These remarkable events, occurring at the very time 

 when the art of printing took its rise, are known to us with 

 an authenticity and accuracy proportioned to their interest : 

 that free intercourse of nations, which at present unites al) 

 civilized Europe into one great family, w r as then commen- 

 cing ; and all the learned, if not all the statesmen of the day, 

 conspired to watch and denounce the movements of the 

 common enemy. Besides, for a long time after the period 

 when Constantinople fell to the Turks, the favourite pur- 

 suit of every scholar was the literature of ancient Greece ; 

 and the Levant was constantly filled with accomplished 

 travellers, urged thither by the ardour of classical research. 

 Under such circumstances, a people so peculiar as the 

 Turks, uniting the pomp and splendour of the East with 

 Scythian ferocity, could not fail to be frequently described ; 

 and, in fact, there is no nation in Europe which has from 

 the commencement employed the pens of so many well- 

 informed observers. 



The character of the Turks, nevertheless, has never been 

 distinctly drawn ; forbidden by their religion to mix with 

 unbelievers, eminently unsocial among themselves, and 

 dangerous to approach, it is only by the possession of 

 official rank that Europeans can form a slight acquaintance 

 with them. Busbequius, Vignau, Sir Paul Rycaut, and 

 Sir James Porter, all possessed this advantage, and turned 

 it to account. Among the authors to whom we are particu- 

 larly indebted for a knowledge of the Turks, the first place 

 must be assigned to Mouradja D'Ohsson. Born in Con- 

 stantinople of Armenian parents, and attached in early life 

 to the Swedish embassy, he united the advantages of a 

 European education to the facilities of a native ; and his 

 great work l leaves little unexplained relating to the 

 machinery of the Ottoman empire; but he is partial to the 

 rulers of his native country, and describes them from 

 theory rather than from experience. The Turks whom he 

 pourtrays bear no more resemblance to real Turks, than the 

 polished cavalier of romance does to the rude baron of the 

 middle ages. 



1 Tableau General de 1'Empire Ottoman, 3 torn, folio. Paris, 17871820. 



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