not only our wealth, but our mercantile navigation must depend, and on that navigation our naval strength, the glory and fecurity of our country. To merchants the landed Gentlemen are indebted for their splendor. Commerce more than trebles the value of folid property, and is the intire fupport of the imaginary. In fhort, every thing dear and valuable to us depends upon it. Our climate, it is true, is fo temperate, and our foil fo fruitful, that food and raiment can hardly

ever be wanting to the industrious or estated natives, but our dignity, pomp, power, and weight would be very little indeed, without foreign traffic; and, fhould that part of it we poffefs be fuffered at any time to get into the hands of our natural enemies, it is much to be feared, from the prefent fyftem of European politics, that not only our liberty, but the independency also of moft other nations, would be loft.

virtue is no

To be able to difcourfe ofs virtuous:

By doing it we fometimes gain the efteem of perfons of probity; but we do ourselves more prejudice than we imagine; we content ourfelves with appearing to be what we are not, whereas we fhould defire to be what we appear.

In the most pleafing and charming folitude we are often difappointed of that repofe which we hoped to enjoy, because it depends much more upon ourselves than the tranquillity of the retirement. How can barely feparating ourselves from the noife and buttle of the world appease the trouble of our mind, if our reafon does not come to relieve it?

We generally condemn with greater warmth the defects we find in ourselves, than thofe from which we think ourselves exempt, but in vain do we endeavour to disguise ourfelves. We daily betray ourselves by fomething or other. It is a much greater restraint to be at the perpetual expence of hypocrity to adjust all our looks and motions, than to hate our vices heartily and in good earnest,

The heart may be allowed to have an inclination for any thing that pleases and charms at first. It has attained its end when it has found pleasure; but then the mind fhould not ftop there, and nothing but truth ought to fatisfy it. For this reafon the wifeft philofophers fo often advise us not to judge by the manners, but by the things themselves.

True uncontrouled liberty, a greatness of foul which elevates both the mind and heart, is feldom to be found but in Princes. All other conditions are, as it were, prifons, wherein the foul is in a manner cramped and ftraightened. The former for the most part vaingloriously flatter themselves, and the others quarrel with and rail at Fortune, to obtain fome of her favours. But, let a man's condition be what it will, he may enjoy a true and perfect liberty, if he never disturbs his reft to court the favour of great men and the presents of Fortune.

The ancient philofophers were ftrangely

puzzled to find out the principle of all things

fome maintained it to be fire, and fome to be water; in fhort, all of them had their different opinions. Suppofe any one of them had difcovered what this principle was, nay, and had demonstrated it, would he have advanced a step the farther in the knowledge of the true good? For my part, I think the Legiflator of the Jews went a better way to work, who, without amufing me with any of their impertinent queftions, gives me all at once a knowledge of God, that in the beginning created the heaven and the earth.

All your actions will appear at one time or another, and nothing can continue hidden always. For this reafon, do nothing which you fear men should know: What you are afraid God should know, you ought not fo much as think of.

Virtue is never more fafe than when it is afraid to appear upon the theatre of the world, where it is too much exposed to vanity. All other vices are propagated by vices, but vanity fubfifts and grows by the fhew we make of virtue.

We complain of all, yet ought to complain of none but ourselves. We impute our calamities to ill fortune; nay, even in thofe vices that are of our own nurfing up, we lay all the blame upon occafions and emergent accidents. However, there never happens any misfortune to a wife man; and, as to what regards occafions, they do not render a man weak, but only discover his weakness.

Examples ought never to pafs for laws. men are too fubject to infirmities to ferve as copies for others to follow. In the greatest virtues there will be eternally some mixture of imperfection; and a man is in danger of taking his example from the blind side he discovers; but reason and justice can never miflead him. Ill examples cannot hurt one that makes ufe of his reafon: Neither the quality nor number of thofe that set these examples are authentic enough to recom

mend

mend them: Grandeur of birth does not take away their infamy, and custom cannot permit that which is contrary to reafon and juftice: So that the most fashionable vices are but fo many irregularities we ought to avoid, and not laws we ought to follow.

We do not always converfe with men of reafon to learn what we ought to do, but it is good to learn fometimes of others what we ought to avoid.

Do not complain of another for not keeping your fecret, but first complain of yourfelf. How can you imagine a stranger will be more faithful to you than you are to yourfelf? We have no reafon to hope that others will keep that which ourselves first abandoned.

It is a difficult matter to reprove a man feasonably, and to give advice. It is no lefs difficult to be reproved, and to receive advice. To fave yourself this double pain, take such pains to know yourfelf, that you may have no time left upon your hands to examine the faults of others; and correct yourself in fuch a manner that you may be above cenfure.

All men would be happy; but the greateft part of our life is fpent in feeking after happiness, and frequently it fo falls out,

that we know not where to fix.

There are inconveniencies in every thing. If we have no forefight, we are surprised; if our forefight is too nice, we are miferable. We are foftened by pleasure; we are caft down by grief.

I fhould be well, cries one, if I had but my health; and I, cries another, if I were but rich: But no-body fays, if I lived according to reafon.

Men take a pleasure in reproving others, but cannot endure to be reproved themfelves. We justify ourselves with heat; but ought to have a vast stock of it to be as ready to justify others.

We live in the midst of too many revolutions to continue firm in our defigns: We alter and change in spite of ourselves: Time, Fortune, and the seasons confpire against our conftancy.

In converfation we take more care to fhew our wit and learning, than to instruct ourfelves. We do not feek after truth but applaufe, at least after approbation. We do not confider conversation as one of the fureft remedies to cure our ignorance, but as an opportunity to retail that little we think we know.

We frequently stop at incidental quef

tions; and it often happens with learned men, as with lawyers at the bar, where the formalities of the trial require as long a difcuffion as the merits of the caufe. The latter are necellary to prescribe bounds to the wranglings of the parties concerned, and to fix the legal methods of defending mens rights; whereas the formalities of the learned are a horrible mortification to those that feriously feek inftruction.

A man might very well wish to be of an eafy temper, if it were only to live agreeably with himlelf: For, when once he abandons himfelf to the caprices of his ill humour, he cannot flake it off whenever he pleases, and he justly fuffers that which he made others fuffer.

If we do not know how to defpife sometimes and be without fuperfluous things, they become necessary to us at last, by virtue of our being fo long accustomed to them; we are impatient at any thing that incommodes us, and faint under the least neceffity. We must be perfecuted every day by what they

call pomp and magnificence; whereas other men, who live not in this foft and delicate manner, find pleasure with more eafe, and enjoy their fortune with lefs pain.

It is no lefs a defect to think the worse of ourfelves when we have not riches, than to think ourselves honourable because we poffefs them. Though it fhould be our miffortune to want the common conveniencies of life, and upon that fcore should suffer a great deal of mifery, yet we ought not therefore to look upon ourselves as infamous, any more than for being fick, or not so well made as the generality of men are. True merit ought never to lose the leaft grain of its intrinfic value, no more than a diamond, which is not always fet in gold.

We scarce know any perfons well, but fuch as we have been long acquainted with. When we fee a man do a good office to another, we are not immediately to pass a decifive fentence upon him: It is very often nothing but a feigned part which he acts. Integrity is far above fuch little tricks; it takes fuch extraordinary care to be regular, that it never leaves one action either to chance or paffion.

up

In the commerce of life the leaft false step is obferved. When this misfortune happens, it is not in a man's power to raise himself again as he pleafes: For a fall is like a wound; it is almost impoffible to heal it; ut it will leave a lafting fcar behind it.

Voltaire's

Of the Ancestors of PETER the Great.

PETER's family was on the throne fince

the year 1613. Ruffia before this time had experienced revolutions, which ftill kept a reformation and arts at a distance. Such is the fate of all human focieties. There were never worse troubles in any kingdom. The tyrant Boris Godonou had affaffinated, in 1597, the lawful heir Demetrius, and ufurped the empire. A young monk affumed the name of Demetrius, pretended to be the Prince that escaped out of the hands of the affaffins, and, affifted by the Poles and a great party tyrants have always against them, he expelled the ufurper, and ufurped himself the crown. His imposture was difcovered as foon as he became mafter, and, the people being diffatisfied with him, he was affaffinated. Three other spurious Demetrius's fucceffively started up. This feries of impoftures fuppofed a country over run with diforders. The lefs men are civilised, the more eafy it is to impofe upon them. It may be judged to what degree these frauds increased the confufion, and with it the public calamities. The Poles, who began the revolution by fetting up the first pretended Demetrius, were on the point of reigning in Ruffia. The Swedes divided the spoils on the fide of Finland, and pretended alfo to the throne. The ftate was threatened with an intire ruin.

In the midst of these misfortunes, an Affembly, compofed of the principal Boyards, elected for Sovereign, in 1613, a youth of 15 years of age. This did not feem to be a fure means of putting an end to the troubles. The name of this youth was Michael Romanow; he was grandfather of the Czar Peter and fon of the Archbishop of Rostou, furnamed Philaretes, and of a nun, related by the mother's fide to the former Czars.

This Archbishop was a powerful Lord, and was forced by the tyrant Boris to become a prieft; his wife Sheremeto was also obliged to take the veil; fuch was the ancient custom of the western Chriftian Latin tyrants: That of the Greek Chriftians was to put out the eyes. The tyrant Demetrius conferred the archbishopric of Roftou on Philaretes, and fent him Ambassador into Poland. The Poles, then at war with the Ruffians, imprifoned him, contrary to the law of nations, which indeed all these people were ignorant of. It was during his detention that the young Romanow, his fon, was elected Czar. The father was exchanged for fome Polish prifoners, and the young

Czar created him Patriarch: In short, he became the real Sovereign under the name of his fon.

If fuch a government may appear fingular to strangers, what will they think of the Czar Michael Romanow's marriage? The Ruffian Monarchs did not feek out for wives in other states fince the year 1490. It feems that, after they were poffeffed of Cafan and Aftracan, they followed in almost all particulars the Afiatic cuftoms, especially that of intermarrying only with their fubjects.

What ftill more resembles the customs of ancient Afia is, that, to marry a Czar, the most beautiful young women of the provinces were brought to court; the great Miftrefs of the court received them into her apartments, lodged them feparately, and made them all eat together: The Czar faw them, either under a borrowed name, or without difguife: The wedding-day was fixed, though the choice was not yet known; and, on that day, a wedding-garment was prefented to her on whom the fecret choice had fallen; other cloaths were diftributed to the pretenders, who returned home. There have been four examples of fuch marriages.

It was in this manner that Michael Romanow married Eudoxia, the daughter of a poor Gentleman called Strefhneu. He was cultivating his lands himself, with his domeltics, when the Chamberlains, fent by the Czar with prefents, informed him that his daughter was on the throne. The name of this Princess is still dear to Ruffia. All this is foreign to our manners, and yet is not less refpectable.

It is neceffary to say, that, before the election of Romanow, a confiderable party had elected the Prince Ladiflaus, fon of Sigif mond III, King of Poland. The neigh bouring provinces to Sweden had offered the crown to a brother of Gultavus Adolphus. Thus Ruffia was in the fame fituation Poland has often been in, where the right of electing a Monarch proves generally the fource of civil wars. But the Ruffians did not imitate the Poles, who make a contract with the King they elect. Though they had experienced the fatal effects of tyranny, they fubmitted to a young man without requiring any thing of him.

Ruffia was never an elective kingdom; but, the male line of the ancient Sovereigns having failed, and fix Czars, or Pretenders, having perished unfortunately in the late troubles, there was a neceffity for electing a Monarch. This election caufed new wars with Poland and Sweden, which fought for

their

their pretended rights to the throne of Ruffia. Such rights, of governing a nation against its will, never fubfift for any long time. The Poles, on one fide, after pillaging the country as far as Mofcou, which was the way of conducting military expeditions in thofe days, concluded a truce of 14 years: Poland by this truce remained in poffeffion of the duchy of Smolensko, where the Borifthenes has its fource. The Swedes, having made peace alfo, remained poffeffed of Ingria, and deprived the Ruffians of all communication with the Baltic; fo that this empire remained more than ever separated from the rest of Europe.

Michael Romanow reigned quiet fince this peace; and he made no change in his ftates that either corrupted or perfected the adminiftration. After his death, which happened in 1645, his fon, Alexis Michaelowitz, or the ion of Michael, about 16 years of age, reigned by hereditary right.

Alexis married as his father, and chofe the most amiable among the maidens brought to him. He efpoufed one of the two daughters of the Boyard Miloflaufki, in 1647, and afterwards the daughter of the Boyard Narifkin, in 1671. His favourite, Morofou, married Miloflaufki's other daughter. We cannot give this Morolou a more proper title than that of Vifir, becaufe he was defpotic in the empire, and his power occafioned revolts among the Strelitz and people, as it often happens at Conftantinople.

The reign of Alexis was troubled by bloody and furious feditions, by inteftine and foreign wars. A Chief of the Coffacs, about the Tanais, intended to make himself King of Aftracan: For a long time he in fpired great terror; but at laft, conquered and taken, was put to death, as all like him, for whom there is only either a throne cr fcaffold. About 12,000, it is faid, of his partiians were hanged on the high road of Aftracan. This was a part of the world where men, being the leaft governed by the precepts of moral life, could be reftrained by nothing but punishment; and from rigorous punishment fprung fervitude, and the fecret Tury of revenge.

Alexis had a war with Poland; it was profperous, and was terminated by a peace, which fecured to him the poffeffion of SmoJensko, Kiovia, and the Ukrain; but he was unfortunate against the Swedes, and the bounds of his empire were always much freightened on that fide.

The Turks were then more to be feared; they fell upon Poland, and threatened the Czar's territories which lay near Crim Tartary, the ancient Taurica Cherfonefus. In 1671 they took the important city of Kami

niek, and all the dependencies of Poland in Ukrain. The Coffacs of the Ukrain, who would never accept of matters, did not know then whether they belonged to Turky, Poland, or Ruffia. The Sultan Mahomet IV, who had conquered the Poles, and juft impofed a tribute on them, demanded, with all the arrogance of an Ottoman and conqueror, that the Czar fhould evacuate all he poffef fed in the Ukrain; but he was answered with the fame haughtiness. Sovereigns at that time did not know how to difguife their pride by the exterior of decorum. The Sultan in his letter treated the Sovereign of the Ruffias as only a Chriftian Hofpodar, giving himfelf the title of Moft glorious Majefty, and King of the univerfe. The Czar answered, That he was not made to fubmit to fuch a Mahometan dog, and that his fèymetar was as good as the Grand Seignior's fabre.'

Alexis then formed a defign which feemed to prognofticate the future influence of Ruffia in Chriftian Europe: He fent Ambaffadors to the Pope, and to all the great Sove. ́ reigns of Europe, except France, then in alliance with the Turks, in order to form a league against the Ottoman Port. His Ambaffadors had no other fuccefs at Rome, than not being obliged to comply with the ceremony of kiffing the Pope's feet; and elfewhere they obtained only unavailing wishes: The quarrels of Chriftian Princes, and the interefts arifing from thefe quarrels, leaving them generally incapable of uniting against the enemy of Chriftendom.

The Ottomans, however, threatened to fubject Poland, for refuting to pay the tribute. The Czar Alexis affifted the Poles, on the fide of Crim Tartary; and John Sobicfki, the General of the Crown, in 1674, washed away the difgrace of his country, in the blood of the Turks, at the famous battle of Chokfim, which opened the way for him to the crown. Alexis difputed it with him, and propofed to unite his vaft eftates to Poland, but his offer was not accepted. He was very worthy of this new kingdom, by the manner he governed his own. It was he who first digefted a code of laws, though imperfect; he introduced manufactures of linen and filk; he peopled the defarts about the Volga and Kama with Lithuanian, Polifh, and Tartar families, taken in his wars : All prifoners before his time were the flaves of thofe into whofe hands they fell; Alexis made them husbandmen: He established military difcipline in his armies as much as he poffibly could. In fine, he was worthy of being the father of Peter the Great; but he had not time to perfect any of his underta-kings; an untimely death cut him off at the

age

age of 46, in the beginning of the year 1677.

After Alexis, fon of Michael, all fell again into confufion: He left, by his first marriage, two Princes and fix Princeffes. The eldeft, Foedor, afcended the throne at the age of 15. He was a Prince of a weak and fickly conftitution; but his merit was uninfluenced by his bodily infirmities. Alexis, his father, had him acknowledged for his fucceffor the year before he died.

The fecond fon, Ivan, or John, was ftill worfe ufed by nature than his brother Foe dor, being almoft deprived of fight and fpeech, as well as health, and often feized with convulfions. Of the fix daughters born of this first marriage, the only one famous in Europe was the Princefs Sophia, diftinguished by the talents of her mind, but, unhappily, ftill better known by her evil defigns

on Peter the Great.

Alexis, by his fecond marriage with another of his fubjects, the daughter of the Boyard Narifkin, left Peter and the Princess Nathalia. Peter, born the 10th of June, new stile, was but four years old when he loft his father. The children of the fecond marriage were not beloved, and it was little expected that Peter would ever reign.

gene

The genius of the Romanow family was always bent upon policing the ftate; fuch was likewife the character of Foedor. We have already observed, in fpeaking of Mofcou, that he encouraged the citizens to build feveral houses of stone. He inlarged that capital, and made fome regulations of ral police: But, willing to reform the Boyards, he difpleafed them all. Befides, he was neither intelligent nor active, nor refolute enough to attempt a general change. The war with the Turks, or rather with the Crim Tartars, which continued with an equality of fuccefs, did not permit a Prince of fuch an ill state of health to think of accomplishing fo great a work. Fodor married, as his other predeceffors, one of his fubjects, born near the frontiers of Poland, and, having loft her in a year's time, he took for fecond wife, in 1682, Martha Mateona, daughter of the Secretary Narifkin. He fell ill, fome months after, of the fickness of which he died, and left no children. As the Czars married without any regard to birth, they might alfo chufe, at least then, a fucceffor, to the prejudice of primogeniture. It feemed that the rank of wife and heir to the Sovereign ought to be intirely the reward of merit and in this refpect the custom of that empire was by far fuperior to the customs of the best civilifed ftates.

Fodor, before he expired, feeing that his brother Ivan, too much difgraced by nature,

was incapable of reigning, nominated, for heir of the Ruffias, his fecond brother Peter, who was then only ten years old, but gave great hopes of extraordinary abilities.

If the custom of raifing fubjects to the rank of Czarina was favourable to women, there was another that leaned hard on them: The daughters of the Czars were then feldom married; the greater part spent their lives in a monaftery.

The Princefs Sophia, the third of the Czar Alexis's daughters, by his first marriage, a Princefs of a wit equally fuperior and dangerous, having feen that her brother Fodor had but a little time to live, she did not embrace the party of a convent; and, finding herself between her two other brothers, who could not govern, the one by his incapacity, the other by his childhood, the conceived the defign of putting herself at the head of the

empire.

Fodor therefore was scarce expired, when the nomination of a Prince of ten years to the throne, the exclufion of the elder, and the intrigues of the Princefs Sophia, their fifter, excited in the corps of the Strelitz a very terrible revolt. Two days after the funeral obfequies of the Czar Fodor, they ran armed to the Kremelin, and began by complaining of nine of their Colonels, who had not been punctual in their payments to them. The Miniftry was obliged to break the Colonels, and to give the Strelitz the money they demanded. Not fatisfied with this, they require the nine Officers to be delivered up to them, and condemn them, by a plurality of voices, to a punishment called batogues, which is thus inflicted:

The patient is ftripped naked, and, being laid on his belly, two executioners ftrike him on the back with rods, till the Judge fays, 'There's enough.' The Colonels thus treated by their foldiers were alfo obliged to thank them, according to the eastern cuftom of criminals, who, after being punifhed, kifs the hand of their Judges; they added to their thanks a fum of money, which was not cuftomary.

Whilft the Strelitz began thus to make themselves feared, the Princefs Sophia, who animated them under-hand, to lead then from crime to crime, convoked at her apartments an affembly of the Princesses of the blood, the Generals of the army, the Boyards, the Patriarch, Bifhops, and even the principal merchants; fhe reprefented to them, that the Prince Ivan, by his right of feniority and merit, ought to have the empire, of which the hoped in fecret to hold the reins. At the breaking up of the Affembly the fent a meffage to the Strelitz, promifing them an augmentation of pay and C &

prefents.