civilisation. sufficing.

It might be imagined that it would henceforth be self

But this was so little the case that Russia actually became more dependent than ever on the West, as long as she had not utterly broken with her past. Not merely her mental subservience increased, through the fact that every progress, every amelioration which the West produced, was engrafted in Russia in an external and mechanical manner-for she possessed only a power of imitation, not of production-but at the same time the material assumption of foreign Western elements now extended to an extraordinary degree in Russia. This was the time when a multitude of adventurous geniuses poured into Russia from England, France, and specially from Germany, and rose with fabulous rapidity to the highest posts, though certainly on a dangerous path. Peter required strangers not only to educate his Russians in the hitherto unknown arts and sciences-not only as instructors for his army so recently reestablished on an European model-the new Russian state required, more than all, foreign protection against its own employés.

This soi-disant civilisation of Russia, then, Peter was compelled to purchase at the price of a division in his nation, and that is the most important matter for our consideration. Those Russians not immediately dependent on the state, the immense mass of peasants and traders, were unassailable by the imperial ukase, and adhered to their Byzantine manners and customs-the more so as the Church, which Peter rendered ridiculous, looked with suspicion and hatred on the changes, and was only prevented by its Byzantine impotence from resisting them more energetically. Through his regardless revolutionary breach with the past of his nation, Peter placed himself in the most peculiar position to the great mass of this people. He was opposed to them as an enemy as a conqueror. He who, on the other hand, was the hereditary, unbounded master of this nation, and as such honoured by this slavish mass. This position rendered energetic demonstrations on either side impossible. Peter, himself a Russian, himself only striving to render Russia great and powerful, was unable to utterly subdue his nation. He was in a state of contradiction to himself,-that very contradiction which the whole Russian state contains. Any actual civilisation of Russia in a Western sense must strike at the very root of the nationality. Peter, if he really pursued this object, could not confine himself to rendering the Church powerless and ridiculous-he must attack it in the body of the nation, who must become either Catholic or Protestant. In this case, however, he would cease to be a Russian, he would become an agent of the West, to which Russia would fall a prey, and grow sooner or later a dependency. On the other hand, even if the Russian people possessed sufficient strength to render active and effectual resistance to the hateful changes introduced, it could not employ this strength against its tzar, in whom it ever revered the will of the Deity-it dare not become revolutionary-it must confine itself to passive resistance, and trust to the stubbornness of its Sclavon nature. latter it could justly do. Russian civilisation has existed for a century and a half, but has taken no root in the nation. The two classes created by Peter are still opposed, and this is the more explicable, as the class so hated by Peter could only suffer serious detriment by the changes. Since Peter, serfdom has become legal and universal, and its abolition, or

The

even alleviation, appears at present impossible even for the autocrat and under the influence of the philanthropical ideas of Europe. Although the Russians are white men, they appear to be of a very similar character to the negroes. They will cease work-that is, except for the absolute necessaries of life-so soon as the compulsion is removed.

Still it is clear that, just as such a division weakens the state, or at least will not suffer it to grow strong, so the parts separated will not cease striving for a reunion, even if centuries elapse ere it be effected. The instinctive feeling of political incompetence on the part of the old Russian party, is the chief reason why an immense reaction did not follow on Peter's death: at a later date it was prevented by a German family attaining the throne of Russia. For nearly a century the government was carried on without any regard for the masses, who daily fell victims to a more terrible slavery. In Petersburg the people fed on the crumbs of European civilisation, and all the Western ideas, at the head of which mentally-revolutionised France took her place, were suffered to pour over Russia without hindrance. Through the want of any cultivation springing from the home soil, the higher Russian classes revelled in the philosophy of the Encyclopédie, of Voltaire and Rousseau, without the slightest notion of the real circumstances of the social and civil development of which those ideas were the fruit. Nor did any one think in the least of applying these ideas to the actual circumstances of Russia, and the self-same Catharine, who exchanged letters full of sentimental philanthropy with Diderot and Voltaire, with a stroke of her pen converted thousands of free Russian peasants into serfs, without the least consciousness of the contradiction her conduct revealed. Western ideas were, in fact, articles of luxury in Russia, by which enjoyment could be heightened, just like champagne, or any other occidental article. So clearly was the hot-house character of the Russian civilisation—which had taken no root-revealed.

The French Revolution, and more especially the year 1812, caused a change in the relations of the government and the people in Russia. Even Peter had been compelled to acquire the experience, that one of his most stubborn old Russians called his attention to the dangerous consequences, which might emanate from Western ideas against the monarchical -still more against the autocratic-principle. Peter laughed at him. At that day, kings, least of all men, believed in or thought of revolutions. Now it had arrived as the ripe fruit of the ideas which they had so much liked to foster in Petersburg. They grew distrustful, though far from believing in a repetition of the French Revolution in Petersburg, or even of attempts of that nature. Even when the lava stream of the revolution was checked by the icy steppes of Russia, when all classes of the nation were re-united after more than a century by one national thought, and the old chasm was momentarily bridged-the government did not think seriously of giving up its attachment to the West, and returning to the ground of Russian nationality. The results of the year 1812 gradually brought about this determination: and by the most opposite routes that period of transition was reached, in which the Russian nation is now indubitably engaged. Whether she will be strong or weak, after this period has passed, is a very different question.

The French campaign and the immediate and active collision into which it brought the Russian army with the West, naturally left a deep

effect on their minds-far from favourable to Russian institutions. This contact first aroused that love of imitation so powerful in the Sclavon; but the liberal associations which were formed after the return of the army, and which soon assumed a revolutionary character-as was natural in a country, when the whole of the natural energy is concentrated on one point were soon forced, in order to apply their new ideas, to take their footing on Russian ground, on that of Russian nationality. Thus, then, that separation into two classes was first theoretically removed by the revolution. The educated classes, who had enviously kept aloof from the people and their wants, now busied themselves with them, with the intention of improving their position either on the road of reform or else by force. The masses, however, had not the least idea that they were the objects of sympathy, and on the eventual outbreak of the revolutionary conspiracy-to which the Russians in their national vanity, which is far greater than that of the French, attach a socialist character, because it was, at least in the programme, referred to the emancipation of the peasants-remained perfectly indifferent. The impulse to this healing of the breach which had existed from the time of Peter, originated with the European ideas, and these formed the leading principle. But on the opposite side attempts were made to attain the same object, by opposing the Russo-Sclavonic character with its peculiarities to the West. The former is the Europo-revolutionary-the latter the philoSclavon-party for the former Peter the Great is the type, whose work they continue, and so strive to raise the masses who have been so long excluded from all enjoyment of happiness and education: the latter are in principle against every European change, bring out the Byzantine character prominently, praise the want of individuality peculiar to this nationality and the Greek Church, and, in short, perfectly represent the old Russian party. These two parties, it will be seen, are not the mere product of a certain age, but they have their root in Russian history, and will ever re-appear anew, though in a modified form. Although so utterly opposed, they are continually coming into contact. They are both national: both wish to remove the old dissensions in the people both desire Russian domination in Europe, and agree perfectly in their hatred of the Germans. Whenever it comes to a revolution in Russia, which though not probable at the moment, is still inevitable at a future day, the constitutional, or European party would lead the van, but the Sclavonic party would gain the eventual mastery, extirpate the foreign elements, and then return to despotism, which would either fall back into the old Asiatic petrifaction, or again introduce foreign elements into Russia, and she would thus have to commence her career afresh.

The true condition of a nation which can derive no vitality from itself, but must obtain it from the West, through a terrible despotism, which, we may say, increases in proportion to the vitality introduced, is not hidden from all the Russians, although the majority, true to their brutal and Sclavonic nature, console themselves for their want of internal freedom by the feeling of external domination, and forget that a nation which is inwardly lifeless and powerless, can only exercise a most precarious and accidental dominion over the exterior world. There are Russians who look on the future of their nation with horror, for they see with perfect clearness that the intense, fearful sufferings which compulsory civilisation is preparing for this nation, can expect no payment from the future

that this future is a return to that barbarism from which the great mass of the nation has never yet thoroughly emerged; that the history of Russia is like Penelope's web, for one period only destroys what another created with sorrow and tears. From this stand-point, some twenty years ago a most distinguished Russian, Tchaadaeff, invoked his curse upon the country and the people, its past and future-in words which pierced the heart, from their appearing so impartial and unimpassioned. As his book could not in any way be twisted into an attack on the tzar, it was impossible to punish the author; so the autocrat contented himself with officially pronouncing the writer a fool. This is the mildest fate that threatens the speaker of truth in Russia. Still, such instances of Russian self-recognition are very isolated. The Russian is in the highest degree vain and boastful, and, in addition to a love of truth, he wants that insight into his own true character, the boundaries and limits of his nationality and the accidental causes of his artificial greatness. ought we to feel surprised at this, when we find German philosophers prophesying the dominion of Europe to be eventually in the hands of such a nation?

But

Through our analysis, which is based on the history of Russia, and the perception of the development of all nationalities, there can be no doubt that Russian nationality, which owes all its elements of vitality to foreign elements, which she assumed only superficially and imperfectly, cannot be regarded as one that holds out any hopes of endurance and prosperity.

Any person that does not regard the matter in the same light as ourselves, must allow that a nation, in order to enjoy internal strength and vitality, must have first displayed these qualities in a struggle with other nations, which will have served to strengthen them. Thus, for instance, the French developed the power of their nationality in their struggle with England. But has Russia anything similar to point to, which would justify the assertion that her nationality is a strong and powerful one?

In the presence of history, we must negative this question. The Tartar yoke fell off through the internal dissolution of the empire, and not through the bravery and strength of the Russian nation.* Russia never before dared a really great war against an organised power, except when attacked, and Charles XII. and Napoleon were conquered-not by the Russian bravery, but by the elements and the savageness of the country. The latter is the strength of Russia. She represents a stubborn unity. From this stand-point she has ever promoted the internal dissolution of barbarous or semi-barbarous nations, and swallowed them in turn. From this stand-point she ever strives to promote anarchy, in order to acquire a right of interference and the dictatorship. In greater European conflicts Russia has always gladly taken a part, in order afterwards to lay claim to the greater portion of the renown, but she has never before been actually opposed to any organised Western power.

When the Russians have fought the smallest portion of the battles in which the greater Western nations strengthened themselves, then we shall be justified, and not till then, in calling their nationality a powerful one.

In the well-known battle which freed Russia from paying tribute to the Tartars, both armies displayed their bravery by running away from each other.

A BRUSSELS BULL-FIGHT.

A VIGNETTE FROM A POET'S PORTFOLIO.

BY T. WESTWOOD.

THE Brussels bull-fights, though, of necessity, failures in the main, were not wholly so. It was something, for instance, to see those little mountain bulls, tawny, lurid, small thunder-clouds incarnate, that rushed bounding into the arena, with apparently but one object in view, that of attacking something or somebody, no matter whom or what. At the representation, however, at which I was present, the first two bulls, after displaying much vivacity and petulance, and chasing the Bandarillos from side to side of the enclosure, lapsed into comparative quietness; but not so the third, a compact, sturdy creature, who made a dead set at one of the mounted Picadors, and breaking through his guard, knocked man and horse pell-mell over, and leaping across their bodies, scoured away, with one brown button on his horn, and the other red. The man was extricated from under the horse, unhurt (it seems they pad, with a view to these contingencies), but the horse was gored, in spite of the button, and limped out of the arena in sorry case. This was the grand catastrophe of the day, as regards the excitement; but the crowning feature both of the amusement and the fiasco, was the Belgian bull,* who, when the doors of his den were thrown open, refused not only to show fight, but even to show himself. Persuasion was lost on him-poking was ineffectual-every form of argument was employed in vain.

stood, dimly visible through the doorway, but as motionless as a statue waiting for its pedestal. All sorts of scarlet and crimson cloaks were flaunted in his eyes, but he would none of them; at last, some more piquant incentive being applied (I imagine) in the rear, he reluctantly yielded, and stalked into the arena, hanging down his head, and looking astonished and confounded at the shouts that greeted him. But fighting was clearly no vocation of his. "The tossing' accident was not his trade." He was a bull for peace-congresses to patronise and adorn with medals-a pattern bull-a bull to be sent on a mission to the savage flocks on windy sierras. "What business had he there, at such a time?" I have some notion myself, however, that the secret was in his horns. A Spanish bull's horns are large and strong, with a bold upward curve; but this Belgian bull's were fashioned otherwise, were not more than six inches in length, and curved earthward. What could a bull do with such pacific horns, such weapons of no offence? Why nothing, of course, but be as mild as new milk-a very cow for meekness; and so he was. They heaped every variety of ignominy upon him-Belgian abuse buffeted him, Spanish Billingsgate pursued him, whips lashed his hide, sticks belaboured his head, but nothing stirred his temper. He was a bull of principle, and stuck to his text; and after pacing sedately round the circus, on the look-out, I fancy, for grass, he suffered two Banderillos (very fat men) to ride on his back, a third to hang round his neck, and a fourth to pull hard at his tail, and so escorted, amid the universal jeer

* In each representation a bull of Belgian race was to do battle.