y in battle against the
infidels also, and has obtained the name of Shadid or the Martyr; for in
a religion where the soldier is the missionary, the soldier is the
martyr also. The other sons became rich and powerful; they had numerous
flocks and fertile pastures in Sogdiana, till at length they attracted
the notice of the Sultan Mahmood, who, having dispossessed the Saracens
of the country where Seljuk had placed himself, looked about for
mercenary troops to keep his possession of it. It was one of Seljuk's
family, who at a later date alarmed Mahmood by telling him he could
bring 200,000 horsemen from the Scythian wilderness, if he sent round
his bow to summon them; it was Seljuk's horde and retainers that
ultimately forced back Mahmood's son into the south and the east, and
got possession of Sogdiana and Khorasan. Having secured this
acquisition, they next advanced into Persia, and this was the event,
which is considered to fix the date of their entrance into
ecclesiastical history. It was the date of their first steadily looking
westward; it determined their destiny; they began to be enemies of the
Cross in the year 1048, under the leading of Michael the Martyr's son,
Togrul Beg.

It is the inconvenience of any mere sketch of historical transactions,
that a multiplicity of objects successively passes over the field of
view, not less independent in themselves, though not less connected in
the succession of events, than the pictures of a magic lantern. I am
aware of the weariness and the perplexity which are in consequence
inflicted on the attention and the memory of the hearer; but what can I
do but ask your indulgence, Gentlemen, for a circumstance which is
inherent in any undertaking like the present? I have in the course of an
hour to deal with a series of exploits and fortunes, which begin in the
wilds of Turkistan, and conclude upon the Bosphorus; in which, as I may
say, time is no measure of events, one while from the obscurity in which
they lie, at another from their multitude and consequent confusion. For
four centuries the Turks are little or hardly heard of; then suddenly in
the course of as many tens of years, and under three Sultans, they make
the whole world resound with their deeds; and, while they have pushed to
the East through Hindostan, in the West they have hurried down to the
coasts of the Mediterranean and the Archipelago, have taken Jerusalem,
and threatened Constantinople. In their long period o