Among' all the great men, however, that wander daily up and down the English quay, the two greatest are unquestionably the empress's footmen, who, in their purple uniform, attend the steps of their imperial mistress. These men, one of whom is said to be a Jew, are giants such as are but seldom seen at a fair. They are figures well known to every child in St. Petersburg, but they are said to be one inch shorter than another of the lions of the capital, the drum-major of the Semeneoff regiment of the guards, who may daily be admired at the Admiralty parade. Two Russian gentlemen, also well known to the St. Petersburg world, are said to dispute the palm of greatness with the footmen and the drum-major, but public opinion goes against their claim. Nor must Baron — n — be forgotten among the personal peculiarities of the English quay, from which he but rarely absents himself. His person is of such huge dimensions, that he is said not to have seen his own feet for thirty years, yet so dexterously and with so much elegance does he carry the enormous weight •with which those feet are charged, that he passes at nearly every ball for the best dancer in the room ; so much so, that for a waltz or a gallopade the ladies are said to value him as a partner beyond the slenderest dandy that woos them to the merry round. Then there's Count F., as far from a sansculotte as any count can well be, but not the less a sans chapeaUy for he can endure no covering on his head, and walks about without a hat even on the coldest day in winter, allowing wind and snow to frolic at their leisure among the dainty curls always tastefully arranged around his undaunted summit. In endurance he is surpassed only by Peter the Great, the huge man of bronze that stands perched upon his rock, and whose equanimity remains undisturbed even when crows pour forth their monotonous eloquence from his crown, or when a pair ofloving sparrows chirrup forth their compliments from his nose. Another of the remarkable figures pointed out to every stranger, is a petit maitre of the old school, one Mr. — g—, who figures upon the promenade in the same costume in which he figured there forty years ago, in the time of the Emperor Paul. The stationary beau is said to have been one day so terrified by a rebuke from liis emperor, that the clockwork of his understanding has stood still ever since, and now continues pointing to the hour which it struck at the setting in of our century.
Another promenade much frequented is the Summer Garden. The other gardens, as that of the Tauride Palace, and that of the Grand Duke Michael's Palace, are but little visited. The Summer Garden, which lies on the Neva, close to the Trotzkoi bridge, is about one thousand ells long and five hundred broad. It is the oldest garden in the city, contains a number of fine old trees, and is therefore of incalculable value in the centre of the Btony masses of the city. It is laid out in a number of long avenues, interspersed with flowerbeds, somewhat in the ancient style of gardening, with an abundance of marble statues of Springs and Summers, Floras and Fauns, and other divinities belonging to the same coterie. On the northern side is the celebrated iron railing, with its fanciful garlands and arabesques, which the people will tell you an Englishman once travelled all the way from London to see and make a sketch of, and then returned, satisfied with his journey, not deigning to cast an eye on any of the other marvels of the northern city. This garden is attended to as carefully almost as those of Zarskoye Selo, where a policeman is said to run after every leaf that falls, that it may instantly be removed out of sight. In autumn all the statues are cased in wooden boxes, to protect them against the rain and snow of winter, and all the tender trees and shrubs are at the same time packed up in straw and matting, in which they remain till the return of spring, when statues, trees, and men lay their winter garments aside nearly at one and the same time. The grassplots are regularly watered in summer, and the paths are carefully cleaned and trimmed. And the garden gratefully repays the pains expended on it, for throughout the fine season it forms a delightful retreat, and its turf and its trees in spring are green and smiling, before any of the other gardens have been able to divest themselves of the chill-hardened o-rin into which their features have been stiffened during a six months' winter.