middle stature, of a black beard, and brown
complexion;[C] something short-sighted, which caused him to knit his
brows, and pore very intently when any strange person entered the
presence; he was inclining to be fat, and grew corpulent towards his
latter days. If we consider his age when he first took upon him this
important charge, the enemies his father had created him, the
contentions he had with the Valideh-sultana or queen-mother, and the
arts he had used to reconcile the affections of these great personages,
and conserve himself in the unalterable esteem of his sovereign to the
last hour of his death, there is none but must judge him to have
deserved the character of a most prudent and politic person. If we
consider how few were put to death, and what inconsiderable mutinies or
rebellions happened in any part of the empire during his government, it
will afford us a clear evidence and proof of his greatness and
moderation beyond the example of former times: for certainly he was not
a person who delighted in blood, and in that respect far different from
the temper of his father; he was generous, and free from avarice--a rare
virtue in a Turk! He was educated in the law, and therefore greatly
addicted to all the formalities of it, and in the administration of
justice very punctual and severe: and as to his behaviour towards the
neighbouring princes, there may, I believe, be fewer examples of his
breach of faith, than what his predecessors have given in a shorter time
of rule. In his wars abroad he was successful, having upon every
expedition enlarged the bounds of the empire: he overcame Neuhausel,
with a considerable part of Hungary, he concluded the long war with
Venice by an entire and total subjugation of the Island of Candia,
having subdued that impregnable fortress, which by the rest of the world
was considered invincible; and he won Kemenitz (Kaminiec,) the key of
Poland, where the Turks had been frequently baffled, and laid Ukraine to
the empire. If we measure his triumphs, rather than count his years,
though he might seem to have lived but little to his prince and people,
yet certainly to himself he could not die more seasonably, nor in a
greater height and eminency of glory."

The deceased vizir left no children: and the sultan is said to have
offered the seals, in the first instance, as if the office had become in
fact hereditary in the family, to Mustapha, another son of
Mohammed-Kiuprili, a man of retir