Almost all the poets just mentioned have translated a great deal, and they have enriched Russian literature with such a number of translations from all languages--so admirably done as a rule--that no other literature of the world, not even the German, can claim to possess an equally great treasury. Some translations, beginning with Zhukóvskiy’s rendering of the _Prisoner of Chillon_, or the translations of _Hiawatha_, are simply classical. All Schiller, most of Goethe, nearly all Byron, a great deal of Shelley, all that is worth knowing in Tennyson, Wordsworth, Crabbe, all that could be translated from Browning, Barbier, Victor Hugo, and so on, are as familiar in Russia as in the mother countries of these poets, and occasionally even more so. As to such favourites as Heine, I really don’t know whether his best poems lose anything in those splendid translations which we owe to our best poets; while the songs of Béranger, in the free translation of _Kúrotchkin_, are not in the least inferior to the originals. We have moreover some excellent poets who are chiefly known for their translations. Such are: N. GERBEL (1827-1883), who made his reputation by an admirable rendering of the _Lay of Igor’s Raid_ (see Ch. I.), and later on, by his versions of a great number of West European poets. His edition of _Schiller, translated by Russian Poets_ (1857), followed by similar editions of Shakespeare, Byron, and Goethe, was epoch making. MIKHAIL MIKHÁILOFF (1826-1865), one of the most brilliant writers of the _Contemporary_, condemned in 1861 to hard labour in Siberia, where he died four years later, was especially renowned for his translations from Heine, as also for those from Longfellow, Hood, Tennyson, Lenan, and others. P. WEINBERG (born 1830) made his reputation by his excellent translations from Shakespeare, Byron (_Sardanapal_), Shelley (_Cenci_), Sheridan, Coppe, Gutzkow, Heine, etc., and for his editions of the work of Goethe and Heine in Russian translations. He still continues to enrich Russian literature with excellent versions of the masterpieces of foreign literatures. L. MEY (1822-1862), the author of a number of poems from popular life, written in a very picturesque language, and of several dramas, of which those from old Russian life are especially valuable and were taken by RÍMSKY KORSÁKOFF as the subjects of his operas, has also made a great number of translations. He translated not only from the modern West European poets--English, French, German, Italian, and Polish--but also from Greek, Latin, and Old Hebrew, all of which languages he knew to perfection. Besides excellent translations of Anacreon and the idylls of Theocritus, he wrote also beautiful poetical versions of the _Song of Songs_ and of various other portions of the Bible.