for of all clergy in the world, the clergy of Russia is the least feared, respected, esteemed, or beloved.

"The common people, the merchants, and the clergy, having now passed in review, the nobility demand our next attention: we should naturally suppose this order to be superior to the others in sentiment, in knowledge, and in behaviour; and yet, either so depraved are their dispositions, or so perverted their judgments, that, we may safely say, the nobility derive few advantages from birth or education, which claim the respect of others, or are of use to themselves: in their hearts, mean profligacy and vulgar weakness too often triumph over genius and honor, without which birth loses its dignity, and fortune has no value.

"Conscious and jealous of the superior civilisation of foreign nations, sensible of, yet unwilling or unable to correct, the errors of their own, they endeavour to conceal their disadvantages under the affectation of despising the stranger, and under the practice of mortifying him. But these are principally exerted against those whom they are jealous of, or those who they envy for their eminence of talents and superiority of genius; for the humbler foreigner, who has pliancy or baseness enough to submit to their pride, to flatter their vanity, or minister to their pleasures, is certain of securing their favour, of acquiring a confidence, and enjoying an influence, which wisdom or virtue could never have obtained. Of this we see innumerable instances in those crowds of French adventurers, who daily resort here, and are received into most families with open arms, as secretaries, librarians, readers, preceptors, and parasites; though the greatest part of these gentry are equally impudent and illiterate, vagabonds from indigence, or fugitives for crimes.

"The Russian gentlemen are certainly the least informed of all others in Europe; the chief point of their instruction is a knowledge of modern languages, particularly the French and German; both which they usually speak with very great facility, though incapable of writing either with precision or propriety. Those who can afford the expence, and indeed many who cannot afford it, complete their education by a tour to France; where ignorant and unprincipled as they are, they catch at every thing that feeds the fancy or inflames the passions: there they find ample fuel for both; they greedily devour all that is set before them without selection, and lose their delicacy of taste in enormity of appetite: to Frenchmen they become despicable Russians, to Russians despicable Frenchmen, to others equal objects of pity and contempt. So seldom do they derive advantage from those circumstances which form and accomplish the gentleman of other countries, that, instead of instruction or real improvement, they rarely acquire more than personal affectation and mental distortion, and, after all their travels, return home far inferior, in the virtues of a good citizen,, to those who have never travelled at all.

"Their natural parts are tolerably good, but they universally want the discriminating faculty; whence they fall into the most absurd imitations of foreign life and manners, and, abandoning the common

sense of nature, adopt fashions and customs totally contrary to their climate, and troublesome to themselves. Though freezing under the 60th degree of northern latitude, they build their houses like the airy palaces of Florence and Sienna. In France it is the etiquette of fashion to begin the spring season at Easter, and to mark it by dress: the imitative Russian does the same, and flings off his winter garments whilst the earth is covered with snow, and himself shivering with cold. It is the peculiar privilege of the noblesse at Paris to have Swiss porters at the gates of their hotels: at Petersburgh a Russ gentleman of any fashion must have a Swiss also, or some tall fellow with a laced belt and hanger, which it seems are the indispensable accoutrements of a Parisian janitor. It would be an endless task to recite the follies and absurdities of this kind, which they every day fall into, but these few examples will, I presume, appear sufficient.

"This ridiculous imitation of foreign and particularly of French manners, is attended with the most serious consequences and with innumerable ill effects: it not only divests them of national character, but prevents them from aspiring to the praise of all national virtue: it represses their native energy of mind, and extinguishes 'every spark of original genius. Nothing was ever more just than Rousseau's censure of Peter the First's conduct: that monarch, instead of improving his subjects as Russians, endeavoured totally to change and convert them into Germans and Frenchmen: but his attempts were unsuccessful; he could not make them what he wished to make them, he spoiled them in the experiment, and left them worse than they were before. His successsors have continued the same process, but their projects have been equally ineffectual to the people and unprofitable to the

state.

"The Russian nobility from this error of their late princes have contracted that unfortunate bias which will not suffer their nature to shoot upright. Warped by imitation of alien manners without selection, they too often appear vain, petulant, light, inconsequent, indiscreet, envious, and suspicious, faithless in their engagements, traitors to one another, incapable of true friendship, and insensible to all the nobler movements of the soul; luxurious and effeminate, listless and indisposed. Though in a northern climate, they have an Asiatic aversion to all corporal activity and manly exercise, and scarce form an idea of either, beyond the smooth velocity of a sledge, or the measured paces of a managed horse: they have no passion for the sports of the field: hunting, shooting, and fishing, as practised with us, they are utterly strangers to. Avoiding every recreation attended with exertion and fatigue, they prefer the more indolent amusements of chess, cards, or billiards, in all which they are usually extraordinary proficients: few of them employ their leisure in polishing their minds: insensible to the charms of conversation and the refinements of literature, they loiter and sleep away life, and wake but to the calls of sensuality and the grosser pleasures." P. 31.

Of their military skill and domestic habits, we have

here a sketch, the truth of which, even at the present day, must be evident to Europe, since the late campaign in Poland.

"Those who serve in the army or in the navy seldom arrive at any extraordinary excellence in either profession, and seem in general as unambitious as undeserving of military fame. They are looked upon as very moderate proficients by all foreign officers; and it sometimes they seem to perform their duty with the spirit of a soldier, they are rather actuated by the principle of mere obedience and the dread of punishment, than inspired by the nobler motives and generous impulse of magnanimity and true

valour.

The nobility, in common with the inferior classes, are remarkable for filial piety; but this their so much boasted duty to parents seems to proceed more from principles of dependence and slavery, than from unmixed affection or well-founded gratitude; for every father, in the little sphere of his family, is as despotic as the sovereign in his larger dominion. But this virtue, whether real or pretended, is the principle one which they practise they have not, nor do they affect to have, that abhorrence of vice and dishonesty, which prevails among other nations; in so much, that many persons retain their employments, nay judicial employments, though notorious for the most infamous frauds and cruel extortions; for, excepting a few and those in the highest offices, the rest of the nation, though in the morn of greatness, have all the corruptions incident to a declining state, instead of the sterner virtues which raise an empire to meridian glory.

"The abject court and adulation, which they pay to minions, ministers, and men in power, are intolerably offensive to every mind that feels for freedom and independence: to an Englishman they are particularly disgusting. Chiefly attentive to their own fortunes, and in the immediate gratification of personal vanity, the Russian nobility are regardless of public virtue, and improvident of posterity; preferring the smile of a courtier, or the hollow patronage of a favourite, to the rational pleasures of equal society, and to the happiness of conscious virtue. Their fondness for external honors makes a striking part of their character; there are few of them who would not sacrifice the most solid advantage to the superficial decorations of a ribbon or a title; so much attached and accustomed are they to these ornaments, that a foreigner, however great his merit, is but little respected who does not wear such marks of distinction.

"From hence a rigid observer might be led to pronounce them a nation of inconsistence, contradiction, and paradox, uniting in themselves the most opposite extremes: hating the stranger, they copy him; affecting originality, they are the slaves of imitation; magnificent, and slovenly; irreligious, yet superstitious; at once proud and abject, rapacious and prodigal, equally incapable of being reformed by lenity, or corrected by puuishment." R. 38%.

The character of the Russian women is thus delineated: "The women of the lower sort still retain all that primæval barbarism of submission to their husbands, which has been so particularly remarked by all the ancient observers and travellers. The wives of the burghers or merchants are said, in general, to possess most of those virtues or qualities which constitute la bonne femme du vulgaire.

Among many in high life, the most profligate manners and unbounded libertinism prevail. Female chastity indeed seldom long flourishes in a gay court, nor is it any where much respected, unless accompanied with other virtues. Female manners in every country must receive a strong tincture from those of the men, and where the one is faulty the other cannot remain unimpeached. In Russia, as the instruction of the latter is usually committed to French adventurers, so the education of the former is assigned to French governesses, whose incapacity is the least of their defects, and whose former situations render them but ill-qualified for so important a trust. Hence it is that in taste, elegance, and accomplishment, the Russian ladies are inferior to the fair sex of the neighbouring nations. Neglected or corrupted in education, and destitute of resources in themselves, they naturally fly to every object that can dissipate or entertain thein. Uninspired by sentiment, inconstant in engagement, they are often capricious, nay illiberal in their choice: late examples of such indelicacy are not wanting, where the tenderest attachments have given way to the lowest amours.

They are vain, light, and many of them interested, eagerly following every shadow of new and untried amusement, bold and adventurous in the pursuits of pleasure, equally regardless of danger and dishonour, unabashed by detection, and callous to reproach!!!" P. 41.

According to the quackery of modern philosophists, it would be easy to account for such characters as those depicted by his lordship; yet we perceive that this statesman, who certainly knew much more of the true science of government than any of the politicians of the new school, or than Jean Jaques himself, expresses his opinion with great caution on this head.

Despotism can never long flourish, except in a barbarous nation; but to despotism Russia owes her greatness and dominion; so that if ever the monarchy becomes more limited, she will lose her power and strength, in proportion as she advances in moral virtue and civil improvement.

"It will therefore always be the interest, as it has ever been the practice, of the sovereign, to hold the scale of civilisation in his own hand, to check every improvement where it might clash with his authority, and encourage it only when subservient to his grandeur and glory.

No. 128, Vol. 32. Jan. 1809.

L

"I am sensible that the various projects of the present empress may seem to contradict what I have said above; but the fact is, that most of her projects are impracticable; and therefore my assertion loses nothing of its weight. Besides, should the least inconvenience arise from the execution of them, the empress, than whom no sovereign was ever more jealous or tenacious of her authority, can suppress them with a nod, or overthrow them with a breath.

Though the form of government certainly is, and will always be, the principle cause of the want of virtue and genius in this country, as making the motives of one, and the rewards of both, depend upon accident and caprice; yet there are many others, the examination of which might prove a source of very ingenious investigation to the curious enquirer. I must, however, confess, that my own consideration of these points has never been attended with any great degree of demonstration, or conviction to myself. In moral and political as well as in metaphysical and theological researches, there is nearly the same incertitude; and though we may amuse ourselves with the speculation of second causes, we must still remain ignorant of the first: we are bewildered in our pursuit, at the moment we think the chase within our reach, it mocks our eagerness and vanishes from our view."

P. 46.

We hope this example of diffidence will not be lost, and that it will teach pert boys and half-informed novelwriters to be more cautious in pronouncing on the nature and causes of the particular genius and vices of nations. His lordship, unable to satisfy himself as to the effects of despotism, has recourse to the history of Russia, of which he gives a short but interesting and luminous view; remarking all "the great events and revolutions which, either in themselves or in their consequences, have produced even the small degree of civilisation to which Russia is arrived at the present period." The history of Russia is dated from 987, when Volodimer King of Muscovy became a member of the Greek church, and compelled all his subjects to adopt the same religion. It was not, however, till the end of the 15th century that the sovereigns of Russia were able to extricate themselves from the yoke of the Tartars. The victories of John Basilowich in 1500 and the discovery of Archangel by the English in 1559, were the chief aids to the civilisation of this savage empire. During the reign of Alexis Michaelowich, which commenced in 1646, "the establishment of the principal manufactures was begun, and the first idea of regular military discipline was given to the Russians by the generals Gordon, Leslie, and Dalziel." To Britons, indeed, Russia owes almost entirely her civilisation, her arts, and