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COXE’S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA. 653
the finger ; perhaps an antient legend, the hiftory of an enormous giant, a defcription
of a beautiful girl, a dialogue between a lover and his miftrefs, or the account of a mur-
der. Sometimes they are merely letters and fyllables taken from an old accidence,
metrically arranged, and adapted to this general air. ‘Thefe words are chiefly ufed by
mothers in finging to their children; while the boors perform their national dance to
the fame tune, accompanied with inftrumental mufic. The fubject of the fong alfo fre-
quently alludes to the adventures of the finger, or to his prefent fituation; and the
peafants adapt the topics of their common difcourfe and their difputes with each other, to
this general air; which, altogether, forms an extraordinary effect, and led me to con-
jeGture, that they chanted their ordinary converfation.
Cuap. X.— Novogorod.— Antiquity, Power, Grandeur, Independence, Decline, Subsection,
and Downfall.—Prefent State.—Cathedral of St. Sophia.— Early Introduction of Paint-
ing into Ruffia.—Price of Provifions.—Incidents of the Journey to Peterfburgh.
At Bronitza we croffed the Mafta upon a raft compofed of feven or eight trees rudely
joined together, which fcarcely afforded room for the carriage and two horfes. We
then continued our route, through a level country, to the banks of the Volkovetz, or
little Volkof, which we paffed in a ferry ; and, after mounting a gentle rife, defcended
into the open marfhy plain of pafture, which reaches, without interruption, to the walls. -
of Novogorod. That town, at a fmall diftance, exhibited a moft magnificent appear-
ance, and, from the great number of churches and convents, which on every fide pre-
fented themfelves to view, announced our approach to a confiderable city; but our
expectations were by no means realized.
No place ever filled me with more melancholy ideas of fallen grandeur, than Novo-
gorod. It is one of the moft ancient cities in Ruffia; and was formerly called Great
Novogorod, to diftinguifh it from other Ruffian towns of a fimilar appellation *. Ac-
cording to Neftor, the earlieft of the Ruffian hiftorians, it was built at the fame time
with Kiof, in the middle of the fifth century, by a Sclavonian horde, who iffued from
the banks of the Volga. Its antiquity is proved by a paflage in the Gothic hiftoriaa,
Jornandes, in which it is called Civitas Nova, or New Town}. We have little infight
into its hiftory before the ninth century, when Ruric, the firft Great-duke of Ruffia,
made it the metropolis of his vaft dominions. The year fubfequent to his death, in 879,
the feat of government was removed, under his fon Igor then an infant, to Kiof ; and
Novogorod continued above a century under the jurifdiction of governors nominated
by the Great Dukes. At length, in 970, Svatoflaf, the fon of Igor, created his third
fon Vlodimir Duke of Novogorod : Vlodimir, fucceeding his father in the throne of
Ruflia, ceded the town to his fon Yaroflaf; who, in 1036, granted to the inhabitants
confiderable privileges, that laid the foundation of their liberty. From this period No-
vogorod was for a long time governed by its own Dukes: thefe Sovereigns were at firlt
fubordinate to the Great Dukes, who refided at Kiof and Volodimir; but afterwards,
as the town increafed in population and wealth, gradually ufurped an abfolute inde-
pendency f.
* Nifhnei Novogorod, and Novogorod Severfkoi.
+ Sclavini a Civitate Nova et Sclavino Rumunenfi, et lacu qui appellatur Mufianus, &c. The lake is
the Ilmen, and the Civitas Nova, Novogorod. S.R.G, Vol. v. p. 383.
$ S.R. G. Vol. v. p. 397.
But
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