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historic memorials of his own country. While travelling, his constant habit was to obtain as much information as he could beforehand with regard to every place he was about to visit; and, even when he approached the smallest village, he would inquire if it contained anything remarkable. If those about him told him it did not, he would reply "Who knows? If it be not so to you, perhaps it is to me; let me see all." When setting out on his investigations, on such occasions, he carried his tablets in his hand; and whatever he deemed worthy of remembrance was carefully noted down. He would often even leave his carriage, if he saw the country people at work by the wayside as he passed along, and not only enter into conversation with them on agricultural affairs, but accompany them to their houses, examine their furniture, and take drawings of their implements of husbandry. He obtained in this manner much minute and correct knowledge, which he could scarcely have acquired by any other means, and which he afterwards turned to admirable profit in the improvement of his own country.

M. Stählin, whose notices are in general well authenticated, and may be depended on except where it is likely that his authority was deceived, relates some curious anecdotes in illustration of the Czar's predilection for operations in surgery, which show at least that he had made no inconsiderable proficiency in the art. He was rarely absent when a dissection took place in Petersburg; and occasionally he assisted as one of the operators. He let blood and extracted teeth with great expertness; and he is recorded to have once tapped a patient for dropsy. These may not seem the most appropriate accomplishments for a king; but we must remember the peculiar circumstances of Russia during the reign of this great author of her civilization. On the one hand, the simplicity of the national manners was such, that it was not held at all indecorous for the emperor to mix in the domestic circles of his subjects, almost as one of themselves; and, on the other, the prejudices of the people were so strong, and their aversion to innovation so bigoted, that probably nothing less than the actual example of their sovereign would have roused them to take any interest in the new arts he wished to introduce among them. Peter, therefore, rightly felt that the consideration of the undignified nature of some of the occupations in which he engaged, was far more than overbalanced by the advantages that his personal exertions gave him in overcoming the inertness and positive opposition, on the part of his countrymen, which his reforms had to

encounter.

This must be his apology also (if the case shall be thought to require any) for certain other labours to which he was sometimes wont to apply his hand. He once passed a month, M. Stählin tells us, at Müller's ironworks at Istia, about seventy miles from Moscow, during which

time he employed himself in learning the business of a blacksmith; and so much progress did he make, that on one of the last days of his stay he forged, with his own hand, 720 pounds of iron, making his mark on each bar. On his return to Moscow he proceeded to Müller's house, and, having received from that gentleman the same pay for his labour which would have been allowed to any other workman, about two shillings of our money, he immediately went and purchased a pair of shoes with it, which he ever afterwards took great pleasure in showing. One of the bars he forged on this occasion is still to be seen at Istia. He was also accustomed, according to Voltaire, "Histoire de Russie,” ii. 186, to take his place sometimes among the men employed in cutting canals, a species of public labour on which he expended large sums, in order to encourage and animate them in the more difficult part of their work. But his favourite art was that of ship-building, his lessons in which, learned in Holland and England, he took care not to forget on his return home. The writer of the manuscript narrative in the British Museum, to which we have referred in a note on a former page, gives us some curious information in relation to this matter. The Czar, he tells us, as soon as he got back from England, went down to Veronez, whither he carried two English builders, named Dean and Noy, whom he had brought out with him. Of these, however, "the first," the narrative continues, "soon after desired a discharge, which was granted, without giving any proof of his art. The Czar himself and Joseph Noy received orders from the Lord High Admiral, Theodore Alexowitz Golovin, to build each of them a man-of-war. The Czar, having taken upon himself the title of a master ship-builder, was pleased to subject himself to the condition of that character; and, in compliance with that order, gave the first proof of his skill in the art which he had learned abroad; and continued afterwards to bear that title, and had, at all times, notwithstanding his great engagements in many other affairs, one ship upon the stocks; and at his death left one ship half built, one of the largest in Europe, 180 feet long upon the deck, 51 broad, and 21 deep, and mounts 110 guns, and is by relation one of the finest bodies that has ever been seen; as were, indeed, all the rest he built. He himself drew the draught of this great ship at Riga, where was no master shipbuilder but himself; and, when he returned to Petersburg, he gave the surveyor an account that he had drawn his draught of the great ship which he had orders to build from the surveyor's office, and, according to the regulations of the navy, presented his draught to be examined." The emperor, this writer adds, collected the results of his experience and reading upon the subject of shipbuilding, and formed them into a regular treatise on the art. This work, however, has not been published, although it is probably preserved, with the other literary productions of the writer, in the Imperial Library at Petersburg. The only work

from the hand of Peter the Great which has been printed is his Journal from 1698 to the Peace of Neustadt in 1721. Of this document, which is almost entirely occupied with military transactions, a French translation by M. Formey was published at Berlin in 1773, in one volume quarto.

Peter died in 1725, in the fifty-third year of his age. His history presents us with, perhaps, as remarkable a case of the conquest of difficulties in the pursuit of knowledge as it would be possible to quote. In his noble resolution to educate not only himself but his country, he had to contend with obstacles at every step, which nothing could have overcome but that determination to succeed which overcomes all things. Few monarchs have better deserved the epithet of Great, if he is to be appreciated either by the great powers of mind he displayed, or the great effects he accomplished. And of these last it is to be remarked that none have passed away; all have been permanent and productive. Compare Peter the Great, in this respect, with many other characters who during their time have filled the earth with the noise of their exploits; and how high must he be placed above them! Alexander's mighty empire fell to pieces as soon as his own hand had resigned its sceptre; so did that of Charlemagne; so did that of Buonaparte. These all, after moving everything, established almost nothing. But whatever the Russian planted still grows and flourishes, and bears fruit more plentifully every year. The reason is, that, while other builders up of empires have trusted, for the support of their institutions, alone or chiefly, to the sword, he based his on the moral strength of knowledge and civilization.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ADVANTAGES OF WEALTH IN THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE-NAPIER.

NOTWITHSTANDING the honourable reputation which the princes we have named, and others whom we have not room to notice, have acquired by their devotion to intellectual pursuits, it must be admitted that science and literature have been much more indebted to the example and patronage, than to the actual performances, of the royal personages who are to be counted among their friends. No great discovery or immortal composition claims a king as its author. When the genius that might have accomplished such has been found on a throne, it has been otherwise occupied than with the quiet but divine pleasures of learning and philosophy. And, doubtless, this is only as it should be. Men have not crowns put upon their heads that they may write books or spend their lives in constructing philosophical theories. Every station has its

peculiar duties, which must first be attended to, even before the pursuit of knowledge; and those of sovereigns are sufficiently arduous to make it impossible, when they are fully performed, that this pursuit can be anything more than the avocation of their leisure. To this extent only, therefore, it is desirable that they should devote themselves to it. But, if so, it cannot be expected that this class of persons should contribute many, or even any, names of first-rate distinction to the history of literature or science. It were not fitting, indeed, that the same individual should have supremacy at once in two worlds so entirely different and unconnected as that of political dignity and that of genius. All, therefore, we repeat, that philosophy and the arts usually have to ask of kings is, their protection and countenance, and an example which may at least evidence an attachment to intellectual pursuits, even while duties of another sort demand their chief attention. Whether letters, generally speaking, flourish best with or without the patronage of courts, we do not here stop to inquire. It is, at all events, certain, that in some cases the literary progress of a country has been greatly indebted to a love of literature in its sovereign. Thus it was that Alfred imported civilization into England, James I. into Scotland, and Peter the Great into Russia.

But other individuals in possession of wealth or rank are differently situated from kings. They have often no public duties to perform, or none from which they may not disengage themselves, in so far at least as they would interfere with the closest application to intellectual pursuits. In most countries, indeed, they are not called upon to take a part in the management of affairs, in ordinary circumstances, by any need that the state has of their services so much as by their own ambition for political distinction; and so numerous are almost always the competitors here, that an individual who chooses to withdraw from the throng will rarely have cause to reproach himself with having deserted a post which there are not a hundred others ready, and as well qualified, to occupy. We would neither condemn nor depreciate any path of honourable enterprise; doubtless it is the duty of every man, who believes that he can most benefit his country by his political services, to endeavour to do so. But this is at least an ambition by which many are apt to be seduced, who look rather to its glittering prizes than to their own qualifications; and it is also undeniably onc in which something else than merit often contributes to success. There can be no danger, therefore, of too many persons deserting politics for philosophy. There will always be a sufficient number of our men of wealth and rank to serve the state, and contend for her honours and her offices, although as many leave the crowd as the love of study and speculation can possibly withdraw.

But political ambition, in truth, is not the seduction by which persons

of this description are most apt to be enthralled. The besetting temptations attendant upon the possession of wealth and leisure (which, rightly employed, constitute such inestimable advantages) are the facilities which they afford to the indulgence of mere indolence and love of pleasure. A rich man, who can live without exertion of any kind, is apt to lose the power even of that degree of exertion which is necessary for the acquisition of knowledge. Besides, his money provides him with other enjoyments; and he often never even acquires a taste for those of an intellectual kind. A defective or misdirected education too frequently only prepares him the better for yielding to the unfortunate influences of his position; and the habits and prejudices of society come also to assist their force and confirm their dominion. When an individual thus circumstanced, therefore, betakes himself in good earnest to the pursuit of knowledge, he also is entitled to be regarded as one who has exhibited much energy of character, and conquered many difficulties, as well as he who has had to struggle with poverty, or an uncongenial occupation, in his attempts to obtain an acquaintance with books. The impediments which have lain in the way of the former are different from those that have beset the path of the latter; but they may not have been less difficult to overcome. The fact, at all events, is, that the temptations of wealth have often exerted as fatal an influence in repressing all ardour for intellectual pursuits as ever did the obstructions of indigence.

Yet, where the love of knowledge has taken full possession of the heart, the rich man is much more favourably situated than the poor man for the prosecution of great enterprises in science or literature, demanding as they do both leisure and ease of mind—two good things, of the first of which generally but little, and of the second often not much, are his who has to provide for his daily bread by his daily labour. Hence some of the greatest names, in all departments of philosophy and learning, are those of persons who, unembarrassed by the toils and cares of obtaining a subsistence, have been free to lead a life of contemplation, having purchased to themselves that inestimable privilege by a relinquishment of the other pleasures or objects of ambition ordinarily pursued by those in their situation, and seeking ro other advantage from their riches or their competence, than that of being at liberty to devote their time and their powers of mind to labours of their own choosing. From the list of the illustrious of ancient times, we need mention no others, and we can mention no greater, than Plato and Archimedes-both of whom were of distinguished birth (the former being a descendant of the family of Solon, the other a near relation of King Hiero), and, there is every reason to suppose, opulent. But we pass from times so remote, that, even when the circumstances of the case are well ascertained, the changes that have taken place in everything detract from the

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