to await the famous anniversary of St. John, and the effect of the extensive mines which had been pushed under the works of the citadel. These mines, however, had failed; it became difficult to keep the secret of that failure from the troops, and the day of St. John had passed, as we have seen, without any signal occurrence. The troops, too, under command of the Pacha of Aleppo had even left the trenches, and it required the influence of the Grand Vizier in person to bring them back to their duty by promises and fearful threats. He was driven at this crisis to the temporary expedient of promulgating a report of the sudden death of the Emperor Leopold. The Vizier went so far as to order a general discharge of cannon and musketry throughout the camp, a proceeding which puzzled for a while but did not succeed in alarming the garrison, for the alleged cause of rejoicing did not obtain a moment’s credence in the city. The adoption of such expedients by the Vizier, and his general mode of conducting the military operations at this period, are explained, in the opinion of many, on the theory of his desire to obtain possession of the city by capitulation and not by storm. At a period when the result of a simultaneous attack, from the ruined state of the defences, could no longer have been doubtful, he preferred, it is said, to send his troops against the breach in isolated detachments, unequal to cope with the resistance which the garrison, however weakened, was still able to oppose to them. Having destined the valuables of the imperial residence for his own treasury, he was unwilling to expose them to the indiscriminate plunder of a final assault. He was anxious also to preserve from destruction the city itself as the future seat of government for a dynasty of the West, of which he intended to be himself the founder. Writers contemporary and subsequent have concurred in assigning these motives and this policy to Kara Mustapha, and in looking upon him as a Moslem Wallenstein, prepared, in reliance on the devotion of the army, to brave the displeasure of his sovereign, and possibly to throw off his allegiance. It was only towards the end of the siege and under the prospect of failure that these views underwent alteration, and that he became disposed to force an entrance at any sacrifice. By this time, however, the spirit of his troops was so depressed that, as we learn from Demetrius Kantemir’s history of the Ottoman Empire, they often exclaimed, as if addressing the armies of Lorraine and Sobieski, “O ye unfaithful, if you will not come yourselves, let us see at least the crests of your caps over the hills; for these once seen, the siege will be over and we shall be released.” The demonstration of such a spirit as this left the Vizier no longer a choice as to his measures. Though he was still incredulous as to the junction of the Polish forces, and still more so as to the appearance of their terrible commander