APART from the merits they possess as works of rare art, and beyond any interest they may excite as stories of human passion and suffering, the novels of Tourgenieff afford rich materials to the student of the social and political movements that have successively agitated the civilised society of Russia during the last twenty-five or thirty years. Each of his principal novels is concerned with, and attempts the solution of, the particular question occupying the minds of the intelligent class of his countrymen at the time of its composition. And to this we are justified in attributing no little of the immediate success they have invariably achieved. The publication of a new tale by Tourgenieff is an event in the world of Russian letters; for the reader knows beforehand that in it will be found the statement and examination of some burning problem of contemporary Russian life and politics. It is for this reason that his novels possess a peculiar value to foreigners, who are thus presented with a key to the seemingly abrupt changes that have within the present generation come over Russian society; and much that at first strikes us as rash and contradictory in the tendency of contemporary Russian thought, assumes a different aspect after we have followed the course and development of the ideas on which that life is based, as sketched in his fascinating pages. It is from this point of view that I propose to treat of his novels in the present paper, since it can scarcely be necessary to point out their literary excellences, since they are familiar to many, through the admirable translations of Merimée and others; and though, owing to the wide field which the subject covers, the criticism must neces

sarily be hasty and imperfect, the attempt to appreciate these novels in their historical bearing ought not to be altogether uninstructive or uninteresting.

Notwithstanding the comparatively short interval of time that separates us from the date when Tourgenieff's first work of any importance, Stories from a Sportsman's Notebook, was given to the world, it is not easy to estimate the change which these tales contributed to effect in public opinion. Truths now undisputed, and which, from having become received commonplaces, are scarcely worth stating, were then regarded as bold novelties.

The peasant class was then separated by a far more rigid line of demarcation from the so-called higher orders of society than is the case in the present day; and novelists who introduced into their works sketches of serf-life, naturally wrote under the influence of this idea. They either, like Karamsin, gave such an idyllic charm to their pictures, that the reader, touched with the patriarchal relation of the serf to his master, could only infer that any radical change in their mutual position would be an injury and a curse to both; or else, like Gogol, they contented themselves with reproducing the external circumstances of peasant life, and thus exposed the more patent evils of a system which allowed proprietors to live in sluggish ease upon the toil of their enslaved dependants. But by both classes of writers we find the peasant represented as something beneath and different to ourselves. In the one case, he is a kind of pet dog that depends for his existence on the capricious favour of his master; in the other, a poor brute that, through long exposure to cruelty, has lost all sense

of shame or degradation. Tourgenieff was the first to paint the serf as a man-the first to make us feel that beneath his rough sheepskin there beat a human heart, and that the filth, poverty, and ignorance of his lot had not altogether stifled the warm and kindly instincts of our nature. Thus, in the story entitled The Singers, we are introduced into a low country alehouse, with its inseparable dirt, heated atmosphere, and uninviting odours of drink; but, instead of dwelling exclusively on the more unpleasing features of the scene, the novelist shows how its rude, boorish frequenters, in spite of the low pleasures to which, for want of anything better, they so readily abandon themselves, are still endowed with higher instincts that require only to be cultured. Two of the company enjoy no little renown in the district for their skill as singers, and in the eager enthusiasm with which the drinkers watch their rival efforts to outdo one another, in the delight with which they listen to the old familiar melodies, and in the strange weird power which these songs of the people exercise over their rude natures, we recognise the humanity common to us all, which no slavery can entirely efface. A similar tone pervades all the stories; and in the sadly touching tale of the deformed, dumb dvornik, we see how love, denied its natural modes of manifestation, avenges the wrong done to it by fondly and devotedly lavishing itself on the dog Moumou, the one creature in the world that is attached to him, and whose attachment brings out the man's hidden and unsuspected goodness of heart.

And if the better feelings and higher instincts that yearned in vain for a broader sphere of activity were thus cramped by the unnatural position of the serfs, the baneful influences of a system radically opposed to the first laws of humanity were not less marked on the character of their proprietors and masters. The exposure of these influences derives additional force from the

evident care with which the novelist. avoids anything bearing the least approach to melodrama or sensationalism. He does not regale us with any of those hideous atrocities and brutal excesses in which the annals of Russian serfdom are unfortunately so rich; he refrains from dwelling on what might be considered exceptional cases of tyrannous cruelty, and does not write as if he had sat down to the composition of these stories with the single purpose of advocating a particular social theory. But it is exactly in this that the real worth of the sportsman's experiences resides. We are compelled to acknowledge, what the Russian public at that time were too disposed to deny the inseparable, necessary, and inherent evils of serfdom. It is true that Ovsianikoff, a peasant himself, and one who therefore enjoyed full opportunities of judging the real condition of his class, declares that "things are better now, and will be still better in the days of our children;" and no doubt the later phases of serfage were free from many of the violences and infamies that disgraced its earlier stages. But the cynical indifference to the most elementary rights of human beings once in fashion had now given place to a strange mixture of booktalk about "fraternity," and a practical neglect of the real interests of the poorer classes, who were still held in a state of degrading bondage. Von Viezin's old play, The Minor, Madame Prostocova-or Lady Booby as she might have been christened had she figured in one of Farquhar's comedies- -on hearing that her servant Paulina is ill in bed with a low fever, exclaims: "Keep her bed, the beast!-keep her bed! just as if she were a born lady!" The language of Madame Zvierkoff, in one of Tourgenieff's tales, is less brutal, but betokens a like crass ignorance of the rights belonging to the humblest and poorest of men. She complains bitterly of the "black and monstrous ingratitude" of poor Irene, who actu

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ally has the audacious presumption to ask her employer's leave to marry, though "she knows that her mistress has not another chambermaid to take her place, and that it is a rule of the house not to have married servants." And when the weeping girl throws herself at her ladyship's feet and again prays for the sanction, without which no peasant could marry, she at once raises her up and blandly assures her that "we should never demean ourselves so far as to forget what is due to human dignity." Nor is Madame Zvierkoff in any way an exceptional case. It is the same with Pustozvonoff-or Emptyphraser, as his name might be rendered into English-who liked to show himself before his peasants in the national Russian dress, shook hands with them when he began a conversation, and was always crying out: "I am Russian, and you too are Russians; I love everything that is Russian," who read his favourite books of advanced liberal character, but in practice allowed things to go on in their old way, and never effected a single reform in the administration of his estate, or tried to ameliorate the hard and cruel fate of his wretched peasant serfs. This, then, is the lesson which, intentionally or not, Tourgenieff's book teaches us; and it is hard to exaggerate the service it rendered to the advance ment of the only possible solution of the serf difficulty-the complete emancipation of the people. Ovsianikoff may console himself with the belief that things are already better, and that the lot of his children will be still happier, but we rise from the perusal of his own story with the conviction that neither to him nor to his descendants was happiness or progress possible so long as an entire class could be bought, sold, or exchanged, according to the caprice or interest of their hereditary proprietors.

The first step in progress has already been made when a nation becomes conscious of the latent force it possesses, and determines, however

vaguely, to free itself from the heavy hindrances that have hitherto impeded its free and natural development. The second great step is, of course, when the people have found wise and competent leaders to give a healthy direction to their efforts, and are thus enabled to secure a general recognition of their wants, and an extinction of the hereditary wrongs from which they suffer. These two stages in the history of popular reform are generally separated one from the other by a long interval of partial successes and repeated failures. The novels of Tourgenieff, from Roudine to Virgin Soil, are concerned with the first of these periods in contemporary Russian history, and their general tone would lead us to believe that the advent of the second, even if it is to be hoped for, will not be witnessed by the present or succeeding generation. But it may be doubted whether events have justified any such foreboding. Few, no doubt, of the hopes indulged in have been realised, many a proud scheme of national regeneration has fallen through, and the last few years have been saddened by stern measures of repression, directed against the desperate attempts of impatient enthusiasts. But the work of the brave men who, in spite of danger and suspicion, pointed out to their countrymen the end towards which they ought to strive, was not altogether in vain, and they lighten up the failures of the present with a ray of hope, and serve to strengthen our belief in the coming reformation. We need not, therefore, wonder if the larger number of intelligent Russians look back with pride to those "golden days," as Stchedrin calls them, when Belinski in burning words anticipated the glorious future that awaits his country, and when Granovski-the most gifted of the many gifted teachers of whom Moscow University could then boast-called into action the noblest instincts of patriotism. They were days, the glow and