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my mind and affection I join and unite with them." These are noble words, which it may be useful for us to recall in these days of sectarian strife, and ecclesiastical party contests. May the spirit of reverence, and the spirit of toleration be as potent with us as they were within the breast of that munificent Prince Prelate over whose bones, as they rest in the chapel of the Bishop's Palace at Bishop Auckland, many generations of newly ordained priests have trod; when at their admission to the Priesthood by some one of Cosin's successors, in the episcopate of Durham, they have joined in that chapel of Anthony Bek, which Cosin restored, wherein the ordinations at Durham are generally held, in singing that noble chant of S. Ambrose, for the translation of which as we have it now, we are also indebted to the genius of the noble Cosin.

THE FALCON.

AN ALLEGORY.

I WAS a Falcon, fair, and bright of eye;
I loved my life, my wings, my liberty.

Mine were the crags, and mine the glittering mere,
And mine the joyous heart that knew no fear.
Sometimes upsoaring in the broad sunshine,
Or downward cleaving in the day's decline,

I swept, with steady pinions to my nest,
Athwart the red light fading in the west.

Till one day through my solitudes there pass'd,
ONE Who has tamed this wayward flight at last.

My plumes are clipt: I can no longer roam,
Darkling and narrow is my prison home.

But if that Presence enter my close cell,
I cease to flutter; sure that all is well.

Alas! He came, but came not to abide,
And then in lonely grief I pining sighed ;
Not for the forest, nor the beetling scar,
Nor the swift quarry scented from afar,
Nor did I mourn the perfumed eglantine,
Nor voice of cushat wooing from the pine,

Nor dash of waters tumbling in the glens,
Nor the wide silence of the stretching fens.
O not for these, nor my loved liberty,
My glossy plumage, and my vision free,

Is my complaint; though loved were all of these,
And all exchanged for this lone, painless ease.
All these I've lost; but save for this my woe,
My gain is more than all earth could bestow.

Love holds me bound, and his the only chain
The fettered wear, and never count it pain.
Give me, ah give me, but that Love's caress,
Let me but bend beneath those Hands that bless.

Pierced Hands! O Love that did submit to this!
And wounded Side! so I might win to bliss ;
Vainly earth woos me with her thousand charms,
I heed not, folded in those shielding Arms.
He is the slave who vaunts himself the free,
Sweeter than aught is my captivity.
Tarry then, LORD, till this dark cell appear,
Than life more blest, than liberty more dear.

O. S. T. D.

THE FALL OF TIRNOVO, 1393.

A SKETCH FROM BULGARIAN HISTORY.

THE Bulgarian town of Tirnovo has been so much mentioned in the course of the late war, that it may be interesting to some to hear how it originally fell into the hands of the Turks five hundred years ago. Of that event a contemporary narrative has been preserved, the work of a native of Tirnovo, a Bulgarian monk, named Tzamblak, afterwards Archbishop of Kief. From this source and others the fall of Tirnovo and of the Bulgarian kingdom is related in Dr. Yirecek's lately published German "History of the Bulgarians," to which I am indebted for the facts here to be told.

In 1393, nearly forty years had passed since the Ottoman Turks had gained a firm footing in Europe, and with their succession of able sovereigns, their perfectly organized army, the like of which was then

unknown in Europe, and their military qualities, they had been like a wedge of iron amid the divided and distracted Christian States of the South-eastern Peninsula. Servia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, were all rather feudal confederations than strong and united kingdoms, and much the same causes that so often left disunited Germany a prey to the French, laid open these countries to the Turks. The petty princes of Macedonia had been reduced to vassalage rather by the policy than by the arms of the Ottomans. Servia had fallen, though gloriously, on the fatal field of Kossovo; Bulgaria had been repeatedly assailed and humiliated. It had not indeed been altogether lacking in brave defenders who struggled vainly against the invaders, and whose names the Bulgarian Church held in everlasting remembrance, but unity was wanting; it was wanting in the Church, for divers wild heresies and fanaticisms had got a footing among the people; it was wanting in the state, for the kingdom was divided among three princes; of these the Czar, John Shishman, of Tirnovo, who ruled the greater part of Bulgaria, was a weak unstable man, who had more than once been driven to make a degrading submission to the Turks. He had then been left in peace for some years, and had tried to do something for the good of the realm. At his side stood the Bulgarian Patriarch, Euthymius, a man of saintly character, of much zeal and learning, who struggled earnestly against heresy, immorality, and ignorance.

At last the storm burst upon the devoted kingdom. The fierce and unscrupulous Sultan Bajazet, possibly suspecting the Czar Shishman of negotiations with the King of Hungary, suddenly in the spring of 1393, gathered a great army, and sent it under one of his sons to invade Bulgaria and bring it altogether under the Turkish yoke. The Ottoman host marched at once upon Tirnovo, which was the most important and wealthy city of Bulgaria. The beautiful and romantic position of Tirnovo was the same then as that described by travellers and correspondents with admiration now, but the town itself is a good deal altered. The river Yantra in one of its many windings surrounds on three sides a tongue of land at the point of which rises a high rocky hill reached from the lower ground by a steep and narrow ridge which forms a natural causeway; this hill, still called the "Czar's town," Tzarevetz, by the Bulgarians, as it has been called the "Hissar," or citadel, by the Turks, was like the Hradschin at Prague, the centre and home of the Bulgarian Church and State. There side by side stood the palaces of the Czar and the Patriarch, and the mother Ca

thedral of Bulgaria, the Church dedicated to our ascended LORD, where was the Patriarchal See. Right opposite the Tzarevetz on the other side of the river rose a great rock, the Trapezitza, on which stood another castle, and a Church in which were enshrined the relics of the patron saint of Bulgaria, S. John of Rilo. The Tzarevetz and the Trapezitza were joined together by a lofty bridge of two arches. Of all these fair buildings hardly a trace now remains. Below the Trapezitza stood on the river bank the Church of S. Demetrius, the crowning place of the Bulgarian Czars. On the tongue of land behind the Tzarevetz westwards, stood and still stands the town itself, it contained a great number of Churches and Monasteries, the most remarkable of which was that of the forty Martyrs, where the Bulgarian Czars and many of the national saints were buried. All the great nobles or bolyars of Bulgaria had houses in Tirnovo, in a part of the town which still keeps the name of the "Nobles' quarter," so long after their disappearance. The burghers of Tirnovo enjoyed many privileges, and were a stout and spirited body who often made their voice heard in state affairs. Such was the capital of Bulgaria, when in the spring of 1393, the young Ottoman Prince, Bajazet's son, appeared before it with his great army; this, like other Ottoman armies of those days, was composed of the genuine Turkish cavalry, the spahis or paid troopers, and the feudal vassals or followers; and of that terrible infantry the Janissaries, which the Sultans had formed from the levies of children whom they exacted as tribute from the vanquished Christians. Perhaps there were there, too, the contingents of the Christian chiefs and communities who had made terms with the conquerors to keep their privileges in return for military service in the Ottoman ranks. The Turks do not yet seem to have begun to use artillery, of which in the next century they learnt to make such formidable use. The Czar Shishman was absent from the city, but within it were the Patriarch Euthymius, whose faith and courage were unfailing, and many brave nobles and burghers resolved to make a steadfast defence. The Turkish prince threatened them with fire and sword unless they surrendered on the spot, but paying no heed to his threats they held out bravely and unflinchingly for three months; then at last the Turks succeeded in storming the town from the side of the Tzarevetz.

In the narrative of the sack that followed, Archbishop Tzamblak dwells most on the desecration of the Churches; how the Patriarchal cathedral, the monastery of the Forty Martyrs and others were turned

into mosques, many even into baths and stables; how the relics of the saints were burnt, and the Sacramental Elements thrown to the dogs. The castle and chapels on the Trapezitza were burnt to the ground; the Czar's palace on the Tzarevetz was also ruined by fire, but its massive walls remained standing for three centuries longer. In justice to the Turks it must be said that the historian does not seem to mention personal outrages on this occasion. Amid the terrors of the stormed city the Patriarch Euthymius in his faithful fearlessness went out to the Turkish prince to plead for mercy for his people, the calm undaunted bearing of the venerable old man, so awed the young conqueror, that he received him with courtesy and made him many fair promises, but gave very little heed to the keeping of them.

Driven from his former palace and cathedral, Euthymius fixed his See in a Church in the lower town, which he was allowed to keep, and devoted himself to consoling his afflicted people. Bajazet's son soon went away, leaving in command a Pasha from whom the unfortunate Bulgarians had worse things to suffer. The Pasha saw that there were many men of courage and influence in the city who might take some opportunity of rescuing it, unless he could rid himself of them. He invited one hundred and ten of the chief nobles and citizens to a conference in a certain Church; they came unarmed and suspecting nothing, but hardly were they assembled when the Turkish soldiers were sent in upon them and they were murdered to the last man; the betrayed victims died bravely, none deigning to ask mercy of their faithless foes, the church floor was dyed with their blood, and their bodies were flung out to feed the fowls of heaven.

The Patriarch Euthymius was thrown into prison, and presently the tyrant ordered that he should be led out to the city wall and there beheaded in the sight of all the people; but at the last moment when the saintly prelate was about to yield his neck to the stroke of martyrdom, the Pasha was moved to relent, (the Bulgarian narrative has it that the headsman's hand was miraculously stayed,) and the life of Euthymius was spared.

At last Sultan Bajazet sent his commands that the inhabitants of Tirnovo, most distinguished for their rank, wealth, or personal qualities should be transported to Asia Minor, and that Euthymius should be sent away to Macedonia. It was a sight to draw tears from the very stones, says the Chronicler, to behold the partings of parents from children, brothers from sisters, never to meet again. The sorrowful band

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