One of his colleagues — the two must have suited each other admirably — a professor of Greek, continued for five-and-twenty years together, to propound marvels to the students, out of Xenophon's Memorabilia, which is usually but light nourishment for a student of the second year. If these two facts afi'ord fair data from which to judge the general condition of the oldest university in Russia, from 1755 to 1830, its usefulness cannot have been very remarkable. In the latter year, however, a considerable change was made for the better. Some of the professors were honourably dismissed, and the sum of 80,000 rubles advanced to supply some enormous deficiencies in the library. New buildings were erected, and tlie professors informed, that the chemical class-books of 1778 had become more or less obsolete ; and also that to redeliver remarks on Xenophon's Memorabilia, from the works of foreigners, was no very remarkable effort on tlie part of a Greek professor.
Accordingly, on our visit in 1837, signs of improvement were visible.
A new church had just been finished, a large hall for the museum erected, and some neighbouring houses purchased for the extension of the academy. The number of the students was not, however, on the increase ; there had been, in 1828, nearly 800 ; in 1837 there were only 600.
The scientific collections are on the whole insignificant, although thej offer some things worthy of admiration. In the mineral collection is the great Siberian emerald, three inches long and two thick. In the zoological, there is a bouquet of flowers formed of fifty colibris, arranged into that form, the work of one of the lower servants of the institution ; a pretty fancy, but fitter for the apartment of an Indian princess, than for a scientific collection.
The things best worth seeing in the University of Moscow are the anatomical cabinet of Loder, with the microscopic preparations of Lieberkuhn. This collection is particularly rich in human hearts, of which there are a great number, all spitted on needles. I thought, while looking at them, of the many poor hearts yet beating, whose muscles are doomed to quiver on as keen a point ! The idea of a broken heart belongs to the English ; — a heart upon a spit is just as peculiar to Russia, where broken hearts in the English sense are few, but very many the hearts bedded on needles.
In Loder's anatomical collection there is also a camel's stomach expanded to its natural extent, with aU its cells and subdivisions. It is so arranged, that every hidden corner in which the food is retained till perfectly dissolved, can be as exactly noted as if the spectator could put his head into the very body of the camel. The stomach is a good deal cherislied in Moscow, as is well known ; it is quite natural, therefore, that many rarities from this interesting portion of the animal organization should be preserved here. Among other things there is a stocking taken from the stomach of a cow, and which had been there changed into a liard firm mass, without losing the appearance of the webb ; the remains of a billiard-ball from the stomach of a dog, where, within four-and-twenty hours it had diminished to a fifth of the original size ; a pair of scissors, a knife, and a fork, from the stomach of a man, where they had been twisted and bent as by the hammer of a smith. In the same stomach, which had belonged to some fire-eating conjurer, there were found no less than ten pounds weight of such foreign substances, very hard of mastication one would think, even if the strong hand of a Peter had previously removed all the bad teeth. The instrument used for tooth-drawing by this remarkable sovereign, lies in the same case with those stomach curiosities ; it is a little, rough, short instrument, something like that used by smiths to pick locks. This illustrious surgeon was a diligent operator in this branch of science ; nevertheless, he has left many a foid stump in the head of Russia, of which the worst of all is the serfdom of the peasants ; the removal of that evil is an operation yet to be performed.