nglake had heard from the lips of a valued lady friend the tragic death-tale of her brother Nicholas Kiréeff, who fell fighting as a volunteer on the side of the gallant Servian again

s no slight sacrifice to an author of Kinglake's literary sensitiveness, mutilating as it did the integrity of a carefully schemed composition, and leaving visible the scar. He sets forth the strongly sentimental and romantic side of Russian temperament. Love of the Holy Shrines begat the war of 1853, racial ardour the war of 1876. The first was directed by a single will, the second by national enthusiasm; yet the mind of Nicholas was no less tossed by a breathless strife of opposing desires and moods than was Russia at large by the struggle between Panslavism and statesmanship. Kinglake paints vividly the imposing figure of the young Kiréeff, hi

iotism: after the death of her brother in Servia on July 6/18, 1876, she became a still more ardent Slavophile. The three articles of her creed are, she says, those of her country, Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationalism. Her political aspirations have been guided, and guided right, by her tact and goodness of heart. Her life's aim has been to bring about a cordial understanding between England and her native land; there is little doubt that her influence with leading Liberal politicians, and her vigorous allocutions in the Press, had much to do with the enthusiasm manifested by England for the liberation of the Danubian States. Readers of the Princess Lieven's letters to Earl Grey will recall the part played by that able ambassadress in keeping this country neutral through the crisis of 1828–9; to her Madame Novikoff has been likened, and probably with truth, by the Turkish Press both English and Continental. She was accused in 1876 of playing on the religious side of M

ce by Froude, the moderate and ultra-prudent tone of which infuriated Hayward and Kinglake, as not being sufficiently appreciative. Hayward declared

ke seems to have thought undesirable. The article appeared in April, 1880, under the title of "The Slavonic Menace to Europe." It opens with a panegyric on the authoress: "She has mastered our language with conspicuous success; she expostulates as easily as she reproaches, and she exhibits as much facility in barbing shafts of satire as in framing specious excuses for daring acts of diplomacy." It insists on the high esteem felt for her by both the Russian and Austrian governments, telling with much humour an anecdote of Count Beust, the Prime Minister of Austria during her residence in Vienna. The Count, after me

doctissim

omno, sit sin

ust destroy Austria-Hungary, a consummation desired by Madame Novikoff, with her feline contempt

n now than then, but they never heard that Kinglake had a hand in it; the editor would seem to have kept his secret even from the publishers. Kinglake sent the article in proof to the lady; hoped that the facts he had imparted and the interpolations he had inserted would please her; he could have made the attack on Russia more pointed had he written it; she would think the leniency shows a fault on the right side; he did not know the writer of this latter part. He begged her to acquaint her friends in Moscow what an important and majestic organ is "The Quarterly," how weighty therefore its laudation of herself. She recalls his bringing her soon afterwards an article on her, written, he said, in an adoring tone by Laveleye in the "Revue des Deux Mo

a capacity for combining, controlling, entertaining social "circles" which recalls les salons d'autrefois, the drawing-rooms of an Ancelot, a Le Brun, a Récamier. Residing in several European capitals, she surrounds herself in each with persons int

have been privileged to see; they remind me, in their mixture of personal with narrative charm, of Swift's "Letters to Stella"; except that Swift's are often coarse and sometimes prurient, while Kinglake's chivalrous admiration for his friend, though veiled occasionally by graceful banter, is always respectful and refined. They even imitate occasionally the "little language" of the great satirist; if Swift was Presto, Kinglake is "Poor dear me"; if Stella was M. D., Madame Novikoff is

dy of Ryde, so awfull

by far than the

'Dear, come and

me and walk

ch better not,' from that

ty of her patronage. "Hayward can pardon your having an ambassador or two at your feet, but to find the way to your heart obstructed by a crowd of astronomers, Russ-expansionists, metaphysicians, theologians, translators, historians, poets;-this is more than he can endure. The crowd reduces him, as Ampère said to Mme. Récamier, to the qualified blessing of being only chez vous, from the delight of being avec vous." He hails and notifies additions to the list of her admirers; quotes enthusiastic praise of her from Stansfeld and Charles Villiers, warm appreciation from Morier, Sir Robert Peel, Violet Fane. He rallies her on her victims, jests at Froude's lover-like galanterie-"Poor St. Anthony! how he hovered round the flame";-at the devotion of that gay

ur Churches"; he thinks they both know how to effleurer the surface of theology without getting drowned in it. Of existing Churches he preferred the English, as "the most harmless going"; disliked the Latin Church, especially when intriguing in the East, as persecuting and as schismatic, and therefore as no Church at all. Roman Catholics, he said, have a special horror of being called "schismatic," and that is, of course, a good reason for so calling them. He would not permit the use of the word "orthodox," because, like a parson in the pulpit, it is always begging the question. He refused historical reverence to the Athanasian Creed, and was delighted when Stanley's review in "The Times" o

er Slavophile heresies, he may manifest the weakness of embroiling nations on mere ethnological grounds. "Are even nearer relationships so delightful? would you walk across the street for a third or fourth

your Czar by dividing and confusing these absurd English, and g

sh partizans, for in order to make them 'beloved of the Slave,' I of course had to make them, poor so

uld have preferred the love of my own country to the love of thes

weak decoction of 'Filioque,' then kept him ready for use, and impatiently awaited the moment when our plans for getting up the 'Bulgarian atrocities' should be mature. I say 'impatiently,' for, Heavens, how slow you all were! at least so it strikes a woman. The arr

to have the orders for fire and blood in neat formal despatches, signed by me, and copied by

Pour le

ression was wildly wrong; and he found a cause for the Conservative majority in Gladstone's tame foreign policy, and especially in the pusillanimity his government showed when insulted by Gortschakoff. He always does justice to her influence with Gladstone; his great majority at the polls in 1880 is her victory and her triumph; but his Turkophobia is no

e for Russia; it was an object almost of life and death to the Czar to keep England dawdling in a state of actual though not avowed neutrality. It is, he argued, a matter of fact, that precisely this result was attained, and "I shall be slow to believe that Madame de Lieven did not deserve a great share of the glory (as you would think it) of making England act weakly under such circumstances; more especially since we know that the Duke did not like the great lady, and may be supposed to have distinctly traced his painful embarrassment to her power." So the letters go, interspersed with news, with criticisms of notable persons, with comments enlightening or cynical on passing poli

If Madame Novikoff were to come, the astonished little town, dazzled first by her, would find itself invaded by theologians, bishops, ambassadors of deceased emperors, and an ex-Prime-Minister." But as time goes on he speaks more often of his suffering throat; of gout, increasing deafness, only half a voice: his last letter is written in July, 1890, to condole with his friend upon her husband's de