All magnificent granite monoliths from Finland, bm'ied for centuries in its swamps, till brought to light by the triumphant power of Russia, and rounded, polished, and erected as Caryatides, to the honour of God, in his temple. The pillars are crowned with capitals of bronze, and support the enormous beam of a frieze formed of six fire -polished blocks. CWer the peristyles, and at twice their height, rises the chief and central cupola, higher than it is wide, in the Byzantine proportion. It is supported also by thirty pillars of smooth polished granite, which, although gigantic in themselves, look small compared to those below. The cupola is covered with copper overlaid with gold, and glitters like the sun over a mountain. From its centre rises a small elegant rotunda, a miniature repetition of the whole, looldng like a chapel on a mountain-top. The whole edifice is surI'ounded by the crowning and far-seen golden cross. Four smaller cupolas, resembling the greater in every particular, stand around, like children round a mother, and complete the harmony ^dsible in every part. The walls of the church are to be covered with marble, and no doubt Isaac's church will be the most remarkable building in St. Petersburg, and supersede the Kasan church of the Virgin for great state festivals. This Kasan church, which stands on the perspective, is a monument of the so-often faihng spirit of imitation in Russia. The Russians wish to unite in their capital all that is grand or beautiful in the whole civilized world. This church is meant for a copy of St. Peter's at Rome, and unbearable as a copy, is moreover not a good copy. The puny eftbrt is almost comic in its contrast to the mighty work of Buonarotti. It is fortunate that it lies so far from its original ; after the many lands he must pass through to reach it, the foreign spectator may have forgotten the impression of the southern prototype, and hence find the northern copy endurable. As in Rome, a portico of pillars leads from either side in a semicircle to the two entrances of the church ; but the pillars are small, and what in Rome seemed necessary and suitable to circumstances, is here a superfluous and incomprehensible appendage. The doors are of bronze covered with a multitude of worthjess bas-reliefs. In great niches along the sides of the church stand colossal statues of the grand dukes Vladimir, and Alexander Nevsky, of St. John and St. Andi'ew. In the interior, which is little suited to the wants of divine service, as performed in Russia, they were obliged to place the high altar, not opposite the chief entrance, but very awkwardly at the side. All is dark and straitened, and one cannot help pitying the fiftysix monoliths, the mighty giants who support the little roof, and lamenting that their prodigious strength is not employed in a labour more worthy of them.
Apart from these architectural discords, the church is not wanting in interest. First of all the greedy eye is attracted by the silver of the Ikonostases (the pictorial wall of the sanctuary). The balustrades, doors, and doorways of the Ikonostases are generally of wood, carved and gilded, but in this church all its beams and posts are of massive silver. The pillars of the balustrade round the holy place, the posts of the three doors, the arches twenty feet in height above the altar, and the frames of the pictures are of fine sUver. The silver beams are all highly polished, and reflect with dazzling brilliancy the light of the thousand tapers that bum before them. I could not leam how many hundred weight of silver were employed, but, doubtless, many thousands of dozens of French and German spoons, and himdreds of soup-tureens and teapots must have been melted down to furnish the material ; for it was the Cossacks, laden with no inconsiderable booty from the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, that made an offering of this mass of silver to the holy Mother of Kasan, for the object to which it is now appropriated. They seem to have a peculiar veneration for this Madonna, who is half their countrywoman, for John Vassielevitsh brought her from Kasan to Moscow, whence Peter the Great transported her to St. Petersburg. Her picture set with pearls and precious stones hangs in the church. It was before this picture that Kutusoff prayed before he advanced to meet the enemy in 1812, for which reason she is considered to be closely connected with that campaign.