vii

Revolt," by Edmund Noble ; "The Jews of Barnow," by Karl Emil Franzos ; " Russia, Political and Social," by L. Tikhanirov; "Called Back," by Hugh Conway ; " Dead Souls," by Nikolai V. Gogol; "War and Peace," and " Anna Karenina," by Count Tolstoi ; " A Hero of our Time," by M. V. Lermontoff; "Russia before and after the War," by the Author of " Society as it is in St. Peters- burg," " The Encyclopaedia Britannica," " Russians of To- day," by the Author of " The Member for Paris ; " " The Russian Peasantry," by Stepniak ; " Stories from Russia, Siberia, Poland and Circassia," edited by Russell Lee ; "Chambers' Encyclopaedia ;" George Kennan's Century papers on "Plains and Prisons of Western Siberia," and "Across the Russian Frontier;" Theodore Child's " Fair of Nijnii-Novogorod " in Harper's Magazine ; The Times pamphlet (before mentioned), " Persecutions of the Jews in Russia, 1881 ; " "Venice," by Yriarte ; " Venetian Life," by Howells ; " Sketches from Venetian History ; " " New Ita- lian Sketches," by J. A. Symonds, and other miscellanous literature. It will be seen that I name these works without any view to classification or order. A foreign criticism upon the Venetian chapter of the story makes it desirable for me to state that the introduction of a Russian interest in the Royal Ftes on the Grand Canal is pure invention. The pageantry is true enough ; the presence of the King and Queen of Italy ; the illumination and the rest ; but the red gondola and the ghost of the lagoons belong to the region of fancy ; though they might easily have formed part of the events of the time. I saw a dead swimmer towed into an English fishing port under very similar cir- cumstances to those which I have described as occurring in the waters of the Adriatic.

With all due apologies for this personal note, I venture to express a hope that my readers may feel an interest in the Milbankes, the Forsyths, the Chetwynds, and the