The Great Sieges Of History - free ebook by William Robson

THE GREAT SIEGES OF HISTORY.

BY WILLIAM ROBSON, AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF RICHELIEU,” ETC. Illustrated by John Gilbert. THE FOURTH THOUSAND. LONDON: G. ROUTLEDGE &amp; CO. FARRINGDON STREET; NEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET. 1856....

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PREFACE.

Late events have proved that, notwithstanding the dreams of visionary philosophers and the hopes of philanthropists, the Millennium is not yet arrived; the lamb cannot yet lie down in peace with the lion. Science has performed miracles to procure comforts and luxuries for man; literature and art have exerted their genial influence over his life and manners; and commerce has brought nations, geographically remote from each other, into the most intimate relations. And yet the roots of all evils—in

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THE GREAT SIEGES OF HISTORY.

Of all the collisions between the members of the human race for the furtherance of ambition, the maintenance of liberty, or the assertion of disputed rights, we consider the prominent sieges of history to be the most interesting and instructive. We know of no situation in which the higher virtues have been put to a severer test; in which courage, firmness, endurance, patriotism, fidelity, humanity, have shone with purer and more unmitigated lustre. In the pages we are about to lay before our rea

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A.C. 2134.

In all arts the East has led the van, and has evidently been as far advanced before the Western nations in the great one of fortifying its cities as in most others. The first siege we can obtain any account of is that of Bactra, and we are told it was so fortified by nature and art, that Ninus, at the head of four hundred thousand men, would never have been able to take it, if a stratagem had not been suggested to him by Semiramis, the wife of one of his officers. This account proves that fortif

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A.C. 1451.

As an account falling in most with the spirit of uninspired history, we select a short description of the taking of Aï by the Israelites, under Joshua. Whilst night concealed from the inhabitants of Aï all that was passing beneath their walls, Joshua placed a body of troops behind the city, with orders to set fire to it when he should give the signal. At daybreak, Joshua presented himself before Aï, and feigned to attempt an escalade. The inhabitants appeared upon their walls, and the Israelites

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A.C. 1252.

The history of this famous siege has been rendered immortal by the tragic muse; few of our readers can require to have its details repeated to them. The unfortunate Œdipus, on quitting his kingdom, left it to the government of his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, who agreed to mount the throne alternately. Eteocles, as the elder, reigned first; but, at the termination of his year, he was so enamoured of the power he had tasted, that he violated his oath, and endeavoured to exclude his brother f

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 518.

The second siege of this celebrated city is much more satisfactory. The Lacedæmonians, upon becoming masters of Thebes, made the inhabitants but too sensible of the weight of their yoke. Pelopidas, too noble to submit quietly to slavery, conceived the design of delivering his country; he addressed himself to the banished citizens, and he found them enter freely into his views. Many of his friends in the city were eager to share his enterprise; and one of them, named Charon, offered his house as

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THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 334.

After the celebrated battle of Chæronea, which laid the liberties of Greece at the feet of the ambitious Philip of Macedon, that king placed a garrison in Thebes; but scarcely had the inhabitants learnt the death of Philip, when they arose in mass, and slaughtered the Macedonians. Alexander, the son of Philip, afterwards styled the Great, passed through the Straits of Thermopylæ, rendered immortal by Leonidas and his Spartans, entered Greece, and marched directly towards the revolted city. On th

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A.C. 1184.

The next siege we meet with is the most celebrated in history or fiction, not so much on its own account, as from its good fortune in having the greatest poet the world has produced as its chronicler. If Homer had not placed this great siege in the regions of fable by his introduction of immortals into the action, it would still be a myth, as is all we know of Greece at the period at which it took place. Hypercritics have, indeed, endeavoured to make over the whole of it to the muses who preside

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FIRST SIEGE, A.C. 1051.

After the death of Joshua, the tribes of Juda and Simeon, having united their forces, marched upon this already important place with a formidable army. They took the lower city, and, faithful to the orders of Moses, slaughtered all who presented themselves to their fury. The upper city, called Sion, checked their victorious progress. The efforts of the Hebrews, during nearly four centuries, failed whilst directed against this citadel. The glory of carrying it was reserved for David. This hero, p

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 976.

In the reign of Rehoboam, the grandson of David, Shishak, king of Egypt, laid siege to Jerusalem, threatening to raze it with the ground if any opposition were offered to his arms. The indignant people were eager to attack the enemy of their religion and their country, but Rehoboam, as cowardly as a warrior as he was imperious as a monarch, opened the gates of his capital to the haughty Egyptian, and quietly witnessed the pillage of it....

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THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 715.

In the first year of the reign of Ahaz, king of Juda, Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, presented themselves in warlike array before Jerusalem. Their design was to dethrone Ahaz and put an end to the dynasty of David. But their ambitious project was checked by the sight of the fortifications, and, after a few vain attempts, they retreated with disgrace. Some time after, the Holy City was attacked by a much more redoubtable enemy. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, claimed of Hezekiah t

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.C. 603.

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took Jerusalem by force, and gave it up to pillage. He placed King Joachim in chains, and afterwards released him upon his promising to pay tribute; but that prince soon violated his engagement. Nebuchadnezzar reappeared, Jerusalem was again taken, and Joachim expiated his perfidy and revolt by his death. The impious Zedekiah, one of his successors, proud of an alliance contracted with the Egyptians, against the opinion of the prophet Jeremiah, ventured, as Joach

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 63.

The Jews having refused a passage to the Roman army which was marching against Aristobulus, Pompey, highly irritated, set himself down before their capital. The sight of this place, which nature and art appeared to have rendered impregnable, made him, for the first time, doubtful of the good fortune which had so often crowned his exploits. He was in this state of incertitude when the Jews of the city, with that want of true policy which distinguished them in all ages, divided themselves into two

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.C. 37.

Herod the Great had been declared king of the Jews by the Romans; but Jerusalem refused to acknowledge him. This prince, aided by Sosius, whom Antony had sent to him with several legions, marched against that city, at the head of a numerous army. He laid siege to it, raised three platforms, which dominated over the towers, poured from their summits a continuous shower of darts, arrows, and stones upon the besieged, and unceasingly battered the ramparts with rams and other machines he had brought

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SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 66.

Towards the end of the reign of Nero, in the sixty-sixth year of the Christian era, under the pontificate of Mathias, the son of Theophilus, began the famous war of the Jews against the Romans. The tyranny, the vexations, the sacrileges of the governors were the causes of it. Tired of groaning so long under a foreign yoke, the Jewish nation believed they had no resource left but in despair. Fortune at first appeared favourable to them; the Romans were beaten several times: but Vespasian, whom th

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EIGHTH SIEGE, A.D. 613.

In the reign of Heraclius, a countless host of Persians—fire-worshippers—under the leadership of Sarbar, poured like a torrent upon Palestine, and carried their ravages to the gates of Jerusalem, of which they took possession. Nearly a hundred thousand Christians perished on this occasion: the great eastern inundations of hordes of barbarous conquerors, being always effected by numbers, necessarily produce an amount of carnage in the vanquished which is sometimes staggering to our belief. But th

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NINTH SIEGE, A.D. 635.

The Roman emperor soon regained possession of the city; but scarcely was it beginning to recover the shock sustained from the fire-worshippers, when it became the prey of a much more powerful race of fanatics. In 635, the Saracens, under the command of Khaled, the most redoubtable general of Arabia, laid siege to it. The first attack lasted ten days, and the Christians defended themselves with heroic courage. During four months, every day brought its sanguinary conflict; but at length, the unfor

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TENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1099.

We now come to one of the most remarkable sieges of this extraordinary city. In the eleventh century, after a lapse of four hundred years, during which it had passed from the hands of the Saracens to those of the Seldjouc Turks, Jerusalem, a Mahometan city, was beleaguered by the great band of Christian adventurers who had left Europe for the express purpose of delivering it. This is not the place to dilate upon the subject of the Crusades; it is our business to describe some of the sieges to wh

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ELEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1187.

The siege we have last described gave birth to one of the shortest-lived and most troublous monarchies that is to be found in the pages of history. One or two good monarchs are met with in its short annals of eighty-eight years, the rest were either wicked or imbecile, and only hastened the fall which naturally attended its peculiar construction and existence. The state of Jerusalem when the errors of its rulers brought upon it the vengeance of Saladin—perhaps the greatest man that ever figured

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 906.

The following year Adad returned into Palestine with a more formidable army. Achab marched to meet him, and gave him battle. The Syrians were routed, and lost, it is said, a hundred thousand men. Adad was made prisoner....

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THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 891.

In the reign of Joram, the son of Achab, the capital of Israel once more beheld a formidable Syrian army at its gates. This siege was long and celebrated. Adad surrounded the city on all sides; no supplies could be brought in; the public magazines were exhausted, and the famine became so excessive that an ass’s head was sold for ninety pieces of silver; and twelve bushels of pigeons’ dung, which was used instead of salt, was worth five. Such distress made Joram fear that in their despair the peo

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.C. 721.

Salmanazar, King of Assyria, learning that Hosea had made himself king of Israel, which country he considered tributary to his power, and wished to shake off the yoke, besieged Samaria, and carried it by assault after a blockade of three years. Hosea was made prisoner, and carried away, with the greater part of his subjects, into Assyria. Thus ended the kingdom of Israel, or of the ten tribes....

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 120.

Samaria, however, became again peopled, and continued to dispute precedency with Jerusalem till the government of Hyrcanus, son of Simon Maccabeus. This great sacrificator took it by escalade, after a siege of a year, and completely destroyed the city and fortifications. But Herod the Great rebuilt it, increased its extent considerably, and named it Sebasta, out of compliment to Augustus. In our account of the early sieges of Rome, notwithstanding our conviction that many of the events related o

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FIRST SIEGE, A.C. 747.

From the way in which what is called Rome, as a nation, was got together, it was naturally in a constant state of warfare. The spirit in which it was founded pervaded and ruled over it to its fall: it was at all times a nation of the sword; and when that sword was blunted by having conquered the known world, its conquests all crumbled away: when Rome ceased to be an aggressor, she instantly ceased to be great. Rome, of course, commenced this aggressive career with wars upon her neighbours, a cau

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 507.

Tarquin the Superb, not being able to recover by artifice the throne from which he had been expelled, sought to employ force. He had the address to interest several neighbouring nations in his cause;—when they had a chance of success, Rome had always plenty of enemies around her. Porsenna, King of Clusium, then the most powerful monarch of Italy, raised a numerous army in his defence, and laid siege to Rome. In an assault, the two consuls were wounded, and the consequently disordered Romans coul

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THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 488.

Caius Marcius Coriolanus, exiled from Rome by the seditious Tribunes and by his own indomitable pride, so far forgot all patriotic feelings as to engage the Volscians to make war against his country. Here we beg to draw the attention of our young readers to the very different conduct of Themistocles, his contemporary, under similar circumstances. The Volscians, proud of the assistance of such a distinguished hero, made him their general: he took the field with vengeance in his heart. After a gre

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.C. 387.

A colony of Gauls, confined for room in their own country, entered upper Italy, under the command of Brennus, three hundred and eighty-seven years before Christ, and laid siege to Clusium, in Tuscany. Accustomed already to command as a master in Italy, Rome sent three ambassadors to Brennus, to inform him that that city was under the protection of the Roman republic. Offended by the rude reply of the Gauls, the ambassadors retired indignantly, but violated the rights of nations by entering Clusi

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 211.

This siege, although so short a one as to occupy but little space in our narration, belongs to a very interesting period in the Roman history: it occurred in the course of what are called the Punic wars, which were the contests of two of the most powerful states then in existence, for supremacy. Rome and Carthage were like two suns; they had become too powerful for both to retain their splendour in one hemisphere. They were really the noblest conflicts in which Rome was engaged; there was a riva

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.C. 87.

War being declared against Mithridates, king of Pontus, was the signal of discord between Marius and Sylla. These two rivals, whose animosity knew no bounds, demanded at the same time the command of the army. Sylla obtained it from the Senate, and immediately went to place himself at the head of his troops. Marius took advantage of his absence, and, with the assistance of the tribune Sulpicius, he so excited the people against the nobles, that Sylla was deprived of his command which was conferre

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SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 408.

When we compare the date of the last siege with that of this, and glance over the events which had taken place between them, we feel great surprise that no siege of Rome should have intervened. It would appear that the Eternal City was guarded by some supernatural power, through shocks and changes of empires, from feeling convulsions, of which it really was the centre. Through the period of the empire, Rome may be said never to have been invaded by a foreign enemy, or by its own children in revo

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EIGHTH SIEGE, A.D. 410.

Two years after, Alaric, constantly provoked to vengeance by the perfidies of the Romans, presented himself again before the Capitol, and besieged Rome very closely. The siege was long, but very few circumstances relating to it have been preserved. On the 24th of August, the Gothic prince entered the city, of which some traitors had opened the gates to him during the night. Rome was sacked by the furious soldiery; its wealth, its valuable furniture, its public edifices, its temples, its private

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NINTH SIEGE, A.D. 544.

In the year 544, Totila, king of the Goths, and master of part of Italy, formed the blockade of Rome, and kept the passages so well, that no provisions could be got in, either by land or sea. He stopped the entrance by the Tiber at a place where its bed was narrowest, by means of extraordinarily long beams of timber, laid from one bank to the other, upon which he raised, at the two extremities, towers of wood, which were filled with soldiers. The famine soon became so horrible, that wheat was so

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TENTH SIEGE, A.D. 549.

In 549, Totila, without being discouraged by his defeat, once more laid siege to the capital of Italy. Diogenes, who commanded there, had had wheat sown within the inclosure of the walls, which might have supported the garrison some time. But the city was again betrayed by the Isaurians. The soldiers of that nation, dissatisfied with not having received their pay for some years, and having learnt that their companions had been magnificently rewarded by Totila, resolved to follow their example. T

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ELEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1084.

We have seen Rome besieged in its early days, when its walls were of mud; we have seen it besieged by its own sons, by the Gauls, by the barbarians; but it was still, as a warlike city, the head of a kingdom, a republic, an empire. We have now to see it besieged in a new character,—as the seat of the head of the Christian world. As if Rome was destined always to be royal, she took the same place with regard to the Church she had occupied as a temporal power; and every reader of history will allo

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TWELFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1527.

The emperor Charles V., irritated against the pope, Clement VII., his mortal enemy, charged the duke of Bourbon, in 1527, to seek every means in his power to avenge him upon the pontiff. The duke was a renegade Frenchman, of considerable military skill, and a restless disposition. He had quarrelled with his master, Francis I., and was deemed of so much consequence as to be countenanced by Francis’s rival, Charles V., and to be intrusted with the highest military command he could confer. The duke

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THIRTEENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1796–1799.

The temporal power of the popes had long ceased to be an object of jealousy for Christian princes: the small extent of their states, the respect which was entertained for their ministry, and their abstinence from military enterprises, preserved peace in a city which had formerly, and for many centuries, made the world tremble with the terror of its arms. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had satisfied themselves with seizing the Venaissian county, to punish the popes for some affronts offered to their cr

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A.C. 747.

We must now take a retrograde step, and turn our eyes upon a city, the name of which will ever be famous on its own account, and from its connection with the Scriptures. And yet the siege of Nineveh furnishes but few particulars for narration: it is, however, a remarkable circumstance, that, according to the best chronologers, Rome was founded the very year that Nineveh was destroyed. Sardanapalus, king of Assyria, surpassed all his predecessors in effeminacy, luxury, and cowardice. He never wen

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A.C. 670.

As the siege of Azoth, although the longest recorded in history, affords but little matter for relation, we will indulge our young readers with a few of the circumstances which preceded it. After the death of Tharaca, the last Ethiopian king who reigned in Egypt, the Egyptians, not being able to agree about the succession, were two years in a state of anarchy, during which there were great disorders among them. At last, twelve of the principal noblemen, conspiring together, seized upon the kingd

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THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 313.

It would be imagined that a city so laid waste as Tyre was by Alexander, could not easily or shortly recover strength to contend against any enemy, and yet we find Tyre, only nineteen years after, maintaining itself for fifteen months against Antigonus, one of Alexander’s captains, who had been present at its great siege. But the fugitives from Sidon and other parts, the women and children from Carthage, with, most likely, many enterprising strangers, thought the traditions of Tyre too great and

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 638.

The curse that was said to be upon Tyre was removed after a considerable time: it received the gospel at an early period, and was for ages a flourishing city. Before the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, a place so situated as Tyre was could not fail of being a mart of trade; and as soon as the back of a conqueror, attracted by its wealth, was turned, it was quickly partially re-peopled and its industry revived. But at length came the great Mussulman eruption; Mahomet and his

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1123.

The Venetians, who for several ages had enjoyed the commerce of the East, and dreaded breaking useful relations with the Mussulmans of Asia, had taken but very little part in the first crusade, or the events which followed it. They awaited the issue of this great enterprise, to associate themselves without peril with the victories of the Christians; but at length, jealous of the advantages which the Genoese and Pisans had obtained in Syria, they became desirous of likewise sharing the spoils of

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1188.

Tyre is most conspicuously associated with great names; next to having had the glory of checking the career of Alexander for seven months, it may reckon that of having successfully resisted the greatest Saracen general that, perhaps, ever lived. Whilst a new crusade was being earnestly preached in Europe, Saladin was following up the course of his victories in Palestine. The battle of Tiberias and the capture of Jerusalem had spread so great a terror, that the inhabitants of the Holy Land were p

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A.C. 502.

After the battle of Thymbra between Cyrus and Crœsus, which was one of the most considerable events in antiquity, as it passed the empire of Asia from the Assyrians of Babylon to the Persians, Cyrus, the conqueror, marched directly upon Sardis, the capital of Lydia. According to Herodotus, Crœsus did not believe that Cyrus meant to shut him up in the city, and therefore marched out to give him battle. He says the Lydians were the bravest people in Asia. Their principal strength consisted in thei

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 502.

Under the reign of Darius Ochus, the Athenians, seduced by the persuasions of Aristagoras, embarked in an ill-fated expedition against the city of Sardis. We say ill-fated, although they burnt the city, with the exception of the citadel, because this unprovoked attack was the source of all the subsequent wars between Greece and Persia, which produced so many calamities to both countries. The city being principally built of reeds, was soon fired, and as quickly destroyed; but the citadel proved i

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A.C. 538.

Cyrus stayed in Asia Minor till he had entirely subdued all the nations that inhabited it, from the Ægean sea to the river Euphrates. Thence he proceeded to Syria and Arabia, which he also subjected. After which he entered Assyria, and advanced towards Babylon, the only city of the East that stood out against him. The siege of this important place was no easy enterprise. The walls of it were of a prodigious height, and appeared to be inaccessible, without mentioning the immense number of people

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 510.

So much connection is generally placed between some of the prophetic writings of the Bible and the destruction of the city of Babylon, that we have deemed it necessary to quote in the preceding siege considerably from an established historian on that point. But we must remember that the Scriptures, though intended for the blessing of mankind, are Hebrew books, and that the Jews of the time of the Prophets principally adduced, could not be expected to speak otherwise than they have done against t

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A.C. 493.

Although we cannot undertake to notice every siege of the cities of Italy which assisted the regular but rapid rise of the Roman power, we shall make it a point not to pass by such as have any interesting association attached to them; and what English youth, with a Shakespeare in his father’s library, is not familiar with Coriolanus in Corioli? The Volscians tormented the Romans by continual attacks. In order to punish them, the siege of Corioli was resolved upon. It was one of their strongest p

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A.C. 371.

The Veientes were the most powerful of the twelve peoples who inhabited Etruria. Their capital, Veii, situated on a steep rock, was only twelve miles from Rome; and the inhabitants were, for more than three hundred and fifty years, the most persevering enemies of the growing republic. The Romans, tired of seeing their projects constantly thwarted by the Veientes, declared war against them, after a truce of twenty years; and in order the better to carry out that great design, resolved to lay sieg

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A.C. 394.

The Romans and the Falerii were at war. Camillus being named dictator, attacked these people and besieged their capital. Before the circumvallation of the place was completed, a schoolmaster came out of the city and placed all his pupils in the hands of the Romans, as the readiest means of inducing the inhabitants to surrender. The indignant dictator ordered the perfidious master to be stripped, had his hands tied behind him, and, arming the boys with rods, commanded them to flog the treacherous

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A.C. 431.

When we compare the intestine wars of the Greeks with the sweeping conquests of the East, we are struck with the vast disproportion in the numbers of combatants engaged, and we are brought to the conviction that acts of heroism, devotedness, and patriotism seem more common and more brilliant where men are but few, than when they are in great masses. The siege of Platææ was carried on on both sides by such a small number of combatants, that the issue might be supposed to have but very little inte

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A.C. 454.

We should have passed by this siege as unimportant, had we not been struck by the great disproportion of the parties engaged, and consequently, by the fact of the superiority of a few brave well-disciplined troops over an unmanageable multitude. Inarus, a prince of Libya, favoured by the Athenians, proclaimed himself king of Egypt, at the time that country was under the subjection of Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia. Irritated at the revolt, Artaxerxes sent three hundred thousand men to que

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A.C. 480.

During the invasion of Xerxes, all the Grecian cities in his passage were subdued or felt the disastrous effects of his vengeance. The Athenians, too proud to submit, and too weak to defend themselves alone by land, sent to consult the oracle at Delphi. The god replied: “ It is only within walls of wood the city will find safety .” Themistocles persuaded the people that Apollo ordered them to instantly quit their city, and embark on board a good fleet, after having provided places of security fo

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 404.

After the battle of Platææ, the citizens of Athens returned to their country, and built a superb city upon the ruins of the ancient one. By recovering its splendour, it attracted the jealousy of its rival Sparta, the capital of Lacedæmonia. This was the commencement of the famous Peloponnesian war. In the twenty-ninth year of this war, Lysander, having conquered the Athenians at Ægospotamos, marched directly against Athens. Though without vessels, without provisions, without hope, the Athenians

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THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 87.

Archelaus, a general of Mithridates, king of Pontus, entered Athens by means of a sophist named Aristion, to whom he gave the principal authority of the place. The Athenians claimed the assistance of the Romans, and Sylla took the matter upon his own hands. Upon Sylla’s arrival in Greece, all the cities opened their gates to him, with the exception of Athens, which, subject to Aristion, was obliged unwillingly to oppose him. When the Roman general entered Attica, he divided his forces into two b

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A.C. 414.

Syracuse was the most flourishing republic of Sicily. That powerful, rich, and populous city, situated on the eastern coast of the island, consisted of five quarters, inclosed within strong walls, and fortified with towers; they formed so many places, and presented nearly the figure of a triangle. Towards the sea, the island of Ortygia contained the citadel, and commanded the two ports: it communicated by a bridge with Achradina, the handsomest and the best fortified of all the quarters. Above A

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 400.

Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, having declared war against the Carthaginians, obtained several victories over them. But this tyrant was soon punished by the siege which Himilco, the Carthaginian general, laid to Syracuse, with a fleet of two hundred vessels, and an army of a hundred thousand foot and three thousand horse. Dionysius was not in a condition to stop the torrent which threatened him with destruction; but pestilence served him more effectually than any number of troops could have

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THIRD SIEGE, A.C. 212.

In the year 212 before Christ, the Syracusans, excited by seditious magistrates, declared war against Rome, breaking the treaties entered into by Hiero II. and the great republic. The consul Marcellus, being in Sicily, advanced towards Syracuse. When near the city, he sent deputies to inform the inhabitants that he came to restore liberty to Syracuse, and not to make war upon it; but he was refused admission to the city. Hippocrates and Epicydes went out to meet him, and having heard his proposa

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A.C. 409.

Ambition and thirst of plunder having led the Carthaginians into Sicily, their general opened the campaign by laying siege to Agrigentum, an opulent and well-fortified city. In order to construct terraces and causeways, the besiegers destroyed the tombs which environed the city, which sacrilege cost both parties very dear, for the effluvia which escaped the violated graves bred a most destructive pestilence. Thousands of soldiers were carried off daily, and among them Hannibal, the general of th

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A.C. 408.

Byzantium is one of those cities of the world that are so admirably placed with regard to natural advantages, that posterity can never too much admire the policy and discernment of their founders. When we say that the Constantinople with which science and late events have made Englishmen so familiar, is the offspring of Byzantium, if not the city itself, we have no cause to dilate further on that head. The first memorable siege of Byzantium was undertaken by Alcibiades, when the fickle and ungra

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 341.

The Byzantines were in great peril when Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, besieged Perinthus. Byzantium having granted some succours to that city, Philip divided his army, and laid siege to it likewise. The Byzantines were reduced to the last extremity when Phocion came to their assistance. The grateful Perinthians and Byzantines decreed a crown of gold to the people of Athens....

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 196.

The emperor Severus, enraged with the Byzantines, laid siege to their city. They defended themselves with great resolution and firmness, and employed all kinds of stratagems to drive off their enemy, but they could not prevent the attacks of famine. Decimated by this horrible calamity, they were constrained to open the gates to the Romans. The conquerors exercised the rights of war in all their rigour; the city was plundered, and most of the citizens were slaughtered....

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A.C. 352.

The beautiful island of Rhodes, with all its delightful mythological associations, its roses and its splendid scenery, has not escaped the horrors of war; it has been besieged several times, and in all instances in connection with great names and great events. Mausolus, king of Caria, subdued Rhodes. After his death, the Rhodians revolted, and besieged Artemisia, his widow, in Halicarnassus. This king and queen are rendered immortal in the European word mausoleum , derived from the splendid monu

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SECOND SIEGE.

Demetrius Poliorcetes was commanded by his father, Antigonus, to punish Rhodes, which held the first rank among the Sporades isles. Demetrius presented himself before Rhodes with a numerous fleet; he knew that he was about to contend with skilful warriors, experienced in sea-fights, and possessing more than eight hundred machines of war as redoubtable as his own helepolis . Demetrius was an extraordinary character: equally addicted to pleasure and business, he never let the one interfere with th

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1521.

Rhodes, like the rest of Greece, submitted to the empire of the Romans, and, when that had been annihilated by the barbarians, it passed under the yoke of the all-conquering Mahometans. In 1308, Foulques de Villard, grand master of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, formed the project of conquering this island, in order to make it the head-quarters of his order. Seconded by several of the sovereigns of Europe, he landed on the isle, beat the Saracens and the Greeks in several encounters, and,

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A.C. 332.

Alexander besieged Gaza, one of the keys of Egypt, for two months. We do not think we should have noticed this siege, had it not been for the strange manner in which Alexander dismissed all the good feelings which so frequently distinguished him, after the conquest. Alexander is one of those great historical personages, who have so many fine redeeming qualities, that we feel inclined to pardon their errors and excuse even their crimes; but in this instance he sunk into a mere brutal and revengef

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 633.

Amrou, commander of the Saracens, presented himself before Gaza in the year 633 of the Christian era. The governor of the place haughtily asked him, in an interview, what brought him into Syria? “The order of God and of my master,” replied Amrou. They soon proceeded to action: the troops of Gaza were cut to pieces; Amrou took the governor prisoner, and Gaza opened its gates to him....

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1799.

Gaza was taken by Buonaparte, in his Egyptian expedition; but as there is no striking circumstance to give interest to the siege, we shall content ourselves with recording the fact....

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A.C. 330.

Ever insatiable of glory, Alexander laid siege to Persepolis, the capital of the Persian empire. At his approach, the inhabitants deserted the city, and fled away into the deserts, and the conqueror entered without the least obstacle. The Macedonian soldiery, greedy of booty, pillaged the city, and destroyed the few inhabitants they met with. But Alexander stopped the carnage, and gave orders that the virtue of the women should be respected. Almost all the treasures and magazines of the Persians

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A.C. 272.

The restless, ambitious, insatiable Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, laid siege to Lacedæmon. He arrived in the evening, with all his army, and only postponed the attack till the next day;—this delay saved Sparta. As soon as night came, the Lacedæmonians met to deliberate upon the propriety of sending their wives and daughters to the island of Crete; but the women strongly opposed such a determination. One of them, named Archidamia, entered the senate, sword in hand, and addressing the assembly in the n

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A.C. 272.

The same ambitious, quarrelsome prince fell upon Argos, at a time when it was divided by the factions of Aristias and Aristippus. The Argives at first sent to Pyrrhus to beg him to evacuate their territories. He promised to do so, but that very same night entered their gates, aided by the treachery of Aristias. A great part of his troops had already spread themselves throughout the city, when an act of imprudence deprived him of his victory and his life. Whoever reads the life of Pyrrhus will ob

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A.C. 264.

The power of the Romans had struggled during nearly five hundred years against the peoples of Italy; and it was not till after many and severe toils that they succeeded in laying the foundations of an empire which was doomed to embrace nearly the known universe. Rome, mistress of those vast countries which extend from the Rubicon to the southern extremity of Italy, became anxious to carry her conquests abroad. She ventured to attack the forces of Carthage, at that time the most flourishing repub

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1282.

Stung almost to madness by the celebrated Sicilian Vespers, Charles of Anjou collected all the troops in his power, set forward on his march, accompanied by an apostolic legate, and invested Messina, which he pressed closely. The unfortunate inhabitants, upon the point of having their city carried by assault, offered to capitulate. They promised to return to their duty, if the monarch would forget the past, and engage not to give to the French either places or magistracy in their city. Charles r

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A.C. 244.

Antigonus Deson, king of Macedon, had taken possession of the isthmus and citadel of Corinth, which were called the fetters of Greece, because he who was the master of them dominated over that country. Aratus, chief of the Achæans, formed the project of depriving him of this important place; and the following is the manner in which he had the good fortune to succeed. Erginus, an inhabitant of Corinth, having come to Sicyon, formed an intimacy with a well-known banker, a friend of Aratus. In the

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 145.

The consul Mummius, having succeeded Metellus in the command of the Roman troops, prosecuted the war against the Achæans with much vigour, and in order to subdue them by one great effort, he laid siege to Corinth. This city, in addition to its advantageous situation and its natural strength, was defended by a numerous garrison, composed of experienced and determined soldiers. These troops, perceiving that a corps-de-garde was negligently kept, made a sudden sortie, attacked it vigorously, killed

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A.C. 212.

Some years after the entrance of Hannibal into Italy, the Tarentines, an inconstant, fickle people, believing Rome without resources, opened their gates to the Carthaginians; but they could not force the citadel, which was held by a Roman garrison. These soldiers kept the enemy at bay for a length of time. Rome, having regained its superiority, turned its attention to Tarentum, and resolved to punish it for its infidelity. The consul Q. Fabius laid siege to it, and found means to terminate his i

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A.C. 334.

The mercenaries employed by Carthage for its defence not receiving their pay, revolted, to the number of a hundred thousand, and took possession of Tunis, of which they made a place of arms. During three years they had great advantages over the Carthaginians, and several times appeared before the gates of Carthage, with a threat of besieging it. At length Amilcar Barca was placed at the head of the troops of the republic; and this general surprised the army of the rebels, and besieged them in th

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1159.

Abdoulmoumen had rendered himself redoutable by his victories, and the whole of northern Africa trembled before this terrible and fortunate leader. Tunis alone was free; it seemed to brave the conqueror, who threatened its ramparts. The Arab monarch was anxious to subdue this proud city. As, in order to approach it, it was necessary to cross vast deserts, he gathered together great masses of corn, which he caused to be buried in wells upon the route he was to take. He left Morocco at the head of

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1270.

The numberless disasters which accompanied the first expedition of Louis IX. against the infidels had not at all abated the ardour of that monarch, and he never laid down the cross after his return from Palestine. The sad news which he daily received from thence only served to inflame his zeal the more; and at length, in 1270, he resolved to make fresh efforts to liberate the Holy City, and the unfortunate Christians it contained, from the yoke of the Mussulmans. Most of his nobles were eager to

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1535.

Muley-Hassan, king of Tunis, driven from his states by Barbarossa, the terror of the Mediterranean, came to implore the aid of Charles V. That prince, touched by the prayers of the Barbary monarch, swore to replace him on his throne. He assembled a fleet of three hundred ships, on board of which were twenty-five thousand foot and two thousand horse, set sail from Cagliari, and arrived at Porto-Farina, formerly Utica. As that port was not very secure, the fleet again weighed anchor, and brought t

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A.C. 216.

The younger Scipio, charged with the prosecution of the war in Spain, after the death of his father and his uncle, evinced, from the early age of twenty-four, the wisdom and prudence of a consummate captain. Anxious to weaken Carthage, he undertook the siege of Carthagena, one of its most important colonies. This strong city served the Carthaginians at once as magazine, arsenal, and entrepôt; they kept within its walls the hostages which answered for the fidelity of Spain. Scipio made all his pr

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A.C. 203.

What immortality do great men confer upon places by noble actions! A vessel sailing along the northern coasts of Africa, the curious traveller asks the name of a port, and he is told it is Biserta. The information creates no sensation, till, turning to his hand-book, he finds that that which is now Biserta, was Utica! Then, mark the change! Scipio, Cato, yea, even Joseph Addison, if he be an Englishman, all rush upon his mind at once, and he would stop the ship in her course, if it were possible

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 46.

Cæsar, conqueror at Thapsus, pursued Scipio into Utica, and invested it. This city would not have fallen an easy conquest, if Cato, who had shut himself up in it, together with most of the senators opposed to tyranny, had found in all hearts a courage and a patriotism equal to his own. In vain this noble Roman endeavoured to awaken in those around him the sublime sentiments which had animated the early citizens of Rome; in vain he went through the streets to calm the alarms of the people,—the dr

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A.C. 201.

We now come to a siege which, from being unconnected with any rise or fall of empires, or being made or resisted by any extraordinary personages, may be passed by without particular notice by many readers of history; and yet what horrors are crowded into this short scene; what a picture it presents for human nature to shudder at! Philip, king of Macedon, father of Perseus, who proved last monarch of that country, was at war with the Rhodians. The inhabitants of Abydos made common cause with that

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A.C. 200.

A numerous army of Gauls laid siege to Cremona. The prætor Lucius Furius marched to the succour of the allies of the Romans, in the absence of the consul. He gave battle the moment he arrived. The Gauls fought bravely, but at length took to flight, and retired in disorder to their camp. The Romans followed them thither, attacked the camp, and took it. Out of thirty-five thousand combatants, scarcely six thousand were saved. Eighty standards and two hundred chariots filled with booty were the tro

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 69.

Vespasian was just raised to the empire, but he still had to tear the diadem from the brow of the barbarous Vitellius, and maintain the choice of the legions with the sword. The new emperor sent Primus, one of his lieutenants, and a very skilful general, against the tyrant of Rome. After several advantages, Primus attacked two legions posted before Cremona. The Roman legions fought against each other like the most determined enemies. Primus was near losing the battle; but his courage rallied his

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1702.

Cremona was besieged in 1702, by Prince Eugene. Marshal de Villeroi was at the time within the walls. Son of the governor of Louis XIV., Villeroi had always enjoyed the favour of the monarch. He was of very imposing and agreeable person, exceedingly brave, a worthy man, magnificent in everything he undertook—but no general. He was a courtier, and Louis and Madame de Maintenon had the weakness to send him against some of the best generals the world ever saw. Prince Eugene, who had beaten him at C

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A.C. 146.

The siege of Carthage seemed to seal the fate of that great and ambitious republic. Whilst we have had to record so many sieges of Rome, we have only one to describe of her great rival, and that closed the career of that rival. Proud, wealthy, and, as the Romans would add, false Carthage, was never annoyed by the invasion of her capital, till Rome had so risen in the ascendant that Carthage must necessarily sink: and then she did sink, like a tropical sun, without twilight. Whether it is with th

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A.C. 106.

In the year of Rome 646, Cepio, a man so covetous of wealth as to think both peculation and sacrilege justifiable in the pursuit of it, was sent into Transalpine Gaul. This general commenced his operations by attacking Tolosa, now Toulouse. The Roman garrison had been placed in irons. Cepio was admitted by treachery into the city, which he delivered up to pillage. Nothing was spared, sacred or profane; all became the prey of the soldiery. It is said that the consul’s share of the booty amounted

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1217.

The next siege of Toulouse is connected with one of the blackest pages in human history, the horrid war, or crusade as it is termed, against the Albigeois. The licentiousness of the clergy and the barefaced venality and ambition of the hierarchy led people to look with jealousy at the doctrines by which these men supported their influence; and the consequence necessarily was, that many seceded from the Church, and formed sects, or shades of belief, according to their intelligence, or perhaps pas

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A.C. 71.

There is very little to relate of this siege; but the interest it has acquired by a recent melancholy event, and the contrast between Lucullus and the emperor of Russia, entitle it to a notice. Irritated by the presumption and vanity of Tigranes, who refused to give up his father-in-law Mithridates, after Lucullus had conquered him, the Roman consul marched into Pontus, and took its cities as fast as he came to them. Among these was Sinope, known to classical readers as the birthplace and reside

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A.C. 52.

We now come to treat of one of the most conspicuous cities the world has ever seen. Upon opening such a subject, we feel strongly tempted to dilate upon all that belongs to this great city; but our business is with sieges, and we shall find enough of them to fill more than the space allotted to us. Julius Cæsar had made the conquest of a part of Gaul, and Labienus, his lieutenant, keeping along the banks of the Seine, determined to take possession of Lutetia, the capital of the Parisians. It was

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 885.

From that time Lutetia, or Paris, became a famous city. Rome brought thither its intelligence and its errors, its wisdom and its vices, its wealth and its luxury, its laws and its abuses. But the Parisians, formerly so simple and so brave, changed all at once into sages, lost with their rustic virtue that intense love of liberty which had animated them. During nearly nine centuries they were no longer known than by the different masters they submitted to, and by the consideration they enjoyed am

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1411.

Paris became in after-ages the sanguinary theatre of civil wars, which, under the reign of weak princes, desolated the kingdom. These unhappy times commenced under the pusillanimous administration of Charles VI. The hatreds which divided the nobles broke out openly: France was divided into two factions, almost equally powerful,—that of the duke of Orleans, which was called the Armagnacs ; and that of the duke of Burgundy, called the Burgundians. Almost all the Parisians were of the latter party.

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1429.

Paris, which since the invasion of the English had been a prey to their tyranny, did not dare to declare in favour of Charles VII., who had just been crowned at Rheims. The king attempted to enter the capital, followed by his whole army. All the small neighbouring places vied with each other in their eagerness to receive him. He took possession of St. Denis, and occupied the posts of La Chapelle, Aubervilliers, and Montmartre. His generals, confiding in the intelligence they maintained with some

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1465.

The duke de Berry, brother of Louis XI., at the age of sixteen escaped from the court, and joined the duke of Brittany, for the purpose of exciting a revolution which might prove favourable to him. The princes of the blood and the nobles, who waited for some outbreak to make war against the king, immediately issued manifestoes, in which they invited the noblesse, and all good citizens, “to take up arms, to obtain relief for the poor distressed people.” This specious pretext procured for this uni

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1589—1594.

The flame of civil wars, of which Francis II. had beheld the first sparks, had set all France in a blaze during the minority of Charles IX. Religion was the motive of these wars among the people, and the pretext among the great. The queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, who joined to the most boundless ambition the artful policy of her country, had more than once hazarded the safety of the kingdom to preserve her authority; arming the Catholics against the Protestants, and the Guises against the Bo

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SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1814.

When the inordinate ambition of Buonaparte, and, still more, his misfortunes in Russia, had banded all Europe against him, Paris may be said to have again experienced a short siege. When Napoleon opened the campaign on the 25th of January, he confided the command of the capital to his brother Joseph. His enemies were numerous and powerful. The English advanced on the south; a hundred and fifty thousand men, under Schwartzenberg, poured into France by way of Switzerland; a large army of Prussians

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A.C. 49.

Cæsar , forgetting his virtues in order to sacrifice everything to his ambition, prepared to march against his country. But this was not done without a mental struggle. When he arrived on the banks of the Rubicon, he was a prey to a thousand conflicting thoughts; he stopped all at once, and turning to his friends, said: “We have it still in our power to retract; but if we cross this rivulet, the enterprise must be carried out by force of arms.” According to Suetonius, there appeared at that mome

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 538.

Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths, appeared before Rimini, and laid siege to it. He brought towards the walls an enormous tower, at the top of which was a large drawbridge, to be let down when within reach of the parapets. The inhabitants were in a terrible fright; but the commander rendered the tower useless by having the ditch widened during the night; and by a spirited and unexpected attack upon the enemy’s camp, he raised as much dread among them as the machine had created in Rimini. Some of t

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A.C. 49.

The inhabitants of Marseilles being under great obligations to Pompey, were not willing to open their gates to Cæsar. Irritated by this affront, Cæsar laid siege to their city. It was long, because that great general did not at first conduct it in person; but as soon as he presented himself before the place, it surrendered. The conqueror was satisfied with disarming the citizens, and ordering them to bring to him all the money in the public treasury....

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SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 310.

Notwithstanding his repeated abdications, Maximian Hercules was again anxious for power, and, for the third time, to remount the throne of the Cæsars. In order to engage the Gauls to declare in his favour, he caused a report of the death of Constantine to be circulated. This report had not time to be accredited, for Constantine, at the head of a numerous army, presented himself before Marseilles, into which place Maximian had retired. He at once led on an assault, and would have taken the city i

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1544.

The constable De Bourbon, wishing by his services to merit the favour of Charles V., to whom that perfidious prince had sold himself, undertook the siege of Marseilles. “Three cannon-shot,” said he, “will so astonish the good citizens, that they will come with halters round their necks to present me the keys.” But, far from surrendering, the Marseillese swore to defend themselves to the last extremity. The women took part in the most painful labours of the defence; their ardour was so great, tha

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A.C. 46.

The conqueror of Darius, wishing to raise a monument to his own glory, resolved to build a new city in Egypt, which should become the centre of the commerce of the world, and the capital of his vast empire. He named it Alexandria. This was likewise part of the wise policy of Alexander; either he, or some of the sages who attended him, were excellent judges of situation for a city, and he preferred leaving such a monument behind him to any other. He laid the foundation of, if he did not build, ma

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 260.

Under Gallus, Alexandria, whose population amounted to three hundred thousand freemen, and as many slaves, became the theatre of a frightful civil war, which lasted twelve years. All communication was cut off between the different parts of that unfortunate city; every street was inundated with blood; the major part of the better sort of houses were converted into citadels, and these horrible disorders were not appeased till after most of the inhabitants had perished by the sword, pestilence, or

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 611.

Chosroës, eleventh king of Persia, after having conquered Syria, Palestine, and the greater part of Asia, attacked Egypt, surprised Pelusium, and advanced as far as Alexandria without obstacle. The city might certainly have been supported by its fleet, but the archbishop and prefect had employed all the vessels in carrying themselves and their enormous wealth to a place of safety in the isle of Cyprus. Chosroës entered this second city of the Greek empire in triumph, and found in it almost incal

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 640.

Mahomet, who was destined to subdue, by his arms and his religion, half the globe as then known, had made himself master of Arabia. His successors thought it their duty to extend his opinions and his conquests. Amrou, the lieutenant of the caliph Omar, took possession of Palestine, and entered Egypt. He employed thirty days in the siege of Pelusium, and then advanced to the ruins of Heliopolis. Thence he proceeded to ancient Memphis, called the Widow of her Kings, after she was eclipsed by her r

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 645.

Alexandria was tranquil under the government of its conqueror, but after the death of Omar, Amrou was recalled. The Greek emperors feeling keenly the loss of Egypt, took advantage of this circumstance to make a descent upon its coasts. At the sight of their ancient compatriots, the Alexandrians rose, took up arms, drove out the infidels, and opened their gates to the Greeks. Amrou, being informed of this revolt, returned from Libya, chastised Alexandria, and drove the Christians from its walls.

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1171.

Egypt belonged for three centuries to the Fatimite caliphs; but this race degenerated: divided among themselves for the possession of power, one of its two branches had the imprudence to call in the sultan of Damascus to its aid. After several battles, the latter was the conqueror, but he kept his conquest for himself. Saladin, his son, became, in 1171, sultan of Egypt. The descendants of this great man were, in their turn, displaced by the Mamelukes and their beys, a singular kind of militia, c

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SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1799.

Buonaparte, imitating Alexander, with a view of clearing a passage from Egypt to the possession of India, embarked with a large force, and after having treacherously obtained Malta, appeared off Alexandria. It is rather a singular circumstance, that more than a century before this expedition took place, Leibnitz, a German philosopher, addressed a long and interesting document to Louis XIV., pointing out to him the great advantages that would result to France from the conquest of Egypt. This docu

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A.D. 197.

Albinus , a Roman general, revolted against the emperor Severus, and encamped his rebel troops near Lyons. The emperor marched against him, and the battle commenced the instant the armies came in sight of each other. The conflict was terrible, but Albinus was conquered, and forced to take refuge in Lyons. The conquerors followed him thither, and plundered and ravaged the city. Albinus, finding all was lost, plunged his sword into his own body; but as he was not dead when the adverse party took L

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1793.

The majority of the Lyonnais had witnessed the revolution of the 10th of August with great regret. Devoted to commerce and the arts, Lyons must necessarily have preferred a stable and tranquil government to the storms of a revolution. Political agitations, the emigration of the nobles, the proscriptions of the rich, were at every instant drying up the springs of its commerce, paralyzing its industry, and deteriorating the products of its manufactures. When private interests were thus injured, it

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A.D. 273.

Palmyra , with its transitory splendour, and its total annihilation, its association with two extraordinary men,—Longinus and Odenathus, and perhaps a still more extraordinary woman,—Zenobia, has been the subject of the poet’s song, the theme of the historian, and a source of deep reflection for the statesman or the philosopher. The history of Palmyra is a short but highly interesting episode in the annals of mankind, illustrated, in the course of a very few years, by the valour and ability of O

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A.D. 338.

Uraïas , nephew of Vitiges, besieged Milan in 338. That city, then a magnificent one, was esteemed the second of the West. With the assistance of ten thousand Franks, furnished by Theodebert, king of Austrasia, Uraïas pressed the siege warmly during six months. The Goths, masters of the city, delivered it up to pillage, made the garrison prisoners, put the inhabitants to the sword, and carried off the women into captivity....

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1139.

In this year the inhabitants of Milan revolted against Frederick Barbarossa. The angry emperor immediately laid siege to that city. The cruel conqueror drove out all the inhabitants, razed the most beautiful of the edifices with the ground, demolished the gates, its triumphal arches, its baths, its most magnificent houses, and sowed salt upon its ruins, to denote that it should never be rebuilt. His cruel design was disappointed; Milan soon arose again from her ashes....

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1499.

During the wars of the French in the Milanese, in the reign of Louis XII., the Chevalier Bayard fell in with an Italian party in the neighbourhood of Milan, and attacked it warmly. On his arriving at the gates of Milan, a French gendarme cried out to him with a loud voice, “Turn, man-at-arms, turn!” Bayard, transported by the desire of conquering, was deaf to these repeated cries, and entered the city at full gallop, as if, says an historian, he meant to take that capital alone. Soldiers, people

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1706.

Prince Eugene had made himself master of Milan, but he could not be sure of keeping it without occupying the citadel. The marquis de la Florida was the governor of it. Prince Eugene summoned him to surrender, at the same time threatening to grant no quarter if he did not capitulate within four-and-twenty hours. “I have defended twenty-four places for my masters, the kings of Spain,” replied the governor, “and I have made up my mind to be killed on the breach of the twenty-fifth.” This bold reply

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A.D. 438.

Towards the middle of the fifth century, Clodio, first of the race of Merovingian kings of the Franks in Gaul, entered Belgium, surprised the Roman troops, defeated them, and laid siege to Tournai, even then a powerful city. But it could not withstand the conqueror long; he took it, and gave it up to pillage....

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1340.

After the naval victory gained by Edward III. of England, near Ecluse, that prince presented himself before Tournai. French authors say his army amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand men, which appears an immense number for that period; but Edward was assisted by so many Belgians, and other nations at feud with France, that his forces were great, though principally composed of foreigners. Proud of his strength, he feared no obstacles. But Godemar Dufay, the governor of the city, had prepared

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1513.

Henry VIII., king of England, in his famous expedition into France, attacked Terouanne, a town situated on the frontiers of Picardy. This siege is chiefly remarkable for the manner in which Fontrailles, a French officer, contrived to bring in a supply of provisions and ammunition. Henry and his nobles, together with the emperor Maximilian, who was with the English army, carried on the siege so languidly, that the town was more in danger from famine than from its foes. The above-named officer app

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1581.

At this date Tournai was besieged by Spanish forces under the command of the prince of Parma. The Seigneur d’Etréel commanded in the city, but his garrison was weak. The citizens, for the most part Protestants, were obliged to perform the duties of soldiers. The Spanish general invested the place, and formed the attack on the side where the ditch is dry, opposite the longest of the curtains, between the gates of St. Martin and of Valenciennes, which was defended by a salient ravelin and a large

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1667.

No monarch ever went to war more wantonly and unnecessarily than Louis XIV. Inflated with vanity and self-love, intoxicated with flattery, he seemed to look upon military glory as the only thing wanting to his fame and his happiness. But never did monarch receive a much stronger rebuke from an overruling Providence! He was taught that the prosperity of nations is not to be trifled with for the gratification of one man’s pride; and the wars he undertook so rashly and wickedly proved to be the sou

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1745.

Louis XV. opened the campaign against the Allies with great spirit. Marshal Saxe laid siege to Tournai, which was defended by a Dutch garrison, and supported by an English army under the duke of Cumberland. De Saxe was so ill as to be obliged to go through his duties in a litter; but he had posted his army admirably. On the 11th of May the Allies commenced the attack, and De Saxe prepared to meet them. The English, Austrians, and Dutch amounted to a number very nearly equal to the French. After

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SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1794.

At the commencement of the campaign of 1794, General Pichegru made every possible effort to approach Tournai and besiege it in regular form, but all in vain; he, on every occasion, had to contend with troops superior to his own, beneath its walls. When, however, he had gained several victories, and the Imperialists had been conquered at Fleurus, the allies withdrew from Tournai, which fell into the hands of the French. It was not by causing men to be massacred before places that the French made

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A.D. 451.

Attila , king of the Huns, entered Gaul in 451, with fire and sword, followed by a countless host of barbarians. After spreading everywhere terror, death, and carnage, he appeared before Orleans. The only defence of this city consisted in the valour of its people and the active zeal of Saint-Agnan, its bishop. Before the Huns had crossed the Seine, he hastened to raise the walls on that side, he collected as much provision as possible, flew to Arles to press the Roman general Ætius to succour Or

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1429.

We come now to an interesting siege, one connected with many stirring associations for both French and English readers. The miserable condition into which France had fallen at the period of the unjust invasion of our Henry V., can scarcely be conceived. An insane king, ambitious grasping princes, bold, poor, and selfish nobles, all conspired to oppress a sunken and degraded people. With us, Henry V. has a false amiability thrown round his character; except in his bravery and shrewd sense, the hi

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A.D. 476.

Orestes having undertaken to dethrone Nepos, the emperor of the West, raised an army, merely showed himself, and the weak monarch abandoned the diadem. The fortunate rebel encircled the head of his son Romulus Augustulus with it. The Roman empire of the West was in its last period of decay. Odoacer, at the head of an army of Goths, Heruli, Scyrri, and Thuringians, came to give it the last blow, and to reign over its vast wreck. Terror and confusion preceded him. All fled, all dispersed at his ap

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 572.

Alboin, king of the Lombards, entered Italy for the purpose of founding a state. Pavia alone ventured to oppose him. The new conqueror laid siege to it; and that city, after a vigorous resistance of three years, reduced to the last extremity, was forced to surrender at discretion. The conqueror, exasperated by the obstinacy of the defence, had resolved to put all the inhabitants to the sword, but their submission disarmed his vengeance. He entered Pavia, not as a conqueror, but as a pacific king

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 774.

Two centuries of profound peace had rendered Pavia one of the most flourishing cities of the universe, when it beheld the standards of Didier, king of the Lombards, floating at its gates. This grasping prince, jealous of the power of Pope Adrian, sacked every place belonging to the Pontiff. The holy father fulminated horrible excommunications; but these arms were too weak to stop the usurper, and the Pope had recourse to Charlemagne. That monarch crossed the Alps, combated the enemies of the cou

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1524.

Francis I. of France, after a brilliant campaign, in which he drove back the Imperialists from Provence to the Milanese, very unwisely employed his army in sieges, instead of pursuing his enemies with vigour to the other side of the Carnic Alps. Accumulating errors, he weakened an army of forty thousand men by dividing it; detaching from it a body of ten thousand soldiers upon an expedition into the kingdom of Naples. He thus left his enemy time to recover, and to remain master, by means of the

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A.D. 488.

Thedoric besieged Odoacer in Ravenna, but, too weak to carry the city by force, he resolved to reduce it by famine. Ravenna, being well supplied with provisions, and its port being accessible to light barks, the siege was protracted to two years and a half. Odoacer made frequent sorties by night, and never returned without having signalized his courage. Theodoric, master of all the neighbouring country, at length succeeded in closing the port. Famine then began to be sensibly felt; a bushel of w

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 540.

Belisarius, after having deprived Vitiges of the greater part of the places which that prince possessed in Italy, besieged him in Ravenna, which he soon reduced to a state of famine. It was here Belisarius was so near losing his life by an arrow, which was intercepted by a devoted follower, who sacrificed himself to save his master. The city was on the point of surrendering, when two senators arrived from Constantinople, charged with a message from Justinian to his victorious general, directing

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FIRST SIEGE, A.D. 540.

Chosroës, king of Persia, having spread terror and dismay throughout Syria by the capture of Sour (ancient Tyre) and other places, presented himself before Antioch. The attack and defence were equally warm and terrible in their results. The besieged surrendered, after having exhausted all their resources, and admitted the Persians within their walls. The confusion was horrible in this populous and unfortunate city. Men, women, and children crowded over each other to escape the murderous sword of

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 638.

Antioch, however, soon arose again from its ruins, under the protection of the emperors of the West. Great and well-situated cities are not easily destroyed past recovery. Antioch became once more rich and populous; but it seemed to be its fate to succumb to the attacks of barbarians. It was again besieged about a hundred years after the above-stated catastrophe, by the Saracens, before the eyes of Prince Constantine, son of the emperor Heraclius. The infidels approached a bridge at a short dist

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1097.

After a disastrous march, in which they had met with many unexpected accidents and reverses, as well as triumphs, the great army of the Crusaders, under Godfrey of Bouillon and his chivalrous companions, advanced towards Antioch. As we have seen in a former siege, the approach to this great city of the East was guarded by a bridge over the Orontes, on which were placed two towers covered with iron. But nothing could resist the van led by the duke of Normandy: the Normans soon took the bridge and

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FIRST SIEGE, A.D. 536.

Belisarius besieged Naples. That city, admirably situated, was defended by good ramparts and a numerous garrison. Its inhabitants had resolved to perish rather than surrender, and for twenty days all the assaults of the Roman general were in vain. He was about to abandon the enterprise, when a happy chance offered him the success he had ceased to hope for. An Isaurian soldier was curious to see the structure of an aqueduct which Belisarius had caused to be cut off at a considerable distance from

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 543.

Totila laid siege to Naples. To intimidate the garrison, the king of the Goths caused Demetrius, the Roman general, taken prisoner in a convoy, to be led close to the walls, loaded with chains and a cord about his neck, and compelled him to cry aloud to the besieged, that the emperor was not in a condition to send them any succours. This speech, but still more the famine which raged in the city, induced the Neapolitans to surrender....

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 818.

Sicon, prince of Beneventum, declared war against the Neapolitans, and after a long siege, reduced them to the rank of tributaries....

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1253.

Naples had yielded itself up to the Pope, upon which, the emperor Conrad laid siege to it, and shortly brought it back to a sense of its duty....

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1381.

Pope Urban VI. having excommunicated Joan, the first queen of Naples, intrusted the execution of the sentence to Charles de Duras, whom that queen, a few years before, had declared her legitimate heir. This prince appeared at the gates of Naples, in which city he had many partisans. A great number of the inhabitants came over the walls to bring refreshments to his troops, by whom he learnt that the city was divided into three factions, the most powerful of which demanded him for king. Two Neopol

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1442.

Alphonso, king of Arragon, the implacable enemy of René of Anjou, who was a kind of titular king of Naples, laid siege to the capital of that country. This René is a character somewhat associated with our national historical recollections, being the father of Margaret of Anjou, one of the most remarkable of our queens. Alphonso was pressing the siege warmly, when a mason, named Anello, informed him that he was acquainted with an aqueduct by which it would be possible to penetrate to a house clos

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SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1503.

Ferdinand, king of Castille and Arragon, having, in contempt of treaties of the most solemn kind, invaded the part of the kingdom of Naples and Sicily that belonged to France, charged his great captain Gonsalvo with the siege of the capital of that state. At the approach of the Spaniards, the French, who placed no confidence in the inhabitants, retreated to the fortresses of the Château-neuf and the Œuf. Gonsalvo attacked the first of these, and it made a vigorous resistance. The garrison had re

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EIGHTH SIEGE, A.D. 1557.

The greatest captains have often been reproached with avoiding engagements. Their firmness in despising the railleries of the multitude and the scoffing opinions of their rivals, have in almost all cases placed the seal upon their reputations. Francis, duke of Guise, at the head of a French army and some troops furnished by Pope Paul IV., undertook the conquest of Naples. This general, too skilful not to be certain that the expedition could not succeed if it were not begun with some complete adv

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A.D. 503.

The inhabitants of Edessa have, or rather had, a legend that Christ promised their king Abgarus that their city should never be taken. This gave them such confidence, that they on all occasions braved the most formidable enemies. In 503 of the Christian era, Cavadez, king of Persia, approached Edessa at the head of an army. The confidence of the inhabitants was so little shaken by the appearance of this formidable host, that they left their gates wide open during a whole day, and, such is the in

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 544.

Chosroës, son of the above king, presented himself before Edessa, but without any better success. Upon the point of abandoning his enterprise, he made it known, by a herald, that he meant to sell all the prisoners he had taken at Antioch. The whole city of Edessa, animated by the zealous and active charity which religion inspires, was in a state of eager impatience to redeem these unhappy victims of war. Every one wished to contribute in proportion to, or even beyond their fortune, to this pious

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 549.

Four years after, this prince again laid siege to Edessa, and attacked it vigorously. But the besieged made a sortie, in which, it is said, an officer named Arget killed, with his own hand, twenty-seven of the enemy, and in which Chosroës was repulsed. He then commenced, out of reach of the city missiles, a platform, with the purpose of carrying it up to the walls. The sight of this terrible work induced the inhabitants to have recourse to prayer. The physician Stephen endeavoured to bend the ha

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1097.

Although the means by which Edessa fell into the hands of one of the Crusaders may not be, correctly speaking, a siege, the circumstances are too interesting to be passed by in silence. Of all the Crusaders, Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey, was one of the bravest, but at the same time the most intractable. In fact, he had the honesty to confess what many of his comrades really felt, but were ashamed to admit; he came into Asia to make his fortune, and he lost no opportunity for effecting that gr

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A.D. 682.

Remarkable characters give consequence to insignificant places; Richard Cœur de Lion, who had filled two continents with his fame, was killed at the siege of a paltry castle, and the name of Chaluze is preserved in history. But Kaibar, a city of Arabia, is associated with, and saved from oblivion by, the name of even a greater man than Richard. The Jews spread throughout Arabia attempted to cross the ambitious projects of Mahomet. They took up arms, and shut themselves up in the strongly fortifi

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A.D. 559.

The majesty of the Roman people no longer commanded the respect of the universe, the valour of its legions no longer spread terror among the barbarians, in the time of Justinian. A king of the Huns, named Zabergan, ventured to advance, in 559, to the very walls of Constantinople, and to threaten the imperial city with pillage. There was but a feeble garrison within its ramparts, but in the moment of terror it was remembered that they possessed Belisarius. That great man was instantly dragged fro

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 670.

Whilst Heraclius was absent, combating the Persians, the khan of the Abares appeared before Constantinople. For once the inhabitants of that magnificent city evinced bravery, and rendered the efforts of the khan useless. He regained his deserts, after having witnessed the destruction of the greater part of his troops....

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 672.

Tezid, son of the caliph Moavias, proved no less unfortunate in his expedition against Constantinople. His naval force was entirely destroyed, and that loss compelled him to raise the siege. Among the Mussulmans who signalized their courage in this expedition, was the captain Aboux Aioub, one of the companions of Mahomet in the battles of Bedra and Ohod. He was buried at the foot of the walls of the city. His tomb is the place at which the Ottoman emperors are girded with the sword....

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1203.

The great siege of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders is one of the most tempting subjects to dilate upon that history affords. After casting a retrospective glance at this city, or rather this empire, for, as Paris is said to be France, so was Constantinople the empire of the East; and contemplating its glories and disasters, from its foundation upon Byzantium, by Constantine, to its capture by Mahomet II., of all the events connected with it, its siege and plunder by a handful of Christian

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1453.

We come now to what some historians have termed the greatest event of a period the most surprisingly conspicuous in the history of mankind. We agree with them that the subversion of the Christian empire of Constantinople by the Turks was a great event, but not the greatest : the invention of printing, the discovery of America, and the commencement of the Reformation belong to the same half-century; and either of these we conceive to be of much more importance than whether Constantinople should b

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A.D. 1807.

The course of the Mahometan conquests, and the spread of their religion, constitute one of the great events of the history of our globe. In about eight hundred years the disciples of the humble prophet had subdued or extended their influence over great part of Asia and the north of Africa, and had now not only gained a footing in Europe, but had taken its greatest capital. But here their great tide of success seems to have stopped; it was their culminating point. They have made partial conquests

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A.D. 1138.

Our only motive for noticing this unimportant siege is a desire of relieving the attention of the reader, too long fixed to perils of “the imminent deadly breach,” by an amusing anecdote. In the year 1138, the duke of Wittemberg warmly opposed the election of Conrad III., who was proclaimed emperor; and when the new monarch had assumed the diadem, he refused to acknowledge him, and shut himself up in the little city of Weinsberg. The angry emperor immediately laid siege to the place: the garriso

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A.D. 1147.

Alphonso , a prince of the house of Burgundy, having assumed the title of king of Portugal, felt that he could not truly be considered monarch of that country while his capital remained in the hands of the Saracens. Too weak to undertake the conquest himself, he made a religious crusade of it, and English and Flemings, who had embarked for the Holy Land, were induced by the prospect of greater wealth without going so far to attain it, to take up his cause. The great historian of the Crusades att

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A.D. 634.

The Saracens attacked Damascus, with the hopes of a speedy capture, but the inhabitants made a brave resistance. The garrison was with difficulty restrained within the walls. At the moment the troops of the emperor Heraclius came to the succour of the city, two brothers, commanders of Damascus, made a vigorous sortie, pillaged the rear-guard of the Saracens, and carried off their women. The most important prisoner was Caulah, sister of Derar, one of the early heroes of Mahometanism, whose fanati

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1149.

Being compelled by the interest they inspire, to give at considerable length several of the sieges in which the Crusaders were engaged, we cannot spare room for more than a notice of that of Damascus, referring our readers for details, which will repay the research, to the pages of Michaud and Gibbon. Louis VII., king of France, in company with Conrad III., emperor of Germany, who had led armies from Europe for the recovery of the Holy Land, laid siege to Damascus, one of the most delightfully s

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A.D. 1191.

The ill success of the first Crusades appeared to redouble the zeal of the Christians for the recovery of the Holy Land. Great misfortunes had attended many of the enterprises, but vast numbers had been enriched by the plunder of magnificent cities, and some of the leaders had acquired territorial possessions. Rome, whose policy it was to keep up the fanaticism, did all in its power to promote these wicked, senseless expeditions, and never ceased calling the attention of Europe to Jerusalem defi

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1799.

Buonaparte, being informed of the coalition of the Ottomans and the English to drive the French out of Egypt, thought to be beforehand with them by carrying the war into Syria. After taking Gaza and Jaffa, and gaining an advantage over the Turks, on the 18th of March he arrived before Acre. But the fortifications had been recently repaired, under the direction of Sir Sidney Smith, the English commodore, and a French engineer named Phélypeaux. These fortifications consisted of curtains flanked wi

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A.D. 1216.

We only introduce this little siege on account of a particular circumstance attending it. Whilst the English invasions of France have been more than one, and the sieges and captures of her cities numerous, Dover we believe to be the only English city that has been besieged by the French. We of course except the Conquest, because we do not consider William of Normandy a Frenchman at all: the Normans, or Northmen, were a race of the most successful adventurers of that age, and, not much more than

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A.D. 1638.

Amurath IV. had twice besieged Bagdad,—in 1625 and 1634; twice his generals had been compelled disgracefully to raise the siege, when the sultan, in 1638, determined to punish a city which had so roused his anger. During thirty days his artillery thundered against its ramparts. Cannon, steel, and fire spread desolation within the walls; assault upon assault was given. The grand seignor appeared, scimitar in hand, striking down such of his own men as even advanced slowly. He killed the vizier Mah

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A.D. 1528.

Philip of Valois, scarcely seated on his own throne, turned his arms towards Flanders, to assist the count in subduing his rebellious subjects. His noble army consisted of thirty thousand men, among whom were fourteen thousand gendarmes. Philip marched straight towards the city of Cassel, and laid siege to it. The rebel army, much less numerous than the French, was composed entirely of infantry: they were fishermen, peasants, and artisans. A small dealer in fish, named Colin Zannequin, was at th

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A.D. 1356.

However insignificant in itself, this siege commands a place in our record, as being the first in which cannon were employed. Our country’s favourite hero, the Black Prince, having entered Sologne with hostile intentions, laid siege to Romorantin. The English were repulsed in their first assault; but were not disheartened. They continued their attacks, but still in vain, till some engineers advised an experiment to be made with the newly-discovered gunpowder. They planted some batteries of canno

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A.D. 1372.

The English having made themselves masters of La Rochelle, the inhabitants of that important city did not endure the yoke without impatience. They were only restrained by their fear of the military who garrisoned the castle, which dominated over both the port and the city. Jean Candorier, mayor of La Rochelle, proposed gaining possession of it by a stratagem. “We shall easily do so, and to our honour,” said he, “for Philip Monsel (the English commander) is not over cunning.” Candorier invited Mo

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1573.

During the various religious wars in France, the Reformers had no more formidable rampart or place of refuge than La Rochelle. Readers not well acquainted with French history, and accustomed to look upon France as one kingdom ruled by a despotic king, can form no idea of the real state of that country quite up to the middle of the reign of Louis XIV. In all the provinces of France there were strongly fortified cities, mostly attached to the governments of these provinces. It was the object of pr

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1627.

We come now to the most important siege of La Rochelle, a siege which is likewise the great event of the life of so remarkable a man as the Cardinal de Richelieu. Of all the actions of this able, selfish, cruel minister, his policy in subduing the Huguenots is, perhaps, the most defensible. The Huguenots were not only what they pretended to be, a religious party,—they were a political party; and many men carried on their schemes of rebellion or aggrandizement under the shadow of their standard,

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A.D. 1389.

The city of Cassovia, in Lower Hungary, was often the theatre of the exploits of the Germans and the Turks, after the entrance of the latter into Europe. In 1389, Amurath I. conquered in these plains the Hungarians, the Wallachians, the Dalmatians, and the Triballian confederates. After a long and sanguinary battle, the sultan went to survey the dead, and walked over the field of carnage. When he had for some time contemplated these sad trophies of his success—“I am astonished,” said he to his g

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A.D. 1429.

The Maid of Orleans had announced that her mission was confined to two objects,—the deliverance of Orleans and the consecration of the king at Reims. After having gloriously fulfilled her first promise, she employed the ascendancy she had acquired to execute the second. Although the city of Reims, and all the country from Chinon, where the king then resided, was in the power of the English, the French set forward on their march, with an army of twelve thousand men. All the cities in their route

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A.D. 1439.

At the confluence of the Danube and the Save stands the city of Belgrade, the capital of Servia; its advantageous situation upon a hill, the excellence of its port, the strength of its castles, the soundness of its ramparts, caused it for a long time to be considered one of the best bulwarks of Hungary against Turkey; whilst its position and its wealth made it a continual object of desire for the Ottoman monarchs. The first sultan who attacked it was Amurath II. Followed by the flower of his arm

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1455.

Sixteen years after, Mahomet II. was anxious to crown his exploits by the capture of Belgrade; he invested it by land with an army of four hundred thousand men, at the same time that his fleet blockaded it upon the Danube. Ladislaus, king of Hungary, was encamped on the other side of the river with a numerous army. Being convinced that he should lose Belgrade if he did not in some way get rid of the Turkish galleys, he embarked the élite of his troops on a vast number of large boats, and fell up

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1521.

So many useless efforts we might think would have for ever discouraged the haughty Ottomans; but the more necessary for them the conquest of Belgrade became, the more it excited their ambition. Soliman II. once more directed the Turkish arms against the city, in 1521; he at first had it blockaded by his generals, and then repaired to the scene of action, to animate his troops by his presence. During six weeks the walls were mined, a continual fire of artillery was kept up, and every day furious

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1688.

The Porte held peaceable possession of Belgrade for nearly two hundred years, when the elector of Bavaria, who had become general of the Hungarian armies under the emperor Leopold, began by beating the Turks, who disputed the passage of the Save with him, and pursued them up to the walls of Belgrade, to which place he laid siege on the 30th of July, 1688. After a constant cannonade of twenty-five days, the walls were opened in several places, and the commander was summoned to surrender. Upon his

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1690.

This famous conquest spread joy throughout the empire; but scarcely had Leopold taken possession of Belgrade than it was torn from him again. The grand vizier, Mustapha Coprogli, presented himself before that city with an army, which its valour, its zeal, and its exploits had rendered formidable: he commenced by blockading it. Learning that the Imperialists were coming to its aid, he opened the trenches with half of his army, and destined the other to dispute the passage of the Save with the Ger

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1717.

On the 8th of June, Prince Eugene, who had become the terror of Europe and Asia by a series of triumphs, approached Belgrade with an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men. Several French princes accompanied him, solely for the purpose of learning the art of sieges under so great a captain. On the 16th the army encamped on the heights of Visnitza, and the next day all the baggage arrived, in spite of a cloud of Tartars who scoured the country. The count de Palfi was directed to invest the plac

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SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1739.

Experience has shown that all the armies which have gone to any distance from the Danube, in the wars of Hungary, have been unfortunate, because, at the same time, they have left their means of subsistence behind them. The thirst for command which tormented the Austrian generals in 1739, made them forgetful of these old war maxims. The Imperial army, scattered about in all directions, was formidable nowhere. Multiplied contradictory orders augmented the uncertainty of their generals, and, every

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EIGHTH SIEGE, A.D. 1789.

It is the fate of an important fortress, situated on the extreme frontier of powerful and warlike states, to be always exposed to the first blows struck in great quarrels. Belgrade fell again, in 1789, into the hands of the Austrians, commanded by Marshal Laudon. Restored to the Turks by Austria, in 1791, this city became, in 1798, the theatre of war between the Mussulmans and the rebel Servians, who, disputing the possession of it, fought even in the faubourgs....

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A.D. 1452.

However unimportant this siege may look in the “great history,” we cannot refrain from giving it, as the scene of the “last fight” of one of the bravest and most esteemed heroes that do honour to our annals. The army of Charles VII. of France, on the 13th of July, 1452, laid siege to Castillon, a little city of Perigord, on the Dordogne, ten leagues from Bordeaux, then in the occupation of the English. Marshals Lohéac and Jalognes had the conducting of it; Jean Biereau, grand master of the artil

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A.D. 1468.

We offer this siege to our young readers as a sort of illustration of one of Sir Walter Scott’s best novels. Sir Walter has dealt freely with historical characters; he has made most of them effective, but has not always adhered quite faithfully either to men or events. But no novelist,—and we should have said no dramatist, if a bust of Shakespeare had not been looking down upon us,—ever sketched an historical character so happily as he has done that of Louis XI.;—it is Louis himself! with all hi

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A.D. 1472.

This siege brings the same actors on the stage, and we are principally induced to offer it to our readers by the circumstance of the detestable homicide meeting in it with a reverse, and that partly occasioned by women. Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, was engaged in an inveterate war with Louis XI. Learning there was but a weak garrison in Beauvais, he marched towards that city, with the expectation of entering it without opposition; and so it proved with the faubourgs, and the Burgundians t

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A.D. 1491.

Ferdinand V. , king of Arragon, besieged Boabdil, the last king of the Moors of Grenada, in his capital, with an army of fifty thousand men. Grenada, surrounded by a double wall, fortified by one thousand and thirty towers, had two citadels, one of which served as a palace for the king. An army of thirty thousand Moors was within the walls; it had an immense and warlike population, and magnificent stores of munitions and provisions seemed to render it impregnable. Ferdinand did not attack Grenad

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FIRST SIEGE, A.D. 1529.

After having subdued Asia, Soliman II. determined to make Europe tremble by the terrors of his constantly victorious arms. In 1529 this redoubtable conqueror entered Hungary with fire and sword; he pillaged, ravaged, and destroyed everything in his passage, and marched over these melancholy ruins to lay siege to Vienna, the capital of Austria and of the whole Western empire, since the house of Austria was said to occupy the throne of Charlemagne. The Ottoman army was immense, and was composed of

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1683.

The grand vizier, Kara Mustapha, charged with the humiliation of the empire and Leopold its master, advanced towards the capital of the states of that prince with terrible preparations. Very unlike what we have seen in the former siege, at the approach of the enemy’s legions the emperor quitted Vienna, with two empresses, his mother-in-law and his wife, with the archdukes and archduchesses, and sixty thousand inhabitants. The country round exhibited nothing but fugitives, equipages, carts laden

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A.D. 1541.

The never-ending piracies of Algiers had for centuries made this city or state the object of the hatred of all Christian princes, and the dread of all Christian peoples. The opinion entertained by Europeans of the pirates of Algiers can be compared to nothing but that inculcated of the demons of another world. Among the most daring, ambitious, and successful of this race of marauders was Barbarossa: he aspired to something above the character of a “salt-water thief,” and intruded upon the lands

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1682.

Although the following short passage cannot be said to relate to a siege, yet as it concerns the introduction of an arm employed in sieges, particularly such as are maritime, it becomes our duty to repeat it. Louis XIV., ever anxious to extend what he and his nation called his glory , turned his attention to the sea. He saw what the Dutch, Portuguese, Spaniards, and English were doing; he knew what Venice, Genoa, and other Italian states had done on that element; and he deemed it inconsistent wi

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1683.

Although punished, Algiers soon renewed its brigandages, and Louis XIV. repeated his chastisement on the 30th of the following June. Algiers, after being twice bombarded, sent deputies to ask pardon and sue for peace. They restored all their Christian slaves to liberty, and—which is the severest punishment for corsairs—paid a large sum of money. When D’Amfreville, a naval captain, came to Algiers to deliver all the Christian slaves, in the name of the king of France, there were among them many E

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1689.

Six years after, Marshal D’Etrées once again bombarded Algiers, always unfaithful to its treaties, and still supporting a fearful power by robbery and rapine. Ten thousand bombs ruined this retreat of corsairs despising the laws of nations; six of their vessels were sunk in the port. They were thus taught to respect the French flag, and the liberty of the seas for great powers; but they did not cease to pillage with impunity the subjects of weak states, without bombs or vessels of war to make th

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1816.

Although the bombardment of Algiers by a naval force can scarcely be termed a siege, as a conclusion to the above history, a mention of that which took place under Lord Exmouth is necessary. Exasperated by many acts of wanton cruelty and daring piracy on the part of the dey of Algiers, the greatest naval country took into its hands the chastisement the corsairs so richly deserved. With a comparatively small force with what even great commanders had deemed necessary for the undertaking, Lord Exmo

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A.D. 1557.

Philip II. , king of Spain, son and successor to the emperor Charles V., who from the depths of his cabinet, like another Tiberius, shook all Europe with his often cruel policy, wishing to stop the rapid progress of Lutheranism in the provinces of Flanders, put weapons into the hands of executioners, and endeavoured to establish the Inquisition in those happy and tranquil countries. This barbarous tribunal, conforming so little with Scriptural precepts and mildness, disgusted the Flemings, and g

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1667.

One of the greatest military exploits of Louis XIV. was the conquest of Valenciennes. Since the wars which had procured liberty for Holland, the possessors of that city had neglected nothing to render it impregnable. The project of the French monarch was considered as the height of temerity. In the first place, it was necessary to gain possession of two half-moons on the right and on the left. Behind these half-moons was a grand crown-work, palisaded, frased (strengthened with pointed stakes), a

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1793.

In this siege the English have an interest, the duke of York, second son of George III., having had the command of the besiegers. The allies, having taken Condé in the month of April, directed their forces against Valenciennes. General Ferrand commanded in the place, with a garrison of nine thousand men. To favour the siege, the allies posted an army of observation in the plains of Hérin, in front of the city, a strong force on the other side of Valenciennes, and a third between Lille and Tourna

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A.D. 1574.

We offer as long a sketch of the siege of Leyden as our limits will allow, this being a portion of history to which we always turn with pleasure: the emancipation of the Netherlands from the domination of Spain is one of the most noble efforts in the annals of mankind. The cruelties of the duke of Alva had alienated every heart in Holland from the court of Spain, and had left none but harsh means to his successor, Don Louis, of retaining the provinces in their allegiance. Being desirous of disti

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A.D. 1574.

We present this little siege as a monument of the feeling entertained towards the infamous Catherine de Medici and her darling son, Henry III., by many communities in France. When Henry III. left Poland as a fugitive, to occupy the throne made vacant by the death of Charles IX., he created Roger de St. Lary-Bellegarde, one of his minions, a marshal of France. A short time after his promotion, the new general was repulsed in three assaults which he made upon Livron, a small Huguenot fortified pla

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A.D. 1580.

Of the numerous sieges on both sides which marked the struggle of Henry IV. of France for his crown, we have selected that of Cahors as best displaying the character of that hero and the men and times he lived in. Henry IV., whilst king of Navarre, resolved to gain possession of Cahors. That city is surrounded on all sides by the river Lot, which serves it as a fosse. It had a garrison of two thousand men, and Vesins, its governor, was a soldier of acknowledged valour and great experience. Its c

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FIRST SIEGE, A.D. 1576.

The inhabitants of Maestricht, in concert with their German garrison, drove out the Spaniards in 1576. Their intention was to unite themselves with the Dutch, who had shaken off the yoke of Spain. Vargos, the general of Philip II., hastened to endeavour to regain possession of the place; of which he had the greater hopes from being still master of Wyck. The conquered, humiliated by a disgrace of which they were the more sensible from its having arisen out of their own negligence, were eager to r

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1579.

Three years after the first revolt, this place was invested by the celebrated prince of Parma, governor of Flanders. This general, having secured his quarters and encamped in face of Maestricht, directed a numerous park of artillery against it. Mondragone was charged with the blockade on the side of Wyck. In a short time the circumvallation was secured; and, simultaneously, the Meuse was closed, both below and above the city, by two bridges of boats, sufficiently solid to deprive the enemy of al

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1632.

In 1632 Maestricht was reduced by the prince of Orange, and was confirmed to the Dutch in 1648....

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FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1673.

On the 10th of June, Louis XIV. appeared before Maestricht with an army of forty thousand men. This place, esteemed one of the keys of the Netherlands and the United Provinces, was defended by a garrison of five thousand men, and by an intrepid governor, named Farjaux, a Frenchman by birth, but in the service of Holland. On the 17th the trenches were opened, and five batteries were directed against the city. Vauban, who in this siege first distinguished himself, employed the parallels invented b

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FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1676.

Louis XIV., aware of the importance of his victory, placed in the city a garrison of six thousand foot and twelve hundred horse. Three years after, the prince of Orange laid siege to Maastricht with an army of twenty-five thousand men, whilst the duke of Villa-Hermosa on one side, and the count de Waldeck on the other, intrenched in advantageous posts, watched the operations of the French, and held themselves in readiness to prevent their succouring the besieged. The count de Calvo commanded in

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SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1748.

“Peace is in Maestricht,” said the Marshal de Saxe. It was with preparations for this siege that the campaign of 1748 commenced. It was necessary to secure all the passages, to force an army to retreat, to render it powerless for action, to deceive the enemy, and leave his own troops in ignorance of his secret. Marshal Saxe succeeded in all this; he only communicated his views to M. de Cremille; he made the allies believe that his object was Buda, and he went, at the head of twenty-five thousand

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FIRST SIEGE, A.D. 1583.

The Netherlands, tired of the Spanish domination, made the false step of getting rid of one evil by adopting another quite as bad, and elected as their sovereign Francis of France, who, known as the duke d’Alençon, had recently assumed the title of duke d’Anjou. The worthy brother of Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry III.—the son of Catherine de Medici—the duke of Anjou, might have been thought the last prince to be selected for the purpose of reigning over a people so situated as the Netherla

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1585.

This is considered one of the most remarkable sieges of modern times, from its cause, the parties concerned, the events, and the result. The prince of Parma presented himself, in 1585, before Antwerp, at the head of a powerful army. His operations commenced by the attack of the forts of Lillo and Liestenstoech, constructed by the Dutch upon the banks of the Scheld. The Italians conceived a stratagem which very much facilitated the capture of this last fort. They got together a large number of wa

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A.D. 1565.

After the conquest of Rhodes by Soliman II., its knights retired to the island of Malta, which asylum was granted to them by the emperor Charles V. In the hands of this military order, Malta soon became the strong bulwark of Christendom. The Mahometans were deeply interested in taking this island, but more particularly in subduing its defenders. Dragut laid siege to it in 1565, with an army of more than thirty thousand men. Several assaults were given, which the knights sustained with their usua

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A.D. 1588.

This little city, at a small distance from Venloo, but whose advantages of situation, in a country that could be flooded, and the fortifications which the Dutch had added to its natural defences, rendered its capture difficult, was besieged by the Spaniards, under the command of Pierre Ernest de Mansfeld. Its weak garrison made a noble resistance. Nevertheless, the works of the Spaniards advanced so rapidly, the fire of the batteries, and the sapping and mining were so effective, that on the 3rd

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A.D. 1601–1604.

This celebrated siege, undertaken by the Spaniards, lasted three years and seventy-eight days, and, up to the moment of its termination, doubts were entertained of their success. The besieged, constantly succoured both by sea and land, were unable to tire out the courage and patience of the besiegers, who pushed on their attacks without relaxation, amidst the greatest obstacles. It would be difficult to count the number of batteries they erected, the assaults they made, or the mines they sprung.

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A.D. 1585.

This celebrated fortified place has been several times besieged. The Spaniards attacked it in 1585, when it was defended by Morgan, an intelligent and brave English captain. The duke of Parma, knowing all the difficulties of the undertaking, thought to abridge them by attempting to win over two English officers, who passed for being not very delicate. These two soldiers discovered the duke’s proposals to their commander, who ordered them to carry on the negotiations. They went into the enemy’s c

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1622.

The court of Madrid had placed at the head of sixty thousand men the famous Spinola. This general, to carry out the intentions of his master, entered the territories of Holland, and presented himself before Bergen-op-Zoom. The Spaniards took their posts, erected their batteries, thundered against the ramparts, gave many assaults, and caused the timid among the besieged to tremble; but the prince of Orange having thrown in succours, the besiegers retired on the 2nd of October, with the loss of te

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THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1747.

During more than a century this Maiden remained intact, but in October, 1747, she was deprived of the proud title by the illustrious and impetuous Lowendahl. In order not to lose the fruits of the memorable day of Lanfeld, Louis XV. commanded the siege of this important place. In describing it, we will avail ourselves of the words of Voltaire:— “Siege was laid to Bergen-op-Zoom, a place esteemed impregnable, less because the celebrated and ingenious Cohorn had there displayed all his art, than f

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A.D. 1631.

The city of Magdeburg, capital of a duchy of the same name in Lower Saxony, had entered into an alliance with Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and had granted him a passage over its bridge of the Elbe, by which the Imperialists were driven from the flat country. But the Austrian general Tilly returned, and blockaded the place very closely. The electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, disapproving of the conduct of the inhabitants of Magdeburg, resolved to maintain their connection with the emperor,

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A.D. 1706.

Louis XIV. having recalled the duke of Vendôme from Italy, to place him at the head of the troops in Flanders, substituted for him the duke de la Feuillade, the son of the famous marshal who erected a statue to his king in the Place des Victoires. Some few attacks had been already made upon Turin. La Feuillade continued them with an army of forty-six squadrons and a hundred battalions. He hoped to take this city, and, as his reward, looked for a marshal’s baton. The minister Chamillard, his fath

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A.D. 1654.

Two of the most illustrious generals, not only of France but of the world, were opposed to each other before Arras. The great Condé had allowed party feeling so far to prevail over his sense of duty as to lead him not only to deprive his country of his services, but to turn them against it. It is rather a remarkable fact, that one of the generals of whom France has most to boast, earned his brightest laurels when in arms against her. When his son was desirous of having the history of his father

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A.D. 1697.

Although this cannot be termed a siege, still, being of the nature of one, and very extraordinary in its circumstances, we cannot resist giving it to our readers. Mademoiselle de Verchères, little more than fifteen years of age, was walking on the banks of the St. Lawrence, when she heard the hissing of bullets, and beheld a party of Iroquois on the point of surrounding her. She fled at her best speed, and they pursued her; she threw herself into the fort, shut the gates, and gave the alarm. She

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A.D. 1713.

Charles XII. of Sweden, when he had taken refuge in Turkey, after being beaten by Peter of Russia, at length exhausted the obstinacy which had detained him so long at Demirtocka, meditating on means to excite the Ottoman Porte against his great rival, passed all at once, with characteristic energy, from excessive inactivity to equally excessive exertion. He set out from Demirtocka with prodigious speed, crossed the hereditary states of the emperor, Franconia and Mecklenburg, on horseback, and ar

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A.D. 1718.

Charles XII. being desirous, for the second time, of making the conquest of Norway, laid siege to Frederikshall, an important place, situated at the mouth of the river Tistendall, near the Channel of Denmark. It was in the month of December, 1718. The winter was severe, and the cold killed a number of soldiers. The works, nevertheless, advanced quickly, and the city was soon pressed very closely. “On the 11th of December,” says Voltaire, “the king went, at nine o’clock in the evening, to visit t

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A.D. 1761.

As one of our principal objects is to lay before young military students sieges in which masters of the art of war have been engaged, we cannot pass by two of this city, both containing lessons worthy of being remembered. The capture of Schweidnitz offers a fresh proof that no precaution is unnecessary in war. The smallest negligence in the service of places contiguous to the enemy, is most frequently punished by unexpected reverses. Five hundred prisoners were negligently guarded in the fortres

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SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1762.

The principal object of the next campaign was, for the king of Prussia, the recapture of Schweidnitz. Frederick had not one man more than was requisite for the execution of this important enterprise. Seventy thousand Austrians composed the army of Marshal Daun and the corps of Laudon, Hadduck, Brentano, De Beck, and Ellershausen. The Prussian army was not inferior, but troops must be detached from it for the siege, of which M. de Tauziern had the direction. He invested the place on the 4th of Au

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A.D. 1790.

This siege is particularly interesting at the present moment, from the same parties being engaged in a war arising from the same motives as those which led to this sanguinary and memorable contest. The position of Ismaïl, situated upon the Danube, in Bessarabia, tempted the court of St. Petersburg, then at war with the Turks, to endeavour to make the conquest of it. This was one of the most important cities of the Turkish empire in its European provinces. It had a numerous population, and a garr

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A.D. 1599.

If this siege were not interesting on account of its forming part of the noble struggle which rescued the Netherlands from the domination of the Spaniards, it would command our notice from being the time and place when one of the great scientific operations of war was first brought into use. The Spaniards having penetrated, in 1599, into the island of Bommel, formed by the Wahal, in the duchy of Gueldres, hastened to lay siege to the capital city of that island. Prince Maurice came to its succou

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A.D. 1705.

However unimportant it may appear in the vast page of history, no English account of sieges can be complete without a notice of that of Barcelona, in which he who may be called the last of our knights maintained so nobly that British good faith which we claim as our proudest characteristic. In 1705, the earl of Peterborough commanded the army of the Archduke Charles, competitor with Philip V., the grandson of Louis XIV., in conjunction with the prince of Darmstadt. The siege was dragged on to a

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A.D. 1779–1783.

As in the history of mankind there are some persons so remarkable and universally known as to make a notice of them almost a work of supererogation, so there are events, which, from the interest they have excited, and the consequences that have attended them, demand, in a work of this description, a much less detailed account than others of less importance: they have created deep and widely-spread excitement during their enactment, and have produced historians worthy to commemorate them. And suc

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A.D. 1799.

It is not our business here to discuss the means by which the English empire in India has been obtained, nor have we even space to detail the circumstances which led to the subjugation of Mysore, under Tippoo Saib, the last of its kings: our affair is with sieges only. Two English armies directed their course towards Seringapatam, the capital of the kingdom of Mysore. General Harris crossed the Cauvery on the 31st of March, and established himself at two miles from the south-west of that city; h

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A.D. 1809.

Although , like the most trivial accident of life, every small siege which occurred in the memorable Peninsular war had, doubtless, its bearing upon the general result, we can afford room only for the most prominent. The siege of every place remains, to all time, an interesting epoch in its own annals, but the student of history only pauses at such conflicts of the kind as have been distinguished by the presence of great captains, have been brought about by remarkable circumstances or revolution

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A.D. 1811.

The Peninsular sieges in which the English were concerned are principally useful as lessons to statesmen, and consequently to the people who support these statesmen. The siege of Badajos failed, although a Wellington superintended it; but, as Sir William Napier justly says, “it was not strange that it did fail; for the British government sent an engineer corps into the field so ill-provided, that all the officers’ bravery and zeal could not render it efficient. The very tools used, especially th

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SECOND ENGLISH SIEGE, A.D. 1812.

Lord Wellington having collected his troops in the Alentejo, marched against Badajos, and commenced the siege on the 16th of March, 1812. On the 29th, previous to the opening of the breaching-batteries, the enemy made a sortie upon the Portuguese troops under General Hamilton, who invested the place on the right of the Guadiana; but they were immediately repulsed with some loss. On the 31st, the English began to fire upon the face of the bastion to the south-west of the angle of the fort of Trin

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A.D. 1812.

The allied army under Lord Wellington remained in cantonments till the 7th of January, waiting for the arrival of the artillery; the light divisions being advanced in front, observing the enemy’s movements. The battering-train having reached Almeida on the 8th, Lord Wellington commenced the investment of Ciudad Rodrigo. Before this place could be even approached, it was necessary to take or destroy a palisadoed redoubt, which had been erected on the hill of St. Francisco, as also three fortified

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A.D. 1812.

This is a small fortress, but an important siege, filled with incident and instruction. On the morning of the 18th of September, the army was in front of Burgos, and may be said to have commenced a siege, in which the historians of the different nations, without any just imputation upon their truth, may each claim for their country the palm of active courage and patient firmness. The town was as bravely defended as it was bravely assailed, and the ardent and persevering enterprise of the attack

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A.D. 1813.

On the retreat of the French army after its defeat at Vittoria, Marshal Jourdan threw a garrison into St. Sebastian of between three and four thousand men, and the place was immediately afterwards invested by the Spaniards. In the beginning of July, the fifth division of the army, with two Portuguese brigades, making a force of from 9,000 to 10,000 men, arrived before it to form the siege, which was intrusted to Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Graham. A proportion of artillery, consisting of twent

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A.D. 1830.

This siege, although it took place at a distance of fifteen years from its cause, was the result of one of the many political errors of the treaty of Vienna. Nothing could be more unwise and short-sighted than to expect a peaceful union between Belgium and Holland, and particularly of so strict a nature as that union in some of its features was composed. Although near neighbours, the Belgians and the Dutch are widely different: different in language, institutions, blood, and traditions. The unio

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A.D. 1854–1855.

We now come to the siege which, if not the most important it has been our task to describe, must be the most interesting to our readers. No siege has ever been conducted under similar circumstances. Such have been the facilities of communication, and so effective and intelligent the means employed for collecting information, that the siege of Sebastopol may be said to have been carried on in the presence of the whole civilized world. It has been a living and an exciting panorama. When our ancest

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Eugene Aram.

“ Eugene Aram ” attests an immense progress in the resources of art in fiction; it grasps the materials of terror and pity with a master’s hand, and connects them with all the gradual progress of the drama, into tragic completeness....

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The Last Days of Pompeii.

The plot commencing lightly with the gay descriptions of idle life, its baths and its banquets, deepens gradually towards the awful magnificence of the catastrophe. All our passions are alternately “rocked as on a music scale” by the scene in the gladiatorial arena,—the inhuman delight of the spectators,—the first outburst of the irruption from the Mount of Fire,—the phenomena of the general destruction,—to the still unnoticed disappearance of Nydia, under the smile of awaking Dawn....

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Rienzi.

The early middle age of Italy rises before us; rude, yet struggling into light, and seeking escape into civilization by return to the classic past; the grand soul of the “Last Tribune” comes to recall again, for a momentary interval, the majesty of antique Rome, startling, as with the ghost of the classic giantess, the barbarian courts of the victor North. Rienzi himself is the master-spirit of the whole....

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Alice; or, the Mysteries.

The typical intentions are with admirable art kept so far subordinate to the story, that we always feel ourselves in the company of living agents; and it is only when our interest in the events of the tale and the destinies of its leading characters is fully satisfied, that we pause to look back at the secret philosophy that pervades the narrative, and become sensible of the wisdom we have acquired in the pleasure we have received....

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Night and Morning.

1s. 6d. Railway Library. Large Edition, cloth gilt, 4s. “ Night and Morning ” is the most generally popular of the author’s works; its materials are of a homelier and coarser kind than many of them; but their texture is strong and their hues brilliant. And in proportion as the work dispenses with the more reflective beauties that distinguish “ Maltravers ,” it gains as an animated and powerful story of human life....

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The Pilgrims of the Rhine.

1s. Railway Library. Large Edition, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. The loveliest and most fanciful of this varied catalogue of fiction. It gathers together, as into a garland of flowers, the associations, the history, the legends, the romance of the Rhine. Nothing like it, for the comprehension of the poetical aspects of places hallowed by tradition, exists in our language; and its originality is so toned down into familiar sweetness, that it is scarcely detected till we search for some work with which to

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Last of the Barons.

2s. Railway Library. Large Edition, cloth gilt, 5s. The chief attraction of the book is in the brilliant gallery of contemporary portraits—Edward IV.; Henry VI.; the grand, affectionate, wayward, fiery King Maker, the accomplished, able, inconstant Hastings; the portentous youth of Richard of Gloucester, learned and witty, dauntless and aspiring....

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Godolphin.

1s. 6d. (December 1st.) Large Edition, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. “ Godolphin ” has less vigour and less profundity than the best of the writer’s fictions, but it has an exquisite grace of sentiment and a singular fascination of style. It contains, perhaps, too, on the whole, the most accurate of all Bulwer’s representations of that cold and glittering surface of society which the French entitle the beau monde ....

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Disowned.

1s. 6d. (1855). Large Edition, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. The “ Disowned ,” with a more defective narrative and less sparkling diction, gives glimpses of a much loftier tone of mind, of greater capacities for pathos, of grander ideals of human character and the nobler aims of human life. Perhaps a finer picture of the Christian Stoic than is given to us in the effigies of the principal hero in the “ Disowned ,” Algernon Mordaunt, is not to be found in prose fiction....

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Devereux.

The mystery that pervades the plot is admirably sustained, and is derived, not from the inferior sources of external incident, but the complicated secrets of the human heart....

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Zanoni.

1s. 6d. (1855). Large edition, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. “ Zanoni ” is perhaps less liked by the many than the generality of its companions, but it has especial admirers, who rank it above them all. Independently of the depth and richness of its less visible poetry and wisdom, it contains passages of tenderness and power, of wild fancy and sombre grandeur, that irresistibly chain the more imaginative class of readers....

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Leila; or, the Siege of Granada. Calderon; or, the Courtier.

1s. (1855). Large edition, cloth gilt, 2s. Both these must be regarded as bold and rapid sketches, by a master-hand, rather than elaborate and finished performances of careful art....

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Harold.

1s. 6d. (1855). Large edition, cloth gilt, 4s. So truly national is this work in its spirit, and so replete with interest and value is the information it contains, whether of manners, customs, the origin of various races that people our island, the causes of political events that, however remote, have bequeathed influences which rule us at this day, that the careful perusal of “ Harold ” becomes almost the duty of every well-instructed Englishman....

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Lucretia.

“ Lucretia ; or, The Children of Night ,” rather errs from the over-exertion of strength. The vigour of its descriptions is not sufficiently restrained by art, and carries terror too far into the regions of pain....

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The Caxtons.

(1855). Large edition, cloth gilt, 4s. The moral bequeathed by the Caxton Family has received universal approbation. It runs broadly and healthfully along the whole composition, sporting with us by the way, and leaving us happier and better at the close....

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My Novel.

(1855). 2 vols, large edition, cloth gilt, 8s. It is from its immense breadth of comprehension, its mature repose of thought, its felicitous selection of the results of a most diversified experience, that “ My Novel ” is indeed par emphasis entitled to the name it assumes; and if not the loftiest of Bulwer’s works is certainly his completest novel. G. ROUTLEDGE &amp; CO., 2, FARRINGDON STREET....

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