ich are still
manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. * Note: Von Hammer excuses the
silence with which the Turkish historians
pass over the earlier intercourse of the Ottomans with the European
continent, of which he enumerates sixteen different occasions, as
if they disdained those peaceful incursions by which they gained
no conquest, and established no permanent footing on the Byzantine
territory. Of the romantic account of Soliman's first expedition, he
says, "As yet the prose of history had not asserted its right over
the poetry of tradition." This defence would scarcely be accepted as
satisfactory by the historian of the Decline and Fall.--M. (in Quarterly
Review, vol. xlix. p. 293.)]

[Footnote 511: In the 75th year of his age, the 35th of his reign. V.
Hammer. M.]

Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part IV.

But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their enemies;
and the Turkish cimeter was wielded with the same spirit by Amurath the
First, the son of Orchan, and the brother of Soliman. By the pale and
fainting light of the Byzantine annals, [52] we can discern, that he
subdued without resistance the whole province of Romania or Thrace, from
the Hellespont to Mount Haemus, and the verge of the capital; and that
Adrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion
in Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her
foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been assaulted
by the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till this fatal hour
had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and Europe, by the arms
of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the prudence or generosity of Amurath
postponed for a while this easy conquest; and his pride was satisfied
with the frequent and humble attendance of the emperor John Palaeologus
and his four sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of the
Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations between
the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians, and
Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so often insulted the
majesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his destructive
inroads. Their countries did not abound either in gold or silver;
nor were their rustic hamlets and townships enriched by commerce or
decorated by the arts of luxury. But the natives of the soil have been
distinguished in every age by their hardiness of mind and body; and
they were converted by