Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/114

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lxxxvi
INTRODUCTION.

Livonian prisoners of war, who, as German knights, were under the Imperial protection. These letters came to Moscow on the 16th of June, and the answer of the grand-prince reached Kantinger at Narva, on the 19th of the same month, on which day he returned for Germany. In the superscription of the letter of King Philip, the grand-prince as well as his son was addressed by the title of czar, an honour now for the first time paid to the princes of Russia by the Imperial court.

Kantinger’s account of his two journeys must still, without doubt, be preserved among the Imperial archives at Vienna.

(31.)

SIGISMUND BARON VON HERBERSTEIN. 1517-26.

Next to Justus Kantinger in chronological rotation, comes the author of the “Commentarii” which we now for the first time present to the reader in an English dress. His biography, as has been already stated, has been minutely elaborated by Adelung, in an octavo volume published in St. Petersburg in 1818. Apart from the results of much learned investigation by Adelung himself, he mentions the following works as supplying him with the principal materials of his information:—

1. An autobiography of our traveller, published in Vienna, 1560, folio, under the title, “Gratæ posteritati Sigismundus Liber Baro in Herberstain