[4] For instance, the j, (pronounced as the French j), ts, sh, shtsh, tch, ui, yae.  As the characters representing these sounds are not to be found in the “case” of an English compositor, we cannot enter into their Oriental origin.

These characters (with the exception of a few which are omitted in the Russian) varied surprisingly little in their form,[5] and perhaps without any change whatever in their vocal value, compose the modern alphabet of the Russian language; an examination of which would go far, in our opinion, to settle the long agitated question respecting the ancient pronunciation of the classic languages, particularly as Cyril and his brother adapted the Greek alphabet to a language totally foreign from, and unconnected with, any dialect of Greek.

[5] Not to speak of the capitals, the [Greek:  gamma, delta, zeta, kappa, lambda, mu, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, phi, chi, theta], have undergone hardly the most trifling change in form; [Greek:  psi, xi, omega], though they do not occur in the Russian, are found in the Slavonic alphabet.  The Russian pronunciation of their letter B, which agrees with that of the modern Greeks, is V, there being another character for the sound B.

In this, as in all other languages, the translation of the Bible is the first monument and model of literature.  This version was made by Cyril immediately after the composition of the alphabet.  The language spoken at Thessalonika was the Servian:  but from the immense number of purely Greek words which occur in the translation, as well as from the fact of the version being a strictly literal one, it is probable that the Scriptures were not translated into any specific spoken dialect at all; but that a kind of mezzo-termine was selected—­or rather formed—­for the purpose.  What we have advanced derives a still stronger degree of probability from the circumstance, that the Slavonic Bible follows the Greek construction.  This Bible, with slight changes and corrections produced by three or four revisions made at different periods, is that still employed by the Russian Church; and the present spoken language of the country differs so widely from it, that the Slavonian of the Bible forms a separate branch of education to the priests and to the upper classes—­who are instructed in this dead language, precisely as an Italian must study Latin in order to read the Bible.

Above the sterile and uninteresting desert of early Russian history, towers, like the gigantic Sphynx of Ghizeh over the sand of the Thebaid, one colossal figure—­that of Vladimir Sviatoslavitch; the first to surmount the bloody splendour of the Great Prince’s bonnet[6] with the mildly-radiant Cross of Christ.