f his duty to make a
few remarks. The number and extent of these observations, he will, of
course, confine within the narrowest limits consistent with his
important duty of making his countrymen acquainted with the style and
character of Russia's greatest poet; a duty which he would certainly
betray, were he to omit to explain the chief points indispensable for
the true understanding, not only of the extracts which he has selected
as a sample of his author's productions, but of the general tone and
character of those productions, viewed as a whole.

The translator wishes it therefore to be distinctly understood that he
by no means intends to offer, in the character of a complete poetical
portrait, the few pieces contained in these pages, but rather as an
attempt, however imperfect, to daguerreotype--by means of the most
faithful translation consistent with ease--_one_ of the various
expressions of Pushkin's literary physiognomy; to represent one phase of
his developement.

That physiognomy is a very flexible and a varying one; Pushkin
(considered only as a _poet_) must be allowed to have attained very high
eminence in various walks of his sublime art; his works are very
numerous, and as diverse in their form as in their spirit; he is
sometimes a romantic, sometimes a legendary, sometimes an epic,
sometimes a satiric, and sometimes a dramatic poet;--in most, if not in
all, of these various lines he has attained the highest eminence as yet
recognised by his countrymen; and, consequently, whatever impression may
be made upon our readers by the present essay at a transfusion of his
works into the English language, will be necessarily a very imperfect
one. In the prosecution of the arduous but not unprofitable enterprise
which the translator set before himself three years ago--viz. the
communication to his countrymen of some true ideas of the scope and
peculiar character of Russian literature--he met with so much
discouragement in the unfavourable predictions of such of his friends as
he consulted with respect to the feasibility of his project, that he may
be excused for some degree of timidity in offering the results of his
labours to an English public. So great, indeed, was that timidity, that
not even the very flattering reception given to his two first attempts
at prose translation, has entirely succeeded in destroying it; and he
prefers, on the present occasion, to run the risk of giving only a
partial and imperfect r