The history of the Russian Empire from the seventeenth till the twentieth century is largely a history of individual emperors, and its spasmodic character of alternate progress and retrogression is vividly illustrated by the attitude of those emperors towards their Jewish subjects. Peter the Great welcomed them, his daughter Elizabeth expelled them, Catherine II. re-admitted them, Alexander I. favoured them. No democratic visionary was ever animated by a loftier enthusiasm for the happiness of mankind than this noble autocrat. By the Ukase of 1804 all Jews engaged in farming, manufactures, and handicrafts, or those who had been educated in Russian schools, were relieved from the exceptional laws against their race; while special privileges were granted to those who could show proficiency in the Russian, German, or Polish language. Other decrees, issued in 1809, ensured to the Jews full freedom of trade. These concessions, while testifying to the Emperor’s tolerant wisdom, show the severity of the conditions under which the race laboured normally. On the partition of Poland the Russian Empire had received an enormous addition to its Jewish population, and the Czars, with few exceptions, continued towards it the inhuman policy already adopted under Casimir the Great’s successors. The Jews were pent in ghettos, and every care was taken to check their growth and to hamper their activity. Among other forms of oppression, the emperors of Russia initiated towards their Jewish subjects a system analogous to the one formerly enforced by the Sultans of Turkey on the Christian _rayahs_: the infamous system of “child-tribute.” Boys of tender age were torn from their parents and reared in their master’s faith for the defence of their master’s dominions. Alexander I. determined to lift this heavy yoke, and, as has been seen, he took some initial steps towards that end. But, unfortunately, the closing years of the high-minded idealist’s life witnessed a return to despotism, and consequently a series of conspiracies, which in their turn retarded the progress of freedom and hardened the hearts of its foes. ♦1825♦