the death of her husband Igar, and obtaining 
a regal sway over a fiery and turbulent peo- 
ple, who then could scarcely submit with 
patience to the government of their legal 
princes must have been pre-eminently gifted 
with those masculine qualifications, which 
imprint the duty of obediencé on minds the 
Jeast tinctured with the virtues of civilization. 
Though gross idolatry overspread her coun- 
try, yet the precepts and example of the mis- 
sionaries transplanted by Oskold had made 
an impression on her heart too deep to be 
easily effaced; accordingly, moved by the 
wish of embracing christianity in the most 
august manner, or by the less spiritual desire 
of extending the circulation of her trade, she 
sailed from Kief to Constantinople in the 
time of public and private tranquillity. 
“« The royal historian, the Emperor Con- 
stantine Porphyrogenitus, welcomed her ar- 
rival with ali the honours appropriate to the 
majesty of her rank; and with all the forms 
and ceremonies which could flatter her fe- 
male vanity, and display the transient great- 
ness of his luxury and splendeur. Froin the 
numerous and costly presents which at once 
perhaps excited her astonishment and grati- 
fied her avarice, we may select, as no mean 
specimens of imperial generosity, and as most 
adapted to a lady’s wants, some vases of rare 
value, and a quantity of those fine staffs 
which were then only fabricated in the east. 
The emperor himself conducted her to the 
baptismal fount, where she received the ve- 
perated name of the empress Helena. The 
Rassian chronicles would teach us to believe, 
that her beauty so captivated Constantine, 
that he offered to share his throne with her; 
but if the emperor himself had not informed 
us that his wife was yet alive, we should 
want no better evidence to refute this tale, 
and to show us that he would have indig- 
nantly rejected the union, than the perusal 
‘ot his instructions to his son Remanus, in 
which hevexposes the ill policy of listening 
to the overtures of foreign alliances. 
© On her return to Kief and Novgorod, she 
pertinaciously adhered to her new religion ; 
but this great princess, great does she deserve 
to be called, (for in this babarous age, she 
constructed townsand villages, formed bridges 
and roads for the benefit of trade, and esta- 
blished institutions of general utility,) sensi- 
bly experienced the weakness .of her power, 
and the obstinacy of human nature in her 
unremitting endeavours to wean ber nation 
and son from ‘their attachment to the gods of 
their fathers. * | 
«* Proud and sanguinary, and strangers to 
all those pursuits which givesbirth to acts of 
humanity and juctice, her people scorned and 
were ill caleulated to tread in the smooth 
paths of humanity and peace. » Whilst to all 
the frequent pious exhortations of his mother, 
the harsh inAexthility of Sviatoslaf insulting- 
ly demanded, whether she wished him to be- 
come an objectef contempt and derision to 
hisscompamons. From the temper of this 
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND STATISTICS. 
interrogatory, it requires no prodigious depth 
of sagacity to have foreseen, that the christian 
religion would soon shrink into insignificance 
and obscurity on the death of Olga. And 
indeed so rapid was its decline, that the 
churches erected by the fervent zeal of this 
princess, could scarcely preserve it from total 
extinction. 
«* We have now contemplated the rise and 
progress of christianity, and deduced the vi- 
sible causes of its decay. From this period, 
a more pleasing exercise commences ; to ob- 
serve the gradual extirpation of paganism, 
and to mark the final establishment of the 
christian religion. ’ 
«* The military renown, the increasing 
wealth, the unrelaxing firmness, the exten- 
sive authority of Vladimir, now began to 
command the fears and invite the attention 
of the neighbouring potentates. By gifts 
they courted his esteem; by embassies they 
solicited his conversion to their respective re- 
ligions. Nearly at the same time, it is said, 
were presented to him, deputies from the 
Pope, or rather of some catholic prince, from 
the people of great Bulgaria, and from the 
Jews established among the Kozares. But 
all their prospects of success were darkened 
by the mission and lively eloquence of a 
Greek Metropolitan. This loquacious pre- 
late, whom the chronicles dignify with the 
appellation ofa philosopher, though he failed 
in making an absolute proselyte of his illus- 
trious auditor ; was, however, dismissed with 
his friendship and gifts: an enviable happi- 
ness which the rest, perhaps, had sighed for 
in vain. Indeed, so strong was the impres- 
sion made on the heart anid understanding of 
Vladimir, by the discourse of this theological 
advocate, that he dispatched six or ten Rus- 
sians, of pre-eminent wisdom among their 
countrymen, to inspect minutely the religious 
principles and rites of their different coun- 
tries. 
«« They first directed their course to the 
Bulgarians, (eastward of Russia) and zealous 
champions of the warlike prophet of Mecca ; 
but they soon changed their abode, little 
moved by their extravagant veneration for the 
chimerical. doctrines -of their apocryphal 
Koran. They afterwards visited the Latin 
churches of Germany, whose want of exter- 
nal ornament they beheld with the unfavour- 
able emotions of pity and contempt. But in 
their arrival at Constantinople, they gazed, 
with inexpressible admiration and delight, on 
the magnificent dome of St. Sophia; and 
their attention was equally arrested by the 
pompous and alluring embellishments which 
adorned their altars; by the impressive pic- 
tures of their saints and martyrs; by the rich 
vestments of their priests ; by their idolatrous 
worship of images and relics; and by the 
pleasing order of their ostentatious eeremo- 
nies. A religion, therefore, which embraced 
such a succession of splendid rites, was soon 
considered, by their uncultivated intellects, 
to contain the very essence of christianity. 
