nd by their
promptness to execute the most dangerous and difficult services. Their
post was always the post of danger. It was their proud vaunt, that they
had never fled before an enemy. Clad in their flowing robes, so little
suited to the warrior, armed with the arquebuse and the scymitar,--in
their hands more than a match for the pike or sword of the
European,--with the heron's plume waving above their heads, their dense
array might ever be seen bearing down in the thickest of the fight; and
more than once, when the fate of the empire trembled in the balance, it
was this invincible corps that turned the scale, and by their intrepid
conduct decided the fortune of the day. Gathering fresh reputation with
age, so long as their discipline remained unimpaired, they were a match
for the best soldiers of Europe. But in time this admirable organization
experienced a change. One sultan allowed them to marry; another, to
bring their sons into the corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as
well as Christians; until, forfeiting their peculiar character, the
janizaries became confounded with the militia of the empire. These
changes occurred in the time of Philip the Second; but their
consequences were not fully unfolded till the following century.[1270]

It was fortunate for the Turks, considering the unlimited power lodged
in the hands of their rulers, that these should have so often been
possessed of the courage and capacity for using it for the advancement
of the nation. From Othman the First, the founder of the dynasty, to
Solyman the Magnificent, the contemporary of Philip, the Turkish throne
was filled by a succession of able princes, who, bred to war, were every
year enlarging the boundaries of the empire, and adding to its
resources. By the middle of the sixteenth century, besides their vast
possessions in Asia, they held the eastern portions of Africa. In
Europe, together with the countries at this day acknowledging their
sceptre, they were masters of Greece; and Solyman, overrunning
Transylvania and Hungary, had twice carried his victorious banners up
to the walls of Vienna. The battle-ground of the Cross and the Crescent
was transferred from the west to the east of Europe; and Germany in the
sixteenth century became what Spain and the Pyrenees had been in the
eighth, the bulwark of Christendom.

Nor was the power of Turkey on the sea less formidable than on the land.
Her fleet rode undisputed mistress of the Levant; f