The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-01 00:00:00

NEW EDINBURGH REVIEW.

Like most first Numbers, this is got up with con-
siderable care, and if the work be carried on with the
same tact with which it has been commenced, we see
no reason why it should not meet with a fair portion
of success. At any rate, its cheapness is in its favour,
for it costs but a shilling, and for that small price,'
gives a very liberal amount of matter. The first
article is entitled "Advances Since the Peace," and
its object is to show the rapid strides in social, poli-
tical, and commercial improvement that the country
has made since the memorable year 1815. Great
Britain—says the writer, who, like the celebrated
Doctor Pangloss, is something of an optimist—
"seems destined to reach a pitch of unrivalled power,
splendour, and happiness ; and the more serious
maladies that now menace her, we feel convinced, are
medicable, and the result of too rapid, rather than
too dilatory, an advancement. Time has been hardly
left for arrangement, but with freedom to urge all
claims, there is little doubt of a final equitable ad-
justment." "Gipsies" is an intelligent essay on the
subject of these migratory vagabonds, whose numbers,
it seems, are now fast diminishing in every country
of Europe. " Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon" is a
review of Mr. Horace Twiss's recent memoirs of this
eminent lawyer, who is no favourite with the Reviewer
as a politician, but is accused, and not unjustly, of
being actuated, throughout his public career, by the
most selfish motives. We quote from a notice of the
" Diaries and Correspondence of the First Earl of
Malmesbury," an account of Catherine the Second of
Prussia, and her favourite Minister, Prince Potemkin.
" But we must hasten to accompany Lord Malmes-
bury to Petersburgh, where he became stationed in
1775. Here the Sovereign was a woman, and amongst
the most remarkable of her order and sex. She had
dethroned her husband in self-defence, and usurped his
place. As Grand-Duchess she had shown herself a su-
perior person, cultivated her mind, and was distinguishd
for beauty, accomplishment, and ability, which had been
evinced by an equitable code of laws she prepared for
the future government of the empire. But her frail hus-
band, insensible to her deserts, attached himself to a low
female, and pretending to be jealous of the Empress, pro-
jected her perpetual imprisonment, and perhaps violent
death. Apprised of his designs, Catherine anticipated
their execution. Availing herself of her popularity, and
the services of a few devoted friends, Peter 111. was
seized, and after a short imprisonment destroyed; ono of
the Orlows performing the office of executioner, first by
clandestinely administering a stupifying dose, and next,
aiding its effects by a vigorous manual grasp, the traces
of which were visible on the neck of the wretched Prince,
when his body was exposed to the gaze of the populace.
Whether the Empress was privy to the latter part of the
tragedy is doubtful ; it was certainly not displeasing to
her, for when the horrible news was communicated, it
made no abatement of her gaiety at table, and Alexis
Orlow became her first favourite.

" The first seven years of Catherine's reign were the
most splendid in the Russian annals. She governed
judiciously and with dignity. Firmness and regularity
were enforced in the public administration, and order
and exterior decorum maintained in the palace. But the
female Sovereigns of Russia, however capable, had never
been able, throughout their career, to resist the seduc-
tion of licentiousness. Certainly the private virtues of
Princes are not equally important with public capabili-
ties; between a Sovereign orderly, pious, and decorous,
but weak, prejudiced, and obstinate, and one able, wil-
ling, and zealous to advance national happiness, there
can be no hesitation about preference. But Catherine
was needlessly obtrusive in her abandonment ; more
shameless than any of her predecessors. The post of
favourite was as public an appointment and as open to
competition as that of Minister. Handsome men of little
minds were mostly preferred. No confusion of function
was allowed, the Empress being too shrewd to allow the
minions of her pleasure to intermeddle with the higher
duties of government. After her passion was satiated—
a short term mostly sufficed—they were dismissed, ge-
nerally with an injunction to marry or travel, and loaded
with magnificent gifts of lands, presents of jewellery,
and pensions.
" Lord Malmesbury says of the Court—' the leading
men here are too rich for corruption' (a mistake which
his Lordship found out), too headstrong to be persuaded,
and too ignorant to listen to plain truth.' The two most
influential personages at the time of his arrival were
Prince Potemkin and Count Panin. The Count was
Foreign Minister, a man of no great capacity, indolent,
deceitful under a guise of frankness, and in the pay of
Prussia. The Prince had been a lover, but was then set
aside; he always maintained a great influence over the
Empress, and directed her in the choice of his successors.
He was a man of brilliant but superficial parts, like the
Buckinghams of the Stuarts ; sagacious and quick of
discernment; full of wit, levity, and cleverness, but im-
pulsive and without steadiness of purpose. He lived
without order, eating, drinking, and sleeping at all
hours, and thought nothing of treating our Minister to
an airing in the rain in an open carriage at midnight.
Discontented and satiated with voluptuousness, Potem-
kin often said he would withdraw to a cloister, deter-
mined to lead a life of total abstinence. He was sud-
denly carried off by fever, which he vainly tried to baffle
by the force of an iron will and constitution; appearing
abroad half-dressed, and eating raw turnips to allay the
fires that consumed him,"