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

CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION.11

only known and trodden by the higher orders of human intelligence.

I must not stay to again describe the wonderful aspect of the exterior of the Kremlin — its prodigious walls and towers, carried over hills and ravines, and rising above each other in every variety of style, shape, and design, forming altogether the most original and poetical architecture in the world. But how shall I describe my surprise when, on entering the interior of the enchanted city, I approached the building called the Treasury, and saw before me a little modern palace, with straight lines and sharp angles, ornamented in front by Corinthian pillars. This cold and puny imitation of the antique, for which I ought to have been prepared, appeared to me so ridiculous, that I stepped back some paces and asked my companion permission to delay our visit to the Treasury, under pretext of first admiring some ehurches. After having been so lono` in llussia, I ought to be surprised at no incoherence in the inventions of the Imperial architects; but this time, the discordance was so glaring, that it struck me as cµiite a novelty.

We therefore commenced our survey by a visit to the Cathedral of the Assumption. This church possesses one of those innumerable paintings of the Virgin Mary that good Christians, of all lands, attribute to St. Luke. The edifice reminds me rather of the Saxon and the Norman than of our Gothic churches. It is the work of an Italian architect of the fifteenth century. After the structure had sunk and fallen in several times, while being erected by the bad artificers and worse architects of the land, foreign aid в 6