REMARKS ON THE CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF THE PEASANTS AND CLERGY IN RUSSIA. MANY FROM LETTERS FROM SCANDINAVIA. ANY circumftances make it probable, that, with all the fupport government can bestow, the progrefs of knowledge will not speed. ily become extenfive in Ruffia. The ftate of the country is highly unfavourable to its general diffufion. The flavery in which the peasants are held, checks the fpirit of improve ment in that numerous body of men. A man who can gain nothing by be coming wifer than his fellows, will hardly be tempted to take much trouble in acquiring fuperfluous accomplishments, or in beftowing them en his children. A Ruffian peafant has nothing that can ftimulate him to the purfuit of knowledge. He fees himself fixed to a particular fpot, from which he can have no hope of removing; and furrounded with beings ignorant and brutish like him felf. His industry, if he has any, is Arictly and permanently appropriated. So many days in the week, and fo many hours in the day, he knows he must labour for his master: and, be his own neceffities what they may, he is fenfible that this portion of his time must not be encroached upon. If he poffefs horfes or cows, or in ftruments of his occupation, a large portion of what he can earn by them goes to the ufe of his mafter. If he has a wife and children, thefe alfo are but partially his own: his mafter may command their fervices when ever, and in whatever manner, he pleases. He is hardly permitted to fir from his hut without his master's leave, nor can he earn a single morfel of bread without his permiffion. If his children are to be taught any trade, it is the mafter who orders what that trade fhall be, and who thall be the teacher: if they are to go to school, the mafter fends and Ed. Mag. June 1796. He can removes them at his pleasure; and if It is to be expected that a power thus will will but what he dictates, no industry but what he infpires, no emulation but what he excites. If the condition of the peasants be fo highly unfavourable to the progrefs of improvement, the fituation of and character of the clergy are equally unfriendly to it. A fmall number of the fuperior clergy may be found eminent, among the Ruf fians, for learning and virtue; but, with this abatement, the order confifts of men either ignorant or profligate, or both the one and the other. A great proportion of the regular clergy confifts of the lowest of the free people, who have taken fanctuary from the bufinefs of their ftations in the torpor of the monaf teries. Many regulations have been made to prevent this abuse; but these regulations are calculated only to prevent the ftate from being depriv. ed of the labour of men whofe induftry might be useful; they are not intended to make the monafteries schools in which men might be train ed to learning and piety. The law fixes the age at which men are to be admitted, and that is an age at which it would be abfurd to expect them to begin their studies with any prospect of fuccefs. It determines alfo the number to be received into each monaftery, the degree of restraint to be imposed on them, the prayers and pfalms, and homilies, and ringing of bells, of which the fervice mult confift, and other fuch momentous particulars but the only point in which fuch establishments can be useful, the education to which they should be fubfervient, is left, with only general recommendations, to the judge ment of those who prefide over each monaftery, From fuch establishments little benefit can be expected;-certainly, very little is derived from them. They, however, do fome good. Part of thofe connected with them receive fuch an education as might have been got in the monafteries of England three centuries ago. They learn to read and write. Some of them acquire a knowledge of the Latin language; nay, even Greek may be learnt in fome monafteries. But the number of the clergy who acquire thefe laft accomplishments is very fmall. I have accoited a great many of them in Latin, but have met with only a fingle instance of a priest who underflood me. The lives of the regular clergy, inftead of being devoted to literary pursuits or any other useful purpose, are flumbered away in the inanition of indolence, interrupted by the irkfome frequency of prayers without devotion, and praifes without fentiment. The parochial clergy are still lefs refpectable than the regular. Nothing more is neceffary to the ob taining of this character than being married, and being able to read and write. The first of these qualifications is indifpenfable; the others, being lefs effential, are more ealily difpenfed with. I have often heard it affirmed, that the parochial clergy are the most worthless set of men in the empire. In fuch a comparison it would certainly be difficult to determine to whom the preference is due. I therefore think this charge too general to be true, although there is, doubtless, abundant room for improvement in this clafs of men. Defpifed by the higher claffes of fociety, they are reduced to the neceffity of affociating with the meaneft of the people: hence, instead of rifing to the rank of refpectable citizens, and afpiring to the praife of learning and virtue, they retain the meanness of fpirit, the low fenfuality, and the difgufting vices of thofe with whom they affociate. DES DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT DESOLATED STATE OF VERSAILLES. FROM MRS WOLLSTONECRAFT'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOL. I. HOW OW filent is now Verfailles!--Why does it now infpire only pity? The folitary foot, that mounts Why;-because nature, fmiling the fumptuous ftair-cafe, refts on around, prefents to the imagination each landing-place, whilft the eye materials to build farms, and hofpitraverses the void, almost expecting table manfions, where, without raifto fee the ftrong images of fancy ing idle admiration, that gladness burst into life. The train of the will reign, which opens the heart to Louifes, like the pofterity of the benevolence, and that industry which Banquoes, pafs in folemn fadnefs, renders innocent pleafüre fweet. pointing at the nothingness of grandeur, fading away on the cold canvafs, which covers the nakedness of the fpacious walls-whilft the gloo. minefs of the atmosphere gives a deeper fhade to the gigantic figures that feem to be finking into the embraces of death. Warily entering the endless apartments, half shut up, the fleeting fhadow of the penfive wanderer, reflected in long glaffes, that vainly gleam in every direction, flackens the nerves, without appalling the heart; though lafcivious pictures, in which grace varnishes voluptuoufnefs, no longer feductive, ftrike continually home to the bofom the melancholy moral, that anticipates the frozen lef fon of experience. The very air is chill, feeming to clog the breath; and the wafting dampness of deftruction appears to be ftealing into the vaft pile, on every fide. The oppreffed heart feeks for relief in the garden; but even there the fame images glide along the wide neglected walks-all is fearfully ftill; and, if a little rill creeping thro' the gathering mofs down the cafcade, over which it used to rush, bring to mind the description of the grand water-works, it is only to excite a languid fmile at the futile attempt to equal nature. Lo! this was the palace of the great king the abode of magnificence! Who has broken the charm? 3 Weeping-fcarcely confcious that I weep, O France! over the veftiges of thy former oppreffion; which, feparating man from man with a fence of iron, fophifticated all, and made many completely wretched; I tremble, left I should meet fome unfortunate being, fleeing from the defpotifm of licentious freedom, hearing the fnap of the guillotine at his heels; merely because he was once noble, or has afforded an afylum to thofe, whofe only crime is their nameand, if my pen almoft bound with eagerness to record the day that levelled the Baftille with the dust, making the towers of defpair tremble to their bafe; the recollection, that ftill the abbey is appropriated to hold the victims of revenge and fufpicion, palfies the hand that would fain do juftice to the affault, which tumbled into heaps of ruins walls that feemed to mock the refiftless force of time.-Down fell the temple of defpotifm; but-defpotifm has not been buried in it's ruins!--Unhappy country!-when will thy children cease to tear thy bosom ? When will a change of opinion, producing a change of morals, render thee truly free?-When will truth give life to real magnanimity, and juftice place equality on a ftable feat? When will thy fons truft, because they deserve to be trusted; and private virtue become the gua G 2 will rantee of patriotifm? Ah! when most perfect, because thy citizens are will thy government become the the most virtuous? THOUGHTS ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SWALLOWS. FROM PENNANT'S BRITISH ZOOLOGY. HERE are three opinions among naturalifis concerning the manner the fwallow tribes dif. pofe of themselves after their difappearance from the countries in which they make their 'Summer refidence. Herodotus mentions one fpecies that refides in Egypt the whole year; Profper Alpinus afferts the fame; and Mr Loten, late governor of Ceylon, affured us, that thofe of Java never remove. Thefe excepted, every other known kind observe a periodical migration or retreat. The fwallows of the cold Norway, and of North America, of the distant Kamtfchatka, of the temperate parts of Europe, of Aleppo, and of the hot Jamaica, all agree in this one point. In cold countries, a defect of infect food on the approach of Winter is a fufficient reafon for these birds to quit them; but, fince the fame caufe, probably, does not fubfift in the warm climates, recourfe fhould be had to fome other reason for their vanishing. two curious relations of undoubted credit; the one communicated to him by Mr Wright, master of a ship; the other by the late Sir Charles Wager; who both defcribed (to the fame purpose) what happened to each in their voyages. "Returning home," fays Sir Charles," in the Spring of the year, as I came into founding in our channel, a great flock offwallows came and fettled on all my rigging; every rope was covered; they hung on one another like a fwarm of bees; the decks and carving were filled with them. They seemed almoft famished and spent, and were only feathers and bones; but, being recruited with a night's reft, took their flight in the morning." This vaft fatigue proves that their journey must have been very great, confidering the amazing swiftness of thefe birds; in all probability they had croffed the Atlantic Ocean, and were returning from the fhores of Senegal, or other parts of Africa ; fo that this account from that most able and honeft feaman confirms the latter information of Mr Adanfon. Of the three opinions, the first has the utmost appearance of probability; which is, that they remove near- Mr White, on Michaelmas-day, er the fun, where they can find a 1768, had the good fortune to have continuance of their natural diet, ocular proof of what may reasonably and a temperature of air fuiting be fuppofed an actual migration of their conftitutions. That this is the fwallows. Travelling that morning cafe with fome fpecies of European very early between his house and the fwallows, has been proved beyond coaft, at the beginning of his jourcontradiction (as above cited) by Mr ney he was environed with a thick Adanfor. We often obferve them fog; but on a large wild heath the collected in flocks innumerable on mift began to break, and discovered churches, on rocks, and on trees, to him numberlefs fwallows, clusterprevious to their departure hence: ed on the standing bushes, as if they and Mr Collinfon proves their return had roofted there. As foon as the here, in perhaps equal numbers, by fun burft out, they were inftantly on * Phil. Tranf. vol. II. part II. p. 459. wing, and, with an easy and placid flight, proceeded towards the fea. After this, he faw no more flocks, only now and then a ftraggler *. This rendezvous of fwallows about the fame time of year is very common on the willows in the little ifles in the Thames. They seem to affemble for the fame purpose as thofe in Hampshire, notwithstanding no one yet has been an eye-witnefs of their departure. On the 26th of September last, two gentlemen who happened to lie at Maidenheadbridge, furnished at leaft a proof of the multitudes there affembled; they went by torch-light to an adjacent ifle, and in less than half an hour brought afhore fifty dozen; for, they had nothing more to do than to draw the willow twigs through their hands, the birds never ftirring till they were taken. The Northern naturalifts will perhaps fay, that this affembly met for the purpose of plunging into their fubaqueous Winter quarters; but, was that the cafe, they would never efcape discovery in a river perpetually fifhed as the Thames; fome of them must inevitably be brought up in the nets that harrafs that water. The fecond notion has great antiquity on its fide. Ariftotle and Pliny give, as their belief, that fwallows do not remove very far from their Summer habitation, but winter in the hollow of rocks, and, during that time, lofe their feathers. The former part of their opinion has been adopted by feveral ingenious men; and, of late, feveral proofs have been brought of fome fpecies, at leaft, having been difcovered in a torpid Mr Collinfon favoured us ftate. with the evidence of three gentle. men, eye-witneffes to numbers of fand-martins being drawn out of a cliff on the Rhine in the month of March, 1762+. And the Hon. Daines Barrington communicated to us the following fact, on the authority of the late Lord Belhaven: that numbers of fwallows have been found in old dry walls, and in fand-hills near his Lordship's feat in Eaft-Lothian; not once only, but from year to year; and that, when they were expofed to the warmth of a fire, they revived. We have alfo heard of the fame annual discoveries near Morpeth, in Northumberland, but cannot fpeak of thein with the fame affurance as the two former; neither in the two laft inftances are we certain of the particular fpecies ‡. Other witneffes crowd on us to prove the refidence, of thofe birds in a torpid ftate during the fevere feafon. First, in the chalky cliffs of Suffex, as was feen on the fall of a great fragment fome years ago. Secondly, in a decayed hollow tree that was cut down, near Dolgelli, in Merionethshire. Thirdly, in a cliff near Whitby, Yorkshire, where, on digging out a fox, whole bushels of fwallows were found in a torpid condition. And, Laftly, the Rev. Mr Conway, of Sychton, Flintshire, was fo obliging as to communicate the following fact: a few years ago, on looking down an old lead mine in that county, he obferved numbers of swallows clinging to the timbers of the fhaft, feemingly afleep; and, on flinging fome gravel on them, they just moved, but never attempted to fly or change * In Kalm's Voyage to America is a remarkable inftance of the diftant flight of fwallows; for one lighted on the fhip he was in, September 2, when he had paffed only over two-thirds of the Atlantic Ocean. His paffage was uncommonly quick, being performed from Deal to Philadelphia in lefs than fix weeks; and, when this accident happened, he was 14 days fail from Cape Hinlopen. + Phil. Tranf. vol. LIII. p. 101. art. 24. Klein gives an inftance of swifts being found in a torpid ftate. Hift. Av. 204. |