and, of consequence, now possess the thrones of China and India, and govern a third part of the human spe

cies.

The Tartars interfered no more with the Ottoman Turks, but left them gradually to recover from so great a blow. Nor were the christian princes able to avail themselves of this favorable opportunity to complete the ruin of so formidable a foe. Solyman I. the son and successor of Bajazet, derived courage and fortitude from his father's misfortune; and collecting the shattered remains of his forces, soon appeared at the head of an army which was able to keep the field. So severe a check of the Turks, however, protracted the capture of Constantinople for near a century. Solyman was succeeded by Mahomet I....he by Amurath II....and he by Mahomet the great. This prince took Constantinople in the year 1453, which was followed by the subjugation of all Greece. The Turks, under the succeeding reigns, became the most formidable power in Europe, till, in the reign of Solyman the magnificent, A. D. 1526, after subduing Hungary, and carrying off 200,000 prisoners, that great prince advanced into Austria, and laid siege to Vienna. But on the approach of Charles V. at the head of a great army, he raised the siege, and retired into his own dominions, doubtless remembering the fate of Bajazet. This, however, carries us beyond the pèriod which was to be the subject of the present chapter.

As the brevity of this Compend will not allow us to enter again particularly on the Turkish history, be-fore we dismiss that article it will be proper to state a

few things which do not properly belong to this chapter. There was probably never a race of monarchs of equal abilities for war with the Ottoman race, as far as to the reign of Solyman the magnificent. They were certainly great in the art of governing a turbulent and licentious race of men, as well as in the field of battle. And what is matter of the highest admiration, every succeeding reign seemed to eclipse the former; and the deeds of the father were forgotten in the superior exploits of the son. Mahomet the great, who took Constantinople, is universally allowed to have been a most politic and accomplished prince, as well as the greatest commander of his time. But the greatest of the Turkish emperors was Solyman the magnificent. In him were combined the first qualities of the soldier and statesman. He was fierce and furious as Bajazet....artful and cruel as Mahomet the great; besides which, he displayed a grandeur and dignity of mind which no Turk ever did before or after him. In his reign the Turkish empire gained its utmost height of power and glory; and though even his successors cannot generally be styled wṣak princes, yet the empire has experienced an uniform and progressive decline; and, it has been thought, would one day fall before the power of Russia.

Notwithstanding the great abilities of the Turkish emperors, it must be confessed that their characters were extremely unlovely, even to a man. All their good qualities were deeply shaded with cruelty and stained with blood. They commonly ascended the throne through the blood of their nearest relations;

and we may apply to them the strong metaphor applied to Simeon and Levi by their father Jacob :-instruments of cruelty are in their habitation.

The word Turk, it is said, signifies a wanderer, or banished man. Some writers have conjectured that the Turks are descendants of the Jews, or of the ten tribes of Israel. From whatever source they sprung, they erected a mighty fabric of power and dominion and could the course of empire be represented by a line drawn through states and kingdoms, it would pass through Turkey, since there was certainly a time when the Turks were the most powerful nation in Europe, and, if we except China, perhaps the most powerful in the world.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SAME CONTINUED....IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES

AND IMPROVEMENTS.

As the Crusades effected a general change

S

of character in Europe, they, in fact, laid the foun dation for, and, in reality, introduced the dawn of that grand event, commonly called the revival of letters. The Crusades had, in some measure, loosened the fetters of the feudal system, and diffused a spirit of enterprise through Europe, when commerce, which had long been limited to Italy, began to move northward, along the shores of the continent; and Ghent and Bruges, and the towns which afterwards formed

the body of the celebrated Hanseatic league, began to grow famous in Europe.

Towards the close of the 13th century, the Crusades had ceased, and all the christian acquisitions in Asia had fallen into the hands of the Turks. The wheels of commerce had just begun to move, and numberless enterprises and improvements were yet in a nascent state, when a discovery was made of the highest importance to the commercial and literary world. The difficulty and danger of voyages at sea had, from the earliest ages, operated as a powerful impediment to navigation. It frequently happened that a long continued obscuration of the heavenly bodies, in stormy seasons, was attended with most dreadful consequences to whole fleets, which were driven on shore, without any possible means of foreseeing or avoiding the danger. In the year 1300 the magnetic power to give polarity to metallic bodies was discovered to be of importance in navigation, and a compass was constructed, which, at all times, would instantly refer the pilot to any point or course he wished to know.

Upon this discovery, innumerable difficulties attending navigation vanished, and the fearless mariner traversed the main oceans, under a surer guide than a transient view of the sun or stars. The discovery of the mariner's compass was attended with vast consequences to mankind. It opened innumerable sour ces of communication, intelligence, and improvement, and was a grand epoch to all commercial nations. It, in short, gave a new face to the old world, and brought a new world to light.

1.

If the mariner's compass formed a new and grand æra in navigation, an invention took place in the fol lowing century, A. D. 1441, of still greater importance in the literary world, and of more extensive in fluence in the revival of letters, viz. the art of print ing. Before this wonderful invention, books were scarce, and bore an exorbitant price. They could only be multiplied by the slow and painful operation of copying one after another; and poor and laboring people could neither purchase nor transcribe them. But printing multiplied books beyond calculation, and reduced their price in the same proportion; so that the world is now full of books; and paper, on which is printed the most useful and elegant productions of genius, costs but a little more than blank paper. By these means, useful learning began to be generally dif fused through Europe.

In connection with the first mode of printing, if we consider the valuable improvement of the Stereotype, in which all the letters are correctly formed on the face of one solid plate, and there remain unalterable, we cannot but be filled with admiration, and, I think, must give the invention an honor second to none but that of alphabetic writing.

In the midst of the gradually increasing light of science, a few men, in various parts of Europe, seem to have been able to tear off, at once, the palpable veil of darkness from mens' minds, and to consume, in a moment, the mighty masses of wood, hay, and stubble which ignorance and superstition had been heaping upon science for a thousand years. The