_Onegin_ is, perhaps, Pushkin's most characteristic work; it is undoubtedly the best known and the most popular; like _Hamlet_, 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 _à peu près_; 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.