pared with that of the fantastic American, Edgar
Allan Poe. Besides his novels, he wrote a brilliant comedy called
the _Revisor_, dealing with the evils of bureaucracy.

Towards the end of the year 1877, died Nicholas Nekrasov, the most
remarkable poet produced by Russia since Lermontov. He has left
six volumes of poetry, of a peculiarly realistic type, chiefly
dwelling upon the misfortunes of the Russian peasantry, and putting
before us most forcibly the dull grey tints of their monotonous
and purposeless lives.

I have not space to enumerate here even the most prominent Russian
novelists. No account, however, of their literature would be anything
like complete which omitted the name of Ivan Tourgheniev, whose
reputation is European. With the Russians the English novel of the
realistic type is the fashionable model. In this branch of literature,
French influences have hardly been felt at all. The historical
novel--an echo of the great romances of Sir Walter Scott--had its
cultivators in such writers as Zagoskin and Lazhechnikov; but at
the present time, with the exception of the recent productions
of Count Tolstoi, it is a form of literature as dead in Russia
as in our own country. The novel of domestic life bids fair to
swallow up all the rest, and it is to this that the Russians are
devoting their attention.

Tourgheniev first made a name by his _Memoirs of a Sportsman_,
a powerfully written work, in which harrowing descriptions are
given of the miserable condition of the Russian serfs. Since the
publication of this novel, or rather series of sketches, he has
written a succession of able works of the same kind, in which all
classes of Russian society have been reviewed. No more pathetic
tale than the _Gentleman's Retreat_ (_Dvorianskoe Gnezdo_) can
be shown in the literature of any country. There are touches in
it worthy of George Eliot. In _Fathers and Children_ and _Smoke_,
Tourgheniev has grappled with the nihilistic ideas which for a
long time have been so current in Russia.

The study of Russian history, so well commenced by Karamzin, has
been further developed by Oustrialov and Soloviev.

The Malo-Russian is very rich in _skazki_ (national tales) and
in songs. Peculiar to them is the _douma_, a kind of narrative
poem, in which the metre is generally very irregular; but a sort
of rhythm is preserved by the recurrence of accentuated syllables.
The _douma_ of the Little Russians corresponds to the _bilina_