f miscellaneous journal that appears in Russia,
and which partakes of the nature of what we in England call the review
and magazine. In all his writing, prose or verse, Pushkin is most
astonishingly unaffected, rational, and straightforward; but in the
last-named story he has attained the highest degree of perfection--it is
the simplicity of nature herself.

This period must be considered as that in which Pushkin had arrived at
the summit of his glory. He was now enjoying the universal respect and
admiration of his countrymen, a respect and admiration shared by the
sovereign himself, who distinguished the great poet by naming him
"gentilhomme de la chambre;" he was in the very flower of health, life,
and genius; he had completed the laborious part of his great task, in
collecting materials for the history of Peter the Great--all seemed to
prophesy a future filled with bright certainties of happiness and glory.

But the end was not far off; the dark and melancholy event which was to
put a sudden and a fatal conclusion to this glorious and useful career
was near at hand. The storm which was to quench this bright and shining
light was already rising dimly above the horizon; and the poet's
prophetic eye foresaw--like that of the seer in the Scripture--the
"little cloud like a man's hand," that was rising heavily over the calm
sky; he seems to have had an obscure presentiment of the near approach
of death, little suspecting, perhaps, that that death was to be one of
violence, of suffering, and of blood. He had, a few months before, lost
his mother, and had himself accompanied her last remains to the
monastery of Sviatogorsk, and had fixed upon a spot where he wished to
be buried by her side; leaving for this purpose a sum of money in the
treasury of the monastery.

It is, we believe, generally known, even in England, that Pushkin was
mortally wounded in a duel, on Wednesday 27th January, and that he died,
after lingering in excruciating[2] torment during two days and nights,
at half-past two in the afternoon of the 29th of January 1837.

Respecting the causes which led to this melancholy conclusion of a great
man's life, and the details which accompanied that sad and deplorable
event, it is not our intention to speak. Under any circumstances, to
dwell upon so lamentable an affair would serve no good purpose; and
would rather minister to a morbid curiosity in our readers, than in any
respect illustrate the life and charact