g of literature; and the command and example of Peter
perhaps rather favoured the imitation of what was good in other
languages, than the production of originality in his own.

This opinion, bold and perhaps rash as it may appear to Russians, seems
to derive some support, as well as illustration, from the immense number
of foreign words which make the Russian of Peter's time

"A Babylonish dialect;"

the mania for every thing foreign having overwhelmed the language with
an infinity of terms rudely torn, not skilfully adapted, from every
tongue; terms which might have been--have, indeed, since
been--translated into words of Russian form and origin. A review of the
literary progress made at this time will, we think, go far to establish
our proposition; it will exhibit a very large proportion of
translations, but very few original productions.

From this period begins the more immediate object of the present note:
we shall briefly trace the rise and fortunes of the present, or
vernacular Russian literature; confining our attention, as we have
proposed, to the Prose Fiction, and contenting ourselves with noting,
cursorily, the principal authors in this kind, living and dead.

At the time of Peter the Great, there may be said to have existed (it
will be convenient to keep in mind) three languages--the Slavonic, to
which we have already alluded; the Russian; and the dialect of Little
Russia.

The fact, that the learned are not yet agreed upon the exact epoch from
which to date the origin of the modern Russian literature, will probably
raise a smile on the reader's lip; but the difficulty of establishing
this important starting-point will become apparent when he reflects upon
the circumstance, that the literature is--as we have stated--divisible
into two distinct and widely differing regions. It will be sufficiently
accurate to date the origin of the modern Russian literature at about a
century back from the present time; and to consider Lomonosoff as its
founder. Mikhail Vassilievitch Lomonosoff, born in 1711, is the author
who may with justice be regarded as the Chaucer or the Boccacio of the
North: a man of immense and varied accomplishments, distinguished in
almost every department of literature, and in many of the walks of
science. An orator and a poet, he adorned the language whose principles
he had fixed as a grammarian.

He was the first to write in the spoken language of his country, and, in
conjunction w