396 Death of Hampden.-Bp. Burnet. wounded, he would not presentlie leave O Lord God of Hosts, great is thy mercie, just and holie are thy dealings unto us sinnful men. Save me, O Lord, if it he thy good will, from the jaws of death pardon my manifold transgressions receive me to mercie. O Lord, save my bleeding Countrie: have these realms in thine especiall keeping: confounde and level in the dust those who would rob the people of their libertie and law full prerogative: let the King see his error: and turne the hearts of his evilcounsillours from the malice and wickednesse of their designes. Lord Jesu, receive my soule! Amen." After these his devout breatheings he mournefullie uttered, “O Lord, save my Countrie! Oh Lord, be mercifull to Here his speech failed, and be fell back on the bedd, and to the greate griefe of all good men, gave up the ghoste, after having with more than humane fortitude indured most cruel anguish for the space of 15 dayes. Aboute seven houres afore his deathe he received the holie sacrament, after the manner sett forth by Law; saying, that though he could not awaye with the Gouvernance off the Church by Bishops, and utterlie did abominate the scandalous lives of some Clergiemen, yet did be think its doctrine in the greater parte primitive, and conformeable to God his worde, as in bolie scriptures revealed. The whole Armie at his buriall followed, singing the 90th Psalme; and at their returne the 43d; with ensignes furled and muffled drums, their heads [May, piteous cryes at the deathe of one man uncovered. Never were hearde such as at Master Hambden's: trulie he was looked up to as the deliverer of his Couna wise and good man, who was bye ail trie from Kinglie tyrannie and arbitrarie not unto his own particular good, but power. He had in all bis actions a view that of the common weal; of integritie uncorrupted, of a good courage, and young dayes he had entered too largelie moste winning demeanour. into the vaine pastimes of the world, but In his was reclaimed, as I have heard him conwhich enforced him to laye aside those fess, by an inward call from the Lord, his pursuits. For his noble opposing of that unjust subsidie Ship-money, I need saye nothing, it being in the dailye conthis my narrative, hoping the Lord, of verse of all men; but shall conclude his marvellous mercie and loving kindand bring these our present troubles ness to us, will forward the good cause, unto a happie and peaceable conclusion. By me Edward Clough, in the year of our Redemption 1643. Letters from Dr. G. BURNET to the LETTER II. eo receive both so long a LetT was a very welcome surprize to three days sooner than I expected: ter from you, and to have it come tions, I would write you so many for which, if I followed my inclinathanks as would almost cover this paper, but that I fear the avoiding that for the time to come, would sparing of your pen; and since I see move you to be both more slow and please, I shall carefully avoid it; though, for my part, nothing makes that which you call chiding does not any correspondence more acceptable than some of that sharp sauce diskind things. But there is no disputcreetly mixed with other good and ing of tastes; and since you love syrups, I shall not serve you up verjuicé any more. tending to Atheism, review that line, soul's dissolv'd." of God about us shall be in another you you even many thoughts. But let me tell you that Servitius, Hobbes, and the greatest of our polite Atheists, Dever advance Atheism in foul or flat words, and seldom further than to some expressions capable of a better sense; but the dissolution of the soul in death, and the darkness of another state, are their common ways of battery against the belief of the next life: therefore I hope you will hereafter avoid expressions that need an explanation. And as for your legal Religion, I will say nothing of it in this way, since you decline it; but one thing I will add, that nothing the Law enacts can go beyond an outward behaviour; for I have no inward esteem to any thing because it is enjoined by Law, nor am I bound to it. For all the Law strikes at is my actious or discourses: so a Religion grounded upon Law cannot have any internal operation on the mind, and so is not a Religion, but a denomination and a method of acting. And let me add one thing more, that as he who preached at Whitehall last Sunday, when he happened to name Popery, added, "a modester name for Paganism," I look upon that Religion as such a composition, that if I can think of the Divine Being by such thoughts as I feel in myself, I who know I would rather one should wholly neglect me than come and treat me as a fool or enild, cannot but look on that Religion as little better than a modest sort of Atheism in those who have understandings awakened to consider what God aud Religion must be for if Religion is turned to a Pageantry, it is only a toy for children and fools-I will not add women. As to your verses to Mr. Waller, I do assure you, he looks on them as the greatest honour of his life; and has gone about all his friends as in triumph, shewing them: and he says, when you have learnt to correct, you will outwrite us all. I send them about to all my female friends, who know not what to think of you. I hope you will not be proud for all this, and indeed you have too much weight hanging on you to swell very much. But I will say no more of corrections, for I must only give you sweet sauce. I am very glad you allow the visit intended the beginning of March, which now will be thought to come on very slowly: and I hope, before it, you will have made all the visits you owe, that in that interval you may have the opportunity of staying at home. As for your commending my obedience, and the effects you hope may follow upon it, I must tell you I have a great opinion of the decencies inferiors owe to their superiors, and therefore do what I do. But, at the same time, I do not care to receive an obligation from some sorts of persons; for to a generous mind no fetters pinch more than these favours do: and, since I will preserve my liberty, I will not give any such a hold of me as that would be, even to my thoughts. I shall add at the bottom, the rest of the conceits that were swimming in my thoughts when I wrote last; but I had not theu leisure to make them chime right. Your approving them as you do is a great mortification to nie; for, since you tell me you are silent when you do not like things, this makes me reflect on your former silence, as a condemning all I wrote formerly: but this will not hinder me from writing the next tiine you give occasion for it. And now I am at an end: but pray do not depart from beginnings; and since your hand is in at writing a long letter, hold on in that good way; and for all the insinuation you gave me, I will return to the old and simple conclusion of Adieu. The base is Judgment deep, and clear, cold brain, beat. Thus K THE KOSACS OF THE DON. ASANKA is the first stanitza of the Kosacs of the Don, situate in an open plain, and has a Starschina for its commandant. Immediately on arriving hither, we perceive a sensible difference in the whole face of the country. Not that the soil is not exactly the same with that of the adjacent, districts, but because every thing appears wild and uncultivated, and presents nothing but a void desert to the wearied eye. Hitherto, we have seen the inhabitants of other Countries turning to account the advantages with which the liberal or parsimonious hand of Nature has blessed them. They in some degree acquiesce in the general denunciation of Heaven to the human race- -lu the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. But in this country of the Kosacs, the whole face of the earth is bare and arid; and their vast uncultivated steppe extends without interruption from Kasanka to Tscherkask. Except therefore the observations that arise from natural objects, we hardly meet with any thing worth remark; or, to speak more properly, perhaps, we meet with nothing that can occupy the mind. The Western shore of the Don is mountainous, and almost destitute of wood; while the Eastern is level, aud strewn with oaks, poplars, willows, and other trees. The Don divides this region into two steppes of large extent: whereof that which lies on the Western side is called the steppe of the Don, properly so termed, and that on the Eastern the Kalmuc steppe, and likewise sometimes the Douskoi steppe. Here are hordes of the Torgots, who cross the Volga to pass the summers in the latter of these deserts. Both of them comprehend, in their enormous waste, a bumber of lakes and bogs, of which some are permanent, and others only formed by accidental inundations of the Don or the rivers that fall into it, The common wormwood, stragon, and golden-rod cover these steppes in so great abundance, that the largest vehicles might be loaded with them; and it is pity that no use is made of them in medicine. The cows aud horses cat of every kind of wormwood, while the sheep will not meddle with any. Great quantities of elder might likewise be got here. The Kosacs take the herb golden-rod, solidago virga aurea, by way of infusion, like tea, for non-retention of urine. They are acquainted with the salutary properties of the barberry as well as the Russians. They make corks of the parenchyma of the second bark of the black poplar; and fasten it likewise in larger pieces to their fishing-nets for keeping them upright in the water, which by its extreme levity it does excellently. The Dutch fishermen, as well as those on the Weser, employ to that end a wood called in Holland zoll-hout; it is of a reddish brown colour, very light, and is composed of filaments extremely fine. A pound of it sells at Amsterdam for three stivers. The Hol landers fetch it from the Baltic, and send great quantities of it into Germany.. What sort of wood can this be? Is it half-rotten elder, or black poplar *? The Don, about Kasanka, is abund ant in sturgeons and sevrugas. The filcon flies over the steppes, and makes its nest in the tops of the trees. Sea-gulls of the species called larus * See Beckmann's Phys. ŒEconom. Biblioth. tom. II. p. 594. varius, varius, are also very common on the Don. From hence there are three different roads to Tcherkask. The first leads straight across the steppes, and makes the distance little more than 500 versts; but, excepting some little patches, a sort of inclosure, which here and there appear, the whole country is so forlorn and abandoned, that it would be impossible to procure horses. The second is the great post-road, and is in length 800 versts. As the third, which accompanies the Don in all its windings and sinuosities, and goes through the stanitzas, is the safest and most pleasant, it is therefore the best. The nature of the soil changes near Ustchoperskaia, on the Western bank of the Don, and becomes a chalk mixed with sand. But the whole country is totally bare of wood. Here the river produces great quantities of the aquatic spunge*, which is so common at Mosco in the Moseva, which the common Russian women there take so much pains to collect. Both they and the Kosac women dry it, and then rub their cheeks with it by way of fard. This plant grows in all waters that flow gently, by pushing out its branches, which are of a considerable thickness, perpendicularly; whereas in more rapid currents it strikes them in a horizontal direction. In that case the branches are not above two or three lines in diameter, and interweave themselves in such a manner as to form a kind of basket-work. There is not the smallest degree of irritability perceptible in this plant, nor the smallest movement, so as to give room to surmise that it has any principle of life; and yet, on burning it, the smell it exhales should seem to indicate that it belongs to the animal kingdom; a circumstance that deserves examination by an exact chemical process, and the rather as this plant has never hitherto been analysed with that attention it seems to deserve. Both the Russians and the Kosacs take it inwardly against worms; and it is very probable that so sharp a powder must excite irritations in the folds of the bowels sufficiently violent for expelling these troublesome inmates. At Perekop skoi, the greater kali grows in abund Spongia fluviatilis. ance; but this plant is rejected by all the cattle, except the camel, who eats it when young. The steppe that borders on Kremenskaia is nothing but an adust and barren soil on all sides, as at Kasanka; but the opposite shore of the Volga is very well wooded. The rose-coloured thrush is found here in incredible numbers. All the known kinds of liquorice grow in the environs of Petibenskaia, but the glycirrhiza glabra is predominant the whole length of the Don; and it would be as easy to get the juice of it for the pharinacies, from these parts, as from the banks of the Volga. The Kosacs make a ptisan from this root, which they administer in the sea-sickness, when they embark at Azoff. A domestic remedy, very hurtful, and even fatal to numbers of persons, much in use amongst the Kosacs, is the root of white hellebore, which they employ indiscriminately in almost all disorders. The Kalmuc horde of the Vicekhatun Mandera*, making its sojourn in these parts when Mr. Gmein visited them, he made a short journey to it, where he found an advanced post of camels and dromedaries grazing, tended by little boys quite naked. He got out of his carriage in a kibitka, near the tent of the khatun, and sent to ask permission to pay his respects to her; which was granted him after an attendance of some hours. All this time was employed by the lady à faire sa toilette, who doubtless would not suffer herself to be seen with only half ber charms. On entering her tent, the Professor made her a profound German reverence; and on lifting up his eyes, saw her sitting on a raised seat, at the head of a long table, by the side of which was placed a bench of the same length, whereon all her children sat. Without returning his salutation, she bade him sit down in a chair that was on the right hand of the bench, while the priests and nobles were seated on the ground to the leit, the whole length of the tent. The companious and interpreters of Mr. Gmelin were obliged to do so likewise. The khatun, after informing herself of all that personally related to the Professor, asked him many * A female Vice-khan, Khatun is the feminine of khan, ques 400 Account of the Kosacs of the Don. questions on what was then going forward at St. Petersburg, and inquired particularly about the affairs of the war. Then, turning to her own people, she entered into conversation with them; or rather bawled to them in such a manner as to give room for thinking that she was rating them soundly. But they answered her in the same key, and seemed in general not to treat her with the highest respect. During all this time the Professor was employed in surveying the tent, which was properly the ball of audience, where the lady never made her appearance but in her most sumptuous attire. Her ordinary apartment is in an adjoining tent, which is also her bed-chamber. This hall of audience was of a circular form, terminating in a point at top; and differed from the other tents no otherwise but as it was more spacious. It was covered on the outside with white felt; and the inside was hung with crimson damask, crossed in some places by ribands of green silk. In the most conspicuous part of the tent, was raised a baldaquin, covered likewise with damask and taffety. Lower down were placed various idols of cast metal, before which were set pots of very fine odoriferous flowers, and others with every kind of fruit. By the side of the table where the Princess sat with her children, and which was covered with a white table-cloth, stood a boiler full of tea, from which it was served round, with camels' milk. The khatun was dressed in a long robe of violet-coloured silk. Her head was uncovered; but over her forehead was a broad silk riband. Her hair was plaited in tresses, some of which were brought forwards on the two sides of her face. After the tea, brandy was presented to the company all round; and the women who served, when they offered any thing to the khatun, made such low curtsies that they seemed to touch the ground every time with their knees. The little land that is cleared for cultivation in the neighbourhood of the Don towards Kobilenskaia, is used for raising melons, cucurbita pepo, and water-melons cucurbita citrullus. They grow in the open air, and without any other pains than that of choosing the most sandy places for them. These plants thrive best in such a soil, whether it be on a rising ground, or on the plain; and if, af [May, tertheir blossoming, the season should lofska, are to be seen great quantities The inhabitants of this country Don, the wood diminishes by degrees. 1 |