and runs thus: "Why do you, Prince of Novgorod, act unjustly? You keep a great number of hawks and falcons; you keep a large pack of hounds; you have deprived us of the rivers in which we used to fish. We can no longer submit to this tyranny; get away from us, therefore, in the name of God. When you are gone, we shall provide ourselves with another prince." The person thus dismissed made his submission, promised to forego his evil ways, and to behave considerately in the future. But his protestations were unavailing; those whom he had offended would not be appeased, and insisted upon his demission of the trust he was held to have abused. In general, the nominal governor seems to have been chosen on account of his military talents, so that he might protect the inhabitants from aggression, the elders of the city being charged with much the greater part of the internal administration. It is not surprising that people so resolute, so clear-sighted and active, should prosper in spite of the excesses to which their self-respecting qualities ran. They connected their city with the Hanseatic League; they cultivated alliances with the chief mercantile towns of Germany and Livonia; the commerce of the east had come largely into their hands; and they were accumulating enormous wealth. But everywhere else there was growing poverty, insecurity, and degradation. Russia which, a century and a half before, could boast more wealth, liberty, and enlightenment than almost any other part of Europe, had fallen from the zenith of prosperity to the nadir of decline. It was threatened with dismemberment, dissolution, and extinction, when the whole aspect of things underwent a transformation of the most extraordinary character by the invasion of the Mongols-an event which, in its consequences, has perhaps no parallel in the history of the world.

THE INVASION OF THE MONGOLS-GENGHIS KHAN AND BATY-THE DESTRUCTION OF VLADIMIR AND OF KIEF-THE CALAMITIES OF THE EMPIRE-THE TWO CENTURIES OF MONGOL DOMINATION.

HE Magyar invasion of Eastern Europe, intense and permanent as were its effects, was a movement of far less tremendous import than the invasion of the Mongols. These people, kinsmen of the Huns, had been roaming about Eastern Asia to the north and north-east of the Chinese wall, when they became united into a nation of irresistible power under a native chief named Temerdgin, a man of true Mongol genius, inferior in no respect to his Hunnish prototype and forerunner, Attila. The conquest of the world, or of what he thought the world, was the dream that dazzled the mind and kindled the ambition of this great chieftain; and he nearly realised it. Having subjugated and assimilated to his own people the other Mongolian hordes of the East, such as the Calmucks, he next advanced among the Tartar races of the West. Their conquest brought him to the borders of Europe, where he did not stay his course, nor even slacken its speed. He had subdued all Northern Asia from China to the Caspian Sea, but Russia lay invitingly open to attack. Therefore it was attacked. Two of his generals were told off by Temerdgin, or Genghis Khan (i.e., most mighty ruler), as he now called himself, to subjugate the nations that border the Euxine. They fell first upon the Polovtses. Being too weak to offer any resistance, those assailed retired upon Kief, seeking refuge there. Then first it was that Russia learned anything of the formidable foe by whom she was now menaced. Her jarrings were silenced for a time, and in the extremity of danger something like a genuine exaltation of spirit was evinced. The princes entered into a league for mutual assistance and protection; the fugitive strangers were associated with the native troops; and an unwonted degree of animation and heart was evinced. But these favourable appearances proved deceptive. Either there was treachery or cowardice in the case; for when the day of onset came, on the banks of the Kalka, the Prince of Keif hung back, the stranger Polovtses gave the feeblest possible help to the defence, and the invaders slaughtered a vast number of the allies, winning a decisive victory. Of course it was promptly followed up. Great part of the country was overrun and despoiled. The marvel is that the whole of Eastern Europe was not forthwith converted into a segment of that prodigious empire which extended through Asia to the Pacific, touching upon one side the Russians, and on the other the Chinese. But this terrible evil was averted. Having ravaged all the southern portion of the country, the invaders were recalled to assist in reducing a more powerful enemy;

and they retired to the plains of Central Asia as suddenly as they had issued from them.

This unexpected retreat gave Russia a breathing-space. One would have thought it certain great eagerness would be shown to take avail of the opportunity for relinquishing petty animosities, joining heart and hand in precautionary measures against a return of the hazard which had been so alarming, and doing somewhat to lift the country out of the slough into which it had fallen. But no; supineness and infatuation alternated as before; civil discords broke out afresh, and raged as violently as ever; blood flowed in copious. streams over these shameful quarrels; and by such fratricidal means the country was exhausted, and the way made clear for the invader. He came speedily. In 1237, Baty, the grandson of Ghengis, made his appearance at the head of a Mongol army even larger than that which had crossed into Europe thirteen years before. He did his work more leisurely and thoroughly than his predecessors. First he ravaged Bulgaria; next he attacked the Russian principality of Riazan; and then, ere the indolent Yury, at that time the Grand Prince of Vladimir, and the most powerful of the royal race, was aware of his danger, he was surprised. Trusting that the strong fortifications of the city would give the invaders employment for some time, he hied away to try whether he could not raise an army of relief. He was too late. Without putting themselves to the trouble of a bombardment, some of the Mongol troops climbed over the city wall one morning, and threw open the gates to their companions, who instantly rushed in and possessed themselves of the place. They behaved with an incredible ferocity, slaughtering right and left every person they met without heed given to sex, age, or condition. Next they set fire to the city in several places, taking care that it should be burned to the ground. The wife of Yury, with the ladies of her suite, had taken refuge round the high altar of the principal church. They withstood all endeavours to draw them from this place of safety, whereupon it also was fired, while the incendiaries looked on with savage glee at the progress of the flames, and with yet a more horrible delight listened to the shrieks of their victims. Not a human life was spared of all who were in the city when it was taken, and scarce one stone of its blackened walls was left upon another. The sword and torch made a full end of this magnificent city.

The same things happened wherever these marauders went. They made it a rule to raze all towns and fortified places. Themselves attached to the free life of the desert, caring for little save pasturage for their horses and scope for their adventures, all local settlements were hateful to them, as at variance with their own habits, and as likely to afford rallying-places for an enemy. They laid waste the country also in the most ruthKaramsin, the famous Russian historian, describes the effects of their visit with remarkable emphasis. “It seemed,” says he, “as if a deluge of fire had passed over the land from east to west; as if pestilence, earthquake, and all the scourges of nature had united to ensure its destruction."

Yury was driven distracted by rage and grief when he heard what had befallen. He was impelled to a brave but useless act. With the bands he had collected, though few in number and ill-equipped, he fell on the camp of those who had inflicted on him such dreadful injuries. In the course of the fight which ensued, he signalised himself by a display of desperate valour. But it was to no purpose, save a throwing away of his own

life and the lives of those who adhered to him. He was killed in the height of the contest, and his followers were cut off to the last man. The victors, whether because weary of bloodshed or satiated with spoil is unknown to this day, continued for some time in their encampment near where Vladimir had been. At length they struck their tents, began to push northwards, and entered Novgorod. The energetic inhabitants of that place were preparing for them a brisker reception than they had anywhere else received, when at a distance of sixty miles from the capital of the province, the invaders halted, wheeled about, and retired to the neighbourhood of the Don.

The motive of this withdrawal has been much discussed, but never clearly explained. It was, however, only a temporary movement. Within twelve months Baty renewed his devastating career. This time he directed his march upon Kief. Wherever he approached, the people fled in terror. His progress was marked as before by havoc and conflagration, nothing being spared except what it was impossible, or was not worth while, to carry off. Kief had been strongly garrisoned, and it made a stout defence. Its fate, however, resembled very closely that of Vladimir, even to the suddenness of the final capture, and to the destruction of the principal inhabitants in their principal church. The assailants contrived to break down the bastions of the fortifications, and to acquire a position which put the town at their mercy. Of course they used their advantage in their characteristic fashion. The city was fired, and the inhabitants put to the sword. A good many of them had retired to the Church of St. Sophia, where they shut themselves in, and prepared to continue their defence, resolved to sell their lives as dearly as they could. But many of them had brought their treasures with them; under their weight some of the chambers in the building gave way; and those inside were either bruised to death by the falling ruins, or cut to pieces by the Tartar swords. So fell ancient Kief, disappearing entirely for the time from off the face of the earth.

The brave commander of the garrison was taken alive. He was a person of jaunty air, cool self-possession, intrepid and persuasive speech. His bearing and quality induced those into whose hands he fell to spare his life till he had seen Baty. The interview had momentous consequences, for not only did it result in the prisoner being set at large, but in the conqueror altering his plans, and bending his steps elsewhere than he had designed. The story goes that the general laid before his interlocutor a candid statement as to the miserable condition of his country-how it had been weakened by divisions and misgovernment till it had lost the standing and opulence that once belonged to it; how there was really little to be gained by its conquest in comparison with what might be won elsewhere; and how Poland and Hungary, both at hand, afforded far more inviting fields for such enterprises as had brought the Mongols to Europe. Whether it was perfectly highminded and honourable to take this line may be a question; the truth remains, it was taken successfully, for Baty at once turned his regards to the quarter indicated, made for Poland, passed into Silesia, where at Leignitz he defeated a numerous Christian army, overran various districts of Hungary and Moravia, and returning to the banks of the Volga established there the seat of his empire over the countries he had mastered, and meant to hold in subjection for ever. He sent for the Russian princes to his camp that they might do homage for their respective possessions. They came, accepted obsequiously enough the position of vassals and tributaries, bargained as to how much they should pay yearly, and promised

that it should be regularly remitted through Yaroslaf, the brother of Yury, who had taken up his fief, and was confirmed in his superiority as Grand Duke. The empire so founded was named by Baty the "Khanship of Kapstack," or the "Golden Horde "-a name derived from the gorgeous appearance of the Khan's tent. By the space of well-nigh two hundred years, on to the time of Ivan III., the Russian princes were in a state of slavish subjection to it, and dependence on it.

The internal history of this long period is one of great vicissitude and distraction. The evils which had prevailed before the conquest were intensified to a great degree under the Mongol domination. It was the policy of the Khan to keep the princes at variance, as much as to keep them dependent. The great instrument for accomplishing both ends was by maintaining uncertainty as to who should be invested with the dignity of Grand Prince. This was the object of ambition to all, and while it perpetuated the feelings of jealous ill-will which were rife among themselves, it led each to propitiate, or strive to propitiate, by lavish gifts and cringing servility, the power which had in its gift the coveted distinction. Sometimes the princes seemed to obtain a glimmering perception that the evils of the country were due to their divisions, and that their position, as well as its, was wholly discreditable to them. On such occasions a fitful attempt would be made to draw together, to restore unity, and to elevate the nation. But such wellmeant efforts were feeble and short-lived; what one man did in this way was thwarted or undone by those around him or those coming after him; and the last state of the case was made worse than the first. The picture displayed throughout is one too uninteresting to fix the eye of any casual onlooker-too revolting to be narrowly contemplated by any humane mind. Almost the only exception to the general debasement is that of Alexander Nevsky, so named from a great battle on the banks of the Neva, in which he defeated an invasion of his Novgorod principality, conducted by Swedes and Danes. This was the first of many achievements by which he raised himself to eminence, and excited the hope that he might redeem the fallen fortunes of his country; but his fellowprinces, chafed under his ascendancy, his Mongol suzeraine began to dislike his power, and he died suddenly after a visit to the Khan, the suspicion being that he was poisoned. His death caused a great manifestation of superstitious feeling among the Russian populace. It was said to have been notified to the metropolitan by a voice from heaven; and the story went that when his body lay in the coffin, it opened and raised its hands as the prayer of absolution was read. These and like miracles of course obtained for him a place on the calendar of Russian saints. Long after, his relics were removed to St. Petersburg with vast ceremony, and a great monastery was raised in his honour by

Peter I.

It might have been imagined that the Mongol dominion would have impressed some distinct mark upon the national religion, manners, or mode of government; and so it did, though the conquerors did not concern themselves directly about such things. So long as the Khan received due tribute and homage, so long as his people could roam at will, returning unmolested to their favourite pasture grounds on the banks of the Volga, they were careless as to aught else. It was only at rare intervals they went far north except to plunder; and that was taken as an incident of course-disagreeable, indeed, but inevitable, which it would be folly to resist or resent. When the Khan visited any of the