uently, and gained some superficial acquaintance with French
literature. The tragedies of Corneille and Racine and the comedies of
Moliere were played regularly at the Court theatre in presence of the
Empress, and awakened a real or affected enthusiasm among the audience.
For those who preferred reading in their native language, numerous
translations were published, a simple list of which would fill
several pages. Among them we find not only Voltaire, Rousseau, Lesage,
Marmontel, and other favourite French authors, but also all the
masterpieces of European literature, ancient and modern, which at that
time enjoyed a high reputation in the French literary world--Homer and
Demosthenes, Cicero and Virgil, Ariosto and Camoens, Milton and Locke,
Sterne and Fielding.

It is related of Byron that he never wrote a description whilst the
scene was actually before him; and this fact points to an important
psychological principle. The human mind, so long as it is compelled
to strain the receptive faculties, cannot engage in that "poetic"
activity--to use the term in its Greek sense--which is commonly called
"original creation." And as with individuals, so with nations. By
accepting in a lump a foreign culture a nation inevitably condemns
itself for a time to intellectual sterility. So long as it is occupied
in receiving and assimilating a flood of new ideas, unfamiliar
conceptions, and foreign modes of thought, it will produce nothing
original, and the result of its highest efforts will be merely
successful imitation. We need not be surprised therefore to find that
the Russians, in becoming acquainted with foreign literature, became
imitators and plagiarists. In this kind of work their natural pliancy
of mind and powerful histrionic talent made them wonderfully successful.
Odes, pseudo-classical tragedies, satirical comedies, epic poems,
elegies, and all the other recognised forms of poetical composition,
appeared in great profusion, and many of the writers acquired a
remarkable command over their native language, which had hitherto been
regarded as uncouth and barbarous. But in all this mass of imitative
literature, which has since fallen into well-merited oblivion, there
are very few traces of genuine originality. To obtain the title of
the Russian Racine, the Russian Lafontaine, the Russian Pindar, or the
Russian Homer, was at that time the highest aim of Russian literary
ambition.

Together with the fashionable literature th