imitating what he so well knew how
to admire, conceived the happy thought of transporting Armida and Oberon
to a scenery admirably adapted for their reproduction--to the world of
ancient Russia. The popular superstitions of the Sclavonic races, though
naturally possessing a tone and local colouring of their own, and
modified by the nature which they reflect, are neither less graceful nor
less fertile in poetry than the delicate mythology so exquisitely
embodied by the great German or the yet greater Italian: and the poem of
"Ruslan and Liudmila"--the result of Pushkin's bold and happy
experiment--may be said to have been the very first embodiment of
Russian fancy, at least the first such embodiment exhibited under a form
sufficiently European to enable readers who were not Russians to
appreciate and admire. The cantos which compose this charming work were
read by Pushkin, as fast as they were completed, at the house of his
friend and brother poet, Jukovskii, where were assembled the most
distinguished men of Russian literary society. In 1820 the poem of
"Ruslan and Liudmila" was completed, and its appearance must be
considered as giving the finishing blow to the worn-out classicism which
characterizes all the poetical language of the eighteenth century. This
revolution was begun by Jukovskii himself, to whom Russian literature
owes so much; and he hailed with delight the new and beautiful
production of the young poet--the "conquering scholar," as Jukovskii
affectionately calls Pushkin--which established for ever the new order
of things originating in the good taste of the "conquered master," as he
designates himself.

The ever timid spirit of criticism was, as usual, exemplified in the
judgments passed by the literary journals upon this elegant innovation.
Some were alarmed at the novelty of the language, others shocked at the
irregularity of the versification, and others again at the occasional
comic passages introduced into the poem: but all forgot, or all dared
not confess, that this was the first Russian poetry which had ever been
greedily and universally _read_; and that, until the appearance of
"Ruslan and Liudmila," poetry and tiresomeness had been, in Russia,
convertible terms.

Immediately on the publication of "Ruslan and Liudmila," the poet,
becoming in all probability somewhat weary of a life of incessant and
labouring pleasure, left the capital and retired to Kishenev; he took
service in the chancery (or