St. Petersburg: Winter Palace, Gostinnoi Dvor, Trade, Servants and Food

In one of the rooms is an extraordinary quantity of ukases and ndhtary ordinances, having reference to the erection of defences. They are signed, and many of them corrected, by the different emperors and empresses with their own hands. Catherine, in particular, has made many corrections with a red-lead pencil ; and the present emperor always makes with his own hand, his amendments, alterations, annotations, and additions to his laws, decrees, and sentences. I saw here a hundred repetitions of those three important words, " Buit po semu"" (Be it so), which are annexed to every ukase. Catherine's handwriting is bad ; but the signature is never hurried ; on the contrary, she seems to have taken trouble in painting every one of the Russian letters. All the long letters have a little flourish under them, which are made with a trembhng hand : some are quite awry, nor are all the letters on a hne. The letters are not.joined, but nearly every one stands alone and tolerably perpendicular, without flow or rounding ; it is like the handwriting of an old man. Even the individual letter will sometimes be formed of unconnected strokes. The whole is plain and without any ornamental additions. After her name " Ickathrina" stands always a large dot, as if she would say, " And therewith Punctum Basta." The Emperor Alexander wrote a fine hand ; his name begins with a large elegant A ; the other letters, though narrow, are not very plain till the conclusion, the r is very plainly written and well-formed. Under the name is a very long complicated flourish, which looks confused at first, but the thread is easily found, as it is always very regularly formed, and in the same figure. Nicholas writes decidedly the best hand of all the Russian emperors ; it is callgraphically irreproachable, regular, intelhgible, and flo^ring. The emperor begins with an arching stroke of the pen, imder which his name stands as under a roof. The last stroke of the i slopes under in a slender arch once or twice, is then carried upwards to join the first line, and ends over the name in a thick bold stroke made with a firm hand and the whole breadth of the pen. The name is thus prettily inclosed in a frame.