love of glory was her ruling passion, and those whose praise was fame
were sure of her favourable regard. The French writers were the chief
objects of her attention and bounty. She corresponded with Voltaire,
whom she earnestly invited to Petersburg: but, as we learn from his
correspondence with the Empress, he feared in old age the rigour of a
northern climate; perhaps too he recollected how Frederic of Prussia had
sunk the philosopher in the king, and felt reluctant to trust himself
again within the reach of despotic power: at all events he declined the
intended honour. Diderot, at her request, visited Petersburg, and spent
several months there; contriving, if Frederic’s account be true, to
weary the imperial patience by his turn for argument and repetition. Her
benefactions to him had been delicate and splendid. Being informed that
poverty compelled him to dispose of his library, she purchased it for
15,000 livres, and at the same time left it in his care, and for his use
and enjoyment, granting to him an annual salary, under the title of her
librarian. With similar liberality she purchased and entrusted to the
care of Professor Pallas his own valuable collections of natural
history. She sought to attract D’Alembert to Petersburg, and invited him
to superintend the education of her son, the Grand-Duke Paul: but he
declined her offers. She patronized all institutions for the promotion
of science and literature; and the Academy of Sciences at Petersburg
owes to her generous support the greater part of its foreign associates,
and its high reputation. The discoveries of Billings and others in the
Northern and Eastern seas, and the expedition of Pallas and his
associates to explore and describe the less known portions of the
empire, are also to be mentioned among the scientific honours of her
reign. In the patronage of art she was splendid; she loved magnificence,
was regardless of expense, and spared no cost to assemble round her
throne the greatest rarities of nature, and the most admirable or
wonderful productions of man. And the architectural magnificence of St.
Petersburg still bears witness to the elevation and splendour of her
taste, and the extent of her revenues.
By much the greater part of what has been said, may appear to vindicate
Catherine’s title to be called a good, as well as a great sovereign.
Such, no doubt, had her moral faculties been better educated, she might
have been: but her reign was vitiated, and her talents rendered
comparatively useless to her subjects, by one prevailing fault of
selfishness. Her temper was averse from wanton cruelty; she loved to see
prosperity around her; she loved, still more, the glory of being reputed
the author of that prosperity. But she loved to see others happy, not
for their sakes, but for her own; we seek in vain in the records of her
life for that laborious and self-denying spirit, which is ready to
sacrifice its own will for the good of others. Hence the multiplicity of
her plans, and the inconstancy of her purposes: she persevered in no
task which had lost the excitement of novelty, or no longer nourished
the craving appetite for praise. She was too eager to build, to allow
the requisite time for laying foundations: and the consequence was seen,
even before her death, in the ruined and neglected state of
establishments on which she had prided herself, and which men who were
no flatterers had regarded as the marks of a new era of civilization in
Russia. A French writer, in the Biographie Universelle, says,
“Legislation, colonies, education, institutions, canals, towns,
fortresses, every thing had been begun, and abandoned before
completion.” This passion of Catherine, for sketching every thing and
finishing nothing, is well characterised by a saying of Joseph II. In
her journey to the Crimea, she invited him to lay the second stone of
Ekaterinoslaf, of which she herself had just laid the first. Joseph
said, after his return, “The Empress of Russia and I completed a great
undertaking in one day: she laid the first stone of a city, and I the
last.”
Of the more than imperial splendour—the profuse extravagance—of her
court and social life, space will not allow us to speak: a number of
curious and amusing anecdotes on this subject, and other details
relative to her person, manners, and habits, are to be found in Coxe’s
Travels in Russia, and Tooke’s Life of the Empress Catherine II. The
licentiousness of her conduct we should alike pass over, but for its
connexion with affairs of state: for she paraded her prostitution before
the eyes of all, apparently considering herself released by supreme rank
and irresponsible power, from the control of those decencies which
fetter even the vicious. A lover was part of Catherine’s state
furniture, and a most expensive one: since the sums lavished on her
series of favourites during her reign of thirty-four years, without
including the enormous annual expense of their establishment, amounted,
according to Mr. Tooke, (vol. iii. p. 374,) to more than eighty millions
of roubles. This, at the lowest rate of two shillings a rouble, (Mr.
Tooke states it to have been then worth four,) would be more than eight
millions of pounds sterling. Nor was this the only evil: though
Catherine suffered none of her favourites, except Potemkin, to interfere
in the chief affairs of the state, their influence at a distance and in
subordinate departments was immense; and whoever enjoyed their
protection was sure of advancement beyond his merits, and enabled to
tyrannize over others, and trample on law with impunity. Chosen for the
most part from officers of the Guard, without a particle of sentiment,
solely for personal attractions, we look in vain among them for one
raised above the common level by talent or accomplishment, except the
celebrated Potemkin, and perhaps the coarse and brutal Orloff, her
husband’s murderer, and one of the chief instruments in placing herself
upon the throne. Potemkin did possess a certain barbarous grandeur of
ideas, fitted to strike an answering chord in Catherine’s ambitious and
ostentatious mind; together with an aptitude for affairs, and a nature
born to command, had it been improved by education and self-restraint,
or chastened by adversity: and he alone, after he ceased to be a lover,
preserved an all-ruling influence as a friend and confidant.
In speaking of Catherine’s foreign policy we must confine ourselves
chiefly to two heads,—the humiliation of Turkey, and the spoliation of
Poland. Very soon after her accession, a vacancy in the throne of Poland
gave her the opportunity of imposing upon that unhappy nation as its new
king one of her former lovers, Stanislaus Poniatowsky, whom she knew,
from the weakness of his character, to be a fit instrument of
maintaining and increasing her influence. Fear of the aggrandizement of
so powerful and hostile a neighbour, and, more especially, jealousy of
her designs upon Poland, induced the Porte to declare war against her in
1768. For eight years the contest continued, in all respects to the
advantage of the Russians; and during the course of it a Russian fleet
(conducted, however, in great measure by British officers) appeared for
the first time in the Mediterranean, and signalized its prowess by the
total destruction of a superior Turkish armament in the bay of Tchesme,
in Lemnos. Not less successful were the Russian arms in the Black Sea,
and in Moldavia and Wallachia. Still peace was desirable, even to the
victor, from the exhaustion of the contest, and it was concluded in
1774, by the treaty of Kainardgi, upon terms very advantageous to
Russia, yet perhaps more favourable than Turkey had cause to expect. The
reason of this moderation we shall see presently. The free navigation of
the Mediterranean seas and the passage of the Dardanelles were secured
to Russia, and the district between the rivers Dnieper and Bog was ceded
to her. The Tartars of the Crimea were declared independent, which was
nearly equivalent to rendering them tributary to Russia: and in fact
that country was formally ceded to Catherine in 1783, by the reigning
Cham, and the Porte, unwillingly enough, yielded to that arrangement.
But the insulting pomp of Catherine, which almost dared in a moment of
bravado to threaten Constantinople itself with an invasion, led to a
second war in 1786, which, after a bloody and exhausting conflict,
terminated in 1791–2, by the treaty of Jassy, by the farther cession, on
the part of Turkey, of the provinces between the Bog and the Dniester,
which was declared to be thenceforward the frontier of the two empires.
The Russian conquests in Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia were
restored. Memorable in this war, for the desperation of their defence by
the Turks, and the awful cruelties which attended their capture by the
Russians, were the sieges of the strong fortresses of Oczakow at the
mouth of the Dnieper, and Ismail on the Danube. On this occasion again,
but for the intervention of other European powers, especially England
and Prussia, Catherine might probably have obtained more favourable
terms. But the importance of the acquisitions thus made by her on the
Black Sea, from the Straits of Kertsh to the Dniester, is not to be
measured by their wealth, scarcely by their extent. It was the command
of the commerce of the Black Sea, and the opening a passage to
Constantinople, which she had so much desired, and the Porte so much
feared, that formed her chief triumph; and in the height of her ambition
she dared to project the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, and the
re-establishment of a Christian empire in Constantinople.
Not less important were her acquisitions on the western frontier. The
atrocious project of partitioning Poland between her three most powerful
neighbours, is said by Koch (Tableau des Révolutions) to have originated
in the Turkish wars which we have just described. The occupation of
Moldavia and Wallachia by the Russians was calculated to alarm the
jealousy of Austria; and Koch states, that Frederic II. suggested to the
Empress that if she resigned them, as was done by the treaty of
Kainardgi, she might take her equivalent from Poland, to a part of which
Austria had already laid claim. Other writers have maintained that the
scheme originated with Catherine. Be this as it may, the two monarchs
readily came to an agreement, at the end of July, 1772: and as the Poles
were in no condition to resist, and the powers which had guaranteed the
independence of Poland looked on in silence, no opposition beyond
remonstrance was made. In 1773, the Diet made a formal act of cession at
Warsaw. In this first division, about 6500 square leagues of land, and
five millions of human beings were thus robbed of their nationality: and
the larger share, containing more than 4000 square leagues and three
millions of people, situated in Livonia and Lithuania, was transferred
to Russia, and formed into the governments of Polotsk and Mohilow. At
the same time the three powers formally renounced all farther claims on
Poland, and guaranteed to it its constitution and existence. But
treaties are seldom able to bind ambition. A coldness succeeded between
Russia and Prussia; and the latter, whose conduct ought to be marked
with especial infamy, excited the Polish Diet, under promises of
support, to make alterations in the constitution calculated to diminish
the influence and rouse the jealousy of Russia. Catherine marched an
army into the country in 1792, to support her party; the Poles flew to
arms; and the King of Prussia, instead of sending the assistance which
he had pledged himself to give, openly joined the Empress. A second
partition of the spoil ensued in 1793, in which another portion of
Lithuania was assigned to Russia; and another treaty of alliance, or
rather of subjection, was made. But the nation was roused by despair;
and in the following spring that general insurrection broke out, which
has given undying fame to the name of Kosciusko. There is a short
account of this struggle in the memoir of that hero in our first volume;
it terminated in the total subjection and final partition of Poland: in
which Russia obtained the remainder of Lithuania, with Semigallia,
Courland, &c., to the amount of about 2000 square leagues more. This
took place in 1795.
We must refer to the various historical works on these times for an
account of Catherine’s complicated negotiations with foreign courts, the
blow which she aimed at the British dominion of the sea by the
establishment, in 1780, of the celebrated Armed Neutrality, the war
which she commenced against Persia at the end of her reign, and other
events inferior in importance to those of which we have here given an
imperfect outline. It is asserted that, having turned her arms towards
the east, she had ventured to conceive the design of overturning the
British empire in India. But her ambition and her life were
simultaneously cut short by an attack of apoplexy, which carried her off
very suddenly, November 9, 1796. She was succeeded by her grandson Paul
I.
Catherine, in imitation of Frederic II., aspired to fame as an author.
Besides the Instructions, she wrote moral tales and allegories, for the
education of her grandchildren, and a number of dramatic pieces and
proverbs acted at the Hermitage, and published under the title of
Theatre of the Hermitage. Her correspondence with Voltaire and others is
published.
[Illustration: [The Pavilion at Tzarsko-Tzelo. From a Print in the
King’s Library.]]
[Illustration]
DEFOE.
Daniel, the son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, was born in London,
in the parish of Cripplegate, in or about the year 1663: at what time,
or on what account he prefixed the syllable De to his paternal name,
does not clearly appear. He was a Dissenter himself, and appears to have
been of a dissenting family. Early imbued with a dread of Papal
ascendancy, he took up arms to support the Duke of Monmouth’s
insurrection, and was fortunate in escaping not only the sword, but the
legal consequences of that rash adventure. In 1685 he went into business
as a hosier, in Freeman’s Yard, Cornhill. He was not successful,
probably because his attention was engrossed by affairs foreign to his
trade: for he not only mingled in the political and religious
dissensions of that stormy time, but was too much occupied, according to
his biographer Mr. Chalmers, by engagements, which became neither the
conscientious dissenter, nor the steady man of business. “With the usual
imprudence of superior genius, he was carried by his vivacity into
companies who were gratified by his wit, and he spent those hours in the
idle hilarity of the tavern, which he ought to have employed in the
calculations of the counting-house; and being obliged to abscond from
his creditors in 1692, he attributed those misfortunes to the war, which
were doubtless owing to his own misconduct. He afterwards carried on the
brick and pantile works near Tilbury Fort, though probably with no
success. He was in after-times wittily reproached, ‘that he did not,
like the Egyptians, require bricks without straw, but, like the Jews,
required bricks without paying his labourers.’ He was born for other
enterprises, which, if they did not gain him wealth, have conferred a
renown, that will descend the current of time with the language wherein
his works are written.” His misfortunes however, even if accompanied by
some imprudence, did not alienate his friends. “I was invited,” he says
in his Appeal to Honour and Justice, “by some merchants with whom I had
corresponded abroad, and some also at home, to settle at Cadiz, and that
with offers of very good commissions; but Providence, which had other
work for me to do, placed a secret aversion in my mind. Some time after,
I was, without the least application of mine, and being then seventy
miles from London, sent for to be Accomptant to the Commissioners of the
Glass Duty; in which service I continued to the determination of their
commission.”
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Thomson._
DE FOE.
_From a Print by M. Vandergucht._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]
Having lost this occupation, Defoe’s active mind expanded itself in a
variety of schemes. He wrote, he tells us, many sheets about the coin;
he proposed a law for registering seamen; he projected county banks;
factories for goods; a commission of inquiry into the estates of
bankrupts; a pension-office for the relief of the poor; an academy “to
encourage polite learning, and to polish and refine the English tongue;”
and an academy for the education of women, with a view to the
improvement of society, by training them to a more exemplary discharge
of their social duties. Notices of various of these schemes, and of the
use or abuse of a speculative spirit in a mercantile country, will be
found in his Essay on Projects, published in January, 1697. In 1701 he
produced a satire in verse, called The True-born Englishman, which arose
out of a personal and virulent attack, by one Tutchen, on William III.,
whose faults were finally summed up in the epithet “foreigner.” “This,”
Defoe says, “filled me with a kind of rage against the book, and gave
birth to a trifle, which I never could hope should have met with such
general acceptation as it did—I mean, The True-born Englishman. How this
poem was the occasion of my being known to his Majesty; how I afterwards
was received by him; how employed; and how, above all my capacity of
deserving, rewarded, is no part of the present case:” and history does
not supply us with the particulars here left unnoticed. But whatever
were Defoe’s services or their rewards, he always expressed his
gratitude and affection for King William’s memory in ardent terms. In
the same year he published two able tracts in support of the principles
of the Revolution, entitled, one, The Original Power of the Collective
Body of the People of England Examined and Asserted; the other, The
Freeholder’s Plea against the Stock-jobbing Elections of Parliament-men.
The following pithy sentence may give some notion of the general tenor
of the latter. “It is very rational to suppose that those who buy will
sell, or what seems more rational they who have bought, must sell.” In
these pieces the ultimate resort of all power in the people, and the
responsibility of the parliament to the people, inasmuch, to use his own
words elsewhere, “as the person sent is less than the sender,” are
forcibly explained and asserted. The same principles were developed more
strongly in what is commonly called The Legion Letter, a remonstrance
against certain exertions of the privilege of parliament, by which the
subject’s right of petitioning was thought to be curtailed. This
remarkable paper, which, though never clearly avowed, is believed to
have been written by Defoe, and presented by him, dressed in women’s
clothes, to the Speaker, was entitled, A Memorial from the Gentlemen,
Freeholders, and Inhabitants of the Counties of ——, in behalf of
themselves, and many thousands of the good people of England, to the
Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses in Parliament assembled; and ends in
the following words: “For Englishmen are no more to be slaves to
Parliaments than to Kings.
“Our name is LEGION,
“And we are MANY.
“If you require to have this Memorial signed with our names, it shall be
done on your first orders, and formally presented.”
Of this attempt to intimidate the House no open notice was taken, nor
does it appear to have been known at the time who was the author. But
any ill-will which the Tories might have against Defoe, if suspected,
was gratified by the consequences of a pamphlet which he published in
1702, entitled, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, or Proposals for
the Establishment of the Church. In this ironical performance, which
ostensibly recommends the total extirpation of Dissenters from England,
he intended to satirize the blind prejudices and headstrong zeal of the
high Tory faction: but he had the misfortune to raise up enemies on
every side. Some of the Dissenters took it literally, and raised an
outcry against him as a persecutor: the Tories understood it better, and
had influence enough to get a prosecution commenced against him, and a
reward offered for his apprehension, by the government. The House of
Commons voted the book a libel, and ordered it to be burnt by the
hangman. The printer and the publisher of it were taken into custody,
upon which Defoe, who had secreted himself, came forward, “to throw
himself upon the favour of Government, rather than that others should be
ruined for his mistakes.” He was tried in July, 1703, found guilty of
composing and publishing a seditious libel, and, by a very oppressive
sentence, was condemned to be imprisoned, to stand in the pillory, to
pay a fine of 200 marks, and to find security for his good behaviour
during seven years. It is in allusion to this that Pope, who ought to
have better appreciated such a man, has made an unworthy attack upon
Defoe in the Dunciad,
Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe.
He had no reason to be, and was not, abashed; and he composed a Hymn to
the Pillory, and an Elegy on the Author of a True-born Englishman,
esteeming himself defunct as an author, when he was obliged to find
sureties for good behaviour. These, like all his works, contain the
energetic expression of an independent spirit: to poetical merit they
have no claim.