The castle has one highly-interesting apartment, containing a collection of 368 pictures. They are all portraits, executed by a certain Count Rotali in the tin)e of Catherine the Second, in the course of a jom-ney through tlie fifty governments of Russia, probably to afford the ertipresa an idea of the wealth of her great empire in physiognomies and beauty. They are all beautiful young gii'ls, whom the count has painted in picturesque situations, and in their national costume. One cannot but admire the inventive genius of the count in giving a different position and different expression to all these 368 faces. One pretty girl is knitting diligently, another embroidering ; one peeps archly from behind a curtain, another gazes expectingly from a window ; another leans over a chair, as if listening to a lover ; a third, reclining on cushions, seems lost in thought. One slumbers so softly and so sweetly that a man must be a Laplander in apathy not to wish for a kiss ; tliis stands before a glass, combing her beautiful hair, that has buried herself up to the ears in fur, leaving visible only a pair of tender rosy lips, and soft blue eyes gleaming from under the wild bear's skin. There are also some excellent portraits of old people — two in particular — an old man with a staff, and an old woman by the fire. This collection is unique in its kind, and would be invaluable for the physiognomist, if he could be certain that these portraits were as exact and faithftJ as they are pleasing and tasteful. But this is doubtful, for they all bear, undeniably, rather the stamp of the French school than of the Russian, Tartar, Finnish, or any other nationality within the Russian emj^ire. It is also a suspicious circumstance, that they were done by a gentleman for a lady. Probably behind every graceful attitude some flattering homage to the empress lies concealed. The other apartments do not contain any thing very remarkable. In one are the little table and benches with which the Emperors Alexander and Nicholas played as children ; in another, some carving and turner's work of Peter the Great. In one room we were shown the blots of ink, made by this emperor or that, while engaged in his boyish studies ; and in another we saw on the ceiling an extraordinary picture, representing a whole corps of angels playing from notes ! every one with his music lying on a cloud by way of desk ! — while a fifth room contained all the gods of Greece, also reclining on clouds. The old Russian who acted as our guide remarked, evidently with no small pride at his superior enlightenment, that the old Greeks were very stupid and superstitious, to believe that the gods lay about on clouds in this way, as it was very well known Jiotv, that the thing was an impossibility.
To be seen to advantage, Peterhof should be visited early in July, when the court gives the brilliant and renowned fetes, to wliich, once for all, the whole 500,000 inhabitants of St. Petersburg are invited. All the rest of the year it looks as if no one were at home ; but during those three days all is life and splendour, revelry and display. The sums paid for lodging are incredible. There are some people whom it costs 20,000 rubles daily for lodging alone. This sounds extravagant, but it is literally true. The expense is incurred thus : — For a person of rank it would not do to lodge with any of the village proprietors ; he must have a house of his own. A piece of ground is purchased, therefore, for 20,000 or 30,000 rubles; a datsha erected at a nominal charge of 80,000 to 150,000, but in the end, v/hen the house is finished, it comes nearer to 200,000 or 300,000. The interest of this money, at 6 per cent., would be from 15,000 to 18,000 rubles. The maintenance and wages for the overseers, stewards, and others, are enormous ; they may amount yearly to about 40,000 rubles. When we further calculate that the whole wooden palace cannot last more than forty or fifty years, or will be sold again in mucli fewer for a mere nothing, and that it is only inhabited for three days in the year, it will be admitted that the calculation is not an extravagant one. The Russian nobles do not reckon thus, but they would be frightened if any (Mie, with the help of the four rules, were to demonstrate to them how dearly this three days' amusement costs them.