PREFACE.


The world is now too busy to read voluminous history. The interminable
details of battles, and the petty intrigues of courtiers and
mistresses, have lost their interest. In this volume it has been our
object to trace perspicuously the path which Russia has trod from
earliest infancy to the present hour. The career of this empire has
been so wild and wonderful that the historian can have no occasion to
call in the aid of fancy for the embellishment of his narrative.

The author has not deemed it necessary to incumber his pages with
notes to substantiate his statements. The renowned Russian historian,
Karamsin, who wrote under the patronage of Alexander I., gives ample
authentication to all the facts which are stated up to the reign of
that emperor. His voluminous history, in classic beauty, is
unsurpassed by any of the annals of Greece or Rome. It has been
admirably translated into French by Messrs. St. Thomas and Jauffret in
eleven imperial quarto volumes. In the critical citations of this
author, the reader, curious in such researches, will find every fact
in the early history of Russia, here stated, confirmed.

There are but few valuable works upon Russia in the English language.
Nearly all, which can be relied upon as authorities, are written
either in French or German. The writer would refer those who seek a
more minute acquaintance with this empire, now rising so rapidly in