d and each day the pilgrims were tempted by devo- nable to foreign arms. The strangers of the west tion or curiosity to visit the churches and palaces of had violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of Constantinople. Their rude minds, insensible per- Constantine: their imperial clients soon became as haps of the finer arts, were astonished by the mag- unpopular as themselves: the well-known vices of nificent scenery: and the poverty of their native Isaac were rendered still more contemptible by his towns enhanced the populousness and riches of the infirmities, and the young Alexius was hated as an first metropolis of Christendom. Descending from apostate, who had renounced the manners and relihis state, young Alexius was prompted by interest | gion of his country. His secret covenant with and gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar the Latins was divulged or suspected; the people, visits to his Latin allies; and in the freedom of the and especially the clergy, were devoutly attached table, the gay petulance of the French sometimes to their faith and superstition; and every convent, forgot the emperor of the east. In their most serious and every shop, resounded with the danger of the conferences, it was agreed, that the re-union of the church, and the tyranny of the pope. An empty two churches must be the result of patience and treasury could ill supply the demands of regal luxury time; but avarice was less tractable than zeal; and and foreign extortion: the Greeks refused to avert, a large sum was instantly disbursed to appease the by a general tax, the impending evils of servitude wants, and silence the importunity, of the crusaders." and pillage; the oppression of the rich excited a Alexius was alarmed by the approaching hour of more dangerous and personal resentment; and if their departure: their absence might have relieved the emperor melted the plate, and despoiled the him from the engagement which he was yet incapa- images, of the sanctuary, he seemed to justify the ble of performing; but his friends would have left complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During the him, naked and alone, to the caprice and prejudice absence of marquis Boniface and his imperial pupil, of a perfidious nation. He wished to bribe their Constantinople was visited with a calamity which stay, the delay of a year, by undertaking to defray might be justly imputed to the zeal and indiscretion their expense, and to satisfy in their name, the of the Flemish pilgrims. In one of their visits to freight of the Venetian vessels. The offer was agi- | the city, they were scandalized by the aspect of a tated in the council of the barons; and, after a re- mosch or synagogue, in which one God was worpetition of their debates and scruples, a majority of shipped, without a partner or a son. Their effectual votes again acquiesced in the advice of the doge and mode of controversy was to attack the infidels with the prayer of the young emperor. At the price of the sword, and their habitation with fire: but the sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he prevailed on the infidels, and some christian neighbours, presumed marquis of Montferrat to lead him with an army to defend their lives and properties; and the flames round the provinces of Europe; to establish his au- which bigotry had kindled consumed the most orthority, and pursue his uncle, while Constantinople thodox and innocent structures. During eight days was awed by the presence of Baldwin and his con- and nights, the conflagration spread above a league federates of France and Flanders. The expedition in front, from the harbour to the Propontis, over the was successful; the blind emperor exulted in the thickest and most populous regions of the city. It is success of his arms, and listened to the predictions not easy to count the stately churches and palaces of his flatterers, that the same Providence which that were reduced to a smoking ruin, to value the had raised him from the dungeon to the throne, merchandise that perished in the trading streets, or would heal his gout, restore his sight, and watch to number the families that were involved in the over the long prosperity of his reign. Yet the mind common destruction. By this outrage, which the of the suspicious old man was tormented by the doge and the barons in vain affected to disclaim, the rising glories of his son; nor could his pride conceal name of the Latins became still more unpopular; from his envy, that, while his own name was pro- and the colony of that nation, above fifteen thounounced in faint and reluctant acclamations, the sand persons, consulted their safety in a hasty reroyal youth was the theme of spontaneous and uni- treat from the city to the protection of their standard versal praise. in the suburb of Pera. The emperor returned in triumph; but the firmest and most dexterous policy would have been insufficient to steer him through the tempest, which overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappy youth. His own in Quarrel of the Greeks and Latins. By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of nine centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the Roman empire was impregy Compare, in the rude energy of Villehardouin, (No. 66. 100.) the inside and outside views of Constantinople, and their impression on the minds of the pilgrims: cette ville (says he) que de toutes les autres ére souveraine. See the parallel passages of Fulcherius Carnotensis, Hist. Hierosol. 1. i. c. 4. and Will. Tyr. ii. 3. xx. 26. As they played at dice, the Latins took off his diadem, and clapped on his head a woollen or hairy cap, το μεγαλοπρεπες και παγκλείσον KатεрружаIVEν ovoμa. (Nicetas, p. 358.) If these merry companions were Venetians, it was the insolence of trade and a commonwealth. a Villehardouin, No. 101. Dandolo, p. 322. The doge affirms, that the Venetians were paid more slowly than the French; but he owns, that the histories of the two nations differed on that subject. Had he read Villehardouin? The Greeks complained, however, quod totius Græciæ opes transtulisset. (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 13.) See the lamentations and invectives of Nicetas, (p. 355.) b The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books in Nicetas, p. 291-352. The short restoration of Isaac and his son is despatched in five chapters, p. 352–362. e When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious league, he bestows the harshest names on the pope's new religion, μerov Kaι ATOπώτατον . . . παρεκτροπην πίςεως . . . των του Παπα προνομίων καινισ μον . . . μεταθεσιν τε και μεταποίησιν των παλαιων Ρωμαίοις εθών, (p. 348.) Such was the sincere language of every Greek to the last gasp of the empire. d Nicetas (p. 355.) is positive in the charge, and specifies the Flemings, (λamoves,) though he is wrong in supposing it an ancient name. Villehardouin (No. 107.) exculpates the barons, and is ignorant (perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the names of the guilty. Alexius, who trusted him with the office of great clination, and his father's advice, attached him to his | sinuated himself into the favour and confidence of benefactors: but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and patriotism, between the fear of his subjects and of his allies. By his feeble and fluctuating conduct he lost the esteem and confidence of both; and, while he invited the marquis of Montferrat to❘ occupy the palace, he suffered the nobles to conspire, and the people to arm, for the deliverance of their country. Regardless of his painful situation, the Latin chiefs repeated their demands, resented his delays, suspected his intentions, and exacted a decisive answer of peace or war. The haughty summons was delivered by three French knights and three Venetian deputies, who girded their swords, mounted their horses, pierced through the angry multitude, and entered, with a fearless countenance, the palace and presence of the Greek emperor. In a peremptory tone, they recapitulated their services and his engagements; and boldly declared, that unless their just claims were fully and immediately satisfied, they should no longer hold him either as a sovereign or a friend. After this defiance, the first that had ever wounded an imperial ear, they departed without betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape from a servile palace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors themselves; and their return to the camp was the signal of mutual hostility. The war renewed, A. D. 1204. Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by the impetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valour, their numbers for strength, and their fanaticism for the support and inspiration of Heaven. In the eyes of both nations Alexius was false and contemptible: the base and spurious race of the Angeli was rejected with clamorous disdain; and the people of Constantinople encompassed the senate, to demand at their hands a more worthy emperor. To every senator, conspicuous by his birth or dignity, they successively presented the purple: by each senator the deadly garment was repulsed: the contest lasted three days; and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one of the members of the assembly, that fear and weakness were the guardians of their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in oblivion, was forcibly proclaimed by the crowd; but the author of the tumult, and the leader of the war, was a prince of the house of Ducas; and his common appellation of Alexius must be discriminated by the epithet of Mourzoufle, which in the vulgar idiom expressed the close junction of his black and shaggy eye-brows. At once a patriot and a courtier, the perfidious Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage, opposed the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passions and prejudices of the Greeks, and in e Compare the suspicions and complaints of Nicetas (p. 359-362.) with the blunt charges of Baldwin of Flanders, (Gesta Innocent. III. e. 92. p. 534.) cum patriarcha et mole nobilium, nobis promissis perjurus et mendax. f His name was Nicholas Canabus; he deserved the praise of Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.) g Villehardouin (No. 116.) speaks of him as a favourite, without knowing that he was a prince of the blood, Angelus and Ducas. Dueange, who pries into every corner, believes him to be the son of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and second cousin of young Alexius. The death of the emperors, and the Second siege, usurpation of Mourzoufle, had changed January-April. the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the disagreement of allies who overvalued their services, or neglected their obligations: the French and Venetians forgot their complaints against Alexius, dropt a tear on the untimely fate of their companion, and swore revenge against the perfidious nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent doge was still inclined to negociate; he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or a fine, fifty thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling; nor would the conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal, or policy, of Mourzoufle had not refused to sacrifice the Greek church to the safety of the state." Amidst the invectives of his foreign and domestic enemies, we may discern, that he was not unworthy of the character which he had assumed, of the public champion: the second siege of Constantinople was far more laborious than the first; the treasury was replenished, and discipline was restored, by a severe inquisition into the abuses of the former reign; and Mourzoufle, an iron mace in his hand, visiting the posts, and affecting the port and aspect of a warrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least, and to his kinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks made two vigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in the harbour; but the skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed the fire-ships; and the vagrant flames wasted themselves without injury in the sea.' In a nocturnal sally the Greek emperor was vanquished by Henry brother of the count of Flanders; the advantages of number and surprise aggravated the shame of his defeat; his buckler was found on the field of battle; and the imperial standard, a k i h This negociation, probable in itself, and attested by Nicetas, (p. 365.) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of Dandolo and Villehardouin. i Baldwin mentions both attempts to fire the fleet; (Gest. c. 92. p. 534, 535.) Villehardouin (No. 113-115.) only describes the first. It is remarkable, that neither of these warriors observe any peculiar properties in the Greek fire. k Ducange (No. 119.) pours forth a torrent of learning on the Confanon Imperial. This banner of the Virgin is shown at Venice as a trophy and relic: if it be genuine, the pious doge must have cheated the monks of Citeaux. divine image of the Virgin, was presented, as a trophy and a relic, to the Cistercian monks, the disciples of St. Bernard. Near three months, without excepting the holy season of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes and preparations, before the Latins were ready or resolved for a general assault. The land fortifications had been found impregnable; and the Venetian pilots represented, that, on the shore of the Propontis, the anchorage was unsafe, and the ships must be driven by the current far away to the straits of the Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctant pilgrims, who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From the harbour, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants, and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his scarlet pavilions on a neighbouring height, to direct and animate the efforts of his troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could entertain the ideas of pomp and pleasure, might have admired the long array of two embattled armies which extended above half a league, the one on the ships and galleys, the other on the walls and towers raised above the ordinary level by several stages of wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent in the discharge of darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but the water was deep; the French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; they approached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears, and battle-axes, was fought on the trembling bridges that grappled the floating to the stable batteries. In more than a hundred places, the assault was urged, and the defence was sustained; till the superiority of ground and numbers finally prevailed, and the Latin trumpets sounded a retreat. On the ensuing days, the attack was renewed with equal vigour, and a similar event; and, in the night, the doge and the barons held a council, apprehensive only for the public danger: not a voice pronounced the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior, according to his temper, embraced the hope of victory, or the assurance of a glorious death. By the experience of the former siege, the Greeks were instructed, but the Latins were animated; and the knowledge that Constantinople might be taken, was of more avail than the local precautions which that knowledge had inspired for its defence. In the third assault two ships were linked together to double their strength; a strong north wind drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and Soissons led the van; and the auspicious names of the pilgrim and the paradise resounded along the line." The episcopal banners were displayed on the walls; 1 Villehardouin (No. 126.) confesses, that mult ere grant peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13.) affirms, that nulla spes victoria arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises those who thought of flight, and the monk praises his countrymen who were resolved on death. m Baldwin, and all the writers, honour the names of these two galleys, felici auspicio. With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him évrea opyvias, nine orgyæ, or eighteen yards high, a stature which would, indeed, have excused the terror of the Greek. On this occasion, the historian seems fonder of the marvellous, than of his country, or perhaps of truth. Baldwin exclaims in the words of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobis centum alienos. o Villehardouin (No. 130.) is again ignorant of the authors of this a hundred marks of silver had been promised to the first adventurers; and if their reward was intercepted by death, their names have been immortalized by fame. Four towers were scaled; three gates were burst open; and the French knights, who might tremble on the waves, felt themselves invincible on horseback on the solid ground. Shall I relate that the thousands who guarded the emperor's person, fled on the approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior? Their ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas: an army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was magnified to a giant in the eyes of the Greeks." While the fugitives deserted their posts and cast away their arms, the Latins entered the city under the banners of their leaders: the streets and gates opened for their passage; and either design or accident kindled a third conflagration, which consumed in a few hours the measure of three of the largest cities of France. In the close of the evening, the barons checked their troops, and fortified their stations they were awed by the extent and populousness of the capital, which might yet require the labour of a month, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their internal strength. But in the morning, a suppliant procession, with crosses and images, announced the submission of the Greeks, and deprecated the wrath of the conquerors; the usurper escaped through the golden gate the palaces of Blachernæ and Boucoleon were occupied by the count of Flanders and the marquis of Montferrat; and the empire, which still bore the name of Constantine, and the title of Roman, was subverted by the arms of the Latin pilgrims.P Constantinople had been taken by Pillage of Constorm; and no restraints, except those stantinople. of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by the laws of war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as their general; and the Greeks, who revered his name as that of their future sovereign, were heard to exclaim in a lamentable tone," Holy marquis-king, have mercy upon us!" His prudence or compassion opened the gates of the city to the fugitives; and he exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives of their fellow-christians. The streams of blood that flow down the pages of Nicetas, may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand of his unresisting countrymen ; and the greater part were massacred, not by the strangers, but by the Latins, who had been driven from the city, and who exercised the revenge of a more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by Gunther to a quidam comes Teutonicus. (c. 14.) They seem ashamed, the incendiaries! p For the second siege and conquest of Constantinople, see Villehardouin, (No. 113-132.) Baldwin's second Epistle to Innocent III. (Gesta, c. 92. p. 534-537.) with the whole reign of Mourzoutle, in Nicetas, (p. 363-375.) and borrow some hints from Dandolo, (Chron. Venet. p. 323-330.) and Gunther, (Hist. C. P. c. 14-18.) who add the decorations of prophecy and division. The former produces an oracle of the Erythræan sybil, of a great armament on the Adriatic, under a blind chief, against Byzantium, &c. Curious enough, were the prediction anterior to the fact. q Ceciderunt tamen eâ die civium quasi duo millia, &c. (Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to try the amplifications of passion and rhetoric. triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles, some were less mindful of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself was indebted for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant. Pope Innocent the third accuses the pilgrims of respecting, in their lust, neither age nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterly laments that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and incest, were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and holy nuns were polluted by the grooms and peasants of the catholic camp. It is indeed probable that the licence of victory prompted and covered a multitude of sins: but it is certain, that the capital of the east contained a stock of venal or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate the desires of twenty thousand pilgrims: and female prisoners were no longer subject to the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis of Montferrat was the patron of discipline and decency; the count of Flanders was the mirror of chastity: they had forbidden, under pain of death, the rape of married women, or virgins, or nuns; and the proclamation was sometimes invoked by the vanquished and respected by the victors. Their cruelty and lust were moderated by the authority of the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers; for we are no longer describing an irruption of the northern savages; and however ferocious they might still appear, time, policy, and religion, had civilized the manners of the French, and still more of the Italians. But a free scope was allowed to their avarice, which was glutted, even in the holy week, by the pillage of Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by any promise or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of the Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might lawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A portable and universal standard of exchange was found in the coined and uncoined metals of gold and silver, which each captor, at home or abroad, might convert into the possessions most suitable to his temper and situation. Of the treasures, which trade and luxury had accumulated, the silks, velvets, furs, the gems, spices, and rich movables, were the most precious, as they could not be procured for money in the ruder countries of Europe. An order Division of the of rapine was instituted; nor was the share of each individual abandoned to industry or chance. Under the tremendous penalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the Latins were bound to deliver their plunder into the common stock; three churches were selected for the deposit and distribution of the spoil: a single r Quidam (says Innocent III. Gesta, c. 94, p. 538.) nec religioni, nec ætati, nec sexui pepercerunt; sed fornicationes, adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium exercentes, non solum maritatas et viduas, sed et matronas et virgines Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt spurcitiis garcionum. Villehardouin takes no notice of these common incidents. spoil. s Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble virgin (p. 380.) whom a soldier, επι μαρτυσι πολλοις ανήδον επιβρωμωμένος, had almost violated in spite of the εντολαι, εντάλματα εν γεγονότων. Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut de pauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur; (Hist. C. P. c. 18.) Villehardouin, (No. 132.) that since the creation, ne fu tant gaignié dans une ville; Baldwin (Gesta, c. 92.) ut tantum tota non videatur possidere Latinitas. u Villehardouin, No. 153-135. Instead of 400,000, there is a various reading of 500,000. The Venetians had offered to take the whole share was allotted to a foot soldier; two for a serjeant on horseback; four to a knight; and larger proportions according to the rank and merit of the barons and princes. For violating this sacred engagement, a knight, belonging to the count of St. Paul, was hanged with his shield and coat of arms round his neck his example might render similar offenders more artful and discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and it is generally believed, that the secret far exceeded the acknowledged plunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest scale of experience or expectation. After the whole had been equally divided between the French and Venetians, fifty thousand marks were deducted to satisfy the debts of the former and the demands of the latter. The residue of the French amounted to four hundred thousand marks of silver," about eight hundred thousand pounds sterling: nor can I better appreciate the value of that sum in the public and private transactions of the age, than by defining it at seven times the annual revenue of the kingdom of England.* Greeks. In this great revolution we enjoy the Misery of the singular felicity of comparing the narratives of Villchardouin and Nicetas, the opposite feelings of the marshal of Champagne and the Byzantine senator. At the first view it would seem that the wealth of Constantinople was only transferred from one nation to another; and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is exactly balanced by the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the miserable account of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss, the pleasure to the pain: the smiles of the Latins were transient aud fallacious; the Greeks for ever wept over the ruins of their country; and their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery. What benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires which annihilated so vast a portion of the buildings and riches of the city? What a stock of such things, as could neither be used nor transported, was maliciously or wantonly destroyed! How much treasure was idly wasted in gaming, debauchery, and riot! And what precious objects were bartered for a vile price by the impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose reward was stolen by the base industry of the last of the Greeks! Those alone, who had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from the revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is strongly painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself. His stately palace had been reduced to ashes in the second conflagration; and the senator, with his family and friends, found an obscure shelter in booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight, 200 to each priest and horseman, and 100 to each foot soldier; they would have been great losers. (Le Beau, Hist. du Bas Empire, tom. xx. p. 506.) I know not from whence.) At the council of Lyons, (A. D. 1245.) the English ambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that of the foreign clergy, which amounted to 60,000 marks a year. (Matthew Paris, p. 451. Hume's History of England, vol. ii. p. 170.) y The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and his own adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p. 367-369. and in the Status Urb. C. P. p. 375-384. His complaints, even of sacrilege, are justified by Innocent III. (Gesta, c. 92.) but Villehardouin does not betray a symptom of pity or remorse. pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of paper, without discerning that the instruments of science and valour were alike feeble and useless in the hands of the modern Greeks. the statues. Their reputation and their language Destruction of encouraged them, however, to despise the ignorance, and to overlook the progress, of the Latins. In the love of the arts, the national difference was still more obvious and real; the Greeks preserved with reverence the works of their ancestors, which they could not imitate; and, in the destruction of the statues of Constantinople, we are provoked to join in the complaints and invectives of the Byzantine historian. We have seen how the rising city was adorned by the vanity and despotism of the imperial founder: in the ruins of paganism, some gods and heroes were saved from the axe of superstition; and the forum and hippodrome were dignified with the relics of a better age. Several of these are described by Nicetas, in a florid and affected style ; and, from his decriptions, I shall select some interesting particulars. 1. The victorious charioteers were cast in bronze, at their own, or the public, charge, and fitly placed in the hippodrome: they stood aloft in their chariots, wheeling round the goal; the spectators could admire their attitude, and judge of the resemblance; and of these figures, the most perfect might have been transported from the Olympic stadium. 2. The sphynx, river-horse, and crocodile, denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt, and the spoils of that ancient province. 3. The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus; a subject alike pleasing to the old and the new Romans: but which could rarely be treated before the decline of the Greek sculpture. 4. An eagle holding and tearing a serpent in his talons; a domestic monument of the Byzantines, which they ascribed, not to a human artist, but to the magic power of the phi another house which he possessed near the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of this mean habitation that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded in the disguise of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate flight, the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In a cold wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity, departed on foot; his wife was with child; the desertion of their slaves compelled them to carry their baggage on their own shoulders; and their women, whom they placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt, instead of adorning it with paint and jewels. Every step was exposed to insult and danger; the threats of the strangers were less painful than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were now levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their mournful pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles from the capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without attendance and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and reduced to a state of apostolic poverty, which, had it been voluntary, might perhaps have been meritorious. In the mean while, his desolate churches were profaned by the licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins. After Sacrilege and stripping the gems and pearls, they mockery. converted the chalices into drinkingcups; their tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the pictures of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot the most venerable objects of the christian worship. In the cathedral of St. Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent asunder for the sake of the golden fringe; and the altar, a monument of art and riches, was broken in pieces and shared among the captors. Their mules and horses were laden with the wrought silver and gilt carvings, which they tore down from the doors and pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under the burthen, they were stabbed by their impa-losopher Apollonius, who by this talisman delivered tient drivers, and the holy pavement streamed with the city from such venomous reptiles. 5. An ass their impure blood. A prostitute was seated on the and his driver : which were erected by Augustus in throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, his colony of Nicopolis, to commemorate a verbal as she is styled, sung and danced in the church, to omen of the victory of Actium. 6. An equestrian ridicule the hymns and processions of the orientals. statue; which passed, in the vulgar opinion, for Nor were the repositories of the royal dead secure Joshua, the Jewish conqueror, stretching out his from violation in the church of the apostles, the hand to stop the course of the descending sun. : Α tombs of the emperors were rifled; and it is said, more classical tradition recognized the figures of that after six centuries the corpse of Justinian was Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free attitude of found without any signs of decay or putrefaction. the steed seemed to mark that he trod on air, rather In the streets, the French and Flemings clothed than on the earth. 7. A square and lofty obelisk themselves and their horses in painted robes and of brass; the sides were embossed with a variety flowing head-dresses of linen and the coarse in- of picturesque and rural scenes; birds singing ; temperance of their feasts insulted the splendid rustics labouring, or playing on their pipes; sheep sobriety of the east. To expose the arms of a people bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a scene of of scribes and scholars, they affected to display a fish and fishing; little naked cupids laughing, playraised himself to the honours of senator, judge of the veil, and great logothete; beheld the fall of the empire, retired to Nice, and compos ed an elaborate history from the death of Alexius Comneuus to the reign of Henry. 2 If I rightly apprehend the Greek of Nicetas's receipts, their favourite dishes were boiled buttocks of beef, salt pork and peas, and soup made of garlic and sharp or sour herbs, (p. 382.) a Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, παρ' αγράμματοις Βαρβάροις, Kai seλeor araλpaßnтois. (Fragment. apud Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 414.) This reproach, it is true, applies most strongly to their ignorance of Greek and of Homer. In their own language, the Latins of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not destitute of literature. See Harris's Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 9, 10, 11. b Nicetas was of Chona in Phrygia; (the old Colossæ of St. Paul;) he e A manuscript of Nicetas, in the Bodleian library, contains this curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople, which fraud, or shame, or rather carelessness, has dropt in the common editions. It is published by Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405-416.) and immoderately praised by the late ingenious Mr. Harris of Salisbury. (Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 5. p. 301-312.) |