129 



ALEXANDER II. 



ALEXANDER, EARL OP STIRLING. 



130 



threatening, in reference to the then state of Spain, the suppression of 

 all insurrection ary movements wherever they might take place. The 

 congresses held in 1820 and 1821 at Troppau and Laybach, on the 

 affairs of Naples and Piedmont, and that of Verona in 1822, were also 

 mainly directed by the Russian autocrat. Meanwhile the insurrection 

 of the Greeks in 1820, although publicly condemned by Alexander, 

 was attributed by Turkey to the secret encouragement of Russia, and 

 seemed to threaten a renewal of hostilities between the two countries; 

 but for the present Alexander determined to persevere in his pacific 

 policy. In 1823 several tribes of the Kalmucks, who had formerly 

 acknowledged the sovereignty of China, exchanged it for that of 

 Russia. 



In the beginning of the winter of 1825 Alexander left St. Petersburg 

 on a journey to the southern provinces, and on the 25th of September 

 arrived at Taganrog on the Sea of Azof. From this town he some 

 time after set out on a tour to the Crimea, and returned to Taganrog 

 about the middle of November. Up to nearly the close of this latter 

 excursion, he had enjoyed the highest health and spirits. But he was 

 then suddenly attacked by the common intermittent fever of the 

 country, and when he arrived at Taganrog he was very ill. Trusting 

 however to the strength of his constitution, he long refused to submit 

 to the remedies which his physicians prescribed. When he at length 

 consented to allow leeches to be applied, it was too late. During the 

 last few days that he continued to breathe, he was insensible; and on 

 the morning of the 1st of December he expired. 



It was for some time rumoured in foreign countries that Alexander 

 bad been carried off by poison ; but it is now well ascertained that 

 there a no ground whatever for this suspicion. It appears however 

 that hia last days were embittered by the information of an extensive 

 conspiracy of many of the nobility and officers of the army to subvert 

 the government, and even to take away his life ; and it is not improbable 

 that this news, which is said to have been brought to him by a courier 

 during the middle of the night of the 8th, which he spent at Alupta, 

 may have contributed to hasten the fever by which he wag two or 

 three days after attacked. For full details upon this subject, and a 

 translation of the Report of the Commission appointed to inquire 

 into the affair by the Emperor Nicholas, we refer the reader to vol. ii. 

 pp. 333-435 of Webster's ' Travels in the Crimea, Turkey, and Egypt,' 

 London, 1830. 



The death of Alexander took place exactly a century after that of 

 Peter the Great, under whom the civilisation of Russia may be said to 

 have commenced. The state of the empire did not change so com- 

 pletely during Alexander's reign as it did during that of Peter ; but 

 still the advancement of almost every branch of the national pros- 

 perity in the course of the quarter of a century during which Alexan- 

 der filled the throne was probably, with that one exception, greater 

 than had ever been exhibited in any other country. He founded or 

 reorganised seven universities, and established 204 gymnasia, and 

 above 2000 schools of an inferior order. The literature of Russia was 

 also greatly indebted to his liberal encouragement, although he con- 

 tinued the censorship of the press in a modified form. He greatly 

 promoted among his subjects a knowledge of and taste for science and 

 the fine arts by his munificent purchases of paintings, and anatomical 

 and other collections. The agriculture, the manufactures, and the 

 commerce of Russia were all immensely extended during his reign. 

 Finally, to Alexander the people of Russia were indebted for many 

 political reforms of great value. Certain checks were applied to the 

 arbitrary authority of the monarch, by rights granted to or recognised 

 in the senate; the provincial governors were subjected to more effective 

 control ; the laws were improved by a mitigation of the severity of the 

 old punishments, and in various other respects ; personal slavery was 

 entirely abolished ; and even of the serfs attached to the soil, great 

 numbers were emancipated, and arrangements made for the eventual 

 elevation of all of them to a state of freedom. Under Alexander also 

 both the extent and the population of the Rtusian dominions were 

 greatly augmented ; the military strength of the nation was developed 

 and organised ; and the country, from holding but a subordinate rank, 

 took its place as one of the leading powers of Europe. 



Alexander was married on the 9th of October, 1793, to the Princess 

 Louisa Maria Augusta of Baden, who, on becoming a member of the 

 Imperial family, assumed the name of Elizabeth Alexiewna. By her 

 however he had no issue. On his death, his next brother, the Grand 

 Duke Constantine, was proclaimed king at Warsaw ; but he imme- 

 diately surrendered the throne to hia younger brother, the late Emperor 

 Nicolas, according to an agreement made with Alexander during his 

 lifetime. 



'ALEXANDER II., surnamed NICOLAEWITCH, the present 

 Emperor of all the Russias, was the eldest son of the late Emperor Nico- 

 las and the Empress Alexandra Feodorowna. This name his mother 

 assumed on her marriage, as it is the custom with females on marrying 

 into the Imperial family to change their names with their religion on 

 being admitted into the Greek Church ; before marriage she was the 

 Princess Frederica Louisa Charlotte Wilhelmina, sister to the present 

 Frederick William IV., king of Prussia. Alexander was born on the 29th 

 of April, 1818, was educated with great care, and entered very early into 

 the military service, in which of course during his father's lifetime he 

 was invented with a numerous variety of honorary commands, but is 

 aid not to have evinced any remarkable military aptitude, though by 



BICKJ. DIV. VOL. I. 



no means destitute of talent or intelligence. On the 28th of April, 

 1841, he married Maximilienne Wilhelmina Augusta Sophia Maria 

 (now Marie Alexandrowna), daughter of Louis II., Grand-Duke of 

 Hesse, by whom he has had four sons and a daughter ; the eldest son, 

 Nicolas Alexandrowitch, now the Czarowitch, or Crown Prince, was 

 born on September 20, 1843. On the death of the Emperor Nicolas, on 

 March 2, 1855, Alexander succeeded to the throne, and to the conduct 

 of the war against the united forces of Turkey, France, England, and 

 Sardinia. As Crown Prince he had been represented as opposed to 

 the warlike policy of the late Emperor ; but almost his first step after 

 his accession was to issue a proclamation expressing his determination 

 to carry out completely the plans and intentions of his predecessor, 

 and to this determination he has hitherto held with great firmness. 

 On September 8, 1855, the allies obtained possession of Sebastopol, as 

 they had somewhat earlier of Kertch and Yenikale, and somewhat 

 later of Kinburn. In October and November following he in person 

 visited the scene of the most active hostilities, Nieolaieff, Odessa, and 

 the Crimea, encouraging the soldiery to renewed efforts, and at other 

 times has made progresses through various parts of his dominions, 

 endeavouring to lessen as much as possible the unpopularity of the 

 contest with a great portion of his subjects, occasioned by the enor- 

 mous conscriptions levied upon them in order to supply the terrible 

 losses experienced by his armies. 



ALEXANDER, WILLIAM, EARL OF STIRLING, was the son 

 of Alexander Alexander of Menstrie. The date of his birth is not very 

 satisfactorily fixed. His father died in 1594. An engraved portrait 

 of the Earl of Stirling found in a few copies of the collected edition of 

 his poems published in 1637, bears the inscription " setatis suoo 57." 

 According to this very imperfect evidence, he would have been bora 

 in 1580. But the print is of extreme rarity and very high value, being 

 considered the finest production of William Marshall, the celebrated 

 engraver of that day. The probability therefore is, that it was not 

 originally attached to the edition of 1637, andf bearing no date itself, 

 does not fix the age of the person represented. William Alexander, 

 having succeeded to his father's landed property in the counties of 

 Clackmannan and Perth, travelled for some time with Archibald the 

 seventh Earl of Argyle. After his return to Scotland, he published 

 in 1603 ' The Tragedy of Darius;' which was followed in 1604 by two 

 other tragedies, 'Julius Ciesar" and 'Croesus.' In 1604 he published 

 ' A Partcnesis to the Prince," the object of which was " to speak of 

 princely things," and especially to enforce the choice of patriotic aud 

 disinterested councillors. In the same year he also printed 'Aurora, 

 containing the first Fancies of the Author's Youth, William Alexander 

 of Menstrie.' A collected edition of his plays, including a fourth, called 

 ' The Alexandraeau Tragedy,' was published in London in 1607, under 

 the title of ' The Monarchicke Tragedies.' These were reprinted ill 

 1616, and again in J637, when they appeared with 'Doomsday,' a 

 poem (originally published in 1614), containing something more than 

 ten thousand lines ; the ' Paracnesis ; ' and ' Jonathan," an unfinished 

 poem. This collection was entitled 'Recreations with the Muses.' 

 In these successive editions of his works, Alexander took very com- 

 mendable pains to free them from those Scotticisms with which they 

 originally abounded. Langbaine, speaking of the ' Darius,' says : " It 

 was first composed in a mixed dialect of English and Scotch, and even 

 then was commended by two copies of verses. The author hag since 

 polished aud corrected much of his native language." In the last 

 collected edition of these plays it is almost impossible to detect any 

 of this dialect, which Langbaiue seems to have considered as another 

 tongue. 



The poems of Alexander can scarcely now be regarded in a higher 

 light than as literary curiosities. The quantity of verse which this 

 author poured out in the course of ten years is remarkable enough ; 

 and this apparent facility is more remarkable, when it is considered 

 that he was composing in a language which in many respects was to 

 him a foreign one. But to this circumstance may be attributed not 

 only what the critics of a later generation would have called the 

 correctness of his versification, but the circumstance that the author 

 is always labouring to express the commonest thoughts in the most 

 high-sounding words, and by the moat wearisome circumlocutions. It 

 is in vain that we turn over his pages to (iud a single natural image 

 expressed with force and simplicity. His genius, if genius it can be 

 called, was exclusively of the didactic character. All his productions, 

 whatever form they assume, are a succession of the most cumbersome 

 preachments, unenlivened by any variety of illustration ; without 

 adaptation, when they take the dramatic form, to the character of his 

 speakers, and altogether wanting in applicability to the habits and 

 feelings of mankind, and the practical business of human life. It is 

 almost incomprehensible how such productions as the ' Four Monarch- 

 icke Tragedies ' could have appeared in the ago of Shakespeare and 

 his great dramatic contemporaries. Their author must undoubtedly 

 have fancied that he was doing a higher and a better thing than 

 presenting a poetical view of real life, when he produced such a tragedy 

 as his ' Julius Csesar," where the great interest of the action is utterly 

 lost in the tumid dialogues and iuterminable soliloquies, aud the 

 personages talk, not only unlike Romans, but unlike men. Oldys, who 

 has written his life in the ' Biographia Britannica," says of his plays : 

 " Ho calculated them not for the amusement of spectators, or to be 

 theatrically acted, so much as for readers of the highest rank ; who, 



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