1831.] Poland, Paul and Prcseiil. 11 



must have sought in vain among the furious spirits and clashing sabres 

 that constantly surrounded and disturbed the throne of his ancestors. 



The hero of Poland, John Sobieski, the next king, fought his way to 

 the crown by along series of exploits of the most consummate intrepidity 

 and skill. His defeat of the Grand Vizier, Kara Mustapha, in Podolia, 

 finally extinguished all rivalry, and he was placed on the throne by accla- 

 mation. All his conceptions were magnificent; on the peace with the Porte, 

 he sent his- ambassador with a train of seven hundred ; a number which 

 offended the pride of the Turk, and gave rise to one of those pithy sar- 

 casms, which enliven diplomacy. The Polish ambassador who had 

 been detained for some days outside the walls of Constantinople, by his 

 own haughty demand, that the Vizier should come to meet him at the 

 gates, required a supply of provisions for his attendants. " Tell the 

 ambassador," answered the vizier, " that if he is come to take Constanti- 

 nople, he has not men enough; but if it is only to represent his master, 

 lie has too many. But if he wants food, tell him that it is as easy for my 

 master the Sultan to feed seven hundred Poles at the gates of the city, 

 as it is to feed the seven thousand Poles who are now chained in his 

 gallies." 



The ambassador was at length admitted ; and resolving to dazzle the 

 Turks by a magnificence, unseen before, he ordered some of his horses 

 to be shod with silver, so loosely fastened on, that the shoes were scattered 

 through the streets. Some of them were immediately brought to the 

 Vizier ; who smiling at the contrivance, observed, " The Infidel has 

 shoes of silver for his horses, but a head of lead for himself. His repub- 

 lic is too poor for this waste. He might make a better use of his 

 silver at home." 



But Sobieski' s great triumph was to come. The Turkish army, strong- 

 ly reinforced, made a sudden irruption into the Austrian territories ; 

 swept all resistance before them, and commenced the siege of Vienna. 

 The year 1683 is still recorded among the most trying times of Europe?. 

 The Austrian empire seemed to be on the verge of dissolution. But the 

 fall of Vienna would have been more than the expulsion of the Austrian 

 family from its states; it would have been the overthrow of the barriers 

 of western Europe. All crowns were already darkened by the sullen 

 and terrible superiority of Mahometanism. The possession of the Aus- 

 trian capital would have fixed the Turk in the most commanding position 

 of Germany, Vienna would have been a second Constantinople. 



The siege was pressed with the savage fury of the Turk. The Em- 

 peror and his household had fled. The citizens, assailed by famine, 

 disease, and the sword, were in despair. Sobieski was now summoned, 

 less by the entreaties of Austria than by the voice of the Christian 

 world. At the head of the Polish cavalry, which lie had made the finest 

 force of the North, he galloped to the assistance of the beleagured city, 

 attacked the grand vizier in his entrenchments, totally defeated him, and 

 drove the remnants of the Turkish host, which had proclaimed itself in- 

 vincible, out of the Austrian dominions. No service of such an extent had 

 been wrought by soldiership within memory. Vienna was one voice 

 of wonder and gratitude, and when the archbishop, on the day of the 

 Te Deum, ascended to preach the thanksgiving sermon, he, with an 

 allusion almost justifiable, at such a moment, took for his text, 

 " There was sent a man from God, whose name was John." 



The death of this celebrated man in his 7^th year, and nfter a pros- 



O 2 



