lose his servant, for the sake of the good service which he was to do thereafter, as well in avenging the death of that glorious company upon the Saracens, as in the other great benefits which were to follow from his talents and by his means, caused the Earl of Nevers to look at the Marshal and the Marshal at him right sorrowfully, at the very moment that some one was about to strike him. Then was the foresaid Earl wonderfully vexed at heart for the death of such a man, and he called to mind the great good, the prowess, loyalty, and valour that were in him. So, on a sudden, God put it in his mind to clasp his hands together as he looked at Bajazet, and he made sign that the Marshal was to him as a brother, and that he should respite him: which sign Bajazet soon understood, and released him. When this stern execution was complete, and the whole field was strewed with the bodies of these blessed martyrs, as many French as others of divers countries, that cursed Bajazet arose, and ordered the Marshal, who had been so respited, to be committed to prison in a large handsome town of Turkey, called Bursa. So his bidding was done, and he was kept there till the arrival of the said Bajazet.”[111] Innumerable instances of the like ferocity might be produced from Eastern history. Rowe’s polished and pious Tamerlane put to death 100,000 persons in the streets of Delhi. Few men have so well and fairly estimated their own character, and the class to which they belong, as did Nadir Shah, when to the remonstrance, “If thou art a king, cherish and protect thy people,—if a prophet, shew us the way of salvation,—if a God, be merciful to thy creatures,” he replied, “I am neither a king to protect my subjects, nor a prophet to teach the way of salvation, nor a God to exercise the attribute of mercy; but I am he whom the Almighty has sent in his wrath to chastise a world of sinners.” The following anecdote, striking in itself, is the more interesting as an exception to a general rule: “In the year 1068 Alp Arslan, the second sultan of Persia, of the Seljukian dynasty, defeated and took prisoner Romanus Diogenes, husband of Eudocia, the reigning empress of Constantinople. He treated his prisoner with extreme kindness and distinction; he uttered no reproaches that could wound a humbled monarch, but gave vent to the honest indignation of a warrior at the base and cowardly conduct of those who had deserted and abandoned so brave a leader. We are told that he asked his captive at their first conference, what he would have done if fortune had reversed their lot. ‘I would have given thee many a stripe,’ was the imprudent and virulent answer. This expression of haughty and unsubdued spirit excited no anger in the brave and generous conqueror. He only smiled, and asked Romanus what he expected would be done to him? ‘If thou art cruel,’ said the emperor, ‘put me to death. If vain–glorious, load me with chains, and drag me to thy capital. If generous, grant