oncertedly; but, jealous
as they were of the privileges of their class, they were even more
tenacious of their individual and family pretensions. They quarrelled
among themselves, in short, and, while they were quarrelling, a bold and
ambitious man, Boris Godunof, who happened to be the czar's
brother-in-law, conceived the project of becoming prime-minister and
actual ruler of the empire. Indeed, his ambition extended even further
than this. Not content with governing Russia in the name of Feodor, he
set covetous eyes upon the purple itself, and was resolved to become
czar in name as well as in fact. But this was a delicate and difficult
task, and could by accomplished only at great risk and by great
patience. Boris was a man of undoubted genius, extreme shrewdness,
unlimited ambition, and remarkable personal courage; and difficult and
dangerous as his task was, he seems never to have faltered in his
purpose from the instant of its conception to the time of its execution.

Knowing the power of money in state affairs, he took care to accumulate
a vast sum in his own private coffers, as a first step. He conciliated
the common people in a hundred ways--by wise legislation, by the
reformation of abuses which pressed hardly upon them, and sometimes by
the oppression of the nobles in the interest of the lower classes. He
was not long in making himself altogether the most popular man in
Russia. He removed, by death or banishment, those whom he could not
conciliate, together with all other persons whom he thought likely to
prove obstacles in the way of his grand purpose. In short, a very brief
time sufficed him for the winning of a popularity which, in any country
but Russia, would have been sufficient for his need. But Boris knew his
Russians well. He knew that loyalty to the line of Rurik was the
strongest feeling in their breasts, after that of devotion to their
creed--of which, indeed, it formed a chief part. It was their fixed
belief in the divine right of the legitimate princes of the House of
Rurik to reign, that had kept them patient, even under the rigors of
Ivan's rule; and Boris knew well enough that no usurper, however
strongly intrenched in their affections he might be, could hope to win
those superstitiously loyal people to his support against any prince of
the right line, however brutal, unjust, and despotic that prince might
be. He knew, in brief, that so long as any descendant of Rurik should
live, no other man