Russia, and accompanied Catherine on her progress through the southern parts of her empire. Here he met with a sovereign who resembled him in one point and no more; she was devoured by the same restless passion for celebrity, and in her domestic administration undertook everything to finish nothing, how effectively soever she might accomplish the worser objects of her criminal ambition abroad. A witty remark of his connected with this weakness, is recorded, and proves sufficiently that he could mark in another what he was unable to correct in himself. She had laid the first her name, and she re"I have begun and stone of a city, to be called by quested him to lay the second. finished," said he, "a great work with the Empress. She laid the first stone of a city and I laid the last, all in one day." His excessive admiration of Frederic, combined with his thirst of military glory, in the war of the Bavarian succession 1778, had the effect of neutralising each other. He preferred corresponding to fighting with his adversary, who called it a campaign of the pen. Under the mediation of France peace was speedily restored, after an active and vigorous interchange of letters for some months, and with no other result. But the war with the Turks, into which Catherine inveigled him, was of a very different character. With them no written compositions could produce any effect; and a series of disasters ensued, which ended in the enemy menacing Vienna itself, after overrunning all Lower Hungary. It was in vain that he endeavoured to rally his defeated troops, or win back victory to his standard by the most indiscriminate severity; cashiering officers by the pla toon, and shooting men by the regiment, until at length old Marshal Laudohn came forth from his retirement, and the men, animated by the sight of their ancient chief, repulsed the enemy, resumed the offensive, and forced Belgrade to capitulate without a siege. At this critical moment, and ere yet he could taste the pleasure, to him so novel, of success, death closed his eyes upon the ruin of his affairs in Belgium, their inextricable embarrassment at home, the death of a sister-in-law (first wife of Leopold), to whom he was tenderly attached, and the unwonted, perhaps unexpected, gleam of prosperity in the Turkish campaign. He died in the flower of his age, and almost at the summit of the confusion created by his restless folly, a sad instance how much mischief a prince may do to others, and how great vexation inflict upon himself, by attempting in mediocrity of resources things which only a great capacity can hope to execute. The volume which records the transactions of statesmen, often suggests the remark that the success of mediocrity, both in public and in private life, affords a valuable lesson to the world, a lesson the more extensively useful, because the example is calculated to operate upon a far more enlarged scale than the feats of rare endowments. In private individuals, moderate talents, however misused by disproportioned ambition, can produce little harm, except in exposing the folly and presumption of their possessors. But in princes, moderate talents, unaccompanied with discretion and modesty, are calculated to spread the greatest misery over whole nations. The pursuit of renown, when confined to maladministration at home, is extremely mischievous; leading to restless love of change for change's sake, attempts to acquire celebrity by undertakings which are above the reach of him who makes them, and which involve the community in the consequences of their failure. But the fear always is, that this restless temper, unsustained by adequate capacity, may lead to indulging in the Great Sport of Kings, and that wars, even when successful most hurtful to the state, will be waged, without any fair chance of avoiding discomfiture and disgrace. Hence a greater curse can hardly light upon any people than to be governed by a prince in whom disproportioned ambition, or preposterous vanity, is only supported by the moderate talents which, united to sound principles, and under the control of a modest nature, might constitute their safety and their happiness. For it is altogether undeniable that, considering the common failings of princes, the necessary defects of their education, the inevitable tendency of their station to engender habits of self-indulgence, and the proneness which they all feel, when gifted with a superior capacity, to seek dominion or fame by martial deeds, there is far more safety in nations being ruled by sovereigns of humble talents, if these are only accompanied with an ambition proportionably moderate. |