"There is," once said the bearded sage, "no motion!"
The other straight 'gan move before his eyes:
The contrary no stronglier could he prove.
All praised the answerer's ingenious notion.
Now, Sirs; this story doth to me recall
A new example of the fact surprising:
We see each day the sun before us rising,
Yet right _was_ Galileo, after all!
In the spirited lines addressed to "The Slanderers of Russia," Pushkin
has recorded a sufficiently conclusive reply to the hackneyed calumnies
against his country, repeated with such a nauseating uniformity, and
through so long a period of time, in wretched verse, or more wretched
prose, in the leading articles of obscure provincial newspapers, and on
the scaffolding of obscure provincial hustings. Whatever may be the
merits or demerits, in a moral point of view, of the part played by
Russia in the events alluded to by the poet, events which form the stock
subject of the scribblings and spoutings we speak of, these tiresome
tirades do not come with a very good grace from either England or
France. There is a very excellent and venerable proverb which expresses
the imprudence of the practice of throwing stones, when indulged in by
the inhabitant of an abode composed of a vitreous substance, not to
mention a still more greybearded and not less wise saw, specifying, in
terms rather forcible than dignified, the impolicy of the pot alluding
in an opprobrious manner to the blackness which characterizes the
sitting part of its fellow-utensil, the kettle; and the "wisdom of ages"
might, in the present instance, be very reasonably adduced to moderate
the excessive moral susceptibilities of the aforesaid writers and
declaimers, and to restrain the feeble flood of words--the dirty torrent
of shallow declamation, so incessantly poured forth against Russia on
the subject of Poland. "Judge not, that ye be not judged!" is an
excellent precept for the guidance of nations as well as of individuals;
and, we think, a Russian, wearied by the tiresome repetition of the same
accusations against his native country, can hardly be blamed for asking,
in language even more energetic than that here employed by Pushkin,
whether England or France have hands so clean, or a conscience so clear,
as to justify them in their incessant and insolent attempt to sit in
judgment upon their European sister. We certainly think that the
recollection of the Affghan war, the bombardment of Copenhagen, of the
splendid exploits of Whig policy and Whig non-intervention in Spain,
might make England a little more modest, and a little less inclined to
declaim against the wickedness of other nations--and as to France, her
whole history, from the Republic to the present day, is nothing but a
succession of lessons which might teach _la grande nation_ to abstain
from exhibiting herself in the character of a moral instructress to the
world.