CONSTANTINOPLE. 
But, although Time have had such incon- 
siderable influence in weakening impressions of 
this kind, it is believed the case would be far 
otherwise, viewing the spot where those events 
occurred. The literary traveller, visiting Con- 
stantinople, expects to behold but faint vestiges 
of the imperial city, and believes that he shall 
find little to remind him of " the everlasting 
foundations" of the master of the Roman world- 
The opinion, however, may be as erroneous as 
that upon which it was founded. After the 
imagination has been dazzled with pompous 
and imposing descriptions of palaces, baths, 
porticoes, temples, circuses, and gardens, the 
plain matter of fact may prove, that in the 
obscure and dirty lanes of Constantinople^', in 
its small and unglazed shops ; in the style of 
architecture observed in the dwellings ; in the 
long covered walks, now serving as bazars^; in 
Breydenbach of Mayence ; printed in the black letter, at Spire, in 1490, by 
FcUr Drach ; and since copied into a volume of Tracts, published at Basil 
ixx 1556. This document seems to have escaped not only the researches of 
Gibbon, but of every other author who has written upon the subject of the 
siege. The insertion of Isidore's account of transactions in which he was 
a spectator, may gratify tlie Reader's curiosity, and is therefore added, ia 
the Appendix, in his own words. — See Appendix, No. II. 
(2) Athens itself was not very unlike Constantinople in its present state, 
if we may credit the statistical testimony of Diccearchus, v.ho mentions 
the irregularity of the streets, and the poverty and meanness of the 
houses.— Vide Stat. Greecice Geogr. Minor. Hudsoni. 
(3) Bazar is the appellation used to signify a market, all over the East. 
VOL. III. B 
