propose is not new birth, or dashing out
into new systems, and taking advantage of
new ideas; but reverting to old systems, and
furbishing them up so as to look as good
as new. Re-juvenescence is their aim; the
middle ages their motto. Young England, to
wit, desires to replace things as they were in
the days of the pack-horse, the thumb-screw,
the monastery, the ducking-stool, the knight
errant, trial by battle, and the donjon-keep.
To these he wishes to apply all possible
modern improvements, to adapt them to
present ideas, and to present events. Though
he would have no objection to his mailed
knight travelling per first-class railway, he
would abolish luggage-trains to encourage
intestine trade and the breed of that noble
animal the pack-horse. He has indeed done
something in the monastic line; but his efforts
for the dissemination of superstition, and his
denunciations of a certain sort of witchcraft,
have signally failed. In truth, the task he
has set himself—that of re-constructing society
anew out of old materials—though highly
archæological, historical, and poetic, has the
fatal disadvantage of being simply impossible.
It is telling the people of the nineteenth
century to carry their minds, habits, and
sentiments back, so as to become people of
the thirteenth century; it is trying to make
new muslin out of mummy cloth, or razors
out of rusty nails.

'Young Russia' is an equal absurdity, but
from a precisely opposite cause; for, indeed,
this sort of youth out of age is a series of
paradoxes. The Russian of the present day
is the Russian of past ages. He exists by rule
—the rule of despotism—which is as old as
the Medes and Persians; and which forces
him into an iron mould that shapes his appearance,
his mind, and his actions, to one
pattern, from one generation to another.
Hence everything that lives and breathes in
Russia being antique, there is no appreciable
antiquity. The new school, therefore—even
if amateur politics were allowable in Russia,
which they are not, as a large population of
exiles in Siberia can testify—has no materials
to work upon. Stagnation is the political
law, and Young Russia dies in its babyhood for
want of sustenance. What goes by the name
of civilisation, is no advance in wealth, morals,
or social happiness. It is merely a tinsel coating
over the rottenness and rust with which
Russian life is 'sicklied o'er.' It has nothing
to do with a single soul below the rank of a
noble; and with him it means champagne, bad
pictures, Parisian tailors, operas, gaming, and
other expences and elegancies imported from
the West. Hundreds of provincial noblemen
are ruined every year in St. Petersburg, in
undergoing this process of civilisation. The
fortunes thus wasted are enormous; yet there
is only one railroad now in operation throughout
the whole empire, and that belongs to the
Emperor, and leads to one of his palaces a
few miles from the Capital. Such is Russia
civilisation. What then is Young Russia to
do? Ask one of its youngest apostles, Ivan
Vassilievitsch.

This young gentleman—for an introduction
to whom we are indebted to Count Sollogub
—was, not long ago, parading the Iverskoy
boulevard—one of the thirteen which half
encircle Moscow—when he met a neighbour
from the province of Kazan. Ivan had lately
returned from abroad. He was a perfect
specimen of the new school, inside and out.
Within, he had imbibed all the ideas of the
juvenile or verdant schools of Germany,
France, and England. Without, he displayed
a London macintosh; his coat and trowsers
had been designed and executed by Parisian
artists; his hair was cut in the style of the
middle ages; and his chin showed the
remnants of a Vandyke beard. He also
resembled the new school in another respect:
he had spent all his money, yet he was
separated from home by the distance of a long—a
Russian—journey.

To meet with a neighbour—which he did—
who travelled in his own carriage, in which he
offered a seat, was the height of good fortune.
The more so, as Ivan wished to see as much of
Russian life on the road as possible, and to note
down his impressions in a journal, whose white
leaves were as yet unsullied with ink. From
the information he intended to collect, he
intended to commence helping to reconstruct
Russian society after the order of the new
Russiaites.

The vehicle in which this great mission
was to be performed, was a humble family
affair called a Tarantas.* After a series of
adventures—but which did not furnish Ivan a
single impression for his note-book—they
arrive at Vladimir, the capital of a province
or ' government.' Here the younger traveller
meets with a friend, to whom he confides
his intention of visiting all the other Government
towns for 'Young Russia' purposes.
His friend's reply is dispiriting to the last
degree:—

"There is no difference between our government
towns. See one, and you 'll know them
all!"

"Is it possible?"

"It is so, I assure you, Every one has a
High-street; one principal shop, where the
country gentlemen buy silks for their wives,
and champagne for themselves; then there
are the Courts of Justice, the assembly-rooms,
an apothecary's shop, a river, a square, a bazaar,
two or three street-lamps, sentry-boxes
for the watchmen, and the governor's house."

"The society, however, in the government
towns must be different?"

"On the contrary. The society is still more
uniform than the buildings."

"You astonish me: how is that?"

*For further particulars of this comfortable conveyance,
its occupants, and their adventures, we must refer the
reader to Count Sollogub's amusing little book, to which
he has given the name of 'The Tarantas.'