Máykov was the son of a landed proprietor. He entered military service, in 1766 was made Associate Governor of Moscow, and occupied other high offices. He began to write early and, being an admirer of Sumarókov,--like all the other writers of his day,--he wrote odes, eulogies, fables, tragedies, all of them in the pseudo-classic style. He knew no foreign languages, and his imitations are at second hand. This, however, gave him a great advantage over his contemporaries, in that he was better acquainted with Russian reality than with foreign models. His mock-heroic poem _Eliséy, or Excited Bacchus_, from which “The Battle of the Zimogórans and Valdáyans,” given below, is an extract, is far superior for real humour, Russian environment and good popular diction to anything else produced by the Russian writers of the eighteenth century; and the undisputed popularity of the _Eliséy_, which was not dimmed even by Bogdanóvich’s _Psyche_, was well merited. THE BATTLE OF THE ZIMOGÓRANS AND VALDÁYANS The field was all ploughed and sowed in oats, and after these labours all the cattle and we were resting. Already had the grain sprouted a quarter of an inch, and our time had come to cut the hay. Our meadow, as all know well, bordered on the meadow of the Valdáyans; no one could tell where the line between them was but a surveyor, so the strongest hand mowed the grass there, and the meadows were always a cause of quarrels; even then they were the cause of our terrible battle. The day had come, and we went into the meadow, taking with us milk, eggs and whey-cheese, loading ourselves with kvas, beets, dumplings, brandy and buckwheat cakes. No sooner had we appeared with our provender in the meadow, than we espied the host before us: the proud Valdáyans were standing there with arms of war. We became frightened and ran away like rabbits, and running we looked for weapons resembling theirs: withes, pales, poles, cudgels and clubs. We vied with each other to arm ourselves with sticks and to prepare ourselves for the fray. The chief of our village, foreseeing a terrible calamity, seated himself on his horse and gathered us all together; having gotten us together, he took a pen and began to scribble. Though he was not a Frenchman nor a Greek, but a Russian, yet he was a government official and wore a crimson uniform. God forfend that a scribe should be a military commander! He took out his pen, and began to write down the names, while our backs were already smarting from the descent of a hail of stones upon them. Is it possible Pallas was with the scribe? For he was still writing down names, while the Valdáyans were drubbing us. Old women in the huts were lamenting to heaven; small children, all the girls and women, and chickens hid behind the stove and underneath it.