Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

persons with the two forefingers of the left hand. The music is fine, has much simplicity, and is all vocal. They who chant are not seen, which gives a more charming effect to the voices. The sight of figures and faces, often not in harmony with the strains they produce, excites a discordancy in the feelings, very inimical to those holy aspirations, which, accompanying the sacred breathings of the voice, raise the soul in rapture to heaven. The most celebrated church in St. Petersburgh, for fine singing, is the Maltese chapel; and there it is of the most exquisite melodies.

On entering the monastery of Alexander Nefsky, you see a small church on one side of the way leading to the grand area. It is vaulted and gloomy, and well informs the traveller that it is the mansion of the dead. Here are several cells in which are the tombs of departed great men. These monuments are in general badly executed; one only I can except, and that is of bronze, and composed and finished in a very superior manner. I could not learn the name of the artist.

The primary object of my visit to this sepulchral abode, was a desire to see the grave of the renowned Suwarroff. About four feet from the pavement, on the left hand side of one of these vaults, which is used as a chapel, is placed against the wall a small brass plate, on which is engraved in the Russ. language,

HERE LIES SUWARROFF!

A more comprehensive epitaph could not have been chosen. On these words meeting the eye, his greatness and extraordinary life rush at once upon the mind; and we feel, from this sublime appeal, the whole force of his character with a conviction which a thousand volumes of eulogy could not increase nor more confirm. Many instances might be brought, to show how happy the Russians are in this kind of short, natural, and Spartan expression. On a medal, struck in the reign of Catherine II, in honour of a great victory, and presented to the officers and soldiers who distinguished themselves in the battle, this was written under the emblems of conquest. I WAS THERE. The sense of which is more pointed in the Russian tongue, it

being there expressed in one word. The simplicity of this style is great as the empire, and strikes like its own gigantic rocks. Polish it with the refinements of art, and though ornament may be acquired, its sublimity would be lost. Such a mode of speech proves a certain grandeur in the minds of the people. Greatness is perceived at once; and like faithful mirrors reflecting what is before them, they pronounce the merit full, and in a word. What men easily feel and readily admire, they are not far from imitating.

In the vaulted apartments of this dreary structure are stoves, in order to heat them; an accommodation which would gladly be dispensed with, as the penetrating vapour puts every dormant smell on the alert, filling the air with scents, musty and pestiferous, exhaled from the mouldering coffins of embalmed heroes, princes, and statesmen. In one of these sepulchres was formerly deposited the body of the unfortunate Peter III, the father of the late emperor. When Paul ascended the throne he caused the remains of this imperial victim to be taken up, in order to be reburied, in the church of the fortress, the cemetery of his ancestors. The perpetrators of the murder were summoned to the ceremony, and obliged to watch the coffin day and night for three weeks. There were not more than two penitents (if penitents they were!) as the rest of the assassins were all dead. I do not envy the feelings which must, in these moments, have occupied their breasts. Horror of their crime, and fear of immediate death after the funeral, must have been ever before them. Indeed, if time, or hardness of heart, had not blunted their remorse, the present punishment was a torture more grievous than the most instantaneous public execution. They walked in the procession as chief mourners: a situation neither of them expected, after a lapse of so many years, to fill. There is something extraordinary and great in the mode of punishment: and also much to be admired in so strong a testimony of Paul's affection for the memory of his father. But there are many who do not give his heart any credit for this transaction; considering it rather as an act of hostility against the name of his mother. If they be right, the complexion of the affair is totally changed; and what before

stood as an act of filial piety, is now abhorred as the violent caprice of an undutiful son. What supports this opinion, are the proofs he gave at different times of hatred to her memory, in the total disregard of all her public plans, and the disgrace in which he involved her best ministers.

This prince's actions are too well known, and have sufficiently marked his extravagant character, to require my enlarging on them here. The people groaned beneath his yoke; and few, if any tears followed him to his grave. How different is the aspect of the nation and its sovereign at this moment! Individual safety and comfort are seen on every side. The real good of the subject in the monarch's breast, and the firmest confidence in him on the part of the people, form the peace and security of all. A heart like that of the amiable Alexander, when guided by wise counsels, cannot fail to render himself and the millions under his rule, prosperous and happy. He is now absent from his capital; but not on a party of summer pleasure. He is gone to front the enemy of Europe; and we have little doubt but that, if he be properly supported by his allies, he will make that far-stretching conqueror confess the might that lies in a righteous cause. Did we live in the days of superstition, we should suppose, from the wonderful fortune which attends this scourge, that he fought under an enchanted banner; but there is a period when success must fail the man who makes his glory the desolation of mankind. Interest and self-preservation are strong incitements; they will be generally felt, and ere long he must be destroyed by those very evils recoiling on himself with which his rapacity and ambition have sought to overwhelm the world. But, as he is, men look on him with wonder; and his most mortal foes must declare that were he as good as he is great, he would be irresistible. Doubly great must he be who ever makes this extraordinary victor lower his crest and acknowledge an equal, if not a superior. Alas! that talents cannot see the noblest crown is virtue!

H

LETTER VIII.

St. Petersburgh, September, 1805.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

HAVING detained you so long amongst the aisles and cloisters of the church, it is just that I should lead you to the rest within; and having placed you at the foot of the altar, open the book containing its holy ordinances.

The religion of Russia is that of the eastern or Greek Church. It allows the most liberal toleration; no person being excluded from any office under government on account of his religious tenets. The only restrictions are, that the imperial family must profess the Greek faith; and all Russians who have once entered its pale cannot lawfully depart from it. As the church in question is of higher antiquity than any other distinction amongst christians, so its doctrines prevail over some of the widest tracks in christendom. They are professed through the greatest part of Greece, the Grecian Isles, Moldavia, Wallachia, Egypt, Nubia, Lybia, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Cilicia, and Palestine, the whole of the Russian empire in Europe, Siberia in Asia, Astracan, Casan, Georgia, and several other countries.

The princess Olga, grandmother to Vladimir the great, was the first person of distinction in Russia who was converted to christianity. She went to Constantinople to be baptized; and was led to the font by the eastern emperor Constantine Porphyrogenneta, who gave her the name of Helen; and sent her back to her country laden with relics and costly presents. Her son the fierce Sviatoslaf, refused to abjure his pagan gods; and Vladimir, her no less ferocious grandson, paid as little respect to her religious zeal. What parental anxiety could not effect, in the course of a few years afterwards was so ably compassed, as to cause the prince not only to become a convert himself, but to accomplish the holy conviction of the most considerable families in the empire. He too received the seal of the cross before the altars of Constantinople; and from thence, with a christian bride, the sister of the emperor, brought priests and

learned teachers to instruct the whole nation in the doctrines of the Greek church. Thus was one of the most sanguinary worshippers of idolatry transformed at once by the religion of peace, into a powerful but mild assertor of the charities of Heaven. Mark how strong is the difference between Vladimir pagan and Vladimir christian. In the early part of his sway, while as grand-prince he was carrying conquest to the very extremities of Russia, he resolved to return thanks to the savage gods of his country for the victory granted to his arms, by sacrificing on their altars the prisoners whom he had taken during the war. His courtiers still more barbarous in their piety, were not content with the smoking blood of so many of their fellow-creatures, but they told Vladimir that a victim selected from amongst his own people would greatly enhance the homage paid to the propitious deities. He approved the hint, and pitched on a young man, the son of a venerable christian, and professing the same faith. The unhappy father refused to yield up the victim. The monarch, enraged at what he deemed sacrilege, and at his commands being disputed, ordered the doors of the house to be forced. He was obeyed; and the father and son furiously immolated in each other's arms. Not satisfied with this diabolical rite, Vladimir ordered the number of idols to be increased in the city of Kief; and erected a new and superb statue to the goddess Perune in the principality of Novgorod. Soon after those heathen acts a Greek sage appeared at his court; and gaining his ear, in a very impressive manner so discoursed of the truth of the christian dispensation, reasoning of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, that the monarch trembled, declared his faith in what he heard; and following the holy man to the font, received the name of Basilius, and "leaving in the sacred water the leprosy with which his vices had covered him, came forth a character as pure as infancy." Indeed the change which took place in him from that hour, seems almost miraculous. He broke down the idols throughout the empire. He put away his wives and concubines, to the number of eight hundred, and adhered to the princess Anna alone, the christian lady whom he had brought from Constantinople. He founded churches and schools; built cities; and

:

« ÖncekiDevam »