with a white mucilaginous body and arrow-shaped head, which is able in two years to destroy the sides of the strongest vessels. The remedy against them at that time, was to careen the ship for two years, and pay the sides with burning pitch and juniper-a tedious and dangerous operation, entirely superseded by the application of copper.

This fleet was under the sole direction of its own grand admiral, and entirely independent of the admiralty of St. Petersburg; it had its special office at Nicolaieff, and was afterwards commanded by the French Marquis de Traversie, assisted by Rear-Admiral Prisman, an Englishman, as was also General Cobley, commandant of Odessa, and General Fench, Governor-General of Caffa. At the same time, the dockyards of Petersburg, Cronstadt, and Archangel, were busily employed in adding to the "Baltic Fleet," which, in 1781, numbered thirty-four ships of war; and in 1788, was able to defeat the Swedish navy, the force off Hockland consisting of seventeen of the line, and seven large frigates, while some sailed to Copenhagen, and six lay at Archangel ready for sea. From the autumn of 1788, to the summer of 1789, three vessels of 100 guns, four lesser ships of the line, three of 36 guns, six schooners of 28, with several gallies and gun-boats, were built at Petersburg and Cronstadt; and, in the same year, the fleet which appeared at sea, numbered thirty-three sail of the line. At the close of 1789, twenty new ships lay ready at Archangel, exclusive of which, the fleet that put to sea, May 26th, 1790, amounted to thirty ships of the line, and eighteen frigates.

St.

It has been authentically affirmed, that in 1791, there lay off Cronstadt, thirty-two ships of the line, and ten large frigates, "to be ready in case of emergency," together with all necessary transports, and an indispensable fleet of two hundred and forty gallies, while the Hamburgh Gazette computed the Russian force in the Archipelago, to be not less than twelve vessels, which, however, were not of the line.

As the Empress, even in profound peace, was always building ships of war, which only awaited crews to appear at sea, there were several at the same time unrigged in the mole of Cronstadt, and many more lay ready at Archangel. In 1795, the fleet fitted out at the former place to cruise in the Baltic, was composed of six ships of 100 guns, ten of 74, three of 66, six frigates, and three cutters; while the auxiliary force sent by the Empress to England, consisted of four vessels of 74 guns, eight of 66, six frigates, and two cutters.

From this it will appear that the known aggregate navy of Russia, amounted in the year 1788, to fortyone of the line, and thirty-one frigates; in 1789, fifty-one of the line; in 1790, fifty of the line, and eighteen frigates; and, in 1795-6, forty-two of the line, and fourteen frigates; a formidable force to be put together since Peter the First brought a 60 gun ship from England, and a striking instance of what can be accomplished by undivided authority, energy, and ambition.

Catherine returned to Moscow by the way of Poltava, while Potemkin remained on the frontiers, for England, at this period anxious to alienate the Porte from France, inflamed its resentment, by insinuating that the Court of Versailles had made a secret alliance with Catherine for the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, and the Divan, relying on promises of assistance, discovered unusual boldness in imprisoning the Russian ambassador Bulgakoff in the "Seven Towers," and declaring war against the Empress, August 18th, 1787. The Turks prepared for the struggle with a portion of their former vigor; the standard of Mahomet was unfurled by the grand Vizier, who immediately led a formidable army to the Danube, and extended it between the Pruth and the Dniester, while the grey-haired Capitan Pasha assumed the command of a fleet of sixteen ships of the line, and eight frigates, with a vivid recollection of the fatal disaster of Teshesme.

The command of the Russian naval force assembled at Cherson, was shared with the Prince de Nassau by the

celebrated Paul Jones, and nothing that prudence, experience, or skill could suggest, was omitted to add to its efficiency and equipment. Potemkin, having under him FieldMarshal Romanzoff, together with Generals Suwarrow, Saltichoff, and Repnin, had formed the army into two grand divisions; that of the Ukraine, which he destined for Moldavia, and the second, that of Ekatharinoslaf, which he retained under his immediate direction, and led towards Oczachof. Opposite this place, on the other side of the Dnieper, is the fortress of Kinburn, which had been providently secured by Potemkin, and nothing short of the destruction of an army could be of greater moment to the Ottomans than the recovery of this stronghold. But Kinburn was commanded by Alexander Suwarrow, one of those indomitable heroes gifted by nature with perseverance, and by fortune with success, and the nocturnal assault of the devoted Mussulmen being vigorously repulsed, their enemies at the same time sallied from the gates, when a desperate encounter ensued. Three times were the Turks reinforced, and as often did the reanimated Russians return to the charge, until victory at last crowned the obstinacy and valour of their leader, whose loss was trifling as compared with the four thousand Turks which covered the field; and this first success was acknowledged by a general "Te Deum," in the Ïmperial churches.

Potemkin's preparations to invest Oczachof, were not completed until the April after, when he compelled the Turkish army to fall back upon Jassy, during which movement they were closely watched by an Austrian corps, that succeeded in capturing their heavy guns and baggage, and making a prisoner of Prince Ypsilanti, the Hospodar of Moldavia, who was seeking an ignominious safety in flight.

As the army of Potemkin approached the Euxine, the Russian fleet stood out from Cherson, and bore up directly for that of the Ottoman, which was anchored under the walls of Oczachof. The Prince de Nassau was at first nearly overpowered by the impetuous fire he sustained, but Paul Jones coming to his aid at the moment that the Capitan Pasha re

ceived a reinforcement, the action was renewed with fresh desperation, until the Turks at last gave way with the loss of three gallies, when the Russians bombarded the walls which their opponents had been sent to defend.

But the fate of Oczachof depending on the command of the sea, the Ottoman fleet reappeared on the 17th of June, at 4 o'clock in the morning, and the battle commenced with equal fury on both sides. The Turks fought with heroic resolution against a superior force, contending on an element which required, and against a commander who understood the application and advantage of science. After a fierce and sanguinary engagement of five hours, the loss of fifty-seven vessels, and six thousand men, killed or taken prisoners by Suwarrow, as they landed in their boats, attested the triumph of the Russians, and the annihilation of the Turkish fleet.

On the morning of the 6th of December, 1788, orders were given for the assault of Oczachof, when four columns under Prince Repnin, proceeded to storm the east side, while two, under General Müller, performed the same duty on the west.

The valour of the Ottomans amounted to fanatical desperation, as they contested what they knew to be a decisive struggle with their enemies. Their fire was murderous and well sustained, but General Pahlen, with the first column, succeeded, after a deadly resistance, in carrying the fort of Hassan Pacha, while General Baikoff, with the second, forced the suburbs and occupied the main road leading to the citadel. The devoted Turks, caught between two fires, retreated from the fortifications, and the Russians, stimulated by liquor, vengeance, and the promise of plunder, spared neither sex nor age in their butchery-nay more, they tortured their helpless victims, putting them to lingering and excruciating deaths. The slaughter lasted three days, and space being neither convenient, nor attention thought necessary, to bury nine thousand Ottomans, the bodies of women and warriors, children and patriarchs, were piled upon carts, dragged out of the town, and thrown in heaps upon the ice, to be devoured by hungry dogs and vultures.

Potemkin, in his official return

after this victory, stated his loss as no more than three field officers, thirty subordinates, and nine hundred and twenty privates; but a more truthful calculation, supported by incontestible proofs, shewed a result which guilty ambition will never allow. Twelve thousand Russians fell at the storming of Oczachof, and it is undeniable that a siege of several months cost at least thirty thousand more.

The spring of 1790 brought Potemkin before Ismail, which commands one of the mouths of the Danube, and its reduction would have insured the conquest of Moldavia. Seven months did the Russian thousands surround its walls, without evoking from the defenders a symptom of abated resolution, until Potemkin wearied by the tedium, and neither aroused by danger nor excited by victory, relapsed into one of those strange contrasts of himself, when, alike oblivious of duty, dignity, and fame, he would revel with females, courtiers, and satellites, suffering his camp to be converted into an arena for games, entertainments, and dramas. He who could negociate the transfer of states, who at one time thought a kingdom not beyond his reach, could, at other times, sink into listless sloth, and the most abandoned luxury and licentiousness.

At length the fascinating Madame De Witte undertook the apparently hopeless task of rousing him from his apathy, with the ingenious device of reading his fortune from a pack of cards, by which she foretold, that in three weeks he should be the conqueror of Ismail, and appear before his sovereign in triumph.

But could she have lifted the veil of

futurity in reality, and forewarned him how soon he should be summoned before a Higher Monarch, he might have dwelt with solemn reflection on the vain glory of a passing world.

Her words recalled him to recollection, and a retrospect of months wasted in disreputable pastimes, during which a single town defied his efforts before the eyes of the world, and he answered with a smile, "that he would make her divination infallible, by desiring Suwarrow to capture Ismail in three days."

This was an order congenial to the soul of Alexander Suwarrow; he formed around him his redoubted division, and addressed the grim vete

rans as his children, baptized by him in so many bloody fields, telling them that they were now not only to fight but to conquer, that they must follow him to victory or death-that they must enter Ismail or the grave. Unhappily, experience had taught him that no excitement is so effectual with the Russian soldiers as the prospect of slaughter, and he ended his energetic speech with the fatal, but talismanic words, "no quarter." Ismail was stormed, the excited troops leaped madly into the trenches; twice did they clash in mortal strife with their foes, and twice was even their fierce determination rolled back by the desperate Turks; but the indignant and reproachful voice of Suwarrow rose above the conflict; at the third effort, the ramparts were passed, the infuriated Russians dashed into the town, and so eagerly exercised their savage license that the streets flowed with the blood of thirty thousand victims, among whom were six thousand women and children, and two thousand Moldavian Christians, who found neither pity nor distinction in the indiscriminate massacre. Potemkin forwarded to the Empress the successful general's brief and characteristic announcement, "The haughty Ismail is at your feet."

Thus ended the campaign of 1790, and on the 11th of March, 1791, Potemkin made his last triumphant entry into St. Petersburg to receive the eager demonstration of his sovereign, the adulations of his countrymen, and to plunge into voluptuous dissipation with such apparent zeal, as to be thought to have laid aside all aspirations of power, patriotism, and ambition. Not satisfied with moderation in anything, his excesses soon became injurious to his mental, as well as to his physical powers; the infirmities of his disposition were exaggerated, while his virtues disappeared. The state of his health began visibly to affect his conduct, opposition exasperated, obsequiousness disgusted him; pleasure cloyed and amusement wearied, and he began to present the melancholy spectacle of an abused life, of wasted strength and irresolute designs, which deprived him almost of the power of resuming his former position. length the intelligence of the peace, which Repnin, by a secret order from the Empress, concluded without his

At

knowledge, inflamed the impetuosity of his temper, and exerting his remaining strength, he set out for Jassy, to which place having summoned Repnin, he overwhelmed him with the bitterest reproaches; but every day he visibly declined, while he dismissed his physicians, and lived on raw turnips and salt meat, drinking brandy and hot wines.

His blood became inflamed, and his disease grew worse, yet he struggled with the remnant of life to reach Oczachof, that he might expire on the theatre of his glory, and setting out at three o'clock in the morning on the 15th of October, 1791, he had scarcely

travelled a few versts when he could no longer bear the motion of his carriage, and alighting, a carpet was spread for him at the foot of a tree, where the conqueror of the Crimea, the ruler of his country and his sovereign, who, endowed with every gift that can make man distinguished, having exhausted glory and fortunewho presented to the world such an impressive example of great qualities and unworthy foibles-such a wonderful instance of success in life, and such a solemn lesson of human frailty -expired, after feebly pressing the hand of his favourite niece, the Countess Branitzi.

"THERE are the towers of Munich !" said a voice proceeding from a heap of cloaks at my side. I had travelled in the same coupé of the same diligence, side by side with this identical human bundle for three days and nights, and this was the first remark it had made, which had elicited the slightest notice from me. We had passed over a vast amount of varied country; we had stopped for two or three hours at different interesting towns; we had made three breakfasts, three luncheons, and three dinners, and yet the whole had passed on without leaving the faintest impression upon me, so completely had the one feeling of despondency the one picture of all I had lost and forsaken-absorbed me. To this day I remember no more of the long journey from Mannheim to Munich (the railroad was then still a thing of prophecy) than the eternal sharp back and shaggy neck of the lean outrigger, which ambled along with a melancholy polka-step at the side of the other horses, apparently quite unconnected with them, and quite as absorbed and despondent as myself.

I arrived at Munich, and alighted at the "Golden Stag." My first effort-my first return to life-was to find out Konrad. I had resolved to tell him everything honestly, and I looked forward to his generous consolation; but this was denied me. He had left some days before, and the people with whom he had been staying either did not

know, or would not tell me, where he had gone to.

I was now thrown back entirely on the past. Day after day dragged by in listless wanderings. Nothing could interest me, nothing even excite a passing thought, except what by chance reminded me of the days that were fled. I lived over again every hour that I had spent at Niederlahnstein; I recalled and dwelt on every word that had been spoken; I speculated on and examined every mystery that had been presented in that short but happy period; and that I might tell my tale to some one or something, I wrote down every minute detail. I found most solace in the beautiful park, which they call the English Garden. Here I wandered by the bubbling stream, and listened to Beatrix's voice in its ripples. Here I strolled beneath the leafy avenues, and heard her whisper in the rustling boughs. Here I lay full-length upon the turf, and saw her bright face in the blue infinity above.

The English Garden is surrounded on one side by a number of public resorts, which bear the romantic names of Beer Gardens; yet they are less vulgar than their titles. Rows of chairs and tables are placed beneath the cool umbrage of chesnuts and sycamores, and while all classes of the inhabitants of Munich sip their much-loved beverage the liquor which they assert to have been discovered by Gambrinus, some ancient

king of Brabant-and smoke their dreamy meerschaums, their ears are charmed and their spirits enlivened by the strains of orchestras which Costa himself would scarce despise.

Thus I found this retreat delightful, for while I could escape the eyes of the curious, in the knolls and recesses of the labyrinthan gardens, the distant music was wafted to me softened and soothing.

At length I determined to occupy myself in something. I took a small villa in a distant part of the park, and interested myself in furnishing it simply, but tastefully. I found that I was quite a millionaire in the capital of Bavaria, which was then one of the cheapest places in Europe, and I selfishly indulged in the pre-eminence, as I had none to share with me. You will smile when I tell you that I furnished a little bed-room expressly for a lady. There was a most elegant little bed, with curtains of white silk, and a charming ottoman, on which I placed a guitar, which I bought because I thought it resembled hers. Then I covered the table with the books which I knew she loved, and the little knick-knacks which had, in some trifling way or other, been associated with her. When all was done, I would every evening knock at the door, as if there were really some one within. I would enter, and opening the window, place two chairs by it, and sitting on one of them, would go over the conversations we had held, till I almost believed her to be seated by me.

Yet the charm of all this soon faded, and I could not disguise the dreadful reality. I relapsed again into the sombre stillness of despondency, in the midst of which I constantly reproached myself with my weakness in submitting to my father's injunctions. He wrote to me full of delight at my abandonment of what he termed “a passing fancy," and sent me a bundle of introductions to the best families in Munich, which I negligently put away in a drawer. Among them was one to our "Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary," which I found useful, and another addressed to a Countess Von Dornheim. The name struck me immediately, and as I could not but imagine her to be a relation of Konrad's, I sought her out. I was told she was at her country-house in

VOL. XLVII.-NO CCLXXIX.

the Tyrol, and I did not care to follow her thither.

Five or six months rolled slowly by in this manner without a single event, and I gradually settled down to a life of melancholy routine. A letter or two from mine host of the "Crown" was all that varied my dreamy existence. But these were more full of his own little troubles, and his invectives against the inventions of Watt, than with news of those whom I so longed to hear of. But he told me of the active goodness of Beatrix-of her intimacy with all the humble villagers, and her endeavours to help the needy.

This provoked a humiliating comparison. I was leading a life of complete uselessness, thinking and living for myself alone. I made some attempt to do good in my sphere, but soon found that the poor of Munich were well cared for, and that my endeavours to aid them were regarded with jealousy and distrust by the priests under whose charge they were. I looked about for another sphere of action, and compared the life of Beatrix with all that I had been accustomed to see in English society. I compared my own ideas and feelings, raised and ennobled by her, with those of my previous career, and came to the conclusion that, as a writer, I might do something to remove the prejudices, and raise the standard of feeling in English society generally. To accomplish this, however, required much preparation, and to this I now purposed to devote myself.

Probably you, my dear friend, and the majority of mankind, have little idea what a course of self-improvement really is, and what a happy state is an earnest and constant striving after per. fection. I had indeed the advantage of Von Ritter's lofty mind, and had profited by his Utopian ideas, but these were all surpassed and supplanted by the actual practice. Two things seemed necessary at least for the commencement of the undertaking—a separation from the intimacy of one's fellow-creatures, and the constant presence of nature; for whatever may be said for mankind, evil has undoubtedly a large share in social intercourse, and some of the best men intrinsically are very indifferent friends. Nor can the mind, which is constantly occupied with the trifles of this world-for its most important things are trifles compared

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