Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/673

Rh P O U P O U In 1825 the unfortunate conspiracy of the Dekabrists broke out, the ostensible aim of which was to defend the claims of the grand-duke Constantine against his brother Nicholas, but the real purpose was to set up a republican form of government in Russia, for which the country was not by any means prepared. Many of the conspirators were personal friends of Poushkin, especially Kiichelbecker and Pustchin. The poet himself was to a certain extent compromised, but he succeeded in getting to his house at Mikhailovskoe and burning all the papers which might have been prejudicial to him. He had resolved to go to St Petersburg, possibly to throw in his lot with his friends there, but was stopped by what are considered portents by the Russian people. As soon as he had left the gates of his house he met a priest, and he had not gone a verst before three hares crossed his path. These were such bad omens that there was nothing for him to do, as a genuine Russian and at all times a superstitious man, but to return home at once. Through influential friends he succeeded in making his peace with the emperor, to whom he was presented at Moscow soon after his coronation. The story goes that Nicholas said to Count Bludoff on the same evening, &quot; I have just been conversing with the most witty man in Russia.&quot; In 1828 appeared Poltava, a spirited narrative poem, in which the expedition of Charles XII. against Peter and the treachery of the hetman Mazeppa were described. The best part of the poem is the picture of the battle itself, where the colours are laid on very boldly. In 1829 Poushkin again visited the Caucasus, on this occasion accompanying the expedition of Prince Paskewitch. He wrote a pleasing account of the tour ; many of the short lyrical pieces suggested by the scenery and associations of his visit are delightful, especially the lines on the Don and the Caucasus. In 1831 Poushkin married Mademoiselle Natalia Goncharoff, and in the fol lowing year was again attached to the ministry of foreign affairs, with a salary of 5000 roubles. He now busied himself with an historical work, an account of the revolt of the Cossack Pugacheff, who almost overthrew the empire of Catherine and was executed at Moscow in the latter part of the 18th century. While engaged upon this he wrote The Captain s Daughter, one of the best of his prose works. In 1832 was completed the poem Eugene Onyegin, in which the author attempted a completely new style, moulding his production upon the lighter sketches of Byron in the Italian manner. The poem is, on the whole, very successful. The metre is graceful and sprightly and well adapted for serio-comic verse. The characters of Lenski, Onyegin, Tatiana, and Olga are drawn with a vigorous hand, and each is a type. No one can accuse Poushkin of want of nationalism in this poem : it is Russian in every fibre. In 1837 the poet, who had been long growing in literary reputation, fell mortally wounded in a duel with Baron George Heckeren d Anthes, the adopted son of the Dutch minister then resident at the court of St Petersburg. D Anthes, a vain and frivolous young man, had married a sister of the poet s wife. Notwithstanding this he aroused Poushkin s jealousy by some attentions which he paid Natalia ; but the grounds for the poet s anger, it must be confessed, do not appear very great. Poushkin died, after two days suffering, on the afternoon of Friday, 10th February. D Anthes was tried by court-martial and expelled the country. In the year 1880 a statue of the poet was erected at the Tver Barrier at Moscow, and fetes were held in his honour, on which occasion many interest ing memorials of him were exhibited to his admiring countrymen and a few foreigners who had congregated for the festivities. The poet left four children; his widow was afterwards married to an officer in the army named Lanskoi ; she died in 1863. Poushkin remains as yet the greatest poet whom Russia has produced. The most celebrated names before him were those of Lomonosoff and Derzhavin ; the former was a composer of merely scholastic verses, and the latter, in spite of great merits, was too much wedded to the pedantries of the classical school. Since Poush kin s death, Lermontoffand Nekrasotl have appeared, both distinctly writers of genius, but they are confessedly inferior to him. His poetical tales are spirited and full of dramatic power. The influence of Byron is undoubtedly seen in them, but they are not imitations, still less is anything in them plagiarized. Boris Goduno/ is a line tragedy ; on the whole Eugene Onyegin must be considered Poushkin s masterpiece. Here we have a great variety of styles satire, pathos, and humour mixed together. The character-paint ing is good, and the descriptions of scenery introduced faithful to nature. The poem in many places reminds us of Byron, who him self in his mixture of the pathetic and the humorous was a disciple of the Italian school. Poushkin also wrote a great many lyrical pieces. Interspersed among the poet s minor w r orks will be found many epigrams, but some of the best composed by him were not so fortunate as to pass the censorship, and must be read in a supple mentary volume published at Berlin. As a prose writer Poushkin has considerable merits. Besides his History of the Revolt of Pugacheff, which is perhaps too much of a compilation, he pub lished a small volume of tales under the nom do plume of Ivan Byelkin. These all show considerable dramatic power ; the best are The Captain s Daughter, a tale of the times of Catherine II., The Undertaker, a very ghostly story, which will remind the English reader of some of the tales of Edgar Poe ; The Pistol Shot ; and The Queen of Spades. Of the letters of Poushkin, which originally were to be found scattered over many magazines and literary journals, a fairly complete collection was published in the new edition of his works which appeared at Moscow under the editorship of M. Yefrimoff. (W. R. M.) POUSSIN, NICOLAS (1594-1665), French painter, was born at Les Andelys (Eure) in June 1594. Early sketches, made when he should have been learning Latin, attracted the notice of Quentin Varin, a local painter, whose pupil Poussin became, till he went to Paris, where he entered the studio of Ferdinand Elle, a Fleming, and then of the Lorrainer L Allemand. He found French art in a stage of transition : the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academical schools destined to supplant it were not yet established ; but, having been brought into rela tions with Courtois the mathematician, Poussin was fired by the study of his collection of engravings after Italian masters, and resolved to go to Italy. After two abortive attempts to reach Rome, and when he was again on the road, he fell in with the chevalier Marini at Lyons. Marini employed him on illustrations to his poems, took him into his household, and in 1624 enabled Poussin (who had been detained by commissions in Lyons and Paris) to rejoin him at Rome. There, his patron having died, Poussin fell into great distress ; but his high qualities had won him friends amongst his brother artists, and on his falling ill he was received into the house of his compatriot Dughet and tenderly nursed by his daughter Anna Maria, to whom in 1629, when his affairs were easier, Poussin was married. Amongst his first patrons were Cardinal Barberini, for whom was painted the Death of Germanicus (Barberini Palace); Cardinal Omodei, for whom he produced, in 1630, the Triumphs of Flora (Louvre) ; Cardinal de Richelieu, who commissioned a Bacchanal (Louvre) ; Vicenzo Giusti- niani, for whom was executed the Massacre of the Inno cents, of which there is a first sketch in the British Museum ; Cassiano dal Pozzo, who became the owner of the first series of the Seven Sacraments (Belvoir Castle) ; and Fieart de Chanteloup, with whom in 1640 Poussin, at the call of Sublet De Noyers, returned to France. He was well received by Louis XIII., who conferred on him the title of &quot; first painter in ordinary,&quot; and in two years at Paris he produced not only several pictures for the royal chapels (the Last Supper, painted for Versailles, now in the Louvre) but eight cartoons for the Gobelins, the series of the Labours of Hercules for the Louvre, the Triumph of Truth for Cardinal Richelieu (Louvre), and much minor work; but in 1643, annoyed and disgusted XIX. 82