time in
manuscript in the library of Upsala, in Sweden, was edited in 1840,
by the Russian historian Soloviev. Kotoshikin terminated a life
of strange vicissitudes by perishing at the hands of the public
executioner at Stockholm, about 1669.

With the reforms of Peter the Great commences an entirely new period
in the history of Russian literature, which was now to be under
Western influence. The epoch was inaugurated by Lomonosov, the
son of a poor fisherman of Archangel, who forms one of the curious
band of peasant authors--of very various merit, it must be
confessed--who present such an unexpected phenomenon in Russian
literature. Occasionally we have men of real genius, as in the cases
of Koltzov, Nikitin, and Shevchenko, the great glory of southern
Russia; sometimes, perhaps, a man whose abilities have been overrated
as in the instance of Slepoushkin. Lemonosov is more praised than
read by his countrymen. His turgid odes, stuffed with classical
allusions, in praise of Anne and Elizabeth, are still committed
to memory by pupils at educational establishments. His panegyrics
are certainly fulsome, but probably no worse than those of Boileau
in praise of Louis XIV., who grovelled without the excuse of the
imperfectly educated Scythian. The reign of Catherine II. (1762-96),
saw the rise of a whole generation of court poets. The great maxim,
"_Un Auguste peut aisement faire un Virgile_," was seen in all its
absurdity in semi-barbarous Russia. These wits were supported by
the Empress and her immediate _entourage_, to whom their florid
productions were ordinarily addressed.

[Illustration: THE LIBRARY, ODESSA.]

From Byzantine traditions, from legends of saints, from confused
chronicles, and orthodox hymnologies, Russia was to pass by one
of the most violent changes ever witnessed in the literature of
any country, into epics moulded upon the _Henriade_, and tedious
odes in the style of Boileau and Jean Baptiste Rousseau. Oustrialov,
the historian, truly characterizes most of the voluminous writers
of this epoch, as mediocre verse makers, for claiming merits in the
cases of Bogdanovich, Khemnitzer, Von Vizin, Dmitriev, and Derzhavin.
Bogdanovich wrote a very pretty lyric piece, styled _Dushenka_
based on the story of Cupid and Psyche, and partly imitated from
Lafontaine, with a sportive charm about the verse which will preserve
it from becoming obsolete. With Khemnitzer begin the fabulists. But
I shall reserve my remark