IT IS ALMOST SUPERFLUOUS TO ADD GREAT EMPEROR OF RUSSIA; A TITLE WHICH, INSTEAD OF ADDING TO HIS GLORY, BECAME GLORIOUS BY HIS WEARING IT. LET ANTIQUITY BE DUMB, NOR BOAST HER ALEXANDER OR HER CAESAR. HOW EASY WAS VICTORY TO LEADERS WHO WERE FOLLOWED BY HEROES, AND WHOSE SOLDIERS FELT A NOBLE DISDAIN AT BEING THOUGHT LESS VIGILANT THAN THEIR GENERALS! BUT HE, WHO IN THIS PLACE FIRST KNEW REST, FOUND SUBJECTS BASE AND INACTIVE, UNWARLIKE, UNLEARNED, UNTRACTABLE, NEITHER COVETOUS OF FAME NOR FEARLESS OF DANGER-CREATURES WITH THE NAMES OF MEN, BUT WITH QUALITIES RATHER BRUTAL THAN RATIONAL YET EVEN THESE HE POLISHED FROM THEIR NATIVE RUGGEDNESS, AND, BREAKING OUT LIKE A NEW SUN TO ILLUMINE THE MINDS OF A PEOPLE, DISPELLED THEIR NIGHT OF HEREDITARY DARKNESS, AND, BY FORCE OF HIS INVINCIBLE INFLUENCE, TAUGHT THEM TO CONQUER EVEN THE CONQUERORS OF GERMANY. OTHER PRINCES HAVE COMMANDED VICTORIOUS ARMIES; THIS COMMANDER CREATED THEM. EXULT, O NATURE! FOR THINE WAS THIS PRODIGY. BLUSH, O ART! AT A HERO WHO OWED THEE NOTHING; CHAPTER XXII. THE REIGNS OF CATHARINE I. ANNE, THE INFANT IVAN AND ELIZABETH. From 1725 to 1162. Energetic Reign of Catharine.--Her Sudden Death.--Brief Reign of Peter II.--Difficulties of Hereditary Succession.--A Republic Contemplated.--Anne, Daughter of Ivan.--The Infant Ivan Proclaimed King--His Terrible Doom.--Elizabeth, Daughter of Peter the Great Enthroned.--Character of Elizabeth.--Alliance with Maria Theresa.--Wars with Prussia.--Great Reverses of Frederic of Prussia.--Desperate Condition of Frederic.--Death of Elizabeth.--Succession of Peter III. The new empress, Catharine I., was already exceedingly popular, and she rose rapidly in public esteem by the wisdom and vigor of her administration. Early in June her eldest daughter, Anne, was married with much pomp to the Duke of Holstein. It was a great novelty to the Russians to see a woman upon the throne; and the neighboring States seemed inspired with courage to commence encroachments, thinking that they had but little to apprehend from the feeble arm of a queen. Poland, Sweden and Denmark were all animated with the hope that the time had now come in which they could recover those portions of territory which, during past wars, had been wrested from them by Russia.