running out, and the common people flocked together, standing very thick upon the shore:-the privy council they looked out of the windows of the court, and the rest ran up to the tops of the towers.' Thus honoured, and amid salutes and cheers of the surrounding ships and mariners, they proceeded on their perilous enterprise. Poor Willoughby, with his own ship the Bona Esperanza,' and her consort, was lost upon the coast of Lapland, but the Bon Aventure, weathering all storms, sailed in nightless summer days into the White Sea, and reached the mouth of the Dwina, where her stout-hearted captain, Richard Chancellor(pilot-major' he might well be called)-cast his anchor. Chancellor's journey inland from near the spot where Archangel now stands, and his reception at Moscow, were worthy of a bold and able adventurer and a stately court. Describing the imperial banquet which was offered to him, he talks of 140 servitors, all arrayed in cloth of gold, which in the dinner-time changed thrice their habit and apparel;' whilst the furniture of dishes and drinking-vessels, which were there for the use of 200 guests, were all of pure gold.' We much doubt if the grand monarque' ever exceeded this sumptuousness:-the reader will say it may also be doubted if all was gold that glittered;-but we beg him to remember that such is the story not of one but of several shrewd old English traffickers, who assert that they handled and scrutinised in the morning the articles they had stared at over night. In fact Moscow was an Asiatic capital, quite guiltless of intercourse with Brummagem.

The success of Chancellor led to the exchange of ambassadors, and the first commercial treaty between the countries bears the venerable date of 1555. It would appear, indeed, that John Vasilivich II., our first Russian ally, was so enamoured of everything about us, that he even strove hard to get an English wife. Queen Elizabeth, whose good graces the Czar had obtained, wished to have sent him the Lady Anne Hastings, daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon; but when that amiable damsel was informed of certain autocratical habits of her intended, who was, it appears, a duplicate of our Harry VIII., the last of his seven wives having just been thrown into a lake, she prudently declined to fill the vacant situation.

But what was the Muscovite empire of those days? Girt round by formidable neighbours who occasionally ravaged it-the Swede on the north, the Pole on the west, the Turk on the south, and the Tartar on the east-Russia was without a foreign ally save England. Even then, undoubtedly, she had become a powerful and wealthy state-independent (after long struggles) of Polish and Tartar domination-with her people united, as at this

day,

day, by one religious creed-in short she had within her the germ of her future grandeur. It was reserved, however, for a prince of the house of Romanow to rouse his countrymen to play a higher part-to break through their surrounding trammels, and to pass from their isolated condition into the fulness of an European empire. Peter the Great sketched, and with his own stout hands to a great extent carried out, that gigantic plan on which the modern Colossus has been raised. His capacious mind called a new maritime capital into existence, in a tract where nature seemed to have placed her veto. Russia then, indeed, renouncing her semi-Asiatic state, burst forth upon Europe as a new country. One natural result, however, has been, that historians and travellers have, in their descriptions of the empire, taken too much of their colouring from the new metropolis, and have comparatively neglected the old country. It is, we apprehend, true that large tracts of the interior are less known to our contemporaries, than they were to our pushing ancestors-who drove their commerce up the Dwina, and formed depôts at Vologda, Yaroslaf, and Astracan.

Several recent books about Russia deserve our notice; but with one department of their materials we shall make short work. Few travellers can quit the splendid metropolis of St. Petersburg without giving us a volume upon it. We shall not follow their example-but simply refer to the satisfactory Schnitzler and the excellent Hand-book of Murray; and transcribe a single sketch of the scene that presents itself to the stroller on the sunny cold pavements' of the grand promenade of the Newski. This we take from none of the authors named at the head of this paper, but from the proof sheets of a forthcoming collection of Familiar Letters' by a young and beautiful and witty English spinster, whose work, when it does appear, will, we venture to predict, cause a sensation hardly inferior to that which attended the bursting of the Old Man's' Brunnen Bubbles:

Here it is Russians of all garbs and ranks pass before you. There stands the picturesque Isvouschik, loitering carelessly beneath the trees of the avenue, who, catching your steady gaze, starts up, displays a row of beautiful teeth beneath his thickly-bearded lip, and, pointing to his droschky, splutters out, "Kudi vam ugodno? or "Whither does it please you?" Here stalks the erect Russian peasant, by birth a serf and in gait a prince, the living effigy of an old patriarch,-bearded to the waist, his kaftan of sheep's-skin, or any dark cloth, wrapped round him; the ample front of which, confined at the waist by a belt of bright colours, contains all that another would stow in a pocket; literally portraying the words of Scripture, "Full measure shall men pour into your bosom." Contrary to all established rule, the Russian peasant wears his shirt, always blue or red, over his trousers, his trousers under his boots; and doubtless

doubtless deems this the most sensible arrangement. And look, here go a possé of Russian foot-soldiers, with close-shorn head and face and brow-beat look-as little of the martial in their dusky attire as of glory in their hard lives-the mere drudges of a review, whom Mars would disown. Not so the tiny Circassian, light in limb and bright in look, flying past on his native barb, armed to the teeth, with eyes like loadstars, which the cold climate cannot quench. Now turn to the slender Finn, whose teeth are of pearl, and hair so yellow that you mistake it for a lemon-coloured handkerchief peeping from beneath his round hat; or see, among the whirl of carriages three or four abreast in the centre of the noble street, that handsome Tartar coachman, with hair and beard of jet, sitting gravely, like a statue of Moses, on his box, while the little postilion dashes on with the foremost horses, ever and anon throwing an anxious look behind him, lest the ponderous vehicle, which the long traces keep at half a street's distance, should not be duly following; and within lolls the pale Russian beauty, at whose careless bidding they all are hurrying forward, looking as apathetic to all the realities of life as any other fine lady in any other country could do. These are the pastimes which the traveller finds in the streets here, further beguiled by the frequent question and frequent laugh, as you peep into the various magazines, listen to the full-mouthed sounds, and inhale the scent of Russian leather, with which all Petersburg is most appropriately impregnated.'

Those who wish for minute details of the gaieties of the court and the splendours of the camp, will find an ample feast in the Recollections' of the Marquis of Londonderry-whose elegant lady also has published in one of our Annuals a very pretty chapter or two on the former of these captivating themes. As might have been expected, the Marquess warmly advocates that cause with which his chivalrous life and old associations have identified him. In this northern narrative we have constantly before us the same Charles Stewart, upon whose noble horsemanship' we looked with pleasure and pride (for reviewers may have been soldiers) as, more than thirty years ago, when the British trumpets first sounded in Spain, he led his fine hussars into the Escurial: the same undaunted cavalier who at Benevente, on that lowering day when Napoleon in person was pressing on the army of the gallant Moore, covered our retreat_by_crossing the Tormes with a few squadrons and defeating the Imperial Guard. Is it not he, who, while the great war rolled on, represented our country in the camps of our allies? Justly, therefore, may we say that, in honouring him with special courtesy and confidence, Nicholas honoured one of England's most distinguished soldiers. Nor are we at all surprised that such an ardent and generous spirit should have been potently affected by the sort of reception he met with in Russia—he can afford, as well as we,

to

to smile at the criticism of a witty brother peer, who, on reaching the last page of the book, scribbled this envoy :——

If all be gospel that you write,

Heaven's paved, of course, with malachite.'

Making due allowance for the 'couleur de rose' with which everything must have been invested in his eyes, we still have facts enough brought forward on which we are bound to place reliance. Such, for example, is the Emperor's own declaration:

'England and Russia are so placed geographically by Providence, that they ought always to understand each other and be friends; and I have ever done all in my power to accomplish it. Really I have so much love for England, that when the Journals and the Radicals were abusing me outrageously, I had the greatest desire to put myself into a steam-boat and proceed direct to London (apprising the King of course of my intended arrival), to present myself among reasonable and fairjudging Englishmen, to converse with them and to show them how unjustly I was aspersed. It is my ardent wish to cultivate peaceable relations of amity with all powers. I want interior tranquillity and time to consolidate the component parts of this great empire.'-p. 13.

That the Emperor commands admirably in his own person at a review, and is a most adroit tactician, is admitted by all, and the more we follow him into the different departments of government, the more shall we find that he there displays the same spirit and energy as at the head of his troops; that he is, in short, as Benkendorf said of him, in courtier's language, le professeur en tout.' But he is not only the brilliant chief and able administrator; unless all reporters, of whatever shade of opinion, are alike in the wrong, Nicholas is the pattern of domestic excellence, whether viewed as a son, a father, or a husband. We may express our own belief that Russia has not been governed by a man of so much firmness of purpose since the death of Peter the Great; and as his decisions are influenced by the strongest desire to do justice to the lower orders, he is naturally looked up to by them with filial affection. His personal influence over the people has been put to the severest tests, both when he threw himself into the midst of an infuriated mob during the raging of the cholera, and when he quelled the bloody insurrection of the military colonies. On the first occasion he galloped in his droshki alone, and unattended by a single soldier, into the centre of a great market-place crowded with the deluded people, who imagined that their food was poisoned. Commanding them to fall on their knees and pray to God, who alone could avert the pestilence, he calmed the tempest, and was followed by the people into the church, where they invoked blessings on the head of their father

for

for so the sovereign is still universally styled and addressed in Russia. A like magnanimous promptitude carried him to the scene of the cholera-mutiny of the soldier-peasants. The heads of the officers of these misguided men were rolling down the steps of the barracks when the Emperor appeared. And how attended? with artillery and dragoons? No-in his travelling calêche, accompanied only by Count Orloff. Standing forth to the mutineers, he thus addressed them: Soldiers! you have committed the deepest crimes-instant submission and acknowledgment of your guilt can alone save you.' The muskets dropped from the arms of the men, and they fell prostrate before him. Now,' added he, 'that you are again my subjects, I forgive you, but on one condition only, that you at once name the men who misled you.' The ringleaders were then exiled to Siberia, and this fearful insurrection passed away.

Returning to Lord Londonderry, we would say that his first volume, which contains accounts of what he saw or heard, is of much greater value than the second. When the gallant Marquess quits the court and camp,' and trusts to others, he is not to be safely followed. It is on his charger that we admire him, and not when, tampering with the ologies,' he administers dyoritics (diorites) to his readers!

Those who are little versed in that form of Christianity in which so many millions of our fellow-creatures in the Russian empire devoutly believe, will find ample instruction in the pages of Dr. Pinkerton-one of the most efficient missionaries ever sent out by the Bible Society-a modest, pious, and really learned If he had given us nothing more than his translation of Russian proverbs, he would have deserved our best thanks for thus throwing light on the character and manners of a people among whom traditionary maxims have so much influence. But in addition to this he has accumulated for our use quite a harvest of personal observation; and, moreover, he has put into fair English six sermons of Russian prelates, which, as they powerfully inculcate the wholesome doctrines of faith and charity, do not lack of merit in our eyes from their terseness and brevity. Fifteen minutes would dispose of the longest. Hear this, ye who run into the second hour!

The two works, however, which we most recommend to the general reader are the Domestic Scenes' by Mr. Venables, and the Excursions' by Mr. Bremner. It is at the same time right to premise, that very large portions of Russia in Europe have not been visited by either of these gentlemen. It must, in particular, be always borne in mind, that their opinions have been formed in districts where the great mass of the peasantry are the serfs of indi