right hand facing the sacristy, standing on a step covered with a carpet, and raised about four inches from the level of the floor. We were directed to place ourselves by his right hand. The other Cossacks, whether in military uniform or national domestic habit, stood promiscuously in the body of the church. The priest, in very rich robes, with his back towards the people, was elevated upon a kind of throne, placed beneath the chandelier, and raised three steps from the platform, facing the great doors of the sacristy these were shut. Over them was a picture of the Virgin; and before it, suspended by a string, were two wooden angels, joined back to back, like the figures of Janus, with candles in their hands. Whenever the doors of the sacristy were thrown open, the wooden angels were lowered before the centre of the entrance here they whirled round and round in a most ludicrous manner. As the ceremony began, the priest, standing upon the throne, loosened a girdle bound across his breast and shoulders, whereon was an embroidered representation of the cross. This he held between his forefinger and thumb, repeating the service aloud, and touching his forehead with it, while the people sang responses, and were busied in crossing themselves. The vocal part of the ceremony was very solemn. The clear shrill notes of children placed among the choristers, rising to the dome of the church, and seeming to die away in the air, had a most pleasing effect. It is the same in all the Russian churches, and I know not any thing with which it can more justly be compared than the sounds produced by an Eolian harp. The words they use are Russian, and every where the same, Lord have mercy upon us!' We did not find them altered even among the Cossacks; it was still Ghospodi pomilui!' but thrilled

In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.'

'At last there was an interval of silence, after this, other voices, uttering_solemn airs, were heard within the sacristy. The doors were then thrown open, and a priest, having upon his head a silver chalice, containing the sacred bread, covered with a white napkin, made his appearance. He was preceded by others, who advanced with censers, dispersing incense over the doors of the sacristy, the pictures, the priest, the general, the officers, and the people. After some ceremonies, the bread was distributed among the congregation; then, those who came out of the sacristy having retired, its doors were again closed, and prayers were read for all the royal family; their names being enumerated in a tone of voice and manner exactly like that of a corporal or serjeant at a roll-call. Passages were also read from the Psalms; but the method of reading in all the Russian churches is beyond description. The young priests who officiate pride themselves upon mouthing it over with all possible expedition, so as to be unintelligible, even to Russians; striving to give to the whole lesson the appearance of a single word of numberless syllables. Some notion may be formed of their delivery, by hearing the criers in our

courts of justice administer the oath to a jury?' HISTORY.-Russia was anciently inhabited by various nations;. such as Huns, Scythians, Sarmatians, Cimbri, &c., of whom an account is given under the various detached articles. The origin of the Russians themselves, though not prior to the ninth century, is covered with almost impenetrable obscurity; partly owing to the ignorance and barbarity of the people, and partly to the policy which long prevailed among them of discouraging all accounts of their origin, and enquiries into their ancient state and situation; of which we have a remarkable instance in the modern suppression of a work by professor Muller, entitled De Originibus Gentis et Nominis Russorum. According to several authors of credit, the Russians derived their origin from the Slavi or Slavonians, corruptly called the Sclavonians, who settled first along the banks of the Volga, and afterwards near the Danube, in Bulgaria and Hungary; but, being driven thence by the Romans (whom the Russians call Wolochers, or Wolotaners), they first removed to the banks of the Borysthenes or Dnieper, then overran Poland, and built the city of Kiow. Afterwards they extended their colonies farther north, to the rivers which run into the Ilmen Lake, and laid the foundation of the city of Novogorod. The towns of Smolensk and Tsernikow appear also to have been built by them. The most ancient inhabitants, not only of Russia, but of all Siberia to the borders of China, are called Tshudi : for professor Muller, who, on enquiring in those parts by whom the ancient buildings and sepulchral monuments he saw there were erected, was every where answered that they were the works of a people of this name. In the ninth century the Scandinavians, that is, the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes, emigrated from the north, and, crossing the Baltic, went to seek habitations in Russia. They first subdued the Courlanders, Livonians, and Esthonians; and, extending their conquests still farther, exacted tribute from the Novogorodians, settled kings over them, and traded as far as Kiow, and even to Greece. These new invaders were called Waregers, which, according to Muller, signifies seafaring people; or, if derived from the old northern word war, it signifies warlike men. To these Waregers the name of Russes, or Russians, is thought by the most eminent authors to owe its origin; but the etymology of the word itself is uncertain. In these dark ages Russia was divided among a great number of petty princes, who made war upon each other with great ferocity and cruelty, so that the whole country was reduced to the utmost misery; when Gostomisel, a chief of the Novogorodians, pitying the unhappy fate of his countrymen, and seeing no other method of remedying their calamities, advised them to offer the government of their country to the Waregers. The proposal was readily accepted, and three princes of great abilities and valor were sent to govern them; namely, Ruric, Sincus, and Truwor, said to have been brothers. The first took up his residence at Ladoga, in the principality of Great Novogorod; the second at Bielo Osero, or the White Lake; and the third kept his court at Isborsk,

dimir and Moscow. Daniel left two sons, Gregory and John; the former of whom, named Kalita, from a purse he used always to carry about him filled with money for the poor, ascended the throne; but he was soon assassinated by another prince named Demetrius, who was himself put to death for it by the Tartars; and John, likewise surnamed Kalita, was then made czar. This John left three sons, John, Simon, and Andrew; and the eldest of these, commonly called Ivan Ivanovitz in the barbarous language of Russia, i. e. John, the son of John, was made czar, with the approbation of the Tartars, on whom he was dependent. During these several reigns, which occupied upwards of 100 years, the miseries of a foreign yoke were aggravated by all the calamities of intestine discord and war; whilst the knights of Livonia, or brothers of the short sword, as they are sometimes called, a kind of military order of religious, on one side, and the Poles on the other, attacked Russia, and took several of its towns, and some considerable countries. The Tartars and Russians, whose interests were in this the same, often united to oppose their common enemies, but were generally worsted. The Livonians took Pleskow; and the Poles made themselves masters of Black Russia, the Ukraine, Podolia, and the city of Kiow. Casimir the Great, one of their kings, carried his conquests still farther. He claimed a part of Russia, in right of his relation to Boleslaus duke of Halitz, who died without issue, and took the duchies of Perzemyslia, Halitz, and Luckow, and the districts of Sanock, Lubackzow, and Trebowla; all which countries he made a province of Poland. See POLAND.

The newly conquered Russians were ill disposed to brook the government of the Poles, whose laws and customs were more contrary to their own than those of the Tartars had been. They joined the latter to rid themselves of the yoke, and assembled an army numerous enough to overwhelm all Poland, but destitute of valor and discipline. Casimir, undaunted by this deluge of barbarians, presented himself at the head of a few troops on the borders of the Vistula, and obliged his enemies to retire. Demetrius, the son of John, who commanded in Moscow, made frequent efforts to rid himself of the galling yoke. He defeated in several battles Maymay, khan of the Tartars; and, when conqueror, refused to pay them any tribute, and assumed the title of great duke of Muscovy. But the oppressors of the north returned in greater numbers than before; and Demetrius, at length overpowered, after a struggle of three years, perished with his whole army, which amounted to 240,000 men. His son, Basilius, revenged his father's death. He attacked his enemies, drove them out of his dominions, and conquered Bulgaria. He made an alliance with the Poles, whom he could not subdue; and even ceded to them a part of his country, on condition that they should help him to defend the rest against any new cursions of the Tartars. But this treaty was a weak barrier against ambition. The Russians found new enemies in their allies, and the Tartars soon returned. Basilius had a son

named Basilius, to whom the crown ought to have descended. But the father, suspecting his legitimacy, left it to his own brother Gregory, a man of a severe and tyrannical disposition, and therefore hated by the people, who asserted the son's right, and proclaimed him their sovereign. The Tartars took cognizance of the dispute, and ́determined it in favor of Basilius; upon which Gregory had recourse to arms, drove his nephew from Moscow to the principality of Uglitz, and usurped his throne. Upon the death of Gregory, Basilius returned to Moscow; but Andrew and Demetrius, sons of the late usurper, laid siege to that city, and obliged him to retire to the monastery of Troitz, where they took him prisoner, with his wife and son, and put out his eyes: hence the appellation of jemnoi, the blind. The subjects of this unfortunate prince, incensed at the cruel treatment he had received, forced the perpetrators of it to fly to Novogorod, and reinstated their lawful sovereign at Moscow, where he died. In the midst of this general confusion, John I., the son of Basilius, by his invincible spirit and refined policy, became both the conqueror and deliverer of his country, and laid the first foundation of its future grandeur.

Observing with indignation the narrow limits of his power at his accession to the throne, after the death of his father, he began immediately to revolve within himself the means of enlarging his dominions. Marriage seemed to him one of the best expedients he could begin with; and accordingly he demanded and obtained Maria, sister of Michael duke of Twer, whom he soon after deposed, under pretence of revenging the injuries done to his father, and added this duchy to his own territories of Moscow. Maria, by whom he had a son named John, who died before him, did not live long; and upon her death he married Sophia, daughter of Thomas Palæologus, who had been driven from Constantinople, and forced to take shelter at Rome, where the pope portioned this princess, in hopes of procuring thereby great advantage to the Romish religion; but his expectations were frustrated, Sophia being obliged to conform to the Greek church after her arrival in Russia. John doubtless hoped by this marriage to establish a claim to the empire of the east, to which her father was the next heir: and the Russians certainly owed to this alliance their deliverance from the Tartar yoke. Shocked at the servile homage exacted by those proud victors, her husband going to meet their ambassadors at some distance from the city, and standing to hear what they had to say, whilst they were at dinner, Sophia told him that she was surprised to find that she had married a servant to the Tartar. Nettled at this reproach, John feigned himself ill when the next deputation from the Tartars arrived, and under that pretence avoided a repetition of the stipulated humiliating ceremonial. Another circumstance equally displeasing to this princess was that the Tartars had, by agreement, within the walls of the palace at Moscow, houses, in which their ministers resided; to show their power, and at the same time watch the actions of the great duke. To get rid of these, a formal embassy

Muscovite made new accessions to his dominions. The dukes of Servia, whose territories were about 500 miles in extent, had long thought themselves ill used by the Lithuanians on account of their religion, which was that of the Greek church; and wanted to withdraw from this subjection to Poland, and put themselves under the protection of Russia. An accident afforded them the wished for pretence. Their envoys, arriving at Wilna, desired admittance to the king's presence; which being refused one of them endeavoured to force his way in; but the porter shut the door rudely against him, and in so doing broke one of his fingers. The porter was immediately put to death; but the Servians, not satisfied, returned home in great fury, and prevailed upon their countrymen to submit to the Muscovites. Casimir made several attempts to recal them, but to no purpose. Matthias king of Hungary dying about this time, two of his sons, Uladislaus, then king of Bohemia, and John Albert, contended for his vacant crown. Casimir wished to give it to the latter, whom he assisted to the utmost of his power; and, though he was in great want of men and money, he purchased a renewal of the truce with the Russians, and thereby gave John time to establish himself in his new acquisitions. Casimir died in 1492, and was succeeded on the throne of Poland by his son John Albert, who, totally disregarding the Russians, involved himself unnecessarily in a war with the brave Stephen duke of Moldavia; and, though he had at the same time both the Tartars and Turks against him, his propensity to pleasure rendered him so indolent that he not only did not attempt to molest John in any of his possessions, but con cluded a peace with him on terms very advantageous to the latter; and even entered into a treaty, by which he stipulated not to assist the Lithuanians, though they had chosen his brother Alexander for their duke, in case the Russians should attack them. Alexander, to parry the inconveniences of this agreement, and to guard against the designs of his enemies, demanded in marriage John's daughter, Helena, by his second wife Sophia, and obtained her. The Lithuanians then expected tranquillity; but the ambitious czar, (for John had assumed that title since his conquest of Casan,) soon found a pretence to break with his new allies, by alleging that Polish Russia, as far as the river Berezina, had belonged to his ancestors, and therefore was his by right, and that Alexander had engaged to build a Greek church at Wilna for his Russian consort, which instead of doing, he had endeavoured to force the Polish Russians to become Roman Catholics. In consequence of this plea, he sent into the territories of his son-in-law, by different ways, three armies, which reduced several places, destroyed the country about Smolensko, and defeated the Lithuanian field marshal Ostrosky near the river Wedrasch, where he fell unawares into an ambush of the Russians. Alexander raised a new army of Silesians, Bohemians, and Moravians; but they came too late, the Russians having retired with their plunder. Elated by their success they invaded Livonia in 1502, with 130,000 men; but Walter Von Plettenberg, grand-master of the knights of the cross, with only 12,000 men,

was sent to the Tartarian khan, to tell him, that Sophia having been favored with a vision from above, ordering her to build a temple in the place where those houses stood, her mind could not be at ease till she had fulfilled the divine command; and therefore his leave was desired to pull them down, and give his people others. The khan consented: the houses within the kremlin were demolished; and, no new ones being built, the Tartar residents were obliged to leave Moscow, their prince being prevented from revenging this breach of promise, by a war he was engaged in with the Poles. John taking advantage of this circumstance, and having considerably increased his forces, disclaimed all subjection to the Tartars, attacked their dominions, and made himself master of Casan, where he was solemnly crowned with the diadem of that kingdom, which is still used for the coronation of the Russian sovereigns. The province of Permia, with great part of Lapland and Asiatic Bulgaria, soon submitted to him; and Great Novogorod was reduced by his generals after a seven years' siege, and yielded him 300 cart loads of gold and silver, and other valuable effects. Alexander Witold, waiwode of Lithuania, was in possession of this rich place, from which he had exacted for some years an annual tribute of 100,000 rubles, a prodigious sum for those days in that country. When it was taken by John Basiltowitz, be, to secure his conquest, put it under the protection of the Poles, voluntarily rendered himself their tributary for it, and accepted a governor from the hand of their king Casimir III., a weak prince, from whom he had nothing to fear. The Novogorodians continued to enjoy all their privileges till about two years after; when John, ambitious of reigning without control, entered their city with a numerous retinue, under pretence of keeping to the Greek faith, he being accused of an intention to embrace the Romish religion; and, with the assistance of the archbishop Theophilus, stripped them of all their remaining riches. He then deposed the treacherous prelate, and established over Novogorod new magistrates, creatures of his own; thus destroying at once a noble city, which, had its liberties been protected, and its trade encouraged, might have proved to him an inexhaustible fund of wealth. All the north beheld with terror and astonishment the rapid increase of the victor's power: foreign nations courted his alliance; and the petty princes of Russia submitted to him without resistance. The Poles, however, complained loudly of this breach of faith in regard to Novogorod, and threatened revenge; upon which John, elated with his successes, with the riches he had amassed, and the weak condition of most of his neighbours, sent a body of troops into Lithuania, and soon became master of several of its towns. Casimir applied for assistance to Matthias king of Hungary; but was answered that his own soldiers were quite undisciplined; that his auxiliaries had lately mutinied for want of pay; and that it was impossible for him to raise a new army out of the neighbouring countries. The Polish monarch in this distress was obliged to purchase of John a cessation of arms for two years, during which the

gave them a total overthrow; killing 10,000 of them with little loss on his own side. John dispirited by this defeat, and being engaged in a war with the Tartars, the Poles, and the city of Pleskow, immediately despatched an embassy to Plettenberg, and concluded a truce with him for fifty years. At the same time he begged of that general to send to Moscow, that he might see him, one of the iron dragoons, as he called them, who had performed wonders in the late engagement. Von Plettenberg readily complied; and the czar rewarded the cuirassier's accomplishments with considerable honors and presents. Alexander had been elected king of Poland upon the death of his brother John Albert, in 1501, but the Poles refused to crown his consort Helena, because she adhered to the Greek religion. Provoked at this affront, and probably still more stimulated by ambition, John resolved again to try his fortune with them: and accordingly ordered his son Demetrius to march against Smolensko, and reduce that city. The young prince did what he could, but the vigorous resistance of the besieged, and the arrival of the king of Poland with a numerous army, obliged the Russians to raise the siege and return home; and the czar was glad to make a fresh truce with the Poles for six years, upon the easy terms of only returning the prisoners he had taken. Neither the czar nor Demetrius long survived this event; for Sophia, who had gained an absolute ascendant over her husband, and wanted to give the sovereignty to her children, persuaded him to set aside and imprison his grandson Demetrius, the only child of the late John, whom he had by his first wife Maria, and declare her eldest son Gabriel his successor. The czar blindly followed the iniquitous advice; but shortly after, finding his end approach, he sent for young Demetrius, expressed great remorse for his barbarity, and on his death-bed declared him his lawful successor. He died in November 1505, after a reign of fifty-five years; leaving behind him an immense territory, chiefly of his own acquiring.

The czar was no sooner dead than his son Gabriel, at the instigation of his mother Sophia, put an end to the life of the young Demetrius, by confining him in prison, where he perished with hunger and cold; after which Gabriel was crowned by the name of Basilius, and took the title of czar. On his accession he expected that the Poles would be in confusion about the election of a new sovereign; but, being disappointed by their unanimous election of Sigismund I. (see POLAND), he sent an army into Lithuania, and laid siege to Smolensko. It made a brave resistance, till news arrived that the crown troops of Poland were coming to their assistance, with 80,000 Crim Tartars; on which the Russians retreated with precipitation, but were quickly followed by the Poles, who reduced the czar to submit to their own terms. Basilius remained quiet for some time; after which he, with a numerous army, encamped near Pleskow, where the Poles, presuming on the late treaty, received him as a friend. But the Muscovite priests, of the Greek church, preaching up that it would be advantageous to have a sovereign of their own re

ligion, brought them to such a height of enthusiasm that they murdered their magistrates, and opened their gates to the czar, who made them all slaves, banished them to different parts, and filled the city with Muscovites, to secure his conquest. Soon after he took Smolensko; and the Swedes, alarmed at his rapid progress, desired a prolongation of the truce for sixty years longer. The duchy of Lithuania was the great object of Basilius; to accomplish which he ordered John Czeladin, a man enterprising even to rashness, to march thither with 80,000 men. The army of the Poles did not exceed 35,000 men, but was commanded by a most experienced general. The two armies met on the opposite banks of the Dneiper, near Orsova, and the Poles passed that river in sight of their enemies. The Lithuanians began the attack, but were repulsed by the Russians, who, imprudently following them, became at once exposed to the full fire of the enemy's artillery. The Polish cavalry then rushed in among them and made dreadful havoc. Those who endeavoured to fly were drowned in the Dneiper; and the rest, including Czeladin himself, were made slaves. Basilius was at Smolensko, when he received the news of this dreadful defeat; on which he immediately fled to Moscow where his danger increased daily. The Crim Tartars ravaged his dominions, and the emperor Maximilian, with whom he had been in alliance, deserted him; his troops were defeated in Livonia, where he was obliged to submit to a peace on dishonorable terms. In the mean time, the king of Poland stirred up the Tartars to invade Russia, while the Russian monarch endeavoured to excite them to an invasion of Poland. These barbarians, equally treacherous to both parties, first invaded and ravaged Podolia in Poland; and then invaded Russia, defeated the armies of the czar in 1521, and quickly made themselves masters of Moscow. An army which had been sent to oppose their progress was defeated near the Occa; and the czar's brother Andrew, who commanded it, was the first who fled. Basilius with great difficulty made his way to Novogorod; but so terrified that he hid himself by the way under a haycock, to avoid a party of the enemy. The Tartars, however, soon obliged him to sign a writing, by which he acknowledged himself their vassal, and promised to pay them a tribute of so much a head for every one of his subjects. Besides this, Machmet Gerei, the commander of the Tartars, caused his own statue to be set up at Moscow, as a mark of his sovereignty; compelled Basilius to return to his capital, to bring thither in person the first payment of this tribute, and, as a token of his submission, to prostrate himself before his statue. Machmet Gerei then left Moscow, and returned home with an immense booty, and upwards of 80,000 prisoners, who were made slaves, and sold like cattle to the Turks. In his way back he attempted to take the city of Rezan; but was repulsed with considerable loss by John Kowen, who commanded in that place for the Russians. Here the Tartar general narrowly escaped with his life, his coat being shot through with a musket ball; and the Muscovites pulled down his statue, and broke it to pieces as soon as the con