The first attempt at a periodical was made as early as the year 1728, when literary essays were regularly added to the news of the day in the _St. Petersburg Gazette_, but the first literary journal was established in 1759 by Sumarókov under the name of _The Industrious Bee_. The example of Russia’s first littérateur was at once imitated by a number of private individuals, and magazines became common, though their life was nearly always very short. In 1769 there was issued by Grigóri Kozítski, under Catherine’s supervision, the first satirical journal, under the name of _All Kinds of Things_. During the time of reforms, satire appears as a natural weapon of attack against the old order of things, and there was, therefore, nothing unusual in the popularity which this and the following satirical journals attained. There is, however, also another reason for their appearance. The English _Spectator_, _Tatler_ and _Rambler_ were at that time well known in Russia, and the literary part of the _St. Petersburg Gazette_ brought out a large number of translations from these English journals. _All Kinds of Things_ shows plainly the influence of Addison in the tone of playful censure which was to Catherine’s liking and which it cultivated. Of the several satirical periodicals that followed, the _Hell’s Post; or, Correspondence between the Lame and the Halt Devils_, by F. Émin, and the famous _Drone_, by N. I. Nóvikov, may be mentioned. The name of the latter is evidently chosen in contradistinction to Sumarókov’s _Industrious Bee_, and its editor, of whose imposing personality we shall speak later, belonged to that enlightened class of men who were in sympathy with the most advanced reforms, but had no love for the flimsy Voltairism which pervaded Russian society, and, like the Slavophile Shcherbátov (see p. 287), thought he discerned some stern virtues in the generations preceding the reforms of Peter the Great. He therefore set out to scourge vice wherever he found it. The satirical journals were divided into two camps: some clung to the mild and harmless satire of _All Kinds of Things_, the others took the _Drone_ for their model. When the collaboration of Catherine in the first became known, Nóvikov found it necessary to desist from his attacks, to avoid the displeasure of the Empress, and soon his journal stopped entirely. He later edited for a short time the _Painter_ and the _Purse_, but in 1774 all satirical journals ceased to exist. The most important of these journals has been the _Painter_, from which a generation of writers drew subjects for their satire or comedy.