ously applied to the beauties of his mind. After the discovery of
her treason, the life and fortune of Anne were justly forfeited to the
laws. Her life was spared by the clemency of the emperor; but he visited
the pomp and treasures of her palace, and bestowed the rich confiscation
on the most deserving of his friends. That respectable friend Axuch,
a slave of Turkish extraction, presumed to decline the gift, and to
intercede for the criminal: his generous master applauded and imitated
the virtue of his favorite, and the reproach or complaint of an injured
brother was the only chastisement of the guilty princess. After this
example of clemency, the remainder of his reign was never disturbed by
conspiracy or rebellion: feared by his nobles, beloved by his people,
John was never reduced to the painful necessity of punishing, or even
of pardoning, his personal enemies. During his government of twenty-five
years, the penalty of death was abolished in the Roman empire, a law of
mercy most delightful to the humane theorist, but of which the practice,
in a large and vicious community, is seldom consistent with the
public safety. Severe to himself, indulgent to others, chaste, frugal,
abstemious, the philosophic Marcus would not have disdained the artless
virtues of his successor, derived from his heart, and not borrowed from
the schools. He despised and moderated the stately magnificence of the
Byzantine court, so oppressive to the people, so contemptible to the eye
of reason. Under such a prince, innocence had nothing to fear, and merit
had every thing to hope; and, without assuming the tyrannic office of a
censor, he introduced a gradual though visible reformation in the
public and private manners of Constantinople. The only defect of this
accomplished character was the frailty of noble minds, the love of arms
and military glory. Yet the frequent expeditions of John the Handsome
may be justified, at least in their principle, by the necessity of
repelling the Turks from the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The sultan of
Iconium was confined to his capital, the Barbarians were driven to the
mountains, and the maritime provinces of Asia enjoyed the transient
blessings of their deliverance. From Constantinople to Antioch and
Aleppo, he repeatedly marched at the head of a victorious army, and
in the sieges and battles of this holy war, his Latin allies were
astonished by the superior spirit and prowess of a Greek. As he began
to indul