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the cause of humanity has gained by the opening of a receptacle for the innumerable victims of despotism, whose blood might otherwise have contributed to swell the streams that so constantly flowed about the throne, is a problem which I shall not undertake to solve. To the majority immediate death might be more desirable, less afflictive, than the protracted sufferings of such an exile: under a seeming

is of itself interesting, and serves to show how tardy has been the reduction of the Nomades of that region.

"The Russian government has made considerable progress towards opening

a communication with the northern

regions of America, by the way of Siberia. The Tschuktsches, a nation inha, biting the north-east part of Siberia, having been continually in a state of war with the Konrakes, who inhabit the shores of the sea of Ochotks, the latter threw themselves under the protection of Russia. The prudent measures adopted by the Russian com. missary Panner, succeeded in inducing the Tschuktsches to make peace with the Konrakes, and to come every year into the circle of Nischuckolyma to exchange their furs for linen, tobacco and other goods. This traffic was carried on for several years, and finally they submitted themselves to the Russian government in form.

"On the 5th of March 1813, they sent a deputation of 70 persons to Fort Angora, on the great river Anui; these deputies took the oath of fidelity to the Emperor of Russia, and many of them were baptized according to the rites of the Greek church.-The chiefs have engaged a fox's skin for every individual baptized, in the name of tribute. The trade with these new subjects of the Russian empire has since become brisker than ever; and there is every reason to believe that the Russians will speedily, by advancing overland to Behring's straits, open a com munication with the people of America who inhabit these coasts, and who can supply abundance of teeth of seahorses, and furs of great value."

economy of human life, a greater havoc might be made of human happiness: to tyranny which must be always more or less confined in its range, when the ax and the knout are the only instruments of its persecutions, a wider scope, a safer opportunity, full encouragement for the gratification of its malignant passions, might be afforded by the new penal policy.* Innocence might be more exposed; but at the same time we cannot deny, that the guilty, while punished with adequate severity, might yet be reformed,

and rendered useful both to themselves and to the public.

The first printing press known in Russia was established by Ivan the fourth, for the purpose of having a native edition of the bible, beyond which his literature did not extend. He also caused to be compiled a body of laws, in the shape of a regular code, of which the provisions in general savour strongly of the rudeness and ferocity of the national character.f

During the short reign of the em press Anne, in the eighteenth century, there were comparatively but few public executions. "Yet," says general Manstein in his memoirs, "it was reckoned that since the commence ment of her reign there had been above twenty thousand state criminals sent into Siberia. There were five thou sand of them of which the habitation could never be discovered, nor any the least news learnt what was become of them. But as the empress Elizabeth had recalled all that could be found, there was not a day passed, but there were seen at court some new faces of persons who had passed several years successively in the most horrid prisons." (P. 321.)

See, for this code, William's his tory of the northern governments, vol2d. and Le Clerc Histoire de la Russie Ancienne, vol. 2d.

Some small part of it, however, is marked by intelligence, and a clear sense of justice. From such a source nothing mild or equitable could well be expected to spring.

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All that is related of the depravity and cruelty of the tyrants of antiquity nearly ceases to inspire horror, when compared with the vices and atrocities ascribed to Ivan. The murder of his eldest son was among the least of his crimes. No imagination can well endure the recital of the massacres with which he ensanguined Novogorod and Moscow. His subjects were often butchered in crowds by his own hands, and his courtiers made to co-operate with him in the fell tragedy. There is no refinement of barbarity or hypocrisy, no excess of extortion or violence, no wild riot of sensuality or rage of which he is not accused by cotemporary writers, whose veracity can be questioned only on the ground of the incompetency of human nature to produce, or to support such a mass of turpitude and guilt.* In their pictures, he is a heteroclete monster even among despots. His subjects viewed him, nevertheless, with veneration, and towards the end of his reign with affectian! The sentiments with which he inspired them, gave rise to their proverb, when speaking of a doubtful circumstance, " It is

The works upon which the text is grounded are,-Levesque Histoire de Russie, Le Clerc do., Tooke and Card's Russia, Histoire des Czars par Le Baron Iwan Nestesurandi, the work of Possevin cited above, the travels of Olearius, the narratives of various ambassadors sent to Ivan by foreign powers, including the commentaries of Baron Herberstein, sir Jerome Bowes' discourse on Russia, &c. &c.

known to God and the Czar;" as his tyranny might well have suggested the other, " near the Czar, near death." Notwithstanding the enormity of his vices, he was not without glimmerings of generosity and moderation, and possessed great qualities of understanding, as his undertakings abundantly prove. What with these, and the fruits of accident, the Russian power made important advances under his sway in strength, consistency, and reputation.

The history of the interval between the accession of Ivan IV., and that of Michael Romanof in 1613-much of which yet remains to be traced-depends for its authenticity, not merely on the Russian chronicles, but on copious relations of foreigners, eye-witnesses in general, of what they relate. Among the number are the ambassadors sent from England and Germany, to the court of Moscow; who corroborate fully what the professed historians have written, concerning the character of Ivan and the transactions of his reign. The events immediately subsequent are attested by similar and unquestionable evidence.*

The writers just mentioned speak largely of the civil condition, morals, and customs of the Russians, during this period. What the two first must have been, is sufficiently evident from their political history, and would be much more so to my readers, could I have quoted particular

*Particularly the curious work of Fletcher entitled "A treatise of Rus"sia and the adjoining regions written 66 by Dr. Giles Fletcher, lord ambas"sador from the late queen ever glo"rious Elizabeth, to Theodore then 66 emperor of Russia. A. D. 1588."

traits, the actions of individuals, which exhibit every class and degree of the Russian population, as alike ignorant, abject, ferocious, and debauched. It is made a question by those who visited Russia in the time of Ivan, and even by a cotemporary Russian of the highest authority,* whether the savage government of this monster was not best suited to the character of his subjects; whether the tyranny of her sovereigns had operated to render the nation barbarous, or her barbarism has made it necessary for them to be such as they were.†

Ivan is said to have first attached the peasants to the glebe, in consequence of their prospensity to emigration and a vagabond life. He could not however by any regulation, have degraded the nation to a more abject state of political servitude, than that in which it had uniformly existed from the foundation of the monarchy. In relation to the throne, as in the Asiatic despotims, all were upon the same level; all animated by the same spirit. When the noble sunk under the lash of the knout, at the feet of the Czar, he would yet, although guilty of no crime, thank the tyrant for condescending to honour his faithful slave, so far as to think of his amendment. A similar trait is to be noted in the history of ancient Persia, where, according to the historians, even those who were publickly scourged by the king's order, used to return him thanks for vouchsafing to remember them.

* Prince Kourbskoi in his life of Ivan.

+ Incertum est an tanta immanitas gentis tyrannum principem exigat, an tyrannide principis gens ipsa tam immanis tamque dura crudelis que reddatur. (Herberstein.)

The sciences and most of the mechanical arts were altogether unknown in Russia. To be able to read 'the bible was a rare accomplishment with the Czars, and scarcely less so with the clergy. Among the latter but three were acquainted with the Latin, in the time of Ivan, and none with the Greek tongue. Their morals corresponded to the extent of their knowledge, and their fanatacism could only be exceeded by that of the populace, from whom they sprung, and over whom they possessed an unlimited ascendancy. The nation held all christians not of the Greek church, in abhorrence, and regarded intercourse with them as a contamination: a circumstance which proved a material obstacle to her civilization, by causing it to be strictly forbidden to a Russian to visit foreign countries.

The domestic condition of the Russian was little better than the social and political. Physically, his comforts, if he did not belong to the highest class, scarcely exceeded those of the savage; and his habits were almost equally gross: morally, he was a stranger to all the refinements and endearments which prevail even among the lowest orders of civilized life. The wife ascribed it to indifference on the part of the husband, if he did not incessantly ply her with blows. She was kept in Asiatic seclusion, and the husband seems to have had the right of putting her to death, since no punishment is prescribed for the act by the ancient laws of Russia. Children were at the disposal of the father, throughout the whole course of life, with this limitation only, that they could not be sold beyond the fourth time as slaves.

In power and deportment the father and the husband were the representatives of the Czar; the domestic economy was the image of the political.

Fear was the universal principle of action, and corporal suffering the natural correlative of this principle, the means of government and authority, in every department, and through all degrees of rank. Russia, in short, exhibited most of the vices of character and gloomy customs, which distinguish the Asiatic despotisms; but her population possessed qualities of which the Asiatics are usually destitute, energy and acuteness of mind, vivacity of temper, a spirit of enterprise and enquiry. The primitive Russians were conspicuous for that talent of imitation, which is still the admiration of travellers in Russia. They excelled, as do their posterity, in the preparation of leather and the crystallization of salt. Their manufacturing industry, was, however, in general, extremely limited and rude. They owed to foreign officers whatever progress they had made in the military art. The Russian soldier displayed indeed the same qualities for which he is now remarkable, and which render him so perfect an instrument of conquest in the hands of a skilful leader. He was to the last degree submissive, and patient of suffering, and seemed to be gifted with a sort of impassibility as to fatigue and hunger.

It is proper to have a general idea of what the Russians were at the commencement of the seventeenth century, to understand what progress they have since made in civilization, and what is VOL. I.

to be expected from them on this score for the future. They must appear to less disadvantage contrasted at present with the Western and Southern nations, when it is considered, how far the latter were beyond them, at the period just mentioned. In Italy, the age of Leo X. was even passed. Michael Angelo and Raphael, Ariosto and Tasso, Machiavel and Guicciardini had accomplished their chef d'œuvres and brought the arts of imagination and narrative to the acme of excellence. In France, the genius, the learning, the the learning, the wit and the courtesy which shed so brilliant a light over the age of Louis the fourteenth, were beginning to dawn. England could boast of her More, her Bacon, her Spenser, her Shakspeare, her Harvey, and her sir Philip Sidney; Spain of her Cervantes; Portugal of her Camoens. What was the proficiency of the Germans in knowledge, in the arts, in domestic and social refinement, I need not mention to those who have any acquaintance with the modern history of Europe. The case would be, on this side, much stronger, if I spoke of the commencement of the eighteenth century, the era of Peter the Great, from which the comparison between Russia and Western Europe should properly date, an era when the human mind in the latter was in its richest blaze of glory: in full fruition of all the delights and honours of civilization;-when, by the purification of the moral sentiments through the influence of knowledge and religion, our nature was brought as near to its divine original in dignity, as it is probably ever destined to approach.

2 P

EULOGY OF M. PARMENTIER,

Read at the Public Sitting of the Institute, the 9th of January, 1815, by M. CUVIER, Perpetual Secretary.

Translated by H. PATILLO, Esq. of Baltimore.

THE Sciences have arrived at such a point, that they no longer astonish us so much by the great efforts which they suppose, and the striking truths which they reveal, as by the immense advantages which the application of them procures every day to society. There is not one of them in which, at present, the discovery of a single proposition may not enrich an entire people or change the face of nations; and far from our having to dread that this influence may diminish, it cannot but increase, for it is easy to prove that it originates in the very nature of things.

We may be permitted to make some reflections upon this subject, which cannot be improper in this place, or before this assembly.

Hunger and cold are the two great enemies of our race, and it is to combat them, that all the arts are applied more or less directly.

Now it is only by the combination and disengagement of two or three elementary substances, that they can answer this purpose.

To nourish ourselves is nothing else that to replace the quantities of carbon and hydrogen which respiration and perspiration take from us; to warm ourselves, is to retard the dispersion of the caloric with which respiration supplies us.

For one or the other of these

purposes are intended the palace and the cabin; the coarse bread of the poor and the dainties of the sensualist; the purple of kings and the rags of misery. Consequently, architecture and the liberal arts, agriculture and manufactures, navigation, commerce, wars even and the vast display of courage and of genius, the grand apparatus of strength and of knowledge which they require, have for their final object two simple operations of chemistry. Consequently also the smallest discovery concerning the laws of nature in these two operations may reduce public and private expenditure, change the system and the course of commerce, transfer the power of one nation to another, and finish by altering the most fundamental relations of the different classes of society.

In fact, this carbon, and this hydrogen which we are incessantly consuming in our fire places, in our clothing and our food, are continually reproduced for a new consumption by vegetation which takes them back again from the atmosphere and from water; but the quantity of vegetation is itself limited by the extent of the soil, by the species of vegetables which are cultivated in it, and by the proportion of wood, of meadow, of corn-land and of cattle. In vain therefore shall the most paternal government attempt to increase

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