Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

84A BURLESQUE PETITION.

fered with and rivalled their lay community, in the exercise of their calling, as to render that calling no longer profitable; and therefore respectfully stating that, as the expenses of these poor cyprians were not diminished in the same proportion as their gains, they ventured to hope an equitable consideration of their case would induce the authorities to see fit to deduct from a part of the revenue of the said convents, a pecuniary aid, which had become absolutely necessary, unless it was wished that the religious orders should entirely take the place of the civil recluses. The motion was put and carried with loud acclamations; ink and paper were called for; and the young madman immediately drew up, in very good French, and with magisterial dignity, a document too scandalously burlesque for me to insert here, though I have a copy. It was thrice read by the author before the meeting, with a loud emphatical voice, and was received with the most nattering marks of appro-, bation.

Such was the scene, of which I have perhaps already recounted too much, that I witnessed yesterday in one of the best frequented taverns of Moscow. It was the day after the agreeable dinner-party in the

pretty pavilion of. In vain is uniformity the law

of the state : nature lives on variety, and knows how, at all costs, to obtain her wants.

I have spared the reader many details, and greatly moderated the expression of those which I have inflicted upon him. If 1 had been more exact, I should not be read. Montaigne, Rabelais, Shakspeare, and many other great describers, would chasten their etyle if they wrote in our age ; how much more care-