Greek _construction_. This Bible, with slight changes and corrections
produced by three or four revisions made at different periods, is that
still employed by the Russian Church; and the present spoken language of
the country differs so widely from it, that the Slavonian of the Bible
forms a separate branch of education to the priests and to the upper
classes--who are instructed in this _dead_ language, precisely as an
Italian must study Latin in order to read the Bible.

Above the sterile and uninteresting desert of early Russian history,
towers, like the gigantic Sphynx of Ghizeh over the sand of the Thebaid,
one colossal figure--that of Vladímir Sviatoslávitch; the first to
surmount the bloody splendour of the Great Prince's bonnet[6] with the
mildly-radiant Cross of Christ.

[6] The crown was not worn by the ancient Russian sovereigns,
or "Grand Princes," as they were called; the insignia of these
potentates was a close skull-cap, called in Russian shápka,
bonnet; many of which are preserved in the regalia of Moscow.
This bonnet is generally surrounded by the most precious furs,
and gorgeously decorated with gems.

From the conversion to Christianity of Vladímir and his
subjects--passing over the wild and rapacious dominion of the Tartar
hordes, which lasted for about 250 years--we may consider two languages,
essentially distinct, to have been employed in Russia till the end of
the 17th century--the one the written or learned, the other the spoken
language.

The former was the Slavonian into which the Holy Scriptures were
translated: and this remained the learned or official language for a