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HE Ruffian gentlemen have almost adopted the fame manner of living as that of the other nations of Europe. The citizens being, for the moft part, flaves who have been made free, retain, in a great meafure, the manners of their primitive ftate, and are very few in number. It is amongst the peasants, therefore, that we mult look for the true national character of the Ruffians. Some of them are flaves of the crown, and the reft, who form the greater number, are flaves to the great lords, who have every power over them, except that of life and death. The Ruffian peasants were originally free; but about the middle of the fixteenth century they were made part of every estate, in order to prevent_emigration. Since that period a custom has prevailed of treating them entirely as ferfs, of felling and buying them, and of transferring them as property in any other manner. Their yoke, however, is much easier than that of the peasants of Livonia, because the Livonian gen. tlemen confider theirs as procured by conqueft, while the Rufian peafants have the fame origin as their masters.

The ordinary food of the Ruffian peafants, befides bread, is the fchutfchi, that is to fay, a kind of foup made of cabbage, rendered four by fermentation, and hashed very fmall: This foup is, for the most part, accompanied with a piece of boiled meat. Their drink is kivas, a fort of four yellowish fmall beer, which they brew themselves in large earthern pans. Their dress confifts of a shirt, always very neat, which hangs over their breeches, a linen frock, a furtout shaped like their frock, and made of coarfe woolen cloth; the whole defcends as low as their knees, and is fastened to the body with a girdle. In winter, instead of a furtout, they wear a cloak of fheep's fkin; their heads are bare in fummer, and in winter covered with a cap.

They wear no covering to their necks either winter or fummer; their legs are wrapt up in bandages of cloth; but they use fhoes, or rather a kind of flippers, made of the rind of trees,

cut into flips, which are interwoven together. The women are dreffed almoft in the fame manner as the men, but their exterior garments are loofe, and not faftened with a girdle; they are alfo very long, and reach down to their feet.

Their wooden huts have all a perfect refemblance one to another. They are built in villages, bordering the highway, are placed parallel to it, and are covered with boards. Nothing is leen but a wall formed of planks, having two or three holes in it which ferve as windows.-Thefe windows are only large enough for one to put the head through them. They are feldom filled with fquares of glass ; but in the infide there is a piece of wood to shut them during the night, or in the time of bad weather. On one fide of the hut is a small gate, which conducts to a yard, the greater part of which is covered with wooden planks, to fhelter their carts, hay, &c. From the yard you enter the house by a back door, to which you go up by a few fteps, and when you have opened the door, you find in the first corner, towards the right hand, a ftove con fructed of bricks, which ferves them, for culinary purposes, and to warm the apartment. Around the ftove, and on a level with its top, runs a circular projection upon which the fami ly fleep, and take a forenoon nap, as well as on the ftove itself, however warm it may be; for they are remarkably fond of exceffive heat, In the corner oppofite to the stove, in a diagonal direction, that is to fay, in the corner on the left, stands a fmall wooden shelf at about the height of a man, containing a few im ages of their faints, ranged in order, and furrounded by fmall wax can. dles or lamps, which are lighted on certain festivals; the drapery of thefe faints is emboffed, and formed of tin plate or of copper, gilt; but the vifage, the hands, the feet, and in general all the naked parts, are only painted. The Ruffians pretend that they are authorised to have painted images, but none of carved work, because the Commandment

commandment, fays "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. All around the hut is a large wooden bench, made for fitting or fleeping upon. Nearer the door than the faints, and to the left as you enter, there is a long table, formed of two boards, joined together lengthways, and be fore it, on one fide, the bench already mentioned, and on the other a portable bench much narrower. The rest of the furniture confifts of a wooden bafon, fufpended from the roof, on one fide of the stove, in order to wash their hands whenever cleanliness requires it; a wooden platter, two or three wooden difhes, and a few wooden Spoons.

As the hut forms only one apartment, all mix together without any dif tinction: one may fee fleeping on the earth, on the bench, or on the top of the ftove, the mafter of the houle, the mistress, the children,and fervants, both male and female, and all without any fcandal. In fome huts, however, there is a particular corner for the mafter and mistress, but it is feparated from the rest only by a curtain, fufpended from a pole placed in an horizontal direction. Thefe huts have no chimnies; the fmoke, therefore, renders them exceedingly black in the infide. If they are entered at the time when the mistress of the family is preparing dinner, the fmoke and the fmell of the onions, which they use in all their dishes, do not fail to make thofe fick who are not accuftomed to them. When the smoke becomes too powerful to be refifted, they open a fmall wicket, which is a little higher than the window, in order to give it vent; but these pealants do this with reluctance, as they fear that part of the heat may escape at the fame time; they are fond of being, as it were, roafted in their huts.

These pealants fupply all their own wants; they make their own fhoes, benches, tables, wooden dishes, and conftruct their own ftoves aud huts. The females alfo weave a kind of cloth, which resembles a very broad ribband; they have occafion, therefore, to buy only a little woollen cloth or fheep fkins to cover them; their girdles, which they confider as objects of great

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luxury, and the iron they employ for their implements of hufbandry.

The Ruffian peasants are temperate in eating, but not in drinking they are extremely fond of strong liquors, and often get intoxicated, especially on their feftivals. They think they would not fhew their respect for their faints, did they not honour them by getting drunk; and they have a word to exprefs the ftate in which one finds one's felf next day. They call this ftate, between health and fickness, Spoklemelie; the women are addicted to drinking as well as the men. They cannot be accused of laziness; but they confider labour as a neceffary evil, and never execute any piece of work thoroughly, contenting themfelves with finishing it in a very imperfect manner; for this reason, therefore, they fcratch up the ground, instead of tilling it. They are fond of keeping their perfons neat: However dirty their upper garments may be, their fhirts are always clean: They have warm or vaporated baths, into which the men and women, boys and girls, without distinction, plunge themselves two or three times a week. An order has lately been made, forbidding dif ferent fexes to mix together promifcuoufly, in thefe baths; but this order is very little observed.

They marry when very young, and often even at the command of their mafters. Paternal authority among them is very great, and it continues during the lives of their children; a father may give a blow with a stick to his fon, of whatever age or condition he may be. We are told, that an old peafant having gone to visit his fon, who had made a fortune in the army, and who enjoyed a confiderable rank; the latter was fo proudof his promotion, that he ordered his domefticks to fend the old man about his bufinefs. The father, however, having found means to enter the houfe when none of the fervants were in the way, took a large cudgel and gave his fon a found beating; nor did the fon, fo powerful was parental authority, dare to defend himself, or call out for assistance.

The people in Ruffia are very hol, pitable. A Ruffian peasant, when on

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T was once afferted by that great moralist, and shrewd obferver of men and manners, Dr. Johnfon, that "there is generally a fcoundrelism about a lowman." Taking for granted, that by a lowman he meant a man of low birth and education, I cannot poffibly be pleafed with his harsh affertion. This would be, indeed, to make the amiable virtues which fo highly adorn human nature, to be inherent in the children of elevated rank, and honour and integrity to be hereditary. Nothing can be more pernicious than to hold fuch unfavourable notions of human na ture, as to place its highest advantages in thofe extrinsick ornaments which are calculated only to raise the pride of the high born and af fuent into arrogance, and to check the spirit of emulation in the children of poverty.

To bestow the odious term of fcoundrel upon a man, merely because he has derived no cafual honours from his ancestors, is to make nature arbitary, and to subject the inferiour claffes of mankind into a ftate of abject dependance and even flavery to the higher.

Engaged pretty much with the lower orders of men, I must do that juftice as to fay, that I have more freqently found among them hearts animated with the pureft fenfibility, and minds directed by the nobleft principles of honour, than among thofe who would fain arrogate thofe fine qualities entirely to themselves.

My valuable friend ARNUL PHUS is one of those who owes what he is and. poffeffeth to his

indefatigable industry and just dealing. Though born and bred in the low walk of life, unacquainted with the arts of elegant refinement and polifhed manners, unbleft with any other education than what was juft fufficient to enable him to carry on bufinefs, and furrounded with a variety of difficulties originating from the want of fortune and friends, he ventured into trade; and, by perfevering in a regular line of conduct, guiding himself by the principles of prudence and honour, he has raifed himfelf to a state of independence, and gained a credit diffuse and unblemished; much more honourable than that which derives itfelf from high birth and elevation of rank. His private manners have been fo uniformly affable and unaffected; his appearance, and that of his family, fo unoftentatious, and yet becoming his circumftances, that he has obtained univerfal refpect; fo that norie but the worthlefs are thy of being esteemed Arnulphus' friends. For my part I confider, and hope that I fhall always confider, it as one of the chief pleafures of my life to be connected with this truly worthy character in the ties of the clofeft intimacy and friendship. However greatly I efteem the company of thofe elevated characters who condefcend to honour me with their regard, and the converfation of the literati who favour me with their acquaintance and familiarity, yet the company and converfe of my Arnulphus are much more agreeable. With him I can be free and unreferved; and

though