of the Don, the Dnieper, and the Tauric peninsula, and for two centuries wages war against the government of Constantinople, in order to unite the crowns of the Russo-Varangian princes with the golden tiara of Byzantium. The most monstrous designs were set on foot at this period by the northern despots. They strove for the annexation of the Balkan peninsula, the dominion over the Black Sea, the subjugation of the Crimea and the Caucasus. Thus, from 865 to 1043, the provinces of the Byzantine Empire were subjected to incessant inroads from the North. The Grand-Princes marched their Germanic, Finnish, Slavonian, and Tartar hosts along the Dnieper into the Danubian countries, or transported them in fleets of small craft across the Euxine to appear as besiegers before the "City of the World." The waters of the Pontus, the provinces which we now call Moldo-Wallachia, Bulgaria, the Haemus passes, and the coasts of Roumelia, were the battle-grounds for the armies and navies of Russia and of the Lower Empire. In these contests, the "Russian capital," as a proud Rurik chieftain called it, was for a time established at the foot of the Balkan, at Praejeslavety. But, not satisfied with this conquest, the invader pointed with his lance to Constantinople as the future seat of his government. It affords a singular spectacle to behold in the mirror of this ancient history the forecast of modern events. The treaties then agreed upon between the Byzantines and the Russians vividly recall to

the pioneers of progress in Southern Russia. In those tracts of land where the hideous Kalmuk and Kirghiz people now swarm the Khazans created wealthy towns and fruitful fields. The highway from Derbent to Suir was adorned by them with flourishing cities, such as Atel, Sarkel, Kuram, Gadran, Segekan, Samandar, Albaida, Ferus-Kapad; the plans of most of which towns had been traced out, and the chief buildings erected, by Byzantine archi

mind the conventions of Kutjuk-Kainardji, Adrianople, and others. With the Grand-Princes of the ninth and eleventh centuries, as with the czars of the eighteenth and nineteenth, it was the practice to look upon treaties as upon convenient conjurer's caskets from whence to extract a sophistical justification for fresh aggression. With the Russian rulers of eight hundred years ago it was already good policy to "protect" the government of Constantinople against internal seditions, in order to degrade it into vassalage. Then already the Danubian provinces were seized upon by Russia as a "material guaranty"; then already the government of Constantinople was declared to be only encamped in Europe; and then already the Grand-Princes - scarcely weaned from idolatry! — claimed a certain supremacy over the Eastern Church.

Such was Russian dynastic policy eight hundred and nine hundred years ago. We say "dynastic," because the people played no part in these events save one of passive obedience. Those mighty plans of a domineering Northern monarchy were fostered only in the brains of the Varangian rulers.

But after these vast exertions, Russia, by a sort of historical retribution, collapsed under internal convulsions. Her political unity was torn asunder by quarrels among the different branches of the reigning family; and when at last the nomadic hordes of Genghis Khan and Batou appeared on the confines of the Empire, there was no centre of resistance, no strength, no patriotism to oppose them. Within a few years, Russia became the slave of the Golden Horde. The Tartar flood broke forth from the depths of Asia, sweeping in its stormy course towards the West, and, being stayed by the rock of German and Polish valor, settled down over the Scytho-Sarmatian plains from the Volga to the Valdai Hills. For two hundred and fifty years, from the middle of the twelfth to the end of the fifteenth century, the Mongols governed the kingdom of the proud Ruriks!

Russia was now Mongolized in spirit, and even in the physical appearance of her people. Her very name became confused in the memory of Europe. A line of Kalmuk frontier-guards drew, so to speak, a Chinese wall round the boundaries of the empire.

But when the sovereignty which the Mongol Kaptchak had exercised over Russia was at last destroyed (not by Russian bravery, but by conflicts among the wandering Asiatic tribes themselves), the Muscovite Grand-Princes, assuming the title of Czar and Emperor, again ran riot in ambition. The chief field of their activity lay this time, not to the south, but to the north and the west. Their sword was pointed, not to Constantinople, but to Sweden, Poland, and the German provinces of the Baltic.

But,

Whilst it had been the aim of the early Ruriks to establish Russia as a great Oriental power, the czars, subsequently to the fifteenth century, endeavored to found Russian supremacy in Baltic quarters. So strenuous were their efforts in that direction, that one might say they anticipated in thought the later foundation of the modern Russian capital at the Neva. although directing their chief energy towards Baltic quarters, the autocrats of that period did not wholly lay aside the "Byzantine" policy of their predecessors. By the ties of marriage and state-craft, the hospodars of MoldoWallachia were drawn into the Muscovite interests, and the zeal of the Greek population of Turkey kept up by showy demonstrations, which the agents of one of those czars contrived to perform in the very streets of Stamboul. Thus an embassy was sent by Ivan IV. to the Sultan, which, in the details of its get-up, astonishingly reminds us of the Menchikoff embassy of some fifteen years ago. At that time, also, the double eagle of Byzance, symbol of sovereignty over the east and the west, was adopted as the Russian escutcheon, so as to exhibit the Czar in the light of the chosen champion of Christianity against the unbeliever. This at

an epoch when the Moslem stood at the zenith of his power.

Such was Russia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But this renewed attempt at an ascendency was not of long duration. It ended suddenly with the extinction of the Rurik family. Scarcely had the last tyrant of that race expired, when another catastrophe hurled down the Muscovite Empire into the depths of humiliation. Poles, Germans of the Baltic provinces, Swedes, Tartars of Astrakhan, and other nations that resented the former encroachments of Russia, make a simultaneous attack upon her. The situation is complicated, too, by internal dissensions. Pretenders arise on all sides, and wars of succession break completely the strength of Russia. The capital falls into the hands of the Poles, whose princes dispose of the throne of Moscow. Conspiracies are rife all over the country, in the sacristies of the clergy and in the castles of the nobles, until at last the tumult subsides into the election of the new dynasty of Romanoff. During this state of confusion, the attention of Europe had gradually again been diverted from those northern regions. Russia once more became to the West a hyperborean ultima Thule.

At the end of the seventeenth century Czar Peter appeared. He combined the schemes of the Russo-Norman Grand-Princes Oleg, Igor, Sviatoslaf, Vladimir, and Yaroslaf, with those of the semi-Mongol czars Ivan III. and Ivan IV. His ambition embraced the north and the south, the Black Sea and the Baltic, Asia and Europe; and since his time the march of Russian aggression was again onward, until a check was offered to it in the Crimean War.

From this brief summary it will be perceived what importance must be attached to the history before Peter I. Nor are we wanting in authentic sources. Not to speak of the regular (chiefly Byzantine, Arabic, and Russian) chronicles, there exists, if we may say so, a whole series of "voyage

literature" concerning Russia, beginning with the ninth century, and consisting of travel memoirs, ambassadorial reports, and so forth.

From Ohthere, a Norman native of Heligoland, who in 890 gave an account of his voyage to Northern Russia by order of Alfred of England; and from Ahmed-ben-Fosylan, the plenipotentiary of an. Abasside Khalif, who in 921 drew up a report of his journey, - there are, down to modern times, comparatively a great number of documents. Taking only the two centuries before Peter I., we come to the surprising fact that, nearly four hundred years ago, Germany sent her scientific commissions to Moscow, with a view to studying the situation of Russia, which had then just emerged from Mongol slavery. The reports of these commissions still exist. Unfortunately, they are hidden in the dust of Austrian archives. More accessible are the documents of a political nature, such as the letters and memoirs of German ambassadors at the court of Moscow. Of these latter we name only the accounts given by George Thurn, who had a mission from the German Emperor Maximilian to negotiate for a marriage with the daughter of the Czar (1492); then the work of Sigismund von Herberstein, a Councillor and President of the Board of Revenues of the German Empire, who, in 1516, went as envoy extraordinary to Moscow (Rerum Moscovitarum Commentarii, Vienna, 1549). In the sixteenth century Russia was much travelled through by men of all nations,

trades, and stations of life. Of their numerous reports we will single out those of a few Englishmen: Thomas Aldcocke, factor of an English commercial company, who made the voyage from Jaroslaw to Astrakhan (1564); Arthur Edwards (1565); Thomas Southam, in the service of the Anglo-Russian Company in London (1566); Thomas. Randolfe, ambassador of Queen Elizabeth (1568); Giles Fletcher, also ambassador at Moscow (1588), etc.

Unquestionably, one of the most interesting memoirs is that of the French Captain Margeret, originally published in 1607 at Paris. To assign their right place to the reports of this leader of free lands, we will observe that his sojourn in Muscovy, where he rose to great dignity, occurred during the beginning of a period which we called "eclipse." His work, therefore, cannot, properly speaking, serve as a contemporary authority for the traditional policy of Russia. Yet so constant has been the tendency towards territorial extension and absolute government, that even Margeret, though writing at a time when the country was hastening to decline, felt deeply impressed, not only by the vastness of its geographical extent and its military resources, but also by the restless ambition which prompted the barbarian autocrats to aspire to imperial honors and European importance.

These are, however, not the earliest traces of

were Russian embassies to Germany, and vice versa, during the reign of the German emperor Henry II. (1003-24. Projects of intermarriage at that epoch were discussed or carried out between German, Hungarian, Polish, English, and French princes or princesses on the one hand, and members of the Rurik family on the other. In the eleventh century, a dethroned Russian sovereign made a personal pilgrimage to Mayence, to solicit aid against a rival, - the exiled Russian pretender promising that, if Henry IV. of Germany would reinstate him on the throne, he would engage "to hold Russia only as a vassal fief of the German empire." Henry IV., being involved in a struggle both with his own vassals and the Holy See, was unable to do more than to make an inefficient diplomatic intervention.

averted. Sometimes the accomplishment of the design has seemed near enough, but a gigantic catastrophe has as often averted it. Autocratic policy was powerful enough to move the stolid mass of the Muscovite population for the purpose of conquest, and unscrupulous enough to hurl the savage tribes of the farthest Asiatic deserts against the rich countries of Eastern Europe. But what the czars were unable to inspire their subjects with has been

the noble instinct of enterprising migration and colonization, the intelligence of mind necessary for fertilizing territorial conquests, and converting them into valuable possessions. Even in the mere warlike spirit required for a system of encroachment the Muscovite people have ever been deficient. Their great successes have generally been Won more by fostering dissensions among the enemy, by diplomatic influences, by the lavish use of gold, and by the skill of foreigners taken into Russian service, rather than by native Muscovite prowess. When invaded on her own soil, Russia had recourse to the aid of nature's forces, availing herself of the barrenness of the country and the rigor of the climate. As to the boast contained in the spurious "Last Will of Peter I.," that the vigorous races of Russia, similar to the Germanic tribes, will inundate the countries of the west, east, and north, we need only point to the thinness of the population of Muscovy proper, and to the utter absence of a wandering impulse among them. The most superficial observer must see through the fallaciousness of a pretended similarity between, on the one hand, the youth

ful, freedom-loving, adventurous Germanic races of the migrations, who scarcely knew kingly authority; and, on the other, that enthralled mass of Muscovite subjects who have successively submitted to Khazan, Varangian, and Mongol supremacy, and whose government not unfrequently reminded one of the worst era of Roman imperators. A comparison between Russia and the United States is therefore certainly out of the question.

Latterly, Russia has made some steps in advance in internal improvement, mainly in consequence of her defeat by the allied Western Powers. The emancipation of the serfs is a great move, at which all friends of humanity must rejoice, though it is no secret that the Czar carried it out from a desire of diminishing the wealth of those nobles who, in common with a portion of the town's population, were striving for the introduction of some sort of parliamentary government. No sooner, however, has Russia made those steps in advance than her rulers have resumed their aggressive policy in Central Asia, thus trying once more to divert the attention of the nation from progress at home to territorial conquests abroad.

IN N this age of liberty and of individual enterprise, when every one can freely choose his occupation and pursue it without let or hindrance, we with difficulty appreciate the all but insurmountable obstacles which restrictive and prohibitory laws, and the jealous exclusiveness of trade corporations, once presented to a young and aspiring mechanic.

In the early ages of their history, these trade corporations were indeed the first rallying-points of liberty for

ually forced to refrain from the cruel and ruinous oppression they had so long practised. But the oppressed readily become oppressors, and these corporations did not escape the general law. They became jealous, tyrannical, and exclusive. Improvement, progress, or innovation of any nature, was rejected by them with indignation and alarm; and time-honored customs and vexatious regulations met the mechanic in every direction. All that his father had done the son might do, but no more. His pay, his hours of work, the number of his apprentices, indeed, every detail, was strictly regulated by his corporation. From these trammels there was no escape, for an independent workman could not find employment. He was even forbidden to exercise his calling, and frequently was banished from town or village for insubordination. In a word, he was excluded from the right of earning his bread. It is, however, but fair to add, that, during illness or accidental incapacity, the workman and his family received from the corporation of which he was a member all the necessaries, and many of the comforts, of life. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that the domineering influence. of these corporations or trade-unions continued long after the causes that led to their formation had disappeared.

The arbitrary laws and customs of trade corporations we can readily ascribe to jealous and unenlightened selfishness; but how can we explain, or even conceive, that patriotic and enlightened statesmen have clung with so much tenacity, through so many ages, to restrictive and prohibitory enactments and to sumptuary laws? the first forbidding industry, the other forbidding consumption! and yet every page of history tells us that such laws were enforced even to our own times.

Calico - printing in France suffered from all these causes; for, when these goods were first introduced, the extensive and powerful corporation of the weavers, and the corporation of the dyers, were greatly alarmed. They made every effort to suppress them, and pos

itively forbade any member of their corporations to engage in this work. Through their clamor and influence they at length induced the government to issue decrees strictly prohibiting the printing of calicoes in France.

Notwithstanding the prohibitions and the heavy duties exacted at the frontiers, printed calicoes became fashionable; but the demand was almost wholly supplied by smugglers, who, in the very high prices obtained, found ample remuneration for the risks incurred.

The constant increase of smuggling, and the consequent decline of the revenue, together with the great number of persons continually condemned for this offence to the galleys, and even to death, at length alarmed the Council of Trade, and induced them to propose more liberal measures. But such measures, then as now, met with violent opposition. Committees and deputies were despatched from Tours, Rouen, Rheims, Beauvais, and many other manufacturing towns, to remonstrate with the ministers. They did not hesitate to affirm that foreign competition would utterly annihilate commerce and manufactures, and they conjured their sovereign not to take the bread of life from the poor weavers and their wives and children! The evil was, however, serious and increasing; for partial combats and loss of life were continually occurring near the frontiers. After a laborious examination and long hesitation, the couneil decided in favor of liberty; and Louis XV., in the year 1759, issued a royal decree, permitting the printing of calicoes in his kingdom of France. These decrees at once called individual enterprise into action; but it was principally to a German and a Protestant-to Christopher Philippe Oberkampf — that France is indebted for one of its most productive manufactures, which has given profitable employment to vast numbers of its inhabitants, and has markedly advanced the prosperity of the nation.

The history of this intelligent and indefatigable mechanic is, indeed, the history of the first successful establish