came, and by one deadly and well-dissembled blow of 

 Turkish policy, that haughty soldiery, to which the Otto- 

 man empire owed the largest share of its glory and its con- 

 quests, was totally extinguished. 



Despotic power has no faithful allies; the priesthood 

 purloin the authority they are designed to assist, and an 

 angry army capriciously usurps ft. The strength of the 

 Ottoman government has been long since wasting away 

 from both these defections; but another cause, more cha- 

 racteristic of the nation, a law of the Seraglio itself, has 

 powerfully co-operated to obscure the splendour of the 

 House of Osman. In the early periods of the Turkish 

 history, all the male relations of the emperor shared with 

 him the glories and dangers of the field ; but among a people 

 prone to admire bold crimes, who had no fixed law of suc- 

 cession to the throne, and whose domestic manners were 

 calculated to weaken the ties of kindred, the prince often 

 found dangerous competitors in his sons and brothers. 

 Selim I. deposed and murdered his father Bajazet II.; his 

 successor, Soliman the Great, was obliged to strangle his 

 eldest son, who had conspired against his life. These 

 circumstances induced the last-named sultan to ordain that 

 all the princes allied to the throne should be kept in close 

 confinement in the Seraglio, secluded from the public eye 

 and from state concerns ; nor could they leave their prisons, 

 unless in the presence of the emperor, till called to ascend 

 the throne. This fatal law, dictated in the gloomy spirit 

 of eastern jealousy, soon marred the grandeur of the Otto- 

 man race. The succeeding sultans, reared in captivity, 

 amidst women and eunuchs, were unfit to be the heads of 

 a warlike nation, and relinquished in almost every case the 

 command of the army, to riot in cruelty and sensuality. 

 From Osman, the founder of the dynasty, to Soliman the 

 Great, the emperors of the Turks were all men of surpris- 

 ing vigour and abilities ; but from that period their history 

 exhibits little but disgrace. The turbulence of the Jani- 

 zaries met with little restraint, and the muphty and the 

 grand vizir divided between them the sovereign authority ; 

 the latter officer, to whom is delegated all the temporal 

 power of the sovereign, easily became formidable to his 



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