I have laboured to get the
EMPEROR NICHOLAS to accredit an ambassador from Russia to Belgium. His
Majesty has, for years, disdained my request with Northern haughtiness
(_fierte_), but, either for reasons of mine or his own, he has at last
accorded the favour. Since that boon, it is well known to you that
Russia has had only to ask and to have in Belgium. I was therefore
doubly bound to undertake my English mission, charged as I was with the
interests of Austria and of Russia.

"That the Prince Consort of England and myself retired into the shooting
field together--for the Sovereign of England has a certain
straightforwardness (_droiture_) which makes it difficult to urge
diplomatic considerations in her hearing--you may have learned. If I
alluded to the danger which might accrue to Saxe Gotha in the event of
Russia, Austria, and Prussia not regarding its princes as their friends,
I am sure the august sportsman to whom I addressed such a speculation
will not have listened to me in vain. The friends of MARY HENRIETTA and
of our newly-arrived ambassador have no reason to be dissatisfied with
the effect I produced.

"I may therefore felicitate you, Gentlemen, and myself, on the perfect
concord which exists between Russia, Austria, Saxe Gotha, and Belgium,
and I am glad to add that the aged and accomplished prime minister of
England, the good ABERDEEN, fully concurs in the sentiments of those
four powers.

"Details of your own finance and other topics affecting yourselves will
be supplied by my Ministers, but I could not refrain from personally
informing you of the quadruple alliance which I, and our charming MARY
HENRIETTA, have done so much to cement, and which I trust you will
remember should we ask for any little addition to the estimates.

"That the blessing of, &c."

* * * * *

THE "GOD OF RUSSIA."

NICHOLAS is the acknowledged deity of the Muscovites. A god standing six
feet four in his sacred stockings. The manner in which he recruits his
army to carry on his Holy Wars is very celestial. Sometimes he causes
his angelic Cossacks to surround a boys' school and carry off the
scholars, promoting them from the birch to the knout. In one particular
case two boys, one 12 and the other 14, were carried away, their old
grandmother of 85 raising her hands, doubtless in prayer for the God of
Russia. Who can doubt the Christianity of an Emperor, who is at once the
heart and soul of suc