CHAPTER VI. ment. PICTURE OF ST. PETERSBURGH. Buildings and Institutions connected with the Administration of Government. - THE SENATE HOUSE. - Code in the handwriting of Catherine II.-The ADMIRALTY. Buildings, plan, and internal arrangement. Its Cabinets of Natural History and National Curiosities. The Model Rooms. General Bentham and the Carriage-ship. - Launch of the Alexander, 110 guns, and two other ships of the line. Their conveyance to Cronstadt. — Russian Navy. The ETAT-MAJOR. Departments of Geography, Hydrography, and Land-Surveying. - The Lithographic DepartDepôt of Maps, and sale of them. Great Map of the Russian Empire. Secret Geographical Cabinet. Travelling Maps of Alexander. — Autograph Schemes of Alexander, for Reviews and Sham-Fights.-Topography of the different Governments. -Manufactories of Mathematical Instruments.-The Printing-press Department. The Chancellerie. - The Library. - Autograph Letters of Peter the Great. -The War-game. The Incombustible Hall. Military Archives from the time of Peter the Great. — Domestic Establishment of the People resident in the Palace of the Etat-Major. -General Observations. The CHATEAU St. Michel. - The Corps du Genie. The ARSENALS. The COLThe FOUNDERY. The POST-OFFICE. - The present System. — Distribution Private Post-office for corresponding with the EmRevenue of the Post-Office. -The CITADEL.-The MINT. General Enumeration of other Public Buildings connected with the Administration of the Civil and Military Government at St. Petersburgh. LEGES. peror. THE public buildings and institutions connected with the administration of government in St. Petersburgh are numerous, and, like every thing else, on a scale larger than in other capitals; but not more than the extent of the Empire and fifty-three millions of inhabitants require. St. Petersburgh is the centre to which necessarily converge every question and transaction of public interest, mooted or occurring in every part of the Empire, from Abo to the Pacific Ocean, and from Astracan to Kamtchatka. With the example of the most civilized nations in Europe before them, and the happy effects already existing, of the slowly and dearly bought experience of those nations, the founder of the modern capital of Russia and his successors were enabled to frame, at once, such a system of public administration as was likely to suit a people about to become European, and to erect the necessary edifices for each of its numerous branches, on a plan of useful precision and commensurate magnitude, likely to surpass the models from which they were borrowed. To accomplish this, Peter, Catherine, Alexander, and now Nicholas, have encouraged foreign as well as native talent; and in the construction of that class of public buildings, which it is the object of the present chapter to describe, as well as in the internal arrangement and distribution of the affairs to be transacted within them, architects and men of such talents for business were engaged, as were likely at once to place the whole machinery for the public service on the most effective footing. The Senate-house is the first of the public buildings connected with the government of the country, which presents itself to our notice. In its exterior it is not, perhaps, one of the most remarkable edifices of the capital, but for its extent, and the importance of its destination, it claims a specific mention. The front of the building faces the statue of Peter the Great, and from its situation forms the north-west angle of the Place d'Isaac. One side extends along the English Quay, of which it forms the beginning, and the other looks into a long and handsome street called the Galernuia. The three insulated façades, repre sented partly in the frontispiece to the first Volume, and partly in the view of the English Quay, exhibit a plain basement which is surmounted by a principal story, and ornamented by tetråstyle Ionic porticos, as remarkable for their size and chaste severity, as is the entire building for its simplicity. It were better, perhaps, had the surface been washed with a composition of a light stone-colour, instead of the present deep yellow, singularly contrasted with the dazzling white of the columns. The building seen within the inner court is a quadrangle, covering an area of fourteen thousand square feet, and is occupied by the different offices of the Senate. Its interior exhibits nothing beyond a continued suite of apartments, many of them large, but furnished in the simplest manner imaginable, and decorated with the fulllength portraits of Catherine and other sovereigns of Russia. In one of the halls, which serves as the conferenceroom, within a species of temple made of solid silver, and very handsome, the original manuscripts of the code of laws given by that Empress, are preserved: all of which are said to be in her own handwriting. The great extent of public business transacted by the Senate, necessarily requires a vast number of employés, who, with the several applicants and other persons interested in matters subject to this department, attend daily in this place, and give to the establishment, even at so early an hour as ten o'clock in the morning, an air of bustle nearly equal to that witnessed in the long-room and other offices of the new Custom-house in London. On one occasion, wishing to speak with one of the principal senators, whom I found at his post as early as the hour just mentioned, I had to wade through a double line of carriages outside of the Senatehouse, found the inner court full of sledges, and other vehicles, and with difficulty made my way through a long range of rooms crowded with people moving in all directions. Close to the Senate-house, and forming the opposite |