caricatures of
certain persons and opinions of note in Russia, but utterly unknown
in England--pictures which either delight or irritate the author's
countrymen, according to the tendency of their social and political
speculations, but which are as meaningless to the untutored English
eye as a collection of "H.B."'s drawings would be to a Russian who had
never studied English politics. Consequently neither of these stories
is likely ever to be fully appreciated among us[A].

[Footnote A: A detailed account of both of these stories, as well as
of several other works by M. Turgenieff, will be found in the number
of the _North British Review_ for March, 1869.]

The last novelette which M. Turgenieff has published, "The Unfortunate
One" (_Neschastnaya_) is free from the drawbacks by which, as far as
English readers are concerned, "Fathers and Children" and "Smoke,"
are attended; but it is exceedingly sad and painful. It is said to be
founded on a true story, a fact which may account for an intensity
of gloom in its coloring, the darkness of which would otherwise seem
almost unartistically overcharged.

Several of M. Turgenieff's works have already been translated into
English. The "Notes of a Sportsman" appeared about fourteen years
ago, under the title of "Russian Life in the Interior[A];" but,
unfortunately, the French translation from which they were (with all
due acknowledgment) rendered, was one which had been so "cooked" for
the Parisian market, that M. Turgenieff himself felt bound to protest
against it vigorously. It is the more unfortunate inasmuch as an
admirable French translation of the work was afterwards made by M.
Delaveau[B].

[Footnote A: "Russian Life in the Interior." Edited by J.D.
Meiklejohn. Black, Edinburg, 1855.]

[Footnote B: "Recits d'un Chasseur." Traduits par H. Delavea, Paris,
1858.]

Still more vigorously had M. Turgenieff to protest against an English
translation of "Smoke," which appeared a few months ago.

The story of "Fathers and Children" has also appeared in English[A];
but as the translation was published on the other side of the
Atlantic, it has as yet served but little to make M. Turgenieff's name
known among us.

[Footnote A: "Fathers and Sons." Translated from the Russian by Eugene
Schuyler. New York 1867.]

The French and German translations of M. Turgenieff's works are
excellent. From the French versions of M. Delaveau, M. Xavier Marmier,
M. Prosper Merimee, M. Viardo