IIUSSIA IN 1833. 421 



Painting. The composition is so far architectural as it combines 

 strength and beauty the breadth of the parts and compactness of 

 the whole adapt it especially to the material of the sculptor and 

 the colouring, in its arrangement and execution, is as fine as the fres- 

 coes of the best colourists of Venice. In the head of the Delphic 

 Sybil her supreme beauty is agitated, but not destroyed, by energy of 

 thought. In the Cumaean Prophetess the wrinkles of age seem as 

 impenetrable and enduring as hieroglyphs on an ancient stone : here 

 is, indeed, an old woman sublimated Sybil though she be, and 

 monstrous in size she is still an old woman of nature's own impress. 

 The features of Isaiah are dilated with inward emotion the veins on 

 his forehead appear as if bursting his brain is teeming with thoughts 

 suddenly poured in by the divine boy -angel floating in air behind. 

 The Prophet had been reading his head resting on his hand; he 

 has moved his head round in attention to the messenger of God ; the 

 hand remains in the position it held when he leaned upon it : Sir 

 Joshua Reynolds has evidently adopted this fine action in his figure 

 of Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse." 



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RUSSIA IN 1833. 



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IT will be generally found upon dispassionate investigation, that 

 the opinions of mankind on the moral and intellectual development of 

 most nations on the face of our globe, are considerably in arrear of 

 their actual progress in the march of civilization. At every period 

 these opinions are based upon a series of facts, of ideas, and of recol- 

 lections, which relate mostly to past events, to generations that have 

 ceased to exist, to the operation of causes weakened in their influence, 

 in fact, to an ancient state of civilization that has not remained station- 

 ary. Thus the people first in the career of glory and empire preserve 

 for a length of time a preponderating reputation, which lasts long after 

 they have passed their culminating point, and when rival powers less 

 celebrated in the page of history have already outstripped them. 



These observations apply to the nations that compose at the present 

 day the immense empire of the Czars. It is not our intention to dwell 

 merely upon the gigantic resources of this northern power, and upon 

 those boundless and grasping plans of ambition which characterize 

 its policy with regard to the East: our object is to exhibit also the social 

 condition of an empire, the rapid development of which forms a sub- 

 ject of alarm to some, of hope to others, and of anxiety and attention 

 to all. It is by ascertaining the exact point she has reached in the 

 scale of civilization, by examining what she does to diffuse intelli- 

 gence, develope industry, to ameliorate the condition of her people, 

 and to concentrate and increase the public strength, that we shall dis- 

 cover what Europe has to hope or to fear from Muscovite influence 

 upon the destinies of other states. ^Iftrwtrrcp 



