fit for being either cast or hammered. A larger quantity of this iron is exported than of any of the rest. 3d. Siberian iron, from the east side of the Ural mountains.

The exportation of the following articles of iron is permitted: Cannon, mortars, bombs, balls, and warlike stores; cast iron in pots and other cast wares; cast iron in pigs; old broken iron and bar iron. Some articles are allowed to be exported free of all duty; of this kind is sorted iron. The common bar iron is two and a half inches in breadth, and half an inch in thickness; and iron above or below this standard is called sorted iron. Other articles which enjoy the same privilege are, white and black iron plate, anchors and iron nails, files and other tools, arms and iron window-frames.

Of these articles free from duty the only one exported in any considerable quantity is sorted iron. In regard to the rest, Russia imports from foreign countries the greater part of those which it uses. The bar-iron makes above four-fifths in value of the whole iron exported. Sorted iron is shipped only at Archangel and Riga. The exportation of cast wares is of very little importance. That the exportation of iron from Russia has increased will appear by the following compariThe quantity exported in 1767-1769, taking one year with another, amounted to 1,951,464 poods; but, in 1793-1795, to 2,965,724. The value of the whole iron exported in 1769 was 1,463,000 rubles; in 1793-1795, one year with another, 5,015,000.

son:

Another article, of which large quantities are exported from Russia, is tallow. The greater part of it comes from the Kergisean frontiers, where for many years past from forty to sixty thousand sheep have been annually bought up merely for the tallow; and, therefore, the flesh of these animals in this part of the empire is scarcely of any value. In the year 1767, a citizen Orel having represented to the emperor, that in consequence of such immense numbers of cattle and sheep being purchased merely in order to obtain their tallow, a considerable decrease had taken place in their number, and the price of meat had been raised, some regulations were made to put a stop to so pernicious a practice. It, however, appears, that the exportation of tallow has increased in an extraordinary degree in the course of the last fifteen or twenty years. In 1767-1769 it amounted, on an average, to 272,926 poods annually; and in 1793-1795, to 1,074,367.

The principal kinds of cloth made of hemp and flax exported from Russia are sail-cloth, Osnabruc sacking, raven duck, ticking, linen table cloths, and diaper. It appears that the number of the sail-cloth manufactories in this country has increased greatly since the time of the American war; and this needs excite little surprise, as the demand for sail-cloth since that period has been greater, and as the price has risen so much that some of the manufacturers have sold their cloth at fifty or sixty per cent. profit. The largest establishments of this kind from which Petersburgh procures its sail-cloth for exportation are chiefly in Jaroslaf, Kaluga, Kostroma, and Shuia. In the year 1769 the value of all these articles exported was 1,935,000 rubles.

As the Russian corn is well dried, and exceedingly proper for being

kept,

kept, it is preferred by foreigners to that of other countries. Of all the Russian harbours Riga exports the largest quantity of this article; but very little of it goes from Livonia, as it scarcely produces enough to supply its own distilleries. Rye, barley, and oats are shipped chiefly at Riga, where the quantity of all the different kinds of grain exported amounts to about 20,000 lasts. Wheat is exported chiefly from the harbours of the Black Sea; it is exported also, but in less quantity, from Riga, Archangel, and Petersburgh. Formerly the principal grain exported was rye, but for some years past wheat has taken the lead in this respect, in consequence of its being shipped in the harbours of the Black Sea, where it formed the most important article of commerce during the last general war. In the year 1786 the quantity of it exported from all the ports of that sea amounted to 68,731 Tshetwerts, and in 1793 to 162,000. The value of all the grain exported from Russia in 1793-1795, taking one year with another, amounted to 2,878,400 rubles.

The timber exported from Russia may be reduced to four different kinds; deals, oak-wood, spars, and ship-timber. Masts are shipped chiefly at St. Petersburgh and Riga, but sometimes from other harbours on the coast of Livonia. The masts sent from Riga are cut down in the forests of Poland and Russia, and must often be conveyed at great expence to a navigable river. At Riga they lie on some island or in the water till they are sold, which is never the case till they have been measured and sorted by the mast-broker of the town.

Including deals, the export timber trade at Riga amounts to 564,653 rubles; but that at St. Petersburgh to only 106,444. The timber trade requires a large capital. The timber is obtained from very remote places, and is sometimes two years or more, if the rivers be low or other obstacles occur, before it can be conveyed to the place where it is shipped. To supply the demand from foreign nations the timber-merchant must always have a large stock in hand, and consequently is obliged to enter into a contract for two or three years with the proprietors of the forests. On these occasions a third part of the purchase money is always paid down, and the rest at stated periods, which are longer or shorter according to the expences incurred by the transportation.

The number of ships which frequent Riga every year, for the timber trade alone, amounts to three or four hundred; and as large vessels only can be used for the transportation of masts, they generally complete their lading with other articles. That this trade, besides the spirit of industry it excites in districts which have few productions but their forests, is highly advantageous to Russia, by the large balance in its favour and the sums of money it brings into the country, will appear from the following calculation. A quantity of timber purchased at the forest for 57,690 rubles, is attended with an expence of 173,070 for transportation; so that the whole price will be 230,760. The export duty on this sum will amount to 57,922; and if to this be added the other expences, the interest of the capital employed, and the profit obtained by the seller, which, estimated at twenty per cent.

of

of the buying price, will be 46,152 rubles, it will be found that this quantity of timber, which is sold on the spot where it is cut down for 57,690 rubles, will cost the foreign merchant 327,134.

It appears, therefore, that foreigners who purchase Russian timber pay for it more than six times the original price; one half of the whole capital, or three times the purchasing price, goes to the expence of transportation; a seventh part of the capital comes into circulation at Riga, and more than a sixth part, or a sum equal to the prime cost, is paid as duty into the public treasury.

The exportation of ship timber is attended with still greater advantage, for it appears that the duties to the crown in this case amount to a fourth part of the capital, and exceed the prime cost by about one half; and on some articles it is even more striking, for a hundred masts purchased at the forest for 900 rubles, cost at the place from which they are exported 3,390.

But however beneficial the timber trade may be to the Russian government as well as to individuals, it may at length become injurious to the state, should this source of public wealth be exhausted by unlimited exportation and improper management of the forests. In the year 1798, the bad state of the woods on the Kama and the Volga, the increased price of timber, and the dearness of fire-wood in Petersburgh, Moskva, and several of the provincial towns, induced the late emperor to prohibit the exportation of timber, except in cases for which his special permission should be obtained. This order was attended with very serious consequences to some of the northern harbours, for it appears by the custom-house books of the year 1793, that the timber trade at Onega formed nine-eights, at Viborg eight-sevenths, at Fredericksham one-half, at Narva one-fourth, at Riga one fifteenth, at Pernau one sixteenth, at Petersburgh one twenty sixth, and at Archangel one fifty-fourth of the whole export trade of the empire. On the 28th of the same month, however, a second order was issued, by which the exportation of timber was allowed till the end of the year 1798; but the lateness of the season, the want of ships, and the insecurity of the sea, prevented most of the merchants from taking advantage of this permission. These towns, therefore, and particularly Riga, made application to government to obtain at least leave to export within an unlimited period the timber they had on hand, and that for which they had entered into contracts. It appears from a calculation made on this occasion, that Riga, at the end of the year above mentioned, had lying on its wharfs timber to the value of 1,340,000 rubles; and the value of that contracted for by the merchants, to be delivered in the years 1799 and 1800, amounted to more than a million and a half, two-thirds of which sum, according to the lowest calculation, were already paid. The purchased timber was already cut down and partly on the road, but could not be transported further without a new advance of money, and consequently must have been left to rot; whereas, by being exported, it would have brought into the public treasury 700,300 rubles

of

of duty, and into the kingdom more than four millions of foreign money. In consequence of the representations made on the subject, another ukase was issued on the 21st of December, 1799, which permitted all the timber already cut down, and that lying on the road or conveyed to the harbours, to be shipped for exportation; but the college of the admiralty and of commerce having received orders to take into consideration the principles on which the timber trade ought to be established, and to transmit their opinion to the senate, that it might afterwards be laid before the sovereign, the result was an ukase, dated March 1st, 1800, by which the exportation of timber was allowed on the same footing as before, but with this alteration, that the export duty was doubled; and in this state it still remains.

(To be continued.)

Sir,

A SPECIES OF CANT.

To the Editor of the Athenæum.

I PERUSED with much pleasure and gratification the excellent treatise on Canting by your correspondent Rusticus. There is, however, in the religious world, a species of canting totally distinct from all others, and which consists in a man's letting the public know, from his own confession, what a worthless character he is. Thus, for instance, an Arminian Methodist, who persuades himself that he has been "born again," or a Calvinist, who has the presumption to believe that he is one of the "elect," makes no scruple to tell the world that he is "the vilest of sinners," and that "the thoughts of his heart are evil and that continually;" but if a byestander should take him at his word, and say, "Aye, this is exactly the opinion I had formed of you in my own mind, notwithstanding your outward appearance of sanctity," it would quickly be found that this great sinner will shelter himself under the general corruption of human nature, and feel himself much offended at the application being made to him as an individual.

Now, Sir, this is a direct cant, through which the devotee, who loads himself with the most opprobrious epithets, expects to have the highest compliments paid to his piety and humility.

Hampstead, 30th May, 1808.

P.

Your's, &c.

ON MOTTOES.

THE application of passages from eminent authors, by way of authority, illustration, or ornament, has been a very ancient practice, and in modern times has become a custom which, like all pre

valent

valent customs, has often deviated into excess. At the revival of literature, when it was the chief object with men of letters to display the extent of their reading, scarcely any work appeared without a multiplicity of decoration of this kind. Not a pamphlet was published without its mottoes in Greek and Latin, and not a sentiment, however trivial, was hazarded without confirmation by parallel sentences from the ancients. The pedantry of this practice at length became an object of ridicule. It is certain, however, that the moderate use of quotation, when directed by judgment and taste, has been at all times agreeable to cultivated readers, who have received from it the double pleasure of unexpectedly meeting with passages which they have admired in their proper places, and of seeing them happily introduced in new connexions.

It is not my intention in the present paper to speak generally of quotations, but only of that species of them which are peculiarly called mottoes. These are short sentences, either prefixed to books, or inscribed on portraits, coats of arms, edifices, devices, and the like, which serve as heads or titles indicating the essential character, object, or design. The French have a happy term to express the motto to a device or emblem; they call it l'ame, the soul. In fact, a well chosen motto contains the spirit or essence of the thing to which it is applied.

There are two different modes of application of these quoted passages, which divide them into two distinct classes. In the first the author's words are taken in their proper sense; in the second, they are allusively employed, and transferred to a different meaning. Of the first, the excellence consists in the nervous and pointed expression of the thought which it is intended to enforce: the beauty of the second depends upon starting some unexpected but exact resemblance, which surprizes by the ingenuity of the application. Examples shall be given to illustrate this distinction, which, it is hoped, may afford some entertainment to the classical reader, whatever be thought of the introductory matter. Those of the first class will take the lead.

A variety of mottoes have been inscribed on clocks and sun-dials, with the intention of warning the spectator of the unheeded lapse of time. I recollect none superior in energy to the two following, afforded by Seneca's Epistles. "Inscii rapimur.' "Nisi properamus, relinquimur." The English language is so inferior in conciseness to the Latin, that no adequate version can be given; but we might say, "Time whirls us on unfelt." "Haste, or you stay behind."

The same author gives in three words what would serve for a striking sentence on a tomb-stone; "Abstulit, sed dedit:" the words are similar to those of Job, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away," which is simply pious resignation; but Seneca, who applies them to Fortune, has a different meaning; "She has taken away, but she first gave"-and the lesson is, "Remember that you have enjoyed what you now lament to have lost." By the substitution of Deity, to Fortune, it would become pious as well as philosophical.

VOL. IV.

D

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