GRANVILLE'S ST. PETERSBURGH.*

THE magnitude and power of Russia, her rapid and progressive increment, the colossal scale of her establishments, the grandeur of her views, and the predominant influence she recently exercised in deciding the fate of Europe, have rendered her the object of the most intense interest to the rest of mankind. To statesmen and politicians she is a source of speculation and solicitude; whilst to all men of intellect she presents inexhaustible subjects of inquiry and meditation. Within the last twenty-five years, Russia has been visited by the traveller of pleasure and fashion, the artist, the scholar, the philosopher, the man of science, the military and naval officer, and the practical statesman, all of whom have published their accounts of the country. It is obvious, however, from the discrepancy of opinions formed from these works, that the information they have imparted has been either too scanty or incorrect for any uniform and general conclusions. Russia progresses so rapidly, all that she contains is so imposing and so different from what we are accustomed to contemplate, and such prejudices are excited on her account, that to obtain accurate knowledge, requires not only a quick succession of observations, but that the same objects should be described at the same time by men of different interests and sentiments. If we read Clarke, Storch, Lyall, Evans, Jones, and Doctor Granville, we shall scarcely believe that we are reading of the same country; whilst several foreign authors differ from the whole of them as much as they differ from each other.

The volumes before us are not free from instances of the idola specus; and it is clear that Dr. Granville, like his precursor, Captain G. M. Jones, has been put into very good humour in Russia by the condescensions of the Imperial Family, the amenity of public functionaries towards Englishmen, and the hospitality of the higher classes to strangers in general, and to our countrymen in particular. Notwithstanding this source of several views with which we cannot agree, Dr. Granville has collected a mass of information invaluable in itself, and of great relative importance, as it enables us to draw by induction safe inferences from preceding authors, whose testimony on certain points was too discordant to be reconciled, or amalgamated for useful purposes.

In noticing these volumes, it is not our design to advert to the popular descriptions, the narrations of incidents, nor to the innumerable anecdotes of illustrious or eminent characters, with which the work abounds. These, with many illustrations of Russian history, and of recent events, we shall leave to the more superficially curious, and to persons whose minds require the stimulus of piquant novelty, or the sustenance of matter, which, however important, must be made amusing to become digestible.

Dr. Granville's work (though he is of a different opinion) convinces us that the whole system of the Russian polity is deleterious in its essence and in its application. It often retards or defeats its own object, and seldom reaches it but by a most circuitous and inconvenient route. It presupposes the non-existence of the evils it would suppress, and the

St. Petersburgh: a Journal of Travels to and from that Capital. By A. B. Granville, M. D. F. R. S. &c. 2 vols. 8vo.

existence of the good it designs to create. Its principles have long been exploded in theory, and, happily for mankind, we have now a great practical proof of their mischievous unsoundness. To apply the principles and the machinery of the Russian Government to their proposed purpose, requires omniscience, omnipresence, and a benevolence, with a disinterestedness infinite and without alloy. In North America, the momentum of their polity is a minimum of government, or of interference with individual actions. Every thing beyond a restraint upon private crime, and public aggression by foreign States, is considered an evil to be minimized. The Russians have not adopted the Marquis D'Argenson's great maxim, "Pas trop gouverner;" nor have they appreciated the sagacity of the Genoese merchants, whose request to the King proffering his patronage, was simply, "Laissez nous faire." How have the two opposite systems worked? Russia, with a happy succession of rulers, with a lavish patronage of foreign talent, with extensive conquests, and all other means and appliances to boot, has progressed, with her artificial government, much less in proportion since the reign of Peter in 1730, than America, since her emancipation from England in 1783. In this period the United States have tripled their population; in the same period, Russia has scarcely doubled her's. In Russia, there is greater splendour at Moscow, St. Petersburgh, Smolensko, and a few large towns, and amidst a certain class, whilst every thing else bespeaks privation and squalid sufferings. In America, plenty, and the comforts and decencies of life, are possessed by all, except the vicious. The aggregate of wealth may be the same. America almost every man is a productive citizen; in Russia three per cent. of the population are unproductive consumers-soldiers, noblesse, and employés.

In

In Russia, the great object is to guide artificially every man's mental and manual exertions, from the channels to which they would otherwise be directed by the sagacity or energy arising out of our self-love and desire of improving our condition. In one case Nature would guide us right; in the other, Art generally does the reverse. Thus, in Russia, a colony is to be formed; thousands of Poles are driven to the spot, at the wrong season-they perish of cold and hunger; a system of military colonization is adopted and fails; a theory of trade is embraced; Odessa is factitiously and suddenly created into a great city-presently another theory is in vogue, and the city goes to decay, involving the ruin of thousands; one year does little more than correct the blunders of the preceding, and society is rather revolving than progressive.

The Government is zealous in promoting education; but all collision of intellect, except on scientific subjects, is prevented, and Dr. Granville found his baggage strictly searched for foreign books. The Empress-Mother is above all eulogy; cheerful, active, and indefatigable in every good work-a splendid and regal Lady Bountiful. She personally regulates and superintends twenty-four charitable institutions; some for forcing education upon the noblesse and gentry, others for nursing natural children, others for spinning cotton, &c. These most expensive institutions retard their proposed object of civilization. They are supported by abstracting from the industry of the productive labourers, for the encouragement of the non-productive. The true principle of public charity is to provide only for those

accidents that baffle ordinary calculation, such as a poor man's having deaf and dumb children, a premature death or decay of strength, &c. We may judge of the aversion which the Russians have to knowledge, when we find that the Empress receives into her institutions seven hundred and twenty of the children of the nobility; and Captain Jones tells us that when a nobleman will not educate his children, the Empress takes an opportunity at court of conveying a hint, which is sure to be obeyed.

The Emperor Nicholas and his royal brother have an inexhaustible patience and industry in the performance of their public functions; but it is obvious, upon principle, that their devotion to the public good can be attended with few beneficial results to the people. Dr. Granville tells us, that "the Emperor inspects every thing (military), inquires into the minutest details, examines the regimental uniforms of the privates:— one of the additional burthens he has imposed on himself is that of looking over the reports and returns of every arrest and imprisonment that takes place in his empire, as well as of the state of the prisons, according to a formula he has himself prescribed." This evinces an unfortunate ignorance of the science of government. The Emperor is liable to be deceived in every step; the idea of any one man attending to all the arrests in a population of fifty-three millions, and to all the gaols in a country many thousand miles in extent, is preposterous. In 1826, the number of prisoners in Russia were 127,000. Some of the gaols in Russia are in a state shocking to humanity; and the description of the prisoners in the South of Russia by Capt. Jones, reflects disgrace upon the Russian Government, and upon its functionaries.

In Russia, "in 1826, upwards of 2,850,000 causes had come before the different tribunals of the empire." Where laws are cheap, prompt, and equitable, litigation is not an evil; it is a curse only when, as in England, laws involve uncertainty, a loss of time, a sacrifice of funds, oftentimes beyond the value of the justice sought, and consequently engender angry passions. Russian judges are appointed by the Emperor, and are removable at his pleasure. Every town is governed by a mayor and council, elected by the citizens for three years. This magistracy levies taxes, establishes the local police, and provides quarters and fuel for the troops. But this council, as well as the Court of Mediation, must report all proceedings to the Imperial (military) Governor of the province, who has legal rights incompatible with public liberty, and the means of assuming others, with little chance of any check. A foreigner might conceive very exalted notions of the English polity from reading Blackstone or De Lolme; but if he were brought unconsciously to England, he would see so little parity between the practice and theory of the system, that he might suppose himself in China rather than in this country. Dr. Granville mentions some legal provisions for the security of the subject in Russia; but it is obvious that they must be inoperative in a country so barbarous and corrupt, that the severity of criminal sentences can be commuted for money. "Every proprietor of land has certainly the right to punish a refractory criminal, or vicious serf, by having him flogged on the back; but he is also responsible to the crown. Excess of punishment can only take place when the proprietor's deputy, like the overseer of a plantation in the West Indies, is a passionate and ill-minded person," &c. What a

style of argument is this! It is merely saying the truism, that evil can proceed only from the evilly-inclined, and therefore a system which admits of the indulgence of such an inclination is not bad. The existence of the ill-minded is the sole necessity for laws, and not a justification of individual impunity and discretion. In this case, the proprietor is the judge of what is refractory and criminal; and how can a poor, ignorant serf complain against a powerful master, to an Emperor some thousand miles distant? But the Russians maintain that two immense advantages arise from this state of the population. The facility of raising troops, and of levying taxes. The Russian style of reasoning upon all such subjects shows that statistics and political economy are but little understood. The police is most pragmatical. Servants are

under its "immediate inspection;" it interdicts plays in excessively cold weather, as if " the beggarly account of empty benches" would not regulate the matter much better. It lights immense fires in the streets, lest the servants of those at the theatre should perish by the cold. The fire-engines are under the police, and the Emperor having by a ukase established a fire-insurance company, Dr. Granville observes, "this establishment being without competition for the present, must necessarily succeed, and ultimately prove very lucrative to the subscribers." We should argue the reverse. It is competition alone that can produce the sagacity, prudence, and activity, which ensure success. theatres are a monopoly, and cost the state 200,000 rubles annually.

The

The Russians have little native talent, nor have they the imitative capacity which Dr. Clarke attributes to them; for, thirty years ago, oneseventh of the population was foreign, and the proportion is now only reduced to one-ninth.

The patronage of medical and chirurgical science is liberal, and the hospitals are magnificent; and yet we find that the proportion of deaths, compared to that of England, is as two to one. Notwithstanding Dr.' Granville's favourable opinion of the climate, the deaths are incessant'; and the hospitals, though numerous, and of a size almost immeasurable, are crowded to excess. "Independently of the in-patients, this hospital (Hôpital des Pauvres) admits out-patients, the total number of which, last year, is said to have amounted to 30,000:"-this, out of a population of 320,000, is immense. But, perhaps, this unprecedented ratio may arise from the demoralizing effects of the Government, which throws the poorer orders upon charity in every case of illness.

In St. Petersburgh, charitable institutions include all classes, from the premier duke to the pauper. The Empress-Mother is the patroness of one institution which boards "about four hundred young ladies of noble families," who are immured for nine years, during which they are denied any access to their parents but under "the strictest surveil lance." Dr. Granville calls these "judicious regulations," and says "By these means social habits, befitting their sex and station, are imparted."- Corporeal punishment does not enter into the system of discipline adopted in the college." In what college of young ladies does corporeal punishment enter into "the system of discipline?" To what age are we reverting? The Empress-Mother is also the patroness and gouvernante of the Institute of St. Catharine, containing three hundred and ten young ladies, all of " noble blood." Of these young ladies of "noble blood," one-fifth are supported by charity. The knout, or cor

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poreal punishment, is not applied to these ladies of noble blood. But these schools are supported partly by a tax upon cards, and the young ladies are admitted by ballot.

The facts relating to the Russian capital are astounding, and baffle all calculation. The Foundling Hospital admits about four thousand children per annum !

We will leave these benevolent but maleficent creations of imperfect knowledge, and direct our attention to the society of Russia.

The travellers who visit Russia, and publish their travels, are of a class who see only "a certain order;" and the Russians, of all people, have the faculty of making their visitors speak "couleur de rose.' The Russians are hospitable in the extreme; but hospitality is indigenous to a state of society in which, without it, the poor must perish, and the rich be destitute of variety, amusement, and the means of gratifying pride by the display of their magnificence. Their houses are built and furnished in a style, and their entertainments are of a profuse and lavish description, which can exist only in a stage of society where the channels of expenditure are few, and where an arbitrary government segregates an idle class, endows it with privileges, and loads it with wealth wrung from the people. The Russians are not as addicted to intoxication as the English; but "the perfume and sapid qualities of their best sort of tea are such as I have never tasted before; and the effect of both upon the nerves is very distressing. The Russians are quite finical about tea-making and tea-drinking, and understand both arts fully as well, if not better than the English. Their tea-urn, or Samowat, is quite a piece of machinery, and admirably adapted for its purpose. The tea reaches the market direct from China over land." The Russian mirrors, like every thing Russian, are the largest in the world. One of them measures one hundred and ninetyfour inches by one hundred."

The Russians are profuse in their patronage of painting. "There is scarcely a house of any consequence in St. Petersburgh, in which one does not find some valuable pictures as part of its decorative furniture." Dr. Granville, in describing the Grand and Petit Hermitage, says that the first and second rooms are filled with paintings of the Flemish school; then succeed three rooms of the Italian masters, and a fourth, containing the chef-d'œuvres of that school. Numerous other rooms of immense magnitude are filled with the finest specimens of the great masters; and there is a Rembrandt gallery of high estimation. We can only say, that " a zeal without knowledge is not good." The Russians have the pride, without the taste and judgment of patronage. The pencil of Sir Joshua Reynolds is totally unappreciated in Russia. Our readers must recollect the irritation of the vain and libidinous Catherine, who, having given Sir Joshua an order for an emblematical painting of Russia, instead of an allegorical portrait of herself, which she expected, received, to her indignation, the well-known "Infant Hercules." Sir Joshua's portraits of the late King, the Duke of York, &c. painted by the special order of Catherine, to ornament her Lodge of Tschesme, have been allowed to rot upon the walls, a sacrifice to Russian fogs and frosts. Sir Thomas Lawrence's chaste portrait of the Emperor Alexander, in plain clothes, is viewed with great impatience by the Russians, in comparison to a portrait by a French artist, in