modes of punishment as were whim-, thefe cafes, they must have certifi

fical and unufual. Such enormity, however, notwithstanding her rank, and the great power which the nobility have over their flaves, was not to pafs with impunity. She was tried, was found guilty, and condemned to ftand in the market-place with a hbel on her breaft, declaring her crime, and to be shut up in a dungeon. But the, who had felt no reluctance in making her fellow-creatures fuffer the most inhuman torments, and had even amufed herself with the variety of their fufferings, had fuch a fenfe of her rank, and fuch lively feelings of her own difgrace, that pride, fhame, and refentnent, deprived her of her reafon. In truth, both the crime and the punishment feem ftrongly marked with the characters of barbarity.

As a Ruffian peafant has no property, can enjoy none of the fruits of his own labour more than is fufficient to preferve his existence, and can tranfmit nothing to his children but the inheritance of wretched bondage, he thinks of nothing beyond the prefent. We are not, of confequence, to expect mong them much industry and exertion. Expofed to corporal punishment, and put on the footing of irrational animals, how can they poffefs that fpirit and elevation of fentiment which diftinguith the natives of a free flate? treated with fo much inhumanity, how can they be humane? I am confident that most of the defects which appear in their national character, are in confequence of the defpotifm of the Ruflian government. It has been mentioned that the revenue of a Ruffian nobleman arifes from thofe lands which are cultivated by his flaves; and fonfetimes in their being employed in other occupations than tillage. They often come from diftant prov: ces, and are either employed as domeftic flaves, mechanics, or as day labourers, at Mofcow, Peterburg, and other cities. In

cates and a written permit, fpecifying, their names, owners, and the time they are allowed to be abfeut. When they come to any great town, with a view of remaining there, and engaging themteives in any work, the perion who employs them muft lodge their certificates with the mafter of the police in the place where they are about to refide. After remaining their allotted time, they muft return to their former owners, and must be accountable to them for every thing they have earned.-To thefe practices the empress alludes in the following paffages in her inftructions to the deputies affembled for making laws:-"It feems, too, that the method of exacting their revenues, invented by the lords, diminishes both the inhabitants and the fpirit of agriculture in Ruffia. Almost all the villages are heavily taxed. The lords, who seldom or never refide in their villages, lay an impoft on every head, of one, two, and even five rubles, without the leaft regard to the means by which their peafants may be able to raile this money. It is highly neceffary that the law fhould prescribe a rule to the lords, for a more judicious method of raifing their revenues; and oblige them to levy fuch a tax as tends leaft to feparate the peafant from his house and family. This would be the means by which agriculture would be more extenfive, and population more increased in the empire. Even now, fome hufbandmen do not fee their houses for fifteen years together, and yet pay the tax annually to their respective lords; which they procure in towns at a vast distance from their families, and wander over the whole empire for that purpose."

Another hardship to which the Ruffian peafants are expofed, is, that they are obliged to marry whatfoever perfons, or at what time, their fuperiors pleafe. Every flave who

1

prejudice, he is to be pitred:-but if it were from vanity, which forced him to display a character because he had ftrongly conceived it, he is unpardonable. Befides, it is believed that the play of the Merchant of Venice was taken from an old ballad, thenion of the cruelty and vice of the cruel hero of which was a Chriftian.

of their abominable zeal, but from ftill more infamous motives. It was the intereft of the rulers of the times to let this idea prevail :-and who were fo ready to promote the views of power as the monks? The opi

Jews was therefore inculcated into the minds of the people with peculiar advantage.. Their property was feized upon any exigence of the state, and, with impunity, converted to the public ufe,-and their remonftrances treated with derifion, if not followed by more rigorous proceed. ings:-they were unpitied by the people, nay even infulted on ac count of their misfortunes. Should a Chriftian be rich, covetous, mercenary, or debauched, his vices are immediately attributed to the fallibility of nature, the unfortunate opportunity which invited him, or the confequence of age:-they are looked over, because they frequently happen; and pardoned, because we are not fuppofed to be perfect. But let a Jew once fall into any of these vices, all are in arms against him,the fentiments of the individual are immediately affirmed of the whole fraternity, who are reprefented as objects deferving of univerfal execra

That a Jew is not capable of doing generous actions, is at once an idea as falte with refpect to fact, as it is cruel. Why should there be fuch arbitrary diftinétions made between man and man, because they differ in fentiment? is a man to be fuppofed inclined to commit the most infamous and barbarous deeds, because he is of a different religion from ours? — Forbid it juftice! forbid it humanity! Let thofe, if any fuch there be, who have this unworthy opinion, recollect that it is not only illiberal but impious. It is contrary to the very spirit of Chriftianity, and the exprefs words of him upon whom our hopes depend. Let them call to mind the borrid maffacres, the perfecutions, the atrocities, that have been committed againd this unfortunate people; and then, perhaps, they will be able to judge on whofe fide, if duly weighed, humanity will defcend, and how much charity they themfelves have to boast towards a people who were already driven from It is true, that the Jew may often their own country, and fought an afy- be more inclined to avarice than Jum in their land, and whofe lives and other men; and the reafon of it properties ought therefore to have ought to be fought for by a retromet with, at least, the fame protec- fpection of our own conduct. A tion as their own. The Jews were Jew has been taught to believe, by always a mercantile people; and painful experience, that nothing but wherever they fettled, they indulged derifion awaits him if poor. What this natural propenfity, for which we friend has he to look to? Who will ought to hold our felves under many aflift him?-I am ashamed to say the obligations to them; for if their illiberality of my brethren makes this wealth was acquired here, it must at too ferious a truth: confequently he leaft be acknowledged, that here it ftrives to obtain that which alone can was circulated. The natural confe- procure him even tolerance. He quence of an application to com- may perhaps ftretch a point beyond merce is riches: hence they began to what he ought to do; and from whom be beheld with envy by their fellow--from what does all this refult? citizens; and the mocks took care Are our dealings with Jews directed not only to vilify them on account by ftri&t honour? Is not a Jew

tion.

very often the dupe of an heir, who | time to refign his bufinefs to him, makes it not a fcruple of confcience When the time arrived, however, he to deceive him? It is no palliation declared he found himself more of his conduct, to call the Jew an active and able to do business than extortioner. He who will take up ever, and that he would ftill remain money at any intereft, and after- in the firm. This was objected to wards difavow the debt, is far more by the young man, and a feparation culpable than an ufurer. If the one enfued. The young gentleman hapextort, the other frequently retaliates pening to meet a Jew merchant who in the bafest manner; for the terms knew him, the latter declared he was which he accepted were not forced forry to hear of the quarrel; but if, upon him. It may be faid that they from the fuddennefs of it, he might were, for, who elfe would advance not be prepared with a fufficient fum , the money? But this is the very of money to carry on his profeffion, reafon why he fhould be grateful to that he had a very large fum of a man who has, at least, been conve- money lying at his banker's, and nient to him, when all his hopes that he was welcome to make use of from other quarters were extinguifh any part of it, or the whole, for any ed. Thus the Jew confiders himself time he pleafed. as amongst a fit of people who will I can only add, that, were I invest. avail themselves of any advantage ed with the fame cenforic power the which the laws will give them over Guardian poffeffed, I fhould comhim; and is he fo criminal for fol- mand all perfons, under pain of my lowing an example which we our-difpleafure, to repair, at convenient selves have fet him? He is certainly feafons, to Drury-lane theatre, in not more worthy of cenfure than order to fee the comedy of the ourfelves. But how many inftances have we had of the generofity of this people? It must be recollected, that, in comparifon with the mafs of the people, they are a small number, and therefore more confpicuous. The good in every fociety are fmall in proportion to the wicked; hence their good men are reckoned as one to an hundred of the contrary, while

Jew.

A TRUE STORY.

C.

To the EDITOR of the LADY'S
MAGAZINE.

SIR,

OME time about the year 1750,

the worthlefs, from their numbers, S (for I cannot precifely fix the frike the imagination more forcibly. date) two boys, who had been placed We eafily forget the good part, but at Eton for their education, fet out the evil takes a deep root in our from town in the stage to spend remembrance.-Suppofe we were the holidays with their friends in a to felt the meritorious from our- diftant part of the country. Trafelves, we fhould find, upon a juft velling then was a much more forcomputation, that we were propor-midable thing than it is at prefent. tionably virtuous and vicious as the-My father has mentioned to me, Jews are. I fhall tell the reader a that, previous to that period, no man fhort story, which I fhall do with the whom bufinefs called to the metromore pleasure, as I myfelt know it to polis from a remote part of the counbe a fact. A capital merchant of try, ventured to fet out, without first my acquaintance, before be attained, taking the precaution to make his will. to his prefent opulence, had married the niece of a gentleman in the fame profefiion, who promifed at a certain VOL. XXVIL

Under thefe circumstances our young gentlemen fet out, full of fpirits, in the profpect of feeing their 3 F

friends.

friends, and determined to make the | which played around his counte

nance. But our young gentlemen had not yet learned to make diftinctions; and him they accordingly felected as the object of their ridicule. They dared not, however, openly attack him. There is always a degree of cowardlinefs which accom. panies any wanton outrage upon another, efpecially when the heart of the affailant is not totally corrupted, They therefore agreed to talk to one another in Latin, a language in which they flattered themselves that they would not be understood; and accordingly they applied to their fellow traveller all the epithets of ridicule and reproach against miferly and crabbed old men, which are to be found in Plautus or in Terence. The apparent inattention and unmoved muscles of the old man during all this torrent of invective, convinced them that they were right in their conjecture, that he was not at all aware of the mode in which they had chofen to vent their abuse against him. In this way they.contrived to

moft of their journey. They were perfectly acquainted with the nature of the Roman Saturnalia, when age and authority were fet at defiance, and mirth and buffoonery allowed their full scope at the expenfe of all that was grave and refpectable, and fufficiently difpofed to avail themfelves of the licence of thofe former times. The rigid difcipline, under which they had for fome time been held, gave a double zeft to the sweets of newly-acquired freedom. The transition from the fevere manners of a feminary of learning to the careless intercourfe of a ftage coach, operating along with the effervefcence of youthful fpirits, was too powerful not to produce fome ebulfition of gay impertinence. Accordingly, our young gentlemen had no fooner feated themfelves in the ftage, than they looked round for fome object from which they might extract merriment during the remainder of the journey. Fortune feemed to have gratified their wishes in the perfon of a fellow traveller-amufe themselves till they ftopped an old gentleman who fat quietly in for dinner: the old man, who had a corner. His figure was tall and all this while remained perfectly ungainly; age or bad habit had filent, was the first to retire, after the given him a confiderable ftoop; his cloth was removed: our young genface was ornamented with long and tlemen, who followed him, when lank jaws; a nofe of more than or- they got into the coach, found him dinary fize, and a peaked chin, com- earneftly engaged with a book.pleted the outline. His drefs feem- After repeated attempts to get a peep ed calculated to augment the ridicule at the book, they, to their no small of his figure; it confifted of an old mortification, at laft perceived that it foxy wig, a hat which had once was no other than a copy of the been cocked,, but which had long Roman poet Juvenal. The old fince loft all form and fhape, and man had understood every word they an old-fashioned thread-bare coat, had faid in abuse of himself, and had which had however one convenience, heard it all without notice. They that it reached fo far down, as com- were covered with confufion; after pletely to conceal any defects of his looking for fome time at one another, Other garments. In fhort it was the one of them stammered out an apedrefs of poverty or avarice. Yet,logy." They were forry for what with all thefe unfavourable fymphad happened; had they conceived toms of perfon and appearance, that he understood Latin, they would nice obfervers might have perceived not have been fo indifcreet; as it an intelligence which sparkled in the was, they begged he would impute old man's eyes, and a benevolence their unprovoked attack to the score

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