GOGOL, NIKOLAY, a Russian author of great celebrity, whose career throws a light on several points of the moral and political state of his country. He was born apparently about 1810, in Malorusaia, or Little Russia, the inhabitants of which are distinguished from those of Great Russia by vivacity of character and a comparatively strong feeling of self-respect and independence. They have a language or dialect of their own, about as distinct from that of Russia as the Lowland Scotch from the English, but of which no use is made in serious composition. Gogol was educated at Neghin, at the Bezbo rodko Lyceum, a provincial high school founded and eudowed by one of the Bezborodko family, and one of the few institutions of the kind in Russia which are not directly supported by the public money. On completing his education he repaired to St. Petersburg in search of employment under government, and it is said that his claims were rejected by one of the government offices on the ground that be was Insufficiently acquainted with the Russian language. Soon after he published his first work, a collection of short novels and sketches, entitled ' Evenings at a Farmhouse' (' Vechera na Khutorie '). The book became immediately popular, and the charm of the style was compared by Russian critics to that of Washington Irving. It con sists of a series of delineations of country life in Malorussia, which are said to be remarkable for their fidelity. It was soon followed by Mirgorod,' a supplementary collection of the same character, which met with equal favour. One of the author's habits deserves remark : Gogol, like Dickens, was noted for the excellence with which be read aloud his own productions, and it is said that in composing a dialogue it was his practice to recite all the different speeches in character before committing them to paper, by means of which he ascertained more aatiefactorily if they were in complete cousonance with what the character and situation required. He satin tried his powers in the drama, and his comedy of "Die Revisor' met with the most brilliant success. A revisor in Russia is the title of a high government officer despatched to a province to ascertain and report on the character of its administration. The plot and the moral of the play is, that an impostor who makes his appearance at a provincial capital, assuming this title, discovers sdch universal peculation and misconduct among all the government officials, that when he is at last discovered they are glad to let him off scot free and hush up the whole affair. The
Emperor Nicholas, who saw the play acted more than once, gave it his marked applause. It was however chiefly popular among the Russian liberal party, who affixed to it a deeper significance than to a foreigner appears altogether just, and considered it an open and serious attack on the institutions of Russia in general. That it was not looked upon in this light by the government seems sufficiently proved by the appointment of Gogol as professor of history at the University of St. Petersburg, whore it was his intention to devote himself to more serious studies. his next work however was another novel, the 'Adventures of Chichagov, or Dead Souls' ('Pokhozhdeniya Chicim gova ill Mertvuiya Dusbi'), published at Mosoow in 1842. The English public has an opportunity of forming an estimate of this, the principal work of Oogol, as an English translation of it appeared in 1854, under the title of 'Home Life in Russia, by a Russian Noble,' falsely declared in the preface to be an unpublished novel, originally written by a Russian in the English language. The style of the English version is indeed remarkably bad, while that of the Russian original is remarkably good ; but the main strength of a novel lies in the plot and characters. The hero of the 'Dead Souls,' like the hero of the 'Reviser,' is a daring impostor, who goes about to a number of country gentlemen to persuade them to sell to him the nominal property in their dead serfs, or, as they are technically celled in Russia, their 'dead souls,' for the purpose of obtaining an advance from government as the proprietor of a certain number of serfs—the names of the dead not being for a certain period struck off the records. Some of the characters introduced in the tale are certainly sketched with vigour, but in no other production of Russian literature is the foreign reader eo much at a loss to detect the charm which has excited the enthu siasm of the native critics. The praises which were lavished on the urNinal may bo suspected of having their origin partly in political feelings.