t_, it is
all quotations. Pushkin in his _Onegin_ succeeded in doing what
Shelley urged Byron to do--to create something new and in accordance
with the spirit of the age, which should at the same time be
beautiful. He did more than this. He succeeded in creating for Russia
a poem that was purely national, and in giving his country a classic,
a model both in construction, matter, form, and inspiration for
future generations. Perhaps the greatest quality of this poem is its
vividness. Pushkin himself speaks, in taking leave, of having seen the
unfettered march of his novel in a magic prism. This is just the
impression that the poem gives; the scenes are as clear as the shapes
in a crystal; nothing is blurred; there are no hesitating notes,
nothing _a peu pres_; every stroke comes off; the nail is hit on the
head every time, only so easily that you do not notice the strokes,
and all labour escapes notice. Apart from this the poem is amusing; it
arrests the attention as a story, and it delights the intelligence
with its wit, its digressions, and its brilliance. It is as witty as
Don Juan and as consummately expressed as Pope; and when the occasion
demands it, the style passes in easy transition to serious or tender
tones. _Onegin_ has been compared to Byron's _Don Juan_. There is this
likeness, that both poems deal with contemporary life, and in both
poems the poets pass from grave to gay, from severe to lively, and
often interrupt the narrative to apostrophize the reader. But there
the likeness ends. On the other hand, there is a vast difference.
_Onegin_ contains no adventures. It is a story of everyday life.
Moreover, it is an organic whole: so well constructed that it fits
into a stage libretto--Tchaikovsky made an opera out of it--without
difficulty. There is another difference--a difference which applies to
Pushkin and Byron in general. There is no unevenness in Pushkin; his
work, as far as craft is concerned, is always on the same high level.
You can admire the whole, or cut off any single passage and it will
still remain admirable; whereas Byron must be taken as a whole or not
at all--the reason being that Pushkin was an impeccable artist in form
and expression, and that Byron was not.

In the winter of 1832 Pushkin sought a new field, the field of
historical research; and by the beginning of 1833 he had not only
collected all the materials for a history of Pugachev, the Cossack who
headed a rising in the reign of