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Alexander II. was devoid of the power of realising the consequences of events, and only gave his attention to the difficulties of the moment. There was in him a strange blending of superstition and recklessness which he never lost during his whole life. He was humane, and at the same time could become intensely cruel; he was vindictive—the greatest defect that a Sovereign can have—and his vindictiveness persisted throughout his life. He was intelligent, cultured, but not clever; he had none of the qualities indispensable to a great statesman, and depended for his opinions to a large extent on those by whom he was surrounded, and of these the men who flattered him most had the greatest influence. He was exceedingly vain, and the many mistakes that marked the close of his reign arose in part from wounded vanity. He had principles; indeed, it would have been impossible for his father’s son to be without them, but he did not live up to them, and at times he could act like the most unprincipled of men. Few understood him, and it is doubtful whether he understood himself, but he had full consciousness of his power, and of all that it gave him, whilst not overburthened with the sense of the responsibility that it entailed, which Nicholas I. had felt so acutely. With several of his father’s failings, he had none of the grand traits of the latter’s character; he was the type of an absolute Sovereign, but not that of an autocrat; he could neither punish nor forgive with dignity, and though he gave easily, yet his was not a generous nature.