English towns is rarely allowed to appear, and the practice of letting to the humbler classes the cellars of large houses is very prevalent, as in other continental cities. Most of the houses are built on piles, as in Venice and Holland, the ground not being sufficiently firm for a stone foundation without them.

There are two sorts of ruble, the paper and the silver one; the former being equal to 11d. English, and the latter to 3s. 4d.: originally the one of these represented the other, but of late the paper has been depreciated to this extent. A platina coin, called an imperial, of the value of nearly a guinea, has been lately struck at this mint. Among the other public buildings of interest are the University, the Museum of the Academy of Sciences, the prison, a refuge for the destitute, a cotton manufoundlings, and the china, glass, and iron manufactories. The houses of the working people are chiefly of wood, with projecting Swiss roofs, small windows, and narrow balconies. Those of the upper classes are of stuccoed brick, with a profusion of Grecian pillars and pilasters. In all, the principal article of furniture is the stove, consisting of four walls of brick, cased outside with white or painted tiles, rising to a height of five or six feet, whereby the air of the whole room is equally heated. In the winter every house is fitted with double, or additional windows, to exclude the external air, so that in the severest winter thermometers in dwellinghouses usually stand at 60° of Fahrenheit.

Most of the original edifices have been destroyed by time, or by fire, and none of the principal streets are now permitted to be built of wood. The usual material is brick, well stuccoed; and the proprietors being com-factory, giving employment to 2000 adults and 800 pelled to renew the outer wash once a year, the buildings always look new. The modern houses are built on piles, the ground being marshy. They are lofty, and generally handsome, with roofs nearly flat, and sheeted with iron painted red or green. They are all numbered, and the name of the proprietor is on each door. The groundfloors are chiefly shops, and families occupy the first and second stories. The panes of glass in the windows are often as large as six feet by four, and upwards, so that each appears as a separate window. The streets are straight, broad, and long, intersecting each other at angles, and the larger have foot pavements—an improvement introduced after Alexander's visit to England. At the corner of each street is a policeman in a sentry-box. Three large, and several smaller canals, studded with bridges of cast iron and granite, facilitate the intercourse between the different parts of the city, whose circumference, on both banks of the Neva, is nearly twenty miles, though scarcely a fourth part of this area is covered with buildings.

The island of Cronstadt, the station for the Russian shipping, is at the mouth of the Neva, twenty miles from St. Petersburgh. About 15,000 sailors are kept here, trained to act as a marine corps against an enemy. All large ships are built at St. Petersburgh in a dock-yard off the granite quay, and are carried down to Cronstadt in hollow cases of wood, called camels, which are so con

the shoals in that part of the river near the city.

St. Petersburgh is 465 miles distant from Moscow; and the journey by the diligence occupies four days and four nights. It has been alleged that a great fault was committed in the selection of the site of the new capital by its founder, on account of the low and swampy soil on which it is placed, and the number of circumjacent islands into which the river divides the country. But Peter the Great, convinced of the important political and commercial advantages of the situation, deemed any such inconveniences a merely second consideration, and relied upon the success of the efforts of human skill and industry for overcoming any local difficulties of that kind. He had the example of the founders of Venice on his side, and he knew that the great towns in Holland had no other beginning.

The waters of the Neva are perfectly blue and trans-structed as to raise the hull of the ship, and float it over parent, and reflect the long line of Grecian pillars on the banks. This river, at its broadest part, is about three-quarters of a 'mile wide, and is deep enough for heavy ships; but a bar across the mouth prevents vessels drawing more than seven feet from going higher up. On one side is a quay of granite, ten feet above the level of the water, and two miles and a half in length. Near the Isaac-bridge, in the centre of the city, is the famous bronze equestrian statue of Peter the Great, weighing sixteen tons, and resting on a piece of granite of nearly 1500 tons, being the largest block ever moved by art. We shall give a more particular description of this colossal statue in our next number. The three principal streets branch off from the Admiralty-square, as from a common centre, like the sticks of a fan. They are called prospectives, and the most beautiful is the Nevski Prospektive, 180 feet in breadth, and above two English miles in length. The houses are of stuccoed brick, and the shops are good, but as a whole it is much inferior to our Regent-street. In the centre of this street stands the "Church of our Lady of Kazan," which occupied ten years in building, and resembles St. Peter's in the plan of the interior. It contains the monuments of Moreau and Kutusoff.

The general impression which St. Petersburgh presents to the traveller is assuredly one of the most magnificent in Europe; for though it does not, like Naples and Constantinople, convey the idea of beautiful nature and picturesque situation, nor do the streets or shops impart the notion given by those of London and Paris, of the wealth and luxury of the inhabitants, yet it much surpasses other cities in the number and magnitude of the public buildings, the bold style of architecture which pervades every part, and the total absence of those wretched courts and lanes which, in other cities, are the dark and unhealthy abodes of the poorer classes. It was not without reason that a French traveller, newly arrived, asked where the people lived? for no capital contains buildings of so striking an appearance, nor so many private houses which may rival even the palaces of Rome.

"To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be

The royal residences are so numerous that St. Petersburgh may well be called "a city of palaces." The Marble Palace, the Hermitage, and the Winter Palace are on the quay of the Neva, in a line with the façade of the Admiralty; that of the Grand Duke Michael, with the Imperial Taurida and Anichkoff, are in the interior of the capital; those of Oranienbaum, Yelageni, Kammenoi, and several others, are outside the city. The Hermitage was the residence of the Empress Catherine, and contains a gallery of valuable pictures, impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it among which is the Houghton collection, once belong-were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of ing to Sir Robert Walpole. The Winter Palace is the our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the largest royal residence in Europe, occupying an area future, predominate over the present, advances us in the of 45,000 square yards, and capable of accommodating dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my a thousand inmates. The great Hall of St. George, in friends, be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifthis palace, is 140 feet by 60, surrounded by forty marble fied by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be ferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignienvied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plains The Mint is a well-conducted establishment, the maof Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among chinery and superintendents being English. The com- the ruins of Iona."-Dr. Johnson. Tour in the Western mon coin is a ruble, divided into 100 copper kopecks. \ Islands of Scotland.

columns in double rows.

THE OLD CHURCH OF CHELSEA.

[Chelsea Church, from the River.]

ANY one who has made a trip by water to Richmond must have observed this ancient-looking building of red brick, rising, with its tower, close by the side of the river, a few hundred yards below Battersea Bridge. Its form, independently of the tower, is nearly a square, of inconsiderable dimensions. The first church of which this spot was the site is supposed to have been erected in the reign of Edward II., or about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The present church, however, is no older than the year 1667; although it is to be considered, in some degree, rather as the former edifice repaired and enlarged than as altogether a new structure. The chief interest which it possesses is derived from the numerous monuments which it contains; and a good many of these are older than the date we have just mentioned, and appear still to retain the positions which they occupied on the walls of the former church. The principal alteration seems to have consisted in extending the aisles a few yards farther west. The walls were also raised, and the old tower was pulled down to the foundation. Of the monuments the one which every visitor naturally feels inclined first to examine is that of Sir Thomas More. It stands on the south wall, near the east end, and consists of an arched recess, very plainly decorated with the crest and armorial bearings of the deceased, under which is a black marble slab, bearing a long Latin inscription. It is certain that during More's life-time, in the year 1532, he erected a tomb for himself in this church, and probably on or near the spot where the present monument stands; but that, there can be no doubt, exists no longer. The antiquary, Aubrey, in his Lives, expressly tells us that More's original monument, which he terms "slight," "being worn by time, about 1644 Sir John Lawrence, of Chelsea, at his own proper costs and charges, erected to his memory a handsome inscription of marble." If this statement is correct, the present monument must be that erected by Sir John Lawrence; a supposition, moreover, which is confirmed not only by the characters of the inscription,

which do not appear to be of the age of More, but by another very curious peculiarity. The inscription, written by Sir Thomas himself, contains an abstract of his life from his birth upwards, and, in summing up the catalogue of his preferments, describes him as having been at once honoured by being taken into the service of his king, respected by the nobility, regarded with favour by the people, and disliked only, it is added, by thieves and murderers,-after which occurs a blank in the line. This epitaph, however, as it originally stood, is found in the folio edition of More's English works, printed in 1557, and also in a collection of tracts and letters by Erasmus, printed at Antwerp in 1534, from both of which authorities it appears that the words here left out were "hereticisque," and by heretics. There can be no question that this expression was omitted in the transcription of the epitaph for the new monument, either because its restoration would not have been permitted in 1644, or, more probably, because it had long before been obliterated by protestant zeal from the old monument, and may not have been known to those who superintended the transcription. More defends the very words in question in a letter on the subject to Erasmus, and his defence is consistent with his general character: for, with all his great merits, More was so imbued with the intolerant spirit of his times, as to be a persecutor for religion's sake, even unto death. More was executed on the 6th of July, 1535, and, according to some authorities, while his head was exposed upon Temple Bar, his body was brought to Chelsea and deposited under this monument. But there is every reason to believe that it was really interred not here but in the Tower. In this church, however, or, at least, within the old walls out of which the present fabric rose, Si Thomas used, with his family, regularly to attend those services of the ancient religion to which he was so devotedly attached. He was wont to seat himself, it is related, attired in a white surplice in the choir, and, of course, very near the place where his monument is now erected; and he seems to have taken a leading and conspicuous part in the musical service of the day. Here it is particularly recorded that he made his appearance on the Sunday after he had resigned his office of Lord High Chancellor, his eye beaming on all around him its usual expression of cheerfulness and benevolence; and it was only on his way home that he communicated to his wife, who was a good deal of a shrew, the change which had taken place in his condition, turning the matter, as his manner was, into a good-humoured jest. This was on the 16th of May, 1532, and it was in the course of that summer that he set up his monument. All this neighbourhood breathes of the memory of More, and after the lapse of three hundred years may be said to retain a sort of sacredness with which his footsteps have impressed it. His house, a large and handsome edifice, surrounded by extensive and tastefully laidout grounds, which he built himself in 1521, stood about a quarter of a mile west from the church; the intervening space in those days being probably only fields and gardens, though now transformed into a street. The property stood where the range of houses called Beaufort Row is now built; and after More's time was successively in the possession of the Villiers family (from whom the house was called Buckingham House), of the Beauforts, and lastly of Sir Hans Sloane, who sold it in 1740 to a person who pulled the house down. Not a fragment of More's residence now remains. But it was here that he lived during the days of his greatest prosperity and celebrity. Erasmus, in one of his letters, has given a most interesting account of his friend's domestic establishment here, which has been often quoted; but it is to be recollected that the great scholar could have spoken as to this matter only from hearsay, or from his recollection of what he had seen of the habits of More's family in some former residence, as it is cer

Spectators, speaks contemptuously of the "rural squires whose reading does not rise so high as to the Present State of England." Finally, in the burying-ground, near the south-east corner of the church, is the monument of Sir Hans Sloane, the celebrated physician, naturalist, and collector, who died in 1753, at the age of ninety-two.

A WASP'S NEST.

tain he never was himself in England after the year | 1518. Hither the capricious Henry himself used frequently to resort, sometimes to honour his subject's festive board, and sometimes to enjoy a richer banquet from his stores of learning, eloquence, and wit. On one occasion the two were seen walking in the gardens, the King's arm thrown around More's neck. When Sir Thomas was congratulated on this extraordinary evidence. of his sovereign's affection, he answered, that, for all that, he knew well his majesty, could it win him any town or castle he wished to acquire in France, would not hesitate to send him to the block. And it was doubtless along this part of the margin of the Thames that the Chancellor was walking with his son-in-law, Roper, on the occasion immediately before his resignation of the seals, when, unburthening his heart, weighed down by many anxieties, he forcibly and pathetically exclaimed, that if certain matters of public concern, which he enumerated, could be well settled he should be content to be tied up in a sack and thrown into that river. Nor above all ought it to be forgotten that it was in this house that the famous painter, Holbein, resided for nearly three years with More, on his first coming to England, and finished many of the most admirable productions of his pencil. It was here he was first introduced to Henry VIII. There are several paintings of Sir Thomas More and his family still existing, which seem to have been executed by this great artist; and Mr. Brayley, in his Londiniana, has given an engraving, reduced from a print of this subject, which is stated to have been taken from the life, and has the date of 1533. The original of this print Mr. Brayley had not discovered; but there can be no doubt of its being taken from a sketch by Holbein, sent by Margaret Roper (More's eldest daughter) to Erasmus, as described by the latter in his Letters, and still preserved in the Town Hall at Basil. Indeed Dr. Knight, in his Life of Eras-pended above the surface, or exposed to view; this, mus, published in the early part of the last century, has given an engraving of this picture, in all respects corresponding with that in the Londiniana. It bears the signature Johannes Holbein; but this is not, as Mr. Brayley supposes, an error for Hans Holbein, Hans being merely Length from a to b between nine and ten inches; its the Dutch form of Joannes or John. The picture ex-width from c to d six inches. It contained five horihibits, assembled together in a room, Sir Thomas, his father, Sir John More, their wives, Sir Thomas's three daughters, and their companion Margaret Gige, his son John, and Henry Paterson, his fool, whom, after his resignation of the chancellorship, and his descent to a station not requiring such an appendage, he presented to the city of London to serve as one of the household of the Lord Mayor.

There are several other monuments in the church, which are interesting memorials of past times.

[A Wasp's Nest pendent from a Willow.]

AN intelligent correspondent sends us the following description of a wasp's nest: "A nest (which I took recently) was remarkable for its situation and construction. I have seen many, but all, with this exception, situated in banks, walls, or the ground, but never sus

however, was pendent from a twig of willow over a bog in my plantation. You have above the best sketch I am able to give, and I trust it will convey a correct idea of its situation and form.

zontal layers of comb, concave on the upper side, and convex on the lower; suspended from each other by attachments, as shown at e. The cells were laid, sloping in one direction, as at f; their total number amounted to about 1,769. The entrance was about half an inch in

fifteen in number.

The lover of the remnants of old customs will examine, too, with interest a small bookcase formed in the western wall, in which are contained a Bible, in large folio and good condition, but with all the title-pages torn out, a copy of Fox's Martyrs, a Prayer Book, and a book of Homilies, all attached by iron chains. There are a few monuments also on the outside deserving of a charcoal. notice of which one is that of Dr. Edmund Chamberlayne, who died in 1703, and on which is an inscription recording the strange fact, that deposited in the grave below along with the body of the Doctor are several of his literary publications, which he had ordered to be well sealed up in wax and put aside in this manner, to give them the better chance of going down to posterity. The tomb is said to have been searched more than once for these books, but it does not appear that anything was ever found. Dr. Chamberlayne's principal work was the well-known volume entitled Angliæ Notitiæ, or the Present State of England, first published in 1668, and of which new editions appeared annually for thirty-eight years. Addison, in one of his

diameter, and situated on the lower part at g. The shell, or paper envelope, appeared distinct from the comb, so as to allow of free communication with each division. The upper part at a appeared solid, and the lower part at b an open space, on one side of which was the entrance. The shell or envelope was composed of many layers of a paper-like substance, on the sides about The comb, when burnt, produced

THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS. THE extraordinary subterraneous quarries known by the name of the Catacombs, extend under a very great part of the city of Paris. For the first building of Paris, the stone was raised in the environs, and as the city was enlarged, the suburbs were built imperceptibly over the ancient quarries, so that all that is seen beyond the ancient limits is essentially wanting in foundation. The Faubourg St. Jacques, the Rue de la Harpe, and the Rue Tournon, stand immediately over the ancient quarries, and pillars have been erected in very many places to support the weight of the houses. The principal entrance is near

Among the many inscriptions, taken either from Scripture or from poets, there is a remarkable one over the spring, which was originally discovered by the workmen, for whose use the basin was made, and whose waters are carried off by a subterraneous aqueduct. M. de Thury named it, at first, "the Spring of Oblivion," and inscribed over it three lines of Virgil. But this inscription has been since changed for one of the most apposite texts that could have been found in Scripture:-" Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

the Barrière St. Jacques, where there is a descent by steps | upper excavation-built pillars to support the dangerous to the depth of 360 feet perpendicular. At the entrance parts of the roof and, in short, was the great renovator the path is narrow for a considerable way; but the visitor of the place, which has subsequently had comparatively afterwards enters large and spacious streets, all marked little attention bestowed upon it. with names, as in the city above, and advertisements and bills are not unfrequently to be seen pasted on the walls, so that the place has in some measure the appearance of a large town swallowed up in the earth. The general height of the roof is about nine or ten feet, but in some parts not less than thirty, and even forty. Under the houses and many of the streets, the roof seems to be tolerably secured by immense stones set in mortar; in other parts, where there are only fields or gardens above, it is totally unsupported for considerable distances, the roof being level, or a plane piece of rock. After the visitor had walked about two miles, it used to be the custom to show him into a kind of saloon cut out of the rock, and said to be exactly under the church of St. Jacques, which was occasionally illuminated, and contained representations in miniature of fortifications, with cannons ready to fire, &c. The journey through the Catacombs is, however, a very tedious one, and the damp and cold air is often attended with unwholesome effects. The temperature is, for the most part, colder than on the surface of the earth, except in hard frosts, when it is said to be otherwise. In some of the passages and caverns where the rock is low, and in the descent, an oppression of breathing is felt. For many years there have not been more than two entrances into the quarries, viz., at the Barrière St. Jacques, near the Observatory, and at the Val de Grace, it having been deemed necessary to secure all the entrances, from its having been formerly inhabited by a gang of robbers, who infested Paris. Of late, however, on account of the alleged insecurity, the Catacombs have been closed from the public, and it is a matter of difficulty to obtain admission to them. The majority of travellers must therefore now be contented with a mere description of these famous caverns, and console themselves by their escaping from divers rheumatisms and coughs, which they would doubtless have brought up with them from the gypsum beds.

The Catacombs contain all the visible remains of human creatures, that had filled the burial-places within the walls of Paris for nearly a thousand years. They were brought from the cemeteries, particularly that of "Les Innocens," in 1788, and it was the plan of M. Lenoir, Lieutenant-General of the Police, that these bones should be placed in regular rows, with appropriate inscriptions, serving as lessons to the living. The skulls, of which there are above two millions, are placed in conjunction with the bones of the legs and arms, in a manner which has a very striking appearance. Many of these belonged to the victims of revolution; the dead of the 10th of August, and those of the 2nd and 3rd of September, 1792, are deposited there in separate divisions; and for these, a yearly service has been celebrated, since the Restoration, on the place of their interment. The different parts of the Catacombs are named, with strange incongruity, after the purport of the inscription which was placed there, or from the name of the author of the inscription. Virgil, Ovid, and Anacreon, have each their crypts, as well as the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel; and Hervey, the author of the Meditations, takes his place with Horace, Malherbes, and Jean Baptiste Rousseau. Among the ornaments is a fountain, in which four golden fish were, or are still, imprisoned. The Catacombs were much improved in 1810, under the care of M. de Thury, who stopped the access of the water which filtered through the roof-made galleries through the bones, which in some places were above thirty yards thick-provided a circulation of air, by means of the necks of bottles-carried off the water in channels-constructed steps from the lower to the

There is scarcely any exception to the fact, that there is among all nations, even the most savage, a strong and tender feeling for the remains of their dead; and it is remarkable, that so universal is the sentiment, that although, for the inhabitants of maritime cities and of the sea-coast the most obvious and easiest mode of disposing of the dead would be by committing them to the deep, yet no such method seems to have prevailed, because it would have the appearance of casting them away, rather than of depositing them in peace. In visiting such repositories of the mortal remains of our species, as the Catacombs, it is impossible not to be struck with the reverential feeling which has established so extensive a place of sepulture, and has preserved it inviolate and hallowed, amidst all political commotions, notwithstanding that spirit of insult and contumely for sacred things, which will be the everlasting reproach of the first French revolution, and of the eventful years that followed it. The epitaphs and inscriptions to be seen in the cemeteries of France frequently show a disposition to treat death with levity; but there is no reason to charge the French with a want of respect or affection for the mortal remains of their great men, their friends, or their kindred. Whether or not such cemeteries as the Catacombs, or of Père la Chaise, be the best and most natural mode of burying and preserving the dead, is a question depending very much on the genius and temper of each nation, and on the difference of religion. In this country, however, picturesque burialgrounds, laid out as public promenades, would probably be thought by few to be consistent either with good taste or good feeling.

In passing along the walls and battlements of skulls in the Catacombs of Paris, there is yet another and a more important reflection, which can hardly fail to come home to the visitors of this city of the dead. These grim visages of mortality cannot but suggest to us what a momentary space is the life of man, between the eternity of the past and of the future. What is now the abode of the spirits that once animated these skulls and skeletons, or what is to be our own destination after death, we may guess as long as we please, and guess in vain, for this knowledge is hidden from man. Philosophers have been speculating for thousands of years, whether or not our souls survive our bodies, and the result is, that philosophy can give us no certain information upon the subject. It is religion that holds out the strongest hopes that the grave is not our last home, and that our destination is to a higher sphere than tombs and catacombs. If, therefore, in our career of life, we have great need of hope to sustain and cheer us in worldly affairs, (and who has not felt such need?) how much more valuable ought to be those cheering hopes of a life to come, which religion alone is able to afford us?