crown independent of all foreign dictation. Assuming the sceptre over a barbarous people scattered through a boundless desert, Catherine found the most formidable obstacles opposed by nature to what was obviously prescribed by the circumstances of her position as her first duty, the diffusing among her rude subjects the blessings of civilization; but desirous only of the fame which could be reaped from sudden operations, and impatient of the slow progress by which natural improvement must ever proceed, she overcame not those obstacles, and left her country in the state in which it would have been whoever had filled her place. Succeeding to the throne of a nation torn by faction, and ruled by a priesthood at once tyrannical and intolerant, Elizabeth, by wise forbearance, united to perfect steadiness of purpose, by a judicious use of her influence wheresoever her eye, incessantly watchful, perceived that her interposition could help the right cause, above all, by teaching each sect that she would be the servant of none while disposed to be the friend of all, and would lend her support to that faith which her conscience approved without suffering its professors to oppress those of rival creeds, left her country in a state of peace at home as remarkable and as beneficial as the respect which her commanding talents and determined conduct imposed on foreign nations. The aggrandisement of the Russian empire during Catherine's time, at once the monument of her worst crimes and the source of the influence ever since exerted by her successors over the affairs of Europe, has been felt by all the other powers as the just punishment of their folly in permitting Poland to be despoiled, and VOL. I. 2 c by none more than those who were the accomplices in that foul transaction. It is almost the only part of her administration that remains to signalise her reign; but as long as mankind persist in preferring for the subject of their eulogies mighty feats of power, to useful and virtuous policy, the Empress Catherine's name will be commemorated as synonymous with greatness. The services of Elizabeth to her people are of a far higher order; it is probable that they owe to her the maintenance of their nationaal independence; and it is a large increase of the debt of gratitude thus incurred to this great princess, that ruling for half a century of troublous times, she ruled in almost uninterrupted peace, while by the vigour of her councils, and the firmness of her masculine spirit, she caused the alliance of England to be courted, and her name feared by all surrounding nations. If, finally, we apply to these two Sovereigns the surest test of genius and the best measure of success in their exalted station—the comparative merits of the men by whom they were served-the German sinks into insignificance, while the Englishwoman shines with surpassing lustre. Among the ministers who served Catherine, it would be difficult to name one of whom the lapse of forty years has left any remembrance; but as Elizabeth never had a man of inferior, hardly one of middling capacity in her service, so to this day, at the distance of between two and three centuries, when any one would refer to the greatest statesmen in the history of England, he turns instinctively to the Good Times of the Virgin Queen. APPENDIX. I. SEVERAL of the Sketches contained in this volume have already appeared in print, but as parts scattered throughout other and much larger works.* But great additions have been here made to some of them: as George III.; Lord Chatham; Mr. Perceval; Mr. Canning; Mr. Windham; while the following are entirely new: Lords North; Mansfield; Thurlow; Loughborough; Lord Chief Justice Gibbs; Sir Wm. Grant; Franklin; Joseph II.; Catherine II.; Gustavus III.; and the Remarks on Party. II. THE kindness of a most accomplished and venerable person, the ornament of a former age, and fortunately still preserved to enlighten the present, has permitted the insertion of the following interesting note: "A circumstance attended Lord Chatham's eloquent invective against our employment of the Indians in the American war, which we have not handed down to us along with it, but which could hardly fail to be noticed at the time. The very *Four only of the shorter Sketches are taken from the late work, in four volumes, intituled "Lord Brougham's Speeches," which contains a great many others. |