of Bajazet, nearly compromised the existence of the Ottoman state; but the victory of Semendria, gained by Musa over the Emperor Sigismond, in 1412, restored to the Crescent its former glory, and the pacific policy of MOHAMMED I. secured the conquests of his predecessors. Constantinople, however, still remained insulated in the midst of barbarians, having no means of communication with the rest of Europe except by the Genoese cruisers. It owed the prolongation of its miserable existence to the protection of the merchants of Pera. The intrigues of Manuel with a pretender, in 1422, exposed him to the vengeance of AMURATH II., who besieged Constantinople with an army of 200,000 men; from which danger, however, the capital escaped for the present.

HUNIADES.-A formidable armament for the relief of Constantinople was preparing on the banks of the Danube, which the sultan resolved to anticipate. The Turks invaded Servia, and took Semendria in 1435, yet all their efforts were unavailing against Belgrade, defended by John Huniades. This hero, from an obscure origin, had risen by his talents to the command of the Hungarian armies; and the epithet of brigand, which the infidels added to his name, attests the hatred with which he was regarded by them. Through his influence Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of Hungary, 1440, in return for which important service he had received the dignity of Waywode of Transylvania. In 1442, and the subsequent year, Ladislaus and Huniades gained several advantages over the Turks, so that Amurath demanded a truce for ten years; upon which, satisfied with having restored peace to his dominions, he abdicated in favour of his son Mohammed II., and retired among the dervises of Magnesia, 1443. The imprudent zeal of Pope Eugenius IV. caused the treaty to be broken the same year it was made,—a circumstance which drew Amurath from his seclusion. Meeting the Hungarians near Varna, he was long unable to make any impression on their gallant band of 24,000 warriors; but the impetuosity of Ladislaus cost him his life, and produced a panic which ended in a sanguinary defeat. During the minority of the Austrian prince who succeeded, Huniades was governor of Hungary, and, in the course of an administration of twelve years, showed in how eminent a degree he united the talents of a statesman and of a warrior. He formed an alliance with Scanderbeg, the Hero of Albania, and after employing two years in placing his own country in a state of defence, crossed the Danube at

the head of 22,000 men to join that prince. Though betrayed into the hands of the Turks, the battle was continued during three days, and terminated in the destruction of the Christian army, 1448. The brother of Huniades and a great number of men of rank were among the slain; and Amurath lost 34,000 warriors, many of whose bodies were flung into a neighbouring river to conceal his disaster.

SCANDERBEG.-Amurath II., after this triumph, had retired once more to the solitudes of Magnesia, where a mutiny of the janizaries did not allow him to remain. Being forced to resume the government after a second abdication, he directed his forces against Albania, the inhabitants of which had revolted on the return of the young Scanderbeg (Alexander Bey), who had been sent as hostage to Amurath by his father, Prince John Castriot. The permanent army of the Albanian prince consisted of 8000 horse and 7000 foot, which insignificant force resisted, during twenty-three years, all the attacks of two formidable warriors. Amurath is said to have died at Adrianople of chagrin at his failure in the siege of Croia, 1451; and Scanderbeg perished of a violent fever at Lissa in 1467. When this place was afterwards captured by the Turks, they exhumed, with religious respect, the mortal remains of the hero, and suspended round their necks in gold or silver frames the smallest portions of his bones as amulets to impart strength and courage. The Castriots took refuge in Naples, and the descendants of an Albanian colony which accompanied them are still to be found in Calabria, preserving almost unchanged the language and manners of their forefathers.

MOHAMMED II., following the advice of his father, determined to reduce Constantinople. An army of 260,000 men, aided by a fleet of 300 sail, appeared before the imperial city, which was besieged for the twenty-ninth time since its foundation. After two months the Greek empire was terminated by the fall of the capital, and its subjects were scattered as slaves over all the Ottoman empire. Various means were used to recall to the deserted city those inhabitants who had fled, but it was long before they returned in any considerable number, although perfect toleration of their religion was granted.

Being now master of the metropolis, the sultan claimed the island of Rhodes, occupied by the Knights of St John, as a dependency of his empire. His demand for tribute was haughtily rejected; and important affairs soon called his attention to another quarter. Pope Calixtus III. was labouring to unite the

selfish and impolitic princes of the West in an offensive treaty against the Ottomans. Mohammed, unwilling to be surprised, marched to lay siege to Belgrade, at the head of 150,000 men, while 200 small vessels blockaded it on the side of the Danube, 1456. Here the sultan was less fortunate than he had been at Constantinople; for he was defeated by Huniades, who unhappily perished in the very hour of triumph. But this check to his arms only turned them in another direction; and the duchy of Athens, possessed since 1364 by the Florentine house of Acciaiuoli, was destroyed, as was the independence of Trebizond, Servia, and Bosnia, not long afterwards. The Venetians alone made any important resistance after the reduction of Albania, and their devastating incursions on the seacoasts of Greece gave rise to the solemn vow of Mohammed II., offered up in all the mosques in his dominions, pledging himself and his subjects to the entire extirpation of Christianity, 1469. The very next year, in fact, a powerful Turkish fleet, the largest armament that had appeared in those seas since the time of Xerxes, attacked the island of Negropont, and massacred all the inhabitants of its capital. The signal defeats suffered before Scutari and Lepanto were counteracted by the acquisition of Caffa in the Crimea, a town which, for two centuries, had been in the power of the Genoese, and was the mart of all the productions of the North and the East.

In 1480, the sultan carried into execution his long-meditated plan against the island of Rhodes. One hundred thousand men, commanded by a renegade of the imperial house of the Palæologi, appeared off its shores, but only to suffer defeat. After an attack, prolonged during three months, Misithes was forced to yield to the firmness of Peter d'Aubusson, grandmaster, whose wise government of thirty years was productive of glory and prosperity to the knights of his order. To efface the impression of this repulse, Mohammed resolved to send two expeditions simultaneously against the East and West; but death surprised him in the midst of his projects in May 1481.

The two great secrets of Mohammed's military success were rapidity and secrecy; but still he is far from meriting the praise that has been lavished on his generalship. Although acts of monstrous ferocity have been imputed to him, he was a friend to letters, founded a public library, instituted two academies (Medresse), and was frequently present at the discussions of their learned members, distributing rewards to the most distinguished orators and poets. He was instructed in history and geogra

phy, and could converse in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian. It was this prince who legalized fratricide, supporting the decrees of his code by the maxim of the Koran, that confusion is worse than murder.

Mohammed left two sons, BAJAZET II. and Zizim. While the elder was engaged on a pilgrimage to Mecca, the younger laid claim to the empire, and the troops of Asia declared in his favour. Beaten near Brusa by the Grand Vizier Achmet, Zizim fled from one retreat to another, until he found an asylum in Rhodes. He was demanded by the sultan ; but the knights refused to give him up, and afterwards sent him to France, where he was kept prisoner,-Bajazet readily paying an annual sum of 35,000 ducats to ensure his captivity. He died in 1495, of poison administered, it has been insinuated, with the connivance of Pope Alexander VI.

A quarrel between two tributary princes of the respective empires was the pretext for hostilities between Bajazet and the Sultan of Egypt. The former was at first unsuccessful, and suffered defeat at Issus in Cilicia, 1488; but more fortunate in Europe, he reduced Moldavia, Bosnia, and Croatia, and succoured the Moors of Granada against the Spaniards.

GERMANY.

The Italian expeditions, which had again been suspended under Wenceslaus, were revived, in 1400, by his successor the elector palatine, ROBERT of Bavaria, who endeavoured to open his way to Rome by the ruin of the Visconti, then absolute masters of the Milanese; but his defeat on the lake of Guarda proved that Italy was for ever lost to the Germans. On the death of Robert disunion again arose in the electoral diet; and a triple schism divided at the same time the empire and the church. The electors favoured at once the deposed Emperor Wenceslaus, his brother Sigismond, and Jossus of Moravia, his cousin by the death of this last, however, in 1411, all the suffrages were united in support of SIGISMOND, king of Hungary and elector of Brandenburg.

Under a prince already possessing the rank of elector and the crown of Hungary, with the prospect of succeeding to the throne of Bohemia, the imperial power seemed about to regain its former greatness. But the successful attacks of the Ottomans, the necessity of re-establishing order among churchmen, and, above all, a religious war in Bohemia, prevented Sigismond from restoring the throne of the Cæsars to its ancient splendour.

R

HUSSITE WAR.-The council of Constance, 1414, which was expected to have effected a universal reconciliation in Christendom, only imperfectly attained this noble end, and was for the empire in particular a new cause of discord and misfortune. This assembly condemned to the stake John Huss and Jerome of Prague, who had propagated in Bohemia the doctrines of our own Wickliffe; and the news that the cruel sentence was executed, inspired some of their followers with a deep desire of revenge. They took arms under John of Zisca, and massacred the senators of Prague who were thrown from the windows of the guild-hall on the spears of the populace below: hence the term defenestration. King Wenceslaus of Bohemia died of fright; and Sigismond was unable to prevent the states-general of the kingdom from uniting with the rebels. Compelled to fight against his own subjects, he at first met with continual reverses, and was unable to protect the empire against the incursions of the Tabor

ites. At length the concessions made by the council of Basle having led to the submission of the states, their chief, Procopius, could not prolong the war; and his defeat in 1434 was followed by the pacification of Iglau. The King of Hungary died, after having restored tranquillity to his dominions; and with Sigismond perished the royal house of Luxemburg, 1437.

HOUSE OF AUSTRIA.-ALBERT II., duke of Austria, the sonin-law of Sigismond, and sovereign of Bohemia and Hungary, was elected King of the Romans in 1438. During his brief reign of two years, he reformed many abuses in the administration of justice, and moderated the formidable power of the secret tribunal of Westphalia. To suppress private wars and establish the public security on a solid foundation, he proposed to divide the empire into several cantons or circles, each under a director and captain-general, charged with maintaining peace; but various obstacles hindered the execution of this project. Albert died on his return from an expedition against the Ottomans, who had invaded Bohemia. His loss was regarded as a calamity to his subjects and to Europe generally, his power and talents being deemed the best defence of Christendom against the arms of the infidels.

The conduct of FREDERICK III., who succeeded in 1440, made the death of his predecessor more severely felt. In consequence of differences with his brother Albert, he could not for two years after his election visit Aix-la-Chapelle to receive the imperial crown. Gained by the flattering presents of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, he surrendered all the ancient claims