pense, or seemed rather to incline in favour of the Mohammedans. The cause of the Western World appeared to totter on the brink of destruction, and the most valiant among the crusaders allowed themselves to fear that Heaven had deserted its own cause and people.*

At the moment when all was considered lost, a knight was seen on Mount Olivet, waving his glittering shield as a sign to the soldiers that they should rally and return to the charge. Godfrey and Eustace cried aloud to the army, that St. George was come to their succour. The spirit of enthusiasm instantly revived, fatigue and pain were no longer felt, the princes led their columns to the breach, and even the women insisted upon sharing the honours of the fight. In the space of an hour the barbacan was broken down, and Godfrey's tower rested against the inner wall. Exchanging the duties of a general for those of a soldier, the Duke of Lorraine fought with his bow: "The Lord guided his hand, and all his arrows pierced the enemy through and through." Near him were Eustace and Baldwin, "like two lions beside another lion." At three o'clock, the hour when the Saviour of the world was crucified, a soldier, named Letoldus of Tournay, leaped upon the fortifications; his brother, Engelbert, followed, and Godfrey was

*"When the first light brought news of a morning, they on afresh, because they had intercepted a letter tied to the leg of a dove, wherein the Persian emperor promised present succours to the besieged. The Turks cased the outside of their walls with bags of chaff, straw, and such like pliable matter, which conquered the engines of the Christians by yielding unto them. As for one sturdy engine, whose force would not be tamed, they brought two old witches on the walls to enchant it; but the spirit thereof was too strong for their spells, so that both of them were miserably slain in the place.

"We must not think that the world was at a loss for war tools before the brood of guns was hatched: it had the battering-ramme, first found out by Epeus at the taking of Troy; the balista to discharge great stones, invented by the Phenicians; the catapulta, being a sling of mighty strength, whereof the Syrians were authors; and perchance King Uzziah first made it, for we find him very dexterous and happy in devising such things. And although these bear-whelps were but rude and unshaped at the first, yet art did lick them afterward, and they got more teeth and sharper nails by degrees; so that every age set them forth in a new edition, corrected and amended. But these and many more voluminous engines are now virtually epitomized in the cannon. And though some say that the finding of guns hath been the losing of many men's lives, yet it will appear that battles now are fought with more expedition, and Victory standeth not so long a neuter, before she express herself on one side or other."-Fuller's Holy Warre, p. 41.

the third Christian who stood as a conqueror upon the ramparts of Jerusalem. The glorious ensign of the Cross streamed from the walls, and the whole city was soon at the mercy of the besiegers. The Mussulmans fought for a while, then fled to their temples, and submitted their necks to the sword. The victors, in a document which is still preserved, boasted, that in the mosque of Omar, whither they pursued the fugitives, they rode in the blood of Saracens up to the knees of their horses.

After the slaughter had terminated, and the soldiers had soothed their minds by certain acts of devotion, the expediency of forming a regular government became manifest to all parties. Godfrey, a hero whose name cannot be too highly honoured, was chosen by the unanimous suffrages of rival warriors to be the first Christian king of Jerusalem. Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard, reigned at Antioch; Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey, at Edessa; and the Count of Toulouse, at Tripoli. The dominion of the crusaders extended from the confines of Egypt to the Euphrates on the east, and to the acclivities of Mount Taurus on the north; and several of their príncipalities lasted nearly two hundred years.

Many attempts have been made to defend the policy and excuse the enormities of the Christian warriors in their enterprise against the Moslem occupants of the Holy Land. These two points ought to be more carefully distinguished than they usually are, whether in the pages of friends or enemies; for while the general expediency of a combination of the Christian powers may be supported on good grounds, the cruelty of some of their measures deserves the severest censure. It is remarked by Mr. Mills, that the massacre of the Saracens on the capture of the holy city did not proceed alone from the inflamed passions of victorious soldiers, but from remorseless fanaticism. Benevolence to Turks, Jews, infidels, and heretics made no part of Christian ethics in those rude times; and as the Moslem in their consciences believed it was the will of Heaven that the religion of their prophet should be propagated by the sword, so their antago nists laboured under the mental delusion that they themselves were the ministers of God's wrath on a disobedient and stiff-necked people. The Latins, on the day after the victory, massacred three hundred men, to whom Tancred

and Gaston de Bearn had promised protection, and even given a standard as a pledge of safety. But every engagement was broken, in consequence of the resolution that no pity should be shown to the Mohammedans,—an expedient which was justified by the opinion now prevalent among the invaders, that in conjunction with the Saracens of Egypt they might again reduce the city and recover all the ground they had lost. It was for this reason that the inhabitants of Jerusalem, armed and unarmed, were dragged forth into the public squares, and slain like cattle. Women

with children at the breast, boys, and even girls wer slaughtered indiscriminately, and in such numbers that the streets were covered with dead bodies and mangled limbs. No heart melted into compassion or expanded into benevo lence. The stones of the city were ordered to be washed, and the melancholy task was performed by some Moslem slaves. The Count of Toulouse, whose avarice prevailed over his superstition, was loudly condemned for accepting a ransom from a few of the devoted prisoners, whom he sent in safety to Ascalon. So unrelenting, in short, was the passion of revenge among the crusaders, that they set fire to the synagogues of the Jews, many of whom perished in the flames.*

Such conduct merits the deepest execration that moralist or statesman may be pleased to pour upon it. We are nevertheless convinced that, in the peculiar circumstances of the Christian world when Peter the Hermit called its chiefs to arms, a united war against the Mohammedan states of Syria was dictated by the soundest political wisdom. The subjects of Omar had already conquered an establishment in Sicily and Spain, and attempted the subjugation of France. Their views were directed towards universal dominion in the West, as well as in the East; they hoped to witness the triumph of the crescent in Europe not less certainly than in Asia, and to be able to impose a tribute on the worshippers of Christ, or compel them to re

*Fuller remarks, that "this second massacre was no slip of an extemporary passion, but a studied and premeditated act. Besides, the execution was merciless upon sucking children whose not speaking spake for them; and on women whose weakness is a shield to defend them against a valiant man. To conclude, severity, hot in the fourth degree, is little better than poison, and becometh cruelty itself; and this act seemeth to be of the same nature."-Holy Warre, p. 41

linquish their creed on the remotest shores of the Atlantic. Those, therefore, who perceive in the Crusades nothing but a mob of armed pilgrims running to rescue a tomb in Palestine must take a very limited view of history. The point in question was not merely the recovery of that sacred building from the hands of infidels, but rather to decide which of the two religions, the Christian or Mohammedan, should predominate in the world; the one hostile to civilization, and only favourable to ignorance, despotism, and slavery; the other friendly to improvement, learning, and freedom in all ranks and conditions of society.

It is asserted by Chateaubriand, that whoever reads the address of Pope Urban to the council of Clermont must be convinced that the leaders in these military enterprises were not actuated by the petty views which have been ascribed to them; but, on the contrary, that they aspired to save the Western World from a new inundation of barbarians. The spirit of Islamism is conquest and persecution; the gospel, on the contrary, inculcates only toleration and peace. The Christians, moreover, had endured for several centuries all the oppressions which the fanaticism of the Saracens impelled them to exercise. They had merely endeavoured to interest Charlemagne in their favour; for neither the conquest of Spain, the invasion of France, the pillage of Greece and the Two Sicilies, nor the entire subjugation of Africa, could for nearly six hundred years rouse the Christians to arms. If at last the cries of numberless victims slaughtered in the East, if the progress of the barbarians, who had already reached the gates of Constantinople, awakened Christendom, and impelled it to rise in its own defence, who can say that the cause of the Holy Wars was unjust? Contemplate Greece, if you would know the fate of a people subjected to the Mussulman yoke. Would those who at this day so loudly exult in the progress of knowledge wish to live under a religion that burned the Alexandrian library, which makes a merit of trampling mankind under foot, and holding literature and the arts in sovereign contempt? The Crusades, by weakening the Moslem hordes in the very centre of Asia, prevented Europe from falling a prey to the Turks and Arabs; they did more, they saved her from revolutions at home, with which she was threatened; they suspended intestine wars by which she was ever and

anon desolated; and, finally, they opened an outlet to that excess of population which sooner or later occasions the ruin of nations.*

The administration of Godfrey was gentle and prosperous. He gained a decisive victory over the Vizier of Egypt, who had encamped on the plains of Ascalon with the view of assisting his Syrian allies to recover Jerusalem from the hands of the Christians. According to the spirit of the age, he joined to the qualities of a brave soldier the profession of an ardent faith and the utmost reverence for the authority of the church. He refused a precious diadem offered to him by his companions in arms, declaring that he would never wear a crown of gold in the city where the Saviour of the world had worn a crown of thorns. In the same feeling he was disposed to reject the title of king and to exercise his office under the name of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre.

Upon the demise of this distinguished commander, which is supposed to have taken place at Jaffa, the government devolved upon his brother Baldwin, who sustained its glory and interests with a steady hand. About the year 1118, he was succeeded on his throne by his nephew, who bore the same name, and who, although sometimes unfortunate, did not tarnish the honour of his family. Melisandra, his eldest daughter, married Foulques of Anjou, and conveyed the kingdom of Jerusalem into the hand of her husband, who enjoyed it ten or twelve years, when he lost his life by a fall from a horse. His son, Baldwin the Third, a youth of a rash temper and destitute of experience, assumed the sceptre of Jerusalem, which he held twenty years,―a period rendered remarkable by the events of the second Crusade, and the rise of various orders of knighthood,— the Hospitallers, Templars, and Cavaliers.

The news from Palestine, that certain reverses had been sustained by the Christians, acted so powerfully on the pious spirit of St. Bernard and the troubled conscience of Louis

* On this interesting subject we refer to the "Itinéraire" of Chateaubriand, and his "Génie du Christianisme;" the History of England by Sir James Mackintosh, volume first; and to Mills's History of the Crusades, volume first, chapter sixth. We may add Dr. Robertson's "Historical Disquisition concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India."