sent him an
order on a banker at Paris for the amount demanded, namely fifteen
thousand livres, on condition that the library was to be left as a
deposit with the owner, and that he was to accept a gratuity of one
thousand livres annually for taking charge of the books, until the
Empress should require them. This was indeed a delicate and ingenious
kindness. Lord Brougham makes D'Alembert and not Diderot the subject of
this anecdote. It is a mistake. See the Correspondence of Baron de Gumm
and Diderot with the Duke of Saxe-Gotha.

Many of the Russian nobles keep up to this day the taste in gardening
introduced by Catherine the Second, and have still many gardens laid out
in the English style. They have often had in their employ both English
and Scottish gardeners. There is an anecdote of a Scotch gardener in the
Crimea in one of the public journals:--

"Our readers"--says the _Banffshire Journal_--"will recollect that when
the Allies made a brief expedition to Yalto, in the south of the Crimea,
they were somewhat surprised and gratified by the sight of some splendid
gardens around a seat of Prince Woronzow. Little did our countrymen
think that these gardens were the work of a Scotchman, and a Moray loon;
yet such was the case." The history of the personage in question is a
somewhat singular one: "Jamie Sinclair, the garden boy, had a natural
genius, and played the violin. Lady Cumming had this boy educated by the
family tutor, and sent him to London, where he was well known in
1836-7-8, for his skill in drawing and colouring. Mr. Knight, of the
Exotic Nursery, for whom he used to draw orchids and new plants, sent
him to the Crimea, to Prince Woronzow, where he practised for thirteen
years. He had laid out these beautiful gardens which the allies the
other day so much admired; had the care of 10,000 acres of vineyards
belonging to the prince; was well known to the Czar, who often consulted
him about improvements, and gave him a "medal of merit" and a diploma or
passport, by which he was free to pass from one end of the empire to the
other, and also through Austria and Prussia, I have seen these
instruments. He returned to London in 1851, and was just engaged with a
London publisher for a three years' job, when Menschikoff found the
Turks too hot for him last April twelve-month; the Russians then made up
for blows, and Mr. Sinclair was more dangerous for them in London than
Lord Aberdeen. He was the only foreigner who wa