the dupe of the misrepresentations of the empress' character and abilities, which her infatuated favourite, whether from policy or in ill-humour, was continually pouring into his ear. Even while he attributes them to pique, he cannot help repeating them, and laying much stress on them. He speaks-evidently from Potemkin's dictation-of her mutability, and her failure of resolution in the hour of trial.' Potemkin already assured him, as early as 1781, that she was fallen off beyond conception ; she never remained a day in the same sentiment; she was ignorant of the interests of her empire; she suspected her friends and trusted her enemies; she was so jealous of her own opinion that she never would receive advice unless it was conformable to it; she was become insensible even to glory, and listened to nothing but the most contemptible flattery. In a word, her character was of a nature to be operated on by the first gust of passion, and wholesome counsel and systematic reasoning were lost on her.' There could not be a greater misconception, as the event showed. For it was under the influence of such delusions that Potemkin, like his prototype, Essex, ventured on his last attempt to seize absolutely on the reins of power; and he and those who had listened to him were no doubt equally astonished at the result. Catherine understood him thoroughly,' says the biographer of Sievers: she knew what she might venture against him, and when the hour arrived, threw him overboard with the greatest gentleness.' His last mission to the south was a disgrace; but had not the Moldavian fever intervened to cut the knot of the entanglement between him and his mistress, it is most probable that her invincible indulgence would have allowed him to resume once more his perilous seat behind the throne.

As it was, no more remained of a name and influence once so gigantic than of the unsubstantial shows with which his dexterity had amused his sovereign in the wilderness. And scarcely more durable, some writers have added, were most of the monuments of her past activity which this illustrious woman herself left behind her. Death surprised her, after thirty-four years of constant successes, still planning further schemes of aggression and aggrandisement-designing to trample out both the Mussulman and the Jacobin; with Constantinople, Paris, and Teheran, and Stockholm, full in view, as the objects, no longer to appearance remote, of her daring ambition. But the loftier purposes of her youth, her essays at material and moral civilisation, were not indeed abandoned; she never lost sight of them; but adjourned, as it proved, indefinitely. Avant la mort de Catherine,' says Masson, la plupart des monumens de son règne ressemblaient déjà à des débris; législation, colonies, éducation, institut, fabriques, bâtimens, hôpitaux, canaux, villes, forteresses, tout avait été commencé et abandonné avant d'être achevé.' Nor could it be said, great and popular as her name had been among the Russians, that she had effected any substantial change in the national character; but she had effectually aroused the national spirit. She had inspired them with that thorough martial confidence in the valour of their armies and the star of their destiny, which has since carried them, either triumphant or at least unbroken, through so many a struggle. Except in this particular, the generation which saw her buried, boyars and serfs alike, was probably much the same, in habits, tendencies, and education, with that which had beheld her mount the throne. Her hand was not equal to the work of stripping any large portion of the aged rind from the rich fruit within. Her influence on her era was very

great; but it was indirect, and more felt perhaps by the world at large than by Russia in particular. Her achievements were those of a clear, decisive intellect and generous spirit, unseduced by the common shows of things, and unterrified by vulgar dangers, which could establish the theory of monarchy on the naked utilitarian basis of the greatest good of the greatest number;' which could carry to the throne, and practise on the throne, but with prudence, the maxims of a few mere thinkers, despicable in the eyes of ordinary politicians, and could astonish the latter by proving that neither state nor church fell down in consequence, but seemed to attain additional security. She dared follow to its results that fearless optimism, which habitually assumed the best respecting men and their motives, and deemed harsh punishment and violent coercion simply evils in themselves, unadapted to the real exigencies of human nature, imperfect instruments of which the use required apology. These were the merits which gave her an authority not limited by mere Russian geography in her own day, and which, notwithstanding all that is on record against her—the sins of her private life, the fraud and violence under which Poland perished, the sacrifice of countless multitudes to the lust of conquest-entitle her to her place in history amongst that band of kindred intellects, on the throne and in the study, who in the last century made ready for us of the present day the world in which we dwell.

75

PASCAL PAOLI

THERE is a peculiar kind of zest, as Walter Scott observes in the introduction to Rob Roy, attaching to biographical narratives which bring the highest pitch of civilisation closely in contrast with the half-savage state of society.' It was his perception of the artistic value of this element of contrast, which led the great novelist to linger with such obvious pleasure over those creations of his fancy which placed his poetical Highlanders in contact with the eccentric products of civilised and peaceful life in the two last centuries; Fergus with Waverley, Rob Roy with the immortal Baillie of Glasgow, the savage children of the Mist with the pedant-soldier Dalgetty. Something of this special interest has always attached to a name, for a moment the most popular in Europe, long borne up by the echoes of that temporary fame, now nearly forgotten, save on his own native hills, where it is to this day religiously cherished-that of the celebrated General Paoli. The sober, staid, gentlemanly soldier-philosopher, whose figure was well known in the London drawingrooms of our grandfathers' days, the favourite of bluestockings, and the welcome associate of literary people, was the same man who had passed years of life in the fierce vicissitudes of guerilla warfare, and whose dreams, after a day of well-conditioned civic existence, were ever recurring to his mountain glens, his own wild and faithful followers, and their hopes of a desperate revenge. Outwardly, a man of placid manners, and engaging, though

not forward conversation, and calculated to command respect, whether met in a Corsican macchia or a tea-party at Mrs. Thrale's. But under this quiet exterior there lurked a singularly vivid imagination, a restless contriving mind, and a youthfulness of feeling which survived equally the disenchantment of political supremacy at home, and twenty years of exile abroad. Such were a few of the traits which characterised one of the ablest and most virtuous men of his own or any time: a hero and a patriot in the truest acceptation of both words; one who needed but a larger stage, and a more propitious fortune, to rank in sober reality with the ideal great of classical renown. Any reader, whom mere literary curiosity, either to complete his gallery of Johnsonian cotemporaries, or to study the most remarkable facts in the history of a secluded and singular people, may induce to take up the life of Paoli, will rise from it possessed with a much higher appreciation of human nature, and fortified for the time against a common infection of our day-the cant of sneering at mere virtue, and professing to respect nothing but energetic and successful selfishness.

Herr Klose's Memoir of Pascal Paoli, the Corsican Chief' (1853), may be mentioned rather as the newest compilation on the subject than for any other special value which it possesses. He is a conscientious writer, and free from prejudice; but there, we fear, commendation must end. He is confused and dull, with little of the spirit of searching German analysis which sometimes counterbalances these formidable defects. His knowledge of his subject seems to be chiefly derived from ordinary sources, and with many of these his acquaintance is very imperfect. In his Preface he says that no special biography of Paoli had been written before his own; and does not mention, or appear to have seen, the circum