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Reign And Character Of Mahomet The Second. - Siege, Assault,
And Final Conquest, Of Constantinople By The Turks. - Death Of Constantine Palaeologus. - Servitude Of The Greeks. - Extinction Of The Roman Empire In The East. - Consternation Of Europe. - Conquests And Death Of Mahomet The Second.
The siege of Constantinople by the Turks attracts our first
attention to the person and character of the great destroyer. Mahomet the Second ^1 was the son of the second Amurath; and though his mother has been decorated with the titles of Christian and princess, she is more probably confounded with the numerous concubines who peopled from every climate the harem of the sultan. His first education and sentiments were those of a devout Mussulman; and as often as he conversed with an infidel, he purified his hands and face by the legal rites of ablution. Age and empire appear to have relaxed this narrow bigotry: his aspiring genius disdained to acknowledge a power above his own; and in his looser hours he presumed (it is said) to brand the prophet of Mecca as a robber and impostor. Yet the sultan persevered in a decent reverence for the doctrine and discipline of the Koran: ^2 his private indiscretion must have been sacred from the vulgar ear; and we should suspect the credulity of strangers and sectaries, so prone to believe that a mind which is hardened against truth must be armed with superior contempt for absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skilful masters, Mahomet advanced with an early and rapid progress in the paths of knowledge; and besides his native tongue it is affirmed that he spoke or understood five