pluck, drill, good management, generalship, and economy, fight at the same time Russia, Austria, and France. Prussia is in itself almost as unfit to be a great military Power as the Russia of Peter's earlier days was to be a great naval Power. But in both cases genius and patience, and the infinite attention to details which is the soul of patience, and perhaps of genius, won their way, and secured the desired end.

found Russia an Empire of savages, and left it an Empire in contact with, and almost a part of, the civilized world. It was not only that when Peter visited William III. Russia was unknown to England, but there was nothing as to Russia which Europe was in the least concerned in knowing. Its only port was Archangel; Sweden cut it off from the Baltic; Turkey from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. It had no cities, or wealth, or learning, or armies fit to cope with Europeans. Peter But although great works cannot he said that the Swedes taught him the art of done without great workmen, still the war, and he learnt it as a perfectly new great workman must have adequate matelesson, in a manner that made the Swedes rials in order to achieve his purpose. repent that their teaching had been so Frederick the Great could never have good. Peter, under circumstances so very fought the Seven Years' War unless his unfavourable, determined that Russia subjects had been akin in temper and stubshould not only be a great Power, but a born courage to their descendants whom great naval Power. He set himself to we have seen marching through France in learn the rudiments of the art of ship- 1870. Peter could not have made Russia building, and he framed in the dockyards great unless there had been a Russia to of Saardam and Deptford the project of make great. And the greatness of Russia giving Russia a navy. No instance of the is due to three causes. In the first place, expansive power of the political mind of there was the influence of a spirited, man is more extraordinary than this. Pe- though utterly unscrupulous, set of alien ter entirely out of his own head invented adventurers whose talents were bought by the notion of Russia, a landlocked Power, Russia just as the statues and pictures and becoming the mistress of great seas and books of ancient Europe were bought to the owner of gigantic navies. It was only add to the nascent glories of St. Peterspart of the same idea, and not so striking burg. In the next place, there was a fruà part, that he should have nursed the am- gal, hardy, devout, abundant peasantry, bition of making Russia a Power distinct gifted with a great courage and a readifrom other European Powers, and yet one ness to die for their Czar the fruits of of their number. Sweden and Poland col- which were made sufficiently apparent to lapsed before Russia, because they were the world of our days at the Alma and little Powers affecting to be great ones. Inkerman. The present Emperor has at Turkey, unprotected by Western Europe, his absolute disposal sixty millions of subhad no sufficient basis of resistance. That jects and a million and a quarter of trained Russia should have learnt some of the arts of civilization from communication with Europe; that, possessed of these arts, she should have largely influenced Europe; that, with an autocratic Government and a brave, submissive population, she should have gradually won her way on all sides, is not so very wonderful. What is won- it was represented to him that not only derful is, that the author of her greatness had the laws previously prohibited smokshould have seen that a seaboard and a ing, but that the clergy had denounced the navy were necessary to her, and might be practice as damnable, Peter replied that he won by her, at a time when she had no knew how to manage the priests. Certainports, no ships, and no seamen. The only ly the Czars have shown that they know Russian who could see this was the Sover- how to manage their priests. The Ruseign, and the Sovereign, in order to real-sians are among the most devout of men. ize his visions, had to begin at the begin- They are always rendering external homning and learn the merest rudiments of seamanship and ship-building. Perhaps the only parallel in modern times is that of Frederick the Great, who conceived and carried out the equally difficult project of making a tiny State without a frontier and without a military ally, by mere force of

men. Lastly, the most effective spiritual agency known to the modern world, that of the Russian clergy, is entirely at the command of the Czar. When Peter was in England he undertook, at the instigation of Lord Carmarthen, to permit the introduction of tobacco into Russia; and when

age to the signs of religion. They bow in adoration before every cross, and always have a pictured Saint at hand to bless and protect them. The clergy have all the respect and reverence paid them which flow from the hearts of an uninquiring and admiring people. But the whole of this spir

itual power is an engine in the hands of those special elements of greatness by the Czar. The priests only exist to serve which it has risen. Russia becomes every him and to promote his glory. The Rus- year more like Europe. Its peasantry, sian Church is at once a State Church with the extreme of vitality in itself and with the extreme of subordination as regards the State. Peter, who was entirely free from anything like high principles, and allowed nothing to stand in the way of his aims, persecuted the Protestants in his dominions to the complete satisfaction of his clergy; and his policy has been that of his successors, and has met the reward anticipated. The State upholds the Church with an iron hand, and the Church has no desire except to please the Emperor. If all that has taken place in the last ten years in the way of religious persecution in Russia, under a singularly mild and noble-minded Czar, could be made known, Europe would stand aghast. The Orthodox Church is maintained and its area extended at any cost; but the Orthodox Church is not like the Catholic Church in Catholic countries, a foreign and usurping Power - it is heart and soul the handmaid of the Emperor. For anything like it we must go out of European experience, and look at Mahommedan countries. The Czar is the head of the Faithful, just as the Sultan is the head of the Faithful, and the only difference is that the spiritual power of the Sultan is crippled, while that of the Czar is not crippled, by the opposing influence and the abiding control of foreign nations.

When great men have done great things for a nation it is natural and right that occasionally the greatness of these men and of their work should alone be brought into prominence, while their bad qualities and the evil they wrought are for the moment cast into the shade. It is quite true that, in spite of all these processions to and from the statue and the Cathedral, Peter was in real life a gross, cruel, sensual savage. But it is not for Russia to think of this at a time when the accident of what is pronounced to be an anniversary recalls, to the exclusion of everything else, what Peter was, and what he did, for Russia. It may, however, be observed that the works of great men have always two sides and operate in different directions. They have a constructive and at the same time a destructive force. Peter's object, in which, seconded by his able successors, he fully succeeded, was to make Russia at once great and part of the European system. Having become great, and having become part of the European system, the country inevitably tends to change its character, and to lose

and even its clergy are on the road to change. We often hear of the Old Russian party, and perhaps are not clear what it means, and what it desires. Its meaning and its desires become clear if we regard it as the party which wishes to accept one half of Peter's work without accepting the other half. It wishes that Russia should be great in Europe without begoming European. It thinks that the status of the peasantry and of the clergy shall be immutable. It disregards the general politics of Europe and clings to Panslavism. It dreams not of absorbing Poland, but of blotting it out. It has persistently, and not unsuccessfully, resisted the benevolent and liberal policy of the Czar. It recoils from Germany because German thought and German training are the doors of European influence. Peter is at this moment, as it were, fighting with himself in Russia. The ladder by which his family has mounted to the heights of its dizzy ambition declines to be kicked down. Russia, to be all that he wished, needs to be transformed, and the transformation of a people is a long and difficult process. There are eddies and backwaters in the current of every national history, and Russia will only with many struggles and many retrograde movements become really European. There will be many scratchings of the skin, and the Tartar will always be revealed beneath. Of the ultimate result there can be little doubt. Russia will be gradually changed, but in calculating the effects of the change, which will be, it may be expected, favourable both to its real and apparent greatness, it must be borne in mind that the new Russia will not be the oid, and that the peculiar instruments by which the dreams of Peter were realized will have ceased to exist.

From The Spectator.

THORBECКЕ.

By the death of its Premier, Johann Rudolf Thorbecke, Holland has lost one of the most distinguished statesmen who have ever adorned, not only the Netherlands, not unfruitful of great political capacities, but any country of Europe. It was of Thorbecke that Palmerston said that he was a statesman too great for his little country; and the recollection of his life and

labours must indeed excite the regret, nineteen, within three years he had obcoupled with no envious feeling towards tained the baccalaureate, with the highest the sturdy commonwealth which honoured honours which the University could bestow, him as its foremost citizen, that nations of and when he departed from the collegiate greater weight and influence have been so cloisters in 1820 to visit during two years destitute of public servants whose names the German seats of learning, it was with deserve to be mentioned in the same breath a promise from the University authorities with his. Seventy-four years of age, for that a professorship awaited his return. Thorbecke was born in 1798, represents a Unfortunately for his chances of promotion vast total of useful activity in a man who at Leyden, the young Thorbecke, who had could not be inactive and who had been en- already conceived strong affinities for the gaged from his earliest year in the dis-philosophy of his countryman Spinoza, charge of public or quasi-public functions. came back additionally imbued with the It was not, however, without a feeling of theories of Schelling and Hegel, and at the painful surprise, notwithstanding that ru-heterodoxy of his speculations on God and mours of M. Thorbecke's failing health had existence the Dons of Leyden refused him been current for some months past, that the promised professoriate. For two years the news of the death of the venerable Pre- more Thorbecke returned to Germany, and mier broke upon the community. It was at the University of Göttingen continued but a few days since he had made his last to extend his studies, and, it may well be appearance in the Chamber, during the imagined, to view, no dull or indifferent discussions upon the Income-tax. The observer, the political spectacle which Gerstep had been taken contrary to the advice many presented at the time. In effect, the of his physiciaus, and the knowledge that four years, 1820-24, which Thorbecke spent there was more of patriotic zeal than per- in Germany were singularly rich in matter sonal prudence in the proceeding no doubt of interest and instruction. The sovereigns contributed to swell the enthusiastic ap- and half-sovereigns were fulfilling on all plause with which he was greeted by the sides their engagement to grant constituDeputies. It is now certain that the exer- tions in that fashion which, after provoktion directly accelerated his death. At the ing the wrath of the Democrats of 1818, time, however, the spectacle of Thorbecke has finally ended in their present mediatiin his accustomed place was little calcu-zation and Prussianization. At the same lated to prepare his colleagues and countrymen for the sad event that was so soon to supervene. We might almost say of him, as of Chatham, that his last breath was given to the service of his country. Perhaps it was not less emblematic of the man, that while Chatham fell on the wellknown occasion, the last energies of Thorbecke were expended on a question of budgetary finance. In his time he had been called to decide upon the gravest questions which could affect the public welfare, but in every question it was his character to be equally thorough, reflective, and resolved.

In an epoch which beholds the son of a Marseilles locksmith on the Presidential Throne of France, the rise of Thorbecke may not excite any extraordinary emotion. It was none the less remarkable in a high degree. Born at Zwolle, the unpretending capital of the province of Overyssel, and of parents in but middling circumstances, there was little connected with his origin which seemed to promise the favour of fortune. In truth, it was not to fortune, but to brilliant abilities, which his parents spared no pains to cultivate, that he owed his advancement. An undergraduate of the University of Leyden at the age of

time, Wurtemburg was already the focus of democratic sentiments which were blasphemies in the ears of the Holy Alliance. There were other matters also upon which a keen young Hollander could take notes. In 1824 the injuries which the commerce of the Rhine had immemorially suffered from the various customs and tolls imposed by Holland at the mouth of the river, and by the German States along the banks, provoked the angriest feelings between the Dutch and Germans, feelings which more than once subsequently nearly exploded in war. When a quarter of a century later, Thorbecke was Premier of Holland, one of the most important measures of his ministry was the abolition of all navigation dues in favour of the vessels of such nations as were ready to return the compliment to the traders of Holland. In 1825 King William I. acknowledged the rising fame of the young savant by nominating Thorbecke to a professorship in the University of Ghent, more tolerant or less devout than Leyden. After the revolution which divorced Holland and Belgium, Leyden became sufficiently relaxed from its former austerity, to grant at length a professorial chair to its distinguished alumnus. At Leyden especially did Thorbecke succeed,

by his teaching on history and political suffragan sees at Haarlem, Bois-le-Duc, economy, in creating a school of Liberal and Ruremond. Immediately the tide of politicians, who were later to fight side by Protestant feeling rose against the invaside with him in effecting the reformation sion, and as Thorbecke professed himself of the Constitution. After the abdication to be unable to perceive the danger, and, of William I. and the accession of William on the contrary, opined that the organizaII., the voice of Thorbecke became louder tion of the Catholic Church was a matter and bolder in the demand for constitutional for that communion exclusively, he was reform. Almost everything required re- compelled to retire in favour of the more form. Religious equality and ministerial orthodox zeal which suited the fervour of responsibility were among the most indis- the moment. As a considerable body of pensable requirements, and Thorbecke was the Dutch Liberals hated the Pope with already preparing that alliance between still greater energy than they loved liberty, the Catholics and the Radical Protestants the affair was the beginning of a scission to which Holland owes the present Consti- in the Liberal ranks which has lasted to tution. The work of victory was not easy. the present day, and which partly affords It took the salutary terrorism of 1848 to the reason why Thorbecke, though always impress the wisdom of progress on the remaining the acknowledged head of minds of the Court and the old Conserva- Dutch Liberalism, was reproached with a tive party. In 1849, Thorbecke became tendency to fall behind the more advanced Premier. He had previously been the members of the school. In 1862 and 1870 President of the Commission for revising Thorbecke was again called to form Minthe Constitution. istries. With regard to his religious The first Ministry of M. Thorbecke last- opinions, beyond the fact of his early ed from 1849 to 1853. During that period, Spinozaism, perhaps the most definite indiold, illiberal Holland came to on end, and cation of his views is afforded by the oration new Liberal Holland was born. The ac- which M. Jolles, the Minister of Justice, tivity of the Premier extended over the delivered over his remains, in which we are entire field of communal, provincial, and assured that the deceased had firm faith electoral legislation, and the existing in the existence of God, and the immortalDutch Constitution is the work of his ity of the soul. In summing up the charhands. Had the principles of religious acter of Thorbecke, we should probably equality been adopted five-and-twenty be right in describing him as having never years earlier, the secession of Belgium lost that professorial and didactic turn might never have taken place. Even in 1819, however, Thorbecke had enough to do to vanquish the resistance of the ultraProtestant party, which regarded as a profanation the grant of Catholic emancipation in the country of William of Orange. In 1853 that ultra party, whose chief, M. Groen van Prinaterer, would have satisfied the ideal of Mr. Newdegate, found its opportunity in an event analogous to the one which in England produced the Durham Letter and the Fcclesiastical Titles' Act. In the month of March of that year the Pope made Utrecht the seat of a Catholic Archbishopric, with

which his more youthful pursuits had lent him. No man was ever more careful in following the Baconian rule of the multiplication of instances, in storing his mind with the results of wide and varied experience, which his vast grasp of principles easily enabled him to reduce to order and sequence. With all his strong convictions, however, he had the Palmerstonian knack of never failing to present an unruffled geniality to the worst of circumstances. Along with the professor, not only the man of State, but the man of the world, were happily blended in Thorbecke.

Nor the least interesting page yet to be un- by a Chinaman, named Yung Wing, who was folded in the world's history is the future of the educated in Yale College, in the United States, Chinese; in the meantime it is very evident that having for its object the sending of Chinese they have no intention of being ignominiously youths to that country to be educated at the exterminated like other barbarians, but are expense of the Government. Yung Wing has bent upon qualifying themselves to compete had some difficulty in winning over the Chinese with more enlightened nations. A very curious authorities to his project, but it is stated that movement has, it seems, been lately organized | he has at last been successful, and the 'plan is

so far advanced that the first instalment of youths will be sent to the United States this summer, They are already selected, and are now in course of preparation at Shanghai. The necessary officers all named by the Chinese Government have been appointed to accompany them, and a large fund has been appropriated for their support. It is asserted that this fund amounts to over two million Mexican dollars, for which a certain percentage of the Customs has been pledged in the manner usual to the Chinese. The plan is understood to be as follows: 1. The Chinese Government to select thirty boys each year for five consecutive years, 150 in all, without distinction of rank, and by competitive examination. They are to exceed fourteen years of age when they enter the preparatory school at Shanghai, or other schools that may be hereafter organized. The edueation in Chinese is to be made as thorough as possible before they are sent to the United States. 2. the entire expense for their living and education in the preparatory schools, and afterwards in the United States, to be borne by the Chinese Government. 3. An educated native of rank to be appointed as instructor to each yearly instalment, who is to accompany it to the United States and remain with them. He is charged with the instruction of the youths in the Chinese language, and literature while in the United States and is expected to devote a portion of each week to that object. 4. The students are required to prosecute their studies for twelve years, and during that time each is expected to acquire one of the professions. They will not be allowed to remain in the United States beyond that period, nor to enter upon any private occupation. 5. Each student is regarded from the first as in the service of the Chinese Government. A definite rank is assigned to him on the completion of his education, and he goes immediately into service on his return. In case the parents of any student IT is stated that the Prince of Orange's indisare in narrow circumstances a certain indemnity position is of a nature to cause the gravest anxis to be paid them by Government. 6. The iety. He was unable to attend the funeral of his students will not be permitted to divest them-aunt, the Princess Henry, and is reported to be selves of their Chinese nationality or become suffering from a severe depression of the nervous naturalized citizens of the United States." An system, which only time and a strict attention attempt, it is believed, will be made to secure to his physicians' prescriptions are likely to get the admission of a part of the students to the the better of. His illness is the source of all the Military School at West point and the Naval more uneasiness as his death would affect most School at Annapolis. materially the succession to the throne. The present king's uncle has only one daughter; his brother, husband of the Princess Henry recently deceased, has no children, and the Prince of Orange has only one brother-the Prince Alexander. If the former, therefore, were to die without issue, his younger brother would be the last of his line, and, in the event of his also being childless, the crown would go to some German prince-a Saxe-Meiningen or a SaxeWeimar - for the House of Orange would have become extinct. This is an eventuality looked forward to with much apprehension and dread by the Dutch people. Pall Mall

have retained the Order in Silesia. My reasons are, first, that there are no Catholics here who possess a scientific education; we have neither Oratorians nor Piarists, and the other monks are ignorant and unpolished. It was therefore necessary to retain the Jesuits, as otherwise the national schools would have to be given up. . . Moreover, our parish priests derive all their knowledge of theology from the Jesuit University of Breslau, and if the Order were abolished, which would also lead to the abolition of the university, it would be necessary to send Silesians to Bohemia to study theology, which is contrary to the principles of the Government. If these reasons do not satisfy you, I will add another and a stronger one. I promised in the Treaty of Dresden to maintain religion in my dominions in statu quo. Now I found Jesuits in my new dominions; I must therefore leave them there. Catholic Sovereigns have a Pope at their disposal who can free them from their oaths at his pleasure. But I have no one to do me such a service; I must keep my promises, and the Pope would consider it a desecration to give me his blessing. . . . I know the Jesuits have intrigued and interfered in questions of State, but the Government must look to that. Why did it give way? It is not Tellier, but Louis XIV., that was in fault.

Pall Mall Gazette.

SOME interesting passages from the letters of Frederick the Great to Voltaire, relative to the retention of the Jesuits in Prussia after the abolition of the order by Pope Clement XIV. in 1773, are quoted by the Breslau Gazette:

I have only kept them (says the King) for the education of youth. The Pope has already made them harmless; they can no longer, like Sampson's foxes, set on fire the fields of the Philistines. Heretic and infidel as I am, I│

.

It should be observed, however, that Frederick the Great was not always so scrupulous in his adherence to treaties, and that he was hardly likely to put forward his obligations under the Treaty of Dresden as his strongest reason for retaining the Jesuits in Prussia, if there were not another in the background which, in his eyes at least, was much more important.

Pall Mall.