text:  Notwithstanding all this and despite many sinister presages we have obstinately persevered in our determination to clothe in an English dress those pieces great and small--gems or flowers productions perfumed by grace of diction or heavy with weight of thought--which struck us most forcibly among the poems of our author; and we hope that our boldness if not our success may be rewarded with the approbation of such of our countrymen as may be curious to know something of the tone and physiognomy of the Russian literature