hows that
here Russia has every opportunity for distinguishing herself, and
that with very little competition.

_RUSSIAN LITERATURE_

_W. R. MORFILL_

Of the Russian there are the following chief dialects--Great, Little,
and White Russian. The Great Russian is the literary and official
language of the Empire. In its structure it is highly synthetic,
having three genders and seven cases, and the nouns and adjectives
being fully inflected. Its great peculiarity (which it shares in
common with all the Sclavonic languages), is the structure of the
verbs, which are divided into so-called "aspects," which modify
the meaning, just as the Latin terminations _sco, urio_, and _ita_,
only the forms are developed into a more perfect system. The letters
employed are the Cyrillian, held to have been invented by St. Cyril
in the Ninth Century. They are on the whole well adapted to express
the many sounds of the Russian alphabet, for which the Latin letters
would be wholly inadequate, and must perforce be employed in some
such uncouth combinations as those which communicate a grotesque
appearance to Polish. It would be out of place here to discuss the
Ecclesiastical Sclavonic employed in so many of the early writings
composed in Russian. I shall proceed to speak of the literature in
Russian properly so-called. The great epochs of this will be--

I. From the earliest times to the reign of Peter the Great.

II. From the reign of Peter the Great to our own time.

The Russians, like the rest of the Sclavonic peoples are very rich
in national songs, many (as one may judge from the allusions found
in them), going back to a remote antiquity. For a long time, and
especially during the period of French influence, these productions
were neglected. In the last twenty years, however, they have been
assiduously collected by Bezsonov, Kirievski, Ribnikov, Hilferding and
others. The Russian legendary poems are called _Bilini_ (literally,
tales of old time), and may be most conveniently divided into the
following classes:--

1. That of the earlier heroes. 2. The Cycle of Vladimir. 3. The
Royal, or Moscow Cycle.

The early heroes are of a half-mythical type, and perform prodigies
of valour. To this class belong Volga Vseslavich, Mikoula Selianinovich
and Sviatogor. The great glory of the Cycle of Vladimir is Ilya
Murometz. The _Bilinas_ are filled with his magnificent exploits,
either alone, or in the company of Sviatogor.

The natio