MOSCOW. 
91 
without climbing a flight of stairs, is almost chap. 
peculiar to England ; although there be some ■ - 
exceptions, as in the Palais Royal at Paris, 
and in a few houses at Vienna. The catalogue 
of Russian authors in some of the shops, fills 
an octavo volume of two hundred pages. 
French, Italian, German, and English books, 
would be as numerous here as in any other 
city, were it not for the ravages of the public 
censors, who prohibit the sale of books, from 
their own ignorant misconception of their con- 
tents. Sometimes a single volume, nay a single 
page, of an author, is prohibited, and the rest 
of the work, thus mangled, permitted to be 
sold. There is hardly a single' modern work 
which has not been subject to their correction. 
The number of prohibited books is so great, 
that the trade is ruined. Contraband publica- 
tions are often smuggled; but the danger is 
so imminent, that all respectable booksellers 
leave the trade to persons, either more daring, 
or who, from exercising other occupations, are 
less liable to suspicion. 
Yet there are circumstances arising from the of 
state of public affairs in the two cities, which 
give a superiority to the booksellers of Moscow. 
In and near the city reside a vast number of 
the Russian nobility. A foreigner might live 
