IVAN IV., surnamed the Terrible (ffroznι), the first czar of Russia, was a mere child at the time of the death of his father Vasili in 1533. His reign may be divided into three periods:—(1) his minority, under the regency of his stepmother Helen Glinska; (2) from his attaining his majority till the death of his amiable wife Anastasia Romanova, during which time he was a bold and vigorous ruler, and careful of the happiness of his subjects; and (3) from her death till the conclusion of his reign in 1584, the period signalized by those atrocities which have earned for Ivan such an unenviable reputation. He was the first Russian sovereign who took the title of Czar, a Slavonic form of Caesar. In 1552 he annexed Kazan, and Astrakhan two years later. In many points of his character Ivan resembles Louis XI., especially in his statecraft and superstition; indeed, just as France owed her aggrandizement to some of her most cruel sovereigns, so in Russia the greatest tyrants have been the consolidators of the empire. In the time of Ivan a printing press was set up at Moscow, and the first book published (in 1564) was an Apostol— a name given to a collection of the Acts of the Apostles and the apostolic epistles; but persecution was soon directed against the printers, who, from the jealousy of those who gained their livelihood by copying religious books, were compelled to fly from Russia, and were protected by Sigismund II. of Poland. They afterwards printed the whole Bible at Ostrog in Volhynia in 1581. In the British Museum is a copy of this book, which formerly belonged to the terrible Ivan. Sir Jerome Horsey, the English ambassador, has written on the fly-leaf, “this Bibell in the Slavonian tonge had owt of the emperor’s librari.” Siberia was also annexed in this ...