LERMONTOV.--Lermontov was not inferior to his friend Pushkin, whom he closely resembled. Like him he drew inspiration from the romantic poets of the West. He loved the East, and his short, glorious suggestions came to him from the Caucasus. Among his finest poetic works may be cited _The Novice Ismael Bey_, _The Demon_, _The Song of the Tzar Ivan_. He wrote a novel, perhaps autobiographical, entitled _A Hero of Our Own Time_, the hero of which is painted in highly Byronic colours. GOGOL.--Russian taste was already veering to the epic novel or epopee in prose, of which Gogol was the most illustrious representative until Tolstoy. He was highly gifted. In him the feeling for Nature was acutely active, and recalling his descriptions of the plains of the Crimea, its rivers and steppes, he must be regarded as the Rousseau and Chateaubriand of Russia. Further, he was a close student of village habits, and a painter in astonishing hues. He eminently possessed the sense of epic grandeur, and added a sarcastic vein of delightful irony. His _Taras Bulba_, _King of the Dwarfs_, _History of a Fool_, and _Dead Souls_, have the force of arresting realism, his _Revisor_ (inspector of finances) is a caustic comedy which has been a classic not only in Russia but in France, where it was introduced in translation by Mérimée. TURGENEV.--Turgenev, less epical than Gogol, was also studious of local habits and dexterous in describing them. He began with exquisite _Huntsman's Tales_ impregnated with truth and precision, as well as intimate and picturesque details; then he extended his scope and wrote novels, but never at great length, and therefore suited to the exigencies or habits of Western Europe (such as _Smoke_). He had selected Paris as his abode, and he mixed with the greatest thinkers of the day: Taine, Flaubert, Edmond About. In the eyes of his fellow-countrymen he became ultimately too Western and too Parisian. His was a delicate, sensitive soul, prone to melancholy and perpetually dreaming. He had a cult of form in which he went so far as to make it a sort of scruple and superstition.