Catherine had one overmastering passion,—ambition; and since the basis of her character was selfishness, her ambition began and ended with herself. She was shrewd in principle, astute in judgment, hard in character, and hopelessly corrupt in morals. But “she knew how to make herself looked up to, if not with respect and liking, at least with deference; and Frederick the Great, Louis XV., Maria Theresa, and George III., each in their turn, learned to regard her acts with attention.” The principal fame of Catherine rests on her celebrated code of laws, and on her title of _legislatrix_ of her dominions. “If,” said Frederick of Prussia, “several women as sovereigns have obtained a deserved celebrity,—Semiramis for her conquests, Elizabeth of England for her political sagacity, Maria Theresa for her astonishing firmness of character,—to Catherine alone may be given the title of a female law-giver.” But how much of this was fulsome flattery and how much honest praise, it is not very difficult to discern, considering the gross nature of Catherine, and the cunning diplomacy of Frederick. Catherine is said to have doubled the resources and revenues of her empire. Undoubtedly she increased the resources by the extension of her commerce; and by her conquests over the Turks, which threw open the trade and navigation of the Mediterranean, she added greatly to the power of Russia; but she exhausted her resources much faster than she could create them, and she wasted her revenues more quickly than she could replenish them. She doubled and trebled the taxes of her oppressed people, and the legal pillage of her tyrannical officers drove whole provinces to desperation. “Kings and queens,” she wrote in her letter to Queen Marie Antoinette, “ought to proceed in their career undisturbed by the cries of the people, as the moon pursues her course unimpeded by the howling of the dogs.” A fine sentiment truly, and one which she took good care should not grow dull for want of use during her lifetime. To find some parallel for the criminal profusion of Catherine, a profusion which exceeds all calculation, we must go back to the days of Caligula and Heliogabalus. Her favorites were countless: her lavishness towards them almost incredible. Upon them she squandered a sum equal to $100,000,000.