On the other hand circumstances are not wanting that tend powerfully to counteract this tendency. A Russian must offer very great advantages before a German lady will consent to become his wife. The Germans believe that there is not so much domestic happiness and affection to be found in a Russian as in a German family, and a German father, therefore, is with difficulty brought to give his daughter's hand to a Russian. The mass of prosperous and wealthy Germans will always intermarry with prosperous and wealthy Germans, and only the portionless daughters and younger sons ally themselves to the Russians. Some classes of society, such as the German merchants in the cities, and the Lutheran pastors in the country, never intermaiTy with Russians, and presence their rclig-ion and nationality unadulterated.
The Russians also, who marry Germans, seldom establish themselves in the Baltic provinces, where they feel themselves excelled by the superior cultivation and enlightenment of the Germans, and rendered uncomfortable by the peculiarities of their national character ; they generally soli their estates there, or make them over to their German relatives, and settle in the interior of Russia.
The Russian government has lately installed a Greek bishop at Riga,
to watch over the interests of the Greek church, and to secure Its unity and dignity in the Baltic provinces. The installation of this bishop is a source of great disquietude and anger to the Lutherans. The Russian church has, in consequence of this appointment, acquired an organized chai-acter in the German provinces, and is enabled to assume a much more formidable attitude in its encroachments upon Lutheranism. In short, Lutheranism in Russia does not gain proselytes, and is constantly losing some of its members by acts of apostacy ; but it makes up, in some measure, for this loss by the German immigrants who arrive from abroad, and it has other sources of increase, so that its decline, at worst, is very slow and gradual.
THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF GERMANY AND RUSSIA.
In the Baltic provinces, the Russian language is spoken exclusively by all Russians ; for these people cling to their language as tenaciously as to their religion and costume, and as the Germans, Lettes, and Esthonians, who have dealings with them, generally learn their language, they seldom speak any other. All Germans who enter the Russian army as officers, are compelled to give testimonials of their proficiency in the Russian language before they can receive their commissions. All pubHc officers, all German teachers, professors, and even clergymen, are required to be acquainted with the Russian language, and no student is received either at Dorpat or in the Russian universities, who is unacquainted with it. The attainment of this knowledge is, however, sometimes no easy matter, for teachers of Russian are scarce in the Baltic provinces, and German families often think themselves fortunate if they can catch an invalid Russian officer, or a disbanded soldier, who is able and willing to teach their children Russian.
If the Russian government rightly understood its own interests, it would be very far from endeavouring, as it now does by every means in its power, to unGermanize these coimtries. Russia owes almost every thing to Germany, and should think herself happy to have obtained a little piece of Germany for her own, whence, as from a flourishing plantation, slie may transplant German virtues and German talents into her own more sterll soil. But if Russia continues to treat German nationality as she does that of the Tartars and Tunguslans, the springs from which flow her best statesmen, generals, teachers, and citizens, will soon be dried up. Fortunately the Russian endeavours have as yet effected but httle. The highest men of the land still are obliged to employ Russian translators in their intercourse with the authorities of Russia ; very few of the merchants of Riga, Reval, &c., have mastered the Russian language, and are always for this reason anxious to have Russian clerks in their service. The independent nobles and their ladles rarely know any thing of Russian, and when a Russian officer enters a room full of company, in Courland or Livonia, the first question generally is — " Verstehe?i sie Deutsch f or " Est-ce que vous parlez Francais f And when, as often happens, this is answered by a silent shake of the head, the conversation is carried on by signs or Interpreters. In a literary point of view, the Baltic provinces are still thoroughly German. Scliiller, Goethe, Wieland, Herder, and Sclilegel, are here, as in Swabia and in Saxony, the beloved and