Two Chancellors

"[...]from Suetonius an eloquent passage on the distinction to be established between liberty and anarchy. Next to his classical attainments, that part of his youth which the chancellor loves especially to recall is that he was the fellow-scholar, and that he remained the friend, of the great national poet, Pouchkine, a fact more to his honor inasmuch as this friendship has brought with it embarrassments at certain times. When, by the order of the Emperor Alexander I., in consequence of an offensive ode, which one is not now known, the young singer of "Rouslan" and "Loudmila" was confined in an obscure village in the far interior of Russia, only two of his former comrades at the lyceum had the courage to go to see and offer him their condolence, and one of these intrepid youths was Prince Gortchakof. One finds in the work of Pouchkine some verses written in a lively and playful[...]".