wheeling, narrowing momentarily till with one fatal plunge, he strikes the death-blow, -so here the orator, in this fierce assault, seemed in these three tremendous interrogations to approach his victim with three narrowing sweeps of his great arm, and with more and more certain indications of his appalling manner. till, as he came to the final-the most accusing and defying question, he turned full on the object of his wrath.

The oratorial cannonade was too tremendous to be endured, and the senator, leaving his chair, walked round behind the Vice-President's desk, where the Corinthian pillars and ample curtains, hiding him from that brandishing arm, and accusatorial eye, shrouded him as in some tranquil heaven, from the terrors of the tempest. It is needless to add that no "whig" voted that day for that man. The nomination was rejected, and it was further whispered about at the time, that a long and violent fever supervened to the nominee, upon that disappointment and the invective.

As we said at the outset, Mr. Clay seems to us the greatest natural orator whom we have ever heard. And we think him moreover the first orator, upon the whole, for native powers, that our country has yet produced, at any stage of our history. We shall doubtless be told, as John Adams indignantly wrote to Mr. Wirt-when his Life of Patrick Henry came out, "multi heroes ante Agamemnona,"-there were many heroes before Agamemnon. Per

haps there were, but we don't believe it. What Patrick Henry really was, we cannot tell. Our age sees him only through the dazzling haze, which the sympathetic genius of Wirt himself-with a great reputation for rhetorical prowess to maintain -threw around his subject. Wirt was then a young man, but an old orator; and for an orator to write about a departed orator, and not apotheosize him-the muse of eloquence would have walked him right out of her train. As for James Otis, he is a sort of bright myth. To be sure, as he argued the famous "Writs of Assistance" in the old State-house in Boston, Adams felt that "that day the child Independence was born," but with what agonies of eloquence the parturition was achieved, we really know as little accurately, as we know how Otis himself felt, when the lightning struck him dead, as he walked, on that fatal summer's day.

And

Indeed, therefore, we must place Henry Clay first on the American Forum. if a Ciceronian culture had fallen to his lot, we think that here among us, the scenes of Athens and of Pericles might possibly have been repeated, and the "Lost Art" of Oratory might have rolled back upon us, like recollected music. Would it had been so! For even now, we might be placing in our Pantheon of the unforgotten men of the Republic, a statue worthy to stand by the side of the great twin brethren of eloquence-the pride of the Grecian Bema, and the ornament of the Roman Forum.

EVERY

summer a series of military manœuvres is executed in Russia, which as nearly as possible resembles actual warfare. The Czar takes command of an army of twenty thousand men, and the Grand Duke Alexander of another army of equal size. They fight mimic battles-the losing party (which is always the Grand Duke's!) retreats-is pursued to its quarters-the camp is stormed, and the war terminates amid the roar of cannon, the explosion of mines, and the blaze of bonfires.

This extraordinary but characteristic pastime of the Emperor's occupies about ten days, and attracts many visitors from England and the Continent. If they are

military men, whatever be their nation, they are entertained at the Czar's expense, furnished with horses and servants, and have every facility afforded them to behold and admire the discipline of the troops and the tactics of the generals.

It was at one of these manoeuvres that I first saw the Czar. The army was on the march, and we had taken horses at Sarskaselo to follow it. We first overtook bands of peasants with carts laden with wood and provisions for the troops; long lines of baggage and amunition wagons guarded by detachments of infantry, carriages containing dozing officers inside, their chargers, snorting and prancing, led behind. We next came up with the rear

tions for absolute monarchy not alone sincere, but correct, when applied to a people like his? Are such men fit to govern themselves?

The past of Russia is but a day in the History of Europe. It is less than two centuries since Peter the Great ascended the throne. "He made the Russians Europeans, as Philip made the Macedonians Greeks." His success was due, not to his extension of the Russian dominions, but to his concentration of the powers of government.

He reduced the overgrown power of the Boiards; he disbanded the Strelitzes, those Janissaries of Europe. He founded St. Petersburg, he built ships and armed and equipped a powerful navy, making Russia for the first time a maritime country; he raised an effective standing army; and more than all, he encouraged science, and introduced the mechanic arts among an almost barbarous people. In 1721, he was crowned Emperor, and was the first who bore the imposing title of "Emperor of all the Russias."

The next great instrument of Russian civilization was Catharine the Great. Both learned and warlike, she drew savans to her court, used every effort to advance the diffusion of knowledge in her dominions, and improved the machinery of government; while she quelled insurrections, and by conquest added 210,000 square miles of fertile land to her territory. Now, Nicholas is pursuing the course that Peter the Great marked out. He has been as vigorous in government as he was anxious to civilize his people.

We condemn his oppression of the Poles, and his interference in the Hungarian war. But while the true-hearted American sees with grief these two great nations reduced to slavery, must he not own that if he occupied the Emperor's position he must have taken the same course? The law of self-preservation is the highest human law. In obedience to its dictates the Poles and Hungarians sought their liberty, and in obedience to the same law Nicholas crushed the spirit of democracy.

It would be impossible for the most far-seeing politician to divine the future of Russia. Her fate must depend upon her rulers. Iron may be welded to iron, but when wood and iron are joined, their connection lasts only with the rivet that holds them together. No one is mad enough to suppose that all the Russias, extending from the North Pole to Persia, and from the Baltic to our own frontier, comprising one seventh of the globe, with a population of 57,000,000, could be

blended together into one great republic Catharine once called together a congress of her subjects at Moscow to devise general laws for her people. It represented twenty-seven different nations, speaking as many different languages, and after a few vain attempts at organization broke up in confusion. Imagine the stolid Esthonian fraternizing at the polls with the fiery Don Cossack, or the rude fisherman of Finland, or still ruder Kamtschatkan glorifying the double-headed eagle in a political speech to the Moslems of the Caucasus!

But let us turn from the frozen seas and dreary steppes of the Czar's domain; let us cross the frontier to the "land of the olive and myrtle," the golden East.

It was on Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath, that we stepped from the quay of Tophana into a light caique and darted across the sparkling waters of the Golden Horn into the rapid tide of the Bosphorus. It was a day of idleness for all good Mussulmen. Thousands were thronging to the mosques; the water was alive with caiques conveying the inhabitants of Pera or Stamboul to the "sweet waters of Asia," to the heights of Burguloo, or the "Sweet waters of Europe." Suddenly a flash of light from the Asiatic shore, followed by the dull roar of a cannon, proclaims that the Sublime Porte has left his palace to visit the mosque. A large caique darts from beneath the arches of the serai and cuts the water into foam as it heads across the Bosphorus. It is followed by another and another. The echo of the first cannon has hardly died away before a hundred brazen throats reply. The huge Turkish men-of-war that tower above the waters like castles, which, but an instant since, seemed deserted and solitary, now swarm with men. Every spar, from deck to mast-head, bears a living load. The sailors cling to the rigging like bees, and line the bulwarks. The caiques rapidly approach. They are high-prowed boats, painted in white and gold, each propelled at great speed by sixteen stout rowers. Astern, is a crimson canopy, under which recline the Sultan and the officers of state. The train sweeps by, and the roar of cannon is not silenced till the Sultan has landed and entered the mosque.

Thus, on each Mohammedan sabbath through the year, the descendant of the Caliphs and head of the church, visits a different mosque. The prayers lasted about an hour, and, in the mean time, we landed and secured a good position to see Abdul Megid, on his departure. There

was a crowd assembled, a detachment of soldiers was under arms, and five horses saddled and bridled, with housings thickly studded with diamonds, were led up and down to await the choice of their Imperial master. The troops wore dark blue European frock coats, and trowsers, and red fez caps, and had a slouching gait, and awkward look, in their ill-fitting and foreign habiliments.

At last the doors flew open and a crowd of the high officers of state, all in the same plain dress, poured out. When the Sultan came, they surrounded him and gave him the Eastern salutation by touching the hand first to the breast, and then to the cap, and bowing low, a substitute for the ancient custom of prostration. With assistance, the Commander of the Faithful mounted a white steed, who was led quietly to the serai or palace, followed by the officers and the guards, and a band of music. The Sultan is a man of middle height, dressed something after the European fashion, with a pale, melancholy, but fine face. His head drooped on his breast, and his dark eyes gazed vacantly before him, it not being etiquette for him to look at, or show the least recognition of those about him. A man came forward with a paper, some petition, which was taken by an officer, and the cortège passed on. It reminded one of the ancient Egyptian worship of bulls. The animals were deified, their passions gratified, and the priests governed for them. The Sultan is consigned to the pleasures of the harem, and is but a puppet that seems to act and speak what really emanates from his ministers behind the scenes.

As the feeble Abdul Megid, surrounded by pashas and soldiers, attended by bands of music and cringing favorites, riding a steed whose trappings glitter with precious stones, too proud to recognize, even by a glance, the bowing multitude, passes by,

and we remember the vigorous Omar, the second of the Caliphs, who entered Jerusalem, as a victor, seated upon a camel, laden with a bag of fruit, and another of corn, his only provisions, whose only furniture was a wooden platter, his couch the earth, and his canopy a horse-hair tent, we see how nearly pomp is allied with weakness, and simplicity with strength.

The sun of the Ottoman empire rose in splendor, when, in 1300, the robber Emir Osman ravaged Asia Minor, and proclaimed himself Sultan; reached its meridian, when, in 1453 Mohammed the Second crossed the Bosphorus and established his capital in Stamboul; and now when Abdul Megid turns piteously for aid against the Russian invader to the Sovereign of a distant isle in the Northern Ocean, it seems about to sink below the horizon.

Whatever may be our sympathies with the Sultan who sheltered the flying Hungarians, we cannot forget that the Turks have been for centuries the bitterest enemies of Christendom, that the Greeks long groaned under a rule far more galling than Austrian tyranny, that the Mussulman who embraces Christianity is doomed to death, and that this very Sultan is even now the oppressor of millions of Christian subjects.

The Frank who has had stones cast at him in the streets, and tongues thrust out at him in derision as the "Christian dog," who has seen the worse than anarchy of the Turkish Empire, who has been driven with contempt, as an infidel, from the mosque of St. Sophia, once a temple of the true faith, will never regret to see the sceptre torn from the hands of the descendant of the Caliphs, and the last of the Ottomans driven from the territory wrested from Europeans by ruthless con-quest, and forced to seek refuge in the desert plains of his Turkoman ancestors.

"FRANK, the year before, had had so

much difficulty in persuading me to leave Naples, and my regrets at parting with my young friend Rosetta had been so violent, that he, the wisehead, alarmed at my soft-heartedness, had forced me to agree to, and with him in manner and form following; that is to say: If either of VOL. III.-32*

us should thereafter chance to fall in love with any individual of the fair sex, during the remainder of the time of our travels. the other should, by virtue of the compact, have full permission to consider him as quasi insane, and to use all proper means for the purpose of rescuing the affected party from any and all entanglements in

which he might become involved by reason of his passion. It was supposed, to be sure, at the time of making this arrangement, that I alone would be likely to receive the benefit of its operation. But as I was slowly undressing for bed, I recalled to mind the terms of the agreement. I determined to avail myself of the rights which it conferred upon me. So I sat down upon a chair, constituted myself a commission de lunatico inquirendo, came speedily to a decision that Frank Eliot was not in his right mind, formed an inflexible resolution to save him from the fate of a marriage with the widow, blew out my light and got into bed.

"I proposed to myself a hundred plans as I tossed from side to side, but failed to suggest one that satisfied me- At all events, Master Frank,' thought I, as I made a final turn over in bed, and seriously addressed myself to slumber, 'Madame La Vigne shall never cut out the Other One, if I can help it. When you marry, your wife shall be a Yankee girl' -and so she was-no less than-but I won't anticipate.

"The next morning I went to the American Legation and got my friend Kane, the attaché, to go down with me to call upon Jack Cathcart, a former college mate of Eliot's and mine, who was, as his parents had every reason to believe by his letters, diligently employed in making himself a scientific physician and surgeon, but, in point of fact, walking the hospitals but semi-occasionally, and seeing Life in Paris very constantly; especially that part of it which is to be seen by gas or lamplight. We found the medical student at his lodgings, sitting at a table in the middle of a very disorderly apartment, making believe eat a late breakfast, and really imbibing soda-water with an exceedingly disconsolate air."

Here the narrator paused, and taking out his watch, looked at it by the moonlight. "I fear, gentlemen," said he, returning it to his pocket, "that a full repetition of the story which I told Judge Walker and Mr. Cranston would consume too much time. Instead, therefore, of relating to you as I did to them the conversation which took place in the council of Eliot's friends, at the lodgings of Mr. Cathcart, I shall content myself with stating merely the conclusion at which that deliberative body ultimately arrived; viz. that I, being thereto assisted by the potential influence of Mr. Kane, should endeavor to supplant my friend Eliot in the widow's good graces, or, in other words, should try to cut him out. The

few objections to this plan which I at first feebly interposed were speedily overruled. 'It is good faith,' said Mr. Kane 'to act with reference to your compact The end will justify the means.'

At

This notable scheme was completely successful, and, in the mean time, so well were affairs managed by the attaché, whose diplomatic tact was truly wonderful, that not until Frank had thrown himself at Madame La Vigne's feet, and his offer of heart and hand had been rejected by her, did he begin to suspect that I was the rival who stood in his way. Even then it happened by the merest chance that my interference in the affair was discovered by him. At first he was frantic with rage and jealousy. He re viled me, accused me of treachery, and finally he sent to my lodgings (for we had separated) a hostile message. this juncture, however, Mr. Kane undertook the office of mediation, and explained to Frank that my conduct in the matter had been in strict accordance with the advice of what he chose to call a numerous council of friends. He even hinted that the highest officer of the American Legation had been consulted with, and finally. he argued at great length, and with infinite fluency and acuteness, that my intervention in the matter was fully justified, and, in fact, had been required by the terms of the treaty of Naples, and was therefore by no means a casus belli. Eliot was at length induced to withdraw his challenge, and before he left Paris, called one evening with Mr. Kane at my lodgings. He had just got a letter from home, he said. His father was ill, and he hardly expected to find him alive. It was evident that the shock of this heavy news had served to dissipate, to a great degree, the mist of enchantment in which he had been bewildered. Once or twice during the interview I thought, from his manner, that he was about to say something which would have healed the breach between us. But he was too proud, I suppose ; maybe Kane's presence restrained him; or, perhaps, his disappointment had left his heart too sore. When he rose to go, we shook hands, rather coldly, for I was the one that made the first venture, and he at first hesitated so much that it chilled He asked me to call and see him if ever I came to Guildford, and whether I had any letters to send home, bade me 'good bye,' and went away without saying a word about cousin Helen. The next week he sailed from Havre, and two months later found me on board the old Independence, running down St. George's

me.