Hence you see, between vegetables and ice, the two seasons (thus imprisoned during their own proper reigns, to break forth and invade each other's rights), occupy almost as great an extent of building underground as the city possesses above.

Count Razumofsky's house is in every way answerable to the splendor of his entertainments: it is lately rebuilt; and in a style that does honour to his taste and liberality. I am told that the structure alone, cost him a million of rubles. He possesses many expensive pictures ; but as they are not yet arranged, I had not an opportunity of judging of their merits. Only one saloon is completely hung: and that is with very fine works from the Dutch school.

In one of the rooms I observed a portrait of Peter the Great, which more resembled the statue of Falconet than any I had yet seen. Its features convey an elevation of soul and energy perfectly consistent with a representation of that hero. A circumstance which the Count related, gave an additional interest to the picture. He requested I would notice that the head had been sewed into the present canvass on which the figured is painted. That small piece, he told me, was the only part that was original; the rest having been added by an ancestor of his own.

While Peter the First was travelling in Holland in his usual incognito style, he stopped at an inn on the road for refreshments. He was shewn into a room where a large picture hung at the upper end: it was a portrait. And as he sat at his meal he observed the landlord look several times from him to the portrait, and from the portrait to him,

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with a kind of comparing scrutiny. Whose picture is that?" enquired the Emperor.

"The Tzar of Moscovy:" replied the man; "it was brought to me from Paris, and every body says it is his very self. And I was thinking it is very like you, Sir."

Peter made no answer to this latter observation; but affecting to eat his dinner with too keen an appetite to hear distinctly, finished it in a few minutes; and paying his reckoning as an ordinary passenger, sent the landlord out of the room on some excuse; then taking a knife from his pocket, cut the head from the shoulders of the portrait and put it in his breast. He left a large sum of money on the table, more than sufficient he thought, to pay the damage he had done; and immediately before the mischief was discovered, took his departure in his humble equipage. This act was to prevent his being recognised as he proceeded, by any who might have afterwards stopped at the same inn, and like the landlord have perceived the resemblance: and certainly, but for the equivalent on the table, the deed itself would never be supposed to have been that of an Emperor.

On his return to Russia, he gave this relic to an ancestor of Count Razumofsky to whom the Monarch told the story attached to it, with much merriment at the idea of what must have been the amazement of the observing landlord, when he saw both the head and its likeness flown.

This was not the only interesting object which excited my attention

during my visit to the munificent Count. I met with a man under the protection of this nobleman, whose history might afford grounds for a very pretty romance. He is a Frenchman, a native of Bourdeaux; and was put, when a boy, on board a merchant ship, in order to learn the duty of a sailor. Soon after this, the war broke out between Great Britain and the Republic, and the ship in which he sailed was taken, and he carried prisoner to England. However, he did not remain in confinement long, but entered on board a small British ship of war As fate would have bound to our settlements in New Holland.

it, a violent storm arose; and the vessel was wrecked on one of the islands not many leagues from Otaheite. Himself and one seaman were the only persons who escaped; for not a trace of the men, nor the ship, remained, after the tempestuous horrors of the scene dispersed.

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The inhabitants, instead of seizing them as a prey, received the sufferers with the most humane hospitality. Hope for a while flattered them that some ship might also be driven thitherward: which not enduring so much as their's had, would return them safe to Europe. But days and weeks wearing away without any signs of release, they at last began to regard the island as their future home. And a short time so accustomed them to the society and manners of the country, that in a few months more, they were perfectly resigned to their situation. degrees they laid aside European modes, and assumed the habits of the natives; forsaking their clothes; hunting and fishing, and doing just as if they had been born amid the Friendly Isles. They learnt the language, allowed themselves to be tattooed; and at length sealed their insular fates by marriage.

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The subject of my narrative was little more than fifteen when he thus domesticated himself. Being of a handsome person, he was honoured with the hand of the daughter of the King, or Chief; and having become thus royally allied, he received the investiture of nobility; namely a process of tattooing confined to chiefs alone. The body thus imprinted, if I may use the expression, is marked all over with a beautiful damask pattern, in forms not inferior to the finest Etruscan borders. The most eminent insignia of his royal distinction was, that the whole of the left side of his forehead, and below his eye, was one dark mass of tattoo. This latter appendage might please a savage taste, but it certainly was very hideous. But independently of that, I must acknowledge, to me there is something very admirable in the idea of a fine male figure without any other covering than these beautiful enamellings: his feathered crown, and bow and quiver, seem to apparel him like a savage god. So true is nature to herself, that she never feels such an awful admiration of the human form divine, as when she beholds it in its native freedom. What figure clothed in all the pomp of robes, and crowns, and sceptres, ever so impressed the mind with a stamp of greatness, as the Apollo Belvedere? And surely, when we consider the athletic pursuits and liberty of limbs with the noble stature of many of the natives across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, my respected friend, the President of the British Royal Academy, well expressed himself, when on leaving America, a youth, and first beholding the Apollo at Rome, he exclaimed: "What a fine Mohawk warrior!" It was the language of nature, and a true compliment to the artist. Owing to the present habits of civilization being totally different from those of ancient Greece, the human structure seldom attains any perfection: so no wonder the exclamation that the Apollo recalled the remembrance of any existing

men, should surprise the generality of hearers. I have been more lucky; thanks to the mold in which nature cast some forms of my acquaintance, and the exercises which completed them! You know, to the vast expence of your time and patience, the use my pencil makes of the living models which a happy fate has thrown in my way; for painters may boast as they will about ideal beauty, but the outline of no fancied figure ever carried with it such perfect grace and harmony, as one drawn from a really existing being, of fine proportions and manly character. It was the study of nature alone that formed the Grecian artists. From the lovely females of Greece was the celebrated Venus modelled and from the beautiful and naked youths, drawing their bows on the sands of the Egean Sea, did the sculptor of the Python Apollo collect the graces of that transcendent figure.

But to return to my adventurer of the isles. His tattooing has carried me into an almost Shandean digression: but having just united him to a fond bride, I hope there is no need of apology for leaving him so long. However, I shall resume.

The young Frenchman and his companion, a few days after the wreck, had found means to save some articles which were afterwards very serviceable to them. But the most precious things they preserved, were fire-arms, with some gunpowder: and for once, the importing of that death-dispersing article was productive of blessings to the people amongst whom it came. Our new young chief, and his British companion, exerted themselves to a good effect in putting a stop to the practice of devouring the prisoners taken in war. The marriage of the former invested him with authority. And having learnt the language,