mission, and were themselves despised and distrusted alike by their own people and the Latins, whom they had wished to conciliate. If the emperor had ever allowed himself to hope for support from the West against the Turk, he must soon have been convinced of his self-deception. It might have once for a brief space seemed possible that the Ottoman power would fall before Ladislaus, king of Hungary, and his brave general, Huniades, but the battle of Varna in 1444 was a decisive victory for Amurath. The emperor thought it well to be civil to the victor, and sent to congratulate him on his success, and to beg that he might again be his friend and ally. His prayer was heard, and for four more years he lived to enjoy the sultan's favour.
We are now within five years of the end. With the reign of one more emperor Byzantine history finally closes. The last of the Cæsars was Constantine Palæologus, a name not inglorious, though associated with a fearful downfall. He was worthy of a happier age, and he perished, we shall see, like a hero, mindful of the empire he represented, and resolved to shed at least some glory on its dissolution. The brother of the late emperor, he succeeded to the throne at the mature age of fifty-four. At the time of his brother's death he was governing with the title of "despot" a little fragment of the empire in the Peloponnese, the defence of which he had maintained with some spirit and bravery against the Turks. He had two brothers still living, Demetrius and Thomas, and of these the former, as the elder and as "born in the purple," had a priority of claim, and
