of men and arms;* but that complex and languid body required the impulse of a vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike impotent in his personal character and his imperial dignity. A long war had impaired the strength, without satiating the animosity of France and England ;+ but Philip, duke of Burgundy, was a vain and magnificent prince; and he enjoyed, without danger or expense, the adventurous piety of his subjects, who sailed, in a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flanders to the Hellespont. The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were less remote from the scene of action; and their hostile fleets were associated under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoins of Hungary and Poland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin Church, were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of the Turks. Arms were the patrimony of the Scythians and Sarmatians, and these nations might appear equal to the contest, could they point against the common foe those swords that were so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic quarrels. But the same spirit was adverse to concord and obedience; a poor country and a limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a standing force; and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were not armed with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have given irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this side, the cell to the throne of Aragon, which he quitted voluntarily after a reign of three years, chose his successor, and resumed the cowl. Mariana, De Reb. Hisp. 1. 7, c. 20, p. 313; 1. 10, c. 15, p. 437; c. 16, p. 441.-ED.] * In the year 1431, Germany raised forty thousand horse, men-at-arms, against the Hussites of Bohemia. (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 318.) At the siege of Nuys on the Rhine, in 1474, the princes, prelates, and cities, sent their respective quotas; and the bishop of Munster (qui n'est pas des plus grands) furnished fourteen hundred horse, six thousand foot, all in green, with twelve hundred wagons. The united armies of the king of England and the duke of Burgundy, scarcely equalled one-third of this German host. (Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, 1. 4, c. 2.) At present, six or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and admirable discipline by the powers of Germany. [Since this was written, the military force of Germany has been more than doubled. The federal army alone amounts to 302,288 men, and this forms only a small part of the strength of the several States. Austria, whose contingent is 94,822 men, had 650,000 under arms in 1814, and has now a still larger number. Malte Brun and Balbi, 403. 427.-ED.] + It was not till the year 1444. that France and England could

designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of cardinal Julian, his legate, were promoted by the circumstances of the times;* by the union of the two crowns on the head of Ladislaus,t a young and ambitious soldier; by the valour of a hero, whose name, the name of John Huniades, was already popular among the Christians, and formidable to the Turks. An endless treasure of pardons and indul gences was scattered by the legate; many private warriors of France and Germany enlisted under the holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at least some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia. A fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardour of the Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to vindicate their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor,‡ with a spirit unknown to his fathers, engaged to guard the Bosphorus, and to sally from Constantinople at the head of his national and mercenary troops. The sultan of Caramania,§ announced the retreat

agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer's Fœdera, and the chronicles of both nations. * In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1443, 1444) has been my leading guide. He has diligently read, and critically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials, the historians of Hungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative is perspicuous; and where he can be free from a religious bias, the judgment of Spondanus is not contemptible.

+ I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus) which most writers affix to his name, either in compliance with the Polish pronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival, the infant Ladislaus of Austria. Their competition for the crown of Hungary is described by Callimachus (1. 1, 2, p. 447-486), Bonfinius (Decad. 3, 1. 4), Spondanus, and Lenfant. The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcocondylas, and Ducas, do not ascribe to their prince a very active part in this crusade, which he seems to have promoted by his wishes, and injured by his fears. [Phranza (as quoted by Finlay, ii. 619) says that the Hellespont was guarded by a papal fleet under the command of Cardinal Gondolmieri; and that the Greek emperor not only refused to unite his cause with that of the Western powers, but that he even sent an embassy to congratulate the sultan on his victory at Warna. -ED.] § Cantemir (p. 88) ascribes to his policy the original plan, and transcribes his animating epistle to the king of Hungary. But the Mahometan powers are seldom informed of the state of Christendom; and the situation and correspondence of the knights of Rhodes must connect them with the sultan of Caramania. [The knights of Rhodes were at this time the most powerful Christian State in the East; but they were kept from joining the league against

of Amurath, and a powerful diversion in the heart of Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could occupy at the same moment the straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman monarchy would be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth must rejoice in the perdition of the miscreants; and the legate, with prudent ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible, perhaps the visible, aid of the Son of God,

and his divine mother.

Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the unanimous cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an army of his confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of the Bulgarian kingdom. In this expedition they obtained two signal victories, which were justly ascribed to the valour and conduct of Huniades. In the first, with a vanguard of ten thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; in the second, he vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of their generals, who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. The approach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of mount Hæmus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a narrow interval of six days' march from the foot of the mountains to the hostile towers of Adrianople, and the friendly capital of the Greek empire. The retreat was undisturbed; and the entrance into Buda was at once a military and religious triumph. An ecclesiastical procession was followed by the king and his warriors on foot; he nicely balanced the merits and rewards of the two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the humble temper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards, and four thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as all were willing to believe, and none were present to contradict, the crusaders multiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads of Turks whom they had left on the field of battle.* The most solid proof, and the most salutary consequence of victory, was a deputation from the divan to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to

the Turks, by the hostile demonstration of the Mamelukes in Egypt. Taaffe, iii. 8-12.-ED.]

* In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the Hungarians slay thirty thousand Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian reduces the slaughter to six thousand, or even two thousand, infidels. (Æneas Sylvius in Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)

ransom the prisoners, and to evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By this treaty the rational objects of the war were obtained; the king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in the diet of Segedin, were satisfied with public and private emolument; a truce of ten years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and Mahomet, who swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of God as the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place of the gospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute the eucharist, the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the Christians refused to profane their holy mysteries; and a superstitious conscience is less forcibly bound by the spiritual energy, than by the outward and visible symbols, of an oath.*

During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had observed a sullen silence, unwilling to approve, and unable to oppose, the consent of the king and people. But the diet was not dissolved before Julian was fortified by the welcome intelligence, that Anatolia was invaded by the Caramanian, and Thrace by the Greek emperor; that the fleets of Genoa, Venice and Burgundy, were masters of the Hellespont; and that the allies, informed of the victory, and ignorant of the treaty, of Ladislaus, impatiently waited for the return of his victorious army. "And is it thus," exclaimed the cardinal,t "that you will desert their expectations and your own for tune? It is to them, to your God, and your fellow-Christians, that you have pledged your faith; and that prior obligation annihilates a rash and sacrilegious oath to the enemies of Christ. His vicar on earth is the Roman pontiff, without whose sanction you can neither promise nor perform. In his name I absolve your perjury and sanctify your arms;

* See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first expedition of Ladislaus, in the fifth and sixth books of the third decad of Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy with tolerable success. Callimachus (1. 2, p. 487–496) is still more pure and authentic.

+I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy of Julian's speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus (1. 3, p. 505-507), Bonfinius (Dec. 3, 1. 6, p. 457, 458), and other historians, who might indulge their own eloquence while they represent one of the orators of the age. But they all agree in the advice and arguments for perjury, which in the field of controversy are fiercely attacked by the Protestants, and feebly defended by the Catholics. The latter are discouraged by the misfortune of Warna.

follow my footsteps in the paths of glory and salvation; and if still ye have scruples, devolve on my head the punishment and the sin." This mischievous casuistry was seconded by his respectable character, and the levity of popular assemblies; war was resolved, on the same spot where peace had so lately been sworn; and, in the execution of the treaty, the Turks were assaulted by the Christians, to whom, with some reason, they might apply the epithet of infidels. The falsehood of Ladislaus to his word and oath was palliated by the religion of the times; the most perfect, or at least the most popular, excuse would have been the success of his arms and the deliverance of the Eastern Church. But the same treaty which should have bound his conscience had diminished his strength. On the proclamation of the peace, the French and German volunteers departed with indignant murmurs; the Poles were exhausted by distant warfare, and perhaps disgusted with foreign command; and their palatines accepted the first licence, and hastily retired to their provinces and castles. Even Hungary was divided by faction, or restrained by a laudable scruple; and the relics of the crusade that marched in the second expedition were reduced to an inadequate force of twenty thousand men. A Wallachian chief, who joined the royal standard with his vassals, presumed to remark that their numbers did not exceed the hunting retinue that sometimes attended the sultan; and the gift of two horses of matchless speed might admonish Ladislaus of his secret foresight of the event. But the despot of Servia, after the restoration of his country and children, was tempted by the promise of new realms; and the inexperience of the king, the enthusiasm of the legate, and the martial presumption of Huniades himself, were persuaded that every obstacle must yield to the invincible virtue of the sword and the cross. After the passage of the Danube, two roads might lead to Constantinople and the Hellespont; the one direct, abrupt, and difficult, through the mountains of Hamus; the other, more tedious and secure, over a level country, and along the shores of the Euxine, in which their flanks, according to the Scythian discipline, might always be covered by a moveable fortification of wagons. The latter was judiciously preferred; the Catholics marched through the plains of Bulgaria, burning, with wanton cruelty, the churches and villages of the Christian natives; and their

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