: farthest parts of the immense empire of Russia perhaps at that time more than three thousand were wandering in these sepulchral chambers." The appearance of the diligence between Chioff and Moscow, by which Mr. S. travelled, was a wonderful rarity to the people; nor, during the seven days they took, did they receive one accession to the original number of passengers,-a strange contrast for a man who was from a land everywhere intersected with lines of canals and railroads, and where steam-boats and other means of transit are constantly crowded. In the course of one of the days, on entering a village, the whole population was observed in the streets in a state of "absolute starvation." Mr. Stephens explains the matter thus, -"The miserable serfs had not raised enough to supply themselves with food; and men of all ages, half-grown boys, and little children, were prowling the streets, ravenous with hunger, and waiting for the agent to come down from the chateau and distribute among them bread," the provision furnished by their owner, or the dominant seigneur. It is refreshing to find an American in connection with this melancholy sight expressing the following sentiments, and fearlessly attesting the following facts. He says, “I had found in Russia many interesting subjects of comparison between that country and my own, but it was with deep humiliation I felt that the most odious feature in that despotic government found a parallel in ours. At this day, with the exception of Russia, some of the West India Islands, and the republic of the United States, every country in the civilized world, can respond to the proud boast of the English common law, that the moment a slave sets foot on her soil he is free. I respect the feelings of others and their vested rights, and would be the last to suffer those feelings or those rights to be wantonly violated; but I do not hesitate to say that, abroad, slavery stands as a dark blot upon our national character. There it will not admit of any palliation; it stands in glaring contrast with the spirit of our free institutions; it belies our words and our hearts; and the American who would be most prompt to repel any calumny upon his country withers under this reproach, and writhes with mortification when the taunt is hurled at the otherwise stainless flag of the free republic. I was forcibly struck with a parallel between the white serfs of the North of Europe and African bondsmen at home. The Russian boor, generally wanting the comforts which are supplied to the Negro on our best-ordered plantations, appeared to me to be not less degraded in intellect, character, and personal bearing. Indeed, the marks of physical and personal degradation were so strong, that I was insensibly compelled to abandon certain theories not uncommon among my countrymen at home, in regard to the intrinsic superiority of the White race over all others. Perhaps, too, impression was aided by my having previously met with Africans of intelligence and capacity, standing upon a footing of perfect equality as soldiers and officers in the Greek army and the Sultan's." this Neither Moscow nor St. Petersburg shall detain us, although it would amuse our readers had we space to show or explain how the American picked up acquaintances, and what sort of acquaintances he did pick up in these cities as well as elsewhere. We are on towards Warsaw, and take one or two sketches by the way. Of Lithuania we are told, "When Napoleon entered the province of Lithuania, his first bulletins proclaimed, Here, then, is that Russia so formidable at a distance! It is a desert for which its scattered population is wholly insufficient. They will be vanquished by the very extent of territory which ought to defend them; and, before I had travelled in it a day, I could appreciate the feeling of the soldier from La Belle France, who, hearing his Polish comrades boast of their country, exclaimed, Et ces gueux-là appellent cette pays une patrie!' The villages are a miserable collection of straggling huts, without plan or arrangement, and separated from each other by large spaces of ground. They are about ten or twelve feet square, made of the misshapen trunks of trees heaped on each other, with the ends projecting over; the roof of large shapeless boards, and the window a small hole in the wall, answering the double purpose of admitting light and letting out smoke. The tenants of these wretched hovels exhibit the same miserable appearance both in person and manners. They are hard-boned, and sallow-complexioned; the men wear coarse white woollen frocks, and a round felt cap lined with wool, and shoes made of the bark of trees, and their uncombed hair hangs low over their heads, generally of a flaxen colour. Their agricultural implements are of the rudest kind. The plough and harrow are made from the branches of the fir-tree, without either iron or ropes; their carts are put together without iron, consisting of four small wheels, each of a single piece of wood; the sides are made of the bark of a tree bent round, and the shafts are a couple of fir branches; their bridles and traces platted from the bark of trees, or composed merely of twisted branches. Their only instrument to construct their huts and make their carts is a hatchet. They were servile and cringing in their expressions of respect, bowing down to the ground and stopping their carts as soon as we came near them, and stood with their caps in their hands till we were out of sight. The whole country, except in some open places around villages, is one immense forest of firs, perhaps sixty feet in height, compact and thick, but very slender." Take a notice of a sight in Poland Proper :- "We had scarcely left the postmaster's daughter, on the threshold of Poland, almost throwing a romance about the Polish women, before I saw the most degrading spectacle I ever beheld in Europe, or even in the barbarous countries of the East. Forty or fifty women were at work in the fields, and a large, well-dressed man, with a pipe in his mouth and a long stick in his hand, was walking among them as overseer. In our country the most common labouring man would revolt at the idea of his wife or daughter working in the open fields. I had seen it, however, in gallant France and beautiful Italy; but I never saw, even in the barbarous countries of the East, so degrading a spectacle as this; and I could have borne it almost anywhere better than in chivalric Poland." A general sketch of Warsaw does not enhance our notions of the Polish nation neither as to the intelligence, the civilization, nor the moral character of the people as a whole : "Immediately on entering it I was struck with the European aspect of things. It seemed almost, though not quite, like a city of Western Europe, which may, perhaps, be ascribed, in a great measure, to the entire absence of the semi-Asiatic costumes so prevalent in all the cities of Russia, and even at St. Petersburg; and the only thing I remarked peculiar in the dress of the inhabitants was the remnant of a barbarous taste for show. exhibiting itself in large breastpins, shirt-buttons, and gold chains over the vest; the mustache is universally worn. During the war of the revolution immediately succeeding our own, Warsaw stood the heaviest brunt; and when Kosciusko fell fighting before it, its population was reduced to seventyfive thousand. Since that time it has increased, and is supposed now to be one hundred and forty thousand, thirty thousand of whom are Jews. Calamity after calamity has befallen Warsaw; still its appearance is that of a gay city. Society consists altogether of two distinct and distant orders, the nobles and the peasantry, without any intermediate degrees. I except, of course, the Jews, who form a large item in her population, and whose long beards, thin and anxious faces, and piercing eyes, met me at every corner of Warsaw. The peasants are in the lowest stage of mental degradation. The nobles, who are more numerous than in any other country in Europe, have always, in the eyes of the public, formed the people of Poland. They are brave, prompt, frank, hospitable, and gay, and have long been called the French of the North, being French in their habits, fond of amusements, and living in the open air, like the lounger in the Palais Royal, the Tuileries, the Boulevards, and Luxembourg, and particularly French in their political feelings, the surges of a revolution in Paris being always felt at Warsaw. They regard the Germans with mingled contempt and aversion, calling them dumb' in contrast with their own fluency and loquacity; and before their fall were called by their neighbours the proud Poles.' They consider it the deepest disgrace to practise any profession, even law or medicine, and, in case of utmost necessity, prefer the plough. A Sicilian, a fellow-passenger from Palermo to Naples, who one moment was groaning in the agony of sea-sickness, and the next playing on his violin, said to me, Canta il, signore?' 'Do you sing?' I answered No;' and he continued, Suonate?' 'Do you play?' I again answered No;' and he asked me, with great simplicity, Cosa fatte? Niente? What do you do? Nothing?' and I might have addressed the same question to every Pole in Warsaw. The whole business of the country is in the hands of the Jews, and all the useful and mechanical arts are practised by strangers. I did not find a Pole in a single shop in Warsaw ; the proprietors of the hotels and coffee-houses are strangers, principally Germans; my tailor was a German, my shoemaker a Frenchman, and the man who put a new crystal in my watch an Italian from Milan." · · Cracow at last draws out the accustomed good and fresh feeling as well as the graphic powers of our author. But we must stop, although many stretches of his journeyings be barren of new inVOL. 1. (1839.) No. II. N formation, owing in a great measure to the speed at which he travelled, and, as respects the latter part, owing frequently no doubt to the fact of his going over a great deal of ground during night, yet that throughout the volumes the manner in which little incidents pertaining to himself are described, and personal occurrences are connected with localities, individuals, and national characteristics, the whole becomes picturesque, entertaining, and not seldom instructive. The work will unquestionably be popular, as were the former volumes in this country, as they deserve to be. ART. II. L'Ottimo Commento della Divina Commedia, Testo Inditto d'un Contemporaneo di Dante. Citato degli Accademici della Crusca. Nuova edizione. Pisa. 1837. A Commentary on the Divina Commedia of Dante, by one of his Contemporaries: now first published, and the same that is quoted by the Academy Della Crusca, under the title of L'Ottomo Commento, or the best Commentary. To enumerate the principal beauties, or to point out the most splendid scenes of the Commedia, would be a work of time and labour. To remark on the different symbolical meanings and allegories, which commentators have attached even to the first cantos of the Inferno, would be to enter into a nearly interminable discussion. We can only mention a very few of the most striking passages in this wonderful poem. The translation by Cary seems to be the only English one, which conveys even a remote idea of the beauty of the original. He has followed his author with wonderful fidelity and exactness: his style is as severe and devoid of ornament as that of Dante himself. He has wisely emancipated himself from the fetters of rhyme, and has walked along by the side of his great original with grave and measured steps. The incalculable difficulties which a foreigner has to encounter, in appreciating the merits of a poem which the Italians themselves find difficulty in comprehending, render this work a valuable addition to English literature. Perhaps had a similar translation in the French language been practicable, Voltaire might have repented of his hasty judgment,-" Le Dante pourra entrer dans les bibliothèques des curieux, mais il ne sera jamais lu." The first scene of the poem is decidedly allegorical, and has given rise to an infinity of explanations and commentaries. In the midst of the journey of life, the poet finds that he has wandered from the direct path, and is alone in a dark and wild forest. He knows not how he entered it, having been overwhelmed with sleep. He arrives at the foot of a hill, whose summit is gilded by the rays of the morning sun. He begins to ascend the hill, but his progress is opposed by a spotted panther, a fierce lion,-and a hungry wolf. He draws back in terror, and perceives a human figure. It is the shade of Virgil, who had always been the object of his admiration. Virgil explains to him that, by the desire of Beatrice, he has left the place of his repose, and descended to earth for the purpose of guiding him in the direct path. Then the fear of the poet vanishes, and he expresses his renewal of courage in the beautiful simile: "Quale i fioretti, dal notturno gelo "As flowerets by the frosty air of night, Bent down and closed, when day has blanched their leaves, So was my fainting vigour new restored.'" The expounders of Dante have expended great labour in their explanation of this first and principal allegory. Most of the ancient commentators were of opinion, that "the dark and wild forest in the midst of life's journey," referred to the innumerable vices and deprayed passions of Dante,-that "the goodly mount" signified virtue, the leopard, lion and wolf, luxury, ambition and avarice,Virgil, moral philosophy, and Beatrice, theology. Again, some modern commentators, among many arguments against the correctness of this interpretation, having observed that Virgil, in explaining to Dante the reasons of Charon's refusal to ferry him over in his bark, says, "Quinci non passa mai anima buona," "Hence ne'er hath past good spirit," justly remark that this expression could not be applied to one sunk in vice; and have therefore supposed the dark forest to allude to the vices and passions, not of Dante, but of mankind in general. A modern writer, Giovanni Marchetti, has probably arrived at a more just interpretation of the text. He brings many ingenious arguments to prove, that the wild and deserted forest signifies the misery of Dante, deprived by exile of all that he most valued,-the goodly mountain the peace and consolation for which he longed,his passage from the forest to the mountain the increase of hope in his soul; the light of the new day the consolation which he derived from hope,-the leopard, beautiful and cruel Florence, the lion France, the wolf the church of Rome;-the apparition of Virgil, sent by Beatrice, an alleviation to his sorrows by study; the way by which Virgil promised to draw him from that valley, his admirable poem, which might induce his country to free him from exile, and the guidance of Virgil the necessary virtue, which he derived from meditating on the works of the Altissimo Poeta. |