virgin," his beautiful Natalia, with whom he was so deeply in love. Having satisfied every earthly desire, he must needs, like Polycrates, throw his ring into the sea. All his happiness came to a sudden end, and not only his happiness, but his life, went to pay his debt to that high society which had received him with smiles and fair promises. Puchkine's end is as dramatic as any novel. A certain French Legitimist who had been well received by the nobility at St. Petersburg took advantage of the chivalrous customs then in vogue there, to pay court to the poet's beautiful wife, electing her as the lady of his thoughts without disguise. Society protected this little skirmish, and assisted the gallant to meet his lady at every entertainment and in every _salon_; and as Puchkine, though quite unsuspicious, showed plainly that he did not enjoy the game, they amused themselves with exciting and annoying him, ridiculing him, and making him the butt of epigrams and anonymous verses. The marriage of "Dante"--as the adorer of his wife was called--with his wife's sister, far from calming his nerves, only irritated him the more, and he believed it to be a stratagem on the lover's part, a means of approaching the nearer to his desires. Becoming desperate, he sought and obtained a challenge to a duel, and fell mortally wounded by a ball from his adversary. Two days later he died, having just received a letter from the emperor, saying:-- "Dear Alexander, Son of Sergius,--If it is the will of Providence that we should never meet again in this world, I counsel you to die like a Christian. Give yourself no anxiety for your wife and children; I will care for them." Russia cried out with indignation at the news of his death, accusing polite society in round terms of having taken the part of the professional libertine against the husband,--of the French adventurer against their illustrious compatriot; and Lermontof voiced the national anger in some celebrated lines to this effect:-- "Thy last days were poisoned by the vicious ridicule of low detractors; thou hast died thirsting for vengeance, moaning bitterly to see thy most beautiful hopes vanished; none understood the deep emotion of thy last words, and the last sigh of thy dying lips was lost."