text:  But of the twenty-seven millions of men women and children who people Great Britain and Ireland how many may be presumed to know any thing of Russian literature or even to have enquired whether it contains any thing worth knowing? Are there a dozen literary men or women amongst us who could read a Russian romance or understand a Russian drama? Dr Bowring was regarded as a prodigy of polyglot learning because he gave us some very imperfect versions of Russian ballads; and we were thankful even for that contribution from which we doubt not many worthy and well-informed people learned for the first time that Russia produced poets as well as potashes