of adventurers, the white brotherhood, had ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria; sold his services to the hostile states; and incurred a just excommunication by shooting his arrows against the papal residence. A special licence was granted to negotiate with the outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit of Hawkwood, were unequal to the enterprise; and it was for the advantage, perhaps, of Palæologus to be disappointed of a succour, that must have been costly, that could not be effectual, and which might have been dangerous. The disconsolate Greek † prepared for his return, but even his return was impeded by a most ignominious obstacle. On his arrival at Venice, he had borrowed large sums at exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors were impatient, and his person was detained as the best security for the payment. His eldest son Andronicus, the regent of Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource, and, even by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from captivity and disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of the disgrace, and secretly pleased with the captivity of the emperor; the state was poor, the clergy was obstinate; nor could some religious scruple be wanting to excuse the guilt of his indifference and delay. Such undutiful neglect was severely reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who instantly with such honours as the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch. (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 212-371.)

This torrent of English (by birth or service) overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in 1360. Yet the exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197) is rather true than civil. "Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo essere calpestrata l'Italia da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed Ungheri, venissero fin dall' Inghliterra nuovi cani a finire di divorarla." [The accusation is as untrue as it is uncivil. These English mercenaries, men who had fought at Cressy and Poictiers, were invited into Italy to assist its rival States in their petty wars. Sir John Hawkwood, their commander, was formed in the school of Edward III. and received from him his knighthood. After shorter engagements to the Visconti and the pope, he devoted himself to the Florentines, and died as their general. He was "the first distinguished commander, who had appeared in Europe, since the destruction of the Roman empire-the first real general of modern times the earliest master, however imperfect, in the science of Turenne and Wellington." (Hallam's Middle Ages, i. 498-502.)-ED.] +Chalcocondylas, 1. 1, p. 25, 26. The Greek supposes his journey to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted by the silence of the national historians. Nor am I much more inclined to believe that

sold or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice, relieved his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible for the debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and king distinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith and manners of the slothful Palæologus had not been improved by his Roman pilgrimage; and his apostacy or conversion, devoid of any spiritual or temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the Greeks and Latins.*

Thirty years after the return of Palæologus, his son and successor, Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale, again visited the countries of the West. In a preceding chapter I have related his treaty with Bajazet, the violation of that treaty, the siege or blockade of Constantinople, and the French succour under the command of the gallant Boucicault.† By his ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latin powers; but it was thought that the presence of a distressed monarch would draw tears and supplies from the hardest Barbarians; and the marshal, who advised the journey, prepared the reception of the Byzantine prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the navigation of Venice was safe and open; Italy received him as the first, or at least, as the second, of the Christian princes; Manuel was pitied as the champion and confessor of the faith; and the dignity of his behaviour prevented that pity from sinking into contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and Pavia; and even the duke of Milan, a secret ally of Bajazet, gave him safe and honourable conduct to the verge of his dominions.§ On the confines of France¶ the royal officers undertook the care of his person,

Palæologus departed from Italy, valde bene consolatus et contentus. (Vit. Urban. V. p. 623.) * His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel, Sept. 25, 1373 (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241), leave some intermediate era for the conspiracy and punishment of Andronicus. Mémoires de Boucicault, His journey into the west of Europe is slightly, and I believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcocor dylas (1. 2, c. 44-50) and Ducas (c. 14).

p. 1, c. 35, 36.

§ Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 406. John Galeazzo was the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His connection with Bajazet is attested by Froissart; and he contributed to save and deliver the French captives of Nicopolis.

For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see Spondanus (Annal

journey, and expenses; and two thousand of the richest citizens, in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet him as far as Charenton, in the neighbourhood of the capital. At the gates of Paris, he was saluted by the chancellor and the parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended by his princes and nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace. The successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, and mounted on a milk-white steed; a circumstance, in the French ceremonial, of singular importance; the white colour is considered as the symbol of sovereignty; and, in a late visit, the German emperor, after a haughty demand and peevish refusal, had been reduced to content himself with a black courser. Manuel was lodged in the Louvre; a succession of feasts and balls, the plea sures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniously varied by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence and amuse his grief; he was indulged in the liberty of his chapel; and the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and possibly scandalized, by the language, the rites, and the vestments, of his Greek clergy. But the slightest glance on the state of the kingdom must teach him to despair of any effectual assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though he enjoyed some lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious or stupid insanity; the reins of government were alternately seized by his brother and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose factious competition prepared the miseries of civil war. The former was a gay youth, dissolved in luxury and love; the latter was the father f John count of Nevers, who had so lately been ransomed rom Turkish captivity; and if the fearless son was ardent o revenge his defeat, the more prudent Burgundy was content with the cost and peril of the first experiment. When Manuel had satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatigued the patience, of the French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacent island. In his progress from Dover, he was enter tained at Canterbury with due reverence by the prior and monks of St. Austin; and, on Blackheath, king Henry the Fourth, with the English court, saluted the Greek hero (I Eccles. tom. i. p. 676, 677, A.D. 1400, No. 5), who quotes Juvenal des Ursins, and the monk of St. Denys; and Villaret (Hist. de France, tom. xii. p. 331-334), who quotes nobody, according to the last fashion of the French writers.

copy our old historian), who, during many days, was lodged and treated in London as emperor of the East. But the state of England was still more adverse to the design of the holy war. In the same year, the hereditary sovereign had been deposed and murdered; the reigning prince was a successful usurper, whose ambition was punished by jealousy and remorse; nor could Henry of Lancaster withdraw his person or forces from the defence of a throne incessantly shaken by conspiracy and rebellion. He pitied, he praised, he feasted, the emperor of Constantinople; but if the English monarch assumed the cross, it was only to appease his people, and perhaps his conscience, by the merit or semblance of this pious intention.† Satisfied, however, with gifts and honours, Manuel returned to Paris; and after a residence of two years in the West, shaped his course through Germany and Italy, embarked at Venice, and patiently expected, in the Morea, the moment of his ruin or deliverance. Yet he had escaped the ignominious necessity of offering his religion to public or private sale. The Latin church was distracted by the great schism; the kings, the nations, the universities of Europe, were divided in their obedience between the popes of Rome and Avignon; and the emperor, anxious to conciliate the friendship of both parties, abstained from any correspondence with the indigent and unpopular rivals. His journey coincided with the year of the jubilee; but he passed through Italy without desiring, or deserving, the plenary indulgence which abolished the guilt or penance of the sins of the faithful. Roman pope was offended by this neglect; accused him of irreverence to an image of Christ; and exhorted the princes of Italy to reject and abandon the obstinate schismatic.‡

The

* A short note of Manuel, in England, is extracted by Dr. Hody from a MS. at Lambeth (De Græcis illustribus, p. 14) C. P. Imperator, diu variisque et horrendis paganorum insultibus coarctatus, ut pro eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret Anglorum regem visitare decrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p. 364) nobili apparatû . Buscepit (ut decuit) tantum Heroa, duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies exhibuit gloriose, pro expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens tanto fastigio donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustria (p. 556). + Shakspeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV. with that prince's vow of a crusade, and his belief that he should die in Jerusalem.

This fact is

During the period of the crusades, the Greeks beheld with astonishment and terror the perpetual stream of emigration that flowed, and continued to flow, from the unknown climates of the West. The visits of their last emperors removed the veil of separation, and they disclosed to their eyes the powerful nations of Europe, whom they no longer presumed to brand with the name of Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, and his more inquisitive followers, have been preserved by a Byzantine historian of the times:* his scattered ideas I shall collect and abridge; and it may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, to contemplate the rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whose ancient and modern state are so familiar to our minds. I. Germany (says the Greek Chalcocondyles) is of ample latitude, from Vienna to the ocean: and it stretches (a strange geography) from Prague in Bohemia, to the river Tartessus and the Pyrenean mountains. The soil, except

preserved in the Historia Politica, A.D. 1391-1478, published by Martin Crusius. (Turco Græcia, p. 1-43.) The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to worship, was probably a work of sculpture. The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus Chalcocondyles ends with the winter of 1463, and the abrupt conclusion seems to mark, that he laid down his pen in the same year. We know that he was an Athenian, and that some contemporaries of the same name contributed to the revival of the Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous digressions, the modest historian has never introduced himself; and his editor, Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 474), seems ignorant of his life and character. -For his descriptions of Germany, France, and England, see 1. 2, 36, 37. 44-50.) I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors of Chalcocondyles. In this instance he perhaps followed, and mistook, Herodotus (1. 2, c. 33), whose text may be explained (Herodote de Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220), or whose igno 1ance may be excused. Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any of their lesser geographers? [The errors of Strabo himself have been repeatedly pointed out. From first to last, the Greeks and Latins were either so superciliously indifferent, or so imperfectly informed, that few of their geographical or ethnical notices, beyond their own limits, can be implicitly relied on. Leibnitz, after giving his Excerpta from Procopius (Script. Bruns. 1. 52). says most emphatically and truly, "Hæc omnia inepta sunt, et miram in Procopio rerum Occidentis ignorantiam ostendunt." After an interval of nine centuries, the same censure is even more applicable to Chalcocondyes, who extended the limits of Germany to the remotest point of Spain. The Tartessus of the ancients is the modern Guadiana. See Reichard's dissertation ou Carteja. Orbis Terr. Ant., tab, vii., Hispania.- ED]