Nothing beauteous
or wondrous in nature lies beyond the sphere of art; the forms of
crystals, the colours of precious stones are specially objects of
delight to the artist's eye. The Imperial Public Library is one of
the richest libraries in Europe; its literary treasures can hardly
be overrated; I regret that I cannot enter into its contents. Private
collections, though scarcely numerous, are choice; the celebrated
Leuchtenberg Gallery, formerly in Munich, is the richest. The royal
residences of Peterhof and Tsarshoe Selo I also found to contain
much in the way of art, and yet scarcely of sufficient importance
to need special description.

The Imperial Hermitage alone repays a journey to St. Petersburg;
for a whole fortnight I visited almost every day the picture and
sculpture galleries of this vast and rich museum, and in the end
I left with the feeling that I had done but inadequate justice
to these valuable and exhaust-less collections. I am tolerably
well acquainted with the great museums in the south and west of
Europe, and I was interested to find that the Hermitage does not
suffer by comparison with the Vatican, the Museum of Naples, the
Galleries of Florence, the Louvre in Paris, or the Great Picture
Gallery in Madrid. In some departments, indeed, St. Petersburg has
the advantage over other capitals; the collection of gold ornaments
from Kertch is not surpassed by the gold work in the Etruscan room of
the Vatican; the coins are not inferior to the numismatic collections
in Paris, or in the British Museum; the Dutch pictures are not
to be equalled save in Holland or in Dresden; the Spanish school
has no competitor save in Madrid and Seville; the portraits by
Vandyck, and the sketches by Rubens, are only surpassed in England
and Bavaria. It is thus obvious that the collective strength of
the assembled collections, is very great. The picture galleries
contain more than 1,500 works; the number of drawings is upwards
of 500, the coins and medals amount to 200,000, the painted vases
are above 1,700, the ancient marbles number 361, and the collection
of gems is one of the largest in existence. The Hermitage has been
enriched partly to the prejudice of other cities or palaces. From the
Tauris Palace came classic sculpture. Tsarshoe Selo also furnished
contributions. The policy has been to make one astounding museum,
which shall represent not a capital but an empire, and stand before
the world as the exponent of the