[134] To his patron, upon his having expressed his fear that Lomonósov would lose his zeal for the sciences when he received the gift of an estate from the Empress. [135] Kalchák-pasha was the commander of Khotín. Alexander Petróvich Sumarókov. (1718-1777.) Sumarókov is the first litterateur of Russia, that is, the first man to regard literature as a profession, independently of an official position. After graduating from the military school, in 1740, he served for a while under some military commanders, but devoted all his leisure time to writing poetry according to the rules laid down by Tredyakóvski. There was no species of poetical literature in which he did not try himself and did not produce prolifically. He has left odes, eulogies, fables, satires and dramas. In many of these he broke virgin soil in Russia, and in his unexampled conceit he was not slow to proclaim his highest deserts: “What Athens has seen and Paris now sees, after a long period of transition, that you, O Russia, have perceived at once by my efforts.” In spite of his mediocrity and acquaintance with only the pseudo-classic French style (for he disdained all serious study of antiquity), Sumarókov was highly valued in his day, and his example has done much to advance Russian literature. In 1756 the Russian Theatre was created by a decree of the Senate, and Sumarókov was chosen as its first director. To fill his repertoire, he was compelled to write plays himself, and he produced them with astounding facility. His best drama is probably _The False Demetrius_, though there is little historical truth in it. In 1761 he issued the first independent journal, _The Industrious Bee_, which, however, was filled mainly with his own writings. Sumarókov’s influence on Russian letters lasted up to the time of Púshkin, though Karamzín was the first to doubt his greatness. Sumarókov’s _The False Demetrius_ has been translated into English: _Demetrius the Impostor_; a tragedy [in five acts and in prose], translated from the Russian, London, 1806. Act II., Scene 7, is also given in C. E. Turner’s _Studies in Russian Literature_, and, the same, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1877. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS ACT II., SCENE 1. GEORGE AND XENIA _Xenia._ Blessed in the world is that purple-bearing man who does not suppress the freedom of our souls, who elevates himself for society’s good, and with leniency adorns his royal dignity, who gives his subjects auspicious days, and whom evildoers alone have cause to fear.