tive. Mr. Canning possessed in a high degree the outward advantages of an orator. His expres sive countenance varied with the changes of his eloquence; his voice, flexible and articulate, had as much compass as his mode of speaking required. In the calm part of his speeches, his attitude and gesture might have been selected by a painter to represent grace rising towards dignity. more than powers of reasoning and imagina- | Mr. Pitt for so great an orator was defection, which have little connexion with a capacity for affairs. But the unforeseen events of debate, and the necessity of immediate answer in unpremeditated language, afford scope for quickness, firmness, boldness, wariness, presence of mind, and address in the management of men, which are among the qualities most essential to a statesman. The most flourishing period of our parliamentary eloquence extends for about half a century, from the maturity of Lord Chatham's genius to the death of Mr. No English speaker used the keen and brilFox. During the twenty years which suc- liant weapon of wit so long, so often, or so ceeded, Mr. Canning was sometimes the lead-effectively, as Mr. Canning. He gained more er, and always the greatest orator of the party who supported the administration: among whom he was supported, but not rivalled, by able men, against opponents who were not thought by him inconsiderable, of whom one, at least, was felt by every hearer, and acknowledged in private by himself, to have always forced his faculties into their very uttermost stretch. Had he been a dry and meagre speaker, he would have been universally allowed to be one of the greatest masters of argument; but his hearers were so dazzled by the splendour of his diction, that they did not perceive the acuteness and the sometimes excessive refinement of his reasoning; a consequence which, as it shows the injurious influence of a seductive fault, can with the less justice be overlooked in the estimate of his understanding. Ornament, it must be owned, when it only pleases or amuses, without disposing the audience to adopt the sentiments of the speaker, is an offence against the first law of public speaking, of which it obstructs instead of promoting the only reasonable purpose. But eloquence is a widely extended art, comprehending many sorts of excellence, in some of which, ornamented diction is more liberally employed than in others, and in none of which the highest rank can be attained without an extraordinary combination of mental powers. Among our own orators, Mr. Canning seems to be the best model of the adorned style. The splendid and sublime descriptions of Mr. Burke, his comprehensive and profound views of general principle, though they must ever delight and instruct the readers, must be owned to have been digressions which diverted the minds of the hearers from the object on which the speaker ought to have kept them steadily fixed. Sheridan, a man of admirable sense, and matchless wit, laboured to follow Burke into the foreign regions of feeling and grandeur, where the specimens preserved of his most celebrated speeches show too much of the exaggeration and excess to which those are peculiarly liable who seek by art and effort what nature has denied. By the constant part which Mr. Canning took in debate, he was called upon to show a knowledge which Sheridan did not possess, and a readiness which that accomplished man had no such means of strengthening and displaying. In some qualities of style Mr. Canning surpassed Mr. Pitt. His diction was more various, sometimes more simple, more idiomatical even in its more elevated parts. It sparkled with imagery, and was brightened by illustration, in both of which triumphs and incurred more enmity by it than any other. Those whose importance depends much on birth and fortune, are impatient of seeing their own artificial dignity, or that of their order, broken down by derision; and perhaps few men heartily forgive a successful jest against themselves, but those who are conscious of being unhurt by it. Mr. Canning often used this talent imprudently. In sudden flashes of wit, and in the playful description of men or things, he was often distinguished by that natural felicity which is the charm of pleasantry; to which the air of art and labour is more fatal than to any other talent. Sheridan was sometimes betrayed, by an imitation of the dialogue of his master, Congreve, into a sort of laboured and finished jesting, so ba lanced and expanded, as sometimes to vie in tautology and monotony with the once applauded triads of Johnson, and which, even in its most happy passages, is more sure of commanding serious admiration than hearty laugh ter. It cannot be denied that Mr. Canning's taste was, in this respect, somewhat influenced by the example of his early friend. There are some of his speeches which deserve notice, as evincing powers which he did not ordinarily exert. At the beginning of the discussion, in 1811, on the resumption of cash payments by the bank of England, he was so little acquainted with the subject, as to be a stranger to its elementary terms. He so profited, however, by the friendly conversation of a master of the science, that his two speeches on that question were numbered among his most successful exertions. In them his exposition was simple and clear. His fancy was content with supplying illustration, and even his wit was confined to exposing to ridicule what he proved to be absurd. Nothing could better prove the imperfect education of English statesmen at that time, and the capacity of Mr. Canning to master subjects the least agreeable to his pursuits and inclinations. On the vote of thanks to the Marquis of Hastings, he related the events of the Indian war with a clearness, order, and rapidity, which gave occasion to his speech being called, in the debate, the most beautiful model of spoken history. In his speeches during the session in which he was appointed governor-general of India, the thought that he was about to leave his country, and was bidding farewell to the assembly which was the scene of his fame, scemed to have softened his asperities as well as chastened his diction, with an increase of uninterrupted power over his audience, which showed how very little more restraint on temper and fancy was wanting to enlarge and prolong his ascendant as a speaker, and to teach the public a more just conception of the virtues for which he was, with so much justice, be loved. Into the few unseemly expressions, which would have subjected a man of less known humanity to more serious imputation, he was seduced by the poignancy, or sometimes by the quaintness of phrases, which, on that account also, were more circulated and more resented. The exuberance of fancy and wit lessened the gravity of his general manner, and perhaps also indisposed the audience to feel his earnestness where it clearly showed itself. In that important quality he was inferior to Mr. Pitt, coarse and stubborn to be worked upon by the fine edges and points of wit."* His papers in negotiation were occasionally somewhat too controversial in their tone. They are not near enough to the manner of an amicable conversation about a disputed point of business, in which a negotiator does not so much draw out his argument, as hint his own object, and sound the intention of his opponent. He sometimes seems to pursue triumph more than advantage, and not enough to remember that to leave the opposite party satisfied with what he has got, and in good humour with himself, is not one of the least proofs of a negotiator's skill. Where the papers were intended ultimately to reach the public through parliament, it might be prudent to regard chiefly the final object; and when this excuse was wanting, much must be pardoned to the controversial habits of a parliamentary life. It is hard for a debater to be a negotiator. The faculty of guiding public assemblies is very remote from the art of dealing with individuals. Mr. Canning's power of writing verse may rather be classed with his accomplishments, than numbered among his high and noble faculties. It would have been a distinction for an inferior man. His verses were far above those of Cicero, of Burke, and of Bacon. The taste prevalent in his youth led him to more relish for sententious declaimers in verse than is shared by lovers of the more true poetry of imagination and sensibility. In some respects his poetical compositions were also influenced by his early intercourse with Mr. Sheridan, though he was restrained by his more familiar contemplation of classical models from the and not less inferior to Mr. Fox, whose fervid eloquence flowed from the love of his country, the scorn of baseness, and the hatred of cruelty, which were the ruling passions of his nature. On the whole, it may be observed, that the range of Mr. Canning's powers as an orator was wider than that in which he usually exerted them. When mere statement only was allowable, no man of his age was more simple. When infirm health compelled him to be brief, no speaker could compress his matter with so little sacrifice of clearness, ease, and elegance. In his speech on colonial reformation, in 1823, he seemed to have brought down the philosophical principles and the moral sentiments of Mr. Burke, to that precise level where they could be happily blended with a grave and dignified speech, intended as an in-glittering conceits of that extraordinary man. troduction to a new system of legislation. As his oratorical faults were those of youthful genius, the progress of age seemed to purify his eloquence, and every year appeared to remove some speck which hid, or at least, dimmed a beauty. He daily rose to larger views, and made, perhaps, as near approaches to philosophical principles as the great difference between the objects of the philosopher and those of the orator will commonly allow. When the memorials of his own time, the composition of which he is said never to have interrupted in his busiest moments, are made known to the public, his abilities as a writer may be better estimated. His only known writings in prose are State Papers, which, when considered as the composition of a minister for foreign affairs, in one of the most extraordinary periods of European history, are undoubtedly of no small importance. Such of these papers as were intended to be a direct appeal to the judgment of mankind, combine so much precision, with such uniform circumspection and dignity, that they must ever be studied as models of that very difficult species of composition. His Instructions to Ministers Abroad, on occasions both perplexing and momentous, will be found to exhibit a rare union of comprehensive and elevated views, with singular ingenuity in devising means of execution; on which last faculty he sometimes relied perhaps more confidently than the short and dim foresight of man will warrant. "Great affairs," says Lord Bacon, "are commonly too Something of an artificial and composite diction is discernible in the English poems of those who have acquired reputation by Latin verse, more especially since the pursuit of rigid purity has required so timid an imitation as not only to confine itself to the words, but to adopt none but the phrases of ancient poets; an effect of which Gray must be allowed to furnish an example, Absolute silence about Mr. Canning's writ ings as a political satirist, which were for their hour so popular, might be imputed to undue timidity. In that character he yielded to General Fitzpatrick in arch stateliness and poig nant raillery; to Mr. Moore in the gay prodigality with which he squanders his countless stores of wit; and to his own friend Mr. Frere in the richness of a native vein of original and fantastic drollery. In that ungenial province, where the brightest of the hasty laurels are apt very soon to fade, and where Dryden only boasts immortal lays, it is perhaps his best praise that there is no writing of his, which a man of honour might not avow as soon as the first heat of contest was past. In some of the amusements or tasks of his boyhood there are passages which, without much help from fancy, might appear to contain allusions to his greatest measures of policy, as well as to the tenor of his life, and to the * It may be proper to remind the reader, that here the word "wit" is used in its ancient sense. melancholy splendour which surrounded his to devote the necessary time to the preparadeath. In the concluding line of the first Eng-tory, yet indispensable occupation of examinlish verses written by him at Eton, he expressed a wish, which has been singularly realised, that he might "Live in a blaze, and in a blaze expire." It is at least a striking coincidence, that the statesman, whose dying measure was to mature, an alliance for the deliverance of Greece, should, when a boy, have written English verses on the slavery of that country; and that in his prize poem at Oxford, on the Pilgrimage to Mecca, a composition as much applauded as a modern Latin poem can aspire to be, he should have as bitterly deplored the lot of other renowned countries, now groaning under the same barbarous yoke. Nunc Satrapæ imperio et sævo subdita Turca.* To conclude:-he was a man of fine and brilliant genius, of warm affections, of high and generous spirit; a statesman, who, at home, converted most of his opponents into warm supporters; who, abroad, was the sole hope and trust of all who sought an orderly and legal liberty; and who was cut off in the midst of vigorous and splendid measures, which, if executed by himself, or with his own spirit, promised to place his name in the first class of rulers, among the founders of lasting peace, and the guardians of human improvement. From the Foreign Quarterly Review. KARAMSIN'S HISTORY OF RUSSIA. SURPRISE has been often expressed that of an empire so prodigiously extended, and so preponderating in its influence, as Russia, nothing worthy of the name of history, should have appeared before that of Levesque. We have in our own language what is called a history of Russia by Tooke, but this is little more than a meagre abridgment of the French author. Meagre we may well term it; for it comprises within a few pages, the events of six centuries, a period to which Levesque devotes nearly three, and Karamsin no less than nine, large volumes. Hence the earlier portions of Russian history, is hitherto almost entirely unknown to the English public. But this surprise will surely cease, when we consider that the chief materials for such a history, can be found only in Russia itself, where the MS. chronicles have lain for ages, shrouded in the dust of libraries, and inaccessible, not only to foreigners, but to natives, without the imperial permission; and that these MSS. being for the most part, in the ancient Slavonic dialect of the country, are intelligible to few. Besides, no one less obstinately persevering, than the veriest German commentator, however well he might be acquainted with the ancient and modern dialects, would have patience Iter. ad Meccam, Oxford, 1789. Histoire de l'Empire de Russie, par M. Karamsin; traduite par MM. St. Thomas, Jauffret, et de Divoff. Tom. I-XI. 8vo. Paris. 1819-1826. ing authorities, as dry in their manner, as they are often uninteresting in their details,-authorities, too, not always easy to be decyphered by those even who are most conversant with such matters. This task requires,-not so much brilliancy of imagination, or a facility of moral and philosophic induction, as the obscure and less esteemed qualities of erudition and industry. No wonder then, that the lively Frenchman, notwithstanding his long residence in the Rus sian capital, and his access to the chronicles and public documents, should have been found inadequate to such a task. That he opened to us numerous stores of information previously unknown; that his work well entitled him to the gratitude of every reader, we most readily admit; but if he did much, he left more to be done. He has either entirely omitted, or but slightly touched on, some of the most important and interesting parts of his subject; and he frequently indulges in loose and bold conjecture, which more extended research would show to be utterly unfounded. We could not easily point out any history where the mistakes are greater, either in number or in magnitude: a list of them alone would fill a volume. Convinced of the defects to which we have alluded, and that Russia possessed no satisfactory work on the subject, Mr. Karamsin attempted to supply the desideratum. He rightly judged that no basis yet existed, on which a good history could be raised; accordingly, disregarding what had before appeared, he resolved to collect his own materials at the fountain-head. He ransacked the public and private libraries of the empire, in which preliminary employment he is said to have passed fourteen years. Not only did he consult the native authorities, from the monk Nestor downwards, but the historians and travellers of other countries, Greek, Latin, Arabian, German, Scandinavian, Polish, Hungarian, and English, -who were contemporary, or nearly so, with the events he relates. To his erudition, or at least his industry, ample testimony is borne by the notes at the end of each volume. In fact, few authorities which could possibly bear on the subject, appear to have escaped him. Hence he has collected a mass of information infinitely more important, as well as more voluminous, than that of Levesque. But while rendering our tribute of praise to the industry and research of the author, we must protest against the extent to which they have been carried. His anxiety to omit no event of the least importance, has led to a minuteness which we suspect, will prove insuffer ably tiresome to any but a native reader. The period which his history embraces, is one during the greater part of which the events are obscure, and the authorities comparatively few-to this no less than eleven ponderous volumes are devoted. With Mr. Karamsin all human labours are at an end; but should the work be continued on the same scale of tedious minuteness for the two last centuries, (a period so much more prolific in historic materials, and those of the highest interest and importance,) it will be swelled to a fearful extent indeed, no life will be protracted long enough to complete it. Besides, whatever be the author's other excellencies, he exhibits little of the sound judgment, the critical acumen, of those higher qualities which some modern historians have taught us to expect, and without which a book may be very learned, but will not long please. His chief merit is, in truth, that of an industrious compiler: he has done little more than transfer, in his own rhetorical language, the substance of his numerous authorities of the ancient chronicles especially-into the interminable volumes before us. His great fault is that of dwelling with the same minuteness on events which are doubtful or insignificant, as on those which are equally indisputable and momentous. By assigning an undue prominency to all his figures, he has produced a picture both disproportionate and ineffectual. On the whole, we may say of him, that it would be difficult to point out any historian, who exhibits equal industry, and at the same time an equal lack of judgment and taste. The volumes before us (which are all that Karamsin has left behind him,) contain the history of his country from Rurik, the founder of the monarchy in the ninth century, to the death of the reputed impostor Demetrius, at the beginning of the seventeenth. Over this wide space, we purpose to cast sometimes a hurried, at other times a leisurely glance, according to the relative interest, importance, or novelty of the subject. Our object will be to advert to the more striking historical events omitted by Tooke, as well as to the genius, character and manners of the Russians, and to the former state of their society, political, moral and religious, as far as it can be ascertained; not from Karamsin only, but from the concurrent testimony of the authorities to which we have access. But before we proceed to the establishment of the first Russian dynasty, we will imitate our author in giving some introductory notices of the ancient inhabitants of the country. Most of the numerous tribes which inhabited Russia before the ninth century, were doubt less of Slavonian origin. When they first settled in the country is impossible to be determined; nor is it easier to ascertain at what period they forsook the common cradle of the human race. Probably, however, the Slavi were established in Europe many ages before the foundation of Rome. On the present occasion, we cannot be expected to enter into a controversy which opens so extensive a field to inquiry, but we think the opinion we have expressed an opinion held by Dolci, Gatterer, Schloezer, Malte-Brun, and others equally eminent is borne out by Strabo, Tacitus, Jornandes, &c., and above all, by the affinity subsisting between the Slavonic and the ancient languages of Greece and Rome. Of this affinity Levesque and other writers have furnished unquestionable proofs. Now we are certainly not among the number of those who contend that for such kindred words the Slavi were indebted to their southern aighbours: we believe the converse of the proposition; and therefore that the Slavi were settled in Europe long before the existence of historic records. But whether the position we have advanced be tenable or not, is of little importance in our present inquiry. All that we are now interested to know is, that the nations anciently inhabiting Russia, by whatever names they were distinguished, were of the origin we have assigned them. We will not weary the reader by repeating their names, or defining the limits of their respective possessions: both were perpetually changing, from the restlessness of those tribes, or the arrival of whole nations from Asia. Like a resistless inundation, the new comers often swept away the petty boundaries which had been erected, and left behind them one wide waste of desolation. Sometimes, however, as in the case of the Hunswhose terrific empire, when no longer upheld by the giant-hand of Attila, soon fell to the earth-the conquerors established themselves in the country, and in time were confounded with the more ancient inhabitants. But why were those various nations or tribes designated by the generic appellation of Russians? From the testimonies adduced by MalteBrun and others, there is, we think, no reason to doubt that the name in question is derived from the Rhoxolani, or Rhorani,* one of the tribes to which we have alluded. In the time of Strabo they were settled on the vast plains near the source of the Tanais and Borysthenes. Appian tells us that they were warlike and pow erful; and we learn from other writers of at least equal weight, that having joined their arms to those of a neighbouring nation, they frequently harassed the Roman confines near the Danube, and the Carpathian mountains; that in A.D. 68 they surprised Mæsia, in 166 carried on war against the Marcomanni, and in 270 were numbered among the enemies over whom Aurelian triumphed. During the three first centuries, then, they occupied the southern parts of Poland, Red Russia and Kiovia,the very seats possessed by the Russians of the ninth century. Jornandes assigns them the same region; and the anonymous geographer of Ravenna fixes them in Lithuania and the neighbouring countries. These authorities are to us decisive that the Rhoxani and the Russians are the same people; but if any doubt remained, it would be removed by the concurrent testimony of the native chronicles, the Polish traditions, the Byzantine historians, and the Icelandic sagas, all of which are unanimous in applying the term Russian to the inhabitants of the country formerly possessed by the Rhorani. Hence, as these were the most celebrated *This derivation of Russian from Rhoxolan, or Rhoxan, is neither difficult nor improbable. The x, it is supposed, was substituted by the Greeks for the ss, or th of the barbarians: in the Doric and Eolic dialects that character was expressed by the simple s. Hence from Rhotani to Rhossani, Rossani, Rossi, (the proper or thography requires the o not the u in the first syllable,) the transition is natural and easy. MS. of Jornandes in the Ambrosian library at Milan has Rossomannorum instead of Rhoxolanorum,-a reading which confirms the identity of sound between the x and the ss. The addition by that historian of the Gothic termination mann, to the primitive word, will surprise no one. of the original tribes, that term by synecdoche | happiness, and for celebrating the bold deeds became generic. The character of the Slavi, or early Russians, was such as might be expected from their habits-in war courageous, but cruel, and greedy of plunder; in peace barbarous, but simple and hospitable. So far was hospitality carried among them, that if a man were too poor to entertain his guest, he was permitted to steal from his richer neighbour what he lacked for the purpose: the vice was justified by the virtue. Polygamy was allowed; and the woman, as in all savage communities, were a degraded sex. As in India, widows were consumed on the funeral piles of their husbands; and according to the Arabic geographer, Yakut, she was not the only victim: a slave was also sacrificed in the same manner.* This inhuman custom, which both the Indians and the Slavi probably derived from the same source, was originally founded on the notion that wives and slaves were doomed to serve their lord in the next world as well as in this; and that until the former were put to death, the latter would remain without the necessary aid. Male children were reared for war; but if the female infants of a family were considered too numerous, they were destroyed at their birth. A custom still more horrid was that of children leaving their aged and helpless parents to expire for want. But with all their ferocity and barbarism, the early Russians were not unacquainted with the softer arts of life. of the warrior."-vol. i. p. 84. To this ardent enthusiasm for song among the Slavonian and Teutonic nations, especially among the Poles, the Tyrolese, and the Germans, we can ourselves bear testimony. We well remember-indeed we can never forgethearing full 30,000 soldiers sinultaneously join in one of their favourite songs of triumph, as they were returning through Germany from their expedition to France in 1815. The effect was more than tremendous: it was awful,far beyond what we had previously imagined possible. In the earliest stage of their society, the Slavi had no regular form of government, nor did they recognise any authority beyond the natural one which family relations impose. To deliberate on affairs of general concern, the warriors and those "whom age had taught wisdom," assembled in some appointed place, often in one of their Pagan temples. But superior bravery and success in war soon brought superior power; military chiefs became the civil judges; and often when the son of a hero inherited the great qualities as well as the substance of his father, he succeeded to his dignity. The following extract is curious: "This power among the Slavi was indicated by the denomination of boyards, voyvods, kniaz, pans, jupans, karols or krols, &c. The first, which is unquestionably derived from roye, a combat, and which might originally designate a warrior of extraordinary valour, became afterwards a public dignity. The Byzantine annals of A.D. 764, speak of boyards, who were the lords or chief magistrates of the Bulgarian Slavi. The title of voyvod also was in its origin applied only to military commanders; but as in time of peace those chiefs would continue to exercise their authority over the people, the term was subsequently used to designate a ruler in general among the Bohemians and the Saxon Vendi: in Carniola it signified a prince; and in Poland not only a general in chief, but a judge. The word kniaz is probably derived from kon, a horse, though many of the learned deduce it from the oriental word kagan. In the countries inhabited by the Slavonians, horses were the most valuable species of property among the Pomeranians, a maritime people, thirty were esteemed a rich inheritance, and every proprietor of one was termed kgnaz, noble captain, or chief,* In Croatia and Servia the title was given to the brother of a king; and in Dalmatia the head "In the sixth century, the northern Winidæ (a widely extended branch of the Slavi, or perhaps but another name for the old race) told the Emperor of Constantinople that music was their greatest pleasure, and that even in their journeys they seldom carried arms, but always lutes and harps of their own workmanship. They had also other instruments, which still form the delight of the Slavonian nations. It was not in the tranquillity of peace, and in their own country only, that the Slavi indulged in music and rejoicing: even in their warlike expeditions, and within sight of the enemy, they sang and made themselves merry. We learn from Procopius, that when attacked by night, A.D. 592, by a Greek general, the Slavi were so much engrossed by their amusements, that they were surprised before they could adopt any measures of defence. Many popular Slavonic songs of Lusatia, Luxemburg, and Dalmatia, appear very ancient; and so do many Russian couplets now current, in which the gods of Paganism and the Danube are cele-judge bore that of veliky-kgnaz, or great chief. brated. That river was dear to our ancestors; for on its banks they made the first essays of their valour, and obtained their first triumphs. Probably those airs, which were so sweet and peaceful among the Winidæ, while military glory and success remained unknown to them, were changed into war-songs when their armies had approached the Roman empire, and penetrated into Dacia."-" Hence the origin of poetry, which among all nations is, in its commencement, the organ for expressing love and See the translation of a curious article on this subject in the Asiatic Journal for July, 1928. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, a pan, among the Slavi of Croatia, governed three districts, and presided over the diets, when the people assembled for the purpose of deliberating. Until the thirteenth century the name, the possessors of which were long all powerful in Hungary, was employed by the Bohemians to designate any rich proprietor; and at present it signifies a lord in Polish. In Slavonic countries, particular districts were called jupans-toa, and the governors jupans or deans, * In Lusatia politeness awards the appellation kgnas to the master, kgniaguina to the mistress of the house. |