404. Dr. Granville’s Travels to St. Pelersburgh. TOcr. 
besides their own native language. Many of them write these languages with 
equal ease and correctness. This is the case, particularly with regard to the 
younger branches of the nobility, owing to the new and happy direction given 
to their education, by the successful efforts of the Empress-mother. Nor is a 
knowledge of languages the only prominent qualification which these ladies 
bring into society; but varied and useful information also; an extensive 
acquaintance with the literature and history of Europe ; an exquisite finesse 
d@ esprit, displayed in an easy and well-supported conversation ; anda number 
of agreeable talents which tend to embellish their existence.” 
It appears that our own countrymen are alike everywhere. Whether 
on the banks of the Neva, or the Bay of Naples, reserve and restriction 
are the order of the day with them. They can do nothing in the way of 
hospitality, for either the merit or the pleasure of doing it—but only 
because “ it is expected of them.” 
Weare happy to agree with our author in the following tribute to 
Russian patriotism. ‘The national character has scarcely received the 
credit due to it on the points referred to in this extract :— 
“ But although I hold myself unqualified to speak of the Russian character 
in general, there is one striking feature belonging to it, which the history of 
recent events has consecrated, and cannot, therefore, be passed over in silence 
even by the superficial observer. IT mean that unbounded devotion to the cause 
of their country, displayed by the whole population, during the unprovoked 
aggression of the late ruler ‘of France, affording the striking example (one 
which is unparalleled in the records of the numerous conquests of foreign 
countries made by that extraordinary man) of not a single inhabitant, high or 
low, either of the towns or provinces occupied by his legions, joining his for- 
tune and party ; and by either words or deeds promoting the scheme of plun-~ 
der and devastation then executing against the Russian territory. When 
Napoleon sent his eagles to Holland, conquered Prussia, penetrated into 
Austria, and took possession of its capital; when he entered Italy, occupied 
Spain, and found reasons in diplomatic sophistry, for ejecting the House of 
Braganza from Lisbon, he ever met with a number of high and powerful 
individuals, and not unfrequently with a great portion of the population, who, 
unmindful of their duties as citizens, and unmoved by the more general 
example of patriotic resistance, or the distresses entailed on their countrymen, 
espoused and assisted his cause. But in the vast empire of Russia, no such 
humiliating occurrence took place from the day in which Napoleon set his 
foot on that territory, to that in which he bid a hasty adieu to the skeletons 
of his few surviving regiments. It is a curious fact, which the historians of 
modern times have failed to remark, that in none of those studied composi~ 
tions called the Bulletins of the Grand Army of the North, with which Buona- 
parte endeavoured to keep up the prestige in favour of his great enterprise 
among the people of his good city of Paris, has the writer boasted (as he 
invariably had done in similar despatches written from other foreign countries 
which he had invaded) of having been joined by any part of the people or by 
a single Russian individual of note.” 
In connexion with some professional remarks on the climate of St. 
Petersburgh, our author states the following remarkable fact :— 
“It is a fact which will startle my readers, that “ a cold” is seldom to be 
heard of in St. Petersburgh. That anomalous species of disorder is indige- 
nous to England, and above all to London. It does an infinity of mischief, 
and covers many a blunder. In the capital of Russia few people complain of 
“a cold ;” and if a person of consequence (who has been for a great length of 
time dying of disease ill understood, or badly managed,) does actually fall a 
victim to the complaint, the candid physician does not, as in some other 
capital, attempt to mystify the friends, by remarking that “ the patient was 
getting. better, but caught cold and died.” There are, seriously speaking, so 
few diseases of the chest, catarrhs,.and defluxions, and feverish colds in the 
