It is very difficult to believe that so direct an
attack on the semi-divine personality of the Sovereign can have been written. by a Russian official of high rank still in Russia. If it has been, and if it expresses even in a limited degree the feeling of any body of great officials in the Empire, we should be disposed to revise our conclusion that revolution was practically impossible in Russia. The throne which looks so unassailable must, if that is true, be honeycombed with treason, and liable to fierce assault even from men who, like the writer in the Quarterly, profess themselves friends of the Monarchy, and hostile to any change except an extension of Ministerial influence and responsibility. It is, of course, more probable that the writer, tired of the senseless adulation which surrounds autocrats, has resolved to state "the other side," and in stating it has suffered himself to be carried away by what he thinks just indignation ; but if a revolt had been arranged, that is the precise kind of paper which would be circulated through Europe. It is also, we must add, the kind of paper which any one who greatly desired a quarrel between Great Britain and Russia would be inclined to issue in an English periodical. It may be represented to the Czar, who cordially desires the appreciation of mankind in his role of philanthropic ruler, as the English view of his career and per- sonality. That would be most unjust, for the British have never condemned Nicholas II., except for listening to bad advisers; but the article might easily be used in that way by any enemy of both countries.
