r the Great did much toward the physical improvement of the
country. He built up cities, created a navy, organized an army,
extended his dominions, encouraged education, and fostered the
mechanical arts; but he held a tight rein upon his subordinate
officers, and suppressed what little freedom the masses enjoyed. He
was ambitious, and liked to enjoy a reputation for enlightenment, but
no regard for civilization beyond the power it gave him to extend his
dominions. His subjects were merely his instruments. All he learned
in other countries was to sharpen them and keep them in order, that he
might use them to the best advantage. His ambition was not of the
highest or noblest kind. The page he has left in history is
interesting and instructive, but there is nothing in it to warrant the
belief that it will be selected by a remote posterity to be bound up
among the lives of truly great and good men. Catharine II. extended
the privileges of the nobility, made wars upon inoffensive nations,
corrupted the morals of her people, and manifested her regard for the
serfs by giving large numbers of them away to her paramours. The
Emperor Alexander I. was ambitious of distinction, as the most
cultivated and enlightened sovereign of his time. He issued liberal
edicts, but seldom observed them. He wished to be thought friendly to
liberty, without sacrificing any of his despotic privileges. He gave a
Constitution to the Poles, but surrounded it by such forms and
influences that they could derive no advantage from it. He was weak,
cunning, and conceited; given rather to the delicate evasions of
diplomacy than to the bold straightforwardness of truth and honor. The
Emperor Nicholas was utterly selfish and despotic in all his
instincts. He professed to take a profound interest in the cause of
emancipation, but it was purely a question of policy with him. He
cared nothing about human rights. His dark and cruel nature was
unsusceptible of a noble or generous impulse. While he preached
liberal generalities, he ruled his subjects with an iron rod. He was
bigoted, narrow-minded, and brutal. The sense of right was not in his
nature. His ambition was to be an object of heathenish idolatry to his
subjects--whether as a god or devil it mattered nothing; fear was the
only incense he was capable of craving; and if such a nature can be
susceptible of enjoyment, his consisted in the abasement of his
fellow-creatures. The severity of his decrees, the rigo