The Beauties of the Bosphorus #271867

Never, since the close of the seventeenth century, when the troops of Soliman, on their way to besiege Vienna, were overcome by the prowess of the gallant and ill-requited Sobiesky, have the eyes of all civilized Europe been turned with such absorbing interest towards the "Bosphorus" and the "Danube" as at the present moment; a consideration which has induced the Publisher of the two volumes, of which a reprint is here offered to the public, to form of what were originally two distinct works, written by different hands, and produced at different periods, one continuous tableau of the theatre of impending war.<br><br>From the foundation of the Russian empire, the possession of Constantinople has ever been the steady and unwearied ambition of its rulers; an ambition which has descended like an heirloom from generation to generation, earnest, unabated, and unchanged. It was in the heart of Peter the Great, when he dictated that famous clause in his will which enjoined upon his successors the duty of persistence in this one settled purpose; it was in the heart of Catherine, when she caused to be inscribed upon the eastern gate of her capital, Gate of Constantinople; and ably and resolutely has the system been followed up even to the present hour.<br><br>In 1815, Russia signed, in conjunction with the other great powers, the Treaties which were to secure the equilibrium of Europe; and when, less than seven years afterwards, the revolution broke out in Greece, she co-operated with England and France in rescuing that monarchy from Moslem rule; and thus secured to herself the gratitude and allegiance of her co-religionists. This accomplished, she, only two years subsequently, declared war on her own account against the Porte; and at its conclusion made herself mistress, by the Treaty of Adrianople, of Turkish Armenia, (thereby aggrandizing the power and influence of the Czar in Asia,) and of the three Danubian provinces of Servia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, which brought her to the very threshold of the coveted city.