d at the same time from without, by the
conquering and enterprising spirit of the Varegians, a Scandinavian
tribe, they no longer felt able to make resistance against them; and
therefore, A.D. 862, they chose Rurik, the chief of the Varegians, for
their own head. These Scandinavians were by the Finns called _Ruotzi_,
an appellation which in their language signifies _strangers_. This
name, in a somewhat altered form, passed over to the inhabitants of
the acquired territory, with whom the conquerors soon amalgamated.
Rurik founded thus the first Slavo-Russian state; and his followers,
long accustomed to a warlike nomadic mode of life, settled down among
the Slavic inhabitants of the country. The nationality of the
_strangers_, comparatively few in number, was merged in that of the
natives; but still, in one respect, it exercised a strong influence
upon the latter, by infusing into them the warlike spirit of the
former. It is only since that time, that we find the Slavi as
conquerors. Their empire rapidly extended in the course of the
following hundred and fifty years, and their power and external
influence also rose; while at the same time the ancient civil
institutions of the native Slavi were respected and improved.

In the beginning of the eleventh century, Jaroslav, the son of
Vladimir the Great, imitating his father's example, divided on his
death-bed his empire among his sons, and thus sowed the seeds of
dissension, anarchy, and bloody wars; a case repeated so often in
ancient history, that it seems to be one of the few from which modern
princes have derived a serious lesson. The Mongols broke into the
country; easily subdued the Russians thus torn by internal
dissensions; succeeded, A.D. 1237, in making them tributary; and kept
them for two hundred years in the most dishonourable bondage. During
this long period, every germ of literary cultivation perished. In the
middle of the fifteenth century, Ivan Vasilievitch III, [1] delivered
his country from the Asiatic barbarians, then weakened by domestic
dissensions; conquered his Russian rivals; and united Novogorod with
his own princedom of Moscow. From that period the power and physical
welfare of Russia have increased without interruption to the present
time. The literary cultivation of its inhabitants has likewise
advanced; at first indeed with stops hardly proportioned to the
external progress of the empire; but now for more than a century, in
consequence of the d