II.
Among the group of poets contemporaries of Pushkin only two are really worthy of mention, viz.: Griboyedof and Lermontof ; but these two, although they died young, gave promise of great genius. The first of these left only one comedy, but that is the masterpiece of the Russian drama ("le Mai de Trop d'Esprit"). The author, unlike Pushkin, disdained all foreign literature, took pride in all the ancient Musco- vite customs, and was Russian to the backbone. He painted the people and the peculiarities of his own country only, and so wonderfully well that his sayings have become proverbs. The piece is similar to the " Revizor " of Gogol, but, in my opinion, superior to it, being broader in spirit and finer in sentiment. Moreover, its satire never will grow old, for it is as appropriate to the pres- ent day as to the time for which it was written.
Returning from Persia, where he had been sent as Russian minister to the Shah, he was mur- dered by a party of robbers, at the age of thirty four.
Lermontof was the poet of the Caucasus, which he made the scene of all his poems. His short life of twenty-six years was spent among those mountains ; and he was, like Pushkin, killed in a
duel, just as he was beginning to be recognized
