1829.3 Politics and Prospects of Russia, 599 



necessity of going forward, imposed upon her alike by her remaining bar- 

 barism, and her rapidly acquired knowledge of the arts and artifices of 

 civilized life. With Asiatic multitudes and European tactics, the wild and 

 death-devoted myriads of a Gengiskhan, and the military finesse and 

 system of a Napoleon ; with the still more singular mixture of the deep 

 submission of the Asiatic slave, the wild freedom of the Tartar, and the 

 subtle and stern republicanism of the Jacobin ; foreign war, fierce, lavish 

 of blood, and perpetual in its thirst and grasp of conquest, seems scarcely 

 so much the vice of her government, as the tenure of its existence. Let 

 the Czar sheathe his sword to-morrow, and the humane folly will find its 

 reward in the dagger. Let Russia dare to stop in her career of aggran- 

 dizement, and she will be plunged into instant convulsion — the great tide 

 which had been going smoothly along, gradually covering kingdom after 

 kingdom, will be checked only to break and swell into billows. The 

 popular spirit would disdain the pacific throne — the wild appanages to 

 the sceptre would forget their allegiance, when it laid up its jewelled 

 sceptre in the repositories of the state, and smote no more. The whole 

 of the new and frowning vassalage that even now bites its chains, would 

 feel them lifted from its neck, only to beat them into the falchion and 

 the spearhead again. Let Russia disband her army, and abjure ambition ; 

 and from that hour she has parted with the living principle of her fear- 

 ful and unnatural supremacy : the talisman is shattered in pieces, and 

 her empire is a dream. 



But if Russia is to be resisted, the question arises, by whom ? Is England 

 to be the sole antagonist, or is there any capacity in the European 

 poM ers to form such a chain of strength as will bind down her ambition ? 

 The natural expedient is, of course, the latter. A combination of the 

 great European powers would be still able to constrain Russia, as it 

 tore down Napoleon. The ill success of the early coalitions of the 

 French war arose alone from their imperfect combination, and their 

 imperfect combination from the criminal corruption of their ministers, 

 and the weak jealousy or guilty cupidity of their sovereigns. 



It is remarkable that Austria and Prussia never combined but twice 

 during the whole revolutionary war. Once, at its commencement, under 

 the Duke of BrunsAvick, a combination distinguished for its feebleness, 

 and dissolved in a single campaign, probably by the French crown 

 jewels ; and once at the close, when formed under more vigorous guid- 

 ance, and inspired with the necessity of extinguishing Napoleon, or 

 being extinguished by him, the new powers fought side by side, and, 

 with England in their van, and Russia in their rear, trampled his un- 

 righteous and homicidal diadem into the dust. 



But the change of times has operated formidable changes in the 

 constitution of Europe. Austria is the first barrier. But of all the 

 great powers, Austria is at once the weakest, and the most likely to fall 

 under Russian temptation. The partition of Poland was an act, whose 

 impolicy, in the Austrian view, was as palpable, as its guilt was noto- 

 rious and abominable before God and man. It loaded Austria alike with 

 a share in that guilty responsibility, and brought her frontier into direct 

 exposure to Russia. 



And yet the bribe for this heinous act, in which crime and folly struggled 

 for the mastery, was the wretched province of Gallicia. How are we to be 

 secure, that some equally wretched province of Servia will not equally 

 tempt the Austrian passion for lorcUng it over deserts .'' and tliat Prince 



