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

4ARCHITECTURE OF MOSCOW.

under part of a tower, singular in shape, like all the (>thers in the old quarter of Moscow.

Г have not seen Constantinople, but I believe that, next to that city, Moscow is the most striking in appearance of all the capitals in Europe. It is the inland Byzantium. Fortunately, the squares of the old caj>ital are not so immense as those of Petersburg, in which even St. Peter's of Rome would be lost. At Moscow the sites are more confined, and therefore the edifices produce greater effect. The despotism of straight lines and symmetrical plans is opposed here both by nature and history : Moscow is everywhere picturesque. The sky, without being clear, has a silvery brightness: the models, of every species of architecture, are heaped together without order or plan; no >†ructures are perfect, nevertheless the whole strikes, not with admiration, but with astonishment. The inequalities of the surfaee multiply the points of view. The magic glories of multitudes of cupolas ~parkle in the air. Innumerable gilded steeples, in form like minarets, Oriental pavilions, and Indian domes, transport you to Delhi; donjon-keeps and turrets bring you back to Europe in the times of the iTiisades ; the sentinel, mounted on the top of his watch-tower, reminds you of the muezzin inviting the faithful to prayer ; while, to complete the confusion iif ideas, the cross, which glitters in every direction, commanding the people to prostrate themselves before the Word, seems as though fallen from heaven amid an assembly of Asiatic nations, to point out to them all the narrow way of salvation. It was doubtless before this poetical picture that Madame de Staël ■ xclaimed— Moscow is the Borne of the North!