solely to the
department of Prose Fiction, looking forward meanwhile with anxiety,
though not without hope, to a future opportunity of discussing more
fully the intellectual annals of Russia.

In the year of redemption 863, two Greeks of Thessalonika, Cyril[3] and
Methodius, sent by Michael, Emperor of the East, conferred the precious
boon of alphabetic writing upon Kostislaff, Sviatopolk, and Kotsel, then
chiefs of the Moravians.

[3] Cyril was the ecclesiastical or claustral name of this
important personage, his real name was Constantine.

The characters they introduced were naturally those of the Greek
alphabet, to which they were obliged, in order to represent certain
sounds which do not occur in the Greek language,[4] to add a number of
other signs borrowed from the Hebrew, the Armenian, and the Coptic. So
closely, indeed, did this alphabet, called the Cyrillian, follow the
Greek characters, that the use of the aspirates was retained without any
necessity.

[4] For instance, the _j_, (pronounced as the French _j_), _ts,
sh, shtsh, tch, ui, yae_. As the characters representing these
sounds are not to be found in the "case" of an English
compositor, we cannot enter into their Oriental origin.

These characters (with the exception of a few which are omitted in the
Russian) varied surprisingly little in their form,[5] and perhaps
without any change whatever in their vocal value, compose the modern
alphabet of the Russian language; an examination of which would go far,
in our opinion, to settle the long agitated question respecting the
ancient pronunciation of the classic languages, particularly as Cyril
and his brother adapted the Greek alphabet to a language totally foreign
from, and unconnected with, any dialect of Greek.

[5] Not to speak of the capitals, the [Greek: gamma, delta,
zeta, kappa, lambda, mu, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, phi, chi,
theta], have undergone hardly the most trifling change in form;
[Greek: psi, xi, omega], though they do not occur in the
Russian, are found in the Slavonic alphabet. The Russian
pronunciation of their letter B, which agrees with that of the
modern Greeks, is V, there being another character for the
_sound_ B.

In this, as in all other languages, the translation of the Bible is the
first monument and model of literature. This version was made by Cyril
immediately after the composition of the alphabet. T