indomitable energy, quick to punish wrong, and ever ready to reward right, he was at once loved and feared by his subjects. With such a monarch at the head of the State, it needed but an able minister at the helm to bring about a combination which could defy the world in arms. Destiny gave this boon to the empire in the person of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim. The son of a humble seaman, he passed as a slave into the hands of Sulaiman, and step by step climbed the ladder of success, till in the year 1523 of the Christian era, he rose to be the first minister of his sovereign, the Lord of Constantinople, and materially helped to increase the power of the powerful Sultan, whose prowess had already added Belgrade (A.D. 1521), and Rhodes (A.D. 1522), to the Turkish Empire, and reduced Venice to the position of a vassal in the same year.

The effect of this union of great men and great minds was at once manifest in the campaign of Mohacs (A.D. 1526), which placed Hungary under the heel of the Ottoman conqueror: and for little less than a century and a half the Turkish "Horsetails' floated over the possessions thus gained. However, after an interval of three years, dissensions in the same region, amongst the candidates for the nominal kingship of Hungary, led Sulaiman to turn his steps once again to that region. Overtures were made to the offended Sultan, but they interceded in vain, and they were bid to meet him either at Mohacs or Pesth, failing which His Majesty intimated that he would "breakfast with them at Vienna. The

happy meal was destined, however, to remain unconsumed, for in spite of the appearance on the

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scene of a Turkish army of upwards of 250,000 men, and notwithstanding the devastation wrought by the implacable Janissaries, seconded by the no less terrible irregular troops, the Imperial city resisted all the efforts of the besiegers. On the memorable 14th October, A.D. 1529, the Turkish troops were withdrawn as it had not been necessary-so ran the royal decree "to clear out the fortress or purify, improve, or put it in repair." After an interval of three years the attack was again renewed; but shortly afterwards was abandoned on the conclusion of peace with Hungary in A.D. 1533. For no less a period than thirty-three years after these events Sulaiman carried on war in various parts of South-Eastern Europe, and died on the 6th September, A.D. 1566, in the midst of the din of battle, leaving a memory as the greatest sovereign that ever sat upon the throne of the Turkish Empire, which at his death covered a large area of the most splendid regions in the world. Almost the only blots upon his character were the murder (A.D. 1536) of his Prime Minister Ibrahim in a fit of jealousy, and the execution of the royal firstborn son, Mustafa, a deed of cruelty instigated by his Russian wife, Roxelana, who wished by this means to secure the succession to her son Salim.

But little remains to be written, after this date, in regard to the Sultans of Turkey: most of them were besotted sensualists, addicted to the vices and pleasures of the harem. It is true that now and again, as is the case of Murad IV., A.D. 1623-1640— who conquered Baghdad-a brilliant warrior came to the throne but such monarchs were the exception rather than the rule, and the interests of the empire

in reality passed into the hands of the Viziers. Such a state of affairs of necessity meant ruin, and it can occasion no surprise that by degrees the Ottoman Empire in Europe was diminished to little more than half its original extent. "Henceforward the Ottoman Empire ceased to hold the position of a dangerous military power," so writes Mr Stanley Lane-Poole; "its armies were never again a menace to Christendom. Its prestige was gone: instead of perpetually threatening its neighbours on the north, it had to exert its utmost strength and diplomatic ingenuity to restrain the aggrandising policy of Austria and Russia. Turkey was now to become important only from a diplomatic point of view. Other powers would fight over her, and the business of the Porte would be less to fight itself, though she can still do it well, than to secure allies whose interests compelled them to do battle for it. In the hundred and seventy years of Turkish history which remain to be recorded, the chief external interest centres in the aggression of Russia, and the efforts of English diplomacy and English arms to restrain

her."

Such was the rise and such the fall of the Ottoman Empire. For six centuries Turkey has played an important and at times a glorious rôle in the annals of the world, and even in the later days of his degeneracy the "sick man may perchance continue in his sickness, but not as a "very sick man" (to use the language of the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, spoken in A.D. 1844). So long at least as the question remains unanswered, "Who is to hold Constantinople?" the "Golden Horn" may yet be

destined to be pregnant with the fate of Empires, and the Sublime Porte-so-called from the Imperial Gate which guards the entrance of the Royal Palace at Constantinople-a factor in the history of the world.

CHAPTER IX

THE TWELVE IMAMS, OR SPIRITUAL HEADS OF ISLAM

I. ALI. A.D. 656-661

THE narrative now reverts to the events which occurred on the murder of Osman (A.D. 656). The death of the Khalif caused no little stir amongst the Saracens, who were divided in their wishes as to the election of a successor. In the confusion which ensued several persons came to Ali, the spouse of the Prophet's daughter Fatima, and desired of him that he would accept the government. To these solicitations he rejoined that personally he did not wish for the honour, but would readily bow to the choice of any person upon whom they might agree. They still insisted that no one was so well qualified as himself, whether as regarded his personal accomplishments, or his near relationship to the Prophet of Arabia. But the "Hand of God" (as Arabian historians delight to call him) was inexorable, and ultimately it was agreed that the matter should be referred to the chief inhabitants of Madina; these latter came to Ali with an appeal to his piety. "We adjure thee by God!"