his question of Gibbon. In a note,
vol. i. p. 630. M. von Hammer shows that they had not only sheiks
(religious writers) and learned lawyers, but poets and authors on
medicine. But the inquiry of Gibbon obviously refers to historians. The
oldest of their historical works, of which V. Hammer makes use, is the
"Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade," i. e. the History of the Great Grandson of
Aaschik Pasha, who was a dervis and celebrated ascetic poet in the reign
of Murad (Amurath) I. Ahmed, the author of the work, lived during the
reign of Bajazet II., but, he says, derived much information from the
book of Scheik Jachshi, the son of Elias, who was Imaum to Sultan
Orchan, (the second Ottoman king) and who related, from the lips of his
father, the circumstances of the earliest Ottoman history. This book
(having searched for it in vain for five-and-twenty years) our author
found at length in the Vatican. All the other Turkish histories on his
list, as indeed this, were _written_ during the reign of Mahomet II. It
does not appear whether any of the rest cite earlier authorities of
equal value with that claimed by the "Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade."--M.
(in Quarterly Review, vol. xlix. p. 292.)]

From the conquest of Prusa, we may date the true aera of the Ottoman
empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian subjects were
redeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand crowns of gold; and
the city, by the labors of Orchan, assumed the aspect of a Mahometan
capital; Prusa was decorated with a mosque, a college, and a hospital,
of royal foundation; the Seljukian coin was changed for the name and
impression of the new dynasty: and the most skilful professors, of human
and divine knowledge, attracted the Persian and Arabian students from
the ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizier was
instituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan; [411] and a different habit
distinguished the citizens from the peasants, the Moslems from the
infidels. All the troops of Othman had consisted of loose squadrons of
Turkman cavalry; who served without pay and fought without discipline:
but a regular body of infantry was first established and trained by the
prudence of his son. A great number of volunteers was enrolled with a
small stipend, but with the permission of living at home, unless they
were summoned to the field: their rude manners, and seditious temper,
disposed Orchan to educate his young captives as his soldiers and those
of