Monarch of Russia! This struggle awaits you. For this contest gird on your sword! Draw it with valour, young hero! Fight, conquer and govern! The omnipotent arm of the Almighty will wonderfully protect you. We say rightly “wonderfully”; for here not to fall, here to conquer, here to maintain order and peace, truly! for this is more than human strength required; and, though the decree of the Eternal Being has appointed for you an exalted rank among men, you are nevertheless a man like any of us.--Given in Grahame’s _The Progress of Science, Art and Literature in Russia_. Iván Ivánovich Khémnitser. (1745-1784.) Khémnitser was the son of a German physician who had emigrated to Russia. At thirteen years of age he left his home and entered military service, which he left in 1769 as a lieutenant; he then served in the Department of Mines, and died in Smyrna, where he was Russian consul. Khémnitser translated La Fontaine’s and Gellert’s fables, but two-thirds of all the fables he wrote are his own. He forms the transitional stage between Sumarókov and Krylóv, and is distinguished for extreme simplicity of language and a certain elegiac tone. Sir John Bowring has translated his _The House-Builder_, _The Rich and the Poor Man_, _The Lion’s Council of State_, and _The Waggons_. Sutherland Edwards, in his _The Russians at Home_, gives a version of _The Metaphysician_, which is also reprinted in F. R. Grahame’s _The Progress of Science, Art and Literature in Russia_. THE LION’S COUNCIL OF STATE A lion held a court for state affairs: Why? That is not your business, sir, ’twas theirs! He called the elephants for counsellors--still The council-board was incomplete; And the king deemed it fit With asses all the vacancies to fill. Heaven help the state--for lo! the bench of asses The bench of elephants by far surpasses. He was a fool, the foresaid king, you’ll say: Better have kept those places vacant surely, Than fill them up so poorly. O no! that’s not the royal way; Things have been done for ages thus,--and we Have a deep reverence for antiquity: Naught worse, sir, than to be, or to appear Wiser and better than our fathers were. The list must be complete, even though you make it Complete with asses; for the lion saw Such had for ages been the law,-- He was no radical to break it! “Besides,” he said, “my elephants’ good sense Will soon my asses’ ignorance diminish, For wisdom has a mighty influence.” They made a pretty finish! The asses’ folly soon obtained the sway: The elephants became as dull as they! --From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I. THE METAPHYSICIAN