the drooping courage of the janissaries for the coming assault, a bakshish or largess was promised them of 1000 aspers (or 20 ducats) a man:-and fiefs, honours, and military promotion, according to the previous rank of the individual, were announced by proclamation through the camp, as the rewards destined for those who first effected a footing within the fortress. Two fresh mines were sprung on the morning of the 14th; and the turret of the Corinthian gate, by the musketry from which the Turks had been severely galled, was demolished by the artillery; and at noon the signal was given. But the attacking columns, disheartened by the anticipation of inevitable defeat, were with difficulty prevailed upon even to move forward from their trenches; and no sooner did the leading files encounter the storm of fire poured upon them from the city, than they at once gave way in irremediable confusion, without essaying the fortune of closer combat. In vain did the grand-vizir, and the Anadoli-Valessi Behram- Pasha, throw themselves among the fugitives, several of whom they slew with their own hands;-threats and entreaties were alike unavailing;—the janissaries exclaimed, that the immutable decrees of destiny were visibly opposed to their success, and that they preferred to die by the swords of their comrades and commanders, rather than be transfixed by the shishler (spits) of the infidels, as they called the long German pikes. The fall of Behram, (who was struck down mortally wounded, while striving to rally his men, by a falconet shot which shattered his knee,) augmented the panic:-and a heavy fire, reopened from the Turkish batteries to cover the retreat, announced the final discomfiture of the Osmanlis.

The garrison and citizens of Vienna, who had been apprised by the Christian deserters of their approaching deliverance, saw with exultation the pride of the Ottoman battle recoil for the last time from their walls; but their joy was diminished by the casualty which, in the moment of triumph, befell their commander, the Count of Salms. This aged leader, in whom seventy-one years had not chilled the warlike ardour of youth, had through out the seige been foremost wherever danger was imminent, and had hitherto escaped unscathed; but, while view ing from the ramparts the flight of the

Turks within their trenches, he was grievously crushed and disabled by a fragment of stone which a ball from the hostile batteries had dislodged :a hurt, from the effects of which he died early in the following year. The cannonade was kept up till sunset; but as soon as the night had closed in, the guns were silently withdrawn from their position, and embarked on board the flotilla; and, before midnight, the flames of the huts, and other useless incumbrances, which had been set on fire by the janissaries, announced that the preparations for retreat had already commenced. All the bells and chimes of Vienna, which had been silenced since the appearance of the enemy, now rang forth in thanksgiving from tower and steeple: but with these sounds of rejoicing from the city were mingled the lamentable cries of the Christian prisoners in the Turkish camp, several thousands of whom, including all whom age or infirmity made useless as slaves, were massacred by their captors in the fury of their disappointment. Ten thousand of these miserable victims were, however, dragged in the train of the Sultan, who raised his camp from Simmering on the 16th, without again turning his face towards Vienna, and proceeded, by forced marches, on his return to Hungary, with the corps which he had retained under his immediate command. Before his departure he held a grand divan, at which pelisses and sabres of honour were presented to the vizir and the principal pashas, and the promised donative was paid to the janissariesa politic measure, intended to efface the remembrance of the ill success with which the campaign had closed.

The rearguard, under Ibrahim, comprising the divisions to which the active conduct of the siege had been chiefly committed, lay yet another day under the Wienerberg; and a proposal for the exchange of prisoners was made through the medium of the standard bearer, Zedlitz, who had been taken in the first skirmish before the walls, and who was now released and sent into the city, clothed with a magnificent dress, and charged with a rescript, addressed by the vizir to the civil and military authorities. In this curious document, (which is written in bad Italian, and is still preserved in the imperial archives,) Ibrahim styles himself, "by the grace of God, grandvizir and chief counsellor, vicegerent

of the empire and all its pashas and sandjaks, and generalissimo of the armies of the most glorious and invincible Sultan Soliman!" and proceeds to inform the Austrian commanders, that the object of the campaign was not the capture of their city, but the chastisement of the archduke, (Ferdinand :) and that they had only delayed so long in the environs to give him an opportunity of emerging from his concealment, and confronting the fate which awaited him!* But, notwithstanding all these diplomatic fanfaronades, it does not appear that any arrangement respecting the prisoners was ultimately effected; and some accounts attribute the delay of Ibrahim to a plot which he had formed of having the city betrayed by means of some pretended deserters, who were happily detected and executed. This tale is, however, unsupported by any sufficient testimony, and is probably only a pious fiction of the Germans, in order to fix on their detested enemy the stigma of defeated treachery— since the interval of a single day could scarcely have enabled him to ascertain the success or failure of such a stratagem-and, on the morning of the 17th, Ibrahim finally broke up his cantonments with 60,000 men under his command, and followed at the distance of a day's march in the track of the Sultan.

The total loss of the Turks by disease and the sword, during their operations in Germany, has been so variously stated by different authorities, that it is scarcely possible to arrive even at an approximation to the truth. The most moderate estimate is that of Istuanfi, who rates it at "more than 20,000"-or an average of nearly a thousand a day-but this number is doubled by Von Hammer; and old Knolles, with his usual honest inveteracy against the Paynim, boldly affirms that in the siege alone, Soliman " is reported to have lost eighteen thou

sand of his best men, amongst whom was his great lieutenant of Asia, with many others of his forward captaines, and best souldieurs: of the defendants, few or none of name were lost!" The retreat of the Osmanlis, however, was not unmolested. No sooner had the last retiring column disappeared along the windings of the Danube, than Katziæner and Bakiez (a noted Hungarian leader of Ferdinand's party) sallied forth with all the cavalry, and following during several days the toilsome march of the Turks, (the weakened state of whose horses prevented them from vigorously repelling those desultory attacks,) succeeded in inflicting on them considerable loss both in men and materiel. A heavy fall of snow, which began the day after their departure, added to their embarrassments, and much of their heavy baggage was lost in the morasses near Altenberg; but without staying to place garrisons in that or any of the other towns which had surrendered on the advance, they hastened on their route, and arrived on the 25th in the environs of Buda, where "Yanush came forth to meet the Sultan, and offer his congratulations on the fortunate result of the campaign!" But even at Buda, only two days were allowed for the refreshment of the weary troops; and after transmitting to Ibrahim a firman for the delivery of the crown of St Stephen ‡ to Zapolya, Soliman resumed his march with all speed, and arrived at Constantinople in the middle of December, having dispatched from Belgrade (Nov. 10) a letter of victory to the Doge of Venice, Andrea Gritti, the father of Aloysio. The wording of this official bulletin is sufficiently ingenious; and it would be difficult to infer from it distinctly that any siege of Vienna had been undertaken, and far less that it had been unsuccessful." After entering the confines of Germany.. .... we came to the city of Vienna,

and the aforesaid king" (Ferdinand) "having heard of our coming, rose and fled, betaking himself to the king dom of Bohemia, and a city therein called Prague, where he lay concealed. Of him we heard no further tidings, whether he were alive or dead; and so, by command of my sublime majesty, numerous detachments were sent out to burn and destroy all his country; and my army also marched along the Danube, subduing many towns. And my majesty, with my army, halted likewise under Vienna for 22 days; and thence returning, came to Buda, where the king Yanush came and kissed my hand; and I commanded that the crown should be given into his hands. And from that place, with the aid of God, I am now on my way towards my imperial resi. dence of Constantinople."

Thus ended this memorable siege, of which neither the details nor results have attracted that degree of attention from historians which its political importance would fairly warrant. When, after an interval of 154 years, the myriads of the Osmanlis once more appeared in arms under the walls of the Austrian capital, the brilliant triumph which attended its critical deliverance by the chivalry of Poland under Sobieski, and the instant reflux of the tide of victory which followed, invested its defence with an eclat which has eclipsed the well-earned fame of those who, in past days, had withstood and beaten back the mightiest of the Ottoman sultans. Yet if we consider the alteration which had taken place in the relative strength of the European powers between 1529 and 1683, it will be evident that the capture of Vienna, if it had fallen before Kara- Mustapha at the latter period, could have led to no such permanent results as must inevitably have followed its conquest at the juncture which we are now describing, when the Ottoman empire was in its highest "pride of place," and ruled by a monarch whose name stands conspicuous, even in an age remarkable for the number of contemporary great

sovereigns. Had not the advanced season of the year, combined with the difficulty of provisioning his vast host at so great a distance from his own frontier, compelled Soliman to withdraw his forces, there can be little doubt that he would have persevered (as at Rhodes) in pressing the attack till the place fell into his hands, as it were, piecemeal; and if he had thus obtained winter-quarters in Germany, while Hungary was secured in his rear by his vassal Zapolya, he might have drawn supplies and reinforcements, during the winter, from Constantinople and the Roumeliot provinces, so as to take the field in spring with his army restored to its primitive efficiency. Vienna would then have become the basis of a new system of operations; and Soliman would have been enabled to prosecute his originally-declared intention of pursuing Ferdinand into Upper Germany, in order to extort from him a renunciation of the Hungarian crown. Though no territorial conquest would probably have followed the irruption of the Turks into Germany, the example of Hungary in the succeeding century, when the malecontent Protestants of that country threw themselves into the arms of the Porte, and conducted the horsetails a second time to Vienna, shows how different might have been the history of the religious wars which fill the reign of Charles V., if the Ottoman power had effected a lodgement within the boundaries of the empire. But the impulse which had extended the sway of the Cæsar* of Stamboul, almost at a single swoop, from Belgrade to Vienna, there found itself stayed; and for the first time since the capture of Constantinople, the Turks saw an army led by the Sultan in person return without victory; and so deeply was the importance of this check impressed upon the mind of Soliman himself, that in after years he habitually spoke of the conquest of Vienna as one of the three great projects which he hoped that his life might suffice him to accomplishthe others being the completion of his legislative code, and the magnificent

mosque which bears his name. The two latter he had the happiness to witness-but "since the horoscope of no man is altogether unclouded by adverse influences, it was never the fortune of Sultan Soliman Kanooni to become lord of the Kizil- Alma."

The phantom of an Hungarian kingdom, which had been erected by Soliman in favour of his vassal Zapolya, was not destined to be of long duration. After a second invasion of Germany by the Sultan, a peace was concluded (June 1533) between Austria and the Porte, by which the districts to the north of Transylvania and the Danube, then held by Ferdinand, were left in his possession, subject, however, to the payment of an annual sum to the Ottoman treasury; while all to the south of this line, including Transylvania and the greatest part of Hungary Proper, as far as the Drave, were confirmed to Zapolya; Croatia and the south-western provinces being abandoned in full sovereignty to the Porte. But this arrangement was but ill observed by any of the contracting parties; and at length Zapolya, who was unmarried, sought to terminate the miseries of his country by concluding at Gross- Wandein a secret treaty with Ferdinand, to whom he pledged himself to bequeath his rights and pretensions, on condition of being left undisturbed during his lifetime. In defiance of this convention, however, he married Isabella, daughter of Sigismond, king of Poland,* his son by whom (born a few days before his own death in 1540) he declared his heir in his last moments, recommending him to the po. tent protection of Soliman. In the ensuing year, accordingly, the Sultan advanced upon Buda, and inflicted a disastrous defeat on the generals of Ferdinand, who were already besieging that capital; but when the widowed queen, with her infant son, appeared in the Ottoman camp, she was informed that it was necessary for her safety that she should retire, with her cele

On

brated minister Martinuzzi, and the young prince, into the principality of Transylvania, and surrender to the guardianship of her imperial ally the towns and fortresses of Hungary, which her power was inadequate to protect against the Austrians. the 29th of August 1541, (the fif teenth anniversary of the day of Mohácz,) Soliman proceeded in state to St Mary's cathedral in Buda, which he converted into a mosque by the solemn recitation of the namaz, or Moslem ritual-the janissaries took possession of the gates-and ere sunset on the same day, the horsetails and banner of the first pasha of Hungary were hoisted on the citadel, whence they continued to float for 145 years.

Thus were the most fertile districts of Hungary, including the whole right bank of the Danube from Gran to Belgrade, and the level territory to the eastward, as far as the Transylvanian frontier, formally incorporated with the Ottoman empire, of which they continued to form an integral part till the peace of Carlowitz, in 1699. Though the title of king of Hungary was hereditarily assumed by the princes of the House of Hapsburg, their sway was confined to the northern counties; and their capital was fixed at Presburg, which was secured by its vicinity to Austria:-while the pasha of Buda ruled in the palaces of Arpad and Jagellon; and the dependent princes of Transylvania, though their allegiance was occasionally transferred for a short period to the Court of Vienna, usually preferred the easier yoke of the Porte to the encroaching suzeraintè of Austria. The long and sanguinary wars, which exhausted the strength of both the contending powers, seldom led to any further result than the loss or acquisition of a few fortresses or frontier posts :-and it was not till the genius of Sobieski and Eugene appeared at the head of the German armies, that the sunny plains of southern Hungary were again restored to the map of Christendom.

The son

THE traffic in old clothes to which the gentlemen of the Jewish persuasion have of late years devoted themselves, does not at first sight seem very favourable to the development of the poetical temperament. There has hitherto been no Byron in Monmouth Street, nor Wordsworth in Rag Fair; and when we reflect on the numerous bards furnished to the reading public by several cognate trades-particularly tailors, who differ from the others only in respect of the newness of the clothes in which they exercise their skill this total silence amongst the connoisseurs of ancient habiliments is worthy of serious consideration. It cannot arise from the decayed state of the garments themselves; for the English Muses have always been celebrated for their attachment to rags and tatters--the best of our poets being generally what is called out at elbows-and the cause of it must therefore be traced to some other source. In the absence of any more recondite explanation, we would humbly suggest, that in the case of our indigenous Jews, their failure in literature may proceed from the peculiar notions they entertain of English pronunciation. Nothing could be expected of a poet who would condescend to call himself a "Shoe," which, before Mr Macklin Anglicised the Jew of Venice, was the reason given by Shylock for being despised and spit upon!-a very inadequate reason, certainly, for such indignities; for no man ought to be bullied or insulted, even if, instead of being a Wellington, he be only a quarter-boot! Is it really possible that the representatives of Shylock spoke in the gibberish of our modern Israelites? There is no stupidity too great for an actor to be guilty of; but still we confess we have our doubts as to the fact of the public enduring for a moment that such a travesty should take place upon the stage.

"He hash dishgrashed me, and hindert me of halfs a millionsh; laughed at ma loshes, shcorned ma nationsh, shwarted ma bargainsh: and whatsh hish reashon? I am a Shoe: Hash not a Shoe eyes? hash not a Shoe handsh, organsh, dimenshionsh, shenshes, affectionsh, passionsh?"

Liston's Coriolanus must have been a joke to it; and any man with an ear

for the concord of sweet sounds, will need no other argument to convince him of the impossibility of any great literary performance among the descendants of Abraham located in the British Isles. How it may be with the French, we cannot pretend to say: there is a nasal twang in the language of the most Parisian of Frenchmen, which is by no means unlike the peculiar intonation of "ould clowesh!!" And perhaps, by dint of study, and a fortunate collocation of circumstances, there might arise a Hebrew Victor Hugo, or De la Martine. But if there is any country where the Jewish intellect shakes off the trammels of the base bondage in which the banished people seem to be held by the love of wealth and the narrow spirit of their polity, it is in good, open, free hearted Germany. The German Jews have formed a literary school of their own; and with such a strong-armed Maccabee as Heine to fight their battles, he must be a bold man that will buckle on his armour against their literary pretensions. At the same time, it is curious to observe that those unhappy beings-such as Heine and his collaborateur Börne-have attained their celebrity in the world of letters by a total abnegation of the Jewish character in all respects. So far from being Jews in faith or practice, they seem more bitter against the Old Testament than the New. They believe in nothing-they mourn the loss of the poetical pantheon of the Heathens, in imitation of Julian, the more ancient apostate, and are the propounders of the ultra doctrines of St Simon and Mr Owen. Their literature, therefore, though a literature of Jews, is not a Jewish literature; and we are unwillingly brought back to the puzzling point from which we startedthe anti-literary and pro-old-clothes propensities of the Jews, in all the countries of modern Europe.

But the true secret of it is, that as a fish makes a poor figure out of water, and a bird is not seen to advantage unless in the azure depths of air, so a Jew is nowhere in his proper element except in Hebrew. Into that most wonderful and powerful language there are so few who can follow him, that we are sure we perform an acceptable service in bringing