| Transcript |
Xvi HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
for their beauty and accomplishments, and men eminent tor their rank and literary
attainments. Poets, historians, philosophers, and artists, all were reduced to a common
level, and sold as slaves, to hew wood and draw water for the rude and brutal barbarians who bought them. Such was the end of the great Christian empire of the East,
which was extinguished by the downfall of Constantinople, after it had flourished, from its
first dedication to Christ, 1123 years. It was founded in May 330, and it terminated in
May, 1453. The feebleness of its government, the vices of its emperors, and the weak
superstition of its people, were natural causes to accelerate its fall, and induce us the less
to regret it; while, by the arrangements of a good providence, the lights of literature, the
arts and sciences which improve social life, and the gentle courtesies which endear us to
our kind, hitherto shut up exclusively in this city, were now diffused over a wider
sphere; and the fugitives that escaped, and the slaves that were sold, brought with them
those qualities into various countries, and so were instruments which, no doubt, tended
to improve and ameliorate society wherever they were scattered.
When Mahomet had thus obtained the full fruition of his wishes, he speedily gave
a greater latitude to that selfish cruelty, and disregard for human life, which had
always distinguished him. Some acts of this kind are recorded of him, from which the
ordinary feelings of our nature revolt as altogether incredible. He was particularly fond
of melons, and cultivated them with his own hand. He missed one, and in vain attempted
to discover who took it. There was a certain number of youths, educated as pages, within
the walls of the seraglio, called Ichoglans, and his suspicion fell on them; he ordered
fourteen of them to be seized, and their stomachs to be ripped up in his presence, to discover the offender. But his treatment of the woman he loved, has no parallel in the
history of human cruelty. He had attached himself to Irene, a Greek, as beautiful and
accomplished as she was good and amiable; she softened his rude nature, and controlled
his ferocity: and such was the ascendancy she had gained over him, that he desisted
from many intended acts of brutal inhumanity, through the gentle influence he suffered
her to exercise. His attachment was so strong, that the Janissaries began to murmur. To
silence their clamour, he assembled them together, and caused Irene to be brought forth
on the steps of the palace; he then unveiled her face. Even those rude and unpitying
soldiers could not contain their admiration: the loveliness of her features and the
sweetness of their expression at once disarmed their resentment, and they murmured
approbation and applause. Mahomet immediately drew his sabre, and severing her head
from her body, cast it among them.—He himself died of an attack of cholera in his
fifty-third year, having reigned thirty. He it was who changed the name of Sidtan, by
which the sovereigns of his nation had been hitherto distinguished, into that of Padischah,
which is a prouder title, and which the Turks confer on their own sovereign exclusively
at this day; the appellation of the city was also altered to that of Stambool, or Istambol,
by which the Orientals now distinguish it*
* The origin of this word is a subject of controversy. Some suppose it derived from the Greek
etc rpv ttoXiv, eis tin polin, which they used when going to the capitol. It is, with more probability,
a simple corruption of the former name. The barbarians who pronounce Nicomedia, Ismid, would
be likely, in their imperfect imitation of sounds, to call Constantinople, Stambool. |
