what proved to be an unsuccessful struggle for independence.  With both these movements the name of John Heliad Radulesco (known in history as Heliade or Eliad) is inseparably connected as litterateur and patriot.  His name first appears conspicuously about the year 1826, when, in conjunction with Constantine Golesco, a returned exile and friend of the unfortunate Vladimiresco, and with the concurrence and support of the reigning hospodar, Gregory Ghika, he endeavoured to revive the national language, which had been displaced by Greek in consequence of the long-continued Phanariote rule.  He was himself a poet of no mean order, and by his national songs he stirred the hearts of the people.  But poetry did not absorb his whole attention.  An able man of science, for that day, he himself imparted instruction in geography, logic, and mathematics, in the colleges of which he promoted the establishment.[166] Of these one was founded on the remains of an ancient convent at St. Sava, the other at Craiova, and concurrently with this effort, to promote collegiate education primary and normal schools were also established.  But the march of enlightenment did not end here; national journals and a national theatre were included in the scheme of the patriots.  The hospodars, too, performed their share of the general advancement.  They founded hospitals, promoted agriculture, welcomed back those who had emigrated before the scourge of war, and sought by every means in their power to give security to the national industry.

But the unfortunate geographical position of the Principalities, which made them the battle-field of the two contending powers of the Orient, still militated against the complete liberation of Roumania, and her efforts at regeneration were watched with jealousy by both her powerful semi-barbarous neighbours.  The period soon arrived, however, when, for a time at least, the intrigues of emperors, sultans, and courts were unavailing, and when crowns were at a decided discount—­the great European convulsion of 1848.  Then, when the French monarchy fell and the rulers of other European States fled from their dominions into a more or less abiding exile, the awakening of nationalities extended to Moldo-Wallachia, and caused a patriotic rising far more hopeful and for a time more successful than the revolt of 1821; and the Principalities would no doubt have been permanently freed from foreign domination had not disunion amongst the national leaders once more prevented such a desirable issue.  In the year of revolution, Nicholas I. being the Czar, and Abdul Medjid (the ‘Sick Man’) Sultan, simultaneous risings took place in the Principalities.  The one in Moldavia was headed by a number of leading boyards, who at first contented themselves with petitioning for the restoration of their liberties.  They were seized by order of the hospodar, Michael Stourdza, and sent into confinement, but most of them escaped and returned to reorganise the revolt.  In the same year, however, as we shall hear presently, the Russians invaded the principality, entered Jassy, and quelled the revolution.