improving his own. Not like Nero, to fiddle to the Athenians; not like Diocletian, to raise coleworts in Dalmatia; not like Charles V., to bury himself in a monastic cell in Spain, torturing his body for the sins of his soul; not like Christina, to discuss at Rome, and intrigue at Versailles; but, having formed the grand design of giving laws, civilization, and commerce to his vast unwieldy territory; and being aware that the brutal ignorance of his barbarous subjects wanted to be both stimulated and instructed; he quitted his throne for a time only, that he might return more worthy to fill it. He travelled, not to feast his eyes with pictures or his ears with music, nor to dissolve his mind in pleasures, but to study laws, politics, and arts. Not only to scrutinize men and manners with the eye of a politician, which would have sufficed for a monarch of a polished state; but, remembering that he reigned over a people rude, even in the arts of ordinary life, he magnanimously stooped, not only to study, but to practise them himself. He not only examined docks and arsenals with the eye of an engineer, but laboured in them with the hand of a mechanic. He was a carpenter in Holland, a shipwright in Britain, a pilot in both. His pleasures had a relish of his labours. The king of England, apprised of his taste, entertained him, not with a masquerade, but a naval combat. Previous to this, he had entered upon his military career in Russia, where he set out by taking the lowest situation in his own regiment, and would accept of no rank but as he obtained it by deserving it. Accordingly, he filled successively every station in the army, from the drummer to the general; intending hereby to give his proud and ignorant nobility a living lesson, that desert was the only true road to military distinction.

We must not determine on the greatness of a sovereign's character entirely by the degree of civilization, morals, and knowledge which his people may be found to have reached after his death: but, in order to do full justice to his character, we must exactly appreciate the state in which he found, as well as that in which he left them. For, though they may be still far behind the subjects of neighbouring states, yet that measure of progress which they will have made, under such a monarch as Peter, will reflect greater honour on the king, than will be due to the sovereign of a much more improved people who finds them already settled in habits of decency and order, and in an advanced state of arts, manners and knowledge.

The genius of Peter was not a visionary genius, indulging romantic ideas of chimerical perfection, but it was a great practical understanding, realizing by its energy whatever his genius had conceived; patient under difficulties, cheerful even under the loss of battles, from the conviction that the rough implements, with which he must hereafter work his way to victory, could only learn to conquer by being first defeated, he considered every action in which he was worsted, as a school for his barbarians. was this perseverance under failures, which paved the way for the decisive victory at Pultowa, the consummation of his military character. His conduct to the Swedish officers, his prisoners, was such as would have done honour to a general of the most polished state.

It

He manifested another indisputable proof of greatness, in his constant preference of utility to splendour, and in his indifference to show and

decoration. The qualities which this prince threw away, as beneath the attention of a great mind, were precisely such as a tinsel hero would pick up, on which to build the reputation of greatness. The shreds and parings of Peter would make a Louis.

With this truly vigorous and original mind, with an almost unparalleled activity and zeal, constantly devoted to all the true ends which a patriot king will ever keep in view-it is yet but too obvious, why the emperor Peter failed of completely deserving the title of the great. This monarch presents a fresh exemplification of the doctrine which we have so frequently brought forward, the use which Providence makes of erring men to accomplish great purposes. He affords a melancholy instance how far a prince "may reform a people, without reforming himself." A remark, indeed, which Peter had the honesty and good sense to make, but without having the magnanimity to profit by his own observation. Happy for society, that such instruments are raised up! Happy were it for themselves, if a still higher principle directed their exertions; and if, in so essentially serving mankind, they afforded a reasonable ground of hope that they had saved themselves!

This monarch, who, like Alexander, perpetuated his name by a superb city which he built; who refined barbarism into policy; who so far tamed the rugged genius of an almost polar clime, as not only to plant arts and manufactures, but colleges, academies, libraries, and observatories, in that frozen soil, which had hitherto scarcely given any signs of intellectual life; who improved, not only the condition of the people, but the state of the church, and considerably raised its religion, which was before scarcely Christianity; this founder, this patriot, this reformer, was himself intemperate and violent, sensual and cruel, a slave to passions and appetites as gross as could have been indulged by the rudest of his Muscovites before he had civilized them!

If the true grandeur of a prince consists, not in adding to his territory by conquest; not in enriching it by plunder; not in adorning it by treasures wrung from the hard hand of industry; but in converting a neglected waste into a cultivated country; in peopling and rendering fruitful a land desolated by long calamities; in preserving peace in his small state, when all the great states of Europe were ravaged by war; in restoring plenty to a famished people, and raising a depressed nobility to affluence; in paying the debts of a ruined gentry, and giving portions to their daughters; in promoting virtue, literature, and science; in making it the whole object of his reign to render his subjects richer, happier, and better than he found them; in declaring that "he would not reign a moment longer than he thought he could be doing good to his people," then was Leopold, sovereign of the small dukedom of Lorrain, more justly entitled to the appellation of the great, than the Alexanders, the Cæsars, and the Louises, who filled the page of history with praises, and the world with tears.

If Gustavus Adolphus puts in his undisputed claim to the title of the great, it is not merely on the ground of his glorious victories at the battles of Leipsic and of Lützen; but because that amidst the din of arms, and the tumult of those battles, he was never diverted from snatching some portion of every day for prayer, and reading the Scriptures. It is because, with all his high spirit, he was so far from thinking it derogated from the dignity

of a gentleman, or the honour of an officer, to refuse a challenge, that he punished with death whoever presumed to decide a quarrel with the sword; to prevent the necessity of which, he made a law, that all disputes should be settled by a court of honour. He deserved the appellation of great, when he wished to carry commerce to the West Indies, that he might carry thither also by those means the pure doctrines of the Reformation. He deserved it, when he invited by an edict all the persecuted protestants from every part of Europe, to an asylum in Sweden, offering them not only an immunity from taxes, but full permission to return home when the troubles of their respective countries should be healed.

When such was the union of piety and heroism in the gallant monarch himself, it was the less wonderful to find the same rare combination in the associates of his triumphs. Hence, the pious meditations of the celebrated leader of the Scotch brigadet in the service of Gustavus! Compositions which would scarcely be a discredit to a father of the church, and which exalt his character as highly in a religious and moral view, as it was raised, by his bravery and skill in war, in the annals of military glory.

If Alexander deserved the title in question, it was when he declared, in ́a letter to his immortal master, that "he thought it a truer glory to excel in knowledge than in power." It was in that equally moral and poetical reprehension of those flatterers who had ascribed divine honours to him, when, on the bleeding of his wounds, he said, "Look! this is my blood! This is not that divine liquor of which Homer speaks, which ran from the hand of Venus when Diomedes pierced it!" His generous treatment of the family of the conquered Darius, was, perhaps, eclipsed by the equally magnanimous, and more disinterested, moderation of our own heroic Edward the Black Prince to the captive king of France. This gallant prince seems to have merited, without obtaining, the appellation of the great.

But if splendid parade and costly magnificence be really considered as unequivocal proofs of exalted greatness, then must the Trajans, the Gustavuses, the Alfreds, the Peters, the Williams, and the Elizabeths, submit their claims to this appellation to those of Louis XIV. Louis himself must, without contest, yield the palm of greatness to Pope Alexander the Sixth, and Cæsar Borgia; and they, in their turn, must hide their diminished heads, in reverence to the living exhibiter of the late surpassing pomp and unparalleled pageantry in a neighbouring nation, displayed in the most gorgeous and costly farce that was ever acted before the astonished and indignant world!

If, to use the very words of the historian and panegyrist of Louis, "to despoil, disturb, and humble almost all the states of Europe,"—if this appeared in the eyes of that panegyrist a proof of greatness; in the eye of reason and humanity, such a course of conduct will rather appear insolence, injustice, and oppression. Yet, as such irreligious authors com

The king of France, at this same military period, severely prohibited duelling, the practice of which he was so far from considering as an indication of courage, that he took a solemn oath to bestow rewards on such military men as had THE COURAGE TO REFUSE A CHALLENGE. It was an indication that this prince understood wherein true magnanimity consisted. See also Sir Francis Bacon's charge, when attorney-general, against duels. † Mouro.

monly connect the idea of glory with that of success, they themselves ought not to vindicate it even on their own principle of expediency; since this passion for false glory, carried to the last excess, became, at length, the means of stirring up the other European powers; the result of whose confederacy terminated in the disgrace of Louis.

If ever this vain-glorious prince appeared truly great, it was in his dying speech to his infant successor, when, taking him in his arms, he magnanimously entreated him not to follow his example in his love of war, and taste for expense; exhorting him to follow moderate counsels, to fear God, reduce the taxes, spare his subjects, and to do whatever he himself had not done to relieve them.

In like manner, our illustrious Henry V., in the midst of his French conquests, conquests founded on injustice, (unpopular as is the assertion to an English ear,) never so truly deserved to be called the great, as in that beautiful instance of his reverence for the laws, when he submitted, as Prince of Wales, to the magistrate who put him under confinement for some irregularities; as when, afterwards, being sovereign, he not only pardoned, but commended and promoted him.

If ever Henry IV. of France peculiarly deserved the appellation of great, it was after the victory at Coutras, for that noble magnanimity in the very moment of conquest, which compelled a pious divine, then present, to exclaim" Happy and highly favoured of Heaven is that prince, who sees his enemies humbled by the hand of God, his table surrounded by his prisoners, his room hung with the ensigns of the vanquished, without the slightest emotion of vanity or insolence! who can maintain, in the midst of such glorious successes, the same moderation with which he has borne the severest adversity!" He deserved it, when, as he was besieging Paris, which was perishing with famine, he commanded the besiegers to admit supplies to the besieged. He deserved it, at the battle of Ivri, not when he gallantly ordered his soldiers to follow his white plume, which would be the signal of victory, nor afterwards, when that victory was complete ; but it was when, just before the engagement, he made a solemn renunciation of his own might and his own wisdom, and submitted the event to God in this incomparable prayer:

"O Lord God of hosts, who hast in thy hand all events; if thou knowest that my reign will promote thy glory, and the safety of thy people; if thou knowest that I have no other ambition, but to advance the honour of thy name, and the good of the state; favour, O great God, the justice of my arms. But if thy good providence has decreed otherwise, if thou seest that I should prove one of those kings whom thou givest in thine anger; take from me, O merciful God, my life and my crown. Make me this day a sacrifice to thy will; let my death end the calamities of my country, and let my blood be the last that shall be spilt in this quarrel."—

O si sic omnia!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Books.

"CONVERSATION," says the sagacious Verulam, "makes a ready man.” It is, indeed, one of the practical ends of study. It draws the powers of the understanding into exercise, and brings into circulation the treasures which the memory has been amassing. Conversation will be always an instrument particularly important in the cultivation of those talents which may one day be brought into public exercise. And as it would not be easy to start profitable topics of discourse between the pupil and those around her, without inventing some little previous introduction, it might not be useless to suggest a simple preparation for the occasional discussion of topics, somewhat above the ordinary cast of familiar intercourse.

To burden the memory with a load of dry matter would, on the one hand, be dull; and with a mass of poetry, which she can have little occasion to use, would, on the other, be superfluous. But, as the understanding opens, and years advance, might she not occasionally commit to memory, from the best authors in every department, one select passage, one weighty sentence, one striking precept, which, in the hours devoted to society and relaxation, might form a kind of thesis for interesting conversation? For instance, a short specimen of eloquence from South, or of reasoning from Barrow; a detached reflection on the analogy of religion to the constitution of nature, from Butler; a political character from Clarendon; a maxim of prudence from the Proverbs; a precept of government from Bacon; a moral document from the Rambler; a passage of ancient history from Plutarch; a sketch of national manners from Goldsmith's Traveller, or of individual character from the Vanity of Human Wishes; an aphorism on the contempt of riches, from Seneca, or a paragraph on the Wealth of Nations from Adam Smith; a rule of conduct from Sir Matthew Hale, or a sentiment of benevolence from Mr. Addison; a Devout Contemplation from bishop Hall, or a principle of taste from Quintilian; an opinion on the law of nations from Vattel, or on the law of England from Blackstone.

Might not any one of the topics, thus suggested by the recitation of a single passage, be made the ground of a short rational conversation, without the formality of debate, or the solemnity of an academical disputation? Persons naturally get a custom of reading with more sedulous attention, when they expect to be called upon to produce the substance of what they have read; and in order to prevent desultory and unsettled habits, it would be well, on these occasions, to tie the mind down to the one selected topic, and not to allow it to wander from the point under consideration. This practice, steadily observed, would strengthen the faculties of thinking and reasoning, and consequently highly improve the powers of conversation.

Of books, a considerable number, besides those in the foregoing passage, has already been suggested. But, though we have ventured to recommend many works which seemed peculiarly applicable to the present purpose, we do not presume to point out anything like a systematic course of