:

ing the rain washed out the dust, and the snow cleared away the ashes. I was fed with the fragments from the servants' table, and feasted upon eggs, which I gathered in the neighbourhood of the hen-house, and about the barn; on the leavings in the milk-pots, which I licked with uncommon relish, and on fruit, which I stole by night in the orchard. I was under the command of no one in particular, but every body ordered me about at discretion. In summer, they set me to herd the geese on the pasture, or on the banks of the pond, to protect the goslings and chickens from dogs and kites. In winter, they employed me as a turnspit in the kitchen, and this was to me a most agreeable occupation. Every time that the cook turned his or her back, I would quickly apply my palm to the juicy roast, and under my wrist suck my greasy hand as a bear does its paw. I sometimes very ingeniously snatched pieces of bacon from the dripper, and stole cutlets out of the stewing-pan: my chief occupation was to run errands for all the men-servants, maidservants, and even the footboys. They sent me to the kartchma* for vodky,† placed me on the outlook in sundry places, without explaining their reasons; with orders to whistle or clap my hands on the appearance of the squire, steward, and sometimes even of the other men-servants, or maid-servants. On the first word-' Orphan, run this way or that way, and call this one or that one'-I set off at the gallop, and fulfilled my instructions to a tittle, knowing that the smallest neglect would expose me to an inevitable beating. When they placed me on the watch, and forbade me to look about me-which mostly happened in the garden, during the summer season-I stood like one buried in the ground, not daring even to lift up my eyes, or make the least motion, till they pushed me from the spot. Sometimes, though very seldom, they rewarded me for my zealous services with a piece of black bread, old bacon, or cheese, and I, not being famished, would divide it with my beloved dog

Koodlashka.

"Observing how other children were fondled and kissed, I wept bitterly, from an inexpressible feeling of envy and chagrin the caresses and blandishments of Koodlashka alleviated my grief, and made my solitude more tolerable. If other children caressed their mothers and nurses, I would do the same to my Koodlashka, calling him mammy and nursy, lifting him, kissing him, pressing him to my breast, and tumbling with him on the sand. I had an inclination to love my fellow-creatures, particularly those of the other sex, but this inclination was thwarted by fear."

From this thraldom he is emancipated, by the elopement of a daughter of the magnate, whose attendant he has been constituted. From the service of her husband, a young officer, he passes into that of a Jew broker, eking out the gains of his profession by a little smuggling and coin-clipping. This master transfers him to an ex-procureur of a province. While living with this gentleman, he is discovered by an aunt, and emancipated. We have next a history of his schoolboy adventures, first love affair, and sale to slavery among the Kirgheez, "of his redemption thence, and with it all his travel's history." He returns to Moscow, gets inveigled with an actress, and turns gambler; enters the army, and serves with distinction. Settling at St Petersburg, he discovers his real parentage, and finds himself heir to a fortune, marries, and becomes an honest man.

We have already said that the style of this work is that of a tempered satire. Our readers will understand from this that allowance must be made for its pictures of Russian life as verging upon caricature. With this caution, however, they will find it afford them a tolerably correct idea of the mechanism of that great empire, where

A Polish hostelry is called a kartchma.

+ Vodky is an ill-tasted sort of whisky, made from malt and rye four.

excess of refinement and utter barbarism, superstition and infidelity, ardent aspirations after improvement, and contented filth, stupidity, and beggary, are placed in the most harsh contrast and startling collision, and held in this unnatural juxtaposition by the grasp of an iron despotism. Russia is not advancing in civilisation. She has gone as far as she can in the path she has struck into, but that is a blind alley, and she has reached its termination. Her improvement, wretched and superficial as it is, has been effected forcibly from without-it is not the spontaneous growth of the national mind. All reforms brought about by power, instead of conviction, have a selfcounteracting effect, which in a brief time checks their progress. Russia is at this moment a moral petrifaction nothing short of a great internal revolution can breathe into her rigid frame the relaxing and inspiriting breath of life.

It is chiefly in the portraiture of the domesticated virtues and vices that the author of Ivan Vejeeghen is most at home. There is a want of power and wildness in his scenes of savage life. But his good country gentlemen, amiable women, dupes, and gamblers, are drawn with the hand of a master. Being rather in a cynical mood today, we incline to loiter in the gallery of fools and knaves. What follows is a happily-conceived picture of a not uncommon mania both in Germany and Russia.

"The landlord, Falalay Gloopáshkeen, never intermitted his endeavours to play the part of an English lord. His wooden house was luxuriously fitted up with. the most fashionable furniture, with pictures, statues, and bronzes. His stable contained more than a hundred English horses, and he had upwards of three hundred hounds of different breeds. Among his attendants he had a number of foreigners-English, Germans, and French. the denomination of a litterateur, who was his private For a companion, he kept a Frenchman, under secretary: to an Englishman he paid a high salary, merely to talk with him, and perfect him in the pronunciation of the English language. An Italian, an old rogue, lived with him as a sort of friend. He enjoyed the reputation of being a connoisseur of painting, antiques, and music. The Italian traded in the most paltry Italian pictures, mosaics, counterfeit antiques, and along with that was a usurer and messenger of gallantry. A German librarian served for a small salary, being attractber in the library. Gloopáshkeen bought a whole comed by his love for catalogues, of which there was a numpany of players from an amateur of the drama, by name Kharakhóreen, who had squandered away his property, but consoled himself for the loss, by performing in all private theatres, and managing his old troop. Gloopáshkeen's orchestra was also composed of serfs, whom he had collected from different private orchestras. In the house there were about five hundred inmates fed at the expense of Gloopáshkeen, and serving merely for his diversion. It was difficult to keep from laughing at seeing the grave air of the beardless fool, who, fancying himself a great man, spoke about every thing in a decided tone; pronounced his opinions upon politics in sentiments borrowed from his English companion; delivered lectures upon literature in the words of his Frenchman, and spoke upon. the arts under the prompting of the Italian. Many of the guests, without having the least idea of the subjects on which he spoke, and knowing the sciences merely by name, looked upon him as a miracle of wisdom, and, while they enjoyed the luxuries of his table, loudly proclaimed that Russia would be happy if Gloopáshkeen were minister."

The absurdities of the middle class-if the term be

applicable in Russia—are sketched in a manner not less felicitous.

"In an hour and a half the elder brother requested his guests to return into the gala-rooms, informing them that there would be a performance of a French comedy,

of so large a house, all notion of becoming a tenant was abandoned; but as the place had a mysterious curiosity about it, the mansion being large, the garden choked with weeds, the steps leading to the doors moss-grown, several of the windows being broken, and the whole having an air of grandeur in neglect, he was prompted to make enquiries; and an old man, to whom he was referred as being the only owner as long as any neighbour could remember, instantly offered to let him the mansion at the small rent of five pounds a-year. The supervisor did not want so large a house; but as he wished to send for his family, and had been obliged to put up with lodgings in a paltry alehouse he thought it was worth while to go over the old pile, and ascertain whether a few rooms could not be comfortably fitted up for his accommodation, while in discharge of his duty there. The lowness of the rent of course operated as an additional inducement; and having fixed upon four or five rooms up stairs, he struck the bargain, got in a few little things until his wife should arrive with all the domestic equip ments of a family, and forthwith wrote off for her. The first night of his sojourn he lighted a large fire to dispel the dampness, and having taken his glass of grog, he lay down and enjoyed an excellent night's rest. On his rising in the morning, his first visit was to a barber's shop in the town in order to get shaved, and there several persons enquired most earnestly how he had slept; and when he declared that he had never enjoyed a better night's rest in his life, every one seemed amazed. The mystery was now dispelled, and his eyes were opened by being informed the Tee Gwyn,' or White House,' as the mansion was called, had been haunted for fifty years back. The supervisor laughed at this notion, and avowed his utter disbelief in ghosts. The professional shrewdness usually characteristic of his calling, raised a surmise that this same lonely house might be a very snug spot for working an illicit still; and, accordingly, be determined not to be driven out of his new habitation, until he ascertained the fact. He spent the greater part of the day in rummaging the vaults and every hiding-place; but without discovering any thing to confirm his suspicions. As night advanced, he threw an extra log on the fire, and, having borrowed a chair in the town, he sat himself down before it, ate his bread and cheese, and sipped his grog amidst various ruminations. At one time he thought his situation rather dangerous'; as, in the event of his suspicions being true, there was no assistance at hand. He might have his throat cut from ear to ear, and his body thrown into a tub; while his wife and family would be none the wiser. Fears of the living, more than of the dead, flitted across his brain, and at length he resolved, in case he heard any thing going on, to remain as quiet as possible, and send all the information he could to the heads of his department. He could see by his watch it was nearly 12 o'clock; but Nature's fond nurse' had forsaken him, and he felt no inclination to sleep.

"On a sudden he heard footsteps on the staircase, and he felt, or thought he felt, his hair lift his hat at least an inch off his forehead. His heart fluttered; the logs did not seem to blaze so brightly; he listened anxiously, but he heard nothing. After chiding his fancy for frightening him, he mustered courage enough to open the door, which he left in that state, and then betook himself to his couch, after a paralytic sort of a poke at the fire. Scarce had the first doze relieved his limbs, when he was awakened by a strange clattering on the staircase, as if ten thousand imps were ascending to his room. In the panic of the moment he jumped up, and rushed to the landing-place, where he distinctly heard the imps clatter down the broad staircase again, making faint shrieking cries, which died away with the sounds of their footsteps as they seemed to gain the vaults beneath the house. It was now manifest that there were other living tenants in the mansion besides himself; and the remain

der of that sleepless night was spent in gloomy conjectures. With painful anxiety did he watch the grey breaking in the east; and when the day burst forth, he commenced a most scrutinizing search. Nothing, however, was to be discovered, not even a footstep on the staircase; although he could have sworn that he really did hear his disturbers ascend towards his room, and then depart. On his visit to the town that morning, the previous day's enquiries were repeated; but he strenuously denied having been disturbed, for fear he should be thought a coward. The next evening, he determined to ascertain whether any thing really did ascend the staircase, or whether it was mere fancy; and for this purpose, he spread a thick coat of sand on every step, imagining, shrewdly enough, that, if his tormentors were really substantial, they must leave some tracks behind them. In the middle of the night the same extraordinary noise was heard; but the supervisor had provided himself with pistols, and being armed with a lamp also, he proceeded down stairs as hard as he could. The imps, however, were too nimble for him, and he could not even get a glimpse of them. Again did he search in every hole and corner, disturbing the poor spiders with the blaze of his lamp; and finding his scrutiny in vain, he was retracing his steps, when he recollected the sand which, in his terrified descent, he had forgotten, when, to his horror, he perceived some five or six hundred cloven tracks! They were too small for old goblins, and much too large for rats, and the poor man was more puzzled than ever, The matter assumed rather a serious aspect, and he determined to write to his wife forbidding her arrival until she heard farther from him. All the day long his brain was racked by conjectures as to the species of creatures that had disturbed his quiet. Fifty times did he conclude that it was perhaps a trick, and as often did he abandon that notion as improbable; but then he could not account for his not being able to see the authors of the tracks; and forthwith he resolved on another project. He had given up every idea that rats could have made such a noise or tracks so large, but he determined to try if a few rat traps could solve the mystery. Accordingly, he procured six, which were all that he could get; and on the fourth night carefully set them in a row on one of the steps of the staircase, so that if the imps ascended in a column, he was sure of catching at least one of them. Still he would not abandon his pistols or his lamp, but determined to be on guard all night. About the mystic hour of twelve, he again heard the hobgoblins jumping or hopping, as it seemed, up the stairs, and while he cocked one of the pistols he heard a trap go off, then another, then another, succeeded by appalling shrieks and the same clattering noise down stairs again. He proceeded to the spot, and there to his infinite astonishment, he found, not an imp, nor any thing supernatural, but three fine fat rabbits, caught by the legs in the traps. The simple fact was, that the inhabitants of an adjoining rabbit-warren used to make their way up through the sewers into the deserted mansion, and their gambols through the empty rooms first gave rise to the story of the Tee Gwynn' being haunted. It is needless to add, that Mr Thomas forthwith sent for his family, and they now enjoy a house, and as many rabbits as they can eat, for five pounds a-year."

A New Illustrated Road Book of the Route from London to Naples; containing Twenty-four highly-finished Views from Original Drawings by Prout, Stanfield, and Brockeden. Engraved by William and Edward Finden. (Part I., containing the Route from London to Paris.) Edited by W. Brockeden, Author of "The Passes of the Alps." Demy 8vo. London. John Murray. 1831.

THIS book is evidently the composition of a man who

has gone over the ground he writes about frequently, and is intimately acquainted with the locomotive arrangements which prevail there. He gives all the necessary directions for the traveller, and recommends the best local guides and directories of every important place. He has given us the only purpose-like road book we have met with. But the work has yet higher claims to public patronage in the excellence of its pictorial illustrations as, indeed, the names of Prout and Stanfield, the Findens, and the able editor, naturally lead to expect. The views in the present part are five in number. First come the chalky cliffs of Dover, white gleaming over the tossing sea, across which tall barks are driving, “with sloping mast and dipping prow," before a strong breeze, which bears above them alternations of dark rain-clouds, dropping water into the waves, “giving their store of little to that which hath too much," and interstices of dazzling expanses of white. The commingling gloom and glare of such a day, the exclusive inheritance of Britain, the sullen glory of our sky, is admirably conceived and deliheated by Stanfield. Next follows the Pier of Calais at low water by Prout. The sunny gleam across the level wet sands giving back the figures that throng them at once in shadow and reflection—the breezeless sky streaked with the soft clouds of evening-the half-filled sails of the stately brigantine, speak already of a more genial clime. Man creates his own tempests there. Give us our stormy Albion with its unruffled moral hemisphere. Abbeville! Beautiful as when Sterne approached it, notwithstanding the storm and desolation which have since swept over and around it! And look where the rumbling, lumbering diligence hurries down the abrupt curvilinear descent with a whole legion of mendicant imps, "ever with it as it moves along"-bright sunburnt faces, and jetty eyes-tumblers and jokers! Bravo, Stanfield! What have we next? Beauvais, with its massive and gorgeous piazzas, thronged with buyers and sellers, its lofty cathedral rising in the aerial distance, like a dream of religion in a counting-house. This again is from the pencil of Prout. Last comes a view of modern Paris, rich, tasteful, and sunny, by the editor. To these is added a road map from London to Paris, by aid of which and the letterpress, a pilgrim, ignorant of the language, might find his way to the city of the Louvre.

Portrait of Allan Cunningham, Esq. Drawn from Life, on Stone, by F. Wilkin. London. Dickinson. 1831. THIS is the first of a series of portraits, the size of life, of the most eminent men of the age. Wordsworth and Lockhart are in progress-Scott is to follow. The mechanical part of this specimen is worthy of all praise, and the general effect is good. There is a likeness too, to our friend Allan, but on the whole it is neither just nor flattering. From the talent evinced, however, we hold ourselves entitled to augur better things of those which are to follow.

Emmanuel, a Sacred Poem, in nine cantos, with other Poems. By John Nevay. Edinburgh. Printed at the University Press. 1831.

JOHN NEVAY is favourably known to the readers of the Edinburgh Literary Journal by some of his communications. The present work will support his reputation.

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.

SALICETTI.

A STORY OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.

PASSING through the south of France in the autumn of 1828, I heard related the particulars of the following

story. The events, which were then of recent occurrence, had excited deep and general commiseration, and they are, indeed, as tragical as any that have darkened the annals of domestic life.

About the close of the preceding spring, a lady arrived at Bayonne, accompanied by a youth of delicate and prepossessing appearance. He was her only son, on whom, since his father's death, her hopes more anxiously depended, but whose declining state of health at this time had rendered her fears predominant. Indications of constitutional weakness had of late given some grounds to dread the approach of consumption, and by the advice of her physician, and prompted by her own apprehensions, Madame Armand had journeyed with her son from their home in Normandy, to seek for him the more beneficial climate of the southern provinces, which, with the change of scene, it was hoped, would check the threatened advance of this ruthless malady. Madame Armand had some letters of introduction to Bayonne, in whose neighbourhood it was her intention to procure a residence for her son, and it was her desire to board him with some respectable family, where he would be secure of the attentions so grateful to the invalid, and might enjoy the cheerfulness of society, without being exposed to its irritations and fatigue. In answer to her enquiries on this subject, she was given to understand that the advantages she was in quest of were likely to be obtained, could a pension be procured in the family of Salicetti, a farmergeneral, very favourably known, and who possessed a mansion pleasantly situated in the vicinity of Bayonne.

Having received the most agreeable impression from the beauty and air of repose which hung around the scenery of Chateau Valette, she sought an interview with Salicetti. She stated to him the object of her visit, and felt disappointed when he evinced some reluctance to meet with her proposal. There was much, however, to excite interest in the appearance of the young man himself, and the maternal solicitude expressed in the countenance of Madame Armand had the effect of awakening in the wife of Salicetti a sympathy which passes quick between the breasts of mothers, and which, in the present instance, pleaded powerfully in behalf of the former lady, who, before her departure, had the gratification to find that Salicetti had acceded with cordiality to her wishes. In a few days, Henry Armand became an inmate of Chateau Valette, and his mother, with reanimated hopes, bade farewell to the family, returning to the north, from whence necessary affairs did not permit her to be longer absent.

The character of Salicetti was one which wins the good will of mankind, and not undeservedly. Its features were free from the guise of art, or the tricks of cold and artificial politeness. With a little deficiency of exterior softness, he was a man endowed with generous feeling, and with honourable principles, in the expression of which he was always prompt and sincere. He possessed, perhaps over highly, the glowing temperament of his Pyrenean clime, but its ebullitions, though liable to be misdirected, naturally tended to the side of liberality and justice. By the careful improvement of a slender patrimony, and by his frank and honest bearing, he had advanced his station in society, and had eventually become one of the most respected of that class in France denominated farmers-general. He had married a young and pretty provençale of good connexions, to whose beauty he was not insensible, but in whose gentle affections, and characteristic virtues as a wife, he had still greater reason of reconcilement to the domestic lot. And though some few years younger than himself, the inequality was not such as to be incompatible with the relationship they had mutually formed. One daughter had been the fruit of their union, little Madeline, a child now four years old, whose beauty and airy play diffused within their compass a summer gladness, and drew still closer around her parents the ties of home. Prizing thus the happiness