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II.

Virgin with
Three
Hands.

CHAP. Virgin and Child, found, one day, that instead of two hands which he had given to the Virgin, a third had been added during his absence from his work. Supposing some person to be playing a trick with him, he rubbed out the third hand, and, having finished the picture, carefully locked the door of his apartment. To his great surprise, he found the next day the extraordinary addition of a third hand in his picture, as before. He now began to be alarmed; but still concluding it possible that some person had gained access to his room, he once more rubbed out the superfluous hand, and not only locked the door, but also barricadoed the windows. The next day, approaching his laboratory, he found the door and windows fast, as he had left them; but, to his utter dismay and astonishment, as he went in, there appeared the same remarkable alteration in his picture, the Virgin appearing with three hands regularly disposed about the Child. In extreme trepidation, he began to cross himself, and proceeded once more to alter the picture; when the Virgin herself appeared in person, and bade him forbear, as it was her pleasure to be so represented.

Many of these absurd representations are said to be the work of angels. In the Greek

The

II.

Russian

Bogh.

Church they followed the idols of Paganism, CHAP. and have continued to maintain their place. They are one of the first and most curious sights which attract a traveller's notice; for it is not only in their churches that such paintings are preserved; every room throughout the empire has a picture of this nature, large or small, called the BOGH, or God, stuck up in one corner': to this every person who enters offers adoration, before any salutation is made to the master or mistress of the house. adoration consists in a quick motion of the right hand in crossing; the head bowing all the time in a manner so rapid and ludicrous, that it reminds one of those Chinese-Mandarin images seen upon the chimney-pieces of old houses, which, when set a-going, continue nodding, for the amusement of old women and children. In the myriads of idol paintings dispersed throughout the empire, the subjects represented are very various: and some of them, owing to their singularity, merit a more particular description, than can be afforded without engraved representations.

(1) The picture itself is said to bear the name of Obraze; but as the Obraze is considered by every Russian as his Household God, it is very generally called Bogh, which is the Russian name for GOD.

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CHAP.

III.

NOVOGOROD.

Antient History of Novogorod-First Churches in Russia
-Procopius-Evagrius - Baptism of Olga, afterwards
Helena-Arms of Novogorod-Ceremony of Crossing
-General Picture of this Route-Heights of Valday
Costume-Tumuli-Jedrova-Domestic Manners of
the Peasants-Servile State of the Empire-Vyshney
Voloshok-Torshok-Tver-Milanese Vagrants-
Volga-Tumuli - Klin - Petrovsky-Arrival at
Moscow-Police-Accommodations.

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THE melancholy ideas excited by the present appearance of Novogorod have been felt by all History of travellers. Who has not heard the antient

Antient

Novogorod,

III.

Antient

A. D. 450.

saying, which prevailed in the days of its great- CHAP. ness? Nomade Slavonians were its founders, about the time that the Saxons, invited by Vorti- History of gern, first came into Britain. Four centuries Novogorod. afterwards, a motley tribe, collected from the original inhabitants of all the watery and sandy plains around the Finland Gulph, made it their metropolis. Nearly a thousand years have passed, since Ruric, the Norman, gathering them together at the mouth of the Volchova, laid the foundation of an empire, destined to extend over the vast territories of all the Russias afterwards, ascending the river, to the spot where its rapid current rushes from the Ilmen to the Ladoga Lake, he fixed his residence in Novogorod.

In the midst of those intestine divisions which A.D. 1015. resulted from the partition of the empire at the death of Vladimir, who divided his estates between his twelve sons, there arose three independent princes, and a number of petty confederacies. The seat of government was successively removed from Novogorod, to Suzedal, Vladimir, and Moscow. NoVOGOROD adopted a mixed government, partly monarchical, and partly republican. In the middle of the thir

(2) " QUIS CONTRA DEos, et Magnam NOVOGORDIAM ?"

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III.

A.D. 1250.

CHAP. teenth century, it was distinguished by the victories of its Grand Duke, Alexander Nevsky, over the Swedes, on the banks of the Neva; and, by its remote situation, escaped the ravages of the Tahtars in the fourteenth. In the fifteenth, it submitted to the yoke of Ivan the First, whose successor, Ivan the Second, in the sixteenth, ravaged and desolated the place, carrying away the Palladium of the city, the famous bell, which the inhabitants had dignified with the appellation of Eternal. But its ruin was not fully accomplished until the building of Petersburg; when all the commerce of the Baltic was transferred to that capital.

First

Churches

Bodies, miraculously preserved, or rather mummied, of Saints who were mortal ages ago, are shewn in the Cathedral of St. Sophia. This edifice has been described as one of the most antient in the country. The first Russian churches were in Russia. certainly of wood; and their date is not easily ascertained. Christianity was preached to the inhabitants of the Don so early as the time of Justinian. That Emperor was zealous in building churches among remote and barbarous people. According to Procopius, he caused a church to be erected among the Abasgi, in honour of the THEOTOCOS, and constituted priests among them. The same author also relates, that the inhabitants of Tanaïs earnestly

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