One half of Poland, the Crimea, the Kuban, || hasten to inform your excellent excellence, that and a part of the frontiers of Turkey, had yielded to the arms or the intrigues of Catherine; but for the usurpation of another rich and populous || country she had no need of battles; for the conquest of Courland and Semigallia her intrigues proved sufficient. The nobles were gained over by her emissaries; the people, to elude her oppressions, with which they were wearied out, accepted her protection. The acquisition of Courland proved, from its corn and timber, and its ports on the Baltic, a valuable prize to Russia. Unsatiated with empire, perpetual measures were taken by Catherine for the annexing to her dominions new kingdoms and states, whose miserable inhabitants were, on resistance, de spoiled of the heritage of their fathers, and driven from their native soil.

the excellent troops of the excellent court have given the French an excellent drubbing." She amused herself with rallying and laughing at her grand-ecuyer and first buffoon; but retired some what earlier than usual, assigning as a reason, that too much laughing had given her slight symptoms of the colic. She arose the next morning at her accustomed hour, and transacted business with her secretaries; on dismissing the last, she told him to wait in the antichamber, whence she would presently recall him. The secretary, having waited for some time, and hearing no noise in the apartment, began to grow uneasy. He at last opened the door, and beheld, to his surprise and terror, the Empress stretched on the floor, between the two doors leading from the alcove to her closet. She was already with. out sense or motion. The secretary, on this spectacle, ran to the favourite, whose apartment was above physicians were sent for, and an universal consternation prevailed. A mattress was spread near the window, on which Catherine was laid; bleeding, bathing, and every means usually resorted to on such occasions, were emBut in quiet usurpations, in treaties, and alli-ployed, by which some effect seemed to be proances, her restless mind remained unsatisfied.duced. Thirsting for conquest, and inured to the din of war, she turned her arms against Persia. At the head of a numerous force, the brother of the favourite, Zuboff, penetrated into Daghestan, and laid siege to Derbent; the keys of which were delivered to him by the commandant, a venerable old man, 120 years of age, the same who, at the commencement of the century, had surrendered Derbent to Peter I. This triumph received some alloy in a subsequent defeat by the Persian army. But Catherine, not discouraged, gave orders for the reinforcement of the troops, not doubting of their ultimate success.

Her grandson, Alexander, having been married by Catherine to the Princess Louisa of Baden Durlach, she became also desirous of choosing a wife for Constantine. With this view the three daughters of the Prince of Saxe Coburg were invited to her court, and the youngest selected for the consort of the Prince.

The hope of obtaining a greater triumph also flattered her pride: the new treaty concluded with Austria and Great Britain, secured to her the assistance of these powers against Turkey: elated with this idea, the period seemed approaching for the accomplishment of her darling plan, that of driving the Ottomans out of Europe, and reigning in Constantinople. Already, in idea, arrived at the summit of her ambition, her visions of greatness experienced a sudden check. The magnificent Catharine was not immortal.

On the fourth day of November, 1796, the Empress displayed in what was called her little hermitage (a small party), uncommon cheerful. ness and vivacity. By a vessel from Lubeck she had received news of the French, under Moreau, having been obliged to repass the Rhine. She wrote on this occasion the following humour us note to Cobenzel, the Austrian minister:- "I

She was still alive, but without any other perceptible motion or sign than the beating of her heart. Every one was eager to dispatch a messenger to Paul; the brother of the favourite was the person employed in this service. The situation of the Empress was, till eleven o'clock, her accustomed hour of seeing her family, kept secret from the Grand-Dukes and from the hous. hold; every one feared to mention his apprehensions; her death was considered as the epoch of some extraordinary revolution; the court first, and presently the city, were in a state of the most alarming agitation.

The Grand-Duke was absent on the arrival of the messenger; six couriers met in the same instant: Paul was, with his court, gone a few miles to inspect a mill constructed by his orders. On receiving the intelligence, he appeared to be affected; asked a thousand questions, gave instant orders for his journey, and proceeded rapidly to Petersburg; where, arriving with his consort at eight in the evening, he found the palace in confusion. The courtiers crowded around him; the favourite, a prey to grief and terror, had relinquished the reins of empire.

Paul, accompanied by his family, repaired to the chamber of his mother; who, without shew. ing any consciousness, still existed. The young princes and princesses, dissolved in tears, formed around their grandmother an affecting groupe. The Grand-Duchesses, the gentlemen and ladies of the court, remained through the night waiting the last sigh of the Empress; the following day

passed in the same anxious solicitude. Ca he- I justice, order, and law, were sometimes violated,

rine, still breathing, remained in a kind of lethargy; she even moved one of her feet, and pressed the hand of one of her women. About ten in the evening she appeared suddenly to revive; a terrible rattling was heard in her throat; the family crowded around her; when, uttering || a piercing shriek, she expired, thirty-seven hours after her first seizure. She betrayed no symptom of pain till the moment before her decease: a prosperous life was terminated by a happy death. The young Grand-Duchesses bewailed in their grandmother the source whence all their pleasure flowed; the ladies and courtiers who had enjoyed her private society, and experienced the captivation of her manners, paid a tribute of tears to her loss; the happy evenings of the hermitage, the freedom and pleasure which Catherine so well knew how to diffuse, were contrasted by them with the military constraint and formal etiquette which were likely to succeed. The domestics of the Empress sincerely mourned a good and generous mistress, whose mild and equal temper, superior to petty caprices or sudden gusts of passion, whose noble and dignified character, had rendered their services equally easy and pleasant.

Catharine still retained, though seventy years of age, the vestiges of beauty. She was of the middle stature, and, carrying her head high, appeared tall; her hair was auburn, her eye-brows dark, and her eyes blue; her countenance, though not deficient in expression, never betrayed what passed in her mind; a mistress of dissimulation, she knew how to command her features. She became corpulent as she advanced in years, yet her carriage was graceful and dignified. In private she inspired, by her conciliatory manners, confidence and good humour; youth, playfulness, and gaiety appeared to surround her; but in public, and on proper occasions, she knew how to assume the Empress, to appear the 'Semiramis of the North,' and to awe by her frowns. She usually dressed in the Russian mode; she wore a green gown or vest, with close sleeves reaching to the wrist; her hair lightly powdered, and flowing upon her shoulders, was crowned with a small cap covered with diamonds; in the latter periods of her life she put on a great quantity of rouge. In her habits and diet she was strictly temperate; she took a light breakfast, ate a moderate dinner, and had no supper.

The estimate of her character must be formed from her actions; her reign was perhaps for her people rather brilliant than happy. Within the circle of her influence, her government was moderate and benign; at a distance, terrible and despotic; under the protection of her favourites,

and the most odious tyranny practised with im punity. Her situation in the empire, delicate and often critical, restrained her judgment; it was by suffering her power to be abused that she was enabled to preserve it; she knew how to reward, but dared not always punish.

For her licentiousness as a woman, no excuse can be offered; as a sovereign, she must be allowed the title of great. If her love of glory too often assumed the features of a destructive ambition, the praise of an enlightened and magnanimous mind cannot be denied to her.

The

It has been well observed, that the splendour of her reign, the magnificence of her court, ker institutions, her monuments, and her victories, were to Russia what the age of Louis XIV. had been to Europe; as an individual, the character of Catherine had a better title to great. French formed the glory of Louis, Catherine that of the Russians; she reigned not like him over a polished people, nor had she his advantages. She had a nation to form, and her measures were her own; however deceived or seduced, she suffered not herself to be governed. Humane and generous, cheerful and amiable, she constituted the happiness of those who surrounded her. Her active and regular life, her firinness, courage, and sobriety, were moral qualities of no mean value; corrupted by prosperity, and intoxicated with success, her crimes of a darker hue were those of her station rather than those of her heart. The barbarous country over which she reigned, the grossness of its manners, and the difficulties with which she had to struggle, must not be forgotten in forming an estimate of her character. Whatever may have been her faults, and doubtless they were great, her genius, her talents, her courage, and her success, must ever entitle her to a high rank among those women whose qualities and attainments have thrown a lustre on their sex.

She aspired to the character of an author, to which, by her celebrated "Instructions for a Code of Laws," her dramatic pieces and proverbs, her tales and allegories for the improvement of her grandchildren, she is justly entitled. Among the productions of her pen, her Letters to Voltaire are accounted the most interesting. She composed also for the Imperial family a plan of education, compiled principally from the writings of Locke and Rousseau, which reflects infinite credit on her liberality and discernment.

There are few reigns more interesting than that of Catherine, more strictly biographical; few that involve more important principles, that afford a wider scope, or that more forcibly tend to awaken reflection.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

THE GOLDEN MIRROR;

OR,

THE KINGS OF SHESHIAN:

A TRUE HISTORY, TRANSLATED FROM THE SHESHIANESE.
[Continued from Page 235.]

SHAH GEBAL was (we know not wherefore) so well satisfied with the narrative of the philosopher Danishmende, particularly with the conclusion of it, that he immediately ordered him to be paid five hundred baham-d'ors from his treasury. Whenever the place of superintendant of the dervises and bonzes, added he, shall become vacant, Danishmende shall have it.

no other purpose than to disseminate a spirit of effeminacy throughout the world, deterring the members of the community from all laborious exertion and arduous enterprise, and by exciting the general desire to become as happy as these imaginary darlings of nature, whose voluptuous morality is given us for wisdom, to bring matters to such a pass that nobody will any longer be willing to cultivate the ground, to execute laborious works, and to venture his life at sea, or against the enemies of the country. In general, to the perfecting of any branch of the political welfare, it is necessary to have people who are not averse to labour, and who vie with each other in such obstinate patient industry as no effeminate character is capable of, for bringing sonie particular useful occupation to perfection. Is it ever to be expected that a voluptuous merchant can become rich, a voluptuous artist expert, or a voluptuous scholar famous? Will not this remark infallibly hold good, at least, in general? or shall we imagine that a voluptuous judge

It was not by chance, but because the Sultan of Nurmahal had been previously informed that the dervises were displeased with the conclusion of the doctor's story, that the principal iman of the court received a command to attend upon the Sultan that night at bed time. His majesty was not a little delighted in the embarrassment which he conceived the iman must feel at the -metamorphosis of the emir into a dervise. But probably because the iman, without being therefore more cunning than others, could not fail of perceiving why he had the honour of being there, kept so strict a guard over himself that not the least sign of uneasiness escaped him. However, he could not refrain from making the remark-will execute his function the more punctiliously that even if there were, which he might reasonably doubt, such a tribe in the world as these pretended children of nature, yet he thought it would be much better, either entirely to suppress the account of it, or at least not let it get abroad among the people.

and conscientiously, or an effeminate commander conduct himself more gallantly for coming from the lap of luxury, better sustain the hardships of a campaign, and more quickly and surely lay the enemies of the Sultan, our master, prostrate at his feet? You see, Mr. Danishmende, that

And for what reasons, if we may be so bold I can have recourse to the weapons which my with your reverence? asked the Sultan.

peculiar station furnishes me with against you. While the iman was making this fine speech, The Sultan, with half shut eyes, and in a languid tone, amused himself with singing La faridon

I extend this my opinion, returned the iman, to all those accounts of I know not what ideal | beings, who are feigned to lead, under the pre tended sceptre of nature, an unsolicitous life, || daine la faridondon, dondaine dondon dondaine, consisting of one continued tissue of voluptuousness and agreeable sensations. The more innocent and amiable their manners are represented to be, the more mischievous is the impression || such figments will make upon the great multitude. To speak honestly (continued he, in a soft insinuating tone, expressly adapted to his courteous looks), I cannot see what utility can be expected to result from them, or how we can conceal it from ourselves that they can tend to No. XVIII. Vol. II.

* Although it is not to be denied that the iman here produces some truths, yet we cannot forbear to observe, that this last position is false; Solon, Pisistratus, Alcibiades, Demetrius Poliorcetes, Julius Cæsar, Anthony, and ten thousand other instances have in all ages shewn the contrary. But, indeed, this iman might not have travelled much in history-Note of the Latin translator.

Pp

dondaine dondaine dondon,-for he was well versed in the tags of old ballads. Now, doctor, exclaimed he, let us hear what arguments thou hast to bring against this.

by beautiful and charming objects, the arguments of the iman prove too much; for the most charming descriptions cannot possibly have half the effect upon us that the objects themselves would have. Has nature, on the other hand, benevolent views, which are only defeated by the gene rality, by thoughtlessness, false taste, or corrupt principles; it is then both honourable and use

misfortune to displease the iman, to lead them back to the path of nature, and to invite them to a wise enjoyment of her bounties.

Secondly, his arguments prove too little; for, if even the whole world were filled with pictures of fortunate islands and happy persons, yet we might bet ten to one, that the passions, which have in all ages been the movers of the moral world, would nevertheless continue their play. The desire of leading an easy life, in every go vernment which is founded on the inequality of conditions, will produce the desire of riches, and riches the desire of authority, grandeur, and arbitrary power. These passions will bring to light a multitude of talents, as they are more or less encouraged by the political constitution, or the accidental nature of the administration; and the avidity for the most agreeable enjoyment of life, from which the iman dreads a general inactivity, will have a directly opposite effect; it will supply us with industrious people, inventors, improvers, virtuosos, and heros, as many, and per haps more, than we have need of. The ideal delineations of the voluptuousness of the senses, of the imagination, and of the heart, will therefore, from the nature of the case, powerfully

I shall, with your majesty's permission, returned Danishmende, do nothing more than briefly shew, that the arguments of the iman, in the first place, prove too much; secondly, too little; and thirdly, nothing at all. Too much-ful, by such descriptions as those which have the since all his objections apply as forcibly against nature herself, as to the accounts or figments, which to him appear so dangerous; the maxims of the wise Psammis, the general observations and experiments on which his morality is built, || are no fictions. If the state in which his plan of legislation places the inhabitants of the blissful vallies, is the properest possible for humanity, if it be that wherein mankind suffer the least, which occasions the least evil, least allows them to abuse the bounties of nature, and at the end of their course least causes them to regret that they have lived,-who can, or who has any right to object to it? Are the agreeable sensations offered us on all hands by nature only like the confectioner's devices for garnishing our table? Are they merely temptations, intended to discipline us in a meritorious abstinence? If this has been her view, it must be owned that nature has surprising whims. Can it be taken amiss if we are rather inclined to regard them as whimsical people, who would make her such a fool? Or what blame shall we incur if we look upon these curious mortals, who in sober sadness take pleasure for a snare to their virtue, as victims of their tormenting effort to destroy the half of their existence? Would they with their splenetic hu-assist in promoting the grand object which his mour, with their melancholy, with their anxious dread of every moment making a false step, in short, with all the spectres that haunt their morbid fancy, be most qualified to promote their own perfection and the true interests of society? Your reverence, who are so highly honoured as to be admitted to the table of the Sultan of India, to have the superintendance of the private concerns of five or six of the most beautiful ladies in Delhi, and every month slip a hundred baham-ready equipped at our gate, to convey the wisher d'ors into your purse, to provide which a hundred poor peasants must work and famish themselves to skin and bone,-imagine, perhaps, the condition of a poor fellow who lives upon stale crusts and tank water, and that the delicacy of his senses may not be seduced, has burnt out his eyes in the sun, is not quite so disagreeable, as I will be sworn for it, it must be

Bravo, Danishmende, said the Sultan, in an under voice, and an encouraging nod, that did not escape the iman.

I say, therefore, continued the doctor, unless the design of nature was to decoy us into snares

reverence has so much at heart. I have not the least doubt, that as long as we are delighted with these paintings, we shall wish ourselves to be in those fortunate islands, those Elysian scenes, or however else you choose to call them, where the most agreeable life costs so little; we should, however, soon be weary of wishing, and without expecting suddenly to find a beautiful scollopshell car, with six winged unicorns standing

into the ideal worlds, we should condescend to apply ourselves to those methods for procuring a happy life which lie within our power, and are included in the constitution of that world in which we are placed. The arguments of the iman therefore prove too little and too much, and consequently-nothing at all, which was the third proposition I promised to evince. However, we will suppose the worst instance that can be conceived to result from the fictions or descriptions in question; suppose they should have the effect of bringing all the nations that dwell between the Ganges and the Indus to adopt the resolution of

abdicating their former habits of life (although it
is much rather to be feared that my emir-dervise
would convert all Indostan to his fanatical mo-
rality, than that Psammis would persuade the
most inconsiderable province of it to take up his);
we will nevertheless suppose that might be the
case, what mighty harm, does your reverence
think, would ensue? Psammis would then have
effected what the sages of all countries have been
labouring at for some thousands of years with
very moderate success, or do these gentlemen aimspoke the contrary.
at something else than to render more happy the
condition of mankind?

It ill becomes a slave to have any wish but the will of his lord, said Danishmende; but, if I might presume to beg of your majesty some other trifling office.

In fact, said the Sultan smiling, I myself, and the iman with his brethren, would have the most to lose on such a transformation. The danger seems greater than it is, said Nur-mende is the man,-and good night! mahal; sixty millions of people, even though

Not a word more, said Shah Gebal; Danish

THE PRUDENT JUDGE.

AN ORIENTAL TALE.