difference consisting in what was termed the procession of the Holy Ghost. But in the time of this universal corruption of the Greek church a little horn is to rise up; and the first place of its ap pearance is to be in one of the four grand divisions of the Greek empire, spoken of by the angel; for it is said that "out of one of them came forth a little horn." This, then, can be no other than the Othman, or Ottoman empire, as this was a mortal enemy to the Greeks, and first rose up in Asia Minor, a province which fell to the share of Lysimachus at the time when the Greek empire was divided, about 308 years before the Incarnation. Gibbon's account of the rise of the Othmans is as follows:

After the retreat of Zingis (A. D. 1240,) the sul

be the successor of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and to be the true vicar of Christ, and the head and pastor of the whole church, and of all Christians; and that full power has been given by Our Lord Jesus Christ to him through St. Peter, of feeding, ruling, and governing the universal church, as even it is acknowledged in the acts of the General councils, and in the sacred canons. We revive, moreover, the rank, delivered in the Canons, of the other venerable patriarchs; that the Constantinopolitan patriarch be next after the most holy Roman pontiff, the patriarch of Alexandria the third, the patriarch of Antioch the fourth, and the patriarch of Jerusalem the fifth; with all their privileges and rights preserved to them. Given at Florence in the public synodic session, solemnly celebrated in the greater church, in the year of the Incarnation 1439, the day before the nones of July, and in the ninth year of our pontificate." This instrument was signed by 128 ecclesiastical digni taries, Greek and Latin, all whose names are extant in the instrument. See Corps Diplomatique, Tom. III. p. 66–68.

tan Gelaleddin of Carizme had returned from India to the possession and defence of his Persian kingdoms. In the space of eleven years, that hero fought in person fourteen battles; and such was his activity that he led his cavalry in seventeen days from Teflis to Kerman, a march of a thousand miles. Yet he was oppressed by the jealousy of the Moslem princes, and the innumerable armies of the Moguls; and, after his last defeat, Gelaleddin perished ignobly in the mountains of Curdistan. His death dissolved a veteran and adventurous army, which included under the name of Carizmians, or Corasmins, many Turkman hordes, that had attached themselves to the sultan's fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefs invaded Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem : the more humble engaged in the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium; and among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They had formerly pitched their tents near the southern banks of the Oxus, in the plains of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat remarkable that the same spot should have produced the first authors of the Parthian and Turkish empires. At the head, or in the rear, of a Karismian army, Soliman Shah was drowned in the passage of the Euphrates: his son Orthogrul became the soldier and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the banks of the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom he governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the father of Thaman, or Athman, whose

Turkish name has been melted into the appellation of the caliph Othman.-The Seljukian dynasty was no more; and the distance and decline of the Mogul khans soon enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate on the verge of the Greek empire: the Koran sanctified his gazi, or holy war, against the infidels; and their political errors unlocked the passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains of Bithynia. Till the reign of Palæologus these passes had been vigilantly guarded by the militia of the country, who were repaid by their own safety and an exemption from taxes. The emperor abolished their privilege, and assumed their office; but the tribute was rigorously collected, the custody of the passes was neglected, and the hardy mountaineers degenerated into a trembling crowd of peasants without spirit or discipline. It was on the twenty-seventh of July, in the year twelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian æra that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; and the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster." * The Othman empire is called a little horn from the great obscurity and insignificance of its commencement; and the angel, in his interpretation, styles the horn "a king of fierce countenance." By this last expression is evidently meant that this horn should be a fierce and cruel nation, and not as Bi

* Chap. 64.

shop Newton intimates, when applying it to the Romans, that it should be a nation destitute of fear. That the Turks have been, and still are, a cruel, inhuman people, is most notorious to the whole world. The history of their empire is little else than one continued series of blood, rapine, and desolation; and the very name of Turk is proverbially used to denote a person remarkable for acts of inhumanity. The king of fierce countenance, or the Othman nation, is said to "understand dark sentences." This passage is variously translated: the Septuagint has it σύνιων προβλήματα, understanding problems; the English translation of the Arabic is, "skilful in disputations;" that of the Syriac is "skilful in ruling;" and in the Vulgate it is "intelligens propositiones," understanding propositions. The Hebrew words, a certainly signify understanding ænigmas, or obscure sentences;" and Bishop Newton and others suppose the meaning to be, that he should be "a politic and artful, as well as a formidable power." But as it is a nation which is said to "understand hard sentences," the meaning must be, that its policies are of such a cast as to be almost totally impenetrable. This has been a very striking characteristic of the Othman emperors; for it is well known that they have studied to be as obscure as possible; and it has been almost impossible for any of the nations to know the real designs of the sultans, as it was a very frequent practice with them to say one thing and mean another. They were

66

the greatest dissemblers in the world. Of Amurath or Murad I. Knolles says, that he "was one that could dissemble deeply." Of Mohammed II. he also says, that "craft, covetousness, and dissimulation, were in him accounted for tolerable faults in comparison of his greater vices. In his love was no assurance; and his least displeasure was death."+ Thus it is evident that an almost impenetrable obscurity frequently hung over the counsels of the Grand Sultan, and his real intentions were often such very dark ænigmas, as to baffle the skill of the greatest politicians.

Though the horn is accounted little in its commencement, yet it is said to "wax exceeding great towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land." As the horn, or Othman empire, waxes exceeding great in these three directions, it is evident it must have previously become great. This empire could not properly be said to have become great till the Othmans took possession. of Constantinople, the metropolis of the Greek empire. This event happened in May, 1453, under the reign of the sultan Mohammed II. and it was considered an event of such a calamitous nature, that the western nations were terribly alarmed, and endeavoured to revive the spirit of the Crusades in order to drive the infidels out of Europe. It is

See his History of the Turks at the end of Amurath's reign.

+ Ib, at the end of this sultan's reign.