taste the luxuries of the palace; sustained in his tent the rigour of the winter; and rejected the hospitable gift, that he might share the hardships of two thousand companions, all as deserving as himself of that honour and distinction. Necessity and revenge might justify his predatory excursions by sea and land; he left nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his fleet; and persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his embarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of the season, the clamours of his independent troops, and the weight of his spoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war, the prince of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms with those of the emperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened Constantinople. Calumny might affix some reproach on his imperfect aid, his hasty departure, and a bribe of ten thousand crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine court; but his friend was satisfied, and the conduct of Amir is excused by the more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope, the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St. John, in a laudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of Ionia ; and Amir was slain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest from the Rhodian knights the citadel of Smyrna.* Before his death, he generously recommended another ally of his own nation; not more sincere or zealous than himself, but more able to afford a prompt and powerful succour, by his situation along the Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By the prospect of a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia was detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride of Orchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the defence of this fortress was imposed by pope Gregory XI. on the Knights of Rhodes. (See Vertot, 1. 5.) [This was in February, 1373; a thousand livres annually were assigned to the knights on the tithes of the kingdom of Cyprus, to maintain the garrison. In the following June, the same pope desired the grand master not to assist the Genoese (Januenses), in an attack which they were meditating on the isle of Cyprus, and to restrain his knights' freedom of speech. Papal interference in the concerns of the order often caused evident struggles between filial obedience to the "Holy Father," and the indignation of free spirits at * could obtain the daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably fulfil the duties of a subject and a son. Parental tenderness was silenced by the voice of ambition; the Greek clergy connived at the marriage of a Christian princess with a sectary of Mahomet; and the father of Theodora describes, with shameful satisfaction, the dishonour of the purple. A body of Turkish cavalry attended the ambassadors, who disembarked from thirty vessels before his camp of Selybria. A stately pavilion was erected, in which the empress Irene passed the night with her daughters. In the morning Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded with curtains of silk and gold; the troops were under arms; but the emperor alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were suddenly withdrawn, to disclose the bride or the victim encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymeneal torches; the sound of flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful event; and her pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song, which was chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the rites of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord; but it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in the harem of Boursa; and her father celebrates her charity and devotion in this ambiguous situation. After his peaceful establishment on the throne of Constantinople, the Greek emperor visited his Turkish ally, who with four sons, by various wives, expected him at Scutari, on the Asiatic shore. The two princes partook, with seeming cordiality, of the pleasures of the banquet and the chase; and Theodora was permitted to repass the Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of her mother. But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion and interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the enemies of Cantacuzene. In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince his assumption of undue authority. See Taaffe, ii. p. 313, 314. 327, Appendix, 138, 139.-ED.] *See Cantacuzene. 1. 3, c. 95. Nicephorus Gregoras, who, for the light of Mount Thabor, brands the emperor with the names of tyrant and Herod, excuses rather than blames, this Turkish marriage, and alleges the passion and power of Orchan, εγγύτατος, καὶ τῷ δυνάμει τοὺς κατ' αὐτον ἤδη Περσικούς (Turkish) υπεραίρων Σατράπας (1. 15. 5). He afterwards celebrates his kingdom and armies. See his reign in Cantemir, p. 24 --30. VOL. VII. L had inserted a singular condition, that it should be lawful for him to sell his prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into Asia. A naked crowd of Christians, of both sexes and every age, of priests and monks, of matrons and virgins, was exposed in the public market; the whip was frequently used to quicken the charity of redemption; and the indigent Greeks deplored the fate of their brethren, who were led away to the worst evils of temporal aud spiritual bondage.* Cantacuzene was reduced to subscribe the same terms, and their execution must have been still more pernicious to the empire; a body of ten thousand Turks had been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the entire forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his father. Yet these calamities were of a transient nature; as soon as the storm had passed away, the fugitives might return to their habitations; and at the conclusion of the civil and foreign wars, Europe was completely evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in his last quarrel with his pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the deep and deadly wound, which could never be healed by his successors, and which is poorly expiated by his theolo gical dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final passage of the Hellespont,† and describe The most lively and concise picture of this captivity may be found in the history of Ducas (c. 8), who fairly describes what Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush! [The influence of Christianity to put an end to slavery, is not manifested here. See note to ch. 2, vol. i. p. 50-54, also Hallam, iii. 371. Slaves were at that time the most profitable article of commerce. This treaty not only permitted the sale of them and rendered Scutari the principal market; but it also authorized the Turks to make slaves of the rebel emperor's Christian subjects. The strongest youths among these, and the tribute children, were trained up in the Mahometan faith to serve in Orchan's household and army, and became the most formidable enemies of their parent race. Finlay, ii. 553. 595.—Ed.] In this passage and the first conquests in Europe, Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish guides: nor am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles (1. 1, p. 12, &c.). They forget to consult the most authentic record, the fourth book of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which are still manuscripts, of Nicephorus Gregoras. [Parisot, in his Cantacuzène, homme d'état et historien, has consulted these still inedited books of Nicephorus, and drawn from them a few facts. See our note p. 103.- ED.] the son of Orchan as a nocturnal robber, who, with eighty companions, explores by stratagem a hostile and unknown shore. Soliman, at the head of ten thousand horse, was transported in the vessels, and entertained as the friend, of the Greek emperor. In the civil wars of Romania, he performed some service, and perpetrated more mischief; but the Chersonesus was insensibly filled with a Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court solicited in vain the restitution of the fortresses of Thrace. After some artful delays between the Ottoman prince and his son, their ransom was valued at sixty thousand crowns, and the first payment had been made, when an earthquake shook the walls and cities of the provinces; the dismantled places were occupied by the Turks; and Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, was rebuilt and repeopled by the policy of Soliman. The abdication of Cantacuzene dissolved the feeble bands of domestic alliance; and his last advice admonished his countrymen to decline a rash contest, and to compare their own weakness with the numbers and valour, the discipline and enthusiasm, of the Moslems. His prudent counsels were despised by the headstrong vanity of youth, and soon justified by the victories of the Ottomans. But as he practised in the field the exercise of the jerid, Soliman was killed by a fall from his horse; and the aged Orchan wept and expired on the tomb of his valiant son. But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their enemies; and the Turkish scimitar was wielded with the same spirit by Amurath the First, the son of Orchan and the brother of Soliman. By the pale and fainting light of the Byzantine annals,* we can discern, that he subdued without resistance the whole province of Romania, or Thrace, from the Hellespont to mount Hæmus, and the verge of the capital; and that Adrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion in Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her foundation, had often in the lapse of a thousand years, been assaulted by the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till this fatal hour had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and Europe, by the arms of the same hostile After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras, there follows a dark interval of a hundred years. George Phranza, Michael Ducas, aud Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after the taking of Con monarchy. Yet the prudence or generosity of Amurath postponed for a while this easy conquest; and his pride was satisfied with the frequent and humble attendance of the emperor John Palæologus and his four sons, who fol-lowed at his summons the court and camp of the Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations between the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians, and Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so often insulted the majesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his destructive inroads. Their countries did not abound either in gold or silver; nor were their rustic hamlets and townships enriched by commerce, or decorated by the arts of luxury. But the natives of the soil have been distinguished in every age by their hardiness of mind and body; and they were converted by a prudent institution into the firmest and most faithful supporters of the Ottoman greatness.* The vizir of Amurath reminded his sovereign, that, according to the Mahometan law, he was entitled to a fifth part of the spoil and captives; and that the duty might easily be levied, if vigilant officers were stationed at Gallipoli, to watch the passage, and to select for his use the stoutest and most beautiful of the Christian youth. The advice was followed; the edict was proclaimed; many thousands of the European captives were educated in religion and arms; and the new militia was consecrated and named by a celebrated dervish. Standing in the front of their ranks, he stretched the sleeve of his gown over the head of the foremost soldier, and his blessing was delivered in these words: "Let them be called Janizaries (yengi cheri, or new soldiers); may their countenance be ever bright! their hand victorious! their sword keen! may their spear always hang over the heads of their enemies! and wheresoever they go, may they return with a white face!" Such was the origin of these haughty troops, the terror of the nations and sometimes of the stantinople. See Cantemir, p. 37-41, with his own large and curious annotations. face are common and proverbial expressions of praise and reproach in the Turkish language. Hic niger est hunc tu Romane caveto, was likewise a Latin sentence. [The Latin expression, as used by Horace (Sat. i. 4. 85), is merely figurative. The proverb of the Turks seems to imply prepossessions as to character, connected with an actual colour |