The first of these, in order, Prince Antiokh Dmitrievitch Kantemir, was born in 1708, and brought to Moscow at the age of three by his father, the Hospodar of Moldavia (after the disastrous campaign on the Pruth), who assumed Russian citizenship. Prince Kantemir published his first work, "A Symphony (concordance) of the Psalter," at the age of eighteen, being at that time in the military service, and a member of Feofan Prokopovitch's circle, and his close friend. His father had left a will by which he bequeathed his entire estate and about one hundred thousand serfs to that one of his children who should prove "the most successful in the sciences"; and one of Prince Antiokh's brothers having married a daughter of Prince D. M. Galitzyn, one of the most influential men of the day, Peter the Great naturally adjudged him the heir to the estate. This embittered Prince Antiokh Kantemir, and he revealed his wrath against the Emperor and his party in his first two notable satires, which appeared about the time the Empress Anna Ioannovna ascended the throne (1730). Galitzyn was one of the nobles who were ruined by this event, and Prince Kantemir recovered a portion of his rightful possessions. In 1731 his powerful protection secured him the appointment of diplomatic resident in London. Thence he was, later on, transferred to Paris, and never returned to Russia. Before his departure to London, he wrote five satires, several fables and epistles, none of which were printed, however, though they won him great reputation in cultivated society, where they circulated in manuscript copies. Satire was quite in the spirit of the age, and Kantemir devoted himself to it. He displayed much wit and keen observation. In all, he produced nine satires, four being written during his sojourn abroad. In Satire Second, entitled, "Filaret and Evgeny," or "On the Envy and Pride of Cantankerous Nobles," he describes the arrogance of the nobility, and their pretensions to the highest posts, without any personal exertion or merit, solely on the merits of their ancestors; and here he appears as a zealous advocate of Peter the Great's "Table of Ranks," intended to put a stop to precisely this state of affairs, by making rank depend on personal services to the state. The Third and Sixth Satires are curious in that they clearly express the author's views on his own literary activity, and also on society and literature in general. The Sixth Satire, written in 1738, is the most important, as showing Kantemir's own nature, both as a man and as a writer.