“ He does not hesitate to avow his admiration of Ivan the Terrible, and considers him and his grandfather Ivan III. as the builders up of Russian greatness, a glory which in his earlier writings, perhaps at that time more under the influence of Western ideas, he had assigned to Peter the Great. In the battle-pieces (e.g. the description of the field of Koulikovo, the taking of Kazan, &c.) we find considerable powers of description; and the characters of many of the chief personages in the Russian annals are drawn in firm and bold lines. As a critic Karamzin was of great service to his country ”

“ In 1816 he removed to St Petersburg, where he spent the happiest days of his life, enjoying the favour of Alexander, and submitting to him the sheets of his great work, which the emperor read over with him in the gardens of the palace of Tzarskoë Selo. ”