in what her greatness consists. It is in vain to seek for the formative cause, until we comprehend the nature of the resulting effect. A moment's consideration shows that greatness and liberty have, in some cases at least, little relation. Russia is great, and not free; England is great and free; Switzerland is free, but not great; Spain and Naples are neither great nor free. Rome was mistress of the greatest empire the world had ever seen, when she was herself the slave of Nero. She had been free in the days of Brutus; but, as her freedom sank, her greatThe zenith of her power was the death-hour of her own and of the world's freedom. Athens knew no system of serfdom when her greatness sank before the might of Sparta, the cruel and barbarous mistress of the Helots. These inversions and oppositions at once show that the question before us is not one to be hastily decided upon a mere moral prepossession against serfdom, and in favour of freedom.

ness rose.

What, then, is the nature of Russia's greatness? A great people must, to some extent, be a free people. Every restriction on their freedom is a diminution of national strength. Every serf is a cypher in the sum total of that people's greatness, regarded as a community, and with respect to their internal resources and strength. A few moments, however, will suffice to convince any one that the Russian people hold a very low rank in the scale of greatness. The glimpses which the "special correspondents" at Moscow, and the numerous works on Russia which have appeared during the last two years, afford us of the internal condition of Russia, all concur in proving her population to be far below the level of that of any other European nation. In religion, in education and intelligence, in the arts, manners, and social habits of life, there appears to be little to choose between the Russian peasantry and the semi-civilized communities of Asia. To the greatness of civilization Russia can lay no claim; in this respect she is the least of European states. Judged by the standard of internal and domestic greatness, which consists in the aggregate of individual elevation, the hordes of Muscovy can scarcely at all be tried.

Closely akin to, and indeed resulting from, this internal greatness, is the greatness of moral influence. Indeed, the latter may be regarded as a manifestation and exercise of the former. The influence of British opinion—the frank, unrestrained judgments of the free-born millions of this land-expressed and enforced by a free press, is an active power, a living, working strength, which is felt to the ends of the earth. Proudly and hopefully we look upon the moral influence of the free thought and enlightened opinion of the English nation as the greatness of her strength, as the most potent, steady agent (in the hands of Providence) of the world's regeneration. The angry diatribes of a portion of the American press show how its influence is felt

in another hemisphere. The frequent seizure of our journals on the continent, and the interest with which the progress of English opinion is watched by foreign rulers, all point to the power of free thought, and attest the greatness of this country. We need not hesitate a moment as to the claims of Russia to this kind of national greatness. The moral influence of the Russian people, as a people, is nothing—is absolutely non-existent. The moral influence of her rulers is almost as complete a nonentity. Her schemes of aggression, cherished and steadily pursued without remorse or scruple; her baseness and treachery, both in council and in war; her finesse and evasions,-all these have sunk the name of Russia. Even as we write, the Russian manifesto in respect to the disputed points of the late treaty shows that there is no species of moral fraud, however contemptible, to which Russian diplomacy will not descend. Her version of the dispute about Bolgrad is an unblushing confession that her diplomatists practise the arts of the thimble-rigger!

Again, there is the greatness of industrial development. The planter of South Carolina demands slavery as necessary to industrial development (at least, in those tropical regions in which he dwells), and points to the disasters and struggles of our West Indian colonies as a proof of his position. His fellow-republicans in the North join issue with him, and maintain that their own superior industrial development is due to their freedom from the blight of slavery, and that the same principles would produce the same effects all the world over. A similar dispute might be raised as to the effect of serfdom in Russia, had she even the industrial development of the slave states of America, whose origin, however, compared with hers, dates but from yesterday. But we evidently see that there are other causes at work; for Russia is just entering on the career of civilized industry. She has yet to intersect her empire with eanals and roads. She is now begging, cap in hand, for funds to construct railways-railways which, when made, will, for generations to come, be but military highways. Her pine woods are yet to be cleared and thinned, her mineral wealth to be explored, her wild beasts to be extirpated. Her plains are yet mere boundless wastes-wild steppes-as fruitless as the desert sands. Her looms and furnaces, her Manchesters, Birminghams, Leicesters, and Sheffields, are yet to rise. Her industrial greatness is a shadow; its career is yet to be begun. In this respect she is not great, either "because or in spite of serfdom," for she is not great at all.

Again, there is commercial greatness. In this respect our own country and the United States share an unapproached supremacy. Russia stands lowest on the scale. Her commerce is yet in its infancy. Hides and tallow, deal and mats, are the rude subjects of her barter. Even Turkey, so often regarded as

a barbarian power, a mere Asiatic interloper among European states, has a commerce more lucrative and valuable to us than all our dealings with Russia, even including the corn traffic of Odessa and the southern ports of Russia. A fair estimate of the Russian commerce may be made by considering the effect of the late war, which shut her produce out from this country, the emporium of the world. We found our supplies of corn from the Black Sea diminished; but this was more owing to the interference with the agriculture and trade of the Danubian provinces than to the loss of Russian-grown wheat. And beyond this, the stoppage of the commerce of a mighty empire only sufficed to raise the price of tallow candles, ropes, and deal planks in the price current of the world's chief mart of merchandise. Look at the list of Russian prizes taken by the allied squadrons, and the condition and character of Russian commerce is soon estimated. Commercial greatness is excluded, therefore, from the question before us, for it is non-existent. Commerce is yet in its swaddling clothes in that empire-too young to be either fostered or crushed by the existence of serfdom.

As connected with the last two aspects of national greatness, we might refer to wealth. We, however, need not enlarge on this topic. A country that is only approaching the threshold of industrial development, and whose commerce is yet in its infancy, cannot be wealthy. Russia is not wealthy. A two years' contest by land alone has prostrated her strength and shown her weakness.

We have now distinguished various aspects of national greatness, and shown them to be excluded from the present debate. The question is thus narrowed down and cleared of that extraneous matter which affords opportunity for so much of prejudice or sophistry. Russia's greatness is political solely-the greatness of territory and military strength. It is the greatness of physical force. Moreover, it is the rudest form of military greatness which Russia possesses-that which is essentially barbarian-which gains aid from civilization only in respect of the implements and arts of warfare. This species of strength has been well described by Macaulay. "Of the strength," says he, "which consists in extent of territory and in number of fighting men, a rude despot, who knows no law but his own childish fancies and headstrong passions, may have more than falls to the lot of the best and wisest government. But the strength which is derived from the confidence of capitalists such a despot can never possess. That strength-and it is a strength which has decided the event of more than one great conflict-flies, by the law of its nature, from barbarism and fraud, tyranny and anarchy, to follow civilization and virtue, liberty and order." Amply are these remarks illustrated by the late war-by the triumph of the allies over the huge physical strength of Russia.

Now comes the question, Is such military greatness, such brute force of numbers and of territory, increased or diminished by its connection with serfdom? Search the pages of history, and find the state which has exhibited this barbarian strength in union with liberty. Look at the Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian empires; at Carthage, and the four kingdoms into which the bubble empire of Alexander split. Look even at Greece, where Lacedæmon, the patroness of Helotry, at length stood victor; or at Rome, selling nations into slavery, dragging captives at the wheels of her chariots of victory, and rearing hordes of gladiators for the ferocious spectacles of the amphitheatre. Look, too, at the barbaric tribes of Huns and Vandals overwhelming the earth with violence. Ancient history is one continued proof that barbaric strength is the offspring of barbarian polity, is connected with and strengthened by serfdom and oppression. Modern history illustrates the same truth. We may write down nations in the order of their internal freedom, and the list will be the inverse order of their purely military strength. England, possessed of an empire on which the sun sets never, stands first in liberty and last in military organization. Russia is lowest in freedom and civilization, and most giant-like in military power.

The considerations already pointed out are sufficient to justify and to prove the position, that Russia is great because of her serfdom-because she is in that semi-civilized state in which serfdom is possible. The reasons are obvious. The freeman soldier must be paid a freeman's hire-must be clothed, fed, treated as a freeman. He must be lured by bounties. He is a subtraction from the nation's home strength. He is a costly burden on the nation's resources. But the serf is the cheapest article of war. His life is of less value than the coat on his back. He may be had by hundreds of thousands. In a word, the raw material (so to speak) of Russia's military strength-her only greatness is rendered more abundant and cheaper by the existence of serfdom. Again, serfdom necessitates a more directly military organization. Where there are serfs to be ruled, there must be soldiers to coerce. Hence serfdom reacts directly in increasing the military organization of the Russian empire. Lastly, serfdom is the only safe basis of pure despotism. In the storms of revolutionary eras, when other states totter and are convulsed, Russia stands firm and unmoved,-she can even afford to help her neighbour despots in their extremities. The serf is helpless; the oppressed half freeman is dangerous. The Russian serf has no hope and no chance of liberty; while the Hungarian peasant is fired by hope, and often dreams that opportunity will crown desire. Serfdom is the bulwark of despotism-the rock on which tyranny may build securely. All else is shaking sand; and the despot who dreams to-day that universal empire lies within his grasp, may to-morrow tremble in

his capital. Let serfdom pass away, and the schemes of Russian aggrandizement are overthrown for ever. To it she owes her military might, her barbarian strength; because of it she is great; with it her destiny, as an empire aspiring to rule the world, is bound up. Firmly we believe that it is one of the merciful provisions of Providence, that, as an empire grows in internal strength, its brute force for aggression and conquest dies away. In this truth we see the distant fulfilment of the promise, that the day shall come when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks; when nations shall learn war no more. The late contest has shown that, in proportion to its relative civilization is the unwillingness of a nation to engage in war, and its power of carrying it on successfully when once forced into it. Hence peace is a product (so to speak) of civilization. We have seen, too, that in proportion to aggressive strength and physical power for war is the inability to endure a lengthened contest. Hence new grounds of hope for the coming future are found in the bloodshed and fears of the past.

We have already exceeded the ordinary bounds, and now leave our readers to ponder on the distinctions we have drawn, and to decide how far we have shown sufficient cause for the opinion, that the greatness of Russia-such as it is-is a barbarian strength founded upon the system of serfdom.

B. S.

HEALTH AND LONG LIFE.-Whether long life be a blessing or not God Almighty alone can determine, who alone knows what length it is like to run, and how it is like to be attended. Socrates used to say, that it was pleasant to grow old with good health and a good friend; and he might have reason: a man may be content to live while he is no trouble to himself or his friends; but after that, it is hard if he be not content to die. I knew and esteemed a person abroad, who used to say, a man must be a mean wretch who desired to live after threescore years old. But so much, I doubt, is certain, that in life, as in wine, he that will drink it good, must not draw it to the dregs. Where this happens, one comfort of age may be, that whereas younger men are usually in pain whenever they are not in pleasure, old men find a sort of pleasure whenever they are out of pain; and as young men often lose or impair their present enjoyments by craving after what is to come, by vain hopes or fruitless fears, so old men relieve the wants of their age by pleasing reflections upon what is past. Therefore men, in the

health and vigour of their age, should endeavour to fill their lives with reading, with travel, with the best conversation, and the worthiest actions, either in public or private stations, that they may have something agreeable left to feed on when they are old, by pleasing remembrances.-Sir W. Temple.