No sooner had the subtle designer probed the exact sentiments, which he hoped would be inspired, than he entreated permission for a short absence, after which he would joyfully return to the feet of the Empress. He took the same occasion to insinuate his knowledge of her partiality, and appeared so overwhelmed with sorrow, that Catherine thought she should never have been able to comfort him under his misfortunes, and showered gifts and places upon him, among the latter of which was the rich government of Novgorod.

But the Empress was far from unmindful of him during his absence, and greeted his re-appearance by presenting him with the Palace of Anitchkoff, which she had purposely bought for him. Potemkin merely remarked, on receiving the splendid gift, that "the furniture was unsuited for the building," when he was immediately given eighty thousand roubles to replace it according to his taste. He took the money, but never bestowed another thought on the furniture, for he fixed his residence at "The Hermitage," which communicated with the palace by a covered gallery, enabling him to wait upon the Empress without the observation of the public.

She now confessed to him that she grew daily more tired of her present favourite, when he at once undertook the management of a business that might be unpleasant to the Empress, and installed Major Zoritch, of the hussars, dismissing the humble Zavadowski, without permitting her Majesty to suffer any annoyance from the affair. Catherine was so pleased with his delicate tact that she presented him with one hundred thousand roubles, and the major handing him the same sum, this gratuity ever after remained the fixed perquisite of Potemkin, which he rigorously exacted from the successors of Zoritch, on pain of his displeasure-a consequence they dared not brave. Indeed, so avaricious was he that, though his numerous appointments and frequent donations from the Empress raised his fortune above that of many sovereign princes, he always contrived to convert such gifts into annual dues, so that when the Empress, being slightly offended, sent him, on one of those occasions, only a toothpick-case set

with diamonds, and worth thirty thousand roubles, instead of the customary one hundred thousand, he broke out into such vehement upbraidings that, to mend the matter, she was compelled to give him the latter sum in addition to the trinket, and her Majesty's anger cost her thirty thousand roubles.

But this singular man, at the same time, exhibited an elevation and compass of mind that proved him born for distinction, and shewed of what great things he was capable when he attained a sphere of sufficient preeminence. Many fair projects were marred, it is true, by his inexplicable and irreconciliable whims, but from that very contrariety, his darker character of arrogance, indolence, and prodigality, could be at times completely hidden by the ability, energy, and enterprise which always rose, and proved equal to the occasion, when anything grand was to be accomplished. In his new career of state affairs he was about to raise his country to a proud position in Europe, and finally to leave her a lasting memorial of how dear her aggrandisement was to his heart, and how inseparably her glory was identified with his.

The army, the navy, and the court were now submitted to his authority. He appointed and dismissed generals, ministers, and even favourites, so that when Zoritch ceased to fascinate, the Empress took no steps without consulting Potemkin, who again undertook that the matter should be arranged without her condescending to interfere, and the major of hussars, having received a liberal provision, and a peremptory order for a distant command, the vain and pompous Gortschakoff replaced him, after his benefactor had been pleased to receive one hundred thousand roubles.

The fate of this favourite, however, shows Potemkin, with his great qualities, capable of mean artifice and revenge, for of all those who refused to bow before his despotism, he hated none so much as his old commander, Romanzoff, whose glory he envied, while he bitterly remembered the slights he conceived he experienced during his first campaign. Countess Bruce, sister of the Marshal, was ignobly involved in this dislike, and

he wished to find a sufficient accusation to destroy her influence with the Empress. Her imprudence afforded him more than he had hoped, for betraying her partiality for Gortschakoff, Potemkin arranged a meeting between them, and the Empress (as had been previously provided for) surprising the lovers, Gortschakoff was instantly ordered to travel, and the Countess sent to weep and repent at Moscow.

But though Potemkin thus unworthily descended, he could inspire the Empress with the grand project which he had long meditated of expelling the Turks finally from Europe. Nor was the gigantic idea, at that period, either chimerical or improbable, for the ignorance, supineness, and improvidence of the Ottoman Government might well warrant the presumption that, if the resources and strength of Russia were ably applied and well directed, success would crown the attempt. There were, however, two preliminary steps requisite for the accomplishment of such an enterprise -the connivance of the German Emperor, and the seizure of the Crimean peninsula.

To obtain the first, Catherine, at the dictation of Potemkin, wrote to request Joseph II. to meet her at a conference, which took place at Mohilef, on the 30th of May, 1780. There the two Christian Monarchs agreed to overwhelm the Turks in concert, and, hurling them into Asia, to piously divide the spoils; but the impatience of the Empress and her adviser was unwillingly restrained by their ally, who convinced them, by the soundness of his reasoning, as to the wisdom of delay. Catherine then invited the Emperor to visit Russia, and, proceeding to Petersburg, they there formally signed the treaty for their future operations.

The sojourn of this distinguished guest, had, for various reasons, occupied much of the time and attention of Potemkin, and it was not until after his departure, that he discovered that the apartments destined for the favourite were occupied by one of the royal Chevalier Guard. Potemkin, who held almost every distinction, was the

commander of this Guard, which consisted of sixty tall, handsome, and chosen men, all officers, and holding the rank of captain in the army, and his rage was therefore the more unbounded at the presumption of Lanskoi, in accepting such a post without his knowledge. The apologies and excuses of the delinquent were of no avail,until, by the advice of his friends, Lanskoi entreated his superior officer to accept double the usual gratuity, and, at the price of two hundred thousand roubles, Potemkin consented to leave the affections of his Sovereign undisturbed.

But the second and most important preparation was the annexation of the Crimea, aud, therefore, the populating of the districts ceded by the Porte to Russia in 1774, had been made a pretext for many infractions of the treaty, cities having been founded or rebuilt, such as Ekatharinoslof, the seaport of Cherson and Maninpol.. These places were gradually fortified and supplied with munitions and implements of war, and Armenians, Greeks, and Jews were invited to emigrate to them from the Crimea, than which no corner of the earth has ever been peopled by so many different races.

It would not suit our limits to detail the history of this classic and now celebrated peninsula, but it may not be unattended with interest to briefly mention that its earliest inhabitants, known to history, were the Cim merians, or Cimbrians, a powerful

branch of the Thracians, and not to be confounded with the "Cimmerii" of Homer, whom he places in subterranean habitations near the Sybils Temple in Campania.

The Scythians, driven northwards from Persia, by Ninus, King of Assyria, invaded the Cimmerians, who, being forced to resign the plain to their enemies, retired to the mountains where they maintained themselves under the name of "Taurians,"* which originated the appellation by which the peninsula was known to antiquity. Subsequently, the invasion of Darius gave rise to the settling of colonists on the extremities of Taurica, for the Persian navy being supplied

by the people of Asia Minor, they had an opportunity of examining the coast, the sheltering havens of which seemed so inviting, that they formed the design of establishing themselves on the most advantageous positions, and a colony of Heracleans from Bithynia soon landed on the Lesser Chersonesus, which has ever after borne their name. The Sarmates, or Syro-Medians,* came from the East to the shores of Azove, about the mouth of the Don, and adventurers from the west speedily following, the Delians settled on the site of the modern Cherson, where the Greek commerce rapidly flourished, and in the fifth century before the Christian era, the "Archæ-Anaktides," or Mytilenians, founded a state, with Ponticapum for its capital, the throne of which, in forty years after, was ascended by Spartacus. About one hundred years subsequently the Sarmatians made war upon the Scythians, overwhelming them, and expelling them northwards, many of whom however remained in that part of Europe near to which their conquerors

were afterwards to be driven.

The Taurians, on this release, gradually extending themselves over the peninsula, at length so harassed the Kingdom of Bosphorus, that it was forced to sue for the protection of the great Mithridates, to whom Parisades II. was compelled to relinquish his throne. The King of the Euxine soon overcame the Taurians, possessing himself of the entire Chersonesus, and, for security against the Scythians, he caused two tribes of the Sarmatians to emigrate northwards, who, thus settling near the territories of their former enemies, have left a name to the fertile plains of Poland, and upper Hungary.

Sixteen years after the Roman arms first appeared in the Tauric peninsula, and Mithridates, besieged in his own capital, succumbed to the victorious Triumvir, who, feeling the difficulty of effectually defending this country, ceded the nominal sovereignty to Pharnaces, the rebel son of the fallen king, excepting only Phanagoria, which he constituted a republic, as a

reward for its infidelity to its legiti mate sovereign.

In the first century of our era, the Alani, a fierce people from near the source of the Udon, which falls into the Caspian, subjected the Bosphorian State to the humiliation of tribute, and, succeeding in completely exterminating the Taurians, their domination lasted until the Goths, in 251, broke over the peninsula, possessed themselves of Ponticapoum, and annihilated the Alani. The Goths, in their turn, were overwhelmed by the sweeping progress of the Huns, and, towards the close of the fourth century, the monarchy of the Cimmerian Bosphorus finally terminated.

After the disappearance of the Huns, a tribe of Sarmatians, who had remained on the north of the Isthmus of Caucasus, and who were known by the Sclavonian term Khazares (which has the same signification as the Greek word "metanastes," or emigrant, which was applied to their kinsmen established beyond the Danube), began rapidly to extend themselves, and, subjugating the district from the roads of Caffa to the Don, penetrated the Chersonesus, from thence they extended their conquests westwards to Dacia, while they carried their predatory ravages towards the north to the Sclavonic city of Kief. But the latter, wearied by the oppression, claimed the protection of the Grand Prince of Novgorod, whose viceroy having formed an alliance with the Uzes, or Kumanians, the Khazares, after a signal defeat, were finally driven by the Uzes from the peninsula, when they retreated to their limits between the Don and the Kuban. The Kumanians retained their ascendency, and extorted tribute from the Greek, and other colonies, until the formation of the Kaptschakian empire in 1240, when they were exterminated by the troops of Batu.

The Genoese at this period carried on the most extensive traffic in the east, and having rebuilt Caffa by the permission of Mongolian Khan, they obtained possession of Soldaya and Cymbalo, and the trade of India found its way by Bagdad, the Caspian, and

Astrachan, to those places, and from thence to Trebizond and Constantinople. On the breaking up of the great empire of Kaptschak, Hadshy Gerei, one of the descendants of Batu, became the first khan of the Krim; but in 1478, or, the 883rd year of "the Hegira," Mengly Gerei Khan formed, under the protection of the Ottoman Court, what may be more properly termed the Crimean State.

During the decline of the Mongole power, the Genoese threw off their supremacy, and still bidding defiance to the khaus, several contests ensued, in one of which young Mengly was taken prisoner by them, and they educated and maintained him in a manner worthy of a prince, until, being harassed by the Tartars, they determined to send him, as the fittest ambassador, to represent their distresses to the Porte, and to induce Mahomed II. to take them under his protection. The Sultan received the Prince with distinction and friendship, and kept him at his court until the Tartars, having almost ruined themselves by their own dissensions, petitioned him for a khan, when Mahomed appointed Mengly as their hereditary ruler, who gratefully acknowledged the supremacy of the Turkish monarch.

At this period the Tartarian population had greatly declined, but Mengly, having entered into a war with his relative branches on the Volga, brought many thousand Nogay Tartars with him to the Krim, compelling them to settle there, besides allowing Armenians, Greeks, Turks, and Jews to establish themselves, which means were also used to repopulate the Kuban and the district between the Don and the Dniester.

The former, separated from the Crimea by the Sea of Azove, extends from the river bearing its own name to the Don upon the north; and the Astrachan desert, on the east, intervenes between it and the Caspian. The Kuban was inhabited by the same variety of races as the Chersonesus; it was colonised in a similar manner, Ionians and Æolians arriving at the mouth of the Hypanis, or Kuban, in the sixth century before the Christian era; it experienced an equal vicissitude of invasion until the MongoleTartars annexed it, when the Khazares were enslaved, all but the "Zitches," the ancestors of the Cir

cassians, who fought fiercely for their independence, which they maintained until they were driven to the foot of the Caucasus, in 1270, by the famous Nogay, who left his name to the northern portion of Taurida, a district about double the extent of that now denominated by the Russians "the Crimean steppe."

No sooner had Mengly augmented his forces by those additions, than he proved how transient is the recollection of the greatest benefits, when the hand that confers them is no longer needed, and over-confident of his power, he grew impatient of the supremacy of his former protector. The indignant Sultan despatched an army to the Crimea, which soon reduced the Khan to bedience, and leaving garrisons in the principal towns, commenced that domination which resulted in complete subjection, when, in 1584, the Sultan Keniad appointed a new khan to punish the disobedience of Mahomet Gerei, from which epoch the Crimean khans were frequently deposed or recalled, at the caprice of the Grand Seignior. But the line of Gerei continued in succession as sovereigns of the Crimea, until Selim, the nineteenth khan, who might have avenged the long des potism of the Porte, as (being fortunate enough to defeat the Poles and Russians in one campaign, and to bravely rescue the Mahometan standard) the Janissaries would have raised him to the throne of the Sultans, had he not declined the dangerous elevation, soliciting, as his only recompense, the privilege of a journey to Mecca, by which he received the title of "Hadji," or pilgrim, a distinction obtained by every Mussulman who visits the tomb of the Prophet. It was Devlet Gerei, the twenty-fourth khan, who in 1712 so nearly delivered his nation for ever, and established a second Tartarian oppression over the Russians, by sur rounding Peter the Great on the banks of the Pruth, and reducing him to such extremities, that the address of his Consort, and an immense bribe to the Vizier, which was confirmed by the restoration of the hard-earned Azove, alone saved his army from total annihilation.

Allim Gerei, the thirty-fourth khan, having imposed new taxes on his subjects, and violated the fundamental

laws of the Tartars, by appointing one of his sons, "Seraskier," of the tribe of Budjak, to the prejudice of the brothers of the deceased, was deposed by his subjects in 1757, and Krim Gerei was raised to the throne, for his genius and the greatness of his courage. The sovereignty was confirmed to him by the Porte, in 1764, and when, afterwards, on the war breaking out with Russia, he headed fifty thousand Tartars and one hundred and twenty thousand Turks, and ravaged the country as far as Bender, he was taken ill, and received a potion from a Greek physician; his death, in two days, but too well justified the suspicions entertained of the compounder of the draught. His two next successors were deposed after their hasty elections, and the war continued its ravages until the bloody victories of Romanzoff and Suwarrow enabled the artful Empress of Russia to nominate Saheb Gerei to the throne, when the young khan, at the suggestion of his gracious ally, renounced all allegiance to the Sultan, and declared the Crimea independent, under the friendly protection of Russia.

In 1772, Saheb showed his farther appreciation of the favour of Catherine, by ceding Kertsch, Yenikale, and Kinburn, which she was particular to have confirmed to her, together with the resumption of Azove, and its extensive territories, when the Turks recognised her nominee by the arrangement of 1774. This celebrated stipulation, however, reserved to the Porte, at all times, the spiritual supremacy of the Crimea, and the administration of the laws, as well as the investiture of the khan, who was to notify his accession to both courts, in order that public prayers might be made for the Sultan in all the mosques; he was to receive from the "Cadilesker," of Constantinople, the "Muracelch," or patent of the Cadis, or Judges, and lastly, to cause money to be coined with the impression of the Grand Seignior.

Such was the distinct understanding between the two Powers, as regarded this peninsula, but observed by the northern despôt with no greater fidelity than the other terms of the treaty of Kutschuk Kinairdji.

(To be Continued.)

Just as Upton had seated himself at that frugal meal of weak tea and dry toast he called his breakfast, Harcourt suddenly entered the room, splashed and road-stained from head to foot, and in his whole demeanour indicating the work of a fatiguing journey.

"Why, I thought to have had my breakfast with you," cried he, impatiently," and this is like the diet of a convalescent from fever. Where is the salmon-where the grouse piewhere are the cutlets-and the chocolate-and the poached eggs-and the hot rolls, and the cherry bounce ?"

“Say, rather, where are the disordered livers, worn-out stomachs, fevered brains, and impatient tempers, my worthy Colonel ?" said Upton, blandly. Talleyrand himself once told me that he always treated great questions starving."

"And he made a nice mess of the

world in consequence," blustered out Harcourt. "A fellow with a honest appetite, and a sound digestion, would never have played false to so many masters."

"It is quite right that men like you should read history in this wise," said Upton, smiling, as he dipped a crust in his tea, and ate it.

"Men like me are very inferior creatures, no doubt," broke in Harcourt, angrily; "but I very much doubt if men like you had come eighteen miles on foot over a mountain this morning, after a night passed in an open boat at sea-aye, in a gale, by Jove, such as I shan't forget in a hurry."

"You have hit it perfectly, Harcourt, suum cuique; and if only we could get the world to see that each of us has his speciality, we should all of us do much better."

By the vigorous tug he gave the