Patronage of the mighty was as much a goal towards which authors aimed in the days of Catherine as in the previous half-century, and the Empress regarded it as her privilege and duty to draw literary talent to the Court, by giving them government positions and lavish gifts. Derzhávin, Fon-Vízin, Bogdanóvich, Kostróv, Petróv, all were attracted to her as the central luminary. _Felítsa_ was the keynote of what Derzhávin purported to be a new departure in the writing of odes, but it was in reality an old laudatory theme with an application of fashionable liberalism, and _Felítsa_ remained the watchword of a generation of poets that gyrated around the throne. At the same time, Catherine made a seeming appeal to public opinion by her comedies and satires. If Nóvikov took her in earnest, and responded to her invitation by making a stand against her lukewarm satire by a systematic arraignment of vice in every form, he soon found it necessary in his next literary venture, the _Painter_, to appease her suspicion and anger by a fulsome praise of the Empress. Underneath this outward dependence upon the Court’s opinion, literary coteries were, however, beginning to come into existence, and the dramas of the day received their impulse from their writings, and in their turn were beginning to look to others than the Court for their approval. These coteries were concentrated around the Masonic lodges, where, under the pledge of secrecy, an exchange of ideas could take place, and which, consequently, Catherine hated more and more. This Freemasonry was in itself under English influence, whence were taken the ceremonial and the organisation. It is said that Freemasonry first made its appearance in Russia under Peter the Great; later it came also under German influence, had its wide-spread connections in Europe, and, under the guise of mysterious practices, discussed the means of spreading popular education, doing unstinted charity, and ensuring freedom of thought. In the uncertain and superficial state of culture which then prevailed in Russia, much that these men did was unreal and irrelevant: they lost themselves in the mystical speculations of the Martinists and the Rosicrucians, and wasted their time in an unprofitable symbolism. But it is sufficient to read the biography of a Nóvikov to perceive that their efforts for the advancement of science and useful knowledge were more real than those of the cultivated and more materialistic Catherine. If Catherine had made the press free, she also persecuted those who had availed themselves of the privilege against her pleasure; if her mouth spoke fine sentiments, her heart was closed against their realisation. But Nóvikov, in the silence of his mysticism, made Russia’s past accessible to the scholar, founded the book trade, and took a practical interest in the common people by giving them useful books to read. This Nóvikov, and the unfortunate Radíshchev, whose