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the highest virtue, and the perfection of human nature, consist in leading a life of solitude and contemplation, is not less absurd than the fancy that celibacy is the best proof of devotion to God. "Increase and multiply!" was a primary command of the Deity; and how the reverse can be one of his allwise mandates too, requires a more experienced casuist than I pretend to be, to explain.

Paul the Hermit, whose life is written by St. Jerome, and who lived in the third century, is considered to be the first founder of monastic orders. To avoid the persecution by Decius, he fled into the lonely deserts of Thebais; where, it is said, he dwelt ninety years, even till he died, subjecting himself to all the desolations of perfect solitude. It is, however, to be observed, that though this modern Saint Paul is placed at the head of the order of hermits, yet that gloomy manner of life was very common in the east from the earliest periods. The sultry atmosphere which envelopes that part of the globe, by disposing the inhabitants to indolence, is a natural cause of that love of retirement and repose, which drove them into spots sequestered from business and from man. Not having energy to be actively good, they esteemed it sufficiently virtuous to be able to withdraw from all temptations to wickedness; from all incitements to lose themselves in the interests of their fellow creatures. To be, or not to be, seemed the question with them: and not to be with their brethren on earth was the same to them as being with the angels in heaven. Hence it is not wonderful that a people thus inclined should readily embrace the mystic theology which arose at this period. It came from the Platonic school, and that favourite doctrine of its disciples, that "the divine nature is diffused through all human souls." They maintained that silence, tranquillity and bodily mortification, were the only means by which the faculty of reason, the emanation of the Deity in man, could exert its latent principle of virtue and divine wisdom. Forgetting they were men, they aspired to be angels at once; and for this purpose, that they might neither love nor hate, tempt nor be tempted, they retired into caves and wildernesses; and there, lost in meditation, submitted themselves to all the privations

of hunger and thirst. By taking particular passages in scripture detached from the context, they found some arguments to support their cause, and thus defended solitude and celibacy with as hearty a zeal as the apostles did the truly reasonable doctrines of love to God and duty towards our neighbour. Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, were filled by lonely monks and sequestered virgins; and the enthusiastic St. Basil brought the same solitary passion into the once social land of Greece. From him most of the monks of Russia name themselves; and for the most part follow his rules.

The principal of a monastery is called either the Archimandrite or the Hegumen; the one is equivalent to abbot or father, the other to prior. The nunneries are upon the same establishment; the principal being called Hegumena; and the other ordinances are on a similar foundation. The only essential difference is, that men may profess themselves monks at thirty years of age; women may not become nuns till they are fifty. You will agree with me in approving the latter rule. If a woman be not married before she have arrived at those very mature years, she may well plead that nature has taken the vows for her; and so without wrong or robbery to the future generation may take on her the veil that is to exclude her from this for ever. A convent is then a peaceful asylum. Childless, unmated, cheerless is the existence of most aged females who are in that situation. Few but mercenaries attend the old age of her who is what the world calls an old maid: and cold is that service which is only purchased. In my mind the refuge of a monastery for these "unappropriated sweets" of creation, is a most desirable establishment; and therefore I applaud that of Russia with my whole heart. But to shut up within the eternal bonds of vows and impassable walls, the young, the fair, and the tender, is sacrilege against the first laws of heaven. It takes from man the mate that was made for him; it deprives the world of many thousand human beings, who might have sprung from bosoms now condemned to the barren pillow of a monastic cell.

These devotees are distinguished into three degrees; the probationers (or novices), the proficients, and the perfect.

The dress of a probationer is a black cassoc called rhæsa; and a hood, also black, called kamelauch, from being made of camel's hair. Proficients wear an upper cloak called the mandyas or lesser habit, to distinguish it from the great habit, or angelic image, as it is called. Monastics of this third and perfect degree always wear the hood or veil down; and never, after they have assumed it, suffer their faces to be seen. The same usages hold, both with the men and women in theRussian monasteries. I send you drawings of the monks and nuns in the habits of their favourite saint, Basil; and leaving you to contemplate them, shall quit the sacred pall with this oft repeated vow, how truly I am your faithful friend!

LETTER XI.

St. Petersburgh, October, 1805.

HOW changed is the face of nature since last I addressed you! all is frozen; and covered with the chilling snows of winter. If the city astonished me when under the glowing tints of an autumnal atmosphere, how much more striking does its present pale silvery light make it appear!

Now indeed this is Russia! every sensation, every perception, confirms the conviction. The natives have suddenly changed their woollen kaftans, for the greasy and unseemly skins of sheep. The freezing power which has turned every inanimate object into ice, seems to have thawed their hearts and their faculties: they sing, they laugh, they wrestle; tumbling about like great bears amongst the furrows of the surrounding snow. In fact, this season, so prolonged with them, seems more congenial with their natures than their short but vivid summer.

This year the bosom of the Neva was encrusted with ice at an unusually early period: it took place on the 14th of the present month: but in the September of 1715 it was shut up by a frost so intense as to become in a few hours safe for carriages

of the heaviest burthen. Soon after the commencement of the present winter the bridge of boats (which communicates with that part of the city built on an island called Vassilly Ostroff), was allowed to swing to the opposite side of the river, in order to permit vast sheets of congealed water to pass forward into the gulf. After an early frost followed by a temporary thaw, these masses find their way down the Neva; they come from the interior, the lake Ladoga, &c. and proceed with frightful velocity. Sometimes a quick frost arrests these accumulations, and renders them in one night safe for conveyances of every description. Frequently the ice thus collected does not finally dissolve till the expiration of the ensuing May. In that charming month, I am told, summer reappears with the suddenness of enchantment; and every thing around seems rather like the instantaneous mechanism of an English pantomine, than the regular action of the season.

Far different is the scene at present! Where are now the expanded waters of the Neva? The gay gondolas and painted yachts? The myriads of vessels and boats continually passing and repassing? All have disappeared: one bleak extended snowy plain generalizes the views: and scarcely a trace is left to convey an idea that a river ever glided through the heart of this imperial city. The roofs of the palaces, public buildings, and private houses, are shrouded in the same pale garb. But no objects are so strangely beautiful as the trees which grow in several divisions of this metropolis; when divested of their leaves, the repeated coats of snow thickening on their branches, form them into the appearance of white coral encrusted with a brilliant diamond dust. Even the beards of men and horses are white and glittering with this northern ornament.

Cold to the Russians, seems to be what heat is to the torpid animal; for Petersburgh at this moment presents a prospect of much greater bustle and activity than during the warmer months. The additional multitudes, spread in busy swarms throughout every quarter, are inconceivable: sledges, carriages, and other traineau vehicles, cross and pass each other with incredible velocity. The sensation excited in the eye by the swift, transitory movement of so many objects upon the unbroken

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glare of the snow, is painful and blinding: and you might as well determine to fix your sight upon a particular ant (at the demolition of its little world), as on one of these figures when beholding them from a height. From the fortress tower for instance; where I have just been beholding a scene as extraordinary to an English eye, as it is undescribable and amusing.

You will naturally expect a description of the sledge, a prominent feature in a Russian view. It is a machine on which not only the persons of the people are transported from place to place with unparalleled speed, but likewise the product of other nations is passed many thousand versts into the interior. The sledge is precisely a pair of colossal skates joined together. On these (according to the taste of the owner) is erected the most agreeable and convenient carriage which either his purse may afford or his situation claim. The sledges of the humbler order are solely formed of logs of wood bound together with ropes into the beforementioned shape: on this is an even surface of plank or matting, for the accommodation of themselves or loads. You will see a Russian pair in one of these conveyances, amongst my pencil memorandums. The sledges which succeed the drojcka (the St. Petersburgh hackney coach), are generally very neat, yet always gaudy, being decorated with red, green, gold and silver, with strange carved work and uncouth whirligigs of iron. Their interior is well bespread with dump hay, for the benefit of the hirer, in order to keep his feet warm. It is so difficult to describe the precise cut of these vehicles, that I must again refer you to the more accurate delineation in my sketch book.

The sledge carriage of a prince, or a nobleman, is uncommonly handsome. All its appointments are magnificent; and never out of harmony. In it we behold the genuine uncontaminated taste of the country: no bad imitations of German or English coach work are here attempted; all is characteristic; and a picturesque effect, peculiarly its own, is produced by the vehicle itself, its furs, its horses, their trappings and the streaming beards of the charioteers. The nobleman's sledge is built cxactly on the same principle with those of inferior people; only differing in the width of the body, which is made to bold two

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