st of their Sultans, and the last of the great ten, Soliman, known
in European history as the Magnificent, is called by his compatriots the
Regulator, on account of the irreversible sanction which he gave to the
existing administration of affairs. "The magnitude and the splendour of
the military achievements of Soliman," says Mr. Thornton, "are surpassed
in the judgment of his people by the wisdom of his legislation. He has
acquired the name of Canuni, or institutor of rules ... on account of
the order and police which he established in his Empire. He caused a
compilation to be made of all the maxims and regulations of his
predecessors on subjects of political and military economy. He strictly
defined the duties, the powers, and the privileges of all governors,
commanders, and public functionaries, He regulated the levies, the
services, the equipments, and the pay of the military and maritime force
of the Empire. He prescribed the mode of collecting, and of applying,
the public revenue. He assigned to every officer his rank at court, in
the city, and in the army; and the observance of his regulations was
enforced on his successors by the sanction of his authority. The work,
which his ancestors had begun, and which his care had completed, seemed
to himself and his contemporaries the compendium of human wisdom.
Soliman contemplated it with the fondness of a parent; and, conceiving
it not to be susceptible of further improvement, he endeavoured to
secure its perpetual duration." The author, after pointing out that this
was done at the very time when a new hemisphere was in course of
exploration, when the telescope was mapping for mankind the heavens,
when the Baconian philosophy was about to convert discovery and
experiment into instruments of science, printing was carrying knowledge
and literature into the heart of society, and the fine arts were
receiving one of their most remarkable developments, proceeds: "The
institutions of Soliman placed a barrier between his subjects and future
improvement. He beheld with complacency and exultation the eternal
fabric which his hands had reared; and the curse denounced against pride
has reduced the nation, which participated in his sentiments, to a state
of inferiority to the present level of civilized men." The result is the
same, though we say that Soliman only recognized and affirmed that
barbarism was the law of the Ottoman power.

4.

3. It is true that in the last quarter o