the fortress with the butt end of a musket, and ordered the officers who had command of the prisoner to bring him to them.  These officers had received the secret injunction that should the rescue of the prince ever be attempted, they were to put him to death rather than permit him to be carried off.  They accordingly entered his cell, and though the helpless captive made the most desperate resistance, they speedily cut him down with their swords.

History has few narratives so extraordinary as the fate of Ivan.  A forced marriage was arranged that a child might be generated to inherit the Russian throne.  When this child was but a few days old he was declared emperor of all the Russias, and received the congratulations of the foreign embassadors.  When thirteen months of age he was deposed, and for the crime of being a king, was thrown into captivity.  To prevent others from using him as the instrument of their purposes, he was thrown into a dungeon, and excluded from all human intercourse, so that like a deaf child he could not even acquire the power of speech.  For him there was neither clouds nor sunshine, day nor night, summer nor winter.  He had no employment, no amusement, no food for thought, absolutely nothing to mark the passage of the weary hours.  The mind became paralyzed and almost idiotic by such enormous woe.  Such was his doom for twenty-four years.  He was born in 1740, and assassinated under the reign of Catharine II., in 1764.  The father of Ivan remained in prison eleven years longer until he died.

From this tragedy let us turn back to the reign of Elizabeth.  It was the great object of this princess to undo all that her illustrious father had done, to roll back all the reforms he had commenced, and to restore to the empire its ancient usages and prejudices.  The hostility to foreigners became so bitter, that the queen’s guard formed a conspiracy for a general massacre, which should sweep them all from the empire.  Elizabeth, conscious of the horror such an act would inspire throughout Europe, was greatly alarmed, and was compelled to issue a proclamation, in defense of their lives.

“The empress,” she said in this proclamation, “can never forget how much foreigners have contributed to the prosperity of Russia.  And though her subjects will at all times enjoy her favors in preference to foreigners, yet the foreigners in her service are as dear to her as her own subjects, and may rely on her protection.”

In the mean time, Elizabeth was prosecuting with great vigor the hereditary war with Sweden.  Russia was constantly gaining in this conflict, and at length the Swedes purchased peace by surrendering to the Russians extensive territories in Finland.  The favor of Russia was still more effectually purchased by the Swedes choosing for their king, Adolphus Frederic, Duke of the Russian province of Holstein, and kinsman of Elizabeth.  The boundaries of Russia were thus enlarged, and Sweden became almost a tributary province of the gigantic empire.