In the whole of this transaction the Turkish court appears far superior to the Russian in the refinements and graces of polished life.  There seems to be something in a southern clime which ameliorates harshness of manners.  The Grecian emperors, perhaps, in abandoning their palaces, left also to their conquerors that suavity which has transmitted even to our day the enviable title of the “polished Greek.”

In the year 1503, Ivan III. lost his spouse, the Greek princess Sophia.  Her death affected the aged monarch deeply, and seriously impaired his health.  Twenty-five years had now elapsed since he received the young and beautiful princess as his bride, and during all these tumultuous years her genius and attractions had been the most brilliant ornament of his court.  The infirmities of age pressed heavily upon the king, and it was manifest that his days could not much longer be prolonged.  With much ceremony, in the presence of his lords, he dictated his will, declaring his oldest son Vassili to be his successor as monarch, and assigning to all his younger children rich possessions.  The passion for the aggrandizement of Russia still glowed strongly in his bosom even in the hour of death.  Vassili, though twenty-five years of age, was as yet unmarried.  He decided to select his spouse from the daughters of the Russian nobles, and fifteen hundred of the most beautiful belles of the kingdom were brought to the court that the prince, from among them, might make his selection.  The choice fell upon a maiden of exquisite beauty, of Tartar descent.  Her father was an officer in the army, a son of one of the chiefs of the horde.  The marriage was immediately consummated, and all Moscow was in a blaze of illumination, rejoicing over the nuptials of the heir to the crown.  The decay of the aged monarch, however, advanced, day by day.  His death, at last, was quite sudden, in the night of the 27th of October, 1505, at the age of sixty-six years and nine months, and at the close of a reign of forty three years and a half.

Ivan III. will, through all ages, retain the rank of one of the most illustrious of the sovereigns of Russia.  The excellencies of his character and the length of his reign, combined in enabling him to give an abiding direction to the career of his country.  He made his appearance on the political stage just in the time when a new system of government, favorable to the power of the sovereigns of Europe, was rising upon the ruins of feudalism.  The royal authority was gaining rapidly in England and in France.  Spain, freed from the domination of the Moors, had just become a power of the first rank.  The fleets of Portugal were whitening the most distant seas, conferring upon the energetic kingdom wonderful wealth and power.  Italy, though divided, exulted in her fleet, her maritime wealth, and her elevation above all other nations in the arts, the sciences and the intrigues of politics.  Frederic IV., Emperor of Germany, an inefficient, apathetic man, was unable