ton, for four years, supported it by his vote, and by his official cooperation. And this example is now recommended to the imitation of the British youth by a venerable Prelate, with the weight which belongs to his station and his age. Let it be remembered, that a civil war is no object of lukewarm feelings to men who have any affection for their country. Wherever such men do not approve, they must abhor it.

In the very worst times of Roman slavery, the great historian has imagined a speech for one of the sycophants and accomplices of Sejanus, which many readers have considered as an exaggeration of the base principles of that gang of miscreants.Non est nostrûm æstimare quem supra cæteros et quibus de 'causis extollas. Tibi summum rerum judicium Dii dedere: 'nobis obsequii gloria relicta est.'

If such maxims were confined to grossly profligate persons, they could excite no surprise, and they would produce comparatively little evil. But the mischief of the case is, that they are the natural growth of a deceived conscience, in men otherwise moral, who have lived in courts, and who have long been accustomed to exercise authority. A strong tendency towards such principles, is the necessary result of their situation; and they find their way into the conviction of many who have the discretion not to publish them to the world, and who have not perhaps the boldness to avow them distinctly to their own. minds. In this respect, the cause of the people is more unfortunate than that of authority. The extravagances of demagogues are necessarily public. They are instantly spread through every part of a country. They are quoted from generation to generation, by all those whose vocation it is to render Liberty odious or contemptible. It is otherwise with the equally extravagant opinions of courtiers and statesmen. They conceal their obnoxious singularities; and it is very seldom that we catch so clear a glimpse of the interior of their minds, as in this volume, which shows us a man who, if consistent with himself, must have been a partizan of Despotism; though, during his whole life, he must have employed the language of the British Constitution, and often extolled its transcendent excellency. The favourers of absolute monarchy, indeed, must generally dissemble their opinions. Those of a more popular government must seek to publish and to disseminate them. The latter, therefore, can never be more numerous than they seem. The former always are so; and it is extremely probable, that those who incline towards Regal Despotism, and whose measures would terminate in its establishment, are more numerous in England than the partizans of a mere democratical government; as it is quite cerVOL. XXV. No. 49. M

tain, that in all ordinary times they are far more dangerous from their rank, their wealth, their talents, and their influence.

The first and second editions of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's Memoirs vary from each other in some particulars which require to be observed. The work itself may be shortly characterized as an attempt to revive all the forgotten slander of his time, under pretence of discovering its secret history. For this purpose the author appears to have industriously employed forty years of his life among the fourth-rate circles of London newsmongers. The fruit of this useful occupation is this book; of which a very short notice would have been sufficient to expose the worthlessness, if it had not obtained the unmerited honour of a prosecution for libel. But as it has been raised to this undeserved importance, it is necessary to warn provincials and foreigners against it. This distinction was brought on Sir Nathaniel by the passages of the following extract which are within brackets, and which he has omitted in the second edition; in the preface to which, the omission is ascribed solely to respect for Count Woronzow's public as well as private character, and to implicit confidence in his veracity,' without any intimation that this respect and confidence had been aided by the terrors of a criminal prosecution. In the same preface he chooses not to inform us, that Count Woronzow having desired to know the name of that agent of the Duke of Wirtemberg who possessed such talents, spirit, zeal and activity, and who had traced the imputation to Count Woronzow,' Sir Nathaniel informed the Count, that he had forgotten the name of his informant!

The pretended Princess Tarakanoff, and the first Grand Dutchess of Russia, were not the only females of high rank, whom Catherine the Second is accused of having caused to be put out of life. Augusta Caroline, eldest daughter of the late celebrated Duke of • Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, who fell at Auerstadt, perished in a manner equally mysterious, and, as some persons believe, not less tragical. This Princess, who was born towards the end of the year 1764, before she attained the age of sixteen, was married to the present King, at that time Prince of Wirtemberg. He was then about twenty-six years old and might be considered as eventual presumptive heir to his uncle the reigning Prince of Wirtemberg, Charles Eugene. When I was at the Court of Brunswic, in the • Autumn of 1777, at which time the Princess was near thirteen, I saw her more than once, in the apartments of her mother. She had a very fair complexion, light hair, pleasing features, and an interesting figure. Some years after her marriage, she accompanied the Prince her husband into Russia, when he entered into the military service of that Crown, to the heir of which, as has been already stated, his sister was married. They resided during some time

⚫ at Petersburgh, or in other parts of the Russian Empire; but in ⚫ 1787, he quitted Catherine's service and dominions, leaving his wife behind, of whose conduct, it was asserted, he had great reason to complain. They had then three children living, two sons and a daughter, whom the Empress permitted him to take away when he withdrew from her employ; but she retained the Princess under her ⚫ own protection. At the end of a year or two it was notified to the • Prince of Wirtemberg, as well as to the Duke of Brunswic, by order of the Empress, that the wife of the one and the daughter of the other, was no more. The Duke her father immediately demanded, in ⚫ the most pressing terms, that her body might be delivered up to him; but this request was never granted, nor did he even receive any such authentic proofs of her decease, and still less, of the circumstances ⚫ attending it, as could satisfy him on the subject. Doubts were not ⚫ only entertained whether she died a natural death, but it remained ⚫ questionable whether she did not still survive, and was not existing ⚫ in Siberia, or in the polar deserts, like many other illustrious exiles ⚫ of her own family, who had been banished thither by the Empress Elizabeth, when she ascended the throne in 1741, on the deposition of Ivan. I have heard this subject agitated between 1789 and 1795, when great uncertainty prevailed respecting the point; though it seemed to be generally believed that she was dead, and that her end had been accelerated or produced by poison. It was natural to ask, Who had caused the poison to be administered? Was the Empress herself the perpetrator of this crime? And even if that fact should be admitted, was not the Prince of Wirtemberg tacitly a party to its commission? Though no positive solution of these questions could be given, yet when the fact of the Prin'cess's death came to be universally understood, many persons doubted the innocence of her husband. The King of Great Britain ⚫ himself was strongly imbued with the opinion, of which he made ⚫ no secret in 1796, when the first overtures were begun on the part ' of the Court of Wirtemberg, for the marriage of their Prince to the • Princess Royal. George the Third was so prepossessed against him ⚫ for having been supposed privy to the death of his wife, that he 'would not listen to the proposal. In order to remove an obsta'cle of such magnitude, the Prince sent over to London a private agent, instructed to ascertain from what quarter the accusation came ; and furnished with documents for disproving it. That 'agent I personally knew, while he was here, employed on the above 'mission: he possessed talents, spirit, zeal, and activity; all which he exerted in the cause. Having clearly traced the imputation up to Count Woronzoff, who long had been, and who then was, the • Russian Envoy at our Court, he induced the Count, by very strong 'personal remonstrances, accompanied as we must suppose by proofs, to declare his conviction of the Prince's innocence, and utter inorance of the nature or manner of his wife's end; it followed of course, that Catherine, under whose exclusive care she remained,

could alone be accused of having produced it. The agent finally satisfied his Majesty, that the Empress, and she only, caused the Princess to be despatched, without the participation, consent, or knowledge of her husband; if, after all, she did not die a natural death. In May 1797, the Princess Royal of England was married to the Prince of Wirtemberg, who, before the conclusion of that year, became Duke, by the decease of Frederic Eugene his father. Early in the summer of 1798, a gentleman, conversing with me on the subject of the first Princess of Wirtemberg's death, assured me that he had seen and perused all the papers relative to her imprisonment and decease; which, at the desire of the Prince, and by his authority, had been transmitted to George the Third; who, after a full inspection of them, became perfectly convinced of his having had no part in that dark and melancholy transaction: lastly, he gave it as his opinion, that Catherine had alone caused her to be poisoned, unless her decease résulted from natural causes.'

After telling a long and very dull story in the name of this gentleman, of the Prince's marriage, of his wife's detention at the court of Catherine, and the subsequent corruption of her morals, Sir N. makes his informer say

About a fortnight after his departure, the Princess, without any reason assigned, was sent, by the order of Catherine, to the Castle of Lhode, about two hundred miles from Petersburgh; but in what part or province of that vast empire, I am unable to assert. There it seems, under close confinement, she remained about eighteen months; but all her German attendants, male and female, were withdrawn from her: At the end of that time the Prince received letters from the Empress, informing him that his wife was dead of an hemorrhage. Similar information was conveyed by Catherine to the Duke of Brunswick, the unfortunate Princess's father. No particulars were stated; nor, as far as ap pears, were any other circumstances ever known respecting her. Thus situated, the Duke of Brunswick, conscious that he could 'neither bring his daughter to life, nor call the Empress to account, acquiesced patiently in the calamity: but, during some years, he did not communicate to the Dutchess his wife, the intelligence of her daughter's death. She therefore remained in ignorance of the catastrophe, and continued to believe that the Princess was still 'confined at Lhode, or somewhere in the deserts of Russia. The Dutchess used even to speak of her as being alive in Siberia; and this fact will account for the universality of the report.

If the account given me by Sir John Dick, relative to the supposed Princess Tarrahanoff, left many circumstances dark and unexplained in the history of that female, it must be owned, that after considering this narrative, no less uncertainty still pervades the story of the Princess of Wirtemberg. It is natural to ask, Why did Catherine cause the Princess to be imprisoned or poison

ed? Her gallantries, however culpable or notorious they might be, yet constituted no crime against the Empress of Russia; who 'exhibited, in her own conduct, an example of emancipation from all restraint and decorum in the article of female irregularities. It ' was the Prince her husband whom she had dishonoured and in'censed. What proof is adduced, except assertion, that he did not ⚫ know of the intentions of Catherine to confine and banish her? In the case of Peter the Third, and of Ivan, as well as in the instances of the pretended Princess Tarrahanoff, and of the first Grand 'Dutchess of Russia, the motives of her commission of a crime, by 'putting them out of life, are obvious; but none such appear in the instance before us. There are, moreover, other particulars 'which may lead us to hesitate in forming a decisive opinion on the subject. The death of the Princess of Wirtemberg at Lhode 'was announced, and stated in all the German Almanacks, printed by authority, to have taken place on the 27th of September 1788. Her husband remained a widower near eight years after that event, before he attempted to obtain the hand of the Princess Royal of Great Britain. During so long a period of time, he seems to ' have adopted no measures for repelling the calumnious reports cir'culated all over Europe, of his participation in the death of his wife; reports which had made the most unfavourable impression e⚫ven in England. It is true that George the Third became convinc'ed of his innocence, before he consented to the union of the Prince 'with his eldest daughter. But though the King yielded to the proofs brought upon this point, yet it is well known that he did it with reluctance and hesitation, rather giving way to the Prince's avowed wishes on the subject, than himself desiring or approving the match. So far, indeed, was he from pushing forward the alliance, that I know from good authority he offered the Princess, after all the preliminaries were adjusted, and the marriage was fixed, to break it off, if 'she chose to decline it, taking on himself personally, the whole responsibility of its failure. [There remains still another important fact which merits consideration. We have seen that Count Woronzoff originally maintained his Sovereign's innocence of the Princess's death, though he was afterwards induced to depart from that assertion. But when did he make such an admission? Much depends on the time; for Catherine died on the 6th of November 1796; and after her death, a crime more or less might not appear to be of much consequence, where so many could be justly attributed to her. ] ⚫ Certain it is, that the negociation advanced much more rapidly after the decease of the Empress; and on the 18th of May 1797, the nup'tials were solemnized. Over the nature, as well as over the author of the first Princess of Wirtemberg's death, a deep or impenetrable veil is drawn. We must leave it to time to unfold, if it does not ra⚫ther remain, as is more probable, for ever problematical. '

To make any remarks on a prosecution pending in the highest criminal court of England, might appear to be inconsistent