Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

HIS MARRIAGES.317

owed much of his glory; he could not endure the weight of gratitude which was due to them, and, for fear of continuing ungrateful, he slew them. After this, a savage fury took possession of his mind; the ever-present memory of the dissensions and violence of the nobles who disputed among themselves the custody of his cradle, revealed to him everywhere traitors and conspirators.

Idolatry of self, applied in all its forms to the government of the state, was the only code of justice adopted by the Czar, and ratified by the assent of Russia. Notwithstanding his crimes, Ivan was the elect of the nation. Elsewhere he would have been regarded as a monster vomited forth by hell.

Tired of lying, he pushed the brutality of tyranny to the point of dispensing with dissimulation ■■— that precaution of common tyrants. He exhibited himself as shnply ferocious; and, that he might have no longer occasion to blush at the virtues of others, he abandoned the last of his former austere friends to the vengeance of more indulgent favourites.

There was then established between the Czar and his satellites an emulation in crime that makes one shudder: and (here God again reveals himself in this almost supernatural history) in the same manner that his moral life is divided into two periods, so also his person presents two different aspects; his countenance underwent a change; he was handsome in his early youth; he grew hideous when he became criminal.

He lost an accomplished wife, and took another as

sanguinaiy as himself; she also dying, he manned

ao·ain, to the great scandal of the Greek church,

which does not allow of tlnee nuptials. He married

p 3