FOOTNOTES.
Footnote 1: [(return)]
There is, strictly speaking, no middle class in Russia; the "bourgeoisie," or merchants, it is true, may seem to form an exception to this remark, but into their circles the traveller would find it, from many reasons, difficult, and even impossible, to enter.
Footnote 2: [(return)]
In making so grave a charge, proof will naturally be required of us. Though we might fill many pages with instances of the two great sins of the translator, commission and omission, the poco piu and poco meno, we will content ourselves with taking, ad aperturam libri, an example. At page 55 of the Second Part of Bowring's Russian Anthology, will be found a short lyric piece of Dmítrieff, entitled "To Chloe." It consists of five stanzas, each of four very short lines. Of these five stanzas, three have a totally different meaning in the English from their signification in the Russian, and of the remaining two, one contains an idea which the reader will look for in vain in the original. This carelessness is the less excusable, as the verses in question present nothing in style, subject, or diction, which could offer the smallest difficulty to a translator. Judging this to be no unfair test, (the piece in question was taken at random,) it will not be necessary to dilate upon minor defects, painfully perceptible through Bowring's versions; as, for instance, a frequent disregard of the Russian metres—sins against costume, as, for example, the making a hussar (a Russian hussar) swear by his beard, &c. &c. &c.
Footnote 3: [(return)]
Cyril was the ecclesiastical or claustral name of this important personage, his real name was Constantine.
Footnote 4: [(return)]
For instance, the j, (pronounced as the French j), ts, sh, shtsh, tch, ui, yä. As the characters representing these sounds are not to be found in the "case" of an English compositor, we cannot enter into their Oriental origin.
Footnote 5: [(return)]
Not to speak of the capitals, the γ, δ, ζ, κ, λ, μ, ο, π, ρ, ς, φ, χ, θ, have undergone hardly the most trifling change in form; ψ, ξ, ω, though they do not occur in the Russian, are found in the Slavonic alphabet. The Russian pronunciation of their letter B, which agrees with that of the modern Greeks, is V, there being another character for the sound B.
Footnote 6: [(return)]
The crown was not worn by the ancient Russian sovereigns, or "Grand Princes," as they were called; the insignia of these potentates was a close skull-cap, called in Russian shápka, bonnet; many of which are preserved in the regalia of Moscow. This bonnet is generally surrounded by the most precious furs, and gorgeously decorated with gems.
Footnote 7: [(return)]
For instance, sermons, descriptions, voyages and travels, &c. Two of the last-mentioned species of works are very curious from their antiquity. The Pilgrimage to Jerusalem of Daniel, prior of a convent, at the commencement of the 12th century; and the Memoirs of a Journey to India by Athanase Nikítin, merchant of Tver, made about 1470.