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 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 iron-works 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,* 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 parts 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

Histoire de Russie, ii, 186.

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 ship-builder but himself; and when he returned to Petersburgh, 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 Petersburgh. 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 trans

lation 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 Bonaparte. 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.

*The Code of Laws, called after his name, is the only permanent monument of his power which Napoleon has left in France. Where he applied his ability to the real advancement of civilization, the traces of his career were not to be effaced by changes of rulers or of opinions.

CHAPTER III.

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 is to be observed, 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 any thing 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,