plete this brief notice. His habits were ostentatiously simple, dramatically soldier-like. The luxuries on his table were not for him. His military form was but upon rare occasions to be seen enclosed within a covered carriage. His industry was as remarkable as his temperance; to inspect fortresses and review army corps he would travel days and nights. Shrewd enough always to suspect the basis of his empire, he demanded that the outward signs of awe should encounter him wherever he went; and withholding an act of reverence has often cost the offender an imprisonment. An illustration of the reverence he extorted is to be found in the following anecdote :When the cholera invaded St. Petersburgh, the ignorant populace accused the physicians of having poisoned the sick in the hospitals, and put some of them to death. Nicholas rode to the mob, and shouted, in a voice of thunder: "Down upon your knees before God, and ask pardon of Him for your offences. I, your emperor-your master-order you." The populace obeyed; and Nicholas, in describing the scene, said to the Marquis de Custine: "These moments are the finest of my life. I ran in the face of danger without knowing, as a king, how I should retreat. I did my duty, and God sustained me." To impose an opinion, to create a prestige, was the object of his never-failing anxiety, whether he promenaded in St. Petersburgh or visited some foreign capital. An autocrat, professing that he would rather cease to reign then permit the least abridgment of his power, he was constantly inquiring how he stood in public opinion. He was a great reader of such newspapers as he well knew represented the independence and intelligence of the communities where they were produced. THE FATE OF THE CZARS. Four princes have worn the imperial crown of Russia in much less than a century between the death of Peter the Great and the accession of Alexander I. -viz., between the years 1725 and 1801. The following are their names and their respective fates:Peter II., deposed in 1727. Ivan VI., deposed in 1750, murdered in 1762. Paul, murdered in 1801. : Of four emperors, one was deposed, and three were murdered, within seventy-six years. The three most celebrated empresses of Russia were the following: Catherine I. died suddenly on the 17th May, 1727, in the forty-second year of her age. Her death is supposed to have been hastened by excess in the use of Tokay wine and ardent spirits. Her daughter, Elizabeth Petrowna, died December 29, 1761, at the age of fifty-two. Catherine II. died of a fit of apoplexy, November 9, 1796. 73 NAVAL BATTLE. THE following description of the action between the Bon Homme Richard, commanded by Paul Jones, and the Serapis, commanded by Captain Pearson, off Scarborough, June 1779, is taken from Cooper's History of the American Navy: It was now getting dark, and Commodore Jones was compelled to follow the movements of the enemy by the aid of a night-glass. The Richard, however, stood steadily on, and about half-past seven came up with the Serapis. The American ship was to windward, and as she drew slowly near Captain Pearson hailed. The answer was equivocal, and both ships delivered their entire broadsides simultaneously. The water being so smooth, Commodore Jones had relied materially on the eighteens that were in the gun-room; but at the first discharge two of the six that were fired burst, blowing up the deck above, and killing or wounding a large proportion of the people who were stationed: below. This disaster caused all the heavy guns to be instantly deserted, for the men had no longer sufficient confidence in their goodness to use them. It at once reduced the broadside of the Richard to about a-third less than that of her opponent, not to include the disadvantage of the manner in which the metal that remained was distributed among light guns. In short, the contest was now between a twelve-pounder and an eighteen-pounder frigate,-a species of contest in which it has been said, we know not with what truth, the former has never been known to prevail. Commodore Jones informs us himself, that all his hopes after this accident rested on the twelvepounders that were under the command of the first lieutenant. The Richard, having backed her topsails, exchanged several broadsides, when she filled again and went ahead of the Serapis; which ship luffed across her stern, and came upon the weather-quarter of her antagonist, taking the wind out of her sails, and in her turn passing ahead. All this time, which consumed half-an-hour, the cannonading was close and furious. As the Serapis kept her luff sailing and working better than the Richard, it was the intention of Captain Pearson to pay broad off across the latter's forefoot, as soon as he had got far enough ahead; but making the attempt, and finding that he had no room, he put his helm hard down to keep clear of his adversary, when the double movement brought the two ships nearly in a line, the Serapis leading. By these uncertain evolutions the English ship lost some of her way; while the American, having kept her sails trimmed, not only closed, but actually ran aboard of her antagonist bows on, a little on her weather-quarter. The wind being light, much time was consumed by these manœuvres; and near an hour had elapsed between the firing of the first gun and the moment when the vessels got foul of each other in the manner described. The English now thought that it was the intention of the Americans to board them, and a few moments passed in the uncertainty which such an expectation would create; but the position of the vessels was not favourable for either party to pass into the opposing ship. There being at the moment a perfect cessation of the firing, Captain Pearson demanded: “Have you struck your colours?"- "I have not begun to fight," was the answer. The yards of the Richard were braced back, and the sails of the Serapis being full, the ships separated. As soon as far enough asunder, the Serapis put her helm hard down, laid all aback far forward, shivered her after-sails, and wore short round on her heel, or was box-hauled, with a view, most probably, of luffing up athwart the bow of her enemy, in order again to rake her. In this position the Richard would have been fighting her starboard, and the Serapis her larboard guns; but Commodore Jones, by this time, was conscious of the hopelessness of success against so much heavier metal, and after backing astern some distance, he filled on the other tack, luffing up, with the intention of meeting the enemy as she came to the wind, and of laying her athwart-hause. In the smoke, one party or the other miscalculated the distance, for the two vessels came foul again-the bowsprit of the English ship passing over the poop of the American. As neither had much way the colli |