When the religion of the Greek church was first introduced into Russia, its propagators, prohibited by the second commandment from the worship of carved images, brought with them the pictures of the saints, of the virgin, and the Messiah. The earliest churches in the holy land had paintings of this kind, which the first Christians worshipped; as may be proved by the remains of them at this time in that country. To protect these holy symbols of the new faith from the rude, but zealous fingers and lips of its votaries, in a country where the arts of multiplying them by imitation were then unknown, they were covered by plates of the most precious metals, which left the features alone visible. As soon as the messengers of the gospel died, they became themselves saints, and were worshipped by their followers. The pictures they had brought were then suspended in the churches, and regarded as the most precious relicks. Many of them, preserved now in Russia, are considered as having the power of working miracles. It would, then, necessarily follow, that with new preachers, new pictures must be required. The Russians, characterized at this day by a talent of imitation, though without a spark of inventive genius, followed, not only the style of the original painting, but the manner of laying it on, and the materials on which it was placed. Thus we find, at the end of the eighteenth century, a Russian peasant placing before his bogh, a picture, purchased in the markets of Moscow and Petersburgh, exactly similar to those brought from Greece during the tenth; the same stiff representation of figures which the Greeks themselves seem to have originally copied from works in mosaick; the same mode of mixing and laying on the colours on a plain gold surface; the same custom of painting upon wood; and the same expensive covering of a silver coat of mail; when, from the multitude and cheapness of such pictures, the precaution, at first used to preserve them, is no longer necessary. In other instances of their religion, the copy of sacred relicks seems, to the Russians, as much an object of worship as the original. This will appear by the description of Moscow; in the neighbourhood of which city is a building erected, at prodigious

* Among the ruins of some of the most ancient churches in Palestine, I found several curious examples of encaustick painting, of a very early date. One of these, from Sephoris, near Nazareth, is now in the possession of the principal librarian of the University of Cambridge, to whom I presented it.

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expense, in imitation of the church of the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem; having exactly the same form, and containing a faithful representation of the same absurdities.

The cathedral of Novogorod, dedicated to St. Sophia, in imitation of the name given to the magnificent edifice erected by Justinian at Constantinople, was built in the eleventh century. Many of the pictures seem to have been there from the time in which the church was finished, and doubtless were some of them painted long before its consecration, if they were not brought into the country with the introduction of Christianity. At any rate, we may consider them as having originated from the source whence Italy derived a knowledge of the art, though prior to its appearance in that country. Little can be said of the merit of any of them. They are more remarkable for singularity than beauty. In the dome of a sort of antichapel, as you enter, are seen the representations of monsters with many heads, and such a strange assemblage of imaginary beings, that it might be supposed a pagan, rather than a Christian temple, The different representations of the virgin, throughout Russia, will show to what a pitch of absurdity superstition has been carried. I believe most of them are found in all their prineipal churches; and as their worship forms so conspicuous a feature in the manners of the Russians, it will be proper to annex fac similes of those pictures which have the greatest number of votaries; for though they are all objects of adoration, they have each of them particular places, in which, as tutelary deities, they obtain more peculiar reverence; and sometimes small chapels and churches, dedicated particularly to some one of them individually. These are, principally, The Virgin of Vladimir; The Virgin with the Bleeding Cheek; and-spectatum admissi, risum teneatis? The Virgin with three Hands! The authors of the Universal History appropriate this last picture to the church of the convent of the New Jerusalem. I believe it to have been originally painted, as a barbarous representation, or symbol, of the trinity; and, therefore, it more properly applies to another convent in the neighbourhood of Moscow. The following story has, however, been eirculated, concerning its history.

An artist, being employod on a picture of the Virgin and Child, found, one day, that, instead of two hands, which he had given the Virgin, a third had been added, during his absence from his work. Supposing some person had been

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 elaboratory, 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 those absurd representations are said to be the work of angels. In the Greek church they followed the idols of paganism, 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 which every person who enters offers adoration, before any salutation is made to the master or mistress of the house; and this 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 sub jeets represented are very various

CHAPTER 111.

NOVOGOROD.

Ancient History of Novogorod-First Churches in Russia -Procopius-Evagrius-Baptism of Olga, afterwards Helena-Arms of Novogorod-Ceremony of CrossingGeneral Picture of this Route-Heights of ValdaiCostume-Tumuli-Jedrova-Domestick Manners of the Peasants-Servile State of the Empire-Vyshnei Volashok-Torshok--Tver-Milanese Vagrants-VolgaTumuli-Klin-Petrovski-Arrival at Moscow-Police

Accommodations.

HE melancholy ideas excited by the present appear-ance of Novogorod have been felt by all travellers. Who has not heard the ancient saying, which went forth in the days of its greatness ?* Nomade Slavonians were its founders, about the time the Saxons, invited by Vortigern, first came into Britain. Four centuries after, A. D. 450, a motley tribe, collected from the original inhabitants of all the watery and sandy plains around the Finland Gulph, made it their metropolis. Near a thousand years have passed away, since Rurick, 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; then 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 resulted from the partition of the empire, at the death of Vladimir, who divided his estate between his twelve sons, there arose three independent princes, and a number of petty confederacics. The seat of government was successively removed

* "Quis contra Deos, et Magnam Novogordiam?” “Who can resist the Gods, and Great Novogorod?"

from Novogorod to Suzedal, Vladimir, and Moscow. Novogorod adopted a mixed government, partly monarchical and partly republican. In the middle of the thirteenth century it was distinguished by the victories of its grand duke, Alexander Nevski, over the Swedes, on the banks of the Neva; and by its remote situation, escaped the ravages of the Tartars 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 Petersburgh when all the commerce of the Baltick was transferred to that capital.

Bodies, miraculously preserved, or rather mummied, of saints who were mortal, ages ago, are shown in the cathedral of St. Sophia. This edifice has been described as one of the most ancient in the country. The first Russian churches were 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 emperour 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 entreated him to send a bishop among them, which was accordingly done. Evagrius Scholasticus* has related this circumstance, as recorded by Procopius. But by Tanaïs is said to be intended that stream, which runs out of the Mæotis into the Euxine; that is to say, the Cimmerian Bosphorus, or Straits of Taman. The arrival of a bishop so invited, and under such patronage, might be followed by the establishment of a church; and it is probable, from existing documents as well as the traditions of the people, that this really happened either on the Asiatick, or the European side of those Straits, about that time. The jurisdiction of the province afterwards annexed to the crown of Russia by Svetoslav the first, father of Vladimir the great, included the isle of Faman, and the peninsula of Kertehi. In those districts, therefore, we might be allowed to place the first tabernacles

* Lib. iv. c. 23.