it. There is then sure to be laughter, singing, and Russian dances.

This gaiety, innocent as it is, has proved offensive to two Americans going to Petersburg on business. These inhabitants of the New World do not permit themselves even a smile at the foolish pleasures of the young European women. They do not perceive that liberty and carelessness are the safeguards of youthful hearts. Their puritanism rebels not only against licence, but against mirth; they are Jansenists of the Protestant school; to please them, life must be made one protracted funeral. Happily, the ladies we have on board do not trouble themselves to render any reason to these pedantic merchants. Their manners are more simple than most of the women of the north, who, when they come to Paris, believe themselves obliged to distort their whole nature in order to seduce us. Our fair fellow-passengers please without seeming to think of pleasing; their French accent also appears to me better than that of most of the Polish women whom I have met in Saxony and Bohemia. In speaking our language they do not pretend to correct it, but endeavour to speak as we speak, and very nearly succeed.

Yesterday a slight accident which happened to our engine served to exhibit some of the secret traits of character in those on board.

The recollection of the former accident that befell to our boat has served to render the passengers rather timid and distrustful, though the weather has remained throughout extremely fine.

Yesterday after dinner, we were seated reading, when suddenly the motion of the paddles stopped,

94

STEAM-BOAT ACCIDENT.

and an unusual noise was heard to proceed from the engine. The sailors rushed forward; the captain followed, without saying a word in reply to the questions of the passengers. At length he gave the order to sound. "We are on a rock," said a female voice, the first that had dared to break our solemn silence. "The engine is going to burst," said another.

I was silent, though I began to think that my presentiments were going to be realised, and that it was not, after all, caprice which had inclined me to renounce this voyage.

The

The Princess L-, whose health is delicate, fell into a swoon, murmuring some broken words of grief that she should die so far from her husband. Princess D pressed the arm of hers, and awaited the result with a calm, which one would not have expected from her slight frail form and gentle fea

tures.

The fat and amiable Prince K- neither changed his countenance nor his place; he would have sunk in his arm-chair into the sea without disturbing himself. The French ex-lancer, half merchant, half comedian, put on a bold face, and began to hum a song. This bravado displeased me, and made me blush for France, where vanity searches out of all things to extract some opportunity for display; true moral dignity exaggerates nothing, not even indifference to danger; the Americans continued their reading; I observed every body.

At length the captain came to inform us that the nut of the screw of one of the pistons was broken, and that all would be made right again in a quarter of an hour.

י

ANCIENT FRENCH SOCIETY.

95

At this news the fears that each party had more or less concealed betrayed themselves by a general explosion of rejoicing. Each confessed his thoughts and fears, all laughed at each other, and those who were the most candid in their confessions were the least laughed at. The evening that had commenced so ominously concluded with a dance and song.

Before separating for the night, Prince Kcomplimented me for my good manners in listening with apparent pleasure to his stories. One may recognise the well-bred man, he observed, by the manner he assumes in listening to another. I replied that the best way by which to seem to be listening, was to listen. This answer, repeated by the prince, was lauded beyond its merit. Nothing is lost, and every thought is done more than justice to by persons whose benevolence even is intellectual.

The great charm of ancient French society lay in the art of making the best of others. If this amiable art is scarcely known among us in the present day, it is because it requires greater refinement of mind to praise than to depreciate. He who knows how to estimate all things, disdains nothing, and refuses to join in ridicule; but where envy reigns depreciation mixes with all that is said. Jealousy in the guise of wit, and under the mask of good sense, (for pretended good sense is always marked by a love of ridicule,) is the evil sentiment which in these days conspires against the pleasures of social life. In its endeavour to appear good and amiable, true politeness really becomes so; its possession seems to me to embrace that of all other virtues.

I shall here recount two stories, which will show how little meritorious was the attention for which I had been complimented.

We were passing the isle of Dago on the coast of Esthonia. The appearance of this spot is melancholy; it is a cold solitude, where nature appears naked and sterile, rather than savage and imposing; it seems as though she meant to repel man by the dulness, rather than by the terrors of her aspect."

"A strange scene has been witnessed in that isle," remarked Prince K

"At what period?"

"Not long ago, it was under the Emperor Paul.” "Pray relate it to us.

The prince then recounted, in a very interestingmanner, the history of the Baron de Sternberg.

BARON DE STERNBERG.

97

CHAP. VI.

TRAGEDY OF BARON DE STERNBERG. TYPE OF LORD BYRON'S HEROES. PARALLEL BETWEEN SIR W. SCOTT AND BYRON. MARRIAGE OF PETER THE GREAT.

HISTORICAL ROMANCE. ROMODANOWSKI.

INFLUENCE OF THE GREEK CHURCH IN
CORPSE IN

RUSSIA. TYRANNY SUPPORTED BY FALSEHOOD.

THE CHURCH OF REVEL. THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER DECEIVED, RUSSIAN SENSITIVENESS TO THE OPINIONS OF FOREIGNERS.

A SPY.

Ir must be remembered that it is the Prince K

who speaks.

"Baron Ungern de Sternberg had travelled over the greater part of Europe. He was a man of intelligence and observation, and his travels had made him all that he was capable of being made, namely, a great character developed by study and experience.

"On his return to St. Petersburgh, in the reign of the Emperor Paul, he fell into undeserved disgrace ; and, under the bitter feeling which this produced, determined to quit the court. He shut himself up in the island of Dago, of which he was lord; and in the retirement of this wild domain swore a mortal hatred to all human kind, to revenge himself on the emperor, whom he viewed as the representative of the whole

race.

"This individual, who was living when we were children, has served as a model for more than one of Lord Byron's heroes.

"In his seclusion he affected a sudden passion for study, and, in order to pursue freely his scientific