1. There are three orders of nobility in Sweden, Counts, Barons, and noblemen without any title. When a family is once ennobled, all the descendants and collateral branches are noble. So that the number of nobleman in Sweden must increase with the population of the country. The number of noble families in Sweden amounts to about 1200.

2. The second house of the Diet consists of the clergy. The religion in Sweden is the Lutheran: and the different orders of clergy are bishops: domprosts, or deans, prosts, or archdeacons : pastors, or rectors; and comministers, or perpetual curates. There are twelve diocesses; namely, one archbishopric and eleven bishoprics. There are 170 archdeacons, and 3,620 rectors and perpetual curates. The number of representatives of the clergy is uncertain, because each district may either send up a representative of its own, or join with the neighbouring district and send one between them. They usually vary from fifty to about eighty.

3. The third house of the Diet consists of the peasants, a class of men that do not exist at all in Great Britain, and therefore require to be particularly explained. In Sweden, there is no class of men equivalent to our British farmers; that is to say, men who pay a certain annual rent to the proprietor of the farm, in order to be allowed to cultivate it. The only farmers in Sweden are either proprietors of the land, similar to our country gentlemen, or they are peasants. Now a Swedish peasant is a man employed in agriculture, possessing land of a certain tenure, who has never followed a trade, nor enjoyed a civil office. So that a peasant is a man whose ancestors have been always farmers.

The peasants are elected in the following manner: the governor of the province sends the writ to the county judges, who summon the peasants within their respective jurisdictions to meet in the court of justice on the day of election. The members are chosen by a majority of votes; the electors pay their representatives from three to five shillings a day during the sitting of the Diet; the number of representatives is uncertain. Each district may send two deputies; or two districts may unite together and send only one. In general the house of peasants consists of about 100.

4. The fourth house of the Diet consists of the citizens. The number of towns in Sweden amounts to about 100. Every freeman of these towns, who pays taxes to the town, and has reached the age of twenty-one, is an elector. Every citizen who has been a freeman for seven years, or an alderman for three, and reached the age of twenty-four, may be elected. The number of freemen bears but a small proportion to the inhabitants of the towns.

Language.

The Swedish language has proceeded from the original Scandinavian, which has now branched itself out into three languages, the English, the German, and the Swedish*.

The words of the Swedish langnage bear so close a resemblance to the German, that a person well acquainted with the latter language mav, without much trouble, make himself acquainted with the former. The idiom is almost exactly English, so that you may turn most Swedish sentences, word for word, into English, and they will

*See Appendix. P.

Of the Persons and Dress of the Russians.

33

make sense. There are a good many Swedish words which resemble the English very closely, either in their spelling or pronunciation. So that to a native of Britain, the Swedish language is not attended with much difficulty.

RUSSIA,

Russia embraces nearly one half of Europe and more than one third of Asia, extending without interruption from the Baltic sea on the west, to the Pacific ocean on the east, and from the Frozen ocean on the north to the Chinese empire, Tartary, Persia and Turkey on the south. It lies between 39° 30′ and 76° Ñ. lat. and between 18o and 192" E. lon. The area is estimated at 7,595,000 square miles, being one ninth part of the surface of the globe.

Russia in Europe is bounded N. by the Frozen ocean, E. by Russia in Asia; S. by the sea of Azoph and the Black sea; W. by Turkey, the Austrian dominions, the Prussian dominions, the Baltic sea, Sweden and Norway. It contains 1,891,512 square miles. Population 41,773,000. Pop. on a square mile 22.

Of the Persons and Dress of the Russians.

THE Russians are in general hardy, vigorous, and patient of labour. Their complexions differ little from those of the English and Scots, but the women use a sort of rouge to heighten their beauty. Their eye-sight seems to be defective, occasioned probably by the snow which for a great part of the year is continually on the ground.

The Russian peasants are a coarse hardy race, brutally stupid, and of great bodily strength. Their dress consists of a round hat, or cap, with a high crown, a coarse robe of drugget, or in winter of sheepskin with the wool turned inwards, reaching to the knee, and bound round the waist by a sash; trowsers of thick linen; a woollen or flannel cloth wrapped round the leg, instead of stockings; sandals woven from strips of a pliant bark, and fastened by strings of the same materials, which are twined round the leg and serve as garters to the wrappers. In warm weather the peasants frequently wear only a short coarse shirt and trowsers.

Among the higher ranks in society the dress of the men consists of a pelisse, or large fur cloak, fur boots, or shoes, a black velvet or fur bonnet, which is made large enough to cover their ears, and prevent the frost from nipping them. All, whether rich or poor, wear their lank hair combed straight without powder, and let their beards grow.

The women are not so well protected by their dress from the inclemency of the climate; but their sedentary domestic habit of life renders this advantage less necessary. They wear a long habit, adjusted to the shape and covering the whole body. The toilet of a woman in only moderate circumstances, is composed of an extraordinary number of articles, gold chains, ear-rings, strings of pearl, bracelets, rings, &c. On going out they generally throw a large silk handkherchief over their coif, which hangs over the shoulders and down the back.

The Russian villages all resemble each other; the houses are

34

Employments and Social Habits of the Russians.

built of wood, by laying beams one across the other; the spaces between the beams are closed with flax and moss. A large door leads to the yard. In the house is a sort of hall, with numerons conveniences for milk, and other necessaries; and the family room, with a tremendous stove built of tiles, which is always red hot, even in the midst of the most sultry summer. Wooden benches are fastened to the wainscot all round the room, before which stands a table. In one corner is suspended the Obross or idol, which the Russian without ceremony calls his God, and on a small shelf underneath stands a lamp, which in the houses of people of rank is continually burning, but with the common people it is only lighted on holidays; on particular solemn occasions, or when they wish to atone for a particular sin, they place a lighted wax taper by the side of it. Fowls, dogs, cats, pigeons, in short the whole family is here collected. To one of the main beams is suspended an elastic cradle, by means of ropes, which may be put in motion without difficulty, and will continue swinging some time.

A Russian village is entirely destitute of trees, and you may often look round in vain for one to a considerable extent. They have an appearance of nakedness, and the surrounding country is mostly a large, uninhabited district, or consists chiefly of grass land for cattle.

Employments and Social Habits of the Russians.

A great part of the lower class of people at Petersburg can scarcely be reckoned among the inhabitants. Throughout the summer many thousands are employed as carpenters, bricklayers, masons, &c. who return home at the approach of winter, and whose numbers are supplied by other thousands who gain their bread as ice-cutters.Most of them have no resident city, and no property except the implements of their industry. They chiefly dwell in the surrounding villages, where they enter into companies differently composed as to the numbers, and defray the expenses of living out of a common chest. Many of those who have undertaken to erect a building, never leave the place of their employment, but sleep in the open air among heaps of rubbish, or under gateways, in order to be earlier at work in the morning. Great numbers live entirely during the summer on board the barks and floats of timber that come to Petersburg under their conduct.

The Russian mechanic, whose trade obliges him to a sedentary life, commonly lives in the cellar of some brick house. Almost all the houses having, according to the Italian fashion, a habitable range of cellars, these people find quarters even in the best parts of the town; and it often happens that the cellars are filled with lodgers, while the workmen are still employed in erecting the first and second stories.

Few people are more contented with their situation, than the Russians, and in no country is there a greater proportion of natural cheerfulness and resignation, and a greater participation in public festivities, than in Russia. No Russian, however poor, consumes all that he earns; frequently he continues his extremely parsimonious way of life even after he has, by his diligence, secured himself from all danger of future want. The earnings of the lowest day-labourer are more than adequate to his wants. He must be very poor, indeed, or very lazy, who cannot at least for one day in the week procure sufficient to gratify his thirst for strong liquors. Every Russian has his sheep-skin pelisse, and the poorer sort are never seen shivering with cold, as in many other European countries.

Of the Russian Nobility.

35

Enjoyment is the grand concern, the main object of all activity, the great spur to competition, the pivot on which the daily course of life at Petersburg turns. One part of the public must indeed work, that they may enjoy; but a greater proportion enjoy without working.

"Sociability is here of a very different character from that of the other countries of Europe; it consists in the social enjoyments of all the comforts of life. A man reserves nothing but his business and his cares to himself and his confidants; all the rest is common property, which seems to belong less to the principal than to his compan

ions.

Of the Russian Nobility.*

Some of the nobles are much richer than the richest of our English peers; and a vast number, as may be supposed, are very poor. To this poverty, and to these riches, are equally joined the most abject meanness, and the most detestable profligacy. In sensuality, they are without limits of law, conscience, or honour. In their amusement, always children; in their resentment, women. The toys of infants, the baubles of French fops, constitute the highest object of their wishes. Novelty delights the human race; but no part of it seek for novelty so eagerly as the Russian nobles. Novelty in their debaucheries; novelty in gluttony; novelty in cruelty; novelty in whatever they pursue. This is not the case with the lower class, who preserve their habits unaltered from one generation to another. But there are characteristics in which the Russian prince and the Russian peasant are the same: they are all equally barbarous. Visit a Russian, of whatever rank, at his country seat, and you will find him lounging about, uncombed, unwashed, unshaven, half-naked, eating raw turnips, and drinking quass. The raw turnip is handed about in slices, in the first houses, upon a silver salver, with brandy, as a whet before dinner. Their hair is universally in a state not to be described; and their bodies are only divested of vermin when they frequent the bath. Upon those occasions, their shirts and pelisses are held over a hot stove, and the heat occasions the vermin to fall off. It is a fact too notorious to admit dispute, that from the Emperor to the meanest slave, throughout the vast empire of all the Russias, including all its princes, nobles, priests, and peasants, there exists not a single individual in a thousand, whose body is destitute of vermin. An English gentleman of Moscow, residing as a banker in the city, assured me, that, passing on horseback through the streets, he has often seen women of the highest quality, sitting in the windows of their palaces, divesting each other of vermin;-another trait, in addition to what ĺ have said before, of their resemblance to the Neapolitans.

The true manners of the people are not seen in Petersburgh, nor even in Moscow, by entering the houses of nobility only. Some of them and generally those to whom letters of recommendation are obtained, have travelled, and introduce refinements, which their friends and companions readily imitate. The real Russian rises at an

*This article and the following are taken from Dr. Clarke, who has been accused of exaggeration and misrepresentation in his statements. A similar account has been lately given by Dr. Lyall, who had resided several years in Russia.-P.

36

Of the Slaves and Slavery.

early hour, and breakfasts on a dram with black bread. His dinner at noon consists of the coarsest and most greasy viands, the scorbutic effects of which are counteracted by salted cucumbers, sour cabbage, the juice of his vaccinium, and his nectar, quass. Sleep, which renders him unmindful of his abject servitude and barbarous life, he particularly indulges; sleeping always after eating, and going early to his bed. The principal articles of diet are the same every where; grease and brandy. A stranger, dining with their most refined and most accomplished princes, may in vain expect to see his knife and fork changed. If he sends them away, they are returned without even being wiped. If he looks behind him, he will see a servant spit in the plate he is to receive, and wipe it with a dirty napkin, to remove the dust. If he ventures (which he should avoid if he is hungry) to inspect the soup in his plate with too inquisitive an eye, he will doubtless discover living victims in distress, which a Russian, if he saw, would swallow with indifference. Is it not known to all, that Potemkin used to take vermin from his head, and kill them on the bottom of his plate at table? and beauteous princesses of Moscow do not scruple to follow his example. But vermin unknown to an Englishman, and which it is not permitted even to name, attack the stranger who incautiously approaches too near the persons of their nobility, and visit him from their sophas and chairs. If at table he regards his neighbour, he sees him picking his teeth with his fork, and then plunging it into a plate of meat which is brought round to all. The horrors of a Russian kitchen are inconceivable; and there is not a bed in the whole empire, which an English traveller, aware of its condition, would venture to approach.-There is, in fact, no degree of meanness to which a Russian nobleman will not condescend. To enumerate the things of which we were eye-witnesses, would only weary and disgust the reader.

Of the Slaves and Slavery.

We have now contemplated the nobles, or we may say, in general, the upper classes of society: the rest of the community (with the trifling exception of a few merchants in the seaports, who are for the most part foreigners) consists of the peasantry, who continue in the state of bondsmen, in which the lower orders in all the rest of Europe once were. To paint the situation and habits of those persons, it is almost sufficient to say, that they are slaves in the possession of the barbarous nobles whom we have already described. They are attached to the soil, and tranferred with it, like cattle; and although many laws are passed for their protection, and severe examples are not unfrequently made of masters who treat them cruelly, it is in vain to expect any thing but abuse, where a man's power is absolute over his fellow; or any thing but debasement in the charac ter, and wretchedness in the condition of one who is dependent upon the will of a master.

We observed a striking difference between the peasants of the Crown and those of individuals. The former are almost all in comparatively easy circumstances. Their abrock, or rent, is fixed it five roubles a year, all charges included; and as they are sure that it will never be raised, they are more industrious. The peasants belonging to the nobles have their abrock regulated by their means of getting money; at an average, throughout the empire, of eight or ten roubles. It then becomes, not a rent for land, but a downrig tax on their industry. Each male peasant is obliged by law to in