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jects without admiring the patriotic Alexander; and congratulating the people who are so happy as to be under his sway. Indeed, the difference between him and his immediate decessor must, to persons who have lived under both reigns, appear a translation from hell to heaven. The one seemed guided by a caprice alone; the other always under the direction of right reason. Not an hour ago, I met in the street, one of the existing mementos of the emperor Paul's extravagances. During one of that monarch's visits to the dockyards, he observed a boor calking the bottom of a ship with great diligence. "That seems a very clever fellow!" observed the emperor. And drawing towards him, he examined his work with the most delighted scrutiny.

"Admirably calked!” cried he, " you must be rewarded for

this."

The man, expecting a few rubles, prostrated himself in gratitude before his sovereign. "Rise, rise;" cried the monarch; "I confer on you the rank of lieutenant-general!" certainly a lord high admiral would have been more in character with his marine employment. But the poor fellow sprung on his feet in a rapture; and, I am not sure whether he did not embrace the emperor. However, this did not satisfy Paul; but having him instantly clothed in the uniform belonging to his new dignity, he threw over his neck the badges of several military orders! The calker was now made a lieutenant-general, but unmade as a rational creature. So great was his ecstacy at this flood of honours, that his reason was overset; and ever after he lived a sad monument of human folly and human weakness. Yet I know not whether he is to be considered as a pitiable object either; for he seems perfectly happy. He has a handsome pension settled on him for life; and passes his time in walking about the streets of St. Petersburgh in full military dress, decorated with his stars and ribbons; and accosting every man of rank he meets with the intimate salutation of a brother. It is pleasing to see how blest he considers himself with the possession of his knighthoods, although he purchased them at the expense of his wits. And indeed, when we consider the low situation from which the late emperor elevated him, it is ten to

one but his insanity has saved him a thousand mortifications from the disdain of his now equals. It is evident from the effect of his new dignity, that he was a proud man; and therefore, had he preserved his senses, and met with contempt, it is most probable that he would have soon ended his generalized career with a broken heart.

I had the honour of being presented to this curious personage, when I was last at the residence: and this morning, passing along the street, he descried me at a little distance; and hastily crossing the way, embraced me with open arms. The greeting, "I am happy to see your excellency looking so well!" covered his rough features with smiles; and waving his head to and fro, as if all the dignities of the world were plumed there; he talked with me, to my own door, as familiarly of counts and princes, as if he had been born their equal, and had passed his life in their councils. This little anecdote is a sufficient specimen of the mad caprice of the late monarch, and of its ridiculous and mischievous consequences.

I am at present so thoroughly engaged in finishing my pictures for the admiralty, that you must not be surprised at the curtailed size of my letters; for, every time I dip my pen in ink to you, I rob the commemoration of the glories of Peter the Great, of a few of its rays. In short, if I do not sit close to them (so many other objects press upon my attention), I fear they will be most shamefully shorn of their beams: but remember, I mean to say, that Peter's actions give their own light: my hand, by restoring them to the eye, merely puts aside the clouds with which time had obscured their brightness.

My portrait of the tzar is finished, and already deposited in the great saloon of the hermitage, until that of the admiralty be prepared for its reception. At present I have the defeat of admiral Emshield, &c. &c. to complete: and being engaged in so many formidable achievements, will be a sufficient apology for the hasty adieu of your ever faithful friend.

LETTER XXVIII.

St. Petersburgh, October, 1807.

AFFAIRS of the greatest moment to your friend have kept his journalising pen in its case during these many months: but you are too well informed of them, to need any apology for not transmitting a history of the public disasters which have so heavily struck at my private peace.

The whole cry here is the nonarrival of our troops off Dantzic; and he who till then greeted every Englishman as a brother, now turns from even a friend of that nation with a cold bow of suspicion. The battle of Friedland has been lost, the treaty of Tilsit signed, and the whole face of affairs entirely changed. I could hardly believe that I am awake, did I not feel in every nerve the alteration which stabs my happiness. I see two countries that I love, on the point of variance: I see more in prospect than my heart at present can bear to dwell on.

The French general is in St. Petersburgh as ambassador. He carries himself with all the gorgeous parade of the court he represents; and drives about in an equipage more becoming an eastern satrap than a hardy soldier. Splendid as his externals may be, I cannot find a similar refinement in his manners. I was told that the other day he dined in company where some of our countrymen were present. The conversation fell on military affairs. Egypt was mentioned; and an English gentleman, meaning to do a courtesy to the French general, paid some compliments to the conduct of Menou at Alexandria.

66 Ay," cried the Frenchman, "but had one of Napoleon's boats been there, Alexandria had never fallen to the British." What Englishman's blood did not rise at this reply? and what ought to have been the silencing answer?

"Where then were these mighty boats that Napoleon did not bring them to the siege of Acre?"

No response could be made to this: and the blushes of every Frenchman present were not requisite to declare the mortifying consciousness that their emperor had been beaten, and by

an Englishman. The man still lived who had made him fly, who had driven him from the holy land he had polluted with apostacy; and who, by that heaven directed action, locked the gates of the east against his menaced usurpations! As the proud duke of Austria trembled before the name of the first Cœur de Lion, the no less haughty emperor of the French must ever start at that of the second.

You will be surprised that I should be unable to say much of the French general, from my own personal knowledge: he possessed no magnetic powers over me, and therefore I kept as due a distance as I liked.

My lord Gower (having succeeded the marquis of Douglas, now gone into the interior to visit Mosco), received a note from the government, intimating, that as a British ambassador he was no longer necessary at the court of St. Petersburgh. Every thing is now preparing for his departure; and consequently, as the French interest is gaining ground, the British declines. All of our nation are eager to leave the country. Changed indeed is the face of things! But as it is the general idea that the new amity cannot last, and as abiding in the empire, under my peculiar circumstances, would militate against my feelings as an Englishman, who considers the duties he owes his king, and his own character as a loyal Briton, as paramount to all other interests; I shall make the earliest application for my passports.

November.

Since I wrote the above, the new ambassador has arrived from Paris to replace the old, who returns to his master. This man is even less polished than his predecessor, or else a bolder professor of the law which makes all means admissible to serve a desired end. Indeed, so little decency has he in vaunting his bloody deeds, that when a lady of rank, the other day, asked him how he could get any persons hardhearted enough to shoot the duke d'Enghein, he replied with the greatest coolness, "O madam, I took care of that." With neither of these diplomatic gentlemen have I any acquaintance; so, my dear friend, you

must excuse me sending you no better specimens of their

merits.

In the midst of these political revolutions, which are on the point of dividing me for a time from the object most precious to me on earth, I have received the painful intelligence of the death of my illustrious friend, the venerable prince Gallitzen. Of such stuff is this life composed! Separations! Deaths! They are hard tugs upon the heart. But Hope, my friend, that smiling angel, looks in; and Despair, just lowering over the soul, is put to flight. I thank God for having given her to me as a sweet comforter through all my ills: and even under this heavy disappointment, when the rupture between two mighty nations opens a gulf between me and my happiness; even now she promises brighter days to come, and I find the pangs of separation less intolerable.

This seems the very season of affliction. The poor queen of Georgia has also breathed her last sigh. The prince Bagration was of her family; and during her seclusion in Russia, she felt herself still a sovereign, while listening to accounts of the commanding virtues of her kinsman. She was to be buried with a pomp suitable to her rank; and I went to the great perspective to be a spectator of the ceremony.

The emperor and the grand-duke, with the court, attended; and also a procession of four thousand men, with twelve pieces of cannon, and their military bands. The solemn tones of the dirges, and the awful response of the minute guns as the line proceeded, had a very striking effect. The rich habits of the bishops and priests, with those of the imperial family and the court, and the long blackrobed mutes bearing torches, by the extraordinary variety and mingling of the gay colours of life, with the mourning hues of death, increased the reflections of the observer, and deepened the melancholy of the scene.

The coffin, covered with a magnificent pall, was borne on a bier, and supported by ten men in military habits. Over their heads a canopy was carried, feathered and crowned according to her royal dignity. Several noblemen preceded and followed the body, bearing on embroidered cushions the various insignia of a sovereign. Thus passed the queen of Georgia! The scene