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his pistol had thrice missed fire, the would-be assassin aroused his unconscious master, announced himself as a messenger sent from God to state that the Emperor would be secured by Providence against all hurt, and ended his tale by saying, 'I wanted to shoot you, but God did not allow it.' Peter replied in the words of an old proverb: Ambassadors are not to be struck or flogged,' and pardoned the culprit. Kikin eventually perished on the scaffold, being convicted of having aided the unfortunate Crown Prince Alexis in his attempted flight. On the eve of his execution, when he was asked by Peter what had been the cause of the Prince's fatal attempt, he quoted another proverbial saying: 'The mind loves free space. This adage doubtless sounded unwelcome to the Emperor at that moment, but as a general rule he dearly loved a Russian proverb. In the year 1717 we find him writing from Amsterdam to Colonel Levashef for a small book which belongs to us, "On Russian Proverbs." It was probably required for the Arithmetical Manual' published by his command at Amsterdam, in which were contained some moral sentences in Latin and Russian, beginning with 'Fear God, honour the Tsar.' He even seems to have made some notes on the subject; and his example was followed by his great successor, Catherine II., who herself compiled a selection of Russian proverbs, observing of them that, 6 they point sense, and strengthen speech.'

The first appearance in print of an actual collection of Russian proverbs took place at St. Petersburg in 1769, when Professor Kurganof devoted to them seventeen pages of his 'Universal Russian Grammar.' Next year a 'Collection of 4291 old Russian Proverbs' was published at Moscow, since which time several works of a similar kind have appeared. Kniajevich's collection, published in 1822, contained about 5300 proverbs, to which Snegiref added about 4000. From these and other sources Vladimir Dahl took about 6000, and added thereto about 24,000. His collection, which appeared at Moscow in 1862, forms a tall volume of 1095 pages, and contains about 30,000 Russian proverbs, or at least proverbial sayings. On this bulky work, on that noble memorial of Dahl's industry and erudition, his vast Dictionary (in Russian) of the living Great-Russian language,' and on Snegiref's most valuable work, The Russians in their Proverbs,' the greater part of the following statements are based.*

We often hear that a nation's character is reflected in its

*A copious store of Russian proverbs, translated into German by Julius Altmann, will be found in the 'Jahrbücher für slavische Literatur,' &c., for 1854, published at Bautzen.

proverbs, that by the study of the adages in which it delights we may form a just idea of its prevailing thoughts and feelings. In the case of a fully qualified student this statement may be accepted as true; but such students are rare. He must be able

to distinguish between the sayings which are constantly on the lips of the people, and those which, although they may find a place in a printed collection, are all but, or even quite unknown to them. Otherwise he runs the risk of being led by suspicious though unsuspected evidence to conclusions the reverse of correct. And he must be thoroughly familiar with the proverbs of the whole world, in order to be able to recognise at a glance what sayings are alien to the race or land he is studying, and what are so widely spread that they testify only to qualities which, instead of being peculiar to one family, are the common property of at least a vast section of the human race. It is the same with the proverbs of a people as with its popular tales. To him who is qualified to read them aright they reveal many secrets, but the unqualified ethnologist gains about as much from them as is acquired by an amateur philologist from researches among languages of which he knows nothing, except from dictionaries.

*

To the vast host of proverbs contained in Dahl's collection, a powerful contingent has undoubtedly been supplied from abroad. As in other cases, so in this, the influence of Greece upon Russia was great, and the apophthegms of Greek sages have passed into the conversation of Russian peasants, who know as little about the philosophers they unconsciously quote as about Menander, Thucydides, or Aristotle, whose images they see depicted in the Cathedral of the Annunciation at Moscow. To Rome may be traced many sayings which are manifest translations, such as the Russian equivalent of Finis coronat opus,' which Alexander I. quoted in his Manifesto on the occasion of the capture of Moscow by the French in 1812, when Napoleon thought the war was finished. But we are doubtful whether Snegiref is right in deducing from Rome the belief that To marry in May is to suffer alway;' the action of suffering being expressed by the verb mayat'sya, a word probably suggested by its apparent connection with Mai, the borrowed name of the month. We may agree with all that he says about the attentions paid by the Romans to the dead during this month, and we learn from Ovid that

'Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait.' †

*Konets dyelo vyenchaet, a literal translation. There is much more of the look of a Russian proverb in a rhymed variant of the same adage; konēts dyelu vyenēts, i.e. the end to the work [is] a crown.

† 'Fasti,' v. 490.

But

But it must be remembered that the old Slavonians, as well as the Romans, paid special deference in spring and autumn to departed spirits, and the prejudice against May marriages may, therefore, have sprung up independently among them. • Good folks do not wed in May,' says another Russian proverb; but this may refer to the fact that peasant weddings usually take place after harvest time, when the field-labour is finished, which in May is only beginning. After the union of White-Russia and Little-Russia with Great-Russia, a number of Western proverbs were imported into the Russian language. Among the French contributions is an expression which is of special interest, as showing the changes to which a popular saying may be subjected by transmission or translation. The French say of a man who is out of sorts,' or not in his usual vein, 'il n'est pas dans son assiette.' The word assiette, according to Littré, originally meant situation; then the place occupied by a guest at table, and the successive courses; then the plat set before each guest; and eventually the plate. The phrase in question is probably derived from the technical meaning of assiette in nautical parlance, the trim or balance of a ship. But as plate is now the usual meaning of the word, the Russian translator has rendered assiette by tarelka, a word which distinctly means an actual platter. This fact would be sufficient, if it were needed, to prove that the Russian phrase was a translation, and one of comparatively recent date. By no means equally capable of proof is Dahl's supposition that La Rochefoucauld's maxim, 'Le soleil ni la mort ne se peuvent regarder fixement,' may have travelled to him from Russia, where men say, 'On death, as on the sun, you cannot gaze with all your eyes.'

We have just witnessed the case of a proverbial saying which has been altered in transmission; but the instances are countless in which proverbs lose, if not their significance, at least much of their point, while passing through the ordeal of translation. For the Russian proverbs which will be quoted in the course of the present article, great indulgence must be entreated, on the ground of their having been shorn of their original attractions, deprived of all the charms which alliteration and rhythm and rhyme can confer. Even where reason remains, the want of rhyme in a popular saying is often fatal. We recognise a magic force in A stitch in time saves nine,' which 'A stitch in time saves eight,' would never have exercised. Swift's famous rebuke to the stingy fruit-rearer would have been somewhat tame had he invented for the purpose such a maxim as 'Always pluck a peach when within your grasp;' and the unhorsed proverblover would have received but slight solace for his fall in a miry

spot from such an observation as, 'The more dirt, the less injury.' All poetry is hard to translate, but hard indeed to represent is the humour which delights in quaintness of rhyme. Let any one try, for instance, to give an idea, in a foreign tongue, of the merit of Pope's lines on the Dean of St. Patrick's, beginning,

Jonathan Swift
Had the gift

By fatherige, motherige,
And by brotherige,

To come from Gutherige.

Russian peasants are very sensitive to the charms of

any kind of song, and their common-folk prose' often takes to itself rhythm and sometimes even rhyme. To this day, 'to speak in verse' is an expression used to signify a speaker's wisdom; and 'wailers' who are able to improvise long metrical laments over the dead are not uncommon in remote districts. Throughout the Skazki, or Russian Märchen, there runs a kind of musical movement; sometimes, indeed, their language rises into actual verse, but as a general rule it is a modulated and cadenced prose. The proverbs almost invariably take a metrical form, and some of them are tiny songs in themselves. There are three forms which the Russian proverbial saying may take: those of the poslovitsa, the pogovorka, or the pritcha. In olden times the proverb bore the name of a pritcha;* at least, Nestor and Daniel Zatochnik always designate by that word the proverbs they quote. We will take the following expression, which is of no small value to the comparative mythologist, as a specimen of this class of sayings: There is a pritcha in Russia, even to the present day; "Perished like the Obrye," says Nestor. These Obrye, whom the Russian peasant of the eleventh century still vaguely remembered, were once the numerous and terrible Avars who ruled in Dacia some four hundred years before Nestor's time, but afterwards utterly disappeared. With their memories mingled dim traditions about the members of that race of colossal beings to which each country looks up as to its original inhabitants, and so one of the names given to giants by Slavs is Obra. In the 'Pereyaslavl Chronicle the name given to the above saying is altered, and we read that There is a poslovitsa in Russia, even to this day; "Perished like the Obori without remains."

The word poslovitsat was originally used to express consent,

*The word pritcha, or pritka (pritekať to run or flow to), was used in ancient and popular speech to designate an unexpected event, a sudden occurrence, &c. It then acquired the sense of a judgment, fate, &c. Eventually it was used for a saying expressive of some fact or event.

† Pronounce păslõvitsă. It is derived from slovo, a word, with the prepositional prefix po, by.

convention,

convention, &c. A chronicler states, for instance, that there was a poslovitsa between the inhabitants of Pskof and of Novgorod. This technical signification of the poslovitsa, as a symbol or expression of consent, gradually changed into its ordinary modern meaning of a comparison, between the two parts of which there must be some kind of consistency or concord. For if a Russian popular saying has not two parts, the one compared with or weighed against the other, it is not called a poslovitsa but a pogovorka. A Russian proverb says that a pogovorka is a bud, a poslovitsa is a berry,' meaning that the former is the germ which may develop into the latter. The former is a circumlocution, a means of describing a fact or announcing a truth, but without drawing an inference or expressing a judgment. The latter generally comprises, together with the statement or expression, some comparison or conclusion. 'A mere statement (or speech) is not a proverb,' says a Russian adage; and so a pogovorka seldom speaks the naked truth, but usually wraps up its meaning in a metaphorical garb. Instead of 'he is drunk,' for instance, it would say 'he sees double.' By a very slight addition, an adage may often be transferred from the lower form into the upper. Thus, 'He stirs the fire with another's hands,' is a pogovorka; but To stir the fire with another's hands is no hardship,' is a poslovitsa, or complete proverb. Sometimes, however, the second part of the proverb is unexpressed, being merely suggested, and in that case the poslovitsa assumes the appearance of a pogovorka. In addition to the three classes of proverbial sayings which we have mentioned, there exist others, such as riddles, observations about the weather or disease, and many other expressions of popular wisdom. Russian riddles closely resemble those current in other lands. As a specimen of Russian observation we may quote the prevalent opinion, that during a visitation of cholera frogs do not croak, and neither flies nor swallows are to be seen. Among astronomical observations may be cited the following: Comets are brooms which sweep the sky before the feet of God;' the moon 'shines but does not warm; without return does it eat God's bread.'

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"The philosophy of proverbs,' and the relations existing between the expressions of popular wisdom in different lands, have been so fully and so ably treated by the erudite Isaac D'Israeli in his Curiosities of Literature,' that we propose to confine our attention, for the present, to Russian proverbs in particular, and to refer to his pages the reader who wishes to them with their foreign kindred. A strong family likeness prevails among the various groups of European pro

compare