relation to one another and to the designs of God, it forms a panopticon of which all the parts have a pervasive unity, whilst the bright relief and the shadowy depths are rendered fully effective by the light admitted from above; for, as ought to be the case in a History of the World, the artist takes Revelation as his standing-point, and the religiousness of his tone is in happiest keeping with the vastness and grandeur of his subject.

Ponderous as it is, that great volume would, even now, repay perusal. The first half certainly contains a geat deal which is not history. But even amidst its Talmudical débris and obsolete speculation, a careful search will gather many gems, sententious aphorisms, statesman-like reflections, and fine scintillations of fancy. Nor would it be easy to find more delightful occupation for the long leisure of a winter evening, or for the beguilement of a seaside sojourn, than the books devoted to Greece, Carthage, and Rome. In a letter to his son, Cromwell says, "Take heede of an vnactiue vaine spirit, recreate yourselfe with Sir Walter Raughleyes historie, its a bodye of historie, and will add much more to your vnderstandinge than fragments of storye."* In its spirit and purport the advice was worthy of the masterly and strong-minded writer; and it would be well for the rising race were the time which is often frittered away on 66 fragments of story," devoted to some great "body of history." An hour spent on the dome of St. Paul's on a summer morning will give a better idea of London localities and the surrounding geography than can be got by climbing many steeples; and a month devoted to Guizot or Hallam, Neander or Gibbon, or any comprehensive and far-ranging historian, will do more to expand the

* Judging by its price in the market, the above is a "golden opinion." The original autograph, dated Carrick, April 2, 1650, was sold last October for 271. 68.

faculties, and to make a man at home in the world now existing, than a lifetime expended on isolated tales and individual biographies.

A good narrative flows like a river; and to appreciate its beauties the best plan is to embark and drop down the stream. Few histories have more variety, animation, and grandeur than Sir Walter Raleigh's; and although the brink is often skirted by weeping willows, or shaded by sombre pines, ever and anon it rolls through smiling savannahs, or spreads out into lake-like expanses, where the meditative voyager has no reluctance to linger. Although it can give no idea of the gliding current and stately reaches of the main discourse, the closing paragraph may be quoted as a specimen of the author's eloquence, and of the pensiveness with which it is usually shaded :—

"By this which we have already set down, is seen the beginning and end of the three first Monarchies of the World; whereof the founders and erectors thought that they could never have ended. That of Rome, which made the fourth, was also at this time almost at the highest. We have left it flourishing in the middle of the field, having rooted up or cut down all that kept it from the eyes and admiration of the world. But, after some continuance, it shall begin to lose the beauty it had; the storms of ambition shall beat her great boughs and branches one against another; her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a rabble of barbarous nations enter the field and cut her down.

"Since the fall of the Roman empire, there hath been no state fearful in the East, but that of the Turk; nor in the West any prince that hath spread his wings far over his nest, but the Spaniard; who since the time that Ferdinand expelled the Moors out of Granada, have made many attempts to make themselves masters of all Europe. And it is true that, by the treasures of both Indies, and by the many kingdoms which they possess in Europe, they are at this day the most powerful. . . . These two nations, I say, are at this day the most eminent, and to be regarded; the one seeking to root out the Christian religion altogether, the other the truth and sincere profession thereof; the one to join all Europe to Asia, the other the rest of all Europe to Spain.

"For the rest, if we seek a reason of the succession and continuance

of this boundless ambition in mortal men, we may add to that which hath been already said,—that the kings and princes of the world have always laid before them the actions, but not the ends, of those great ones which preceded them. They are always transported with the glory of the one, but they never mind the misery of the other till they find the experience in themselves. They neglect the advice of God while they enjoy life, or hope of it, but they follow the counsel of Death upon the first approach. .. It was Death which, opening the conscience of Charles the Fifth, made him enjoin his son Philip to restore Navarre; and King Francis the First, of France, to command that justice should be done upon the murderers of the Protestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till then be neglected. It is, therefore, Death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects, and humbles them at the instant. He takes account of the rich, and proves him a beggar. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness, and they acknowledge it.

"Oh, eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none have dared, thou hast done; and whom all have flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet."

Raleigh contemplated a second and third volume, and it is believed that he had gone far to complete his design; but there is now no trace of the manuscript. A victim of the little-mindedness of James I., he perished on the scaffold Oct. 29, 1618, four years after the publication of the first volume of his history.

ON THE POPULATIONS OF THE RUSSIAN

EMPIRE.

No. III.

THE KOSAK, CAUCASIAN, SIBERIAN, AND NORTH
AMERICAN POPULATIONS.

The Kosaks.-Kosak is a Tartar word,-a word originally foreign to the Russian language, but now more Russian than Tartar. However, if we look to the vast Steppes of Independent Tartary, we shall find that one of its populations are the Kirghis Kosaks; and these are as little Russian, and as much Turk, as are the Osmanlis themselves. The primitive meaning of the word is said to be horse-man; then robber; then light-cavalry-man; such as are the Kosaks of the present time.

Wherever there is a dangerous frontier there are Kosaks to guard it, so that they are like the Marchmen or Borderers of old; settlers on a given tract of country with certain duties to fulfil-with the charge of keeping watch and ward against the frontagers. Thus, there are Kosaks in Siberia, and Kosaks at the foot of Caucasus-the one as guard against the Tartars, Mongols, and Chinese; the others, as a thorn in the side of the Circassians, Tshetshentsh, and Lesgians. These are the Kosaks of the Black Sea, and of the Kuban; the men whose hand is against Shamyl, and against whom Shamyl raises his hand. They are the Kosaks on, what we may call, active service.

This is not the case with all of them. Where the frontier is peaceable, they have nothing to do, but to make the most of their privileges-the free distillation of brandy

being one of them. A Kosak, for instance, on the Chinese frontier has an easy time of it. Then there are the Don Kosaks. These live easier still-for the frontier has advanced beyond them, and their March or Border gives them as little to do as does the Scottish Border of the nineteenth century to the descendants of the Percies and the Howards. Compared with the men on the Kuban and Terek, they are as militia-men to soldiers of the line; and the Kosaks of the Caucasus respect them accordingly. But they have been a famous generation in their day, i.e. when Astrakhan was a powerful Empire, and the Crimea an independent Khanate.

More famous still were the Kosaks of the Ukraine (Ukraine meaning March or Border)-the Zaporogians as they were called, from living beyond (Za) the waterfalls (porog) of the Dnieper. It was the Poles that kept their swords so sharp-the Poles on one side and the Turks of the Crimea on the others. It was these, too, who most especially magnified the word Kosak as a name of fear. It need not now, we are told by the best judges, sound formidable. Except where the chronic warfare of the Caucasian frontier has kept him in exercise, the Kosak has grown degenerate drunken, dull, deficient in physical force, and, on the strength of his privileges being curtailed, in some cases, discontented.

The Kosaks lead us to

The Caucasians, partly reduced, partly independent; and western, northern, and southern, as the case may be ; northern on the drainage of the Kuban and Terek, southern on that of the Kur.

Western (north-western) Caucasus is représented by Circassia; Eastern by Lesgistan, or the country of the Lesgians, with whom we must take the Tshetshentsh, or Mizhjeji tribes; differing in language, but allied in the