enemies did each other as little injury as possible; and, in 1812, they became greater friends than ever.  Most Englishmen were probably of Lord Holland’s opinion, that England’s interest dictated a Russian connection; and in the eighteenth century England was, in some sense, the nursing mother of the new empire, though once or twice she was inclined to do as other nurses have done,—­administer some punishment to the rude and healthy child she was fostering, and not without reason.  So harmonious had been the relations of these two magnificent states, that an eminent Russian author, Dr. Hamel, writing in 1846, could say:  ’Nearly three hundred years have now elapsed since England greeted Muscovy at the mouth of the Dwina.  So great have been the benefits to trade, the arts, and industry in general, arising from the friendly relations between England and Russia, which, in 1853, will have completed the third century of their continuance, that one might expect to see this period closed, in both countries, with a jubilee to commemorate so remarkable an example of uninterrupted amicable intercourse between nations.’  The year 1853 came; but, instead of being a jubilee to the old friends of three centuries’ standing, it brought the beginning of that contest which is known as the Russian war.  That was a proper way, indeed, to notice the happy return of the three-hundredth anniversary of the establishment of ‘uninterrupted amicable intercourse’ between the nations, whose soldiers were soon slaughtering each other with as much energy as if they had been ‘natural enemies’ from immemorial time.  Interest had no power to turn aside the storm of war.  The English people were angry with Russia because the iron-willed Czar had carried matters in Europe with a very high hand, and was, in fact, virtually master of the Old World, and suspected of being on uncommonly good terms with the masters of the New World.  Nicholas had succeeded to the place of Napoleon in their ill graces.  They liked the Cossackry of the one as little as they had liked the cannonarchy of the other.  It was a case of pure jealousy.  Russia was too powerful to suit the English idea of the fitness of things, and therefore it was necessary that she should be chastised and humbled.  Fear of Russia there could have been none in the English mind.  It has been thought that England contended for the safety of her Eastern dominions; but then the Czar offered her Egypt and Candia, possession of which would not only have much strengthened her Indian empire, but have been the means of making her more powerful at home.  Nothing better could have been offered for her acceptance, if valuable territories would have satisfied her feelings; and much praise has been bestowed upon her because she did not close with the Czar’s proposition ’to share and share alike’ the lands of the House of Othman; but that praise is not quite deserved, the desire not to see Russia aggrandized being a stronger sentiment with her than was the desire