ts in
nautical astronomy, also opened new sources of knowledge and of wealth,
and the human mind all over Europe commenced a new start in the career
of civilization. Men of letters began to share in those honors which
heretofore had belonged exclusively to men of war; and the arts of peace
began to claim consideration with those who had been accustomed to
respect only the science of destruction.

Maximilian was at Innspruck when he received intelligence of the death
of his father. He commenced his reign with an act of rigor which was
characteristic of his whole career. A horde of Turks had penetrated
Styria and Carniola, laying every thing waste before them as far as
Carniola. Maximilian, sounding the alarm, inspired his countrymen with
the same energy which animated his own breast. Fifteen thousand men
rallied at the blast of his bugles. Instead of intrusting the command of
them to his generals, he placed himself at their head, and made so
fierce an onset upon the invaders, that they precipitately fled.
Maximilian returned at the head of his troops triumphant to Vienna,
where he was received with acclamations such as had seldom resounded in
the metropolis. He was hailed as the deliverer of his country, and at
once rose to the highest position in the esteem and affection of the
Austrians.

Maximilian had encountered innumerable difficulties in Burgundy, and was
not unwilling to escape from the vexations and cares of that distant
dukedom, by surrendering its government to his son Philip, who was now
sixteen years of age, and whom the Burgundians claimed to be their ruler
as the heir of Mary. The Swiss estates were also sundered from Austrian
dominion, and, uniting with the Swiss confederacy, were no longer
subject to the house of Hapsburg. Thus Maximilian had the Austrian
estates upon the Danube only, as the nucleus of the empire he was
ambitious of establishing.

Conscious of his power, and rejoicing in the imperial title, he had no
idea of playing an obscure part on the conspicuous stage of European
affairs. With an eagle eye he watched the condition of the empire, and
no less eagerly did he fix his eye upon the movements of those great
southern powers, now becoming consolidated into kingdoms and empires,
and marshaling armies which threatened again to bring all Europe under a
dominion as wide and despotic as that of Rome.

Charles VIII., King of France, crossed the Alps with an army of
twenty-two thousand men, in