the emperor attempted, without success, to divert Mahomet from the execution of his design. They represented that his grandfather had solicited the permission of Manuel to build a castle on his own territories; but that this double fortification which would command the strait, could only tend to violate the alliance of the nations; to intercept the Latins who traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps to annihilate the subsistence of the city. "I form no enterprise," replied the perfidious sultan, "against the city; but the empire of Constantinople is measured by her walls. Have you forgotten the distress to which my father was reduced, when you formed a league with the Hungarians; when they invaded our country by land, and the Hellespont was occupied by the French galleys? Amurath was com pelled to force the passage of the Bosphorus; and your strength was not equal to your malevolence. I was then a child at Adrianople; the Moslems trembled; and, for awhile, the gabours insulted our disgrace. But when my father had triumphed in the field of Warna, he vowed to erect a fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my duty to accomplish. Have ye the right, have ye the power, to control my actions on my own ground? For that ground is my own; as far as the shores of the Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and Europe is deserted by the Romans. Return, and inform your king, that the present Ottoman is far different from his predecessors; that his resolutions surpass their wishes; and that he performs more than they could resolve. Return in safety-but the next who delivers a similar message may expect to be flayed alive." After this declaration, Constantine, the first of the Greeks in spirit as in rank,† had determined to unsheath

*

*The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the infidels is expressed Kapovo by Ducas, and giaour by Leunclavius and the moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloss. Græc. tom. i. p. 530), from Kaßovoor, in vulgar Greek, a tortoise, as denoting a retrograde motion from the faith. But alas? gabour is no more than gheber, which was transferred from the Persian to the Turkish language, from the worshippers of fire to those of the crucifix. (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 375.) Phranza does justice

to his master's sense and courage; calliditatem hominis non ignorans imperator prior arma movere constituit; and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum profani proceres, which he had heard, amentes se vana pasci. Ducas was not a privy-councillor,

the sword, and to resist the approach and establishment of the Turks on the Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil and ecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous, and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience and long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt of an aggressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own safety, and the destruction of a fort, which could not long be maintained in the neighbourhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear, the fears of the wise and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolled away; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was postponed: and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending danger, till the arrival of the spring and the sultan decided the assurance of their ruin.

Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom disobeyed. On the 26th of March, the appointed spot of Asomaton was covered with an active swarm of Turkish artificers; and the materials by sea and land were diligently transported from Europe and Asia. The lime had been burnt in Cataphrygia; the timber was cut down in the woods of Heraclea and Nicomedia; and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each of the thousand masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of two cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress † was built in a triangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong and massy tower; one on the declivity of the hill, two along the sea-shore; a thickness of twenty-two feet was assigned for the walls, thirty for the towers; and the whole building was covered with a solid platform of lead. Mahomet himself pressed and directed the work with indefatigable ardour; his three vizirs claimed the honour of finishing their respective towers; the zeal of the cadhis emulated that of the janizaries; the meanest labour was ennobled by the service of God and the sultan; and the diligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot, whose smile was the

* Instead of this clear and consistent account, the Turkish annals (Cantemir, p. 97) revived the foolish tale of the ox's hide, and Dido's stratagem in the foundation of Carthage. These annals (unless we are swayed by an antichristian prejudice) are far less valuable than the Greek historians. In the dimensions of this

fortress, the old castle of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with

the

hope of fortune, and whose frown was the messenger of death. The Greek emperor beheld, with terror, the irresistible progress of the work; and vainly strove, by flattery and gifts, to assuage an implacable foe, who sought, and secretly fomented, the slightest occasion of a quarrel. Such occasions must soon and inevitably be found. The ruins of stately churches, and even the marble columns which had had been consecrated to St. Michael the archangel, were employed without scruple by the profane and rapacious Moslems; and some Christians, who presumed to oppose the removal, received from their hands the crown of martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to protect the fields and harvests of his subjects; the guard was fixed; but their first order was to allow free pasture to the mules and horses of the camp, and to defend their brethren if they should be molested by the natives. The retinue of an Ottoman chief had left their horses to pass the night among ripe corn; the damage was felt; the insult was resented; and several of both nations were slain in a tumultuous conflict. Mahomet listened with joy to the complaint; and a detachment was commanded to exterminate the guilty village; the guilty had fled; but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by the soldiers. Till this provocation, Constantinople had been open to the visits of commerce and curiosity; on the first alarm, the gates were shut; but the emperor, still anxious for released on the third day his Turkish captives;* and expressed, in a last message, the firm resignation of a Christian and a soldier. "Since neither oaths, nor treaty, nor submission, can secure peace, pursue" said he to Mahomet, "your impious warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should please him to mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to his holy will. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce between us, it is my duty to live and die in the defence of my people.' The sultan's answer was hostile and decisive; his fortifications were completed; and before his departure for Adrianople he stationed a vigilant aga and

editor Leunclavius.

*

peace,

Chalcocondylas, whose description has been verified on the spot by his pages of Mahomet, so conscious of his inexorable rigour, that they begged Among these were somǝ to lose their heads in the city unless they could return before sunset.

four hundred janizaries, to levy a tribute on the ships of every nation that should pass within the reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel, refusing obedience to the new lords of the Bosphorus, was sunk with a single bullet. The master and thirty sailors escaped in the boat; but they were dragged in chains to the porte; the chief was impaled; his companions were beheaded; and the historian Ducas * beheld, at Demotica, their bodies exposed to the wild beasts. The siege of Constantinople was deferred till the ensuing spring; but an Ottoman army marched into the Morea to divert the force of the brothers of Constantine. At this era of calamity, one of these princes, the despot Thomas, was blessed or afflicted with the birth of a son; "the last heir," says the plaintive Phranza, " of the last spark of the Roman empire.t

The Greeks and the Turks passed an anxious and sleepless winter; the former were kept awake by their fears, the latter by their hopes; both by the preparations of defence and attack; and the two emperors, who had the most to lose or to gain, were the most deeply affected by the national sentiment. In Mahomet, that sentiment was inflamed by the ardour of his youth and temper; he amused his leisure with building at Adrianople the lofty palace of Jehan Numa (the watch-tower of the world); but his serious thoughts were irrevocably bent on the conquest of the city of Cæsar. At the dead of night, about the second watch, he started from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of his prime vizir. The message, the hour, the prince, and his own situation, alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha, who had possessed the confidence, and advised the restoration, of Amurath. On the accession of the son, the vizir was confirmed in his office and the appearances of favour; but the veteran statesman was not insensible that he trod on a thin and slippery ice, which might break under his footsteps, and plunge him in the abyss. His friendship

* Ducas, c. 35. Phranza (1. 3, c. 3), who had sailed in his vessel, commemorates the Venetian pilot as a martyr.

Auctum est Palæologorum genus, et imperii successor, parvæque Romanorum scintillæ hæres natus, Andreas, &c. (Phranza, (1.3, c. 7.) The strong expression was inspired by his feelings.

Cantemir, p. 97, 98. The sultan was either doubtful of his conquest, or ignorant of the superior merits of Constantinople. A city or

for the Christians, which might be innocent under the late reign, had stigmatized him with the name of Gabour Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels ;* and his avarice entertained a venal and treasonable correspondence, which was detected and punished after the conclusion of the war. On receiving the royal mandate, he embraced, perhaps for the last time, his wife and children; filled a cup with pieces of gold, hastened to the palace, adored the sultan, and offered, according to the Oriental custom, the slight tribute of his duty and gratitude.+ "It is not my wish," said Mahomet, "to resume my gifts, but rather to heap and multiply them on thy head. In my turn I ask a present far more valuable and important; -Constantinople." As soon as the vizir had recovered from his surprise, "The same God," said he, "who has already given thee so large a portion of the Roman empire,' will not deny the remnant, and the capital. His providence, and thy power, assure thy success; and myself, with the rest of thy faithful slaves, will sacrifice our lives and fortunes. "Lala," (or preceptor) continued the sultan, " do you see this pillow all the night, in my agitation, I have pulled it on one side and the other; I have risen from my bed, again have I lain down; yet sleep has not visited these weary eyes. Beware of the gold and silver of the Romans: in arms we are superior; and with the aid of God, and the prayers of the prophet, we shall speedily become masters of Constantinople." To sound the disposition of

a kingdom may sometimes be ruined by the imperial fortune of their sovereign. * Evvτpopoç, by the president Cousin, is translated pere nourricier, most correctly indeed from the Latin version; but in his haste, he has overlooked the note by which Ismael Boillaud (ad Ducam, c. 35), acknowledges and rectifies his own error.

+ The Oriental custom of never appearing without gifts before a sovereign or a superior is of high antiquity, and seems analogous with the idea of sacrifice, still more ancient and universal. See the examples of such Persian gifts, Ælian. Hist. Var. 1. 1, c. 31-33.

‡ The Lala of the Turks (Cantemir, p. 34), and the Tata of the Greeks (Ducas, c. 35), are derived from the natural language of children; and it may be observed, that all such primitive words which denote their parents, are the simple repetition of one syllable, composed of a labial or dental consonant and an open vowel. (Des Brosses, Méchanisme des Langues, tom. i. p. 231-247.) [The first efforts of a child to speak are guttural; the second, to call for its source of nourishment, which, by the natural closing of the lips, produces the sound

of m.

Hence the use of this letter in every maternal designation. It