means, held his Micola so long that he had like to have been burnt himself; and seeing he did him no gcod, he threw him into the midst of the fire with this curse, noo chart, i.e. The devil take thee. They bestow jewels upon them of a great value. This year a woman who had formerly adorned her Micola with some pearls, being necessitated, came to the church and prayed Micola to lend her some of his jewels, for she was at present in great want; the dumb brute not speaking any thing to the contrary, she (thinking silence gave consent) made bold to take a ruby or two of him; but the pope, spying her, complains to the justice, who commanded both her hands to be cut off, which was done three months since. In their private houses, they do ordinarily give and take, as they thrive in their business; for if they have any great losses, they will come home and rob Micola to his shirt."

Chapter VI. is "the tragical relation of a monkey, and how he threw down the images and scared the priest ;" an adventure which we shall altogether omit.

Chapter VII. is a lively account of Russian music.

"Their cadences and closes are so unexpected, that they seem frighted into them, as our fiddlers are when a constable comes in the midst of a lesson. Sometimes they will run hard upon a scent, as though they meant to imitate the Italian recitative music. Finally, when they have brought up these children to a perfection, what with bases, tenors, contratenors, and trebles, you shall hear as good a concert as ever was sung at Cats' Vespers. They have but little instrumental music, it being prohibited by the Patriarch, in opposition to the Romish church. And it has also been thought state policy to forbid all music or jollity among the commons, to prevent effeminacy. They have bagpipes, and small fiddles with bellies like lutes, wherewith they play four or five notes.

"As for their warlike music, they have kettle drums, whose dull sound does well agree with the Russian saturnine genius; and the trumpet, which I think has not been long used, for they can hardly blow it so well as a sow-gelder does his horn. In their hunting, they use brass bugles, which altogether make an hideous noise. In short, if you would please a Russian with music, get a concert of Billingsgate nightingales, which, joined with a flight of screech owls, a nest of jackdaws, a pack of hungry wolves, seven hogs in a windy day, and as many cats with their corrivals, and let them sing Lacrymæ, and that will ravish a pair of Russian luggs better than all the music in Italy, light airs in France, marches of England, or the jigs of Scotland."

It cannot be said that the chapter-maker has shewn much skill in the division of the work; for, although Chapter II. treats of marriages, we do not arrive at "nuptial proceedings" till Chapter VIII. In these said proceedings, the Russ does not seem to differ very much in his practice from other men,

unless it be in the point of his procuring his wife by brokerage, as the good Doctor terms it.

"They do most by brokers; and the young man seldom sees his wife till they come into the bride's chamber; if she be ugly, she pays for it soundly, it may be, the first time he sees her. To prevent future mistakes, the bridegroom's friends, viz. five or six women, see the bride stark naked, and observe whether she has any defect in her body; if but the least pimple appear, she must be cured of it before she marries."

Chapter IX. relates a "merry story of a great fish, which the friars took to be a devil," but which would neither please nor scare our readers. Chapter X. jumps to Chircass, as the Doctor calls the country of the Cossacks, but it contains nothing worth extracting.

Chapter XI. reverts to the Russian Government, of which he writes:

"The Russian Government is perfectly monarchical; it has offices called Precauses: the dispensation of their justice is commonly arbitrary, for they have very few written laws; they go much upon precedents (but money is their best precedent, which overthrows all the former); they waste abundance of paper in writing down things at large (as our common-law clerks do), all in rolls of a great length; and although they have a table before them, they cannot write but upon their knees, after the old fashion that St. Jerom is pictured."

A melancholy picture is given of the state of the country.

"Thus much I know this empire is impoverished, depopulated, and spoiled, so much in ten years, as it will not recover its pristine prosperity in forty. Seven years ago, the plague carried away 7 or 800,000 people and three years since, the Crim carried away captive out of the borders, 400,000 souls into perpetual captivity, besides 300,000 were consumed and killed by dint of sword in several armies; the best of the land is harassed, the rest untilled for want of men; for, in five hundred versts' travel up the river, you may see ten women and children for one man. All things are there become scarce; every thing six times the rate that it was formerly; and copper money is not valued."

Chapter XII. gives a sketch of the rise and progress of the family of Romanoff, and contains some curious anecdotes of the celebrated Ivan Vasclowitch, the contemporary of our Queen Elizabeth.

"Juan Vasilowidg (that is called the tyrant) was a stout prince, but had many strange humours. One day he came to his Diac, and gave him a petition, desiring him that he would be pleased to

make ready 200,000 men and arms by such a time, and he should be very thankful to him, and pray for his health, and so he subscrib'd himself, Thy humble servant, Jocky of Moscua. In this expedition he conquered Casan, a thousand versts down the river Volga, and Astracan (quasi civitas) the imperial city, two thousand versts hence; took Siberia, three thousand versts distant, and one of the best flowers of the empire. The people loved him very well, for he treated them kindly, but chastised his boyars. He had a staff, with a very sharp spike in the end thereof, which, in discourse, he would strike through his boyars' feet, and if they could bear it without flinching, he would highly prefer them.

"He once sent to Vologda for a colpack of fleas, and, because they could not bring him full measure, he fined them.

"On a festival, he played certain mad pranks, which caused some strangers, viz. Dutch and English women, to laugh; he, taking notice thereof, sent for them all to his palace, and had them stripped stark naked before him in a great room; then he commanded four or five bushels of pease to be thrown down before them, and made them pick them all up, when they had done he gave them some wine, and bade them take heed how they laughed before an emperor again. He sent for a nobleman of Casan, who was called Plesheare, which is bald; and the vayod mistaking (as the Russians say), thought he had sent for an hundred and fifty baldpates,-Polteraste, sounding like his name, signified so many. He, therefore, got together about eighty or ninety, and sent them up speedily, with an excuse that he could find no more in his province, and desired pardon. The emperor seeing so many baldpates, wondered what it meant, and crossed himself: at last, one of the chief delivering the letter, he asked his diack what he wrote to the vayod, who shewed him the copy, by which he found out the mistake, and so, making the baldpates drunk for three days, he sent them home again. Another vayod had taken a goose for a bribe, stuffed full of ducats, and being complained of, he took no notice of him, till, one day, passing through the Poshiarr (an open place like Smithfield, where execution was used to be done), he commanded the hangman to cut off his arms and his legs; and, at every blow, the hangman asked him whether goose was good meat.

"He courted Queen Elizabeth very much to marry her, and was a great friend to the English. Once, upon a suspicion of treason, he fortified Vologda, and drew all his treasure thither, and, as some think, upon extremity, intended his flight for England. This emperor erected the best buildings in all Moscua.

"This Juan Vasilowidg nailed a French ambassador's hat to his head. Sir Jerom Boze, a while after, came as ambassador, and put on his hat, and cocked it before him; at which, he sternly demanded how he durst do so, having heard how he chastised the French ambassador. Sir Jerom answered, he represented a cowardly King of France, but I am the ambassador of the invincible Queen of England, who does not vail her bonnet, nor bare her head, to any prince living; and if any of her ministers shall receive any affront abroad, she is able to revenge her own quarrel. Look you there (quoth Juan Vasilowidg, to his boyars);

there is a brave fellow, indeed, that dares do and say thus much for his mistress; which whoreson of you all dare do so much for me, your master? This made them envy Sir Jerom, and persuade the emperor to give him a wild horse to tame; which he did, managing him with such rigour, that the horse grew so tired and tamed, that he fell down dead under him; this being done, he asked his majesty if he had any more wild horses to tame. The emperor afterwards much honoured him, for he loved such a daring fellow as he was, and a mad blade to boot."

Chapter XIII. relates to Alexis Michaelovitch, the Emperor, with whom the author found favour at his court.

"The Czar marries not out of his own dominions, but takes a wife where he pleases, though seldom out of the nobility. When she dies, all the interest of her kindred and relations dies with her. Eliah, the present emperor's father-in-law, was of so mean account, that, within this twenty years, he drew wine to some Englishmen, and his daughter gathered mushrooms, and sold them in the market. The other, which he should have had, was a captain's daughter. The imperial palace is built of stone and brick, except some lodgings wherein his majesty sleeps and eats all the winter; for they esteem wooden rooms far wholesomer than stone; and they have some reason to think so, because their stone rooms, being arched thick, reverberate a dampness when the stove is hot. The emperor lodges three story high. His drink is brague, made of oats. His bread is made of rye, which the Russians esteem a stronger nourishment than wheat. The Czar lies in no sheets, but in his shirts and drawers, under a rich sable coverlid, and one sheet under him. His recreations are hunting and hawking. He keeps above three hundred falconers, and has the best ger-falcons in the world, which are brought from Siberia; he flies at ducks, or other fowl. He hunts the bear, wolf, tiger, fox, or rather baits them at his pleasure.

"Whensoever he goes forth, the East gate of the inner wall of the City is shut till he returns. He seldom visits any subject; yet the last year he did, but went not in the common way, for the side of a wall was pulled down."

Chapter XIV. describes the emperor's revenues, and touches upon other miscellaneous matter. Chapter XV. treats of the City of Moscow, and contains a summary of the difference in manners between the Russians of that day and the inhabitants of other countries.

"The Russians are a people who differ from all other nations of the world, in most of their actions.

"Their shirt they wear over their drawers, girded under the navel (to which they think a girdle adds strength). None, neither male or female, must go ungirt, for fear of being unblest. They whistle not with their lips (that they count prophane), but through the teeth; a

strange way of whistling, indeed. When they spit on any thing to wipe it (as shoes, &c.), they do use an action not unlike sneezing. In cases of admiration or incredulity, instead of a shrug, they wave their heads from one shoulder to another. Their very speech and accent, also, differs from other nations.

“In our clock-dials, the finger moves to the figure; in the Russian, e contra, the figures move to the pointer. One Mr. Holloway, a very ingenious man, contrived the first dial of that fashion; saying, because they acted contrary to all men, it was fitting their work should be made suitable. Because the Roman Catholics kneel at their devotion, they will stand, for they look upon kneeling as an ignoble and barbarous gesture. Because the Polonians shave their beards, they count it sinful to cut them. Because the Tartar abhors swines' flesh, they eat it rather than any other flesh, although its food is most pogano, or unclean, of any beast. They count it a great sin for a Russ to lie with a Dutch woman or English woman; but a venial peccadillo for a Russ woman to prostitute herself to a stranger, for they say her issue will be educated in the true ancient faith, but a Russ gets an uncircumcised child of a stranger. They prefer rye above wheat, and stinking fish above fresh. They count their miles by nineties, and not by hundreds. Their new year's day is the first of September. From the Creation they reckon 7060 and odd years. To things improbable they easily give credit, but hardly believe what is rational and probable.

"In their salutes, they kiss the woman's right cheek. Lands 25 of inheritance are entailed upon the youngest brother.

'They write upon their knees, though a table stand before them. "They sew with the needle towards them, and thrust it forward with their fore-finger; it should seem they are bad tailors.

"They know not how to eat pease and carrots boiled, but eat them, shells and all, like swine. They do not pick their pease, but pull them up by the roots, and carry them into the market to be sold. "They know not the name of Cornuto; but, of a cuckold, they say, He lies under the bench.

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"They will sooner take the word of a man who has a beard, than the oath of one who is beardless.

"The beauty of women they place in their fatness, juxta illud Italicum. Dio mi faccia grassa, io mi faro bella.' God make me fat, and I'll make myself beautiful.

"Their painting is no better than that of our chimneys in the summer, viz. red oaker and Spanish white.

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"They paint or stain their teeth black, upon the same design that our ladies wear black patches: or, it may be, their teeth being spoiled by mercurial painting, they make a virtue of necessity, and cry up that for an ornament which is really a deformity. Low foreheads and long eyes are in fashion here; to which purpose, they strain them up so hard under their tyres, that they can as ill shut them, as our ladies lift their hands to their heads. They have a secret amongst them, to stain the very balls of their eyes black. Narrow feet and slender waists are alike ugly in their sight..