The indomitable activity which we have mentioned as forming a marked feature in Pushkin's intellect, though exhibited most strikingly throughout his whole career, was never more forcibly displayed than at the present period. Although the first fervour of his passions was now in sole degree moderated by indulgence, and by that satiety which is the inevitable attendant on such indulgence, it is not to be imagined that the poet, in retiring from the capital, intended by this to seclude himself from the gayer pleasures of society. We know, too, how absorbing of time is the wandering life which he led--and many have learned from experience, how difficult it is for a traveller to find leisure for intellectual pursuits. Some idea, therefore, of Pushkin's activity may be formed from a knowledge of the circumstance, that during this roving period he had not only been storing his memory with images of the beauties of nature, taking tribute of grandeur and loveliness from every scene through which he wandered, but found time to pursue what would appear, even for an otherwise unoccupied student, a very steady and incessant course of labour. During the whole of his life, he made it his practice to read almost every remarkable work which appeared in the various languages he had acquired. That this was no easy task, and that the quantity of intellectual food which he unceasingly consumed, must have required a powerful and rapid digestion to assimilate it, we may conclude from his own statement of his occupations and acquirements. On quitting the Lyceum, he was acquainted with the English, Latin, German, and French languages; to this list he managed to add, during his wanderings, a complete knowledge of the Italian, and a competent proficiency in Spanish. But let us hear his own account of these studies, extracted from a poem written in Bessarabia-- "In solitude my soul, my wayward inspiration I've school'd to quiet toil, to fervent meditation. I'm master of my days; order is reason's friend; On graver thoughts I've learn'd my spirit's powers to bend; I seek to compensate, in freedom's calm embraces, For the warm years of youth, its joys and vanish'd graces; And to keep equal step with an enlighten'd age." We cannot refrain from quoting in this place a passage from another poem, written at this period; our readers will be pleased, we think, with so graceful a tribute to the glory of the great exile-bard of Rome, whose fate and character had so much in common with those of Pushkin himself-- "Sweet Ovid! Love's own bard! I dwell by that still shore Whither thine exiled gods thou broughtest--where of yore Thou pour'dst thy plaints in life, and left thine ashes dying; With deathless, fruitless tears these places glorifying. * * * * * *