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clergy, who had long been repressed, was enough to make
her generally regarded as the liberator of the people
from the oppression of Western Europe. She was
especially so regarded by Lomonósof, whose lyrical poems
have hardly any other subject than his sovereign; and
she was celebrated as “the Astræa who had brought back
a golden age,” “the Moses who had brought Russia out
of the darkness of Egyptian thraldom,” etc. Under
her guidance, Russia was to show that, without foreign
teachers, it was in a situation to bring forward
“profound Platos and intellectually endowed Newtons” — a
manner of speech which sounds strangely in the mouth
of Lomonósof, who had himself been so thoroughly
grounded in the schools of foreign lands, and who,
without the instruction in Marburg and Friburg, never
would have attained the level of the European culture of
his day.
His general enthusiasm for science was beyond all
doubt, but in the domain of history and language the
rabid national feeling handicapped him as to the results
within reach. In his contests Avith Müller and Schlözer
he maintains, for example, that they derived the
Russian word kniaz (prince) from the German word knecht
to dishonor the Russian people and stamp them as a
nation of thralls. (Kniaz seems to be cognate not only
to the word knecht, but also to the English word knight,
and other appellations of rank of the highest repute.
Nevertheless, the comparison, by Anatole Leroy
Beaulieu, of kniaz with king [La Russie, i. 214] is certainly
misleading.) An address of Müller, which was to be
delivered on the name-day of the Tsaritsa, “About the
Scandinavian Origin of the Russian Race and Name,”
struck Lomonósof as insulting to the honor and prestige
of the Russian people. He was so reckless in his
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