LETTER XIX.

Mosco, April, 1806.

MOSCO is luxuriantly situated on an extent of country ra ther irregular, having in its spacious champaign a few rising grounds. Of all cities I ever beheld it is the most curious and un-European. On viewing it from an eminence you see a vast plain, as far as the eye can reach, covered with houses, even to the very horizon; where the lofty towers of gorgeous palaces, and the glittering steeples of churches, sparkle in the sky.

The city is built on the banks of two rivers, the Moskva (whence it takes its name), and the Yausa. Mosco was anciently divided into five districts; and as they in part yet retain their distinctions, you will have a clearer idea of this colossal town by having a description of these partitions. They lie one within the other. The interior circle is called the Kremlin, a Tartarian word for the fortress. The Kitaigorod, or Tartar town, is the second circle. The Biel-gorod called so (the white town) from a wall of that hue which surrounds it, is the third. The fourth circle is named Zemlenoi-gorod from its earthen rampart. The slobodes, or suburbs, inclose all these, and form the extremest boundary of Mosco.

The Kremlin stands in the centre of the city on an elevated bank of the Moskva. Within its walls stands the ancient palace of the tzars; rendered particularly interesting from the circumstance of its having been the residence of princes, whose names need only be mentioned to command the homage of every heart loyal to true kingly virtue. Mikhaila Romanoff, Alexey Mikhailovitch, Feodor, and the Great Peter, once inhabited these towers; and still sanctify them by their memories. The appearance of the palace is venerable; but it contains nothing of any consequence to see.

The cathedrals around the palace, which I understand are five in number, besides convents, parish churches, and colleges, give it rather a monastic solemnity. These are all richly endowed, and ornamented in the most costly manner. In one of

161 the churches lie the remains of the prince Demetrius who was so cruelly murdered, and is now regarded as a saint. Along with his relics repose those of several grand-princes and tzars. Their tombs are of stone, covered with palls of scarlet velvet superbly embroidered. The cathedral dedicated to the Ascension, possesses a perfect treasury of religious consecrations; and it is distinguished above the rest, in being the place where all the emperors of Russia are crowned. Not far from the ca thedral is the synodal palace, where formerly the patriarchs dwelt, and which now contains an invaluable library. Near to that is the senate house, a magnificent building erected by Catherine the Second. And also the arsenal, a strong compact edifice. The Kremlin is parted from the Tartar town by a brick wall whitened, very high, and embattled in the eastern manner. My sketch of the city and this fortress will show you the form of the fortification. At various distances are towers, square and round, with spiral minarets, covered with scaly tiles like the skin of fish, painted green, yellow, and crimson, surmounted with a gilded ball and fane. It is curious to observe the similarity between this turreted bulwark and the well known Chinese wall, so well pourtrayed in lord Macartney's account of his embassy to China. The resemblance is so close, that we might think the same engineer had exerted his abilities in both countries.

Before I left the precincts of this interesting place, I ascended the tower of the church of Ivan the Great, which commands a view of the whole surrounding plain. Although the monotonous paleness of winter then shrouded its bosom, yet the coup-d'ail was transcendently magnificent. The sun shone with unattempered splendor through an atmosphere, whose clearness cannot be conceived in England; the variegated colours on the tops of innumerable buildings; the sparkling particles of snow on the earth and palaces; the fanes and crescents of the churches flashing their blazing gold; and, added to all, the busy world beneath, passing and repassing in their superb dresses and decorated sledges, presented such a scene of beauty and grandeur, that I should have thought myself repaid for

my disagreeable journey, had I even been obliged to return to St. Petersburgh immediately, in beholding so glorious a view.

The Kitai-gorod, the second division, is built round the Kremlin. Some, by that term, mean to call it the Tartar city; and others, the Chinese town. I have not acquired Russ enough to tell you whether the word Kitai equally applies to China and to Tartary: but that both nations have a pretence to naming it, we all know; the Tartars by their conquests; and the Chinese from the great commerce they once held with Mosco. This district, by way of eminence, is usually called Gorod, the City; and is surrounded with a wall and other fortifications. From the number of its shops and warehouses, and the Asiatic apparel of the buyers and sellers, it reminded me of what I had read of Bagdat in the time of the Caliphs, when the chief merchants of the east used to assemble in its populous streets. The number of shops and warehouses which compose this mart, are nearly six thousand.

There are some colleges in this city, and many private residences, amongst the most spacious of which is the house of Count Tcheremetieff. Its churches are mostly on the plan of those of St. Petersburgh, of which, I believe, I formerly gave you a sketch. Some in this district are of the ancient architecture; and others, built in more modern taste, are grotesque imitations of Greek and Roman temples: and yet, notwithstanding their defects, they form not an unpleasing variety with the Asiatic structures around. The effect of the latter edifices is picturesque and splendid. The great mass or body of the church is square, ornamented with small semicircular arches and columns, similar to our Saxon architecture. This building is surmounted by five minarets, one at each end, and a larger in the middle, shaped like an inverted balloon. They are all magnificently covered with ducat gold. A high gilt cross rises from the centre, beneath which is a crescent, a mark of triumph over Mahometanism both religious and military. When the Tartars, to whom Muscovy was subject two centuries, profaned any of the churches with their worship, they fixed the crescent, the badge of their prophet, upon its pinnacle. On

Mosco being regained to the empire by the grand-prince Ivan Basilovitch, he did not tear down the crescent, but planted the cross above it as a memorial of his victory. Not many paces from the main body of the church stands a narrow and higher tower of a different form from the minarets, being pyramidical. This contains the bells; and they are sounded by pulling their tongues against their sides: hence it is not difficult to toll those of the most enormous size. These machines are at work the greater part of the day; but very lucky it is both for the steeples and the town that they are not struck in the English fashion: half the belfries would have been down by this time, and all the people in the city driven deaf. Imagine the bells of a thousand churches (with five at least in each), clanging all at once, without harmony or variety; for they never ring in peals! The noise, in quality, is as bad as marrow bones and cleavers; and in quan, tity, more uproarious than any thing I can conceive since Big Tom at Oxford bereft the university of their hearing, and broke all the windows in the town.

Over the grand entrance of the church, is usually painted the legend of the Saint to whom it is dedicated. The inside is embellished in a similar taste, with gothic ornaments, and pictures imitated from Albert Durer, in a style not likely to rescue the fame of the Russian artists. The most remarkable church in Mosco for these internal decorations, is within this circle. It was the production of an Italian architect, brought from Italy by the tyrant Ivan Basilovitch on purpose to build him a church. On his arrival, the monarch gave him orders to erect an edifice that should be unequalled in taste and splendor throughout the world. Ivan was obeyed. The fabric was finished: and all Mosco crowded to express their admiration of its perfections. The poor artist's head could not bear such a whirlwind of adulation, and being complimented by a lord of the court on having produced a proof of his skill that never could be equalled, his intoxicated vanity dictated this unfortunate reply;

"It is nothing to one I could yet build!"

This declaration reached the ears of the tzar. The Italian was summoned; and the tyrant, repeating what he had heard added, "I shall put it out of your power to make any other

country boast a church more splendid than mine." And immediately had the wretched man's eyes thrust out in his presence.

Time and circumstances are powerful changers of taste. I looked at this wondrous structure with all my admiration directed to the stupidity of the artist, and the blindness of the prince, in not discovering it to be the most clumsy, cumbersome, and hideous mass that ever disgraced a civilized country. I am almost inclined to believe that the turn of the story should be reversed; and that the tyrant, struck with the failure of his plan, determined to deserve the world's gratitude in one act at least, by rendering so vile an architect incapable of again burthening any part of the earth with the like specimen of ignorance, bad taste, and absurdity.

Biel-gorod, called the White Town from its ramparts, but formerly Tzaref (the city of the Tzars), surrounds the foregoing division; and consists of numerous monasteries, seventy churches, the university founded by the empress Elizabeth, the foundling hospital, and many public institutions, besides the spacious dwellings of some of the ancient princely families and other nobility.

Semlenoi-gorod, so called from its earthen boundary; and the slobodes or suburbs, form the outward girdle of this immense city; and in their numerous and antiquated streets show all the varieties attached to a great capital: on one side splendid mansions; on the other dingy hovels filled with all the depressing effects of bondage. The pleasantest parts of these suburbs are inhabited by Germans; and also a band of noble Georgians, who, with a large train of followers, retired hither. The districts allotted to these strangers partake of their character, and are very interesting.

It is now upwards of, six weeks since I arrived in this city; a month of which was passed under all the rigours of winter, when the snow lay four feet deep in many of the streets, and the long lines of the frozen rivers, and the surrounding country, were covered with the same deathly garb. But in a moment, as if by an act of an enchanter's wand, a universal thaw dissolved the whole. Thousands of boors were seen breaking up with their hatchets the large masses of dissolving ice, and carrying