other. Their correspondence was always conducted in a spirit of true knight-errantry; while, in times of truce, the adverse nations mingled together in friendship. At one moment, the respective leaders were exchanging presents and reciprocating good offices; at another they met in bloody and impetuous strife. On one occasion, especially, Richard experienced the generous hospitality of Saladin, who sent him, while laid prostrate by fever, a vase of ice—a great luxury in such a climate.* On the 25th of October, a. D. 1192, Richard set sail for Europe. In the Third Crusade, there was less of religious sentiment than in either of the former two. Richard was impelled to undertake it more by his indomitable passion for war and adventure, than by any considerations of piety, and his royal compeers were more or less under the same influence. Perhaps Frederick Barbarossa was the most sincerely governed by those mistaken notions of religion which led to the enterprise. The heroes of the Third Crusade are more adapted to excite surprise than to inspire esteem, and seem to belong less to history than to the romance of chivalry. Its fruits were but small, as far as the recovery of the Holy Land was concerned. Its grand object certainly was not accomplished; jut still the total ruin of the Latin kingdom was averted, the tide of Mussulman conquest was arrested, and the Christians' territory was * Vinisauf, lib. vi. cap. xxviii.; Hist. Rogeri de Hoveden, 693. preserved for another eighty years. The chief result, however, was the martial fame of its great hero, whose name for a century was a bugbear in the east, so that, when women would terrify their children, it was sufficient to tell them that Richard was coming. CHAPTER VI. THE FOURTH AND SUBSEQUENT CRUSADES. A.D. 1192-1291. THE glory of the Crusades may now be considered to have been on the wane. The enthusiasm, indeed, occasionally burst forth, sometimes in one nation, and sometimes in another, as from the subsiding fires of some mighty conflagration; but it was no longer a universal passion flaming from all hearts. Our notice of the remaining five of these expeditions must be confined within the limits of this single chapter. This the reader will have the less occasion to regret, from the monotonous character of their detail. We shall, however, endeavour to mark their distinctive features. FOURTH CRUSADE. Saladin did not long survive his treaty with Richard. He died at the age of fifty-seven, having reigned twentytwo years over Egypt, and nineteen sole master of Syria. He was a rigid Mohammedan, his character being admired by the deluded professors of that faith, as a singular combination of the hero and the saint. He is said ever to have deplored that the defence of his religion bad not allowed him to accomplish the pilgri - * mage to Mecca. The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanest supplicant, and so boundless was his liberality, that he distributed twelve thousand horses at the siege of Acre, and at the time of his decease not more than twenty-seven drachms of silver and one piece of gold were found in his treasury. His death was more instructive than his life. Seeing that his end was near, he summoned his standard-bearer to his side, and said, "You have been wont to bear my banner in the day of battle, you shall carry my ensign in the hour of death. Take this winding sheet, borne upon a lance, through the lengths and breadths of Damascus, and cry, 'Behold the great sultan of the east dying, carries nothing with him to the grave save this poor coverlet.'"† Let not the reader, however, be led away by false impressions of the virtues of this justly distinguished Mohammedan. He was, after all, a compound of dignity and baseness, and high as he stood in comparison with many in his day who boasted a holier name, his character was at an infinite remove from true Christian excellence. Either the Mohammedan or the pagan may occasionally discover qualities well calculated to excite admiration, but it is only under the transforming power of the gospelby the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, that a character can be formed on which God will look with * Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. xi. p. 131. † Hist. Bernardi Thesaurarii, cap. clxxxi. approval; and this, be it remembered, is as necessary for the nominal Christian as for the pagan or Mohammedan. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." On the decease of Saladin, the great empire which he had consolidated was dissolved. In its division, three of his numerous sons erected thrones at Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo. But most of his veteran soldiery preferred to range themselves under the standard of his brother Saphadin; and at their head, that prince carved out for himself, at the expense of his nephews, a considerable sovereignty in Syria. This was considered a favourable juncture for reconquering Jerusalem.* Pope Celestine II., who occupied the papal chair, sounded the trumpet of war throughout Christendom. But Germany alone answered the summons. In that country, however, the frenzy of crusading spread from north to south, and both clergy and laity, burning with what was falsely esteemed a Divine zeal, received the sign of the cross.† In this movement the Fourth Crusade originated; but it was of brief duration, and unimportant in its results. The general superiority, however, of the arms of the Crusaders, is thought to have been useful in sustaining the dignity and safety of the Christian state, which still included a great part of the coast of Syria. The FIFTH CRUSADE was, on many accounts, *Hist. Jacobi de Vitriaco, lib. iii. |