130 
MOSCOW. 
chap, bited in the architecture, we must look back to 
- the period of the Russian history when it was con- 
structed. The stories we have hitherto received 
of the monarch in whose piety or ostentation it 
is said to have originated, are so contradictory, 
that the subject itself merits a little investigation. 
The more we inquire into the real history ol 
Russia, and of the Russian Sovereigns, the more 
we shall have reason to believe, that the country 
and people have undergone little variation since 
the foundation of the empire. Peter the Great 
might cut off the beards of the nobles, and sub- 
stitute European habits for Asiatic robes; but the 
inward man is still the same'. A Russian of the 
(l) They who knew Potemkin, or who will merely attend to what 
is related of him in page 118, will Und that a picture of the manners 
of Russian Nobles made in the seventeenth century will equally reprer 
sent those of their Princes in the eighteenth. 
“ Pendant le rf-pas les rots qui leur sortcnt dc la bouehe avec 
l’odeur de l’eau-de-vie, de l’ail, dc l'oiguon, et des raves, .joints aux 
vents du bas ventre, dont ils ne sont point scrupuleux, cxhalent une 
corruption capable de faire cr6ver ceux qui sont auptos d’eux. 11s ne 
portent point leurs mouehoirs dans leurs poehes, mais dans leurs 
bonnets ; ct comme ils ont toujours la tote nuS lorsqu’ils sont 
3l table, s’ils ont besoin de se moueber, ils se servent de leurs 
doights, qu’ils essuyent cusuitc, et leur nez, h la nappe.” Voyage en 
Mascovie, par Augustin, Baron SeMayerlurg, Lcid. 1 688, p. 62. 
Olearios, secretary to the ambassador from the Court of Denmark, 
gave a similar account of their morals in the middle of the seventeenth 
ceotujy. The following short extracts are from the best edition of 
his works, translated from the German by fTicquefort, and published 
at Paris, A. D. 1666. 
“ II est vray que les Moscovites ne manquent point d’esprit ; mais 
ils 1’employent si mal, qu’il n’y a pas une de leurs actions, qui ait 
pour 
/ 
