Having got to the foot of the hill, leaning on the staffs, they were obliged to scramble from the track by the branches, and so from branch to branch they got at length to the top of the hill, where they found the rose without prickles that stings not. He made haste to the Khan with the flower, and the Khan dismissed him to the Tsar. The Tsar was so well pleased with the arrival of the Tsarévich and his success that he forgot all his anxiety and grief. The Tsar, the Tsarítsa and all the people became daily more fond of the Tsarévich, because he daily advanced in virtue. Here the tale ends, and who knows better, let him tell another. FOOTNOTES: [136] A sort of tents made of mats; also a kind of covered waggon used for travelling in Russia. [137] An elder. [138] From a word meaning choleric. [139] From a word meaning indolent. Prince Mikháylo Mikháylovich Shcherbátov. (1733-1790.) Prince Shcherbátov derived his origin from St. Vladímir, and united in his person a love of the ancient order of things and the prerogatives of the nobility with a refined liberalism, the result of an education according to Western ideas. In the sixties, Catherine II. entrusted Prince Shcherbátov with the arrangement of the archives of Peter the Great, and the result of his labours in this direction was the publication of a number of chronicles and documents referring to various periods of Russian history. Then he wrote a _History of Russia_ from the most ancient times to the election of Mikhaíl Fedórovich, in seven volumes. Though not distinguished for elegance of style, it deserves especial mention as the first native history in which not only native sources were thoroughly ransacked, but the facts were properly co-ordinated in a philosophical system. His sympathies for the old régime led him to emphasise the dark side of the period following the reform of Peter the Great, and he elaborated his theory in a work _On the Corruption of Manners in Russia_, which was so bold in laying bare the immorality of the Court at his time that he did not dare to publish it. It first saw the light in London in 1858, where it was issued by Herzen. In another work, _Journey to the Land of Ophir, by Mr. S., a Swedish Nobleman_, he developed his ideas of what a monarchy ought to be, in the manner of Sir Thomas More’s _Utopia_. This work was first published a few years ago. ON THE CORRUPTION OF MANNERS IN RUSSIA