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cataract. Mr. Southwell describes! the unwillingness with which the traveller, who has been going on and on, forward ever, for so many days, begins to retrace his footsteps. We suspect that this feeling is partly founded on the conviction that now must commence that "respectable sight-seeing" which every traveller feels himself bound to go through with, but would so fain avoid. You can no longer recline at ease and fill yourself with haschish, soup (the veritable pottage for which Esau sold his birthright), whilst you pass by temples of the sun and obelisks innumerable, and tombs of Rameses the Great; you must now make an almost daily excursion from your luxurious dahabeeh to encounter rough village dogs and rougher villagers, and see figures playing at draughts and cup and ball on the walls of sepulchres.

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That books of eastern travel ard generally monotonous arises from the fact that eastern travel is conducted under peculiar circumstances. A traveller in the east is not an exception to the established order of things, but is rather one of the institutions of the country. He is expected and calculated on; laws are made for him; tribes quarrel for him. And if the world there expect that he shall pur sue an established course, much more so does the world at home. He must take an interest in such and such historical questions, he must feel such and such religious emotions. You would positively be ashamed to look your dragoman in the face if you did not at the proper time, gaze first abstractedly and then reflectively at the pyramids.

"Eöthen" was the first work which showed that a book of castern travel need not necessarily be a weariness and a vexation. Mr. Kinglake threw a fresh spirit over old subjects. Mr. Lowth, has written an equally agreeable though more elaborate work, and has shown, as all men of talent can always show in respect to any subject, that there are vast fields of observation and reflection still untouched on the route of Egyptian and Syrian travel. In the present volumes he has thrown.

a strong light on the subject of indi-" vidual eastern character. His sketelr of his boat's crew is a cartoon finished with the perfection of a miniature; his caravan scenes are landscapes in tapestry work. He gives us the life romances of the swarthy, lazy, vigorous, snarling, good-humoured, dull, intelligent, passive and excitable (for they are all these by turns) creatures about him. He shows us the sulky, sullen boatman Ali, on whom good words and blows have an equally debasing effect; we watch him as the one dark spot in all the sunny landscape, until we begin to have a personal hatred towards the inan; then, suddenly, as he stands on the roof of the cabin and sends forth a cry towarils the palm trees, and from the palins comes a long low wail in answer- but we must leave our readers to the plea sure of perusing the story in the "Wanderer in Arabia" itself. Then we have the story of the Reis and his three wives, and that of Parthenus, which is too bitterly sad a tale.

Of the two volumes, one is devoted to the journey through Egypt and the other to that through Palestine; the one is gay and the other grave; but, to reverse Johnson's criticisin on "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," we may say that there is a good deal of gaity in Mr. Lowth's gravity.

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THE HISTORY OF SIR THOMAS THUMB. We have always been sorry that Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels to Lilliput" we should have liked the work to have fallen to Goldsmith, or, perhaps, better still, to Charles Lainb; the satire might have been less keen, the sarcasm less fierce; but we should have had all the story of the world spread open before us bathed in a twilight atmosphere of tenderness and repose. Then, perchance, scated on some mountain ledge, Gulliver would have dammed up a stream with his foot, and made a dozen mills to stop, whilst his hand fluttered away the scared eagle from its nest; half way down a little chapel bell would have tinkled; sonic little way off he would have seen two sweet children and two fierce men entering the green wood

"The History of Sir Thomas Thumb." By the Author of "Heartsease," &c.

together; and then how quaintly and touchingly would he have seen the tragedy acted out amidst the rich greenery and the warm sunlight of the summer afternoon. The fight of the two fierce men, the sullen flight of the victor, the terrified wandering: of the children, the stern cold sleep of the dead man under the green, brake. He would have seen the robins gathering together, with soft melancholy notes, from branch to branch, and the leaves falling from their bills like a rain of sapphires in the first red rays of the newly risen sun. We can but indicate roughly what we mean. The hearts of Goldsmith and Charles Lamb are as a Claude Lens; they show us the world; in bright and exquisite miniature, and satisfy in part the craving of the human soul to see all things reduced to its own instantaneous comprehension. In this feeling lies, to some extent, the reason of our love of pictures; the artist so chooses his point of view, so groups his figures, so arranges the accessories, that we can grasp the subject at once, and render it a part of our intellectual perceptions without difficulty. In Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" we have rather a microscopic view than a Claude Lens one; he makes his Lilliputians small that their vices may appear the larger. Nothing was too great for him to find some littleness in it; no place so minute but that he could find room there for his immense contempt. We rejoice that it is not from him we learn the story of Titania's amours. And we are painfully aware that in his hands Puck would have been a very scurvy, back-stairs courtier. But the world has taken care to provide itself with plenty of miniatures, of which every trait is gentle and sweet; and in the book before us one of these is reset in almost too

bright and pretty a framework. A child once told us a fairy story as we rambled through an unfrequented wood-path; sometimes the hazel nuts delayed us, sometimes the untractable bushes pleasantly half-strangled us, and the style in which the narrative progressed under these circumstances, reminds us forcibly of this more than pretty book, in which Sir Thomas Thumb pursues his adventures. through a very wilderness of silver posset cups and purple pansy flowers, gossamer spiders, and pools of spilt ale; Queen Mabs, Lady Vivianas, I and King Arthurs; great black cats, fairy banquets, and lordly castles on the wild sea shore.

POEMS.

WILL Mr. Cassels forgive us if we suspect him of having commenced his poetical career as a "spasmodic Poet," and of having repented of his sins against good taste and the spirit of pure poetry? His verse is constantly on the point of breaking forth into the turgid and conceited; and although it is completely free from anything that pains us by its affectation, it too frequently only escapes from the fantastic, by falling into the common-place. If, as we believe, the pruning-kuife has been used with a liberal hand, there was no occasion to fill up the gaps which it had caused, by an elaborate struc ture of smooth uninteresting rhymes. There is enough sweet poetry in this volume of two hundred pages, to have formed one of half the size, which would have been worthy of being placed on the same shelf with the works of our choicest minstrels.

We extract the following verses, not because they are the best, but because they display most of the merits and defects of Mr. Cassels' muse.

แ IN THE HEART OF THE CHILD,"

There is a little dove that sits

Between the arches all alone,
Cut and carved in old grey stone,"

And a spider o'er it flits:

Round and round his web is spun,

With the still bird looking through,
From among the beads of dew,

Set in glories of the sun.

*Poems, by Walter R. Cassels.

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So the bird looks out at morn

At the larks that mount the sky,
And it gazes still and sly,
At the new moon's scanty horn.

And the owls that fly by night

Mock it from the ivied tower, Hooting at the midnight hour, Down upon it from the height.

But the little dove sits on,

Calm between the arches there,
In the holy morning air,

When the owls with night are gone.

Then the bells for matins ring

And the Grey Friars past it go,
Into church in double row,

And it hears the chants they sing.

And the incense stealing out,

Through the chinks and through the seams,

Floats among the dusty beams,

And wreathes all the bird about.

All the children as they pass

Turn to see the bird of stone, 'Twixt the arches all alone, Wading to it through the grass.

Is the spider's pretty net,

Hung across the arches there,
But a frail and foolish snare

For the little stone bird set?

If the place should e'er decay,

And the tower be crumbled down,
And the arches overthrown,

Would the dove then fly away?

So that seeking it around,

All some golden summer day,
Mid the ruins as they lay,

It should never more be found?

THE DUBLIN

UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.

No. CCLXXIX.

MARCH, 1856.

VOL. XLVII.

POTEMKIN, THE CRIMEA, AND THE IMPERIAL ARMY AND NAVY OF THE LAST
CENTURY. (CONCLUSION.)

IN 1781 the Crimea was reduced to a dreadful state of calamity and confusion. The insurrection of the Christians had suspended agriculture; the Tartar population was again considerably diminished by war and privation; which, added to the revolts in the Kuban, and among the Nogays, seemed to furnish to the ever-watchful Catherine a specious opportunity to interfere in, and take advantage of, those troubles.

The journey which Potemkin took in 1782, that he might inspect the districts ceded to Russia, on which he spared neither expense nor trouble (having removed to the Government of Azove alone one hundred German families, and even procured the settlement of some English farmers), had, therefore, greater reference to inducing Chagyn Gerei, and the subordinate chief of the Kuban, to at last acknowledge the complete supremacy of the Empress. And in truth it had now become no great concession on their parts, to admit the superiority of a power already grown so threatening; and when, to the arrival of large bodies of troops, Potemkin added bribes and delusive promises, it may be imagined how a bloodless conquest and a magnificent acquisition was achieved. The subtle negociator received, on the part of his Sovereign, at Cherson, the homage of the last Khan of the Crimea, and the inglorious descendant of Ghinghis abdicated his throne for an annual pension of two hundred thousand roubles.

Nothing now remained but to take possession of the vast prize in a manner that should make Europe, as well as the inhabitants, sensible of the intrinsic nature of the change. This

VOL. XLVII.-NO. CCLXXIX.

was done by a manifesto of Potemkin's composition, published April 8th, 1783. It stated that "the last war against the Ottoman Empire, having been attended with the most signal success, the Empress had certainly acquired the right of uniting to her empire the Crimea, of which she was in possession; and that she had been obliged to interfere with her troops to quell insurrections and revolts; and to put an end, once for all, to the troubles in the Crimea, the Empress unites to her empire the peninsula of the Crimea, the Island of Taman, and all the Kuban, as a just indemnification for the losses sustained, and the expenses incurred, &c., &c." Potemkin hastened to use every exertion to reconcile the minds of these new subjects to the Russian sway, at the same time that he marched an army into the heart of their country, and the fickle oath of allegiance being taken to his mistress, he informed her in triumph that her dominions at last embraced the northern shores of the Euxine.

We may now reflect with astonish ment on the indifference with which the powers of Europe beheld so extensive an appropriation; one which consolidated on its most important side a visibly aggressive nation, and submitted to it the control of a sea that marks the most commanding position in the old world. The annexation of the Crimea was unnoticed from its noiseless simplicity, and but one great mind perceived its ominous tendency. Had the warning of the illustrious statesman been heeded, and his preparations carried out, Cherson would have been occupied, and a British fleet have stayed Russian ascendancy in the Black Sea; but the factious

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opposition of a constitutional assembly defeated the sagacious policy of William Pitt.

Potemkin, eager in the pursuit of his grand scheme, had excited all ranks in Russia with the imposing idea of overturning the Ottoman power in Europe, and he now prepared to secure the co-operation of Joseph the Second, by an offer of a portion of the spoil, and an assurance that the Court of St. Petersburg would use all its influence towards the election of his son to the dignity of King of the Romans. On these terms the bargain was struck, and the wily Potemkin proceeded to provoke the Porte into hostilities, by insisting on a full compliance with the treaty of commerce exacted in 1779. This consisted of eighty articles, every one of which was favourable to Russia; and so unskilled were the Ottomans in diplomacy, that they conceded to their enemies the same freedom in navigating the Black Sea and the Archipelago, as had been enjoyed by their ancient allies.

It might have been supposed that they would be little inclined to submit to new concessions, but actuated (as Potemkin conceived, by their fears, but more probably) by their known fidelity to their engagements, they fully ratified the stipulations.

The Prince then peremptorily demanded that the Porte should acknowledge the Crimea as a Russian province, and was again disappointed at his own success, being unaware that France had, at this period, secretly induced the ready compliance; for, engaged herself in a naval war with England, she wished to avoid the inconvenience of assisting a distant ally, and was in no condition to divide her resources by exciting the hostility of Russia.

The next attempt was to influence the Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia to place themselves under the protection of the Empress, who promised Potemkin the petty sovereignty of these states, if he effected their subjugation; but in this arrangement they forgot an ally no less eager for appropriation than themselves, and who considered the Principalities as his special share. Joseph the Second loudly protested against being deprived of what has ever been the object of Austria's ambition and de

ceptive maneuvering, and, as he was not to be slighted with impunity at the time, the temptation of the Hospodars was abandoned.

It

Catherine, however, resolved to confer upon Potemkin some suitable distinction for his late services; he was made Inspector-General of the army, which involved the rank of Field-Marshal; also constituted Grand Admiral of the Euxine, and receiving the governments of the Crimea, of Azove, and the other annexed provinces, he ruled over a broader tract than many a European king. In addition to those honours, another magnificent mansion was built for him in the capital, which, [as a record of his achievements, received the appellation of the "Tauridian Palace." The wealth of Potemkin at this time must have been immense. It is stated that, in the first two years of his ascendancy, he received nine millions of roubles, while his book-cases were filled with gold and diamonds, the rich offerings of foreign states. would be impossible even to guess at the amount of "gratifications" he received from the Empress, whose known practice it was to conceal the sums she lavished on her favourites, but, with the revenues of his several posts, and the tax upon forty-five thousand slaves, his income has been roughly calculated at fifty millions of roubles. Yet, while he could be extravagant or princely on some occasions, he was penurious, and even mean, towards his tradesmen, and others, who found it impossible to recover their claims. As an instance of this, a French veterinary surgeon was engaged to cure a beautiful horse which had been presented to the Prince by Joseph the Second. The Frenchman built a stable on a peculiar construction, spared no expense, and devoted his attention to its recovery, in which succeeding, after infinite trouble, he brought the animal to the owner, but was refused admittance, and never after rewarded for his skill or his losses.

But there were at this time physicians of a different class, and of very opposite success, busy in the Imperial palace. The best beloved of all the favourites, and the man who most deserved the feeling, was rapidly passing from the transitory grandeur of an earthly court. Lanskoi was stricken

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