568 Petersburgh, Moscow, and the Provinces. [Nov. 



the generality are happy and contented that the beings whom rhapso- 

 dists have depicted as degraded into brutal stupidity by the galling 

 pressure of bondage, are gifted, on the contrary, with sense, with recti- 

 tude, with grateful hearts, and endowed with a keen perception of right 

 and wrong ; that their superior tact enables them to decide with almost 

 infallible impartiality the extent of the bondsman's duty the limits of 

 the master's right ; in a word, that among the peasants who are sup- 

 posed to groan under the scourge of misery, and to share the heritage 

 of poverty, may sometimes be found the possessor of thousands ! 



The work, from which we subjoin a few fragments, possesses mate- 

 rials sufficiently varied to interest every class of readers : its pages, 

 while they beguile a heavy hour, frequently perform a higher office, 

 and serve as a vehicle for the lessons of practical wisdom. Our extracts, 

 however, are principally confined to the lighter portions of the work, 

 the detached and abbreviated selection of matter, which our limits com- 

 pel us to adopt, not according with the graver subjects on which the 

 author occasionally treats. The following passage relates to the pic- 

 turesque islands situated on the right bank of the Neva : 



<f Let the reader imagine an immense garden adapted to the English taste, 

 of the circumference of five French leagues, and intersected by the windings 

 of the river, whose meanderings bestow inexhaustible variety on the different 

 points of view. An English traveller, who was once conducted to the magni- 

 ficent scene just as the sun was about to set, was lost in admiration. Sur- 

 prised at the total absence of night a circumstance which usually takes place 

 towards the end of May he remained fixed to the spot ; and expecting at 

 every instant the approach of darkness, neglected to seek repose for eight and 

 forty hours. A characteristic trait of an opposite nature is related of the 

 celebrated Alfieri, who, happening to visit the same spot during the month of 

 June, was seized with such a fit of ill-humour at the prolonged absence of 

 night, that he shut himself up in his chamber, and retired to bed, where he 

 remained till the days again decreased." 



The author gives the following details on the subject of the Russian 

 clergy, and afterwards passes, rather abruptly, to the mention of the 

 Emperor Paul. The reader, however, who is fond of anecdote, will not 

 cavil at the arrangement of the subject-matter: 



ff Marriage is one of the conditions imposed on the priesthood, and inva- 

 riably precedes the sacrament of ordination. None of the Russian popes can 

 espouse a widow, or contract a second matrimonial union. The death of 

 their wives, therefore, reduces them to the alternative of retiring to a monas- 

 tery, or of renouncing their sacerdotal functions. Such of them as have the 

 misfortune to become widowers, generally embrace the monastic state. The 

 secular priests, how distinguished soever by virtue or by talent, are forbidden 

 to become candidates for the episcopal dignity. The severest punishment that 

 can be inflicted on a Russian priest is the shaving off his beard ; such a dis- 

 grace being tantamount to his dismissal from his sacred office. A Russian 

 pope's wife, like Caesar's, ' must not be suspected:' the slightest stain upon 

 her virtue would fall upon her husband, and cause his expulsion from the 

 order of the priesthood. Consequently, the dread of an act of dishonour, 

 which would infallibly occasion her partner's ruin, acts as a check upon the 

 levity of the wife. A pope, once finding his wife in rather exceptionable 

 society, pointed to his beard, at the same time imitating with his fingers the 

 action of the scissors. The significant gesture was not lost upon the lady, 

 who instantly rose and retired with her husband. 



" The Emperor Paul, notorious for his singularities, at one time conceived 

 the idea of exercising the functions of patriarch a project from which he 



