angel, the extinction of the first candlestick, of the Revelations; the desolation is complete; and the temple of Diana, or the church of Mary, will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes; Sardes is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet, without a rival or a son, is invoked in the moschs of Thyatira and Pergamus; and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years; and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect-a column in a scene of ruins,—a pleasing example, that the paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same.† The servitude of Rhodes was delayed above two centuries, by the establishment of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem; under the discipline of the order, that island

See the Travels of Wheeler and Spon, of Pococke and Chandler, and more particularly Smith's Survey of the Seven Churches of Asia, p. 205-276. The more pious antiquaries labour to reconcile the promises and threats of the author of the Revelations with the present state of the seven cities. Perhaps it would be more prudent to confine his predictions to the characters and events of his own times.

[The Turks have given to Philadelphia the name of Alla Shehr. It is now, with its neighbour Manissa, see p. 53, the ancient Magnesia ad Sipylum, in a flourishing state (Malte Brun and Balbi, p. 647, 648). The loadstone rocks of the latter, to which the magnet owes its name (see Chishull's personal observations, Travels, p. 7-10), and its other quarries, have promoted this prosperity; but it must be chiefly attri buted to the commercial activity of Europeans at Smyrna.-ED.]

Consult the fourth book of the Histoire de l'Ordre de Malthe, par l'Abbé de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays his ignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the Bithynian hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land. [The conquest of Rhodes and its dependencies by the Hospitallers under their Grand Master, Sir Fulk de Villaret, was commenced in 1307, and completed in 1314. Othman's attack was repulsed in the following year with the assistance of Amedeus IV. of Savoy. (See Taaffe's History of the Order, vol. ii. p. 258-279.) Why is Vertot here accused of ignorance? Othman Could not have besieged Rhodes without both land and sea forces; such was the superiority of the latter, that, when driven from the main

emerged into fame and opulence; the noble and warlike monks were renowned by land and sea; and the bulwark of Christendom provoked and repelled the arms of the Turks and Saracens.

The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors of their final ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and younger Andronicus, the son of Othman achieved, almost without resistance, the conquest of Bithynia; and the same disorders encouraged the Turkish emirs of Lydia and Ionia to build a fleet, and to pillage the adjacent islands and the sea-coast of Europe. In the defence of his life and honour, Cantacuzene was tempted to prevent, or imitate, his adversaries, by calling to his aid the public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the son of Aidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politeness of a Greek; he was united with the great domestic by mutual esteem aud reciprocal services; and their friendship is compared, in the vain rhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of Orestes and Pylades. On the report of the danger of his friend, who was persecuted by an ungrateful court, the prince of Ionia assembled at Smyrna a fleet of three hundred vessels, with an army of twenty-nine thousand men; sailed in the depth of winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. From thence, with a chosen band of two thousand Turks, he marched along the banks of the river, and rescued the empress, who was besieged in Demotica by the wild Bulgarians. At that disastrous moment, the life or death of his beloved Cantacuzene was concealed by his flight into Servia; but the grateful Irene, impatient to behold her deliverer, invited him to enter the city, and accompanied her message_with a present of rich apparel, and a hundred horses. By a peculiar strain of delicacy, the gentle Barbarian refused, in the absence of an unfortunate friend, to visit his wife, or to

island, they ravaged and plundered the neighbouring islets. For the early naval power of the Turks, see Finlay, ii. 533.—ED.]

Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on this amiable character (1. 12, 7. 13, 4. 10, 14. 1, 9. 16, 6). Cantacuzene speaks with honour and esteem of his ally (l. 3, c. 56, 57. 63, 64. 66-68. 86. 89. 95, 96), but he seems ignorant of his own sentimental passion for the Turk, and indirectly denies the possibility of such unnatural friendship (1. 4, c. 40),

taste the luxuries of the palace; sustained in Lis tent the rigour of the winter; and rejected the hospitable gift, that he might share the hardships of two thousand companions, all as deserving as himself of that honour and distinction. Necessity and revenge might justify his predatory excur sions by sea and land; he left nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his fleet; and persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his embarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of the season, the clamours of his independent troops, and the weight of his spoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war, the prince of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms with those of the emperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened Constantinople. Calumny might affix some reproach on his imperfect aid, his hasty departure, and a bribe of ten thousand crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine court; but his friend was satisfied, and the conduct of Amir is excused by the more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope, the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St. John, in a laudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of Ionia; and Amir was slain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest from the Rhodian knights the citadel of Smyrna. Before his death, he generously recommended another ally of his own nation; not more sincere or zealous than himself, but more able to afford a prompt and powerful succour, by his situation along the Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By the prospect of a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia was detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride of Orchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he

* After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the defence of this fortress was imposed by pope Gregory XI. on the Knights of Rhodes. (See Vertot, 1. 5.) [This was in February, 1373; a thousand livres annually were assigned to the knights on the tithes of the kingdom of Cyprus, to maintain the garrison. In the following June, the saine pope desired the grand master not to assist the Genoese (Januenses), in an attack which they were meditating on the isle of Cyprus, and to restrain his knights' freedom of speech. Papal interference in the concerns of the order often caused evident struggles between filial ubedience to the " Holy Father," and the indignation of free spirits at

could obtain the daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably fulfil the duties of a subject and a son. Parental tenderness was silenced by the voice of ambition; the Greek clergy connived at the marriage of a Christian princess with a sectary of Mahomet; and the father of Theodora describes, with shameful satisfaction, the dishonour of the purple.* A body of Turkish cavalry attended the ambassadors, who disembarked from thirty vessels before his camp of Selybria. A stately pavilion was erected, in which the empress Irene passed the night with her daughters. In the morning Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded with curtains of silk and gold; the troops were under arms; but the emperor alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were suddenly withdrawn, to disclose the bride or the victim encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymeneal torches; the sound of flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful event; and her pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song, which was chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the rites of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord; but it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in the harem of Boursa; and her father celebrates her charity and devotion in this ambiguous situation. After his peaceful establishment on the throne of Constantinople, the Greek emperor visited his Turkish ally, who with four sons, by various wives, expected him at Scutari, on the Asiatic shore. The two princes partook, with seeming cordiality, of the pleasures of the banquet and the chase; and Theodora was permitted to repass the Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of her mother. But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion and interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the enemies of Cantacuzene.

In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince his assumption of undue authority. See Taaffe, ii. p. 313, 314. 327, Appendix, 138, 139.-ED.] Seo Cantacuzene.

1. 3, c. 95. Nicephorus Gregoras, who, for the light of Mount Thabor, brands the emperor with the names of tyrant and Herod, excuses rather than blames, this Turkish marriage, and alleges the passion and power of Orchan, εγγύτατος, καὶ τῇ δυνάμει τοὺς κατ ̓ αὐτον ἤδη Περσικούς (Turkish) υπεραίρων Σατράπας (1. 15. 5). He afterwards celebrates his kingdom and armies. See his reign in Cantemir, p. 24 -80.

VOL. VII.

had inserted a singular condition, that it should be lawful for him to sell his prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into Asia. A naked crowd of Christians, of both sexes and every age, of priests and monks, of matrons and virgins, was exposed in the public market; the whip was frequently used to quicken the charity of redemption; and the indigent Greeks deplored the fate of their brethren, who were led away to the worst evils of temporal and spiritual bondage. Cantacuzene was reduced to subscribe the same terms, and their execution must have been still more pernicious to the empire; a body of ten thousand Turks had been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the entire forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his father. Yet these calamities were of a transient nature; as soon as the storm had passed away, the fugitives might return to their habitations; and at the conclusion of the civil and foreign wars, Europe was com pletely evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in his last quarrel with his pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the deep and deadly wound, which could never be healed by his successors, and which is poorly expiated by his theolo gical dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final passage of the Hellespont,† and describe

The most lively and concise picture of this captivity may be found in the history of Ducas (c. 8), who fairly describes what Canta. cuzene confesses with a guilty blush! [The influence of Christianity to put an end to slavery, is not manifested here. See note to ch. 2, vol. i. p. 50--54, also Hallam, iii. 371. Slaves were at that time the most profitable article of commerce. This treaty not only permitted the sale of them and rendered Scutari the principal market; but it also authorized the Turks to make slaves of the rebel emperor's Christian subjects. The strongest youths among these, and the tribute children, were trained up in the Mahometan faith to serve in Orchan's household and army, and became the most formidable enemies of their parent race. Finlay, ii. 553. 595.-ED.]

+ In this passage and the first conquests in Europe, Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish guides: nor am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles (1. 1, p. 12, &c.). They forget to consult the most authentic record, the fourth book of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which are still manuscripts, of Nicephorus Gregoras. [Parisot, in his Cantacuzène, homme d'état et historien, has consulted these still inedited books of Nicephorus, and drawn from them a few facts. See our note p. 103.- ED.]