by those with whom their native tongue _was_ an unfashionable one--he
would have no occasion at all to speak, and not even very frequent
opportunities of hearing.

[1] There is, strictly speaking, no middle class in Russia; the
"bourgeoisie," or merchants, it is true, may seem to form an
exception to this remark, but into their circles the traveller
would find it, from many reasons, difficult, and even
impossible, to enter.

But even in those rare cases where the stranger united to a
determination to study the noble and interesting language of the
country, an intention of remaining here long enough to learn it, he was
often discouraged by the belief, that the literature was too poor to
repay his time and labour. Besides, the Russian language has so little
relation to the other European tongues--it stands so much alone, and
throws so little direct light upon any of them, that another obstacle
was thrown into his way.

The acquisition of any one of that great family of languages, all
derived, more or less remotely, from the Latin, which extends over the
whole south and west of Europe, cannot fail to cast a strong light upon
the other cognate dialects; as the knowledge of any one of the Oriental
tongues facilitates, nay almost confers, a mastery over the thousand
others, which are less languages of distinct type than dialects of the
same speech, offshoots from the same stock.

Add to this, the extraordinary errors and omissions which abound in
every disquisition hitherto published in French, English, and German
periodicals with regard to Russian literature, and deform those wretched