This question Schnitzler meets by asking another. Where in Russia are the vigorous characters, the mighty minds that make great nations? Čan numerical strength make up for the want of moral energy? The very bulk, too, of the empire may be unfavorable to its stability, and another germ of dissolution may perhaps lurk in its precocious and superficial civilization. "We affirm nothing," he says, "only we think that looking closely into the matter we may see the remedy beside the danger, and we are at a loss to account for Napoleon's prediction, if indeed he really put it forth, that in ten years Europe would be either Cossack or Republican.” twenty-one millions of square kilomètres, or more | combines extreme skill in the prime mover with than the double of Europe (the whole surface of extreme docility in the instrument. This is most which does not comprise ten millions of square true; and beholding the colossal proportions of kilomètres), and nearly a sixth of the whole an empire endowed with such expansive power, habitable globe. No doubt the Russian posses- it has been asked, with much show of reason, sions in Asia and America, situated under an what are France, Great Britain (isolated from her inclement sky, are nothing but a colonial territory, immense colonies), Germany, Italy-what are all still in so desert a state that if we suppose the those old seats of a perhaps decrepit civilization whole population, spare even in its western and in comparison with this theatre of a new, active, southern regions, to be spread over all its vast ex- exuberant, energetic life?" tent, we should not even find three inhabitants to the square kilomètre, whilst the proportion is nearly twelve in European Russia, and in France sixtyfive. But this colonial territory is contiguous to the mother country, and forms with it one unbroken whole. A fifth, at least, of Siberia is susceptible of good cultivation, and the earth there contains the treasures that most tempt the cupidity of man, not to mention platina, and what are called the common metals, though in reality they are much the most precious. In European Russia there are vast tracts void of culture and inhabitants; yet it contains on the whole about fifty-six millions of souls; and to give an idea of the importance to which this new world, still so imperfectly peopled, and partly plunged in the torpor of barbarian life, may rise at no distant day, we need only say that the births are to the population in the proportion of one to twenty-three or twenty-four, whilst in France the proportion is only one to thirty-four or "What we do very well understand, is the thirty-five, and that the annual increase of the alarm at this moment manifested in all parts of population by births exceeds two millions, whilst Germany. The knot of the Russian question is among us it has not yet reached one million. evidently Poland. It has been well said by an Such is the rapidity with which the Russian popu- anonymous writer-One of two things will haplation augments, that less than a century, not so pen, either Poland will remain an ulcer and a much perhaps as eighty years, will suffice to dou-danger for Russia, or it will become a great danger ble it, that is to say, to change its sum of inhabit- for Europe. Let us translate this proposition into ants from sixty to 120 millions. And even then other terms. With respect to Poland, the Emperor the last limit will certainly not have been reached, of Russia is engaged in a great work of assimilafor great is the fertility of the Muscovite soil, on, begun before the invention of Panslavism, great the variety of its productions, and fruitful in but which this novelty that has recently emerged resources the genius of its people. Though want- above the European horizon, and which certain ing the creative faculty, we cannot deny them a Poles have caught at with unexpected ardor, may marvellous aptitude for all kinds of work, and an efficaciously aid. The Emperor will succeed in extreme facility of imitation. Remarkable for his task or he will not. In the latter case we shall their native vigor, they easily accommodate them- perhaps witness the fulfilment of M. de Chateauselves to all situations. Placid in temper, cheer- briand's prediction: The Muscovites will only ful, and inaccessible to the thought of danger, they cure themselves of Poland by converting it into a are at the same time greedy of gain, habituated to desert.' But before the silence of death shall suspicion as well as to submission, and have all brood over an immense mass of ruins, how many the defects that flow from that source, craft, love convulsions will have preceded the catastrophe, of intrigue, a moral suppleness equal to their manual and to what fresh embarrassments will a righteous suppleness, and which unhappily never hesitates at retribution have condemned the three partitioning a lie or an act of dishonesty. Russia is the seat of powers! In the former case, that is, if the work a young, active, stirring, ambitious civilization, of assimilation succeeds, either by the triumph of which every day achieves some new step in ad- Panslavism, directed in accordance with the views vance. It is, moreover, united, compact, subject of Russia in concert with a part of the Polish to one law, a living law in some sort, and to nobility, or by the system hitherto pursued (in which religion, still in possession of all its power, which the refractory nobles are altogether passed notwithstanding its want of enlightenment, lends over, and the Tsar acts in preference on the midthe full force of its potent sanction. dle and lower classes, which regard him with less aversion), will not Russia have achieved a vast advantage? Will she not have worked her way close to the very heart of Europe? And when the kingdom of Poland shall have become the advanced guard of the Muscovite power, then decorated with the title of Empire of the Slavons, "This empire, placed on the confines of Europe and Asia,' says M. de Bonald, presses on them both at once, and never since the Romans has any power shown a greater expansive force. So it is in every state in which the government is enlightened and the people barbarous, and which our little philosophy for the exact measure of all things in heaven and earth, and concluding that what we cannot forecast can never be. Our modern civilization is a complex work, effected in the course of many centuries by numerous agents, each performing its distinct work. It is only in retrospect that we can understand the mighty plan; the future is too vast and intricate for our comprehension; only we know that the work must still go on, since human improvement has not reached its apogee. how will it be then with Galicia and Posen, countries more hostile to the Germans than has been commonly supposed, notwithstanding the benefits they have received from them? Does any one imagine that these other fragments of the old republic of Poland will hang back, and be content to bend beneath the German yoke, so abhorrent to their race? Is it not to be feared that the whole monarchy of the Jagellons will then be reconstituted in favor of a people, until that time the inveterate foe of the Poles, but which shall have skilfully profited by the incurable levity of the latter, and the inconsistent and unstable character of the Slaves in general? No doubt this great empire of the Slaves, supposing it should arise, would exist but for a time; no doubt its creation All the great nations of Western Europe. would, even more than the long projected and have had their special missions, and each still apparently remote acquisition of Constantino- has fulfilled its part. To Italy we owe the ple, augment that principle of dissolution to which revival of literature and the arts. The dewe have already alluded as lurking in the frame velopment of navigation and the invention of the Muscovite colossus; but meanwhile what would have become of the balance of power in of the colonial system were the work of Europe? Especially, how could unfortunate Portugal and Spain, and it was in the latter Germany preserve herself from the talons of the country that modern warfare was first eledouble-headed eagle, that never loose their hold vated to the rank of a science. Holland on the quarry they have once clutched? The set an early example of what stubborn inmere apprehension of such a danger,--chimerical, dustry may accomplish, even in defiance of we would fain hope, as yet, but which nevertheless nature; and, like Switzerland, it exhibited involves no impossibility, and which begins to occupy the serious attention of Germany,-attests the the spectacle of a free people successfully power of that divine Nemesis which visits with maintaining their rights against the most vengeance every misdeed of nations as well as of fearful odds, and of a popular government individuals."* commanding respect at home and abroad These are momentous considerations, and nalia of courts. Germany, the mother of without the costly and corrupting paraphermust be grappled and dealt with thoroughly, those barbarians who regenerated the West and in no purblind spirit of routine, by the by infusing their own native energy into cabinets and parliaments of Europe. But the decrepit frame of the Roman empire, putting aside for the present all such anx- had her thriving burgherhoods, among fous and perplexing prognostications in the which was nurtured that free spirit of indomain of politics, there remains another quiry which triumphed over the intolerant and a most interesting aspect under which dogmatism of Rome, and emancipated the we may contemplate the future career of human mind. In the domain of intellect, Can we doubt that it is destined Germany occupies a peculiar field; it is to be the scene on which shall be played out hers to explore, compare, and elaborate a new act in the great drama of human civili- details of all kinds, gathered from the zation? Surely it is not unreasonable to whole range of the universe. She mainsuppose that a whole moiety of Europe will tains at once an immense storehouse of the not for ever content itself with mere imitation and wholesale borrowing of foreign intellectual commerce of the whole world, raw materials of thought, accessible to the ideas and forms, without ever contributing and a vast laboratory in which she is peranything on its own part to the rich inherit-petually operating on those materials, exance of the nations. That it has buted nothing as yet to the common stock is no reason why we should despair for the future ; nor must we in this case fall into the vulgar error of mistaking the range of *On signing the project of partition, in 1772, Maria Theresa added the following words in her own hand: "Placet, since so many men, and men of such understanding, require it of me; but long after I am dead will be seen what results from this violation of all that has hitherto been regarded as just and sacred." tracting their subtlest essences, and searching out the primary laws of their existence. If France exhibits but a moderate share of originality and inventiveness, on the other hand she possesses in a remarkable degree the faculty of popularizing the ideas she receives from abroad. Her language too, which is curiously symbolical of the character of her people, has taken the place formerly occupied by Latin, as the general medium of communication between the widely-dispersed members of the The of a power which was losing faith in itself. sympathies and their hopes, broke the last sinews great selves prepared to assert their rights. more awakening of the Slaves, not only in the Ottoman empire, but in Bohemia, Hungary, and the Illyrian and Dalmatian provinces, is the work of Russia; the blows inflicted on the infidels by their co-relievery heart among them has thrilled at the sound of gionists of the north, against whom even the efforts of Napoleon failed; and the dim legends of history have revived among them, recalling to Bohemia her ancient literary and political glory-John "Each people has contributed its part towards Huss and Ottokar, the rival of Hapsburg; reviving the laborious work of their common advancement. the images of the ancient kings of Bulgaria, mas*** Treasures of all kinds were thus amassed ters also of the provinces of the Danube; and the before Russia was even cognisant of that labor of krals (kings) of Servia, that last rampart of Chrisages, by which she has profited gratuitously; and tendom, the somewhat mythic kralevitch, Marko, it is hard to say what possible addition yet remains the grand kral, Stephen Dushan, and the glorious to be made to the amount already accumulated. rout (1449) of the Blackbird's Field (Campo CosStill, we repeat, that Russia, too, must have her sovo); and prompting Ragusa to a sorrowful repeculiar mission; and amongst so many positions trospect of her past prosperity, and the share she already occupied she will no doubt at last find the forinerly took in the commerce of the Adriatic. one marked for herself. But this is a subject, All this numerous race, extending from that gulf to which we cannot advance beyond mere conjec- the White Sea, and from the Erzgebirg to the Baltures. We conceive, for instance, that the mission kan, was in a manner regenerated and tempered of Russia must relate to the order of things tempo- anew by the noble sentiment of nationality. It ral much more than to that of things spiritual counted its masters, the Germans, the Madiars, that it must be more analogous to that of England and the Turks; and what was its surprise to find than to that of Germany; and more than either, itself almost in a majority, and yet enthralled ! perhaps, to that of the United States, a country, The reciprocal position of the victors and vanindeed, infinitely superior to Russia in a moral quished was immediately changed, especially in and intellectual point of view. We have not the Turkish empire, where the new attitude of much hope that the Muscovite genius will wrest these rayahs, who boldly turned their eyes tofrom the arts and sciences their hitherto impenetra-wards the north, and no longer disguised their ble secrets; or that, finding the solution of the religious questions that hold us in suspense, and reconciling the desire of authority and certainty with the just requirements of reason, it will open a new era to the gospel, and bring about that Christian renovation hitherto vainly expected, though long announced. We know not if the empire of the Tsars is destined to establish on a grand scale in Europe, the patriarchal system, in which the sovereign, according to the views of certain Polish illuminati, dispensing with all written law, and disdaining our paper precautions, will govern the nations by spontaneity,' imbibe wisdom from inspiration, and have for the basis of his authority the law of love,' whereby a reciprocal attraction shall be established between him and his subjects. Neither do we know whether or not its vast ex"Besides this task, however, there is another tent is to be the scene of new experiments in social which Russia must pursue. It is one not less organization, such as the working out on a grand fundamental, and is peculiarly connected with her scale of the principle of Communism, almost im-geographical position. This second task, on possible in our regions, but perhaps more practi- which Turkey might have anticipated the empire cable in new countries, nearly in the state of pri- of the Tsars, had she been less obstinate in her meval wildness, where everything is still to be prejudices, consists in blending Europe and Asia done, and where the sovereign is himself proprie together. Placed on the confines of those two tor of a great portion of his subjects, as well as of quarters of the globe, Russia sees them mutually the lands they till. Of all this we are ignorant; confronted within her own limits, and her arm but what we see more clearly is the influence can reach the heart of the primeval continent. which Russia exercises, or will exercise, by-and- She has for neighbors all the nomades of the by, on the populations around her. The Eastern steppes of Upper Asia, besides nations until this Church having lacked a potent protector until the day almost isolated-the people of Khiva, Bokhacommencement of the last century, her children ra, and other Turcomans-the Chinese, along a remained subject to the Turkish or the Austrian The true name of the Hungarians, whom Engsway; but, since Russia assumed that protectorate, lish writers commonly call Magyars. The Gerthey have again become conscious of their num- mans write the word Madjar (in the singular), but bers and their strength, and have shown them. I their j is pronounced as our y "To raise up a whole race, and secure for it its place in Europe beside the Germanic and the Roman family, such ought to be the first great effect of the accession of Russia as a European power. This task, which Poland has been unable to fulfil, Russia is noiselessly prosecuting, and already we can foresee that she will accomplish it to the end. Will it be for her own benefit, or for that of another political combination? The future will reply to this question, but assuredly it will be for the benefit of civilization, and of the general advancement of humanity; for, according to the decrees of Providence, all the movements of the nations tend to that ultimate result. range of several hundred leagues, and even the impenetrable Japanese, with whom she is connected by her maritime causeway of the Aleutian Archipelago. Before she could be fit to accomplish this task, it was requisite that Russia should turn her face towards Europe, become penetrated with its spirit, and be initiated by it into the arts and sciences. She has done so against her will, constrained by the stern hand of Peter the Great Now imbued with all our ideas, engaged like us in all branches of industry, in possession of all our secrets, and adding to them that of a perseverance which no difficulties can subdue, she may again turn towards Asia, allure and win her by the lights she can communicate, and quicken by the excitement of new interests all the races of that vast portion of the globe, now plunged in lethargic stupor or isolated by religious fanaticism. If Russia thus comprehends her task, instead of being an object of fear to Europe, she would render her an immense service, and make an ample return for all the benefits she has received from her. "Whatever may be the fate of these hopes, one thing is certain, namely, that the apparition of Russia on the stage of the world must soon or late produce a total change in all the old routine of the system of equilibrium. Already the proportions are no longer the same; what was formerly great is now singularly dwindled in our eyes. Europe is doubled as it were the consequence is a derangement of forces, which obliges the old states of the west to seek new points of support abroad in Asia, Africa, and America, where another co lossus is rising. Assuredly the future of our part of the world will be different from what its past has been." virulent maturity. How its germs will quicken and fructify in the rank congenial soil of Asiatic barbarism' It is impossible to conceive a system of administration more thoroughly immoral in essence and practice than that of Russia: from first to last it is based upon the most flagrant venality, too universal to be put down by the desultory and chance-directed blows of imperial indignation, and deemed too natural and necessary an element of political life to be made matter of personal opprobrium. There are multitudes in Russia, into whose imaginations it has never entered to conceive the existence of such a phoenix as a servant of the state, in any capacity, civil or military, who should be at 66 the same time an honest man. It was the We admit, with Schnitzler, the probability that to Russia is committed the task of disciplining some at least of the rude races of Asia, especially the nomades of the vast central wilderness. She has already made a certain progress in this work as regards the Kalmucks, Bashkirs, Nogai Tatars, and other tribes; and among her many instruments and appliances for its prosecution, she possesses in the Cossacks an army of rough and ready missionaries and schoolmasters, singularly well adapted for carrying on the business of primary instruction among the kibitkas of the Hippophagi. But it is the sad inevitable condition of Russian propagandism, that it taints whatever it touches. Wherever her influence is established, she spreads the contagion of that moral gangrene that preys on her own vitals. The civilization she imparts is superficial, fragmentary, and facti-systematized corruption. tious, hardly carrying within it any vital Nicholas is a man of far different mould principle, any power of self-sustainment from Alexander-stubborn in purpose, and and development. Not so the corruption she communicates; that is a thing of native growth, and flourishes in the full bloom of of restless energy. Wo be to the functionary whom Nicholas detects in any fraudulent practice: for him there is no hope of mercy. The consequence is, that truth respecting its internal affairs can find in the present reign corruption is practised its way. The whole host of functionariesmore circumspectly, but not a whit less that is to say, almost every man in the emactively than ever. In fact, notwithstand-pire above the condition of a serf-is ing his unwearied vigilance, the Emperor is banded together in a conspiracy to dupe the last man in his dominions to whom the him. From Lowe's Magazine. THE NAVIGATION OF THE NIGER. THE veil of mystery which envelopes the, tress; then by the re-ascent of the Wilberinterior of Central Africa seems destined force, to remove the Government model soon to be rent asunder. The reputed farm; and finally by the subscription expewonders that, from the earliest times, tempt-dition originated by Mr. Jameson of Livered adventurers to explore it, can scarcely pool, the results of which, as reported to have formed adequate, however romantic, the subscribers, have just fallen under our inducements for daring discovery. The notice. The report evinces the possibility early search after "Prester John," follow- of establishing commercial intercourse, with ed up by the fanatical missions of the Rom- every prospect of pecuniary success, and ish Propaganda, afforded no hold upon some chance of sanitary impunity, along Pagan races, never brought to regard the the course of the Niger or Quorra, as high Christianity of such as Fathers Jerome and up as Rabbah. Bonaventure, as other than a novel sort of Much as they abused their opportunities superstition, very apt to become altogether by perverting them to the purposes of the distasteful when enforced, as in the hands slave trade, the Portuguese monarchs are of Fathers Carli and Merolla, by the argu- entitled to the chief credit of exploring the ment of the lash! Cupidity, intensely ex- African coast. The name of Vasco di Gacited by accounts which began to circulate ma is written indelibly on the Cape of Good of golden treasures in the burning sands, Hope. Yet Hanno the Carthaginian is scarcely supplied courage to face the dan- held by Major Rennell to have voyaged ger. It may read well in romance, that beyond Sierra Leone. By M. Gosselin he men will dare all, and brave all, for sordid is regarded as having gone beyond the river dross; but avarice at the best is a mean Nun. His boundary, wherever it was, is passion-essentially selfish-and therefore gravely notified in the Periplus of Scylax as destitute of courage, however capable of one beyond which "the accumulation of intrigue. Far different were the motives mud and seaweed renders navigation imthat led to the only intelligible tracks of possible." What if Hanno's shipping had discovery; that disinterested spirit of ad- only got entangled in the mangrove-swamps venture in which Mungo Park, Clapperton, of the Delta of the Niger? and the Landers, penetrated into Western Africa! It is to Liverpool commercial enterprise that, in our day, we owe the imparting of an impetus to the course of inquiry started by these travellers; an im- The name of Mungo Park contains a pulse which, carrying civilization and gospel spell that rekindles our earliest dreams of Christianity in its train, promises to unite youthful imagination! Disinterested adthe nations of the African world in the ventures and sufferings like his, encountered general brotherhood of the human race. with the view of helping to dissipate the The unfortunate expedition of Macgre- estrangement of large sections of the human gor, Laird, and Oldfield, was followed by race, and recorded along with those traits the first ascent of the Ethiope steamer, and the still more disastrous Government expedition of H.M.S. Albert, Wilberforce, and Soudan, up the Niger, and the re-ascent of the Ethiope to relieve the Albert in dis Something also has been done by the French; but it is peculiarly English enterprise that has solved the great question of African geography. of emotion alternately humane, tender, and religious, illustrating his personal character, and distinguishing his writings, impart to the pages of Park a power to captivate and melt the soul. The reader beholds the man |