neath hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, as with the burst of a
volcano, uphove the massive bastions to the clouds. They fell in a
storm of ruin upon the city, setting it on fire in many places.
Through the flames and over the smouldering ruins, Poles and Tartars,
blackened with smoke and smeared with blood, rushed into the city, and
in a few hours thirteen thousand of the inhabitants were weltering in
their gore. None were left alive. And this is but a specimen of the
wars which raged for ages. The world now has but the faintest
conception of the seas of blood and woe through which humanity has
waded to attain even its present feeble recognition of fraternity.

In this, as in every war with Poland, Russia was gaining, ever
wresting from her rival the provinces of Lithuania, and attaching them
to the gigantic empire. In the year 1534, Helene commenced the
enterprise of surrounding the whole of Moscow with a ditch, and a wall
capable of resisting the batterings of artillery. An Italian engineer,
named Petrok Maloi, superintended these works. The foundation of the
walls was laid with imposing religious ceremonies. The wall was
crowned with four towers at the opening of the four gates. Helene was
so conscious of the importance of augmenting the population of Russia,
that she offered land and freedom from taxes for a term of years to
all who would migrate into her territory from Poland. Perhaps also she
had a double object, wishing to weaken a rival power. Much counterfeit
coin was found to be in circulation. The regent issued an edict, that
any one found guilty of depreciating the current standard of coin,
should be punished with death, and this death was to be barbarously
inflicted by first cutting off the hands of the culprit, and then
pouring melted lead through a tunnel down his throat.

On the 3d of April, 1538, Helene, in the prime of life, and with all
her sins in full vigor and unrepented, retired to her bed at night,
suddenly and seriously sick. Some one had succeeded in administering
to her a dose of poison. She shrieked for a few hours in mortal agony,
and soon after the hour of twelve was tolled, her spirit ascended to
meet God in judgment. Being dead, she had no favors to confer and no
terrors to execute; and her festering remains were the same day
hurried ignominiously to the grave. Her paramour, Telennef, alone wept
over her death. Russia rejoiced, and yet with trembling. Whose strong
arm would now seize the