and whereas his predeceffors had been kings of Leon, or Caftile, or Arragon, he fixed the metropolis where it is ftill acknowledged. Madrid was one of thofe carly aggregates of dwelling felected in the fabulous ages for its fine air and wholefome foil; fo wholefome, that 'tis faid there never was a plague there; which privilege can, I think, fcarcely be fuppofed to have been granted to its refidents for their peculiar cleanlinefs or virtue. Sancho the Fat now poifoned his mother with an envenomed cup she had prepared for him; and Avicenna the oriental physician, or his recipes (for the man himself must have been dead fure) could not fave her. He came originally from Sinai, Evi Sinai, cafily changed to Avicenna, and I have read that it was he brought the Arabick characters among us first. They were very long in travelling, for Montfaucon fays they were in common ufe when Egypt was made firft a province of the Roman empire; yet England not wholly adopted them in the twelfth century. Dr. Wallis in his algebra, chap. 4th, tells of a chimney he faw at Helmdon in Northamptonshire with the mixt characters thus, M° 133 for 1133. The adventure of Sancho and his mother Elvira is yet remembered in Spain, where I believe it is the custom ftill for women to drink first when the cool cup goes round. had VI. But the Greek emperors have been too long forgotten. We have indeed seen poor Zoe, fo called from tenderness of her husband Leo Perhaps, for Zoe means my life, fent off to a convent by Conftantine VIII. and with her the old parrot who had faved his father's life. He, wedding a daughter of ambitious Romanus, affociated him in the government, who foon made his own two eldeft fons Cæfars, and fecured the patriarchate for his youngest Theophilact, only fifteen years He lived a gay life, we are told, and kept two thousand horfes for Pleasure; and having had the news brought him to church that a favourite mare had foaled, he fet down the facramental cup, threw off robes, and ran away to the ftable, where giving proper orders for new-delivered animal's mash of wine and piftachio nuts, he re old. his his the V turned to the astonished congregation and finifhed the fervice for holy Thursday, that being the day of this extraordinary occurrence. Meanwhile his brother Stephen thruft unpitied Romanus into a monaftery for life; Conftantine banished the infolent Cæfars, and reigned alone, alluring learned men to his capital, till another Romanus, Conftantine's own fon, thinking his father had lived long enough, gave him poifon; but the cup fpilling he recovered, and lived two years longer: after which the parricide fucceeded to the purple. His widow Theophania married Phocas Nicephorus, hated for grovelling avarice by all, moft by his wife, who leagued with John Zimifces and destroyed him. This Emperor complained that foldiers were ill provided at Constantinople, and eunuchs alone regarded; he fet his face against that intriguing fet of people, and was in fix years murdered by one of the very famous ones, Bafilius by name. Here might we fill, or rather dazzle the retrospective eye, with the gold and glitter of those Saracen caliphs who were destroyed by Theophania's husbands. The accounts however both of their riches and their population, stagger much more than they inform fuch readers as will turn over these inaccurate pages, ill able to fettle controverfies concerning the old word Ecbatana, or decide if that could or could not be the capital of the Abaffides; more willing to believe that dreadful earthquake which fignalized the reign of Bardes, if reign it might be called, for he was emperor only over his own army which beficged Conftantinople, but never took it from Bafil, whose daughter married to the Doge of Vcnice, and was fo proud, fays Damian, that she washed herself in dew. It must have been her fon, I think, to whom Otho as fponfor gave fuch rich presents of robes all cloth of gold. But Pietro Urfiolo's gifts to the church were greater: he bestowed on it one altar of pure gold, beside innumerable jewels to San Marco. The treasures of that building were unknown except to few: while I am writing we hear of its being plundered by Bonaparte. The cold north now teemed with unattractive vices. One of the Norwegian Norwegian leaders denied tribute to the Danes: they fent a fleet against him; and in order to obtain from the angekoks a tempest to destroy these invaders, they made him facrifice his fon to devils. Crantz tells another story hereabouts, late in the tenth century, how a bold archer there, boasting his skill in fome rude chieftain's prefence (Harold or Olaus), the prince fet an apple on his little boy's head and bid the fellow fhoot: he did fo, and cleft the apple with its point. Our favage ruler observing two more arrows in his hand, afked their purpose. "With one of them," replied the bowman, " had my "child's life been loft, yourself fhould have been shot, and with the "next should have been killed he who first stirred to defend fuch a tyrant." These stories came to England, we may fee, with little alteration. Fortunatus's cap is Prince Eric's cap, who had the winds he wifhed for: he was fortunate in not being facrificed when his brother went to't: but Eric was a favourite with the wizards of the ftorm; they gave him a cap which, by turning, procured for him the winds he had occafion to ufe. The other tale we adapt to William of Cloudefelye (See Percy's Reliques); but 'tis an older edition only of William Tell, anticipated by four centuries, and with a lefs fatal ending; for the Norwegian king heard himself called a tyrant patiently, and filled the archer's bag with silver too. 66 And now, as Dr. Young fays, What is the hiftory of humankind? A haceldama fure, a field of blood; darkened with clouds denoting its uncertainty, through which, if any fhining character beams forth from time to time, it fhines but as the lightning docs, leaving like that not seldom dreadful effects. If fuch be history, and fuch it has appeared on Retrospection, the fhould be painted as the Wanderer defcribes his allegorical figure, where he says, A robe fhe wore, With life's calamities embroider'd o'er; Hh 2 Such Such is our small epitome, a convex glass; and what, excepting forrows, have we reviewed in these few pages which present a miniature and fummary of ten centuries, one thousand years on earth, with their moft ftriking names, events, occurrences! Some admirable mortals have indeed appeared upon the tiny ftage, too clofe confined for fuch exalted characters, ten characters perhaps, not more in the ten ages; sent however to fhow what men by strenuous exertion might be; lent us to fee how lovely human nature looks when animated by virtue, set but a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honour. CHAP. CHAP. XV. FROM THE FIRST FOUNDING OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE A UNDER TANGROLIPIX, 1000, TO THE TIME OF THE FIRST CRUSADE, A. D. 1100. NEW defcription of men begins a new chapter; while the Turks, fince then fo famed in story, claim here a glance from Retrospection's eye. In the year 1000 after our Lord's appearance upon earth, that formidable though dubious tribe of warriors, deduced from Hebrew origin by fome, from Trojan stock by others; fhewed themselves of infinite confequence to all. They had two centuries back quitted the Riphæan mountains and heights of Imaus, which I am told means Snowdon in fome oriental dialect, and left the cold abodes of Scythia for warmer climates. They too were wanderers, which the word Turk implies. But whilst the Vandals fettled westward of their native regions, thefe wifely fastened upon fair Armenia; where once established, seeing the caliphs or fucceffors of Mahomet dividing their imperial power, and by divifion falling into decay, seized their opportunity, and being called in as auxiliary troops to affift the Sultan of Persia, Togra Mucalet made himself too useful; and having by his archers driven out the Arabs, became a dangerous friend, if friend, to the prince who had entreated his aid, but could not now obtain what he more wifhed-his abfence. The great heroick leader Tangrolipix placed his Sedluccian or Selduzzian family in Perfia, keeping the strongest castles for their fecurity. The Sultan, weary of this unrequested |