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The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are
compared and celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of
the Italian schools. (1) The view of the ancient capital, the
seat of his ancestors, surpassed the most sanguine
expectations of Emanuel Chrysoloras; and he no longer blamed
the exclamation of an old sophist, that Rome was the
habitation, not of men, but of gods. Those gods, and those
men, had long since vanished; but to the eye of liberal
enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin restored the image of her
ancient prosperity. The monuments of the consuls and
Caesars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides
the curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he
confessed that in every age the arms and the religion of
Rome were destined to reign over the earth. While
Chrysoloras admired the venerable beauties of the mother, he
was not forgetful of his native country, her fairest
daughter, her Imperial colony; and the Byzantine patriot
expatiates with zeal and truth on the eternal advantages of
nature, and the more transitory glories of art and dominion,
which adorned, or had adorned, the city of Constantine. Yet
the perfection of the copy still redounds (as he modestly
observes) to the honor of the original, and parents are
delighted to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior
merit of their children. "Constantinople," says the orator,
"is situate on a commanding point, between Europe and Asia,
between the Archipelago and the Euxine. By her
interposition, the two seas, and the two continents, are
united for the common benefit of nations; and the gates of
commerce may be shut or opened at her command. The harbor,
encompassed on all sides by the sea, and the continent, is
the most secure and capacious in the world. The walls and
gates of Constantinople may be compared with those of
Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and lofty
structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification,
would be sufficient for the defence and dignity of an
ordinary capital. A broad and rapid stream may be
introduced into the ditches and the artificial island may be
encompassed, like Athens, by land or water." Two strong and
natural causes are alleged for the perfection of the model
of new Rome. The royal founder reigned over the most
illustrious nations of the globe; and in the accomplishment
of his designs, the power of the Romans was combined with
the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities have been
reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties are
mingled with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants,
unwilling to remove from their natal spot, are incapable of
correcting the errors of their ancestors, and the original
vices of situation or climate. But the free idea of
Constantinople was formed and executed by a single mind; and
the primitive model was improved by the obedient zeal of the
subjects and successors of the first monarch. The adjacent
isles were stored with an inexhaustible supply of marble;
but the various materials were transported from the most
remote shores of Europe and Asia; and the public and private
buildings, the palaces, churches, aqueducts, cisterns,
porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes, were adapted to
the greatness of the capital of the East. The superfluity
of wealth was spread along the shores of Europe and Asia;
and the Byzantine territory, as far as the Euxine, the
Hellespont, and the long wall, might be considered as a
populous suburb and a perpetual garden. In this flattering
picture, the past and the present, the times of prosperity
and decay, are art fully confounded; but a sigh and a
confession escape, from the orator, that his wretched
country was the shadow and sepulchre of its former self.
The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced by Christian
zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures were
demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt
for lime, or applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue,
the place was marked by an empty pedestal; of many a column,
the size was determined by a broken capital; the tombs of
the emperors were scattered on the ground; the stroke of
time was accelerated by storms and earthquakes; and the
vacant space was adorned, by vulgar tradition, with fabulous
monuments of gold and silver. From these wonders, which
lived only in memory or belief, he distinguishes, however,
the porphyry pillar, the column and colossus of Justinian,
(3) and the church, more especially the dome, of St. Sophia;
the best conclusion, since it could not be described
according to its merits, and after it no other object could
deserve to be mentioned. But he forgets that, a century
before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus and the church
had been saved and supported by the timely care of
Andronicus the Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had
fortified St. Sophia with two new buttresses or pyramids,
the eastern hemisphere suddenly gave way: and the images,
the altars, and the sanctuary, were crushed by the falling
ruin. The mischief indeed was speedily repaired; the
rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor of every rank and
age; and the poor remains of riches and industry were
consecrated by the Greeks to the most stately and venerable
temple of the East. (4)
The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in
the harmony of the mother and daughter, in the maternal
tenderness of Rome, and the filial obedience of
Constantinople. In the synod of Florence, the Greeks and
Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and promised; but these
signs of friendship were perfidious or fruitless; (5) and the
baseless fabric of the union vanished like a dream. (6) The
emperor and his prelates returned home in the Venetian
galleys; but as they touched at the Morea and the Isles of
Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complained that
the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression.
No sooner did they land on the Byzantine shore, than they
were saluted, or rather assailed, with a general murmur of
zeal and discontent. During their absence, above two years,
the capital had been deprived of its civil and
ecclesiastical rulers; fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the
most furious monks reigned over the conscience of women and
bigots; and the hatred of the Latin name was the first
principle of nature and religion. Before his departure for
Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with the assurance
of a prompt relief and a powerful succor; and the clergy,
confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised
themselves and their flocks an easy victory over the blind
shepherds of the West. The double disappointment
exasperated the Greeks; the conscience of the subscribing
prelates was awakened; the hour of temptation was past; and
they had more to dread from the public resentment, than they
could hope from the favor of the emperor or the pope.
Instead of justifying their conduct, they deplored their
weakness, professed their contrition, and cast themselves on
the mercy of God and of their brethren. To the reproachful
question, what had been the event or the use of their
Italian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, "Alas! we
have made a new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety;
we have betrayed the immaculate sacrifice; and we are become
Azymites." (The Azymites were those who celebrated the
communion with unleavened bread; and I must retract or
qualify the praise which I have bestowed on the growing
philosophy of the times.) "Alas! we have been seduced by
distress, by fraud, and by the hopes and fears of a
transitory life. The hand that has signed the union should
be cut off; and the tongue that has pronounced the Latin
creed deserves to be torn from the root." The best proof of
their repentance was an increase of zeal for the most
trivial rites and the most incomprehensible doctrines; and
an absolute separation from all, without excepting their
prince, who preserved some regard for honor and consistency.
After the decease of the patriarch Joseph, the archbishops
of Heraclea and Trebizond had courage to refuse the vacant
office; and Cardinal Bessarion preferred the warm and
comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The choice of the
emperor and his clergy was confined to Metrophanes of
Cyzicus: he was consecrated in St. Sophia, but the temple
was vacant. The cross-bearers abdicated their service; the
infection spread from the city to the villages; and
Metrophanes discharged, without effect, some ecclesiastical
thunders against a nation of schismatics. The eyes of the
Greeks were directed to Mark of Ephesus, the champion of his
country; and the sufferings of the holy confessor were
repaid with a tribute of admiration and applause. His
example and writings propagated the flame of religious
discord; age and infirmity soon removed him from the world;
but the gospel of Mark was not a law of forgiveness; and he
requested with his dying breath, that none of the adherents
of Rome might attend his obsequies or pray for his soul.
The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the
Byzantine empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the
three patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem,
assembled a numerous synod; disowned their representatives
at Ferrara and Florence; condemned the creed and council of
the Latins; and threatened the emperor of Constantinople
with the censures of the Eastern church. Of the sectaries
of the Greek communion, the Russians were the most powerful,
ignorant, and superstitious. Their primate, the cardinal
Isidore, hastened from Florence to Moscow, (7) to reduce the
independent nation under the Roman yoke. But the Russian
bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and the prince and
people embraced the theology of their priests. They were
scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the
legate, the friend of those impious men who shaved their
beards, and performed the divine office with gloves on their
hands and rings on their fingers: Isidore was condemned by a
synod; his person was imprisoned in a monastery; and it was
with extreme difficulty that the cardinal could escape from
the hands of a fierce and fanatic people. (8) The Russians
refused a passage to the missionaries of Rome who aspired to
convert the Pagans beyond the Tanais; (9) and their refusal
was justified by the maxim, that the guilt of idolatry is
less damnable than that of schism. The errors of the
Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the pope; and
a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the friendship of
those sanguinary enthusiasts. (10) While Eugenius triumphed
in the union and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was
contracted to the walls, or rather to the palace of
Constantinople. The zeal of Palaeologus had been excited by
interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to
violate the national belief might endanger his life and
crown; not could the pious rebels be destitute of foreign
and domestic aid. The sword of his brother Demetrius, who
in Italy had maintained a prudent and popular silence, was
half unsheathed in the cause of religion; and Amurath, the
Turkish sultan, was displeased and alarmed by the seeming
friendship of the Greeks and Latins.
"Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned
thirty years, six months, and eight days. He was a just and
valiant prince, of a great soul, patient of labors, learned,
merciful, religious, charitable; a lover and encourager of
the studious, and of all who excelled in any art or science;
a good emperor and a great general. No man obtained more or
greater victories than Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his
attacks. (A) Under his reign, the soldier was ever
victorious, the citizen rich and secure. If he subdued any
country, his first care was to build mosques and
caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges. Every year he gave a
thousand pieces of gold to the sons of the Prophet; and sent
two thousand five hundred to the religious persons of Mecca,
Medina, and Jerusalem." (11) This portrait is transcribed
from the historian of the Othman empire: but the applause of
a servile and superstitious people has been lavished on the
worst of tyrants; and the virtues of a sultan are often the
vices most useful to himself, or most agreeable to his
subjects. A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of
liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary
power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of
justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of
firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be rejected, few
acts of obedience will be found impossible; and guilt must
tremble, where innocence cannot always be secure. The
tranquillity of the people, and the discipline of the
troops, were best maintained by perpetual action in the
field; war was the trade of the Janizaries; and those who
survived the peril, and divided the spoil, applauded the
generous ambition of their sovereign. To propagate the true
religion, was the duty of a faithful Mussulman: the
unbelievers were his enemies, and those of the Prophet; and,
in the hands of the Turks, the scimeter was the only
instrument of conversion. Under these circumstances,
however, the justice and moderation of Amurath are attested
by his conduct, and acknowledged by the Christians
themselves; who consider a prosperous reign and a peaceful
death as the reward of his singular merits. In the vigor of
his age and military power, he seldom engaged in war till he
was justified by a previous and adequate provocation: the
victorious sultan was disarmed by submission; and in the
observance of treaties, his word was inviolate and sacred.
(12) The Hungarians were commonly the aggressors; he was
provoked by the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the perfidious
Caramanian was twice vanquished, and twice pardoned, by the
Ottoman monarch. Before he invaded the Morea, Thebes had
been surprised by the despot: in the conquest of
Thessalonica, the grandson of Bajazet might dispute the
recent purchase of the Venetians; and after the first siege
of Constantinople, the sultan was never tempted, by the
distress, the absence, or the injuries of Palaeologus, to
extinguish the dying light of the Byzantine empire.
But the most striking feature in the life and character of
Amurath is the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and,
were not his motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we
must praise the royal philosopher, (13) who at the age of
forty could discern the vanity of human greatness. Resigning
the sceptre to his son, he retired to the pleasant residence
of Magnesia; but he retired to the society of saints and
hermits. It was not till the fourth century of the Hegira,
that the religion of Mahomet had been corrupted by an
institution so adverse to his genius; but in the age of the
crusades, the various orders of Dervises were multiplied by
the example of the Christian, and even the Latin, monks. (14)
The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, and turn
round (B) in endless rotation with the fanatics, who mistook
the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the
spirit. (15) But he was soon awakened from his dreams of
enthusiasm by the Hungarian invasion; and his obedient son
was the foremost to urge the public danger and the wishes of
the people. Under the banner of their veteran leader, the
Janizaries fought and conquered but he withdrew from the
field of Varna, again to pray, to fast, and to turn round
with his Magnesian brethren. These pious occupations were
again interrupted by the danger of the state. A victorious
army disdained the inexperience of their youthful ruler: the
city of Adrianople was abandoned to rapine and slaughter;
and the unanimous divan implored his presence to appease the
tumult, and prevent the rebellion, of the Janizaries. At
the well-known voice of their master, they trembled and
obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was compelled to support
his splendid servitude, till at the end of four years, he
was relieved by the angel of death. Age or disease,
misfortune or caprice, have tempted several princes to
descend from the throne; and they have had leisure to repent
of their irretrievable step. But Amurath alone, in the full
liberty of choice, after the trial of empire and solitude,
has repeated his preference of a private life.
After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not
been unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender
regard for the Byzantine empire was animated by a just
apprehension of the Turks, who approached, and might soon
invade, the borders of Italy. But the spirit of the
crusades had expired; and the coldness of the Franks was not
less unreasonable than their headlong passion. In the
eleventh century, a fanatic monk could precipitate Europe on
Asia for the recovery of the holy sepulchre; but in the
fifteenth, the most pressing motives of religion and policy
were insufficient to unite the Latins in the defence of
Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse of men
and arms: (16) but that complex and languid body required the
impulse of a vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike
impotent in his personal character and his Imperial dignity.
A long war had impaired the strength, without satiating the
animosity, of France and England: (17) but Philip duke of
Burgundy was a vain and magnificent prince; and he enjoyed,
without danger or expense, the adventurous piety of his
subjects, who sailed, in a gallant fleet, from the coast of
Flanders to the Hellespont. The maritime republics of
Venice and Genoa were less remote from the scene of action;
and their hostile fleets were associated under the standard
of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary and Poland, which
covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin church,
were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of the
Turks. Arms were the patrimony of the Scythians and
Sarmatians; and these nations might appear equal to the
contest, could they point, against the common foe, those
swords that were so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic
quarrels. But the same spirit was adverse to concord and
obedience: a poor country and a limited monarch are
incapable of maintaining a standing force; and the loose
bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were not armed with the
sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have given
irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this
side, the designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of
Cardinal Julian, his legate, were promoted by the
circumstances of the times: (18) by the union of the two
crowns on the head of Ladislaus, (19) a young and ambitious
soldier; by the valor of a hero, whose name, the name of
John Huniades, was already popular among the Christians, and
formidable to the Turks. An endless treasure of pardons and
indulgences was scattered by the legate; many private
warriors of France and Germany enlisted under the holy
banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at least
some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and
Asia. A fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress
and ardor of the Christians beyond the Danube, who would
unanimously rise to vindicate their religion and liberty.
The Greek emperor, (20) with a spirit unknown to his fathers,
engaged to guard the Bosphorus, and to sally from
Constantinople at the head of his national and mercenary
troops. The sultan of Caramania (21) announced the retreat
of Amurath, and a powerful diversion in the heart of
Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could occupy at the
same moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman
monarchy would be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and
earth must rejoice in the perdition of the miscreants; and
the legate, with prudent ambiguity, instilled the opinion of
the invisible, perhaps the visible, aid of the Son of God,
and his divine mother.
Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the
unanimous cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led
an army of his confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the
capital of the Bulgarian kingdom. In this expedition they
obtained two signal victories, which were justly ascribed to
the valor and conduct of Huniades. In the first, with a
vanguard of ten thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp;
in the second, he vanquished and made prisoner the most
renowned of their generals, who possessed the double
advantage of ground and numbers. The approach of winter,
and the natural and artificial obstacles of Mount Haemus,
arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a narrow
interval of six days' march from the foot of the mountains
to the hostile towers of Adrianople, and the friendly
capital of the Greek empire. The retreat was undisturbed;
and the entrance into Buda was at once a military and
religious triumph. An ecclesiastical procession was
followed by the king and his warriors on foot: he nicely
balanced the merits and rewards of the two nations; and the
pride of conquest was blended with the humble temper of
Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards, and four
thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as all
were willing to believe, and none were present to
contradict, the crusaders multiplied, with unblushing
confidence, the myriads of Turks whom they had left on the
field of battle. (22) The most solid proof, and the most
salutary consequence, of victory, was a deputation from the
divan to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to ransom the
prisoners, and to evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By this
treaty, the rational objects of the war were obtained: the
king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in the diet of
Segedin, were satisfied with public and private emolument; a
truce of ten years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus
and Mahomet, who swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested
the word of God as the guardian of truth and the avenger of
perfidy. In the place of the Gospel, the Turkish ministers
had proposed to substitute the Eucharist, the real presence
of the Catholic deity; but the Christians refused to profane
their holy mysteries; and a superstitious conscience is less
forcibly bound by the spiritual energy, than by the outward
and visible symbols of an oath. (23)
During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had
observed a sullen silence, unwilling to approve, and unable
to oppose, the consent of the king and people. But the diet
was not dissolved before Julian was fortified by the welcome
intelligence, that Anatolia was invaded by the Caramanian,
and Thrace by the Greek emperor; that the fleets of Genoa,
Venice, and Burgundy, were masters of the Hellespont; and
that the allies, informed of the victory, and ignorant of
the treaty, of Ladislaus, impatiently waited for the return
of his victorious army. "And is it thus," exclaimed the
cardinal, (24) "that you will desert their expectations and
your own fortune? It is to them, to your God, and your
fellow-Christians, that you have pledged your faith; and
that prior obligation annihilates a rash and sacrilegious
oath to the enemies of Christ. His vicar on earth is the
Roman pontiff; without whose sanction you can neither
promise nor perform. In his name I absolve your perjury and
sanctify your arms: follow my footsteps in the paths of
glory and salvation; and if still ye have scruples, devolve
on my head the punishment and the sin." This mischievous
casuistry was seconded by his respectable character, and the
levity of popular assemblies: war was resolved, on the same
spot where peace had so lately been sworn; and, in the
execution of the treaty, the Turks were assaulted by the
Christians; to whom, with some reason, they might apply the
epithet of Infidels. The falsehood of Ladislaus to his word
and oath was palliated by the religion of the times: the
most perfect, or at least the most popular, excuse would
have been the success of his arms and the deliverance of the
Eastern church. But the same treaty which should have bound
his conscience had diminished his strength. On the
proclamation of the peace, the French and German volunteers
departed with indignant murmurs: the Poles were exhausted by
distant warfare, and perhaps disgusted with foreign command;
and their palatines accepted the first license, and hastily
retired to their provinces and castles. Even Hungary was
divided by faction, or restrained by a laudable scruple; and
the relics of the crusade that marched in the second
expedition were reduced to an inadequate force of twenty
thousand men. A Walachian chief, who joined the royal
standard with his vassals, presumed to remark that their
numbers did not exceed the hunting retinue that sometimes
attended the sultan; and the gift of two horses of matchless
speed might admonish Ladislaus of his secret foresight of
the event. But the despot of Servia, after the restoration
of his country and children, was tempted by the promise of
new realms; and the inexperience of the king, the enthusiasm
of the legate, and the martial presumption of Huniades
himself, were persuaded that every obstacle must yield to
the invincible virtue of the sword and the cross. After the
passage of the Danube, two roads might lead to
Constantinople and the Hellespont: the one direct, abrupt,
and difficult through the mountains of Haemus; the other
more tedious and secure, over a level country, and along the
shores of the Euxine; in which their flanks, according to
the Scythian discipline, might always be covered by a
movable fortification of wagons. The latter was judiciously
preferred: the Catholics marched through the plains of
Bulgaria, burning, with wanton cruelty, the churches and
villages of the Christian natives; and their last station
was at Warna, near the sea-shore; on which the defeat and
death of Ladislaus have bestowed a memorable name. (25)
It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a
confederate fleet to second their operations, they were
alarmed by the approach of Amurath himself, who had issued
from his Magnesian solitude, and transported the forces of
Asia to the defence of Europe. According to some writers,
the Greek emperor had been awed, or seduced, to grant the
passage of the Bosphorus; and an indelible stain of
corruption is fixed on the Genoese, or the pope's nephew,
the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary connivance betrayed
the guard of the Hellespont. From Adrianople, the sultan
advanced by hasty marches, at the head of sixty thousand
men; and when the cardinal, and Huniades, had taken a nearer
survey of the numbers and order of the Turks, these ardent
warriors proposed the tardy and impracticable measure of a
retreat. The king alone was resolved to conquer or die; and
his resolution had almost been crowned with a glorious and
salutary victory. The princes were opposite to each other
in the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or generals of Anatolia
and Romania, commanded on the right and left, against the
adverse divisions of the despot and Huniades. The Turkish
wings were broken on the first onset: but the advantage was
fatal; and the rash victors, in the heat of the pursuit,
were carried away far from the annoyance of the enemy, or
the support of their friends. When Amurath beheld the
flight of his squadrons, he despaired of his fortune and
that of the empire: a veteran Janizary seized his horse's
bridle; and he had magnanimity to pardon and reward the
soldier who dared to perceive the terror, and arrest the
flight, of his sovereign. A copy of the treaty, the monument
of Christian perfidy, had been displayed in the front of
battle; and it is said, that the sultan in his distress,
lifting his eyes and his hands to heaven, implored the
protection of the God of truth; and called on the prophet
Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name and
religion. (26) With inferior numbers and disordered ranks,
the king of Hungary rushed forward in the confidence of
victory, till his career was stopped by the impenetrable
phalanx of the Janizaries. If we may credit the Ottoman
annals, his horse was pierced by the javelin of Amurath; (27)
he fell among the spears of the infantry; and a Turkish
soldier proclaimed with a loud voice, "Hungarians, behold
the head of your king!" The death of Ladislaus was the
signal of their defeat. On his return from an intemperate
pursuit, Huniades deplored his error, and the public loss;
he strove to rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed
by the tumultuous crowd of the victors and vanquished; and
the last efforts of his courage and conduct were exerted to
save the remnant of his Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand
Christians were slain in the disastrous battle of Warna: the
loss of the Turks, more considerable in numbers, bore a
smaller proportion to their total strength; yet the
philosophic sultan was not ashamed to confess, that his ruin
must be the consequence of a second and similar victory. At
his command a column was erected on the spot where Ladislaus
had fallen; but the modest inscription, instead of accusing
the rashness, recorded the valor, and bewailed the
misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. (28)
Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to
pause on the character and story of two principal actors,
the cardinal Julian and John Huniades. Julian (29) Caesarini
was born of a noble family of Rome: his studies had embraced
both the Latin and Greek learning, both the sciences of
divinity and law; and his versatile genius was equally
adapted to the schools, the camp, and the court. No sooner
had he been invested with the Roman purple, than he was sent
into Germany to arm the empire against the rebels and
heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of persecution is unworthy
of a Christian; the military profession ill becomes a
priest; but the former is excused by the times; and the
latter was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood
dauntless and alone in the disgraceful flight of the German
host. As the pope's legate, he opened the council of Basil;
but the president soon appeared the most strenuous champion
of ecclesiastical freedom; and an opposition of seven years
was conducted by his ability and zeal. After promoting the
strongest measures against the authority and person of
Eugenius, some secret motive of interest or conscience
engaged him to desert on a sudden the popular party. The
cardinal withdrew himself from Basil to Ferrara; and, in the
debates of the Greeks and Latins, the two nations admired
the dexterity of his arguments and the depth of his
theological erudition. (30) In his Hungarian embassy, we have
already seen the mischievous effects of his sophistry and
eloquence, of which Julian himself was the first victim.
The cardinal, who performed the duties of a priest and a
soldier, was lost in the defeat of Warna. The circumstances
of his death are variously related; but it is believed, that
a weighty encumbrance of gold impeded his flight, and
tempted the cruel avarice of some Christian fugitives.
From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of
John Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian
armies. His father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her
unknown race might possibly ascend to the emperors of
Constantinople; and the claims of the Walachians, with the
surname of Corvinus, from the place of his nativity, might
suggest a thin pretence for mingling his blood with the
patricians of ancient Rome. (31) In his youth he served in
the wars of Italy, and was retained, with twelve horsemen,
by the bishop of Zagrab: the valor of the white knight (32)
was soon conspicuous; he increased his fortunes by a noble
and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian
borders he won in the same year three battles against the
Turks. By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the
crown of Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by
the title and office of Waivod of Transylvania. The first
of Julian's crusades added two Turkish laurels on his brow;
and in the public distress the fatal errors of Warna were
forgotten. During the absence and minority of Ladislaus of
Austria, the titular king, Huniades was elected supreme
captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at first was
silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes the
arts of policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a
consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the
white knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as
the chief of desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear
and fly without shame; and his military life is composed of
a romantic alternative of victories and escapes. By the
Turks, who employed his name to frighten their perverse
children, he was corruptly denominated Jancus Lain, or the
Wicked: their hatred is the proof of their esteem; the
kingdom which he guarded was inaccessible to their arms; and
they felt him most daring and formidable, when they fondly
believed the captain and his country irrecoverably lost.
Instead of confining himself to a defensive war, four years
after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated into the heart
of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova, sustained, till
the third day, the shock of the Ottoman army, four times
more numerous than his own. As he fled alone through the
woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by two robbers;
but while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck,
he recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other,
and, after new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his
presence an afflicted kingdom. But the last and most
glorious action of his life was the defence of Belgrade
against the powers of Mahomet the Second in person. After a
siege of forty days, the Turks, who had already entered the
town, were compelled to retreat; and the joyful nations
celebrated Huniades and Belgrade as the bulwarks of
Christendom. (33) About a month after this great deliverance,
the champion expired; and his most splendid epitaph is the
regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no
longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who
had triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the
throne, Matthias Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age,
was elected and crowned by the grateful Hungarians. His
reign was prosperous and long: Matthias aspired to the glory
of a conqueror and a saint: but his purest merit is the
encouragement of learning; and the Latin orators and
historians, who were invited from Italy by the son, have
shed the iustre of their eloquence on the father's
character. (34)
In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are
commonly associated; (35) and they are both entitled to our
notice, since their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed
the ruin of the Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of
Scanderbeg, (36) was the hereditary prince of a small
district of Epirus or Albania, between the mountains and the
Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend with the sultan's power,
Castriot submitted to the hard conditions of peace and
tribute: he delivered his four sons as the pledges of his
fidelity; and the Christian youths, after receiving the mark
of circumcision, were instructed in the Mahometan religion,
and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish policy. (37) The
three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd of slaves;
and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed cannot be
verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the
suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and
paternal treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother,
who, from his tender youth, displayed the strength and
spirit of a soldier. The successive overthrow of a Tartar
and two Persians, who carried a proud defiance to the
Turkish court, recommended him to the favor of Amurath, and
his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg, (Iskender beg,) or
the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of his glory
and servitude. His father's principality was reduced into a
province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title
of Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the
prospect of the first dignities of the empire. He served
with honor in the wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile
at the art or credulity of the historian, who supposes, that
in every encounter he spared the Christians, while he fell
with a thundering arm on his Mussulman foes. The glory of
Huniades is without reproach: he fought in the defence of
his religion and country; but the enemies who applaud the
patriot, have branded his rival with the name of traitor and
apostate. In the eyes of the Christian, the rebellion of
Scanderberg is justified by his father's wrongs, the
ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation,
and the slavery of his country; and they adore the generous,
though tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and
independence of his ancestors. But he had imbibed from his
ninth year the doctrines of the Koran; he was ignorant of
the Gospel; the religion of a soldier is determined by
authority and habit; nor is it easy to conceive what new
illumination at the age of forty (38) could be poured into
his soul. His motives would be less exposed to the
suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken his chain
from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but a
long oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and
every year of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual
bond of the sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long
harbored the belief of Christianity and the intention of
revolt, a worthy mind must condemn the base dissimulation,
that could serve only to betray, that could promise only to
be forsworn, that could actively join in the temporal and
spiritual perdition of so many thousands of his unhappy
brethren. Shall we praise a secret correspondence with
Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of the Turkish
army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard, a
treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the
enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the
eye of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal
secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a
firman or patent for the government of Albania; and the
murder of the guiltless scribe and his train prevented the
consequences of an immediate discovery. With some bold
companions, to whom he had revealed his design he escaped in
the night, by rapid marches, from the field or battle to his
paternal mountains. The gates of Croya were opened to the
royal mandate; and no sooner did he command the fortress,
than George Castriot dropped the mask of dissimulation;
abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed himself
the avenger of his family and country. The names of
religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the
Albanians, a martial race, were unanimous to live and die
with their hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were
indulged in the choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the
assembly of the states of Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected
general of the Turkish war; and each of the allies engaged
to furnish his respective proportion of men and money. From
these contributions, from his patrimonial estate, and from
the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an annual revenue
of two hundred thousand ducats; (39) and the entire sum,
exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated
to the public use. His manners were popular; but his
discipline was severe; and every superfluous vice was
banished from his camp: his example strengthened his
command; and under his conduct, the Albanians were
invincible in their own opinion and that of their enemies.
The bravest adventurers of France and Germany were allured
by his fame and retained in his service: his standing
militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven thousand
foot; the horses were small, the men were active; but he
viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources
of the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the
whole nation was distributed in the strongest posts. With
such unequal arms Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the
powers of the Ottoman empire; and two conquerors, Amurath
the Second, and his greater son, were repeatedly baffled by
a rebel, whom they pursued with seeming contempt and
implacable resentment. At the head of sixty thousand horse
and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered Albania: he
might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless towns,
convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the Christian
youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate
captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to
the petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison,
invincible to his arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice
and a superstitious scruple. (40) Amurath retired with shame
and loss from the walls of Croya, the castle and residence
of the Castriots; the march, the siege, the retreat, were
harassed by a vexatious, and almost invisible, adversary;
(41) and the disappointment might tend to imbitter, perhaps
to shorten, the last days of the sultan. (42) In the fulness
of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his bosom this
domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to negotiate
a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised as a
firm and able champion of his national independence. The
enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the
names of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to
acknowledge their intrepid countryman: but his narrow
dominion, and slender powers, must leave him at an humble
distance below the heroes of antiquity, who triumphed over
the East and the Roman legions. His splendid achievements,
the bashaws whom he encountered, the armies that he
discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were slain by
his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of suspicious
criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the dark
solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely
indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are
exposed by the light of Italian history; and they afford a
strong presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous
tale of his exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight
hundred horse to the succor of the king of Naples. (43)
Without disparagement to his fame, they might have owned,
that he was finally oppressed by the Ottoman powers: in his
extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the Second for a
refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his resources were
almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive at
Lissus, on the Venetian territory. (44) His sepulchre was
soon violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries,
who wore his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this
superstitious amulet their involuntary reverence for his
valor. The instant ruin of his country may redound to the
hero's glory; yet, had he balanced the consequences of
submission and resistance, a patriot perhaps would have
declined the unequal contest which must depend on the life
and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be supported
by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that the pope, the
king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join in the
defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the
sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from
Greece to Italy. His infant son was saved from the national
shipwreck; the Castriots (45) were invested with a Neapolitan
dukedom, and their blood continues to flow in the noblest
families of the realm. A colony of Albanian fugitives
obtained a settlement in Calabria, and they preserve at this
day the language and manners of their ancestors. (46)
In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman
empire, I have reached at length the last reign of the
princes of Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name
and majesty of the Caesars. On the decease of John
Palaeologus, who survived about four years the Hungarian
crusade, (47) the royal family, by the death of Andronicus
and the monastic profession of Isidore, was reduced to three
princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas, the surviving
sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and the last
were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who possessed
the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head of a
party: his ambition was not chilled by the public distress;
and his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had
already disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of
the late emperor was accelerated with singular and even
suspicious haste: the claim of Demetrius to the vacant
throne was justified by a trite and flimsy sophism, that he
was born in the purple, the eldest son of his father's
reign. But the empress-mother, the senate and soldiers, the
clergy and people, were unanimous in the cause of the lawful
successor: and the despot Thomas, who, ignorant of the
change, accidentally returned to the capital, asserted with
becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother. An
ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately
despatched to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him
with honor and dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious
approbation of the Turkish sultan announced his supremacy,
and the approaching downfall of the Eastern empire. By the
hands of two illustrious deputies, the Imperial crown was
placed at Sparta on the head of Constantine. In the spring
he sailed from the Morea, escaped the encounter of a Turkish
squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his subjects,
celebrated the festival of a new reign, and exhausted by his
donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the
state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the
possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the
two princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their
mother's presence by the frail security of oaths and
embraces. His next occupation was the choice of a consort.
A daughter of the doge of Venice had been proposed; but the
Byzantine nobles objected the distance between an hereditary
monarch and an elective magistrate; and in their subsequent
distress, the chief of that powerful republic was not
unmindful of the affront. Constantine afterwards hesitated
between the royal families of Trebizond and Georgia; and the
embassy of Phranza represents in his public and private life
the last days of the Byzantine empire. (48)
The protovestiare, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from
Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the
relics of wealth and luxury were applied to his pompous
appearance. His numerous retinue consisted of nobles and
guards, of physicians and monks: he was attended by a band
of music; and the term of his costly embassy was protracted
above two years. On his arrival in Georgia or Iberia, the
natives from the towns and villages flocked around the
strangers; and such was their simplicity, that they were
delighted with the effects, without understanding the cause,
of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an old man, above a
hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away a
captive by the Barbarians, (49) and who amused his hearers
with a tale of the wonders of India, (50) from whence he had
returned to Portugal by an unknown sea. (51) From this
hospitable land, Phranza proceeded to the court of
Trebizond, where he was informed by the Greek prince of the
recent decease of Amurath. Instead of rejoicing in the
deliverance, the experienced statesman expressed his
apprehension, that an ambitious youth would not long adhere
to the sage and pacific system of his father. After the
sultan's decease, his Christian wife, Maria, (52) the
daughter of the Servian despot, had been honorably restored
to her parents; on the fame of her beauty and merit, she was
recommended by the ambassador as the most worthy object of
the royal choice; and Phranza recapitulates and refutes the
specious objections that might be raised against the
proposal. The majesty of the purple would ennoble an unequal
alliance; the bar of affinity might be removed by liberal
alms and the dispensation of the church; the disgrace of
Turkish nuptials had been repeatedly overlooked; and, though
the fair Maria was nearly fifty years of age, she might yet
hope to give an heir to the empire. Constantine listened to
the advice, which was transmitted in the first ship that
sailed from Trebizond; but the factions of the court opposed
his marriage; and it was finally prevented by the pious vow
of the sultana, who ended her days in the monastic
profession. Reduced to the first alternative, the choice of
Phranza was decided in favor of a Georgian princess; and the
vanity of her father was dazzled by the glorious alliance.
Instead of demanding, according to the primitive and
national custom, a price for his daughter, (53) he offered a
portion of fifty-six thousand, with an annual pension of
five thousand, ducats; and the services of the ambassador
were repaid by an assurance, that, as his son had been
adopted in baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his
daughter should be the peculiar care of the empress of
Constantinople. On the return of Phranza, the treaty was
ratified by the Greek monarch, who with his own hand
impressed three vermilion crosses on the golden bull, and
assured the Georgian envoy that in the spring his galleys
should conduct the bride to her Imperial palace. But
Constantine embraced his faithful servant, not with the cold
approbation of a sovereign, but with the warm confidence of
a friend, who, after a long absence, is impatient to pour
his secrets into the bosom of his friend. "Since the death
of my mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone advised me
without interest or passion, (54) I am surrounded," said the
emperor, "by men whom I can neither love nor trust, nor
esteem. You are not a stranger to Lucas Notaras, the great
admiral; obstinately attached to his own sentiments, he
declares, both in private and public, that his sentiments
are the absolute measure of my thoughts and actions. The
rest of the courtiers are swayed by their personal or
factious views; and how can I consult the monks on questions
of policy and marriage? I have yet much employment for your
diligence and fidelity. In the spring you shall engage one
of my brothers to solicit the succor of the Western powers;
from the Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a particular
commission; and from thence proceed to Georgia to receive
and conduct the future empress." - "Your commands," replied
Phranza, "are irresistible; but deign, great sir," he added,
with a serious smile, "to consider, that if I am thus
perpetually absent from my family, my wife may be tempted
either to seek another husband, or to throw herself into a
monastery." After laughing at his apprehensions, the emperor
more gravely consoled him by the pleasing assurance that
this should be his last service abroad, and that he destined
for his son a wealthy and noble heiress; for himself, the
important office of great logothete, or principal minister
of state. The marriage was immediately stipulated: but the
office, however incompatible with his own, had been usurped
by the ambition of the admiral. Some delay was requisite to
negotiate a consent and an equivalent; and the nomination of
Phranza was half declared, and half suppressed, lest it
might be displeasing to an insolent and powerful favorite.
The winter was spent in the preparations of his embassy; and
Phranza had resolved, that the youth his son should embrace
this opportunity of foreign travel, and be left, on the
appearance of danger, with his maternal kindred of the
Morea. Such were the private and public designs, which were
interrupted by a Turkish war, and finally buried in the
ruins of the empire.