tant of his poems, such as " Onyegin," " The Bohemians," several of his oriental poems, and even his admirable "Poltava," would never have existed.
During the latter years of his life, he had a passion for history, when he studied the historical dramas of Shakespeare. This lie himself acknowledges in the preface to "Boris Godunof," which is a Shakespearian drama on a Muscovite subject. In certain prose works he shows unmistakable proofs of the influence of Voltaire, as they are written in a style wholly dissimilar to anything in Russian prose.
The Slavophile party like to imagine that Pushkin, in his "Songs of the Western Slavs," has evoked the ancient Russian spirit ; while he has merely translated some French verses into Russian. We must acknowledge the truth that his works, with the exception of "Onyegin," and a few others, do not exhibit any peculiar ethnical stamp. He is influenced at different times, as the case may be, by his contemporaries in Germany, England, and France. He expresses universal sentiments, and applies them to Russian themes ; but he looks from outside upon the national life, like all his contemporaries in letters, artistically free from any influence of his own race. Compare his descriptions of the Caucasus with those of Tolsto in "The Cossacks." The poet of 1820 looks upon nature and the Orientals with
