YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY A RESIDENCE SHORES OF THE BALTIC, DESCRIBED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS. IN TVTO VOLUMES. VOLUME II. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1841. LONDON: Printed by William Clowes and Sons. Stamford Street. CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. LETTER THE FOURTEENTH. Page Depressing effects of the long winter — Hardships of the peasants — General state of health — Superstitions — ^The burthen of the Poll-tax and recruitage system — Anecdotes of recruiting — Miseries of a Russian soldier's life — ^Advantages of the same- — Sascha's • trials of conscience — 'The Russian language — Litera ture of Russia — Foreigners' ideas of England — Languor of the season . . . ,1 LETTER THE FIFTEENTH. Sudden burst of spring— Last sledging drive — ^Thaw in the town and thaw in the country — The Eisgang— Inundation — Rapidity of Nature's movements — Green fields and trees — Nightingales without senti ment — Family party — Introduction of a bride elect — Hermann B. . . . .20 LETTER THE SIXTEENTH. Early rising — Departure on a journey — Drive through a wild country— Diversities of taste in the situation of a residence — AKrug — Rosenthal— -Boulder stones — Castle Lode, and the unfortunate Princess of Wir- a2 IV CONTENTS. Page temberg — A very hard bed — Leal — An accumulation of annoyances — The Wieck, and its seashore riches — Baron Ungern Sternberg — Count and Countess , and their seat at Linden — Anecdote of Peter the Great and his friend Menschikoff — The Castle of Habsal— Dagen girl — Odd collections — Riesenberg and the Baroness S. . . .31 LETTER THE SEVENTEENTH. Bathing life at Reval — Custom-house troubles extra ordinary — Voyage across the Gulf— Union of vari ous nations — Approach to Helsingforst — A ball — Baroness K. — Shopping propensities of lady pas sengers — Granite beauties of Helsingforst — The Observatory — The Botanical Garden — An eventful dinner — Sweaborg — The Scheeren — Symptoms of srauggling— Return to Reval . . .64 LETTER THE EIGHTEENTH. Reval at Midsummer — Antiquities — Gates — Churches —Dance of Death— The Duke de Croy — Hotel de Ville — Corps of the Schwarzen HSupter — Towers — Antiquities of the Domberg — Kotzebue — The Jahr Markt, and its varied population — Catherinthal — The water-party — Visit to a Russian man-of-war . 83 LETTER THE NINETEENTH. Excessive heat — Gnats nnd Gnat-bites — Sleepless Nights— Ruins of Padis Kloster — Landrath R. Baltisport — Leetz — The Island of Little Rogij CONTENTS. V Page Unexpected Encounter— Russian builders— A Day in the Woods — Family Parties — ^Mode of Salutation — Old-fashioned manners — Conversation — English pride and German pride — Jealousy of Russian ten dencies — Marriages between Russians and Estonians 110 LETTER THE TWENTIETH. Fall and its beauties — The daughters of Fall — The Countess mother — A gathering of all nations — Cui sine — Occupations — Varieties of scenes and lan guages — The chElteau — Its various treasures — Rus sian church — ^In-door beauties and out-door beauties — Count C. and Princess V. — Salmon-fishing — Illu minations — Adventurous passage — Countess Rossi — Armen — Concert at Reval — Rehearsals — The Scena from the Freischutz — Return home . .142 LETTER THE TWENTY-FIRST. Autumn Scenes — Separation from Estonia . .174 LETTER THE TWENTY-SECOND. Russia considered as a study — ^New Year's Eve — Pe culiar family demonstrations — Bridge of Kisses — Routine of a Petersburg life — Oriental regiments, and Oriental physiognomy — Ffete at the Winter Palace — Scene from the gallery of the Salle Blanche — Court costume — Display of diamonds — ^Masked Ball at the theatre, — ^The Emperor — The HtSritier — The Grand Duke Michael — Masked ball at the Salle de Noblesse — Uses and abuses of masked balls in Russia ..... 183 VI CONTENTS. LETTER THE TWENTY-THIRD. Chief houses of reception in St. Petersburg — Freedom of the Imperial Family — Restraint of the subject — Absence of Etiquette— Ball at Prince Y.'s — ^Ball at Countess L.'s — Beauties of the high circles — Ball at Madame L.'s — General aspect of manners and morals — Dress — Servants — The Grand Duchess Helen . . . . . .220 LETTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH. Prince Pierre Volkonski — Count Benkendorff — Count Nesselrode — Taglioni — The Empress — Madame Allan — The Russian theatre — The first Russian opera — Characteristics of the three classes of society in Russia — Power of the monarch — ^Railroad to Zars- koe Selo — The Great Palace — Reminiscences of the Emperor Alexander — The Emperor's Palace — ^The Arsenal — General impressions . . . 245 LETTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH. Visit to the Ateliers of BruUoff, Baron Klot, M. Jacques, M. Ladournaire — The Isaac's Church — M. le Maire — Gallery of Prince Belozelsky — ^Tau- ride Palace — Church of Smolna, and adjacent insti tutions — Procession of young girls in court carriages — Winter aspect of the streets — Night drives — Lent and farewell . . . .270 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. LETTER THE FOURTEENTH. Depressing effects of the long winter — Hardships of the peasants — General state of healthy — Superstitions — The burthen of the Poll-tax and recruitage system — Anecdotes of recruiting — Miseries of a Russian soldier's life — Ad vantages of the same — Sascha's trials of conscience — The Russian language — Literature of Russia — Foreigners' ideas of England — Languor ofthe season. April This is the season which tries the health and spirits of the native of a more genial clime. How long it is that our island has been clothed in green — how long it is that you have been enjoying sweet sights and scents in such profusion as almost to neglect these precious offerings, whilst we have sledged back to our country home over roads as hard with fri)st, and deeper with snow than ever, to find Nature as dry, frigid, and motionless as we left her ten weeks ago ! It is said that the first rose pre- VOL. II. B 2 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Lettek XIV. sented to Sir Edward Parry, on retuming from one of his voyages, he involuntarily seized and ate. From my own present voracious yearn ings for some token of verdant life, however humble, I can quite comprehend such an act. How dependent is man ! If the accustomed blessings be delayed but a few weeks, the soul pines, and even the physical powers languish as with the mal du pays. The sight of a violet would I believe affect me, as the sound of their native melodies did the home-sick Swiss. Our rooms, it is true, are decked with blooming ex otics, but it is the green earth we long for. The season, however, is unusually protracted, and the enervating effect of the spring air, which has long preceded its other attributes, is evident in the languor of the domestic ani mals around us. The little peasant horses, who turn off the Bahn up to their chests in the deep snow to make way for our better fed and less laden animals, can hardly drag themselves into the track again. The fodder is beginning to fail, and yet no sign appears of that change which is to remove these accumulated months Lbttee xiv.] sufferings OF THE PEASANTS. 3 of snow ; for whatever of thaw the increasing height and power of the sun may affect in the day, the frost, Penelope-like, counteracts in the night ; and the surface of the earth remains as deep hidden as ever beneath these swathings of cold cotton wool. The long days, the daz zling light, the unvaryingly beautiful weather, the prismatic hues on the western hemisphere on which the evening star shines like a pale spangle upon a robe of orient tints, all add but to longings they cannot assuage. Till Nature's renascence give life to these lovely elements, we embrace but a statue. Now it is that the peasants claim our utmost help. If their sufferings be less sentimental than our own, they are also more positive. At the beginning of winter the peasant fares well, eats wholesome rye bread, and plenty of it. Towards spring, his stores, never well hus banded, begin to fail, and the coarse rye flour is eked out with a little chopped straiter ; but, when the season is thus prolonged, this position is reversed, and it is the straw which becomes the chief ingredient of the loaf which is to fill, b2 4 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIV. not nourish, his body — so much so that on exposure to fire this wretched bread will ignite and blaze like a torch. This insufiicient fare is often followed by an epidemic — typhus or scarlet fever. The latter especially is the scourge of the land, and almost invariably fatal to children ; and villages are sometimes depo pulated of their juvenile members, for those who struggle through the fever are carried off by subsequent dropsy. As for prompt medical at tendance, how is that to be expected among a poor and widely-scattered population, which not even the highest classes in the land can command ? Many a nobleman's family is situ ated a hundred worsts from medical aid, and thus four-and-twenty fatal hours will some times elapse which no skill can recover. Upon the whole, however, the average of health is very good. There are no such gaps among families, — no fading of such opening flowers as English parents follow to the grave, — no such heart-breaking bereavements of young mothers, who, when most dear and most needed, dele gate their breath to the infant who has just Letter XIV.] GENERAL HEALTH— SUPERSTITIONS. & received it ; or rather, few are such instances among the whole colony of the noblesse, all known to each other, in comparison with the loss which in both these respects the narrow com pass of my own connexion affords. In the de partment of pharmacy the medical men appear highly skilful and enlightened, though in that of chirurgery not equally advanced. The daring, successful skill of the famous operator, Pyragoff of Dorpat, however, has been fre quently evinced here, as his sphere of philan thropic practice may be said to include these' three provinces. In accidents and simpler maladies, a village Esculapius is often resorted to, who will set a limb and open a vein as suc cessfully as a regular practitioner ; and as both patient and prescriber are equally under the influence of superstition, this enters largely both into means and cure. The other day, a lady in the neighbourhood, whose adherence to ancient usages includes her among a class now fast fading from society, being attacked with erysipelas in the foot, sent for the wise man of the village to charm it 6 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIV. away. A kind of Estonian Fakeer was an nounced, whom, in the first place, it requited faith of no common kind to approach at all, and who, after various incantations, striking a light, fee, over the limb, broke silence by asking for apiece of bread and butter. " Cut him a thick slice, I dare say he is hungry," said the good soul, fumbling for her keys, and anxious to propitiate the oracle ; and away ran the mam- selle to the Schafferei, and retumed with a thick octavo-volume slice, which under ordinary circumstances would have chased away all hunger to look at. This the old man took, but instead of applying his teeth to the task, com menced tracing the sign of the cross and other forms with his long nails through the thick butter ; and when the surface was well marbled and furrowed with lines of dirt, solemnly made it over to his patient to eat, — and this, though somewhat taken by surprise, it is only just to add, she conscientiously did, but how the erysipelas fared in consequence I know not. From the frequent succession of masters, I have alluded to before, it is as diflicult to judge Letter XIV.] GERMANS VERSUS ESTONIANS. 7 fairly of the Estonian peasant as of the child who is always changing school — a state of things which is not unseldom aggravated by the circumstance of a wealthy or indifferent Seigneur leaving his peasantry entirely at the mercy of a so-called Disponent, or bailiff; an individual who occupies much the same situa tion without, as a mamselle within the house, and, like an Irish agent, too often grinds the one party and defrauds the other. The lower class of Germans here are a most disrespectable set, and not nearly so trusty as the native Estonians whom they affect to despise. Some instances occur of Estonians who have raised themselves from the peasant's hut to a state of competence, retaining no indication of their origin save in their peculiar Estonian German ; but, generally speaking, at best they are but a fretted nation, borne down by the double misery of poll-tax and liability to recruitage, — the one the price they pay for their breath, the other for their manhood. Happy the family where only girls are born, who offer the double ad vantage of working as hard, and paying less 8 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIV. than the other sex. The present rate of Kopf Steuer, or poll-tax, is four roubles sixty co pecks, or about four shillings English per head, not only upon the able-bodied man, but upon every chick and child of male kind — an enor mous tax when the relative value of money is considered. A revision of the population takes place every sixteen years, and, if the house hold pay not for those born unto them in the interim, they do for those taken from them; therefore the crown is no loser, and the ill wind blows no good to the peasant. The recruiting system falls especially hard upon those provinces tributary to Russia, but otherwise not Russianised. No matter how foreign and incongruous, all atoms that enter that vast crucible, the Russian army, are fused down to the same form. The Estonian, there fore, fares so much worse than the native Rus sian, in that he leaves not only kindred and home, but language, country, and religion, and furthermore an inherent taste for a pastoral life, which the Russian does not share. From the moment that the peasant of the Baltic pro- Letter XIV.] THE RECRUITING SYSTEM. 9 vinces draws the fatal lot No. 1, he knows that he is a Russian, and, worse than that, a Russian soldier, and not only himself, but every son from that hour born to him ; for, like the executioner's offi.ce in Germany, a soldier's life in Russia is hereditary. He receives no bounty money ; on the contrary his parish is charged with the expense of his outfit to the amount of between thirty and forty roubles — his hair, which an Estonian regards as sacred, is cut to within a straw's breadth ofhis head ; and amidst scenes of distress which have touched the sternest hearts, the Estonian shepherd leaves the home of his youth. If wars and climate and sickness and hardship spare him, he returns after four-and-twenty years of service — his language scarce remembered, his religion changed, and with not a rouble in his pocket — to seek his daily bread by his own exertions for the remainder of his life, or to be charge able to his parish, who by this time have for gotten that he ever existed, and certainly wish he had never returned. Perhaps an order or two decorates him, or reaches him after his b3 10 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIV- dismissal ; but the worn-out Russian soldier has little pride in the tokens of that bravery which has consumed his health, strength, and best years, and earned him no maintenance when these are gone. The age of liability is from twenty to thirty- five — the number at this time annually drawn five in a thousand. Each estate of five Haken — a measurement relating to amount of corn sown, and not to actual extent — can screen four Recrutenfdhige, or liable subjects ; no estate can screen more than twelve. This power of protection is engrossed principally by the house and stable servants — for your own valet, or coachman, unless you purchase his exemption, is just as liable as the rest. The price of ex emption is a thousand roubles, or a hundred roubles a-year for fifteen years. If one year -be omitted or delayed, the previous payments are annulled. Nor will the crown accept a man the less, and another suffers for his neis:h- hour's better means. Besides purchase money, the only grounds for exemption consist in a personal defect, or a family of three children. Letter XIV.] CAUSES FOR EXEMPTION. 1 1 The father of two children is taken. At the last annual recruiting a peasant, already the father of one child and about to become that of another, drew the fatal lot, and with streaming eyes and trembling limbs was quitting, the room to take leave of all dear to him, when the door burst open and his father, flinging himself on his neck, proclaimed him free. His wife had been confined of twins. With regard to the other cause for exemption, examples of voluntary maiming are not rare. A stone mason whom we observed chiselling a delicate piece of sculpture under the utmost strain of sight, for one eye was blinded with a cataract, we strenuously urged to apply for medical aid, but smiling he replied, " I would not have two eyes for the world — now I can't be taken for a recruit." On those estates where the population from some cause is not able to make up the necessary number of recruits, a child is deliver^ed over and consigned to the military school at Reval. The crown must have its " pound of flesh." This substitute, however,, it accepts most un- 12 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIV. willingly, as each of these little Cantonisten, as they are termed, costs govemment at the rate of thirty copecks a-day, and not above one- third are reared for actual service. Such is the anxiety of the crown to enforce every means of securing men for the army, that the moment a soldier's wife gives birth to a son the parish authorities are bound to give notice, under penalty of five-and-twenty roubles for every month's delay. So much bread or corn is then allowed for the infant recruit, which is fetched monthly from the nearest town. And now for the milder view of this s} stem, which at present buys the public protection at the price of domestic misery. If the recruit be taken early in life with no bonds of wife or child ren, his prospects may be considered as fair as those of any peasant at home. If he fall beneath an honest and humane officer, fairer still, for he is secure of good maintenance and good clothing. If the individual himself be industrious and careful he may, from the sale of his surplus bread, — for when honestly dealt by he has more per day than he can consume. Letter XIV.] RUSSIAN SOLDIER'S LIFE, 13 — from the sale of his Schnapps, or dram, and other extra rations which he receives upon every grand parade, as well as with the addi tion of small donations in money which accom pany these occasions (his pay is nothing, not above eight roubles a year) — he may from all these sources realise a fund of three or four hundred roubles to retire with ; has learnt a trade, has acquired habits of obedience, and is a free man. If the higher classes in Russia could be depended upon for honesty, the soldier's life would be no longer so pitiable. Under the present untoward combination of outward monotony and inward languor which this season adduces, it requires rather a severe system of drilling to drive such idle recruits as myself to the study of Russian ; and Sascha, who at first was so elated with my progress, that in the pride of her heart she knew not which most to extol, her pupil or herself, now sinks into equal despondence at the apathy with which grammars and dictionaries are regarded, blunders the most unjustifiable repeated day by day, and worse than all, her respectful re- 14 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XI V. monstrances parried by a saucy word which she wonders how I came by. For Sascha keeps a strict watch over any interloper which may have clandestinely intervened, and piques her self as much upon the decorum of her ideas as upon the correctness of her speech. Not un seldom does her zeal for the latter lead to most amusing disputes, for, in the pride of a Russian tongue, a birthright which she possesses so undisputedly here in our household of simple Estonians, that she begins to look upon it in the light of a personal merit, she assumes a dictatorial tone equally upon the right articu lation of any French or German word of Russian embezzlementasuponthat of any ofher own legitimate mouth-fulls. For the Russian language bears upon itself the most direct evi dence of the tardiness of the nation in the race of European civilization. Its scientific terms are French, its mechanical terms German, its naval terms English. But what are these after all but the parasitical incrustations round the mouth of a mine of precious ore ? — for such may the internal resources of the Russian language Letter XIV.] WEALTH OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE. 15 be considered. The native Russian may borrow technicalities from others, but morally, feelingly, or imaginatively, he has an infinitely greater variety of terms at his disposal than any of the nations who may consider themselves his creditors.* At once florid and concise — pliable and vigorous, tender and stern ; — redundant in imagery, laconic in axiom, graceful in courtesy, strong in argument, soothing in feeling, and tremendous in denunciation, the latent ener gies ofthe language are a prophetic guarantee of the destinies of the nation. The grammar is excessively verbose and intricate, and, though many have essayed, no modem grammarian has yet succeeded in reduc ing it to a compass of any encouragement to a learner. Articles the Russian grammar has none, but these are amply indemnified by three genders and eight varyingly terminated * As one instance of their wealth of words, the connexion which we simply designate as brother-in-law, the Russian specifies by four separate terms, distinctly defining the nature of the tie — Zjat, or sister's husband ; Schurin, or wife's brother; Dever, or husband's brother; Svoik, or wife's sister's husband. 16 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIV. cases, which are brought into active requisition by an unusual abundance of preposition and conjunction. The declension of all parts of speech is highly irregular, the construction of words particularly synthetic. The language is profusely strewn with proverbs, phrases of courtesy, and other orientalisms which occur in daily use. For instance, every nation has some mode, more or less characteristic, of re commending themselves to the memory of distant friends : the French send friendship ; the Germans, greeting ; the English, love ; the Estonians, health ; but with oriental gravity the Russians, even in the most intimate rela tions of life, send only a Poklan, — literally, an obeisance, or salaam. With regard to the literature of Russia, it is neither sufficient in volume nor nationality to warrant an opinion : — Lomonosoff is the etymologist of the empire ; Karamsin, the his torian ; Pouschkin and Derjavine, the poets ; Gretsch and Bestucheff, its prose writers and novelists. Among the collective forty volumes of the latter writer is included a most Letter XIV.] RUSSIAN WORKS— ENGLISH MANNERS. 17 interesting " Poyesda vui Reveli," or Journey to Reval, presenting the most concise history ofthe province I have been able to procure. Generally speaking, however, Russian reading is confined to translations of the light French, German, and English works of the day. Our modern novels, including Miss Edgeworth's " Helen," are already in this form. The picture of English manners which many of our later novels hold up is not always what we ourselves have reason to be satisfied with, while the foreigner, to whom, in his complete ignorance of the relations of English society, such representations are little better than a kind of Chinese puzzle with a deficiency of pieces which he seeks to supply from his own misfitting stores, produces a caricature still less agreeable to our national pride. For ex ample, that word better felt than defined — that catholic term in good English society, — " the perfect gentleman," is here apprehended only in its outward rank, not in its inward virtue. The only idea a foreigner attaches to the word is that of an empty fop— rich of 18 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIV. course, moving in a narrow line of prejudice and conceit, who is equally spoiled at home) and ridiculed abroad; while the fact of its being the magical watchword for all that is rioble and honourable in public and private life, the bond of honesty, the pledge for libe rality, the test of good breeding, the conven tional security, stronger than law, between man and man — felt by the noble in mind, paraded by the vulgar, and respected by the degraded, — the fact that the real sense of the word comprehends all this and much more, is as little suspected as believed by the foreigner unacquainted with English life. Let me not be supposed to imply that no foreigner can in his own person represent this term in its utmost meaning ; happily the feeling is of universal growth, but Russia is not the land where that national acknowledgment of its infiuenee, which saves so much time and expense, and gives such direct evidence of its existence, is to be found. It is well that I have fallen thus late in my letter upon a subject which not even the drowsy Letter XIV.] ENGLAND FOR EVER. 19 languor of a Russian April can affect, or a rhapsody upon the perfections of my native land, never seen in brighter colours than when distant from her shores, might usurp the more legitimate vocation of these letters. It is no less true, however, that " the best patriot is the best cosmopolitan." 20 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XV. LETTER THE FIFTEENTH. Sudden burst of spring — Last sledging drive — Thaw in the town and thaw inthe country — The Eisgang — Inundation — Rapidity of Nature's movements — Green fields and trees— ^Nightingales without, sentim ent — Family party — Introduction of a bride elect — Herrmann B. May let. " Der Sommer ist kommen, die Lerche singt ihr firohes Lied Der Schnee ist zerronnen, das Veilchen lieblich bliiht Es tonen die Lieder so leiblich und schon, Ja. Sommer du bist kommen, und laue Liifte weh'n, Ja, Sommer du bist kommen, wie herrlich, oh wie schon!'' These must have been the grateful exclama tions of some long Russian winter's recluse, for none other, I fancy, can adequately conceive the rapture with which the dawning blessings of summer are hailed. In imitation of Nature's movements every creature seems anxious to throw aside the badges of their long captivity. Letter XV.] SPRING CHANGES. 21 Our jingling sledges, our smothering furs and cushions, and our double windows, are now dis carded. The cattle have emerged from their various arks of refuge, and with their stiff winter limbs are creeping slowly about, snuff ing the browu and yet lifeless grass. The pea sants have cast aside their greasy sheepskins, and are pattering about with bare legs. The tender children of the family, whose bleached cheeks have mutely pleaded against the tardi ness of spring, and who have in vain sought to substitute the freedom of outer exercise by inde fatigable chasings through the house's great thoroughfare, are tumed out on to the drier heights, with round summer hats and lighter garments, enjoying the warmth of a spring which to them seems the first. While we, like them, for simple pleasures make happy child ren of us all, revel in the luxury of breathing a softer air, of turning our cheek without fear of a smite, of setting our foot on mud, piiddle, black ice, wet stones — on anything, in short, rather than on the beautiful smooth white surface which, like an over perfect person, has 22 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XV. left deeper impression of its monotony than of its beauty. Our last sledging drive over a morass was a Strapazz, or mad freak, not rashly to be re newed ; and, like the Prince in the Persian tale, whose spotless mind and rapid speed carried him safe over the slender arch of crys tal, while the fair lady pursuing, with foot less light than her reputation, dropped instantly through, we seemed to owe our safety across our crystal plain as much to the winged speed of our horses as to any particular purity of con science. It was a necessary visit which called us out, and our coachman, a very dare-devil of a Russian, emboldened by long luck, and versed in every track, guaranteed, if we went and re turned before the full warmth of the day had contributed to the work of destruction, to take us safe across. So off we set, " splash, splash, across the sea," through a foot deep of water standing upon the yet unbroken bed of ice, while the great cattle-dogs who followed at a labouring gallop, and weretempted from the track by some delicious half-thawed piece of Letter XV.] THAW IN THE TOWN. 23 putrefaction, the relic of the preceding autumn, had i)tiany a spluttering immersion. I have had the opportunity of witnessing the revolution of thaw both in country and town. In the former it is sublime — in the latter ridi culous. In Reval it made many attempts before the final breaking up, thawing rapidly in the day and freezing hard at night, till a few serious falls made the householders look about them, and, by the time the thaw was fairly set in, sand was strewed plentifully about the streets. One evening, not aware in our equably warm rooms ofthe change of atmosphere, we left our house to proceed to that of a friend not six doors removed — being previously well provided with Indian rubber caloshes, the worst conduct ors in the world on slippery roads. At our first step of descent from the house, whose ele vated situation has been described, our feet were taken most unaccountably from beneath us, and still faithfully hand-in-hand, we 'per formed a glissade of considerable length, being only stopped by a ledge in the pavement upon the plaee below. The difficulty now was to 24 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XV. rise, for all beneath and around was as polished glass, and tottering, slipping, and laughing we stood leaning upon a friendly lamp-post, able neither to proceed backwards nor forwards — our friend's lighted windows in front, our own behind, both looking all the more tempting because so utterly unattainable. A few solitary sledges passed us in the centre of the square, and, re gardless of what type of Estonian decorum they might envelope, we hailed the fur mantles seated within, but either not hearing, or not heeding, they passed on one after the other to the castle of the govemor, which was illumi nated for a soiree, and we were left clinoingr to our lantem, whicli emitted a feeble glimmer over our heads, — for gas is too " new a light " for Reval, — and repeated its rays in the watery ice beneath our feet. At length a sturdy Rus sian sailor came up, trudging along in his rough boots as safe as a fly on a pane of glass, and to him we applied : " Kudi vui velite, Sudarina ?" or " whither do you desire, Sig nora?" Half ashamed we pointed back to our oAvn door, hardly above a long arm's reach from us, Letter XV.] SLIPPERY STREETS. 25 for all thoughts of proceeding further on these terms were abandoned. The sailor looked at us in some doubt as to our sanity, but with Russian courtesy, giving a hand to each, and setting his feet like a Colossus of Rhodes, he hauled us up, acknowledging at our repeated backslidings, " verno, otchen gliska " — truly very slippery. This was, however, our last dilemma, for now, as if anxious to retrieve its delay, the thaw advanced in such rapid strides that it re quired, if not more inducement without doors, at all events less happiness than we possessed within, to venture into the streets at all. It must be remembered that the towns here, like the state of society, have no drains. There fore the Dome, which, from its natural position, offers the utmost facility for drainage, here simply pours its tribute of dirty ice water with a kind of stepmother love into the town below. For several days the householders contemplate with perfect equanimity the spectacle of the whole Douglasberg and Domberg one stream VOL. II. c 26 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XV. of running water, while deep puddles of a black, merging into an orange hue settle at the foun dations of -their houses, particularly embosom ing the house door, and ooze into their cellar grates. Choice of footing there is none, and gentlemen tum up their trousers, and ladies tuck up their petticoats, and, in lieu of these, drabble the corners of their cloaks, and the tails of their boas; and go about stepping fix)m Scylla to Charybdis, and complaining that their houses are damp. And if two bosom friends chance to start on opposite sides of the street, there they must remain, were their hearts to break. With gentlemen no such dilemma exists, they being just as cordial on bad roads as on good ones. And now the sun darts a fiercer ray, and the thaw increases, and the roofs bring their tribute, and pour and patter down upon sealskin caps, or pink satin bonnets, or into baskets of white bread, or hot brei pud dings ; and these being past, bore deep holes in the yet unmelted ice pavement, and lay bare the rough old stones beneath : and then little Letter XV.] THE. COUNT'S EMBARRASSMENT. 27 puddles join their forces to great puddles ; and the Domberg stream widens and deepens^ and goes babbling along as if delighted with the novelty. At length the aristocratic count, who all this time has sat upstairs in his dressing-gown, smoking his long pipe, not supposed in the nobility of his heart to know what the vulgar elements are about, issues from his house door, delightfully situated on the very margin of the new stream, himself dressed a quatre epingles, and fully bent on calling upon the govemor. At the first step he flounders above his caloshes — looking bewildered about him, he catches the eye of an elderly maiden lady at her window opposite — courteously takes off his hat, and down come a volley of drops on his bare head. This comes of a man's walking, whose ancestral papers are falling to pieces with mere age ; so he recrosses his threshold, not knowing ex actly who or what to find fault with, orders his carriage and four to take him a hundred yards, and sends out a couple of men-servants to cut a channel as far as his boundary extends. c2 28 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XV. And the water, follows their strokes, and splashes them to the ears, and runs merrily past the count's house to spread itself in a fer tilizing stream over the market-place. Here again it enjoys perfect liberty of con science, undermining every last morsel of firm ice, filling the cellars with a dirty mixture, and the houses with a dirty smell ; while all the filth ofthe preceding autumn — all the various souvenirs which a merciful winter had rendered innoxious both to eye and nose, now assault both organs, and go swimming about, and doubtless take refuge in the cellars also. Then, one after another, the householders, zealous to shut the door after the steed is stolen, cut drains before their houses, and the streets and places of the Dom are divided into patchwork canals, and old Coya Mutters, or portresses, assist all remote puddles with worn-out brooms, and the whole collection sooner or later finds its way to the town beneath, where we forbear to follow it. Such is the history of a town thaw — but the apotheoois of the country is very different. Letter XV.] THAW IN THE COUNTRY. 29 Here the soft hand of spring imperceptibly withdraws the bolts and bars of winter, while the earth, like a drowsy child 'twixt sleeping and waking, flings off one wrapper after another and opes its heavy lids in showers of sweet rivulets. And the snow disappears, and the brown earth peeps almost dry from beneath ; and you wonder where all the mountains of moisture are gone. But wait ; — the rivers are still locked, and though a strong current is pouring on their surface, yet, from the high bridge, the green ice is still seen deep below, firm as a rock — and dogs go splashing over in the old track, and peasants with their horses venture long after it seems prudent. At length a sound like distant thunder, or the crashing of a forest, meets your ear, and the words " der Eisgang, der Eisgang,"pass from mouth to mouth, and those who would witness this northern scene hurry out to the old stone bridge, and are obliged to take a circuitous'route, for the waters have risen ankle deep — and then another crash, and you double your pace, regardless of wet feet, and are startled at the 30 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XV. change which a few hours have produced; On the one side, close besetting the bridge, and high up the banks, lies a field of ice lifting the waters before it, and spreading them over the country ; while huge masses flounder and swing against one another with loud reports, and heave up their green transparent edges, full six feet thick, with a majestic motion ; and all these press heavily upon the bridge, which trembles at every stroke, and stands like a living thing labouring and gasping for breath through the small apertures of the almost choked arches. On the other side the river is free of ice, and a furious stream, as if all the imprisoned waters of Russia were let loose, is dashing down, bearing with it some huge leviathan of semi-transparent crystal, and curd ling its waters about it, till this again is stopped by another field of ice lower down. The waters were rising every minute — ^night was approaching, and the beautiful old bridge gave us great alarm, when a party of peasants, fresh from their supper at the Hof, and cheered with brandy, arrived to relieve it. Each was Letter XV.] THE OLD BRIDGE. 31 armed with a long pole with an iron point, and flying down the piles and on to the ice itself, began hacking at the sides of the foremost monster, till, impelled by the current beneath, it could fit and grind itself through the bridge and gallop down to thunder against its comrades below. The men were utterly fearless, giving a keen sense of adventure to their dangerous task which riveted us to the spot ; some of the most daring standing and leaning with their whole weight over the bed of the torrent upon the very mass they were hewing off, till the slow swing which preceded the final plunge made them fly to the piles for safety. Some fragments were doubly hard with imbedded stones and pieces of timber, and no sooner was one enemy despatched than another succeeded ; and although bodies of men continued reliev ing each other all night, the bridge sustained such damage as could not be repaired. All was over in twelve hours, but meanwhile " the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth ;" and every hill and building stood insulated. Such was the picture of our life a fortnight 32 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XV. ago, since when a still more striking change, if possible, has come over the face of things. The earth, which so late emerged from her winter garb, is now clad in the liveliest livery ; while every tree and shrub have hastily changed their dresses in Nature's vast green room, and stand all ready for the summer's short act. Nowhere is Nature's hocus-pocus carried on so wonderfully — nowhere her scene- shifting so inconceivably rapid. You may literally see her movements. I have watched the bird's-cherry at my window. Two days ago, and it was still the same dried up spectre, whose every form, during the long winter, the vacant eye had studiously examined whUe the thoughts were far distant — yesterday, like the painter's Daphne, it was sprouting out at every finger, and to-day it has shaken out its whole complement of leaves, and is throwing a ver dant twilight over my darkened room. The whole air is full of the soft stirring sounds of the swollen buds snapping and cracking into life, and impregnated with the perfume of the fresh, oily leaves. The waters are full and Lbtter XV.] NEIGHBOURS AND NIGHTINGALES. 33 clear, the skies — blue and serene — night and day are fast blending into one continuous stream of soft light, and this our new existence is one perpetual feast. Oh winter ! where is thy victory ? The resurrection of spring speaks volumes. This is the time for giving and receiving visits, and our neighbours who thaw with the season are now seen driving about, not in sledges, but in their high-wheeled carriages ;— the only exchange of the spring we are inclined to regret. — taking their meals, in defiance of swarms of gnats and flies, upon their long neglected balconies, and listening to the night ingales whose gurgling throats are heard inces sant day and night, till our daintier ears rebel at this surfeit of sweet sounds. For Philomel, instead of pouring her plaint to the night, heard only by those whom kindred miseries forbid to sleep, here boldly takes her station by broad sunshine, and like some persons .whose incorrigible thirst for pity leads them to over look all the decencies of sorrow, parades her o-riefs, equally visibly as audibly, to all who c3 34 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC [Letter XV. will listen ; in vain endeavouring to overpower the peels of a rival sufferer perched on an opposite tree. How truly has Portia said : — " The nightingale, if she should sing by day. When every goose is caekling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren." Here this bird of sorrow loses all her sentiment. The gardeners are now occupied in calling the gardens into existence, for atthe commence ment of winter every plant is taken up and consigned to its winter cellar, not to resume its station till summer appears ; and the famihes are wandering about, scanning the grounds as fondly as if returned to some long withheld inheritance. Truly we might take a lesson from this frugal northern people how to prize the gifts of Nature. Here every species of pleasure-ground goes under the grand denomination of a park, and it is impossible to convince these worthy foreigners that their wild meadow and forest scenery approaches much nearer the reality, and indeed requires no alteration in many instances beyond that of neatness; though Lbtteb XV.] INTRODUCTION OF A BRAUT. 35 other parts of their heathy and morassy land scape would lose in beauty by cultivation. At one house we found every degree of rela tionship gathered together for the ceremony of introduction to a young lady just engaged to the eldest son. We should think such matters best honoured in the breach than in the observ ance, but here the Braut, a silent poke-headed girl, went passively through the ordeal; the mistress of the family presenting her to each as " meine Schwie ger tochter," my daughter-in law — for in Estonia, let the period of marriage be ever so distant, the nearest titles of relation ship are adopted by anticipation. By this means a single lady, if she prove rather change able, may provide herself with a large circle of connexions before she be burdened with a husband. Among the party was a young Russian Garde Officier, then enjoying his year of absence from the service — one of the many privileges attending the acquisition of an epau lette, — though no release from the uniform is allowed ; and who evidently made the most of his holiday by not opening his lips, or chang- 36 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XV. ing his position more than was absolutely necessary : so that a little sketch of combined Russian drilling and German phlegma was made without his being in any way accessary to the fact. But " stille Wasser sind tief," and though Herrmann B. made his large brown eyes do all the work for his tongue, yet I suspect there was more behind them than his more talkative companions could boast. Lively conversation, however, is not the favourite bosom sin of an Estonian gentleman, at least not more than can be conveniently combined with the paramount discussion of a pipe, to which, after the novelty of the Braut had sub sided, they all resorted. Letter XVI.] EARLY RISING. 37 LETTER THE SIXTEENTH. Early rising — Departure on a journey — Drive through a wild country — Diversities of taste in the situation of a residence — A Krug — Rosenthal — Boulder stones — Castle Lode, and the unfortunate Princess of Wirtem berg — A very hard bed — Leal — An accumulation of annoyances — The Wieck, and its seashore riches — Baron Ungern Sternberg — Count and Countess , and their seat at Linden — Anecdote of Peter the Great and his friend Menschikoff — The Castle of Habsal — Dagen girl — Odd collections— Riesenberg and the Ba roness S. Our journey to commenced on the lOthof June. At four in the moming we awoke to a sky cool as night and bright- as noon, but human nature was not the less sleepy, and Sascha had alternately repeated in tones of progressive loudness "It is four of the clock — it is the fifth hour," and blurted out various adjurations in Russian which, as they would 38 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. infallibly have puzzled her Barishna, or lady, when wide awake, she inversely reasoned would effectually rouse her when half asleep, before she could be prevailed upon to stir. Oh ! this getting up ! what a daily torment it is ! — watch ings and vigils are nothing in comparison. In vain would we run away from our sins; your sound morning sleepers are just as in corrigible in the full uncurtained blaze of a Russian June, as in the drowsy candlelight of a London November. But who calls the callers ? here we will change the subject. Then came the hasty breakfast — the final clos ing ofthe great Speise Korb, or provision basket, on which all hopes of good cheer in this country depend — the last injunctions to the household — the last kisses to children, and off we set in an open barouche and four, well settled down in a comfortable carriage position, and well dis posed to enjoy our journey, or rather that luxurious, untiring converse of two individuals, near and dear, who have spent all life's youth together and gathered much of life's experi-- ence apart. Nor was this delicious tete-a-tete Letter XVI.J A HAPPY DRIVE. 39 through moist plains and hazy woods whose boughs swept our carriage, and whose mur murs scarce before mingled with the lisping sounds of English, likely to be interrupted ; for on his box sat Mart, the Estonian coachman, and before us sat Sascha, the Russian maid, and my dear companion spoke no Russian, and I no Estonian, and the two servants were equally ¦ mute to each other, so that of our quartet only two could exchange speech together, and that in three languages alternately. It was a strange but sweet drive through this wild country, of which we seemed the only passing tenants, — occasionally rousing our selves from some mutual reminiscence of girlhood's fancied grief, or soberer relation of womanhood's real sorrow, from dreams and scenes only of the past, — for those who love deeply and soon must part, care not for the future, — to gaze at some untutored beauty in the landscape, which each equally adipired, or some tasteless freak of man which both equally laughed at. This, however, does not apply to the country houses, which, with the 40 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. exception of the wooden ones, are generally built with taste, and often with magnificence, but to the choice ofa position, where, itis true, the good Estonians do not shine. Often in the course of our journey did the road lead us through winding avenues of majestic trees, or parky ground laid out by Nature's hand, where the eye involuntarily sought the mansion of the proprietor — but sought in vain ; for if one estate be more plentifully gifted with the beauties of wood and cliff, stream or lake, than another, there you may be sure the mansion, splendid in itself, is planted in some industri ously picked corner, just where none of these are visible. To approach a house through shadeless corn-fields is the thing in Estonia ; and as for a view, they prefer that of their own farming buildings, not always so orna mental as the sheep-stable we have portrayed, to anything Nature can offer. Listen to that pretty woman who sits bolt upright on that hard chair; she is describing an estate her husband has lately purchased. " The house stands on a hill — beneath it a valley with a Letter XVL] ROAD-SIDE REMARKS. 41 beautiful . . ." what? a beautiful stream? by no means — a beautiful forest ? neither ; but " une helle etable," and that with a red-tiled roof. But to retum to our pleasant drive. Man kind now began to emerge — peasants, with files of carts laden with brandy or milk, turned off for the carriage of the Saehsa, as they still designate their Teutonic-descended masters — little peasant children with no further incum brance than a shift, and heads of hair like shaggy poodle dogs, darted from a thicket to open a gate^ while here a woman toiled at the plough, and a man smoked and looked on, and there a man was brutally beating a girl, whilst women stood by with unconcern. And in this latter case we could not resist inter ference, and Mart delivered a most impressive admonition from hismistress's lips inimproved Estonian, which was received sulkily, and like most temporary relief I dare say did its object more harm than good. By eight o'clock the sun had acquired more heat than was agreeable to bear, and by ten 42 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. it was insupportable, and our spirited horses hung their heads, and only languidly repelled the attacks of the great flies, big as cockchafers, called here Bremsen, which followed them in flights, — sometimes blundering into the car riage, to the great interruption of all romantic reminiscences. Under these circumstances the roof of the great Krug which reared itself in the distance was rather a more welcome sight than usual — a building so denuded of every comfort, that it is difficult to conceive how a travelling people like the Estonians, who are always staging from one great house to another, and traverse thousands of worsts in a year within the bounds of their own province, have not encouraged better accommodations. These Krugs are at once the public-houses of the peasantry, and the only inns of the gentler traveller- — immense erections, often very pic turesque without, and particularly picturesque within also ! — of which there are one or more on every estate, and whence a decent* re venue is derived from the sale of brandy and beer. Those Krugs whose position on a high Letter XVI.] A KRUG— ROSENTHAL . 43 road leads them to expect company of a better sort are kept by Germans, speaking most un grammatical German, with all the pretensions of a better class, and the squalidness of the very loAvest. Here a room or two is allotted to the carriage traveller, where you are expected to bring your own provisions to spread the filthy table, and your own cushions to fill the wretched bedstead. After a hearty inroad into our Speise Korb and a short nap upon a bench so narrow that the first uneasy start threatened to fling the sleeper on the floor, but which offered the advantage of the least possible contact with surrounding objects, we turned out into Nature's vast hostelry, leaving Sascha and Mart to converse with their eyes. Before us was a handsome country house, called Rosenthal, belonging to a proprietor of the same name, surrounded with gardens of unusual beauty, which, though utter strangers, we received a courteous invitation to explore, and where, with sketch-book in hand, and a sweet voice at my side, more than the miseries of an Estonian Krug would soon have been 44 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI, forgotten. The country was very fertile — enormous fields of waving com, some of them above a hundred acres in extent, hemmed in with lofty woods, and dotted with those stones which form a peculiar feature in an Estonian landscape. These are blocks of granite, varying in size from huge masses, big as houses, of every picturesque form and colour, to such as one man could lift, which lie strewed in myriads upon the surface of this country, to which they are not indigenous, — especially lining the sea coast, — and doubtless have been rent in some convulsion of nature from the opposite granite shores of Finland. I was laughed at for calling them rocks, though if size be a qualification for that title, many deserve it. Here they are called, concurring in name as well as in meaning with our boulder stones. Bulla Steine. To pick the fields clean of these foreigners to the soil would be impossible, but the smaller ones are culled off for fences, and other purposes of building. By this time the horses had enjoyed their ne cessary rest, and we resumed our carriage posir Letter XVI.] CASTLE LODE. 45 tion, — the only comfortable one to be had, — and passing through many pretty estates and fields of wheat, here a rare sight, came in view ofthe towers of Castle Lode about seven in the evening. Here another Krug, rather less com fortless than the Rosenthal one, received us — having the addition of a tallow-besprinkled billiard table to the other stated furniture. But the old castle had sufficient interest to render the evening agreeable. It is a fine building with massive towers, enclosing a courtyard, with the inscription " Albertus de Buxhoveden Episcopus, renovavit 1435," and entered by a massive bridge and gateway over a moat. Altogether a most picturesque spot, with fine old trees and majestic expanse of water ; — nothing wanted but more ruin or more repair. * Its history dates from the earliest episcopal times in Estonia, being men tioned as a bishop's castle as early as the thirteenth century. It sustained many sieges, * These words seem ill-fated, for a few months subse quent to our visit this castle was reduced by fire to a state of ruin. A sketch of it in this condition has been preferred to one taken previously. 46 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. and all the wear and tear of a country so long divided within itself and contended for by others, and under Peter the Great became crown property, being appropriated as a prison for state offences. The last inmate in this capacity was a Princess of Wirtemberg, whose fate has given a horrible interest to its walls. She was confined here by Catherine II. ; some say for ha-dng divulged a state secret, others for ha-ving attracted the notice of her son Paul. Be this as it may, she was young and very beautiful — was at first lodged here with the retinue and distinction befitting her rank, and is still remembered by some of the oldest noblemen in the province as having en tertained them with much grace, and conde scended to join in the waltz, where her per sonal charms and womanly coquetry, joined to the romance of her misfortunes and high rank, gained her many manly hearts. But like a royal predecessor in history, her charms proved her destruction. To her infinite wretchedness they gained the attention of General Pohl- mann, who had the charge of the beautiful Letter XVI.] THE PRINCESS OF WIRTEMBERG. ^7 prisoner. Under divers pretences her attend ants were diminished, her liberty curtailed, and her keeper proved himself a villain. The sequel to this was her death under most heart rending circumstances, being left like a second Genofeva utterly unassisted and uncared for at the time of giving birth to an infant, of which she was not delivered, and which pe rished with her. Her corpse was put into a cellar of the castle — all inquiry stifled upon the spot, and being obnoxious to Catherine no appeal to her justice was made. Nothing was done in Paul's time, nor in Alexander's, nor in short till a few years back, when the Prince of Oldenburg, nearly related to the deceased, came expressly to Castle Lode. Owing to the quality of the atmosphere the body was found in a state of preservation, which left no doubt as to the cause of her death, and was decently interred in the church of Goldenbeck, close by. We lingered about the spot iand saw happy children's faces gleaming from those rooms which this last hapless prisoner had inhabited, and returning to our Krug ordered clean hay 48 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. into our empty bedsteads, and disposed our selves to rest. But the shade of the Princess of Wirtemberg haunted our minds, and as for our bodies, never did I know how much it required to make a bed soft before. Sleep -without rest is worse than no sleep at all, nor could all the drowsiness in the world dull the intolerable aching of our bones as we tumed from side to side on those hard planks. At length, persuading ourselves that it would be better for man and horse to avoid the heat of the day, we roused Mart from his softer lair beside his steeds, who rose, like a willing, gentle Estonian, without a murmur, and Sascha from her elbows on the table, whose little Tartar eyes could hardly open at all, and leaving our bed to hardier-nursed travellers, we dozed on in the carriage ; waking up as we splashed through a wide stream, and then dozing again till we reached Leal at five. This place, which consists of little more than a long street of wretched houses, is called, par excellence, das Fleck Leal ; — literally the spot Leal, — and spot, hole, nest, call it what they Letter XVI. DELIGHTS OF A KRUG. 49 will, never was there such a detestable abode seen. We stopped at a Krug, where not a creature was stirring, and, after knocking ¦ in' vain, opened a door, when a scene presented itself which beggars all description. I have portrayed to ydu the day aspect of a Volks Stube — we now saw the night one. About twenty creatures were lying on stove, floor, and table — old and young — boys and girls — higgledy-piggledy — the atmosphere at least 100°, and thick and reeking from this human hecatomb. In the centre of the floor lay a. wayworn soldier with his martial cloak around him, the only decent figure of the party, which, with the exception of an old hag, who came forward in a state which made us retreat, slept on unconcerned at our entrance. Never was poor humanity seen under a more disgust ing aspect. In vain did Sascha stand be hind with Speise Korb on arm — no place was clean enough to receive it ; and as for ourselves, we "had been better off in an English pigsty. So out we sallied, tired, hungry, chilly, and dirty, and in the very worst of all possible VOL. II. D 50 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI, humours with the Fleck and all its inhabitan,t^, and sat down in the churchyard to while away time. The Fleck, however, boasts a history — has fragments of a castle and monastery still standing — has been besieged over and over again, and almost burnt down several times — I heartily wish it had been so quite. After study ing all the inscriptions in the churchyard, al ternately German and Estonian, with here and there a stray Swedish memento, and looking at our watches to hurry time in vain, we re turned to our carriage, where poor tired Sascha was enjoying a short obli-vion from her woes. Rather than disturb her, we bethought our selves to try an Estonian Krug close by, for those incarnations of nastiness who had assailed us upon our arrival were Germans, and would have scorned to be confounded with the pea santry; and here we found, though no great accommodation, yet>a clean table and chair in the hostess's room — a brisk, handsome creature, whom we disturbed from her spinning-wheel at the side of her sleeping child, and who soon took her place in my sketch-book. From Leal we passed through a country un- Letter XVL] DIVISIONS OF ESTONIA. 51 interesting with the exception of an oak-wood of great age and beauty — a sight of uncommon occurrence — and blocks of granite of immense size which towered above the cornfields, -and by ten o'clock reached our journey's end. We were now in that portion of the province called the Wieck ; Estonia having been from the earliest times divided into four districts, entitled the Wieck, East and South Harrien, Jerwen, and Wierland, each of which has advantages of some kind or other, as the old song celebrates : — " In dem Wieck, da wird man rieck ; " In Harrien, da wohnen die Karrien ; " In Wierland, ist gut Bierland ; " In Jerwen mbcht ich leben und sterben." One drawback, however, to the wealth of the Wieck is a most monotonous country, with large sandy and morassy tracts, but highly fertile under cultivation, which both the priests and knights no doubt discovered, for this district appears to have been more particularly their residence. Lying also along the coast of the Baltic, here excessively dangerous to navi gators, the shattered fortunes of a Wieck d2 \ 52 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. seigneur are not unseldom repaired by reiche Strandungen, literally rich Strandings, which the spring and autumn winds, in their fury up and down this narrow sea, throw on their shores. Not long ago one of these gentlemen had a cargo of the best Champagne wafted to his feet, just as he was sounding the contents of his cellar in preparation for the marriage feasting of his adopted daughter. It is a barbarous custom this Strandright, but civilization is not sufficiently advanced here to dispense with it, and fewer lives would be saved if this bribe to cupidity were not held out. That period of cruelty when false lights were hung out to entangle ships is passed away with the fate of the notorious Baron Ungern Sternberg, who from his own house, situated on a high part of the island of Dagen, where he lived in undisputed authority, displayed a light which misled many a mariner. This continued unnoticed, for he was powerful in wealth and influence, till the disappearance of a ship's captain, who was found dead in his room, the e:!vistence of goods to a large extent Letter XVL] LAST PIRATE OF THE BALTIC. 53 under the floors of the house, and other con curring circumstances, led to his apprehension. His family, one of the highest in the province, urged him to fly, but he was fearless to the last. Some ofhis contemporaries still remember his trial, which took place thirty-two years back, when he appeared before the Landrathe, his equals, in the garb of a peasant, with chains on hands and feet, and was condemned to Siberia, but not to the mines. His name was struck off the roll of nobility, but his children's left untouched. Some think hira hardly done by, and his family stands high as ever; and, if they have not inherited the crimes, they have at all events the daring courage, enterprise, shrewd sense, and sparkling wit of their pirate ancestor. I have been told by an English seaman that the sensation of this affair extended even to .England, and that placards were seen in the streets of London — " Beware of Ungern Sternberg, the Sea Robber," — as a warning to sailors. At two days' end, having accomplished a visit of too serious and private an import to be 54 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI commented upon here, we resumed our journey, and took the road for the seat of Count , at Linden, near Habsal. Here, unless the traveller know the Estonian as well as the German name of an estate, he is no nearer the object of his search ; and, doubtful of our road, we had to inquire for the Ungere Mois., or Ungern estate. Linden having formerly belonged to this family. This is one of those houses which that staid refinement which Heth not in the purse, and which both the Count and his beautiful Countess cordially agree in maintaining, has filled with those numerous, nameless little comforts, which cost little beyond the thought. Linden is one of the most delightful residences I have seen, but at the same time our Count is one whose presence would enliv^en the four bare walls of an Estonian Krug. Wit without effort, kindness without display, nobility as much by nature as descent, and a life of adventure, combine to make him /one of the most charming specimens of aristo cratic mankind, whether seen in Estonia or England. Lettek XVL] PETER THE GREAT & MENSCHIKOFF- 55 This estate lies directly on the coast, the passing vessels visible from the drawing-room windows, and has been immortalized by the presence of Peter the Great, who visited it in his peregrinations along the shores of the Baltic for the p-urpose of ascertaining the best position for his future capital. The Zar and his insepara ble friend Menschikoff were here entertained in fear and trembling by a pretty widow. Countess Steenbock, nee Baroness Ungern, whose feel ings lay with her late sovereign Charles XII. of Sweden. Nevertheless Peter felt very well disposed towards his pretty hostess, but Menschi koff was on the alert to catch up anything that could at once demonstrate her lukewarmness and his loyalty. Occasion for this soon presented itself at dinner, upon the Zar's health being given by the Countess, when Menschikoff's wary eye quickly observed that the goblet where out she drank was decorated with the royal arms of Sweden, and thundered out a remonstrance in the style of the day, doubtless more loyal than gentle. The Countess said nothing, but a tear, as our host assures us, stood in her beauti- 56 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. ful eye, and Peter, whose heart could better brook torrents of man's blood than one pearly drop from pretty woman, thundered back upon his High Admiral all the opprobrious epithets he could remember, desiring him to fall in love with her that moment and make her his wife for an atonement. Of course Menschikoff did as he was bid, but the Countess's tears flowed faster and faster, for she thought no fate so horrible as that of being a Russian's wife, and, relying on the generosity of a discarded lover, more to be trusted, it is true, than a favoured one, avowed herself the betrothed of her cousin Hans Rosen, who Hved on the island of Dagen, just opposite her windows. So Menschikoff s ardour as suddenly cooled, and Baron Rosen took the widow at her word, and from their descendants our fascinating Count inherited the estate of Linden. From Linden we visited Habsal, a small sea port-town which at one time enjoyed consider able iraportance, but whose chief attraction now consists in bathing-houses in sumraer, and the magnificent remains of the castle, formerly the Letter XVL] CASTLE OF HABSAL. 57 residence of the Bishops of Habsal. From the magnitude of the ruins this appears to have been an episcopal castle of uncommon splen dour. The church, with cloisters and chapel adjoining, as well as part of the refectory, a tower, and other portions, are still standing, and are surrounded by embankments and a massive wall of great beauty, secured at intervals by turreted towers ; outside of these is a garden with fruit-trees venerable as the ruin, with a moat beyond surrounding that portion which the sea does not protect. Habsal shared all the vicissitudes of Estonia, — was plundered by the infuriated peasantry, who raade the Wieck especially the theatre of their excesses, and more than once bartered with the neighbour ing castles of Leal and Lode for gold. Count is now erecting and adorning a mansion which has the rare view of a fine Gothic castle on the right, and the waves of the Baltic on the left, and promises to be as com fortable within as it is magnificent without. He is possessed of large property, including quarries of a fine quality of stone, with which d3 58 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. a contract has recently been made to repave Petersburg, and is the encourager of all inge nuity in the peasants, and the promoter of labour for wages. Large estates on the island of Dagen are also his. The peasantry there have a distinct costume, and amongst his house hold was a Dagen girl who was handed blush ing into the drawing-room for us to examine her accoutrements. The head-dress was a circular plait of hair, braided with a red cloth roll, which fastened behind, and hung down in long ends tipped with gold fringe. The dress was merely a linen shift, high to the throat and half-leg long, crimped from top to bottom — the linen being soaked mth as much strong starch as it can hold, crimped with long lathes of wood, and then put into the oven to dry, whence it issues stiff and hard as a board. How the Dagen ladies manage to sit down in this case of iron is more than I can say, since we did not see this evolution performed. The belt, however, is the chief curiosity, being made of broad black leather, studded with massive brass heads, with a second hanging belt in mili- Letter XVL] MOST AGREEABLE MAN IN ESTONIA. 59 tary guifee, whence a knife in a silver case is which suspended, and fastens behind with a fringe of brass chains. High -heeled shoes and red stockings completed the attire, and alto gether a prettier bandit maiden never was seen. Linden is stored with all the curiosities which the combined taste and humour of our host has collected. Here may be seen beautifully carved Gothic fumiture, and in a conspicuous place the painted figure-head of an English vessel ; — fine old armour, inlaid firelocks, and a rapier which a middle-sized man must mount a chair to unsheath ; — good pictures of ancestors, and one of a buming town where the moon is intro duced as foreground ; — collections of snuff boxes, &c., and various relics of his grandsire the King of Sweden ; and lastly, a collection of a peculiar kind of snuff-box, which the Count flattered himself not even one of our own bizarres countrymen would have thought of making ; so, with the particular sparkle of the eye and compression of lip which always preceded an act or saying which made every body laugh but himself, he opened a drawer 60 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. where lay in sad inactivity — a whole collection of — snuffers. There were snuffers couchant, and snuffers rampant — snuffers which no one could have guessed to be snuffers, and yet which looked like nothing else in art or nature — Russian snuffers fine with gilding, but which rattled and let out the snuff — a curious Ger^ man contrivance which required three hands, and a Chinese one with a trigger to pull, pro ducing a concussion which generally sn'uffed the candle — out ; — and lastly, as a satire upon the whole, there was a genuine Birmingham pair — light, bright, and plain, — which with one gentle click did the work of all the party. What a pity it is that Count has no children to inherit his fine property and finer disposition ! He is now petitioning the Em peror for leave to legate both title and estates to a sister's son ; but, come what raay, there will never be such another Count as the pre sent. Two happy days were here snatched frora tirae, and when the farewell hour arrived we forgot how recent had been our knowledge of each other, and only feared the future might Letter XVI.] UNUSUAL HOURS. 61 never reunite those whom fate had placed so far asunder. And again a tear stood in the eye of the beautiful hostess of Linden, and our host looked strenuously towards his own feet — the neatest, by the way, in the world — and atterapted sorae huraorous deraonstration of the fidelity of manly raeraories, and the faith lessness of ferainine ; but it would not do : and we were worse than either. It is pleasant to rove through the world, but it is hard to part from those who gratuitously receive the stranger as the friend. We left Linden at an unusual hour — our time was scarce and our energies plentiful, so we en joyed our friends' society till raidnight, and set off in the short twilight. Our horses had been sent forward about twenty miles, it being the conventional courtesy in this country for the host to give you his own horses for the first stage, and for the hostess to replenish your Speise Korb with the best from her table. Repassing Lode, we took a different route, and halted a few hours at Riesenberg, the seat of Baron S., and one of the most magnificent houses to be found here 62 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVI. or in any country. The Baroness S. is a perfect Flora in taste, which with her, from the pecu liar art she possesses of heightening Nature's beauty by a certain poetry of arrangement, amounts to real genius. Not only do her gar dens and grounds bloom beneath her hands, but she has taught her flowers to spring from one pillar to another of her beautiful saloon, nestling themselves in rich clusters amongst the architectural ornaments, and hanging above like censers of rich perfumes, till, with the little blonde Cupids, whom she has also contrived to rear in profusion, sporting on the parquete floor beneath, a prettier scene can hardly be imagined. Nothing can exceed the hospitality of the Estonians. Servants, horses, all are equally entertained, and the traveller sent rejoicing on his way, never to forget obligations so unosten tatiously bestowed. From Riesenberg we commenced our last stage homeward, and leaning back with tired languor resumed that intimate language of affection, that sweet flow of uttered thought, which " pours from hearts by nature matched." And, low in the heavens, Letter XVI.] LENGTH OF DAY. 63 the bright orb of day, which had attended us in cloudless splendour from two in the morn ing — the steps of Aurora being at this season here followed by at least twenty rosy hours — streamed cool and subdued through groves of slender-stemmed trees, reminding us at every instant of Tumer's matchless produc tions ; for who like hira has ever realized the truth of a sunny day, the golden fields, the fleecy clouds, and countless fluttering, glitter ing leaves ? — and at last sunk to his short rest again before we reached ours. 64 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVII. LETTER THE SEVENTEENTH. Bathing life at Reval — Custom-house troubles extraordinary — Voyage across the Gulf — Union of various nation^-» Approach to Helsingforst — A ball — Baroness K. — Shopping propensities of lady passengers — Granite beauties of Helsingforst — ^The Observatory — The Bota nical Garden — An eventful dinner — Sweaborg — The Scheeren — Symptoms of smuggling — Return to Reval. We have resuraed our life in Reval, the popu lation of which is now swelled with hundreds of bathing guests — chiefly Petersburgians, who, enervated by the long winter's confinement and dissipation, imbibe fresh life both from the air and water of this prettj' bay ; and Germans, Russian-bred, who are glad to renew recollec tions of their fatherland and mother-tongue at so short a distance. The Pyroskaffs between Reval and Petersburg are constantly plying, so overladen with passengers as greatly to neutral- Letter XVIL] MODE OF BATHING. G5 ize their accommodations. Bathing is here con ducted very differently from what it is with us : — no chilly early rising with a walk to the beach before the day is aired — no tormentor in the shape of a rough sailor or fat fish woraan to plunge you reraorselessly beneath a horrid wave, where you issue blinded, deafened, and stified, and incomparably colder and crosser than you went in ; — but here, when the day is at the hottest, you step leisurely in, like a water-nymph, bathe head and face, nestle gradually beneath the rippling waves, and listen to their soft whispers and dabble with their sraooth resistance for twenty minutes if you please ; eraerging with limbs warm, pliant, and strengthened, and with the raost ardent desire for the renewal of this luxury, which raay be safely indulged in again the sarae afternoon. I have seen delicate creatures, who at first were lifted from the carriage to the bathing-house, restored day 'by day, and in a fortnight's time bathing with a zest that seemed to renew all their energies. Bathing is so indispensable to the Russian, that 66 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVII. he makes a study of it, and strengthens himself in summer as thoroughly as he warms himself in winter. Then, when the heat of the day is subsiding, the deep shades of Catherin1;hal are the universal resort ; and equipages and pedes trians line the road from Reval. Here a band of military music plays, and restaurateurs offer ices, chocolate, &c., and you parade about and your friends join you, and you sit do-wn and the gnats sting you ; and if yOu don't like this, you may adjourn to the saile de danse close by, where the limbs so late floating listlessly on the waves now twirl round in the hurrying waltz ; — and all this is very pleasant for a short time. The reigning topics in the beau monde, after the Empress's illness and the Grand Duchess's marriage, were the Lust Fahrte or pleasure-trips to Helsingforst — a city which, although merely a six hours' voyage across the gulf, has been only recently discovered by the Estonians. Two years back a few individuals ventured across, and, being entertained with great kindness by the Finlanders, returned with Letter XVII.] CHARMS OF HELSINGFORST. 67 such panegyrical accounts of the charms of Helsingforst, that multitudes followed their ex ample, and the hospitality of the inhabitants has been put to a severe test. These trips, which take place about once a fortnight, have proved a very successful speculation to the pro jectors, but a particularly sore subject to the shopkeepers of Reval, who, after paying high duty for their goods, are deserted by their cus tomers for the better and cheaper wares of duty free Finland. Hence it is that the Russian custom-house here out-Russians itself in every vexatious and annoying precaution for counter acting this evil, and, were the explorers of the new region only men, there could be little doubt of their perfect success, but woman's wit has baffled greater tyrants than they. If it be sweet to drive a bargain, how much more so to smuggle it through seeraing irapossibili- ties ! — consequently the shopkeepers at home find no greater demand than before these extra regulations were enforced. ¦ Having determined on joining one of these 68 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVII, Lust Fahrte, we soon came in for our share of the tender mercies of the custora-house deni zens, who, to raake double sure, fall upon yoa at both ends of your journey. To our bootless indignation, our trunks had to be submitted to their inspection the day before starting, when they took a list of every article they included, extending even to the umbrellas, the same being an item of great attraction at Helsing forst ; so that any forgotten article, any inno cent pocket-handkerchief or pair of stockings of the raost honest descent, not included in the list, ran the risk of condemnation upon our retum. This plan had not even the advantage of preparing us betimes for our joumey, and when we awoke at five the next moming there were still a thousand things to do, and a thou sand to think of— the one remerabered without doing, and the other done without thought. So raany of the elite of Reval were bound on the sarae errand, that the whole little town was wide awake at this early hour, and equipages and four thundered down the Domberg without the Letter XVII.] STEAM-BOAT SCENE. 69 usual precautions, and jostled each other in the harbour ; while no less than a hundred and eighty persons mounted the little steara-boat. What a mixture of northern nations and dialects were here ! — grave Danes and slender Swedes ; Russians of every style of phy siognomy, European and Asiatic, with strange full names, like water gulping out of a bottle, and a certain air of liveliness and jauntiness, whence the fitting appellation ofie Francais du Nord ; and the fat, fubsy, phlegmatic German, the very antithesis of this latter, whose pipe is as a feature of his face, and not always the plainest ; all uniting in the one adopted tongue of courtesy, fitness, aud pertness — French — and yet not a Frenchman among them all. Many friends and acquaintances were here, and Herrmann B., with the speaking eyes and silent tongue, who saw everything and said nothing ; and, by an agreeable accident, it hap pened that no husband had his wife on board, and no wife her husband, and — 'tis true, 'tis pity, pity 'tis, 'tis true — these connubial frag ments never appeared to better advantage ; and, 70 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVII. there beirig nobody to please, all were pleased, and the weather was beautiful, and the sea as even-tempered as the rest. Ourselves were the only unworthy representatives of "that isle which boasts, profuse as vernal blooms, the fairest dames and gentlest swains ;" though the many plain Englishwomen and ill-mannered Englishmen who crowd the Continent, it is to be feared, may have shaken a foreigner's faith in this respect. At first a decent pause was allowed for re serve : then the avant gardes of each party exchanged civilities, which thence quickly cir culated through the mass, and only a solitary Estonian or two, in whom the spirit of form ality seemed embodied, held aloof. The Russians, as the saying goes, " soon feed out of your hand," but they temper the act with a grace which the haughtiest of hearts could not resist. No nation so ingeniously unites the most perfect sluttery with the most perfect good breeding. The same man whose intacte man ners would fit him for the highest circles will not scruple to exhibit negligences of dress Letter XA'IL] HELSINGFORST. 71 which our lowest would shun — Generals with princely fortunes, affecting a contempt for the effeminacy of whole attire, may be seen at times in threadbare surtouts and boots they might better bestow on their valets ; but this mauvais genre takes its rise from the highest authority of the Empire, who himself it is said occa sionally enjoys the relaxation of being out at elbows. Be this as it may, neatness is cer tainly not an inherent quality in a Russian disposition. Helsingforst is approached through islands of rocks, some of them only tenanted by fisher men, others massively fortified — especially that called Sweaborg, which is the Cronstadt of this Finnish capital. Nor does the likeness end here, for the town itself, clean and handsomely built, recals Petersburg upon the first aspect. Tremendous thunder-clouds were gathering over the rocky landscape, and we hurried to the Societats Haus, the only hotel iji the town, and a magnificent building, where most of the hundred and eighty found accommoda tion. Here we were no sooner housed than thunder and lightning burst over the town. 72 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVII. but were little heeded in the welcome rattle of knives and forks. The storm subsided into a regular rain, but shopping was not to be neglected — what else did all these good ladies come for ? — so we sallied out, buying new umbrellas and Indian-rubber caloshes as we moved along, and laughing at the iramediate service these new acquisitions had to perform. And all having much the same errands, and much the same curiosity, we moved from shop to shop, through the streaming and deserted streets, a party of at least thirty, to the great astonishment of the townsfolks. Goods were cheap, but of no great choice ; and we could not but adraire the military precision of one of these wifeless husbands. Whilst others were debating what first to look at, he came, saw, and chose ; — but, unfortunately for his doctrine of proraptitude, and more especially for his wife's feelings, they were invariably ugly things. That evening the theatre advertised a piece in honour of one of our passengers, the lady of a distinguished personage, but we preferred a ball, where we were initiated into the mysteries of a Sueduise, a dance with no recommendation Letter XVIL] ADVANTAGES OF BEAUTY. 73 but the time it leaves you to improve your partner's acquaintance. The countenances around us were highly uninteresting — light hair and fair complexions plentiful. The belle of the room — and Heaven knows no great beauty was wanting to claim this title — was a Baroness K , famed for the no very rare gift of portionless beauty, and for her hopeless attachment to an equally empty-handed Rus sian lieutenant. The Emperor, who, accord ing to this precedent, thought it sweeter to bless one loving pair than "heap rewards on vulgar merit," touched by her faithful love and fading looks, allowed the lady a pension, that she might indulge the one and regain the other. The former has been efiected, but the latter probably were too far gone to remedy ; and the baroness has retained only that little peculiarity of manner of those ladies who look at their o-wn beauty on the unpoetical side. The next day, Sunday, was fine. We pro posed walking and seeing the granite beauties of the place by sunshine, but Mesdames A., B., and C. intended no such thing. The shops, though VOL. II. E 74 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVII. shut "pour preserver les dehors," had back doors to them, and those wide open ; and one pretty Russian acquaintance argued it to be her duty, as "une bonne Chretienne," to work out her passage-money in industriously-driven bargains. Here, therefore, we abandoned them, and betook ourselves to the rocks, mounting from one sloping mass to another, till Helsingforst, -with its numerous islets, lay beneath us, and from innumerable pits in the rocks glanced pools of clear water from the recent rains ; while this Northem Adriatic mirrored a sky full and blue as that of a southem clime. Far as the eye could see, no food for man was visible — no corn-field, grass, or verdure of any kind, except that of the dark pine. Weaving and sail-making are the chief occupations and means of traffic of the Finlanders, and their corn they fetch from our fertile Estonian home. Helsingforst has not a population of more than ten thousand, and bears no remains of any former splendour ; its oldest houses being shabby erections of wood, which contrast most disadvantageously Letter XVIL] THE EMPEROR AND THE FINLANDERS. 75 with those of stone which have started up since its final cession to Russia at the peace of Friedericksham, in 1809. This part of Fin land is included among the Russian gouverne- mens, and has a governor over it ; but justice is administered by a senate of its own, so jea lous of authority, that, on occasion of a visit from the present Emperor, who, thinking to conciliate his Finnish subjects, assumed the president's chair in person, the assembly re fused to proceed to business, and gave his Majesty to understand that it was against their laws to suffer a stranger to conduct them. Agreeable to that policy with which Russia treats all newly acquired provinces, they enjoy an exemption from taxes and duties till the year 1850. Our steps soon led us to the Observatory, a building of recent erection, and vying with that of Dorpat in beauty of apparatus ; on the hills opposite to which, and upon ab6ut the same level, stands a magnificent church, most appropriately surmounting the town, and, like the Isaac's church in Petersburg, still be- E 2 76 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIL hung with forests of scaffolding. The uni versity and senate's house are also fine mo dern buildings, and the Botanic Garden, a little rich plot of ground veneered into the grey rocks, bears witness to the existence of flowers, which otherwise these rock-born na tives might have deemed mere fabulous trea sures. Our dinner was a meal of great merriment — above a hundred, including many officers from the garrison, sat down to the sociable table d'hote, and the little officious waiters slipped and slided round, while another thun der-storm was welcomed as coming at the most opportune hour for all sight-seers. All was now harmony and good cheer ; and the guests fisted their knives and forks, and brandished them over their shoulders to the great peril of their neighbours' eyes, and hurled such masses into their raouths as would have given an abstemious Englishman his dinner, when — "lo! what mighty contests spring from tri vial things ! " — a luckless waiter's foot slipped— down went the main prop of our dinner, and, Letter XVIL] DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER. 77 in the confusion of wiping up which ensued, no one thought to replace the important de faulter. The gentleraen, nearest affected by this loss, first looked angry things, and then said them, and still no joint was forthcoming ; when suddenly a pair of soft eyes, which sel dom venture above your shoe-tie, sparkled wide open and flashed like the lightning with out — a set of teeth, like rows of pearl seen only by greatest favour on occasion of a lan guid smile, ground themselves from ear to ear — and a voice, hitherto only heard in such accents as a maiden owns her first love, thun dered out, " Bringen Sie den Fleisch gleich, oder ich schmeiss' Sie aus dem Fenster" — " Bring the raeat this moment, or I '11 throw you out of the window," — a menace quite in the Russian Garde officier style. My compa nion and myself exchanged glances which plainly said, " Can this be the gentle Herr mann?" But Herrmann it certainly was, transformed from the lamb to the lion, whilst his lady-mother, much such another snow capped volcano as himself, sat by, in no way 78 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIL disconcerted at her son's eraption. The sequel was that the waiter, with German phlegm and true Hamburg grammar, coolly an swered, " Es giebt kein Fleisch mehr, und Sie konnen mir nicht aus dem Fenster werfen : " — which must be given in French — " II n'y a plus de viande, et vous ne pouvez pas moi jeter par la fenetre" — and here the matter ended; but those dove-like eyes deceived us no more. After dinner, unappalled by an inky sky, we hired, at a rouble each, a little miniature steam-boat, with a machine scarce bigger than a tea-kettle, which whizzed and fumed us about at the will of two Swedish lads, and landed us at Sveaborg. This island is about five acres in extent, loaded with crown buildings and a population of military, and sacred to the me mory of Field Marshal Count Ehrensward, whose raonuraent stands here. Thence we steered for the Scheeren, literally the Scissars, a beautiful chasm of sea, between meeting and re treating islands, where trees with leaves grow by the water's edge ; and where the Helsing- Letter XVIL] THE WATER PARTY. 79 forstians in their holiday expeditions land and bear off a leaf with as keen a pleasure as we should the choicest bouquet. But " pleasure suits itself to all, — the rich can but be pleased." The rain fell occasionally in torrents around us ; but our little puffing bark seemed to bear a charm, or, as a ready Russian officer of the party observed, "pas un, mais plusieurs ;" and we passed dry on, while some delicious voices on board gave us alternately German and Rus sian melodies. There is a luxury in passive enjoyment, with which the smooth motion of the waters seems particularly in unison. Here you ru minate without thought, as you progress with out effort ; while on the element which wears on its surface no trace of the past, the mind involuntarily wanders back to days gone by for ever, recalling images which early ex perience or early sorrow — for these are syno nymous — has left ineffaceable, and which the easier prudence of a more active hour forbids. Before the voices had ceased, many 6f our party were living far away in a world of their 80 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIL own, conversing with those to whom no outer object bore reference, while Herrmann, tumed again to stone, sat gazing into the waves. The next morning the first stage of smug gling had commenced ; for where were all the accumulated shoppings of Saturday and Sun day to be stowed? The trunks, everybody knew, were forbidden ground ; so those who went up lean to bed came down plump and comfortable, and those who were stout already stretched a size or two without any inconve nience. One lady stuffed her man-servant, maid-servant, and three children, and stiU had goods to spare. Another wadded two tall striplings of sons into well-furnished men, who assured us they could lie down on the bare floor on any side with perfect comfort. Old caps and old umbrellas were distributed with the utmost liberality to the waiters, who seeraed accustomed to offerings of this kind; and in lieu of these every civilian mounted a: light Leghorn hat, and all the world sported new umbrellas. Those who had abstained from the general buying were now in great Letter XVIL] SOMETHING LIKE SMUGGLING. 81 request ; and " Can't you accommodate this small parcel?" — or "Do find a corner just for this shawl," — or something to that effect — was heard on all sides ; and any scruples with regard to defrauding governments, which might be floating in a few individuals, soon melted before the obvious charity of helping your neighbour. At twelve o'clock we all repaired to the Quay, and mounted the " Fiirst Menschikoff," which had arrived the day before from ,Abo and Stockholm, bringing with it a fresh influx of passengers. Some of our friends also had deserted for a further trip, and, in the ex change, two Englishmen were included, who somewhat tried the feelings of the military Russians on board by mentioning a great fair they were about to visit at Moscow, which on further inquiry turned out to be a review of all the Imperial troops. The sea this time did not treat us so well as before. One half of the passengers were ill, and the other, half by no means well. But a cold east wind blew us over, and in less than six hours' time the dim outline of the Domberg at Reval was visible. E 3 82 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVII. Ere long the custom-house harpies were upon us, and, knowing how singularly the air of Hel singforst had fattened our party, I must own I trembled with apprehension. But the first few passed muster with a courage worthy of a better cause, and which inspired their followers with confidence. Various scrutinising taps and pats were received with perfect sang froid, , pr repelled with dignified innocence ; and I be lieve the whole party came off safe, — doubtless to boast of their smuggling deeds for the rest of their lives. For here to outwit a custom house officer is as much a feather in cap as the Irishraan's deceit of the exciseman. Letter XVHL] ADVANTAGES OF THE DOMBERG. 83 LETTER THE EIGHTEENTH. Reval at Midsummer — Antiquities — Gates — Churches — Dance of Death— The Duke de Croy— Hdtel de Ville— Corps of the Schwarzen Haupter — Towers — Antiquities of the Domberg — Kotzebue — The Jahr Markt, and its varied population — Catherinthal — The water-party-f- Visit to a Russian man-of-war. Ax this sultry season our residence upon the Domberg is particularly agreeable. Here every sea-breeze from the glistening and rippled bay sweeps in grateful coolness over us, and leaf and streamer on our rocky eminence are seen fluttering in the freshened air, while the heated streets lie in burning stillness below. During the day's meridian no one, uncom- pelled, stirs from home, but towards evening, if such it may be called where we retire to rest by broad daylight at eleven at night, we call together a few choice spirits, and loiter from 84 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIII. one hof or court to another, drinking in all the beauties of Gothic tower, ruined convent, misty island, and orient cloud, waiting for the evening gun from the Russian men-of-war in the harbour, or for the gay clarion from the Russian churches ; when, careless of time and spendthrift of light, we gradually descend the embankment, crossing over archways and under tunnels, and running down green slopes, till we find ourselves at one of the town ^ates, and with shortened breaths are constrained to climb to our eagle's eyrie on the Dome again. And a couple of lovers are in our train — harm less beings, whose- transient happiness we fa vour, and who invariably fall behind and follow us like sleep-walkers — knowing no fa- "tigue; — ^till the very sentinels respect their reve ries, and silently motion them the path we have taken. And when, weary with the long walk and ceaseless Hght, we are separating for the night, they artlessly ask, " Wollen sie nicht weiter gehenV — won't you walk farther? — and, Hke children, never know when they have enough. Letter XVIIL] REVAL IN OLD TIMES- 85 But now you must descend with us into the narrow streets of the town, which we explore with the freedom of foreigners and intimacy of natives, but where we take no lovers to fetter our footsteps. Whoever has seen Hamburg and Liibeck, or the Netherlandish towns, will recognise that Reval has participated in the same Hanseatic bond. The irregular, many- storied houses — their gables towards the street— -with the ample garret above and the spacious hall beneath, betokening room equally for the rich merchant's goods and the rich merchant's hospitality— the Gothic-arched doorways, approached by flights of steps, with projecting spaces on each side, with stone benches where families in olden times sate before their doors in sociable converse, many of which are now removed by order of the Emperor, as contracting too much the width of the streets — the old Hotel de Ville — the many ancient churches, towers, and gatewfiys — all these features perpetually remind the traveller of its many sister cities of similar ancient importance and present decay, and present 86 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIIL an aspect which one of the young Grand Duchesses has in court language pronounced to be "parfaitement rococo." Like ancient Thebes, Reval is entered by seven gates, viz. the great Strandpforte, the lesser Strandpforte, the Lehmpforte, the Kar- ripforte, the Schmiedepforte, the Sisternpforte, and the Dompforte. These are all picturesque erections, decorated with various historical me mentos — the arms of the Danish domination, or the simple cross of the Order, or the mu nicipal shield of the city, &c. The Schmiede pforte is noted as being the scene of an act of daring magisterial justice, which took place in 1535. At all times a petty animosity had existed between the rich burghers of Reval and the lawless' nobility of the province, who troubled the commerce and derided the laws of the former, and were by no means induced to a pacific mode of life by the example of their knights. At the time alluded to, howr ever, the atrocious raurder of one of his own peasants in the streets of Reval by Baron Uxkiill of Riesenberg, one of the most power- Letter XVIIL] DEATH OF BARON UXKULL. 87 ful nobles of the country, so greatly excited the ire of the city magistracy, that they me naced the offender, should he ever be found within their jurisdiction, with the utmost se verity of the law. Nevertheless, despising their threat and with the insolence of one who acknowledged no law. Baron Uxkiill entered the city in mere bravado, attended by a slender retinue — was seized, condemned, and, in full view of his friends without the walls, executed beneath the Schmiedepforte. Long and san guinary were the disputes that followed upon this act, and, as some pacification to Uxkiill's memory, the burghers walled up the gateway, which was not re-opened till the beginning of this century. The churches of Reval are numerous, com prising Lutheran, Greek, Swedish, and Roman Catholic places of worship. The Lutheran are of the greatest antiquity. To speak of the church of Saint Olai under this head may seem paradoxical, since the edifice of this name, which was originally built in 1329, and has been struck and partially consumed by Hght^ 88 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIII, ning no less than eight times, is now only just risen from the ashes in which it was finally laid in 1:820. Its archives and library, however, preserve an unbroken history ; and many of its architectural omaments, coeval with its ear liest erection, have been saved from the flames. Among the former is a piece of sculpture of great richness, consisting of two wide niches, the upper one empty, the lower occupied hy a skeleton with a toad resting on the body and a serpent crawling out of the ear — supposed to typify the destruction of an idol image, re corded to have been filled with these reptiles; — and with a gorgeous breadth of stone-work in eight partitions around, exhibiting the tri uraph of Christianity in the passion of our Saviour, and other parts of the New Testa ment. This bears date 1513. The tower of St. Olai, which has been rebuilt precisely on the former scale and form, is about 250 English feet high, and serves as a landmark in navigation. This edifice, the cathedral church of the lower town, is in pure early Gothic, with lancet windows of great beauty. Letter XVIIL] ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH. 89 and dedicated to St. Olai, a canonized king of Norway, who mounted the throne at the beginning of the eleventh century, and first introduced Christianity among the Norwegians. The next church in importance is that of St. Nicholas — a large, three-aisled structure with massive square tower — built by Bishop Nicholas in 1317. This appears to have eluded the zeal of the iconoclasts of reforming times, who throughout Estonia seera to have been as hasty in stripping the churches as her doctors were in denuding the creed, and pos-- sesses many relics of Roman Catholic times. The most interesting are the pictures of the altar, especially two wing paintings containing small half-length figures of bishops, cardinals, priests, and nuns — three on each side — in Hol bein's time and manner, on a blue ground, and of great beauty. Also a picture, placed for better lighting at the back of the altar — a Cru cifixion, including the two thieves, with town and mountains in the background, and a pro cession of equestrian figures entering the gate. This is of singular beauty of expression and 90 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIIL form, though much injured by recent reno vations — of the school of Raphael, and espe cially in the manner of Andrea del Salerno. Immediately at the entrance of the church on the right hand is a representation of the oft-repeated Dance of Death — coinciding not only in age and arrangement, but also word for word in the Platt Deutsch verses beneath, with the same subject in St. Mary's church at LUbeck — in some instances each mutually as sisting the other's deficiency. The beginning, including the Pope, the Emperor, the Empress, the Cardinal, and the King, which, if I mis take not, are failing in Liibeck, are here pre served. The rest is lost or defaced, though the inscriptions are in a few cases still legible — and terminating with " Dat Wegenkind to dem Dode" the cradle-child to Death, — with this naive couplet : "O Dot I wo shal ik dat vorstan! Ik shall danssen, un kan nicht gehen ! " or, in good German, " O Tod ! wie soil ich dass vorstehen I Ich soU tanzen, und kann nicht gehen ! " — Letter XVIIL] THE DUKE DE CROY. 91 which we may thus render in English : — Oh Death ! what's the use of all this talk ! Would you have me dance before I can walk ? But the peculiar drollery of Platt Deutsch is unattainable in a raore cultivated tongue. The chapels of some of .the chief nobility, with massive iron gates and richly adorned with armorial bearings, are attached to this church, though all in a very neglected state. The Rosen chapel is now occupied by the un buried body of a prince, who expiates in this form a life of extravagance. The Duke de Croy — a Prince of the Roman Empire, Mark- graf of Mount Cornette, and of other fiefs, &c., and descended frora the kings of Hungary — after serving with distinction under the Em peror of Austria and King of Poland, passed over to the service of Peter the Great, obtained the command of the Russian army, and was defeated by Charles XII. at the battle of Narva. Fearing the Zar's resentment^ he sur rendered to the enemy, and was sent a pri soner at large to Reval, which has been, and is still, the scene of honourable banishment for 92 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIII. State prisoners, and which at that epoch was yet under the sway of Sweden. Here, indulging a passion for ostentation, he managed to spend so much, that though only a few years elapsed between his removal to Reval and his death, the residue of his fortune was unequal to meet his debts, upon which the numerous creditors, availing themselves of an old law, which re fuses the rites of sepulture to insolvent debtors, combined to deny hira a Christian burial, and the body was placed in a cellar in the precincts of this church. It might be imagined that, when these said relentless creditors were not only dead, but, unlike their noble debtor, buried also, the Duke de Croy would have found a resting-place ; bui when that time came, all who had profited, as \^4,'l as all those who had lost by his extravagance were gone also, and their descendants cared little how he had lived or how he had died. So the body remained in its unconsecrated abode, until, accident having discovered it, in 1819, in a state of perfect preservation owing to the anti-putrescent pro perties of the cold, it was reinoved into the Letter XVIIL] THE DUKE DE CROY. 93 Rosen chapel, and now ranks among the lions of this little capital. The corpse is attired in a rich suit of black velvet and white "satin, equally uninjured by the tooth of time — -with silk stockings, full curled wig, and a ruff of the most exquisite point lace, which any mo dem Grand Duchess might also approve. The remains are those of a small man, with an aristocratic line of countenance. There is soraething at all times imposing in viewing the cast-off dwelling of an imraortal spirit — that clay which weighs down our better por tion, and which, though so worthless in itself, is so inexpressibly dear to those who love us, and so tenaciously clung to by ourselves. Life had quitted this teneraent 138 years. The old Sacristan, a little shrivelled rauraray of a man, scarcely more human-looking than the body before us, profits in his creature comforts by the exhibition of this dust, which he stroked and caressed with something of gratitude and fellow-feeling, and, locking the ponderous door, ejaculated, " Da liegt mein bester Freund!" — 94 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIII. " There lies my best friend !" Poor Duke de Croy! In respect of antiquity the Estonian church bears off the palm in Reval — being mentioned by Jean Bishop of Reval, when he granted to the city the " Jus ecclesiasticum et episcopale," after theform ofthe Lubeck statute, in 1284— a time when St. Olai and St. Nicholas did not exist. The Russian church, or one adapted tothe Russian service in later times, is also of great antiquity, but has been altered to the extemal type of all Greek places of worship. The Hotel de Ville has been also renovated with windows of modem form, which possess no recommendation beyond that of admitting more light. Within, the magisterial chair is still held in the empty and worn-out forms of days of more importance, and the effigy of the burgher who had his tongue cut out for divulging a state secret, warns his successors of less responsible times to be more discreet. Several Guildhalls, with groined roofs, tell Letter XVIIL] THE SCHWARZEN HAUPTER. 95 of those corporations of merchants who here met for business or feasting, and are now passed away with the comraerce of Reval: with the exception, however, of the corps of the Schwarzen Haupter, les Freres tetes-noires — so called probably from their patron saint, St. Mauritius — a miHtary club of young mer chants forraed in 1343, for the defence of the city. These were highly considered — were endowed by the Masters of the Order with the rank and privileges of a military body — wore a pecuHar uniforra — had particular in auguration ceremonies and usages — and bore their banner, " aut vincendum aut moriendum," on many occasions most gallantly against the nuraberless foes who coveted the riches of Reval. Every young apprentice was required, on pain of a heavy fine, to enter this corps upon the first year of his domiciliation in Reval, and each new brother was welcomed with solemn observances, and plentiful draughts of beer, now substituted by wine. On some occasions this corps suffered se verely, and a defaced monument on the Pernau 96 l'ETTERS from the BALTIC. [Letter xvm. road, a few worsts from the walls of Reval, at tests the slaughter of many of their numbers by the Russians in 1500. Each successive sceptre has acknowledged their rights — Peter the Great became a member, and himself inscribed his name in their registers. Catherine II. granted their chief the rank of a captain In the Rus sian army. Alexander was admitted to the brotherhood, and ordained that the banner should thenceforth receive the military salute; and Nicholas, equally recognising the ancient deeds or present harmlessness of the Order, has deviated from his general condemnation of all associations, and is himself an Imperial Schwarzhaupt. The last time that this corps was sumraoned for the defence of the city was on occasion of the Swedish invasion in 1790. The chief edifice where they held their meet ings is curiously adomed in front with the Moor's head and other armorial pieces of sculpture; but within it has been stripped of all antiquity, excepting the archives of the Order, and portraits of the various crowned heads and Masters of the Livonian Order who Letter XVIIL] ALTAR-PIECE.— TOWERS. 97 have held Estonia in their sway. Th6 altar- piece from the convent of St. Brigitta — a mag nificent ruin upon the sea-coast in full view of Reval— is also placed here, being a piece in three compartments, in the Van Eyck manner, com prising God the Father, with the Infant Sa viour in the centre — the Virgin on the one hand, the Baptist on the other — and greatly recalling portions of the famous altar-piece painted for«^ St. Bavon's church at Ghent. On the bacli of the two wings, and closing over the centre piece, is the subject of the Annunciation — two graceful figures in grey, of later Italian date. This is but an inadequate sketch of the an tiquities of this city, which is further strewn with the ruined remains of convents and mo nasteries of considerable interest, though too much choked with parasitical buildings to be seen to any advantage. The outer circum ference is bound in with walls and towers of every irregular form, most of which haVe sig nificant names, as for instance, " der lange Herr mann," a singularly beautiful and lofty cir cular tower crowning the dome ; and " die VOL. II. F 98 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIIL dicke Marguerite" — ^a corpulent erection lower in the town. The dome is equally stored with traces of olden times — consisting of the old castle, which encloses an immense quadrangle, and is in part appropriated to the governor's residence ; — the Dome Church, a building of incongraoug architecture, filled with tombs of great interest, of the Counts De la Gardie, Thum, Hom, &c., beneath which lie the vaults of several cor porations of trade, variously indicated — the shoemakers' company by the bas relief of a colossal boot in the pavement — the butchers' by an ox's head, &c. Further on is the Ritter- schaft's Haus, or Hotel de la Noblesse, where the Landrathe assemble, the Landtag is held, and all the business connected with the aris tocracy of the province conducted. Every family of matriculated nobility has here its shield of arms and date of patent; while on tablets of white marble are inscribed the names of all the noble Estonians who served in the French campaign, and on tables of black marble the names of those who fell ; — and truly Letter XVIIL] KOTZEBUE AND HIS DOCTRINES, 99 Estonia has not been niggardly of her best blood. The archives of the Ritterschaft do- not date beyond 1590, all preceding documents having perished on a voyage to Sweden ; but important additions have been made by the researches of the well-known German writer Kotzebue, among the secret state papers of the Teutonic Order at Konigsberg. ^ Kotzebue spent several years at Reval, ac tively engaged in disseminating those doctrines of so-called freedom and equality which followed in the train of the French revolution, and were further promulgated by the publication of Gothe's Wahlverwandschaften. And much private misery, the traces of which still remain, ensued to this province by the adoption of chimerical schemes of happiness, which con sisted in little more than in yielding to each new inclination in turn, and throwing off all old ties as they lost their attraction. Nor, it is just to add, did Kotzebue himself hesitate to practise what he too successfully preached. First one Estonian lady pleased him, and .became his wife ; but a year or two after, another pleased f2 100 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIIL him still better, and the first was divorced; and, strange to say, before this votary of the law of reason was suited to his mind, a third, best of all, appeared. His murder at Manheim, by Sandt the student, was the sequel to his residence in Russia ; and more than one of his widows, I believe, and several ofhis descendants, still remain in Estonia. The Jahrmarkt, or annual fair, is now going forward in Reval. This is held in a most picturesque spot, beneath the old elm trees before the church of St. Nicholas; the low wide-roofed booths surmounted with their different insignia, with wares of all colours floating around them, and merchants of all complexions swarming before them, while the venerable trees and time-worn edifice look down in sober grandeur on all this short-lived bloom. In old times, every merchant of any consideration in Reval removed to his booth in the fair, and old customers were welcomed to old goods; and though the one was not less dear, nor the other less difficult, yet both buyer and seller equally enjoyed the gaiety of the time. Letter XVIIL] THE JAHRMARKT. 101 and were satisfied with this social gain. But now Reval mankind is becoming soberer, and by tacit consent it has been agreed that as no superiority in the goods, nor accession in the demand, accompanies this change of place, it is as well to leave the merchandise in its place on the counter, instead of flaunting it forth beneath the old trees in the church yard. The Jahrmarkt is therefore gradually being abandoned to the travelling merchants from countries widely severed, who peregri nate from one mart to another, and, save the same sovereign, own no social element or bond in common. Here were Russians with their Siberian furs, and Bulgarians with their Turkish clothes, and Tula merchants with their cutlery — all infinitely more interesting to the foreigner than the wares they displayed. And before his booth lolled the sleepy Tartar, with flat face, and high cheek-bones, and little eyes which opened and shut on his cus tomers with a languor and expression often absent from orbs of twice the dimensions — and beside him paced the grave Armenian, with 102 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIII. long nose and high peaked forehead and searching glance — neither comprehending the other, and both accosting me in Russian scarce superior to mine own. " The Sudarina is no JVyemka," " The Signora is no German," said the shrewd Armenian — Nyemki, or the dumb, being the appellation given to the first German settlers, whose ignorance of Russian reduced them to a compulsory silence, and since be stowed on the whole nation — "Whence does •the Sudarina come ?" " Ya Anglichanha" "I am an Englishwoman," I replied; an avowal abroad, like that of a patrician name at home, never otherwise than agreeable to make, and, thinking to increase his respect, added, " and my home is two thousand worsts off." "Eto nichavo" " that's nothing," said the Armenian, with a smile not unmixed with disdain, " my wife and children live six thousand wersts hence." Nor is this by any means an extreme case — the Petersburg post penetrates to inland homes fourteen thousand wersts removed from the monarch's residence. This Jahrmarkt is the moming lounge — Letter XVIIL] CATHERINTHAL. 103 Catherinthal the evening promenade. It may be as well to mention here, that this latter resort is an imperial LustschJoss, or summer palace, surrounded with fine trees and well- kept grounds, or what is here termed " ein superber Park," which every evening during six weeks in the summer are thronged with fashionable groups like our Zoological Gardens on a Sunday. This residence, which is lite rally a bower of verdure redeemed from a waste of sand, is the pleasant legacy of Peter the Great to the city of Reval. Being a fre quent visitor to Reval, it was here that he first erected a modest little house beneath the rocks of the Laaksberg, from the windows of which he could overlook his infant fleet riding at anchor in the bay, and which still exists. But a few years previous to his death, the present palace within a stone's throw of his Dutch house, — for all Peter the Great's own private domiciles testify whence he drew his fir^ ideas of comfort, — was constructed, which he sur rounded with pleasure-grounds, and presented to his consort by the name of Catherinthal. This gift he increased by the purchase of sur- 104 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIIL rounding estates to the value of several mil lions of roubles * — sufficient to have assured to the empress, in case of need, a fitting retreat from the frowns of Russian fortune. These estates have been gradually alienated and he- stowed on private individuals, and Catherin thal is reduced to little more than its gardens. It has been the temporary sojoum of aU the crowned heads of Russia in succession ; and the treaty of peace conceming Silesia, between the two most powerful women of coeval times whom the world has ever known — Maria The resa of Austria and Catherine II. of Russia- was here ratified in 1746. Nevertheless, whoever prefers the sweet in fluences of Nature, uninterrupted by silks and satins, and uniforras and noisy music, must visit Catherinthal in the early moming, wheil * The Russian rouble, like the German florin, is a piece of money only current in the imagination ; there being no coin of this value in actual circulation. It tallies with the franc in amount, and is worth ten pence, though at this time the rate of exchange is much against the traveller, and every rouble costs him eleven pence and upwards. The silver rouble is a distinct coin, and is worth three roubles and a half. Letter XVIIL] REVAL BY A SUMMER MORNING. 105 a sweeter spot for the enjoyment of solitude, or of that better happiness, a congenial mind, heart, and taste, cannot be desired. It seems that beneath this dry surface of sand the trees have found a rich soil, for vegetation is here of the utmost southern luxuriance, and the thick mat of foliage around and above only reveals occasional glimpses of the grey rocks or line of blue sea beyond. Or, if you wish to break from this thicket, you have only to climb a rugged path up the rocks, whence all this verdure is seen wreathed in rich festoons at your feet, and above this luxuriant green carpet lies Reval with its spires and towers in stripes of varying light and shade — the proud Domberg rising like a gigantic citadel, or Gothic Acropolis, in the midst : while half surrounding the city spreads the cool placid sea, and little tongues of land carry the abodes of man far into the waters, and deep bays carry the waters high into the shores ; and the |yq| quits towers and domes for masts and shrouds, and further still rests on a solitary fortress insulated in the sea — the last bond f3 106 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIII. between the crowded city and the huge men- of-war lying beyond. And behind all are the misty islands of the Baltic ; and above all a midsummer morning sky, hazy with growing heat, and speckled with a few lazy clouds. But after having gazed your fill — after having drank deep of the beauties of earth and sky — how sweeter far it is to tum to a coun tenance whose features never pall, and whose loveliness knows no winter — to eyes, by turns soft with emotion, or brilliant with intellect, where the deepest shade of sorrow is ever cheered by a gleam of playfulness, and the brightest mood of merriment chastened hy a shade of sentiment ; and which now tum, as if spell-bound, to claim and render back those speechless looks of affection for which Nature's richest array has no equivalent ! Such mo ments are the diamonds in the dark mine of memory — such looks, the stars which forsake us not when life's other suns are set. After such a moming as this, who would wish to see this hallowed ground desecrated by training gowns and jingling spurs ? No !— Letter XVIIL] THE MERRY PARTY. 107 Earth has nothing better to offer, and now the sea becomes the element of our desire. A few courteous words therefore to some Flott-officier of our acquaintance place a Russian brig-boat at our disposal, and descending the harbour- pier we launch into the deep, bearing with us some of those bright eyes and witty tongues which I have feebly described as the points d' appui in Reval society ; and ere we have quitted the land's warm atmosphere, both are in such active play, that the young lieutenant who has the command of the boat, and the elderly general who has the charge of the party, both equally forget their vocation. But nothing is said that might not be uttered any where, or would not be enjoyed everywhere; while in the peals of laughter which ring along the silent .waters, one voice, in which the very soul of mirth seems articulated, vibrates above every other, and the rocks of the Laaksberg, or the lofty fatjade of St. Brigitta's convent, rising boldly from the waves, send back the merry echoes, and there is not a stroller on the shore but may recognise beyond all dpubt that 1 08 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XVIII. Baron C. is of this aquatic party. Even the sailors catch the infection, and brush their coarse sleeves across their faces as much to conceal their laughter as to wipe away the streaming perspiration. Otherwise there was little pleasurable to them in this expedition. Several of the rowers ^were Estonians lately drafted into the navy, and as yet unable to comprehend the loud Russian vociferations of a tyrannical boatswain, as often prefaced as seconded by blows. Poor men ! the spectacle of their hard lives checked many a bright laugh. Before returning to our homes we visited one of the Russian men-of-war which lay without the harbour, and ascending the ship's side were poHtely received by the officer on guard. Unfortunately I know too little of the interior of an English ship of corresponding rank to offer any coraparisons; nor would those of a woman at best be greatly desirable. To all appearance there was cleanliness and comfort; and the sailors, or sea-soldiers as they might be better termed, for they differ Letter XVIIL] A DRUMMER'S DUTY. 109 but Httle from those on land save in the colour of their clothes, were loitering and talking together in cheerful groups between decks. But now the roll of the drum was heard, and numbers hastened to the evening drill on deck — a necessary portion of a sailor's routine on a sea hardly navigable six months in the year — at the conclusion of which, the drummer, a -wild- looking little Circassian, in a piebald uniform which assorted well with his dark tints and flashing eyes, commanded attention with a lengthened roll, and then in nearly as mo notonous a sound repeated the Lord's Prayer in Russian, as fast as his tongue would permit — this being a part of the service — and with this the body broke up. Among the groups our well-practised eyes sought and found many an Estonian physiognomy, and passing the sentinel at the gangway, who bore the very shepherd on his countenance, one of our arch corapanions whispered " Yummal aga." A ray of pleasure shot over the poor man's face, though his body remained im moveable as the beam at his side. 110 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. LETTER THE NINETEENTH. Excessive heat — Gnats and Gnat-bites — Sleepless Nights — Ruins of Padis Kloster — Landrath R. — Baltisport — Leetz — The Island of Little RogO — Unexpected En counter — Russian Builders — A Day in the Woods — Family Parties — Mode of Salutation — Old-feshioned Manners — Conversation — English Pride and German Pride — Jealousy of Russian Tendencies — Marriages he tween Russians and Estonians. The summer is come, and the summer is going. — Our longest day has blazed itself out, and an unconscionably long day it was, though I knew as little of its ending as of its begin ning. Every creature is busy in the hayfield, including all the men-servants, and even some supernumerary maids, who think this change of work as good as play ; — I proposed the same to my Sascha, but was checked by a mute look of dignity — and all reminds us to make haste. Letter XIX.] TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING. Ill and bustle about our own haycocks of various denominations, before this fleet-winged season be gone for ever. But as fast as the fine weather urges, the intolerable heat forbids exertion ; and here, while every thought bf the community centres in ingenious devices for protection from cold, no one dreams of taking precautions against the heat. Thus the sum mer, like a rare visitor, is made much of — welcomed with open arms, caressed and flat tered, and even so Httle as a thin blind grudged between you and the sudden ardour of its friendship ;— while winter, the good old constant family friend, who silently prepares the har vest which summer only reaps, is slandered in its absence, snubbed in its presence, and has doors and windows slammed in its face by high and low without ceremony. What is worse, no one here has any sympathy for a foreigner whose clay was never intended to stand this baking. If I say I am hot,» they tell me I ought to be happy ; — if I complain I can't sleep, I'm answered, it's a shame to lie in bed while the sun is hig-h in the 1 12 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. heavens; — and if I show my burning gnat- bjtes, a fit of laughter ensues, or, among the better behaved, a compliment on my English siisses Blut, or sweet blood, which seems thus in request. I would compound with the inces sant light and heat if it were not for these tormenting accompaniments. But capricious sumraer says, love rae, love my gnats, and no one thinks of lifting a hand against these sacred emblems. In Sascha, however, I find one sympathizing heart — she won't make hay -with her pretty dimpled hands, but she won't let the gnats bite them either. Therefore as soon as the vapours of evening begin to arise, I hear my windows' fastening sound, and then, slap, slap goes the pretty hand, and the first word that greets rae on entering my room for the night, is " Komar nietto," no gnats. To bed therefore I go with the happy conscious ness of possessing a servant who can equally mend my gloves, correct my speech, and kill my gnats, and, if possible, infuse a kinder tone than usual into my prostchai, or farewell for the night. Letter XIX.] NO REST. 113 Scarcely, however, have her retiring foot steps died in the distance, than whiz, whiz — goes something in my ear ; and after the first bustle of defence has subsided, there I spy the miscreant standing on his long legs just beyond my reach. " Well, Sascha must have overlooked one !" so, him despatched, I sink down again raore secure than ever. And soon my senses fall into a delicious kind of nether state, and then one by one begin to steal away; that of hearing being the last to desert its post. And now, strange to say, I ara walking upon the dusty high road, carrying the very bundle of linen under my arm which Sascha was working upon the day before, and stop at an old castle with magni ficent high walls, and a row of arched cloisters adjoining, and all close to our own dwelling, though I never observed them before. But all the architectural ornaments alter strangely as I approach them — some look like horses' heads, and others like pewter basins, and it becomes so dark I can hardly grope about, and though I entered the castle conveniently 114 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XlX, enough by a wide door, I can hardly squeeze myself through the same on retuming. And all this time my bundle is greatly in my way, and still I get no nearer home ; when suddenly before me stands Sammucka the Russian coachman, with a strange kind of round hat upon his head, tuming a grindstone — whirl, whirl, — what a noise that grindstone makes! and pieces fly off red hot and fall among my hair, and on to my cheek, and I stand rooted to the spot without the power to stir. And then the noise subsides, and then increases again louder than ever, whirl, whirl, — whiz, whiz, — and, starting up, Sammucka, grind stone, castle, bundle, all disappear, and in their place remains a fresh gnat-bite, burning like a volcano in the very centre of my cheek. Thus the night passes, and when towards moming I am hoping to retrieve some of my miseries, pat comes a fly -with its cold wet proboscis on my forehead, and another on my chin, and as fast as I chase them away they return, and half a dozen quarrel on my very nose. In short, I rise no more refreshed than Letter XIX.] PADIS KLOSTER. 115 I laid down, and I am always put off with praises of their summer, and warnings of its temporary duration; though were it only ten days long, I tell them I must sleep. These are a most venomous kind of gnat, and might more rightly be termed musquitoes ; and, what is worse, you never know when the fire of these little craters is to subside — an acci dental rub will set one of a month old buming beyond all endurance. The farther north you go, the more do they swarm. In the short blistering reign of a Siberian summer, no one can go without a mask, and the Laplanders live in smoke to be rid of them. Heaven defend me from such summers ; their winters I never complained of. But to retum to subjects of more interest — we have resumed our researches after the ancient and the picturesque. Accident had brought to our knowledge the existence of the ruins of Padis Kloster, a name of frequent recurrence in Estonian history, and as it cost only a drive of nineteen wersts to ascertain that which no other taste could determine. 116 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. the Speise Korb was packed up, and our selves soon seated beneath the shade of as fine a ruin as Estonia can offer ; with every adjunct of old moat, and contemporary tree, and that air of grandeur which clings to a spot after its worldly importance and less picturesque repair have declined. This monastery is men tioned as such in the beginning of the four-: teenth century, when, owing to starvation without its walls, and doubtless a very com fortable life within, the peasants rose in numbers around, murdered the abbot and twenty-eight of the monks, and otherwise so devastated the place, that,^ in 1448, it received a further and full consecration at the hands of Heinrich, Baron Uxkiill, Bishop of Reval, at which time it was ordained that whoever should in any way enrich or benefit this Kloster of Padis, should, for any sins he might commit, have forty days of penance struck off. Hence perhaps arose the peculiar repute and custora in the sale of indulgences which this monastery enjoyed. Now, however, it stands utterly forgotten, and the stranger within its Letter XIX.] UTILITY OF A LARGE FAMILY. 117 gates was infinitely a greater object of interest to the passers by than all the mute lessons', moral, historical, or picturesque, of its grey stones. One mode of rescuing it from oblivion, of fair promise, however, lies in the circumstance of its present proprietor, Landrath R., having been blessed within sight of its ruins with a family of three and twenty children; who, born in a house infinitely too confined to be conveniently the theatre of this domestic fe cundity, have successively stretched their six and forty Httle legs in innocent sport within its walls, to the unspeakable relief of their Frau Mamma, and to their own great physical advantage. The name of Padis Kloster may therefore safely calculate on being bequeathed in grateful odour to a wide-spreading gene ration, which, mayhap, may prove a shorter process than that of awakening a taste for his torical antiquity among the Estonian nobility ; who, though sufficiently removed in period, are still too nearly allied to various feudal manners and customs to attach to them any 118 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX; poetic sentiment. Some call it the wilful blindness of the human mind ever to prefer by-gone times to the present, but it may rather be termed a most exquisite provision of Nature which leads us to respect the past Hke the memory of the dead, and retain of it only what is beautiful and good. From Padis Kloster, a short journey brought us on to Baltisport, a small seaport never before acknowledged in the range of my geo graphy, about fifty wersts south of Roval, where vessels land their cargoes before the ice admits them higher, and whence thousands of orange and lemon casks are transported by land on to St. Petersburg. The whole range of coast in this direction consists of an elevated table-land descending with magnificent preci pitous cliffs into the sea. In some parts these cliffs are four hundred £eet in height, shelving inwards, while the waves roar at their bases, and chafe round huge angular masses of rock which have detached themselves from above. In others, the sea retreating has left a little moist strip of rich land, bound in between the Letter XIX.] LEETZ.— BALTISPORT. 1 19 cliffs and its shores, where vegetation of a southern luxuriance is fdund, and where the black alder, the only fit substitute for the oak, appears in unrivalled splendour. This sheltered breadth forms part of an estate called Leetz^ in the possession df M. de Ramm, whose house, a small wooden building, with a pecu liarly peaked roof, " high up to the top," as a Russian surveyor with loyal accuracy once reported of a crown chimney, evinces; both the taste and moral courage of his predecessors, fpr it is built on a rising slope in full view of the sea and of every other beauty. Upon the highest ground, near Baltisport, stands a lighthouse of great importance in navigation, which here, owing to the many islands crpwding the coast, is of considerable difficulty. This circumstance is supposed to have deterred Peter the Great from placing his capital on this part of the coast. Cathe rine IL, however, thought much of Baltis port, and projected a harbour of unrivalled depth and magnitude, by uniting the coast by a gigantic mole to the island of Rogii, 1 20 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. three wersts off. But something intervened to stop the work, and nothing is now visible but a restless line of water, where whole mountains of stones have been sunk, and a beautiful mass of masonry butting from the cliff, which the winds and weather have tem pered to much the same tints. Baltisport is a wretched little fishing town, with only a Russian church for its mingled population, — though a pious Baron is about to erect a Lutheran one, — and in sumraer is visited by a few of the neighbouring families for its excel lent bathing. It was bombarded by the English in 1803, who, by the time they had unroofed one house, "which still remains a monument of injured innocence, discovered that the inhabitants would be rather glad to welcome them than not. Accordingly they landed, and became very good friends with the Httle community, who, to do them justice, have never foi^otten that their invaders observed that humanity which few of their own allies would have done, viz., paid handsomely for all they took. Letter XIX.] VISIT TO LITTLE ROGO. 121 Baltisport is famous for its stromlings, with which the atmosphere seems impregnated ; and has further distinguished itself by a petition to government, of rather a rare nature, i. e. to be allowed to sink into obscurity — the rights of a township, which Catherine II. bestowed on it, being too expensive an honour to keep up. As the weather continued fine, and the time spent in viewing general scenery hangs heavy on hand, an excursion was proposed to the neighbouring island, three wersts off, which had thus narrowly escaped a junction with the main land. After rowing half an hour we landed on a flat stony shore, and, leaving our boat, wandered into the country. This islet, called the Little Rogo, is about six wersts in circumference, and lies opposite the Great Rogo, about three times the size ; both of which, in former times, belonged to Padis Kloster, and as early as 1345 were pledged to four noble men for the sum of thirty marks pf silver. On this little platform are two villages with well-cultivated corn-fields, and boulder-stones of such enormous size that we mistook them VOL. II. G 122 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. for ruined towers in the distance. But nothing remains of the forests which, from the reserva tion of "timber for building," among other rights retained by the monastery, are implied to have existed. It so happened that M. de Ramm, to whom this islet now belongs, had been collecting his dues this very day. At the first village, therefore, we came in for the results of a feast — in other words, all the Little Rogo world was very drunk. Strange to say, this half-hour's transition had ushered us into another language, for Swedish is spoken here, with a little Estonian. Our party was not able to profit by either, for Russian and Lettish were all the northem tongues that could be mustered between us. Our communication was therefore restrained to looks, good-tempered as theirs, and I trust a little more intelligent. Returning to the beach and indulging in a little English to my dear companion, after doing duty in German all the day, we observed a venerable old fisherman eyeing us with great attention, and, setting foot into the boat, to our great astonishment Letter XIX.] MUTUAL SURPRISE. 123 he tottered up to us, and, laying one brown hand on my arm, emphatically said, "God bless you, tell me, are you really English?" His amazement could hardly surpass our own at hearing English tones in this remote spot. He had left his tiny native land to see the world, and served in the English merchant- service thirty-two years. His wife had fol lowed him, and resided at Deptford during his peregrinations. And now the old couple were retumed to their wild island to end their days. Strange transition ! but the love of home, begun in childhood, flies off during the busy prime of life, and retums to bear old age com pany. The old man had still English habits about him — he was neat, and clean-shaven, and, pointing to his fishing habiliraents, said, " Ah ! I am dirty now, but I have clean clothes at my cottage, and an English Bible, and other books." He helped to shove us off, and then stood looking after us, and that distant island now claimed an affinity with us which we had never anticipated. Returning home, the heat of the weather g2 124 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. again brought lassitude on man and beast, and our days were only varied by a walk, fore and afternoon, to the recreating waters of a neighbouring stream ; pausing on our way to talk with the groups of Russians who lay reclining after their work beneath the shade of a half-erected building.* The Russian is a builder by nature ; the little hatchet in his hand is the emblem of his life. No buildings are here undertaken by Estonian workmen, but these Russians wander the country in quest of work, and are engaged from one estate to another. They were greatly interested in hear ing something of that remote island Anglia, and only wondered how we could build there without Russians ! Courtesy pervades every class ; the Russian serf takes off his Fouraschka with the dignity ofa prince, and waits on a lady with the devotion of a slave. Though the tones of the lowerorders may be broader, yet they are native grammarians, and speak the language with per- * However hot the summer of Estonia, it is almost in variably accompanied by a brisk wind — so much so, that Kotzebue remarked that instead of Esthland, it were better termed Windland. Letter XIX.J WILD FLOWERS.— WILD WOODS. 125 feet purity. Hence I generally profited by these humble teachers, and returned home with new words to spite Sascha. Then towards eight o'clock the droschky appears at the door, and we drive where we list — into the meadows, which are like vast flower-beds of the gayest colours, — for nowhere have I seen a wild botany of such beauty as here, where flowers which we rear in gardens, the blue campanula, and the justly- named Siberian larkspur, bloom in native luxuriance; — and peasant children meet us with curious baskets made of birch-bark, filled with wild strawberries and raspberries, better than any cultivated fruit I have here tasted, and ten kopecks* buy fruit, basket, and all ; — or we take a natural chaussee into the woods, and there alighting wander about under vast trunks of Scotch and spruce fir, whose gnarled- boughs and slow-grown strength defy the climate, and which it seems a sacrilege to fell for firewood. But though the forests have much given way before human encroachment, they are safe for many years to come. The estate on which we stood is so richly provided with wood that only * Ten kopecks are equivalent to one penny. 126 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. an eightieth portion is yearly felled for building, firing, and other purposes, so that, by the time a third generation comes round to the division which the first cleared, another old forest is there before them. One raorning, for " die Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde," I emerged at an earlier hour from beneath a rauslin canopy which furnishes sorae protection from my tormentors, and drove by six o'clock to a wood five wersts off, accom panied only by my faithful attendant, who thrives uncoraraonly on the air and exercise she partakes with me. Our way led through dense woods of a younger growth, whose pliant boughs opened to the horses' heads and closed again after we had passed, and where, except ing the bush-ranger's cottage, which stood on a little island of meadow separating two mighty sweeps of forest, we left all signs of human habitation more than half-way behind us. Dis missing the droschky, we dived into the depths of one of these, nor stopped until completely heraraed in by a vast green-roofed cavern, sup ported on irregular pillars of every size and forra ; — some of them splendid erect monsters. Letter XIX.] FOREST SCENES. 127 who had never wavered in their sturdy course upwards — others slender drooping scions, fall ing in graceful lines across their veteran com panions, as if demanding aid in the giddy ascent. This was a wood of mingled trees, the fresh hues of the oak contrasting with the black pines; and close to us stood a noble spruce, split from tip to base by the lightning of last week's storm — one half resting against a neighbouring stem — the other pale, bleeding, and still erect. Below lay forty feet of the luxuriant head, with enormous splinters, rent in longitudinal Hnes, while the ground was furrowed in deep angular troughs by the last strength of the fluid. Here was Heaven's doom dealt in a moment, but farther on lay the victims of slower thunderbolts ; for the wood was strewn with cairns of moss-grown stones, through some of which the trees had forced their way, which showed where a plague- smitten body rested. There was something indescribably touching in this union of present Hfe, movement, verdure, and luxuriance, with the reminiscences of human suffering and cor ruption ; here and there the sun shooting across 128 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. a silver birch trank, like the light across a liquid human eye, or illuminating the red bark of a veteran Scotch with a fiercer glow, or steal ing few and far between in slender bars of gold along the tender grass. But seldom did a short glance pierce to the bases of these giant stems, or visit the grave of the long-shunned and now long-forgotten sufferer. Sounds were as scarce here as sunbeams — for in this birdless country no wing brushed the air, and no feathered throat swelled with melody ; and only the distant bell of the stray ing cattle tinkled faintly at intervals through the covert. Our very voices startled us as we moved on through the mute activity of Nature ; now sitting for hours on one green tuft, now seeking fresh pictures in the ever- varied repetition of this sylvan scene. And was the heart thus lonely thrown on Nature's sympathy ? No ; far from it — dear friends were thought of without that withering sense of separation which too often accompanies the noisier fellowship of a crowded room. Here, where there was nought to reraind, all was calraly reraerabered, and memory opened her Letter XIX.] COLOSSAL ANT-HILLS. 129 sad and sacred stores, free from the teasing importunities of harassing associations. Other objects illustrative of the scenery of these woods are the number of ant-hills — ^not little mounds which a foot could disturb, but large and conical as a good-sized haycock — the ants themselves an inch long, on the same colossal scale as their dwellings. To erect these, the stump of a tree, here generally hewn three feet from the ground, is pitched upon, which, being gradually minced up into the finest particles by these indefatigable creatures, crumbles itself into a conical form, and with the accumulation of labour and life assumes the size I have described. Here the ants swarm in a red-black coating all the summer, and in winter retire deep within, They are harmless creatures, however, and carefully shunned us. It was noon before the flight of time had been missed, and, alternately intenj on my book, or gazing at the blue rents of sky which broke the dark mosaic of the branchea over head, the figure of my Sascha wandering up g3 130 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. and down in a pensive attitude had been too perfectly in accordance with the scene to draw my attention ; when, coming to my side, she falteringly owned to me the hopeless loss of-^ her thimble. Most pathetically did she aver that not above half a werst off she had it safe on her little round finger, counting for nothing, in her patient search, the millions of leaves and blades intervening, any one of which would effectually have concealed it. So there we left it to its hidden grave — a Httle atom of civilization dropped in the wild forest lap, to sink deeper and deeper beneath the altemate layers of snow and leaves of suc ceeding seasons, — and ourselves returned to the world whence we had come. The day, commenced thus stilly, concluded in a large family-party at a neighbouring re sidence. By the word family-party, I must beg not to be understood one of those rude, indecorous gatherings— those social Babels of our native land, where brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, and nieces meet together to banter, tease, and laugh ; but an orderly meeting of Letter XIX.] GENERAL MANNERS AND CEREMONIES. 131 courteous individuals, who know what befits their dignity, and are above taking advantage of the bonds of relationship to indulge in any promiscuous levity ! — fie upon it ! Even the very furniture partakes of the general feeling ; — hard stuffed, bright polished, and richly carved, there is no indelicate straying about the rooms like our loose-mannered, depraved, forward generation, who come before they are called ; but each stands austerely in its place, and waits to be sought. The ladies curtsy, the gentlemen bow, and sometimes a fair hand is reverently kissed, while the lady — for such is the peculiar custom both here and in Russia — is expected to dive down and imprint a chaste salute on the extreme confine of the cheek, or very tip of the ear, or any other part of the gentleman's physiognomy thus employed which her lips can reach. This requires some practice to do gracefully, for, what with impatience on the one hand and bashfulness on the other, or perhaps awkward ness on both, two heads have been known to come together harder than was quite agreeable. 132 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX- Nevertheless this is looked upon by the gentle men as their undoubted perquisite ; and I have seen a pretty foreign woman gravely repri manded by her dull Estonian lord for hesitating to comply. It would be hard to say what grade of relationship or exigency of circumstance would compel an Estonian nobleman to forget that he is not to be at his ease, according to our western notions of such. On the other hand, to a lover of antiquity, this living representr ation of by-gone manners is highly interest ing. At every moment I am reminded of some trait which increasing luxury and in creasing retrenchment have equally conspired to banish from our soil. Here every country gentleman keeps open house, and no account is taken of how many mouths there are to fill, whether in hall, kitchen, or stable. The houses are vast, grand, and incommodious, and count less hangers-on and dependants supply the economy of steps by a superfluity of feet. The Seigneurs here never raove about with less than four horses, and often six, — rusty equip ments it is true ; — but it is a mistake to ima- Letter XIX.] SHADES OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 133 gine that the coaches and four of our ancestors were marked by the same neatness and finish which now attend the commonest pair ; or that their neighbourly meetings were dis tinguished by that ease, sociability, and in tellect which render the English society of the present day so delightful. On the contrary, as soon as the scanty topics of the day were exhausted, they all sat down to cards, and that perhaps by broad daylight, Hke too many of the Estonian gentlemen. Then, as now here, all natural products were plentiful and cheap, and all artificial objects scarce and dear ; and the manners to correspond were hospitable in the main, but rigidly formal in detail. Man ners, however, must be looked upon as an art, which, before it can be easy and safe, must be stiff and cautious — such are the necessary transitions of all other schools, and no less of this. In this light I respect these formal old worthies, whose study it seems equally to give me a hearty welcorae and keep me at respect ful distance, like the translated souls of my great grandfathers and grandmothers, — and 134 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. take true delight in their venerable society; and if a profane weariness of mind and body do occasionally surprise me while sitting on a hard chair, and drilling my thoughts and figure to the starch standard of rectitude around me, be sure I ascribe it solely and entirely to my own corrupt condition, and to the incorrigi ble lolling propensities of my nature both moral and physical. Another characteristic of this formal school, as worthy of imitation as note, is the fact that family quarrels are things utterly unknown here, and that none of that undue precedence is given to wealth as in countries more ad vanced. All those bom in a certain station retain it, whether their means be adequate or not, and are admitted into society with no reference as to whether they can return the obligation. Otherwise I do not beHeve the real morality of the community in any way advanced by their rigid outward decorum. Like people who first peel their apple and then eat the paring, it comes to the same thing in the end. Consistent with the spirit of an Letter XIX.] THOSE POOR CHILDREN ! 1 35 old picture, they bend all their attention to the minutiae of a fold, and neglect the first principles of perspective. Harmless freedoms are controlled -with bars of iron, while, frora the facility of divorce, and other laxities which the Lutheran religion allows, many a sin walks in broad daylight, without so much as a cob web over it. The class upon whom this prohibition of harmless freedoms, or in other words this chain upon natural spirits, falls heaviest, is that of the unfortunate little Estonian young ladies. Children of all ages are here palmed upon all society, greatly to mutual inconvenience. On entering a room full of company, the eye is caught by numbers of these half-way little women, with smooth tied hair and stiffened peaked figures, behung with gold brooches and ear-rings, and all the miniature parapher nalia of their raothers ; who lead a miserable nomade life — wandering from roora to roora, with no place sacred frora or to them ; and are constantly being reminded, from four years of age and upwards, to be weiblich. If I held 136 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. out my hand, they made me a disgusting little curtsy ; if I ventured upon any approaches to play, they wondered what I was about. Oh ! for the bright vision of a truly lovely EngHsh child, seldom seen and then cordially wel comed ; who hastens forward to some grown-up playmate, trips over stools, tums up carpet^ corners, and,- arriving with ruffled locks and shortened breath, and with both her little hands fumbling in yours, can't at first perhaps utter a word for bashfulness ! There may be some policy in breaking in children here thus early ; but my heart bled for these little buckram countesses and baronesses, and I only trust that the moment our backs were tumed they took to their heels and loosened all their little joints. The conversation tumed on the -visit of the heir of Russia to England, and an ingenious little German romance was spun out by some grave grey-heads as to the probabilities of his falling in love with our Queen — her retuming the flame — and the miseries of a hopeless passion ; the piece ending with the grave quesr Letter XIX.J NEW SYSTEM OF REASONING. 137 tion as to which of the august pair should renounce their inheritance. Of course it was soon decided which crown was to be aban doned, for the mere circumstance of a reigning queen is a sore point with the Estonians, who spend much virtuous indignation upon this supposed subversion of Nature's law, and are, I fear, prepared to hold their meek spouses with a tighter rein, lest forsooth they should fol low the same example. Altogether many politic and wise pro-visions derived from our excellent constitution, which to us are truths familiar from childhood, are here made subjects of vehement altercation. The dignity and pre eminence of our church — the law of primo geniture — the transmission of titles through the female line — the policy which preserves to a peeress her own dignity be her husband the lowest commoner in the land — and the courtesy which permits every woman of rank upon marrying to retain the distinqtion of her birth, unless she merge it in a higher — are here all subjects which are subraitted to the test of German reasoning, and declared un- 138 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. sound in the eye of Nature. Very erroneous notions are here also entertained as to the inordinate pride and undue prerogatives of the English nobility; forgetting that, when the titles and honours centre in one head only, the other members of the same family retum to the middle walks of life, filling our professions with individuals whose sense of noble descent is the highest stimulus to honourable exertion ; and who thus form a social link between the highest nobleman and the great body of the nation. And though far be the day when the English nobility should enjoy no prerogatives of birth, yet where can these be less galling than in that country where distinguished abi lities may elevate any man to the highest offices in the state, and a sullied reputation keep any duchess from court? On this head no German may throw a stone at England. Earls without earldoms, barons without baro nies ; their titles unsupported by political con sequence, and diluted to utter insignificance by the nurabers who bear the same — their jealousy of rank increasing in proportion to its Letter XIX.] GERMAN EXCLU.SIVENESS. 139 diminution, — no nobility hedges itself so care fully beneath a vexatious, trumpery spirit of exclusiveness, which is as absurd in itself as it is galling to those beneath them. In Russia no one may advance in the miHtary service, in Estonia no one may purchase an estate, and in Weimar no one may enter the theatre by a particular door, who has not a de prefixed to his name ; and these are only a few of the countless privileges with which they endea vour to bolster out an empty title, and exclude those who are often their betters in education, wealth, and refineraent. As to that class of society peculiar to England — the aristocracy without title, the representatives of long-de scended estates — the old squirearchy of the land, who often prefer the battered gold of their ancient faraily name to the bright brass of a new distinction, — this was a subject so in comprehensible, a paradox so preposterous, that for my own credit's sake I gave up the task of elucidating it. Another subject of considerable interest dis cussed this evening was the gradual encroach- 140 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XIX. ment of Russian tendencies upon the German provinces, and the fear of a future consoh- dation with Russia, as well in manners as in allegiance. Nor is this apprehension ground less. These pro-vinces, though possessed of an honourable internal administration, have never been able to maintain their own independence against the many competitors for them. Na tural position assigns them to the dominion and protection of Russia; and the desire of generalising his system of govemment is as natural in the Emperor as that of retaining their nationality is in them. Their propinquity is in itself one main road to assimilation ; and the late ordinances requiring the study of the Russian language in all schools, universities, &c., of these provinces, and establishing it as an article of examination prior to preferment, though met by much justifiable resistance, are not otherwise than fair, considering the number of Estonian and Livonian youths who find promotion in the civil and mi litary services of Russia. On the other hand, it is the general remark that the best Letter XIX.] INTERMARRIAGES. 141 and most favoured officers* in both these de partments are drawn from these provinces. Another ordinance which particularly gives rise to murmurs is that compelling all chil dren of a Russian parent, whether father or mother, to be of the Greek religion, i. e. so long as resident in Russia itself. From the frequent intermarriages of Estonians and Rus sians, this ukase has been more particularly the means of introducing Russian habits into the heart of Lutheran families. This may, however, be looked upon in an utterly different light, and, instead of encouraging the here deprecated march of union between the two countries, ought to act as a direct check. Those who now marry Russian wives do it with their eyes open as to the consequences ; and as a re gard for their own religion does not seem to counterbalance the teraptation of a larger for tune than their Lutheran countrywomen can bring, no commiseration is due. But now adieu to politics — the life in the forest under the greenwood tree is more to my taste. 142 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. LETTER THE TWENTIETH. Fall and its beauties — The daughters of Fall — The Countess mother — A gathering of all nations — Cuisine — Occupa tions — Varieties of scenes and languages — The chateau — Its various treasures — Russian church — In-door beauties and out-door beauties — Coimt C. and Princess V. — Salmon-fishing — Illuminations— Adventurous passage — Countess Rossi — jlrmen- Concert at Reval — Rehearsals — The Scena from the Freischiitz — ^Return home. 'Who would imagine that this good, honest, fertile Estonia — this stronghold of old-fashioned decorum — this formal, straight-walked nursery of clipped thyme and rosemary — nourishes a pool of bitter waters in its centre, a traitor within its gates, a canker at its very root? — that in this precise, decorous province is reared a pavilion of luxury — a private theatre of fashion — a saloon of modern manners, owning no bounds but the invisible ring-fence of refine- Letter XX.] FALL AND ITS BEAUTIES, 143 ment, where all is ease, taste, expense, and in dulgence — " all nature and all art ?" Fall, the earthly name of this enchanted castle, is a resi dence in praise of whose natural beauties and artificial decorations everybody has expatiated to me since my domiciliation in this province. But accounts of beautiful scenery are so rela tive to the mind of the describer — so oft have I found " une helle etable " the standard of ad miration here, while, on the other hand, my own taste, from sundry liberties it has taken in discovering beauties where, according to esta bhshed rule and tradition, none had ever been known to exist, is becorae so very questionable, — that politeness on the one side now describes without one solitary hope of conversion, and politeness on the other now listens without one distant vision of gratification. But in the case of Fall I confess the wickedness of unbelief, and only wish I were oftener so punished. This is one of those favoured spots where Nature has compressed every imaginable beauty together, fitting them closer than, abstractedly considered, would be deemed pleasing ; though, once pre- 144 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. sented to the view, criticism has nothing more to say. Fall is in the possession of Count B., the man who, after the Emperor, wears the diadem in Russia. Here he has secured to his family a retreat from the world, or what might be so did not the world follow them faster than they can retreat ; — in other words, a summer resi dence, where that most luxurious of all lux urious existences — one equally commanding the healthy gifts of the country and the lively gifts of the capital — is as well understood and practised as in our own land. A week spent in this charming spot is sufficient to make the evidence of the senses doubtful. It is not Estonia — that 's quite sure ; it is not Russia — here is no disorder; nor France — though the echoes answer in French numbers; nor Eng land — though as like that as any. What is it, then ? Where are you ?— In beautiful, delicious, unique Fall — the garden of Nature — the pot pourri of all nations — the quintessence of all tastes ;' where the courtier, the philosopher, the lover of nature, the votary of fashion, the poet. Letter XX.] FALL AND ITS BEAUTIES. 145 the artist, the man of sense, or the man of non sense, raay all be happy in their own way. Count B. was not unmindful of the effect and power of contrast in selecting a residence, for miles round which the eye is wearied by the monotony of one of the dullest and flattest plains in Estonia, — where even a river, that foil to all dull landscapes, sulks gloomily along, spreading itself over marshes it cannot beautify, and hiding itself behind rushes and sedges it cannot hide ; till, viewing lofty banks rising in the distance, and graceful trees leaning pen dent to caress it, it gathers its forces together, and cuts its way along with increasing willing ness. And now all the beauties of an Alpine scene mirror themselves tremblingly on its ribbed and rapid surface, and Hght, airy bridges, fit for fairies' feet to cross, o'erleap it with their slender span, — and groves of blooraing orange- trees, and every other incense-breathing flower, perfume its banks — and, in the gladness of his heart, the river-god flings himself, in a bound of joy, down a thundering cascade, rounding the edges of peaked and jagged rocks in a veil VOL. II. H 146 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. of oily transparency, and hiding their blackened bases in clouds of foam. Thence, dashing for ward in many a changing, wreathing circle, its agitated fragments reflect for a moment the light Italian chateau, or ancient ruin, or classic temple, — or repeat in quivering lines the white flowing dresses and gay uniforms of some wan dering group, till, gradually abating from its wild career, the streara winds heavier along, and, steering slower and slower to its final fate, quits the landscape, of which it had enhanced the every beauty, to spend its puny waters on the wide breast of the Baltic. From this cas cade, or fall, the Gerraan narae for this estate is derived ; but the Estonian one of Yoala, though less significant, is more harmonious. There is something in the air of Fall which gives beauty to every living thing on its sur face. Owing to the position of the hills, and the vicinity of the sea, spring is here earlier, and autumn later, and all vegetation wears a correspondingly grateful aspect. Not only do the oak and beech flourish with EngHsh luxu riance, but trees foreign to this soil, the chest- Letter XX.] MORE BEAUTIES. 147 nut, the sycamore, the plane, here abide the " bitter nip of frost ;" while velvet lawns, green and fresh as the banks of Thames, encircle the bases of the high Bergrucke, or mountain- backs, or ridges, whose woods, assuraing a more arctic nature as they stretch upwards, fence in this happy valley with. a battalion of hardy pines. Nor may the beautifying influence of a Russian suramer sky, which may defy com parison with any other in the world, be for gotten. But why do I longer suppress what is fore most on my lips — why longer tamper with the irresistible desire to challenge any country, any clirae, and any nurture, to produce fairer flowers of another and nobler kind than this fitting nursery has reared ; — to throw the gauntlet to all the living generations in any known or unknown land, to outshine in beauty the peerless daughters of Fall ? Woman's ad miration of woman's beauty is more impartial than man's, and not less enthusiastic. Never shall I forget the first moment when these three exquisite creatures stood before me. The h2 148 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. eldest, tall, straight, and slender as the glisten ing birch-stem on her own mountain-side; with skin of wax, and hair of gold lighting like an aureole round her delicately-formed head ; and features and dimples like Hebe ere she knew disgrace, and a character of face of the highest aristocratic English style ; — beau tiful, in short, to her fingers' ends. And then the second, with her scarce nineteen summers, and matron-care already slightly resting on her raarble brow, and yet a face like a vestal, with mild, pensive sentiment written on every chiselled feature — pale as alabaster, with tresses which seeraed, by the weight of their massive coils, to bow down the stooping head and lan guid form. Lastly, that sweet youngest ! as if Nature to make a third had joined the other two; with character more decided than her scarce ripened charms, and in both distinct from her sister beauties — with the mind to will, and the power to do ; and a natural gift of penetration into others' thoughts, and secrecy over her own, lurking behind the loveliest, de murest, most transparent mask of tender beauty Letter XX.J MORE BEAUTIES. 149 (true daughter of the man who knows and keeps all the secrets of Russia), which, unless a practised reader in physiognomy be greatly deceived, will make her the most fascinating and dangerous of the lovely trio. Of her an old diplomatist said — " Jeune comme elle est. Mademoiselle Sophie a deja le grand art de savoir paroitre ce quelle veut?" — a rich com pliment in his coin ; and, so long as the calm remains only in the exterior, -and the warmth all within, a very safe one. Alas for those which my fancy had hitherto treasured as models of female beauty ! fallen are your sceptres, broken are your crowns ! Not even the gilding of re membrance, that natural cosmetic which the mind bestows on all absent favourites, can deck you in colours which may venture comparison with those before me. The world will see and hear of this lovely trefoil, whose charms will probably be transplanted to other countries; but Fall was their proper setting, and few -will view them here united again. These personal advantages are chiefly de scended from the Countess-mother, a magni- 150 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. ficent woman, with pride and pleasantry con tending in her countenance — an Asiatic Mrs. Siddons, and still in the zenith of her charms ; but the facial bond between mother and daugh ter is more of beauty than likeness. Having no sons, the Count has entailed this residence upon his eldest daughter; but in Russia no entailed estate may descend to a foreigner, and Annette *' Loves a knight from a far countrie. And ber lands she will give for one glance ofhis e'e." Fall therefore becomes the inheritance of the next sister. Princess V. I arrived at Fall at a fortunate time. The last pyroskaff from Reval had just landed a little select colony of high life from Petersburg. There were princes with historical names, mi nisters with political names, and generals with military names. There was Count , the richard of Russia, who, "damned to wealth, buys disappointment at immense expense ;" and the far-famed beauty, Madame K., whose perverse birth has proved no perversity to her at all ; and Countess Rossi, charming and Letter XX.] NO END TO THE BEAUTIES. 151 attractive as in her first burst of popularity, accorapanied by her stately husband: with other beauties, and other talents and excel lencies, both raorai and titular; and stars flung on brave breasts by the Emperor of all the Russias, — and others (and oh, how far sur passing !) fixed in fair heads by the King of all kings. For a private house in a remote province on the Baltic, we sat down daily to dinner as strange a collection of nations as can be ima gined. There were Russians, Armenians, Ger mans, Italians, French, English, Swiss, and Dutch, — to say nothing of the various sub divisions of Estonian, Livonian, Austrian, Prus sian, Bavarian, — more than I can remember; and last, and this time least, our ranks dwin dled do-wn to a dwarf, who strolled from saloon to ante-room just as he pleased. This was a memento of the olden time, which involuntarily brought with it fears of a corresponding bar barity. Ignatuschka, however, has at all events a happy time of it, — is no more of a buffoon than a shrewd wit, a talent for mimicry, and a 152 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. due admiration for his own tiny proportions may make hira, and is loved and cherished by every meraber of the faraily. So much so, in deed, that in sheer gratitude for good cheer and kind treatment, he has within the last few years, though already forty years of age, grown one inch ! When all met together, French was the prevailing tongue; and when the groups scattered, each relapsed into their own. The cuisine was most costly; the groundwork French, with a sprinkling of incomprehensible native dishes, which I ate by faith only ; and, in imitation of what here passes for English, half a sheep, or half a calf, which had fattened on the milk and honey of Fall, was brought in on a trencher by two staggering men-servants, while a renowned minister rose and bowed with mock humility to the steaming comer, and the Count, tucking a napkin over his .stars and cordons, stood up and carved the beast, — and, to say the truth, had he hacked it with his sword, he would have done it as well. The disposal of our tirae was rauch the same as with us in England ; — in other words, each Letter XX.] DISPOSITION OF TIME. 1 53 did as they wished. The Countess bore off a number to inspect her brilliant conservatories, almost a werst in length, her English dairy, &c. ; and the Count headed a party of Dons, to view some important addition to his already forty measured wersts of serpentine paths, and rejoice their hearts with a new composition that was to have all the binding qualities of native English gravel ; whilst the young and the pretty sat at their embroidery fraraes in the shade of cool marble terraces, or loitered round graceful vases, or stooped among flowers not fresher nor gayer than they. Fall has been in the possession of Count B. for about fifteen years ; and knowing the former proprietors to be as low in taste as high in worth, it frequently occurred to rae what a burnishing this jewel had undergone in this short space of tirae. For, true to Estonian habits, the old mansion, the Countess assured me, was most curiously placed just where not one beauty of the landscape was visible. My host and hostess greatly regretted not having instituted a visitors' book at the first period of h3 154 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. their occupation ; for Fall had seen a succes sion of the noble and gifted, whose autographs would have been an heir-loom of price to fu ture generations. A few years back the pre sent Eraperor and Erapress honoured them with a visit, and were as much enraptured by the scenery as any of their subjects could be, — leaving a memento of their presence to de scend to the future in a tree planted by each. The spades used by the Imperial hands are preserved, and inscribed -with the date and oc casion. Each is analogous to its -wielder — the Empress's a fairy toy, the Emperor's only to be lifted by giant strength. Both the Count and Countess B. had Hved through events of great historical interest : of the former more hereafter. The Countess had been t-wice mar ried, having lost her first husband at the French invasion, when her house also was sacrificed in the destruction of Moscow. Often, in alluding to articles and souvenirs of her early youth, she added with a sigh, "They perished in the fiames of Moscow." Altogether, I never reinember such mingled Letter XX.] SCENE SHIFTING. 155 and peculiar associations as I experienced in Fall. Here was one country within another — each as dissimilar as possible ; and our every day life made up of successive scenes of as many periods as nations. There were the Gothic halls, with every gorgeous appurte nance of alcove, stained glass, fretted pillar, oak carving, and mosaic floor ; and a few old ladies sat in state in their high-backed chairs, or a couple of gentlemen strutted in the fore ground in earnest pantomimic discussion. Then a prince, or general, hurried across the scene, and at the word " Tchellovek," or man, equi valent to the " What, ho !" of stage practice, in rushed two or three raen-servants from the ante-room ; and now and then a messenger, hard-ridden, arrived from court with secret tidings; and even the manners themselves, from the high rank of the indi-viduals, and the occasional familiar handling of mighty names and weighty matters, though modern, enough in other respects, wore a Shakspearian tone. And then the scene shifted, and a roaring wa ter-fall, with Claude-like trees, appeared, and 1 56 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. vistas of temples, crowned by the line of sea, and bright flowers or marble lions in front, with damsels in white with real roses in their hair. Or I stood before a mosque-like building, with gilded cupola ; and a priest with flowing robe and high sorcerer's cap, and streaming hair and beard, mounted " the steps ; or a Russian vassal, with scarlet caftan, and Van dyke physiognomy, or a lowly Estonian pea sant, with sandalled shoon, passed by. Or I was in a French boudoir, respiring nothing but modern luxury, with couches and curtains, and every gewgaw of ingenious idleness. The piece concluding most comfortably with an English bedroom, small, unostentatious, and private — everything, even to the Windsor soap on the wash-table, recalling those sanctuaries of home. No wonder, then, with French, German, Russian, -and English altemately sounding around, that a simple individual was sometimes puzzled to know where the scene really lay. The chateau of Fall itself is onlj' appro priated to reception rooms and to the dwelUng Letter XX.] SEPARATE HOUSES FOR GUESTS. 157 of the faraily, and is stored with all the mingled gorgeousness of Asiatic taste and the more polished art of European civilization. A magnificent collection of silver vessels of Ori ental shape and purpose is a conspicuous object, and among the various treasures of art an enamel of Henry the Eighth with his six wives, magnificently set in silver, would be coveted by many an English collector. The accommo dations for visitors consist in two houses on either hand set apart for that purpose — this being a custora prevalent both in Estonia and Russia. One of these houses, both of which were completely filled on the present occasion, joins on to the Russian church — a private edi fice for the family, consecrated to St. Elizabeth, in honour of the Countess, being dedicated on her name's day. Here every Sunday, and on an occasional fete day, a Pope with deacons, choristers, and all their paraphernalia, are fetched frora Reval, and generally begin their duties with a short raass on the Saturday eve. One of these I attended. The prohibition against sitting makes all Greek services very 158 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. exhausting, and raany a sincere believer in the Vera, as they particularly denominate their faith, shifted wearily from one foot to the other between the rnany and fatiguing obeisances which their Liturgy requires. All the family stood on a carpet before the screen which con ceals the Holy of Holies, and behind them the household servants came and went, each ad dressing himself to a particular picture ; and, since the number is their object, performing their genuflexions in double quick time. Amongst them I recognised ray handmaiden hard at work, crossing and bowing ; while, over looking the difference of creed in their love of devotion, a few mild Estonian countenances peeped from the background. But " Je reviens d mes premiers amours " — beside me stood a figure, which once seen, my eye wandered to no other child of clay, or graven image around. It was Annette — more lovely than ever — her faultless face emerging from a bower of golden curls — her velvet and furs wrapped around her, betraying rather than concealing her exquisite symmetry ; now folding her slender form Letter XX.] DEVOTIONS DISTURBED. 159 down, like a fair flower surcharged with dew, till her waxen forehead touched the floor, now slowly rearing herself to her full height, and gaining new grace from the attitude of devo tion. Oh ! Annette, such an apparition as thou would, I fear, have disturbed my medita tions in any place of worship. Whoever wins this bright being will own the fairest person, the sweetest voice, the blithest step and most cheerful mind that ever blessed mortal ; and yet "a creature not too fair, or good, for human nature's daily food," Happiness is her atmosphere — ^the element in which she exists — anxiety seems as little intended for that gay temperament, as sentiment for that sunny face ; and I doubt whether either would improve with the addition. Never was poor mortal so taxed with an " embarras de, richesses pittoresques " as my self. In-door beauties and out-door beauties assailed me at once, and no sooner ha^ I fixed the one than my eyes played truant to the other. Before the sketch of some luxuriant landscape was half completed I found myself 160 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. sighing with longing glances at the group of fair recumbents who had cast themselves around me ; with rich flowing and rustling garbs like a picture of Watteau, and minds, I fear me, no less in the spirit of his times. One lovely evening I shall never forget. I sat on one of the hanging spider-web bridges which a breeze could swing, and which a child's foot agitated too much for my pencil ; all , supenaumerary gazers were therefore- banished, and only Count C. remained half lying, half sitting bn the one hand, and Prin cess V. on the other — he with all the con fidence of a man long taught in the world, she with the double timidity of one who mar ried from the school-room : so much so that had the whole varied little community been sifted through, two greater antipodes in cha racter, both to be worthy and both to be wise, could hardly have been selected. For some time the conversation was not such as to turn my attention from the various angles of the chateau — the precise number of arched win dows, and the altemate stripes of sunshine and Letter XX.] COQUETRY DISCUSSED. 161 shade on wood and bank which were gradually being transmitted to my paper ; when at length the discourse fell on coquetry ; and to say the least, the woman must be deeply engrossed in the act itself who does not lend an ear to its discussion. I found matters running high. The Count, who, with his practised and polished tongue, and native wit, prides himself on sus taining a bad cause better than most a good one, was in full strain of eloquence extolling the praises of coquetry, and lording it unmerci fully over the little vestal-faced and vestal- minded Altesse, whose straightforward argu ments were twisted to his advantage as soon as uttered. In vain did she search her meraory and all the fair ranks of her native capital for some instance of female attractiveness without this alloy, and in truth Petersburg, as I have since known it, was not the most promising covert for such a chase ; till at length, in despair of a better, she exclaimed, " Par ex emple, moi.je ne suis pas coquette .'" " Vous, Princesse ! non, vous etes charmante," said the courtier ; " mais vous etes trop froide pour Hre 162 LETTERS. FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. coquette." "Pardonnez," rejoined the Prin cess, roused from her natural languor, and with a look which belied either his or her own asser tion, " la vraie coquette est la plus froide crea ture au monde." The Count was fairly beaten, and laid his arms laughing down, but capitu lated on second thoughts with the stipulation that only " une mechante coquetterie " was reprehensible in either sex. In trifles such as this did these summer days of relaxation pasa over ; but trifles are the straws thrown on the current of human character, and fine Hnes are as sure to read by as coarse. One night (for now the period was tumed which led us slowly and relentlessly to winter's darkness) we were suddenly called out to wit ness the wild work of salmon fishing. It was a cloudy, moonless night ; and issuing on the terrace, the dark valley before us looked for a moraent like the starry firmament reversed on earth — every bridge, every path, every conspi cuous object was studded with minute lamps, spangling the landscape without illuminating it. The summons, which was to the furthest Letter XX.] THE HASTY SUMMONS. 163 bridge, just where the river stealthily seeks the sea, full two wersts off, called sorae from the piano, others from the card -table, and all un expectedly. All was now confusion. Man tillas and kasavoikas were snatched from the colossal marble vase, where each flung her wrapper on entering the house, and the old ladies tied snug bonnets close under their chins to keep out the night air, and young ladies disposed light handkerchiefs or velvet hoods round their blooming faces, with not nearly so much caution, but incomparably more effect. In their hurry all the garden hats were missing. Now began a most disorderly march through the orange-scented and lamp-fringed paths; light enough to guide by, and yet dark enough to mistake by ; and many a shoulder was tap ped and hand touched by those who thought they saw a wife or sister in their muffled neigh bour — for the mistake could not be voluntary ! — while sorae very respectable bodies plodded on as if the scene had been the high road, and the time high noon-day, and here a straggler ran forward to startle the passers from behind 164 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. some dark tree, and there a couple lagged behind, and seemed bent on anything but the right of precedence. Now, at a momentary pause of the buzz of whispering laughter, a bold voice loudly exclaimed, " Point de coquet terie, Princesse," who, nestled close beneath her husband's cloak, was too confused at the novel charge to retort with better reason on her dauntless antagonist. Then at a dark angle, where two paths fell together, a group of pretty lady's maids, bent on the same errand, mingled with our ranks before we had recognised the interlopers, or they their error ; but " Honi ' soit qui mal y pense" — their native courtesy articulated itself in a few melodious Russian phrases, as they meekly drew back, and all was good humour. But I must except the unfortunate richard, who found the walk too much, or the excite ment too little, for his habits, and returned. " Monsieur s'ennuie partout " was the low re mark of a literary gentleman in his suite, and a sadder raorai on inordinate wealth cannot be uttered. I'll be bound Ignatuschka is happier. Letter XX.] SALMON FISHING. 165 The scene brightened as we approached the river — the temples were illuminated — every tree wore a torch, and upon the river plied several boats with blazing firebrands for masts, while uncouth figures with brandished har poons stood leaning intent over the fire-lit streaks and ripples of the otherwise black stream. These Neptunes were only raeek Estonians, lighted and shaded into an aspect of ferocity, with their wild locks blown about with the wind, like the flames of the beacon above them, and throwing, as they passed to and fro in the boat, their huge shadows on the neighbouring banks, Hke shapeless phantoms hovering over the scene. We stood, a raotley group, on a little wooden bridge which reaches zigzag from one huge rock to another over the stream. Nine fish were soon caught, and held aloft on their spikes ; but nobody cared for the cruel sport, though none regretted the pleasant expedition. Returning home, the little lamps began to sink in their sockets and wish us good night ; and some cynic, — not 166 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. Count C, — exclaimed " Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle" but nobody echoed him. That same night a heavy thunderstorm cleared the air, and extinguished every linger ing lamp ; and the next morning the cascade presented itself before us in swollen magnifi cence and weightier peals — huge stones that the day before had emerged bare frora the streara were now covered, and the zigzag bridge swept over by the torrent. But the air was cool and delicious, and the waters looked still more so ; and — tell it not in Estonia — the pretty Sophie, forgetting her demureness, with another who looked no less wild than she really was, stripped off shoe and stocking, and were already half way upon the frail bridge, the water beating high against their white ankles, when a large party of us emerged in full view. Sophie shook her tiny fist at us as the rocks echoed to our applauses, but speed was impossible to the frightened girls. — Nor was the passage without danger ; their footing was slippery, and the weight of water as much as Letter XX.] COUNTESS ROSSI. 1 67 they could resist, and, slowly labouring forward, we saw them set foot on dry land with great satisfaction. Gossamer pocket handkerchiefs were here apparently soon wetted through, and a peasant girl, barefooted like themselves, knelt down, and, with her petticoat of many colours, gently wiped off from those tender feet the sand and pebbles which her own did not feel; and then crossed the same bridge herself, with the addition of a heavy basket on her head, without exciting any one's in terest. And now let me revert more particularly to one of the fairest omaments both in mind and person which our party possesses, whose never- clouded name is such favourite property with the public as to justify me in naming it — I mean the Countess Rossi. The advantages which her peculiar experience and knowledge of society have afforded her, added to the hap piest naturel that ever fell to human portion, render her exquisite voice and talent, both still in undiminished perfection, by no means her chief attraction in society. Madame Rossi 1 68 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. could afford to lose her voice to-morrow, and would be equally sought. True to her nation, she has combined all the Lieben&wilrdigkeit of a German with the witchery of every other land. Madame Rossi's biography is one of great interest and instruction, and it is to be hoped will one day appear before the public. It is not generally known that she was ennobled by the King of Prussia, under the title of Mademoiselle de Launstein ; and, since absolute will, it seems, can bestow the past as well as present and future, with seven Ahnherm, or forefathers — " or eight," said the Countess, laughing, " but I can't quite remeraber ;" and though never disowning the popular name of Sonntag, yet, in respect for the donor, her visiting cards when she appears in Prussia are always printed nee de Launstein. ^^"e were greatly privileged in the enjoyment ofher rich and flexible notes in our private circle, and under her auspices an amateur concert was now proposed for the benefit of the poor in Reval. In this undertaking Countess Rossi and Prince V., of whom, if I have not spoken Letter XX.] CONFUSION OF TONGUES. 169 before, it is because I value him too highly to mention him trivially — were the representatives of treble and base, beneath whose banners a number of amateurs, with and without voices, soon ranged themselves. Some offered for music's sake, and others for fashion's sake ; and parts were eagerly demanded by the elite among the bathing guests at Reval, as well as by a few practised singers belonging to a musical club among the unadeliche, or not noble, who unfortunately are the only class in Estonia who keep up any interest in such pur suits. These formed an excellent ybnc? to keep wavering voices aright, for most of the fashion ables thought chorus-singing would come by inspiration, and, when we all reraoved to Reval for the final rehearsals, were as innocent of their right parts as if they had never seen them. Madame Rossi, however, was the conscience as well as the organ of all the careless trebles : — no half-finished, slurred-over reheaijsals were perraitted. She stepped with courtesy and sweet temper from one tuneless group to another, bearing the right note aloft till all VOL. II. I 170 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. clung securely to it, and was never weary of helping and hearing. The opening choms was " die Himmel erzdhlen die Ehre Gottes," or the well-known " Heavens are telling," from the Creation ; — Henzelt, the celebrated pianist, whom accident had brought to Reval, a man of exquisite finger and most interesting exte rior, conducting the whole from the piano. But these ladies were worse to teach than charity- girls. Some of them deemed the re hearsals utterly superfluous, others left their parts behind them, and others were so invete- rately in good humour that it was difficult to scold them for being as much out of tune. Of one pretty creature with more animation in her face than music in her soul, whose voice in the Creation wandered to forbidden paths, a Russian humorist observed, "Elle chante des choses qui n'ont jamais existe, mime dans la Creation !" Altogether these rehearsals were merry meetings, and when our own bawling was over Madame Rossi went through her songs as scrupulously as the rest. I shall never forget Letter XX.] COUNTESS ROSSI. 171 the impression she excited one evening. We were all united in the great ball-room at the Governor's castle in Reval, which was partially illuminated for the occasion, and, having wound up our last noisy " Firmament," we all re treated to distant parts of the saile, leaving the Countess to rehearse the celebrated Scena from the Freischutz with the instrumental parts. She was seated in the midst, and com pletely hidden by the figures and desks around her. And now arose a strain of melody and expression which thrills every nerve to recall ; — the interest and pathos creeping gradually on through every division of this most noble and passionate of songs, — the gloomy light, — the invisible songstress, — all corabining to increase the effect, till the feeling becarae alraost too intense to bear. And then the horn in the dis tance, and the husky voice of suppressed agony whilst doubt possessed her soul, chilled the blood in our veins, and her final burst, " Er ist's, Er ist's," was one of agony to her audi ence.. Tears, real tears, ran down cheeks both fair and rough, who knew not and cared not i2 172 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XX. that they were there ; and not until the excite ment had subsided did I feel that my wrist had been clenched in so convulsive a grasp by my neighbour as to retain marks long after the siren had ceased. I have heard SdhriSder and Malibran, both grand and true in this com position, but neither searched the depths of its passionate tones, and with it the hearts of the audience,' so completely as the matchless Madame Rossi. On the evening preceding the concert a pub lic rehearsal was held at half price, which gave the finishing stroke to the choruses ; and, as far as the principals were concerned, was just as attractive as the concert itself. Suffice it to say that this latter went off with great eclat, and anybody who may have occasion to ex amine the Petersburg Gazettes of the time will find a florid account of its success, together with the names of all the noble individuals concerned therein. It realised 4500 roubles, which, from the circumstance of the crown's having forgotten to pay its yearly donation of 1000 roubles to the chief charitable institu- Letter XX.J ONE BETTER THAN ALL. 173 tion, and there being a little ill-timed delicacy in high quarters as to the policy of a reminder, was doubly welcome. The Countess was greatly exhausted, and languor stole on all the party as we returned to . FaU ; whose woods and streams looked fresher than ever. The next day I quitted this paradise of mingled sweets and returned with unaltered zest to my quiet home, and with in creased enjoyment to that being whose smile of beauty and whose voice of love had that superiority over those I had quitted, that my heart could never find words to describe either the one or the other. 174 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXL LETTER THE TWENTY-FIRST. Autumn Scenes — Separation from Estonia. The beauties of autumn, and the moral of its yellow leaves, are seen and felt in all countries. Nowhere, however, I am incHned to think, can the former be so resplendent, or the latter so touching, as in the land where I am still a sojourner. In our temperate isle autumn may be contemplated as the glorious passing away of the well-matured — the radiant death-bed of the ripe in years — while here the brilliant colours on earth and sky are like the hectic cheek and kindling eye of some beautiful being whose too hasty development has been but the presage of a premature decay. Thus it is that the vast plains and woods of Estonia are now displaying the most gorgeous colours of their Letter XXL] AUTUMN SCENES AND THOUGHTS. 175 palette, ere the white brush of winter sweep their beauties from sight, while the golden and crimson wreaths of the deciduous trees, peeping from amongst the forests of sober pines, may be compared to gay lichens sprinkling their hues over a cold grey rock, or to a transient smile passing over the habitual brow of care. But all too hasty is the progress of this splendid funeral march — even now its pomp is hidden by gloomy slanting rains, its last tones lost in the howl of angry blasts, which, as if impatient to assume their empire, are rudely stripping off and trampling down every vestige of summer's short-lived festival, while Nature, shorn of her wealth, holds out here and there a streamer of bright colours, like a bankrupt still eager to flaunt in the finery of better days. This season, as the dismal forerunner of that time which is to sever me from Estonia and all its real and acquired bonds of attachment, is doubly autumn to me. Whatever .you do or see, says Dr. Johnson, consciously for the last time, is ever accompanied by a feeling of regret. How just then the sorrow of one who has found 176 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXI. a second horae in the land she now must quit ! Cowards die a thousand deaths ere the dreaded stroke arrive, and affection, which can nerve itself for every trial save that of separation, suffers a thousand partings ere the final wrench ensue. But where is the remedy ? The heart that deepest feels will also keenest anticipate. In occasions of joy, this is too often the better part ; — would it were the worst -with those of sorrow. It is easy abstractedly to reason upon and even to make light of the privileges of mere local vicinity — of mere temporary union — as compared with the ubiquity of affection's thoughts, and the perpetuity of the heart's fidelity. It is easy to say that all earthly Hght must have its shadow — that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong — that few abide with those with whom they for ever would stay : — this is all very easy, too easy, to say. But what do such arguments avail when you awake each morning with an undefined sense of impending evil — when your days are spent as if the sword of Damocles hung sus- Letter XXL] THE AFFECTIONS FSiJSaS REASON. 177 pended over your head, and when each separa tion for night tells you that another day has passed away of the few still left ! Where is all your firmness when you hear the music of a light footstep, or feel the touch of the gentle hand which rouses you at once from your reve ries of forced philosophy, and dissipates all its resolutions ! Or, worst of all, when at some sign of approaching separation — at some allu sion. to a future to be spent apart — you see an eye, heavy laden, turn hastily away, as if to punish itself for a weakness which threatens to overset your strength ! No — such feeUngs as these admit of no reasoning — the conflict is worse than the surrender. The affections in general may most require guidance, but there are seasons when they are the best law to themselves, when the wisdom of the world is utter foolishness with them. How countless are the numbers and various the tongues of those who have written and sung of that love, evanescent when favoured, wretched when opposed, which binds man and woman ! But who has told of the depths i3 178 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXl. of that feeling which leads neither to selfish ness nor to shame, which is neither maintained by art nor endangered by change — ^who has traced the course of that sweet fountain of poetry which flows steadiest on through banks of the deadUest prose — the affection which unites two sisters! — This is the only earthly love which has cast out fear — which takes nought amiss — loses no moments in misunder standing — which knoweth no jealousy save the jealousy of the loved one's sufferings — which would sacrifice even her love rather than she should need yours — which has all the tender ness, the delicacy, the sensitiveness of the other passion — all its beauty and none of its barbarity; which is always in the honeymoon of love's kindness, without the vulgarity of love's satiety; which compensates where it cannot defend, sympathises where it cannot help — * • * But let this subject pass : it is one too sacred for exhibition, too delicate for analysis ; — those who know its blessings will also understand its penalties. Nor is this all : the traveller who ventures Letter XXL] VAIN RESOLUTIONS. 1 79 to bide that time when the force of old habits and associations can no longer impede the en trance of new preferences raust prepare for many regrets; for, ere we suspect the deed, the heart is found to have thrown out number less slender fibres into the new soil around, all painful to divide. When I first entered Es tonia, it was with the laudable resolve, easier made than kept, of investing no feeling, of forming no friendship in the foreign world here opened to me, but of rigidly restricting all present happiness and future regret to that one being whom I knew would furnish both in overflowing measure. But what knows the heart about systems of policy ! Had the social atmosphere been rude, or the social elements repelling, it would have cost the traveller no effort to wrap her mantle of reserve close about her; but when the sun of kindness shone ceaseless forth, — when every avenue to sus ceptibility was besieged with gentle courtesies and gratuitous hospitalities — what remained but to throw it off and surrender a willing prisoner ? 180 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXI. Were I to enumerate all those who not only met but sought that stranger who came coldly determined not to love, but was not proof to being loved, with a kindness as much above her deserts as beyond her powers of requital, it would fill a letter more interesting to her than any that has gone before. Suffice it to say that those who were rich in this world's gifts have treated the traveller with a simple and sincere heartiness, without which all the luxury of their princely residences would have at tracted no feeling save that of curiosity ; while those who were out of suits with Fortune have welcomed her to hurable homes, where the utmost refineraent of raind and polish of ac quirement have fumished a charm money could not have bought. It is with a heavy heart that I prepare to bid farewell to Estonia. Its past history is now familiar to those who may scan these letters, and its future destinies must be interesting speculation to those who would desire to see so raany fine elements iraproved to their ut most. The tendencies of this province are all Letter XXL] INTEGRITY OF BALTIC PROVINCES. 181 markedly German. To compel the substitu tion of Russian would be to compel it to retro grade. It cannot rebel. All violation, there fore, of those terms by which Russia originally made the acquisition of these provinces — all interruption of that independence of adrainis tration and liberty of action which were the conditions of their surrender, merely because they are unable to enforce them — would be as unfair as unwise. From the stability of this vast empire the Baltic provinces derive protection and peace ; but in their turn they hold out a model of sim plicity and integrity in the administration of justice, which, in Russia, cannot be termed obsolete, but rather unknown. At the same time there is ample space for the exercise of obedience and the pride of independence; — ample means for giving Csesar the things that are Csesar's, without defrauding or selling their own nationality. Fairly considered, the position of the Esto nian noble is one of the happiest that man can desire. He enjoys the privileges of rank and 182 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXL importance without its fatigues — the blessings of independence without its responsibilities. His sphere of usefulness is wide — his means of existence easy. It rests only with himself to unite the refinements of education with the healthiness of a country gentleman's life. He has it infinitely more in his power to promote the Avelfare of his little, fertile, favoured pro vince, than the Russian government has at present inclination to thwart it. It is impossible to guarantee the main tenance of a nation's or of a province's pros perity where there is no constitutional pledge for safety ; but, as things now stand, there is less to be feared in Estonia from the caprices of the crown than from the influence of indi viduals, who do not scruple to wrong their countrymen in the futile attempt to propitiate power. Letter XXIL] QUITE A DIFFERENT SUBJECT. 183 LETTER THE TWENTY-SECOND. Russia considered as a study— New- Year's Eve — Peculiar family demonstrations — Bridge of Kisses — Routine of a Petersburg life — Oriental regiments, and Oriental phy siognomy — Ffete at the Winter Palace — Scene from the gallery of the Salle Blanche — Court costume — Display of diamonds — ^Masked ball at the theatre — ^The Emperor — ^The Heritier — The Grand Duke Michael — Masked ball at the Salle de Noblesse — Uses and abuses of masked balls in Russia. Petersburg, January. This change of place has brought with it such a corresponding change of outward life, that to continue these letters in the same unbroken form would be impracticable. Although living in the centre of Russian society, and exposed at every pore to its influences, yet my impressions of those characteristics which distinguish it from other countries can be gleaned only in ir regular succession, and in such only rendered again. Of all the states in the world, Russia is at this time most particularly that which requires the application of principles grounded 184 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXII. equally on the studious knowledge of the past and a lucid judgment of the future to render that wholeness and impartiality of opinion which may be comprehensible to others and just to her. Those who would fairly judge Russia must first strip themselves of those habits of thought which, whatever their seeming, are only coincident with the age to which they have the accident to belong, and go back to those raw but stable elements which are the sole groundwork for a nation's prosperity, and which, in the present turraoil of hasty and changing opinions, have little chance of being comprehended and appreciated save by some old-fashioned representative of an old-fashioned country, who considers the a b c of loyalty and obedience the sole basis of any safe knowledge and of any solid civilization. The two species of writers who have hitherto made Russia the subject of their pens are either the mere tourist, who sees and judges els the passing traveller — or those whom public office or private connection has thrown into the highest circles of the capital, and are thus Letter XXII.] ONLY TWO RANKS IN RUSSIA. 185 placed where they may, it is true, analyse the froth, but are far from reaching the substance of the nation. No one has hitherto attempted the philosophy of this country, than which no Subject to reflecting and generalising minds can be more interesting ; while those disseitations on its political aspect which have appeared in our periodicals are so coloured with obvious partiality, or with obvious invective, as rather to deter the reader from forming any distinct opinion than to give him any premises whereon to rest. Russia has only two ranks — the highest and the lowest ; consequently it exhibits all those rudenesses of social life which must be attendant on these two extreme positions of power and dependence. It is vain therefore to look for those qualities which equally restrain the one and protect the other, and which alone take root in that half-way class called forth in the progress of nations equally for the interest of tjpth. For in this light it is irapossible to view the scanty and broken-linked portion of Russian society which a sanguine and too hasty policy has 186 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL forced, not nourished, into existence, and which at present rather acts as the depression and not the foundation of that most important body denominated the middle ranks of a nation. To study the real destinies of Russia the philosopher of mankind must descend to a class still in bond age, and not yet ripe for freedom, but where the elements of political stability and commercial energy are already glaringly apparent. As I may include myself among the second class of Russian travellers above mentioned, it is needless to state that it is as little in my power as in my inclination to enter upon sub jects requiring equally difference of position and superiority of capacity, or rather no further than as they may be indirectly connected with the habits of the highest circles ; if indeed so fragile a key may in any way be appHed to the ponderous internal machinery of a state like- Russia. I entered Petersburg at a season particularly enlivened by festivities — viz. at the end of De cember, old style ; and my first introduction into domestic scenes may be said to have com- Letter XXII.] A TERY NOVEL SCENE. 187 menced with the eve of New-year's Day. On this occasion every member near and remote of a large family connection, to the number of at least forty, asserabled in the magnificent apart ments of Count 's hotel. The evening passed away most cheerfully, and towards mid night we all paired off to supper. Here every delicacy was spread, and champagne poured out freely ; but as the hour which dismissed the old and installed the new year resounded from the great clock on the staircase, every one rose, glass in hand, and now commenced a scene in which old and young — old men and children, young men and maidens — all took a share, and which, however matter-of-fact to relate, was highly amusing to witness. In plain language, then, everybody present kissed everybody present — one unrelated head, I beg to observe, excepted. This ceremony occupied some time, since, according to vulgar calculation, not less than sixteen hundred kisses were on^this occa sion exchanged. — Not hasty, piano, shamefaced commissions, but fearless, powerful, resounding salutations which left no question of the fact — 188 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL more noisy, however, than mischievous, more loud than deep — in many cases the cheeks of the parties being simultaneously presented, and the kiss lost on the desert air. It was very amusing to see the crowd as they circulated together — the silence only broken by the jing ling of glasses and the very audible nature of their occupation. After which evaporation of family affection the whole party resumed their seats and continued their meal. This is the national salute — in universal vogue from remote antiquity — ^rather a greeting than a caress — derived equally from religious feeling and from oriental custom. Fathers and sons kiss — old generals with rusty moustachios kiss — whole regiments kiss. The Emperor kisses his officers. On a reviewing day there are almost as many kisses as shots exchanged. If a Lilliputian corps de cadets have eamed the Imperial approval, the Imperial salute is bestowed upon the head boy, who passes it on with a hearty report to his neighbour, he in his turn to the next, and so on, till it has been diluted through the whole juvenile body. Letter XXIL] PATERNAL TENDERNESS. 189 If the Emperor reprimand an officer unjustly, the sign of restoration to favour as well as the best atonement is — a kiss. One of the bridges in Petersburg is to this day called the Potzalui Most, or Bridge of Kisses [not of Sighs], in commemoration of Peter the Great, who, hav ing in a fit of passion unjustly degraded an officer in face of his whole regiment, kissed the poor man in the sarae open way upon the next public occasion on this very bridge. On a holiday or jour def Ste the young and delicate mistress of a house will not only kiss all her maidservants but all her menservants too, and, as I have mentioned before, if the gentleman venture not above her hand she will stoop and kiss his cheek. As for the Russian father of a family, his affection knows no bouuds ; if he leave his cabinet d affaires ten times in the course of the morning and enter his lady's saloon abovje, he kisses all his family when he enters, and again when he leaves the room : sometimes indeed so mechanically, that, forgetting whether he has done it or not, he goes a second round to make all sure. To judge 190 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXl] also from the nuraber of salutes, the matriraonia bond in these high circles must be one of un interrupted felicity — a gentleman scarcely enters or leaves the room without kissing hii wife either on forehead, cheek, or hand. Re^ marking upon this to a lofty-looking creatur* who received these connubial demonstrations with rather a suspicious sang-froid, she replied " Oh ! ga ne veut rien dire — pour moi, jt voudrais tout autant etre battue qu'embrasset — par habitude ! " The Russians have from long practice ac quired such a faciUty in this respect that i quick succession of salutes is nearly equal ir power of intonation to the clapping of hands It must be very fatiguing ! But now — " As the surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing on a nature hrrngs" — it may be as well to quit this subject. The daily routine of a Russian family of this rank is easily complied with. Breakfast nc visitor is expected to join ; the family usually assembling for this meal in too deep a neglig^ for a stranger to witness. By noon the lady Letter XXIL] DAILY LIFE. 191 of the house is seated at her writing-table or embroidery-frame. Lunch is not served, but each orders a hot cutlet as he may feel inclined. Then visitors throng in, or the carriage and four awaits you, for here wheels are deemed the most becoming conveyance for age and dignity, although youth and beauty are seen gliding through the noiseless streets in open sledges. This mixture of vehicles, how ever, cuts up the snow, which here, from the severity of the frost and the restless traffic, lies in the principal street in ridges of fine crystals — like sand both in colour and quality — and is very heavy for the horses. Dinner is generally at four — at least, this is the Imperial hour; and as the Imperial movements are all rapid, and no one is expected to stay after dinner, our host frequently returns from dining with his Majesty in time for his own five o'clock repast, which not unseldom he pronounces the better of the two. After dinner the more intimate friends of the family drop uninvited in, and make up the whist-table ; and then some depart for the theatre, or later for balls, and so the days go round. 192 LETTERS, FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL But to return. It was New-year's Day, and, having taken my solitary breakfast, I was seated at my occupations, when a jingle of spurs was heard at my door, and Prince B entered the room to apprise me that detachments from the Circassian, Kirghise, and other Ori ental, regiments, pour feliciter the Count, were below in full uniform. Snatching therefore a mantilla from the hands of Sascha, whose Reval ideas were rather disturbed by the intrusion of a pair of epaulettes in my sanctuary, I hastily followed to the ante-room ofthe Count's cabinet, and stood between a file of soldiers drawn up in opposite lines. They were armed to the teeth — swords, pistols, cutlasses, bows and arrows ; their powder-charges ranged six on each breast ; their uniform red, with a casque of chain mail fitting close round the face and descending on the shoulders, with nuinerous other appendages for which my European ideas discovered neither use nor name ; terminating with red Turkish slippers pointed upwards — altogether a most striking and martial dress. But if their accoutrements were fierce, their looks corresponded. Not a blue nor a grey eye Letter XXII.] CAUCASIAN REGIMENTS. 193 — not a soft, nor a calm, nor a sleepy look was to be discerned, but a row of burning black lenses flashed on the stranger who had ventured within the range of their focus. We errone ously impute the beauty of languor to the Circassian physiognomy. Here there was no smothered fire, no veiled beams, — every face blazed with a restless glow. The features were regular — the complexions dark ; but this red-hot expression defaced all beauty. They were all small men — the officers taller than the privates, but with the same inflammable cha racter of physiognomy. These latter had ac quired the French language, and were courte ous and graceful in manner. By noon of the same day I was summoned to accompany my kind hostess and her beau tiful daughter, who as Dame and Demoiselle d'honneur attended at the celebration of the New-year's fete at the Winter Palace. There was no military spectacle, the weath«r being too severe ; for reviews are not willingly un dertaken if the thermometer be below 10°. The Grande Place before the Imperial en- VOL. II. K 194 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL trance was thronged with carriages and sledges of every description, and guarded by troops of soldiers. We entered this superb palace, so late a mere burnt-out crust, and, leaving my two gorgeously attired companions to pursue their way to the Imperial presence, I was conducted by Prince V., in his glittering chamberlain's dress, upstairs and through cor ridors, all smelling of recent building and fresh paint, and placed by him in an advan tageous position in the gallery above the Salle Blanche — the most magnificent apartment in this most magnificent of palaces, and so called from its decorations being all in pure white relieved only with gilding. Eighty feet below rae in miniature size was a splendid pageant. Ranged along the walls stood a triple row of motionless soldiery; on one side, in graceful contrast with their stiff lines, was congre gated a fair bevy of female figures, with sweep ing trains and gleaming jewels; while slim figures of court chamberlains, with breast and back laden with the richest gold embroidery, with white pantaloons and silk stockings, hur- Letter XXIL] GALLERY OF THE SALLE BLANCHE. 195 ried across the scene — or stopped to pay ho mage to the ladies — or loitered to converse with the groups of officers in every variety of uni form, with stars, orders, and cordons glittering about them, who sauntered in the centre. Conspicuous among these latter was the person of the Grand Duke Michael, brother to the Emperor — a magnificent figure, with immense length of limb and a peculiar curve of outline which renders him recognisable at any dis tance, among hundreds in the same uniforra, and who was seen pacing slowly backwards and forwards on the marble-like parquete, and bending fierce looks on the soldiery. Nor was the scene above without its at tractions and peculiarities, for many distin guished-looking individuals were leaning over the same railings with rayself — araong thera an Ingrelian princess — a middle-aged woman of uncommon beauty, with commanding fea tures and long languishing eyes, and a pecu liar high head-dress, flowing veil, and a pro fusion of jewels. And at the upper end, apart :from all, sat in a solitary chair the Grand k2 196 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXII. Duchess Olga, second daughter of the Em peror, a most beautiful girl of sixteen, just restored from a dangerous fever, the traces of which were visible in the exquisite delicacy of her complexion, and in the light girl-like cap wom to hide the absence of those tresses which had been sacrificed to her illness. She was attended by her preceptress, Madame Baranoff. But now the drums beat, the trumpets sounded, and every eye turned below. A cor tege was seen advancing through the open entrance, and the Commandant Sakachefsky, rearing his full length and corpulent person, put himself with drawn sword at their head. A line of railitary passed ; then a body of chamberlains, — when the band broke into the soul-stirring national hymn " Boje Zara chr ani" — the troops presented arms, and a noble figure was seen advancing. This was the Emperor — the plainest dressed, but the raost magnificent figure present, want ing no outward token to declare the raajesty of his presence. He passed slowly on, accom modating his manly movements to the short Letter XXIL] A GORGEOUS PROCESSION. 197 feeble steps of the Empress, who, arrayed in a blaze of -jewels, dragged a heavy train of orange- coloured velvet after her, and seemed hardly able to support her own weight. To the Im perial pair succeeded the Naslednik, or Heri tier, the slender prototype of his father's grand proportions, — with the Grand Duke Michael, and the youngest son of the Imperial house. Portly ladies and graceful maids of honour, with grey-haired generals, were seen in glis tening train behind. But the eye followed that commanding figure and lofty brow, tow ering above every other, till it vanished be neath the portals leading to the chapel. And now ensued all the disorderly rear of a pro cession — tardy maids of honour and flirting officers, who came helter-skelter along, talk ing and laughing with a freedora proportioned to their distance frora the Iraperial pair — till the doors closed on them also, and the im movable military were left to thank the gods that the Grand Duke's eyes were otherwise employed. And now my kind chamberlain again ap peared ; and, in order to avoid an apartment 198 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXII. where the Grand Duchesses were stationed, we made the circuit of the palace, up stairs and down stairs — a walk which occupied more than ten rainutes — and retumed to within a short distance of my former position, to a win dow overlooking the chapel. Here stood the whole cortege thickly compressed together — one blaze of diaraonds, stars, and epaulettes — while in advance of the rest was the Imperial family ; the Empress, on account of her ill health, alone seated ; the Emperor on her right, motionless as a statue; the Naslednik on her left, shifting from one long limb to the other — all crossing themselves and bowing at intervals. The service lasted two hours, va ried only by the delicious responses of the court choristers. It was performed by the metropolitan and two other dignitaries of high rank, in high wizard caps and gorgeous mystic robes, who looked like the priests of Isis, or any other theatrical representation of sacer dotal dignity. After this the procession re turned as it carae. The Erapress detained the ladies for cho colate and refreshments ; and the countess and Letter XXIL] COURT COSTUME. 199 her daughter retumed home perfectly ex hausted with the duties of the day. The court costume is both magnificent and becoming. It has been introduced in the pre sent reign, and consists of a white satin dress fastened up the front with gold buttons, and richly embroidered in gold with a graceful Grecian pattern. Over this is a velvet robe, green for the Dames d'honneur, crimson for the Demoiselles, with long hanging sleeves, and descending in an araple train worked all round with a gorgeous scroll of wheat-ears in gold. The head-dress agrees in shape with the common national costume — being what is termed a pavoinik, a fan-shaped machine — orange velvet for the Dames d'honneur, and any dark colour they please for the Demoi selles, — closed at the back of the head for the former, and open for the latter, with a long blond veil attached, which flows half way down the dress. This pavoinik is lacjen with as many diamonds as it can carry ; and as the Empress's recollections of toilette are exces sively tenacious, care is taken to appear every time in a new device, and to vary the form and 200 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL position of the diamonds, which, to compare things vile with things precious, all unhook for this purpose like the cut crystals of a chan delier. The neck and arms are also adorned with corresponding brilliancy. The display of diamonds here is immense. Every woman of rank has a glass case, or a succession of glass cases, like those on a jew eller's counter, where her jewels are spread out on purple velvet, under lock and key, in her own bedroom ; and as it is here that she often receives her morning guests, for nothing is seen of sleeping or dressing apparatus save the superb rairrors and a gorgeous screen, her wealth of brilliants and other jewels is dis played to advantage. Here also, in the jewel- case of the high-born matron, lies the minia ture ofthe Erapress, ornamented with brilliants, the insignia of the Dame d'honneur. Like wise, with those who are so honoured, the Order of St. Catherine, no less resplendent with diamonds ; while in the young ladies' display, side by side with necklaces and brace lets, may generally be found the chiffre, or initial of the Empress, an A. in diamonds, Letter XXIL] BLESSING THE NEVA. 201 which denotes the Demoiselle d'honneur. The number of these latter is at this time about a hundred and fifty. On the 6th of January, O.S., the fete of the three kings, this court ceremony was renewed, with the addition of a procession of priests. After which the Emperor proceeded to bless the waters of the Neva, which are supposed to be gifted with supernatural virtues; on which oc casion himself and everybody present is bare headed. The severity of the weather and the amount of the crowd forbade any attempt to witness this national cereraony. I was now becoming irapatient for a nearer -riew of that awful personage whom all united in describing as "le plus bei homme quon puisse s'imaginer," and who, whether seen from the diminishing heights of the Salle Blanche, — or dashing along, his white feathers streaming, and muffled in his military cloak in his solitary sledge with one horse, — or striding with powerful steps, utterly unat tended, in the dusk of the early evening, the whole length of the Nevski, wore a halo of k3 202 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL majesty it was impossible to overlook. An opportunity for a closer view soon presented itself. It was Sunday ; and, after attending morn ing service at the English Church— the more impressive from long privation of its privileges, — I was driving, twelve hours later, viz. at midnight, with Princess B. and Countess L., to a very different resort — namely, to the great theatre, where, after the dramatic performances, masquerades are held once or twice a-week before Lent. These are frequented by a mixed public, the Salle de Noblesse being reserved for the disguise of the individuals de la plus haute voice ; these latter therefore on occasions like this take a box on a level with the floor of the theatre, which extends on these nights over the whole of the parterre, and thus participate without actually mixing in the scene. The coup d'oeil on entering the box was very striking. A multitude of several hun dreds was gathered together in the theatre's vast oblong; the women alone masked, and almost without exception in black dress and Letter XXIL] COUP D'CEIL OF A MASKED BALL. 203 domino ; the men, and those chiefly military, with covered heads and no token of the occa sion save in a black scarf, as sign of domino, upon their left arm — their white plumes and gay uniforms contrasting vividly with the black-faced and draped figures around them ; aU circulating stealthily to and fro ; no music, no dancing, no object apparent but gesticu lation, whisper, mystery, and intrigue. Here a knot of witch-like figures, as if intent ou mischief, stood muttering in low tones toge ther. There a slight mask tripped up to a stately grave general, tapped his shoulder, and, passing her arm into his, bore hira off with significant nods. In front of us a couple of these sibyls, with bright eyes glearaing through their gloomy masks, attacked a young officer in high, squeak ing, counterfeit tones, laughing and jeering, while the good man looked bewildered frora the one to the other, and seemed to say, " How happy could I be with either I" And farther, apart from the throng, sat on a low step a solitary mask, who shook her head so lemnly at all who approached, as if awaiting some expected prey ; — while, half timid, half 204 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXII. coquette, a light figure whispered some words in a gentleman's ear, and then, retreating before his eager pursuit, plunged into the crowd, and was lost to his recognition among the hundreds of similar disguises. The Heritier, the Grand Duke Michael, the Duke de Leuchtenberg, were all seen passing in turn — each led about by a whispering mask — " Mais ou est donc V Empereur ? " " II ny est pas encore " was the answer ; but scarce was this uttered when a towering plume moved, the crowd fell back, and enframed in a vacant space stood a figure to which there is no second in Russia, if in the world itself; — a figure of the grandest beauty, expression, dimension, and carriage, uniting all the ma jesties and graces of all the Heathen gods, — the little god of love alone perhaps excepted, — on its ample and symraetrical proportions. Had this nobility of person belonged to a common Mougik instead of to the Autocrat ofall the Rus sias, the admiration could not have been less, nor scarcely the feeling of moral awe. It was not the monarch who was so magnificent a man, but the man who was so truly imperial. Letter XXIL] THE EMPEROR. 205 He stood awhile silent and haughty, as if dis daining all the vanity and levity around him, when, perceiving my two distinguished com panions, he strode grandly towards our box, and, just lifting his plumes with a lofty bow, stooped and kissed the princess's hand, who in return imprinted a kiss on the Imperial cheek: and then leaning against the pillar remained in conversation. The person of the Emperor is that of a co lossal man, in the full prime of life and health ; forty-two years of age, about six feet two inches high, and well filled out, without any approach to corpulency — the head magnificently car ried, a splendid breadth of shoulder and chest, great length and symmetry of limb, with finely formed hands and feet. His face is strictly Grecian — forehead and nose in one grand line ; the eyes finely lined, large, open and blue, with a calmness, a coldness, a freez ing dignity, which can equally quell an insur rection, daunt an assassin, or paralyse a peti tioner; the raouth regular, teeth fine, chin prominent, with dark moustache and small 206 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL whisker ; but not a sympathy on his face ! His mouth sometimes smiled, his eyes never. There was that in his look which no mo narch's subject could meet. His eye seeks every one's gaze, but none can confront his. After a few rainutes his curiosity, the un failing attribute of a crowned head, dictated the words, " Kto eta ?"—" Who is that ?"— and being satisfied — for he remarks every strange face that enters his capital — he continued alter nately in Russian and French commenting upon the scene. " Personne ne m'intrigue ce soir," he said : "je ne sais pas ce que j'ai fait pour perdre ma reputation, mais on ne veut pas de moi." As he stood various masks approached, but, either from excess of embarrassment or from lack of wit, after rousing the lion, found no thing to say. At length a couple approached and stood irresolute, each motioning the other to speak. " Donnez-moi la main," said a low trembling voice. He stretched out his noble hand : " et voild, I'autre pour vous," extending the other to her companion ; and on they Letter XXIL] THE EMPEROR. 207 passed, probably never to forget the mighty hand that had clasped theirs. Meanwhile the Emperor carefully scanned the crowd, and owned himself in search of a mask who had attacked him on his first entrance. " Quand je I'aurai trouve, je vous l' amenerai ;" and so saying he left us. I watched his figure, which, as if surrounded with an invisible barrier, bore a vacant space about it through the thickest of the press. In a short time a Httle mask stepped boldly up to him, and, reaching upwards to her utmost stretch, hung herself fearlessly upon that arm which wields the destinies of the seventh part of the known world. He threw a look to our box, as if to say " I have found her ; " and off they went together. In five minutes they passed again, and his Majesty made sorae effort to draw her to our box, but the little black sylph resisted, pulling in a contrary direction at his lofty shoulder with all her strength; on which he called out, "Elle ne veut pas que je m' approche de vous ; elle dit que je suis trop mauvaise societe." Upon the 208 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXII. second round, however, he succeeded in bring ing his rebellious subject nearer; when, recog nising his manceuvre, she plucked her arm away, gave him a smart slap on the wrist, and, saying " Va t'en,je ne veux plus de toi," ran into the crowd. The Emperor, they assured me, was in an unusual good temper this even ing. — I think there can be no doubt of it. The Heritier now also took his station at our pillar. He inherits his father's majestic person and somewhat of the regularity of his face, but with the utter absence of the Emperor's unsympathising grandeur. On the contrary, the son has a face of much sentiraent and feeling ; the lips full, — the eyelids pensive — raore of kindness than of character in his ex pression. To hira succeeded the Grand Duke Michael, wiping the heat from his forehead. A fine, bravo style of face, with somewhat ferocious moustaches, — a terrestrial likeness of the Em peror — earthly passions written on his high brow, but none of Jove's thunderbolts. After this the Eraperor's arm no longer Letter XXIL] THE SALLE DE NOBLESSE. 209 remained vacant, being occupied by a succes sion of masks, who by turns amused, flattered, or enlightened the Imperial ear. In like raan ner were his Highness the Prince Volkonski, Ministre de la Cour — Count Benkendorff, Chef de la Gendarmerie, de la Haute Police, et de la Police Secrete-^Count Tchemitcheff, Mi nistre de la Guerre — and other high state and military officers, engaged ; their attendance at masked balls being a part of their service. This was my first introduction to such scenes; the second took place in the Salle de Noblesse, recently erected for public entertainments, and now considered the finest in Europe. The Salle itself is surrounded by a colonnade, twenty feet wide, of white marble pillars in couples supporting a gallery, ascended by a winding staircase at each corner. The vast arena for dancing is several feet lower than this colon nade, and entered thence by six different flights of noble steps. Of the exact dimensions I can give no measurement, save that seventy-five magnificent chandeliers were by no means crowded in position, or overpowering in light. 210 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL Attached to this grand apartment are other rooms fitted up with every luxury, and forraing a circular suite, opening at each end into the colonnade I have described. Here a repetition of the same half-glitter ing, half-sable scene was presented, but multi pHed in number, for no less than two thousand seven hundred individuals, in and out of masks, were gathered together in the centre space, or circulating round the colonnade, or seated in the gallery aloft, or scattered through the suite of smaller rooms. How in this wilderness of space and per plexity of crowd, where, under ordinary circum stances, a couple once separated had little chance of meeting again the same evening — how in thia dazzling, shifting, confiising turmoil, among hundreds and thousands shrouded to the same form and colour — each solitary mask contrived to rejoin the party with whom she entered, was perhaps more a matter of anxiety to my mind than it was to theirs. The only way for these scattered particles to reunite is to fix upon some trysting-place — beneath the orchestra, or at the Lbtter XXIL] REQUISITES IN A MASK. 211 fourth pillar on the right hand, or on the sofa nearest the left, where, when tired with a soli tary prowl after some object of her search, or weary with parading on the arm of some un known individual, — who either proves impene trably dull to her harmless salUes, or jumps to conclusions never intended, or indulges in innu endoes rather too plain of his own, — ^the weary mask may take refuge with some chance of finding a. sister figure, who, led there by the same errand, immediately responds to her cautious watchword. The only security on these occasions for your own enjoyment, or at any rate comfort, and for the entertainment which the assuraption of this incognito promises to others, is to recog nise the full advantages of your disguise — to forget your identity, and remember only your privileges — to bear in mind that when you assumed the mask you threw off all social responsibilities — to observe no ceremony — re spect no person — to be flippant, contradictory, pert, and personal without fear of consequences — and in short to say little behind your mask 212 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL that you would utter without it. As a pretty, witty, good-for-nothing little intriguante ofthe higher circles said to a tiraid novice on her first d6but in this disguise, " Souvenez-vous en, ma chere, on na pas besoin d'un masque pour precher des sermons." The general plan with the ladies of rank on these occasions is to acquire, by direct or indi rect channels, some private information, some tri-vial anecdote of the every-day life or secret doings of the individual whora they intend, as the term is, to " intriguer" — to surprise him with the knowledge of some present he has raade, or sorae letter he has sent, and which he considered unknown to all but the receiver — or to repeat verbatim sorae sentence which he supposes no one could have overheard ; and by making the most ofa little information to make him suppose them possessed of rauch raore, and finally to. heighten his perplexity by mystifying every avenue to their own identity. For instance : Count is the secret adorer of Madame , or fancies himself Letter XXIL] THE MASKED BALL. 213 such. He gives her raagnificent presents ; and among the rest — the lady having pretty feet — he takes it into his head, with a lover's or a Russian's caprice, to surprise her with a foot bath of the most delicate porcelain, which he orders at the celebrated Magasin Anglais in St. Petersburg. Well, at the next masked ball, a little brisk raask " s' empare de son bras," and, after the first conventional iraper- tinences of the place, she hangs her little black head sentimentally on one side, heaves a sigh, and exclaims, " Ah I que Madame doit itre heureuse ! Que donnerais-je, moi, pour avoir un gentil petit bain depied en porcelaine ! J'ai aussi de jolis petits pieds, n est-ce pas ?" — and with that she holds up a fairy foot, dressed in black shoe and stocking, with a coquettish gesture. " Diable ! " thinks the Count : if she knows all about this foot-bath, of course she is also in the secret about the diamond brace let, and the embroidered mantilla, and the Pensa shawl, and the letters I have written — " qui sait ?" and, if the lady understand her metier, she probably contrives, by pursuing 214 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXII. some right hit, or mystifying some wrong one, to elicit exactly that which he most intended to conceal ; when, having spent all her store, or finding him in turn touching upon dangerous ground, she turns off with " Mille remercimens pour tes informations. Tout le monde m'a dit que tu etais bite — a present m'en voild con- vaincue:" — and these last words, pronounced in a louder tone, raise a laugh in the crowd around, who in this light, empty place, where sauciness is considered the only cleverness, and personality the best wit, are thankful for the smallest crumbs of amusement that may be thrown to thera. On this account it is that any lady's maid, or milliner's apprentice, or couturiere, who, adraitted with her basket of new dresses into the private boudoir of the highest ladies in the land, sees more behind the scenes than her superiors — is noticed for her pretty looks by le mari, or Vami — hears familiarities of dia logue which her presence no ways restrains — and, if intent on this object, contrives to. glean from the servants any further information she Letter XXIL] MASKED BALLS. 215 may want; — on this account it is that this class of persons, who frequently speak two or three languages correctly, and are not encum bered with that delicacy and timidity which restrains the really modest or the real gentle woman, are generally most successful in per plexing the wits and piquing the curiosity of the gentlemen. At the Salle de Noblesse none who are not noble raay find access ; but in the latitudinarian nobility of Russia, and the trans ferability of a mask, this law is frequently evaded — and at the theatre these grisettes always play a conspicuous part. The Emperor, when a mask has pleased his fancy, never rests till hehas discovered her real name, and sets his secret police upon the scent with as much zest as after a political offender. The mask whom we had observed at the theatre on such familiar terms with him was recognised a few days after to be a Uttle modiste from the most fashionable milliner's in Petersburg, whose frequent errands to the Empress had furnished her with a few graphic touches ofthe Imperial character. But to retum to the ladies of the highest 216 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL society who raake use of this disguise for raere purposes of raillery and good-natured raischief; This is the best aspect under which the levity of a masked ball can be considered, and to enact this with success or impunity requires an intimate knowledge of society, a perfect mastery of the current languages, and, not least, a tolerable practice in the humours of a masquerade. Even without the first qualifica tion, however, a mask may have some chance of success, for I'esprit d' intrigue inherent more or less in every woman, and I'esprit de vanite inherent more or less in every raan, contrive to give both means and subject for that saucy banter which is the groundwork of a mask's" popularity. But this, I repeat, is the best aspect of these Russian masked balls. I leave it to the astuteness of others to conclude the uses and abuses which must ensue from this temporary and utter freedom in a sex whose chief charm consists in seeking and needing pro tection. More especially in a country where society is placed under the utmost extemal restraint — where even the common courte- Letter XXIL] USES OF A RUSSIAN MASQUERADE. 217 sies of good breeding are viewed with suspicious eyes, — where a young man can hardly converse with a young woman without laying her open to censure, and a woman is not free to indulge her love of adrairation, or a man to approach her with the sarae, till such time as both the one and the other ought to cease, viz., till she is married. I do not exaggerate when I say that t-wo-thirds of the masks in this Liberty Hall were married women, whose husbands knew not or cared not whether they were there. At the same time, in a country where unfor tunately neither promotion, nor justice, nor redress, generally speaking, are to be had with out interest, this means of directly reaching the Imperial ear, or that of the chief officers of the state — of presenting a living anonymous let ter—of dropping information which they are bound, if not to favour, at all events not to take amiss — is immensely resorted to. The Emperor has been known to remonstrate loudly at being annoyed with business or complaint in these few hours of relaxation ; but this is rather VOL. II. L 218 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIL to be attributed to the awkwardness or embar rassment ofthe poor petitioner, who, feeling the welfare of a father or brother, or of a whole family, hanging upon the force of her slender words, — addressing for the first time the awful individual whose word makes and unmakes a law, — and ashamed perhaps of the disguise to which she has been compelled, can neither comraand the calmness nor adroitness necessary to smooth the way for her blunter petition. On the other hand, where the complainant, by a happy address or a well-timed flattery, has disposed the Imperial palate for the reception of more sober truths, her case has been listened to with humanity, and raet by redress. More than once the Emperor was observed engaged with a mask in conversation which had evi dently digressed from levity into a more serious strain, and was overheard to thank the mask for her information and promise the sub ject his attention. In consequence ofthe taste which his Majesty has of late years e-vinced for this species of amuseuaent, the masked balls have greatly Letter XXII.J THE EMPRESS AT MASQUERADES. 219 increased ih number and resort. Previous to being incapacitated by bad health the Empress also equally partook of thera, and it is said greatly enjoyed being addressed with the same famiUarity as any of her subjects. Her Majesty has even been the cause of severe terrors to many an unfortunate indi-vidual, who, new to the scene, or not recognising by filial instinct the maternal arm which pressed his, has either himself indulged in too much licence of speech, or given the Imperial mask to under stand that he found hers devoid of interest. But let us quit these scenes — at best a mas querade is a. bad place. L 2 220 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIH. LETTER THE TWENTY-THIRD. Chief houses of reception in St. Petersburg — Freedom of the Imperial Family — Restraint of the subject — Absence of Etiquette — Ball at Prince Y.'s — Ball at Countess L.'s — Beauties of the high circles — Ball at Madame L.'s — General aspect of manners and morals — Dress — 'Servants — The Grand Duchess Helen. After this lengthened coraraent upon the high Russian society as seen beneath the black cloud of a raask, it now follows to describe its usual face stripped of all disguise, save that which every individual assuraes more or less on quitting his own circle. At this time all the noble and wealthy houses in Petersburg are vying with one another in the number and splendour of their entertainments — endeavour ing to compress as much pleasure as possible Letter X.XIII.] CHIEF HOUSES. 221 into the few remaining weeks before Lent, when balls, theatres, and masquerades are denied them, and their only passetems reduced to soirees, concerts, and tableaux. The principal families whose wealth enables them to maintain this rate of expenditure in this most expensive of all capitals are those of Prince Youssoupoff, Count Chereraeteff, Count Woronzoff Daschkoff, Count Strogonoflf Count Laval, Countess Razumoffski, General Sukasannet, M. Lazareff, Sec, &c., whose en tertainments are conducted on a scale of luxury, which, in this extreme, it is confined to a Russian capital to display. The passion for entertainment and show is inherent in a Russian breast. However husband and wife may differ on other points, they are sure to agree in a feeling which is mingled of equal parts — hospitality and vanity. Entertainments, equi pages, toilette, — whatever appertains to show, is here found in perfection ; and if yoaa look from the window at the peasant-woman trudg ing past in her red and yellow, or catch sight of the gilded spire or cupola towering above 222 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIIL the snow roofs, all tells of the same predomi nant disposition. The Eraperor, who, as Grand Duke Nicholas, was noted for the siraplicity of his tastes, and could hardly be induced to enter a place of amusement, now resorts to them with an in creasing pleasure from which some augur no auspicious result; — frequents the houses of his nobility and generals, who would spend to their last kopeck, and often go beyond it, to entertain him suitably — while the Empress's love of amuseraent and dress, besides inocu lating her august spouse, has fixed a standard for merit, and exacted a rate of expenditure, which, to say the least, was not required to stimulate the already too expensively disposed Russian. For instance : a splendid dejeuner, which is to turn winter into summer, and Russia into Arcadia, is arranged to be given by one of the first families in St. Petersburg. One of the generals in closest attendance upon the Empe ror's person is commissioned to intercede for the honour of His Majesty's presence, and ob- Letter XXIIL] THE ROAD TO RUIN. 223 tains a gracious assent. When the day comes, however, and money is wanted. Baron Stieglitz, the great banker, shows how far the wrong page of the account-book has been encroached upon, and refuses the necessary advances. What is to be done ? Money must be had. — You can't put off a monarch till a more conve nient season (though we, thoughtless mortals, will put off a weightier monarch than he) — you can't " tie up your knocker, say you are sick, you are dead," — when the Emperor and Empress of all the Russias are expected. The necessary sum — and in a country where Nature gives nothing, the expense of such an entertainment is enormous — is therefore bor rowed in haste, and at a usurious interest — for fifty per cent, is demanded and accepted on such exigencies — while all thoughts of future inconvenience are drowned in the flattering honours of the day : " L' Empereur etait tres content" or "L'Imperatrice a beaucoup jdanse" is sufficient atonement. But if you examine a little closer, and ask a few troublesome questions, it will be found 224 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIII. that even this dearly-purchased honour is not productive of the pleasure that might be sup posed. Wherever the Imperial family appear, however great their affability, however sincere and obvious their desire to please and be pleased, the raere fact of their presence throws a restraint, a g^ne over the whole asserably, who are depressed rather than exhilarated by the cold gaze of the Iraperial eye, and who feel that the whole attention of their hosts is concentred on one object. The young railitary are in apprehension lest their uniforra should not be found in strict accordance, to the shape of a button or, the length of a spur, with the latest regulation; — the young ladies, and equally their chaperons, are in anxiety lest any awkwardness of dress or raanner should incur the censure, however plea santly expressed, of her to whom all adjudge the purest taste in toilette and tourmire ; — while the host and hostess suffer real fear lest any unbecoming speech or incident should transpire to render the recollection of their hos pitalities obnoxious to their illustrious guests. Letter XXIIL] NO ETIQUETTE. 225 The anxiety attendant on the reception of any monarch by his subject must at all tiraes be proportioned to the honour, but here the total absence of all etiquette raultiplies the diffi culty an hundred-fold. For it must be remera bered that the raore limited the monarch, the more absolute the etiquette — and vice versa. In Russia, therefore, where the Zar is " la loi vivante" — the constitution in person — no eti quette can exist, or rather only such as he pleases for the time being. Whatever he does is right — ^he cannot deraean hiraself. His actions are restrained by no law of cereraony, — by no obligation of dignity, — by no fear of public opinion. His rank takes care of itself — it wants no propping — it is in one piece, like his own Alexander's column. His only restraint is his own responsibility, and in no country is this so awful. He and his consort, according to their pleasure or disposition, can either render moderation habitual, or extrajyagance meritorious — morality fashionable, or frivolity praiseworthy. They 'can qualify vices to foibles, or ennoble vanities to virtues. The example l3 226 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIIL of the Crown is as imperative in private life, as its will in public Hfe, and nowhere is it more greedily imitated. But to return to etiquette. However tedious and troublesome its formalities, they are not half so onerous to a host as his perpetual anxiety and real responsibility in a court where there is no rule for raanners except the caprice of the raonarch or the tact of the subject. The truth of these reraarks was exempUfied at a ball at Prince Y.'s, which his Imperial Majesty honoured with his presence, and where, though he was obviously as condescending as his hosts were zealous, yet that stately figure in the portal, presiding in unbending beauty like a being frora another world, weighed down the hilarity of all present. The hotel of Prince Y., situated upon the Moika Canal, is one of the many splendid mansions in St. Petersburg. The grand suite of apartments is adorned with a collection of pictures by the old masters, some few of which are of signal merit, especially two exquisite Claudes, a Parmegiano, and a Sasso Ferrato. Letter XXIIL] BEAUTIES OF THE HIGH CIRCLES. 227 In the Salle des Antiquites were also some valuable objects of art, particularly an antique foot, while statues by Canova and other modem sculptors, with groups in ivory and alabaster, and collections of costly china and silver oma ments, &c., were dispersed about the rooms. Also two portfolios beneath glass cases, con taining original letters from Peter the Great and Catherine II. to some "Excellence" of this princely house. The ball at Countess L.'s was more spirited, for here the Heritier, accorapanied by his brother-in-law, the Duke de Leuchtenberg, was the sole representative of the Imperial family, and, joining in the dance, his fine person and gentle demeanour only lent an additional grace to the scene. Here, from the absence of restraint, I had more opportunity of noting the female beauty of St. Petersburg, among whom were foremost the Princess Belozelsky Belozersky, a lovely speci men of a " Petite Russe," with nez retrousse, large languishing black eyes, hair bending from the root in the raost graceful volutes, beautiful 228 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIII . teeth, and fair skin, with a petite taille of the utraost delicacy ; — Countess Woronzoff Dasch koff, an espiegle gipsy, whose polissonnerie of expression and speech has attracted her a species of popularity in this capital which a more regular or a more cautious beauty would not attain ; — Princess Narischkin, with skin of ivory and eyes of jet ; — Madame Zavadoffsky, whose plenitude of beauty the English world has seen ; — the Princess Marie Bariatinsky, a fine intellectual face, with a somewhat English calm of expression, and such magnificent che velure as seems to betoken strength of mind as well as of person ; — Madame Stoluipin, late Princess Troubetzkoi, a graceful nouvelle mariee ; — Mademoiselle Karamsin, the pretty maid of honour; — and last, though never least in thegardenof beauty, the lovely Annette — who, with a new tiara of diamonds on her head, and a single emerald, a unique stone, large as an old- fashioned miniature or a teacup reversed, and surrounded by a single row of solitaire dia monds, blazing like Herraione's carbuncle on her chest, and her " belles epaules Grecques," Letter XXIIL] BEAUTIES OF THE HIGH SOCIETY. 229 as the Empress has aptly termed thera, bared to view, looked, what few do, as much to ad vantage in the dazzling and heated ball-room as among the cool orange-groves of her own Fall. The toilettes and display of jewels were beyond all description gorgeous, and the grace ful though slender set which adorned the person of the pretty English Ambassadress were pronounced to be " assez joli." This house, situated on the English Quay, is also magnificent : hall, staircase, and apart ments of the utmost beauty of form and luxury of arrangement. Here was likewise a col lection of pictures, fewer in nuraber, but more select in value, than those at Prince Y.'s — a Fra Bartolomeo very conspicuous : also a small antique room with sculptures from Pompeii, and mosaic pavement from the baths of Tiberius in the isle of Capri. But hidden glories were yet behind, for our hostess, who has the repute of being " un peu bizarre" not thinking it worth her while to display all the resources of her mansion for the Heir of all the 230 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIII. Russias, had refrained from lighting up her grandest reception-rooms till such time as the Emperor himself should be present. It seemed strange, in the midst of all this splendour, in which royalty raixed with so much conde scension, to reflect that our hostess had a son- in-law and daughter exiled for Ufe to Siberia for participation in the rebellion of 1826, and that she herself had not escaped either blame or punishment on that occasion ; though of her present restoration to Imperial favour there can be no question. The entertainments, however, which have been most successful this season, are the weekly balls of M. de L., the rich Armenian, whose lady, a Circassian by birth, and most decidedly so in physiognomy, presides with much grace. For these balls no regular in-vi tations are circulated, the fashion ha-dng ema nated from the court of giving the most costly fetes in a kind of impromptu manner. Madame L. is merely understood to receive on Thurs days, and her crowding guests find all the Letter XXIIL] MADAME L.'S BALLS. 231 apprits of the most splendid ball. The Impe rial family, if the expression may be allowed, had not been admitted to these soirees, but, in consequence of a condescending observation from his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Michael, " Tout le monde parle de vos jolis bals, Madame L. : pourquoi ne m'invitez-vous pas ? " the next Thursday was distinguished by his presence. But wherever the Grand Duke appears, he takes the strict disciplinarian with him. Before his Imperial Highness had been in the ball room half an hour he knit his brows with an ominous expression, and, striding up to a young officer who had just halted from the waltz, and was dreaming at that moraent of no other eyes in the world but his lady's, the Grand Duke startled hira with the uncomfortable words, " Vasche Sporne scMischkom glinie" — your spurs are too long — " Aux arrets :" and sent him without further parley from his partner's arms to the guardhouse. The Imperial frown and action, and the young man's discomfited retreat, were seen by many, and the incident 232 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIII. was soon buzzed in whispers round the room, greatly to the anxiety and annoyance of host and hostess. Such balls as these I have described, how ever brilliant and dazzling in relation, are not otherwise than very dull in reaUty; for here, as in France, society is so perversely constituted that no enjoyment is to be reaped save by infringing its rules. A "jeune per sonne," — in other words, an unmarried wo- mati — is considered a mere cipher in society, danced with seldom, conversed with seldomer, and under these circumstances looks forward to her mariage de convenance as the period which, as I have said before, is to coraraence that which it ought to close. From the day of her mar riage she is free — responsible to no one, so that she overstep not the rules of convention, for the liberty of her conduct ; while her husband is rather piqued than otherwise if her personal charms fail to procure her the particular atten tions of his own sex. " Personne ne lui fait la cour" is the most disparaging thing that can be said of a young wife. It is sad to see the Letter XXHL] GREAT FRIVOLITY. 233 difference in a short season from the retiring girl to one whose expression and manners seem to say that " Honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey sauce to sugar." Nor is it easy for an inexperienced young woman, gifted with domestic tastes, or marrying from affection, to stem the torrent of ridicule of those who would pull others down to justify themselves. This social evil is seen in the more glaring colours from the total absence of all rational tastes or literary topics. In other countries it is lamented, and with justice, that literature and education should be made the things of fashion — how infinitely worse is it when they are condemned by the same law ! In other countries all fashion, as such, is condemned as bad — how infinitely worse is it where the bad is the fashion ! Here it is absolute mauvais genre to discuss a rational subject — mere pidanterie to be caught upon any topics beyond dressing, dancing, and a "jolie tournure" The superficial accomplishments are so superficial- ised as scarcely to be considered to exist — Russia has no Uterature, or rather none to attract a fri- 234 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIII. volous woman : — and political subjects, with all the incidental chit-chat which the observances, anniversaries, &c., of a constitutional govem ment bring more or less into every private fa raily, it is needless to observe, exist not. What then remains ? Sad to say, nothing, absolutely nothing, for old and young, man and woman, save the description, discussion, appreciation, or depreciation of toilette — varied by a little cuisine and the witless wit called I'esprit du salon. To own an indifference or an ignorance on the subject of dress, further than a con ventional and feminine compliance, would be wilfully to ruin your character equally with the gentlemen as with the ladies ofthe society; for the former, from some inconceivable motive, will discuss a new bracelet or a new dress with as much relish as if they had hopes of wearing it, and with as great a precision of technical terms as if they had served at a marchand de modes. It may seem almost incredible, but here these externals so entirely occupy every thought, that the highest personage in the land, with the highest in authority under him, will Letter XXIIL] SUBJECTS OF CONVERSATION. 235 meet and discuss a lady's coiffure, or even a lady's corset, with a gusto and science as in comprehensible in them, to say the least, as the emulation of coachman slang in some of our own eccentric nobility. Whether, in a state where individuals are judged by every idle word, or rather where every idle word is literally productive of mischief, the blandishments of the toilet, from their political innocuousness, are considered safest ground for the detention of mis chievous spirits, I must leave ; but very certain it is that in the high circles of Petersburg it would seem, from the prevailing tone of conver sation, that nothing was considered more meri torious than a pretty face and figure, or more interesting than the question how to dress it. Added to this wearying theme, it is the bad taste of the day to indulge in an indelicacy of language which some aver to proceed frora the example of the court of Prussia, and which renders at times even the trumperies of toilet or jewellery rather a grateful change of subject. Let it not be imagined however that no individuals with intellectual tastes or culti- 236 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIII. vated rainds are to be found in these circles. On the contrary, it is an additional proof of the excellence of these gifts that, in an atraosphere where they may be said to be equally perse cuted and starved, there are many who cul tivate them as sedulously as they conceal them. It is not frora lack of education that the fri volity of the Russian women is derived, for their tuition is generally conducted with great care by those placed as preceptresses over them ; but such is the withering spell of fashion that a young woraan entering society is as anxious to hide the acquireraents as any other gauche ries of the school-room, and it must be said generally succeeds. Languages, which they imbibe in childhood, are the only demonstrations of acquireraent permitted. English is heard on all sides, though it is little gratifying to hear our sober tongue appHed to ideas by no raeans corre sponding. According to the stateraent of sorae elders of the society, things were very different be neath the studious reign of Catherine fl., and Leiter XXIIL] RUSSIAN WOMAN OF RANK. 237 the dignified benevolence of the late Empress Mother. Now, however, the habit of frivo lity is so strong that, by the rising generation especially, any deviation from the established topics is met with so real and innocent a mirth as almost to make one forgive its rais- application. How raany graceful beings are there in the circles I am describing " born for better things," and whom one longs to re move from a pernicious atmosphere ! By na ture the Russian woraan of rank is a most charming and winning creature — uniting both the witchery and the heroism of a French woman, and the seductiveness of an Asiatic, with an inherent grace and polish exclusively her own. How the same woraan can drill her noble heart and high spirit down to the pall ing ennui of a frivolity unrelieved by the sera blance of animation, and scarcely of mischief — to the mill-round of a senseless luxury, without comfort for its vindication or, art for its plea— is an enigma only to be solved in the Proteus-nature of human perversity. , But the Russian woman ought only to be seeu in other 238 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIII. lands : there she feels herself eraancipated ; and there, proverbially, she is one of the sweetest types of womankind. Speaking of dress, it must be remembered that this all paramount item in St. Petersburg is one purchased at greater expense than in any other fashionable capital. The Russian raanu factories are utterly eschewed by all of any pretensions in society, and foreign goods pay an amount of duty which doubles their price. The very cliraate induces, nay exacts, expenses which in other countries are optional. A demi- saison toilette, that entremets on fashion's board with which many dispense, is here ab solutely necessary. In short, there are endless necessary gradations between the winter's coat of mail and the summer's cobweb. Even in the livery of the servants these extremes of heat and cold induce expenses not known else where. The number of raen-servants in every room is a most striking feature. Here they lounge the day long, and are ready to obey the call from the suite within, for very few houses are fur- Letter XXIIL] MEN-SERVANTS. 239 nished with bells, and even in these cases the habit of calling is rather too strong to be omitted. One potent reason for the swarms of men-servants is, that a Russian establish ment acknowledges not that useful meraber called a housemaid — between the lady's-maid and the man-servant there is no intermediate link. These latter are all serfs, either the master's own, or those of another landed pro prietor, to whom they frequently pay more than half their wages for the freedora of serv ing in this capacity. Generally speaking, however, they are a happy, good-humoured, attached race, who wait upon a lady, and especially a young and a pretty one, with a chivalrous kind of devotion. The actual and immense distance between the two classes per mits of much seeming familiarity, on the same principle as the absoluteness of the monarchy extinguishes all etiquette. A young lady will call her man-servant ' hrat ' or brother ; ^and he will speak of and to her as ' Jelisavetta' Ivan ovna, or Elizabeth the daughter of John. If you drive to call on a married sister, you tell 240 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIIL the attendant not " to the Princess .," but " k' Marie Aleocandrovna" — to Marie daughter of Alexander. This custom is universal. The sons and daughters of the Imperial house are spoken of in the same manner. Michael Pav lovitch distinguishes the Grand Duke Michael from Michael Nicolaievitch, the little Grand Duke, son of the Emperor. The Empress is always designated as Alexandra Feodorovna, and the Grand Duchess Helen as Helena Pavlovna. This last-named illustrious lady, consort of the Grand Duke Michael, and by birth a Princess of Wirtemberg, has more particularly suffered from this present condemnation of all rational tastes. Endued by nature with a most studious and refiective mind, and educated with corresponding advantages, her Imperial High ness was thrown alone, at a very early age, into a court where such qualities, far from finding encouragement, hardly met with sufferance. Not her great personal beauty nor acknow ledged charm of manner could redeem the un popular circumstance of her heterodox tastes. Lettek XXllL] THE GRAND DUCHESS HELEN. 241 Of her it may be said, " qui de son age n'a pas I'esprit, de son age a tous les malheurs," for this inadaptation between the properties of her mind and the soil in which they were placed has exposed her Imperial Highness to trials, the peculiar painfulness of which may be better imagined than described. From a combination of circumstances the honour of admission to the presence of the Grand Duchess Helen was on several occasions allowed me. Owing to the delicacy of her health, as well as to her preference for retire ment, she had not appeared in public during the season. My first view of this lady was therefore in her own beautiful apartments in the Palais Michel. Her Imperial Highness is about two-and-thirty years of age, with a tall graceful person and great beauty of feature and complexion. Her three daughters were frequently with her. Their education, which has come under the Grand Duchess's -imme diate superintendence, has been conducted on a directly opposite system to that usually ob- VOL. II. M 242 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIH, served in the high circles of Petersburg, and has been successful in producing, or rather in retaining, those natural and bashful graces which are the best inheritance of youth. This was quite refreshing to witness after the arti ficial and premature ease, — the early and un becoraing self-possession of the children of the nobility, who, introduced from their tenderest years into the circles of society, lose much more than they gain by exchanging the charms of childhood for those of a more advanced age. The beauties, political and picturesque, of England, and the kindness she had there ex perienced, seemed favourite recollections -with her Iraperial Highness, while the condescen sion of her raanners, the polished intelligence of her conversation, and the inexpressible in terest attached to her person and history, have excited those in me which will never subside. May the future be rich in blessings to Helena Pavlovna ! The Palais Michel is one of the grandest edifices in Petersburg ; — the entrance-hall and Letter XXIIL] EMPEROR PAUL. 243 grand staircase are celebrated for their splen dour and extent. The birth of the Grand Duke Michael having taken place after the accession of the Emperor Paul, he inherited greater private property than any of his brothers. The death of the Emperor Paul is a sub ject now discussed without any great reserve. Owing to his tyrannical, or, it may better be said, insane excesses, beneath which no indi vidual in the empire could be considered safe, it was agreed upon for the public safety, and with the connivance of his eldest son, the late Alexander, to depose him from the govem ment and imprison hira for life. His imraense personal strength frustrated, however, all pos sibility of capture, while his recognition of the assailants rendered his murder necessary. Count Pahlen was the individual who stran gled him with his pocket-handkerchief, and bore ever after the sobriquet of S&hnupf- tuch Pahlen. If ahy one to this day ask, "Who was the Countess T. by birth?" the M 2 244 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIII. answer, as a matter of course, is, " The only child of Schnupftuch Pahlen." It is said that Alexander never shook off the sense of indirect participation in his father's murder, by which also all punishment of the perpetrators was interdicted to him. They were merely sent out of Russia to travel. Lan ke XX IV. J PREDOMINANCE OF THE MILITARY. 245 LETTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH. Prince Pierre Volkonski — Count Benkendorff — Count Nes selrode — ^Taglioni — ^The Empress — Madame Allan — The Russian theatre — The first Russian opera — Character istics of the three classes of society in Russia — Power of the monarch — Railroad to Zarskoe Selo — The Great Palace — Reminiscences of the Emperor Alexander — The Emperor's Palace — The Arsenal — General impressions. And now, having inspected the fair ranks of beauty in this capital, it raay be allowable to pass on to battalions of a hardier nature and older growth, whose martial figures and glit tering apparel greatly enhance the picturesque effect of every saloon. Indeed, such is the predominance of the military, that on entering society all the male guests, at first glance, ap pear to be enthralled in uniform, and ©nly on nearer inspection are the black shades of a few civilians seen gliding amongst them. In both classes — though as often as not civil and mili- 246 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. tary offices of equal importance are combined beneath the same gorgeous uniform — it is highly interesting to observe individuals whose names are interwoven with the history of Rus sian camps or Russian politics, and whom the mind has already invested with the halo of the past. Foremost in rank in the society of Peters burg stands the Prince Pierre Volkonski, Grand Ministre de la Cour, distinguished outwardly by his diamond insignia of office, and by a medal of the Winter Palace, set in magnificent dia monds, presented to him on the rebuilding of this edifice, both of which hang gleaming with his other decorations on the left side of the ample breast of his uniform. This prince has the direction of all the expenditure of the Imperial family — the office of arranging all entertainments and festivities : the immediate protection of the Empress's person also de volves on him, he being her official attendant at all public places and on all occasions of travel. It is he who has the charge of the crown jewels, and the care of providing the necessary sets of jewels for the daughters of Letter XXIV.] VOLKONSKI AND BENKENDORFF. 247 the Emperor as they attain womanhood. It was amusing to hear the good prince, who has a manly exterior and truly martial air, sigh over the expenses of the Grand Duchess Marie's late marriage — for by the Emperor's will she retains her maiden title — and calcu late what would be necessary for " Olga," and what "pour la femme de T Heritier." From the check which the prudence and respon sibility of Prince Pierre Volkonski sometimes place over the lavish expenditure of the court, and from his unceasing efforts to detect impo sition and lessen extravagance, this nobleman, like many another in the same situation, has at tracted much undeserved ill will to his person. Count Benkendorff is another raost conspicu ous character both in Russian history and in the Petersburg world. This nobleraan raay be cited as a rare instance of one who, while he is the intimate friend and confidant, in short, what may be termed the favourite, of the Em peror, is himself the most popular inan with all classes of his subjects ; and thus the con nection, both official and amical, which, ever 248 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. since the period of the accession^ has existed between the reigning sovereign and himself, is one equally honourable to both. By the union of the happiest tact, the profoundest discretion, and the soundest integrity, Count Benkendorff has obtained an influence with his Majesty which, exerted only on the side of humanity and benevolence, is hailed with pleasure by every one. In his more especial department as head of the secret police he has eamed for himself a confidence and affection which cer tainly no chef in this ominous capacity ever enjoyed before, and it is matter of universal gratulation throughout the empire that this office is placed in such hands. Count Benkendorff is brother to the late popular ambassadress to London, the Princess Lieven, Count Nesselrode is another distinguished individual of private popularity and public celebrity who enlivens these circles with his astute sense and playful wit. And many other great names might be spe cified if space allowed. Letter XXIV.] CONVERSATION. 249 It seems natural that individuals with whom pohtics necessarily occupy so large a portion of time and thought, who retum direct frora the senate, or from the private conference, to their domestic circles, should involuntarily continue the train of idea aloud. But such is the necessity or the habit of discretion, that not a word transpires to betray the occupa tion or the circle they have just quitted ; save perhaps to a wife or daughter — " L' Empereur t'a trouvee bien jolie hier au bal," or " t'a mise dilicieuse." Once, on occasion of a small dinner where Prince Volkonski, Count Benkendorff, the vene rable Prince Lubetski, and other distinguished characters, were united, the conversation fell upon the organisation of the senate — the diffi culty of expressing themselves in Russian, now the language of the state — the little practice which the nature of the govemment affords for addressing numbers ; — ^but of the matter there discussed, Gott behiite ! not one word. From the national enjoyment which Russians of all classes take in every species of scenic M 3 250 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXJV. diversion, the theatre is particularly a popular amusement. Taglioni is now the great star of attraction; and, caressee by the Imperial family, worshipped by the young nobles, applauded by overflowing audiences, and most munificently paid, this poetess of the ballet has every reason to be satisfied -with her northern visit. But poor Taglioni has suffered deeply here ; and, while she dances at night under the least possible encumbrance of gauze drapery, appears by day, her little girl in her hand, shrouded in the deepest widow's mouming— not for her husband, but for a lover, who it seeras had proved the raore constant friend of the two. At all events, there are not many in Petersburg who may throw stones ; — nor, to do them justice, do they seera disposed. Herself at the Grand Theatre, Madame Allan at the Theatre Michel, draw alternate crowds. Taglioni's most popular character is the Tyen, or rOmbre, in which she has danced sixty times in succession. Here she is introduced on the stage only to die in the first act by the jealous hand of a rival, and to re-appear during the Letter xxiv.] TAGLIONI THE EMPRESS. 251 rest as a mere airy spirit, in which capacity her ethereal movements and floating sylphlike graces, for which an earthly form seems too gross, have full play. Every winged bound, or languid glide, or clean-cut pirouette, was hailed with deafening applause ; the Emperor and his heir clapping their hands with all their might, and the vast parterre of military vocife rating her name, which, beneath the liquid open intonation of a Russian throat, was metamor phosed to a sound which must have struck as strangely upon her ear as upon my own. The decorative scenes of the great theatre are particularly magnificent. In the ballet of the Tyen, by a novel and most happy arrangement, the entire background of the stage was filled with an unbroken sheet of mirror, before which various figures moved in graceful cadence — or rather what appeared to be such — for the whole was an ocular deception brought about by an ingenious disposition of the figures, each of whom being accompanied and strictly mimicked in action hy a figure of exactly similar size and costume, with a sheet of transparent gauze 252 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. intervening, all the effect of reflection was produced. It occurred to few that the audience found no reflection in this apparent mirror. It was here that the only opportunity of see ing the Empress occurred — her Majesty's state of health forbidding her all other participation in the amusements of the season. And even here, in order to avoid the risk of exposure to the air, her Majesty arrived in her moming dress, being preceded by her waiting-women with several cartons which were visible in the with drawing-room behind the Imperial box, and where her Majesty attired herself for the evening. The theatres are all heated, and sometimes to an excessive degree — ^the ther mometer in our box standing at 82°. Her Majesty's malady appeared to be of a highly nervous nature, with an incessant restlessness of person and change of position. Her Majesty's person bore traces of syraraetry, but in her pre sent debilitated and eraaciated state it was irapossible to judge of her forraer personal attractions. The Iraperial family generally occupy a box Letter XXIV.] THE FIRST RUSSIAN OPERA. 253 next to the stage and contiguous to la loge Michel: opposite is a corresponding and simi larly decorated box set apart for le Ministre de la Cour. The centre state box is seldom resorted to, and was more frequently occupied by the Queen of one of the lately conquered Asiatic tribes, who resides in Petersburg upon a pension from the Crown— one whom a lively compa nion designated as " la vieillefee Carabosse," and who truly, in a fantastic oriental costume, and attended by ladies of the same style of physiognomy, appeared to preside over a very court of ugliness. In addition to his other numerous charges, the censorship of the theatres falls to the share of Count Benkendorff, who scrutinizes every play before its perforraance. Nevertheless the French theatre is not so select as to render that long habitude necessary to follow every word of a rapid French dialogue by ahy raeans desirable. Occasionally Taglioni's ballet gave place to a very different scene, both as respects actors and audience — namely, to the performance of a Russian opera, the first ever written, called 254 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. " Jishn za Zara," or " Your Life for your Zar :" the music by Glinki, the words by Baron Rosen. This opera, equally from the popu larity of the subject and the beauty and na tionality of the music, has met with the utmost success. The plot of the piece, as far as we could fathom it, was tbe concealment and sub sequent discovery of the true Zar, and his final coronation at Moscow, -with a splendid representation of the Kremlin. This is woven up with a love-tale, and rendered interesting by the fidelity of a fine old Russian with a long beard and a bass voice, who eventually pays for his adherence with his life. The music was strikingly national, and one trio in particular appeared to combine every peculiar beauty of Russian melody and pathos, and will doubtless acquire a European cele brity. It was very strange to see true Russians personating true Russians — gallery, pit, and stage being equally filled with the same bearded and caftaned figures. The national feeling seemed in every heart and on every lip ; any allusion to the Zar — and the subject was thickly strewn with them — was pronounced Letter XXIV.] THE REAL STRENGTH OF RUSSIA. 255 by the actors with the utmost animation, and responded to by electric shouts from the audience. Nor was there any casual induce ment for this "display of loyalty, for neither his Majesty nor any of the Imperial family were present. These are the scenes, more than any lux urious entertainment or miUtary parade, which reveal the strength of the Crown. From careful observation, and the judgment of those longer experienced, it would appear that the guarantees for the continued stability of Russia Ue exclusively in the person of the monarch and in the body of the people. In the nobility, whose elements of national cha racter fall far beneath those of his serf, the monarch finds no efficient help. Foreign edu cation and contact has, with a few brilliant ex ceptions, rendered thera adepts in the luxury and frivolity rather than in the humanity of civilization, or grafted them with democratic Utopian ideas that in no state, and least of all in Russia, can bring forth good fruit. The Emperor, therefore, has full ground for the double mistmst with which he views money 256 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. taken out of the empire and pernicious ideas brought in. Again, in the so-called middle class — here the mere excrescence of a partial civilization, who have renounced all of their nationality save its barbarity — all real support to the Crown seems still further removed. These occupy the lower departments of the state, clogging all straightforward dealing, perverting the real intention of the laws, and intercepting every humane Imperial act by the most cun ning and unprincipled dishonesty. What will be said of other and more important intentions of the Emperor when it is known that the snuflFbox destined to reward some act of bene volence, which leaves the Iraperial hands em bossed with diamonds, reaches those of its destined owner deprived of every stone ! And no redress is to be had under laws where an equal accumulation of formalities and liability to abuse meet the innocent at every turn. Despised by the nobles, this class retaliate by a species of persecution which it is impossible to guard against. No lion's mouth, or farailiars of the Inquisition, are needed in a state of things Letter XXIV.] FALSE DENUNCIATIONS. 257 where, ere a false denunciation can be sifted and dismissed, the denounced is equally ruined in purse and worn out with constant care ; and nowhere, sad to say, are denuncia tions of this kind so frequent as at this tirae in Russia — nowhere so tedious and ruinous in their exposure. Rank, consideration, long service, and high reputation are of no avail. Once an accusation is laid, however it raay bear the stamp of malice, it must distil through all the corkscrew windings of the Russian law, ere the property of the accused be released from sequestration, or his mind from the most corroding anxiety — and this done, there is neither compensation for the injured nor punishment for the injurer, who has thus cloaked his cupidity or revenge under the semblance of what the people honour most, viz. his loyalty. This class it is who have made the Russian courts of justice a byword and a proverb — who have called down upon Russia the unmerited sarcasm of being "paurrie avant d'etre mure" — while, by a natural retribution, the name of 258 LETTER S FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. Chinovnik, or the betitled (for these men are generally distinguished by an order), is fast becoming the synonym for low dishonesty and intrigue. The national proverb which says no Russian without " Chai, Tschi, and Chin" — ^tea, sour-krout, and a title— is perfectly true; but the sarcasm on the latter is derived frora the abuse of a noble principle. Peter the Great, the well- intentioned founder of this rage for orders in Russia, was right when he foresaw the venera tion with which the raass of the people would regard every individual invested with an in signia emanating direct from the sovereign, and calculated thereby on putting a wholesorae power into the hands of the middle ranks : but he reckoned too soon on the formation of this class, which, to be safe or to be useful, must be gradual and spontaneous in growth; and the careless and lavish hand with which orders have been distributed since his reign has only debased the distinction without elevating the possessor. It is predicted that, should any political con vulsion occur in Russia, this miserable class. Letter XXIV.] ZARSKOE SELO. 259 who suffer the double ill fate of ideas below, their station, and a station above their raain tenance, would meet with the nobility in jarring coUision, and with equal danger to both, while the Crown, firmly seated in the instinctive loyalty of the people, would have nought to fear. By a providential adaptation which sur passes all speculation of legislative philosophy, the people of Russia venerate their sovereign simply because he is absolute. With them respect for the anointed sovereign is a religion ; and to restrict him by human ordinances would be to strip him of his divine credentials. What Zar has yet been dethroned or murdered by an act of the people ? What a magnificent engine, thus weighted, is the power of a Russian sovereign ! With the mind filled by the absoluteness of his sway, and the eye possessed by the magnificence of his person, Nicholas I. seems too grand a combination for mortal ken. But these are subjects beyond my intention. Let me now resume my outward life. A day has been devoted to Zarskoe Selo — 260 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Lettek XXIV. Hterally Imperial village ; to which a railroad from Petersburg offers the easiest access. It was a sharp frost with a beautiful sun, the steam pouring off against a hard bright sky. The moment of starting being delayed, we quitted the carriage to hasten to the station- house. Here was congregated together that picturesque crowd which the variety of Russian costumes always offer : — officers in grey mili tary cloaks — women with every bright colour on their persons — priests in Rembrandt colour and costume — Mougiks with aquiline noses and long beards, and even a Russian specimen of Pickwick ! We placed ourselves in the fourth carriage, commodiously fitted up with soft easy seats, and, pulling down the glass, braved the frost for a short time to contemplate the peculiarity of the landscape. Russia is the country for railroads — no hills, no vales — no beautiful parks to intersect — no old family hearts to break. On either hand was a plain of snow, so devoid of object as hardly to indicate the swiftness of our movements. Above half-way appeared in the distance a cas- Letter XXIV.] THE GREAT PALACE. 261 teUated mansion, where Catherine II. was wont to relax from the Empress ; and upon the hori zon was the slight but only elevation of Zarskoe Selo. The distance, about twenty-five wersts, we accomplished in twenty minutes. Alighting, we took to an open sledge, and drove to the great palace, which presents a long and dull front decorated with figures and pilasters, formerly covered with gilding, now replaced by yellow paint. This palace has, since Alexander's death, been abandoned by the Imperial faraily, and is therefore bare of furniture, though with great richness of walls and floors ; the former either in siraple white and gold, or hung with rich silks — the latter parqueted in the most graceful designs and tender colours, still as fresh as when first laid down. The two apartments of most attraction were the lapis-lazuli room, where strips of this stone are inlaid into the walls, with a few slabs and tables of the same ; and the amber roora, where the walls are literally panelled with this raaterial in various architectural shapes; the arms of Frederic the Great, by whom it was presented to Catherine II. , being moulded in 262 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. different compartments, with the Imperial cipher, the Russian E., for Ekaterina. Two grand ball-rooms were also conspicuous, the upper end of each being occupied by a collec tion of the raost splendid china vases placed on circular tiers up to the ceiling, and designated by the sarae Iraperial E. The whole palace respired recollections of Catherine II. There were her private rooms, with the sniall door communicating with the reigning favourite's apartments ; and the gentle descent leading into the garden by which she was wheeled u]) and down wheil infirmitj' had deprived her of the use of her limbs. But the sentiment of the edifice dwelt in the simple rooras of the late Emperor Alexander, whom all remember with affection, and speak of with melancholy enthusiasm. His apart ments have been kept exactly as he left them when he departed for Taganrog. His writing- cabinet, a small light room with scagliola walls, seemed as if the Imperial inmate had just turned his back. There was his writing-table in confusion — his well-blotted case— the pens black with ink. Through this was his simple Letter XXIV.] THE EMPEROR'S PALACE. 263 bed- room, where in an alcove, on a slight camp bedstead with linen coverlet, lay the fine person and troubled heart of poor Alexander. On one side was the small table with the Uttle green morocco looking-glass — his siraple En- lish shaving apparatus — his brushes, combs— a pocket-handkerchief marked Z. 23. On a chair lay a wom military surtout — beneath were his raanly boots. There was soraething very painful in these relics. If preserved by fraternal affection, it seems strange that the same feeling should not shield them from stranger eyes and touch. The palace ofthe Emperor Nicholas, originally built, upon the marriage ofher grandson Alex ander, by the Empress Catherine, excited very different feelings. It was simpler in decoration than many a noble's at Petersburg, clean as possible, and Hght with the rays of the bright winter's sun. The only objects on the plain walls of the great drawing-room were a small print of Admiral Sir E. Codrington, and the busts of the seven Imperial children in infantine heauty. The Emperor's own room, in point of heavy writing-tables and bureaux, was that of 264 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. a man of business, but his military tastes peeped through all. Around on the walls were arranged glass cases containing models of the different cavalry regiments, executed, man and horse, with the greatest beauty, and right, as a miU tary attendant assured us, to a button; and this it seems is the one thing needful. Paint ings of military manoeuvres and stiff squares of soldiers were also dispersed through his apartments. Leaving this, we proceeded to the arsenal, a recent red brick erection in EngUsh Gothic, in the form of raany an old English gatehouse, and a most picturesque object in the most picturesque part of these noble gardens. Here a few weather-beaten veterans reside, who, peeping at our party through the latticed windows, opened the arched doors, and, once within, to an antiquarian eye, all was enchant ment. For several successions the Russian sovereigns have amassed a collection of armour and curious antique instruraents. These have been increased in the reign of his present Majesty, who erected his building purposely for their reception, and intrusted their classifi- Letter XXIV.] THE ARSENAL. 265 cation and arrangement to an EngUshraan : and truly that gentleraan has done credit to the known antiquarian tastes of his own land. It would be impossible to enumerate the objects here preserved, consisting chiefly of ancient arraour, weapons and accoutrements of every description, for man and horse, from every warlike nation both Christian and idolater. Figures in armour giiard the entrance and lead the eye along the winding staircase, whence you enter a lofty circular vaulted hall, with oak flooring, and walls hung round with car bines, lances, &c., in fanciful devices, and where, placed on high pedestals in a circle round the room, are eight equestrian figures in full accoutrements and as large as life; like our kings in the Tower. Between these you pass on to various little alcoves or oratories with groined ceiling and stained window, whose light falls on the gorgeously wrought silver cross or precious missal of sorae early pope-»-or on the diaraond-and-pearl-woven trappings of pre sent Turkish luxury ; or on the hunting-horn, with ivory handle of exquisitely carved figures, VOL. II. N 266 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV. of some doughty German Markgraf of the olden time — or on the jousting instruments and other playthings of the araazons of Catherine II.'s court. But this pleasant arsenal, the only meraento in this capital of modem objects and ephemeral fashions which recals the past, would require a volume to itself, and offers inexhaustible interest to the artist in mind, and a very treasury of beautiful subjects to the artist in profession. By coraraand of the Emperor a most careful and elaborate delineation of its contents, by the best artists of the day, and under the direction of M. Velten of Petersburg, is going forward ; — to appear in numbers, of which at present only two have been completed, and of each only two copies printed, the one belonging to his Majesty, the other to Count Benkendorft". These are the most exquisite specimens of dra-wing and emblazonry, and offer an interest only second to that of the arsenal itself. But the price is high — five hundred roubles a number. Leaving this building, we passed on through Letter XXIV.] GARDENS QF ZARSKOE SELO. 267 the extensive gardens of Zarskoe Selo, where a graceful distribution of grounds, though hidden with several feet of snow, and lofty groups of trees, though laden only with the sparkling white foliage of a Russian winter, give presage of the many beauties that summer will awaken. On the one hand was the tower of l' Heritier — an ornamental building in several stories, where this young prince resided with his preceptors, and studied, played, mealed, and slept in different stages. On the other hand were the baby-houses of the young Grand Duchesses, where they carried on a raimic menage. According to all accounts the child hood of the Iraperial children approached nearer to the fairy times of wishing and having than would be well credited. With the bright spirit of perpetual amusement for their raother, and the formidable genius of absolute power for their father, these children seemed to mark the progress of age only by the variety send un limitedness of their pastimes. This applies, hciwever, more to the daughters of the house, who were the envy of all their juvenile contem- N 2 268 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXIV, poraries : with the sons the application of military discipline formed the boundary of personal indulgence. It has been the fashion in Russia, and the im pression has even crept to foreign countries, to extol the domestic life and habits of the present Imperial faraily. But it would appear as if the coraplete familiarity, both between the members of the family itself and in their manners towards others, which the absence of etiquette permits, has been mistaken for a simplicity from which it is far removed. For it is not easy to recon cile the idea of domestic tastes and habits with the entire discouragement of all rational occu pations, and the ceaseless thirst for amusement. Of the Empress it is said, as of many other ladies in Petersburg — "Elle est bonne femme, elle aime ses enfans ;" but now by some in these private circles even this " damning with faint praise" is substituted for less guarded expressions. As for the Emperor, his high raorai character has been the pride of the Russian world ; and though much is now whispered to invalidate Letter XXIV,] THE EMPEROR'S MORAL CHARACTER. 269 this opinion, yet, by one ofthe lightest and prettiest women in the high circles, it was said of him, with an accent of entire sincerity, " // ne peut pas itre leger; il vous dit tout crument qu'il vous trouve jolie, mais rien de plus." Nevertheless, in her Majesty's place, I should rather mistrust this passion for masked balls ! 270 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXV. LETTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH. -yisit to the Ateliers of Briilloff, Baron Klot, M. Jacques, M. Ladournaire — The Isaac's Church — M. le Maire — Gallery of Prince Belozelsky — Tauride Palace — Church of Smolna, and adjacent institutions — Procession of young girls in court carriages — -Winter aspect of the streets — Night drives — Lent and farewell. After our expedition to Zarskoe Selo, ano ther day was devoted to seeing those objects in Petersburg which are worthy every tra veller's attention, and yet lie not in the tra veller's regular routine. We commenced with the ateliers of the different modern artists. In this expedition Prince V. was my escort, whose taste for art is proportioned to the other fine qualities with which Nature has so la-vishly gifted hira. It was a beautiful day — the ther moraeter 6° below zero ; and yet, wrapped in furs, the still, clear air was not otherwise than LbttekXxv.] brulloffs atelier. 271 agreeable. We first proceeded to the Academy of Arts, on the Wassili-Ostrof, and entered Briilloff's great working-room. Here various studies and half-finished pictures engaged our attention, especially an Ascension of the Virgin, with seraphs and eherubims — a large, arched picture, destined for an altar-piece. However beautiful in form, and orthodox, artistically speaking, in composition, there was something about this picture which indicated rather the restraint than the indulgence of Briilloff's genius, which, to our -view, seemed fitted for forms and expressions less celestial, for move ments more rapid, and for colouring more florid. And on removing to his lodgings, in another part of the Academy, where, unfor tunately, the spirit of the chamber was absent, our surmises were verified ; for here, scattered about, were the freer emanations of his pen cil : groups of dancing, figures, with all the flow of Rubens — sultanas couched in every languid attitude — animals, elephants and dog^ — all touched with that freedom and fire which forms the chief charm of his great picture, the 272 letters from the Baltic. [Letter xxv. Fall of Pompeii. BruUoflTs personal character is not good. According to my noble com panion's brief sentence — " BruUoff est comme Guido, mechant homme, mais grand artiste." Thence to the atelier of Baron Klot, an Es tonian nobleman and old militaire, who, as if his genius had slumbered till the evening of life should give it leisure, has, without the ad vantages of foreign study, produced works in sculpture surpassed by no modem artist. A bronze horse, in full action, with lion's skin and paws hanging over, restrained by a stand ing figure, in equal energy and development of form, was fit to take its place by the side of Falconnet's statue of Peter the Great, and of fered in every aspect the grandest outline. On the floor, in the act of gilding, lay figures of seraphs, with expanded wings, ten feet in height, destined to surround the upper dome of St. Isaac's Church, whither a few of these statues have already taken flight, looking from below scarce larger than golden eagles. From Baron Klot's most interesting studio we passed on to that of M. Jacques, another Letter XXV.] M. JACQUES.— M. LADOURNAIRE. 273 sculptor, now engaged on a colossal figure of Peter the Great, thirty feet high, placed on a pedestal, with a truncheon in his hand, which, when cast in bronze, is to occupy a conspicuous position at the entrance of Cronstadt harbour. We surprised M. Jacques at his work, who showed us the utmost courtesy and attention. The room of M. Ladournaire, a painter of portraits and subject-pictures, next claimed our attention. The principal object of attrac tion was a large picture, painted by coramand of the Emperor, representing the inauguration of the Alexander's column, on which occasion a re-new of a hundred thousand troops took place. On the right is the Winter Palace, treated, as the character of its architecture warrants, in the Canaletti manner. For that day, a teraporary balcony from the second floor of the palace, with awnings, and a mag nificent sweep of steps on either hand, was erected ; where are seen the persons of the Empress and her court, and where, though reduced to figures not above an inch long, we recognised many acquaintances. On the left N 3 274 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXV. is seen the column in question, and between these two chief objects is the dusty review -^the figures of the Emperor, with Count Ben kendorff and others of his general aides-de camp, in the foreground. Considering the disadvantage of the subject, M. Ladournaire has rendered it unusually picturesque and in teresting. Another subject of greater interest was that of the Heritier taking the oaths of allegiance to his father on attaining his twenty-first year. On this occasion the young prince showed much of that gentleness of nature which his countenance evinces ; and when he came to the words " et quand le Seigneur m'enlevera mon pere," his eraotion almost overcame him. All unite in extolling the kindness of heart and gentleness of spirit -with which the Heritier of Russia is endowed. This Acaderay seeras in every way to carry out the intention of its foundress. The various ateliers we had visited, all spacious and appro priate, are furnished by this institution to its members, while the education and foreign Letter XXV,] THE ISAAC'S CHURCH. 275 study of every pupil of promise is also given gratuitously. We now retraced our steps over the Isaac's bridge, and entered the circle of temporary buildings with which the great Isaac's Church, which the Russians already designate as the Sabor, or cathedral, is surrounded. Never was pure Corinthian seen beneath so piercing a climate; and yet the clearness and transpa rency of the atmosphere were such, that, to the organ of vision alone, it might have been mis taken for the heated and glowing sky of Greece. This building is in the form of an equal cross, -with four grand entrances, approached by a flight of granite steps, each whole flight in one entire piece ; but, after the Alexander's coluran, this is nothing for Petersburg. We entered the transept fronting the Neva, which is also the most advanced towards completion. This alone is a building of enormous magnitude, on too large a scale for us human pigmies, unless we except this magnificent Emperor. The vastness of the whole edifice, when completed, may therefore be conjectured. The original 276 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXV. design of the cathedral at Cologne is not nearly so gigantic. The erabeUishments of the fagade and windows are intrusted to other sculptors, who share with those we have mentioned in this grand task. The atelier of M. le Maire, a French sculptor engaged for this purpose, was close by ; the department assigned to him is the group of figures on the pediment of one of the fagades — the subject the Angel at the Torab, with the Magdalen and other female figures on the one side, and the terrified sol diers, in every attitude of consternation, on the other : the figures eight feet in height. These are all to be in bronze-gilt, though, to increase the relief of the figures, M. le Maire intends suggesting to the Iraperial sanction whether it would not be expedient to leave the back ground of the pediment the colour of the metal. Having thus taken an aggregate of the art ists whom Russia has sent forth from her own acaderay, or summoned from others, we bent our course along the length of the Nevsky to the residence of Prince Belozelsky. This no- Letter xxv.] THK BELOZELSKY GALLERY. 277 bleman possesses a fine gallery of paintings, collected by his father, a connoisseur of esta blished fame, during a long residence in Italy. A splendid Guido, Mercury and Flora strew ing the distant earth with roses, and drawn with cords by fluttering Cupids, is the chef- d'oBu-vre of the collection. A sraall sketch by Raphael of the Murder of the Innocents ap peared to me to possess all the beauties of that master. Two Gaspar Poussins, two Breughels of unusual size, were among the most remark able. But the gallery is in great disorder, and, being unheated, the pictures are suffering from the inclemency of the atmosphere. Princess Belozelsky, whose beauty I have before alluded to, is now sitting to Mrs. Robinson, our Eng lish artist, who is earning golden opinions in the high circles for the beauty and grace of her portraits. This lady is also engaged upon a full-length of the Empress. Hence we proceeded to the Tauride Palace, presented by Potemkin to Catherine II. — the latest sovereign on European record who has accepted such a gift from a favourite. This 278 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXV. building is now dedicated to the residence of a few superannuated ladies of the court. The entrance saloon is occupied by a collection of antique marbles, and in the centre stands a temple, in form like the temple of Vesta, with malachite pillars and inlaid jasper floor, ca pable of containing about six persons, and des tined, not as the seat (for in Russian places of worship none sit), but as the standing-plac^ of honour of the Emperor — to be placed within that most worthy outer temple the Isaac's Church : this is the gift of M. Demidoff. Through the Salle des Antiques we passed to the grand ball-room, — where Potemkin gave a fete to the Empress, and where the musicians were suspended in the chandeliers, — which terminates in a vast semicircle, fiUed with orange and pomegranate trees, interspersed with marble statues. The church of Smolna now claimed our at tention — a magnificent pile in white marble, with les institutions pour les files nobles on either hand, each with chapel adjoining, on the same scale as the church, and connected Letter XXV.] THE SMOLNA CHURCH. 279 with a gorgeous iron railing. We entered, — • and the peculiarity of the scene arrested our steps — for no object met our view save walls and columns of polished, dazzling white mar ble. Passing on, the three altars appeared, or rather the massive screens, of bronze-gilt vine- leaves, grapes, and ears of corn intertwined, which concealed them. The altar-steps and pavement were of porphyry, the altar-railings crystal. A velvet canopy on the one hand betokens the Emperor's place, and on the other a marble tablet records the benevolent life of the late Empress-mother, who founded the adjoining institutions. But these were the only objects which broke the grand monotony of white marble. The choristers sing from the heights of the pillars, the narrow overhanging ledge being protected by invisible railings. The church was of a most agreeable temperature (or rather where is the Russian edifice that is not?); this is maintained by twenty-four stoves, heated without intermission. Emerging, we encountered thirty of the 280 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXV. court carriages, in grand trappings, proceeding at a foot-pace, and bearing the young ladies of the adjoining convents, who on this only day of the year parade slowly through the streets, and are allowed to have such a peep of the world as may be had through the clouded glasses of a coach, and in the presence of a superior. Four of these young creatures were in each coach, attended by an elder. And now by this time we were almost as sick of sight-seeing as, doubtless, you are ; and with sharpened appetites, cloaks laden with icicles, and cheeks tinged -with the brightest crimson, we returned to the luxurious mansions of the great in Petersburg. However we may impugn the severity and implacability of a Russian frost, yet there is something inexpressibly exhilarating in this continuance of serene, sunny weather, which sheds a hazy brightness over the picturesque street and canal scenery of this capital, and decks the distant snow perspective in alternate stripes of yellow lights and lilac shadows. As many sledges are now seen gUding upon the Letter XXV.] A DRIVE BY NIGHT. 281 canals as in the streets — as many passing under as crossing over the numerous bridges. A constant warfare, however, is going forward with the ice ; for bands of peasants are hewing and extracting great blocks — destined for the summer's ice-houses, or intended to alleviate the violence of the thaw's inundation, — and thence are seen filing through the streets on rough sledges, composedly leaning or sitting on their cold, transparent loads. There is a peculiar pleasure in passing from one quarter of this vast capital to another by night, in an open sledge, with one fiery horse and a trusty coachman, crossing from the is lands the gloomy Neva, which is lighted by lamps, just directing your track; with the huge outline, spiked with scaffolding, of the Isaac's Church, rising dull against the sky, and the Winter Palace before you streaked with brightly lighted arched windows, framed in yellow or crimson draperies. « Thence through the streets, less lighted by their oil- lamps than by the illuminated palaces of the nobiUty ; while here and there a crush of car- 282 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXV. riages, and bright flaring tongues of flames from vessels of oil placed on the pavement, be token a gala within. Arid so onwards through the Champ de Mars ; on the one hand, the flickering, shooting coruscations of an aurora, bright as the rising sun, the almost nightly phenomenon of this latitude— and on the other the glare of a fire in the suburbs, which, frora the nuraber of old wooden houses still left, and the proverbial Russian carelessness, is al most as frequent an occurrence. And now the horse rushes swiftly forward, disturbing thoughts which have wandered, they know not how, from these fires of heaven and earth to homes in England, and that scarce less than home in Estonia ; and the air meets your face with the sharpness of an instrument, while, re gardless of the deep furrows of the long-worn ice, the generous animal continues his speed till the little sledge mounts and descends like a bark on a bounding wave ; and you are fain to hook one finger into the coachman's broad silken belt to keep your equilibrium. At all fires of any importance, the Emperor, Letter XXV.] UBIQUITY OF THE CROWN, 283 who appears to perform the real labour of any three men in his own person, and to possess a frame and a will of the same metal, is a con stant attendant. Also here, as at the masked balls, some of his principal officers are sum moned as a part of their service ; sometimes with such trial, from fatigue and exposure to cold, to their physical powers, as to induce the unloyal wish that his Majesty's were a little less vigorous. But it seeras a prevailing principle with the Crown to interpose its presence, or an eamest of its presence, in every circurastance of life, whether usual or accidental,— to prove to its subjects the indispensability of its help — to maintain literally the relation of parent and child — and by retaining its hold over every department, and raaking that a favour which we should consider a right, to facilitate the immediate exertion of its power. With the army this is conspicuously the case. The officer whose strict pay is so paltry that it is far from defraying the expenses of his wife's wardrobe, receives in addition what is called 284 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXV. Tafel-geld, or table-money ; for, like the sol diers, he is supposed to be boarded at the Em peror's expense, and besides this raay expect an annual present, either frora his Majesty or the Grand Duke Michael, equal about in amount to his pay. Lodging and furniture are also provided him. The higher officers con nected with the state, especially, occupy mag nificent residences belonging to the Crown, and furnished with proportionate splendour. Such is the extent of Count 's superb hotel, one of the Crown residences just mentioned, that a subaltern constantly resides in the house in order to superintend the necessary repairs. If ¦ a chimney sraokes, or a window is broken, or a nail requires to be placed, this crown servant is suraraoned. But these subjects, trivial as they may ap pear, are connected with the very well-springs of Russian policy, and therefore not within the vocation of these letters. Meanwhile, the Carni val, or what is here termed the Maslenitza — lite rally the Butterwoche, or Butter-week — when the fatiguing round of amusement is redoubled Letter XXV,] CARNIVAL,— LENT, 285 — when masked balls are more frequent and more full — when the theatres are open both morning and evening— when the grand Place before the Winter Palace is occupied by the Montagnes Russes, and by the Katcheli, or Russian merry-go-rounds — and when the streets throng with that unusual feature in Petersburg, a crowd of pedestrians — this happy time for so raany is corae and gone : and in its place, Lent, with its church-going and fasting — when con certs and tableaux constitute the sole entertain raents — when the Gerraan theatre alone is open — when raeat and butter, eggs and milk, are all forbidden, and your tea and coffee are only mollified by the extract of alraonds — when all the outward apparel of a feast goes forward, but your dishes are only an ingenious varia tion of fish and oil, flour and water ; or if a more nutritious ingredient, or more' savoury taste, find its way in, it is at the expense of the cook's conscience, and not your own ; — Lent, when those who before had feasted, or before had starved, all now equally fast, and from which only the foreigner or the invalid is 286 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. [Letter XXV, exempt, has now commenced its seven weeks' reign. And with the vanished gaieties of this gay est and dullest of all capitals the sober writer of these letters must also pass away — to retain a sincere adrairation for the intrinsic eleraents of Russia — the deepest interest in its welfare — the highest faith in its destiny ; — ^but also the reluctant conviction that, at this present time, Russia is the country where the leamed man wastes his time, the patriot breaks his heart, and the rogue prospers. THE END. London : Prmted by William Clowes and Sohb, Stamford Street. Albemarle Street, October, 1841. NEW AND INTERESTING WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 1. BIBLICAL RESEARCHES IN PALESTINE, MOUNT SINAI, AND ARABIA PETR^A ; being a Journal of Travels in the Year 1838, undertaken in reference to Biblical Geography. By the Rev. Dr. Robinson and the Rev. Eli Smith. Drawn up from Notes made on the spot, with Historical Illustrations by Ed wabd Robinson, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature in the New York Seminary, With New Maps and Plans of Jerusalem, Palestine, and Mount Sinai. 3 vols. 8vo., iSs. " This work, by its numerous discoveries and new investigations, will be of lasting value for the knowledge of the East, and for the historical part of theological study. It contains in itself the materials for an en tire transformation of the Cartography of Palestine, hitherto so defective, as is proved by the very important maps already constructed, founded on the new observations afforded by this joumey. These, as an accom paniment to the text, give the latter a peculiar value which can be re garded only as highly desirable.'' — Professor Carl Ritter of BerUn. II. INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN CENTRAL AMERICA, CHIAPAS, AND YUCATAN. By John L. Stephens, Author of " Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land," &c. With 78 Engravings, 2 vols. 8vo., 32s. "Mr. Stephens is favourably known to the reading public for his lively, rattling, off-hand ' Incidents of Travel iu Egypt, Asia Minor, Russia,' &c. The present work, however, is of a much higher character, possessing all the dashing vivacity and animation of the author, molli fied by experience, with the great advantage of being exercised in a new field and under highly favourable circumstances." — Spectator, " We must deny ourselves the pleasure of making further extracts at present. We shall, however, return to Mr. Stephens's book ; to ex haust it would be impossible, as we are still far from having reached the end of the first volume, and the second is even richer in matter." — AtheniBum. Ill, AN EXCURSION IN ASIA MINORiN 1838: includ ing a Visit to several Unknown Cities. By Chables Fellows, Esq. With Plates, Map, and Woodcuts. Imperial Octavo, 28j, IV. DISCOVERIES MADE IN ANCIENT LYCIA ; being a Journal of a Second Excursion in Asia Minor. By Chablbs| Fellows, Esq. With Plates, Maps, and Woodcuts, Imperial Octavo, 21. 2». NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. V, A HISTORY OF INDIA: The Hindoo and Maho medan Periods. By the Hon. Mountstuabt Elphinstone. With a large Map. 2 vols. Svo. 30*. " Mr. Elphinstone's work will, we trust, be eminently useful, and tend to dispel much of that confusion, prejudice, and apathy which still linger inthe minds even of many highly-educated persons on the . subject of Ancient India." — Quarterly Review, Sept. 1841. VL A RESIDENCE AMONG THE NESTORIAN CHRIS TIANS SETTLED IN OOROOMIA, and among the Mountains of Koordistan, in Ancient Assyria and Media, with Evidence of their Identity with the Lost Tribes of Israel. By Asahel Grant, M.D. With a Map, 8vo.,'8s. 6rf. " Dr. Grant's volume is an important accession to our stores of geo graphical knowledge, and we hope it will receive what it richly de serves, an extensive circulation and an attentive perusal." — Church of England Quarterly Review. VII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS : including their Religion, Agriculture, &c. Derived from a comparison of the Paintings, Sculpliires, and Monuments still existing, with the accounts of ancient Authors. By Sir J. Gasdneb Wilkinson. Second Series. 3 vols. 8vo., 3/. 3s. VIIL JOURNEY TO THE SOURCE OF THE RIVER oxus, by way of the Indus, Kabul, and Badakhshan. By Lieutenant John Wood (Indian Navy). With a Map. 8vo., I4s." IX. A RIDE ON HORSEBACK THROUGH FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND, TO FLORENCE. By Mrs. Dalkeith Holmes. 2 vols, post Svo. In the Press, X. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. ByLoRDBTRON, A New and beautifully Illustrated Edition, with Engravings by Finden, from Original Drawings by Erainent Artists. Royal 8vo,, 21. 2s. XL ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS : Historical and Ro- rnantic. Translated, with Notes, by J. G. Lockhart, Esq. Embel- lished ill a New and perfectly Original manner. Quarto, richly bound, 21. 2s.