zation, the fame and works of Scotus have been ascending in the reverse ratio. It is, then, Scotus who had the real following and the true future. But this was naturally long dissembled by the double ramification, from those who never comprehended either Scotus or Scholasticism.

ART. II.-1. History of Russia, from the Foundation of the Monarchy by Ruric to the Accession of Catherine II. By W. TOOKE, F. R. S. 2 vols., 8vo.

London. 1800.

2. Histoire de l'Empire de la Russie. Par M. Karamzin. Traduit par MM. ST. THERON et JAuffret.

1826.

11 vols.

3. History of the Russian Empire. By POLEWOY.

4. Insurrection in Poland. By GNOROWSKI. 1830.

Paris. 1814

5. Travels in Various Countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa. By E. D. CLARKE. 11 vols., 8vo. London. 1811-1824.

6. Pien Ukrainskie wydane. Pwer P. MAXYMOWICZA V MOSKWIE. 1834. (Songs of Ukraine, published by Maxymowiex, at MosCOW. 1834.)

THE vast steppe which extends from the Dnieper to the Don (the Tanais, to whose icy waters Horace compares his cold mistress) has been, from the earliest periods of which we have any account, the resort of nomadic and predatory tribes. Here in classic ages roamed the Scythian, whose name among the Greeks was synonymous with rapine and bloodshed. Hither subsequently came the Sarmatian, the Ostrogoth, the Hun, and the Polotzky; and here in the middle-ages arose a powerful confederacy of warlike men, who entered the country, hunted fugitives in search of life and liberty, but gradu

ally increasing in numbers, and becoming cognizant of their own strength, were at first the scourge, and afterward the bulwark, of the nations of eastern Europe.

Who were the Cossacks that, alternately subjects of Russia and of Poland, preserved a nationality separate and distinct from either, is a question on which much research has been exhausted, without arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. Their own traditions carry them back far into the mists of antiquity; yet it is certain that their name does not appear in history until the fifteenth century, and that the few travellers whose journeys through Russia and Poland have come down to us from an earlier period make no mention of them. Certain similarities of name, and peculiarities of costume and manners, have induced some antiquaries to attribute to them an origin purely Oriental, though the first positive accounts that we have of them find them on the banks of the Dnieper. Their name, Kosak, which denotes in some of the Eastern languages a freebooter, and in others a light-armed horseman, has been received as proof of their Oriental extraction; but it is at least equally probable that the signification of the word in those languages arises from the fact that the nations of the East had so constantly suffered from the inroads of the Cossack warriors that the name of Cossack became among them synonymous with a predatory chieftain; while the remoter nations, who had experienced fewer of their raids, but remarked their customary mode of warfare, applied the name of the only light cavalry whom they knew to denote the entire class. Constantine Porphorygenitus speaks in his writings of a country named Casachia, which is evidently the modern Circassia. "Beyond the Papagian country," he says, "is the country called Casachia, but beyond Casachia are the Caucasian mountains."*

Many antiquaries have concluded from this passage that the Cossacks originally emigrated from Circassia, and derived their name from its ancient title; and their theory is, to a

*Constantinus de Administrand. Imp. cap. xliii., p. 133, Lugd. Bat., 1611.

certain extent, supported by the fact that among the Cossacks of the Don there is an undoubted Circassian element, and that the name of their ancient capital, Tscherkask, denotes in their language the small village of the Circassians.* What militates, however, strongly against this supposition is the fact that the Cossacks, when first mentioned as a separate race, were found, not on the banks of the Don, but of the Dnieper, and that their first known migrations are from the west to the east. The name of Casaria is given by W. de Rubruquis, a missionary who journeyed through that region in the thirteenth century to the country on the borders of the Dnieper,† and Russian history speaks of a people called the Kozares,‡ who migrated from the shores of the Caspian and the sides of the Caucasus, and occupied the region along the coast of the Black Sea. This people appear to have overrun the steppe, and rendered Kioff itself tributary; but they were defeated by the Russian Emperor Sviatoslof in the tenth century, and their existence as a nation annihilated.§ Whether the Cossacks, who, dwelling on the northern shores of the Dnieper, were driven by the Tartars to its southern bank, and thence expelled by the Lithuanians to the extremities of the steppe between the Dnieper and the Don, were the remnants of the lost race, is a question which history as yet has been unable to solve || All that we know with certainty is that, in the course

* Clarke's Travels in Russia, p. 371.

Hakluyt, vol. i., p. 80.

"Les Khozars ou Khazars, peuples de même origine que les Turcs, habitaient depuis fort longtemps les côtes occidentales de la mer Caspienne et soumettaient à leurs armes tout le pays, depuis l'embouchure du Volga jusqu'à la mer d'Azof. Vers la fin du septième siécle, ou au commencement du huitième, ils portaient leurs armes sur les rives du Dniéper."-Karamzin, vol. i., pp. 48, 49. Les Khozars construisaient sur les bords du Don, où sont maintenant les Cosaques, la forteresse de Saikel. Ib., vol. i., p. 51.

§ Tooke's History of Russia, p. 33; note, ib., p. 174.

Byzantine History, pp. 71, 72.

I Tooke speaks (vol. i., p. 121) of a nation called the Kosages who dwelt on the Sea of Azof, and also on the Dnieper, and were subjugated by Russia in 1022-but he gives no authority for this statement.

of ages, a large nomadic race had grown up on the borders of these two rivers; a people of predatory habits, whose home occupations were hunting and fishing; a people without distinction of rank, governed by their own laws, and recognizing only their own elected chief or hetman. It is in this condition that we find the first definite accounts of them in history.

It is not, however, probable that the Cossacks owe their origin exclusively to either an Asiatic or a Russian source. Their stirps may undoubtedly be sought among the nomadic tribes of Sclavonians who, in the earliest accounts that we possess, traversed the region of the Dnieper-tribes whose germ was the aboriginal race of Scythians, who roamed the borders of the Borysthenes (now the Dnieper), and commingling with the various nations by whom they were successively over-run, received an infusion of the blood of Western Europe from the Ostrogoths, and an Asiatic element from the Sarmatians, or children of the Medes (Sar in the Oriental languages being the mark of descent), who emigrated from Media, and passing through the defile of Caucasus, settled on the banks of the Tanais or Don.* These tribes, gradually coalescing, formed the race known in mediæval history as the Sclavi or Sclaves.

In the fourth century, a horde of these Sclaves founded a colony on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, of which the capital was Kioff; † while another, penetrating farther north, erected the city of Novgorod. While the former colony were content to develop the resources of the fertile region which they occupied, the latter were seized with a thirst for dominion, and extended their conquests until they reached the shores of the Baltic. As they advanced northward, they provoked the hostility of the Scandinavian tribes, who were not only pirates and sea-kings but mighty men of war. Engaged in conflict with some of these rude nations, they applied to a tribe called the Varages, probably of Norse extraction, for assistance, offering them favorable terms of alliance. But these allies *Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii., p. 155.-Ed. Wetstein.

† Tooke's History of Russia, vol. i., pp. 137-145.

eventually proved their most deadly enemies. Ere long, discovering the advantages possessed by the country around Novgorod over their own bleak and inhospitable shores, a vast horde of these barbarians, headed by Ruric the Red and his two brothers, invaded the territory of their former allies and reduced it to submission.*

The conqueror was proclaimed king in Novgorod, but, before he could extend his conquests, he died, leaving his infant son Ivor heir to his kingdom. Oleg, the bold and crafty uncle of the new king, resolved to add Kioff to his nephew's dominions. Having advanced down the Dnieper to within a short distance of the capital, he sent messages to Oskhold and Dir, the chiefs of the Kievians, in which, concealing his name and quality, and representing himself as a merchant en route for Constantinople on business of importance, he requested permission to pass through their dominions. This request, having been readily granted, was followed by an invitation to the chiefs to visit Oleg at his ships, he pretending that indisposition prevented him from paying his respects in person. The confiding chieftains accepted the invitation, and visited the ships of Oleg, accompanied by only their ordinary attendants. But, no sooner had they arrived at the vessels, than the Varasgian soldiers, starting from their places of concealment in the boats, encompassed them on all sides; while Oleg, taking in his arms the infant Ivor, uttered in a voice of thunder: "You are neither princes nor sons of princes; behold the son of Ruric!" At these words the soldiers seized the chieftains and murdered them in the presence of Ivor. †

This coup rendered the Scandinavians masters of the entire territory which had been colonized by the Sclavi; but the latter, a brave and not a servile race, again and again broke

*Karamzin, vol. i., p. 37.

Tooke's History of Russia, vol. i., pp. 147, 148; Karamzin, vol. i., p. 154. Nestor tells us that Oskhold and Dir were themselves Scandinavians who had taken Kioff from the Kozares. Karamzin, vol. i., p. 146.