And, first, as to their numbers. "The number of the armies of the horsemen," it is said, "was myriads of myriads: a numeral phrase indefinite, but, according to its natural and not infrequent use in scripture 1 expressive of large numbers; and of which the applicability characteristically to the Turkmen armies, more especially as it is not mere numerousness of soldiers that is noted, but numerousness of horsemen, is to a student of the history of the times notorious. Numerous indeed were the cotemporary armies of western Europe, at the close of the 11th century; though not innumerous like the Turks. But herein was a greater distinction. With them the cavalry or knights were comparatively few; the bulk of the army being foot soldiers: whereas of the Turkmen, as of the Saracen armies before, (and who so well knew the fact as the Greeks and Franks that encountered them?) the numbers numberless were cavalry. 2 Further it has been suggested by Daubuz, and I think not without reason, that there may be probably an allusion also in the form of expression to the Turkmen custom of numbering by tomansor myriads.
For though not unused among other nations, 3yet there is probably none with whom it has been from early times so prevalent as with the Turkmen and Tartars. Thus in the Seljukian age, if I remember right, the population of Samarcand was rated at seven tomans, because it could send out 70,000 horsemen warriors. Again, the dignity and rank of Tamerlane's father and grandfather was thus described, that they were the hereditary chiefs of a toman of 10,000 horse. So that it is not without his usual propriety of language, that Gibbon speaks of "the myriads of the (Seljukian) Turkish horse overspreading the Greek frontier, from the Taurus to Erzeroum:" or of the cavalry of the earlier Turks of Mount Altai" being, both men and horses, proudly computed by millions." He had doubtless the Turkmen phraseology and mode of numbering in his mind, when he penned the two sentences; and, in the last of them, their proud habit of exaggeration also. And wherefore then may we not suppose a similar reference, since the turn of the phrase is similarly apt and characteristic, in the apocalyptic notice of number before us?
It is added, "And I heard the number of them." And considering the pointed ness of the declaration, appended as it is to the notice of the numbers previous, in an order and form unusual,and also John's representative character on the Apocalyptic scene, I cannot but think that it may have been meant to betoken that the report of the Turkmen might and numbers would fall with more than common impressiveness upon the ear of the christian church.5 If so, it surely needs but a glance at history to see the realization of the intimation. Passing over the terrors of the Turkmen name to the Greek Christians, we know that by Peter the Hermit personally, and by the letters also of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the report was carried to all the princes and churches in western Christendom. "Jerusalem has been besieged, taken, sacked, razed, triumphed over. What may the rest of Christendom promise to itself? The strength of the Turks is daily increased: their forces are fiercer and stronger than the forces of the Saracens: they have already devoured the whole world in hope. We call on you for help, as Christians not in the name and profession only, but in heart, soul, spirit. Ere the tempest thunder, ere the lightning fall on you, avert from yourselves and children the storm hanging over your heads! 6
"Deliver us: deliver your religion; and God shall requite you." So as Knolles relates, the report was echoed and thrilled through western Christendom: among the true, as well as the false, that bore the Christian name: the former having as yet not formally, or in a body, separated from the church visible. And what followed? The Council of Clermont: the fermentation through Christendom: and then its precipitation in the crusades against the Euphratean horsemen. All was but the result of that hearing of the bruit of the Turkish might and terribleness from Jerusalem. "And I heardthe number of them."
2. The next descriptive trait represents to us their personal appearance and array. This is a point not forgotten, as we have seen, in the figurative prophetic descriptions, whether of the Old or New Testament. So, for instance, in that of the Assyrian lovers of Aholah in Ezekiel; "Horsemen riding upon horses clothed with blue,captains and rulers"7 and again, turning to the Apocalypse, in that of the Saracens with man-like faces, but hair as the hair of women, just preceding ; and in that of Papal Rome and its hierarchy, as typified by the scarlet-colored Beast, yet to come.
So here of the Euphratean armies "I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sate on them, having breast-plates of fire, (i. e. of fire-colour) and jacinth, and sulphur;" or of red, blue, and yellow. On which it is the just remark of Mr. Daubuz, "that from their first appearance the Ottomans have affected to wear war like apparel of scarlet, blue, and yellow: a descriptive trait the more marked from its contrast to the military appearance of Greeks, Franks, or Saracens cotemporarily." And, indeed, I may add that it only needs to have seen the Turkish cavalry, (as they were before the late innovations,) whether in war itself, or in the djerrid, war's mimicry, to leave an impression of the absolute necessity of some such notice of their rich and varied colorings, in order to give in description at all a just impression of their appearance. The word hyacinthine, let me observe, fixes the primary meaning of the other two words, fire-like, sulphur like, thus to signify colour. At the same time the singularity of the words used to figure it,' cannot but strike us. And the general appropriateness of Scripture emblems, an appropriateness largely evidenced and exemplified in a former chapter, May suggest the suspicion of fire and sulphur having been things in so peculiar and characteristic manner connected with the Turkish armies: a suspicion confirmed, and also explained, by a subsequent mention of fire and sulphur in the emblematic figuration of them; and of which this twofold notice tends to show the importance.
3. To this point, then, let us next direct our attention. "The heads of the horses," the Evangelist proceeds to observe, "were as the heads of lions: and out of their mouths goeth forth fire, and smoke, and sulphur. By these three was the third of men slain, by the fire, and the smoke, and the sulphur that proceedeth out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouths, &c. "The horses and their riders are here evidently a composite symbol: the riders being mentioned just once, as if, like the human resemblance in the Arab scorpion locusts, to notify man's agency in the scourge but all the principal characteristics, including such as must needs refer not to animals, but to men, being said of the horses. So in the clause, "their heads were as the heads of lions." On which let me just observe, in passing, that as the heads, being unnatural, are of course symbolic, and the symbol, according to its all but constant use in scripture,8 to be interpreted of leaders of the Euphratean armies, it might seem a preintimation that to these leaders the same lion-like destroying character would attach, as to the Saracens before them. And we know that there was an answering, in respect not of character only, but even of title, in the Alp Arslans and Kilidge Arslans, the Valiant Lions and Noble Lions, of the Seljukians; and in the pretensions and character of the Othman Sultans also. 9 But it was specially of the new destroying agency, predicated of them, that I was to speak, as the really characteristic point in the description. "Out of their mouths," says St. John, "issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone (or sulphur)" it being added, as if to limit and define their instrumental use; "By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths." Now that there is in this, as Mede suggests, an allusion to the modern artillery used by the Ottomans against Constantinople, seems to me so obvious and so striking, that I cannot but wonder that any one, as Dean Woodhouse, should have objected to, or even, as Vitringa, hesitated about it.
Wherefore could the Dean speak of the interpretation as a force on prophetical language, unworthy of respectable names? If the arms of a nation be often elsewhere noticed in prophetic scripture, why not here? And where, indeed, and on what other occasion, did ever the arms employed bear so memorable, so all-important an influence, on the great catastrophe? For I would wish strongly to impress this point on the reader's mind. It is marked prominently in the prophecy before us.
It is marked prominently also in the history. It was to "the fire and the smoke and the Sulphur," to the artillery and fire-arms of Mahomet, that the killing of the third part of men i. e. the capture of Constantinople, and by consequence the destruction of the Greek empire, was owing. Eleven hundred years and more had now elapsed since her foundation by Constantine. In the course of them, Goths, Huns, Avars, Persians, Bulgarians, Saracens, Russians, and indeed the Ottoman Turks themselves, had made their hostile assaults, or laid siege against it. But the fortifications were impregnable by them.
Constantinople survived, and with it the Greek empire.' Hence the anxiety of the Sultan Mahomet to find that which would remove the obstacle. "Canst thou cast a cannon," was his question to the founder of cannon that deserted to him," of size sufficient to batter down the wall of Constantinople?"
Then the foundry was established at Adrianople, the cannon cast, the artillery prepared, and the siege began. It well deserves remark, how Gibbon, always the unconscious commentator on the Apocalyptic prophecy, puts this new instrumentality of war into the foreground of his picture, in his eloquent and striking narrative of the final catastrophe of he Greek empire. In preparation for it he gives the history of the recent invention of gunpowder, "that mixture of saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal:" tells of its earlier use by the Sultan Amurath; and also, as before said, of Mahomet's foundry of larger cannon at Adrianople: then, in the progress of the siege itself, describes how "the vollies of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the fire of the musketry and cannon:" how "the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls; fourteen batteries thunder in at once on the most accessible places:" how "the fortifications which bad stood for ages against hostile violence, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon, many breaches opened, and, near the gate of St. Romanus, four towers leveled with the ground:" how, as "from the lines, the gallies, and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides, the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke, which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire:" how "the double walls were reduced by the cannon to a heap of ruins:" and how, the Turks at length "rushing through the breaches," " Constantinople was subdued, her empire subverted, and her religion trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors." I say it well de serves observation, how markedly and strikingly Gibbon attributes the capture of the city, and so the destruction of the empire, to the Ottoman artillery.' For what is it but a comment on the words of our prophecy, " By these three was the third part of men killed; by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the sulphur, which issued out of their mouths."
4. Next as to the appearance of the horses' tails. And in this, according to what I cannot hesitate to regard as its true interpretation, though to support it we have not, as before, the authority of many consenting interpreters, but by all of them that I have seen, except Dr. Keith, it is not so much as hinted, and by him only glanced at allusively, and in a Note, I say there seems to me in this descriptive point a symbol as remarkable and as characteristic of the Turks, as even that on which we last commented: I might perhaps say more so. For what are the terms of the description?" "The horses' power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, having heads, and with them they do injury." Now had it been simply said, "their tails were like serpents, and with them they injure, "the case would have resembled that of the scorpion-locusts' tails of the plague preceding 10 and might be presumed to have indicated here, just as there, the injury merely, and venom of a false religion accompanying it, done by the new agencies of woe. But there is mentioned, in addition, the peculiarity of these serpent-like horse-tails, 11 seen in vision, hating heads.
And thus, according to the usual well-known prophetic use of the symbol of a head, as already a little while since observed,' the further idea is naturally, I may almost say necessarily suggested, of rulers, or governing authorities, 12 in association with the horse-tails. But how so? The crown seems a sufficiently natural symbol to denote a conquering emperor, the diadem a monarch, the sword a military prefect, the balance an administrator of justice.
But a horse-tail to denote a ruler! Strange association ! Unlikely symbol ! Instead of symbolizing authority and rule, the tail is in other scripture put in direct contrast with the head, and made the representative rather of the degraded and the low. 13 Besides which it is not here the lordly lion's tail, but that of the horse. Who could ever, a' priori, have conceived of such an application of it? And yet among the Turks, as we all know, among the Euphratean horsemen that were to kill the third part of men, that very association had existence, and still exists to the present day. It seems that in the times of their early warlike career the principal standard was once lost, in the progress of battle; and the Turkmen commander, in its default, cutting off his horse's tail, lifted it on a pole, made it the rallying ensign, and so won the victory 14 Hence the introduction and permanent adoption among the Turks throughout their empire of this singular ensign; among the Turks alone, if I mistake not, of all the nations that have ever risen upon this world's theatre:15I and this as what was thenceforward, from the prime Vizier to the governors of provinces and districts, to constitute each ruler's badge, mark his rank, and give him name and title. For it is the ensign of one, two, or three horse-tails, that marks distinctively the dignity and power of the Turkish Pasha." 16 Marvelous prefiguration! And who but He could have depicted it, to whom the future is clear as the present; and who, in his Divine prescience, speaks of things that are not as though they were?"And with these they do injustice:" There seems a certain antithesis in this to what is predicated of the heads in front. With the lion-like fire-breathing heads in front the symbolic horses were to kill the third of men; i. e. to kill them in their political or national character. With these heads behind they were afterwards to injure and oppress the individuals of the remnant left; while also diffusing around them the poison of their false religion. And alas! turning to historic records for illustration on this point, where is the writer on the Turkish conquests and administration, that does not tell of the oppression of the Christian subject rayahs by these Turkmen Pashas? As Knolles, in his sketch of the Turkish Greatness, expresses it; "His Bassaes, like ravening harpies, as it were suck out the blood of his poor subjects."
And where is the traveler through European Turkey, (at least if his travels dated before the late Greek revolution,) that has not with his own eyes witnessed the same? Even now the scene rises in memory before the author, of the long train of a Turkish Pasha, proceeding to his Pashalik in Greece; that past him by, winding in picturesque array up one of the passes of Mount Othrys near where that mountain chain frowns over Thermopylae: and bright, he remembers, shone the sunbeams on the varied colorings, the "red and blue and yellow," of the horses, horsemen, and foot-retainers, in the procession ; and proudly the ensign was borne before the Turkmen of two horse-tails, to mark his dignity. But associated with the remembrance there rise up other recollections also: the scene of a village which, on entering it a few days before with his companions, he had found deserted, though with marks of recent habitation; and from which, as a straggler emerging from his hiding place informed them, men women and children had fled to the mountains, to escape from the visit, on some errand of oppression of one of the officers of a neighboring Pasha.
Nor again can the scene be forgotten of other permanently deserted villages, such as the traveler's path each day almost had to pass by; and often with nothing but the silent grave-yard in its loneliness, to tell the tale of former life and population. Thus was there set before his eyes how the inhabitants had failed before the oppressions of the Turkmen Pashas. And, long ere he thought of entering on the direct investigation of prophecy, the singular aptitude and truth of this symbol, as applied to them, fixed itself on his mind: "The horse tails were like serpents, having heads; and with these they do injury and oppress."
So ends our analysis and identification with the Turkmen destroyers of Greek Christendom, of what was visible to the eye in the details of the Apocalyptic symbol. Of course in a case like this, especially as involving so much admixture (i. e. according to my view of it) of the literal and the symbolic, objections might be anticipated, and have been made, against the explanation. And I feel it right that the reader should see and consider them.' But the truth of the coincidences that have been affirmed between symbol and fact remains unshaken.
And the utter flatness and unmeaning ness of the sacred symbol, according to these objectors' counter-view of it, seems to me only to add confirmation strong, though most unintended on their part, to the correctness of the Turkish solution.
5. There remains for explanation but one point more in the prophecy; viz. the time within which, as measured from the loosing of the four angels at the 6th Trumpet's sounding, their commission to destroy the third part of men was to be accomplished. A point this of great interest, and some difficulty. 'For, though freed by our explanation of the four angels spoken of, and of their binding near the Euphrates previously to the sixth Trumpet blast, from various difficulties which have caused no little embarrassment to many former expositors,17 it is yet one that needs careful consideration, in order to the satisfactory fixing of the meaning of the phrase in which the chronological term is announced. This settled, the historical fulfillment will soon appear.
As to the chronological term it is expressed as follows: And the four angels were loosed; which were prepared to slay the third part of men." I conceive its meaning to be, that the slaying should either continue for, or be completed at the end of, the mystical term of an hour day month and year, aggregated together. Hence both my view of the aggregation of the nouns of time, and my view of the sense of the preposition, governing them, are the first things to be here explained and justified.
Now as to my construction of the nouns of time collectively, and in the aggregate, I so understand them on two accounts.
1st, because that which is the only alternative construction appears to me on every account inadmissible: I mean that which, taking them each separately, would render the clause thus; that at the destined hour,4 and destined day, and destined month, and destined year, they should slay the third part of men. For, to say nothing of the want of the article prefix to three out of the four nouns, a prefix needed, I conceive, for such a rendering, it will be obvious that it explains the clause as made up of tautologies: tautologies such that every successive word after the first, instead of strengthening, only weakens the supposed meaning; and which bring out, at last, as the result of their accumulation, nothing more than this, that the destruction spoken of should be effected at the time appointed. Do the inspired Scriptures ever speak in this way?
2ndly, I so take them, because in another complex chronological phrase, and one, in respect of its enigmatic form, perhaps the most nearly parallel to the present that prophetic scripture offers, we have the exposition of inspiration itself, interpreting the constituent terms of the phrase as to be taken in the aggregate.
I allude to the well known clause in Daniel, (7:7) "for a time, times, and half a time," or year, years, and half a year: which chronological formula, being made the equivalent of 1260 days, 18 i.e. of three years and a half, must consequently be a period of a year, two years, and half a year, aggregated together. In this view of the clause now before us, the article prefix, standing at its head, may be understood not only to govern all the accusatives that follow, so as we find done elsewhere, but also to be a means for the better uniting of them, as it were under a bracket, as an hour day month and year, all added together: at the same time that it may mark them also as together making up the period; i. e. the period fore ordained and foreshown in the divine councils. As to the rendering of the preposition, whether in the sense of for, or else after, at the expiration of, it must of course depend very mainly upon the sense attached to the verb, to kill.
If that verb may be taken in its less natural sense of a continued slaying of the inhabitants of Greek Christendom, until completed at length in the political slaughter of them as a national corporate body, 19 then the preposition will have its more common and natural sense of for, or during, attached to it. If, on the other hand, be deemed a verb denotative rather of the grand completed act of politically slaying the third part of men, i.e. the Greek empire, then it seems necessary to take the preposition in its less common sense of after, or at the expiration of. As regards the first mentioned chronological sense of the (and I may suggest generally that in its application to chronological periods, or statements, the varied meanings of the word seem all borrowed from those which attach to it in its primary reference to place) I say as regards my first mentioned chronological sense as for or during, applicable in the case being meant of a continuous slaying of the men of Greek Christendom, illustrative parallel cases abound.
This was the period at the end of which, as measured from the epoch of their loosing, on the sixth Trumpet-blast, from the Euphrates, the horsemen of the vision, it was foretold to St. John, were to destroy the third part of men. And convinced as we have been that the TURKS were the horse men that acted under the guidance of the four angels in the matter, what now remains for us to do is only to look at historical dates: and, so calculating, to compare with the aforementioned prophetic period, the actual historic interval between the first loosing from the Euphrates of the Moslem power, after revivification through connection with the Turkmen , and the taking of Constantinople, and destruction of the Greek empire, by the Turks under the 2nd Mahomet.
In regard to the circumstances and the date of the former important event and epoch, we may be thankful that we have full and authentic information in the two well known Arabic historians Abulfeda and Elmakin; and indeed in the earlier and fuller historians, Al Bondari and Emad Eddin. From them I borrow my statements and chronology in what follows.
It has been already noted that in the year 1055, or of the Hegira 447, the Baghdad Caliph wrote to Thogrul Beg to come to his assistance against some threatening danger; the Bowid chieftain, who was at this time the secular head under him, having proved altogether an inefficient protector. Thogrul immediately answered to the summons, and gave the protection asked for: then, on occasion of some civic tumult occurring, seized on and imprisoned the Bowid Chief, thus extinguishing the supremacy of the Bowides, after it had lasted, says Elmakin, 127 years. He was now by the Caliph appointed, and publicly proclaimed in the mosques, "Protector and Governor of the Moslem empire; " the secular authority of the caliphate delegated to him; and his name recited, next to the Caliph's, in the public prayers.
All this occurred in the month of Ramazan of that same year; that is in December A. D. 1055. This is the epoch noted by both Abulfeda and Elmakin, and not without reason, as that of the commencement of the Seljukian empire at Baghdad: the inauguration and investiture celebrated some two years after, or a little more, being only a more splendid solemnization of that appointment to his high office, which now already took place. Thus appointed, then, Thogrul Beg fixed his head-quarters in the citadel of Baghdad; and stayed there thirteen months: meanwhile establishing his authority, and cementing his connection with the Caliph, among other things, by giving him his sister in marriage. The effect of the connection was, as regarded the Turkmen army and people, to give them a character of religious consecration to the service of Islamism: while, on the other hand, the power of the Moslem caliphate, so long paralyzed at Baghdad, was prepared by it with new energies; and revivified, as it were, to act again in the cause of its false faith.
And now we are directed by the terms of this prophecy, to mark the time when the Moslem power, thus revivified, was loosed from the Euphrates: in other words, when under its new Turkmen head, it went forth from Baghdad, on the career of victory and aggrandizement thenceforth afresh destined for it.
The date is given by Abulfeda; the 10th of Dzoulcaad, A. H. 448. That was the day in which Thogrul with his Turkmen, now the representative, as we have said, and head of the power of Islamism, quitted Baghdad to enter on a long career of war and conquest.- The part allotted to Throgrul. himself in the fearful drama soon about to open against the Greeks, was, like the military part enacted long previously by Mahomet, in regard of Christendom, preparative. It was to extend and establish the Turkmen dominion over the frontier countries of Iraq and Mesopotamia; that so the requisite strength might be attained for the attack ordained in God's counsels against the Greek empire.
His first step to this was the siege and capture of Moussul; his next, of Singara Nisibis, too, was visited by him: that frontier fortress that bad in other days been so long a bulwark to the Greeks. Everywhere' victory attended his banner; a presage of what was to follow. And on his return after a year's campaign to Baghdad, for the purpose of the more solemn inauturation that we spoke of, 20 (an inaugurative ceremony celebrated in oriental history, 21 the result is thus described by Elmakin: "There was now none left in Iraq or Chorasmia who could stand before him."
And what then the interval between this epoch of the loosing of the united Turco-Moslem power from the Euphrates, and that of the fall of Constantinople; in other words, between the 10th Dzoulcad A. H. 448, and the 29th of May A.D. 1453, on which day the siege (begun on the 6th of April previous) fatally ended ? And how does it correspond with the prophetic period before us? The calculation is soon made. The 10th Dzoulcad, A.H. 448, corresponds with January 18, 1057 A. D.2 From this to January 18, A. D. 1453, is 396 years ; and to May 29 of that same year, 130 days more. Such is the exact historical interval.
And now, turning to the prophetic interval, since its hour and day and month and year amounts, as has been already shown, on the most exact calculation, to 396 years, and 118 days, we find that it falls short of the whole historic interval by but 12 natural days, or less than half a prophetic hour: so that, in fact, had the prophecy been expressed as "two hours and a day and a month and a year," it would have overleaped the real epoch of the fall of Constantinople by near three weeks. Nor this alone. We may trace the fulfillment yet more exactly. The precise day of the Apocalyptic period's expiring, and consequently that " after which, according to it, the third of men was to be slain, was May 16, the fortieth day of the siege. And is then our usual Apocalyptic expositor, Gibbon, silent about it? Not so. We find him marking that last crisis in the siege, when Mahomet, by transporting his ships across the isthmus of Galata into the inner harbour, had completed the investment of the devoted city; and, without a hope remaining to it any longer, was preparing his final assault. And then follow the unintended expository words; " After a siege of forty days the fate of Constantinople could be no longer averted."
Such is the result of our investigation. And surely it must be deemed most remarkable. For my own part, when I consider the length of the period embraced by the prophecy, scarce less than 400 years, and when I consider further, that of all symmetrical chronological formula, such as symbolic prophecy alone makes use of, 22 there does not seem to be one that could express the interval with anything like the same exactness as that before us, I cannot but partake of Mede's feeling of admiration, 23 and marvel greatly at it. Who but He could have announced the period, who knoweth the times and the seasons, and foreseen the end from the beginning? Nor let me forget to add, with reference to that singular mystical form in which the period is exprest, "the hour and day and month and year," that even this would almost seem to have had in it a something of Turkish character. The only term of time similarly exprest, that has ever met my eye in historic record, is that which defined the truce granted to our Richard the 1st by the Turkmen chief Saladin24 " three hours and three days and three weeks and three months and three years" all nouns of time to be added together, and taken in the aggregate.
"There is just one thing that I must not omit, ere conclude this head and chapter. mean to impress upon the reader's mind how remarkable, contrary all human probability, after once Turkmen woe had been let loose, was the protraction of its accomplishment of the work of destruction assigned it, to this far distant era. Ere 40 years had elapsed from Thogrul Beg's inauguration, Constantinople and its empire were on The very verge of ruin by the Seljukian Turks: and nothing less than an almost miraculous intervention seemed capable of averting it. But the intervention occurred. The Crusades from western Europe, however ultimately ineffective in Syria, yet so crippled the Seljukian power, as for 200 years to aid in upholding against it the Greek empire.25 Then the Moguls under Zenghis yet further crippled, and delayed the resuscitation in its strength, of the Turkish power. And after it bad at length risen up in all its pristine vigor, under the Amuraths and the Bajazets of the new Othman dynasty, and when, some fifty years and more before the hour day month and year had come to a completion, Constantinople and the empire were again on the verge of destruction; when the chivalry of the west, vainly intervening, had been broken in the battle of Nicopolis, and the victorious Bajazet thus addressed the emperor, "Our invincible scymitar has reduced almost all Asia, and many and large countries in Europe, excepting only the city of* Constantinople: resign that city, or tremble for thyself and thine unhappy people;" when, I say, the slaying of the third part of men seemed thus imminent, full half a century before the prophetic period had elapsed that fixed it, what was there that could occur to prevent the catastrophe? Behold, from the far frontiers of China, Tamerlane was brought against him. "The savage," says Gibbon, "was forced to relinquish his prey by a stronger savage than himself: and by the victory of Tamerlane the fall of Constantinople was delayed about fifty years." 26
But when the predicted period bad elapsed, and the Sultan Muhammad was pressing the siege, like some of his predecessors before him, then no intervention occurred-to delay the catastrophe, either from the east or west, from the crusaders of Christendom or the savage warriors of Tartary. On the dial-plate in heaven, the pointing Of the shadow-line told that the fatal term had expired, the hour and day and month and year. Then could no longer the fate of the unhappy Greeks be averted. And the artillery of the Othmans thundered irresistibly against Constantinople: and the breach was stormed and the city fell: and, amidst the shouts of the conquering Turkmen from the Euphrates, and the dying groans of the last Constantine, the third of the men were slain, the Greek empire was no more!