"Puchkine," says Gogol, "has been urging me for some time to undertake a long and serious work. One day he talked to me of my feeble health, of the frequent attacks which may cause my premature death; he mentioned as an example Cervantes, the author of some short stories of excellent quality, but who would never have held the place he is awarded among the writers of first rank, had he not undertaken his 'Don Quixote.' And at last he suggested to me a subject of his own invention on which he had thought of making a poem, and said he would tell it to nobody but me. The subject was 'The Dead Souls.' Puchkine also suggested to me the idea of 'The Inspector.'" "In spite of this frank testimony," adds Voguié, "equally honorable to both friends, I must continue to believe that the true progenitor of 'Dead Souls' was Cervantes himself. On leaving Russia Gogol turned toward Spain, and studied at close quarters the literature of this country, especially 'Don Quixote,' which was always his favorite book. The Spanish humorist held up to him a subject marvellously suited to his plans, the adventures of a hero with a mania which leads him into all regions of society, and who serves as the pretext to show to the spectator a series of pictures, a sort of human magic-lantern. The near relationship of these two works is indicated at all points,--the cogitative, sardonic spirit, the sadness underlying the laughter, and the impossibility of classifying either under any definite literary head. Gogol protested against the application of the word 'novel' to his book, and himself called it a poem, dividing it, not into chapters but into cantos. Poem it cannot be called in any rigorous sense of the term; but classify 'Don Quixote,' and Gogol's masterpiece will fall into the same category." I read "Dead Souls" before reading Voguié's criticism, and my impression coincided exactly with his. I said to myself, "This book is the nearest like 'Don Quixote' of any that I have ever read." There are important differences--how could it be otherwise?--and even discounting the loss to Gogol by means of translation, a marked inferiority of the Russian to Cervantes; but they are writers of the same species, and even at the distance of two centuries they bear a likeness to each other. And the intention to take "Don Quixote" as a model is evident, even though Gogol had never set foot in Spain, as some of his compatriots affirm. "Dead Souls" may be divided into three parts: the first, which was completed and published in 1842; the second, which was incomplete and rudimentary, and cast into the flames by the author in a fit of desperation, but published after his death from notes that had escaped this holocaust; and the third, which never took shape outside the author's mind.