94 IfOBTHEBN RUSSIA. 



bounded by the buildings of the Holy Synods, and the 

 farthest angle filled up by St. Isaac's Cathedral. 



The open space on the opposite side to St. Isaac's, and 

 next the Neva, is marked by the statue of the Czar 

 Peter; while beyond the broad, noble river itself appear 

 the long buildings on the quays of the islands. There is 

 no doubt a vastness in the scale of this Place d'Armes 

 which is imposing. There are, moreover, 'details in this 

 great whole which stand minute examination. St. Isaac's 

 Church which by the way cost about, as some say, 

 16,000,000 ! is a stately and solid building without, 

 but too bizarre within, and too over-loaded with gildings, 

 and too flash with colour, to produce the solemn effects 

 of York or Westminster as a place of worship. It is, 

 however, admirably adapted for those spectacles in which 

 the Greek Church delights. 



The Hermitage Palace, with its noble staircase and 

 magnificent collection of paintings, is worthy in every 

 respect of a great capital ; nor is there any monolith in 

 Europe to be compared with the Alexander Column, the 

 shaft alone being eighty feet of unbroken polished granite. 

 But in spite of all this, and much more which might be 

 said in favour of other views and of particular objects, 

 the general impression which the whole made on mo 

 irresistibly was that of a rapidly-got-up city, with a 

 singularly waste and unfinished look about it, barbaric 

 vastness and oriental display, without real, endurable, 

 unmistakable grandeur. The platform or base-line from 

 which the buildings spring is ugly, being a desert of 



