78 NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



any such collections ! with keys of many fortresses, 

 the baton of Davoust, dropped in his cold race from 

 Moscow to Paris. 



I <saw in these churches the most august services of 

 the Greek communion, getting my pocket picked at the 

 most solemn of them. 



I paced through the Winter Palace, from room to room, 

 from bedroom to bedroom, saw all the glories of lapis- 

 lazuli and crown jewels ; I revelled among the very 

 beautiful and choice pictures of the Hermitage, one 

 fine building at least ; the citadel, with its mint, was 

 not neglected ; and I stood among the tombs of the 

 Romanoffs beside the sleeping body of Peter the Great, 

 great in stature, in resolution, in genius, in whim, in 

 war, in shipbuilding, in city-building, and wood-turning ; 

 the tornbs also of Paul, the madman and murdered; of 

 Catherine, great in genius and in crime ; Alexander, 

 the hero of the great war, overcome by the talk of 

 Napoleon on the Niemen raft, and paying him back 

 at the old Kremlin ; and last of all, the tomb of Nicholas, 

 the grand despot, who died of his wounds in the 

 Crimea. 



Ah ! it was sad to see, as I entered that church, the 

 widow of Nicholas coming out of it, old, infirm, tottering, 

 and agonized by cancer, taking her last look where her 

 once mighty " Czar of all the Russias " lay cold and 

 senseless as a stone, and where she has since joined him. 

 Oh, sickness, pain, and death ! what republican levellers 

 are these of ns all, and how they unite us more than 



