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serving them from every approach of the light of reason. After displaying his usual wit and knowledge, he observes that the Russians are nevertheless free from three capital errors which disgrace the rest of Europe. No Russian will seek to revenge an affront by committing murder in what is called a duel. The country has never been stained with any war or massacre occasioned by religious fanaticism. Lastly, the Russians have never regarded birth as superior to merit. Yet this last praise seems to be derived from that despotism which levels all ranks. Returning to the satirical vein, he brands drunkenness and theft as the ruling vices of the country; and he adds, ironically, that an English author, who has published a book on the resemblance between the Russians and the Greeks, and who has proved that they ate, sang, and slept, exactly like the latter, has forgotten to add that they are far superior thieves. He lays open with a skilful hand the character of the Russian soldiery, who seem absolutely to devote themselves to their trade and their commanders.

At the siege of Oczakow, a piquet, advancing to occupy a post, were informed that it was seised by the Turks, and if they did not retreat, they would encounter certain death. "What is that to us?" said one of the soldiers: "Prince Dolgorousky must answer that." Not a man returned.

'At the attack of Kimburg by the Turks, Souworof, who was drunk, advanced at the head of the garrison to repel the enemy. The Russians bent before the first shock, and began to flee, when a soldier in a rage stopped them with his bayonet, forced them to return, and charged at their head, as if he had been their officer. Catharine, informed of this action, which was the cause of the first victory in that war, sent an officer's commission to this brave fellow: but he refused it; saying, "that he could not write, and that he would rather be a good soldier than a bad officer." The empress sent him a medal of gold, with a pension of three hundred roubles.--This great woman was, however, innately cruel: she blamed the holy humanity, as she termed it, of Repnin, and sent the tiger Souworof in his stead; and she said to two courtiers, who were playing at chess, "I amuse myself by killing Poles."

In his account of the manners of the Russian women, our author displays his usual spirit and intrepidity. He seems to consider the compassion commonly ascribed to the sex as rather a weakness of the nerve than a quality of the soul, and to think that, as cowards, they must necessarily be cruel.

I am not the first who has observed that in Russia the women are generally more wicked, more cruel, and more barbarous than the men-because they are a great deal more ignoAPP. Vol. 34.

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rant and more superstitious. They do not travel, receive little instruction, and do not work at all. Always surrounded with slaves to gratify or anticipate their wishes, the Russian ladies pass their time stretched on a couch, or at a gaming table. They are seldom seen to read-still more seldom occupied in little works, or household concerns; and those whom a foreign education has not improved are in fact still barbarians.'

The author then compares them with the Roman ladies, as described by Juvenal; and offers several shocking instances of female cruelty singularly conjoined with immodesty.

Some singular anecdotes are given concerning the imperial children, who first learned the difference of sex from the lectures of Pallas on botany. The state of slavery in Russia also furnishes some curious details. The following advertisement is copied from a Russian newspaper.

If any one wishes to buy a complete family, or a young man and a young girl apart, inquire at the silk-cleaner's opposite the church at Cavan. The young man, called Iwan, is aged twenty-one: he is healthy, stout, and can frizzle a lady's hair. The girl, who is well made and plump, is called Murpha, aged fifteen, and can sew and embroider. To be examined; and had at a reasonable price.'

The punishment of d'Orbeil, on some very trifling suspicion of Jacobinism, vol. ii. p. 193, is a shocking additional instance of Catharine's cruelty; and many examples are adduced of the fantastic despotism of Paul. But when our author proceeds, vol. ii. p. 217, to mention that a brother of Marat lived openly at Petersburg while the unhappy French were massacred at London, Vienna, Naples, and Rome, we must loudly reprobate such an absurd and injurious calumny; as it is perfectly known to every inhabitant of the British empire, that not one Frenchman was massacred, or even wounded, except in open war, throughout the united kingdom.

The third volume is not inferior in interest to the two former, and has the advantage of having been published after the death of Paul: nor can our author abstain from exulting in the just ideas which he had before presented concerning the reign of that unhappy prince. The last war in Persia, the state of the finances, the Cossacks, the expeditions against the French in Italy and Switzerland, and several historical anecdotes, compose, this last volume; which also contains an appendix of original papers translated from the Russian.

The writer is uniform in his applause of the character and qualities of the reigning emperor, Alexander - whose person, as he remarks, bears some resemblance to Peter the Great. On the Persian war the details are curious and seemingly au

thentic. But our author surely brings an unjust charge against Mr. Tooke, when he accuses him of being one of the spies who visited the Caspian to promote schemes for the English commerce. We believe, on the contrary, that Mr. Tooke never passed so far south as Moscow; and his books on Russia consist of translations from the German and French, which he might have executed in London as well as at Petersburg. There is also a long note blaming Mr. Tooke for his flattering representations respecting the Russian commerce and slavery.

The note, vol. iii. p. 103, concerning the fate of the able conductor of the mines of Kolivan, is curious, as it shows the abominable intrigues of the Russian courtiers. These mines were ruined, at least for a time, by a privilege granted to a covetous prince of selling brandy in Siberia, which debauched the workmen, and ruined their labours. In the chapter on the Cossaks is given a singular instance of the bad effects of geographical ignorance in war; an old map in which villages were marked, which no longer existed, having occasioned the loss of many soldiers. The subsidiary treaty between Russia and England is branded, p. 177, as the first of that degrading kind which the empire had entered into. On that coalition, our democratic author observes, you may here behold into what a labyrinth of contradictions and absurdities that weak diplomatic spirit wanders, which pretends to produce good by a combination of evils, and to derive true results from errors or falsehoods. Simple truths, plain principles of common sense, morality, and justice, are the eternal sources of public safety, and the prosperity of states. Wherever policy does not assume them for the basis of its speculations, it will necessarily be the most absurd of all arts, and the most pernicious to humanity.'

Our author also, p. 205, offers some severe observations on the massacre of the French envoys at Rastadt, which he boldly imputes to the then British ministry, as well as the attempt upon the life of Buonaparte by means of the infernal machine. This we regard as mere satire, like the imaginary massacre of the French in London. In a note, he seems to allow that the murder of the deputies may have been casual, proceeding, as the archduke Charles asserted, from want of discipline in an advanced post. The anecdotes of Souworof are curious. He had been disgraced by the emperor Paul, at the beginning of his reign, for inattention to fantastic edicts concerning the dress of the soldiers; but the solicitations of Austria and England prevailed on the emperor to give Souworof the command of the troops destined against France. On his road to Vienna, this sanguinary warrior exhibited affected symptoms of the grossest superstition; so that the court of Vienna was puzzled to discover whether he venerated or ridiculed the catholic creed. By

this account, he only assisted and followed up the success of the Austrian generals; and the defeat of Scherer was regarded as the most complete and disastrous which the French sustained during the whole war. But Paul, intoxicated with the success of the Russians, not only conferred on Souworof the title of Italiski, but, with his usual caprice, ordered, by an edict, that this warrior should be regarded as the greatest of all generals ancient and modern.

The account of the Russian and French conflicts in Switzerland forms another interesting chapter; and the decription of that memorable battle which decided the destinies of France in the vale of Zurich is enlivened with many anecdotes derived from an officer who was present. After the death of Hotze, and the defeat of the Russian general Korsakof, Souworof arrived too late; yet our author allows that he retreated like a lion, while Massena in vain endeavoured to entice him out of his defiles. He abandoned some baggage, some artillery, some sick and wounded; but general Mortier, who was charged to pursue him in the Muttenthal, could only reach two or three battalions of grenadiers, who devoted themselves to save the rest of the army. I do not know if Souworof were invincible; but it is certain that he died unconquered. No general can boast of having beaten Souworof, and very few have, like him, carried this glory to the tomb, after having persevered in war for forty years, sometimes against barbarous, and sometimes against polished nations.'

Several new anecdotes are then given of this very singular character. After the defeat of the Russians, and his own retreat, he became silent and melancholy, nor could he abstain from open blame of the Austrians. Paul embraced the same resentments; but his favorite tiger having arrived at Petersburg, alighted at the house of one of his nephews, and never afterwards arose from his bed. We should have wished for a few anecdotes of the last illness and death of Souworof, which may probably still be supplied by some foreigner residing at Petersburg. Such a combination of circumstances united to form Souworof, that Russia will probably never again produce a like character; though our author repeats the observation of the German philosopher Kant, that war is the powerful mean of dispersing nations, or assembling them together; and that, without war, there would be neither peace nor legitimate relations between them. The anger and disgust of the Russian emperor were inflamed to the utmost degree by the refusal of Malta; and he openly spoke of the English as a nation of Israelites.

In a note, p. 353, our author imputes the misfortunes of Switzerland to the pride, the political immorality, and the venality of the Bernese rulers, who sacrificed the country to their

petty interests. This opinion seems to rest on such decisive facts, that we are amazed at the want of common candour in Mr. Coxe's introduction to his last edition, which rather wears the aspect of a party pamphlet than of the calm decision of a man of letters, whose judgement may be weighed by posterity. But we have already offered some remarks on these topics in our review of Mr. Planta's History of Switzerland.

In our author's opinion, p. 370, if the coalesced powers had succeeded, they intended to have placed Lutherism and Calvinism within the pale of the catholic church, to which the Greek religion was to have been united; and the battles of Zurich and Marengo alone saved poor human nature from returning to its swaddling clothes. Such are our author's expressions; but a conquest over the mind is not easily acquired. Some speculations are afterwards added on the unexpected connexions between Paul and Buonaparte. The establishment of a grand military parade by the French here seems to have been a leading motive with the capricious emperor, who might perhaps argue, that monarchy was more likely to be restored in France by a mere reversion of opinion than by the power of arms, which could only supply fuel to the enmity against it. 'The alarm at revolution had become a mere pretext with the neighbouring powers, who merely wished for the acquisition of French provinces; and of this Paul soon became sensible, as appears from his extravagant challenge. Having been made the dupe of their designs, and the affair of Malta having sufficiently proved that no advantage whatever was intended to be conferred on him, his resentment is not matter of wonder. As choler was his predominant habit, it was natural that his prejudices and enmity against France should yield to his fresh and violent rage against the coalesced powers, the instruments of real disasters and disgraces; while against France he had no personal reason of offence, and he of course may be said to have embraced her cause from a sympathy of enmitics.

In another note, the doctrine of Kant concerning a perpetual peace is illustrated. That philosopher justly ridicules the idea of Pope, that the best government is that which is best administered; as, if the form be bad, the most tyrannical administration may succeed the best; and it is the very essence of a good government to provide against the possibility of such an event. From this note it also appears, that in Prussia a system of pure deism, united with the sound morality of Jesus, is publicly taught in many churches under the title of rational Christianity. That country is here said to enjoy a most wise and moderate government, the danger of democratic principles being completely obviated by the mild wisdom and universal equity of the monarchy.