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

288ASPECT OF THE KREMLIN.

of its proportions. Happy privilege of art! masterpieces survive themselves, subsisting in the memory of men ages after they have been devastated by time; they share, by the inspiration which they kindle, even in their latest ruin, the immortality of the minds that created them; whereas, shapeless masses are forgotten while yet untouched by time. Art, when in its perfection, gives a soul to stone; it is a mystic power. This we learn in Greece, where each fragment of sculpture conduces to the general effect of each monument. In architecture, as in the other arts, it is from the superior execution of the smallest details, and from their skilfully interwoven connection with the genera] plan, that the sentiment of the beautiful springs. Nothing in Russia inspires this sentiment.

Nevertheless, amid the chaos of plaster, brick, and boards, that is called Moscow, two points never cease to attract the eye — the church of St. Basil, and the Kremlin, — the Kremlin, of which Napoleon himself was only able to disturb a few stones ! This prodigious fabric, with its white irregular walls, and its battlements rising above battlements, is in itself large as a city. At the close of day, when I first entered Moscow, the grotesque piles of churches and palaces embraced within the citadel rose in light against a dimly portrayed back-ground, poor in design and eold in colouring, though we are still burning with heat, suffocating with dust, and devoured by mosquitoes. It is the long continuance of the hot season which gives the colour to southern scenery; in the north we feel the effects of the summer, but we do not see it; in vain does the