BOOKS.

MISS BIINBVB,Y'S RUSSIA AFTER TEE WAS..

Ma. SPOTTISWOODE, as we lately saw, devoted a moderate-sized volume to a journey into Asia. and the shores of the Caspian

Sea, commencing with Moscow, and leaving the more beaten tour and the coronation unregarded. Miss Bunbury employs two volumes in narrating a visit to St. Petersburg and Moscow during the ceremony, with a steam-trip to Sweaborg from the new capi tal, and some excursions in the neighbourhood of the old. The mode by which so much space is filled with such a common jour ney is chiefly by "beating her metal into too thin a leaf." When she is not bent upon telling the world what it knew already, or could very readily learn,--such as the nature and constitution of the " tchm," or the theoretical state of the serfs,—she is frequently engaged in spinning out matters of no particular mark, whose pith under existing circumstances might be interesting, but whose tenuity is the very reverse. It is not only that Miss Banbury describes common incidents with minute literalness, and dwells often to weariness on the details of externals, as if she were taking a property-man's inventory of a mob or a procession ; the slightest thing will set her off at a tangent of digression or reflection, till, having run down the intellectual Will-o'-the-wisp through sundry pages, she returns to the thread of her old theme. If the

hydraulic press were applicable to literary productions, the space that the solid substance of _Russia after the War occupied would be very small indeed, when the trivial topics, the nonessential particulars, and the mere verboseness, had been squeezed out.

Though the matter is slight, the reading is often agreeable, sometimes informing, if we can take the instance as illustrating a general truth ; the minute description, characterized by a sort of chatty animation and feminine sentiment, is occasionally appropriate. The account of the coronation and its different aerompaniments is long and fatiguing, as such things are in reality ; but it conveys a livelier idea of the whole ceremony in its ostentatious yet telling gorgeousness, and its "barbaric gold and pearl," than the graver letters of "our own correspondent." The facility with which Miss Banbury made acquaintances practically exhibits the good-nature and friendliness of the Russians, if the occurrences are not always of very striking interest in themselves. Of the people, indeed, she has formed a good opinion. She even doubts the dishonest propensities that have been universally charged upon them. It is not the Russians, she says, who cheat you, but the half-breeds that infest the towns. The Anglo-Gallo(Iermanico-Russ, speaking with more or less of intelligibility the language of the foreign parent, are the class through whom the majority of travellers form their notions of the Russians. Our fair writer also doubts the necessity of bribing officials, so continually mentioned by natives as well as foreigners. One rouble only did she expend in this way, and that did not benefit her much. She had a great deal of trouble, however, in tramping from office to office in doing the work herself; and it was coronation-time, when everything was put in the best order to make a display to the Western strangers who were flocking to the ceremony. The courtesies she experienced, the sights she saw, and the information given to her, have possessed Miss Bunbury with a favourable disposition towards Russia, and she speaks well both of people and Emperor, when she speaks directly. Her facts, hewever, greatly modify her panegyrics. The exotic artificial character of Russian civilization is a subject she continually notes or exhibits. The greater portion of the nobility is not native in blood if Russian by birth. It originated and still originates with foreign adventurers, mostly Germans, who have gained their wealth and position as tehinoviks : in fact, the Imperial blood itself is far more German than Russian. This may account for the dislike of the Russians to the nobles, and explain some anomalies in the character of the nobility. It does not appear that gain would accrue by substituting the native territorial nobility for this foreign stock. The Boyards, as we catch glimpses of them in Miss Bunbury's pages, are rugged, hard, ignorant men, with narrow views from their self-oonfined position on their estates, a turn for a rough kind of pomp, and not much kindness for the serfs with whom they are in daily contact, if they are not often cruel. In short, they seem very like what a drinking, fox-hunting English squire, a century ago, would have become if transplanted to the confines of Asia, and given absolute power over the liberties and pretty much over the lives of his peasantry and small farmers. The excessive backwardness of the genuine Muscovite continually appears. It is not only seen visibly in the subjects of Peter's horror, beards and native costume, but in the intense superstition of the people, their childlike faith in the Emperor, their spaniellike fidelity towards him, and their general helplessness. It is impossible to suppose that great advances have not been made in cultivation and wealth since the time of Peter. In this Russia has only followed the progress of every Christian nation. Yet it is strange to note how little of this advance is spontaneous or from the people. We saw how Mr. Spottislyoode's description impressed the artificial appearance of the towns and the backward condition of their immediate neighbourhood. Miss Bunbury gives the same character to St. Petersburg, substituting desert for forest.

"In order to feel what a wonderful work the erection of St. Petersburg it is necessary to go out to its suburbs; not to the Garden Islands, which In comparison of the others may appear much as the English-looking sta • Russia after the War : the Narrative of a Visit to that Country in 1856. By Selina Bunbury, Author of "Life in Sweden," &c. &c. In two volumes. Published by Hurst and Blackett. tion-housea on the Moscow line do when compared with the common buildings of the country. But walk, for instance, down the fine street of Vassili Ostroff, called Bolshoi Prospekt, and you no sooner pass all its fine houses enahrouded in gardens of trees than you come into a desert ; you arrive at once on the soil where Peter laboured, and feel yourself transplanted to his rem. In our large towns, greatness and riches make way for labour, poverty, or mediocrity; as labour encroaches ease and health retires and the suburbs or neighbourhoods of our towns become the fashionable quarters. "lam all our towns and even villages where the citizen's box is not to be seen, a row of neat cottages or a few more distinguished villa-like houses are sure to terminate the dingy streets. But here precisely the reverse is the case; you leave all that is great and grand, and find yourself in a desert.

"A desolate-looking house, a strangely old and faRing-to-pieees wooden one, which must not be repaired because such erections are prohibited, seem to terminate the human abode ; and you come on an immense plain lying at the side of the road, and covered with blocks of granite looking like the ground of Finland more than that of St. Petersburg. Vrom Finland it must have come, but though deposited here for use, it gives a

strangely desolate aspect to the scene. *

"It is wonderful to think of all the distant tributaries that supply St. Petersburg not only with the luxuries which come from all parts there, as they do to London, but with the commonest necessaries of life. If it were not for inland navigation, that half-foreign capital must be nourished by wholly foreign food; the country adjacent to it is almost wholly unproductive. Wheat, to make bread, comes to it by means of the Volga; hay, curiously packed, floats up the Neva; the length of the voyages by rivers and canals, and the quick setting-in of the ice, cause the ingeniously-formed barks to be broken up for firewood in the winter, and a fresh set arrives with the opening water sledges supply their place, and render the conveyance of provisions by lark a thousand tunes cagier and more rapid in winter than it is in summer. Here, as in Northern lands, snow is a blessing ; a bare winter' a great misfortune. The railway now transports quantities of provisions, even eggs being brought from the country around Moscow to St. Petersburg ; apples and grapes, such as they are, travel from the Crimea; the rich pastures on the shores of the Black Sea chiefly supply the meat markets of the luxurious queen of the 'Nova; the Gulf of Finland in summer, and the busy peasant sledges in winter, supply her with butter."

Of the helplessness of the Russians, or more properly of the machines which regulation makes of them, our traveller had an example before she landed. A party of prisoners of war had accompanied her from England, and here is the first sample she had of the effects of Russian rule.

"We could not help remarking a change in the demeanour of our prisoners of war from the time we left the large steamer at Cronstadt : but if it were allowable to speculate on the cause of their sobered aspect, I should say it was produced by the presence of the decorated sergeant who appeared to have taken them in charge there, and who kept aloof from them In dignified silence. They sat in a line in the stern of our boat, which was remarkably low in the bulwarks ; and as they were just opposite to me, I saw that one of them who had amused us on our long passage by continually repeating the only words of English he could utter, Me good man,' was less livery than he had been ; he looked ill, and an apparently unhealed wound in'the throat was covered with white plaster ; his comrades were all silent and still ; I happened to be looking at him only, when I saw his feet rise up and his head go back, and in one instant he turned his head foremost and downward over the side of the steamer. He uttered no word or cry, and until my scream aroused them his comrades might be unaware of the fact. Then they started up and stood erect, hands down at their sides, feet together, and eyes 'right' I suppose, but not turned to the water. They looked at me and they looked at the sergeant, and stood as if waiting the word of command. The sergeant stood before them as if on drill, but no command or word issued from his lips. There was no one to scream but myself, and I did scream, until by dint of screaming and pointing and calling Boat ! boat ! boat V the captain jumped on the paddle-box, saw the poor man's head in the strong current, and joined his screams and gesticulations to mine. His beard seemed to add half-a-yard to its length as he stood there in the strong breeze, grinning, scolding, stamping, doing all but acting ; while the few sailors who were on board ran up the deck and ran down again. The steamer was put about, and then the captain's only word was ' Machine 1 machine !'—a thrilling cry in our ears as we saw its meaning in the whirling head driving up to the paddle-wheel. Never did I feel much more self-indignant than when I reflected afterwards on the total inability to utter more than that familiar English word, boat ! boat ! The boat we found at last, and at last too the captain discovered the signification of the word. Two sailors lowered it ; an attempt was made to catch the poor soldier by the back of the hair; but, alas ! it was cropped too close for that ; and we saw him again whirled off and on, and again almost brought under the wheel, the rapidity of the current resembling that of a mountain torrent ; at last an oar was hooked under his arm, and finallyte was drawn into the boat and so on deck. His comrades all the time retained the position in which they had formed, nor did the sergeant'4eviate from his. The only one who showed much concern in the matter was the green-uniformed official in whose charge we were ; and this-concern he manifested by looking into our eyes and then at the apparently dead man, as much as to ask, Is he dead, or can you do anything for him ?'

Miss Banbury saw the Emperor on two occasions immediately after her arrival at St. Petersburg. They were both accidental in the park of Tzarsko Selo. The accounts are rather long, but that is the nature of the writer's style. The troops of the following description were the guards assembled on their festival day.

"A picked body of men stood in line ; I think there was not a quarter of an inch variation in the equality of their uncovered heads. They held their glittering helmets in theirhands and close before them stood a tall, fair, comely officer, in the prime of life but with a look of care on his brow, an expression on his face that impressed one with the idea that he was employed in a service he disliked ; serving against the grain, as we say. I looked at him with interest, for I thought that he did not like the service of Russia ; that he would be glad to throw off the white uniform he wore that he was perhaps a Pole, or one of the many fragmentary parts that willingly or unwillingly compose the mighty empire of all the Russuts.

"The whole green space was dotted over, and in the background thronged with more splendid and varied uniforms ; and many of the finest figures that could be seen set off more gorgeous equipments ; but none struck me as having the same expression as the officer who stood before the troops, —an expression hard to describe otherwise than that of distaste to the life he led.

"A bell sounded ; this officer took off his helmet, turned round, andaecidentallv cast his eye on me : I met that full blue eye direct, and almost exclaimed aloud, The Emperor! the Czar himself!'

"What is there in an eye accustomed to power that makes itself felt?

There were far more dashing uniforms, far more commanding figures present; but there was no eye that when it looked full at you had the same force, conveyed the same sense of power. "A gentleman who joined us said he had not seen the Czar for eighteen months, and could scarcely have known him, so much was his countenance and general appearance altered. The ruler of such an empire, and of such a one too when engaged in a miserable war, must bare known enough in these eighteen months to mark his brow with care and his countenance with dissatisfaction. On turning round and uncovering his head, as I have said, the Emperor Alexander II. walked with his helmet in hand to a gay-looking little tent, in which an altar was placed, and from which now issued the exquisite voices of the priests and choir singing the appropriate service for a festival, which, like most Russian ones, was half religious, half military. He stood there while it lasted. Of the officers outside I saw a few, a very few, bless themselves and bow at stated times, but the generality paid no

sore of attention to what was going on. • • "A day or two after I began to think my physiognornical science had been at fault.

"Harry and I were walking in the park, and admiring a splendid perfectly white Newfoundland dog, and an equally pretty in its degree white Italian greyhound, when an officer and lady approached : he wore the loose grey over-coat now prescribed to officers as well as soldiers, and a round red cloth cap, like what is called a smoking-cap, on his head ; in his hand he held a half-consumed cigar ; a tall lady, in a plain shawl and very plain straw bonnet—by no means of a fashionable shape, since it did not merely cover the back of her head—leaned on his arm ; they were chatting and smiling together ; a more perfectly free-from-care couple one could not see. The white Newfoundland dog, with its tail like an immense ostrich plume, attracted more of my notice : it was only in the act of passing that I met once more the full blue eye, and felt again whose it was, but felt it differently, for the face no longer seemed to say, pity as well as fear me.' Harry, who was a little behind, drew up and said, 'That lady smiled at me, and I never saw her before.'

" ' Do you not know who she is ? '

" ' Not in the least.'

"'That lady is the Empress of Russia, the Czarina.'

• "A lengthened '0!' and then a look of profound thought on Harry's face followed the information. Could that careless happy-looking man be the same we had seen so shortly before ? It was the same, and in the different aspect perhaps a clue to the native character of the individual might be found.

" When I related this to a Russian lady afterwards, she accounted for the former expression I had noticed by remarking that it was on that day he had received the new British Minister, Lord Wodehouse' who had come to St. Petersburg on the conclusion of the war. But surely this reception was more likely to remove than to increase the frown of care and dissatisfaction from the Imperial brow."