The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 6

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J. Murray, 1846

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Page 246 - The example of the .Roman pontiff' was preceded or imitated by a Florentine merchant, who governed the republic without arms and without a title. Cosmo of Medicis * was the father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost synonymous with the restoration of learning ; his credit was ennobled into fame ; his riches were dedicated to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London ; and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported in the same vessel.
Page 341 - ... of a saint; a magnanimous sinner (say the chronicles of the times), who entered like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog. He was succeeded by Benedict the Eleventh, the mildest of mankind. Yet he excommunicated the impious emissaries of Philip, and devoted the city and people of Anagni by a tremendous curse, whose effects are still visible to the eyes of superstition.
Page 291 - The incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the fire of their musketry and cannon.
Page 299 - The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the host, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command; of the feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The common impulse drove them...
Page 291 - Mohammed was an important and visible object in the history of the times ; but that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude : the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls ; fourteen batteries thundered, at once, on the most accessible places ; and of one of these, it is ambiguously expressed, that it was mounted with one hundred and thirty guns, or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets.
Page 392 - I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more permanent than the narrow span of his own existence: yet these monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and in the boundless annals of time his life and his labours must equally be measured as a fleeting moment.
Page 352 - From Augustus to Louis, the muse has too often been false and venal: but I much doubt whether any age or court can produce a similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who in every reign, and at all events, is bound to furnish twice a year a measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I believe, in the presence, of the sovereign. I speak the more freely, as the best time for abolishing this ridiculous custom is while the prince is a man of virtue and the poet a man of genius.]...
Page 299 - ... eighteen perished in the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit; the giant was precipitated from the rampart; he rose on one knee, and was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his success had proved that the achievement was possible; the walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage-ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, who accomplished...
Page 302 - He was attended by his viziers, bashaws, and guards, each of whom (says a Byzantine historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous as Apollo, and equal in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals. The conqueror gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange though splendid appearance of the domes and palaces so dissimilar from the style of oriental architecture. In the hippodrome or...
Page 158 - The desolation is complete ; and the temple of Diana or the church of Mary will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes ; Sardis is reduced to a miserable village ; the God of...

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