Peter did not live to see the fruition of his endeavours in literature. The time was too short to produce any good writers, and though _belles-lettres_ were encouraged, the whole attention of the best minds was absorbed in the acquisition of the most-needed information. Knowledge was the watchword of Peter’s time, and the desire for knowledge was so great that even later Lomonósov and Tredyakóvski thought no hardships too great, to gain the coveted instruction. It is characteristic of the times, that these two poets in the new style walked to Moscow to enter school, one from the extreme north, the other from the extreme south. A mighty task fell to the lot of the generation that had been born in the days of the great Tsar. They had to transfer the whole European culture to Russian soil and to discover a means of expressing it. Kantemír, whose education was of an European type, chose the ready model of French verse in which to write his satires, wrestling to say in Russian what he thought out in French. Tredyakóvski discovered the proper versification for his native tongue, but his diligence and good sense did not make up for his barren poetical talent. Sumarókov, single-handed, created the drama, while Lomonósov fostered the ode, settled grammar and created Russian science. The intermediate period between the death of Peter the Great and the accession of Catherine II. was not one that would in itself have encouraged people to take to literature, which was looked down upon as the handmaid of the mighty, if the writers had not inherited an insatiable love of knowledge. The rough and sincere manner of the Tsar had given way to a flimsy imitation of the Court at Versailles. With the introduction of Western civilisation, the Empresses Anna and Elizabeth took over only the mere external appearance, the love of pleasure, a luxury that was incompatible with their rude surroundings. Literary men had no public to write for, except the degraded courtiers who might flatter themselves that they were the Mæcenases of that literature for which, in their hearts, they cared very little. Odes by which one might gain a favour, solemn addresses written to order, tragedies to be furnished by such and such a date, epigrams of a flippant turn,--these were the verses that the courtiers wanted, and they were furnished in sufficient quantity. Though Lomonósov was more intimately acquainted with Günther than with Boileau, yet he, like his contemporaries, found himself compelled to favour the introduction of the French pseudo-classic style, which was the only one that high society knew anything about. From chaos and no literature at all, Russia was of necessity forced to cultivate the unnatural imitation of what was supposed to be classic antiquity, before it knew anything about that antiquity, and before it had tried itself in simpler fields. The literature of that period was consequently unreal, stilted, distant.