Vasilii Grigor'evich Ruban was an enterprising and prolific participant in eighteenth-century Russia's equivalent of Grub Street--a host of professional literary men willing and able to undertake any writing task, equally adept at producing manuals on agriculture or card playing, at composing panegyric odes to the high and mighty or Russifying the works of Homer or Horace, and at performing as compilers, editors, and publishers. Such hack-work was by no means necessarily of poor quality; on the contrary, many respectable compositions by reputable writers were produced in this way. In Ruban's case there were works compiled, edited, published, and also translated by him that received wide approval and appreciation. However, Ruban was notorious among his contemporaries for producing great quantities of occasional poems, especially those written for or to patrons whose protection, gifts, and monetary support he solicited and often gained. Ruban's more distinguished and independent fellow writers reviled...