s sufficient to blind their readers to the extreme
incompetency with which the translations they contained were executed.

It is always painful to find fault--more painful to criticise with
severity--the work of a person whose motive was the same as that which
actuates the present publication; but when the gross unfaithfulness[2]
exhibited in the versions in question tends to give a false and
disparaging idea of the value and the tone of Russian poetry, we may be
excused for our apparent uncourteousness in thus pointing out their
defects.

[2] In making so grave a charge, proof will naturally be
required of us. Though we might fill many pages with instances
of the two great sins of the translator, commission and
omission, the _poco piu_ and _poco meno_, we will content
ourselves with taking, _ad aperturam libri_, an example. At
page 55 of the Second Part of Bowring's Russian Anthology, will
be found a short lyric piece of Dmitrieff, entitled "To Chloe."
It consists of five stanzas, each of four very short lines. Of
these five stanzas, three have a totally different meaning in
the English from their signification in the Russian, and of the
remaining two, one contains an idea which the reader will look
for in vain in the original. This carelessness is the less
excusable, as the verses in question present nothing in style,
subject, or diction, which could offer the smallest difficulty
to a translator. Judging this to be no unfair test, (the piece
in question was taken at random,) it will not be necessary to
dilate upon minor defects, painfully perceptible through
Bowring's versions; as, for instance, a frequent disregard of
the Russian metres--sins against _costume_, as, for example,
the making a hussar (a _Russian_ hussar) swear by his _beard_,
&c. &c. &c.

It will not, we trust, be considered out of place to give our readers a
brief sketch of the history of the Russian literature; the origin,
growth, and fortunes of which are marked by much that is peculiar. In
doing this we shall content ourselves with noting, as briefly as
possible, the events which preceded and accompanied the birth of letters
in Russia, and the evolution of a literature not elaborated by the slow
and imperceptible action of time, but bursting, like the armed Pallas,
suddenly into light.

In performing this task, we shall confine our attention