“O vine, you should commended be For you are beautiful to see; Your fruit is of all fruits most fair:— The crown and diadem they wear. Like strands of gold your branches spread, Like ropes of pearl the grapes they thread. For some are dark and some are white, And some are red, transmitting light. Some glow like amber in the dusk, Perfumed with frankincense and musk. Left us by the Creator’s care,— From Eden’s fields a keepsake rare. To us on earth you seem to be The fruit of immortality. To Noah you were by angels borne His heart to gladden and adorn. Your fruit when gathered from the vine Unto the wine-press we assign; Your juice like crimson roses glows And through the press in torrents flows. Then into jars we pour the meath, There without fire to boil and seethe. How many kings around you press, Your name how many princes bless! The Sovereign’s heart you fill with joy, With power to conquer and destroy; If he is wroth with any man, And places him beneath his ban, One drop of you immediately Would move his heart to set him free. The man that from his birth was blind, Drinking of you, his sight doth find; Of glorious cities he can tell, Wherein his footsteps never fell. The dumb, that halted in his speech, To prate with fluency you teach. More glibly than a parrot, he Will jest and wanton dotingly. At mass, within the sacred cup, The holy priest doth raise you up. Disease and pain through you will cease, By you all sinners find release. To town and village you are borne, To convent, wilderness forlorn; Where men do not your sparkle see, No mass nor service can there be.” The seventeenth century resembles its predecessor as regards the political position of Armenia, except that the misery is even greater. During the last years of the eighteenth century, the Russian conquest of Armenia began. At the end of the eighteenth century an Armenian monk named Mkhitar Sepastatzi established at St. Lazare in Venice an Armenian Brotherhood, who devoted themselves to literature. This Brotherhood is still in existence, and has a branch in Vienna. During this period of more than a century its members have printed hundreds of old MSS. of historical value. They have also produced many works dealing with history and other branches of learning, and translations of foreign classics, thus rendering a great service to Armenian literature.