destroyed, and if the autocratic system in Russia were a very ancient instead of a comparatively modern institution borrowed from Germany by an eccentric man of genius who forced it on a backward and ignorant people. I mean Peter the Great. “Again, many Russians argue thus: ‘In England, in spite of all their Habeas Corpus, Bills of Right, etc., officials do lawless things in Egypt, and innocent people are put in prison for mutilating horses.’ This argument seems to me fallacious. The point being not that the Habeas Corpus is an infallible guarantee against lawlessness in England, but that were there no Habeas Corpus in England things would be much worse than they are at present. There was once a French priest who, when he heard the Republic abused for all its vices and faults, answered: ‘Tout de même si les institutions libérales disparaissaient, nous les regrettrions.’ And I consider that if by any chance Liberal Institutions were established in Russia we should not groan beneath them. So you see I am not a Liberal but a radical. I am in favour of radical change. In spite of that, the sympathy of Liberals in other countries, even that of the Bishop of Hereford, fails either to move, to console, or to encourage me. “At the beginning of the French Revolution the English Liberals felt much sympathy with the French Reformers, and a sword of honour was sent by the French tribunes to the ‘citoyens’ who were then Ministers in England; but when the French Revolution moved onwards towards its logical close, the disgust of the English Liberals knew no bounds, and Burke made his disapprobation immortal in burning prose. Therefore, when the revolutionaries here begin to get the upper hand I shall advise them to pause before sending a sword of honour to ‘Citoyen’ Hereford, ‘Citoyen’ Jaurès, and ‘Citoyen’ Keir Hardy, lest when all Russia is in flames and the rentes have sunk to nothing and the red flag flies from the Winter Palace, the Bishop from the pulpit, M. Jaurès in the Chamber of Deputies, and Mr. Keir Hardy in the House of Commons, rise to point out--safeguarding themselves with conjunctions as is the habit of political speakers--that although nobody sympathises more than they do with Liberal ideas, nevertheless, to repudiate foreign loans, and to cut off Professor Milioukov’s head, and to throw all the Kadets and the moderate Liberals and even the more moderate Socialists into the Neva, is going too far, and for such actions they cannot overstate their deprecation.” II BYRON Last night I went to see my old friend Dimitri Nikolaievitch A----. I found him, as usual, in the little den which he shares with a bullfinch, a lizard, and a fox terrier on the sixth floor of a huge sordid barrack. As usual, he was smoking, and there was a lack of buttons on his coat.