the religious faith of Poland, by transplant-pectant grasp into its own; for whilst the ing its population into Asia. This, however, is not the worst effect of these proceedings, for our author well observes:

sovereign of Prussia leaned for support on German states, in the visionary hope of uniting Nicholas to take a prominent lead amongst the and heading a homogeneous German people, Nicholas himself, by marriages, intrigues, and bribes, has made that progress for his own interests, to effect which the Prussian Cabinet sold itself to h.m.'

'Political violence and cruelties, the mere extirpation of races or of creeds, would be nothing, however, to the condition to which his own subjects are reduced-comparatively nothing; because races are doomed according to the law of nature to perish, and creeds flourish and wither, and, being immaterial, spring again from their ashes. But the dull, monotonous, hopeless, all-pervading oppression to which his subjects are reduced, producing the same the peasantry, whether private serfs, crown moral effect on the human mind, as the slough of his northern bogs on the human frame, sink

ing into it, blinding the eyes, silencing the tongue, and paralyzing the agglutinated limbs, is infinitely more terrible-doubly terrible, because it is a destiny the sufferers must not only endure, but propagate by foreign conquest, and by the natural re-production and increase of population.'

Our author divides the Russian people into three great classes; first, the landed aristocracy; second, all those who are, or have been employed by the government; third,

serfs, or freed men. Of these three classes, he gives the following description:

The first of these classes, more polished than civilized, generally given to licentiousness and extravagance, and crushed by a sense of its humiliating condition, is insignificant by its want of spirit, and numbers, and by the fact of a paramount influence which destroys that which it once possessed over its serfs, and which Such a system destroys all generous, it has not even the means of counteracting by manly feeling. Our readers, therefore, will the dissemination amongst them of such ennot be surprised to learn that there is no larged and liberal ideas as its own comparative national interest in Russia; there only the civilization might suggest, and which migh interest of the house of Romanoff prevails. which is weighing it down, though without weaken the power of that arbitrary tyranny However obvious, therefore, the interests strengthening its own. Its members must, and wishes of the nation, they are always therefore, naturally bear in their hearts a bitter sacrificed to those of the autocrat, who enmity to the oriental despotism which crushes treats Russia as the Duke of Newcastle them in the dust. At the close of the late Emused to treat East Retford,-i. e., 'does peror Alexander's reign, they made a final efwhat he likes with his own.' But, notwith-fort to shake off this galling tyranny, and the standing this unlimited power, and the unnumerous secret societies which were conspirscrupulous use made of it, Russian influ-ng against the imperial authority, included ence and conquests extend not because of the power she does possess, but of that which she is thought to possess. The influence of Russia, at the courts of Sweden, and Berlin, is thus accounted for:

'The suspicion of his subjects which the late King of Sweden entertained to the last, gave Prussia all the ascendency at Stockholm, that it was impossible for her to possess in a constitutional country. In Russia, her present sovereign led away by his fears for his Rhenish | provinces, and the hope of being able to walk alone when he should have obtained that ascendency over the petty German states, which he hoped to dispute with Austria, entered into a strict alliance, so repugnant to his natural feelings and personal antipathies, with the Russian cabinet; he has surrendered himself, as Faust, to Mephistopheles; coil after coil winds around him, and compromises his position in that civilized Europe in which he would have wished to play the liberal leader, whilst re taining the power and the sweets of despotism; and its Byzantine craft must smile as it sees the very advantages for which he prostituted his obeisance and dignity escaping from his ex

in their ranks some scion of every noble family in the empire, and with each were the hearts and wishes of the stock to which he belonged. These efforts terminated in a hasty and pusillanimously conducted attempt at rebellion on the accession of the present emperor; but he overturned it by his energy, and has since kept his heel upon the throats of the helpless prostrate aristocracy, who attempted to subvert his aristocratic power.

"This hatred is not, however, perceptible to the casual observations of the traveller; and few lips dare utter it in a state where, Venicelike, the very walls have ears; and it is only on a more intimate acquaintance, that he can catch the accent of those universal curses, 'not loud, but deep.' The conquered nobility may therefore now be considered harmlessly inimical to the imperial crown.

The second class-the nobility of officeraised in the very hot-bed of corruption and venality, and divested not only of all public virtue, but of all private honesty, may be considered incapable of a patriotic idea, and can be animated by none but the most selfish feelings, which wou'd naturally lead them to side with the strongest party in the event of a national commotion. The inferior ranks of

able of human institutions.

The third of these three great classes into which the Russian nation may be naturally divided, many times more numerous than the other two united, constitutes the bulk, the power, and the name of the Muscovite people. It is composed of a peasantry on whom civili zation has yet made no impression, and knowledge thrown no ray of light. For, that a few can read, who are now allowed to read nothing but those prayers which were formerly read to them, and that they are now acquainted with the use of sugar and tobacco, will scarcely invalidate the assertion which we boldly venture to make, that they are as barbarous now as previously to the days of the first Peter; that they are, in fact, identically the same as a century and a half ago, in ideas, in man ners, and in costume; as blindly superstitious, as servilely devoted as then; and have only transferred this feeling from their patriarchs and boyars to the person of a single ruler.

this class, which constitute the great bulk of it, external refinement of the society of other have been brought up traditionally to regard countries; and as they are apt and imitathe regal power as the most solid and unshak- tive to a certain extent, they often contrive to gloss over the Sclavonian savageness with a little European varnish, or more commonly with what we would call the mere 'Plaster of Paris' of politeness; but before you have associated with these hyperborean boyars half a dozen times, you discover that they have no solid instruction, and still less, to use the very phrase of our author, of those feelings inherited by other nations from the chivalrous institutions which for so many centuries tempered their feudal darkness, tinging the public mind unconsciously with an admiration for what was noble, an abhorrence of what was base.' In the education of the Russian noble every thing is calculated for show. He is a proficient in music and dancing, and can speak the Manuel du Voyageur, in three, four, or five languages by heart; but he is deficient in all solid, useful knowledge-knows nothing at all of classical lore, andis almost always deficient in historical, geographical, and political knowledge. tion generally is to imitate the French; but, notwithstanding the appearance of veneering and polish, you cannot be in his company for a week without perceiving, to The description of this race is admirable, use the expressive phrase of Madame d'Ab

Counting its millions, as this class does, to the thousands of the preceding two, and animated as it is by the blind zeal of barbarism, it lies a ready and tremendous instrument of good or evil, in the hands of one man, to execute his commands with a reckless and fanatical devotion.-This man is the Emperor Nicholas.'

and to the letter true :

His ambi

rantes, the paw of the bear. He is the slave The type of this class may be seen in every of his own sensualism and crapulousness, government office. A personage who sits in spending his nights and days in drinking a coat with the Imperial button, his green or tokay and champagne, and eating sterlelpurple velvet collar designating the depart- pies, and cutlets, at the period when that ment to which he is attached; but who be- fish sells extravagantly dear. Five-sixths neath this insignia of his rank, eschews a shirt; of his time is spent in playing at cards and who wraps his feet in a tattered rag instead dice; at which if he happen to take a disof stockings, using his fingers for a pockethandkerchief, and smelling strongly of vodka honorable advantage, the only disgrace is (corn-brandy) and onions. He must be ad- in detection, which can in a few months be dressed as 'vashe blagarodie,' your nobility.' got over. Fortunes of 10, 20, 30,000l. per He rejoices in a salary of 151. per annum, and annum thus, in a few years, utterly disapmaintains the dignity of the imperial service pear, principal and interest, and without as by unblushingly pocketing a bribe of a grionik, much show as the mere entanglement of a coin of the value of threepence halfpenny the annual revenue would have occasioned English-without which, if you have occasion to ask him even a question, he will not open in England. In heart and soul the Rushis lips this class of employés are to be found sian noble is a mere barbarian. In his in every grade, from the individual just de- profusion it is evident that he esteems all scribed up to the minister of the imperial court things by the money they cost, and not for -whose salary is 4,000l. and who is calculat- their intrinsic beauty or excellence. At ed to sell his favors at 100,000l. per annum St. Petersburgh and Moscow he will give more: they differ indeed in fortune, and in ex- from one to five guineas a lb. for the celeternal refinement, but, in point of corruption; brated sterlet, a fish not superior to a brill. venality, and servility, may be unhesitatingly He will thus often expend fifty guineas on ranked together.'

a fish, and have two of them at his table The real nobility of Russia, however, as boiled down to soup in oceans of chamcontradistinguished from these harpies, has pagne. On the spot where the sterlet is tried hard to adopt the tone, manners, and caught,-where it is in perfection,-he

rarely touches it. He purchases tokay at or the new. The Emperor, the greatest ten guineas a bottle, gives 2,000 guineas proprietor in the empire, holding twenty for a Cachmere shawl, which he sells a few millions of serfs, or as much as all his noweeks after for 1,500l. wears cambric bles together, is an abolitionist as far as reshirts, and places the summum bonum of gards the slaves of all other proprietors. life in perfumes and essences, in expensive If a Russian noble is pressed for money, jewels, furs, and rings. If he be a man of the government grants mortgage after mortfamily and fortune his conversation will gage, which his extravagance seldom alamuse you for an hour, for he appears lows him to redeem; and thus his slaves high-bred and gentleman-like; but talk pass away from his control. After having with him for one thousand hours, and the stated these facts, the author shrewdly obtheme is always the same-Champagne, serves: cards, and French actresses. 'Make your way into his confidence,' says the author of the Revelations, and learn the nearest wish of his heart, and a hundred to one it is to get rid of his uniform.

These volumes supply abundant evidence of the wretched social state of Russia. There are few robbers in Russia, says the author, but how many Russians are there who are not thieves? As to the condition of the serf, he is as completely at his master's mercy as any slave has ever been at any period. He can sell him, he can strip him of his property, he can separate families for ever, he can torture him to death:

'It is true,' says the author, he must evade the law to do these things; but this evasion entails not even a risk, but merely an additional formality. An ukase forbids, under severe penalties, the sale of any slave without the land to which from protective motives it attaches him; but the owner may let out slaves on a 90 years' lease, to work in the mines of Siberia. The law does not give him the direct right of seizing his slave's property; but he has a thousand ways of extorting it, which he may employ without the necessity of evading the law, since the law gives him absolute disposal of his serf's time and labor. The author has seen a nobleman amuse himself by making his slaves stand for hours on one leg.'

'The inquiry naturally suggests itself, when free these serfs, and couple it with the fact that we hear of the efforts the Emperor makes to he is himself so large a slaveholder, why_he does not begin by emancipating his own. But how ought we to characterize his vaunted liberality, when on examination we find that in three-fourths of the eventualities which free the slave from the yoke of his private master, he passes directly into the domain of the

crown.'

The unblushing venality and corruption of all who wear the Imperial button, and who are employed in any capacity, high or low, in any branch of the administration, is demonstratively set forth in these volumes. From the door of the Emperor's ante-chamber, to the sentinel at his gate, every man is an extortioner and a public robber, and all are united in one vast conspiracy to deceive the only man in the empire who cannot be bribed-the possessor of it. In Russia, every man has his price in money;-the minister, the judge, the general, the admiral, the long list of subordinates, which completes the link of this chain, down to the petty chenoonik, the serjeant, the boatswain, the bontuschnik, and the executioner, must all be included in the censure. From high to low all equally conspire to rob the government by their peculations, and the public by their extortions; making the power (in the very words of the writer under review) with which an arbitrary system invests them down to the last refraction of sub-delegated authority, a matter of notorious purchase. No inhabitant of Western Europe can form an idea of the extent of the universal corruption of Russian employés. This author Our readers have but to open these vol- agrees with Custine in attributing the allumes, to be convinced that servitude exists pervading vice to the absence of that chiin the Russian empire with more severity valric feeling which has influenced all than slavery has ever done between any classes in modern Europe. The author's masters and slaves, not only of the same denunciations might be considered too gerace, but of the same origin, in any coun- neral if he did not cite specific instances. try, or at any period, either in the old world | It is thus he introduces the subject:

It is a fact generally well known, that some of the wealthiest men, whose word is good for £100,000 on the exchange of Petersburg, are mostly slaves. The proprietor of these slaves can order them into his scullery or kitchen, or send them as swineherds or miners to their village, as well as their children, brought up in all the refinements of luxury.

A poor nobleman had been carrying on a lawsuit for several years, when he received an intimation from the secretary of the tribunal, that unless he paid over 10.000 rubles (4501.) to the president, the case would be decided against him. The unfortunate litigan, who could not raise as many pence, bethought him of applying to Count Benkendorf, the chief of the secret service, whom he had been led to believe was personally anxious to make an example of the delinquents, and who is one of the four or five men holding office in the em

'The author feels that the reader may consider him as almost too sweeping in the preceding denunciations, until he shall have shown him one of the principal favorites of the Emperor Nicholas-a man whose power exceeds that of half a dozen German princes united; till he has shown him a personage whose name has become celebrated in history, who was many years the intimate friend of one of the first crowned heads in Europe, and is now elevated to one of the most lucrative posts in the empire; till he shows that individual connected with the court, holding his dai-pire who are deemed incorruptible by the comly levees, and receiving a crowd of contractors, mon rumor,—or at least, if the Russians utsuitors, German tradesmen, French artistes, terly disbelieve in the existence of an unlimited actresses, and courtesans, with whom he bar integrity, of whom they say, 'We do not not gains for the amount of the perquisite which think even such a sum would buy him! The is to secure the Imperial custom and his pro party referred to offered the count to furnish tection; till he has shown a general officer, a him with an unquestionable proof the venality judge of one of the highest courts, unblush- of the president of the Court of Appeal; and ingly, and in a business-like manner, naming for that purpose proposed that he should be the amount of the bribe he requires; colonels entrusted with the amount of the bribe de and majors in rank pocketing for the same pur-manded. He undertook that these notes pose a five-rouble note (4s. 6d); a senator should be found on the president's person. giving up his own favorite nephew to the executioner, when half-frozen by spending part of a winter's night under the arch of a bridge, and just escaped from the massacre of the 25th of December, he sought an hour's refuge beneath his roof; and further, though not last ly, till he shows the family of Troubetzkoi, whose claim is more legitimate to the throne of the Tsars than that of the Romanoffs, all licking the dust beneath the Emperor's footsteps, and fawning and flattering, through every humiliation, whilst the head of the house is kept in Siberia, with an unrelenting hate that no suffering of his heroic wife could touch -no length of years or enduring devotion soften.

'It has been asserted that the Emperor, here and there, at long intervals, punishes these malpractices; but almost always the cases he selects, or which come to his notice, are comparatively far from flagrant, and the punishment is utterly useless as a warning. Here are two instances:-A fire took place in Cronstadt, in the summer, and it was found that there was not a horse on the island in which it is situated, although the police-master had for years charged for the keep of a large number; he was degraded to a private sailor. The very instalment of his successor began by the extortion of a bribe.

'Two years ago, the bank surveyor in the mortgaging department was applied to, by an aid-de-camp of the Emperor's, to value a house he intented pledging to the bank. The bank surveyor observed, My charge is 2,000 roubles, (£90); pay them down, and I will give a good valuation without looking at the place, otherwise it shall not be valued at all for three weeks,―and undervalued then.' The aid-decamp reported the affair to the Emperor; the surveyor was sent to the galleys. Three days after, in the same office, a similar demand was made to a fresh applicant.

The count consented. Since the good old times of the reign of Alexander, neither the secretaries, vice-presidents, nor presidents (the parties who in the courts of law receive all bribes affecting the immediate decision of civil or criminal cases) ever make their bargain, or receive any money, before a third party, their dread of the anger of Nicholas even occasions them to resort to many precautions, formerly not dreamed of; and in this instance the president declined receiving the money in his house, but proposed that the liti gant should invite him to dinner at a tavern which he indicated, and there pay over the amount to him. However, the judge's proposition was acceded to; and his host caused an officer of gendarmerie to be stationed in an adjacent closet. The president made his appearance; he signified, by the action of his fingers, that their pecuniary transaction had better precede the gastronomic entertainment: the host gave him over a small roll of bank-notes; the president counted them in a very business-like way, and tossed them into his hat. As this was not yet quite satisfactory, in the hope that his guest would finally transfer the money to his person, his Amphytrion deferred giving the signal for the appearance of the secret police agent, and they sat down to dinner. At this moment some one knocked; it was the president's nephew, come to him with some trifling message from his lady. The judge gave him a brief answer, and bowed him out. At the conclusion of their dinner, he was preparing to depart; he had pulled on his shube, and put his signal the officer of gendarmerie rushed into hat upon his head: when on the preconcerted the apartment with an order from Count Benkendorf, whose dictum every dignitary in the empire must obey, to search his person. Do not give yourself the trouble to search him,' bank-notes in his hat.' The president smiled said the excited nobleman, you will find the