86 BARON DIMSDALE AND INOCULATION CHAP. 



There was ruling at this time in Russia the celebrated 

 Empress Catherine II., sometimes called the Semiramis 

 of the North. She had come to the throne without legal 

 right after the assassination of her husband. Catherine 

 was a person .of masculine strength and ability and 

 passionate nature ; of extraordinary dignity, and great 

 personal charm. The infatuate libertinism of her private 

 life cannot be condoned, though its enormity must be 

 measured in relation to her age and country and the 

 rank she occupied. This remarkable woman, the friend 

 of Voltaire and the philosophes, led her people forward 

 during the many years she reigned over Russia, in the 

 ways of civilisation and of culture. Art and literature 

 shone at her court. She had a zeal too for free institu- 

 tions, and if she did nothing to liberate the serfs, at least 

 she softened the cruelties of the penal code, and granted 

 some toleration to the non-conforming churches. 1 



Amongst the benefits Catherine sought to bring into 

 her land, was the use of inoculation to stay the ravages 

 of smallpox, which was excessively fatal in Russia ; 

 and in order to offer an example to the whole nation, she 

 proposed to subject herself and her own family to the 

 operation. The Russian minister in London, M. Pouschin, 

 was ordered to make private enquiry for the best British 

 operator : he was probably himself a patient of Fother- 

 gill's, at any rate the latter's advice was sought. Fother- 



Poems, ed. 1839, p. 15. His cousin, George Lipscomb, surgeon, was a stout 

 champion of the method, even after Jenher had introduced vaccination. 

 See his Manual of Inoculation, 1806, in which he quotes Dimsdale ; and his 

 Cowpox Exploded, 1806, etc. 



1 Some one has drawn her portrait in lurid lines, hardly just to "its better 

 features : " Take the map of the Empire of Russia for canvas, the darkness 

 of ignorance for background, the spoils of Poland for drapery, human blood 

 for colouring, the monuments of her reign for the cartoon, and for the shadow 

 six months of her son's reign." Waliszewski, The Romance of an Empress, 

 trans. 1894, i. 290. On the other hand the traveller and artist, Charles Fox 

 of Falmouth, visiting St. Petersburg towards the end of her reign in 1787, 

 found displayed in a silver cabinet in the Museum Catherine's " Instructions," 

 written in her own hand, for the formation of a new code of laws. In these 

 she outlines liberal institutions for Russia ; " and though," C. Fox writes, 

 " the pride and selfishness of the nobles occasioned cabals, that would have 

 rendered it extremely dangerous to attempt carrying the plan into execution 

 at that time, yet it is to be hoped the season may arrive ... to break the 

 shackles of feudal bondage." C. Fox, MS. Journal of Travels in Denmark, 

 Norway, Sweden and Russia, 1787. See also at head of this chapter. 



