All that falls within his reach he dispatches as he goes. The Cid rode to King Fariz, and struck at him three blows; The third was far the best, it forced the blood to flow, The stream ran from his side, and stained his arms below; The King caught round the rein, and turned his back to go, The Cid has won the battle with that single blow.” The battle of Tours delivered Europe from the dread of Mahometan invasion from the West, and a few Spaniards sheltered in the mountains of Asturias succeeded ere long in erecting an independent kingdom, and ultimately in wresting the whole Peninsula from the Moors. But the recovery of what had been lost in two campaigns occupied near seven centuries of the most inveterate and destructive warfare, in which the international hatred displayed of old between Greek and barbarian was revived, and further embittered by religious hatred. “And what a warfare! it was to burn the standing corn, to root up the vine and the olive, to hang the heads of their enemies from the saddle bow, and drive mothers and children before them with the lance; to massacre the men of a town in the fury of assault; to select the chiefs that they might be murdered in cold blood; to reserve the women for violation and the children for slavery; and this warfare year after year, till they rested from mere exhaustion. The soldiers of Ferran Gonzalez complained that they led a life like devils: ‘Our Lord,’ said they, ‘is like Satan, and we are like his servants, whose whole delight is in separating soul from body.’”[17] Meanwhile the struggle between the Cross and the Crescent was proceeding in the East with very different success, and before the surrender of Granada, the end of Moorish independence in Spain, the Ottoman empire was established in the south of Europe, and the city of Constantine acknowledged the divine mission of Mahomet. The Crescent has long been waning, never again, as far as human foresight can extend, to refill its horns; and in the present impotence of all Mahometan courts, and the apathy of their subjects, we seek in vain the resemblance of the mighty princes, and the fiery soldiery, whose enthusiasm operated the most sudden and extensive changes related in history. Tribe after tribe have swept each other from the plains of Asia, and with various success have carried their arms and their religion into Europe; and now the empire founded by the last of them in its decrepitude depends for its existence upon its Christian allies. Yet it is not a century and a half since the frontier of Germany was the scene of continual warfare; and since the utmost exertions of the warlike inhabitants of Poland and Hungary could scarcely restrain the Turks from forcing their way into the heart of Europe, or preserve the capital of the Western from the fate experienced by the capital of the Eastern Empire. Vienna has been twice besieged by a Turkish army, and even so recently as the year