cup of power drugged with fanaticism! be wanting." S Nor was it: the sultan's subjects pl Tartar merchants, and the empires ma arations for war. Zingis collected thousand men, and, ordering recruits throughout the empire and sent after I upon the enemy. During this march, and regulated his army in the most effi and gave the following despotic general Nothing now was impossible to Zingis. By a rapid succession of victories, he found himself, in the year 1226, master of a broad belt of the world reaching from Corea to Hungary.t We have space for but a few of the most interesting incidents of his conquests. The sovereign of North China, the Kin empire, had demanded of him the same tribute as had been paid by the princes whom Zingis had dethroned. Irritated by the demand, he poured his well-disciplined a soldier fly without having fought, wha armies across the wall, undeterred by fortifications, though ignorant of the arts of siege, routed the Chinese, desolated the country, and amassed immense spoils. Cities and royal residences fell into his hands, often unexpectedly. Dissensions arose among the Chinese nobles, who deserted or betrayed their emperor, and he was slain. Thus, in the space of five years, this most warlike and powerful of the nations was subdued, as far as the middle mountains. ‡ (A. D. 1214.) On the west, Zingis had determined to make the territories of the mighty sultan of Kharasm his boundary. The conqueror made a treaty to that effect with this sovereign, though the sultan was rather ungracious. But the sultan's enemy, the khalif of Bagdad, desirous of engaging Zingis against him, sent a messenger to the Mongol khan, upon whose shaven crown was tattooed his message, now up * "Brethren," said he, "I have seen a vision. The great God of heaven, on his flaming throne, surrounded by the spirits on high, sat in judgment on the nations of the earth. Sentence was pronounced, and he gave the dominion of the world to our chief Temudsin, whom he appointed Zingis Khan, or Universal Sovereign." The Mongols gols then held their hands, and swore to follow Temudsin, the Zingis Khan, in all his enterprises. (A. D. 1206.) - Muller. Zingis promulgated at this time his famous civil and military code of regulations for his empire, under the sanction of monotheism, and in perfect toleration of all religions. He also, subsequently, caused the best Arabic, Persian, Chinese, and Thibetan books to be translated into Mongol, which must have had a powerful tendency to elevate his people above their ancestral barbarism. + The Pacific Ocean, Corea, and the relics of the Kin empire, which he had crowded across the Hoang-ho (in its old channel) into the north-east corner of China, limited his empire on the east. On the south, it had the Chinese empire of the Song, from which it was separated by the Peling Mountains; the Kuen lun Mountains, separating it from Thibet; the west branch of the Indus to 32°; Beloochistan; the little kingdoms of Fars, about Shiraz, and Irak Araby, along the Euphrates and Tigris; the Caucasus, Black Sea, and Danube to the Preuth. On the west, his empire was bounded by the small districts of the attabegs of Irak, of Armenia, Georgia, and Caucasus, and the Carpathian Mountains, separating it from the king dom of Hungary; on the north, by a line from the Carpathian Mountains drawn to include the junction of the Kama and Volga, leaving beyond it the grand duchies of Kiew and Wladimir, - thence, the deeply waving northern line of his empire crossed the Ural, excluding the steppe of Ischim, then trended just north of Lake Baikal, excluding most of Siberia, to meet the Pacific in latitude 56°, where it had the Chy goei (all but the southern division) to the north. This was a wider realm than Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, or Roman conqueror ever knew! On the banks of the Orkhon, Onon, and Selinga, the royal or "golden horde" exhibited the contrast of simplicity and greatness. Roasted sheep and mare's milk were their frugal ger or resistance, he shall die; if fron of ten, any one or more shall separate shall die without mercy; if any of the their comrades engaged, and do not try rescue them, they shall die." The sultan of Kharasm was master of ria, Kharasm, Persia, Persian Irak, and m On his side he marched an army of half a should these be destroyed, he could not again, for Armenia and Georgia, his trib this occasion to relieve themselves of tr and Syria were desolated by the cru the khalif who held Arabian Irak, Chalo three Arabias, was his personal enemy: Seljuks of Asia Minor and the Greek em at war with each other, and could give hi ance. This great contest has been already loads of gold and silver. The great dukes of sultans of Iconium, the kings of Georgia and emirs of Persia, and various other potentates of Asia, were obliged to take the long journey to t lage of Karakorum, in person, or by their ambas der to retain their thrones, or even their lives! Gibbon gives the following account of thi "His ancestors had been the tributaries of the perors, and Temugin himself had been disgrace of honor and servitude. The court of Pekin wa by an embassy from its former vassal, who, in the king of nations, exacted the tribute and obedien had paid. A haughty answer disguised their se hensions; and their fears were soon justified by of innumerable squadrons, who pierced on all sid rampart of the great wall. Ninety cities were stormed by the Mongols. Ten only escaped. from a knowledge of the filial piety of the Chinese. vanguard with their captive parents - an unwort degrees a fruitless abuse of the virtue of his en invasion was supported by the revolt of a hundre Khitans, who guarded the frontier. Yet he li treaty, and a princess of China, three thousand hundred youths, and as many virgins, and a trib and silk, were the price of his retreat. "In his second expedition, he compelled the C peror to retire beyond the Yellow River, to a mo and eastern residence. The siege of Pekin (a ca furlongs south-east of the present) was long and The inhabitants were reduced by famine to decima vour their fellow-citizens. When their ammunition they discharged ingots of gold and silver from the but the Mongols introduced a mine to the centre of and the conflagration of the palace burned above th After the Mongols had subdued the northern pr was seriously, in calm, deliberate council, proposec minate all the inhabitants of that populous countr vacant land might be converted to the pasture Such was the purblind barbarism of these stupid de The design was given up upon the suggestion, by mandarin, that the country, left as it was, would yer. Samarcand, Balkh, Bokhara, and many es, which flourished with the wealth and trade es, now underwent a pitiless ruin, from pinDundation. The sultan's armies were almost defeated. He himself, driven to miserable came to the shores of the Caspian, and gin a boat, amid a shower of arrows, escaped d only to die of sickness and despair; yet not enjoined his son, Jelaleddin, to avenge him. - every wave of fortune, this dauntless and gman did all that man could do to perform ions of a dying father; but hemmed in by city after city, he was at last driven to an ne Indus. burned his ships, except one for his family. s died around him, defending themselves at bay. The Kharasmians now took refuge s where the Tartar cavalry could not penbeing reduced to only seven hundred men, disbanded them. The unfortunate Jelang embraced his family, and torn himself Them, now took off his cuirass, stripped himhis arms but his sword, quiver, and bow, resh horse, and plunged into the river. In the stream, he turned round and emptied In defiance against Zingis, who stood on The ship in which the family of the denarch had embarked, split as it left the hey fell into the conqueror's hands, who murdered them. ve prince passed the night in a tree, from beasts. On the next day, he met some rs. He now collected all the fugitives he r, and, being joined by an officer of his with a boat laden with arms, provisions, clothing, he established himself in India. o endure exile, he returned to his country, ny misfortunes, died in obscurity, shortly queror. A Turkman horde of his army ne service of the sultans of Iconium, and ng Othman, founder of the Turkish ementuries, it has been remarked, have not at to repair the ravages of the four years smian war. his camp on the Indus, at last yielded to his soldiers for repose, and the enjoyvealth they had gathered with so much d. Returning slowly, encumbered with an eye of regret around him, and intiention of rebuilding the cities he had As he passed the Jaxartes, there came wo of his generals, whom he had sent thern shore of the Caspian, with thirty - They had fought their way through the Caucasus, traversed the marshy reVolga, crossed that and the desert, and he north of Lake Aral - an unexampled = or modern times. The princes and generals were returned eral expeditions, Zingis assembled them large plain, which, though twenty-one Asia glittered in the dress, horses, harness, arms, an furniture of the vast assemblage. The emperor re ceived the homage of his powerful vassals with ma jesty, and that of his children and grandchildren, wh were introduced to kiss his hand, with tenderness He graciously accepted their presents, and in retur distributed among them magnificent donations. Th soldiery also partook of the liberality of the grea robber of robbers. The mighty khan, who was fond of public speaking now pronounced an oration, commending his code o laws: to these he attributed all his success and con quests, which he minutely enumerated. The ambas sadors from the several countries subjected to his domin ion, were then admitted to an audience, and dismisse well satisfied. The whole ceremonial was concludewith a grand festival, which lasted many days. A the daily banquets were served up every thing mos exquisite - in fruits, game, liquors, and edibles-t be had in any part of his boundless dominion. Such festivals were followed by new triumphs, an prosperity seemed always to attend the conqueror enterprises. He died A. D. 1226, at the age of sev enty, having reigned twenty-two years, and preserve to the last his complete ascendency over the surround ing nations and his own. His magnificent funeral wa unsullied with the human sacrifices which desecrate the obsequies of his ancestors. His simple sepulchre beneath a tree whose shade he had loved, became a object of veneration to his people, who were wor fondly to embellish it. This famous man was characterized by qualitie fitting him for a conqueror-a genius capable of con ceiving great and arduous designs, and prudence equa to their execution; a native and persuasive eloquence a degree of patience enabling him to endure and over come fatigue; an admirable temperance; a superic understanding; and a penetrating mind, that instantl seized the measure proper to be adopted. His militar talents are conspicuous in his successfully introducin a strict discipline and severe police among the Tartars until then indocile to the curb of restraint. The re Every thing was regulated, whether service, recom pense, or punishment. Wine was no excuse, neithe were birth and power a palliation, for error. ligion he professed was deism, but his subjects wer individually permitted to embrace that which the preferred, provided they believed in one only God and no one was suffered to be persecuted for his faith Some of his children and the princes of the blood were Christians, some Jews, and some Mahometans without his expressing any disapprobation. His code of laws was simple: death was inflicte for adultery, murder, perjury, the theft of a horse a ox, or the making of a Mongol his servant by anothe Mongol. No Tartar must give a slave meat or drink without his master's leave. Every one must serve th public according to his ability. All servile labor wa prohibited to the victorious nation, and abandoned t slaves and strangers; every labor was servile excep that of arms. The service and discipline of the troop were the institutions of a veteran commander.* They were armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided by hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands. After the example of their chief, all the chieftains who served under Zingis were sanguinary and inexorable; not fewer than two-some say six or seven — millions of men fell beneath their murdering sword, without reckoning the number that affliction and the horrors of slavery, consigned to a premature grave. It has been estimated that there were, probably, fifty thousand cities and towns demolished! ZINGIS left a numerous offspring; and during his lifetime, four of his sons, illustrious by birth and merit, had held the principal offices under their father. Of these four, Toushi was his great huntsman, Zagatai his judge, Octai his minister, and Tuli his general; and their names and deeds are often conspicuous in the story of his conquests. Firmly united for their own and the public interest, the three brothers and their families were content with dependent sceptres; and Octai, by general consent, was proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Mongols and Tartars. Tuli held the empire as regent, according to his father's direction, while his brother was absent on an expedition; and two years elapsed before Octai was confirmed by a couroultai, or general diet. His father had selected his ministers and generals with so much judgment, that the son found any change to be unnecessary. The new emperor placed his chief confidence in Yelu, who also had enjoyed the implicit confidence of the deceased sovereign. He was a man of integrity, learned in the laws, of consummate prudence, and wholly devoted to the good of the empire. Octai placed his brother Tuli, whom he tenderly loved, at the head of his armies, and never had reason to repent his choice. Northern China had been already subdued, as we have stated, and Octai now resolved to carry his arms to the remotest west. A comprehensive writer thus describes his awful swoop upon Europe: fifteen Zingis could neither read nor write, and most of his Tartars and Mongols were as illiterate. Neither he nor his captains have written any memorial of their exploits, and the traditions of these were not collected and transcribed till sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis. Yet such was the destructive energy of their daring, that the Mongols were mingled in the destinies of all nations, and, as has been well observed, the brevity of their domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese, Persians, Armenians, Syrians, Arabians, Greeks, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, and Latins, and each nation will deserve credit in the relation of their own disasters and defeats, † Several anecdotes of Chinese magnanimity are related, which took place during the subjugation of the remaining possessions of the Kin, or North China dynasty, by Octaian enterprise left unfinished by his father, Chin in, governor of a town of importance, which had bravely held out- - as it was on the point of being stormed, and defence was now hope hundred thousand Mongols and Tartars were inscribed on the military roll; of these the great khan selected a third, which he intrusted to the command of his nephew Batou, the son of Tuli, who reigned over his father's conquests to the north of the Caspian. After a festival of forty days, Batou set forward on this great expedition; and such were the speed and ardor of his innumerable squadrons, that, in less than six years, they had measured a line of ninety degrees of longitude a fourth part of the circumference of the globe. plains of Turkestan and Kipzak. In his rapid progress, he overran the kingdoms of Astrakan and Cazan; and the troops which he detached towards Mount Caucasus explored the most secret recesses of Georgia and Circassia. The civil discord of the great dukes, or princes, of Russia betrayed their country to the Tartars, who spread from Livonia to the Black Sea. Both Moscow and Kiev, the modern and ancient capitals, were reduced to ashes. After the permanent conquest of Russia, they made a deadly though transient inroad into the heart of Poland, and as far as the borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow were obliterated: they approached the shores of the Baltic, and, in the battle of Lignitz, defeated the dukes of Silesia, the Polish palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order of knights. After this battle, nine sacks were filled with the right ears of the slain, that the number of victims might be counted, in barbarous triumph. The invading army of half a million turned to Hungary; the Carpathian Hills were pierced, and the whole country north of the Danube, “lost in a day, was depopulated in a summer." The ruins of cities and churches were overspread with the bones of the natives, who thus "expiated the sins of their Asiatic ancestors." Wretched fugitives, allured from the woods under a promise of peace and pardon, were coolly slaughtered as soon as they had performed the labors of the harvest and vintage. Passing the Danube on the ice, the Mongols besieged Grau. They planted thirty engines against it, and filled the trenches with sacks of earth and corpses. On its capture, after a promiscuous massacre, three hundred noble matrons were slain before the conquer less, urged his wife to save herself. "I have shared with you the honors of life; I will share your tomb," she replied, and took poison, giving it to her children: her husband then killed himself, Prince Hoshang came forward from his hiding-place, after a defeat, and requested to die, as he could serve no new master. "I will have my fidelity known; posterity will be just to my memory." The brutal Tartar, however, abandoned him to his soldiery, who first tortured and then massacred him. Some among them, of a more generous nature, poured camel's milk on the earth, entreating him, should he ever revive, to return and live with the Mongols. The Chinese used bombs and other explosive artillery. This fire penetrated the soldiers' breastplates, and consumed all within the distance of two thousand feet. To dislodge the sappers beneath the walls, the besieged let these bombs down into their holes, and scattered destruction among them: the Chinese also used halberds of fire. In the short ing general. Europe feared that her cities, arts, and | to inspire the princes with a love for the people, and institutions would be extinguished. The pope sent to the people with an abhorrence of carnage and rapine. the invaders monks to convert them, but was an- At the sacking of Pekin and the palaces, he took only swered, to his astonishment, that the sons of God and some maps, books, paintings, and a few parcels of of Zingis had a divine right to subdue and extirpate | rhubarb, the last of which he employed in curing the the nations, and he was invited to submission, with soldiers of a malignant epidemic fever. threats. Frederic II., the emperor of Germany, endeavored to confederate Germany, France, and England against the common enemy. The fame and valor of the Franks awed the Tartars: Neustadt, in Austria, was intrepidly defended by fifty knights and twenty cross-bows; but, on the appearance of a German army, the siege was raised. After wasting Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria, Batou slowly retreated from the Danube to the Volga, to enjoy his victories at Serai-in about latitude 48° a city which started from the desert, as it were, at his command. This was the origin of the Kipzak empire, under the descendants of Zingis, and whose capital was Serai. A brother of Batou, in 1242, led a horde of fifteen thousand families into Siberia, and his descendants reigned at Tobolsk more than three hundred years. At Octai's death, his wife, setting aside her grandson, whom the late emperor designed should succeed him, contrived to keep the regency. In two years she procured the nomination, by the couroultai, of her own son, Kayuk. Her conduct displeased the good minister Yelu, and she found means gradually to deprive him of power. It is said he died of grief. Leaving the pictures of violence, devastation, and carnage, it is pleasant to dwell a moment upon the character of this sage. He seems to have been a perpetual good genius to his court, ever ready to suggest or forward aught that might tend to elevate the views of the barbarian, or soften the heart of the conqueror - in short, to civilize or humanize the rough natures with which he was associated. Yelu was extremely learned in Chinese science, and wrote many volumes on history, astronomy, agriculture, government, and commerce; he had also a taste for collecting antiquities and curi osities. He was, in fact, eminently endowed with all the qualities of a great minister an inflexible steadiness, extraordinary presence of mind, a perfect knowledge of the countries under his master's authority, discernment in the choice of persons he employed, and certain resources, on emergency, both of money and provisions. He expended large surns to draw artificers, officers, engineers, and learned men, from all parts to the Mongol dominions. He was constantly laboring space of sixteen days, the number of slain amounted to a million. After the loss of Pekin, the emperor had fixed his residence at Kai fong, a city many leagues in circumference, and containing fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and fugitives. He escaped thence with but seven horsemen, and made his last stand in a third capital. Here the besieged endured the most dreadful extremes of famine, eating horses, boiled leather of their saddles, boots and drums, and finally the old men, the infirm, prisoners, and wounded; pounding human and animal bones with dried herbs, to make a horrid pottage. In view of these sufferings, and the hopeless condition of his country, the emperor, protesting innocence and accusing fortune, ascended a funeral pile, stabbed himself, and was consumed. Thus ended the Kin dynasty of North China, A. D. 1234. The Song dynasty of Southern China endured for forty-five years longer, till it fell under the Mongol, Kublai, who, uniting all China, founded the Yuen dynasty, A. D. 1279. Yelu was the first teacher of the Mongols, and, by his advice to Zingis, their first legislator: he arranged a calendar for their use, and instituted salutary regulations respecting the finances, commerce, duties, the public granaries, and the subordination of officers, civil and military. The natural ferocity of the Mongols, their ignorance, and defective early education, opposed his designs; but his energy overcame all obstacles. The reign of Kayuk continued eight years, but was marked by little except his conquest of Corea and some countries on the Caspian-by his being somewhat priest-ridden, and by his excessive prodigality. The people complained of having to furnish horses to the nobles, who were ever riding post. They were also vexed at the sums paid by the court for jewels and precious stones, while the soldiers were scarcely paid at all, or their dues were left long in arrears. At his death, his mother and wife attempted to put Octai's former choice upon the throne; but the diet elected Mengho, or Mangoo, a grandson of Zingis, but not of the reigning branch. His firmness and celerity, and the well-appointed army he kept at Karakorum, quelled any tendency to disturbance. This prince adopted the lamaic religion, and became somewhat of a devotee. He portioned off the well-deserving of the royal family with fiefs in China, among which the largest and best was given to Kublai, his brother, who succeeded him. These Tartar lords had Chinese ministers, or stewards, who essentially modified and softened the barbarism of their government. Yansheu, the minister of Kublai, was one of the best of these useful officers, and suggested many wise and profitable measures for repairing the devastations of war in his fief; so that Tartars and Chinese became well pleased with each other. It was this sagacious prime minister who, on Mangoo's jealousy of his brother, followed by injustice, advised Kublai to go at once, throw himself on his brother's neck, and disabuse him of his suspicions. The sequel evinced the common sense of the Chinese -a possession for which that nation has ever been famous. Mangoo's tenderness revived: he repeatedly embraced his brother, while tears flowed down his cheeks; and the result was, that he increased his authority by still more important trusts. Mangoo fell in the siege of a city of the Song, (A. D. 1259,) and left his brother Kublai the grand khanat, and the legacy of a war with South China, which Zingis Khan, almost with his dying breath, had urged upon his successors. But Kublai was obliged first to put down another brother, who aspired to the crown. Having defeated his army and put him to flight, Kublai assembled around himself wise and able counsellors, who assisted to render his name illustrious to posterity. The chief exploit of Kublai Khan's life was the Conquest of the rest of China. In this he used the services of European and Mahometan engineers. The engines of antiquity, as the balista and catapult, for flinging stones and darts, the battering-ram, &c., were employed, together with Greek fire, gunpowder, can 404 MONGOL CHINESE EMPERORS. non and bombs. The troops, drawn along canals, invested Hantcheoo, or Quinsay, on the coast, in latitude 3010 — the most delicious climate of China. The emperor, a mere youth, surrendered, and, touching his head nine times to the earth, in token of homage, went into exile in Tartary. The last champion of the Song attempted escape by sea, but being surrounded by the enemy's fleet, exclaimed, " It is more glorious to die a prince than live a slave," and leaped into the waves with his infant emperor in his arms. A hundred thousand Chinese followed his example, and Kublai reigned over all China, founding the Yuen dynasty, as before remarked. He now desired to conquer Japan; but having lost one hundred thousand men by shipwreck and other disasters, he abandoned the fruitless task. Pegu, Tonkin, Corea, Cochin China, Bengal and Thibet, were reduced to different degrees of tribute and obedience by his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean with a fleet of a thousand ships, for sixty-eight days, visiting and subduing parts of Borneo and Java, but finding nothing worth retaining in these distant islands. Under Kublai, letters, commerce, peace, and justice were restored; the great canal of five hundred miles was opened from Nankin to his capital, Pekin-where he displayed all the magnificence of Asia. In a spotless administration of thirty years, Yelu, the Chinese mandarin, minister and friend of Zingis and his sons, had continually labored, as already noted, to mitigate or suspend the horrors of war; to save the monuments, and to re-kindle the flame of science; to restrain the military commander by the restoration of civil magistrates; and to instil the love of peace, industry, and justice into the minds of the Mongols. He struggled with the barbarism of the first conquerors; but his salutary lessons produced a rich harvest in the second generation. Kublai, having been educated in the manners of China, inspired the loyalty of his subjects by restoring the forms of her venerable constitution,- for it was easier to adopt than invent, — and the victors, as has often happened, gradually submitted to the customs, laws, fashions, manners, and even prejudices of the vanquished. Such were the numbers, servitude, steady sense, and impregnability of character of the Chinese, that their conquerors seem again and again to have been, as it were, absorbed and dissolved in the immense homogeneous mass of her teeming millions. CHAPTER CCX. A. D. 1294 to 1716. Mongol Chinese Emperors - Manchoo Tartar After a rapid review of the annals of the Mongol Chinese empire, and of the Manchoos, we will glance at the Mongol kingdoms of Russia, Transoxiana, and Persia. Then, after a more particular account of Timour, or Tamerlane, his empire and its fragments, we shall detail the imperial splendors of the Moguls in India, the longest surviving relic, with the exception of Turkey, of the immense empires of the Tartar princes. Kublai left his throne to Timour, the youngest of his brother's three sons, A. D. 1294. His clemency and love for his subjects endeared Timour to the Chinese, who extol him as a model of perfection. He not unfrequently visited the necessitous and miserable in person, and often sent his agents and almoners into the provinces to search out objects of charity. Never prince displayed greater judgment in the choice of his ministers and generals, and none ever showed a more marked contempt for flattery and luxury. He died childless, without naming a successor. The Mongols and Chinese desired that Hayshan, Timour's brother, should take the throne. Another brother claimed it against a faction, as if for himself, and then resigned the sceptre to Hayshan, surprising his brother with the grateful assurance that he had only acted in his interest. Hayshan was fond of the writings of Confucius, and had them translated into the Mongol language. He was, however, licentious and intemperate, though equitable, generous, and warlike. Hayshan died after reigning three years. His noble-minded brother, Ayyulipalipata, succeeded him; but the virtues of the new emperor were rather of the passive than the active cast. Drought, famine, inundations, earthquakes, and malignant disorders afflicted the empire during his reign, to which were added eclipses, which became, from the anxiety and terror of the people, real afflictions. He revived the literary examinations for office, and associated Tartar mandarins with Chinese. He attempted to resign his throne to his son, but the latter would not allow it. The next emperor, Shotepala, (A. D. 1320,) governed with consummate wisdom, though but nineteen years old. He reformed the luxury, debauchery, and avarice of the court, but at the end of four years was assassinated by the friends of a wretch he had justly punished. The next emperor was indolent, but punished the assassins who had elevated him. He was exhorted to banish from the palace the crowds of eunuchs, astrologers, physicians, women, and other idlers, whose maintenance cost exorbitant sums. Plots, murders, and cabals succeeded his death, in 1322, and continued through several short and worthless reigns. An empress, being allowed to choose, set up Touhan, grandson of Hayshan, who combined in himself the flagrant disqualifications of luxury, indolence, dissi to weigh down any dynasty. But, as if these were not enough to ruin the dynasty of Yuen, this its last emperor had also an artful minister, who persuaded him that every official duty was too great a burden for his august majesty. To crown all, he had an ambitious and licentious wife; and while the minister embroiled him in a thousand blind cabals, his wife engaged him in an unfortunate war with Corea, which completed the disasters of the empire. While he was attacked on every side, (A. D. 1336,) while all subordination was destroyed among the troops, and the people, reduced to distress by the fail |