e. The expression of Diderot has been greatly
vaunted: The Russians are rotten before they are ripe. I know
nothing more false; their very vices, with some exceptions, are not
those of corruption, but of violence. The desires of a Russian, said
a very superior man, would blow up a city: fury and artifice take
possession of them by turns, when they wish to accomplish any
resolution, good or bad. Their nature is not at all changed by the
rapid civilization which was given them by Peter I.; it has as yet
only formed their manners: happily for them, they are always what we
call barbarians, in other words, led by an instinct frequently
generous, but always involuntary, which only admits of reflection in
the choice of the means, and not in the examination of the end; I
say happily for them, not that I wish to extol barbarism, but I
designate by this name a certain primitive energy which can alone
replace in nations the concentrated strength of liberty.

I saw at Moscow the most enlightened men in the career of science
and literature; but there, as well as at Petersburg, the professors'
chairs are almost entirely filled with Germans. There is in Russia a
great scarcity of well-informed men in any branch; young people in
general only go to the University to be enabled sooner to enter into
the military profession. Civil employments in Russia confer a rank
corresponding to a grade in the army; the spirit of the nation is
turned entirely towards war: in every thing else, in administration,
in political economy, in public instruction, &c. the other nations
of Europe have hitherto borne away the palm from the Russians. They
are making attempts, however, in literature; the softness and
brilliancy of the sounds of their language are remarked even by
those who do not understand it; and it should be very well adapted
for poetry and music. But the Russians have, like so many other
continental nations, the fault of imitating the French literature,
which, even with all its beauties, is only fit for the French
themselves. I think that the Russians ought rather to make their
literary studies derive from the Greeks than from the Latins. The
characters of the Russian alphabet, so similar to those of the
Greeks, the ancient communication of the Russians with the Byzantine
empire, their future destinies, which will probably lead them to the
illustrious monuments of Athens and Sparta, all this ought to turn
the Russians to the study of Greek: bu