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

We have already said that, crouching and trembling at the very name of Poland, Ivan yielded to Batori, almost without striking a blow, the province of Livonia, a province furiously contested for ages with the Swedes, the Poles, and its own inhabitants. Livonia was, to Eussia, the gate of Europe, the means of communication with the civilised world. It had been from time immemorial the object of the covetousness of the Czars, and of the efforts of ^he Muscovites. In an unaccountable fit of terror, the most arrogant, and, at the same time, the most cowardly of princes, abandoned this prey to the enemy; not in consequence of any disastrous battle, but spontaneously, with a stroke of his pen, and when in the possession of an innumerable army and an inexhaustible treasure.

The Czarewitch, the beloved son of Ivan IV., on whom he lavished all his tenderness, whom he brought up in his own image, in the exercise of his own crimes and most scandalous debaucheries, felt some shame in contemplating the unmanly conduct of his father and sovereign. He ventured no remonstrance, for he knew Ivan too well; but, carefully avoiding every word that might sound like a reproach, he confined himself to asking permission to go and fight the Poles. " Ah ! you find fault with my political acts ! this is treason ! " responded the Czar; " ЛУ\ю knows if you have not already conceived the design of raising the standard of revolt against me !"

Whereupon, inflamed with sudden rage, he seized a baton bound with iron, and violently struck the bead of his son with it: a favourite endeavoured tc