feeling, rich and flourishing in all branches of industry. But upon Russia there fell the horrors of a Tartar invasion, which put her back for centuries in her advances towards civilisation.

By taking a cursory glance at the fortunes of the commercial isle of Gotland in the early centuries of commercial development, when the crusaders drove much of the trading of the Mediterranean into the Northern channel, we shall be able to obtain a satisfactory idea of the abilities this eastern wave of Normans evinced both for commerce and art. For this small Swedish island is to-day as replete with reminiscences of former magnificence as are Rouen, Winchester, or Palermo; and in the churches of Wisby, in Gotland, we find the influence of intercourse with the Grecian Empire stamped on every building.

Profiting by the advice of their "countrymen settled in Russia," says the old Gotland Chronicle,' the islanders made rapid advances in commerce. Their ships traded down the Dwina, the Niemen, and Lake Ladoga, with the East, and brought back with them the skins, spices, and riches of Siberia, India, and Arabia. The importance of Gotland in the commercial world of this date is proved by the quantities of coins which are continually being dug up there. In the Museum of Wisby, the capital of the island, we see a better collection of early English coins than there is in the British Museum, especially about the time of Knut the Great, Etheldred, &c., when the Danish influence in England was strongest. There are coins of Thetford, York, Lincoln, Stamford, &c., mingled with Byzantine, Arabic, Persian, and other coins of this date.

In the architecture of the town of Wisby, most writers have found a puzzle. I will here quote from Fergusson's "Handbook of Architecture":

"The most striking peculiarity of the Gotland churches is the constant appearance of the pointed arch at a date earlier than we find it as a decorative feature in other parts of Europe. It may be, however, that the instances where it is found are additions or alterations of a later date, but the evidence is at least strong enough to merit a close examination. It is by no means improbable that in a city where coins of the Chalifs are constantly found, the pointed arch may have been introduced from the East at an earlier date than the Crusades, which seem first to have suggested its employment. . . . . All the churches are small, like Greek churches. There does not seem to have been any metropolitan basilican or any conventual establishments, but an immense number of detached cells and chapels,

scattered in groups all over the island, with very few that could hold a large congregation : perhaps a Greek plan, or a local peculiarity, we do not understand."

A visit to the ruined churches of Gotland at once opens one's eyes to the extent of the intercourse with the East: round churches and Gothic windows, each with a date verified by annalists, which long anticipated the first sign of Gothic in Western Europe; richly decorated carvings in true Byzantine style, all of which things are a mystery, if we do not bear in mind how the enterprising Russi left their homes and travelled to Byzantium, and transmitted to their relatives at home not only a love for the luxuries of the East, but a true appreciation for the arts and refinements of Greece. Scandinavia has nothing to compare with these ruined churches within the walls of Wisby; scarcely are they surpassed by the cathedrals of Western Europe.

A curious fact is told us by Professor Säve, of Stockholm, who has dived deeply into Gotland's lore. He says, in proof of the extent of the Greek influence in Gotland, that one day he heard a common peasant girl tell a story word for word from Herodotus. Be that as it may, the island is full of Runic stones, put up to the memory of Gotland travellers and merchants who perished on the long and dangerous journey to Constantinople across the Steppes of Russia.

It is an undecided point amongst authorities on commercial law, whether or not the "laws of Wisby" were the genuine predecessors of those now generally in vogue. French writers' deny the assertion; they claim a priority for the code of Oléron, and reject the code of Wisby as the spurious compilation of a modern printer; yet it is not probable that the well-to-do traders who built and beautified Wisby would be entirely without a maritime code, and if they had one, they probably handed it down to posterity.

This will always be a point difficult to decide; but one has but to read the code of Wisby and the code of Rhodes, to be struck by the similarity between them; and then, judging by the intercourse with Greece, it is easy to conjecture that Gotland merchants brought home with them from the East a knowledge of this celebrated code, which governed the commercial dealings of the Mediterranean prior to the Crusades and it is more than probable that through this northern channel, through Russia and through Gotland, did the practices of the old world filter into the commercial haunts of the

new.

1 Vide M. Pardessus' Histoire des Lois Maritimes.

Some other facts contained in the annals of Gotland's commerce are interesting. As late as 1229 Gregory IX. issued a bull to the Cistercian abbot of Wisby to the effect that the Gotlanders should be restrained from holding intercourse with the Muscovites, the foes of Christianity. By that time their relations in Europe had entirely merged themselves in the Slavonic race, which grew in intensity during the seven centuries that the Varangian dynasty reigned over Russia.

During the whole of the period from the emigration to Russia down to the fall of Gotland as a commercial centre, close intimacy was kept up between Russia and Scandinavia, and the wave of emigration proceeded in full vigour. An old annalist tells us 1 that in 1018 Kief was guarded by "the strength of the fugitive serfs who flocked thither, especially Danish ;" and in 1269 Novgorod, Wisby, and Lübeck executed a treaty by which all old treaties for free commerce, toll-free trade, and protection for merchants were confirmed, and through the influence of Gotland merchants who traded between Germany and Russia, Novgorod became known throughout Europe as a centre of commerce, and eventually became the leading Eastern centre of the Hanseatic League. In Novgorod the Gotland merchants had their own church of St. Olaf, and in Wisby the Russians likewise had their own church, warehouses, and quays.

During this period of her existence Russia was intensely Scandinavian. The legislation of the Russian Charlemagne, as he is termed, the great Jaroslaf (1016-1054), is strangely Norman in its character. In his code, "the Rousskaia Pravda," is found the pursuit of an assassin by all the relatives of the dead; there is the "wehrgeld" for different crimes, the judicial duel, the ordeal by boiling water, even a jury of twelve citizens to decide on all points. of law. And by the marriage of the relatives of Jaroslaf he was closely connected with many of the Courts of Europe. His sister married the King of Poland, one of his daughters married Harold the Brave, King of Norway, another Henry I. of France, and a third Andrew, King of Hungary; whilst Vladimir, his eldest son (cf. the Danish "Waldemar "), is said to have espoused Githa, daughter of Harold, King of England. Moreover, his Court was an asylum for exiled princes in Western Europe. The sons of Edmund Ironsides, St. Olaf, the exiled King of Norway, and a Prince of Sweden, all found a welcome in the Russian capital. In short, throughout the whole of the Varangian dynasty Russia was more 1 Bayer.

thoroughly European than she was again till the days of Peter the Great, who opened out a new line of policy for her, reuniting her with the West.

To this day many Russian families-and they are the leading ones-will boast of their Scandinavian origin, just as our own old families boast of having come to England in the Conqueror's train. By the stepping-stone of Normandy the Northmen reached England; by the stepping-stone of Gotland they reached Russia: both waves starting from the fountain-head of Denmark.

J. THEODORE BENT.

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WHO WROTE "GIL BLAS"?

E SAGE'S novel, " Gil Blas of Santillana," enjoys a world-wide reputation. It is a vivid picture of manners, an apotheosis of the indifferent worldling to whom neither virtue nor roguery is in itself commendable or hateful, but to whom the pursuit of happiness, and success in that pursuit, constitute the aim and end of existence. The book, it has been shrewdly said, is as moral as experience; it is also as useful; and hence the cause of its popularity. Besides, Le Sage possesses in the highest degree the art of describing, in a fresh, pure, and simple style, that which is not pure, and of touching the evils of his time lightly, but always on the weak spot. Gil Blas tells his own story, and relates his illusions, his struggles, his failures and successes, with unimpaired cheerfulness and goodhumoured philosophy. He dilates and reflects on all he sees, and on the whole exercises his wit as well on his own history as on the actions of the society in which he lives. All that he narrates is simple and drawn from the life; and yet there is hardly a minor feature of the picture which does not aim both at satirising and finding excuses for the foibles of mankind. Gil Blas spares nothing and nobody, and even his own shortcomings are exposed with sparkling drollery and vengeful frankness, though he gives himself credit-and to others as well-for the upwellings of a better He is a true type of men kindly disposed and not evil-intentioned, but withal weak in the flesh and unable always to resist temptation, even whilst he knows that he will repent of it afterwards.

nature.

It has been said that Le Sage, in his one-act farce, "Le Temple de Mémoire," represented at the Fair St. Laurent in 1725, and afterwards at the theatre of the Palais Royal, ridiculed the exaggerated admiration for Voltaire-then only known by the tragedies of "Edipe," "Artémire," and " Mariamne," and through his poem of "La Ligue," a feeble and first sketch of the "Henriade "—by making a poet who wishes to reach the Temple of Memory pick up a book from the ground whilst saying, "Je prends mon vol terre à terre."