Among the many things to Interest strangers In St. Petersburg, the booksellers' shops are not the most miimportant. The firm of Brieff" and Grafe Is the oldest of the German houses, by whom the gi-eater part of the German and French books that have appeared In Russia have been published. The first Russian bookseller is decidedly Smirdin. One cannot but be astonished at the rich assortment wliich Russian literature has already enabled him to offer, and at the elegant style In which they are got up. Perhaps at no time was such miserable paper, such detestable type, and such a measureless want of taste and accuracy In printing, to be met with In Russia, as we formerly saw, and do yet occasionally see in Germany. Since the commencement of this century, however, Russia has made such rapid advances that the modern productions may stand a comparison with those of any nation. Russian books are generally printed on a very firm paper In a very large type, but there are some 1 2mos and 1 6mos which leave nothing to l3e desired in point of neatness and elegance. Books from Smirdin's press may now venture to show their faces boldly in the boudoirs of the most fastidious ladles, by the side of the choicest productions of London and Paris and the time is long gone by when a Russian nobleman could only allow a Russian book to stand here and there iii the dust of the lowest shelves, in his almost exclusively French library. It is not only by the extent, however, of the booksellers' stocks in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where there are shops containing upwards of 100,000 voluuies, that we may estimate the extraordinary advance of Russian literature ; tlie prices given to fiivourlte authors, afford also a good criterion. There ai'c Russian authors who have realized estates of many square railes out of their inkstands ; some have received 5000 or 6000 rubles, merely to lend their names to a journal, and there are periodicals that count not less than 20,000 subscribers. The greatest new work in hand is the National Encyclopedia, which pays as much as 100 and 200 rubles a sheet to its contributors, and must reckon, therefore, on a tolerably large circulation. Russian hterature is now strong enough in pinion to soar on a level with that of France, if not to take a flight above it, in the estimation of the best native circles.
German literature is somewhat in a dilemma between the newly kindled inspiration of the Russian, and the old preference for French literature, to say nothing of the Anglomania, that is beginning to make itself felt on the banks of the Neva. There was a time in St. Petersburg, when the enthusiasm for German poetry was not confined within the limits of the German colony, every rising talent was hailed with pleasure, and the spring eagerly looked for that should bring over some new production of Schiller, Gothe, or Wieland. There were persons at the court who had these names constantly in their mouths, and it is still delightful to a German to hear a Russian speak with enthusiasm on the brilliant dawTi of German poetry. It is undeniable that the study of the German language was advancing even very lately in Russia. The growing dislike for the French since 1812, has allowed more German teachers to appear, and in some of the public schools the German language is a regular branch of study. In public and private libraries, the German names and character are still frequently foimd mingled with the Roman and Slavonian. They are generally, however, the classic names in German hterature oidy. The Russians look upoji our literature as dead, and know nothing of the productions of the present time. Even the German part of the population trouble themselves but little to procure what is new in their native land. This may be attributed to many causes ; to the worldly prosperity in which they all rejoice, to their lessened sympathy with German literature by the necessity they are under of mastering the Russian language and books, to fashion, and to the habit of speaking French with the Russians, and discussing with them the merits of the ephemeral productions of the French press.