Catherine made Derzhávin Governor of Olónetsk, and later of Tambóv; but neither in these high offices, nor later, when Paul appointed him Chief of the Chancery of the Imperial Council, and Alexander I. made him Minister of Justice, was he successful. His excitable temperament, combined with a stern love of truth which brooked no compromise, made him everywhere impossible. Of the many productions which he wrote after _Felítsa_, none gained such wide popularity as his _Ode to God_. Though parts of it bear strong resemblance to similar odes by Klopstock, Haller, Brockes, and to passages in Young’s _Night Thoughts_, yet the whole is so far superior to any of them that it soon was translated into all European languages, and also into Japanese; there are not less than fifteen versions of it in French. Derzhávin lived to hear Púshkin recite one of his poems and to proclaim him his spiritual successor. The following translations of Derzhávin’s poems in English are known to me: _God_, _On the Death of Meshcherski_, _The Waterfall_, _The Lord and the Judge_, _On the Death of Count Orlov_, _Song_ (_The Little Bee_), in Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I.; _To a Neighbour_, _The Shipwreck_, _Fragment_, _ib._, Part II.; _To God_, _The Storm_, in William D. Lewis’s _The Bakchesarian Fountain_, Philadelphia, 1849; _The Stream of Time_, in J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_; _Drowning_, by N. H. Dole; _Ode to the Deity_, by J. K. Stallybrass, in The Leisure Hour, London, 1870, May 2; _Ode to God_, by N. H. Dole, in The Chautauquan, vol. x; _On the Death of Meshcherski_, in C. E. Turner’s _Studies in Russian Literature_, and the same in Fraser’s Magazine, 1877. ODE TO THE DEITY O Thou infinite in being; Living ’midst the change of all; Thou eternal through time’s fleeing; Formless--Three-in-one withal! Spirit filling all creation, Who hast neither source nor station; Whom none reach, howe’er they plod; Who with Thine existence fillest, Claspest, mouldest as Thou willest, Keepest all; whom we call--God! Though the lofty mind could measure Deepest seas, and count the sand, Of the starry rays the treasure, Thou no number hast, no strand! Highest souls by Thee created, To Thy service consecrated, Ne’er could trace Thy counsels high; Soon as thought to Thee aspireth, In Thy greatness it expireth, Moment in eternity. Thou didst call the ancient chaos From eternity’s vast sea: On Thyself, ere time did ray us, Thou didst found eternity. By Thyself Thyself sustaining, From Thyself unaided shining, Thou art Light--light flows from Thee; By Thy words all things creating, Thy creation permeating, Thou wast, art and aye shalt be.