of the barbarous country in which they had sojourned. In that
country, they said, there was neither literature nor science,
neither school nor college. It was not till more than a hundred
years after the invention of printing that a single printing
press had been introduced into the Russian empire; and that
printing press had speedily perished in a fire which was supposed
to have been kindled by the priests. Even in the seventeenth
century the library of a prelate of the first dignity consisted
of a few manuscripts. Those manuscripts too were in long rolls;
for the art of bookbinding was unknown. The best educated men
could barely read and write. It was much if the secretary to whom
was entrusted the direction of negotiations with foreign powers
had a sufficient smattering of Dog Latin to make himself
understood. The arithmetic was the arithmetic of the dark ages.
The denary notation was unknown. Even in the Imperial Treasury
the computations were made by the help of balls strung on wires.
Round the person of the Sovereign there was a blaze of gold and
jewels; but even in his most splendid palaces were to be found
the filth and misery of an Irish cabin. So late as the year 1663
the gentlemen of the retinue of the Earl of Carlisle were, in the
city of Moscow, thrust into a single bedroom, and were told that,
if they did not remain together, they would be in danger of being
devoured by rats.

Such was the report which the English legations made of what they
had seen and suffered in Russia; and their evidence was confirmed
by the appearance which the Russian legations made in England.
The strangers spoke no civilised language. Their garb, their
gestures, their salutations, had a wild and barbarous character.
The ambassador and the grandees who accompanied him were so