RUSSI A. BY THE MARQUIS DE CUSTINE. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. "Respectez surtout les étrangers, de quelque qualité, de quelque rang qu'ils Extrait des Conseils de Vladimir Monomaque à ses Enfants en 1126. NOTICE. THE Publishers of this work beg to state that it is private property, protected by They beg also to state that any TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IN publishing the second edition of the translation of a work, which, whatever its faults, has excited more attention throughout Europe than any travels which have appeared for a long time, it will not perhaps be considered out of place if the Translator advert for a moment to the criticisms of the British press, both on the original work and the English version. The great majority of reviewers, without overlooking the hasty impressions, somewhat vague conclusions, and unguarded expressions of personal feeling which may have rendered M. de Custine open to the charge of exaggeration, inconsistency, and egotism, have, nevertheless, done justice to his powers of description, and to his striking views of Russian character and policy. Indeed, although his aris tocratical tendencies make him as little a favourite with one English party, as his attacks upon the great Representative of mo iv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. narchical power do with the other, nearly all our reviewers re-echo his leading opinions regarding Russia, even when most severely criticising the impressions and sentiments on which they are founded. Nor has the general approbation thus extended to the original work, been withheld from the Translator's humbler labours. With but one exception, he has received from the Press a meed of commendation with which he has every reason to be gratified, and which, backed by the demand of the public, has imposed upon him the pleasing duty of preparing this new and, he trusts, improved edition. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE work, recently published in Paris, of which these volumes are a translation, has appeared in the form of letters addressed to anonymous friends. This form has not been preserved in the translation, which is divided into chapters; an arrangement better adapted to the taste of the English reader, and unobjectionable in other respects, as the division of the chapters still corresponds with that of the original epistles. In making the alteration, a few very trivial modifications in the phraseology of the text were neces sary. The translator has likewise ventured on some occasions slightly to curtail the French paragraphs. It will, however, be sufficient to add, that no details have been abbreviated, nor one single observation omitted, that appeared likely to interest the general reader. |