ose good old times are gone now, never to
return. The ancient capital, which long gloried in its past historical
associations, now glories in its present commercial prosperity, and
looks forward with confidence to the future. Even the Slavophils, the
obstinate champions of the ultra-Muscovite spirit, have changed with the
times, and descended to the level of ordinary prosaic life. These men,
who formerly spent years in seeking to determine the place of Moscow
in the past and future history of humanity, have--to their honour be
it said--become in these latter days town-counsellors, and have devoted
much of their time to devising ways and means of improving the drainage
and the street-paving! But I am anticipating in a most unjustifiable
way. I ought first to tell the reader who these Slavophils were, and why
they sought to correct the commonly received conceptions of universal
history.

* According to the census of 1897 it was 988,610.

The reader may have heard of the Slavophils as a set of fanatics who,
about half a century ago, were wont to go about in what they considered
the ancient Russian costume, who wore beards in defiance of Peter the
Great's celebrated ukaz and Nicholas's clearly-expressed wish anent
shaving, who gloried in Muscovite barbarism, and had solemnly "sworn a
feud" against European civilisation and enlightenment. By the tourists
of the time who visited Moscow they were regarded as among the most
noteworthy lions of the place, and were commonly depicted in not very
flattering colours. At the beginning of the Crimean War they were among
the extreme Chauvinists who urged the necessity of planting the Greek
cross on the desecrated dome of St. Sophia in Constantinople, and
hoped to see the Emperor proclaimed "Panslavonic Tsar"; and after the
termination of the war they were frequently accused of inventing Turkish
atrocities, stirring up discontent among the Slavonic subjects of the
Sultan, and secretly plotting for the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire.
All this was known to me before I went to Russia, and I had consequently
invested the Slavophils with a halo of romance. Shortly after my arrival
in St. Petersburg I heard something more which tended to increase my
interest in them--they had caused, I was told, great trepidation among
the highest official circles by petitioning the Emperor to resuscitate a
certain ancient institution, called Zemskiye Sobory, which might be
made to serve the purposes o