hetman with the Tsar. For a time their machinations failed, and
Matrena's father, Kotchubey, together with his friend Iskra, were
executed with the Tsar's assent and approbation. Before long, however,
Mazeppa, who had been for some time past in secret correspondence with
the Swedes, signalized his defection from Peter by offering his services
first to Stanislaus of Poland, and afterwards to Charles XII. of Sweden,
who was meditating the invasion of Russia.

"Pultowa's day," July 8, 1709, was the last of Mazeppa's power and
influence, and in the following year (March 31, 1710), "he died of old
age, perhaps of a broken heart," at Varnitza, a village near Bender, on
the Dniester, whither he had accompanied the vanquished and fugitive
Charles.

Such was Mazeppa, a man destined to pass through the crowded scenes of
history, and to take his stand among the greater heroes of romance. His
deeds of daring, his intrigues and his treachery, have been and still
are sung by the wandering minstrels of the Ukraine. His story has passed
into literature. His ride forms the subject of an _Orientale_ (1829) by
Victor Hugo, who treats Byron's theme symbolically; and the romance of
his old age, his love for his god-daughter Matrena, with its tragical
issue, the judicial murder of Kotchubey and Iskra, are celebrated by the
"Russian Byron" Pushkin, in his poem _Poltava_. He forms the subject of
a novel, _Iwan Wizigin_, by Bulgarin, 1830, and of tragedies by I.
Slowacki, 1840, and Rudolph von Gottschall. From literature Mazeppa has
passed into art in the "symphonic poem" of Franz Lizt (1857); and, yet
again, _pour comble de gloire_, _Mazeppa, or The Wild Horse of Tartary_,
is the title of a "romantic drama," first played at the Royal
Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, on Easter Monday, 1831; and revived at
Astley's Theatre, when Adah Isaacs Menken appeared as "Mazeppa," October
3, 1864. (_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 115, _seq_.;
_Le Fils de Pierre Le Grand, Mazeppa, etc_., by Viscount E. Melchior de
Voguee, Paris, 1884; _Peter the Great_, by Oscar Browning, 1899, pp.
219-229.)

Of the composition of Mazeppa we know nothing, except that on September
24, 1818, "it was still to finish" (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 264). It was
published together with an _Ode_ (_Venice: An Ode_) and _A Fragment_
(see _Letters_, 1899, iii. Appendix IV. pp. 446-453), June 28, 1819.

Notices of _Mazeppa_ appeared in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_,