who had had so grim a downfall. As Moskovite generals went, he had been energetic and fairly successful, though at a battle at Nevl he had been worsted by a much inferior Polish force. The cruelty and tyranny which were making the Tzar daily more breathlessly interesting to his courtiers roused apprehensions in the mind of Kourbski, who suddenly took the resolution to transfer his services to the cause of Sigismund-August. The letter or declaration in which he informed the Tzar of the reasons which had driven him to take this step was couched in terms of Biblical reproach, and upbraided the tyrant with having shed the blood of innocent men and slain the mighty ones of Israel. Kourbski was pleased with this composition and expressed his intention of having a copy of it buried with him. Ivan, who was not so pleased with it, drove his iron-tipped staff through the foot of the messenger who had brought it, and kept it there while he read it; and it was a long letter. An extraordinary correspondence ensued; Ivan hurled at his departed boyarin reproaches, scriptural texts, sarcasms, and fragments of classical history. Why to save his miserable body had Kourbski stained his immortal soul with treachery? What, he wished to know, would happen to Kourbski’s soul “on the day of awful judgment”? How had he dared to say that the throne of God was surrounded by his (Ivan’s) victims, against the authority of the Apostle, who said that no man could see God? Heretic! “You tell me that I shall never again see your Ethiopian face. O Heaven! what misfortune for me!” And let him place his letter in his coffin, thereby proving that he was no Christian, since Christians loved to die in forgiveness and not hate. “Written in our residence of Moskva, in Great Russia, the 5th of the month of July, the year of the world 7,072.”[152] The passing over of Kourbski infused new vigour into Sigismund-August’s war measures. Devlet-Girei, who had been on the point of concluding an alliance with Moskva, was suddenly induced by Polish gold to make an inroad upon Riazan; Kourbski and Radzivil led a large army against Polotzk, and hostilities were actively prosecuted in Livland. Nothing, however, resulted from this triple attack; Riazan was heroically defended by the Basmanovs, father and son, until reinforcements arrived to drive the Tartars back into the steppes. Polotzk equally defied the Polish arms, and the Moskovites on their part captured the Lit’uanian fortress of Ozeriszh. In Livland neither side could claim a decided advantage.