ot to be acquired from books, but only found in the
world by frequenting different and opposite societies with observation,
penetration, and genius. With manners as polished as his mind is well
informed, he not only, possesses the favour, but the friendship of his
Prince, and, what is still more rare, is worthy of both. All Sovereigns
have favourites, few ever had any friends; because it is more easy to
flatter vanity, than to display a liberal disinterestedness; to bow
meanly than to instruct or to guide with delicacy and dignity; to abuse
the confidence of the Prince than to use it to his honour, and to the
advantage of his Government.

That such a Monarch as an Alexander, and such Ministers as Count
Woronzoff and Prince Czartorinsky, should appoint a Count Markof to a
high and important post, was not unexpected by any one not ignorant of
his merit.

Count Markof was, early in the reign of Catherine II., employed in the
office of the foreign department at St. Petersburg, and was, whilst
young, entrusted with several important negotiations at the Courts of
Berlin and Vienna., when Prussia had proposed the first partition of
Poland. He afterward went on his travels, from which he was recalled to
fill the place of an Ambassador to the late King of Sweden, Gustavus III.
He was succeeded, in 1784, at Stockholm, by Count Muschin Puschin, after
being appointed a Secretary of State in his own country, a post he
occupied with distinction, until the death of Catherine II., when Paul
the First revenged upon him, as well as on most others of the faithful
servants of this Princess, his discontent with his mother. He was then
exiled to his estates, where he retired with the esteem of all those who
had known him. In 1801, immediately after his accession to the throne,
Alexander invited Count Markof to his Court and Council, and the trusty
but difficult task of representing a legitimate Sovereign at the Court of
our upstart usurper was conferred on him. I imagine that I see the great
surprise of this nobleman, when, for the first time, he entered the
audience-chamber of our little great man, and saw him fretting, staring,
swearing, abusing to right and to left, for one smile conferring twenty
frowns, and for one civil word making use of fifty hard expressions,
marching in the diplomatic audience as at the head of his troops, and
commanding foreign Ambassadors as his French soldiers. I have heard that
the report of Count Marko