280 
public instruction 3,158,500; in. all, 
351,438,997 francs, or somewhat less 
than 1] francs for each individual. 
Such are the resources and native 
Arr. XIV. History of the Revolutions of Russia, to the Accession of Catherine the 
First : including a concise Review of the Manners and Customs of the 16th and \ith 
Centuries. By Henry Carn, 4. B. Pemb. Coll. Oxon. 8vo. pp. 710. 
ONE of the most valuable sources of 
Russian historiography, is Schloetzer’s 
Probe Russischer Annalen. Mr. Tooke, in 
his excellent History of Russia, has con- 
sulted, with becoming attention, the ad- 
mirable labours of this profound, this 
omniscient antiquary; who, in all the 
branches of arctic paleosophy, has dis- 
played a research, a sagacity, and an 
adapted crudition, which will long be 
toiled after, with vain emulation, by the 
panting antiquaries of these puny times. 
From a writer on the revolutions of Rus- 
sia, one is disposed to expect, and even 
to claim a careful perusal of at least all 
the leading authorities. It is not enough 
to tell us, (at page 6) that “the several 
writers who relate, in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, the history of Russia in the Latin 
Yanguage, are far superior in their com- 
positions to any other foreigners of a 
sttbsequent date ;” when the first anti- 
quary, which the world ever produced, 
has subsequently consecrated so much 
labour to the express investigation of 
Russian affairs. Yet Mr. Card seems 
ignorant of the very existence of Schloet- 
yer, and neither refers to his memoirs in 
the commentaries of the Petropolitan 
academy, to his specimen of Russian an- 
nals, nor to the sketches scattered in his 
northern history. 
Assemani, the Syrian, fancied he had 
found in Theophanes, that is in the year 
774, the first traces of the Russian name; 
but a severer criticism construes the epi- 
thet guci, to mean ruddled, or painted red, 
and not Russian. It is therefore in the 
Bertinian annals, and to the year 839, 
that the firsttrace must be referred. 
The Russians speak a Slavonian dialect, 
and must consequently be allied in lan- 
guage, as Forster has shewn in his letter 
to Michaelis, with the Medes: of antiqui- 
ty ; from some of whose tribes they no 
doubt descend. In 862, they submitted 
to the sway of ‘Ruriky:a Norman, who 
made Novgorod his chief residence, or 
seat of empire. In the Vandal tribes, 
who peopled Carinthia, Bohemia, Bava- 
-tia, and Moravia, the peasantry have still 
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND STATISTICS. 
strength of that formidable power, which 
the unprincipled aggression of the con- 
federated kings has exalted upon the 
ruins of the European continent. 
Slavonian names, but the nobility Go- 
thic names; so that an early internal he- 
reditary ascendancy was every where 
acquired by the Goths, over the conti- 
guous Slavonians; either because they 
were the more civilized of the two tribes, 
or from a physical admiration of their 
fairer complexionand appearance. Such 
causes would sufficiently account for the 
elevation of Rurik ; but our author as- 
sures us, (page 8) that “ he was selected 
by the republicans of Novgorod, to purge 
their city from the impurities of discord.” 
How has Mr. Card found out, that there 
ever was a republic at Novgorod ? Does 
he rely, in this age of historical criticism, 
on the authorities which taught Milton 
that Rurik descended from Augustus, 
and flourished in 573? And that the 
imperial cup was the skull of Stoslaus, in- 
scribed seeking other mens’ he lost ‘his own, 
It may be allowed to Soumarokoff, in a 
tragedy, to make Vadim a hero of liber- 
ty; but the historian should not describe 
savages like citizens of Geneva or Paris. 
The dynasty, which sprang from Ru- 
rik, continied to reign until 1598. In 
882, they acquired Kiow, and transfer. 
red thither the seat of power. In 955, 
Olga, the daughter-in-law of Rurik, 
went to Censtantinople, and was there 
baptised. Her husband-and son continu- 
ed faithful to Perun,the national idol ; but 
in 938, Volodimer, or Vladimir, a grand- 
son, submitted to baptism. With the re- 
ligion of the Constantinopolitan Greeks, 
their monks, their arts, their sciences, 
penetrated into Russia; and already, in 
1056, was born Nestor, the first Russian 
annalist, who wrote at the end of the 
eleventh century, and died in the Pech- 
zerian convent at Kiow. He supplies 
what of tradition is known concerning 
-the earliest history ; and from his time 
onward, other monkish chronicles fur- 
nish the rest. 
Sylvester, the abbot of  Perejaslavil, 
who died in 1193, was the continuator 
of Nestor’s chronicle ; to him sueceeded 
Simeon, bishop of Susdal, who wrote in 
1206, and many other ecclesiastics 
