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, na, 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

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 com. mencement, 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 reigu,

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

hence clear that the three quarters in which the Othman empire becomes very great, are in reference to Constantinople, the capital of their dominions; and it is remarkable that this power was increased in these three directions precisely in the order mentioned in the vision. For seven years after the taking of Constantinople Mohammed II. annexed to his empire the Morea, which was governed by Demetrius and Thomas, the two surviving brothers of the name of Palæologus. The dominions of these two despots were situated to the south of Constantinople; so that it could be said of the Othman empire, with the utmost propriety, that it waxed exceeding great towards the south: Demetrius and Thomas were " joined the next year (1461) by a companion in misfortune, the last of the Comnenian race; who, after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a new empire on the coast of the Black Sea. In the progress of his Anatolian conquests, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army the capital of David, who presumed to style himself the emperor of Trebizond; and the negociation was comprised in a short and peremptory question, Will you secure your life and treasures by resigning your kingdom? or had you rather forfeit your kingdom, your treasures, and your life?' The feeble Comnenus was subdued by his own fears-the capitulation was faithfully performed, and the emperor, with his family, was transported to a castle in Romania; but, on a slight suspicion of corresponding with the