturally cold temperament. If, on this account, his actions strike us occasionally with horror and indignation, they are not inconsistent with a large amount of beneficent and disinterested policy in other directions. His littlenesses sprang rather from the untoward position of autocrat than from his own particular character. He was certainly a worthy successor of Peter the Great, and the most successful of those who have endeavoured to perfect that monarch's ideas of empire. With the founder of St. Petersburg, and with Catherine II., he will be hereafter looked upon as one of the greatest, though not exactly one of the best, of Russia's sovereigns. |