Among the anecdotical parts of these volumes, is a slight account of the appearance of the Duke of Wellington as ambassador to Russia, in the beginning of the new reign. Count Nesselrode, on the accession of the Czar, had sent a circular to the European courts, stating his wishes for amicable relations with them all. But England dreaded to see a collision with Turkey, and Canning selected the Duke as the most important authority on the part of England. The Duke took with him Lord Fitzroy Somerset as his secretary. On his arrival at Berlin, he was treated with great distinction by Frederic William. Gneisenau, at the head of the Prussian general officers, paid him a visit in his hotel; and he was fêted in all directions. General officers were sent from St Petersburg to meet him on the Russian frontier. The emperor appointed a mansion for him, beside the palace of the Hermitage, paid him all the honours of a Russian field-marshal, (he was then the _only_ one in the service,) placed him on a footing with the princes of the imperial family, and was frequently in his society. The people were boundless in their marks of respect. But the Duke is evidently not a favourite with the Frenchman—and we do not much wonder at this feeling in a Frenchman, poor as it is. Without giving any opinion of his own, he inserts a little sneer from the work of Lacretelle on the “Consulate and the Empire.” On this authority, Wellington is “a general of excellent understanding, _phlegmatic_ and _tenacious_, proceeding not by _enthusiasm_, but by _order_, _discipline_, and _slow_ combinations, trusting but little _to chance_, and employing about him all the popular and vindictive passions, from which he himself is _exempt_.” By all which, M. Lacretelle means, that the Duke is a dull dog, without a particle of genius; simply a plodding, positive man, who, by mere toil and time, gained his objects, which any Dutchman could have gained as well, and which any Frenchman would have scorned to gain. With this French folly we have not sufficient time, nor have we sufficient respect for the national _failing_, to argue.