recognized and hailed the new voice. He did not wake up
and find himself famous like Byron, but he walked into the Hall of
Fame as naturally as a young heir steps into his lawful inheritance.
If we compare Pushkin's school-boy poetry with Byron's _Hours of
Idleness_, it is easy to understand how this came about. In the _Hours
of Idleness_ there is, perhaps, only one poem which would hold out
hopes of serious promise; and the most discerning critics would have
been justified in being careful before venturing to stake any great
hopes on so slender a hint. But in Pushkin's early verse, although the
subject-matter is borrowed, and the style is still irregular and
careless, it is none the less obvious that it flows from the pen of
the author without effort or strain; and besides this, certain coins
of genuine poetry ring out, bearing the image and superscription of a
new mint, the mint of Pushkin.

When the first of his poems to attract the attention of a larger
audience, _Ruslan and Ludmila_, was published, in 1820, it was greeted
with enthusiasm by the public; but it had already won the suffrages of
that circle which counted most, that is to say, the leading men of
letters of the day, who had heard it read out in MSS. For as soon as
Pushkin left school and stepped into the world, he was received into
the literary circle of the day on equal terms. After he had read aloud
the first cantos of _Ruslan and Ludmila_ at Zhukovsky's literary
evenings, Zhukovsky gave him his portrait with this inscription: "To
the pupil, from his defeated master"; and BATYUSHKOV, a poet who,
after having been influenced, like Pushkin, by Voltaire and Parny, had
gone back to the classics, Horace and Tibullus, and had introduced the
classic anacreontic school of poetry into Russia, was astonished to
find a young man of the world outplaying him without any trouble on
the same lyre, and exclaimed, "Oh! how well the rascal has started
writing!"

The publication of _Ruslan and Ludmila_ sealed Pushkin's reputation
definitely, as far as the general public was concerned, although some
of the professional critics treated the poem with severity. The
subject of the poem was a Russian fairy-tale, and the critics blamed
the poet for having recourse to what they called Russian folk-lore,
which they considered to be unworthy of the poetic muse. One review
complained that Pushkin's choice of subject was like introducing a
bearded unkempt peasant into a drawing-ro