Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well associated with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a foreign city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that three-cornered thing. Being told, to hang people on, he requested that one might be hung for him, directly. Being told this, unfortunately, could not be done, as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired that one of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did this with no further thought than the Empress Catharine bestowed, on having a ship of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a scale so imperial. OLIVER CROMWELL.[23] A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book. We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and harmony for his narrative. The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is necessary to enable us to understand it, but _how_ we must look at it, under peril of being ranked as "imbeciles," "canting sceptics," "disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. And aware of his power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on which he formed his. But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear to be handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat" "shrieking" unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like damnatory affixes, when we profess that, having read the book, and read the letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old "Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the character of Cromwell.