, czar of Russia, who civilized that nation, and raised it from ignorance
, czar of Russia, who civilized that nation, and raised it from ignorance and barbarism, to politeness, knowledge, and power, a man of a wonderful composition and character, was born the 30th of May, 1672, and was son of the czar Alexis Michaelowitz by a second wife. Alexis dying in 1672, Feodor, or Theodore, his eldest son by his fivst wife, succeeded to the throne, and died in 1682. Upon his decease, Peter, though but ten years of age, was proclaimed czar, to the exclusion of John his elder brother, who was of a weak body, and a weaker mind. The strelitzes, who were the established guard of the czars, as the janisaries are of the grand seigniors, made an insurrection in favour of John, at the instigation of the princess Sophia, who, being own sister to John, hoped, perhaps, to be sole regent, since John was incapable of acting; or at least to enjoy a greater share of authority under John, than if the power was lodged solely in her half-brother Peter. The matter, however, was at last compromised; and it was agreed, that the two brothers should jointly share the imperial dignity. The Russian education was, at that time, like the country, barbarous, so that Peter had no advantages; and the princess Sophia, who, with considerable talents, was a woman of great ambition and intrigue, took all imaginable pains to stifle his natural desire of knowledge, to deprave and corrupt his mind, and ta debase and enervate him with pleasures. Yet his abhorrence of pageantry, and love of-military exercises, discovered itself in his tenderest years; and, to gratify this inclination, he formed a company of fifty men, commanded by foreign officers, and clothed and exercised after the German manner. He entered himself among them in the lowest post, and performed the duties of it with the utmost diligence. He ordered them entirely to forget that he was czar, and paid the utmost deference and submission to the commanding officers. He lived upon his pay only, and lay in a lent in the rear of his company. He was some time after raised to be a serjeant, but only as he was entitled to it by his merit; for he would have punished his soldiers, had they discovered the least partiality in his favour: and he never rose otherwise, than as a soldier of fortune. The strelitzes looked upon all this as the amusement of a young prince: but the czar, who saw they wer too formidable, and entirely in the interest of the princes Sophia, had secretly a design of crushing them; which he wisely thought could not be better effected, than by securing to himself a body of troops, more strictly disciplined, and on whose fidelity he could more fully rely.