itself, as trade was very much depressed, and the merchants were already encumbered with supernumerary hands. However, Mr. Simpson was kind enough to inquire among his acquaintance if they knew of any one who wanted a tutor; and he at last succeeded in obtaining for me a post of that description in the family of Count Federof, a nobleman attached to the court, just as I had disposed of my last kopeck, and was almost in despair. I willingly closed with the offer of a moderate salary without having seen my employer, the transaction being conducted by letter, and the next day I set out for the Federof palace, a large stone building in the best part of St. Petersburg.

A porter stood at the entrance, as is customary in the house of a Russian noble, and it was crowded with servants, their wives and children, all serfs from the Count's estate, and of whom the children, ragged and noisy, tumbled over each other in the outer hall, but rushed away as two footmen appeared to escort me into the Count's presence. I found a decidedly agreeable gentleman of about forty, on the model of a French courtier of the old régime. The Russians are invariably polite and generous towards the tutors and governesses in their household; justly thinking that their children ought to see respect shown to those whom they are expected to obey; and a Russian pupil generally considers it a sacred duty to support and comfort the old age of his tutor, who often continues to live in the family of his employer long after his services are no longer needed, and indeed till his death. I was presently introduced to the Countess, and to my pupils, two boys of eight and ten, and three little girls. I was desired to feel myself at home, and told that I should be expected to go with the boys in all their walks and rides, and in their visits to their juvenile acquaintances. The Count's time was much taken up by his duties at court, yet I observed that a certain want of caution, particularly in conversation upon political topics, was one of his characteristics. I have been told that the Russians were very strict with their grown-up sons and daughters, and with their elder children, but certainly the younger ones were very much indulged compared to the system of bringing up children in England and Germany at that time. The Countess listened with horror to the stories I told her of the sorrows of a fag at an English school; and when she heard that young noblemen were liable to be flogged at Eton, she seemed to think it shocking, and that such treatment was only fit for a serf. However, she told me that the Empress's grandsons, who had a Swiss

tutor, were much more severely brought up than other boys in Russia; and that if they overslept themselves in the morning their tutor used to empty a jug of cold water over them in bed to awaken them. I said it was often done in England; but she called it cruelty, and very bad for children's nerves, and said nothing should induce her to allow her boys to be so treated; yet she could condemn a lazy serf, the father of a large family, to be well flogged in order to make him mend his ways.

My study and my pupils' rooms were far removed from the state rooms of the Federof palace, but a constant influx of visitors at all hours and days of the year, and the expected attendance of myself and my pupils at the Count's dinners and balls, and at stated times in the Countess's drawing-rooms, interfered much with the literary education of the two boys, though they obtained by this means a knowledge of the world and of society hardly desirable in children as young as they were. The conversation always turned on the French revolution, the Turkish war, the recent struggle with Poland, the last entertainment at the Hermitage, the sayings and doings of the Empress, or the oddities of her son. The Countess lived for society, and did not take the smallest part in the arrangements of the household, which was all managed by the steward, who was only responsible to the Count. To dress well and look beautiful, and talk with sprightliness to her visitors, was all that her husband expected from ber, and she only saw her children in the midst of company from the time they were born. The custom of admitting children into the drawing-rooms and to the dining halls of their elders, which prevailed in Russia, caused her necessarily to see more of them in that way than a fashionable English lady of the same date, but it tended to produce a race of juvenile diplomatists and youthful courtiers. I never saw anything like a genuine English child in Russia.

A fête was to be held at the Imperial Country Palace of Tzarco-selo, and I was to accompany my pupils to it. With the eagerness to see royalty said to be characteristic of Englishmen, I could hardly sleep beforehand, but I must plead in excuse that all my previous life had been spent in a village, any one of whose inhabitants would have felt highly honoured and confused if invited to the house of a city knight, and I was actually to be ushered into the presence of an empress, and that empress-for more reasons than one-one of the most remarkable women of her time.

We had to drive some miles, and the Count met us

at the entrance to the palace, guarded by many sentinels walking to and fro, and thronged with officers, whose coats glittered with stars and decorations won in many a hard-fought field, aged courtiers who had been held at the font by Peter the Great, painted dames who had perhaps assisted in the revolutions which consigned Ivan VI. and Peter III. to untimely graves, together with captive Caucasian chiefs, young Polish noblemen, hostages for the tranquillity of Poland, Tartar princes-all were collected there, and made up an incongruous assembly quite unique in Europe. The Count's wand of office cleared our way till we reached the grand rooms, all most brilliantly illuminated with monster chandeliers. The walls seemed a mass of gold and silver, paintings and precious stones; the ladies' head-dresses flashed with diamonds, completely dazzling my unpractised eyes; but the murmur of voices ceased, all turned towards the door, and awaited in breathless expectation the entrance of Catherine the Great (?).

The imperial procession at length appeared, and the Empress bowed graciously to all round. Catherine was more than seventy, and not exempt from the infirmities common to advanced life. Powder and paint concealed her wrinkles and grey hair, but she walked with difficulty, supporting herself on the arm of her grandson, Alexander, a pale fair-haired stripling of eighteen, while on her other side strode her favourite minister, Count Zoubof; and she was followed by her granddaughters, who all possessed that beauty and grace which distinguish the ladies of the Russian imperial family. The Empress was of rather low stature, but owned a dignity and firm demeanour, equally able to quell an insurrection, to gain the affection of her people, or to inspire fear. The names of Orlof, Bariatinski, and others who were with her, recalled the events which preceded her accession, and I tried to read in her countenance the coldness and cruelty which should belong to the political conspirator, and to the accessory of her husband's assassination, but there was more of the querulousness of old age to be recognised than any other expression; and the fondness and admiration with which she looked at her grandchildren, when her eyes turned towards them, disarmed calumny. It was known that she wished the Grand Duke Alexander to be considered as her heir, and nothing irritated her so much as any mention of his father, who the Count told me had lived for years at a distance from St. Petersburg, and was only on special occasions-such as the marriages of

his sons-obliged, it was believed greatly against his will, to attend the court. "Every Russian," observed the Count, as we drove home," must look forward with dread to the death of our present gracious sovereign. May it be far off. It is but too likely that a struggle will then take place for the sceptre which Catherine Alexievna now wields with unparalleled lustre. Alexander Paulovitz has been brought up with the idea that he is to succeed his grandmother, and it is not likely that he will yield his claims to his father, whom he can never have heard mentioned except with contempt; while, on the other hand, Paul Petrovitz would hardly relinquish his hereditary rights, of which he has been deprived so long, to a son whom he has every reason to view with jealousy. No, one or the other must fall. I only trust that our country will not suffer in the contest."

I asked what was the cause of the unnatural antipathy which the Empress felt towards her own son. The Count smiled at the simplicity, as he thought, of my remark. "What," said he, "is the reason that sovereigns and even rich men in humbler spheres often dislike their heirs, and that the eldest is seldom. his father's favourite son? Besides," he added, lowering his voice to a whisper, "a usurper must hate the prince whom she has superseded, and whom she constantly fears may inconveniently assert his rights. She told him one day that his mind was as distorted as his face, and that his whole appearance was disgustingly repulsive, and he gave her his opinion of her conduct in almost equally plain terms. After that you cannot wonder at the mother and son not caring to meet."

"If Alexander Paulovitz succeeds his grandmother," said the Countess, languidly, "his reign will be only a continuation of hers, the same society, the same magnificent fêtes; whereas with Paul Petrovitz we should all be subjected to the strict military regulations that he enacts at Gateschina, and all now in favour at court would certainly be banished. No, on all accounts it is to be hoped that he will never emerge from the obscurity in which his mother has thought fit to keep him." The events which shortly followed this conversation have vividly impressed it on my memory; but very little more was said till we reached the Federof Palace.

A week or two after this some difficulty or the change of an overseer made it necessary for the Count to visit his estate, which was nearly 200 miles from St. Petersburg; and as he had not seen it since he was married, he thought it would be a

good opportunity to introduce his wife and sons to his serfs. We therefore left St. Petersburg in several carriages, each drawn by four horses, fastened abreast, with a mounted guard riding by the side to protect us from robbers and wolves. We travelled with great speed, but as the days were short we were obliged to pass one night on the road, and halted at a small post station on the confines of a thick wood. In Russia the upper classes always travel with sufficient bedding to make themselves comfortable for a night, and carry provisions, so that four walls and a stove are all that they need on a journey. I was unaccustomed to long drives, and though it was growing dusk, felt more need of a walk than my bed. I strolled away from the posthouse through the village, built in a wide street, and the houses standing apart like a settlement in an American clearing. The church in size and structure was out of all proportion to the poor and scanty congregation. The bell was tinkling for the evening service, but the whole place was otherwise wrapped in silence, and half shuddering at its loneliness I returned to the posthouse. There I found the Count rather uneasy at my absence, as he said he had heard more than once of lonely travellers being kidnapped and sold to the proprietors of Siberian mines, where they were compelled to work for their purchasers without hope of freedom for the rest of their lives. He also told me that hermits were by no means uncommon in the forests and remote parts of Russia, though how they endured the severity of the winters or escaped the wolves he really could not tell. The abandonment of the late war with Turkey, he said, had caused great indignation among the Russian ecclesiastics, who looked upon it as a sacred duty to expel the Turks from Europe, and that this same war had thrown many destitute men upon the country, often soldiers, who had been left wounded in the frontier towns, and had gradually straggled back, some to become religious recluses, others to join bands of highwaymen on the roads. He ended by recommending me never to wander out of a village after the day had closed. I afterwards found that these silent houses were filled with Mahometans, formerly Turkish prisoners of war. The Turks at that time gave no quarter to the Russians in battle, and decapitated all the wounded left on the field, but the Russian generals having estates often requiring more labourers used to divide the Turkish prisoners among themselves, and settle them down as serfs. I suppose this custom helped to fill up the enormous gaps in the