Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa: Russia, Tahtary, and Turkey

be so sensibly affected by the encouragement he receives, as one who is conscious of witnessing, in the favourable reception shewn to his writings, the triumph of truth. Having every reason to be convinced that they have outlived the opposition made to them, in consequence of the description given of the Russians, he now confesses that, when he published the FIRST PART of his Travels, he was not politician enough to be aware of the clamour it was likely to excite. In shewing that his testimonies concerning this people coincided with those of the most reputable writers who had gone before him, he thought he had fulfilled an obligation

allusion to the Foreign Editions of this work having been introduced,
the author cannot avoid noticing a French Translation of it, published
at Paris in 1813, in three volumes octavo; because it is accompanied
by Notes, said to have been inserted under the surveillance of Buona-
parte. Those Notes are evidently intended to persuade the Russian
Government of the bad policy of an alliance with Great Britain:
the writer, perhaps, not being aware that this alliance is not so
much a matter of choice, as of necessity. French Notes explanatory of
the text of an English author are sometimes highly diverting: of this
we have an instance in a Note, of the Edition now mentioned, upon
the words "purlieus of St. Giles's;" which the French translator ex-
plains, by saying that they signify Certaines terres démembrées des
forêts royales, et sur lesquelles le propriétaire a droit de chasse."
tom. I. p. 163. Note (1) du Traducteur. Paris, 1813.

Voy.

(2) Even the eulogists of the Russian Government might be cited to prove that the condition of the people does not differ from the account given of it in this work. "The peasantry," says Mr. Eton, "look upon the monarch as a divinity; styling him (Zemnoi Bog) GOD OF THE EARTH." (See Eton's Survey of the Turkish Empire, p. 433.)

remained

to the public. Leaving, however, this point to be decided by his adversaries; and their harmless opposition, to the inevitable fate of all political struggles, fitted only to serve the interests of party; and, moreover, being called upon for a Fourth Edition of the particular portion of his work against which so much hostility was levelled; he has nothing more to say of it, than that it is, at length, printed in a more commodious form, and with every attention to accuracy which repeated revision has enabled him to bestow.

remained for Mr. Thornton (Present State of Turkey, vol. II. p.99. Note. Lond. 1809) to shew what were Mr. Eton's real sentiments concerning the Russian Government; by contrasting the observations he made after the death of CATHERINE, with those which he had before published. "Two years," observes Mr. Thornton, after writing an eulogium on the Russian Government, Mr. Eton wrote his Postscript; though both were published together. The Empress CATHERINE was then dead; and then we are told, that IT IS TIME THE VOICE OF TRUTH SHALL BE HEARD."—" It is only in foreign politics," says Mr. Eton, "that she (CATHERINE) appears great: as to the internal government of the (Russian) Empire, a most scandalous negligence, and a general corruption in the management of affairs, was visible, in every department, from Petersburg to Kamchatka."

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