"vizir over them." But it was not before the commencement of the tenth century, that all the attacks brought on by the King of the South ended in Europe: and in the eleventh was the first irruption of the King of the North.

The decayed state of the former, and the first appearance of the latter in the year one thousand and fifty, is thus described by the historian. "Since the fall of the Caliphs, the difcord and degeneracy of the Saracens refpected the Afiatic provinces of Rome"Twenty five years after the death "of Bafil, his fucceffors were fuddenly "affaulted by an unknown race of bar

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barians, who united the Scythian "valour with the fanaticifm of new profelytes, and the arts and riches "of a powerful monarchy. The Myriads of Turkish horfemen over spread a "frontier of fix hundred miles from

"Tauris

"Tauris to Arzeroum: And the blood. "of one hundred and thirty thousand "Chriftians was a grateful facrifice to "the Arabian prophet. Yet the arms of Togrul did not make any deep or lafting impreffion on the Greek empire: The torrent rolled away from "the open country, &c." (C. 57.) It was about thirteen years after this that Alp Arflan, the fucceffor of Togrul "paffed the Euphrates at the head "of the Turkish cavalry" and the final conqueft of Georgia and Armenia were atchieved by him. And the immediate jurifdiction or feudatory fway of his fon Malek Shah ftretched, from the Chinese frontier, fays the hiftorian, to the West and South, as far as the mountains of Georgia, the neighbourhood of. Conftantinople, the holy city of Jerufalem, and the fpicy groves of Arabia fœlix. After the divifion of his empire, Soliman the Turk paffed the Euphrates,

and

and his flying cavalry laid wafte the country as far as the Hellefpont, and black fea. He fixed his empire in Afia minor. The Turkish ignorance "of navigation protected, for a while "the inglorious fafety of the Emperour; "but no fooner had a fleet of two hun

dred fhips been conftructed by the "hands of the captive Greeks, than "Alexius trembled behind the walls of "his capital." Thus did the King of the North come against him like a whirlwind---and enter into the countries, and over flow and pafs over: And befides his Myriads (a term I wish the reader efpecially to notice) of cavalry, bringing against the Emperour, what was little to be expected with a Scythian hord, many fhips. Yet that portion of his affaults, and those lasting victories, revealed to St. John under the title of the fecond woe, did not take place till a later and more determined period.

Particular

Particular are the words of the prediction, and little lefs fo are those of the accomplishment. In the thirteenth and the two following verfes of the ninth chapter of the Revelation, we read "and the fixth Angel founded, and I "heard a noife from the four horns of "the golden altar which is before God,

faying to the fixth Angel which had "the trumpet, loofe the four Angels "which are bound in (Gr. on) the

great river Euphrates. And the four "angels were loofed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and

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a month, and a year, for to flay the "third part of men." A ftronger intimation, that the altar of God had either been forfaken, or greatly polluted, by those who fhould have offered a pure facrifice, could fcarcely have been given, than that which is conveyed, by the reprefentation of the fentence of punifhment being uttered from the horns of

the

the altar. How the fentence was carried into execution we learn from hiftory: Soliman Shah in his progrefs towards the Weft with his three fons was drowned in his paffage of the Euphrates, but his youngest fon, Ortogrul, pursued the route, together with his own three fons, of whom Othman was the youngest. This remarkable number four, thus twice exemplified in the leaders of this particular body of Turks, though mentioned by Herbelot, as quoted by the very learned Daubuz on the place, is not noticed by Mr. Gibbon! the laft writer however informs us, that Ortogrul, as the foldier or fubject of Aladdin, Sultan of Iconium, (from whom we learn through Herbelot, he had begged a little Spot of ground on which to fix himself,) eftablished at Surgut on the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents: And that "It was on the