My father was an English merchant in Petersburg, and my mother, Vera Bessanoff, who, before her marriage with my father, was celebrated at Court for her beauty, and was one of the maids-of-honor to the Czarina.

To get a clear picture of the conditions that produced the revolution, it is necessary to remember that from a very early period the German-born Czarina and the clique of pro-German reactionaries whom her influence made powerful with the Czar, were bent on ending the war prematurely in the interests of reaction.

Almost as undesirable would be the arrival of the Czar and Czarina.

Quite apart from the scandal of their inelegant domesticities, the establishment of the Czar and Czarina in England with frequent and easy access to our royal family may be extraordinarily unfortunate for the British monarchy.

And reminding one of that inscription, so justly admired by Paul Richtor, which a Russian Czarina placed on a guide-post near MoscowThis is the road that leads to Constantinople.]

The Czarina, like those Romans who became more German than the Germans themselves, affected to be fanatically Russian in her sentiments and purposes, and so acquired the power to Europeanize the policy of her empire.

The Prussian court, one hundred and sixty years since, was not a very nice place, and its members were by no means remarkable for refinement; but they were shocked by the proceedings of the Czar and the Czarina, some of which greatly resembled those which are not uncommon in a very wild "wilderness of monkeys."

The Cotillon Coalition of the Seven Years' War, formed for the destruction of Frederic II., and the parties to which were the Czarina Elizabeth, Maria Theresa, and Madame de Pompadour,a drunkard, a prude, and a harlot,brought Russia famously forward in Europe.

Some outrageous abuses were practised by wealthy landholders, in consequence of the Czarina having proclaimed that the laborers in Little Russia should belong to the soil on which they were at that date employed.

But the cherishing of such a grudge even with such foundation was not like Schumann, and a year later, from Petersburg, where he had accompanied Clara on a triumphal tour and where they had the most cordial recognition from the Czar and Czarina, he addressed old Wieck as "Dear Father," and described to him with contagious pride the immense success of his wife.

Louis XV. sent him as a woman to Russia on a secret mission, and he presented himself to the czarina as a woman (1756).

On the 9th of April, 1748, the place was invested, before the thirty-five thousand Russians, promised to England by the Czarina Elizabeth, had found time to make their appearance on the Rhine.

Russia and Saxony were soon enlisted in the same alliance; the King of Prussia's pleasantries, at one time coarse and at another biting, had offended the Czarina Elizabeth and the Elector of Saxony as well as Louis XV.

The Czarina Catherine II., Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst and wife of the Czar Peter III., being on bad terms with her husband and in dread of his wrath, had managed to take advantage of the young czar's imprudence in order to excite a mutiny amongst the soldiers; he had been deposed, and died before long in prison.

The Emperor Joseph II. had just paid a visit to the Crimea with the czarina.

She made several beautiful copies of Holbein's "Madonna," one for the King of Roumania, and one as a gift from the city of Darmstadt to the Czarina Alexandra.

TO MANN, Jan. 29, 1762.Death of the Czarina ElizabethThe Cock-lane GhostReturn to England of Lady Mary Wortley 66.

[Footnote 2: Ivan, the Czar who had been deposed by the former Czarina, Elizabeth, had recently been murdered, while trying to escape from the confinement in which he had been so long detained.

TO MANN, Oct. 26, 1777.Affairs in AmericaThe Czarina and the Emperor of China 133.

It is not taking from the funereal part to add, that when so many good princes die, the Czarina is still living!

[Footnote 1: The Czarina.]

[Footnote 1: Count Orloff was one of the Czarina's earlier lovers, and was universally understood to have been the principal agent in the murder of her husband.

I begin to tremble for the poor Greeks; they will be sacrificed like the Catalans, and left to be impaled for rebellion, as soon as that vainglorious woman the Czarina has glutted her lust of fame, and secured Azoph by a peace, which I hear is all she insists on keeping.

The Czarina has whispered her disapprobation, and if she has a talon left, when she has done with the Ottomans, may chance to scratch the little King.

he won renown, and was created field-marshal on the field of Pultowa; he introduced to the Czar Catharine, afterwards czarina, whom he captured at Marienburg, and when Peter died secured the throne for her; during her reign and her successor's he governed Russia, but his ambition led the nobles to banish him to Siberia 1727 (1672-1729).