But he saw on Palatinus the white porch of his home; 26. "O Tiber! father Tiber! to whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, take thou in charge this day!" 27. No sound of joy or sorrow was heard from either bank; With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank; And when above the surges they saw his crest appear, All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer. 28. But fiercely ran the current, swollen high by months of rain; 29. And now he feels the bottom; now on dry earth he stands, Now round him throng the Fathers to press his gory hands; And now with shouts and clapping, and noise of weeping loud, He enters through the River-gate, borne by the joyous crowd. 1 CON'SUL. One of the two chief magistrates of the ancient Roman re HIND. A countryman; a rustic; 8 DEFT'LY. Dexterously. senate. Violently; with might. 12 A-THWART'. Across ; transverse to * PAL-A-TI'NUs. Palatine, one of the seven hills of Rome, LXXXII.— PETER THE GREAT. MACAULAY. [Peter the First, Czar of Russia, commonly called Peter the Great, was born in 1672, and died in 1725. He was a man of remarkable ability, both as a statesman and a warrior. Through his efforts for the civilization of his people, his internal improvements, and his conquests in war, Russia emerged from a position of comparative obscurity to one in the first rank among the nations of the world. Peter the Great visited London in 1698, in the reign of William III.] 1. ON the 10th of January a vessel from Holland anchored off Greenwich,* and was welcomed with great respect. Peter the First, Czar of Muscovy,† was on board. He took boat with a few attendants, and was rowed up the Thames to Norfolk Street, where a house overlooking the river had been prepared for his reception. His journey is an epoch' in the history not only of his own country, but of ours, and of the world. To the polished nations of Western Europe, the empire which he governed had till then been what Bokhara § or Siam || is to us. That empire, indeed, though less extensive than at present, was the most extensive that had ever obeyed a single chief. 2. On the Baltic, Russia had not then a single port. Her maritime trade with the other nations of Christendom was entirely carried on at Archangel, ¶ a place which had been created and was supported by adventurers from our island. In the days of the Tudors, ** a ship from England, seeking a north-east passage to the land of silk and spice, had discovered the White Sea. The barbarians who dwelt on the shores of that dreary gulf had never before *Pronounced GREN'IJ. † Mus'co-vy. A name sometimes applied to Russia. Pronounced TĚMZ. § BŎK-HÄ'RÄ. A state of Central Asia. SI-AM'. An extensive kingdom in the south-east of Asia. ¶ ÄRCH-AN'ĢEL. A seaport town in the northern part of Russia. ** The Tudor dynasty of English sovereigns began with Henry VII. (proclaimed king in 1485), the son of Edmund Tudor, and ended with Queen Elizabeth, who died in 1603. seen such a portent as a vessel of a hundred and sixty tons burden. They fled in terror; and, when they were pursued and overtaken, prostrated themselves before the chief of the strangers, and kissed his feet. He succeeded in opening a friendly communication with them, and from that time there had been a regular commercial intercourse between our country and the subjects of the Czar. 3. The commercial intercourse between England and Russia made some diplomatic intercourse necessary. The diplomatic intercourse, however, was only occasional. Three or four times in a century extraordinary embassies were sent from Whitehall* to the Kremlin, † and from the Kremlin to Whitehall. The English embassies had historians, whose narratives may still be read with interest. Those historians described vividly, and sometimes bitterly, the savage ignorance and the squalid poverty of the barbarous country in which they had sojourned'. In that country, they said, there was neither literature nor science, neither school nor college. could barely read and write. arithmetic of the Dark Ages. ury the computations were strung on wires. 6 The best educated men The arithmetic was the Even in the imperial treasmade by the help of balls 4. Round the person of the sovereign there was a blaze of gold and jewels; but even in his most splendid palaces were to be found the filth and misery of an Irish cabin. So late as the year 1663 the gentlemen of the retinue of the Earl of Carlisle were, in the city of Moscow, thrust into a single bed-room, and were told that, if they did not remain together, they would be in danger of being devoured by rats. * WHITEHÂLL' was a celebrated palace in London, for a long time the principal residence of English sovereigns. THE KREM'LIN is the central part and most elevated site of the city of Moscow (formerly the capital of Russia), of which it formed the original nucleus. It is separated from the rest of the city by a high wall, and contains the most important public edifices. 5. Our ancestors, therefore, were not a little surprised to learn that a young barbarian, who had, at seventeen years of age, become the autocrat of the immense region stretching from the confines of Sweden to those of China, and whose education had been inferior to that of an English farmer or shopman, had planned gigantic improvements, had learned enough of some languages of Western Europe to enable him to communicate with civilized men, had begun to surround himself with able adventurers from various parts of the world, had sent many of his young subjects to study languages, arts, and sciences in foreign cities, and, finally, had determined to travel as a private man, and to discover, by personal observation, the secret of the immense prosperity and power enjoyed by some communities whose whole territory was far less than the hundredth part of his dominions. 6. His empire was of all empires the least capable of being made a great naval power. On the ocean he had only a single port-Archangel; and the whole shipping of Archangel was foreign. There did not exist a Russian vessel larger than a fishing-boat. Yet, from some cause, which cannot now be traced, he had a taste for maritime pursuits which amounted to a passion, indeed almost to a monomania. His imagination was full of sails, yard-arms, and rudders. That large mind, equal to the highest duties of the general and the statesman, contracted itself to the most minute details of naval architecture and naval discipline. The chief ambition of the great conqueror and legislator was to be a good boatswain and a good ship's carpenter. 7. He repaired to Amsterdam, took a lodging in the dockyard, assumed the garb of a pilot, put down his name. on the list of workmen, wielded with his own hand the calking-iron and the mallet, fixed the pumps, and twisted the ropes. Ambassadors, who came to pay their respects to him, were forced, much against their will, to clamber up the rigging of a man-of-war, and found him enthroned on the cross-trees. 8. Such was the prince whom the populace of London now crowded to behold. His stately form, his intellectual forehead, his piercing black eyes, his Tartar nose and mouth, his gracious smile, his frown, black with all the stormy rage and hate of a barbarian tyrant, and, above all, a strange nervous convulsion which sometimes transformed his countenance, during a few moments, into an object on which it was impossible to look without terror, the immense quantities of meat which he devoured, the pints of brandy which he swallowed, the fool who jabbered at his feet, the monkey which grinned at the back of his chair, — were, during some weeks, popular topics of conversation. 9. He, meanwhile, shunned the public gaze with a haughty shyness which inflamed curiosity. He went to a play; but, as soon as he perceived that pit, boxes, and galleries were staring, not at the stage, but at him, he retired to a back bench, where he was screened from observation by his attendants. He was desirous to see a sitting of the House of Lords; but, as he was determined not to be seen, he was forced to climb up to the leads, and to peep through a small window. 10. William judiciously humored the whims of his illustrious guest, and stole to Norfolk Street, so quietly that nobody in the neighborhood recognized his majesty in the thin gentleman who got out of the modest-looking coach at the Czar's lodgings. The Czar returned the visit with the same precautions, and was admitted into Kensington House by a back door. It was afterwards known that he took no notice of the fine pictures with which the palace was adorned. But over the chimney of the royal sittingroom was a plate which, by an ingenious machinery, indicated the direction of the wind, and with this plate he was in raptures. |