Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 357, June, 1845   By: Various

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCLVI. JUNE, 1845. VOL. LVII.

Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article. The index for Volume 57 is included at the end of this issue.

CONTENTS.

PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET. No. I., 657

THE NOVEL AND THE DRAMA, 679

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART XVII., 688

LEBRUN'S LAWSUIT, 705

CENNINO CENNINI ON PAINTING, 717

ÆSTHETICS OF DRESS. NO. IV., 731

SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS: BEING A SEQUEL TO THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM EATER, 739

HANNIBAL, 752

STANZAS WRITTEN AFTER THE FUNERAL OF ADMIRAL SIR DAVID MILNE, C.G.B., 766

STANZAS TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS HOOD, 768

NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH CRITICS. NO. V. DRYDEN ON CHAUCER CONCLUDED, 771

INDEX, 794

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BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCLVI. JUNE, 1845. VOL. LVII.

PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET.

NO. I.

SKETCH OF PÚSHKIN'S LIFE AND WORKS, BY THOMAS B. SHAW, B.A. OF CAMBRIDGE, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE IMPERIAL ALEXANDER LYCEUM, TRANSLATOR OF "THE HERETIC," &C. &C.

Among the many striking analogies which exist between the physical and intellectual creations, and exhibit the uniform method adopted by Supreme Wisdom in the production of what is most immortal and most precious in the world of thought, as well as of what is most useful and beautiful in the world of matter, there is one which cannot fail to arise before the most actual and commonplace imagination. This is, the great apparent care exhibited by nature in the preparation of the nidus or matrix, if we may so style it in which the genius of the great man is to be perfected and elaborated. Nature creates nothing in sport; and as much foresight possibly even more is displayed in the often complicated and intricate machinery of concurrent causes which prepare the development of great literary genius, as in the elaborate in foldings which protect from injury the germ of the future oak, or the deep laid and mysterious bed, and the unimaginable ages of growth and hardening, necessary to the water of the diamond, or to the purity of the gold.

Púshkin is undoubtedly one of that small number of names, which have become incorporated and identified with the literature of their country; at once the type and the expression of that country's nationality one of that small but illustrious bard, whose writings have become part of the very household language of their native land whose lightest words may be incessantly heard from the lips of all classes; and whose expressions may be said, like those of Shakspeare, of Molière, and of Cervantes, to have become the natural forms embodying the ideas which they have expressed, and in expressing, consecrated. In a word, Púshkin is undeniably and essentially the great national poet of Russia.