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from Peter the Great, and means crown town, or the crown of the new city, and is seven versts in length. Its population, including an yearly average of foreigners, is sixty thousand souls. On the southern side of it, is a little island called Cronslot. Ships drawing more than eight feet water, are obliged to discharge their cargoes at Cronstadt, which are sent up in lighters to Petersburg.

The town is one verst long, and well drained, by the indefatigable ingenuity of commodore Greig, and has several churches, amongst which is an English one: there are also a custom-house, and several other public buildings. After having, English-like, ordered a good dinner at an inn, whose appearance little accorded with the excellent entertainment which it afforded, we presented our letters, and a very intelligent gentleman attended us over the town. In the dry docks, which are very spacious, and faced with granite, we saw several fine ships, particularly one which the Russians preferred, built by an Englishman. In the streets we met several groups of convicts, returning from the public works to their prisons, wretchedly clad, and heavily ironed; many of whom had iron collars with long handles round their necks: the allowance of these unfortunate wretches is black bread and water, and half a copec a day. In their hours of relaxation they make boxes, and other little matters of utility, the sale of which alleviates their extreme poverty.

We returned to Oranienbaum, and saw the palace and gardens. The former was built by prince Menchikoff, in 1727, for his own résidence, after whose fall it came to the crown. It is raised upon terraces, and is composed of a small central building of two stories, and two very extensive wings connected by colonnades: these wings are covered with a treillage, and form a beautiful walk in the summer: the apartments are very neat and comfortable; one room is lined with thin taffeta sattin of pale lilac and white

plaited and formed into pannels; the roof is covered in the same way, and had a beautiful effect. At the end of the wings are two towers, one a Greek church, and the other a museumi of china. The unfortunate Peter III. built a Lutheran chapel here, where he and his Holstein soldiers used to pray, instead of going to the Greek church; this indiscretion furnished a terrible weapon against him in the hands of the late empress.

In the gardens we saw the celebrated flying mountains, a vast fabric of three lessening acclivities of wood, resting upon brick arches, commencing from the terrace of a lofty and spacious pavilion, and sloping to the ground; from the top to the bottom of this singular structure are parallel grooves, in which triumphal cars running upon castors are placed; when the person who partakes of the diversion is ready, the car is released, and descends with a velocity which carries it over the hills in succession. This imperial plaything is surrounded with an open colonnade, more than half a mile in circumference, upon the terrace of which there is room for some thousands of specta

tors.

In another part of the gardens, deep embosomed in wood, we were shewn to a little retired palace, consisting of a suite of rcoms upon a ground floor, built by the late empress, the taste and elegance of which surpassed every thing of the kind I ever beheld. One apartment was lined with small paintings of female heads, in pannels, representing, in the most exquisite manner, the progress of love, from hope to ecstasy. All the statues, pictures, and decorations, were calculated to kindle and cherish the noble and generous flame.

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The academy of sciences is a noble building, situated on the north side of the Neva, in Vassilli-Ostroff. 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, and births, from the first impreg nation to perfect birth, monsters human and animal, and a variety of most odious and disgusting et ceteras, in pickle. The skin of the heyduc, or favourite servaut of Feter 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, princi pally composed of a great number of iron rings and drops, placed upon a wooden statue; several presents from the undaunted and enterprizing 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 high, 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 clothes, 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 attentions, and awakens our feelings, so forcibly as that which is departed! In contemplating a great man, the mind's cye 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 Roentgen, 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 surprized 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.

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.

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 manoeuvres of that day concluded, and we returned home to a late dinner. It was now the second of September, N. S. and ¥3

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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 gratitied 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. 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 clothes were very neatly folded up, and his name marked upon a tablet over them. At one of the doors we saw one of these soldiers in miniature relieve guard. In the schools are taught mathematics, gunnery, mapping, French, German, and Russian; fencing and dancing, and every other science and accomplishment which can complete the soldier and the gentleman. We were present at their dinner, which is served at half past twelve o'clock. The dining-hall is two hundred feet long, and forty broad. Every table held twenty-two boys, for each of whom a soup and meat plate, a silver fork, knife, and napkin, and a large slice of wholesome country bread, were laid; and at each end were two large silver goblets filled with excellent quas: they have four substantial dishes three times a week, and three on other days. All the boys, after marching in regular order from the respective schools, appeared at the several doors of the dininghall, headed by their captains: upon the roll of the drum, they marched in slow time to their respective tables, forming three companies of two hundred each (the fusileer company, composed of the sons of the

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