embodied by the great German or the yet greater Italian: and the poem of "Ruslan and Liudmila"--the result of Pushkin's bold and happy experiment--may be said to have been the very first embodiment of Russian fancy, at least the first such embodiment exhibited under a form sufficiently European to enable readers who were not Russians to appreciate and admire. The cantos which compose this charming work were read by Pushkin, as fast as they were completed, at the house of his friend and brother poet, Jukovskii, where were assembled the most distinguished men of Russian literary society. In 1820 the poem of "Ruslan and Liudmila" was completed, and its appearance must be considered as giving the finishing blow to the worn-out classicism which characterizes all the poetical language of the eighteenth century. This revolution was begun by Jukovskii himself, to whom Russian literature owes so much; and he hailed with delight the new and beautiful production of the young poet--the "conquering scholar," as Jukovskii affectionately calls Pushkin--which established for ever the new order of things originating in the good taste of the "conquered master," as he designates himself. The ever timid spirit of criticism was, as usual, exemplified in the judgments passed by the literary journals upon this elegant innovation. Some were alarmed at the novelty of the language, others shocked at the irregularity of the versification, and others again at the occasional comic passages introduced into the poem: but all forgot, or all dared not confess, that this was the first Russian poetry which had ever been greedily and universally _read_; and that, until the appearance of "Ruslan and Liudmila," poetry and tiresomeness had been, in Russia, convertible terms.