"Silent shall be the march: nor drum, nor trump,
Nor clash of arms, shall to the watchful foe
Our near approach betray: silent and soft,
As the pard's velvet foot on Lybia's sands,
Slow stealing with crouch'd shoulders on her prey."
Constantine Palæologus, Act iv.
"The march and labour of thousands" must, however, as Gibbon observes, "have inevitably produced a strange confusion of discordant clamours, which reached the ears of the watchmen on the towers."
Note 18.
The dark-brow'd ranks are riven.
"After a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still maintained and preserved their advantage," says Gibbon. The strenuous exertions of the janizaries first turned the fortune of the day.
Note 19.
From the Greek fire shoots up, &c.
"A circumstance that distinguishes the siege of Constantinople is the re-union of the ancient and modern artillery. The bullet and the battering-ram were directed against the same wall; nor had the discovery of gunpowder superseded the use of the liquid and unextinguishable fire."—Decline and Fall, &c, vol. xii. p. 213.
