In early youth the future ruler of so vast an empire was engaged in struggles for ascendency with the petty chiefs of rival tribes. His boundless ambition early conceived the conquest and monarchy of the world; his wish was "to live in the memory and esteem of future ages." He was born in a period of anarchy, when the crumbling kingdoms of the Asiatic dynasties were no longer able to resist the adventurous spirit determined to occupy the new field of military triumph which opened before him. At the age of twenty-five Timur was hailed as the deliverer of his country. When he chose Samarkand as the capital of his dominion, he declared his purpose to make that dominion embrace the whole habitable earth; and at the height of his power he ruled from the Great Wall of China to the centre of Russia on the north, while his sovereignty extended to the Mediterranean and the Nile on the west, and on the east to the sources of the Ganges. In his own person he united twenty-seven different sovereignties, and nine several dynasties of kings gave place to the unparalleled conqueror, who won by the sword a larger portion of the globe than Cyrus or Alexander, Caesar or Attila, Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, or Napoleon. It was believed in the family and empire of Timur that he himself composed the _Commentaries_ of his life and the _Institutions_ of his government, which, however, were probably the work of his secretaries. These manuscripts have been of great service to historians in their study of Timur's career. At the age of thirty-four, and in a general diet, Timur was invested with imperial command, but he affected to revere the house of Genghis; and while the emir Timur reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a private officer in the armies of his servant. Without expatiating on the victories of thirty-five campaigns, without describing the lines of march which he repeatedly traced over the continent of Asia, I shall briefly represent Timur's conquests in Persia, Tartary, and India, and from thence proceed to the more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war.