haps extraordinary, acquirements to bear upon all and every thing that he has described. His opinion of the Russians, however, is mere angry prejudice : he must have suffered, either in his interests or in his vanity, probably in both, before he could have fallen into the error of supposing that the world would believe the following description to be in any degree correct, founded, as it evidently is, on hearsay and individual follies: even, prior to the time of Peter the Great, the manners of the Russian nobility could not have been so gross and abominable as these monstrosities."

NOBILITY.

"Some of the nobles are much richer than the richest of our English peers; and a vast number, as may be supposed, are very poor. To this poverty, and to these riches, are equally joined the most abject meanness, and the most detestable profligacy. In sensuality they are without limits of law, conscience, or honour. In their amusement always children; in their resentment, women. The toys of infants, the baubles of French fops, constitute the highest object of their wishes. Novelty delights the human race; but no part of it seek for novelty so eagerly as the Russian nobles. Novelty in their debaucheries; novelty in gluttony; novelty in cruelty; novelty in whatever they pursue. This is not the case with the lower class, who preserve their habits unaltered from one generation to another. But there are characteristics in which the Russian prince and the Russian peasant are the same: they are all equally barbarous. Visit a Russian, of whatever rank, at his country seat, and you will find him lounging about, uncombed, unwashed, unshaven, half-naked, eating raw turnips, and drinking quass. The raw turnip is handed

about in slices, in the first houses, upon a silver salver, with brandy, as a whet before dinner. Their hair is universally in a state not to be described; and their bodies are only divested of vermin when they frequent the bath. Upon those occasions, their shirts and pelisses are held over a hot stove, and the heat occasions the vermin to fall off. It is a fact too notorious to admit dispute, that from the Emperor to the meanest slave, throughout the vast empire of all the Russias, including all its princes, nobles, priests, and peasants, there exists not a single individual in a thousand, whose body is destitute of vermin. An English gentleman of Moscow, residing as a banker in the city, assured me, that, passing on horseback through the streets, he has often seen women of the highest quality, sitting in the windows of their palaces, divesting each other of vermin;-another trait, in addition to what I have said before, of their resemblance to the Neapolitans.

"The true manners of the people are not seen in Petersburgh, nor even in Moscow, by entering the houses of nobility only. Some of them, and generally those to whom letters of recommendation are obtained, have travelled, and introduce refinements, which their friends and companions readily imitate. The real Russian rises at an early hour, and breakfasts on a dram with black bread. His dinner at noon consists of the coarsest and most greasy viands, the scorbutic effects of which are counteracted by salted cucumbers, sour cabbage, the juice of his vaccinium, and his nectar, quass. Sleep, which renders him unmindful of his abject servitude and barbarous life, he particularly indulges: sleeping always after eating, and going early to his bed. The principal articles of diet are the same every where ; grease and brandy. A stranger, dining with their most refined and most accomplished princes, may in vain expect to see his knife and fork changed. If he sends

them away, they are returned without even being wiped. If he looks behind him, he will see a servant spit in the plate he is to receive, and wipe it with a dirty napkin, to remove the dust. If he ventures (which he should avoid, if he is hungry) to inspect the soup in his plate with too inquisitive an eye, he will doubtless discover living victims in distress, which a Russian, if he saw, would swallow with indifference. Is it not known to all, that Potemkin used to take vermin from his head, and kill them on the bottom of his plate at table? and beauteous princesses of Moscow do not scruple to follow his example. But vermin unknown to an Englishman, and which it is not permitted even to name, attack the stranger who incautiously approaches too near the persons of their nobility, and visit him from their sophas and chairs. If at table he regards his neighbour, he sees him picking his teeth with his fork, and then plunging it into a plate of meat which is brought round to all. The horrors of a Russian kitchen are inconceivable; and there is not a bed in the whole empire, which an English traveller, aware of its condition, would venture to approach.-There is, in fact, no degree of meanness to which a Russian nobleman will not condescend. To enumerate the things of which we were eye-witnesses, would only weary and disgust the reader. I will end with one.

"A hat had been stolen from our apartments. The servants positively asserted, that some young noblemen, who had been more lavish of their friendship and company than we desired, had gained access to the chambers in our absence, and had carried off the hat, with some other moveables, even of less value. The fact was inconceivable, and we gave no credit to it. A few days after, being upon an excursion to the convent of the New Jerusalem, forty-five versts north of Moscow, a party of the nobles, to whom our intention was made

known the preceding evening at the Club de Noblesse, overtook us on horseback. One of them, mounted on an English racer, and habited like a Newmarket jockey, rode up to the side of the carriage, but his horse being somewhat unruly, he lost his seat, and a gust of wind carried off his cap. My companion immediately descended, and ran to recover it for its owner; but what was his astonishment, to perceive his own name, and the name of his hattér, on the lining! It was no other than the identical hat which one of the party had stolen from our lodgings, now become a cap, and which, under its altered shape, might not have been recognised, but for the accident here mentioned."

“This is amusing. The feeling it excites is similar to that which the excessive abuse of an angry man transported beyond the occasion sometimes produces. One, however, is not sure whether such extravagance deserves contempt or derision, nevertheless it is cleverly told.

"In his description of Moscow, he has had plainly in his mind the idea of the French prince, who said of that celebrated capital, that it looked like an assemblage of old chateaux come in from the country, each attended by its own particular village; but still it is very good, though here and there heightened by the general splenetic humour into which the doctor falls as often as he treats of any thing concerning the Russian nobility."

THE CITY.

"We arrived at the season of the year in which this city is most interesting to strangers. Moscow is in every thing extraordinary; as well in disappointing expectation as in surpassing it; in causing wonder and derision, pleasure and regret. Let me conduct the reader

back with me to the gate by which we entered, and thence through the streets. Numerous spires glittering with gold, amidst burnished domes and painted palaces, appear in the midst of an open plain, for several vrests before you reach this gate. Having passed, you look about and wonder what is become of the city, or where you are; and are ready to ask once more, How far is it to Moscow? They will tell you, 'This is Moscow !' and you behold nothing but a wide and scattered suburb, huts, gardens, pigsties, brick walls, churches, dunghills, palaces, timber-yards, warehouses, and a refuse, as it were, of materials sufficient to stock an empire with miserable towns and miserable villages. One might imagine all the states of Europe and Asia had sent a building, by way of representative, to Moscow; and under this impression the eye is presented with deputies from all countries holding congress: timber huts from regions beyond the Arctic-plastered palaces from Sweden and Denmark, not whitewashed since their arrival-painted walls from the Tyrol-mosques from Constantinople-Tartar temples from Buchariapagados, pavilions and virandas from China-cabarets from Spain-dungeons, prisons, and public offices from France-architectural ruins from Rome-terraces and trellisses from Naples-and warehouses from Wapping.

"Having heard accounts of its immense population, you wander through deserted streets. Passing suddenly towards the quarter where the shops are situated, you might walk upon the heads of thousands. The daily throng is there so immense, that, unable to force a passage through it, or assign any motive that might convene such a multitude, you ask the cause, and are told that it is always the same. Nor is the costume less various than the aspect of the buildings; Greeks, Turks, Tartars, Cossacks, Chinese, Muscovites, English, French,