70. The lively Fontenelle (Dialogues des Morts, xii.)
affects to deride the vanity of human ambition, and seems to
triumph in the disappointment of Constantine, whose immortal
name is now lost in the vulgar appellation of Istambol, a
Turkish corruption of *** *** ****. Yet the original name is
still preserved, 1. By the nations of Europe. 2. By the
modern Greeks. 3. By the Arabs, whose writings are diffused
over the wide extent of their conquests in Asia and Africa.
See d'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 275. 4. By the
more learned Turks, and by the emperor himself in his public
mandates. Cantemir's History of the Othman Empire, p. 51.