They Went to Russia
The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot, 1803-1808. Edited by The Marchioness of Londonderry and H. M. Hyde. (Macmillan. 21s.)
IN her introduction to the letters and diaries of the Misses
Wilmot, Lady Londonderry laments the decay of the written word under our modern mechanized civilization. "
matists and important personages fly across Europe in swift aeroplanes for personal interviews . . . leaving little or nothing written for posterity to read." The lament seems superfluous. Lady Londonderry may rest assured that when the dossiers of our peripatetic statesmen and diplomats are revealed to the world, posterity will have no reason to deplore their paucity. It is also irrelevant to our present purpose. For Miss Kitty and Miss Matty Wilmot were certainly not " important personages " ; and nothing can be less like official documents than these artless records of two vivacious
Irishwomen who paid prolonged visits to Russia in the first decade of last century.
It was Miss Matty, the younger of the two sisters, who first set out on this strange and adventurous pilgrimage. Travelling across England, she halted at Stratford-on-Avon and visited Shakespeare's birthplace, then in the occupation of Mr. Pitcairn, a local butcher, who " added our names to those of many other travellers, whom curiosity or reverence for our Immortal Poet had drawn to the same obscure and humble habitation." She visited Blenheim and the " Rever- end Town " of Oxford (" what a pile of building it is ") ; and having called on the Russian Ambassador, Count Woronzow (the only foreign diplomat who has ever had a road in London named after him) and regulated the matter of her passport, she embarked at Gravesend in June, 1803, for Cronstadt, the port of Petersburg. It being wartime, her ship had to creep up the East Coast as far as the Humber and make the perilous crossing of the North Sea in " a convoy of Sixty Sail."
Miss Matty's hostess in Russia was the Princess Daschkaw (to preserve the antiquated spelling of the name used in the letters) ; and she remained with the Princess for more than five years in a capacity which was half that of com- panion and half of adopted daughter. Presently Miss Kitty also came out on a visit ; and the letters of both sisters to relatives and friends make up this book. The Princess, who was now past sixty, had been a remarkable woman in her day, and one of the moving spirits at the Court of Catherine the Great, and the impression made on the two sisters was evidently immense. But even Miss Kitty, the more critical and intelligent of the pair, shrinks from a portrait of her :
" I have since I came here often thought what a task it would be to attempt to draw the Character of the Princess Daschkaw ! I for my part think it would be absolutely impossible. Such are her peculiarities and inextricable varietys that the result would only appear like a Wisp of Human Contradictions. . . . You will always conceive her a pioture of perfection when you take my experience of her, just as you would suppose Europe a Paradise if you never lived out of Italy and judged of the rest' accordingly. But she has as many Climates to her mind, as many Oceans of agitated uncer- tainty, as many Etnas of destructive fire and as many Wild Wastes of blighted Civilisation as exists in any quarter of the Globe ! For my part I think she would be most in her element at the Helm of the State, or as Generalissimo of the Army, or Farmer- General of the Empire."
But the Princess Daschkaw must be studied in her own memoirs, of which a single copy—one made by Kitty Wilmot —is preserved in the British Museum, and which have been printed in several lahguages. Apart from the Princess, there is-ample material in these letters for the most exacting reader, and the reviewer cannot do better than cull a few of the flowers. There is, for example, the Princess's story of " the dead body of her husband's Grandmother which she saw in
a vault at Kiew after 82 years interment unchanged in form or feature tho' the quilted satin well lined her Coffin was
so discoloured and consumed by time that the Bishop ordered it to be changed—the body was not embalmed." Or there is Miss Matty's discovery of Sabbath observance in the ghetto where 'tis unlawful to be guilty of an Accouchement on that day, and should a woman have that Misfortune no accoucheur can attend, except in cases of the most extreme danger."
By way of a tonne bouche, nobody should miss two letters from the hand of Eleanor Cavanagh, who accompanied Miss Kitty to Russia as her maid. There is a curious note of modernity about some of her comments :
" ' Ma'am,' sais I to My Mistress, ' what time do they breakfast in this quair place ? ' The word was hardly out of my mouth when thump, a rap comes to the door and in walks a Grenadier of a Man with a silver Tray and Coffee Pot and two cups and saucers and a great Haip of Rusks not on a plate at all, and after him strealed in at his heels a Girl with a bit of a note to Miss Wilmot from her Mistress to ask whether she wou'd like a melon for her breakfast! . . . Says I to her, ' If we were in Cork now they'd give us a fresh egg.' With that she was so struck that she went out of the room shaking her head, but the Sirrah an Egg came at all."
The illustrations are for the most part photographs of paintings of Russian grandees by well-known artists, including a Romney, a Raeburn and a Lawrence ; a word of praise is also due to Mr. Hyde's scholarly footnotes. Altogether a most attractive book.
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