CANTEMIR, Antiochus, esteemed the founder of the Russian poetry, was the youngest son of the preceding. Under the most ingenious professors, whom the czar had invited to Petersburg, he learned mathematics, physic, history, moral philosophy, and polite literature; without neglecting the study of the Holy Scriptures, to which he had a great inclination. Scarce had he finished his academic course, when he printed a Concordance of the Psalms in the Russian language, and was elected member of the academy. The affairs of state in which he was soon after engaged, did not make him neglect his literary pursuits. In order to make himself useful to his fellow citizens, he composed his satires, to ridicule certain prejudices which had got footing among them. When but 24 years of age, he was nominated minister at the court of Great Britain; and his dexterity in the management of public affairs was as much admired as his taste for the sciences. He had the same reputation in France, whither he went in 1738 in quality of minister plenipotentiary, and soon after was invested with the character of ambassador extraordinary. The wise and prudent manner in which he conducted himself during the different revolutions which happened in Russia during his absence, gained him the confidence and esteem of three successive princes. He died of a dropsy, at Paris, in 1744, aged 44. Besides the pieces already mentioned, he wrote, 1. Some Fables and Odes. 2. A translation of Horace's Epistles in Russian verse. 3. A proso
Canterbury, prose translation of Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds; Canterbury, and, 4. Algarotti's Dialogues on Sight. The Abbé Guasco has written his life in French, and translated his satires into that language.