hair, displayed his bloody beard, and called upon the police officers to seize us all and do him justice. In a short time we were surrounded with crowds; the police officers, seeing we were English, heard the accuser, but shewed no disposition to detain us, so we proposed adjourning to the garden of the palace, and in one of its recesses to partake of the cold collation which we had brought with us. As we quitted the carriage, our coachman whispered something to Ivan, who, with an arch look, told our valet, if we would give him twentyfive rubles, he would settle the business amicably: this we refused upon two grounds; first, that he merited what had happened; and next, admitting he deserved any compensation, it was too exorbitant to demand twenty-five rubles for a bloody nose, when we learnt at Cronstadt, that twenty-three had only been paid for the loss of an eye.

We went quietly to dinner in a delightful spot, well shaded from the sun whilst we were enjoying our repast, a little ragged boy approached us, to whom we offered some meat, but although he looked half famished we could not prevail upon him to touch it, as it was a fast. In one of the walks we met a lady of rank attended by a female dwarf, supremely ugly and deformed, and dressed like a shepherdess on her nuptial day. Whilst we were regaling ourselves Ivan was making the best use of his time with the guards and police officers, and upon our resuming our seats and endeavouring to proceed, the barrier was dropped, and bayonets presented towards our horses: we then all alighted, and attended by a great throng of guards and police officers, proceeded to the apartments of the deputy grand police master, whom we found in his chamber in his shirt, fiddling before a saint who was suspended in the corner: this gentleman addressed us in German, to which one of the party, to whom it was his native tongue, replied, during which Ivan displayed his blood to great advantage, but was ignorant of what was passing. In the course of the conversation, the magistrate observed, “that the "coachman deserved to be thrashed; and that, had we beaten him "to a jelly, so that blood had not followed, all would have been well; "but," after a long pause, very good-humouredly said, "that we "should no longer be detained," and accordingly ordered the guards to let us pass. Nothing could exceed the chagrin of poor Ivan when he heard the fate of his application : no non-suited plaintiff ever

threw his face into more burlesque distortions. Upon the road he stopped at every kabac for a drop of sorrow's medicine, which if Ivan had apostrophized, he would have exclaimed:

“Oh thou invisible spirit of brandy! if thou hast no name to be known by, let "us call thee Angel."

CHAP. XIX.

RISING OF THE NEVA-ACADEMY OF SCIENCES-THE REVIEW-CADET CORPS-PELISSES-COUNTRY PALACE OF ZARSKO ZELO-ANOTHER BUST OF THE BRITISH DEMOSTHENES MISPLACED-CANINE TUMULI-IMPERIAL PLEASANTRY-GATCHINA-PAUVOLOFFSKY-ANNIVERSARY OF A

FAVOURITE SAINT-MORE DWARFS.

A SHORT time before I left Petersburg, the inhabitants were apprehensive of a terrible inundation of the Neva, in consequence of the wind blowing very fresh at south-south-west, which forces the waters of the gulf of Finland against the river, and prevents the stream from finding its level. The guns of the admiralty fired, and in the evening four lights were raised upon its church spire, the usual warning upon such occasions to the people, to take care of themselves and their property; and a general consternation spread through the city. About eight o'clock at night a part of the Galeernhoff was five feet under water, and the bridges of pontoons rose to a considerable height, so that the planks which connected them with the shores presented on each side a formidable acclivity, which carriages of every description surmounted by the uncommon skill and energy of the drivers and horses: their mode of reaching these almost perpendicular ascents was effected by lashing the horses, at a considerable distance, into a full gallop, and by a great number of police officers and soldiers, who always attend at the bridges on these occasions to prevent accidents, running behind and propelling the carriage, or saving it from being dashed to pieces, by its not being able to turn the summit. Luckily the wind, the Neva, and the public apprehensions, subsided together, without any damage being done.

The change enabled our party to visit the academy of sciences, a noble building, situated on the north side of the Neva, in VassilliOstroff. After passing through the library, whose damp walls were feebly lighted from above, and where there is nothing but some Tartarian manuscripts worthy of detaining the attention of a traveller, we entered the museum of natural curiosities, in which the principal objects were various parts of the human frame, fœtuses, miscarriages,

LL

and births, from the first impregnation to perfect birth, monsters human and animal, and a variety of most odious and disgusting et cæteras, in pickle. The skin of the Heyduc, or favourite servant of Peter the Great, is here, stretched upon a wooden image of his size, which shews that the man must have been six feet and a half high, and that nature had furnished him with a skin nearly as thick and impenetrable as that of the rhinoceros's hide. In the gallery above was a Lapponian dog-sledge; the habiliments of a Siberian magician, or gipsey, principally composed of a great number of iron rings and drops, placed upon a wooden statue; several presents from the undaunted and enterprising captain Cook, and a variety of stuffed birds and animals. In the room of Peter the Great was a wax figure of his height, which was above six feet, resembling him in form and face, and dressed in one of his full suits: in an adjoining cupboard were his hat, pierced with a bullet at Pultowa, breeches that wanted repair, and stockings that required darning. In another room were his turning machines, with which he used to relax himself; cupboards filled with brazen dishes of his embossing, and spoons and platters of his turning: in short, all the curiosity which the merest trifles of great genius generally excite, is, in this instance, destroyed by their abundance. In every public garden, or building, there is a profuse display of his cloaths, arms, or culinary utensils: if a twentieth part of them were burnt, the remainder would be more worthy of notice. How singular is it, that cotemporary genius never excites our attention, nor awakens our feelings, so forcibly as that which is departed! In contemplating a great man, the mind's eye reverses the laws of vision, by magnifying the object in proportion as it recedes from it. Upon the basement story is a very curious mechanical writing-desk, by Rontengen, a German, of Neuwied, presented to the academy by Catherine, who gave twentyfive thousand rubles for it. Upon touching a spring, a variety of drawers fly out, a writing-desk expands, and boxes for letters and papers rise. A part of the machinery may be set so, that if any person were to attempt to touch any of the private recesses appropriated for money, or confidential papers, he would be surprised by a beautiful tune, which would give due notice to the owner. We were told that, in the academy are to be seen moon-stones, or blocks of native iron, which, it is conjectured by the learned, must have been cast from the volcano of some planet. They were not shewn to us: but

several of these phenomena are to be met with in different parts of Russia. It seems hostile to the laws of gravitation, that a single atom should be able to swerve from its planet.

Adjoining the academy is a pavilion containing the Gottorp globe, eleven feet in diameter from pole to pole: the concavity is marked with the stars and constellations, and is capable of holding several persons: as some ladies of our party ventured in, upon the exhibitor turning the globe on its axis, we were more sensibly impressed with the idea of the motion of the heavenly bodies.

In the evening, after the opera, a party of us set off to the camp, and passed the night in our carriage, in order to be present at the review, which commenced the next day at eight o'clock. After getting a comfortable breakfast in a Cossac hut, we proceeded to the ground. The manœuvres commenced in a village about three miles off, where a sharp cannonading took place. The contending armies, consisting of about fifteen thousand men each, the one headed by the emperor, and the other by general -, began to move towards each other in a vast valley, and halted within half a mile of each other, when a tremendous discharge of artillery took place, and firing of different parties was kept up all the time, at distances of five and six miles. Here the manœuvres of that day concluded, and we returned home to a late dinner.

It was now the second of September, N. S. and the summer began to give tokens of rapid decline: the lamps but feebly supplied that light which, not even many days before, gave to the evening the character of a mild mid-day.

We were much gratified in visiting, by an express appointment, a nursery of future heroes, called the second imperial cadet corps, in which seven hundred children are educated and maintained, as gentlemen, for the profession of arms, at the expense of the country. The governor, a nobleman of high rank, and several of the officers attached to the institution, attended us through the progressive schools. Every child follows his own religious persuasion, for which purpose there are a Lutheran and a Greek church under the same roof: the latter is singularly elegant. The dormitories, as well as every other part of the establishment, were remarkably clean and handsome, the pupils having separate beds. In the store-rooms each boy's change of linen and cloaths were very neatly folded up, and his name marked upon a tablet over them. At one of the doors we saw