son was languishing and panting with heat, enjoyed a cool and delightful atmosphere. His collection of Siberian minerals, gems, and precious stones (amongst which is a beautiful riband agate), from various parts of the Russian empire, and a variety of marine fowls from the Russian archipelago, are very curious and interesting. I here saw a fine specimen of the encoustic, or wax-painting, the art of which was discovered a few years since in Herculaneum, by a soldier accidentally holding a flambeau to an apparently naked wall, when the action of the heat created, to his astonishment, a beautiful landscape, by reviving the encoustic colour in which it had been painted. The doctor also obligingly shewed me an opera which was com→ posed by the late empress, in which, with great poetical spirit and genius, she has described the founding of Moscow, and the habits and customs of the Russians. The words of many of the songs were adapted to old Russ tunes, and others were set to music by Sarti. Of this imperial production only four copies were ever printed; as soon as they were struck off, the press, the types of which were made at Paris, was broken. Independent of his merited reputation, the doctor has two other reasons sufficient to make any philosopher proud and happy he is the father of two lovely daughters; the eldest is lady Gascoigne, who, to the charms of youth and beauty, unites the most elegant accomplishments and captivating manners. So high was report in her favour, and so little can she be known with impunity, that I felt a sullen satisfaction in learning that she was upon a visit to her friends in Scotland whilst I was at Petersburg; the other daughter is a lovely girl, pursuing her studies in the Convent des Demoiselles.

On account of his long and faithful services, the doctor was ennobled by Paul, who always retained a great partiality for him, even during the temporary disgust which he felt against his countrymen: he is honoured with a hat and feathers, and the rank of a general. It is scarcely necessary for me to observe, that in a military govern ment like Russia, military rank precedes every other.

From doctor Guthrie's cool philosophic shade, we proceeded to the Taurida palace, built by Catherine II, and given by her to her distinguished favourite prince Potemkin, upon whom she lavished unprecedented dignities and treasure. She bestowed upon him the name of the Taurian, in honour of his conquest of the Crimea, and called this building after him. Upon the death of the prince, the

empress purchased it of his family for a vast sum. The grand front of this building, which is of brick, stuccoed white, is towards the street leading to the Convent des Demoiselles, in the east end of the city, consisting of a centre, adorned with a portico supported by columns, and a large cupola of copper, painted green, and extensive wings. A variety of out-offices, orangeries, and hot-houses, reach from the left wing to a prodigious distance: in the front is a court yard, divided from the street by a handsome railing. The exterior of this building is very extensive, but low; and although it has a princely appearance, does not excite the astonishment that a stranger feels in entering it. Through the civility of our countryman, Mr. Gould, the emperor's gardener, who enjoys a munificent salary, and a handsome house on the west side of the gardens, I was frequently enabled to visit this delightful place. The kitchen, fruit, and pleasure-gardens, and hot-houses, occupy a vast space of ground, which are watered by several canals; over one of them is thrown the celebrated model of a flying covered bridge of one arch, which an obscure illiterate Russian constructed, for the purpose of embracing the two sides of the Neva, opposite to the statue of Peter the Great: it is about seventy feet long, and is a wonderful display of mechanical ingenuity. This extraordinary peasant has clearly elucidated the practicability of such a measure; the model is capable of bearing more comparative weight than could ever press upon the bridge itself. The enormous expense which must attend such an undertaking will, in all probability, reserve it for a distant period. The ingenious artist received a handsome pension from the late empress, and the satisfaction of having displayed with what extent of capacity unassisted nature has gifted the Russian mind. In this part of the grounds, Catherine II was in the habit of taking her morning promenade with a male friend; and in the evening attended by her court.

The pleasure-grounds are small, but beautifully laid out by Mr. Gould, who was a pupil of the celebrated Browne; and who, at the advanced age of seventy-two years, beholds this little paradise, which he created from a mephitic bog, flourishing and exciting the admiration of foreigners, and in the shade of which Potemkin, Catherine the Great, and two succeeding emperors of Russia, have sought tranquillity and repose from the oppressive weight of public duty.

This respectable Englishman, who has realized a handsome fortune, the fruit of imperial munificence, for long services, keeps an

elegant and hospitable table, and is visited by persons of the first respectability. The late unfortunate king of Poland, during his residence, or rather incarceration, in Petersburg, felt a melancholy pleasure in quitting the phantom of royalty, which mocked rather than consoled him, in the palace of Siberian marble, to pour the sufferings of his afflicted mind into the breast of the frank, cordial, and ingenuous Englishman in this abode of privacy.

The pleasure-grounds are very elegantly disposed, and, as we passed the little green palisade which separates them from the kitchengarden, we contemplated with pleasure the favourite seat of Catherine the Great, that here presented itself: it was a long, tasteful garden-sopha of iron, interlaced, painted green, and stood under the branches of an oak. Here she used to take her coffee; and, upon this very seat she gave private and unrestrained audience to the late king of Sweden. 'I am enabled, from indubitable authority, to state, that the age of Catherine when she expired was seventy-five, although three years are taken from it in the calendar.

As we descended a little slope from Catherine's seat, we passed by two birch-trees, revered by the superstitious Russians, on account of their having been, with a third of the same species, preserved, when the morass in which they grew was first converted into a garden, and the vegetable patriarchs of the place: we were gravely told, that when Paul died, the one which is missing perished from excessive sensibility. I never knew before, that nature had endued the birch with acute feelings: I remember, at school, it was admitted, nem. con. that it had the power of exciting them.

The first room we entered from the garden was the celebrated hall in which prince Potemkin gave the most gorgeous and costly entertainment ever recorded since the days of Roman voluptuousness: I am not able to communicate to my readers the ideas which this enormou's room excited. If a Pagan were to be transported into it in his sleep, when he awoke he could not fail of thinking that he had undergone an apotheosis, and had been conducted to the banquetingroom of Jupiter. It was built after the unassisted design of Potemkin, and unites, to a sublime conception, all the graces of finished This prodigious room is supported by double rows of colossal Doric pillars, opening on one side into a vast pavilion, composing the winter-garden, which I saw prepared for the emperor, who resides here for a short time every year, just before I left Petersburg.

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This garden is very extensive: the trees, chiefly orange, of an enor mous size, are sunk in the earth in their tubs, and are entirely covered with fine mould: the walks are gravelled, wind, and undulate in a very delightful manner, are neatly turfed, and lined with roses and other flowers. the whole of the pavilion is lighted by lofty windows: from the ceiling depend several magnificent lustres of the richest cut glass.

Here, whilst the polar winter is raging without, covering the world in white, and hardening the earth to marble; when water tossed in the air drops down in ice, may be seen the foliage, and inhaled the fragrance of an Arabian grove, in the soft and benign climate of an Italian spring. The novelty and voluptuous luxuriance of this green refreshing spectacle, seen through a colonnade of massy white pillars, and reduplicated by vast mirrors, is matchless. Between the columns, now no longer incumbered with boxes for spectators, as they formerly were, are a great number of beautiful statues and colossal casts : the two celebrated vases of Carrara marble, the largest in the world, occupy the centre of the room leading to the winter-garden. The dying gladiator, Cupid and Psyche, a recumbent hermaphrodite, and many other exquisite productions of the chisel, afford ample gratification to the man of taste. Amongst the busts, is that of the right honourable Charles James Fox, by Nollekens; an admirable likeness of that distinguished orator. Paul, during his temporary aversion to the English, ordered this bust into the cellar: whether he intended that his spleen should carry the marks of some humour, I know not. His august successor removed it from the region of the Tuscan juice, and the depths of darkness, and ordered it to occupy its present station, where, by the side of Grecian and Roman virtue, the sun of heaven shines full upon it. Opposite to the winter-garden is a beautiful saloon, divided from the hall only by the colonnade, which is filled with rare antiques, principally busts. Amongst them a head of Achilles, and a small Silenus, are justly regarded as the most precious. During the darkened hours of Paul, he converted this palace into a garrison; and the hall, pavilion, and saloon, into a ridingschool for his troops!

The rest of the rooms, which are upon the ground-floor, have been elegantly, but very simply, fitted up by the present emperor, and all their gorgeous hangings, furniture, and decorations, have been removed, and deposited in magazines. In one of the rooms there is a

set of superb lustres, every drop of glass in which may be set in motion by clock-work, concealed in the centre, when it presents the appearance of a little cascade. The theatre, which has been much reduced, is still spacious and very handsome.

It may not be uninteresting to give a very brief description of the entertainment which I have before alluded to, as I received it from Mr. Gould, who contributed his talents to augment the rich variety of that resplendent festival: Soon after prince Potemkin's return from the conquest of Crim Tartary, under the influence of a gloomy prepossession that it would be the last time that he should have it in his power to pay due honour to his imperial benefactress, he resolved upon giving a banquet, which, in modern Europe and Asia, should have no parallel. What the expenses attending it amounted to were never known, but they must have been prodigious. For several months previous to the gala, the most distinguished artists were invited from distant countries to assist in its completion. The grand outline was designed by the prince, and so various as well as vast were the parts, that not one of the assistants could form any previous idea of the whole of it. In the general bustle of preparation, the following anecdote, that proves the natural taste of Potemkin's mind, is related: He had ordered a statue of Catherine to be formed of alabaster, which he intended should be raised upon a pedestal, in a temple of precious stones, in the winter-garden; for the motto upon its intablature he wrote: "To the Mother of my Country, and to me the most gracious." In his design, the artist had extended the hand and elevated the sceptre, in the formal style of our queen Anne's appearance in wax-work; the critical eye of this prince, although he has been termed, and in some instances justly, a splendid barbarian, in a moment perceived the deficiency of grace in the attitude, and ordered the sceptre to be inclined: the artist retired to another room in chagrin, and exclaimed, "This great savage has more “taste than I have, who have been brought up in the lap of the arts." Upon giving another direction, the artist stared, and remonstrated upon the enormous sum which it would cost: "What, Sir!" said Potemkin, "do you affect to know the depth of my treasury? Be "assured it stands in no need of your sensibility." After which his orders were obeyed without any reference to expenditure,

Nothing could exceed the public sensation which this fête excited, At length the evening arrived, when the prince was to appear, in all