es, and gallery 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. He heard with great interest the royal assent given to a bill for raising fifteen hundred thousand pounds by land tax, and learned with amazement that this sum, though larger by one half than the whole revenue which he could wring from the population of the immense empire of which he was absolute master, was but a small part of what the Commons of England voluntarily granted every year to their constitutional king.

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 afterward known that he took no notice of the fine pictures with which the palace was adorned. But over the chimney of the royal sitting-room was a plate which, by an ingenious machinery, indicated the direction of the wind; and with this plate he was in raptures.

He soon became weary of his residence. He found that he was too far from the objects of his curiosity, and too near to the crowds to which he was himself an object of curiosity. He accordingly removed to Deptford, and was there lodged in the house of John Evelyn, a house which had long been a favorite resort of men of letters, men of taste, and men of science.(') Here Peter gave himself up to his favorite pursuits. He navigated a yacht every day up and down the river. His apartment was crowded with models of three-deckers and twodeckers, frigates, sloops, and fire-ships. The only Englishman

(1) John Evelyn, of Deptford, and of Wotton in Surrey, was author of the celebrated Memoirs. When the Deptford Dock-yard was closed by Mr. Gladstone's government, Evelyn's descendant bought back the family property from the public.

of rank in whose society he seemed to take much pleasure was the eccentric Caermarthen, whose passion for the sea bore some resemblance to his own, and who was very competent to give an opinion about every part of a ship from the stem to the stern.(') Caermarthen, indeed, became so great a favorite that he prevailed on the Czar to consent to the admission of a limited quantity of tobacco into Russia. There was reason to apprehend that the Russian clergy would cry out against any relaxation of the ancient rule, and would strenuously maintain that the practice of smoking was condemned by that text which declares that man is defiled, not by those things which enter in at the mouth, but by those things which proceed out of it. This apprehension was expressed by a deputation of merchants who were admitted to an audience of the Czar; but they were re-assured by the air with which he told them that he knew how to keep priests in order.

He was indeed so free from any bigoted attachment to the religion in which he had been brought up, that both Papists and Protestants hoped at different times to make him a proselyte. Burnet, commissioned by his brethren, and impelled, no doubt, by his own restless curiosity and love of meddling, repaired to Deptford, and was honored with several audiences. The Czar could not be persuaded to exhibit himself at St. Paul's; but he was induced to visit Lambeth Palace. There he saw the ceremony of ordination performed, and expressed warm approbation of the Anglican ritual. Nothing in England astonished him so much as the archiepiscopal library. It was the first good collection of books that he had seen; and he declared that he had never imagined that there were so many printed volumes in the world.

The impression which he made on Burnet was not favorable. The good bishop could not understand that a mind which seemed to be chiefly occupied with questions about the best place for a capstan, and the best way of rigging a jurymast, might be capable, not merely of ruling an empire, but

() Macaulay elsewhere speaks of Lord Caermarthen as a "bold, volatile, and somewhat eccentric young man,” who "was fond of the sea, lived much among sailors, and was the proprietor of a small yacht of marvelous speed."

of creating a nation. He complained that he had gone to see a great prince, and had found only an industrious shipwright. Nor does Evelyn seem to have formed a much more favorable opinion of his august tenant. It was, indeed, not in the character of tenant that the Czar was likely to gain the good word of civilized men. With all the high qualities which were peculiar to himself, he had all the filthy habits which were then common among his countrymen. To the end of his life, while disciplining armies, founding schools, framing codes, organizing tribunals, building cities in deserts, joining distant seas by artificial rivers, he lived in his palace like a hog in a sty; and, when he was entertained by other sovereigns, never failed to leave on their tapestried walls and velvet state beds unequivocal proof that a savage had been there. Evelyn's house was left in such a state that the Treasury quieted his complaints with a considerable sum of money.

Toward the close of March the Czar visited Portsmouth, saw a sham sea-fight at Spithead, watched every movement of the contending fleets with intense interest, and expressed in warm terms his gratitude to the hospitable government which had provided so delightful a spectacle for his amusement and instruction. After passing more than three months in England, he departed in high good humor.

MONTAGUE'S UNPOPULARITY.-THE ADVANTAGES OF THE ALTERNATIONS OF PARTY GOVERNMENT. 1698.

[History of England, Chapter XXIV.]

HITHERTO Montague's career had been more splendidly and uninterruptedly successful than that of any member of the House of Commons since the House of Commons had begun to exist. And now fortune had turned. By the Torics he had long been hated as a Whig; and the rapidity of his rise, the brilliancy of his fame, and the unvarying good luck which

seemed to attend him, had made many Whigs his enemies. He was absurdly compared to the upstart favorites of a former age, Carr and Villiers, men whom he resembled in nothing but in the speed with which he had mounted from a humble to a lofty position. They had, without rendering any service to the State, without showing any capacity for the conduct of great affairs, been elevated to the highest dignities, in spite of the murmurs of the whole nation, by the mere partiality of the sovereign. Montague owed every thing to his own merit, and to the public opinion of his merit. With his master he appears to have had very little intercourse, and none that was not official. He was, in truth, a living monument of what the Revolution had done for the country. The Revolution had found him a young student in a cell by the Cam, poring on the diagrams which illustrated the newly discovered laws of centripetal and centrifugal force, writing little copies of verses, and indulging visions of parsonages with rich glebes, and of closes in old cathedral towns; had developed in him new talents; had held out to him the hope of prizes of a very different sort from a rectory or a prebend. His eloquence had gained for him the ear of the Legislature. His skill in fiscal and commercial affairs had won for him the confidence of the City. During four years he had been the undisputed leader of the majority of the House of Commons; and every one of those years he had made memorable by great parliamentary victories, and by great public services. It should seem that his success ought to have been gratifying to the nation, and especially to that assembly of which he was the chief ornament, of which, indeed, he might be called the creature. The representatives of the people ought to have been well pleased to find that their approbation could, in the new order of things, do for the man whom they delighted to honor all that the mightiest of the Tudors could do for Leicester, or the most arbitrary of the Stuarts for Strafford. But, strange to say, the Commons soon began to regard with an evil eye that greatness which was their own work. The fault, indeed, was partly Montague's. With all his ability, he had not the wisdom to avert, by suavity and moderation, that curse, the in

separable concomitant of prosperity and glory, which the ancients personified under the name of Nemesis. His head, strong for all the purposes of debate and arithmetical calculation, was weak against the intoxicating influence of success and fame. He became proud even to insolence. Old companions, who, a very few years before, had punned and rhymed with him in garrets, had dined with him at cheap ordinaries, had sat with him in the pit, and had lent him some silver to pay his seamstress's bill, hardly knew their friend Charles in the great man who could not forget for one moment that he was First Lord of the Treasury, that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he had been a regent of the kingdom, that he had founded the Bank of England and the new East India Company, that he had restored the currency, that he had invented the Exchequer bills, that he had planned the General Mortgage, and that he had been pronounced, by a solemn vote of the Commons, to have deserved all the favors which he had received from the crown. It was said that adıniration of himself and contempt of others were indicated by all his gestures, and written in all the lines of his face. The very way in which the little jackanapes, as the hostile pamphleteers loved to call him, strutted through the lobby, making the most of his small figure, rising on his toe, and perking up his chin, made him enemies. Rash and arrogant sayings were imputed to him, and perhaps invented for him. He was accused of boasting that there was nothing that he could not carry through the House of Commons, that he could turn the majority round his finger. A crowd of libelers assailed him with much more than political hatred. Boundless rapacity and corruption were laid to his charge. He was represented as selling all the places in the revenue department for three years' purchase. The opprobrious nickname of Filcher was fastened on him. His luxury, it was said, was not less inordinate than his avarice. There was indeed an attempt made at this time to raise against the leading Whig politicians and their allies, the great moneyed men of the city, a cry much resembling the cry which, seventy or eighty years later, was raised against the English nabobs. Great wealth, suddenly acquired, is not often enjoyed