It is needless to exaggerate the magnitude of the city; as, for instance, some writers have done, by stating that the Nevski Prospekt is half as wide again as Oxford Street in London. Every thing is here on a gigantic scale. The quays, to which vessels requiring nine feet of water cannot ascend, except when the river is unusually high, might serve for all the navies of Europe. The public offices, or at least many of them, would hardly be too small, even if the hundred millions were added to the population of the country, which its soil is supposed to be capable of supporting. Perhaps it may be as well to introduce here, for the sake of illustration, although a little prematurely as regards the description, a view of the grand square of the Admiralty. This is an immense oblong space in the very heart of the city. The spectator stands near the manège, the building which projects at the left-hand corner. Beyond this is the Admiralty, with its gilded spire, which is visible from almost all parts of the metropolis. Farther on is the Winter Palace, distinguished by a flag, in front of which, near the bottom of the vista, is the column raised to the memory of Alexander. Opposite this, on the right hand, is the palace of the Etat Major, and returning towards the foreground, the War Office. The group in front are employed in dragging stones for the new Isaak's church, which stands in the left hand corner, although the view is not wide enough to admit it. This is to be the richest and most splendid building in the world; but it has been so long in progress, and is now so little advanced, that a notice of it must fall to the lot of some future traveller. Saint Isaak, I believe, is not particularly connected with Russia, except by his day falling upon the birth-day of Peter the Great. Such is the scale on which St. Petersburg is built; for although this may be considered the heart of the city, the other members correspond. The very vastness of the vacant spaces, however, it should be observed, seems to make the houses on either side look less lofty; while on the other hand, no doubt the real want of loftiness in the houses exaggerates the breadth of the area between. But on the present occasion, any thing like fancy in the latter respect would have been quite supererogatory. The streets were hardly passable. Here and there a pond or a morass gave pause to the pedestrian; while the droski driver was only indebted to his daily renewed experience of the daily-changing aspect of the ground, for the comparative confidence and safety with which he pursued his way. The streets, in fact, were in the same predicament as the roads by which I had reached them; they had thawed from their winter consistence, and their stones, torn up, and dismantled by the severities of the frost, had not yet been put into summer quarters.