and nibble at it in the darkness of night. No, my friend, the life of
an artist is the life of a martyr."

We are so much accustomed to see virtue rewarded and vice punished, that
we might perhaps have been better pleased to have seen this kind of
poetical justice more equitably dispensed; but the cause of virtue is
perhaps as effectually served by making it attractive as by making it
triumphant, and vice is as much discouraged by making it odious or
contemptible as by making it unsuccessful.

It only remains to say a few words of the translator's labours; and
although we do not pretend to decide on the fidelity of the version he has
given us, or how much his author may have lost or gained in his hands, we
cannot but think that we perceive internal evidence of efforts to be
faithful, even at the hazard of losing perhaps something of more value in
the attempt. However this may be, it is plain that Mr Shaw is himself a
vigorous and eloquent writer of his own language, as the extracts we have
given may vouch. We feel greatly indebted to him for unlocking to us the
stores of Russian fiction, which, if they contain many such works as _The
Heretic_, will well repay the labour of a careful examination. There is
about every thing Russian an air of orientalism which gives a peculiar
character to their dress, their mansions, their manners, their feelings,
their expressions, and their prejudices, which will probably long continue
to distinguish Russian literature on that of the other nations of Europe,
whose steps she has followed, perhaps too implicitly, in her attempts to
overtake them in the race of civilization and intellectual improvement.

* * * * *