eavy ordnance, and were so disposed as to cover the
line of their own galleys. The consequence was, that as the Turks
advanced in order of battle, these galeasses kept up a heavy and
destructive fire upon them, and their barbarian energy availed them as
little as their howlings. It was the triumph of civilization over brute
force, as well as of faith over misbelief. "While discipline and
attention to the military exercises could insure success in war, the
Turks," says Thornton, "were the first of military nations. When the
whole art of war was changed, and victory or defeat became matter of
calculation, the rude and illiterate Turkish warriors experienced the
fatal consequences of ignorance without suspecting the cause; accustomed
to employ no other means than force, they sunk into despondency, when
force could no longer avail."

Another half century has passed since this was written, and the Turkish
power has now completed its eighth century since Togrul Beg, the first
Seljukian Sultan; and what has been the fruit of so long a duration?
Just about the time of Togrul Beg, flourished William, Duke of Normandy;
he passed over to take possession of England; compare the England of the
Conquest with the England of this day. Again, compare the Rome of Junius
Brutus to the Rome of Constantine, 800 years afterwards. In each of
these polities there was a continuous progression, and the end was
unlike the beginning; but the Turks, except that they have gained the
faculty of political union, are pretty much what they were when they
crossed the Jaxartes and Oxus. Again, at the time of Togrul Beg, the
Greek schism also took place; now from Michael Cerularius, in 1054, to
Anthimus, in 1853, Patriarchs of Constantinople, eight centuries have
passed of religious deadness and insensibility: a longer time has passed
in China of a similar political inertness: yet China has preserved at
least the civilization, and Greece the ecclesiastical science, with
which they respectively passed into their long sleep; but the Turks of
this day are still in the less than infancy of art, literature,
philosophy, and general knowledge; and we may fairly conclude that, if
they have not learned the very alphabet of science in eight hundred
years, they are not likely to set to work on it in the nine hundredth.

Moreover, it is remarkable that with them, as with the ancient Medes and
Persians, change of law and government is distinctly prohibited. The
greate