The art collections in St. Petersburg may give the traveller pleasant occupation for several weeks; indeed if the tourist be an art student he will find work for months. The Winter Palace, adjoining the Hermitage, on the Neva, is like the palace at Versailles, conspicuous for rooms or galleries commemorative of military exploits. Here are well-painted battle-pieces by Willewalde and Kotzbue, also naval engagements by Aivasovsky, highly coloured as a matter of course. Likewise are hung the best battle-pieces I have ever seen, by Peter Hess, the renowned Bavarian painter, who appears to less credit in Munich than in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg. Also may be noted the portrait of Alexander I. by Dawe, the Englishman, who worked much in Russia. Here likewise is the imperial gallery of portraits of all the sovereigns of the reigning Russian house. I pass over these multitudinous works thus briefly, because, though the collection is of importance in the history of the empire, it has little value in art. "The Crown Jewels" I shall not attempt to describe; no description of jewels can be worth much. I may venture to say, however, that after seeing all the royal jewellery in Europe, I found these Russian crowns, sceptres, etc., richer in diamonds than any other. Also pearls, rubies, Siberian aqua-marines, etc., add colour and splendour to the imperial treasure. The comparison on the spot, which I not unnaturally instituted, was with the imperial treasury at Vienna. Next, a word may be given to the room in which the proud, stern, and unrelenting Nicholas died, where all is kept intact as he left it. I have seldom been more impressed than with this small, simple, and almost penurious apartment, so striking in contrast with the splendour of the rest of the palace. Silence, solitude, and solemnity all the more attach to the spot from the statement to which credence is given that the great emperor, on learning of the reverses in the Crimea, here committed suicide. In other words, it is said that he directed his physician to prepare a medicine which after having taken he died. The sword, helmet, and grey military cloak are where he laid them. Here lies a historic tragedy which remains to be painted; one of the most dramatic pictorial scenes in Europe, the death of Wallenstein in Schiller's drama, painted by Professor Piloty and now in the new Pinakothek, Munich, might in the death of the great Nicholas find a parallel. The emperor lies buried with all the sovereigns of Russia since the foundation of St. Petersburg, in the cathedral fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. Nothing in Europe is grander in the simplicity and silence which befit a sepulchre--not even the imperial tombs in Vienna--than this stately mausoleum of the Tsars. The Emperor Nicholas lies opposite to Peter the Great. In the Hermitage, or rather in the Winter Palace, is a gallery illustrative of the life and labours of Peter the Great. The collection, besides turning-lathes and other