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338 as early a stage in the struggle as possible the deadly thrust which has been so long in preparation for delivery. If any such there be, his doubts cannot long continue now that England and Russia are brought face to face here, as they must still continue to be in the war of diplomacy, and eventually on the field of battle.

The idea of attacking India probably first suggested itself to the Russian mind in the days of the Czar Peter, and the preliminary operations which that ruler carried out in the Persian outskirts with such complete success, and those others which were doomed to failure in Khiva, sufficiently prove that the man who had worsted the Swede and the Turk perceived that a career as a great Asiatic conqueror lay open to him through the dissensions among the Persians, and the growing weakness of the Mogul. But the dream of Peter remained a dream. He had deadly foes in the West, and in the East a greater soldier than he was fast acquiring a supremacy that was not easily to be shaken. Europe diverted Peter's attention from Asia, and the advent of Nadir effectually dispelled the prospect of Russian aggrandisement.

Sixty years later on, another Russian ruler, an Empress, attempted to avail herself of the evil plight of unhappy Persia, and for a time it seemed as if she had overturned the authority of the Shah in the outworks of his State. But once more fortune stepped in, and the Russian design was foiled by the death of the Empress Catherine. The wars which broke out inthe first quarter of the present century, and which