MAHOMMED II. surnamed the Great, their seventh sultan. He was born at Adrianople on the 24th of March 1480, and is chiefly remembered for having taken Constantinople in 1453, and thereby driven many learned Greeks into the west, which was one great cause of the restoration of learning in Europe, into which the Greek literature was then in-
troduced. He was one of the greatest men upon record, as far as regarded the qualities necessary to a conqueror; for he conquered two empires, twelve kingdoms, and two hundred considerable cities. He was ambitious of the title of Great, which the Turks gave to him; and even the Christians have not disputed it; for he was the first of the Ottoman emperors whom the western nations dignified with the title of Grand Signior, or Great Turk, which posterity has preserved to his descendants. Italy had suffered greater calamities, but she had never felt terror equal to that which this sultan's victories inspired. The inhabitants seemed already condemned to wear the turban. It is certain that Pope Sixtus IV. represented to himself Rome as about to be involved in the dreadful fate of Constantinople, and thought of nothing but escaping into Provence, and once more transferring the holy see to Avignon. Accordingly, the news of Mahommed's death, which happened on the 3d of May 1481, was received at Rome with the greatest joy. Sixtus caused all the churches to be thrown open, made the trades-people leave off their work, ordered a feast of three days, with public prayers and processions, commanded a discharge of the whole artillery of the castle of St Angelo, and put a stop to his journey to Avignon.
He appears to have been the first sultan who was a lover of arts and sciences, and who also cultivated polite letters. He often read the History of Augustus, and the other Cæsars; and he perused those of Alexander, Constantine, and Theodosius, with more than ordinary pleasure, because these had reigned in the same country with himself. He was fond of painting, music, and sculpture, and he applied himself to the study of agriculture. He was much addicted to astrology; and used to encourage his troops by giving out that the motion and influence of the heavenly bodies promised him the empire of the world. Contrary to the genius of his country, he delighted so much in the knowledge of foreign languages, that he not only spoke the Arabian, to which the Turkish laws, and the religion of their legislator Mahommed, are appropriated, but also the Persian, the Greek, and the Lingua Franca, a species of corrupted Italian. Landin, a knight of Rhodes, collected several letters which this sultan wrote in the Syriac, Greek, and Turkish languages, and translated them into Latin. Where the originals are, nobody knows; but the translation has been several times published, as at Lyons 1520, in 4to; at Basil, 1554, 12mo; in a collection published by Oporinus, at Marburg, 1604, in 8vo; and at Leipzig, 1600, in 12mo. Melchior Junius, professor of eloquence at Strasburg, published at Montbéliard, 1595, a collection of letters, in which there are three written by Mahommed II. to Scanderbeg. One cannot discover the least symptom of Turkish ferocity in these letters. They are written in as civil terms, and as obliging a manner, as the most polite prince in Christendom could have employed.