Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1855-05-10
Blackwood's Magazine on the En-
perox Nicholas


article on the death of NICHOLAS, which,
when we remember .hat it appears in a Tory
papcr. and in time Of war, IS certainly credi-
Bile to the candor and sense Of justice Of the
English Press We extract such parts Of 1t
as our space permits
But It seems TO us that La sudden death
has ever occurred, more striking in Its cir
cumstances than that of the late Russian Car.
He was no ordinary Gear, and a Gar is 10 or
binary mortal; for to him alone OF all man
kind are Shakespeare's words true to the let
ter
- lie doh besiride this world Ike Colossus
Although it IS the boast Of Great Britain
that upon her dominions the SIN never sets
vet we suspect that the idea Is rather 4 con-
ceited abstraction. Russia is one and contin-
uous. from kamtschatka 10 Warsaw-from
Archangel to Sebastopol. The Russian Car
is absolute master-not in any igurative
sense, but in as complete a sense rs one i'm
mortal being can be master of another-of
some fourteenth part (the exact proportion
matters little) Of the whole human race
What was Alexander Of Macedon to this ?
He merely overran part of the world, and
frightened it into obedience during his life
time the Russian Gar is the one soul that
animates the great Mammoth body of his vast
empire and what his name is. seems to mat
ter little-Peter, Paul. Alexander, Nicholas
he himself, as an incarnate idea, Is indistruc-
tible. But Nicholas was no common Gar or
common man. He was every inch king, in
the first place-one Of the Joye-sprung kings
of Homer. Like Agamemmon, or Achilles,
or Ajax, he was towering above mon with his
head and broad shoulders. As it was said of
Burns, that he was one Of the few poets who
was lit to be seen, so it may be said Of Mich
olas, that he was one Of the few kings who.
like Saul the son of Kish, would first have
been selected by king-maker
There IL the Russian empire stretching
away over one hemisphere, anil across the top
of the other; the chains of her dominion are
coextensive, or nearly So with the chains Of
winter, and only cease to bind where the suns
of the tropics begin to exert their influence.
The Car is Russ l, and the power Of the
Gar literally spans the world. The Gar is
Russia, whether called in Europe the Gar, or
in Asia the great white Khan-or in Ameri-
ca. Whatever men call him there He rules
over white Europeans, yellow Asatics of the
Mongol race, and red Indians in the new
world Over the children of the sun, the
black race alone, he does not rule, although
with a scarcely unnatural ambition he seems
to aspire to do SO. Are we speaking Of the
past in the present tense The JOY of Eu-
rope at his death seems somewhat excusable,
for Russia appeared to die in the person Of
that Car, who seemed to be of all his line
the perfect incarnation of Russia. Peter the
Great though a true Romanoff was not so
Russian as Nicholas, who was in reality of
German family Russianised, of the house Of
Holstein Gottcrp. The poet Poushkin, who
was oddly tolerated by the Gar near his per-
son, as the despotic feudal lords used TO tole-
rate their impudent testers, dared to symbol
Use this by mixing one glass OF wine for the
Russian blood with three glasses of water for
the foreign. As Nicholas grew in years, the
idea seemed to have grown on him that Rus
STA resided in him, and that on his own head
rested the responsibility of directing the flu
ture of Russia. 1t was not improbably the
feeling of this responsibility that killed him;
if it had not, he woull have been an angel or
demon and 40 mere man. His latter DAYS
appear to have been clouded with mystic
fanaticism and this fanatcism seems to have
acted in the vein of mania that turks in his
family, and somewhat oyerbalanced his sin
gularly shrew,l ard vigorous understanding
His innate majesty softened down the fear
that his penetrating and all-peryaling system
/ Of police inspired, into the awe which man.
kind might feel foo lemigod and latterly
his people seemed to have regarded him,
more than any of his predecessors, as a kind
of divine persona &c, whose will il would be
/ impiety to dispute.
/ That this kind of homage in time affected
I his head and heart, was 10 more than what
was to he expected; AMI, accordingly, when
men began 70 cry, "It is the voice of god
and not of man." tho warning of the God
head had already begun TO declare itself BY
symptoms which could not be Mistaken
The courage Of Nicholas never shook, and
his mind was vigorous to the last but his
frame gave way under an accumulation ami
complication OF responsibilities; AMI the great
European war. the Frankensteia Of his own
creation, crushed him at last in its uncon-
scious, but pretcrnatuTal muscular convul-
sions. That he was actuated throughout the
\ whole of his arduous career by strong sense
/ of duty, is more than probable. he lived
and died in harness. He sacrificed himself
4 continually to the position in which he thought
( he ought to move. If there was a fire in his
! CAPITAL, who was there among the first in the
/ coolest night of a Russian January but the
/ Emperor himself? Ii there was some reli-
/ gious ceremony which required his exposure
! in the open air, bare headed. there was the
Emperor himself, bare headed, through It's,
under the circwnstances more than tedious
length. Never on a single occasion, does he
seem to have bestowed a thought on his CON-
fort as man when il came in the way oil
what he considered his dignity as the Car oi
Russia. Those who saw him in his rare hours
of secluson, when he laid aside the buck
ram Of his uniform, which seemed, as hS
wore it, to somewhat conStrain and puff ou
his fine but full figure and face,-in those rare
hours. which were as sleep TO other men
hours spent in his country palace with hi.
wife and family-speak most highly Of the
amable and easy manners of the late Car
his affability to those he could trust-no
many, we must suppose, after what Alexan-
der had said of his subjects and after hi
own experience-and especially of his good
example as husband and a father.
Nicholas cannot be praised rs humane. =
The word 10 its common acceptation, does
not belong to his character. lie breathed, he
I lived. as the incarnate will Of his country
As some IL aoSOAubS
as Augustus and the Antonines of old, or the
Napoleons of to-day, have repres nted and
do represent, the incarnation Of public opin
ion Of their respective countries, so did Mich
olas represent the embodied will of a country
which has will as strong as astesm-engine's
but no public opinion at all TO act as break
Powerful over al else, he was powerles'
against this will. lie could rot check it,
he could only direct its course. lie may
have curbed it for time-wc think he did
in wisdom; but, like hari-mouhed horse
1t tired his arm at last. and It ran away Will
him. No wonder that there wss a calaps'
. and @ Trash ut the frat barrier. Russia ros'
up and went on, goes on now, but the crash
cost Nicholas his life Ii he had been in
greater hurry 10 consumma.e the destiny o
| Russia, we might have considered him as be
ing seltishlv aInhitous-as clearly 81 as Ma
l,oleon l. was after his assuming the purple