the Mongol empire; or, as some say, directly, by
the mother's side, from Genghis himself. He is the
Tamerlaine or Tamburlaine of Marlowe and other dramatists.
Gibbon introduces him in the _Decline and Fall_, apparently
because fascinated with the subject, although he gives as a
historical reason the fact that Timur's triumph in Asia
delayed the final fall of Constantinople--taken by the Turks
in 1453.

In early youth the future ruler of so vast an empire was
engaged in struggles for ascendency with the petty chiefs of
rival tribes. His boundless ambition early conceived the
conquest and monarchy of the world; his wish was "to live in
the memory and esteem of future ages." He was born in a
period of anarchy, when the crumbling kingdoms of the
Asiatic dynasties were no longer able to resist the
adventurous spirit determined to occupy the new field of
military triumph which opened before him. At the age of
twenty-five Timur was hailed as the deliverer of his
country. When he chose Samarkand as the capital of his
dominion, he declared his purpose to make that dominion
embrace the whole habitable earth; and at the height of his
power he ruled from the Great Wall of China to the centre of
Russia on the north, while his sovereignty extended to the
Mediterranean and the Nile on the west, and on the east to
the sources of the Ganges. In his own person he united
twenty-seven different sovereignties, and nine several
dynasties of kings gave place to the unparalleled conqueror,
who won by the sword a larger portion of the globe than
Cyrus or Alexander, Caesar or Attila, Genghis Khan,
Charlemagne, or Napoleon.

It was believed in the family and empire of Timur that he
himself composed the _Commentaries_ of his life and the
_Institutions_ of his government, which, however, were
probably the work of his secretaries. These manuscripts have
been of great service to historians in their study of
Timur's career.

At the age of thirty-four, and in a general diet, Timur was invested
with imperial command, but he affected to revere the house of Genghis;
and while the emir Timur reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal
khan served as a private officer in the armies of his servant. Without
expatiating on the victories of thirty-five campaigns, without
describing the lines of march which he repeatedly traced over the
continent of Asia, I shall briefly represent Tim