'After we had been about forty minutes at table, the Empress retired, when a most unexpected, extraordinary, but amusing scene, took place a general scramble for the good things which were left, particularly at the Imperial table-Generals, Counts, and Subs, with their gold-laced coats, pocketing without mercy, and struggling to outdo the domestics, who did not appear to pay them much respect, or to be willing to allow them to carry off the spoils quietly; and in five minutes there was a perfect scene of devastation, even the very candles were carried off by the attendants, and, to the blaze of splendour which we had just witnessed, succeeded darkness scarcely visible.'-Jones, vol. i. p. 430.

The grocers, the packers, the dry-salters, et id genus omne, at the annual civic feast, may slily pocket the bon-bons, or hand a piece of plumcake or pudding to their wives or daughters standing behind them; but we are not aware that, even in Guildhall, a Russian scramble is ever permitted. The other anecdote is told of the Grand Veneur Nariskin, who is said to be always doing something magnificent and eccentric.

It is related of him that, knowing the Empress was to pass one evening, he had, by way of surprise, collected skins of all the ferocious beasts of the forests, and by placing either men or children inside, according to their size, gave them the appearance of life, and they were frisking about his grounds, to the astonishment of the Empress, when she passed. By way of further surprise, and honour to his sovereign mistress, he caused an extraordinary display of fireworks and rockets to be let off, when she came in front of the house. Unfortunately, however, not having apprised the supposed animals of the terrible explosion which was to take place, they were most dreadfully alarmed; and, instead of continuing to play their parts as quadrupeds, they attempted to seek flight as bipeds, and by which they rendered the scene truly ridiculous.'-Jones, vol. i. p. 334.

It was shrewdly answered by a foreigner to a Russian, who asked, what could induce his countrymen to adhere to the old style in their calendar, which had been abolished by all other European nations? in order, said he, that your countrymen may imagine themselves only a dozen days behind the rest of Europe, whereas, in fact, they are a whole century of years in arrear.

But we have done with St. Petersburg, and intend to conclude with a few observations on the two remaining works mentioned at the head of this article. Dr. Granville assures his readers, with the utmost confidence, that the good faith of the Emperor Nicholas may be perfectly relied on, in all that regards his engagements to the allies, in the treaty, to which he was a party, of the 6th July, 1827; because 'his political life has never belied any of those strict principles which, in private life, have by general acknowledgment been known to guide his conduct.' This may or may not be the

case,

case, as hereafter shall appear; but, at the present moment, he labours under something more than a suspicion of a want of sincerity, which has weakened very considerably that'reliance' of which Dr. Granville speaks. On a provocation from Turkey, no matter whether slight or otherwise, he has declared war against her; but, with a generosity for which he obtained adequate applause, he voluntarily offered to waive the privilege of a belligerent in the Mediterranean, and to adhere there strictly to the conditions of the treaty of London, the sole object of which was to liberate the Greeks from the Turkish yoke, in whose fate he pretended to be most deeply interested. No sooner, however, did he find that the Turks were not so easily beaten as he had supposed; that Varna, and Chumla, and Silistria retarded his progress towards the capital, than he sends an order, direct from Odessa, to Count Heyden, who was acting in concert with the other two allied admirals, and passing over the regular channels of communicating his intention to England and France, instituted a blockade of the Dardanelles. Of course he ceases to be any longer a party to the treaty. Having thus broken faith with his allies, and left the Greeks, as far as he was concerned, to the mercy of the Turks, what guarantee have we that he will observe more religiously his solemn avowal against any intention of territorial aggrandizement? Differing as we do altogether from the general views of Lieut.-Col. Evans, we are very much disposed to agree with him in what follows.

ance.

With respect to the reigning autocrat-although it is but the other day the diadem has descended to him, has he not already found time to prosecute successfully an aggrandizing policy? The ink is scarcely dry which has signed away to him, by means of a most indefensible exercise of force, the banks of the Araxes, and yet it is concluded that the same hand will gratuitously reject the splendid, and incomparably superior prize that now lies nearly prostrate for acceptWe presume then, not only that a luxurious court will prefer the frozen swamps of the Neva, with their worse than hyperborean atmosphere, to the superb and unequalled shores of the Marmora ;but also that a young military monarch will be so reluctant to give umbrage to other nations,--that he is so averse to war, so enamoured of peace, and altogether so imbued with a fine sense of abstract right, that although this transcendant achievement (the ultimate aim of all the national conquests) be now ripe for execution, and, as it were, courts him on, he will yet forbear to give it effect. This is to be more than moderate.

'It will be to disregard the fervent aspirations of his officers; the desires of his clergy; the wishes of his people (for on this subject even the serfs have an anxious sympathy); it will be to decline what comes recommended to him by every great name of Russia; to be unmindful of his own glory; to contemn the substantial interests of the empire,—

and

and even, not improbably, to hazard what we may well conceive to be one of the chief bonds of union between the throne to which he has been preferred and the chiefs by whom it is upheld and surrounded, and who, it is no more than reasonable to suppose, now ardently and sanguinely look forward, through the medium of this very operation, to the possession in their own persons, or those of their descendants, of high apanages, lordships, and princely satrapies, amidst the softer climes and wealthier and more inviting regions of Southern Europe,' -Evans, pp. 117-119.

A very short space of time must now show what are the real views and intentions of the young autocrat. The public feeling was undoubtedly in his favour when he assumed the reins of government, though even then, Colonel Evans tells us, one of the highest functionaries of the empire thus expressed himself. 'Russia has now an emperor, whose character is marked by much stronger traits, and who is of a far higher ambition than distinguished his late brother; but those qualities will not suddenly reveal themselves. They will gradually be disclosed by his public conduct.' Our decided opinion, however, is, that let who will be the autocrat of Russia, he must follow the general wishes of the army and the aristocracy, not denying that his personal character may give a bias to those wishes.

Lieut.-Col. Evans has acquired in the army the character of an intelligent, sober-minded, and very able, as well as gallant, officer; but, in treating of the Designs of Russia,' we are disposed to think his subject has run away with him, and hurried him on to the very verge of extravagance. He has been answered in part by an anonymous writer, who, we take for granted, is an English merchant trading to Russia. The object of the Colonel is to show that an immediate coalition of all the European powers, England and France taking the initiative, is the only means of putting a stop to the incursions and aggrandizement of this northern barbarian power, and to preserve the civilization of the Old World. The object of the other is the preservation of peace with Russia, and to show that little is to be apprehended from that power, even if she were in possession of Constantinople. Thus it is war against trade; and, as usual in such discussions, each partisan has overstated his case.

We shall barely mention the long list of miseries which Colonel Evans anticipates from the capital of Turkey falling into the hands of Russia. If the Sultan, he tells us, should escape the bow-string, he will be pensioned off, as was the lot of the traitor Stanislaus, and several others. England having first lost Corfu, Malta, and Gibraltar, the island of Sicily will next be coveted as an advanced post. Ferdinand of Spain will at once be taken under the special pro

tection

tection of his imperial brother of the east,' who may be prevailed on to send to Madrid some half dozen thousand good Muscovite troops, as a household guard and security for the royal person, against the plots of the Descamisados.' An alliance with the United States of North America, we may be well assured, will be one of the most intimate. Political agents and merchants will open a communication with the east. Our commerce will be ruined-reports will be spread of the intention of Russia to restore the Mogul, and re-establish the overthrown musnuds, and thus pave the way for the invasion of India. Cadiz and Corunna, and possibly Lisbon, will be crowded with Russian and Spanish troops ostensibly for the succour of Ireland, in which President Jackson will co-operate, and the Canadas will fall as a matter of course. It is but a sort of melancholy consolation that France must be involved in the same ruin with ourselves. The existence of their free constitution, with the palladium of a free press, will be too obnoxious to be permitted to endure. No respect will be entertained either for the French chambers, or the English parliament. Our House of Commons will be divided, the landed gentry will go down to the house,' threaten the government, and vituperate the emperor. This will be a groundwork of complaint for the insults passed upon a faithful friend and ally, (what! after he has despoiled us of every thing?) by the turbulent assembly of the English commons. We shall then go to war with the Czar, (we think, indeed, it would be full time ;) the Chancellor of the Exchequer knows not how to raise the necessary supplies; the quarter's revenue exhibits a progressive falling off. The propriety of spoliating the great landed, church, and funded properties, will now be familiarly agitated.' Public credit receives a shock-consols fall as low as in 1797; all the branches of the public service will be in arrears; and, what is worst of all, those moveable fortresses,' which it gladdens the heart of an Englishman to look on, those stupendous masses now reposing on their shadows,' as Mr. Canning beautifully described them, will now be discovered, by reason of the suspension of annual and necessary repairs, to be scarcely sea-worthy: filth, rust, rot and corrosion will have already made havoc in every beam, plank, and stancheon belonging to them.'

While our navy is gradually falling into this state of complete ineptitude, the Russian navy is rapidly increasing to one hundred sail of the line, manned with expert seamen that have been bred on the lakes' of Marmora, Black Sea, Aral, &c., advantages which, if Buonaparte had possessed them, would, Colonel Evans thinks, have given a new turn to the war. With regard to this making of seamen' in close seas, the late Admiral Greig seems

to

to have entertained another, and, we rather suppose, a sounder opinion than that of Colonel Evans. The Empress Catharine having visited the admiral's ship, on returning from a two months' cruize in the Baltic, said, 'Admiral, I suppose you have now capital seamen, and that my fleet is equal to an English one of the same force.' 'Madam,' replied Greig, do not deceive yourself; to make good seamen, we must keep the sea day and night.' 'How,' said the Empress, have you not been at sea for two months?' It is true,' the admiral replied, 'I have been out of port, but can hardly call it being at sea; seldom out of sight of land; no tides to contend with; no night; but, if we can expect to cope with the English, we must be at sea at all times, and in all seasons, surrounded by shoals, and driven by the tides, rapid and uncertain as they frequently are, sometimes in nights that are seventeen hours long. Nothing but such practice, Madam, can form perfect seamen, fit to contend with those of England and Holland.'*

More evils than those we have here enumerated are predicted by our Cassandra-like Colonel, should the Russians get possession of Constantinople. But, fortunately for the nerves of his readers, the μavTEUS xanav has not left these ominous forebodings without a chance of preventing them, if taken in time; and his prescription is, an armed intervention'-an Anglo-French expeditionary armament of not less than fifty thousand troops, and twenty sail of the line; two-thirds of the latter to be furnished by us, and twothirds of the army by the French, to proceed immediately to the scene of action, that is, to the Black Sea, to be supported by a concentration of the Swedish, Prussian, and Austrian armies, towards their eastern frontiers, and the assemblage of an allied fleet at Stockholm. This measure, we agree with him, if he could bring it to bear, would restrain at once the overweening Muscovite's ambition and arrogance, and subdue the senseless pride of the Asiatic.' His plan may be a good one, and all that he says we doubt not be accomplished; but as to the co-operating allies, he has already told us that little of a spontaneously energetic character is to be augured from the court of Vienna; that it may happen to personate both the dupe and the accomplice; that as the price of complicity (qu. confederacy?), a province or two will be readily conceded by Russia, and honours and applause showered on the celebrated Austrian minister; and that the whole will terminate in sending back, with all practicable speed, that imperial house to its original little domain of Hapsburg,'-and deservedly, we say, if Austria should be wicked or stupid enough to play so suicidal a part as Colonel Evans is pleased to sketch out for the heirs of Rodolph of Hapsburg.

* Jones's Travels in Russia, &c.

Then,