unchanged; and so Russia, unless she should become internally convulsed, will maintain her place.  Assuming that the work of emancipation is to be peacefully and successfully accomplished, it would be fair to argue that the power of the Russian Empire will be incalculably increased through the elevation of the masses of its population.  The Czar is doing for his dominions what Tiberius Gracchus sought to do for the Roman Republic when he began that course of much misunderstood agrarian legislation which led to his destruction, and to the overthrow of the constitutional party in his country.  As the Roman Tribune sought to renew the Roman people, and to substitute a nation of independent cultivators for those slaves who had already begun to eat out the heart of the republic, so does the Russian Autocrat seek to create a nation of freemen to take the place of a nation of serfs.  If the Roman had succeeded, the course of history must have been entirely changed; and if the Russian shall succeed, we may feel assured that his success will have prodigious results, though different from what are expected, perhaps, by the Imperial reformer himself.  His motives of action are probably of that mixed character which governs the proceedings of most men.  Undoubtedly he wishes well to the millions for whose freedom he has labored and is laboring; but then he would improve their condition in order that he may become more powerful than ever were his predecessors.  He would rule over men rather than over slaves, because men make better subjects and better soldiers than slaves ever could be expected to make.  The Russian serf has certainly proved himself to be possessed of high military qualities in the past, but it admits of a good deal of doubt whether he is equal to the present military standard; and Russia cannot safely fall behind her neighbors and contemporaries in the matter of soldiership.  The events of all the wars in which Russia has been engaged since 1815 prove that her armies have not kept pace with those of most other countries.  The first of Nicholas’s wars with Turkey would have ended in his total defeat, if the Turks had been able to find a leader of ordinary capacity and average integrity.  The Persian War was successful because Persia is weak, and she had not the means of making a powerful resistance to her old enemy.  The Poles, in 1831, held the Russians at bay for months, and would have established their independence but for their own dissensions; and even then Russia was much assisted by Prussia.  The invasion of Hungary was a military promenade, and the failure of the patriots was owing less to the ability of Paskevitch than to the treason of Goergei.  In the contest between Russia and the Western powers, (1854-6,) the former was beaten in every battle; and when she had only the Turks on her hands, in 1853, her every purpose was foiled, and not one victory did her armies in Europe win over that people.  The world saw that a new breed of men had taken the places of those soldiers who had