Lyall Robert. The Character of The Russians, and A Detailed History of Moscow

London: Strand, and W. Blackwood, 1823. — 632 p.Every city, like mortal man, has its day. The noblest and the proudest see the helplessness of infancy, and pass through the vicissitudes of their existence to ruin and oblivion. What are now the boast of Ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta ? Two mean villages. — What is Carthage? A mere promontory, where scarcely one stone lies upon another, to indicate her situation, still less to record her history. —What is Rome, formerly the mistress of the world ? She exists, indeed, but her glory is gone ; all but the decaying fragments of her antiquity, and those recollections which still linger round the seat of the decaying papal power. Every great city, with the history of which we are acquainted, has, in its turn, been visited by great calamities; earthquakes, eruptions of volcanoes, lightning and thunderstorms ; hurricanes of wind, rain, and hail ; inundations, fires, famines, invasions, the plague and pestilence, insurrections, and other awful visitations, have made it their victim ; changing its distinguishing characters, diminishing or increasing its population, and forming the prominent epochs of its history.