lla" was removed from the service and banished to his mother's
estates by order of the Tsar Alexander I.

These two years of unwilling retirement worked mightily upon the soul of
Pushkin so filled with storm and stress. He struck off the chains of
Byron and steeped himself in Shakespeare; writing at this period his
drama of Boris Godunow. Nicholas First amnestied the poet and recalled
him to Moscow, instituting himself censor of all future work; likewise
placing Pushkin under the all-powerful Chief of Police Count
Benkendorff, from whom Lermontoff later had also so much to suffer. In
1829 Pushkin went to the Caucas and with the Russian army to Erzum. In
1830 he inherited from his father the management of But Boldino, where
he finished "Onegin," and three other dramas. In 1831 he was married at
Moscow to Natalie Nikolajewa Gontsharowa, whose beauty had for three
years held him in her toils. In the same year he was appointed to the
foreign office again. In 1833 the poem was published that won him his
fatal commission. Pushkin fell, as did Lermontoff later, a victim of the
envy and hatred of high society. At this time many responsible positions
were held in Russia by Frenchmen who had fled the terrors of the
revolution. Such a French emigre was D'Anthes, who pursued the wife of
Pushkin with his compromising attentions, until at a ball the poet was
almost forced to challenge him. The pistol duel, that Count Benkendorff
with cunning foresight did nothing to prevent, took place June 27, 1837.
In two days the poet was free from his tormentors forever. He was buried
in the Swatjatorgorische cloister and statues have been erected to his
honor at Petersburg, Moscow and many other cities throughout Russia. His
service to Russian literature can only be compared with that of Dante
for Italy,--since there was practically no Russian poetry before Pushkin
and he may be said to have created the Russian language as it is spoken
to-day.

MICHAIL JURJEWITSCH LERMONTOFF was born October 14, 1814, at Moscow.
From his father he inherited the love of brilliant society, from his
mother the love of music and an unusually sensitive temperament. When he
was but two and a half years old his mother died and he became the idol
of his grandmother, by whom he was spoiled, until the wilfulness of
youth became the arrogance and domineering quality so distinguishing his
maturity. Being a delicate child, his grandmother took him at the age of
ten to th