against the emperor of Germany. This was the cause of much devastation and bloodshed; and the Turks triumphed in the capture of the important town of Raab in Upper Hungary. During the continuance of this war Amurath died, in January 1596, at the age of fifty-two. He is spoken of by Christian authors as of a mild disposition, a lover of justice, zealous in his religion, and a friend to temperance and order. He was much swayed by the counsels of the females of his family, and appears to have possessed little activity. Yet, on the occasion of a dangerous mutiny of the janizaries, instead of complying with their insolent demands, he caused the gates of his palace to be set open, and sallying forth with his domestics, killed a number of them, and dispersed the rest; nor did he receive them again to favour without punishing the ringleaders. Mod. Univers. Hist.-A.

AMURATH (or MORAD) IV. surnamed Ghazi, or the Valiant, was son of Achmet I. and succeeded his deposed uncle Mustapha in 1622, being then in his thirteenth year. The beginnings of his reign were unprosperous; and amidst other losses, Bagdad was taken by the Persians. The pacha of Erzerum, likewise, continued in his rebellion begun in the former reign, and ravaged many of the provinces of Lesser Asia. To enable himself to oppose these enemies, the sultan made peace with the emperor of Germany, and then sent a powerful army to recover Bagdad. This attempt failed of success, partly in consequence of new rebellions in the Asiatic dominions. Troubles rose, too, at home, from the mutiny of the spahis; and more than one vizir lost his life in the storms of the Porte. The young monarch was violent in his temper, and much addicted to intemperance; and a fright he got from a dreadful flash of lightning which one night entered his chamber, was thought to have durably impaired his reason. He was active, however, in resisting the foes who pressed on the empire on all sides, though his policy appears to have been fluctuating, and he readily both commenced and laid aside hostilities. The recovery of Bagdad from the Persians was an object that he pursued with more steadiness than any other; and after various failures, he at length, in 1637, marched at the head of a numerous army, and by means of thirty days' continual assault, with an immense loss of lives, at length stormed the place. He equally showed the brutal ferocity of his temper in driving on his men by the scymetar to the attack, and in slaughtering 30,000 Persians who had surrendered at discretion, after the capture. It is said

that the only person who excited his pity at this dreadful massacre, was a famous player on the harp, who requested the executioners to permit him to speak to the sultan before his death. On mentioning who he was, and being ordered to give a specimen of his powers, he touched his instrument so sweetly, accompanying the strains with pathetic lamentations on the tragedy of Bagdad, and with artful praises of Amurath, that the tyrant was softened to tears, and not only saved him, but the rest of the survivors. This loss so broke the power of the Persians, that they no longer dared to enter the lists with the Ottoman empire.

By habits of debauchery the constitution of Amurath was so broken, that the infirmities of age came upon him, though yet in the prime of life. The immediate cause of his death was a revel in the feast of Bairam, which threw him into a fever that carried him off in February 1640, at the age of thirty-one. It is said, that perceiving his end approach, he gave orders for putting to death his brother Ibrahim, the next in the succession, for the purpose of securing the throne to his favourite, Mustapha, the capitan pacha; but the execution was prevented by his mother. The manners and adventures of Amurath have afforded matter for numerous Turkish relations; and display such a mixture of extravagance, singularity, and cruelty, as is only to be found in the union of barbarism with despotic sway. None of his predecessors were so inveterately addicted to drinking; and he did not scruple openly to violate the laws of his country and religion, by an edict permitting the public sale and use of wine. At the same time he shut up the coffee-houses, and declared mortal war against opium and tobacco, the use of which he punished with immediate death. In his fits of intoxication he would sally from his palace by night with his sword drawn, and cut down all he met; and such was his habitual propensity to cruelty, that he would shoot with arrows from his upper windows at the passengers, and often roam in disguise through the streets in the day-time, and not return without putting to death some poor wretches, for little or no cause. The opium-chewers would fall into fits at hearing the name of Amurath; a name never pronounced without dread! The persons whom he destroyed in a reign of seventeen years amounted to 14,000, many the highest officers of the state. He frequently, however, descended to familiarities with his favourites, and joined them in dressing his own provisions, and bringing wine from the taverns to the pleasure-gardens without the city. He

provinces. Amurath assembling an army, marched to oppose him, but, being met by Karaman's wife, his own sister, he was prevailed upon, by her entreaties, to be reconciled to him. His dominions being now in a state of perfect repose, Amurath, who had always shown himself much attached to the practices of his religion, and was become philosophically sensible of the vanity of pomp and power, resigned the empire to his son Mahomet, and retired to Magnesia, where he joined the society of dervises and hermits, and adopted all their austerities and fanatic rites. This was in 1443, when he had only reached the age of forty. He was, however, soon summoned from his retreat by an invasion of the mussulman territories by the king of Hungary, Ladislaus, and his auxiliaries, at the instigation of Karaman Ogli, whom no oaths or promises could bind. The new sultan and his subjects were equally desirous in this emergency of availing themselves of the tried abilities of their late lord; and Amurath consented again to lead the armies of the faithful. He met the Christians at Varna; and, during the heat of the engagement, he caused the late treaty of peace between himseif and the Hungarian king to be borne through his ranks on the point of a lance, while he cried aloud, "Let the infidels come on against their God and sacrament; and, if their belief of those things be certain, let them, O just God, declare themselves their own avengers, and punishers of their own ignominy!" While the battle was yet doubtful, the young king of Hungary, penetrating to Amurath's station, engaged with him in single combat. Amurath pierced his horse, and he fell, and was presently dispatched by the janizaries. His head was cut off, and displayed to his troops on the point of a spear. They were totally routed, and the greater part of them either slain or made prisoners. Cardinal Julian, who had obtained for the king of Hungary the pope's dispensation from his oath, was one of the victims of this just vengeance. Amurath again retired to a private and religious life, from which he was a second time recalled, in 1446, by a fierce sedition of the janizaries, who filled Adrianople with rapine and slaughter. This he soon quelled, and next turned his arms against the famous Scander-beg, prince of Epirus, who had revolted. He expelled him from his kingdom, and followed him to Albania; but, after two attempts to take Kroya, the capital, in which he sustained great loss, he was obliged to give up the design. Amurath, however, by the alternative of death or the Koran, converted all the Epirots to his own faith. The Hungarians found him fresh employment by another inva

sion of the territories near the Danube. The sultan immediately marched against thein, and met them at Kossova, the place where Amurath I. had been victorious. Several bloody but partial actions ensued, which at length terminated in the rout of the Christian forces; and John Huniades, in his retreat, was made prisoner by the despot of Servia. Amurath returned to Adrianople, and seems now to have given up all present thoughts of resignation; for, after marrying his son Mahomet to the daughter of the prince of Elbistan, he sent him to govern Asia Minor. But in 1451 he was seised with a dis-‍ order in his head, which soon carried him off in the forty-seventh year of his life, and twentyninth of his reign.

He left behind him a very high character among his subjects, as well for civil as military virtues; and his piety and munificence in building mosques, caravanseras, colleges, and hospitals, and in bestowing alms on the devotees of his religion, are much extolled. He had too much of the Mahometan conqueror, in whose estimation cruelty and violence are sanctioned by the propagation of the faith; yet it is generally acknowledged that he seldom drew the sword without previous provocation, and that he observed his treaties with inviolable fidelity. Mod. Univers. Hist.-A.

AMURATH (or MORAD) III. succeeded his father sultan Selim II. in 1575. In compliance with the barbarous policy of the Turkish throne, he began his reign with causing his five brothers to be strangled in his presence. The mother of one of them stabbed herself to the heart; and Amurath is said to have shown some sensibility on the occasion. His reign was eventful in military transactions, in which, however, he himself bore no part; and few sovereigns are so little mentioned by the Turkish historians. At his recommendation, Stephen Battori was elected king of Poland; a circumstance favourable to his designs against Persia, which occupied many years of his reign. The invasion of this empire by the Turks began in 1578, and, after a great deal of mutual slaughter, it ended in Amurath's possession of Tauris, and three contiguous provinces of Persia. Krim Tartars revolting from the Turkish dominion were reduced. Syria and Egypt were involved in troubles from bad government; and Ibrahim pacha, sent to settle affairs in those parts, used the Druses with great cruelty. The frontiers of Hungary, as usual, were the scene of various encounters between the Turks and Christians; and in 1590, Amurath being at peace with the other powers, declared war

The

against the emperor of Germany. This was the cause of much devastation and bloodshed; and the Turks triumphed in the capture of the important town of Raab in Upper Hungary. During the continuance of this war Amurath died, in January 1596, at the age of fifty-two. He is spoken of by Christian authors as of a mild disposition, a lover of justice, zealous in his religion, and a friend to temperance and order. He was much swayed by the counsels of the females of his family, and appears to have possessed little activity. Yet, on the occasion of a dangerous mutiny of the janizaries, instead of complying with their insolent demands, he caused the gates of his palace to be set open, and sallying forth with his domestics, killed a number of them, and dispersed the rest; nor did he receive them again to favour without punishing the ringleaders. Mod. Univers. Hist.-A.

AMURATH (or MORAD) IV. surnamed Ghazi, or the Valiant, was son of Achmet I. and succeeded his deposed uncle Mustapha in 1622, being then in his thirteenth year. The beginnings of his reign were unprosperous; and amidst other losses, Bagdad was taken by the Persians. The pacha of Erzerum, likewise, continued in his rebellion begun in the former reign, and ravaged many of the provinces of Lesser Asia. To enable himself to oppose these enemies, the sultan made peace with the emperor of Germany, and then sent a powerful army to recover Bagdad. This attempt failed of success, partly in consequence of new rebellions in the Asiatic dominions. Troubles rose, too, at home, from the mutiny of the spahis; and more than one vizir lost his life in the storms of the Porte. The young monarch was violent in his temper, and much addicted to intemperance; and a fright he got from a dreadful flash of lightning which one night entered his chamber, was thought to have durably impaired his reason. He was active, however, in resisting the foes who pressed on the empire on all sides, though his policy appears to have bcen fluctuating, and he readily both commenced and laid aside hostilities. The recovery of Bagdad from the Persians was an object that he pursued with more steadiness than any other; and after various failures, he at length, in 1637, marched at the head of a numerous army, and by means of thirty days' continual assault, with an immense loss of lives, at length stormed the place. He equally showed the brutal ferocity of his temper in driving on his men by the scymetar to the attack, and in slaughtering 30,000 Persians who had surrendered at discretion, after the capture. It is said

that the only person who excited his pity at this dreadful massacre, was a famous player on the harp, who requested the executioners to permit him to speak to the sultan before his death. On mentioning who he was, and being ordered to give a specimen of his powers, he touched his instrument so sweetly, accompanying the strains with pathetic lamentations on the tragedy of Bagdad, and with artful praises of Amurath, that the tyrant was softened to tears, and not only saved him, but the rest of the survivors. This loss so broke the power of the Persians, that they no longer dared to enter the lists with the Ottoman empire.

By habits of debauchery the constitution of Amurath was so broken, that the infirmities of age came upon him, though yet in the prime of life. The immediate cause of his death was a revel in the feast of Bairam, which threw him into a fever that carried him off in February 1640, at the age of thirty-one. It is said, that perceiving his end approach, he gave orders for putting to death his brother Ibrahim, the next in the succession, for the purpose of securing the throne to his favourite, Mustapha, the capitan pacha; but the execution was prevented by his mother. The manners and adventures of Amurath have afforded matter for numerous Turkish relations; and display such a mixture of extravagance, singularity, and cruelty, as is only to be found in the union of barbarism with despotic sway. None of his predecessors were so inveterately addicted to drinking; and he did not scruple openly to violate the laws of his country and religion, by an edict permitting the public sale and use of wine. At the same time he shut up the coffee-houses, and declared mortal war against opium and tobacco, the use of which he punished with immediate death. In his fits of intoxication he would sally from his palace by night with his sword drawn, and cut down all he met; and such was his habitual propensity to cruelty, that he would shoot with arrows from his upper windows at the passengers, and often roam in disguise through the streets in the day-time, and not return without putting to death some poor wretches, for little or no cause. The opium-chewers would fall into fits at hearing the name of Amurath; a name never pronounced without dread! The persons whom he destroyed in a reign of seventeen years amounted to 14,000, many the highest officers of the state. He frequently, however, descended to familiarities with his favourites, and joined them in dressing his own provisions, and bringing wine from the taverns to the pleasure-gardens without the city. He

sometimes practised humourous jests, among which can hardly be reckoned his uniting in marriage old men to girls, and young fellows to women of fourscore. Had he not been thus intoxicated with power and wine, his natural qualities of mind and body might have made him respectable. No man drew the bow or darted the jerid with such dexterity, or surpassed him in swiftness of foot. He was firm and resolute in accomplishing any object in which he seriously engaged, and was little moved with reverses of fortune. But his moral qualities were radically depraved. He was a great dissembler, and very avaricious. He treated religion with contempt, and its votaries with ridicule. Mod. Univers. Hist.-A.

AMY, N. advocate of the parliament of Aix, died in the year 1760. He is known by several useful writings in physics: "Experimental Observations on the Waters of the Seine, the Marne, &c." printed in 12mo. in 1749; "New Filtrating Fountains," 12mo. 1757; "Reflections on Copper, Lead, and Tin Vessels," 12mo. 1757. These pieces, written in French, do credit to the author, particularly as they show him to have been a friend to his species, who employed his leisure upon subjects of common utility. Nouv. Dict. Hist. -Ě.

AMYOT, JAMES, a French divine, bishop of Auxerre, distinguished by his learning, and still more by his good fortune, was born at Melun in the year 1514. He was of low extraction; his father being, according to some, a currier, or, according to others, among whom is Thuanus, a butcher. When he was about ten years old, he ran away from his father's house for fear of being chastised, and was found sick on the road by a gentleman, who took him up behind him on his horse, and carried him to the hospital at Orleans, where he soon recovered, and was charitably furnished with sixteen pence for the expenses of his journey home; a kindness which he remembered to his death, and repaid with interest, by leaving to the hospital a legacy of twelve hundred crowns. Whether his parents sent him to Paris for school-learning, and maintained him there by their industry, or whether he went thither of his own accord as a beggar, and was charitably taken under the patronage of a lady who appointed him to attend her sons at college, is uncertain; but we find him early an industrious student in the university of Paris, and at nineteen years of age in possesion of his degree of master of arts. In the year 1537 he left Paris, and accompanied the abbot of St. Ambrose in

Bourges to that city. Here, through the interest of the abbot, he became preceptor to the children of William Bouchetel, secretary of state, who was so well pleased with his services, that he recommended him to the patronage of the princess Margaret, duchess of Berri, sister of Francis I. Tarough her recommendation he obtained the chair of public lecturer in Greek and Latin in the university of Bourges; and, for ten years, he daily read two lectures, one in Latin in the morning, and one in Greek in the afternoon. During this period he translated into French the ancient Greek romance of Heliodorus, entitled his "Ethiopic History, or the Loves of Theagenes and Chariclea." The performance was admired, and procured him the abbey of Bellosane.

After the death of Francis I. Amyot, in search of preferment, went into Italy with Morvillier, who was sent by Henry II. on an embassy to the states of Venice. Remaining in Venice after Morvillier's return, he was employed by cardinal de Tournon, and the French ambassador De Selve, to carry the king's letter of protest to the council of Trent, and to read it before the assembly. Having executed this difficult commission with credit, he went for two years to Rome, where, in the midst of his studies, he did not neglect to ingratiate himself with those who might serve his interest. The cardinal de Tournon, who respected his talents, recommended him to the king of France, as a fit preceptor for his two younger sons; and in 1558 he left Italy to take upon him this important charge. His elder pupil soon succeeded his father on the throne, under the name of Charles IX. and, as appears from the registers of the French court, the next day after his accession, in the year 1560, appointed his preceptor to the dignity of great almoner, and at the same time made him curator of the university of Paris: he afterwards loaded him with the honours and emoluments of the abbey of St. Corneille, and the bishopric of Auxerre. When the younger of his pupils, Henry III. came to the crown, he continued Amyot in the office of grand almoner; and upon the institution of the order of the Holy Ghost, in 1578, he appointed him master of that order, and, in consideration of his talents and services, ordained, that these two offices should always be united in the same person. Thuanus accuses Amyot of ingratitude towards his benefactors, in countenancing a rebellion in the city of Auxerre; but this is contradicted by Rouillard, the writer of his life, who intimates that he was ill-treated for his fidelity. In the midst of much disturbance, and

some losses, from the civil war, he remained upon his diocese till his death, which happened in 1593.

Amyot has been accused of avarice; and, in addition to the ambiguous proof of this charge, drawn from the numerous dignities which he possessed, and from his having died worth two hundred thousand crowns, it is related of him, that when he was one day soliciting from Charles IX. another benefice, the monarch said, “How now, master? you told me, that if you had a thousand crowns a year, you should be satisfied; I believe you have that, and more. "True, sire, replied the bishop, but appetite comes by eating.' However this was, Amyot was certainly a learned man, as fully appears from the translation of Heliodorus, already mentioned, and still further from a translation of Plutarch's lives, which he wrote while he was preceptor to the young princes. This translation is still read and admired in France. The best edition is that of Vascosan, printed in 1567, and 1574, in thirteen volumes, 8vo. Racine, in the preface to his Mithridates, says, that this old translation possesses a grace not to be equalled in modern language. If the author be entitled to the praise which has been given him, of having introduced into French prose a degree of sweetness and amenity, before his time unknown, he must not, however, be allowed the credit of being an accurate translator. Amyot was requested to write a history of France, but declined the task, saying, that "he loved his masters too well to write their lives." Besides Heliodorus and Plutarch, Amyot translated seven books of Diodorus Siculus; some of the Greek tragedies, and the Pastoral of Daphnis, a beautiful edition of which was published, with plates, in 8vo. in 1718. The miscellaneous works of Amyot were printed in 8vo. at Lyons, in 1611. Rouillard, Antiq. de Melun. Bayle. Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-E. AMYRAUT, MOSES, a French protestant divine, was born of a good family at Bourgueil in Touraine, in the year 1596. His father devoted him to the study of the civil law, and for some time he applied with great industry to this study in the college of Poitiers. But his attention being diverted from this pursuit by the conversation of his countryman and friend, M. Bouchereau, the minister of Saumur, and by the perusal of Calvin's Institutes, he with difficulty obtained permission from his father, who had higher prospects for him, to enter upon the profession of a Christian minister. He studied theology at Saumur in 1626, and succeded Mr. Daillé, in the church of that place.

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Soon afterwards he was appointed, by the academic council of Saumur, to the professorship of divinity in their university. Two other professors, De la Place, and Lewis Cappel, were admitted at the same time; and, a circumstance is mentioned, which may deserve attention as somewhat rare in academic history, that they lived in perfect harmony, and, without envy or jealousy, united their exertions for the credit of their seminary. In the year 1631 Amyraut was deputed, from the protestant synod at Charenton, to present to the king their complaints concerning the violation of the edicts which had been passed in their favour. He was particularly directed on this occcasion not to deliver his speech on his knees, after the example of late deputies: and, after several conferences with the secretary of state and cardinal Richelieu, he carried his point. The ability and address which he discovered in this business were admired by the cardinal.

At the request of a Roman catholic of rank, well affected towards the protestants, Amyraut wrote a treatise, "On Grace and Prede tination," which excited much attention, and great animosity among the protestant divines of France. The work, which was an ingenious attempt to reconcile the doctrine of predestination with that of universal grace, met with vio lent opposition from the Calvinistic divines, and particularly from one of their celebrated cham-' pions, Du Moulin. The doctrine of his work was examined in the synod of Alençon, and, after violent contests, he was with difficulty acquitted, with an injunction of silence upon these questions. Amyraut, who did not find himself bound by this injunction, returned to the charge; and, for many years, the contest was kept up with increasing credit on the part of this able polemic. In Holland his doctrine met with powerful opposition from the learned pens of Rivet, Spanheim, and Des Marets, but found at least equally powerful support from Daillé, Blondel, Mestrezat, and Claude. At length, the sentiments of Amyraut, on the subject of the divine decrees, which in fact nearly coincided with those of the Pelagians and Arminians, were received in all the universities of the Hugonots in France, and were disseminated by the French protestants, who fled from the rage of persecution, through all the reformed churches of Europe.

Notwithstanding the heretical cast of Amy-. raut's opinions, his talents, learning, and moderation procured him universal respect among. eminent men of all professions. In the cathoHic church, many persons of the first distinction,"