e to appreciate the value of what must have appeared to
them a timid and pusillanimous policy, they overwhelmed Barclay de Tolly
with violent accusations of cowardice, and even of treachery; rendered
the more plausible to the mind of the ignorant, by the circumstance of
their object being a foreigner--or at least of foreign blood. So violent
ultimately became these accusations, that although the Field-marshal
continued to enjoy the highest confidence and esteem of his sovereign,
it was found expedient to allow him to resign the chief command, in
which he was succeeded by Kutuzoff. Barclay de Tolly, during the greater
part of the campaign, fought as a simple general of division, in which
character (as Pushkin describes) he took part in the great battle of
Borodino.

Barclay must still be considered as one of those distinguished persons
to whose memory justice has never been entirely done; and to do this
justice was Pushkin's generous task in the noble lines which follow
these remarks. No traveller has ever visited the winter palace of St
Petersburg without having been struck with the celebrated "Hall of
Marshals," which forms one of its most imposing features. In this
magnificent room are placed the portraits (chiefly painted by Dawe, an
English artist, who passed the greater part of his life in Russia) of
the Russian generals who figured in that great campaign; and among them
is to be found, of course, the "counterfeit presentment" of Barclay de
Tolly, painted, as the field-marshals are in every case in this gallery
of portraits, at full length. With respect to the versification of this
and several other poems which we have selected, the English reader will
not perhaps at first remark that it is nothing more than the measure
used by old Drayton in the _Polyolbion_, and one in which a great deal
of the earlier English poetry is written. It is very favourite measure
of our Russian poet, who has, however, increased, in some degree, its
difficulty for an English versifier, by introducing a great number of
double terminations. It will be found, indeed, that these double rhymes
are as numerous as the single or monosyllabic ones.

THE GENERAL.

In the Tsar's palace stands a hall right nobly builded;
Its walls are neither carved, nor velvet-hung, nor gilded,
Nor here beneath the glass doth pearl or diamond glow;
But wheresoe'er ye look, around, above, below,
The quick-eyed Painter's hand, now