nor shall I strive, at the distance of three centuries and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of which there could be no spectators, and of which the actors themselves were incapable of forming any just or adequate idea.

The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the bullet, or arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani. The sight of his blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the courage of the chief, whose arms and counsels were the firmest rampart of the city. As he withdrew from his station in quest of a surgeon, his flight was perceived by the indefatigable emperor. "Your wound," exclaimed Palæologus, "is slight; the danger is pressing; your presence is necessary; and whither will you retire ?" "" I will retire," said the trembling Genoese, "by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;" and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches of the inner wall. By this pusillanimous act, he stained the honours of a military life; and the few days which he survived in Galata, or the isle of Chios, were embittered by his own and the public reproach. His example was imitated by the Latin auxiliaries, and the defence began to slacken when the attack was pressed with redoubled vigour. The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps an hundred, times superior to that of the Christians : the double walls were reduced by the cannon to a heap of ruins: in a circuit of several miles some places must be found more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and if the besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city

was irrecoverably lost. The first who deserved the sultan's reward was Hassan, the janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With his scimitar in one hand, and his buckler in the other, he ascended the outward fortification: of the thirty janizaries, who were emulous of his valour, eighteen perished in the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit; the giant was precipitated from the rampart; he rose on one knee, and was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his success had proved that the achievement was possible the walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was long seen, and finally lost. The nobles who fought round his person sustained till their last breath the honourable names of Palæologus and Cantacuzene: his mournful exclamation was heard,— "Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels. The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the purple : amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death, resistance and order were no more: the Greeks fled towards the city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass of the gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the breaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the

streets, they were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced the gate Phenar on the side of the harbour. In the first heat of the pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the sword; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty; and the victors acknowledged that they should immediately have given quarter if the valour of the emperor and his chosen bands had not prepared them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital. It was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the Caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the Second. Her empire only had been subverted by the Latins: her religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors.

GIBBON.

THE

ENDRIAGO, AND THE COMBAT OF AMADIS DE GAUL WITH THE MONSTER.

THIS creature's face was all hairy, and its body covered with scales, one lying over the other so hard that no weapon can pierce them; its legs and feet thick and strong, and from its shoulders there grew two wings so large that they covered it down to the feet, not of feathers but of a shaggy leather, black as pitch and shining, and so hard that they resist all arms, and with these wings the monster covers itself as with a shield, and from under them come its arms, which are as

strong as lions' paws, all covered with smaller scales, and its hands are like eagles' claws, and their five talons so sharp and strong that there is nothing in the world so hard that they cannot pierce it and tear it piecemeal. In each jaw it has two long teeth that grow out a cubit long, its eyes are round and huge, and red like fire, so that at night they can be seen far away, and all fly before it. It bounds and runs so fast that no game, how fleet soever, can escape; it seldom eats or drinks, and sometimes goes without food feeling no pain of hunger; all its delight is to kill men and living animals. When it finds any lion or bear who resists it, then it grows furious, and sends a smoke like flames of fire from its nostrils, and roars so horribly that all living things fly from it as from death, and its stench is rank poison; and when it ruffles its scales, and gnashes its teeth, and shakes its wings, it is as if the earth shook. They call it endriago, said Master Helisabad, and it is such as I have described; moreover, because of the sin of the giant and his daughter, the wicked enemy entered it, and hath greatly increased its force and cruelty.

The endriago came on breathing smoke and flames of fire in its fury, and gnashing its teeth and foaming, and ruffling its scales and clapping its wings, that it was horrible to see it; and when the knight saw it, and heard its dreadful voice, he thought all that had been told him was nothing to what the truth was, and the monster bounded towards them more eagerly because it was long

since it had seen living man.

But the horses

took fright at seeing it, and ran away in spite of all the knight and Gandalin could do, so the knight dismounted, and said, Brother, keep you aloof that we may not both perish, and see what success God will give me against this dreadful devil, and pray to him to help me that I may restore this island to his service, or if I am to die here, to have mercy upon my soul; for the rest, do as I have said before. But Gandalin could not answer for exceeding agony, for assuredly he thought his master's death was certain, unless it pleased God miraculously to deliver him. The Green Sword Knight then took his lance, and covered himself with his shield, and went against the endriago as a man already dead, but without fear. The devil seeing him come on, snorted out fire and smoke so black and thick that they could scarcely see one another, and he of the Green Sword went on through the smoke, and drove at the monster with his lance, and by great good fortune pierced it in the eye; it caught the lance with its talons, and bit it into pieces, and the iron and a fragment of the stave remained driven on through its tongue and the skin of the throat, for it had sprung on upon it, thinking to seize the knight; but he defended himself with good heart, seeing his exceeding peril; and the shock of this wound repelled the monster, and the blood ran fast, and with the shrieks it gave it ran down its throat and almost choked it, so that it could neither close its mouth nor bite with it; the knight then drew his green sword, and struck at

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