ertheless all foreign _words_ and forms of _expression_ as
unnatural excrescences. It is evidently disfigured by the adoption of
foreign words, and can preserve its beauty only by adhering to its own
national and inexhaustible sources. The Russian, having been in early
times successively subjected to the influence of the Scandinavian,
Mongolian, Tartar, and Polish languages, is in this respect to be
compared, in a certain measure, with the English, in which the ancient
British, the Latin, the Saxon, the Danish, and the French, amalgamated
in the same proportion as the ideas of these different nations were
adopted. Hence nothing that ever contributed to the singular
composition of this rich language, appears to be borrowed; but all
belongs to it as its lawful property. But the great pre-eminence of
the Russian appears in the _use_ which it made of these adopted
treasures. Its greater flexibility made it capable of employing
foreign words merely as _roots_, from which it raised stems and
branches by means of its own native resources. It is this copiousness
and variety of _radical_ syllables, which gives to the Russian in
certain respects a claim over all other Slavic languages.

Another excellence is the great freedom of construction which it
allows, without any danger of becoming unintelligible or even
ambiguous. It resembles in this point the classic languages; from
which however its small number of conjunctions decidedly distinguishes
it. This want of conjunctions has been objected to the language as a
defect; it seems however to be one of the causes, why it is so
remarkably clear and distinct; since it can only admit of
comparatively short phrases. In spite of this clearness, its
adaptedness for poetry is undeniable; and in this branch the
incomparable national songs extant in it would afford a most noble
foundation even in respect to forms, if nature could ever obtain a
complete victory over the perverted taste of fashion. Whether this
language is really capable of entirely imitating the classic metres,
is still a matter of dispute among distinguished Slavic
philologians.[3] As to its euphony, what has been said above in
respect to the Slavic languages in general, may be applied
particularly to the Russian. Here however the ear of the unprejudiced
listener alone can decide.

FIRST PERIOD.

_To the coming of age of Peter the Great_, 1689.

The influence of the Varegians in respect to the language, appears to
h