TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLÍNSKI. BY THOMAS B. SHAW, B.A.OF CAMBRIDGE, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE IMPERIALLYCEUM OF TSARSKOË SELO.
The English mania for travelling, which supplies our continental neighbourswith such abundant matter for wonderment and witticism, is of no veryrecent date. Now more than ever, perhaps, does this passion seem to possessus:
"——tenet insanabile multos
Terrarum κακοηθες, et ægro in corde senescit:"
when the press groans with "Tours," "Trips," "Hand-books," "Journeys,""Visits."
In spite of this, it is as notorious as unaccountable, that England knowsvery little, or at least very little correctly, of the social condition, manners,and literature of one of the most powerful among her continental sisters.
The friendly relations between Great Britain and Russia, established in thereign of Edward V., have subsisted without interruption since that epoch, soauspicious to both nations: the bond of amity, first knit by Chancellor in 1554,has never since been relaxed: the two nations have advanced, each at its ownpace, and by its own paths, towards the sublime goal of improvement andcivilization—have stood shoulder to shoulder in the battle for the weal andliberty of mankind.
It is, nevertheless, as strange as true, that the land of Alfred and Elizabethis yet but imperfectly acquainted with the country of Peter and of Catharine.The cause of this ignorance is assuredly not to be found in any indifferenceor want of curiosity on the part of English travellers. There is no lack ofpilgrims annually leaving the bank of Thames,
"With cockle hat and staff,
With gourd and sandal shoon;"
armed duly with note-book and "patent Mordan," directing their wanderingsteps to the shores of Ingria, or the gilded cupolas of Moscow. But a veryshort residence in the empire of the Tsar will suffice to convince a foreignerhow defective, and often how false, is the information given by travellers respectingthe social and national character of the Russians. These abundantand singular misrepresentations are not, of course, voluntary; and it may notbe useless to point out their principal sources.
The chief of these is, witho