Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

BY THE NEVA.129

entering the city, you pass some sphinxes, also of granite. Their dimensions are colossal and their appearance imposing; nevertheless these copies of the antique have no merit as works of art. A city of palaces is always magnificent, but the imitation of classic monuments shocks the taste when the climate under which these models are so inappropriately placed is considered. Soon, however, the stranger is struck with the form and multitude of turrets and metallic spires which rise in every direction : this at least is national architecture. ' Petersburg is flanked with numbers of large convents, surmounted by steeples ; pious edifices, which serve as a rampart to the profane city. The Russian churches have preserved their primitive appearance ; but it is not the Russians who invented that clumsy and capricious Byzantine style, by which they are distinguished. The Greek religion of this people, their character, education, and history, alike justify their borrowing from the Lower Empire ; they may be permitted to seek for models at Constantinople, but not at Athens. Viewed from the Neva, the parapets of the quays of Petersburg are striking and magnificent; but the first step after landing discovers them to be badly and unevenly paved with flints, which are as disagreeable to the eye as inconvenient to the feet and ruinous to the wheels. The prevailing taste here is the brilliant and the striking: spires, gilded and tapering like electric conductors ; porticoes, the bases of which almost disappear under the water; squares, ornamented with columns which seem lost in the immense space that surrounds them; antique statues, the character and attire of which so ill accord with the G 5