after, the paternal mansion is the scene of new festivities, and the wedding soon succeeds the betrothal. But this old custom is fast losing favor, and will doubtless become obsolete before the growing refinement of the country. In autumn, all the numerous statues of the garden are covered with wooden cases to protect them from the rain and snow; all the trees and shrubs are enveloped in straw till the return of spring, when these and the great human family again throw off their winter coverings. In a corner of the garden is the palace of Peter the Great: it is a little low, white house, covered with tasteless yellow basreliefs, nearly concealed from view by the large linden-trees surrounding it; it seems modestly shrinking before the magnificent edifices which overshadow it. Yet there was a time when it was the most beautiful building visible in the midst of the fishermen's huts of the desert city. The population of St. Petersburgh is much more varied than is generally supposed. The people are divided into two perfectly distinct classes; those who wear uniform, and those who do not. Besides the military, which are very numerous, there is a garrison of sixty thousand men who are not allowed citizens' dress; indeed, more than half the civil population are never seen without the buttons and epaulettes of their office. Civil functionaries of every grade, all departments of the police, all professors of the university, teachers and pupils of the public schools, even the domestics of rich and noble families, wear a uniform. A dress of black or blue is regarded as a desirable distinction, though their wearers must yield precedence to the civil or military epaulettes in all public ceremonies. One or more crosses, the brilliancy of which can scarcely be exaggerated, adorn the uniforms of those who have been in the service of government for a long time. Some of these are the emblems of a nominal dignity; others are granted for a certain number of services. Decorations fall like dew from heaven upon the proud soul of the faithful Russian, and are most eagerly coveted by him. The subaltern's ribbon of Wladimir commands the respect of his unlike other European capitals, is less than a third of the population. This scarcity renders them objects of universal attention, though they are less seen in public than in other cities of the continent; in fact, their lives were formerly spent in the same seclusion as the Asiatic women. This custom is still traceable in their habits, revealing, as do many other particulars, the origin of the people. mark him as belonging to the tshornoi narod. Though his filthiness is an undeniable reality, his rudeness is only in appearance. If you address him kindly in simple language, you will soon see that he is good-natured, polite, and useful. He will salute you respectfully, and inquire how he can serve you; or he will perhaps remove the thick glove which protects his coarse hand from the cold, and after shaking yours most heartily, will give you all the information in his power. The moujiks wear on their heads a cloth cap of singular form, or a hat expanding upward from its narrow brim, and flattened at the top, with some slight resemblance to a lady's turban: it is very becoming to young men, who wear the same long beard as their elders; indeed, nothing is so highly prized by this class as the beard; the dandy moujik keeps it carefully combed, but with the greater part it is tangled and filthy. It sometimes quite covers the breast, though it is occasionally cut below the chin; but whatever its length or quantity, it is of inestimable value to its owner. The hair falls down each side of the face, entirely concealing the ears, but is cut so short behind that the back of the neck is quite exposed, and no cravat is worn. It must be confessed that this style of wearing the beard and hair would not at all agree with our notions of elegance; but it harmonizes admirably with the floating cafetan, or robe of blue, green, or gray cloth. The ample folds of the cafetan are confined at the waist with a girdle of some striking color. The large boots of stout leather, round at the ends, and bearing more resemblance to the shape of the foot than ours, complete the rude but not ungraceful costume of the moujik. Nearly all countries have some term expressive of the habits and nature of the lower stratum of society, the mass of the people. It is much easier to ridicule the coarseness and vulgarity of this class, than to discover the good natural traits they possess in common with more cultivated human nature. France has her canaille; even the United States has been obliged to invent a term for the European paupers who crowd the cities of the New World; and politicians occasionally allude, as carefully as may be, however, to the great unwashed. Now it is not a little singular, that Russia employs precisely the same phrase for the lowest class of her population. The Russian tshornoï narod, literally signifies, black people; but the first of these terms is also synonymous with uncleanliness, and the two words express something more than what Americans call the unwashed, for those to whom it is applied in Russia are utterly ignorant of the use of soap and water. They are also called moujiks. The superior classes have no character peculiarly their own, aside from the uniforms which distinguish them; but the moujiks, who wear the national costume, are the true type of Russian character. To see one is to see all of them, for they are alike throughout the nation. They have the same costume, manners, habits, and tastes; their food and houses are alike. Their The two besetting sins of this singular ancestors were just what they are, and class are dishonesty and intemperance. their descendants will be the same for A Connecticut Yankee would stand no centuries. The first view of a moujik is chance with them—they would cheat him certainly repulsive. He looks more like out of his eye-teeth; the number of thefts a bandit than an honest man of peaceable dayly committed in the streets is incredemployments. His hair and beard are ible. The brandy consumed in the drinklong and uncombed; his voice is harsh; ing houses of St. Petersburgh alone he delights in noise; sometimes he wears amounts to the snug little sum of nearly a coarse brown coat, sometimes a green fifteen dollars per annum for each of the or blue robe, and sometimes a sheep-skin inhabitants, including the entire populabut in whatever garb, or wherever found, tion of women and children. When a in city or country, the same insupportable Russian is drunk, however, as too often odor invariably accompanies him, and if happens, he invariably preserves his good all other signs were wanting, this would | humor, and also his reason, in some meas ure, for it is very difficult to deceive him; | onward, like a perfectly abstemious man, he becomes exceedingly affectionate to every one, even to his enemies, whom he embraces and salutes with overflowing tenderness. The more he drinks, the more rose-colored the world appears to him, and the more gayly he carols his foolish songs. He does not stagger through the streets, but walks straight till he falls flat in the mud, from which the police officer removes him. His punishment is as singular as his character. Every person, without distinction of sex or age, who is found drunk, is obliged to sweep the streets a certain number of hours a day, according to the nature of his offense. Having been called in 1508 to the new university in Wittemberg, he there delivered his first course of lectures on philo ophy, (on that of Aristotle,) and afterwar another on divinity, (on the Psalms and the Epistle to the Romans.) "Here Brother Martin begins to study the Scriptures, and begins, at the High School, to contend against that sophistry which prevailed everywhere at that time." Among his hearers in the first row we see the first rector of the new university, Dr. Pollich of Melrichstadt, physician to the Elector Frederick, and afterward also doctor of divinity. Of him Mathesius says: "Dr. Pollich, who was at that time a lur mundi, (light of the world,) that is to say, a doctor of laws, of medicine, and of monastic sophistry, would not forget even at table the arguments and conclusions of the monk. That monk,' he often said, as I have heard from the mouth of his brother Walter, will confound all the learned doctors, propound a new doctrine, and reform the whole Roman Church; for he studies the prophets and the evangelists; he relies on the word of Jesus Christ-no one can subvert that, either with philosophy or sophistry."" According to Pollich, Luther himself said, "Let the doctors be the doctors; we must not hearken to what holy Church says, but to what Scripture says." |