Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more

curiosity and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in

Italy by a venerable Greek, 108 who taught in the house of Cosmo

of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was involved in

theological debate, some beneficial consequences might flow from

the study of his elegant philosophy: his style is the purest

standard of the Attic dialect, and his sublime thoughts are

sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and sometimes adorned

with the richest colors of poetry and eloquence. The dialogues of

Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a sage;

and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system

inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The

precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and

liberal inquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion,

adored the visions and errors of their divine master, their

enthusiasm might correct the dry, dogmatic method of the

Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so opposite, are the merits of

Plato and Aristotle, that they may be balanced in endless

controversy; but some spark of freedom may be produced by the

collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were divided

between the two sects: with more fury than skill they fought

under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was

removed in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this

philosophical debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal

quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for

Plato, protected the national honor, by interposing the advice

and authority of a mediator. In the gardens of the Medici, the

academical doctrine was enjoyed by the polite and learned: but

their philosophic society was quickly dissolved; and if the

writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the more

powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the oracle of the church

and school. 109

108 (return) [ George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous

writer, the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the

times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end

his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo

Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius. (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p.

739—756.)]

109 (return) [ The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is

illustrated by Boivin, (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.

ii. p. 715—729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259—288.)]

I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks; yet

it must be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by

the ardor of the Latins. Italy was divided into many independent

states; and at that time it was the ambition of princes and

republics to vie with each other in the encouragement and reward

of literature. The fame of Nicholas the Fifth 110 has not been

adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin he raised himself

by his virtue and learning: the character of the man prevailed

over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons

which were soon pointed against the Roman church. 111 He had been

the friend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became

their patron; and such was the humility of his manners, that the

change was scarcely discernible either to them or to himself. If

he pressed the acceptance of a liberal gift, it was not as the

measure of desert, but as the proof of benevolence; and when

modest merit declined his bounty, “Accept it,” would he say, with

a consciousness of his own worth: “ye will not always have a

Nicholas among you.” The influence of the holy see pervaded

Christendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not of

benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine

libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain,

he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity;

and wherever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy

was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican, the old

repository for bulls and legends, for superstition and forgery,

was daily replenished with more precious furniture; and such was

the industry of Nicholas, that in a reign of eight years he

formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his munificence the

Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus,

Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo’s

Geography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato and

Aristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the

Greek church. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or

imitated by a Florentine merchant, who governed the republic

without arms and without a title. Cosmo of Medicis 112 was the

father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost

synonymous with the restoration of learning: his credit was

ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of

mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London: and a

cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported in the

same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzo

rendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the

literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief,

and merit to reward: his leisure hours were delightfully spent in

the Platonic academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius

Chalcocondyles and Angelo Politian; and his active missionary

Janus Lascaris returned from the East with a treasure of two

hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which were as yet unknown in

the libraries of Europe. 113 The rest of Italy was animated by a

similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the

liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive

property of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece

were soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons which

they had imbibed. After a short succession of foreign teachers,

the tide of emigration subsided; but the language of

Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the natives of

France, Germany, and England, 114 imparted to their country the

sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and

Rome. 115 In the productions of the mind, as in those of the

soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the

Greek authors, forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been

illustrated on those of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or

Gaza might have envied the superior science of the Barbarians;

the accuracy of Budæus, the taste of Erasmus, the copiousness of

Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the discernment of Reiske,

or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the discovery of

printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has been

applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate

and multiply the works of antiquity. 116 A single manuscript

imported from Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each

copy is fairer than the original. In this form, Homer and Plato

would peruse with more satisfaction their own writings; and their

scholiasts must resign the prize to the labors of our Western

editors.

110 (return) [ See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary

authors, Janottus Manettus, (tom. iii. P. ii. p. 905—962,) and

Vespasian of Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267—290,) in the collection

of Muratori; and consult Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 46—52,

109,) and Hody in the articles of Theodore Gaza, George of

Trebizond, &c.]

111 (return) [ Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit,

that the popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the

muftis, and that the charm which had bound mankind for so many

ages was broken by the magicians themselves, (Letters on the

Study of History, l. vi. p. 165, 166, octavo edition, 1779.)]

112 (return) [ See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of

Medicis, in Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. l. i. c. 2,) who bestows

a due measure of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples,

the dukes of Milan, Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice

has deserved the least from the gratitude of scholars.]

113 (return) [ Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 104,) from the

preface of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at

Florence, 1494. Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek

orators, apud Hodium, p. 249) in Atho Thraciæ monte. Eas

Lascaris.... in Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius

ille Medices in Græciam ad inquirendos simul, et quantovis

emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable enough, that the

research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]

114 (return) [ The Greek language was introduced into the

university of Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by

Grocyn, Linacer, and Latimer, who had all studied at Florence

under Demetrius Chalcocondyles. See Dr. Knight’s curious Life of

Erasmus. Although a stout academical patriot, he is forced to

acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at Oxford, and taught it

at Cambridge.]

115 (return) [ The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a

monopoly of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the

Greek scholiasts on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,)

cave hoc facias, ne _Barbari_ istis adjuti domi maneant, et

pauciores in Italiam ventitent, (Dr. Knight, in his Life of

Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhemanus.)]

116 (return) [ The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was

established at Venice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty

considerable works of Greek literature, almost all for the first

time; several containing different treatises and authors, and of

several authors, two, three, or four editions, (Fabric. Bibliot.

Græc. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet his glory must not tempt us to

forget, that the first Greek book, the Grammar of Constantine

Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that the Florence

Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical art.

See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie

Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]

Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in

Europe were immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were

marked with the rudeness and poverty of their manners. The

students of the more perfect idioms of Rome and Greece were

introduced to a new world of light and science; to the society of

the free and polished nations of antiquity; and to a familiar

converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime language

of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to refine

the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,

from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the

ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.

However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast;

and the first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of

strangers in the midst of their age and country. The minute and

laborious diligence which explored the antiquities of remote

times might have improved or adorned the present state of

society, the critic and metaphysician were the slaves of

Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud to

repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of

nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and

some Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of

Homer and Plato. 117 The Italians were oppressed by the strength

and number of their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the

deaths of Petrarch and Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin

imitators, who decently repose on our shelves; but in that æra of

learning it will not be easy to discern a real discovery of

science, a work of invention or eloquence, in the popular

language of the country. 118 But as soon as it had been deeply

saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into

vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics

of Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous

emulation; and in Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the

pleasing reign of poetry and fiction was succeeded by the light

of speculative and experimental philosophy. Genius may anticipate

the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in

that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the

powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist

hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the

works of his predecessors.

117 (return) [ I will select three singular examples of this

classic enthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho

said, in familiar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a

short time mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the

Koran, for a religion similar to that of the Gentiles, (Leo

Allatius, apud Fabricium, tom. x. p. 751.) 2. Paul II. persecuted

the Roman academy, which had been founded by Pomponius Lætus; and

the principal members were accused of heresy, impiety, and

_paganism_, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p. 81, 82.) 3. In the

next century, some scholars and poets in France celebrated the

success of Jodelle’s tragedy of Cleopatra, by a festival of

Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat, (Bayle,

Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56—61.) Yet the

spirit of bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the

sportive play of fancy and learning.]

118 (return) [ The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we

cannot place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore

of Pulci and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom.

vi. P. ii. p. 174—177.)]

Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part I.

Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Reign And Character Of Amurath

The Second.—Crusade Of Ladislaus, King Of Hungary.— His Defeat And

Death.—John Huniades.—Scanderbeg.— Constantine Palæologus, Last

Emperor Of The East.

The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are compared and

celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the Italian

schools. 1 The view of the ancient capital, the seat of his

ancestors, surpassed the most sanguine expectations of Emanuel

Chrysoloras; and he no longer blamed the exclamation of an old

sophist, that Rome was the habitation, not of men, but of gods.

Those gods, and those men, had long since vanished; but to the

eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin restored the image

of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the consuls and

Cæsars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides the

curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he confessed

that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome were destined

to reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired the venerable

beauties of the mother, he was not forgetful of his native

country, her fairest daughter, her Imperial colony; and the

Byzantine patriot expatiates with zeal and truth on the eternal

advantages of nature, and the more transitory glories of art and

dominion, which adorned, or had adorned, the city of Constantine.

Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds (as he modestly

observes) to the honor of the original, and parents are delighted

to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior merit of their

children. “Constantinople,” says the orator, “is situate on a

commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between the

Archipelago and the Euxine. By her interposition, the two seas,

and the two continents, are united for the common benefit of

nations; and the gates of commerce may be shut or opened at her

command. The harbor, encompassed on all sides by the sea, and the

continent, is the most secure and capacious in the world. The

walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared with those of

Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and lofty

structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be

sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A

broad and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the

artificial island may be encompassed, like Athens, 2 by land or

water.” Two strong and natural causes are alleged for the

perfection of the model of new Rome. The royal founder reigned

over the most illustrious nations of the globe; and in the

accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romans was

combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities

have been reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties

are mingled with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants,

unwilling to remove from their natal spot, are incapable of

correcting the errors of their ancestors, and the original vices

of situation or climate. But the free idea of Constantinople was

formed and executed by a single mind; and the primitive model was

improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and successors of

the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with an

inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were

transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and

the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches,

aqueducts, cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes,

were adapted to the greatness of the capital of the East. The

superfluity of wealth was spread along the shores of Europe and

Asia; and the Byzantine territory, as far as the Euxine, the

Hellespont, and the long wall, might be considered as a populous

suburb and a perpetual garden. In this flattering picture, the

past and the present, the times of prosperity and decay, are

artfully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape, from the

orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre of

its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced

by Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures

were demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt

for lime, or applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the

place was marked by an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size

was determined by a broken capital; the tombs of the emperors

were scattered on the ground; the stroke of time was accelerated

by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant space was adorned, by

vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold and silver.

From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he

distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and

colossus of Justinian, 3 and the church, more especially the

dome, of St. Sophia; the best conclusion, since it could not be

described according to its merits, and after it no other object

could deserve to be mentioned. But he forgets that, a century

before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus and the church had

been saved and supported by the timely care of Andronicus the

Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortified St. Sophia

with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemisphere

suddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary,

were crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed was

speedily repaired; the rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor

of every rank and age; and the poor remains of riches and

industry were consecrated by the Greeks to the most stately and

venerable temple of the East. 4

1 (return) [ The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor

John Palæologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical

student, (ad calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. p. 107—126.)

The superscription suggests a chronological remark, that John

Palæologus II. was associated in the empire before the year 1414,

the date of Chrysoloras’s death. A still earlier date, at least

1408, is deduced from the age of his youngest sons, Demetrius and

Thomas, who were both _Porphyrogeniti_ (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.

244, 247.)]

2 (return) [ Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be

circumnavigated, (tiV eipen tin polin tvn Aqhnaiwn dunasqai kai

paraplein kai periplein.) But what may be true in a rhetorical

sense of Constantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of

Athens, five miles from the sea, and not intersected or

surrounded by any navigable streams.]

3 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus of

Justinian, (l. vii. 12:) but his measures are false and

inconsistent. The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon;

and the sculptor gave him the true proportions of an equestrian

statue. That of Justinian was still visible to Peter Gyllius, not

on the column, but in the outward court of the seraglio; and he

was at Constantinople when it was melted down, and cast into a

brass cannon, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 17.)]

4 (return) [ See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in

Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 12, l. xv. 2.) The building was

propped by Andronicus in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in

1345. The Greeks, in their pompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty and

holiness of the church, an earthly heaven the abode of angels,

and of God himself, &c.]

The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in the

harmony of the mother and daughter, in the maternal tenderness of

Rome, and the filial obedience of Constantinople. In the synod of

Florence, the Greeks and Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and

promised; but these signs of friendship were perfidious or

fruitless; 5 and the baseless fabric of the union vanished like a

dream. 6 The emperor and his prelates returned home in the

Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Morea and the Isles

of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complained that

the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression. No

sooner did they land on the Byzantine shore, than they were

saluted, or rather assailed, with a general murmur of zeal and

discontent. During their absence, above two years, the capital

had been deprived of its civil and ecclesiastical rulers;

fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furious monks reigned

over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred of the

Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion. Before

his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with

the assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor; and the

clergy, confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised

themselves and their flocks an easy victory over the blind

shepherds of the West. The double disappointment exasperated the

Greeks; the conscience of the subscribing prelates was awakened;

the hour of temptation was past; and they had more to dread from

the public resentment, than they could hope from the favor of the

emperor or the pope. Instead of justifying their conduct, they

deplored their weakness, professed their contrition, and cast

themselves on the mercy of God and of their brethren. To the

reproachful question, what had been the event or the use of their

Italian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, “Alas! we have

made a new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety; we have

betrayed the immaculate sacrifice; and we are become _Azymites_.”

(The Azymites were those who celebrated the communion with

unleavened bread; and I must retract or qualify the praise which

I have bestowed on the growing philosophy of the times.) “Alas!

we have been seduced by distress, by fraud, and by the hopes and

fears of a transitory life. The hand that has signed the union

should be cut off; and the tongue that has pronounced the Latin

creed deserves to be torn from the root.” The best proof of their

repentance was an increase of zeal for the most trivial rites and

the most incomprehensible doctrines; and an absolute separation

from all, without excepting their prince, who preserved some

regard for honor and consistency. After the decease of the

patriarch Joseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had

courage to refuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion

preferred the warm and comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The

choice of the emperor and his clergy was confined to Metrophanes

of Cyzicus: he was consecrated in St. Sophia, but the temple was

vacant. The cross-bearers abdicated their service; the infection

spread from the city to the villages; and Metrophanes discharged,

without effect, some ecclesiastical thunders against a nation of

schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed to Mark of

Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of the

holy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and

applause. His example and writings propagated the flame of

religious discord; age and infirmity soon removed him from the

world; but the gospel of Mark was not a law of forgiveness; and

he requested with his dying breath, that none of the adherents of

Rome might attend his obsequies or pray for his soul.

5 (return) [ The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p.

312—351) opens the schism from the first _office_ of the Greeks

at Venice to the general opposition at Constantinople, of the

clergy and people.]

6 (return) [ On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l.

ii. c. 17,) Laonicus Chalcondyles, (l. vi. p. 155, 156,) and

Ducas, (c. 31;) the last of whom writes with truth and freedom.

Among the moderns we may distinguish the continuator of Fleury,

(tom. xxii. p. 338, &c., 401, 420, &c.,) and Spondanus, (A.D.

1440—50.) The sense of the latter is drowned in prejudice and

passion, as soon as Rome and religion are concerned.]

The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the Byzantine

empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three patriarchs

of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a numerous

synod; disowned their representatives at Ferrara and Florence;

condemned the creed and council of the Latins; and threatened the

emperor of Constantinople with the censures of the Eastern

church. Of the sectaries of the Greek communion, the Russians

were the most powerful, ignorant, and superstitious. Their

primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from Florence to Moscow,

7 to reduce the independent nation under the Roman yoke. But the

Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and the prince

and people embraced the theology of their priests. They were

scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the

legate, the friend of those impious men who shaved their beards,

and performed the divine office with gloves on their hands and

rings on their fingers: Isidore was condemned by a synod; his

person was imprisoned in a monastery; and it was with extreme

difficulty that the cardinal could escape from the hands of a

fierce and fanatic people. 8 The Russians refused a passage to

the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert the Pagans beyond

the Tanais; 9 and their refusal was justified by the maxim, that

the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism. The

errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the

pope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the

friendship of those sanguinary enthusiasts. 10 While Eugenius

triumphed in the union and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was

contracted to the walls, or rather to the palace of

Constantinople. The zeal of Palæologus had been excited by

interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to violate

the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not could

the pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The

sword of his brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a

prudent and popular silence, was half unsheathed in the cause of

religion; and Amurath, the Turkish sultan, was displeased and

alarmed by the seeming friendship of the Greeks and Latins.

7 (return) [ Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks

subject to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to

Lemberg, or Leopold, (Herbestein, in Ramusio, tom. ii. p. 127.)

On the other hand, the Russians transferred their spiritual

obedience to the archbishop, who became, in 1588, the patriarch,

of Moscow, (Levesque Hist. de Russie, tom. iii. p. 188, 190, from

a Greek MS. at Turin, Iter et labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii.)]

8 (return) [ The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. de Russie,

tom. ii. p. 242—247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives.

The scenes of Ferrara and Florence are described by ignorance and

passion; but the Russians are credible in the account of their

own prejudices.]

9 (return) [ The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the Samanæans

and Gymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular Bramins

from India into the northern deserts: the naked philosophers were

compelled to wrap themselves in fur; but they insensibly sunk

into wizards and physicians. The Mordvans and Tcheremisses in the

European Russia adhere to this religion, which is formed on the

earthly model of one king or God, his ministers or angels, and

the rebellious spirits who oppose his government. As these tribes

of the Volga have no images, they might more justly retort on the

Latin missionaries the name of idolaters, (Levesque, Hist. des

Peuples soumis à la Domination des Russes, tom. i. p. 194—237,

423—460.)]

10 (return) [ Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom ii. A.D. 1451, No.

13. The epistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in

the college library at Prague.]

“Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned thirty

years, six months, and eight days. He was a just and valiant

prince, of a great soul, patient of labors, learned, merciful,

religious, charitable; a lover and encourager of the studious,

and of all who excelled in any art or science; a good emperor and

a great general. No man obtained more or greater victories than

Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. 101 Under his

reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich and

secure. If he subdued any country, his first care was to build

mosques and caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges. Every year he

gave a thousand pieces of gold to the sons of the Prophet; and

sent two thousand five hundred to the religious persons of Mecca,

Medina, and Jerusalem.” 11 This portrait is transcribed from the

historian of the Othman empire: but the applause of a servile and

superstitious people has been lavished on the worst of tyrants;

and the virtues of a sultan are often the vices most useful to

himself, or most agreeable to his subjects. A nation ignorant of

the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the

flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume

the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his

obstinacy, of firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be

rejected, few acts of obedience will be found impossible; and

guilt must tremble, where innocence cannot always be secure. The

tranquillity of the people, and the discipline of the troops,

were best maintained by perpetual action in the field; war was

the trade of the Janizaries; and those who survived the peril,

and divided the spoil, applauded the generous ambition of their

sovereign. To propagate the true religion, was the duty of a

faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers were _his_ enemies, and those

of the Prophet; and, in the hands of the Turks, the cimeter was

the only instrument of conversion. Under these circumstances,

however, the justice and moderation of Amurath are attested by

his conduct, and acknowledged by the Christians themselves; who

consider a prosperous reign and a peaceful death as the reward of

his singular merits. In the vigor of his age and military power,

he seldom engaged in war till he was justified by a previous and

adequate provocation: the victorious sultan was disarmed by

submission; and in the observance of treaties, his word was

inviolate and sacred. 12 The Hungarians were commonly the

aggressors; he was provoked by the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the

perfidious Caramanian was twice vanquished, and twice pardoned,

by the Ottoman monarch. Before he invaded the Morea, Thebes had

been surprised by the despot: in the conquest of Thessalonica,

the grandson of Bajazet might dispute the recent purchase of the

Venetians; and after the first siege of Constantinople, the

sultan was never tempted, by the distress, the absence, or the

injuries of Palæologus, to extinguish the dying light of the

Byzantine empire.

101 (return) [ See the siege and massacre at Thessalonica. Von

Hammer vol. i p. 433.—M.]

11 (return) [ See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94.

Murad, or Morad, may be more correct: but I have preferred the

popular name to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful

in translating an Oriental, into the Roman, alphabet.]

12 (return) [ See Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 186, 198,) Ducas, (c.

33,) and Marinus Barletius, (in Vit. Scanderbeg, p. 145, 146.) In

his good faith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade, he was a

lesson and example to his son Mahomet.]

But the most striking feature in the life and character of

Amurath is the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were

not his motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must

praise the royal philosopher, 13 who at the age of forty could

discern the vanity of human greatness. Resigning the sceptre to

his son, he retired to the pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he

retired to the society of saints and hermits. It was not till the

fourth century of the Hegira, that the religion of Mahomet had

been corrupted by an institution so adverse to his genius; but in

the age of the crusades, the various orders of Dervises were

multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even the Latin,

monks. 14 The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, and

turn round 141 in endless rotation with the fanatics, who mistook

the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the spirit. 15

But he was soon awakened from his dreams of enthusiasm by the

Hungarian invasion; and his obedient son was the foremost to urge

the public danger and the wishes of the people. Under the banner

of their veteran leader, the Janizaries fought and conquered but

he withdrew from the field of Varna, again to pray, to fast, and

to turn round with his Magnesian brethren. These pious

occupations were again interrupted by the danger of the state. A

victorious army disdained the inexperience of their youthful

ruler: the city of Adrianople was abandoned to rapine and

slaughter; and the unanimous divan implored his presence to

appease the tumult, and prevent the rebellion, of the Janizaries.

At the well-known voice of their master, they trembled and

obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was compelled to support his

splendid servitude, till at the end of four years, he was

relieved by the angel of death. Age or disease, misfortune or

caprice, have tempted several princes to descend from the throne;

and they have had leisure to repent of their irretrievable step.

But Amurath alone, in the full liberty of choice, after the trial

of empire and solitude, has _repeated_ his preference of a

private life.

13 (return) [ Voltaire (Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, c. 89, p.

283, 284) admires _le Philosophe Turc:_ would he have bestowed

the same praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a

monastery? In his way, Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant

bigot.]

14 (return) [ See the articles _Dervische_, _Fakir_, _Nasser_,

_Rohbaniat_, in D’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale. Yet the

subject is superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian

writers. It is among the Turks that these orders have principally

flourished.]

141 (return) [ Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The

unmonastic retreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather

than of a dervis; more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles

the Fifth. Profane, not divine, love was its chief occupation:

the only dance, that described by Horace as belonging to the

country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See Von Hammer note, p.

652.—M.]

15 (return) [ Ricaut (in the Present State of the Ottoman Empire,

p. 242—268) affords much information, which he drew from his

personal conversation with the heads of the dervises, most of

whom ascribed their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not

mention the _Zichid_ of Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 286,) among

whom Amurath retired: the _Seids_ of that author are the

descendants of Mahomet.]

After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not been

unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard for

the Byzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of the

Turks, who approached, and might soon invade, the borders of

Italy. But the spirit of the crusades had expired; and the

coldness of the Franks was not less unreasonable than their

headlong passion. In the eleventh century, a fanatic monk could

precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of the holy

sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives of

religion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the

defence of Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse

of men and arms: 16 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: 17 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 kingdoms 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 designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of

Cardinal Julian, his legate, were promoted by the circumstances

of the times: 18 by the union of the two crowns on the head of

Ladislaus, 19 a young and ambitious soldier; by the valor 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 indulgences 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 ardor of

the Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to

vindicate their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, 20 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 21 announced the

retreat 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.

16 (return) [ In the year 1431, Germany raised 40,000 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 1400 horse, 6000 foot, all in green, with

1200 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, l. iv. c. 2.) At present, six

or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and

admirable discipline by the powers of Germany.]

17 (return) [ It was not till the year 1444, that France and

England could agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer’s

Fdera, and the chronicles of both nations.)]

18 (return) [ In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Ecclés.

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.]

19 (return) [ 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, (l. i. ii. p. 447—486,)

Bonfinius, (Decad. iii. l. iv.,) Spondanus, and Lenfant.]

20 (return) [ The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, 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.]

21 (return) [ 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 it formed of the

state of Christendom and the situation and correspondence of the

knights of Rhodes must connect them with the sultan of

Caramania.]

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 valor 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. 22 The most

solid proof, and the most salutary consequence, of victory, was a

deputation from the divan to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to

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. 23

22 (return) [ In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the

Hungarians slay 80,000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian

reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (Æneas

Sylvius in Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)]

23 (return) [ See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first

expedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid

decad of Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy

with tolerable success Callimachus (l. ii p. 487—496) is still

more pure and authentic.]

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, 24 “that you will desert their

expectations and your own fortune? 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: 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

license, 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 Walachian 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 Hæmus; 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 movable 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 last station was at

Warna, near the sea-shore; on which the defeat and death of

Ladislaus have bestowed a memorable name. 25

24 (return) [ I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy of

Julian’s speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus, (l.

iii. p. 505—507,) Bonfinius, (dec. iii. l. vi. 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.]

25 (return) [ Warna, under the Grecian name of Odessus, was a

colony of the Milesians, which they denominated from the hero

Ulysses, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 374. D’Anville, tom. i. p. 312.)

According to Arrian’s Periplus of the Euxine, (p. 24, 25, in the

first volume of Hudson’s Geographers,) it was situate 1740

stadia, or furlongs, from the mouth of the Danube, 2140 from

Byzantium, and 360 to the north of a ridge of promontory of Mount

Hæmus, which advances into the sea.]

Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part II.

It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a confederate

fleet to second their operations, they were alarmed by the

approach of Amurath himself, who had issued from his Magnesian

solitude, and transported the forces of Asia to the defence of

Europe. According to some writers, the Greek emperor had been

awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of the Bosphorus; and an

indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese, or the

pope’s nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary connivance

betrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From Adrianople, the sultan

advanced by hasty marches, at the head of sixty thousand men; and

when the cardinal, and Huniades, had taken a nearer survey of the

numbers and order of the Turks, these ardent warriors proposed

the tardy and impracticable measure of a retreat. The king alone

was resolved to conquer or die; and his resolution had almost

been crowned with a glorious and salutary victory. The princes

were opposite to each other in the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or

generals of Anatolia and Romania, commanded on the right and

left, against the adverse divisions of the despot and Huniades.

The Turkish wings were broken on the first onset: but the

advantage was fatal; and the rash victors, in the heat of the

pursuit, were carried away far from the annoyance of the enemy,

or the support of their friends. When Amurath beheld the flight

of his squadrons, he despaired of his fortune and that of the

empire: a veteran Janizary seized his horse’s bridle; and he had

magnanimity to pardon and reward the soldier who dared to

perceive the terror, and arrest the flight, of his sovereign. A

copy of the treaty, the monument of Christian perfidy, had been

displayed in the front of battle; and it is said, that the sultan

in his distress, lifting his eyes and his hands to heaven,

implored the protection of the God of truth; and called on the

prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name

and religion. 26 With inferior numbers and disordered ranks, the

king of Hungary rushed forward in the confidence of victory, till

his career was stopped by the impenetrable phalanx of the

Janizaries. If we may credit the Ottoman annals, his horse was

pierced by the javelin of Amurath; 27 he fell among the spears of

the infantry; and a Turkish soldier proclaimed with a loud voice,

“Hungarians, behold the head of your king!” The death of

Ladislaus was the signal of their defeat. On his return from an

intemperate pursuit, Huniades deplored his error, and the public

loss; he strove to rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed

by the tumultuous crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the

last efforts of his courage and conduct were exerted to save the

remnant of his Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were

slain in the disastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks,

more considerable in numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their

total strength; yet the philosophic sultan was not ashamed to

confess, that his ruin must be the consequence of a second and

similar victory. 271 At his command a column was erected on the

spot where Ladislaus had fallen; but the modest inscription,

instead of accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, and

bewailed the misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. 28

26 (return) [ Some Christian writers affirm, that he drew from

his bosom the host or wafer on which the treaty had _not_ been

sworn. The Moslems suppose, with more simplicity, an appeal to

God and his prophet Jesus, which is likewise insinuated by

Callimachus, (l. iii. p. 516. Spondan. A.D. 1444, No. 8.)]

27 (return) [ A critic will always distrust these _spolia opima_

of a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so

easy for flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.) Callimachus

(l. iii. p. 517) more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus

Janizaris, telorum multitudine, non jam confossus est, quam

obrutus.]

271 (return) [ Compare Von Hammer, p. 463.—M.]

28 (return) [ Besides some valuable hints from Æneas Sylvius,

which are diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities

are three historians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus,

(de Rebus a Vladislao Polonorum atque Hungarorum Rege gestis,

libri iii. in Bel. Script. Rerum Hungaricarum, tom. i. p.

433—518,) Bonfinius, (decad. iii. l. v. p. 460—467,) and

Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 165—179.) The two first were Italians,

but they passed their lives in Poland and Hungary, (Fabric.

Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. i. p. 324. Vossius,

de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire,

Bonfinius.) A small tract of Fælix Petancius, chancellor of

Segnia, (ad calcem Cuspinian. de Cæsaribus, p. 716—722,)

represents the theatre of the war in the xvth century.]

Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to pause

on the character and story of two principal actors, the cardinal

Julian and John Huniades. Julian 29 Cæsarini was born of a noble

family of Rome: his studies had embraced both the Latin and Greek

learning, both the sciences of divinity and law; and his

versatile genius was equally adapted to the schools, the camp,

and the court. No sooner had he been invested with the Roman

purple, than he was sent into Germany to arm the empire against

the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of persecution is

unworthy of a Christian; the military profession ill becomes a

priest; but the former is excused by the times; and the latter

was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood dauntless and

alone in the disgraceful flight of the German host. As the pope’s

legate, he opened the council of Basil; but the president soon

appeared the most strenuous champion of ecclesiastical freedom;

and an opposition of seven years was conducted by his ability and

zeal. After promoting the strongest measures against the

authority and person of Eugenius, some secret motive of interest

or conscience engaged him to desert on a sudden the popular

party. The cardinal withdrew himself from Basil to Ferrara; and,

in the debates of the Greeks and Latins, the two nations admired

the dexterity of his arguments and the depth of his theological

erudition. 30 In his Hungarian embassy, we have already seen the

mischievous effects of his sophistry and eloquence, of which

Julian himself was the first victim. The cardinal, who performed

the duties of a priest and a soldier, was lost in the defeat of

Warna. The circumstances of his death are variously related; but

it is believed, that a weighty encumbrance of gold impeded his

flight, and tempted the cruel avarice of some Christian

fugitives.

29 (return) [ M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. du

Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 247, &c.) and Bohemian campaign (p.

315, &c.) of Cardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara,

and his unfortunate end, are occasionally related by Spondanus,

and the continuator of Fleury.]

30 (return) [ Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy,

(p. 117:) toiauta tina eipen o IoulianoV peplatusmenwV agan kai

logikwV, kai met episthmhV kai deinothtoV 'RhtprikhV.]

From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of John

Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian armies. His

father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race

might possibly ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the

claims of the Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the

place of his nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling

his blood with the patricians of ancient Rome. 31 In his youth he

served in the wars of Italy, and was retained, with twelve

horsemen, by the bishop of Zagrab: the valor of the _white

knight_ 32 was soon conspicuous; he increased his fortunes by a

noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian

borders he won in the same year three battles against the Turks.

By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of

Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and

office of Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian’s crusades

added two Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress

the fatal errors of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and

minority of Ladislaus of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was

elected supreme captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at

first was silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes

the arts of policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a

consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the white

knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief of

desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without

shame; and his military life is composed of a romantic

alternative of victories and escapes. By the Turks, who employed

his name to frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly

denominated _Jancus Lain_, or the Wicked: their hatred is the

proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was

inaccessible to their arms; and they felt him most daring and

formidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his country

irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive

war, four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated

into the heart of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova,

sustained, till the third day, the shock of the Ottoman army,

four times more numerous than his own. As he fled alone through

the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by two robbers; but

while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck, he

recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and,

after new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence

an afflicted kingdom. But the last and most glorious action of

his life was the defence of Belgrade against the powers of

Mahomet the Second in person. After a siege of forty days, the

Turks, who had already entered the town, were compelled to

retreat; and the joyful nations celebrated Huniades and Belgrade

as the bulwarks of Christendom. 33 About a month after this great

deliverance, the champion expired; and his most splendid epitaph

is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no

longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who had

triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throne,

Matthias Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected

and crowned by the grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous

and long: Matthias aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a

saint: but his purest merit is the encouragement of learning; and

the Latin orators and historians, who were invited from Italy by

the son, have shed the lustre of their eloquence on the father’s

character. 34

31 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could the

Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without

a blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a

Walachian village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a

single branch of the Valerian family at Rome?]

32 (return) [ Philip de Comines, (Mémoires, l. vi. c. 13,) from

the tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but

under the whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne,

(Valachia.) The Greek Chalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of

Leunclavius, presume to accuse his fidelity or valor.]

33 (return) [ See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and

Spondanus, (A.D. 456, No. 1—7.) Huniades shared the glory of the

defence of Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in

their respective narratives, neither the saint nor the hero

condescend to take notice of his rival’s merit.]

34 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. viii.—decad. iv. l.

viii. The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of

Matthias Corvinus are curious and critical, (A.D. 1464, No. 1,

1475, No. 6, 1476, No. 14—16, 1490, No. 4, 5.) Italian fame was

the object of his vanity. His actions are celebrated in the

Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p. 322—412) of Peter Ranzanus, a

Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings are registered by

Galestus Martius of Narni, (528—568,) and we have a particular

narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three tracts are

all contained in the first vol. of Bel’s Scriptores Rerum

Hungaricarum.]

In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonly

associated; 35 and they are both entitled to our notice, since

their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the

Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, 36 was the

hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus or Albania,

between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend

with the sultan’s power, Castriot submitted to the hard

conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered his four sons as

the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths, after

receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the

Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish

policy. 37 The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd

of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed

cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the

suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and paternal

treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who, from his

tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a soldier. The

successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians, who carried a

proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended him to the favor

of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg, (_Iskender

beg_,) or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of his

glory and servitude. His father’s principality was reduced into a

province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of

Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of

the first dignities of the empire. He served with honor in the

wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity

of the historian, who supposes, that in every encounter he spared

the Christians, while he fell with a thundering arm on his

Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniades is without reproach: he

fought in the defence of his religion and country; but the

enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rival with the

name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christian, the

rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father’s wrongs, the

ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and

the slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though

tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and independence of

his ancestors. But he had imbibed from his ninth year the

doctrines of the Koran; he was ignorant of the Gospel; the

religion of a soldier is determined by authority and habit; nor

is it easy to conceive what new illumination at the age of forty

38 could be poured into his soul. His motives would be less

exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken

his chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but

a long oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every

year of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the

sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the

belief of Christianity and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind

must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to

betray, that could promise only to be forsworn, that could

actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many

thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret

correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of

the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard,

a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the

enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye

of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal

secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or

patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the

guiltless scribe and his train prevented the consequences of an

immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had

revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid marches,

from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of

Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he

command the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of

dissimulation; abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed

himself the avenger of his family and country. The names of

religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the Albanians, a

martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their

hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were indulged in the

choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the states of

Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and

each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion

of men and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial

estate, and from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an

annual revenue of two hundred thousand ducats; 39 and the entire

sum, exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated

to the public use. His manners were popular; but his discipline

was severe; and every superfluous vice was banished from his

camp: his example strengthened his command; and under his

conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and

that of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and

Germany were allured by his fame and retained in his service: his

standing militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven

thousand foot; the horses were small, the men were active; but he

viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources of

the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the whole nation

was distributed in the strongest posts. With such unequal arms

Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers of the Ottoman

empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his greater

son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued with

seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty

thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered

Albania: he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless

towns, convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the

Christian youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate

captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to the

petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison, invincible to his

arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and a superstitious

scruple. 40 Amurath retired with shame and loss from the walls of

Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the march, the

siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost

invisible, adversary; 41 and the disappointment might tend to

imbitter, perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. 42 In

the fulness of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his

bosom this domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to

negotiate a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised

as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The

enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names

of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to acknowledge

their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and slender

powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes of

antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. His

splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the

armies that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were

slain by his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of

suspicious criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the

dark solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely

indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are exposed

by the light of Italian history; and they afford a strong

presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale of his

exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to

the succor of the king of Naples. 43 Without disparagement to his

fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the

Ottoman powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the

Second for a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his

resources were almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive

at Lissus, on the Venetian territory. 44 His sepulchre was soon

violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore

his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious

amulet their involuntary reverence for his valor. The instant

ruin of his country may redound to the hero’s glory; yet, had he

balanced the consequences of submission and resistance, a patriot

perhaps would have declined the unequal contest which must depend

on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be

supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that the

pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join

in the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the

sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to

Italy. His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the

Castriots 45 were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their

blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm. A

colony of Albanian fugitives obtained a settlement in Calabria,

and they preserve at this day the language and manners of their

ancestors. 46

35 (return) [ They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his

pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among

the seven chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal

crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first

prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and

George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]

36 (return) [ I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a

friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the

time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus

Barletius, a priest of Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis

Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in

fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersome robes are stuck with many false

jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p.

229.]

37 (return) [ His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by

Marinus with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]

38 (return) [ Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year

of his age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403;

since he was torn from his parents by the Turks, when he was

_novennis_, (Marinus, l. i. p. 1, 6,) that event must have

happened in 1412, nine years before the accession of Amurath II.,

who must have inherited, not acquired the Albanian slave.

Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431, No. 31,

1443, No. 14.]

39 (return) [ His revenue and forces are luckily given by

Marinus, (l. ii. p. 44.)]

40 (return) [ There were two Dibras, the upper and lower, the

Bulgarian and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i.

p. 17,) was contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose

inhabitants refused to drink from a well into which a dead dog

had traitorously been cast, (l. v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good

map of Epirus.]

41 (return) [ Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92)

with the pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and

vith books of the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the

tribe of strangers and moderns.]

42 (return) [ In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188—192)

kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But

this audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who

agree in the time and manner of Amurath’s death at Adrianople.]

43 (return) [ See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the

ixth and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified

by the testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom.

xiii. p. 291,) and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus

Francisci Sfortiæ, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p.

728, et alios.) The Albanian cavalry, under the name of

_Stradiots_, soon became famous in the wars of Italy, (Mémoires

de Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]

44 (return) [ Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most

rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human

size, (A.D. 1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467,

No. 1.) His own letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza,

(l. iii. c. 28,) a refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu,

demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by

Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]

45 (return) [ See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.

Dalmaticæ, &c, xviii. p. 348—350.)]

46 (return) [ This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr.

Swinburne, (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350—354.)]

In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I

have reached at length the last reign of the princes of

Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name and majesty of

the Cæsars. On the decease of John Palæologus, who survived about

four years the Hungarian crusade, 47 the royal family, by the

death of Andronicus and the monastic profession of Isidore, was

reduced to three princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas, the

surviving sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and the

last were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who possessed

the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head of a

party: his ambition was not chilled by the public distress; and

his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had already

disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late

emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste:

the claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a

trite and flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the

eldest son of his father’s reign. But the empress-mother, the

senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the

cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who,

ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital,

asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother.

An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately despatched

to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor and

dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the

Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching

downfall of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious

deputies, the Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of

Constantine. In the spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the

encounter of a Turkish squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his

subjects, celebrated the festival of a new reign, and exhausted

by his donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the

state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the

possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the two

princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother’s

presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next

occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge of

Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the

distance between an hereditary monarch and an elective

magistrate; and in their subsequent distress, the chief of that

powerful republic was not unmindful of the affront. Constantine

afterwards hesitated between the royal families of Trebizond and

Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza represents in his public and

private life the last days of the Byzantine empire. 48

47 (return) [ The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic;

but instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 1445,

No. 7,) assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last

Constantine which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius

IV. to the king of Æthiopia.]

48 (return) [ Phranza (l. iii. c. 1—6) deserves credit and

esteem.]

The _protovestiare_, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from

Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of

wealth and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His

numerous retinue consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians

and monks: he was attended by a band of music; and the term of

his costly embassy was protracted above two years. On his arrival

in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from the towns and villages

flocked around the strangers; and such was their simplicity, that

they were delighted with the effects, without understanding the

cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an old man, above

a hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away a

captive by the Barbarians, 49 and who amused his hearers with a

tale of the wonders of India, 50 from whence he had returned to

Portugal by an unknown sea. 51 From this hospitable land, Phranza

proceeded to the court of Trebizond, where he was informed by the

Greek prince of the recent decease of Amurath. Instead of

rejoicing in the deliverance, the experienced statesman expressed

his apprehension, that an ambitious youth would not long adhere

to the sage and pacific system of his father. After the sultan’s

decease, his Christian wife, Maria, 52 the daughter of the

Servian despot, had been honorably restored to her parents; on

the fame of her beauty and merit, she was recommended by the

ambassador as the most worthy object of the royal choice; and

Phranza recapitulates and refutes the specious objections that

might be raised against the proposal. The majesty of the purple

would ennoble an unequal alliance; the bar of affinity might be

removed by liberal alms and the dispensation of the church; the

disgrace of Turkish nuptials had been repeatedly overlooked; and,

though the fair Maria was nearly fifty years of age, she might

yet hope to give an heir to the empire. Constantine listened to

the advice, which was transmitted in the first ship that sailed

from Trebizond; but the factions of the court opposed his

marriage; and it was finally prevented by the pious vow of the

sultana, who ended her days in the monastic profession. Reduced

to the first alternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in

favor of a Georgian princess; and the vanity of her father was

dazzled by the glorious alliance. Instead of demanding, according

to the primitive and national custom, a price for his daughter,

53 he offered a portion of fifty-six thousand, with an annual

pension of five thousand, ducats; and the services of the

ambassador were repaid by an assurance, that, as his son had been

adopted in baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his

daughter should be the peculiar care of the empress of

Constantinople. On the return of Phranza, the treaty was ratified

by the Greek monarch, who with his own hand impressed three

vermilion crosses on the golden bull, and assured the Georgian

envoy that in the spring his galleys should conduct the bride to

her Imperial palace. But Constantine embraced his faithful

servant, not with the cold approbation of a sovereign, but with

the warm confidence of a friend, who, after a long absence, is

impatient to pour his secrets into the bosom of his friend.

“Since the death of my mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone

advised me without interest or passion, 54 I am surrounded,” said

the emperor, “by men whom I can neither love nor trust, nor

esteem. You are not a stranger to Lucas Notaras, the great

admiral; obstinately attached to his own sentiments, he declares,

both in private and public, that his sentiments are the absolute

measure of my thoughts and actions. The rest of the courtiers are

swayed by their personal or factious views; and how can I consult

the monks on questions of policy and marriage? I have yet much

employment for your diligence and fidelity. In the spring you

shall engage one of my brothers to solicit the succor of the

Western powers; from the Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a

particular commission; and from thence proceed to Georgia to

receive and conduct the future empress.”—“Your commands,” replied

Phranza, “are irresistible; but deign, great sir,” he added, with

a serious smile, “to consider, that if I am thus perpetually

absent from my family, my wife may be tempted either to seek

another husband, or to throw herself into a monastery.” After

laughing at his apprehensions, the emperor more gravely consoled

him by the pleasing assurance that _this_ should be his last

service abroad, and that he destined for his son a wealthy and

noble heiress; for himself, the important office of great

logothete, or principal minister of state. The marriage was

immediately stipulated: but the office, however incompatible with

his own, had been usurped by the ambition of the admiral. Some

delay was requisite to negotiate a consent and an equivalent; and

the nomination of Phranza was half declared, and half suppressed,

lest it might be displeasing to an insolent and powerful

favorite. The winter was spent in the preparations of his

embassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the youth his son should

embrace this opportunity of foreign travel, and be left, on the

appearance of danger, with his maternal kindred of the Morea.

Such were the private and public designs, which were interrupted

by a Turkish war, and finally buried in the ruins of the empire.

49 (return) [ Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in

Timour’s first war in Georgia, (Sherefeddin, l. iii. c. 50;) he

might follow his Tartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from

thence sail to the spice islands.]

50 (return) [ The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and

fifty years, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the

vegetable and mineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large

scale: dragons seventy cubits, ants (the _formica Indica_) nine

inches long, sheep like elephants, elephants like sheep.

Quidlibet audendi, &c.]

51 (return) [ He sailed in a country vessel from the spice

islands to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque

navem grandem _Ibericam_ quâ in _Portugalliam_ est delatus. This

passage, composed in 1477, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 30,) twenty years

before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, is spurious or

wonderful. But this new geography is sullied by the old and

incompatible error which places the source of the Nile in India.]

52 (return) [ Cantemir, (p. 83,) who styles her the daughter of

Lazarus Ogli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage

with Amurath in the year 1424. It will not easily be believed,

that in six-and-twenty years’ cohabitation, the sultan corpus

ejus non tetigit. After the taking of Constantinople, she fled to

Mahomet II., (Phranza, l. iii. c. 22.)]

53 (return) [ The classical reader will recollect the offers of

Agamemnon, (Iliad, c. v. 144,) and the general practice of

antiquity.]

54 (return) [ Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the

emperor of that name) was great domestic, a firm assertor of the

Greek creed, and a brother of the queen of Servia, whom he

visited with the character of ambassador, (Syropulus, p. 37, 38,

45.)]