the nation's love and loyalty is proved by the numerous proverbs of a like kind with 'Going near the Tsar, as near fire, you will be scorched,'* or such warnings as, 'Near the Tsar, near unto death'—an adage originally due to Tartar terrors, but afterwards adapted to the rule of Ivan, justly styled the Terrible, during which it was so often seen that The Tsar's wrath is the messenger of death.' More than three centuries can bear witness that The Russian nation is truly Tsar-loving;' and in its case loyalty has always been combined, with a species of worship. Thus a proverb says, 'If the people sin, the Tsar can pray the sin away: but if the Tsar sins, the people can do nothing.' 'Not every one sees the Tsar, but every one prays to him,' says another; so that King Stephen Batory was justified in addressing to a Tsar Ivan the words, Thou art called the God of the Russian land.' Even the mightiest boyars effaced themselves before the Tsar, styling themselves not his servants but his slaves, and protesting against all ideas of rivalry with him in the words of the proverb, The ears do not grow higher than the forehead.' 'We Russians are devoted to the Tsar, whether he be clement or cruel,' said a Russian Prince to one of the Emperor Maximilian's ministers, who reproached him for yielding blind obedience to a tyrant. One of the aristocratic victims of Ivan the Terrible is said, after having been impaled, to have constantly repeated, during the twenty-four hours he spent on the stake, the words, God preserve the Tsar!'-a heroic expression of loyalty which throws into the shade our own Stubbs's cry of 'God save the Queen!' after his right hand had been cut off by her Council's decree. This story may seem doubtful, but we can readily believe the foreign witness who says that in the sixteenth century, a Russian to whom any one wished good health always replied, God grant that our great Gosudar may be healthy, and after him also we who are his subjects.'

As the Boyars sat in Council with the Tsar, royal decrees stated that The Tsar has commanded, and the Boyars have assented,' a formula which has become a popular saying. old title of Boyarin, or Boyar, now abbreviated into Barin, or Master, is still preserved in the memories of the people. Thus, 'At a wedding all are Boyars,' for all the guests invited to a

*Opalish'sya, [opalit', pal-it'to burn]. As fire was of old the symbol of wrath, says Snegiref, so did tsarskaya opala signify Tsarish wrath, and to be v opalye, in opala, was to be subjected to that wrath. The opalny, or victim of the royal anger, could not go to Court, being confined to his house in town or his estate in the country, where he wore his hair short, and his raiment sad, until the Tsar forgave him or took his life, and seized his property. Another form of the above-mentioned proverb is, "The Tsar is not fire; but going near him, you will be scorched.'

rustic marriage feast bear that name, the bride and bridegroom being styled the Princess and the Prince. Many of the intermediate officials of early days have dropped out of proverbial memory, such as the Possadnik, a kind of Burgomaster, and the Tysatsky, or Thousand-man, a military officer, together with many others; but the Voevode is still remembered. The old Russian Voisko, or army, was divided into 'polks,' each of which had its Voevode; the senior, or chief, of these officers being alled the Head Voevode.' In some towns, as at Novgorod in 1584, there were two principal Voevodes, to whose agreement is allusion made in the adage, 'In one den two bears live not peaceably.' But there were civil as well as military Voevodes, nobles who were given a province from which 'to derive nourishment,' as their petitions for employment expressed themselves. That they behaved in office rapaciously may be surmised from the existence of such proverbs as, 'To be a Voevode, is to live not without honey;' 'It is bad for the sheep when the wolf is Voevode;' God has punished the people, He has sent Voevodes.' Naturally enough it was not easy to obtain redress for an injury inflicted by a powerful noble, especially as the law dealt severely with false accusers, administering To the informer the first knout:' many proverbs may, therefore, have once existed, similar to a saying preserved in the Tula Government : 'To petition against a Voevode is to go to prison.' In the Vaga district when a man modestly refuses an office, his protest is said to take the form of, To judge and arrange I know not, yet they set me in a place of Voevodship;' but if a native of those parts blows his own trumpet too loudly, his neighbours cry: We won't hear you! you're not the Voevode of Vaga, forsooth!' When the Voevodships were finally abolished in the time of Catherine II., there arose among the common people this touching complaint: Formerly we fed a single sow, but now one with a litter."

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Among the inferior officials whose memory survives in proverbs, are the Okolnichie,* a species of judicial officers who attended the Tsar on his expeditions, and of whom we learn, Without money even an Okolníchy is worthless.' In 'A wise man, like a Starosta Gubnoi, is feared by all,' reference is made to a criminal judgeship abolished by Peter I., in 1702. As in early days the clergy were the readers and writers of the land, and deacons generally filled secretarial posts, the name Diak, Deacon, attached itself to the person of every Secretary, whether a layman or a clerk. The Diaks, who assisted at the signing of all State papers,

* Okolo around. Okolitsa means environage, and okolnichy environing. Vol. 139.--No. 278.

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obtained

obtained great influence, as is observed in the saying, 'So be it, if the Diak has made his mark,' a phrase which now means that 'what's done cannot be undone;' or the simile, 'A Diak in office is like a cat beside piecrust.'

To the administration of justice, a great number of very interesting proverbs refer. That it was terribly corrupt many of them assert or suggest. Fear not the law, but the judge,' says one; God loves the just, but judges love the pettifogger,' is a Siberian saying; What are laws to me, if I know the judges?' asks a third; while a number of others chime in with,Before God with justice, but before the judge with coin;' or, 'Before God set a taper, before the judge a purse; or, 'A judge is like a carpenter; what he wants, that he carves out;' or, 'The devils themselves have scratched their heads at such a decision.' Bribes were always forbidden; but, in the sixteenth century, judges were allowed on Easter Sunday to receive money as well as the customary 'red egg,' whence arose the saying, thinks Snegiref, which asserts that Eggs are dear on Easter Sunday,'-one which now means, that every service is dear, or well appreciated, on that day. Of the Yaryzhka, a kind of police-officer, the memory is preserved in the warning, that He who consorts with a Yaryzhka, will find himself without a shirt.'

In the old Princely Period each district jealously clung to its ancient customs. 'A custom is not a cage; you cannot remove it,' says one proverb: while another asserts that 'Custom is older than law;' and a third expresses the feeling that only foreigners and infidels would neglect established custom by the words, It's all one to us Tartars.' The Princes met in Congresses, and the people in the Common Council or Vetché. With the conclusions therein arrived at, and indeed with the laws and customs of the land in general, the Mongol Khans, in spite of the proverb last quoted, meddled very little. The Vetché bells long continued to call together the inhabitants of the great cities; but their welcome clang was finally silenced during the terrible reign of Ivan IV. The Mir, however, or Commune, has not only survived to the present day, but still flourishes, in spite of there being so much less necessity for its existence now than there was in the times of Princely confusion, of Tartar inroad, of Polish domination, and of that serfdom which has but recently been abolished. In every village the Mir stood as a bulwark between the lord and the thrall; and the love and reverence with which it was regarded by the people is attested by many such proverbs as "What is settled in the Mir, let that be!' or, 'No one judges the Mir but God alone.' That even widely-scattered individuals may gain strength by combination is expressed in The Mir is

thin, but long.' The Mir's neck is stout,' refers to the infliction of heavy taxes, especially if the sum raised is mis-spent. On the expression of public opinion in the Communal meeting great stress was always laid, and many an evil action was prevented by the thought of, 'What will be said in the street?? Thus at Moscow people used to meet together after church in the Red Place. There unjust dealers and the like were publicly deprived of their hats or kerchiefs; and this punishment was greatly dreaded, for years afterwards folks would say of a man, His father was publicly unhatted.'

or,

To the administration of justice numerous proverbs referusually in unfavourable terms-holding that First is most right ;' The stronger is the most in the right.' To civil cases allude the statements about sureties: Who goes bail, he will suffer,' and, 'I bailed him out, he taught me a lesson;' and about witnesses: A wife cannot give evidence against her husband,' 'A Christianised Jew and a reconciled foe' (are not to be trusted). Peter I., it may be observed, ordered that not only should not a man's present enemies be accepted as witnesses against him, but not even his professed friends, if they had ever been inimical to him. 'A sister can never be an heiress while her brother lives,' is merely a legal statement; but it takes a genuinely proverbial form in 'A cut-off slice does not belong to the loaf'-a married daughter being, as it were, cut off from her family after her dower has been paid. Among proverbs relating to criminal law: "Better forgive ten guilty, than punish one guiltless,' is threadbare with use; but there is an air of novelty about The blood of the guilty is water, but of the innocent a woe.' "By fighting shalt thou not be righted,' refers to ukases against self-help' in case of injury. An olden proverb says, 'One's own justice is shortest ;' but this may be intended only for princely application. Don't strike a man when he is down,' a proverb common to England and Russia, dates from the period of the old fisticuff combats. By quoting this saying at the right moment, Count Razumofsky succeeded in modifying the Empress Catherine's wrath against her former favourite, Prince Orlof. 'Better is it to die, but not to kiss the cross,' is a proof of the sanctity attached to an oath in Russia. It is edifying to compare the solemnity with which an oath is administered at the present day in a Russian court of law with the corresponding process in our own country.

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To the employment of torture as a means of getting at the truth—a blot on Russian justice not removed till 1801-allusion is often made by proverbs. Sometimes the allusion is direct, as in 'They break ribs when they torture the thief,' or, Thrice torture they the thief.' The latter saying is explained by the

fact that a robber might be tortured three times in a day; but if he held out, he could be tormented no more. An insolvent debtor, or a peasant behindhand with his dues, will sometimes say, even in modern times, Though you burn me to a cinder, yet have I nowhere to turn to;' words which have long lost the significance they possessed at a time when it was legal to roast prisoners on a spit, or suspend them above a fire. The expressions, also, 'To roll into a duck,' and 'To bend into three ruins,' allude to the ancient custom of tying a man up in a triply-folded parcel. Among the most interesting of the indirect allusions is the following. In the phrase, 'To tell all one's secrets,' the word for 'secrets' is podnogotnaya. It is derived from pod, under, and nogot, the nail, and bears testimony to the practice of extracting secrets from prisoners by driving splinters under their fingernails-a practice borrowed, according to Karamsin, from the Tartars. The sayings, Joke not above a rouble,' and, 'A rouble guards the head,' are supposed to refer to an ukaz, by which torture was forbidden in the case of thefts of small sums. It was issued in 1722, when a rouble was considered a large sum. The torture by the dyba, mentioned in Innocent in deed, but on the dyba guilty,' consisted in hoisting the sufferer into the air by a rope fastened to his hands behind his back, weights being attached to his feet. In this position he was scourged. The proverb afterwards changed into 'Innocent in deed, but on paper guilty,' innocent prisoners being often obliged to confess to crimes which they had not committed. The viska seems to have been the same as the dyba. Of another instrument of torture, the knout, the origin is unknown. Of it some proverbs speak, such as 'The knout is not the devil, but it will seek out the truth ;' or, 'The knout is not the archangel, it will not pluck out the soul;' a statement more consolatory than correct.

There is an old form of words which, although not a proverb, became proverbial, and therefore may be mentioned here as a significant commentary on the administration of justice a couple of centuries ago in Russia. Slovo i dyelo, Word and Deed; thus ran a formula which was long capable of striking terror into the boldest heart. He who employed it signified thereby that he had something of importance to communicate, but secretly, with reference to a crime against the State. As soon as he uttered it, whether in-doors or out of doors, at a gathering in the market-place or at a social feast, he and all persons compromised by it were taken into custody. Then began a process. First of all he was tortured, to ensure the seriousness of his charge. If he endured the torment, and adhered to his accusation, the persons accused by him were tortured in their turn.