he commands of the
sultan, and the unity which pervaded the national councils. They also
fought to extend their religion, to which they were blind devotees.
After the capture of Constantinople, a succession of great princes sat
on the most absolute throne known in modern times; men disgraced by
many crimes, but still singularly adapted to extend their dominion.

The progress of the Turks justly alarmed the Emperor Charles V., and
he exerted all his energies to unite the German princes against them,
but unsuccessfully. The Sultan Solyman, called the _Magnificent_,
maintained his supremacy over Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia,
ravaged Hungary, wrested Rhodes from the Knights of St. John,
conquered the whole of Arabia, and attacked the Portuguese dominion in
India. He raised the Turkish empire to the highest pitch of its
greatness, and died while besieging Sigeth, as he was completing the
conquest of Hungary. His empire was one vast camp, and his decrees
were dated from the imperial stirrup. The iron sceptre which he and
his successors wielded was imbrued in blood; and discipline alone was
the politics of his soldiers, and rapine their resources.

Selim II. succeeded Solyman, and set the ruinous example of not going
himself to the wars, and of carrying them on by his lieutenants. His
son, Murad III., penetrated into Russia and Poland, and made war on
the Emperor of Germany. Mohammed III., who died in 1604, murdered all
his brothers, nineteen in number, and executed his own son. It was
usual, when an emperor mounted the throne, for him to put to death his
brothers and nephews. Indeed, the characters of the sultans were
marked by unusual ferocity and jealousy, and they were unscrupulous in
the means they took to advance their power. The world has never seen
more suspicious tyrants; and it ever must excite our wonder that they
were so unhesitatingly obeyed. But they were, however, sometimes
dethroned by the Janizaries, who constituted a sort of imperial guard.
Osman II., fearing their power, and disgusted with their degeneracy,
resolved to destroy them, as dangerous to the state. But his design
was discovered, and he himself lost his life, (1622.) Several monsters
of tyranny and iniquity succeeded him, whose reigns were disgraced by
every excess of debauchery and cruelty. Their subjects, however, had
not, as yet, lost vigor, temperance, and ambition, and still continued
to furnish troops unexampled for discipline and b