Nikolai Mikhailovitch, the greatest of Russian historians, and one of the greatest writers that Russia has yet produced, was born in the government of Simbirsk, Dec. 1, 1765. His family belonged to the lower grades of the nobility, and Karamsin, according to the custom of his class, adopted the profession of arms. He served for some time in the imperial guards, beguiling his leisure hours in minor literary attempts, especially translations from the English and German. Quitting the service in 1789, he set out on a tour through Western Europe, and visited Germany, Switzerland, France, and England. His impressions of this tour which extended over three years, he gave to the world, in his Letters of a Russian Traveller, translated into German by Richter in 1804, and from German into English. On his return home he devoted himself entirely to literature, contributing industriously to the Moscow Journal (of which many numbers were written wholly by himself), and afterwards to the Aglaia, the Pantheon, and the Vestaik Europe. The success of his poems and miscellaneous essays in these periodicals was due to their national character and interest. His aim was to magnify his country by dwelling on her past glories and rising greatness. Themes so flattering to the national vanity soon became popular with all classes of the Russian people, and were further recommended by the elaborate care and polish of their style. In 1803 his labours were rewarded with the sinecure office of imperial historiographer, and the resources thus placed at his command inspired him with the idea of writing the history of his country. The national archives were thrown open to him; the government aided him in his researches in every possible way; and the Czar himself countenanced the undertaking by telling him that "the Russian people well deserves to know its history—a history well worthy of the Russian people." To select judiciously from the vast mass of materials placed at his disposal was itself a work of immense care; and he taxed the whole powers of his mind to fuse these selections into a harmonious whole. For thirteen years he toiled with incredible industry at his task, and in 1816 the first eight volumes of the work were ready. The Czar himself defrayed the expenses of printing and publication. The praises of the book had been sounded in every corner of the empire, and when it appeared it was eagerly welcomed by intelligent readers of every class. Its popularity was without precedent or parallel in Russian literature. Honours and rewards were heaped upon the author. He was made a councillor of state, and received from the Czar the order of St Anne, and a house in the Tauridian Palace, one of the pleasure-palaces of the Empress Catherine II. Continuing his task with renewed confidence, Karamsin had, in 1824, finished the eleventh volume, bringing down the narrative to the reign of Ivan V. Enfeebled health disabled him from carrying out his plans with his former energy, and he did not live to complete the twelfth volume, which was edited and carried through the press by his friend Bludov, minister of the interior. He died at the Tauridian Palace, June 3 (Russian style), 1826. A few days before his death, he had received from the new Czar Nicholas a flattering autograph letter, and a ukase entitling him to an annual pension of 50,000 roubles. The pension was continued to his widow and family. Karamsin is with justice styled the father of Russian history. Neither before nor since his day has Russia had an historian worthy of the name. Judged by the standard of that country, Karamsin's history deserves all the praises that have been lavished upon it; tried by a higher standard it falls far short of them. Everywhere the style is stately and sonorous, often far too ambitious for the narrative or the thought. It does not flexibly adapt itself to the ever-varying importance of the persons or facts passed under review; and thus, to the foreign reader at least, it soon becomes wearisome from its monotony. In a historical point of view the matter of the narrative is also open to strong objections. The outlines of great characters and events are often feebly and vaguely drawn. The personages are not grouped, and the events are not marshalled, in such a way as to produce any powerful effect, or even to convey any definite idea to the mind of the reader. Salient points are missed, and points of very minor importance paraded in their place. No attempt is made to explain the causes or the consequences of events or the motives of the actors. The arrangement likewise is bad. With all these defects, however, Karamsin's work is still the only history of Russia.