Turkish prisoners have declared, over 30,000 persons were by them carried off, and as has since been told, such as could not march were cruelly put to death. Thus have they wasted, destroyed, burnt, and plundered all in the land of Austria below Ens, and nearly to the water of Ens, but on the hither side of the Danube for the most part the land has escaped, for by reason of the river the Turk could do there but little harm; the towns also round about Vienna beyond Brück on the Leitha, have remained unconquered and unwasted by the Turk, but the open country wasted and burnt.'"-pp. 12, 13.

Under the terror thus inspired, town after town surrendered, almost without a blow. Fünfkirchen and Pesth, which had only begun to recover from the havoc of the recent invasion-Stahlweissenburg, Gran, Comorn, Raab, and Altenburg, fell one after the other, either by treachery or by surrender; a few strong cities or castles, for the time, resisted the assault of the Sultan, but their resistance had not the effect of retarding his onward movement; and at length "the Austrian frontier was crossed at several points by the terrible bands of Michael Oglou, and even from the walls of Vienna the horizon was seen reddened with the flames of burning villages."

Meanwhile, the preparations at home were far from keeping pace with the magnitude of the danger. In Austria, it is true, every tenth man was called out for service, and in Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol, considerable levies were raised; but the Diet of Spire, which should have been readiest in this fearful crisis, not only limited its vote of succour to the paltry force of twelve thousand foot and four thousand horse; but, with the enemy upon the very border, protracted its discussions as to the propriety of making even this scanty grant, till, with the true German phlegin, a deputation had been despatched into Hungary to investigate upon the spot the reality and extent of the danger!

Nothing could be more inadequate than the defences of Vienna itself. It is well observed by Schimmer, that the old name, Stadtzaun, (city-hedge), was no inappropriate description of the walls, which were scarce six feet thick, ruinous in great part, and everywhere frail and insufficient. But the zeal and ardour of the garrison, though tardy in being awakened, went far to compensate the weakness of the fortifications. It numbered about 20,000 foot, and 2,000 cavalry; vigorous, well-appointed, and full of spirit; some of them, as for example, the Pfalzgraf Philip,

had only succeeded by long and forced marches, in throwing themselves into the capital almost at the moment of its investment; and the young Count Rupert of Manderscheid, and Wolf of Oettingen, actually swam the river while the city was strictly besieged, and were drawn up over the wall! All the houses adjoining the walls were thrown down: the shingles, of which the roofs were then most commonly formed, were removed as a precaution against fire; in the end, it was resolved to destroy the entire suburb, with all the sumptuous buildings it contained; and, to guard against the danger of a lengthened siege, all useless hands, women, children, ecclesiastics, and old men, were, as far as possible, obliged to leave the city.

On the 29th of September, the main body of the Turkish army, under the command of the Vizier, sat down before the city. Some days previously, however, when an advanced guard pushed forward almost to the very walls, a vigorous sally was made by the garrison; it was not attended with any very important results, but the particulars related of Christopher von Zedlitz, one of the officers engaged in it, who fell into the hands of the Turks, are so exceedingly curious, that we cannot resist the temptation of transcribing them. They are taken from an original narrative preserved in the archives of Vienna.

"For when, in the year before mentioned (1529,) the Turk assailed Vienna, this noble knight had fallen upon him, and well conducted himself, and in a skirmish had fallen from and parted company with his horse, which had not trusted itself to come back to him, and a cry being raised to save the standard, which was performed by a Fleming, Cornet Christopher had taken post on a small round hillock, where three Turks perceived and assaulted him, but he with his sword stood at bay, and stuck one of their horses in the head, and would have got clear off, but that twelve other Turks assailed him before and behind, and by numbers struck him to the ground; and when he had wounded one of these through the arm, they wrung his sword from him, and endeavoured to loose his armour, but as he was armed with a whole cuirass, no one could strip him, else, without doubt, in their fury they would have sabred and cut him to pieces. As it was they made him prisoner, and carried him off among them, by the side of their horses, a good quarter of a mile, and then set him in his cuirass on a baggagemule, and carried him on through the night as far as Bruck on the Leitha, the head quarter of the Turkish emperor. When they entered the camp there was much concourse to see a figure in full harness, cuirass, and head-piece, all screwed up, so that there was

nothing but sheer iron to be seen; then one of the bystanders spoke to him in the Croat tongue, and asked him what he could do and compass, having such a load of iron on him; and he answered: Had I a horse, and were I loose and free, thou wouldst then quickly see what I could do.' Being further asked whether he, Von Zedlitz, could touch the ground with his fist, he quickly bent himself down thereto : meanwhile the girth of the baggage-saddle burst, and he fell with a crash to the ground; and when the Turks began to laugh, he (Von Zedlitz) rose nimbly up, and without a run, jumped in his heavy armour on the tall mule, so that the Turks admired and forbore to laugh. In this expedition there was about the Emperor Ibrahim (in German Emerich) Pacha, an eminent and notable man, the next to Solyman in that day, ruler and minister of everything in the Turkish realm, and who in this war counselled and directed everything. Before him when Von Zedlitz was brought, he gave order that they should take him out of his armour; but among the Turks was no man familiar with knightly equipment, who could deal with the manner of fastening of such a cuirass, then no longer much used and quite unknown to the Turks, and he remained armed till questioned by Solyman himself. To him Count Christopher made answer, that if assured of his life he would undo himself. When Ibrahim Pacha had given him such assurance, he showed the interpreter two little screws at the side, which being loosed, the cuirass came to its pieces, to the great wonder of the Turks. When he had laid aside his harness, the Turks, observing a gold chain about him, fell upon him violently to tear it off; but he, seizing it with both hands, tore it in pieces and flung it among them. They also took from him his seal and ring, and on account of the gold, concluded him to be of great means and condition; but he held himself out for a gentleman of small means, who had won these things in war. As the account of these things spread itself through the camp, much was said of the feats of this man-at-arms, and of his singular dexterity under his strange attire, and every one was curious to see him, being, moreover, among the first who had been taken prisoners out of the city itself of Vienna. He was, therefore, ordered to exhibit himself in full cuirass, armed at all points for fight, and to prove whether in this fashion he could, without vantage, lift himself from the ground. On the following day, mules and several kicking horses being produced, Count Christopher laid himself on the ground with his cuirass screwed, and rising nimbly, without any vantage, sprung on a horse, and this he repeated several times; and then, with running and vaulting, afforded those hellhounds a princely spectacle of knightly exercises to their great admiration, and specially that of Ibrahim Pacha, who soon after took him to himself, and kept him safe in his own custody. Meanwhile, there came to him certain officers to frighten or to prove him, telling him to hold himself in readiness, for that the Pacha would do him right that same day.

To these he answered, that as a Christian he was in truth not afraid of death; as one who, in honour of his Redeemer, in obedience to his sovereign, and in defence of his country, had prepared himself by prayer for death at any hour or instant, and hoped and believed most certainly to enjoy eternal joy and happiness through Christ; but, nevertheless, could not credit that such was the order of the Pacha, for he knew for certain that what the Pacha had promised he would perform like an honourable soldier. When this reached the Pacha, the longer he considered the more he admired, not only the knightly feats, but the noble spirit of this hero. When, also, Soliman himself asked him whether, if he (Soliman) should release him, he would still make war upon him, Count Christopher answered, undismayed, that if God and his Redeemer should grant him deliverance, he would while life lasted fight against the Turks more hotly than ever. Thereupon the Sultan replied, Thou shalt be free, my man, and make war on me as thou wilt for the rest of thy life.'"-pp. 48-51.

There are some not unamusing episodes in the history of the siege. The Sultan, when upon his march from Brück, had sent forward a threatening notification, that upon the feast of St. Michael (Sept. 29), he would breakfast in Vienna. As a substitute, possibly, for the fulfilment of this promise, the Vizier upon this day made the circuit of the walls on horseback. The besieged, in the midst of their anxiety, could not resist the temptation of a joke at the Sultan's expense. They released a party of prisoners with a message, "that his breakfast had waited for him till the meat was cold, and he must be fain to content himself with such poor entertainment as they could send him from the guns on the wall."

The total force of the besiegers is stated at nearly 300,000 men. Of these, however, only one-third appears to have been fully armed and equipped. The artillery amounted to about 300 pieces; but not more than thirty were of any considerable calibre. The precautions of the besieged are in some respects not a little curious. The pavement of the streets was taken up in order to deaden the fall of the shot thrown into the city. The bells of the city were condemned to strict silence with the exception of the great bell of St. Stephen's. The troops were divided into messes of four men, to each of which a fixed allowance of bread and wine was daily served out; and the chroniclers relate that it was soon discovered that the allowance of wine allotted to the native soldiers, was quite beyond the capacity of the foreign Lanzknechts who had

been embodied for the service; and that it was necessary to strike off no less than five-eighths of their allowance. In the tactics of those times, the mine formed the unfailing resource of the besieging army. The precautions adopted by the garrison against the mining operations of the enemy, are equally curious. They contrived to open countermines at all the suspected points; they propped up the walls from the inside, with posts and beams, in order that in the event of the mines being sprung, the ruins might be thrown outwards, and thus block up the way to the breach guards were posted in all the cellars near the walls; trenches were dug near the fort of the rampart; and drums strewn with peas, or tubs filled with water, were placed at every spot likely to be selected for a mine, in order to indicate by the rattling of the peas, or the agitation of the water, the near presence of the Turkish miners and the course in which their operations were directed. It is interesting to add that by these judicious precautions many of the mines were detected, and either destroyed by countermines, rendered ineffective by being flooded with water, or robbed of the powder with which they had been charged, in one instance amounting to no less than twenty barrels.

The siege was prosecuted with the utmost vigour till the 14th of October. We can only afford room for one or two passages in its history.

"The difficulties of the defence became every day more urgent, and a proclamation was issued, forbidding, on pain of death, all self-indulgence and neglect of duty. To illustrate and enforce this edict, two lanzknechts, who, over their cups, remained absent from their posts after the alarm had been given, were hanged at the Lugeek as traitors. On the 8th the whole artillery of the Turks played upon the city. The timber bulwark in front of the Karnthner gate was set on fire, and the walls, deprived of their breast work, threatened to fall inwards. To avoid this, possibly fatal, catastrophe, trunks of trees and huge beams were brought to their support, and a new breastwork was thrown up with incredible celerity. A similar work was thrown up before the Scottish gate, and mounted with two guns, which did much mischief in the Turkish camp towards Sporkenbühel. On the 9th October an alarm took place at daybreak, and preparations for a storm were evident in the Turkish camp. At 3 P.M. mines were sprung to the right and left of the Karnthner gate. The one on the left opened a breach in the wall, wide enough for twenty-four men to advance in order. The assault was nevertheless gallantly repulsed by Salm and