392 Dr. Granville’s Travels to St. Petersburgh. [Ocr. 
trifling, and his tittle-tattle, we never grow out of temper; with his 
logic we are never disposed to be very angry—though it, at vat 
page, leads him to general conclusions only not at open variance wit 
his premises, because he never seems to have any hold upon the latter at 
all ; except, indeed, in the cases of personal character, where, still fol- 
lowing his seemingly favourite prototypes, he sets down every one who 
confers the most ordinary civility upon him as the pink of politeness, 
grace, and good breeding—the pattern of learning and liberality—and, 
in short, the model of every virtue and accomplishment under heaven. 
These things, in consideration of the good doctor’s happy quality above- 
mentioned, we can easily away with. We can even overlook’ (because 
luckily we can also overleap) his eternal prosings about public buildings, 
and the interminable display of architectural knowledge which they call 
forth—with their peristyles, tetrastyles, octastyles, and innumerable 
other styles. Even his palpable blunders,—his puerilities, and common- 
places, without end—his fastidious affectations of finery—and his infinite 
unconsciousness of the presence of all these matters and things—we can 
easily excuse. Nay, so powerful and pervading is the effect of a happy 
temperament on all that it touches, we can even, in virtue of it in the 
present instance, almost pardon the worthy doctor his criticisms on Fine. 
Art, his philosophy, his physic, and his puns! 
It appears that our author left London on the 20th of September 1827, 
as part of the travelling suite of a Russian nobleman and his lady, the 
Count and Countess Woronzow, who were returning to their own coun- 
try, after a temporary visit to this. We state the case in the doctor’s 
own way, who, with all his affected contempt for what is beneath the first 
grade in society, is far from being “ above his business.” Luckily, 
the professional services of the doctor seem to have been confined to the 
administering forty-five drops of laudanum to the lady, as an antidote to 
sea-sickness in the passage across. If it had been otherwise, the secon- 
dary job which the pains-taking physician contrived to unite with his 
professional one—that of giving a full, true, and particular account of 
the Russian capital, by means of a residence of about forty days in it— 
must have “ come tardy off.” As it was, however, the doctor must have 
satisfied his gratitude to his patrons, and, at the same time, earned his 
handsome trattement, at a very small outlay of trouble indeed: for, during 
the leisure moments of the above-named brief period, he professes to 
have fully attained his chief object in visiting Russia ; inasmuch as he 
has seen, examined, and put himself in a condition to describe, in their 
minutest details, all the noticeable public institutions of Petersburgh ;— 
including half a score or so of royal palaces ; as many government esta- 
blishments and scientific institutes ; together with churches, hospitals, 
theatres, schools, and public charities, without number : to say nothing 
of his having gained a very satisfying insight into the general man- 
ners, habits, and state of society of this vast metropolis; and fully 
informed himself in regard to the most secret views, qualities, and per- 
sonal character of nearly all the leading members of the Russian com- 
munity! Out of these materials, thus collected, our traveller now sits 
down to furnish the English public with “a Guide’ to the city of 
Petersburgh: no such work existing, it appears, up to this time. In 
what manner the desideratum has now been supplied, it seems unneces- 
sary to state, after what we have said above ; and the more especially, as 
ee 
