scattered forces of the apanages to make head | Instantly they emerged from the forest which against the common enemy. The two armies, each 150,000 strong, met at Koulikoff, on the 7th September, 1378, on which day, four hundred and thirty-four years afterwards, Napoleon and Kutasoff commenced the dreadful struggle at Borodino. "On the 6th September, the army approached the Don, and the princes and boyards deliberated whether they should retire across the river, so as to place it between them and the enemy, or await them where they stood, in order to cut off all retreat from the cowardly, and compel them to conquer or die. Dmitri then ascended a mound, from which he could survey his vast army. The hour of God,' said he, has sounded.' In truth no one could contemplate that prodigious multitude of men and horses; those innumerable battalions ranged in the finest order; the thousands of banners, and tens of thousands of arms glittering in the sun, and hear the cry repeated by a hundred and fifty thousand voices,-'Great God, give us the victory over our enemies,' without having some confidence in the result. Such was the emotion of the prince, that his eyes filled with tears; and dismounting, he knelt down, and stretching out his arm to the black standard, on which was represented our Saviour's figure, he prayed fervently for the salvation of Russia.-Then mounting his horse, he said to those around,-'My well-beloved brothers and companions in arms, it is by your exploits this day, that you will live in the memory of man, or obtain the crown of immortality.' "Soon the Tartar squadrons were seen slowly advancing, and ere long they covered the whole country to the eastward, as far as the eye could reach. Great as was the host of the Russians, they were outnumbered considerably by the Moguls. His generals besought Dmitri to retire, alleging the duty of a commander-in-chief to direct the movements, not hazard his person like a private soldier; but he replied, 'No, you will suffer wherever you are: if I live, follow me, if I die avenge me.' Shortly after the battle commenced, and was the most desperate ever fought between the Russians and the Tartars. Over an extent of ten wersts, (seven miles,) the earth was stained with the blood of the Christians and Infidels. In some quarters the Russians broke the Moguls; in others they yielded to their redoubtable antagonists. In the centre some young battalions gave way, and spread the cry that all was lost: the enemy rushed in at the opening this afforded, and forced their way nearly to the standard of the Grand Prince, which was only preserved by the devoted heroism of his guard. Meanwhile Prince Vladimir Andreiwitch, who was placed with a chosen body of troops in ambuscade, was furious at being the passive spectator of so desperate a conflict in which he was not permitted to bear a part. At length, at eight at night, the Prince of Volhynia, who observed with an experienced eye the movements of the two armies, exclaimed, 'My friends, our time has come!' and let the whole loose upon the enemy, now somewhat disordered by success. had concealed them from the enemy, and fell with the utmost fury on the Moguls. The effect of this unforeseen attack was decisive. Astonished at the vehement onset, by troops fresh and in the best order, the Tartars fled, and their chief, Mamia, who, from an elevated spot beheld the rout of his host, exclaimed, The God of the Christian is powerful!' and joined in the general flight. The Russians pursued the Moguls to the Metcha, in endeavouring to cross which vast numbers were slain or drowned, and the camp, with an immense booty, fell into the hands of the victors."-Vol. v. pp. 79—82. This great victory, however, did not decide the contest, and nearly a hundred years elapsed before the independence of Russia from the Tartars was finally established. Not long after this triumph, as after Boradino, Moscow was taken and burnt by the Moguls; the account of which must, for the present, close our extracts. "No sooner were the walls of Moscow escaladed by the Tartars, than the whole inhabitants, men, women, and children, became the prey of the cruel conquerors. Knowing that great numbers had taken refuge in the stone churches, which would not burn, they cut down the gates with hatchets, and found immense treasures, brought into these asylums from the adjoining country. Satiated with carnage and spoil, the Tartars next set fire to the town, and drove a weeping crowd of captives, whom they had selected for slaves, from the massacre into the fields around. What terms,' say the contemporary annalists, 'can paint the deplorable state in which Moscow was then left? That populous capital, resplendent with riches and glory, was destroyed in a single day! Nothing remained but a mass of ruins and ashes; the earth covered with burning remains and drenched with blood, corpses half burnt, and churches wrapt in flames. The awful silence was interrupted only by the groans of the unhappy wretches, who, crushed beneath the falling houses, called aloud for some one to put a period to their sufferings."-Vol. v. p. 101. Such was Russia at its lowest point of depression in 1378. The steps by which it regained its independence and became again great and powerful, will furnish abundant subject for another article on Karamsin's Modern History. We know not what impression these ex tracts may have made on our readers, but or ourselves they have produced one of the most profound description. Nothing can be so interesting as to trace the infancy and progressive growth of a great nation as of a great individual. In both we can discover the slow and gradual training of the mind to its ultimate destiny, and the salutary influence of adversity upon both in strengthening the character, and calling forth the energies. It is by the slowest possible degrees that nations are trained to the heroic character, the patri otic spirit, the sustained effort, which is necessary to durable elevation. Extraordinary but fleeting enthusiasm, the genius of a sin gle man, the conquests of a single nation, may often elevate a power like that of Alexander, in ancient, or Napoleon in modern times, to the very highest pitch of worldly greatness. But no reliance can be placed on the stability of such empires; they invariably sink as fast as they had risen, and leave behind them nothing but a brilliant, and, generally, awful impression on the minds of succeeding ages. If we would seek for the only sure foundations of lasting greatness, we shall find them in the persevering energy of national character; in the industry with which wealth has been accumulated, and the fortitude with which suffering has been endured through a long course of ages; and, above all, in the steady and continued influence of strong religious impressions, which, by influencing men in every important crisis by a sense of duty, has rendered them superior to all the storms of for tune. And the influence of these principles is nowhere more clearly to be traced than in the steady progress and present exalted position of the Russian empire. Of Karamsin's merits as an author, a conception may be formed from the extracts we have already given. We must not expect in the historian of a despotic empire, even when recording the most distant events, the just discrimination, the enlightened views, the fearless opinions, which arise, or can be hazarded only in a free country. The philosophy of history is the slow growth of the opinions of all different classes of men, each directed by their ablest leaders, acting and receding upon each other through a long course of ages. It was almost wholly unknown to the ancient Greeks; it was first struck out, at a period when the recollections of past freedom contrasted with the realities of present servitude, by the mighty genius of Tacitus, and the sagacity of Machiavelli, the depth of Bacon, the philosophy of Hume, the glance of Robertson, and the wisdom of Guizot, have been necessary to bring the science even to the degree of maturity which it has as yet attained. But in brilliancy of description, animation of style, and fervour of eloquence, Karamsin is not exceeded by any historian in modern times. The pictures he has given of the successive changes in Russian manners, institutions, and government, though hardly so frequent as could have been wished, prove that he has in him the spirit of philosophy; while in the animation of his descriptions of every important event, is to be seen the clearest indication that he is gifted with the eye of poetic genius. Russia may well be proud of such a work, and it is disgraceful to the literature of this, country that no English translation of it has yet appeared. We must, in conclusion, add, that the elevated sentiments with which it abounds, as well as the spirit of manly piety and fervent patriotism in which it is conceived, diminish our surprise at the continued progress of an empire which was capable of producing such a writer. EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830.* EVER Since the late French Revolution broke out, and at a time when it carried with it the wishes, and deluded the judgment, of a large and respectable portion of the British public, we have never ceased to combat the then prevailing opinion on the subject. We asserted from the very outset that it was calculated to do incredible mischief to the cause of real freedom; that it would throw back for a very long period the march of tranquil liberty; that it restored at once the rule of the strongest; and, breaking down the superiority of intellect and knowledge by the mere force of numbers, would inevitably and rapidly lead, through a bitter period of suffering, to the despotism of the sword. We founded our opinion upon the obvious facts, that the Revolution was effected by the populace of Paris, by the treachery of the army, and the force of the barricades, without any appeal to the judgment or wishes of the remainder of France; that a constitution was framed, a king chosen, and a government established at the Hotel de Ville, by a junto of enthusiastic heads, without either deliberation, * Seize Mois, ou La Revolution et La Revolutionaires, par N. A. Salvandy, auteur de l'Histoire de la Pologne. Paris, 1831.-Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1832. time, or foresight; that this new constitution was announced to the provinces by the telegraph, before they were even aware that a civil war had broken out; that the Citizen King was thus not elected by France, but imposed upon its inhabitants by the mob of Paris; that this convulsion prostrated the few remaining bulwarks of order and liberty which the prior revolution had left standing, and nothing remained to oppose the march of revolution, and the devouring spirit of Jacobinism, but the force of military despotism. That in this way no chance existed of liberty being ultimately established in France, because that inestimable blessing depended on the fusion of all the interests of society in the fabric of government, and the prevention of the encroachments of each class by the influence of the others; and such mutual balancing was im possible in a country where the whole middling ranks were destroyed, and nothing remained but tumultuous masses of mankind on the one hand, and an indignant soldiery on the other. We maintained that the convulsion at Paris was a deplorable catastrophe for the cause of freedom in all other countries; that by preci pitating the democratic party everywhere inte revolutionary measures or revolutionary ex cesses, it would inevitably rouse the conserva- | revolt? Who has spread famine and desolative interests to defend themselves; that in the tion through its beautiful provinces, and struggle, real liberty would be equally endan- withered its industry with a blast worse than gered by the fury of its insane friends and the the simoom of the desert; and sown on the hostility of its aroused enemies; and that the theatre of British glory those poisoned teeth, tranquil spread of freedom, which had been so which must spring up in armed battalions, and conspicuous since the fall of Napoleon, would again in the end involve Europe in the whirlbe exchanged for the rude conflicts of military wind of war? The revolutionary leaders; the power with popular ambition. revolutionary press of France and England; the government of Louis Philippe, and the reforming ministers of this country; those who betrayed the interests of their country in the pursuit of democratic support; who dismembered the dominions of a faithful ally, and drove him back at the cannon mouth, when on the point of regaining his own capital; who surrendered the barrier of Marlborough and Wellington, and threw open the gates of Europe to republican ambition after they had been closed by British heroism. Who are answerable to God and man for the present distracted state of the British empire? Who have suspended its industry, and shaken its credit, and withered its resources? Who have spread bitterness and distrust through its immense population, and filled its poor with expectations that can never be realized, and its rich with terrors that can never be allayed? Who have thrown the torch of discord into the bosom of an united people; and habituated the lower orders to license, and inflated them with arrogance, and subjugated thought and wisdom by the force of numbers, and arrayed against the concentrated education and wealth of the nation the masses of its ignorant and deluded inhabitants? The reforming ministers; the revolutionary press of England; those who ascended to power amidst the transports of the Barricades; who incessantly agitated the people to uphold their falling administration, and have incurred the lasting execration of mankind, by striving to array the numbers of the nation against its intelligence, and subjugate the powers of the understanding by the fury of the passions. Few, we believe, comparatively speaking, of our readers, fully went along with these views when they were first brought forward; but how completely have subsequent events demonstrated their justice; and how entirely has the public mind in both countries changed as to the character of this convulsion since it took place! Freedom has been unknown in France since the days of the Barricades; be- | tween the dread of popular excess on the one hand, and the force of military power on the other, the independence of the citizens has been completely overthrown; Paris has been periodically the scene of confusion, riot, and anarcnv; the revolt of Lyons has only been extinguished by Marshal Soult at the head of as large an army as fought the Duke of Wellington at Toulouse, and at as great an expense of human life as the revolt of the Barricades; the army, increased from 200,000 to 600,000 men, has been found barely adequate to the maintenance of the public tranquillity; 40,000 men, incessantly stationed round the capital, have, almost every month, answered the cries of the people for bread by charges of cavalry, and all the severity of military execution; the annual expenditure has increased from 40,000,000l. to 60,000,000l.; fifty millions sterling of debt has been incurred in eighteen months; notwithstanding a great increase of taxation, the revenue has declined a fourth in its amount, with the universal suffering of the people; and a pestilential disorder following as usual in the train of human violence and misery, has fastened with unerring certainty on the wasted scene of political agitation, and swept off twice as many men in a few weeks in Paris alone, as fell under the Russian cannon on the field of Borodino. Externally, have the effects of the three glorious days been less deplorable? Let Poland answer; let Belgium answer; let the British empire answer. Who precipitated a gallant nation on a gigantic foe; and roused their hot blood by the promises of sympathy and support, and stirred up by their emissaries the revolutionary spirit in the walls of Warsaw? Who is answerable to God and man for having occasioned its fatal revolt, and buoyed its chiefs up with hopes of assistance, and stimulated them to refuse all offers of accommodation, and delivered them up, unaided, unbefriended, to an infuriated conqueror? The revolutionary leaders; the revolutionary press of France and England; the government of Louis Philippe, and the reforming ministers of England; those, who, knowing that they could render them no assistance, allowed their journals, uncontradicted, to stimulate them to resistance, and delude them to the last with the hopes of foreign intervention. Who is answerable to God and man for the Belgian To demonstrate that these statements are not overcharged as to the present condition of France, and the practical consequence of the Revolution of the Barricades, we subjoin the following extract from an able and independ ent reforming journal. "If a government is to be judged of by the condition of the people, as a tree by its fruits, the present government of France must be deemed to be extremely deficient in those qualities of statesmanship which are calculated to inspire public confidence and make a people happy-for public discontent, misery, commotion, and bloodshed, have been the melancholy characteristics of its sway. If the ministry of Louis Philippe were positively devoted to the interests of the ex-royal family, they could not take more effective steps than they have hitherto done to make the vices of the family be forgotten, and to reinforce the ranks of the party which labours incessantly for their recall. "With short intervals of repose, Paris has been a scene of emeutes and disturbances which would disgrace a semi-civilized country, and to this sort of intermittent turbulence it has been doomed ever since Louis Philippe ascended the throne, but more especially since Casimir Perier | porters and the crown, who, although it long was intrusted with the reins of responsible go- refused them its arms, often lent them its vernment. It is a melancholy fact that, under shield. The revolutionary spirit has also a the revolutionized government of France, more powerful ally, which communicates to it force blood has been shed in conflicts between the from its inherent energy. This ally is the depeople and the military, than during the fifteen mocracy which now reigns as a despot over France; years of the Restoration, if we except the three that is, without moderation, without wisdom, days of resistance to the ordinances in Paris, without perceiving that it reigns only for the which ended in the dethronement of Charles behoof of the spirit of disorder-that terrible the Tenth. ally which causes it to increase its own power, and will terminate by destroying it. It is time to speak to the one and the other a firm language; to recall to both principles as old as the world, which have never yet been violated with impunity by nations, and which successively disappear from the midst of us, stifled under the instinct of gross desires, rash passions, pusillanimous concessions, and subversive laws. Matters are come to such a point, that no small courage is now required to unfold these sacred principles; and yet all the objects of the social union, the bare progress of nations, the dignity of the human race, the cause of freedom itself, is at stake. That liberty is to be seen engraven at the gate of all our cities, emblazoned on all our monuments, floating on all our standards; but, alas! it will float there in vain if the air which we breathe is charged with anarchy, as with a mortal contagion, and if that scourge marks daily with its black mark some of our maxims, of our laws, of our powers, while it is incessantly advancing to the destruction of society itself." "Yet we do not know if we ought to except the carnage of those three days, for we recollect having seen a communication from Lyons, soon after the commotions in that city, in which it was stated that a greater number of persons, both citizens and soldiers, fell in the conflict between the workmen and the military, than were slain during the memorable three days of Paris. Let us add to this the slaughter at Grenoble, where the people were again victorious, and the sabrings and shootings which have taken place in minor conflicts in several towns and departments, and it will be found that the present government maintains its power at a greater cost of French blood than that which it has superseded."-Morning Herald. We have long and anxiously looked for some publication from a man of character and literary celebrity of the liberal party in France, which might throw the same light on the consequences of its late revolution as the work of M. Dumont has done on the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly. Such a work is now before us, from the able and eloquent pen of "What power required the sacrifice of the M. Salvandy, to whose striking history of Po-peerage? Let the minister answer it, he said land we have in a recent number requested it again and again with candour and courage. the attention of our readers. He has always It is to popular prejudice, democratic passion, the been a liberal, opposed in the Chamber of De- intoxication of demagogues, the blind hatred of every puties all the arbitrary acts of the late govern- species of superiority, that this immense sacrifice has ment, and is a decided defender of the Revolu- been offered. I do not fear to assert, that a nation of July. From such a character the tes- tion which has enforced such a sacrifice, on timony borne to its practical effects is of the such altars; a nation which could demand or highest value. consent to such a sacrifice, has declared itself in the face of the world ignorant of freedom, and perhaps incapable of enjoying it. "The Restoration," says he, "bore in its bosom an enemy, from whose attacks France required incessant protection. That enemy was the counter revolutionary spirit; in other words, the passion to deduce without reserve all its consequences from the principle of legitimacy; the desire to overturn, for the sake of the ancient interests, the political system established by the Revolution, and consecrated by the Charter and a thousand oaths. It was the cancer which consumed it; the danger was pointed out for fifteen years, and at length it devoured it. "That was the great battle of our revolutionary party. It has gained it. It is no longer by our institutions that we can be defended from its enterprises and its folly. The good sense of the public is now our last safeguard. But let us not deceive ourselves. Should the public spirit become deranged, we are undone. It depends in future on a breath of opinion, whether anarchy should not rise triumphant in the midst of the powers of government. Mistress of the ministry by the elections, it "The Revolution of July also bore in its would speedily become so of the Upper House, entrails another curse: this was the revolu- by the new creations which it would force upon the tionary spirit, evoked from the bloody chaos crown. The Upper House will run the risk, at of our first Revolution, by the sound of the every quinquennial renewal of its numbers, of rapid victory of the people over the royalty. becoming a mere party assemblage: an asThat fatal spirit has weighed upon the desti-sembly elected at second hand by the Chamber of nies of France, since the Revolution of 1830, like its evil genius. I write to illustrate its effects; and I feel I should ill accomplish my task if I did not at the same time combat its doctrines. "The counter-revolution was no ways formidable, but in consequence of the inevitable understanding which existed between its sup Deputies and the electoral colleges. The ruling party henceforth, instead of coming to a compromise with it, which constitutes the balance of the three powers, and the basis of a constitutional monarchy, will only require to incorporate itself with it. At the first shock of parties, the revolutionary faction will gain this immense advantage; it will emerge from the bosom of our institutions as from its eyrie, and reign | have the courage to condemn its premises, or over France with the wings of terror. to resign yourself to see the terrible logic of "In vain do the opposing parties repeat that the Revolution of 1830 does not resemble that of 1789. That is the very point at issue; and I will indulge in all your hopes, if you are not as rash as your predecessors, as ready to destroy, as much disposed to yield to popular wishes, that is, to the desire of the demagogues who direct them. But can I indulge the hope, that a people will not twice in forty years commence the same career of faults and misfortunes, when you who have the reins of power, are already beginning the same errors? I must say, the Revolution of 1830 runs the same risk as its predecessor, if it precipitates its chariot to the edge of the same precipices. Every-doing the only thing which could save order. where the spirit of 1791 will bear the same fruits. In heaven as in earth, it can engender only the demon of anarchy. "The monarchy of the Constituent Assembly, that monarchy which fell almost as soon as it arose, did not perish, as is generally supposed, from an imperfect equilibrium of power, a bad definition of the royal prerogative, or the weakness of the throne. No-the vice lay deeper; it was in its entrails. The old crown of England was not adorned with more jewels than that ephemeral crown of the King of the French. But the crown of England possesses in the social, not less than the political state of England, powerful support, of which France is totally destitute. A constitution without guarantees there reposed on a society which was equally destitute of them, which was as movable as the sands of Africa, as easily raised by the breaths of whirlwinds. The Revolution which founded that stormy society, founded it on false and destructive principles. Not content with levelling to the dust the ancient hierarchy, the old privileges of the orders, the corporate rights of towns, which time had doomed to destruction, it levelled with the same stroke the most legitimate guarantees as the most artificial distinctions. It called the masses of mankind not to equality, but to supremacy. Such was their blindness, that they could not see that their own acts had destroyed order, and its last shadow vanished with the fall of the throne. The Plain, or middle party in the Convention, by surrendering Louis to the executioner, thought to satiate the people with that noble blood; and they were punished for it, by being compelled to give their own, and that of all France. It was on the same principle that in our times the peerage has fallen the victim of deplorable concessions. May that great concession, which embraces more interests, and destroys more conservative principles than are generally sup posed, which shakes at once all the pillars of the social order, not prepare for those who have occasioned it unavailing regret and deserved punishment! "The divine justice has a sure means of punishing the exactions, the passions, and the weakness which subvert society. It consists in allowing the parties who urge on the torrent, to reap the consequences of their actions. Thus they go on, without disquieting themselves as to the career on which they have entered; without once looking behind them; thinking only on the next step they have to make in the revolu tionary progress, and always believing that it will be the last. But the weight of committed faults drags them on, and they perish under the rock of Sisyphus. "The constitution was established on the same principles. In defiance of the whole ex- "I will not attempt to conceal my senti perience of ages, the Assembly disdained everyments; the political and moral state of my intermediate or powerful institution which was country fills me with consternation. When founded on those conservative principles, without you contemplate its population in general, so attention to which no state on earth has ever yet calm, so laborious, so desirous to enjoy in flourished. In a word, it called the masses not peace the blessings which the hand of God has to liberty, but to power. poured so liberally into the bosom of our beautiful France, you are filled with hope, and contemplate with the eye of hope the future state of our country. But if you direct your look to the region where party strife combats; if you contemplate the incessant efforts to excite in the masses of the population all the bad passions of the social order; to rouse them afresh when they are becoming dormant; to enrol them in regular array when they are floating; to make, for the sake of contending interests, one body, and march together to one prey, which they will dispute in blood; how is it possible to mistake, in that delirium of passion, in that oblivion of the principles of order, in that forgetfulness of the conditions on which it depends, the fatal signs which precede the most violent convulsions! A people in whose "After having done this, no method remained to form a counterpoise to this terrible power. A torrent had been created without bounds-an ocean without a shore. By the eternal laws of nature, it was furious, indomitable, destructive, changeable; leaving nothing standing but the scaffolds on which royalty and rank, and all that was illustrious in talent and virtue, speedily fell; until the people, disabused by suffering, and worn out by passion, resigned their fatal sovereignty into the hands of a great man. Such it was, such it will be, to the end of time. The same vices, the same scourges, the same punishments. "When you do not wish to fall into an abyss, you must avoid the path which leads to it. When you condemn a principle, you must |