feet encased in fur boots, and her whole person enveloped in cloaks so furred and thickly wadded that she could scarcely stand under the weight, she was conducted to her sledge or carriage; her bonnet being of velvet or satin, thickly wadded, and of a shape that tied so close as to leave only eyes, nose, and mouth exposed. From the back of the bonnet hung a thick curtain or cape, to prevent any aperture remaining at the neck; while two, and even three veils were worn to protect the face. She described these veils as freezing together with the breath in a few minutes, until they became as stiff as glass; after which, she said, the face felt comparatively 'warm and comfortable.' Nor are these wraps all, for every interstice of the carriage is filled up with furs and pillows of down.

Of course, in a climate of such severity, notwithstanding the heat and rapidity of vegetation during the short summer, agricultural products are very limited. Rye and barley, and hemp and flax, are cultivated with success; but, with the exception of wild cherries, and an inferior sort of apple, fruit-trees will not thrive in the latitude of St Petersburg.

Notwithstanding these disadvantages, and the dislike of the Russian nobility to the new capital-which the poet Pushkin describes as 'a sumptuous city, a poor city, the appearance regular, the firmament of heaven of a pale green, gloom, cold, and granite' —it is still rising into importance and splendour. The successive emperors, who endeavour in many points to imitate their ancestor, have done much for St Petersburg, and are every year adding to its embellishment; having, moreover, completed a magnificent causeway, and more recently a railway, between it and Moscow. One of the chief ornaments of the city is the monument to Peter the Great, first exposed to view on the centennary of his accession to the throne. This is an equestrian statue of the czar by Falconet, representing him at full speed springing up a rock, with his hand extended, and the inscription, ‘PETRO PRIMO, CATHARINA SECUNDA, 1782.' Full of expression as this masterpiece is, we can fancy that, amid the busy scenes of the day-that mercantile traffic which he called into existence-or, in the stillness of the night, beneath the starry clearness of a polar sky, the statue of the czar must seem like some yet presiding power, and awaken a thrill of emotion in even a stranger's heart. Yes; for deeds like his stretch their influence into a far future, and win a deathless memory.

PETER'S SUCCESSORS.

Catharine survived her husband only two years; and during her short reign, was chiefly guided in the administration of government by Prince Menchikoff. She was succeeded by Peter II., grandson of Peter the Great, and son of the unfortunate Alexis; and on his death, which took place in 1730, Anne, daughter of Ivan, the brother

of Peter the Great, was called to the throne, chiefly by the influence of the Dolgoruki faction; a family who, however, soon lost their power, many of its members being banished to Siberia for their political offences. In 1735, the Persian provinces seized by Peter the Great were restored, although the reverses at the Pruth were retaliated by a war in alliance with Austria against the Turks. Anne expired in 1740, having bequeathed the crown, under a regency, to her grand-nephew, a child of two months old. But the discontent of the Russians at this arrangement, and at the foreign ministers who were imposed upon them, broke out into revolt, and Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great and Catharine, was called to the throne.

A war with Sweden during this reign ended by the acquisition of part of Finland by Russia; and an alliance with Maria Theresa in the war of the Austrian Succession, and the appearance on the Rhine of thirty-six thousand Russian auxiliaries, made Russia for the first time a participator in the politics of Western Europe. This princess died January 1762, sincerely regretted by her subjects, to whom she had endeared herself by the leniency of her administration. Elizabeth was succeeded by her nephew, Peter III., Duke of HolsteinGottorp, whose first act was to break the Austrian alliance, and conclude a peace with Prussia. He abolished the torture of criminals, and instituted several wise regulations for the protection of commerce; but he displeased his subjects by his innovations with regard to the church and the army, while his consort, Catharine of AnhaltZerbst, who had long been at variance with him, fomented these disturbances. After reigning only six months, he was dethroned, in consequence of a conspiracy, and was thrown into prison, where he died a week afterwards-not without suspicion of his death being occasioned by violence. His wife, a woman of masculine understanding, but licentious character, succeeded him on the throne by the title of Catharine II.; and her ambition gave a fresh impulse to Russian policy, which assumed the aggressive character by which it has ever since been distinguished.

When the throne of Poland became vacant, it was a Russian army that dictated the choice of a king, although the country was distracted long afterwards by civil war. The complaints of the Porte of the continual occupation of the country by Russian troops led to a Turkish war, in which the Russians were victorious both by sea and by land. The Porte was compelled to acknowledge the CrimTartars independent, and to yield to Russia an extensive tract of country. About this time the first partition of Poland took place, which gave Polotsk and Moghilev to Russia, and laid the foundation of future oppressions. A dangerous conspiracy was also formed by an impostor who personated the deceased Peter III. It was, however, quelled, and he suffered death in 1775. The internal administration was simplified during this reign by the division of the empire

into forty-three governments, with separate jurisdictions, and by the gradual promulgation of a new code of laws. Desert places were colonised, and hundreds of new towns built.

During the greater part of the reign of Catharine, the Russian policy had been opposed to that of England; but the outbreak of the French Revolution changed this disposition, and an alliance and a commercial treaty were concluded between the two powers in 1793; but no hostile part was taken by the empress against France, as her attention was engaged by the second partition of Poland, by which she gained Podolia and the Ukraine, and half Lithuania and Volhynia, besides her former acquisitions. A revolt of the Poles, however, ensued under Kosciusko and Medalinski; but it was quelled with a slaughter of twenty thousand Poles, and the nationality of this unhappy people was extinguished. The third partition now taking place, Russia added Courland and the remainder of Lithuania and Volhynia to her wide-spreading dominions.

Catharine II. having thus succeeded in the favourite object of her policy, died in 1796; and her son Paul, a weak, yet tyrannic prince, ascended the throne. He joined the second grand coalition against France; and the Russian troops under Suvorof and others distinguished themselves in Switzerland and Italy in the campaign of 1799. But soon after this Paul abandoned his allies, and concluded a peace with the First Consul, and put himself at the head of the Convention of the North-a union of the northern powers on the system of an armed neutrality against the maritime supremacy of Great Britain. A war with England seemed inevitable, when Paul was murdered in his palace by a band of conspirators in the year 1801.

He was succeeded by his son Alexander, whose first step was to effect a pacification with England, and disband an army of 45,000 Cossacks, which Paul had assembled with the wild design of attacking India. The Russian relations with France, however, remained peaceful until 1805, when Alexander refused to acknowledge Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor, and, joining with Austria against him, was defeated at the famous battle of Austerlitz. In 1806, the renewed alliance of Turkey with France was made the excuse for occupying Moldavia and Walachia; but the victories of the French led to the celebrated conference between Alexander and Napoleon, and the peace of Tilsit which followed. It is scarcely worth while to narrate the treaties and alliances made and broken during the few following years. In 1812, a final rupture with France took place, and an alliance with England and Sweden was formed. Napoleon marched an army of 500,000 men into Russia; but the disasters of the French belong more to their history than to this. The country was everywhere laid waste, and the conflagration of Moscow deprived the invaders of food and shelter, and compelled their retreat in a winter of unexampled severity even for Russia. Nine-tenths of this vast body perished amid indescribable sufferings.

After the restoration of the Bourbons to the crown of France in 1815, Russia became the head of the 'Holy Alliance' entered into by Russia, Austria, Prussia, and France, for the suppression of revolutionary principles; and for the remainder of his reign, Alexander occupied himself chiefly with the internal affairs of his vast empire. It was during one of his tours of inspection that Alexander died at a place called Taganrog, on the river Don, December 1825, aged forty-eight. He left no children, and was succeeded by his brother Nicholas, the third son of Paul; Constantine, the second brother, having previously renounced the succession. After a brief ebullition of reformatory zeal, Nicholas reverted to the ancient policy of the czars-absolute despotism and military rule. Among the events that marked his reign may be mentioned the conversion of the nominal kingdom of Poland into a Russian province, and the subjugation of the tribes of the Caucasus. An insane ambition to add European Turkey to his vast dominions led him into the Crimean War (1853), in which his designs were baffled by England and France. His son, Alexander II., who succeeded him in 1855, has rendered his name illustrious by the abolition of the state of serfdom in which the greater part of the peasantry were held. Throughout the present reign, as well as the last, the policy has been steadily pursued of crushing out the last sparks of national life in the Polish subjects of Russia, and effacing every trace of their once separate political existence-even to their religion and language; while the irrepressible craving for new territories that seems to be hereditary in the reigning House, has been gratified at the expense of China and of Independent Tartary. Towards the east, the Russian empire, since 1858, extends southward to the Amur, and embraces a coast tract to the south of that river, reaching nearly to the peninsula of Corea. And in Western Turkestan the Russian outposts have, during recent years, been stealthily but steadily advancing towards the Hindu Kush; and Khiva, Samarcand, and Bokhara are now (1869) virtually Russian towns.

Thus the empire that was in a sense created by Peter the Great now embraces a surface of nearly 8,000,000 square miles, with a population of above 77,000,000.

DINBURGH, the capital of Scotland, occupies a picturesque situation on a cluster of eminences, at the distance of a mile and a half south from the Firth of Forth-an arm of the sea, which is here about six miles in breadth. The town has extended almost to the shore of the Firth, and has thus formed a connection with Leith, the ancient port, Newhaven, a fishing village, and Granton, a modern and rising steamboat station. The country around Edinburgh is a happy blending of hill and plain. Closely adjoining, on the east, is the Calton Hill; on the south-east, Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags; at the distance of three miles to the south-west is the range of the Pentland Hills; and within a mile on the north-west is the richlywooded Corstorphine Hill. The rest of the neighbourhood consists of fine fertile fields, well cultivated, and ornamented with gardens and villas.

Twelve hundred years ago, Edwin, a king of Northumbria (to which this part of Scotland was then attached), built a fort on the rocky height on which the castle now stands, and hence, as is No. 82.

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