Among the lyric poets two Kozaks, Cyril Danilof and Semen Klimofsky, are named with some distinction. The first of the two, better known under the diminutive of his name, _Kirsha_ Danilof, deserves particular attention. The Russians have their cyclus of heroic legends, as well as the occidental nations. Vladimir and his Boyars are to them what Arthur and his Round table, Charlemagne and his twelve peers, are to Britons, Franks, and Germans. These traditions lived still among the people in Kirsha Danilof's time; and yet live to some extent as nursery tales. Kirsha versified them; and, we fear, changed them according to the spirit of his time. They have only been printed and published in the present century, at least seventy-five years after they were written; for Kirsha was a cotemporary of Peter I. It is no doubt to him, that we owe their preservation through an age of a false and pedantic taste, which could only have despised these relics of barbarism, and during which they were forgotten by the Frenchified literati.[21] In historical contributions this period is not wholly poor; but as the writers paid not the slightest attention to style, or did not know from what principles to begin, the language remained entirely uncultivated. There was as yet no thought of a Russian _Grammar_. In poetry the system of rhymed verses, in which the syllables were not measured, but counted, in imitation of the Poles, reigned exclusively. Meanwhile the popular songs held faithfully to the old Russian irregular but highly musical numbers, consulting only the ear. Trediakofsky, born 1703, was the first who examined more closely the nature of the language, and advised the adoption of the classical metres founded on quantity. He applied on this point merely the principles which Zizania and Smotrisky, nearly a century before, had established for the Old Slavic idiom, and with equal propriety. But, as the talent for illustrating his rules by good examples was wanting in him, he made very little impression; and his name and endeavours were soon forgotten.[22] THIRD PERIOD. _From Lomonosof to Karamzin, A.D._1741--1796.