230 THE RACES OF THE DANUBE. [xi. 



the hero who aspired to re-enact in the eastern world 

 the part of Charles the Great. In 1356 he was pro- 

 claimed Emperor of the East, and if his life had 

 been spared he might have made good the title. But 

 the firmness of his monarchical rule was irritating to 

 his turbulent vassals ; and like Caesar, William the 

 Silent, Henry IV., and Lincoln, he fell by the stupid 

 hand of the assassin, just at the time when a few 

 years more of life might have been of inestimable 

 value to his people and to mankind. With the death 

 of the " Emperor " Stephen, the formation of a Slavic 

 nationality under Serbian leadership was indefinitely 

 postponed. The feudal lords who had so stupidly 

 destroyed the only genius which could guide them to 

 victory were one by one overthrown by the imperial 

 armies ; and when the Turk arrived, in the next 

 century, there was no solid power in the peninsula 

 which could check his baleful progress. 



To recount the vicissitudes of Serbia as principal 

 battle-ground between Christian Austrian and infidel 

 Turk would be a task as tedious as profitless. We 

 have seen how the Slavs of the Byzantine Empire 

 failed to become a nation, and this is the only point 

 which need concern us. There is neither interest nor 

 instruction in the record of incessant fighting without 

 definite issue ; and to the philosophic historian the 



