on
she left him ignorant.

"If there were a paradise upon earth, Antony would have found it in
the whole month which he passed in the Bohemian castle. Oh! he would
not have exchanged that poor abode, the wild nature on the banks of
the Elbe, the caresses of his mother, whose age he would have
cherished with his care and love--no! he would not have exchanged all
this for magnificent palaces, for the exertions of proud kinsmen to
elevate him at the imperial court, for numberless vassals, whom, if
he chose, he might hunt to death with hounds.

"But true to his vow, full of the hope of being useful to his mother,
to science, and to humanity, the visionary renounced this paradise:
his mother blessed him on his long journey to a distant and unknown
land: she feared for him; yet she saw that Muscovy would be to him a
land of promise--and how could she oppose his wishes?"

Preceding our hero to Moscow, we are presented to the Great Prince before
Antonio's arrival. Ambassadors had come from Tver, and a Lithuanian
ambassador and his interpreter had been truly or falsely convicted of an
attempt to destroy Ivan by poison. The Great Prince's enquiry what
punishment is decreed against the felon who reaches at another's life,
leads to the following dialogue:--

"'In the soudebnik it is decreed,' replied Gouseff, 'whoever shall be
accused of larceny, robbery, murder, or false accusation, or other
like evil act, and the same shall be manifestly guilty, the boyarin
shall doom the same unto the pain of death, and the plaintiff shall
have his goods; and if any thing remain, the same shall go to the
boyarin and the deacon.'...

"'Ay, the lawyers remember themselves--never fear that the boyarin
and deacon forget their fees. And what is written in thy book against
royal murderers and conspirators?'

"'In our memory such case hath not arisen.'

"'Even so! you lawyers are ever writing leaf after leaf, and never do
ye write all; and then the upright judges begin to gloze, to
interpret, to take bribes for dark passages. The law ought to be like
an open hand without a glove, (the Prince opened his fist;) every
simple man ought to see what is in it, and it should not be able to
conceal a grain of corn. Short and clear; and, when needful, seizing
firmly!... But as it is, they have put a ragged glove on law; and,
besides, they close the fist. Ye may guess--odd or even! they can