from the prejudices that were imbibed be- | be resorted to; for I am afraid that in fore we were twenty. Even the gallant the present state of progress and of pubadmiral, Sir Maurice Berkeley, my own respected friend, who has done more, perhaps, than any other person to make impressment unnecessary, would hesitate to make it illegal. It may as well be done. Heaven forbid that such a mode of manning the British navy should ever again

lic feeling, the nation would not submit to it. The nearest approach that we could now make to impressment would be the adoption of some system of ballot; a kind of naval militia, from which mere landsmen would be exempted.

THE ARISTOCRACY OF RUSSIA.

EXTREMES meet. It is a singular fact that Russia, the land of serfdom, the stronghold of despotism, the very incarnation of autocracy, possesses the most open aristocracy in Europe an aristocracy so liberally organized, that there is scarcely a man in the empire who may not aspire to enroll himself in the ranks of its nobility. Since 1722, all persons serving the state, occupying a certain rank in the hierarchy, or bearing commissions in the army or navy, acquire hereditary nobility by virtue of such service, and enjoy equal privileges with the nobles of earlier creation; let the latter look down with great contempt as they please on their parvenu compeers, as provincials and foreigners, and pride themselves upon the purity and nationality of their own lineage.

and public employments. The majority of the commanders, diplomatists, and administrators of the northern Empire belong either to foreign or provincial families, and it is only in rare instances that a pure Russian has the chance of obtaining distinction in the service of his coun try-a country he can not leave without permission from the sovereign, and incurring the risk of confiscation of his property, should he fail to return at the expiration of his furlough.

The princely houses of which the Slavonic aristocracy is composed are all of regal descent, the more ancient families springing from the direct male line of Rurik the Norman, the first Russian sovereign, who reigned from 862 to 879; the younger houses claim kin with Guedimine, grand-duke of Lithuania, who In justice to the ancient nobility, it in the fourteenth century founded the must be allowed that to them Russia is dynasty kown in history as the Jaguelindebted for what it can boast of in the lon dynasty, from his grandson Jaguello, shape of a national literature. Not con- who wedded Queen Hedwige, and theretent with encouraging native authorship by united the crowns of Poland and with their patronage and purses, they Lithuania. The great-grandson of Rurik, have entered the arena themselves. Nei- Waldimir the Great, or, as he was callther persecution, imprisonment, nor exile ed after his conversion to Christianity, deterred the Flohols and Ctchaidieffs from Waldimir the Saint, dying in 1015, comnobly doing their part toward luring mitted the great fault of dismembering Freedom to the banks of the Neva. Un- his dominions, in order to provide eleven like the vieille noblesse of France, the sons and a nephew with independent old nobility of Russia has ever opposed principalities. His example was followitself to the court, and its blood has flow-ed by his descendants for the two suced freely in attempting to curb the tyranny of the Czars. As a natural consequence, the Slavonic aristocracy has been studiously excluded from public honors

ceeding centuries-two centuries of internecine feuds, leading eventually to the irruption of the Mongols in 1237, an invasion which, while it deprived Russia

2

of its independence, assuredly prevented | Book of the Russian aristocracy is still its otherwise inevitable absorption in Po- preserved at St. Petersburgh, in the Herland. The grand-dukes of Rurik's house aldic Office of the Senate. In 1772, Peter were quickly brought under the Tartar revolutionized the upper ranks of society yoke, and, with more policy than patri- by making the law conferring hereditary otism, transformed themselves into Tar- nobility upon servants of the state, to tars, with as much facility as in these which we have already alluded. later days Gallic liberals have been transmuted into stanch imperialists. They adopted Mongolian costumes, acquired Mongolian habits, and followed Mongolian fashions, punishing without mercy any of their old subjects who declined to imitate their example. By such means did the Moscow branch of the line of Rurik obtain favor in the eyes of the conquerors, and increase its power and influence until it was able to cope with them for the scepter. In 1462, John III., then Grand-Duke of Moscow, and in the seventeenth year of his age, declared Russia independent. Soon afterward, the great Mongol empire fell to pieces, the four separate states of Casan, Astrakan, Siberia, and the Crimea rising from its ruin. The first named was conquered by John's grandson, who in 1547 assumed the title of "Czar of all the Russias," in which "all" Siberia and Astrakan before long were included.

In proportion as the Moscow branch prospered, the other branches of the Rurik family declined. One after another, the princes were compelled by their most powerful cousins to exchange their appanages for private estates; the only alternative being confiscation without compensation, and life without liberty. Still further to reduce the magnates of his own race, and place them on a level with the Romanoffs, Scheremeteffs, and other great Muscovite families, John III. issued a decree that the nobles were henceforth to rank according to the positions held by their predecessors in the court or army. This law, by which the dignity of the boyard was made almost hereditary, was abrogated in 1682, when political equality became the aristocratic order of the day. All the minutes of the various disputes respecting precedency were burned on the occasion. The genealogical registers of the existing noble families were then copied into a book, called, from its red velvet binding, the Velvet Book; and some of the great boyards exhausted influence, argument, and cajolery to obtain the insertion of their patronymics in its pages, but without avail. The Golden

Although all enjoy the same privileges, the nobility of Russia may be divided into five classes-princes of the empire, counts of the empire, barons of the empire, untitled gentry whose nobilitation dates before the reign of Peter the Great, and untitled gentry ennobled by that Prince or his successors. The inferior titles were altogether unknown till the founder of St. Petersburgh created them in 1707, and that of "prince" has been confined to those who boasted a royal descent. Of the fifty-nine existing princely houses, four claim descent from Guedimine, while no less than thirty-one are the direct male lineage of Rurik of the ninth century. The premier prince of Russia is the Prince Odoievsky, the descendant of Saint Michael, Prince of Tchernigoff, canonized for suffering death at the hands of the Mongols in 1247, rather than bow down before their idols. But the most notable names in the roll of ancient princes are those of Dolgorou ky, Gagarin, and Galitzin, all of which have played conspicuous parts in the annals of their country. In the seventeenth century, a prince of the first-named family defended the monastery of the Trinity of St. Serge, near Moscow, for a year and a half against a force of thirty thousand Poles and Cossacks. Michael Romanoff, the first Czar of the reigning dynasty, married the Princess Mary Dolgorouky, but she only enjoyed her czarinaship some four months. Upon the death of Peter II., Prince John Dolgorouky, acting in concert with the liberal section of the Russian aristocracy, offered the crown to Ann of Courland, on condition that she signed a constitution, which she did without any apparent scruple. No sooner, however, was she fairly installed on the throne, than the non-constitutional party got the upper hand, reinstated absolutism, and exiled Prince John and his family to Siberia. He remained in exile nine years, when he was brought back to Novgorod, not, as might have been expected, to be set at liberty, but to be beheaded and quartered. The army of Catherine which added the Crimea to her dominions was

commanded by a Dolgorouky, whose patronymic was consequently lengthened by the addition of the name of the conquered province. The most interesting celebrity of the Gagarin family was the Prince Mathias, who was Governor-General of Siberia under Peter the Great. Taking advantage of the Czar being fully employed in settling accounts with Charles of Sweden, the Governor-General conceived the idea of converting his vice royalty into an independent kingdom. Peter's suspicions being awakened, he contrived to decoy his ambitious subject to St. Petersburgh, where he was kept in durance, and, after an inquiry which lasted three years, adjudged guilty.

that race of great lords which is perishing by degrees, and in a short time will remain only in the traditions of Russia." Another ancient house is that of Gortshakoff, a corruption of Gortchak, well represented by its trio of princes; one of whom is an ambassador, one GovernorGeneral of Siberia, and the third, Prince Michael, Viceroy of Poland, head of the military staff, and better known to fame as the defender of Sebastopol against the armies of England, France, and Sardinia.

Peter the Great's first addition to the princely ranks was originally a pastrycook's boy at Moscow; he became butler to the Czar, and enlisted in the Russian Guards. He rose with extraordinary raThe day before that fixed for his ex- pidity to be general-in-chief. Scarcely ecution, the Czar offered him his life and able to read or write, such was the natufortune, if he would simply confess the ral genius of Alexander Menshikoff, that verdict a true one. Gagarin proudly de- he became the first commander, adminisclined the offer, and was hung next morn trator, and statesman in the empire, aling opposite the senate-house. The Galit- though his splendid abilities were sadly zins, the most prolific of princely houses, marred by rapacity and cruelty of dispohave served their country with distinction sition. He won his field-marshal's baton in every field open to Russian nobles, but on the hard-fought field of Pultova. On its greatest men have been uniformly un- the death of Catherine, Menshikoff swayfortunate. In the sixteenth century, the ed the scepter in the name of the young family was represented by two brothers, Czar, Peter II., whom he betrothed to Dmetry and Michael, both of whom were his own daughter. His ambitious schemes taken prisoners by the Poles. Dmetry were frustrated by the Dolgoroukies, died after thirty-eight years' incarceration, through whose influence the alliance was and Michael was then set at liberty, "out broken off, and Menshikoff, almost immeof regard for his loyalty and stoical firm-diately after he had been declared generalness." His grandson was one of the four issimo, was sent to the Crimea, from which candidates for the Russian throne when few Russian celebrities return. He died the choice fell upon Ladislas of Poland, in Siberia, at the age of sixty. It was and he was commissioned to carry the his grandson who precipitated the conflict intelligence of his election to his success- in the East, and who saw from his carful rival. He was rewarded for his mag-riage the legions of France and England nanimity by being thrown into prison immediately after he reached Cracow, and in prison he died. One of his descendants, distinguished as "Galitzin the Great," was at once the chief adviser and lover of Sophia, sister to Peter the Great. The lover conspired to place his mistress on the throne, vice Peter exiled or otherwise disposed of; and paid the penalty of failure by seeing his princess shut up in a convent, and being himself exiled to the shores of the Frozen Sea, where he was soon afterward poisoned. His brother, Dmetry, joined the constitutionalists in their attempt to limit the autocratic power of the Empress Ann, and was imprisoned unto death. The present representative of this unfortunate family is described by Prince Dolgorouky as "the last model of

climb to victory up the hights of the Alma. A still more famous name is that of Souvaroff, the little, odd, old man, "who loved blood as an alderman does marrow," who used to instruct recruits in the bayonet-exercise himself, and preferred to fight in his shirt-sleeves. A terror to the Turks, he exercised an almost supernatural influence over the Russian soldiery. He was the "Little Corporal" of the northern empire; winning a double countship at Rymnik in 1789, a marshal's staff in Poland in 1794, and his title of Prince of Italy in 1799. The only other names familiar to English ears are those of Lieven and Paskievitch. The lady, so long known in diplomatic society, was originally a Miss de Posse, and governess to the daughters of the Emperor Paul, who

created her Countess Lieven; the higher | fore it was completed, he was bartering dignity she received from Nicholas in 1826. Paskievitch of Erivan, the conqueror of Poland in a campaign, the direction of which, it is said, he entreated on his knees might be given to some one else, won his title of Count of Erivan in Persia, his F. M. in Turkey, and was created Prince of Warsaw in 1831, when Viceroy of Poland. His last appearance as a military commander did not add to his reputation, which paled before Omar Pacha and the defenders of Silistria.