It is a significant fact that the pure Georgian language is now far more generally spoken than it has been for many centuries, and that the dialects are rapidly disappearing. This is due in a great measure to the growth of a taste for literature, which is fostered by the newspapers and other periodical publications. There are, besides, many schools where the language is taught, for the Georgians have hitherto escaped the fate of the Armenians, whose schools were closed after the recent insurrection, and a society exists in Tiflis for the dissemination of the national literature among the peasants. All this has helped to produce a national feeling, stronger than any that has existed since the fatal partition of the kingdom in the fifteenth century. The petty jealousies between Kartlian, Kakhetian and Imeretian have been forgiven and forgotten, and when Georgia's voice is again heard in Asia she will speak with that authority which belongs only to a united, patriotic people. In order to understand the state of political feeling in Georgia during the present century, it is necessary to remember what her previous history has been. During a long period, stretching back to ages of which we have only fragmentary records, the country had ever been at war; often conquered, still more often conquering, never crushed, this brave little state maintained its existence for a thousand years, alone in the very midst of those fierce fanatics whose fame made all allied Europe quake. At length, rent by civil war and ravaged by the infidel, it wisely resolved to throw itself into the hands of a Christian power able and willing to protect and avenge. After availing themselves of Russia's help, it was but natural that the Georgians should seek the repose of which they were so much in need; and, though they were ever ready to fight against the common foe, yet, with a few praiseworthy exceptions, they busied themselves little with the internal administration of their land. Indeed, there was no call for such interference as long as they were under the mild and beneficent rule of that ideal Tsar, Alexander I., represented by such worthy lieutenants as Tsitsishvili and Yermolov. They continued to live thus contentedly and, it must be confessed, lazily for about two generations; only ten years ago it used to be said in Tiflis, "If you see a shopkeeper asleep, he is sure to be a Georgian." This sleepiness is now at an end. Opinions may differ as to the cause of the awakening; harsh measures on the part of Russia, whose policy in Transcaucasia has been becoming more and more irritating ever since the removal of Prince Vorontsov, in 1854, and culminating last year in the enforcement of military service, have undoubtedly had some effect of this kind, but unless there had been a simultaneous progress in the intellectual and social development of the nation, this overbearing legislation might have been sullenly submitted to without complaint.