an honourable young man who
has lived for a long time with a clever man (that is to say with
Griboyedov), and learnt his clever sarcasms; but to whom does he say
them? To Famusov, to the old ladies at the party. This is
unforgivable, because the first sign of a clever man is to know at
once whom he is dealing with."

But what makes the work a masterpiece is the naturalness of the
characters, the dialogue, the comedy of the scenes which represent
Moscow society. It is extraordinary that on so small a scale, in four
short acts, Griboyedov should have succeeded in giving so complete a
picture of Moscow society, and should have given the dialogue, in
spite of its being in verse, the stamp of conversational familiarity.
The portraits are all full-length portraits, and when the play is
produced now, the rendering of each part raises as much discussion in
Russia as a revival of one of Sheridan's comedies in England.

As for the style, nearly three-quarters of the play has passed into
the Russian language. It is forcible, concise, bitingly sarcastic, it
is as neat and dry as W. S. Gilbert, as elegant as La Fontaine, as
clear as an icicle, and as clean as the thrust of a sword. But perhaps
the crowning merit of this immortal satire is its originality. It is a
product of Russian life and Russian genius, and as yet it is without a
rival.

Outside the current of politics and political aspirations, there
appeared during this same epoch a poet who exercised a considerable
influence over Russian literature, and who devoted himself exclusively
to poetry. This was BASIL ZHUKOVSKY (1783-1852). He opened the door
of Russian literature on the fields of German and English poetry. The
first poem he published in 1802 was a translation of Gray's _Elegy_;
this, and an imitation of Buerger's _Leonore_, which affected all Slav
literatures, brought him fame. Later, he translated Schiller's _Maid
of Orleans_, his ballads, some of the lyrics of Uhland, Goethe,
Hebbel, and a great quantity of other foreign poems. His translations
were faithful, but in spite of this he gave them the stamp of his own
dreamy personality. He was made tutor to the Tsarevitch
Alexander--afterwards Alexander II,--and for a time his production
ceased; but when this task was finished, he braced himself in his old
age to translate _The Odyssey_, and this translation appeared in
1848-50. In this work he obeyed the first great law of translation,
"Thou shalt not turn a good