2. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. This is the _middle_
age of the Slavonic, as altered gradually by Russian copyists, and
full of Russisms.

3. From the sixteenth century to the present time. This comprises the
_modern_ Slavonic of the church books printed in Russia and Poland;
especially after the _Improvement_ of those writings, so called.

The most ancient documents of the Old Slavic language, are not older
than the middle of the eleventh century. There has been indeed
recently discovered a manuscript of the translation of John of
Damascus, written by John, exarch of Bulgaria, in the ninth century.
Vostokof however proves on philological grounds, that it cannot be the
original, but is a later copy. The above-mentioned Evangelium of
Ostromir (1056) is the earliest monument of the language, as to the
age of which no doubt exists. It is preserved in the imperial
library at St. Petersburg.[18] According to Vostokof, this is the
third, or perhaps the fourth, copy of Cyril's own translation. This
latter is irretrievably lost, as well as the copy which was made for
Vladimir the Great, a hundred years afterwards.

Only a few years younger is a _Sbornik_, A.D. 1073, or a collection of
ecclesiastical writings, discovered in the year 1817, and a similar
_Sbornik_ of 1076; the former in a convent near Moscow, the other now
in the library of the imperial Hermitage of St. Petersburg. Further,
the _Evangelium of Mistislav_, written before the year 1225, for the
prince Mistislav Vladimirowitch; and another _Evangelium_ of the year
1143, both at present in ecclesiastical libraries at Moscow.

Besides these venerable documents, there are several inscriptions on
stones, crosses, and monuments, of equal antiquity; and a whole series
of political documents, contracts, ordinances, and similar writings;
among which one of the most remarkable is the oldest manuscript of the
_Pravda Russkaya_[19] a collection of the laws of Jaroslav, A.D. 1280.
The libraries of the Russian convents possess a large number of
manuscripts; some of which proved to be of great value, when examined
about twenty years since by a Commission of scholars, appointed
expressly for that purpose by the Academy of Sciences.[20] The spirit
of critical-historical investigation, which took its rise in Germany
within our own century, has penetrated also the Russian scholars; and
their zeal is favoured by their government in a manner at once
honourable and l