Death, we are told, found his way into Arcadia; and disappointment was not long in coming to disturb the modern Arcadians, who had as much to do with cotton as their predecessors with wool.  The dream of universal peace, a peace that was to endure because based on enlightened selfishness,—­that is to say on buying in cheap markets and selling in dear ones,—­was as rudely dispelled as had been all earlier dreams of the kind.  Interest, it was found, could no more make men live lovingly together than principle could cause them to do so in by-gone times.  If there were two nations that might have been insured not to fight each other, because interest was sufficient to prevent men from having resort to war, those nations were Russia and England.  They were in no sense rivals, according to the definition of rivalry in the circles of commerce.  Between them there was much buying and selling, to the great profit of both.  England is an old nation, with the arts of industry developed among her people to an extent that is elsewhere unknown.  The division of labor that prevails among her working people is so extensive and so minute, that in that respect she defies comparison.  Other countries may have as skillful laborers as she possesses, but their industry is of a far less various character.  Russia is a new country, and she requires what England has to dispose of; and England finds her account in purchasing the raw materials that are so abundantly produced in Russia.  Commercially speaking, therefore, these two nations could not fall out, could not quarrel, could not fight, if they would.  In all other respects, too, they could be counted upon to set a good example to all other communities.  They had more than once been allies, each had done the other good services at critical tunes, and they had had the foremost places in that grand alliance which had twice dethroned Napoleon I. The exceptions to their general good understanding belong to those exceptions which are supposed to be useful in proving a given rule.  When the tory rulers of England became alarmed because of the success of Catharine II. in her second Turkish war, and proposed doing what was done more than sixty years later,—­to assist the Osmanlis,—­the opposition to their policy became so powerful that even the strong ministry of William Pitt had to listen to its voice; which shows that the tendency of English opinion was then favorable to Russia.  The hostility of Czar Paul to England, in his last days, is attributed to the failure of his mind; and the immediate resumption of good relations between the two countries after his death, establishes the fact that the English and the Russians were not sharers in the Czar’s feelings.  During the five years that followed Tilsit, Russia appeared to be the enemy of England, and war existed for some time between the two empires; but this was owing to the ascendency of the French, Alexander having to choose between England and France.  The nominal