This, therefore, formed a fitting preface to the armorial bearings of the great Serbian Czar himself. Above the shield appeared a crowned helmet, whose crest was the double-headed eagle of empire, supporting another rayed crown. On either side were two other casques, each crested with two lions,—I take it, from a Macedonian den,—crowned and guardant. The shield itself was divided into eleven compartments; in the centre reappeared the double eagle of the Némanjas, argent on a field gules, and round this were quartered the arms of all the provinces of his empire. Here was the red, crowned lion of Macedonia (this alone appeared in two quarters); the Moorish trophies of Bosnia; the Slavonian leash of hounds; the three bearded kings of Dalmatia; the chequers, gules and argent of Croatia; the rampant lion of Bulgaria; the Serbian battle-axes; the three horse-shoes of Rascia; the armour-cased arm of Primorie, holding aloft her sable scimetar. The original of this comprehensive escutcheon was devised fifteen years before Czar Dūshan marched with such sanguine hopes to seize Byzantium; and already we see him claiming sway over a territory which embraces the southern provinces of modern Austria, and the greater part of Turkey-in-Europe. The Eastern question was nearer a felicitous solution then than it ever has been since! Had Dūshan found a successor worthy to support his shield, or to wear the double-eagled casque, in all human probability the Turk would never have made good his footing in Europe, the dotard Greeklings of Byzantium would have given place to a youthful power capable of acting as the champion of Christendom and of competing successfully with the civilization of the West; and the different destiny of these Sclavonic lands might nowhere have been more conspicuous than in this very valley—so rich in the mineral wealth of nature, so deficient in human industry! _Dîs aliter placitum_; and were Czar Dūshan himself to return from the grave, he might well shrink from the attempt to form anew the Serbian empire; or if he attempted to cut the knot of complications by the sword, he would find himself opposed not only by Turkish scimetars, but more effectually by the ignoble jealousies of Christendom; and, in a last resort, by the arms of military monarchies, whose rulers prefer to have for neighbours decrepit infidels whom they can bully at their pleasure, to see a Christian State rise on their borders, which might some day form a healthy rival!