our de France
pendant la Faveur de Madame Pompadour; Louis XV. et la Societe du XVIII.
Siecle, par M. Capefigue; Alison's introductory chapter to the History
of Europe; Louis XV. et son Siecle, par Voltaire; Saint Simon; Memoires
de Duclos; Memoires du Duc de Richelieu.

PETER THE GREAT.

A. D. 1672-1725.

HIS SERVICES TO RUSSIA.

If I were called upon to name the man who, since Charlemagne, has
rendered the greatest services to his country, I should select Peter the
Great. I do not say that he is one of the most interesting characters
that has shone in the noble constellations of illustrious benefactors
whom Europe has produced. Far otherwise: his career is not so
interesting to us as that of Hildebrand, or Elizabeth, or Cromwell, or
Richelieu, or Gustavus Adolphus, or William III., or Louis XIV., or
Frederic II., or others I might mention. I have simply to show an
enlightened barbarian toiling for civilization, a sort of Hercules
cleansing Augean stables and killing Nemean lions; a man whose labors
were prodigious; a very extraordinary man, stained by crimes and
cruelties, yet laboring, with a sort of inspired enthusiasm, to raise
his country from an abyss of ignorance and brutality. It would be
difficult to find a more hard-hearted despot, and yet a more patriotic
sovereign. To me he looms up, even more than Richelieu, as an instrument
of Divine Providence. His character appears in a double light,--as
benefactor and as tyrant, in order to carry out ends which he deemed
useful to his country, and which, we are constrained to admit, did
wonderfully contribute to its elevation and political importance.

Peter the Great entered upon his inheritance as absolute sovereign of
Russia, when it was an inland and even isolated state, hemmed in and
girt around by hostile powers, without access to seas; a vast country
indeed, but without a regular standing army on which he could rely, or
even a navy, however small. This country was semi-barbarous, more
Asiatic than European, occupied by mongrel tribes, living amid snow and
morasses and forests, without education, or knowledge of European arts.
He left this country, after a turbulent reign, with seaports on the
Baltic and the Black seas, with a large and powerfully disciplined army,
partially redeemed from barbarism, no longer isolated or unimportant,
but a political power which the nations had cause to fear, and which,
from the policy he bequeathed, has been increasin