Caesar, and _samodershetse_ for sovereign. T. J. BUCKTON. Birmingham. In Voltaire's _History of the Russian Empire_, it is stated that the title of Czar may possibly be derived front the _Tzars_ or _Tchars_ of the kingdom of Casan. When John, or Ivan Basilides, Grand Prince of Russia, had completed the reduction of this kingdom, he assumed this title, and it has since continued to his successors. Before the reign of John Basilides, the sovereigns of Russia bore the name of _Velike Knez_, that is, great prince, great lord, great chief, which in Christian countries was afterwards rendered by that of great duke. The Czar Michael Federovitz, on occasion of the Holstein embassy, assumed the titles of Great Knez and Great Lord, Conservator of all the Russias, Prince of Wolodimir, Moscow, Novogorod, &c., Tzar of Casan, Tzar of Astracan, Tzar of Siberia. The name of _Tzar_ was therefore the title of those Oriental princes, and therefore it is more probable for it to have been derived from the _Tshas_ of Persia than from the Roman Caesars, whose name very likely never reached the ears of the Siberian Tzars on the banks of the Oby. In another part of Voltaire's _History_, when giving an account of the celebrated battle of Narva, where Charles XII., with nine thousand men and ten pieces of cannon, defeated "the Russian army with eighty thousand fighting men, supported by one hundred and forty-five pieces of cannon," he says, "Among the captives was the son of a King of Georgia, whom Charles sent to Stockholm; his name was _Mittelesky Czarowitz_, or Czar's Son, which is farther proof that the title of Czar or Tzar was not originally derived from the Roman Caesars." To the above slightly abbreviated description may not be uninterestingly added the language of Voltaire, which immediately follows the first reference: "No title, how great soever, is of any signification, unless they who bear it are great and powerful of themselves. The word _emperor_, which denoted only the _general of an army_, became the title of the {227} sovereigns of Rome and it is now conferred on the supreme governor of all the Russias." A HERMIT AT HAMPSTEAD. I beg to inform J. S. A. that the right word is _Tsar_, and that it is the Russian word answering to our king or lord, the Latin _Rex_, the Persian _Shah_, &c. There may be terms in other languages that have an affinity with it, but I believe we should seek in vain for a derivation. T. K. * * * * * "LAND OF GREEN GINGER." (Vol. viii., p. 160.)