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niards pursued the discoveries opened to them by Columbus, the Portuguese as zealously followed the track of Vasco de Gama; the one opening America, and the other India, to the colonial and commercial enterprize of Europe.

These discoveries do not fall within the period comprehended in this history, but it must be remarked, that they were the consequence, rather than the cause of, the commercial spirit that was fast rising in western Europe. A league for mutual protection, similar to that which united the Lombard cities, had been formed by the great trading marts of Flanders, Holland, and northern Germany, under the name of the Hanseatic Confederation. At the close of the fourteenth, and during the first half of the fifteenth, century, this league was in its most flourishing condition; it monopolized the entire trade of the Baltic; the various natural productions of northern Europe were brought by its vessels to the great marts in Flanders, and there exchanged for the cloths of the Flemings, the silks of the Italians, and the Indian spices imported by the Venetians from the Levant. But many circumstances combined to destroy this confederation, which indeed could scarcely have been expected to outlast the anarchy that led to its formation. The wars and commotions in Flanders and Brabant, compelled many of the manufacturers to go into exile, and several of them were invited into England by Edward III. where they established the woollen manufacture. The exclusive privileges of the Hanseatic towns were gradually abolished by the northern sovereigns, when the Dutch and English began to cultivate the Baltic trade; city after city was gradually withdrawn from the league, until finally the cities of Lubeck, Hamburgh and Bremen, were left alone in the confederation.

Northern Europe had long been the theatre of desultory and sanguinary wars, and they scarcely formed a part of the European States-system, until the union of Calmar, when the crowns of Norway, Sweden and Denmark were joined

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on the head of queen Margaret. (A. D. 1387.) This union was not permanent: the Swedes believing that the successors of Margaret showed too decided a preference for the Danes, chose an early opportunity of asserting their independence, which they finally succeeded in establishing.

Russia, during the whole of this period, groaned under the humiliating yoke of the Moguls and Tartars, from whose Khans the native princes were forced to beg a confirmation of their dignities. It was subjected to the scarcely less degrading yoke of ambitious ecclesiastics, most of whom came from the Byzantine empire, and employed the knowledge which they exclusively possessed, to enslave both princes and people. The metropolitan of Moscow, possessing fortified palaces, and numerous guards, lived in all the barbarous pomp of an Asiatic sovereign. When he appeared in a religious procession, the bridle of the ass on which he rode, was always held by the reigning monarch, and his consent was necessary to the validity of every important act of state. To complete the misery of the country, it was distracted by the wars of petty princes, and its western frontiers assailed by the Lithuanians and Poles.

Lithuania was one of the countries for whose conquest the order of the Teutonic knights was instituted; but when its sovereign professed Christianity (A.D. 1252), it was erected into a kingdom by the pope. It never occupied a conspicuous place in European politics, and was finally lost in the kingdom of Poland. But the Teutonic chivalry at the beginning of the fifteenth century, seemed likely to constitute the most formidable power in northern Europe; the knights possessed Prussia, Pomerania, Courland and Livonia. But the government of an order, or a company, must necessarily be oppressive and insecure; the nobility in these countries felt severely the exclusive privileges claimed by the knights; the towns revolted against their exactions; the cultivators of the soil, deprived of the fruit

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better; and under these circumstances the knights lost province after province, almost without a struggle, until they sank into utter insignificance.

Poland gained most of the provinces wrested from the Teutonic chivalry, and it would probably have become one of the most important states in Europe, but for the revolution which took place in the reign of Casimir the Great. (A.D. 1339.) That prince having no children was anxious that the crown should descend to his sister's son, prince Louis of Hungary, in prejudice to the claims of the princes of Silesia. The Polish nobles took advantage of this circumstance to render the crown elective, and to secure for themselves an exemption from all taxes and contributions to the support of the state. Contested elections, and aristocratic usurpations, rendered Poland feeble in itself and mischievous to its neighbours, until at length, almost within our own memory, its name was effaced from the map of Europe.

The Grecian empire, which in the fifteenth century sunk before the power of the Ottoman Turks, alone remains to be mentioned in this rapid survey of Christendom, but as its fate involves a consideration of the state of Asia, it must be examined in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Foundation of the Ottoman, and Destruction of the Byzantine Empire.

(From A.D. 1224, to A.D. 1453.)

NUMEROUS as the revolutions in Asia have been, there is none that in magnitude, rapidity, and extensive consequence, can compare with that effected by Jenghiz Khan and his successors. The most furious race of conquerors that had

THE MOGULS AND SELJUKIANS.

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ever been sent as a scourge to mankind, in an incredibly short space of time became masters of all the countries between the Mediterranean and the Northern Pacific Ocean, subverting almost without an effort the ancient empire of China, the kingdoms of Khorazm, Ghazni, and Persia, the principalities of Armenia and Georgia, and the greater part of Modern Russia. Several Turkish tribes, driven forward by these invaders, entered Syria and Asia Minor, dispos sessing the ancient inhabitants, whether Christian or Mohammedan, and acting towards them with the same cruelty as that which they had themselves experienced. Suliman Shab, a prince of Khorassan, at the head of fifty thousand Turks, was driven round the Caspian into Armenia, where his horde formed a kind of flying camp, waiting some favourable event that might favour their return home. (A. D. 1224.) After the death of Jenghiz Khan, Suliman, believing that he had some chance of recovering his ancient kingdom, led the horde along the line of the Euphrates; but having attempted to ford the river, he was unfortunately drowned, and his followers divided into separate parties under his four sons. The two elder sons continued their route to Khorassan, but Dundar and Ertoghzul, followed only by four hundred families, returned to Armenia, and fixed their residence in the valleys formed by the mountains east of Erzerúm. Ertoghzul was of a bold enterprizing spirit, and he saw in the condition of western Asia, a fair opportunity of founding a dynasty. The sultanies into which the Seljukian kingdom had been divided, were harassing each other with mutual wars, and could not be persuaded to combine either against the Moguls or crusaders, and consequently a band of adventurous warriors might well entertain the hope of rising to fame and fortune in such a distracted country. Finding themselves straitened in their valleys, Dundar and Ertoghzul resolved to move westward; on their march they met

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FOUNDATION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.

the chivalrous resolution of aiding the weaker party. His unexpected aid changed the fortune of the day; the Moguls, who were on the eve of victory, were decisively overthrown, and the Seljukians of Iconium saved from utter ruin. Ertoghzul after the victory was rewarded by the Seljukian Sultan with the gift of a hilly but fertile district, that anciently formed the frontiers of Phrygia and Bithynia. He extended his dominions at the expence of the Greeks, and secured them by several victories over the Moguls.

Othman, the son of Ertoghzul, (born A. D. 1258,) succeeded his father at a mature age, and was enthusiastically hailed by his tribe, whose love and esteem he had already won by his youthful valour. He was fortunate in obtaining the friendship of prince Michael, a young Greek prince whom he accidentally made prisoner, and from whom he received valuable instruction in the art of government. Michael even embraced Islamism to gratify his friend: from him descended the family of Mikhal-ogli*, so conspicuous in the subsequent history of the Ottoman Empire. The instructions of Michael, the attachment of his subjects, and the influence he derived from his marriage with the daughter of Edebali, rendered Othman superior to his Seljukian rivals; but the Turkish historians, in the true oriental taste, are not satisfied with so simple an explanation; they attribute his success to a dream†, by which he was stimulated

Sons of Michael.

+ This celebrated vision, which every Turk learns by rote from his childhood, possesses too much historical importance to be omitted. It is only necessary to premise that Othman was at the time visiting Edebali, with whose daughter he was in love, but had been as yet unable to gain the sheikh's consent.

He dreamed that he was reposing on the same couch as his host. Suddenly the moon seemed to emerge from Edebali's bosom, and, after having attained wondrous size and splendour, to enter his own breast. Instantly there sprang from his loins an immense tree rapidly acquiring fresh size and foliage, until its spreading branches shaded Europe, Asia, and Africa. Beneath this tree the mountains of Caucasus,