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and Hussites, but he defeated them, and took a great number of prisoners. These he dismissed after mutilation, by which barbarity he sullied the glory he had acquired. At last, by a treaty in 1475, the king of Poland kept Lusatia and the part of Silesia bordering on Bohemia, and Matthias retained the rest of Silesia and Moravia.

While he was engaged in these wars, the Turks were making great progress on the frontiers of Christendom. Matthias turned his arms against them, and blockaded Semenaria; but his martial ardour was slackened by the celebration of his second marriage with Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand, king of Sicily. The Turks being then chiefly directed against the Venetians, he engaged against an enemy, from whom he was more likely to obtain spoils. This was the emperor Frederic III., with whom he quarrelled in 1478, when after ravaging Austria, and besieging Vienna, he consented to withdraw his troops on being paid the expences of the war, and receiving the investiture of Bohemia from the emperor, who was to renounce the kingdom of Hungary. The payment being refused, and the title still retained, Matthias invaded Lower Austria, of which he made himself master, together with Vienna, in 1487. He died in that city in 1490, about the fiftieth year of his age, and thirty-third of his reign, leaving no issue but a natural son. Matthias was one of the most splendid monarchs of his time; of great enterprise and military talents, liberal and magnificent. His chief defects were ambition, and violence of temper, which made him sometimes forgetful of justice and humanity, though they did not exclude generosity of sentiment and magnanimity. He was both a lover and guardian of literature. He purchased innumerable volumes of Greek and Hebrew writers at Constantinople, and other Grecian cities, when they were sacked by the Turks; and as the operations of typography were then imperfect, he employed at Florence many learned librarians to multiply copies of classics, both Greek and Latin, which he could not procure in Greece. These, to the number of 50,000, he placed in a tower, which he had erected in the metropolis of Buda; and in his library, he established thirty amanuenses, skilled in painting, illuminating, and writing, who, under the conduct of Felix Ragusinas, a Dalmatian, consummately learned in the Greek, Chaldaic, and Arabic languages, and an elegant designer and painter of ornaments on vellum, attended incessantly to the business of transcription and decoration. The librarian was Bartholomew Fontius, a learned Florentine, the writer of many philosophical works, and a professor of Greek and oratory at Florence. When Buda was taken by the Turks, in the year 1526, cardinal Bozzmanni offered for the redemption of this inestimable collection, 200,000 pieces of the impe

rial money, but without effect; for the barbarous besiegers defaced or destroyed most of the books, in the violence of seizing the splendid covers, and the silver bosses and clasps with which they were enriched.

LADISLAUS VI., king of Hungary son of Casimir IV., of Poland, was chosen king of Bohemia in 1470, and was soon involved in a war with Matthias king of Hungary, which was terminated by a peace in 1475. At the death of Matthias in 1490, Ladislaus was elected to succeed him. He had, however, to make his way to the throne against the hostile opposition of his competitors, one of whom was his own brother. At length he was quietly seated; but being of an indolent and pacific disposition, he was ill fitted to contend with the disorders which harassed his kingdom; and from his great bulk and inactivity, he acquired from his subjects the appellation of an ox. The Turks having threatened Hungary, Ladislaus wished to avert the danger by a treaty, but was prevented by the fanatic archbishop of Strigonia, who preached up a crusade, and collected a large body of peasants. These turned their arms against their own nobles, and committed enormous excesses, which were quelled by the count of Scepus, with equal cruelty. Ladislaus, though not warlike, was attentive to the duties of his high station, and employed much time in collecting all the Hungarian laws, and the decrees of the monarchy, into one body, which has ever since formed the base of the constitution and jurisprudence of the country. He died in 1516.

SCHASTIAN SCHERTLIN, of Wirtemburg, first served in Hungary, and was at the defence of Savia. He displayed such valour at the taking of Rome and Narni, and in the defence of Naples in 1528, that several potentates solicited him to enter into their service. He espoused the cause of the league of Smalcald against the emperor, and afterwards accompanied Henry II., of France, in his expedition to the Rhine and the Low Countries. Charles V. restored him his property, which had been confiscated at Augsburg. He died in 1577, aged 82.

FRANCE.

CHARLES VII., king of France, surnamed the Victorious, son of the unfortunate Charles VI., was born at Paris, in 1402. He had been tutored in the school of adversity, but did not acquire those valuable qualities which it tends to inculcate. He shared in the assassination of the duke of Burgundy, and though that prince was a bad character, the act was not honourable to Charles. In his disposition Charles was habitually indolent and voluptuous. He acted, however, at the head of the true patriot party in France; and at the

death of his father he caused himself, then in his twentieth year, to be proclaimed king, with little ceremony; while at Paris the regent duke of Bedford proclaimed with great solemnity his nephew, the infant Henry of Windsor. The dominions of Charles consisted of a few provinces in the middle and south of France. The rest was possessed by the English, who, under the able conduct of their regent, went on in a career of success. The battle of Verneuil, gained in 1424, by Bedford, reduced the affairs of Charles to a very desperate condition. He gave up the management of them chiefly to the constable, count of Richemont, brother to the duke of Brittany; himself, with his unworthy favourite, la Tremoille, being occupied in festivals as during a season of peace. The brave La Hire being asked one day by the king what he thought of certain preparations he was making for an entertainment, replied, "I think that a kingdom cannot be lost more gaily." Another change was, however, preparing for him, of which he was not aware. The gallant Dunois, the bastard of Orleans, obliged the English to raise the siege of Montargis; but the duke of Bedford, after compelling the duke of Brittany to quit the party of Charles, laid siege to the important city of Orleans. At this critical juncture, 1428, appeared the celebrated Maid of Orleans, who, probably first actuated by her own enthusiasm, and afterwards made an engine of by politicians, undertook to raise the siege of Orleans, and to lead the king to be crowned at Rheims; both which she effected. Her success, though short-lived, for she was soon afterwards taken prisoner by the English, and burnt as a sorceress, excited the courage and hopes of the French, while it depressed the spirits of the English. At length in 1435, the cause of Charles was rendered decisively superior, by the treaty of Arras, in which Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, sacrificed the resentment of his house to the public welfare, and made a separate peace with France, upon terms, indeed, highly favourable to himself. About the same time, the most formidable enemy of France, the duke of Bedford, died, and left the English affairs under the management of contending factions. In 1436, the city of Paris, disgusted with the English government, and repenting its long hostility to its native prince, admitted the constable with his troops, who obliged the English garrison to capitulate; and soon after, the king made a triumphal entry into his capital, from which he had been absent nineteen years. In 1438, Charles passed the famous Pragmatic sanction, confirming the liberties of the Gallican church. Some discontents among the nobility occasioned a petty rebellion in 1440, in which the king had the mortification of seeing his son, the dauphin, afterwards Lewis XI., engaged for a time; but the government was now

so strong that he was soon brought to submit. Success continued upon the whole to attend the French arms, and the English agreed upon a truce, in 1443, which gave Charles an opportunity of establishing reform among his troops. He dismissed the militia, and set on foot a standing force, the first known in France, for the maintenance of which the perpetual taille was instituted. In 1449 Normandy was recovered from the English; and the death of the famous Talbot, slain in battle, in 1451, was followed by their expulsion from Guienne; so that nothing remained of all their bloody conquests except the towns of Calais and Guines. A new revolt of the dauphin, who could not bear the influence exercised over the king by Agnes Sorel, embittered this prosperity. Unable to make an insurrection, he took refuge in the court of the duke of Burgundy, who entertained him respectfully, but would not enter into any political designs. A conspiracy of the duke of Alençon, a prince of the blood, to bring back the English, was discovered in 1457, and produced his conviction of high treason. The dauphin's alienation from his father still continued; and such was the dread which the dark and intriguing character of the prince inspired, that the king, persuaded of an intention to poison him, obstinately refused to take food for several days, which reduced him to such a state of weakness, that he could not be recovered. He died in July, 1461, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and thirty-ninth of his reign. The general character this prince sustained may be inferred from the title of Well-served annexed to that of the Victorious, nor can it be denied, that the efforts of individuals, and the patriotic zeal of the nation, contributed much more to the recovery of his kingdom than his own exertions. Yet, as he grew older, his policy seems to have been uniformly wise and enlightened; and France dates from his reign several of those institutions to which she owes her greatness and prosperity. His private character was amiable, and he always manifested a tender regard for the lives and properties of his people.

AGNES SOREL, the mistress of Charles VII., king of France. One who, to many virtues, added that of turning the influence she possessed over the king to his glory, and the good of her country. She would not suffer him to sink into the luxurious indolence to which he was inclined, but animated him, by intreaties and remonstrances, to active measures against the English, and to perseverance, even when fortune did not seem in his favour. She died of a dysentery, in 1449. CHARLIER ALAIN, secretary to Charles VII., king of France. He was the author of several works in prose and verse, but his most famous performance was his chronicle of king Charles VII. Bernard de Girard, in his preface to the history of France, styles him "an excellent historian, who has

given an account of all the affairs, particulars, ceremonies, speeches, answers, and circumstances, at which he was present himself, or had information of." Giles Coroxet tells us, that Margaret, daughter to the king of Scotland, and wife to the dauphin, passing once through a hall where Alain lay asleep, she stopped and kissed him before all the company who attended; some of them telling her that it was strange she should kiss a man who had so few charms in his person, she replied, "I did not kiss the man, but the mouth from whence proceeds so many excellent sayings, so many wise discourses, and so many elegant expressions." Mr. Fontenelle, among his " Dialogues of the Dead," has one upon this incident, between the princess Margaret and Plato. Mr. Pasquier compares Alain to Seneca, on account of the great many beautiful sentences interspersed throughout his writings.

STEPHEN DE KIGNÕLES, better known by the name of La Hire, a French general, who served under Charles VII., and obliged Bedford to raise the siege of Montargis, and assisted Joan of Arc in the relief of Orleans. He died at Montauban, 1447.

PROSPERO COLONNA, a military commander of high reputation, was the son of Anthony, prince of Salerno, and born in 1452. He and his relation Fabricio, entered into the service of Charles VIII., king of France, and assisted that monarch in the conquest of Naples; but they afterwards contributed to the recovery of that kingdom for the house of Arragon. Prospero distinguished himself in many battles, but at last was made captive at Villa Franca, in 1515. On regaining his liberty he defeated the French at the battle of la Bicogne, and relieved Milan, in 1522. He died in the following year. Such was his reputation, that the French cried one to another, "Courage! Milan is ours, since Colonna is dead." His military character was rather prudent and cautious than enterprising. He was by nature slow and inactive, but his vigilance generally secured him from surprise. In common with many Italian generals, he was a friend and patron of learned men.

JAMES COEUR, an eminent French merchant, was reckoned the richest subject in Europe of his time. He kept three hundred clerks in the ports of the east, and the ocean and the Mediterranean were covered with his vessels; the monarchs of Asia and Africa favoured his transactions; and he became the richest individual in Europe. He employed his wealth in a truly patriotic manner, by advancing 200,000 crowns of gold for the king, Charles VII., to enable him to recover his kingdom from the English, in return for which the king raised him to the post of treasurer and counsellor, and made him administrator of the finances. He was employed in

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