been completely successful. The monster seems to be as
vague and shadowy as the awful forms which Milton placed at the gate of
the infernal regions. At one moment he seems to be simply our old enemy
Pauperism, but when we approach a little nearer we find that he
expands to colossal dimensions, so as to include all who do not
possess inalienable landed property. In short, he turns out to be, on
examination, as vague and undefinable as a good bugbear ought to be; and
this vagueness contributed probably not a little to his success.

The influence which the idea of the Proletariat exercised on the public
mind and on the legislation at the time of the Emancipation is a
very notable fact, and well worthy of attention, because it helps to
illustrate a point of difference between Russians and Englishmen.

Englishmen are, as a rule, too much occupied with the multifarious
concerns of the present to look much ahead into the distant future. We
profess, indeed, to regard with horror the maxim, Apres nous le deluge!
and we should probably annihilate with our virtuous indignation any one
who should boldly profess the principle. And yet we often act almost as
if we were really partisans of that heartless creed. When called upon
to consider the interests of the future generations, we declared
that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and stigmatise as
visionaries and dreamers all who seek to withdraw our attention from the
present. A modern Cassandra who confidently predicts the near exhaustion
of our coal-fields, or graphically describes a crushing national
disaster that must some day overtake us, may attract some public
attention; but when we learn that the misfortune is not to take place in
our time, we placidly remark that future generations must take care
of themselves, and that we cannot reasonably be expected to bear their
burdens. When we are obliged to legislate, we proceed in a cautious,
tentative way, and are quite satisfied with any homely, simple remedies
that common sense and experience may suggest, without taking the trouble
to inquire whether the remedy adopted is in accordance with scientific
theories. In short, there is a certain truth in those "famous prophetick
pictures" spoken of by Stillingfleet, which "represent the fate of
England by a mole, a creature blind and busy, continually working under
ground."

In Russia we find the opposite extreme. There reformers have been
trained, not in the arena of pra