I say dip, I never do more than dip into any book), I could not resist the young man's invitabut also because young **** tells me that tion. In a few minutes we were in the quiet lane which all whom I have met in this town confirm; under the glinting chesnut-trees. Margrave was viz. that you are one of those few practical che-chanting, low, a wild tune-words in a strange mists who are at once exceedingly cautious and language. exceedingly bold-willing to try every new experiment, but submitting experiment to rigid tests. Well, I have an experiment running wild in this giddy head of mine, and I want you, some day when at leisure, to catch it, fix it as you have fixed that cylinder: make something of it. I am

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Something akin to the theories in your work. You would replenish or preserve to each special constitution the special substance that may fail to the equilibrium of its health. But you own that in a large proportion of cases the best cure of !disease is less to deal with the disease itself than to support and stimulate the whole system, so as to enable Nature to cure the disease and restore the impaired equilibrium by her own agencies. Thus, if you find that in certain cases of nervous debility a substance like nitric acid is efficacious, it is because the nitric acid has a virtue in locking up, as it were, the nervous energy, that is, preventing all undue waste. Again, in some cases of what is commonly called feverish cold, stimulants like ammonia assist Nature itself to get rid of the disorder that oppresses its normal action; and, on the same principle, I apprehend, it is contended that a large average of human lives is saved in those hospitals which have adopted the supporting system of ample nourishment and alcoholic stimulants."

"Your medical learning surprises me," said I, smiling, "and without pausing to notice where it deals somewhat superficially with disputable points in general, and my own theory in particular, I ask you for the deduction you draw from your premises."

What words are those? no European language, I think; for I know a little of most of the languages which are spoken in our quarter of the globe, at least by its more civilised races."

"Civilised races! What is civilisation? Those words were uttered by men who founded empires when Europe itself was not civilised! Hush, is it not a grand old air?" and lifting his eyes towards the sun, he gave vent to a voice clear and deep as a mighty bell! The air was grand-the words had a sonorous swell that suited it, and they seemed to me jubilant and yet solemn. He stopped abruptly, as a path from the lane had led us into the fields, already half-bathed in sunlight-dews glittering on the hedgerows.

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Your song," said I, "would go well with the clash of cymbals or the peal of the organ. I am no judge of melody, but this strikes me as that of a religious hymn."

"I compliment you on the guess. It is a Persian fire-worshipper's hymn to the sun. The dialect is very different from modern Persian. Cyrus the Great might have chanted it on his march upon Babylon."

"And where did you learn it ?"

"It is simply this: that to all animate bodies,vagabond - -a nobody. When I came of age however various, there must be one principle in common-the vital principle itself. What if there be one certain means of recruiting that principle and what if that secret can be dis

covered ?"

"Pshaw! The old illusion of the medieval empirics."

I received an anonymous letter, informing me that a sum-I need not say what--but more than enough for all I need, was lodged at an English banker's in my name; that my mother had died in my infancy; that my father was also dead-but recently; that as I was a child of love, and he was unwilling that the secret of my "Not so. But the medieval empirics were birth should ever be traced, he had provided for great discoverers. You sneer at Van Helmont, me, not by will, but in his life, by a sum conwho sought, in water, the principle of all things; signed to the trust of the friend who now wrote but Van Helmont discovered in bis search those to me; I need give myself no trouble to learn invisible bodies called gases. Now the principle more; faith, I never did. I am young, healthy, of life must be certainly ascribed to a gas. And rich-yes, rich! Now you know all, and you whatever is a gas, chemistry should not despair had better tell it, that I may win no man's courof producing! But I can argue no longer now-tesy and no maiden's love upon false pretences. never can argue long at a stretch-we are wast- I have not even a right, you see, to the name I ing the morning; and, joy! the sun is up! See! bear. Hist! let me catch that squirrel." Out! come out! out! and greet the great Lifegiver face to face."

With what a panther-like bound he sprang! The squirrel eluded his grasp, and was up the "According to the views we have mentioned, we oak-tree; in a moment he was up the oak-tree too. must ascribe life to a gas, that is, to an aeriform In amazement I saw him rising from bough to body."-Liebig, Organic Chemistry, Playfair's trans-bough;-saw his bright eyes and glittering teeth lation, p. 363. through the green leaves; presently I heard the

sharp piteous cry of the squirrel-echoed by the comparative weakening of the rest), but with youth's merry laugh-and down, through that the firm-knit joints, the solid fingers, the finished maze of green, Margrave came, dropping on the nails, the massive palm, the supple polished skin grass and bounding up, as Mercury might have in which we recognise what Nature designs the bounded with his wings at his heels. human hand to be-the skilled, swift, mighty doer of all those marvels which win Nature herself from the wilderness.

"I have caught him-what pretty brown eyes!"

Suddenly the gay expression of his face changed to that of a savage; the squirrel had wrenched itself half-loose, and bitten him. The poor brute! In an instant its neck was wrung-its body dashed on the ground; and that fair young creature, every feature quivering with rage, was stamping his foot on his victim again and again! It was horrible. I caught him by the arm indignantly. He turned round on me like a wild beast disturbed from its prey. His teeth set, his hand lifted, his eyes like balls of fire.

"Shame!" said I, calmly; "shame on you!" He continued to gaze on me a moment or so; his eye glaring-his breath panting-and then, as if mastering himself with an involuntary effort, his arm dropped to his side, and he said, quite humbly, "I beg your pardon; indeed I do. I was beside myself for a moment; I cannot bear pain:" and he looked in deep compassion for himself at his wounded hand. "Venomous brute!" And he stamped again on the body of the squirrel, already crushed out of shape.

I moved away in disgust, and walked on. But presently I felt my arm softly drawn aside, and a voice, dulcet as the coo of a dove, stole its way into my ears. There was no resisting the charm with which this extraordinary mortal could fascinate even the hard and the cold; nor them, perhaps, the least. For as you see in extreme old age, when the heart seems to have shrunk into itself, and to leave but meagre and nipped affections for the nearest relations if grown up, the indurated egotism softens at once towards a playful child; or as you see in middle life, some misanthrope, whose nature has been soured by wrong and sorrow, shrink from his own species, yet make friends with inferior races and respond to the caress of a dog,-so, for the worldling or the cynic, there was an attraction in the freshness of this joyous favourite of Nature ;-an attraction like that of a beautiful child, spoilt and wayward, or of a graceful animal, half docile, half fierce.

'But," said I, with a smile, as I felt all displeasure gone, "such indulgence of passion for such a trifle is surely unworthy a student of philosophy!"

"Trifle," ," he said, dolorously. "But I tell you it is pain; pain is no trifle. I suffer. Look!"

I looked at the hand, which I took in mine. The bite no doubt had been sharp; but the hand that lay in my own was that which the Greek sculptor gives to a gladiator; not large (the extremities are never large in persons whose strength comes from the just proportion of all the members, rather than the factitious and partial force which continued muscular exertion will give to one part of the frame, to the

"It is strange," said I, thoughtfully; "but your susceptibility to suffering confirms my opinion, which is different from the popular belief, viz. that pain is most acutely felt by those in whom the animal organisation being perfect, and the sense of vitality exquisitely keen, every injury or lesion finds the whole system rise, as it were, to repel the mischief, and communicate the consciousness of it to all those nerves which are the sentinels to the garrison of life. Yet my theory is scarcely borne out by general fact. The Indian savages must have a health as perfect as yours; a nervous system as fine. Witness their marvellous accuracy of ear, of eye, of scent, probably also of touch, yet they are indifferent to physical pain; or must I mortify your pride by saying that they have some moral quality defective in you which enables them to rise superior to it ?"

"The Indian savages," said Margrave, sullenly, "have not a health as perfect as mine, and in what you call vitality-the blissful consciousness of life-they are as sticks and stones compared to me."

"How do you know ?"

"Because I have lived with them. It is a fallacy to suppose that the savage has a health superior to that of the civilised man,-if the civilised man be but temperate ;-and even if not, he has the stamina that can resist for years what would destroy the savage in a month. As to their fine perceptions of sense, such do not come from exquisite equilibrium of system, but are hereditary attributes transmitted from race to race, and strengthened by training from infancy. But is a pointer stronger and healthier than a mastiff, because the pointer through long descent and early teaching creeps stealthily to his game and stands to it motionless? I will talk of this later; now I suffer! Pain, pain! Has life any ill but pain ?"

It so happened that I had about me some roots of the white lily, which I meant, before returning home, to leave with a patient suffering from one of those acute local inflammations, in which that simple remedy often affords great relief. I cut up one of these roots, and bound the cooling leaves to the wounded hand with my handkerchief. There," said I. "Fortunately, if you feel pain more sensibly than others, you will recover from it more quickly."

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And in a few minutes my companion felt perfectly relieved, and poured out his gratitude with an extravagance of expression and a beaming delight of countenance which positively touched me.

"I almost feel," said I, "as I do when I have stilled an infant's wailing, and restored it smiling to its mother's breast."

"But I came out to bathe. Can we not bathe

in that stream?"

"No. You would derange the bandage round your hand; and for all bodily ills, from the least to the gravest, there is nothing like leaving Nature at rest the moment we have hit on the means which assist her own efforts at cure."

"I obey, then, but I so love the water."

You swim, of course ?"

"Ask the fish if it swim. Ask the fish if it can escape me! I delight to dive down-down; to plunge after the startled trout, as an otter does; and then to get amongst those cool, fragrant reeds and bullrushes, or that forest of emerald weed which one sometimes finds waving under clear rivers. Man! man! Could you live but an hour of my life you would know how horrible a thing it is to die!"

"Yet the dying do not think so; they pass away calm and smiling, as you will one day."

“I—I! die one day-die!" and he sank on the grass, and buried his face amongst the herbage, sobbing aloud.

"You have done so. I am an infant, and father scutching the straw from the flax; the Nature is my mother. Oh, to be restored to the mother sat near him, helped by a son, combfull joy of life, the scent of wild flowers, the song ing out the tow with hand brushes; every now of birds, and this air-summer air-summer air!" and then throwing small twisted rolls of the tow I know not why it was, but at that moment, into a bunker, and plaiting up the long flax ready looking at him and hearing him, I rejoiced that for sale or spinning. Three rather good-looking Lilian was not at L--. girls were spinning and twirling the thread, several young ones were winding and unwinding the yarn, and one girl was the weaver at her loom plying the busy shuttle. The whole machinery employed in this primitive workshop Dundee, and Marshalls of Leeds-loom included, and family manufactory-hear it, ye Baxters of would not cost two sovereigns. My companion and fellow-traveller, a young Russian, very soon was on good terms with the young folks, and as and we talked of the late storm and its conseI sat down by the dame, the old man joined us, quences, of the flax work, and of how they sold what they made, to pay the baron. They were communicative on the prices they got for the different qualities, told me how they worked at this all winter, and on the land all summer; how the baron was a good man, but spent in Moscow and Petersburg his time and money, leaving his poor slaves to the tender mercies of a German steward, who skinned them unmercifully. One of their boys, they said, had gone, or rather had been sent, to the Crimea as a soldier, and they had never heard of him since; another son was at Moscow in a woollen fabric, and had to pay fifty roubles a year, "obrok," to to marry after Easter, and to marry men they the baron. The two eldest girls had been ordered did not like. One of the men was a drunken worthless fellow, but all, dear Heaven, had not their father, the emperor, God bless him! decreed their emancipation! And were they not soon to do what they liked, and be freed from the "obrok"! Their notions of liberty or I was puzzled how to reconcile so passionate a political rights amounted to this, and no more. childishness, so undisciplined a want of selfHaving sent my companion for tea and sugar, control, with an experience of mankind so ex-I asked the girls to prepare the urn, and further tended by travel, with an education, desultory ingratiated myself by buying a piece of the linen and irregular indeed, but which must have been they had made and bleached on the grass the at some time or other familiarised to severe reason-previous summer. While the tea was being ings and laborious studies. There seemed to be handed about an old woman came in the wanting in him that mysterious something which" 'swacha," or ambassadress, from one of the inis needed to keep our faculties, however severally tended bridegrooms. All marriages among the brilliant, harmoniously linked together-as the common people in Russia are negotiated by string by which a child mechanically binds the such go-betweens, who arrange preliminaries, wild flowers it gathers; shaping them at choice extol the qualities of their clients, examine and into the garland or the chain. decide on the trousseau of the bride, and act as head negotiators in the whole affair. When the father of the bride can afford it, money is demanded, and a written list of the "predania," or articles of the trousseau, is given in. The articles accordingly supplied are scrutinised, and accepted, rejected, or exchanged, according to the fiat of the old go-between. There is no courtship or personal affection before these marriages. The woman generally submits, as a matter of course, and becomes the slave of any brute appointed by the baron or steward, or by her father when no master interferes.

Before I could get through half a dozen words, meant to soothe, he had once more bounded up, dashed the tears from his eyes, and was again singing some wild, barbaric chant. I did not disturb him; in fact, I soon grew absorbed in my own meditations on the singular nature, so wayward, so impulsive, which had forced intimacy on a man grave and practical as myself.

AT HOME IN RUSSIA.

IN A PEASANT'S HUT. TEN at night found us within a station of Pereslaf. After getting our conveyance under cover, and our light luggage removed to the house or den, I had time to visit an adjoining peasant's hut.

Here was a whole family spinning and weaving flax. The family manufactory included every process, from the scutching to the linen weaving, all carried on within the space of a room twenty feet square. In a corner stood a mild, elderly

I know a family of free Russians, in which the father was of the rank of "chinovnick."

She

"You remember telling me on that awful journey in March last," said the young Russian, when we sat up together, "how they married for love in England, and not for money; how women were not there slaves to men, and so forth. Well, I saw this girl, that very night,

He had four daughters, all accomplished, the sequel to this little history. Nine months eldest decidedly plain, the others good-looking. afterwards, I was stepping out of a railway A suitor appeared for the hand of the youngest carriage at Moscow, when I met my old comand prettiest, in the person of a young govern-panion of the hut; he seized my portmanteau ment official. His go-between, or swacha, re-with one hand, and with the other he dragged quired to know how much money the father me to the gate, tumbled me with himself into a would give, and what the "predania." "I prelotka (a small open carriage), and directed give nothing," said the old man. "The elder the driver where to go. "You are going to my sisters must be married first, and it is robbing house," he said, "to meet an old acquaintance, them to give first to the youngest. If the and to be our guest while you remain in Mosyoung man will take the eldest, I will give four cow. Don't say no; it shall be so." On thousand roubles; if the second, fifteen hundred; arriving at his house, a small one, but very reif the third, a predani' without money; but if spectable, I was agreeably surprised to meet the he must have the youngest, nothing." As the beauty of the hut, who came forward as his wife, young man wanted to buy or bribe his way into looking as happy as man could desire. a higher station of life, he offered to take the had just finished a music lesson, was dressed eldest of these girls for six thousand roubles. very neatly, and she did the honours of the This would have wronged the other daughters, house quite creditably while I stayed. and the offer was refused. The youngest, who had set her heart on the fellow, pined; the others offered to give up their claims to make her happy, but the father was inexorable. The poor thing was dead of consumption eighteen months afterwards, and the bargaining swain is now married to the eldest, richest, and least hand-about to be sacrificed to a brute. I thought her some. This happened in the capital, among what we called the "French-polished" Russians. But I must return to my poor peasants of no polish. The swacha finding the field occupied by strange guests, confined herself on this occasion to an enumeration of the many excellences of the appointed husband, among which I remember one which sounded curious-it was, that though fond of brandy, he knew how to get it for nothing. Another was, that his father would not live long, and so, he being the eldest son, his wife would quickly become mistress of the whole family, and own the hut, pig, cow, horse, and other appurtenances of headship. When a woman marries the eldest son of a house, she is taken home to the paternal roof, and, on the death of the father, becomes mistress, to the exclusion of the mother-in-law, whose reign ceases

at once.

good and pure, and you know she is beautiful. So I began that night to love her, told her so, and told her father so. I could not tear myself away for three days, and at the end of that time I determined I would have her, let it cost me what it might. So when I got to Moscow I called on her master, the baron; offered to buy her; and begged him not to allow her to be married to the bad man whom the steward had appointed. But," he continued, taking me by both hands, "you had been before me there. He told me that he had seen an Englishnian who so represented the case, that he had given orders for the stopping of that marriage."

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Yes," I said, "I did see him, and found him a kind-hearted gentleman, quite unaware of some of his steward's pranks. He granted my request at once, and in my presence sent a letter off to stop the marriage."

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But," he said, "that is not all. He refused to sell her, said that he knew the family well, that the old man had charge of him while a boy, and once protected his life at some risk. He asked me what I was, and what interest I had in the girl? I replied, that I wanted to marry her. Then,' said he, the whole family shall have its freedom as soon as we can make out the necessary papers.' That is all done long ago. The rascally steward is discharged, and

As it was now late, the good people of this hut offered me a mattress in another room, and I passed the night luxuriously in clean linen, and with my clothes off, for the first and only time during a long Russian journey. Where the night was spent by my young Russian fellow-traveller I cannot tell. In the morning, when we were about to start, he had vanished with his traps, no one knew whither. After waiting at the station some time, I went back to inquire at my host's. One of the daughters 1 am to fill his place." met me at the door with sparkling eyes, as pretty a country beauty as I had seen anywhere in Russia. To my question she answered, "I will tell you; you are a good fellow. He cannot leave me yet, and will remain here a day or two. But don't say to anybody where he is. God give you a safe journey. Good-by." Wherewith she vanished. Already my fellowtravellers were grumbling at the long delay, so I had little difficulty in persuading them to travel on without him.

I may as well tell-since I know it-the

THE RULE OF THE ROAD.

Again I turn to the snowy winter journey of which a part has been already described. The track on the fourth day was worse than any we had yet encountered, being more cut up with traffic. But we had good cattle, and one man less to carry, so, although we were upset more than once, we did not make less than our usual progress. Once, the kibitka turned over in a deep valley of snow, and the passengers were tossed together into a confused and

This assertion only caused an incredulous laugh, and a remark from the baron that he could buy any country magistrate in Russia for fifty kopecks (eighteenpence).

FIVE IN A KIBITKA.

struggling mass. My breath was nearly choked out of me by the weight of a fat Russian baron whose thumb I was obliged to bite as he was digging his hands into my face, before he could be induced to tumble off. After scrambling, as usual, out at the top door, and to the track again, we found the whole wreck beyond remedy The baron referred to was a tall, stout man, by our unassisted powers. Fortunately, how well acquainted with the French and German ever, a long line of sledges with goods from languages as well as the Russ, and apparently, Rastov fair, being just in front of us, the poor also, with the literature of England. He had peasants who were attached as drivers and read in French and Russian, translations of guards, although they had plenty of trouble- the works of the chief English novelists and some work on their own hands, came back, and poets of the present century. He spoke with by main force lifted us out of the hole. It was enthusiasm of the English government and some time before we were so far righted as to people; and he recited Russian compositions, be able to go on, and then when we were making which, in the time of Nicholas and at St. Peup lost time and overtook our friends with their tersburg, would have ensured him a free passledges, numbering probably a hundred in a sage to Siberia. He told me he had just manulong line on the one solitary track, it became mitted a great portion of his serfs, and was necessary to pass them if we would not be kept on his way to the two capitals to sell his at a snail's pace for many hours. But the pass-estate and leave the country; or, failing in that, ing was not easy. The whole line must draw to lot his land, and bring it into proper cultivaclose to one side, and in some cases into the tion. The great curse of the country, he soft snow, and this the men for a long time thought, were the priests, a lazy, ignorant pack, refused to do. It was a difficult job, involving risks to some, and the road was theirs as well as ours. The Russian baron, who was one of us, at length lost all temper, and began to swear as only a Russian can. Being cold and hungry, exhausted and much shaken, he was anxious to get to some shelter, especially as night was now closing. Oaths having no effect, he lost the last glimmer of polish and came out the born Tartar that he was. Dragging the cudgel from my hand, he began belabouring with all his might the men and horses, dealing blows right and left, and compelling the men to draw up to one side as fast as we came up. For an hour this lasted, before we had passed all the sledges.

"There, you canaille!" he cried as he struck. "Take that! Give the road, you lazy vermin! Make room, you pigs! I am a baron, don't you see? A friend of the governor's! Sons of dogs! Defilement of the earth! Your mothers are beasts!" and so forth.

This was his gentlest style, while the blows fell in a shower. Forty or fifty men submitted to all this, grumbled, but cowed; they took the blows and insults of this one man as dogs take their masters' kicks; they were serfs, he was a baron. After he had recovered his seat and his breath, and had wiped the perspiration from his head, he turned to me, and asked, with an air of national pride,

"What do you say to that, me lort ?"

"I say, that had you struck the poorest of my countrymen in that manner, they would either have boxed you into a jelly, or they would have tied you to a sledge until they reached the first town, and then given you up to a magistrate for an assault."

immoral, drunken, and filthy in the interior, polished and crafty in the capitals. The emancipation of the serfs was nothing without the abolition of the priestly influence. The state finances, he said, were in a terrible low state. Why did not the emperor play Henry the Eighth, seize upon the numerous and enormously wealthy monasteries and churches, and melt down the gold and silver lying useless in their coffers, or covering their altars and pretended saints? My name not being asked, the baron and the others called me Lort Palmerston. My baron worshipped Palmerston, but he said it was "Henry the Eighth and Oliver Cromwell they wanted." In opinions and character this fellow-traveller was one of a large class that may one day play a cudgel for what it considers Russian regeneration; a man polite to excess, but, "when scraped, a Tartar," as the poor sledge-drivers who had pulled us out of the pit could witness. This baron's son, a young man of twenty-two, was with us, already proud to employ English oaths and talk of "box," besides being so unpleasantly addicted to rather practical jokes, that on one occasion I was obliged to give him a little unexpected practice in the "noble science," for which his father most politely, and I think sincerely, thanked me.

An officer of infantry, wounded at Inkermann, and now invalided, was another of our party. He was very civil to me, and asked many ques tions about the English army and navy systems. Of Inkermann, "Ah!" he said, "I was there, and received my wound from an English officer's revolver. Poor fellow! I forgave him; it was his last barrel, and the last shot he ever fired; but he hurled the empty pistol at one of those who were pressing on him, so that he "knocked the fellow down, but the next moment he fell, pierced with balls and bayonets. My God! how these few men did fight and die, surprised by a whole army!" He related what,

"Oh, as to that, I should soon get away from a magistrate. A little money would soon do that." Indeed! I can tell you that your whole estate, with a dozen like it, would not buy one of our magistrates.”