nearly driven his people to rebellion, the rise of Solyman furnished a pillar of strength to the house of Othman. At the time of his reign the thrones of Europe, as well as those of Persia and India, were occupied by some of the most powerful sovereigns of modern times. But in “a century rich with mighty spirits” there are few names which can compare with that of Solyman the Magnificent, the great lawgiver and commander of his nation. Under his sway, the dynasty of the Ottoman Turks reached its zenith. Though the institutions of his predecessors, and the military organization they had bequeathed, supplied a foundation, yet it was in great measure to his own genius, vigour, and capacity, that the mighty fabric of the Ottoman power owed its stupendous greatness, and that an Empire founded but three centuries before by a few families of wandering Turkomans, then numbered among its subjects twenty different races, and nearly fifty millions of inhabitants, and still survives with wonderful tenacity, after three centuries of decline, unbroken by a single vicissitude of success. Thus for ten successive reigns, with perhaps a single exception, the throne of the Ottoman Turks was held by men of extraordinary talents. Nor was this vigour of the early Sultans merely accidental. The strict discipline to which they were subjected in early years, the attention that was paid to their education, and their subsequent training in the council and the field, must all have tended to this result. The real weakness of the Ottoman government, its absolute dependence on a single man, was marvellously compensated and overcome by a continued succession of vigorous sovereigns. The superiority of a well regulated constitution over a despotism generally lies in a comparative equality of ability through all its different members. As long as absolute power is held by the strong hand of a great man all is prosperous. But a continued succession of great men rarely occurs, and when it falls to an irresolute hand to wield the sceptre of despotism the real weakness of the system appears. In France, the Revolution was the ultimate result of the exercise of unlimited power, by Louis the fourteenth; in England, the great Rebellion was the final issue of the attempt to subject the English people to a despotism. The reason that the same result did not occur in the case of the Ottomans is to be found in the historic facts: first, that the later Sultans were, in the eyes of Mahometans, the successors of the Prophet, as well as the descendants of Othman; and, secondly, that the Janissaries, like the Praetorian guards at Rome, jealously prevented their rulers from being made subject to any power but their own.