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PAUL PETROWITSCH I. EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. 



To the Editor of the good old " Monthly ." 



SIR, 



IN recording the unfavourable features which doubtlessly 

 held the predominance in the character of the unfortunate Paul, it is 

 to be deplored that most of his biographers should appear to have lost 

 sight of those amiable qualities which shone forth in the earlier part 

 of his hapless career. This, however, cannot excite surprise in the 

 breasts of those to whom it has been an object of lamentable obser 

 vation that the mass of mankind is, unhappily, prone to pass over in 

 silence the modest virtues of contemporary merit, and to dwell with 

 a kind of inhuman sportiveness on the vices and failings into which 

 the weakness of human nature, or the impulse of human passions, may 

 have betrayed the object (I had almost said) of their relentless perse- 

 cution. It is this ignoble spirit and effervescence of " back-wounding 

 calumny " which our immortal dramatist so happily stigmatizes, when 

 he makes Cromwell to exclaim, 



" Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues 

 We write in water.'' 



Animated, therefore, by a desire to rescue the more amiable linea- 

 ments in the Russian sovereign's character from oblivion, and to 

 render an act of posthumous justice to his memory, I hasten to com- 

 municate a cursory sketch, which personal investigation, and a resi- 

 dence in Russia during the greater part of his reign, have enabled 

 the writer to trace, with a full conviction of the authenticity of the 

 details on which it is founded. 



Paul, more especially before his accession, took a peculiar delight 

 in exercising the rights of hospitality, and giving a hearty welcome 

 to his guests in the Russian mode. His table, supplied with lavish 

 profusion, was constantly beset with officers. That fettering restraint 

 which generally attends on royalty was there an utter stranger; every 

 one acted according to the free suggestions of his choice, and the em- 

 peror was never more pleased than to see his guests eat with a good 

 appetite. Instead of waiting upon him, he might rather be said to 

 have waited upon them,; for it was an invariable rule with him never 

 to rise till all had finished their meal. He exerted his utmost to pre- 

 vent them from feeling any effects of the ill-humour to which he might 

 have given way in the morning, and he carefully abstained from sar- 

 casm. This, however, cannot exactly be asserted of his latter days. 

 He drank but temperately; at dinner-time partaking only of a little 

 claret. Coffee and chocolate were his favourite beverages, and with 

 the latter, indeed, he usually regaled himself on parade. Neither 

 cold nor fatigue appalled him ; but he was singularly averse from chilly 

 hands, so much so, that to prevent his own from becoming cold, his 



