CIIAP. I.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

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you can tell who was the dragon. What is sure is,that the warrior was noted for his independentboldness of spirit, and that his order had much toexasperate their minds at that period ; and evenwhile a mere knight, he was looked upon by hisbrethren as their champion. They were too muchoccupied with a human dragon, to have leisure foran inferior class; threatened as the order were withthat prodigious expense, the maintenance of theentire Christian fleet,' not voluntarily, but againsttheir will, and clearly beyond their ability, in spiteof their most oppressive self-taxation; mortorio andvacante being then first levied, as well as the plateand jewels of the dead, with whatever could besaved by a rigid limiting of the knights’ table toone substantial dish, flesh or fish, and pursued byhomilies severer than to the Templars, at the verymoment those luckless gentlemen had been undersentence of dissolution and martyrdom, it mightbe expected a like destiny awaited themselves.While they were in a permanent state of war withthe Turk, who never left them a moment’s quiet—all their heroic efforts did not prevent Europeanslanderers from converting the brightest trophy oftheir domestic politics, that not a poor man was intheir dominions, into a cause of grave reproof; for1 Hosio: par. ii., lib. ii., anno 1344.