CHARACTERS. 



315 



completely armed with a broad- 

 sword, a dirk or dagger, a target, 

 musket, and pistols. Their dress 

 consisted of a jacket and loose lower 

 garment, with a roU of light wool- 

 len, called a plaid, wrapt round 

 them so as to leave the right arm at 

 full liberty. Thus equipped and 

 accoutred, they would march forty 

 or fifty miles in a day, sometimes 

 even without food or halting, over 

 mountains, along rocks, through 

 morasses; and they would sleep on 

 beds formed by tying bunches of 

 heath hastilyandcarelessly together. 

 Their advance to battle was rapid ; 

 and after discharging their muskets 

 and pistols, they rushed into the 

 ranks of the enemy with their broad- 

 swords; and in close fight, when 

 unable to use their ordinary wea- 

 pon, they suddenly stabbed with the 

 dirk. Their religion, which they 

 called Christianity, was strongly 

 tinctured with the ancient and bar- 

 barous superstitions of the country. 

 They were universally believers in 

 ghosts and preternatural appear- 

 ances. They marked with eager 

 attention the variable forms of their 

 cloudy and changeful sky; from the 

 difterent aspect of which, they fore- 

 told future and contingent events; 

 and, absorbed in fantastical ima- 

 ginations, they perceived in a sort 

 of ecstatic vision things and persons 

 separated from them by a vast in- 

 terval of space. Each tribe had its 

 peculiar dogmas and modes of faith, 

 which the surrounding clans re- 

 garded with indifference, or at most 

 with a cold dislike far removed from 

 the rancour of religious hatred; and 

 persecution for religion was happily 

 a species of folly and wickedness 

 unknown and unheard of amongst 

 them. 



Introduction of Chrislianity into 

 the Russian Empire : from 

 Tooke's History of Russia. 



VLADIMIR resolved to return 

 thanks to the gods for the suc- 

 cess they had granted to his arms, 

 by offering them a sacrifice of the 

 prisoners of war. His courtiers, 

 more cruel in their piety than even 

 their prince, persuaded him that a 

 victim selected from his own people 

 would more worthily testify his gra- 

 titude for these signal dispensations 

 of Heaven. The choice fell on a 

 young Varagian, the son of a Chris- 

 tian, and brought up in that faith. 

 The unhappy father refused the vic- 

 tim: the people enraged, as think- 

 ing their prince and their religion 

 thus insulted at once, assailed the 

 house ; and, having beat in the 

 doors, furiously murdered both fa- 

 ther and son, enfolded in mutual 

 embraces. 



Thus itwas that Vladimir thought 

 to honour the gods. The zealous 

 Olga hud never been able to induce 

 her son to embrace Christianity, 

 and her grandson Vladimir was of 

 all the Russian princes the most 

 bigoted to idolatry. He augmented 

 the number of the idols of Kief; he 

 commissioned Dobryna, his uncle 

 by the mother's side, to raise a su- 

 perb statue at Novgorod to the deity 

 Perune; his offerings enriched both 

 the temples and the priests of his 

 gods, while his zeal inflamed that 

 of the nation. But the grandeur of 

 the Russian monarch was already 

 so conspicuous, as to strike the eyes 

 of the neighbouring princes. All 

 of them courted the friendship of 

 Vladimir, and dreaded his arms : , 

 each was in hopes of fixing his at- 

 tachment by the ties of one common 



