was on the point of repeating his adventurous undertaking, when a deserter, who had been recaptured, and was standing under the gallows with the halter adjusted, confessed that he had furnished to the Turks an accurate description of Kolschitzki's person. He was himself deterred by this warning, but his gallant companion, George Michailo wich, found means twice to repeat the exploit, with the same safety and success as in the first instance. On his second return he displayed a remarkable presence of mind and vigour of arm. Having all but reached the palisades, he was joined by a Turkish horseman, who entered into familiar conversation with him. As it was, however, impossible for him to follow further his path towards the city, in such company, by a sudden blow he struck his unwelcome companion's head from his shoulders, and springing on the riderless horse, made his way to the gate. He did not, however, after this success, tempt his fortune again. He brought on this occasion an autograph letter from the Emperor, full of compliments and promises, which was publicly read in the Rathhaus."-p. 111-113.

It is with very great reluctance we hurry over the more minute history of this memorable siege. The twelfth chapter of the narrative is not inferior in interest to the pages of Josephus, though it is wanting in most of the horrors with which his history abounds. But we are induced to pass it by, in order to make room for the account of the relief of the city, and the final defeat of the Turkish army under Sobieski. After a defence of two anxious months, the main army advanced to the relief of the city. The following scene might be deemed in many of its features, not unworthy a place in the history of the old Crusades.

"At sunrise of the 12th September, the crest of the Kahlenberg was concealed by one of those autumnal mists which give promise of a genial, perhaps a sultry day, and which, clinging to the wooded flanks of the acclivity, grew denser as it descended, till it rested heavily on the shores and the stream itself of the river below. From that summit the usual fiery signals of distress had been watched through the night by many an eye as they rose incessantly from the tower of St. Stephen, and now the fretted spire of that edifice, so long the target of the ineffectual fire of the Turkish artillerists, was faintly distinguished rising from a sea of

* "Kolschitzki's services would appear to have made a deep impression on the public mind. Several narratives of his adventures were published at the time; and his portrait, in his Turkish costume, figures in the frontispiece of most of them.'

mist. As the hour wore on, and the exhalation dispersed, a scene was disclosed which must have made those who witnessed it from the Kahlenberg tighten their saddle-girths or look to their priming. A practised eye glancing over the fortifications of the city, could discern from the Burg to the Scottish gate an interruption of their continuity, a shapeless interval of rubbish and of ruin, which seemed as if a battalion might enter it abreast. In face of this desolation a labyrinth of lines extended itself differing in design from the rectilinear zigzag of a modern approach, and formed of short curves overlapping each other, to use a comparison of some writers of the time, like the scales of a fish. In these, the Turkish lines, the miner yet crawled to his task, and the storming parties were still arrayed by order of the Vizier, ready for a renewal of the assault so often repeated in vain. The camp behind had been evacuated by the fighting men; the horse-tails had been plucked from before the tents of the Pachas, but their harems still tenanted the canvass city; masses of Christian captives awaited their doom in chains; camels and drivers and camp followers still peopled the long streets of tents in all the confusion of fear and suspense. Nearer to the base of the hilly range of the Kahlenberg and the Leopoldsberg, the still imposing numbers of the Turkish army were drawn up in battle array ready to dispute the egress of the Christian columns from the passes, and prevent their deployment on the plain. To the westward, on the reverse flank of the range, the Christian troops might be seen toiling up the ascent. As they drew up on the crest of the Leopoldsberg they formed a half circle round the chapel of the Margrave, and when the bell for matins tolled, the clang of arms and the noises of the march were silenced. On a space kept clear round the chapel a standard with a white cross on a red ground was unfurled, as if to bid defiance to the blood red flag planted in front of the tent of Kara Mustapha. One shout of acclamation and defiance broke out from the modern crusaders as this emblem of a holy war was displayed, and all again was hushed as the gates of the castle were flung open, and a procession of the Princes of the Empire and the other leaders of the Christian host moved forward to the chapel. It was headed by one whose tonsured crown and venerable beard betokened the monastic profession. The soldiers crossed themselves as he passed, and knelt to receive the blessing which he gave them with outstretched hands. This was the famous Capuchin Marco Aviano, friend and confessor to the Emperor, whose acknowledged piety and exemplary life had earned for him the general reputation of prophetic inspiration. He had been the inseparable companion of the Christian army in its hours of difficulty and danger,. and was now here to assist at the consummation of his prayers for its success. Among the stately warriors who composed his train, three principally attracted the gaze of the curious. The first in rank and station was a man somewhat past the prime of life, strong limbed

and of imposing stature, but quick and lively in speech and gesture, his head partly shaved in the fashion of his semi-Eastern country, his hair, eyes, and beard, dark-coloured. His majestic bearing bespoke the soldier-king, the scourge and dread of the Moslem, the conqueror of Choczim, John Sobieski. His own attire is said to have been plain, but we gather from his letters that in his retinue he displayed a Sclavonic taste for magnificence which strongly contrasted with the economical arrangements of Lorraine, and even of the two Electors. Painters, and others studious of accuracy, may be glad to know that on this occasion the colour of his dress was sky blue, and that he rode a bay horse. An attendant bearing a shield, with his arms emblazoned, always preceded him, and his place in battle was marked by another who carried a plume on his lance point, a signal more conspicuous, though less inseparable, than the famous white plume of Henry IV. On his left was his youthful son Prince James, armed with a breastplate and helmet, and, in addition to an ordinary sword, with a short and broad-bladed sabre, a national weapon of former ages; on his right was the illustrious and heroic ancestor of the present reigning house of Austria, Charles of Lorraine. Behind these moved many of the principal members of those sovereign houses of Germany whose names and titles have been already specified. At the side of Louis of Baden walked a youth of slender frame and moderate stature, but with that intelligence in his eye which pierced in after years the cloud of many a doubtful field, and swayed the fortunes of empires. This was the young Eugene of Savoy, who drew his maiden sword in the quarrel in which his brother had lately perished. The service of high mass was performed in the chapel by Aviano, the King assisting at the altar, while the distant thunder of the Turkish batteries formed strange accompaniment to the Christian choir. The Princes then received the sacrament, and the religious ceremony was closed by a general benediction of the troops by Aviano. The king then stepped forward and conferred knighthood on his son, with the usual ceremonies, commending to him as an example for his future course the great commander then present, the Duke of Lorraine."-pp. 136-138.

The engagement terminated in the total rout of the Turkish army.

"It was five o'clock; his infantry was not yet at hand; the only artillery which had kept pace with the speed of his advance, consisted of two or three light pieces which the veteran commander of his artillery, Kouski, had brought up by force of arm and levers. Sobieski pointed these at the field tent of crimson silk, from which the Vizier was giving his orders. The ammunition carriages were, however, far behind, and a few charges carried by hand were soon exhausted. A French officer, it is said, rammed home the last

cartridge with his gloves, his wig, and a packet of French newspapers.

66

At this moment of hesitation the infantry came up. They were led by the Count Maligniz, the King's brother-in-law, against a height which commanded the quarters of the Vizier. The attack was successful, and the King determined on the instant to pursue his fortune. As he led his troops in a direct line for the Vizier's tent, his terrible presence was recognized by the infidel. By Allah, the King is really among us,' exclaimed the Khan of the Crimea, Selim Gieray. The mass retreated in confusion. Those who awaited theattack went down before those lances of the Polish cavalry of which it was said by a Polish noble to one of their kings, that if the heavens were to fall they would sustain them on their points. The Pachas of Aleppo and Silistria perished in the fray. The panic became universal, and the rout complete. The Vizier, hurried along with the stream, weeping and cursing by turns- had neither time to deliberate nor power to command. By six o'clock his gorgeous tent was in possession of Sobieski. His charger, too heavily caparisoned for rapid flight, was still held by a slave at the entrance. One of the golden stirrups was instantly sent off by the conqueror to the Queen as a token of the defeat and flight of its late owner. On the left, meanwhile, the progress of Lorraine, though less rapid from the difficulties of the ground and the tenacity of the resistance, had been equally victorious. The great Turkish redoubt, of which the traces yet remain, held out against repeated assaults till near five o'clock, when Louis of Baden, at the head of a regiment of Saxon dragoons, dismounted for the purpose, and two Austrian regiments of infantry, carried the work. The Turks now gave way at every point, and poured into their camp in the wildest confusion."-pp. 141, 142.

We shall add one other extract, descriptive of the captured pavilion of the Vizier and of its contents.

"The King writes to his wife that the quantity of ammunition saved was at most a third of the whole, and says that the continual explosions in the camp were like the last judgment. His letters give some very amusing details of that portion of the spoils of the Vizier's tent which he contrived to rescue for his own share from the fangs of his officers. They illustrate also the character of the man whose penetralia were thus rudely exposed to investigation, and show that Kara Mustapha had superadded every description of refinement to the simpler sensuality of the East. Tissues and carpets and furs are natural appendages of Oriental rank and wealth, and jewelled arms and quivers, studded with rubies and pearls, were equally consistent with his functions as commander of the armies of the faithful. Baths, fountains, a rabbit warren, and a menagerie, were found within the encampment. A parrot took

wing and foiled the pursuit of the soldiers. An ostrich had been beheaded by the Vizier's own hand, as it had been a woman of the harem, to prevent it falling into Christian hands. This rarity had been taken from the Imperial Menagerie at the Favorita, where the King mentions having found a famished lioness and a small body of Janissaries, who had been left behind at that post, and still held out some days after the action. The Janissaries surrendered to the personal summons of the King. Their lives were spared, and the lioness fed by order of the good-natured conqueror. The Vizier,' writes the King, is a galant homme, and has made us fine presents: everything in particular which came near his person is of the most mignon and refined description. Father Louis will have reason to rejoice, for I have in my possession the medicine chest of the Vizier. Among its contents are oils, and gums, and balms, which Pecovini is never tired of admiring. Among other things we have found some rare fishes called Eperlans de Informez-vous-en, mon cœur, chez le Père Louis; ce doit être une chose précieuse pour rechauffer les entrailles.' Among the treasures of the Vizier, diamonds were found in great profusion; many, set in girdles and otherwise, fell into the hands of the King, and many more carried off by the officers and soldiers. The King remarks that they were not used for ornament by the Turks of his day, and conjectures that they were destined to adorn the ladies of Vienna when transferred to the harems of the Vizier and his Pachas.

mer.

"Among other trophies of interest, Roman Catholic historians have particularized an oaken cross six ells in height, remarkable from the fact that in the camp of the infidel it was set up for the daily celebration of mass by one of their Christian allies, Servanus Kantacuzenos, Prince of Wallachia. A chapel was built for it in the so-called Gatterholz, near Schonbrunn, on the spot where it had thus braved the scoffs of the Moslem. It was stolen thence in 1785."-pp. 145, 146.

But little more remains to be told. From this signal defeat we may date the liberation of the city, and the close of the second and more formidable of the "Two Sieges of Vienna.' The Vizier retreated, rapidly and with great loss, as far as the fortress of Raab, where he wreaked his mortification under the defeat which he had sustained upon the veteran Pacha of Pesth, whose sagacious counsel already referred to, would probably, if adopted, have led to a more successful termination. Sobieski, who is accused of having loitered unduly among the rich tents of the Vizier, came up with the retreating army and engaged them at Barkan, and although in the first assault he was

* The King's Italian physician.