ing so inconceivably rapid. You may literally see | seldom deepening into wise and tender thoughts; 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 while 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 verdant twi-praise the book too highly. light 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 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."

utmost impatience to be off again. The two centre shapen machine with soft crown and bangled peak, Deichsel Pferde, or pole-horses, are fastened firmer, which can't be hurt, and never looks in order, over and the middle of the track being always the best, which are suspended as many veils-green, white, the most spirited of the Baron's stables are generally and black-as mamma's cast-off stores can furnish, placed here, while the side horses take the luck of through which the brightest little pair of eyes in the the road, jumping over loose drifts, or picking their world faintly twinkle like stars through a mist. And way with their delicate feet over any road-side en- now one touch upsets the whole mass, and a mancumbrance, and with their graceful necks and gleam-servant coolly lifts it up in his arms like a bale of goods and carries it off to the sledge."

ing eyes at full liberty, are never frightened, and never at a loss to extricate themselves from any difficulty. Hedges and walls are the destruction of sledging roads; wherever there is a barrier, there the snow collects, and a line of battened fence, here the usual partition, will ruin the track-sunk ditches are the only mode of divisions advisable for snow countries. The intelligence of the coachman is no less surprising than that of his horses: regardless of the summer line of road, he steers straight over bank, river, and morass, for his object, and like a bird of passage seldom misses the mark. Thus it is that in the dull long season of winter, when friends are most wanted, they are here brought closest together; for the same morass which in summer is circumnavigated by a drive of twenty wersts may in winter be crossed by one of half an hour's duration."

And, in connexion with this, borrow an exquisite picture of

ESTHONIAN CHILDREN DRESSED FOR TRAVEL.

will be gathered from what is said of
Some idea of the graver contents of the Letters

THE PEASANTRY OF ESTHONIA.

the greater part of the province-which suffer a con"On those estates-including unfortunately by far stant exchange of proprietors, and where no feelings of attachment between master and peasant have time to take root, or where feelings of an opposite nature are engendered by harsh and arbitrary treatment, we find the peasant a dull brute indeed; insensible to a kindness he mistrusts,-careless of improvement improvident as the Irishman, without his wit-and phlegmatic as the German without his industry. Rather than work beyond the minimum of his necessary Corvéage, he will starve. Provided he can have a pipe in his mouth, and lie sleeping at the bottom of his cart, while his patient wife drives the willing little rough horse, or, what is more frequent, while "This is conducted somewhat on the same princi- an empty stomach. Offer him wages for his labour, the latter will go right of itself, he cares little about ple as the building of a house-the foundations being and he will tell you, with the dullest bumpkin look, filled with rather rubbish materials, over which a firm that if he works more he must eat more; and the structure is reared. First came a large cotton hand-fable of the belly and the members has here a differkerchief-then a pelisse, three years too short-then a faded comfortable of papa's, and then an old cache-On the other hand, on those few estates which have ent termination to what it had in our young days. mire of mamma's, which latter was with difficulty been occupied for several generations by the same forced under the vanishing arms and tied firmly behind. Now each tiny hand was carefully sealed family, the peasants appear invariably an active, inwith as many pairs of gloves as could be gathered and ingenious in various trades. So much for the dustrious, and prosperous set,-attached to their lord, together for the occasion,-one hand (for the nurse-law of primogeniture;-a doctrine here hardly better maids are not very particular) being not seldom understood than the apostolic succession. But what more richly endowed in this respect than its fellow. The same process is applied to the little can a people know of real independence, living thus feet, which swell to misshapen stumps beneath an crimes the Esthonian is a coward; he seldom gets twofold under foreign subjection? In his very accumulation of under-socks and over-socks, undershoes and over-boots, and are finally swallowed up tion-regarding it as no crime to steal that which beyond pilfering, and here makes a curious distincin huge worsted stockings, which embrace all the cannot squeak or bleat in its own defence. Thus a drawers, short petticoats, ends of handkerchiefs, comfortables, and shawls they can reach, and are pig or a sheep would be the height of iniquity, while generally gartered in some incomprehensible fashion venial sins. Other crimes he has few, and murder is a Kümmet of corn, or an Eimer of brandy, are very round the waist. But mark!-this is only the foun- unknown. The penal list of this last year offers dation. Now comes the thickly-wadded winter pe- only eighty-seven misdemeanours in a population of lisse, of silk or merino, with bands and ligatures above three hundred thousand peasants, and five of which instantly bury themselves in the depths of the these consist merely in travelling without a passport. surrounding hillocks, till within the case of clothes In this respect also the Esthonian's conscience is so before you, which stands like a roll-pudding tied up tender that the legislature allows no punishment to ready for the boiler, no one would suspect the slender be enforced till a voluntary confession has been made skipping sprite that your little finger can lift with well knowing that no Esthonian can be long withease. And lastly, all this is enveloped in the little jaunty silk cloak, which fastens readily enough round the neck on ordinary occasions, but now refuses to meet by the breadth of a hand, and is made secure by a worsted boa of every bright colour. "Is this all? No-wait. I have forgotten the pretty clustering locked head, and rosy dimpled face; and in truth they were so lost in the mountains of wool and wadding around as to be fairly overlooked. Here a handkerchief is bound round the forehead, and another down each cheek, just skirting the nose, and allowing a small triangular space for sight and The amusing character of some of the surviving respiration-talking had better not be attempted-superstitions, which are still strong among the lower while the head is roofed in by a wadded hat-a mis-orders though the gentry have been in great mea

out making a clean breast. Not so his lofty and
lively neighbour, the Russian; whose legislature
might whistle for his voluntary confession. Serf
though he be, he is a very Saracen iu independence;
and his list of crimes would make a wild Newgate
Calendar. The same conscientiousness, however,
which opens the Esthonian's heart under sense of
delinquency, steels it in moments of danger. No
than the contemned Tchuchonn."
soldier in the Russian array stands a charge better

sure (and, the writer seems to think, at some cost of religion itself) relieved from them, is illustrated in this very comical

CURE FOR THE ERYSIPELAS.

pears, dullness is taken by the shoulders and thrust out of doors. His reputation dies and revives with each season-at one time he is branded as the most audacious young scamp living, at another eulogized as the very best fellow in the world, while he, with "The other day, a lady in the neighbourhood, happy boldness, is equally indifferent to either. whose adherence to ancient usages includes her Those who determine beforehand not to like him, among a class now fast fading from society, being end by becoming his warmest friends; and those attacked with erysipelas in the foot, sent for the wise who spoiled him at first, his bitterest enemies. Unman of the village to charm it away. A kind of Es-encumbered with the slightest portion of mauvaise thonian Fakeer was announced, whom, in the first honte or reserve, no man better understands setting place, it required faith of no common kind to ap- down an inferior, or-dictating to a superior. proach at all, and who, after various incantations, striking a light, &c., over the limb, broke silence by asking for a piece 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 mamselle to the Schafferei, and returned with a thick octavovolume 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, commenced 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 know not."

I

"Under his auspices a band of kindred spirits has been formed, who, coalescing with the whimsical and inventive merriment of their leader, have bound themselves to go about circulating reports of marriage in behalf of despairing damsels-reports of Korbs or refusals, in ridicule of arrogant swains,fomenting quarrels or abetting reconciliations wherever it suits their caprice or purpose; and, above all, for this is their chief aim and motive, repairing all awkward flaws of their own characters by speaking well of each other."

The following portraiture is almost as vivid as if we had it on canvas :

THE HEBREW GIRL.

"In a narrow passage leading to a court, stood a slight female figure clad in the most jagged garb of beggary; a cluster of rusty saucepans and tin pots

The writer was not at all impressed by what she slung over her shoulder, and an air of vagabondism, saw or read of

RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

which, added to her dirty rags, made us shrink closer together to avoid contact. This apparently she remarked, and turned slowly upon us as we passed, a "With regard to the literature of Russia, it is face, not vulgar, nor bold, nor coarse, nor degraded, neither sufficient in volume nor nationality to war- but of such surpassing loveliness, such a living rerant an opinion :-Lomonosoff is the etymologist of semblance of that most touching of all delineations the empire; Karamsin, the historian; Pouschkin of female beauty, the Beatrice Cenci, but more youthand Derjavine, the poets; Gretsch and Bestucheff, ful still, and if possible more pathetic, that we gazed its prose writers and novelists. Among the collec-in perfect wonder. * * There stood that abject figure, tive forty volumes of the latter writer is included a with that exquisite Mater Dolorosa head, like a beaumost interesting Poyesda vui Reveli,' or Journey to tiful picture framed in tatters. Long and riveted Reval, presenting the most concise history of the pro- were our glances, but that marble face heeded us not; vince I have been able to procure. Generally speak-listless and unconscious as a child, she turned away, ing, however, Russian reading is confined to trans- and seemed to have no idea beyond her saucepans. lations of the light French, German, and English We passed on, and had proceeded about a hundred works of the day. Our modern novels, including yards, when,-c'était plus fort que nous,—we tacitly Miss Edgeworth's Helen, are already in this form." and simultaneously turned about and retraced our In another passage she had described the extraor- steps. * *My dear companion addressed her in dinary popularity of Bulwer's novels. We have Esthonian, the current language of most of the lower ourselves seen Russian translations of the works orders, but she shook her head and pointed to her of Dickens, and our delightful traveller describes the amusement she derived from the sight of a "Russian specimen of a Pickwick" at Zarskoe Selo.

But though deficient in literature, the Russians have wit and mirth in another form, much better than more civilized countries can always brag of. It would take many Marquises of W. to make a

BARON C.

vile

saucepans. German was tried, but with little better result, when impatiently I stammered out in most barbarous Russian, What art thou, then?' 'Ya, Yevreika,''1 am an Hebrew,' was the laconic reply, but it spoke volumes."

The lady next describes how she tempted this fair apparition to sit to her :

"The name of this beautiful being was Rose; she knew no other; and my companion and myself ex"Baron C., who has the shrewdest sense, the changed looks of increasing sympathy and interest liveliest wit, the brightest face, and the loudest laugh on learning that the young creature, only sixteen in the province. With him wit enters into the very years of age, who stood before us, had been three constitution of the man. He revenges his wrongs years a wife, and was now the mother of a child old with a satire, dispatches his business with a bon- enough to run alone. Her manners corresponded with mot-spends precious sparkling ideas alike on his the unconscious graces of her person. She gazed farming bailiff and on his brother-noble-alienates with abstraction and languor at us as we continued his friends for the sake of a pun, captivates his ene- our glances of admiration, and while preparations for mies by the same process-and, what is more extra- a sitting, which was to furnish some visible memento ordinary than all, minds the main chance better than for future days, of a face never to be forgotten, were any other man in Esthonia. Wherever his face ap-going forward, sat down and carelessly examined

some trinkets which lay on the table, while Sascha, | low tones together. There a slight mask tripped up not partaking of her mistress's poetry, kept a sharp to a stately grave general, tapped his shoulder, and, eye upon her. But this she heeded not; and having passing her arm into his, bore him off with significant satisfied a passing curiosity, this young Israelitish nods. In front of us a couple of these sibyls with woman laid them down with apathy, and, folding her bright eyes gleaming through their gloomy masks, small hands fringed with rags, sat like the statue of attacked a young officer in high, squeaking, counterWestmacott's Distressed Mother,' the image of un- feit tones, laughing and jeering, while the good man complaining poverty and suffering. Comprehending looked bewildered from the one to the other, and now the object of her visit, she remonstrated against seemed to say,' How happy could I be with either!' being taken in the head-dress of a Russian, which And farther, apart from the throng, sat on a low step her plain handkerchief denoted, and earnestly re- a solitary mask, who shook her head solemnly at all quested the materials for her national turban, which who approached, as if awaiting some expected prey; she always wore at the Saturday Synagogue. We-while, half timid, half coquette, a light figure whisleft the girl-mother to do as she would, and selecting pered some words in a gentleman's ear, and then, refrom our stores a large handkerchief of bright colours, treating before his eager pursuit, plunged into the and tearing a strip of muslin, which she bound round crowd, and was lost to his recognition among the her temples, and fastened with long ends behind hundreds of similar disguises. The Heritier, the the identical ancient Hebrew fillet-she proceeded Grand Duke Michael, the Duke de Leuchtenberg, to fold the handkerchief in the requisite shape, upon were all seen passing in turn-each led about by a her knee. She said she was not unhappy; that whispering mask-Mais où est donc l'Empereur?" her husband, a sailor in the Russian navy, was 'good'Il n'y est pas encore,' was the answer; but scarce enough for her;' and she made no complaint of poverty, but this it was, combined with the inheritance of passive endurance, which was written on her pale brow. Our delicate Rose of Sharon sat gracefully and intelligently, and, when the drawing was completed, took our offerings with courteous thanks, but with more of carelessness and apathy than avidity." We cannot help pairing off this lovely specimen of womanhood, with the most magnificent-looking man of his time.

THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.

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 majesties and graces of all the heathen gods,-the little god of love alone perhaps excepted,--on its bility of person belonged to a common Mougik inample and symmetrical proportions. Had this nostead of to the Autocrat of all the Russias, the admiration could not have been less, nor scarcely the feeling of moral awe. It was not the monarch who was "I was now becoming impatient for a nearer view so magnificent a man, but the man who was so truly of that awful personage whom all united in describ-imperial. He stood awhile silent and haughty, as ing as "le plas bel homme qu'on puisse s'imaginer," if disdaining all the vanity and levity around him, and who, whether seen from the diminishing heights when, perceiving my two distinguished companions, of the Salle Blanche, or dashing along, his white he strode grandly towards our box, and, just lifting feathers streaming, and muffled in his military cloak his plumes with a lofty bow, stooped and kissed the in his solitary sledge with one horse, or striding princess's hand, who in return imprinted a kiss on with powerful steps, utterly unattended, in the dusk the Imperial cheek and then leaning against the of the early evening, the whole length of the Nevski, pillar, remained in conversation. wore a halo of majesty it was impossible to overlook. "The person of the Emperor is that of a colossal An opportunity for a closer view soon presented it- man, in the full prime of life and health; forty-two self. It was Sunday; and, after attending morning years of age, about six feet two inches high, and service at the English Church-the more impressive well filled out, without any approach to corpulency from long privation of its privileges,-I was driving, the head magnificently carried, a splendid breadth twelve hours later, viz. at midnight, with Princess of shoulder and chest, great length and symmetry B. and Countess L., to a very different resort-of limb, with finely formed hands and feet. His namely, to the great theatre of St. Petersburg, where, face is strictly Grecian-forehead and nose in one after the dramatic performances, masquerades are grand line; the eyes finely lined, large, open and held once or twice a-week before Lent. These are blue, with a calmness, a coldness, a freezing dignity, frequented by a mixed public, the Salle de Noblesse which can equally quell an insurrection, daunt an being reserved for the disguise of the individuals de assassin, or paralyze a petitioner; the mouth regular, la plus haute volée; these latter therefore on occasions fine teeth, chin prominent, with dark moustache and like this take a box on a level with the floor of the small whisker; but not a sympathy on his face! theatre, which extends on these nights over the whole His mouth sometimes smiled, his eyes never. of the parterre, and thus participate without actually was that in his look which no monarch's subject mixing in the scene. The coup d'œil on entering could meet. His eye seeks every one's gaze, but the box was very striking. A multitude of several none can confront his. After a few minutes, his cuhundreds was gathered together in the theatre's vast riosity, the unfailing attribute of a crowned head, oblong; the women alone masked, and almost with- dictated the wordsKto eta? Who is that?' out exception in black dress and domino; the men, and being satisfied-for he remarks every strange and those chiefly military, with covered heads and face that enters his capital-he continued alternately no token of the occasion save in a black scarf, as in Russian and French commenting upon the scene. sign of domino, upon their left arm-their white Personne ne m'intrigue ce soir,' he said: 'je ne plumes and gay uniforms contrasting vividly with the sais pas ce que j'ai fait pour perdre ma réputation, black-faced and draped figures around them; all cir- mais on ne veut pas de moi.' As he stood, various culating stealthily to and fro; no music, no dancing masks approached, but, either from excess of embarno object apparent but gesticulation, whisper, mys-rassment or from lack of wit, after rousing the lion, tery, and intrigue. Here a knot of witch-like found nothing to say. At length a couple approached figures, as if intent on mischief, stood muttering in and stood irresolute, each motioning the other to

There

us.

How exquisitely graphic is this scene of a street in St. Petersburg!

A STROLL ALONG THE NEVSKI.

speak. Donnez-moi la main,' said a low trembling his wife either on forehead, cheek, or hand. Re voice. He stretched out his noble hand: 'ct voilà marking upon this to a lofty-looking creature who l'autre pour vous,' extending the other to her com- received these connubial demonstrations with rather panion; and on they passed, probably never to for- a suspicious sang-froid, she replied, ⚫ Oh! ca ne veut, get the mighty hand that had clasped theirs. Mean- rien dire pour moi je voudrais tout autant etre batwhile the Emperor carefully scanned the crowd, and tue qu'embrassée par habitude!"" owned himself in search of a mask who had attacked him on his first entrance. Quand je l'aurai trouvé, je vous l'amènerai;' and so saying, he left 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 little 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 some 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 société.' Upon the second round, however, he succeeded in bringing his rebellious subject nearer; when, recognizing his manœuvre, 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 evening-I think there can be no doubt of it."

"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 earned 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. 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, having in a fit of passion unjustly degraded an officer in the face of his whole regiment, kissed the poor man in the same open way upon the next public occasion on this very bridge.

"On a holiday or jour de féte the young and delicate mistress or a house will not only kiss all her maid-servants, but all her men-servants 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 bounds; if he leave his cabinet d'affaires ten times in the course of the morning and enter his lady's saloon above, 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 also from the number of salutes, the matrimonial bond in these high circles must be one of uninterrupted felicity-a gentleman scarcely enters or leaves the room without kissing

"Here it is that Russians of all garbs and ranks pass before you. Here stands the Ischvouschik, loitering carelessly beneath the trees of the avenue, who, catching your steady gaze, starts up and displays a row of beautiful teeth beneath his thicklybearded lip, and pointing to his droschky, splutters out Kudi vam ugodno? or Whither does it please you?' Here stalks the erect Russian peasant, by birth a serf and in gait a prince, the living effigy of an old patriarch,-bearded to the waist, his kaftan of sheep-skin, or any dark cloth wrapped round him, the ample front of which, confined at the waist by a belt of bright colours, contains all that another would stow in a pocket; literally portraying the words of Scripture, full measure shall men pour into your bosom.' Contrary to all established rule, he wears his shirt, always blue or red, over his trowsers, his trowsers under his boots, and doubtless deems this the most sensible arrangement. And look! here go a posse of Russian foot soldiers, with close-shorn head and face, and brow-beat look, as little of the martial in their dusky attire as of glory in their hard lives, the mere drudges of a review, whom Mars would disown. Not so the tiny Circassian, light in limb and bright in look, flying past on his native barb, armed to the teeth, with eyes like loadstars, which the cold climate cannot quench. Now turn to the slender Finn, with teeth of pearl and hair so yel low that you mistake it for a lemon-coloured hand. kerchief peeping from beneath his round hat; or see, among the whirl of carriages three and four abreast in the centre of the noble street, that handsome Tartar coachman, his hair and beard of jet, sitting gravely like a statue of Moses on his box, while the little postilion dashes on with the foremost horses, ever and anon throwing an anxious look behind him, lest the ponderous vehicle, which the long traces keep at half a street's distance, should not be duly following; and within lolls the pale Russian beauty, at whose careless bidding they all are hurrying forward, looking as apathetic to all the realities of life as any other fine lady in any other country would do. These are the pastimes which the traveller finds in the streets of Petersburg, which make the hours fly swiftly by, further beguiled by the frequent question and frequent laugh, as you peep into the various magazines, listen to the full-mouthed sounds, and inhale the scent of Russian leather, with which all Petersburg is most appropriately impregnated." Our last extract is a little anecdote of

TAGLIONI IN WEEDS.

"Taglioni is now the great star of attraction; and caressée 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 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 mourning-not for her husband, but for a