a title of honour, assumed by the grand dukes, or, as they are now styled, emperors of Russia.

The natives pronounce it tsar, or zaar; and this, by corruption (it has been fancied), from Cæsar, "emperor," from some imagined relation to the Roman emperors. But this etymology does not seem correct. When the czar Peter formerly required of the European courts an acknowledgement of his imperial titles, and that the appellation of Emperor should never be omitted, there was great difficulty made about it, especially at the court of Vienna; which occasioned him to produce the famous letter, written in the German tongue, from Maximilian I. emperor of Germany, to Vassili Ivanovitch, confirming a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive against Sigismund king of Poland. In this dispatch, which is dated August the 4th, 1514, and is ratified with the seal of the golden bull, Maximilian addresses Vassili by calling him Kayser and Herrscher aller Ruffen, "emperor and ruler of all the Russias." But independently of this document, there could be no doubt that the foreign courts, in their intercourse with that of Moscow, styled the sovereigns indiscriminately Great Duke, Czar, and Emperor. With respect to England in particular, it is certain that in Chancellor's Account of Russia, so early as the middle of the 16th century, Ivan Vassilievitch II. is called Lord and Emperor of all Russia; and in the English dispatches, from the reign of Elizabeth to that of Anne, he is generally addressed under the same appellation. When the European powers, however, styled the czar Emperor of Muscovy, they by no means intended to give him a title similar to that which was peculiar to the emperor of Germany; but they bestowed upon him that appellation as upon an Asiatic sovereign, in the same manner as we now say the emperors of China and Japan. When Peter, therefore, determined to assume the title of emperor, he found no difficulty in proving that it had been conferred upon his predecessors by most of the European powers; yet when he was desirous of affixing to the term the European sense, it was considered as an innovation, and was productive of more negotiations than would have been requisite for the termination of the most important state affair. At the same time it occasioned a curious controversy among the learned, concerning the rise and progress of the titles by which the monarchs of this country have been distinguished. From their researches it appeared, that the early sovereigns of Russia were called great dukes, and that Vassili Ivanovitch was probably the first who styled himself tsar, an expression which in the Slavonian language signifies king; and that his successors continued to bear within their own dominions that title as the most honourable appellation, until Peter the Great first took that of Povietiel, or emperor. After many delays and objections, the principal courts of Europe consented, about the year 1722, to address the sovereign of Russia with the title of Emperor; without prejudice, nevertheless, to the other crowned heads of Europe.