no expressions strong enough for their indignation. They expected this monster of a criminal to undergo an exemplary punishment, and only grieved over the abolition of the penalty of death, which ought to be inflicted in the case. Their astonishment and anger were proportionately great when the impatiently expected trial finished by the acquittal of the foreigner who had so infamously abused the trust committed to her. However, the reading of the report of the trial soon dispelled this feeling.

The story it disclosed was as follows:-The family life of the Ponsnanskys was unfortunately of a type not uncommon in Russia. The father was completely absorbed by his official duties, hunting after Nihilists, and not caring in the least for what was going on in his own house; the mother thinking only of amusements, passed her mornings in making calls and her evenings at theatres, parties, and clubs; the children were abandoned to the care of hired servants and governesses. The eldest son, Nicolas, laboured under the additional disadvantage of not being his mother's favourite. Endowed with a lively fancy and a precocious wish to learn things beyond his age, he had nobody to counsel him, and to give a good direction to his ambitious designs. At the time the French governess entered their house he was fourteen, and his intellectual and moral growth had attained an unhealthy development. Marguerite felt a profound pity for him, and offered him her friendship, which he gladly accepted. But she lacked the seriousness of mind and the sound knowledge which would have been necessary to rule his unsteady ideas, and their friendship changed into love. The feeling between a woman of forty and a boy of sixteen could not be of long duration. It passed, and was succeeded by a sheer disgust of life in the boy's mind. Nothing can be sadder than the expressions of it found in the diary of the boy read before the court. The political and social questions which he treats and solves according to the Radical doctrines do not make so deep an impression on the reader as the avowal of atheism which he adds to them, and the expression of his sorrow for the faith he has lost. He writes, that he does not believe any more in God, nor in man, and especially not in women. Such confessions coming from a boy of his age, tell eloquently the sorrowful story of his childhood and his adolescence.

When he died suddenly during the night, after an illness which gave no idea of danger, and which had been noticed only by the governess, nobody at first thought of ascribing it to foul play. But some days later, his father learned that a political denunciation had been handed in at the secret police against the boy, and he recognized the handwriting to be of Marguerite Jujean. That was enough to arouse suspicion. From that moment the parents believed that he had perished by poison, and that jealousy prompted the governess to give it to him. The corpse was submitted to a close autopsy, and some traces of morphia were found. Then it was stated that the governess had been near him on the evening before his death, and had even

brought him his physic, asking others not to go into his room, but let him sleep. These were the charges brought against her, and, as was said before, the jury did not find them sufficiently made out for a verdict of guilty. There were no proofs of the jealousy which alone could have actuated her to such a crime, and, indeed, was it likely that a woman of forty would kill a boy out of jealousy? The indignation with which the public at first heard of the supposed crime turned gradually from the foreign governess towards the parents, especially to the mother. Why, people asked, did she keep for years a person whom she knew to be in love with her son, and entrust to her the care of her children? If she did it only to be at liberty to amuse herself, and to lead an easy life, she had no moral right afterwards to complain of the foreigner, whom she kept because she was cheap. Perhaps, this case will serve as a lesson for other families, and that is the only comfort to be derived from it.

A SCANDAL IN THE PRESS.

Our publicists have accustomed us to view their frequent changes of opinion without very lively surprise, but the palm of such mobility undoubtedly belongs to Katkof, the editor of The Moscow Gazette. One never knows what he will say next, nor what cause he may defend. One may, however, be sure that whatever be the subject he chooses he will treat it with fire, not sparing his anger against his adversaries. During the last few years, the public has seen in him a great many of these metamorphoses, and has learned at last to discover a connection between them and the personal mutations of ministers or other high functionaries. At the bottom of what seemed inexplicable to those who had not the key of the riddle, lay a very plain rule of conduct. So long as a minister gratified Katkof and proved useful to him, his politics were unconditionally approved in the columns of The Moscow Gazette.

From the moment the same minister became guilty of some personal offence, or, more certainly still, if he resigned his portfolio into distasteful hands, his acts met with nothing in those pages but the severest blame. Nevertheless, there had existed hitherto a few departments as to which Katkof remained true to his primitive programme, and one of these was the economical domain. He had shown himself from the beginning an adherent of sound principles in political economy, and had ardently preached, among other things, the restoration of the metallic currency. No organ of our press has lavished so much eloquence upon this subject from the epoch of the Crimean war down to last year, and none has accumulated such a heap of logical proofs and arguments demonstrating the harm of over-issues of paper. The bosom friend of Katkof, his best contributor, and co-editor of The Moscow Gazette, the deceased Leontief, specially devoted himself to the working out of these problems, and put his name to the discussions. A good state of the finances, according to his opinion, was not attainable so long as the

metallic currency was not restored, and the price of paper money remained subject to continual fluctuations. When the Minister of Finance again had recourse to these means of filling the treasury exhausted by the expenses of the last war, Katkof criticized him severely, asserting that any other course would have been preferable, and that loans, either foreign or domestic, and the increase of taxes, are less injurious to the country than the over-filling of the market with paper.

It is only a few months since that time, but there has occurred a change in the administration of finances, General Greig succeeding to Reutern in that post. Suddenly, without the least warning or preparation, The Moscow Gazette made a prodigious leap from one extreme to the other. It put forward a new view, declaring that the war, so far from having been ruinous to the country, had promoted its prosperity, and this thanks to the issue of paper money. The export trade has increased, industry and trade flourish, and, if the exchange is against us, and our rouble undervalued abroad, that has no influence whatever on our domestic transactions, and it is absurd to care for such a trifle. Russia clearly wanted the supplies of paper money which the needs of the war caused to be issued, and there is no call to stop them because they are disadvantageous to those who travel in foreign countries, or who want to buy foreign goods.

Such views, appearing in the columns of Katkof's organ, caused as much surprise as anger. There ensued violent polemics, which are far from being ended, and the whole St. Petersburg press joins in the combat. Katkof's irritation is growing worse every day, and, according to his custom, he has transferred the fight from the domain of theory to that of personal attack. Abandoning principles, he has declared war against the economists as a body. To hear him, Russia never counted more bitter and dangerous foes than the men of science who warned her against economical fallacies, and our Government committed the grossest errors when it paid attention to their voice. In holding such language, Katkof seems to forget his own past, or else he deliberately throws mud on the best part of his former career. Among the economists he now injures his best friend occupied the first place; and such a defection is really a thing not often seen. What would the deceased Leontief say to it, if he could come back to life for a moment? With what feelings would he look upon such black treason?

While everybody is wondering at such an audacious turning round, some persons search for the cause of it. It may be a wish to please the Emperor, whose mind is troubled by the financial difficulties of the moment, and who is glad to be told that the war has not impoverished but enriched the nation. Also, it may be the desire to attract attention, to gain popularity among the tradesmen, with whom this theory is a favourite one, and to increase the number of his readers. Neither of these motives does honour to Katkof, and even if he gains subscribers, that will be a poor compensation for the respect he loses.

T. S., in Contemporary Review.

WILLIAM COBBETT: A BIOGRAPHY. *

THIS book is so well put together, and, on the whole, brings out the figure of one of the sturdiest Englishmen of our grandfathers' time so fairly and clearly, that it is matter of real regret to come upon passage after passage of involved and slovenly writing, in which it is difficult to get at the author's meaning. For instance :

"The scenery round Farnham is not in itself unique; so far that any well-cultivated English river-valley is like almost any other, with its low hills crowned along their summits with the evidence of prosperous farming. But from the top of one of these eminences the eye soon discovers certain characteristics which compel a deep impression upon the mind of singularity and beauty" (vol. i., p. 3).

Or again, in the description of Cobbett's mind at the age of twenty :"Not so high, but as yet to be infinitely dark as to any purpose; a healthy spirit in a healthy body, there stood, working as hard and as cheerily as ever, but ready for the first impulse-which impulse came in no uncommon way, in no more romantic style than that which sets a ball rolling on the impact of the foot" (vol. i., p. 21). Or again, in the passage on the modern press (vol. ii., p. 292): "There is no space for mutual recriminations, with ostentation of 'private wire,' and elaborate political and literary reviews, if even the taste for dirtthrowing had not vanished." In future editions, which we hope may be called for, the author should revise his own part of the narrative on the model of the terse and simple English of the strong and brave man whom he understands so well, and whose unique figure and career he has done so much to bring again vividly before a new generation.

A short outline of the career of William Cobbett as given in these volames will, we think, justify us in calling it unique. He was born in 1762 at Farnham, the third son of a small farmer, honest, industrious, and frugal, from whom, as his famous son writes, "if he derived no honour, he derived no shame," and who used to boast that he had four boys, the eldest but fifteen, who did as much work as any three men in the parish of Farnham. "When I first trudged afield," William writes, "with my wooden bottle and satchel slung over my shoulder, I was hardly able to climb the gates and stiles." From driving the small birds from the turnip-seed and rooks from the peas, he rose to weeding wheat, hoeing peas, and so up to driving the plough for 2d. a day, which paid for the evening school where he learned to read and write, getting in this rough way the rudiments of an education over which he rejoices as he contrasts it triumphantly with that of the "frivolous idiots that are turned out from Winchester and Westminster Schools, or from those dens of dunces called Colleges and Universities," as having given him * By Edward Smith. (Sampson Low & Co.)

the ability to become " one of the greatest terrors to one of the greatest and most powerful bodies of knaves and fools that were ever permitted to afflict this or any other country.

At eleven he was employed in clipping the box-edgings in the gardens of Farnham Castle, and, hearing from one of the gardeners of the glories of Kew, he started for that place with 18. 1d. in his pocket, 3d. of which sum he spent in buying "Swift's Tale of a Tub." The book produced a "birth of intellect" in the little rustic. He carried it with him wherever he went, and at twenty-four lost it in a box which fell overboard in the Bay of Fundy, a "loss which gave me greater pain than I have ever felt at losing thousands of pounds" (p. 15). He returned home, and continued to work for his father till 1782, attending fairs and hearing Washington's health proposed by his father at farmers' ordinaries. In that year he went on a visit to Portsmouth, saw the sea for the first time, and was with difficulty hindered from taking service at once on board a manof-war. He returned home "spoilt for a farmer," and next year started for London. He served in a solicitor's office in Gray's Inn for eight months (where he worked hard at grammar), then enlisted in the 54th regiment, and after a few weeks' drill at Chatham embarked for Nova Scotia, where the corps were serving. Here his temperate habits, strict performance of duty, and masterly ability and intelligence, raised him in little more than a year to the post of sergeantmajor over the heads of fifty comrades his seniors in service. His few spare hours were spent in hard study, especially in acquiring a thorough mastery of grammar. He had bought Lowth's Grammar, which he wrote out two or three times, got it by heart, and imposed on himself the task of saying it over to himself every time he was posted sentinel. When he had thoroughly mastered it, and could write with ease and correctness, he turned to logic, rhetoric, geometry, French, to Vauban's fortification, and books on military exercise and evolutions. In this way, by the year 1791, when the 54th was recalled, he had become tho most trusted man in the regiment. The colonel used him as a sort of second adjutant; all the paymaster's accounts were prepared by him; he coached the officers, and used to make out cards with the words of command for many of them, who, on parade, as he scornfully writes, were commanding me to move my hands and feet in words I had taught them, and were in everything except mere authority my inferiors, and ought to have been commanded by me (p. 46). Notwithstanding the masterfulness already showing itself, Cobbett was a strictly obedient soldier, and left the army with the offer of a commission, and the highest character for ability and zeal.

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No sooner, however, was his discharge accomplished, than he set himself to work to expose and bring to justice several of the officers of his regiment who had systematically mulcted the soldiers in their companics of their wretched pay. His thorough knowledge of the regimental ac counts made him a formidable accuser; and, after looking into the mat