so haughty an aristocracy had dominated, seems almost miraculous.  Menzikoff; elated by the power which the minority of the king gave him, assumed such airs as to excite the most bitter spirit of hostility among the nobles.  They succeeded in working his ruin; and the boy emperor banished him to Siberia and confiscated his immense estates.  The blow was fatal.  Sinking into the most profound melancholy, Menzikoff lingered for a few months in the dreary region of his exile, and died in 1729.  Peter the Second did not long survive him.  But little more than two years elapsed after the death of Catharine, when he, being then a lad of but fourteen years of age, was seized with the small-pox and died the 19th of January, 1730.  One daughter of Peter the Great and of Catharine still survived.

Some of the principal of the nobility, seeing how many difficulties attended hereditary succession, which at one time placed the crown upon the brow of a babe in the cradle, again upon a semi-idiot, and again upon a bloated and infamous debauchee, conferred upon the subject of changing the government into a republic.  But Russia was not prepared for a reform so sudden and so vast.  After much debate it was decided to offer the crown to Anne, Duchess of Courland, who was second daughter of the imbecile Ivan, who, for a short time, had nominally occupied the throne, associated with his brother Peter the Great.  She had an elder sister, Catharine, who was married to the Duke of Mecklenburg.  So far as the right of birth was concerned, Catharine was first entitled to the succession.  But as the Duke of Mecklenburg, whose grand duchy bordered upon the Baltic, and which was equal to about one half the State of Massachusetts, was engaged in a kind of civil war with his nobles, it was therefore thought best to pass her by, lest the empire should become involved in the strife in which her husband was engaged.  As Ivan was the elder brother, it was thought that his daughters should have the precedence over those of Peter.

Another consideration also influenced the nobles who took the lead in selecting Anne.  They thought that she was a woman whom they could more easily control than Catharine.  These nobles accordingly framed a new constitution for the empire, limiting the authority of the queen to suit their purposes.  But Anne was no sooner seated upon the throne, than she grasped the scepter with vigor which astounded all.  She banished the nobles who had interfered with the royal prerogatives, and canceled all the limitations they had made.  She selected a very able ministry, and gave the command of her armies to the most experienced generals.  While sagacity and efficiency marked her short administration, and Russia continued to expand and prosper, no events of special importance occurred.  She united her armies with those of the Emperor of Germany in resisting the encroachments of France.  She waged successful war against the Turks, who had attempted to recover Azof.  In this war, the Crimean Tartars were crushed, and Russian influence crowded its way into the immense Crimean peninsula.  The energies of Anne caused Russia to be respected throughout Europe.