426 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 265. 



The Great Vanity of every Man, with a curious 

 dedication to King Charles. Ware describes him 

 as " bountiful in his charity, an excellent divine, 

 and an extraordinary preacher." He was offered 

 a pension by Henry Cromwell of lOOZ. per annum, 

 yet he would not accept it. He also refused a 

 living of 400Z. a year offered him by the Earl of 

 Pembroke. Thomas Gimlette, Clk. 



St. Olave's, Waterford. 



THE CRESCENT. 



(Vol. vlii., pp. 196. 319. ; Vol. x,, p. 114.) 



The following passages from the Koran and the 

 Turkish History I had overlooked in my former 

 communication, as a supplement to which they 

 may now serve to throw some farther light on the 

 subject of your correspondent's inquiry (Vol. vlii., 

 p. 196.). 



The fifty-fourth chapter of the Koran, entitled 

 " The Moon," commences thus : 



"The hour of judgment approacheth, and the moon 

 hath been split iu sunder : but if the unbelievers see a 

 sign, they turn aside, saying, this is a powerful charm. 

 And they accuse thee, O Mohammed, of imposture." 



This is one of the few instances in which Mo- 

 hammed claimed the evidence of miracle on his 

 behalf. The traditional and orthodox interpre- 

 tation of the passage will be seen in the following 

 anecdote. 



Prince Cantemir in his lively narrative relates, 

 that he one day asked his Turkish instructor, 

 Saadi Effendi, a most learned Mohammedan, and 

 deeply skilled in mathematics, how he could be- 

 lieve " that Mohammed broke the star of the 

 moon and caught half of it falling from heaven in 

 his sleeve ? " He replied, " That indeed in the 

 course of nature the thing could not be done, but 

 as in the Koran this miracle was affirmed to 

 have been wrought, he resigned his reason and 

 embraced the miracle. For," added he, " God 

 can do whatever he pleases." (History of the 

 Othman Empire, p. 31. ed. 1734.) 



The same author farther tells us that when at 

 Constantinople he had frequent conversations with 

 Tekeli, the celebrated Hungarian chief, and had 

 often heard him say, — 



" What can we do, my brother ? It has pleased God to 

 make us subject to a master, who by his actions very well 

 answers to his shield (i. e. his coat of arms). I have found 

 their false prophet mistaken in almost every point ; yet in 

 this I believe he spoke with a prophetic spirit, when 

 he gave his followers a crescent for their arms; for that 

 very well denotes their inconstancy." — Ibid. p. 295. 



After having related the institution of the 

 Janizaries, a.d. 1362, the historian adds the fol- 

 lowing note : 



"The janizaries bear in their banners a two-edged 

 sword, bent like a ray of lightning, opposite to a crescent ; 



on their heads they wear a kiche, or white handkerchief, 

 inform of a sleeve. In other respects they are dressed 

 like the rest of the infantry." — P. 40. 



And in describing the siege of Vienna in 1529, he 

 mentions the crescent as the emblem of Moham- 

 medanism antagonistic to the cross. The Turkg 

 say that at the request of the inhabitants, who 

 entreated the sultan to spare the tower of St. 

 Stephen's, — 



" He granted a truce both for the city and tower on 

 condition that they would instead of the cross place a 

 crescent on the top of it. This indeed the besieged did 

 do, but they deferred the promised surrender." — P. 192. 



From these passages it appears that we are 

 warranted by Turkish history and tradition in 

 inferring, — First, that the crescent has been for 

 several centuries a public symbol of the religion 

 and authority of the Othman (or Ottoman) empire. 

 Secondly, that it was in use, as part of the 

 standard of the janizaries, nearly a century before 

 the taking of Constantinople by Mohammed IL 

 Thirdly, that it was given by the founder of Mo- 

 hammedanism as a symbol to his followers, in 

 commemoration of some unusual natural pheno- 

 menon, which had more the appearance of miracle 

 than any other event to which he could appeal in 

 confirmation of his prophetic mission. 



J. W. Thomas. 



Dewsbury. 



On the question at what period the crescent 

 became the symbol or badge of the Turks, I beg to 

 refer the querists to what is related of the first 

 Sultan Othman. It is said that he saw in a vision 

 a half- moon, which kept increasing enormously, 

 till its rays extended from the East to the West ; 

 and that this led him to adopt the crescent upon 

 his standards, with this motto, " Donee repleat 

 orbem." F. C. H. 



BETDONE THE TOURIST. 



(Vol.x., p. 270.) 



The extract from M. Dutens' Memoirs of a 

 Traveller now in Retirement, which is given by 

 Mr. Bates, ante, p. 270., as tending to substantiate 

 the statement that the tourist never made the 

 ascent of Mount Etna, furnishes another instance 

 of the unfairness which I complained of in my 

 former communication : 



" Mr. Brydone flattered himself," says this extract, 

 "with having seen from the summit of Mount Etna a 

 horizon of 800 miles diameter, the radius of which would 

 have been 400 miles. Now, from an examination of the 

 convexity of the globe, it is proved that it would require 

 that Etna should be sixteen miles high to see that dis- 

 tance, even with the best telescope." 



Any person reading this extract would believe 

 that Brydone pretended actually to have seen to 

 a distance of eight hundred miles, and to hare 



