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

is intelligible. Petersburg is both protected from the Neva and embellished, by the magnificent parapets with which that river is lined. The soil fails us; we will therefore make a pavement of rocks that shall support our capital. A hundred thousand men die in the attempt, it matters not; we have now an European city and the renown of a great people. Here, whilst continuing to deplore the inhumanity that has presided over so much glory, I admire, though with regret. I admire also several of the points of view that may be obtained before the winter palace.

Although the largest structures in the city are lost in a space that is rather a plain than a square, the palace is imposing; the style of architecture, which is that of the Regency, has an air of grandeur, and the red tint of the stone with which it is built is not displeasing to the eye. The column of Alexander, the triumphal arch, the Admiralty, Peter the Great upon his rock, the offices of the ministers (which are so many palaces), and, finally, the wonderful church of St. Isaac, facing one of the three bridges thrown over the Neva,—all these objects, lost in the circumference of a single square, are not beautiful, but they are astonishingly great. The square, called the square of the palace, is in reality composed of three immense squares all formed into one: Petrofskii, Isaakskii, and the square of the winter palace. I have found there nmch to criticise ; but as a whole I admire the edifices, lost though they be in the space which they should adorn.

I have ascended the brass cupola of the church of St. Isaac. The scaffoldings of this dome, which is one of the loftiest in the woi`ld, are in themselves