Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/390

 374: I S A I S A taste in all his literary connexions, and exemplary in all the relations of domestic life which he was called upon to assume. He never married, remaining true to the memory of an early attachment blighted by death. The principal edition of Irving s works is the &quot; Geoffrey Crayon,&quot; published at New York in 1880, in 26 vols. His life, accom panied by copious extracts from his correspondence, was published by his nephew Pierre (London, 1862-64, 4 vols.). A German abridgment of this work has been ably executed by Adolf Laun (Berlin, 1870, 2 vols.). There is a good deal of miscellaneous information in a compilation entitled Irvingiana (New York, 1860); and Bryant s memorial oration, though somewhat too uniformly laudatory, may be consulted with advantage. It has been repub- lished in 1880, along with C. Dudley Warner s introduction to the &quot;Geoffrey Crayon&quot; edition, and Mr G. P. Putnam s personal remi niscences of Irving, which originally appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. (R. G.) ISAAC (priV! or pn?V &quot;he laughs&quot;; Icraa*, &quot;lo-a/cos), the only child of Abraham and Sarab, was born when his par ents were respectively a hundred and ninety years of age (Gen. xvii. 17). Explanations of the name seem to be intended by the sacred writer in more than one reference to the incredulous or joyous laughter of his parents when a son was promised to them (Gen. xxi. 6, xviii. 12, xvii. 17). Like his father, Isaac lived a nomadic pastoral life, but within much narrower local limits, and with an occasional experiment in agriculture (Gen. xxvi. 12). After the death of his mother, he married Rebekah the daughter of his cousin Bethuel, by whom after twenty years of married life he became the father of Esau and Jacob. He died at the age of one hundred and eighty. The most striking episode of his life as related in the Biblical record is that which took place while he was still young, &quot;in the land of Moriah,&quot; when at the last moment he was by angelic interposition released from the altar on which he was about to be sacrificed by his father in obedience to a divine command. Other occurrences which have been recorded have striking resemblances to incidents in the life of Abraham. Of a less marked and energetic individuality than his father and sons, Isaac is by general consent of the Christian church taken as a representative of the unobtrusive, restful, piously contemplative type of human character. By later Judaism, which fixed its attention chiefly on the altar scene, he was regarded as the pattern and prototype of all martyrs. The Mahometan legends regarding him are curious, but trifling. Among the far-fetched attempts of those who prefer a mythological interpretation of the early incidents of the Bible narrative may be mentioned those of Goldziher, who sees in Isaac a personification of the smiling light of the ruddy evening sky, and of Popper, who identifies the name with that of the dragon Azhi dahaka of Eranian folklore. See Evvald, Gesch. d. V. Isr., vol. i. ; and Herzog-Plitt, Eealencyl: vol. vii., art. &quot; Isaak.&quot; ISAAC I., COMNENUS, Roman emperor of the East from 1057 to 1059, was the son of a gallant officer under Basil II., named Manuel Comnenus, who on his deathbed com mended his two sons Isaac and John to the emperor s care. Basil caused them to be carefully educated at the monastery of the Sturlium, and afterwards advanced them to high official positions. During the disturbed reigns of Basil s seven immediate successors, Isaac, serving in the army, acted prudently and cautiously ; and, when the insults of Michael, the eighth from Basil, stung the nobles and generals into rebellion, Caracalon, the leader of the con spiracy, induced the rebeh to proclaim Isaac emperor. Michael, conquered in one battle, was forced to assume the monastic habit, and Isaac ascended the throne in August 1057. The first care of the new emperor was to reward his noble partisans with appointments that removed them from Constantinople, and his next was to repair the beggared finances of the empire. He revoked numerous pensions and grants conferred by his predecessors upon- idle courtiers, and, disregarding the charge of sacrilege, and meeting the insolent menaces of the patriarch of Constan tinople by a decree of exile, resumed a proportion of the revenues of the wealthy monasteries. Isaac s only military expedition was against the Hungarians and Patzinaks, who began to ravage the northern frontiers in 1059. Shortly after his successful return he was seized with an illness, and believing it mortal appointed as his successor Constantino Ducas, to the exclusion of his own brother John. Although he recovered from his illness, Isaac did not resume the purple, but, retiring to the monastery of the Studium, spent the remaining two years of his life as a humble monk, alter nating menial offices with literary studies. His Scholia to the Iliad, and other works on the Homeric poems, are still extant in MS. Isaac died in the year 1061. He was a good and just prince, and his reign justified his choice ay emperor. He was grave and reserved, and, more affable in deed than in word, offended many by his haughtiness and soldierlike brusqueness ; while the fact that he coined money with the image of a drawn sword was attributed to his arrogance and impiety. His great aim was to restore and maintain the early splendid organization of the govern ment, and his reforms, directed to that end, though unpopular with the aristocracy and the clergy, and not understood by the people, certainly contributed to stave off for a little while longer the final ruin of the Byzantine empire. ISAAC II., ANGELUS, Roman emperor of the East from 1185 to 1195, and again in 1203-4, who came to the throne in the manner described under ANDEONICUS I. (vol. ii. p. 23), succeeded also to the unfinished Sicilian war. The favourable close of that was counterbalanced by the failure of an attempt to recover Cyprus, where Isaac Com nenus had established an independent throne. Of the numerous revolts excited during Isaac s reign by his vices and incapacity, the most serious was the rebellion of the Bulgarians and Wallachians between Mount Hsemus and the Danube, which, breaking out in 1186, resulted in the independence of a second Bulgarian kingdom. Alexis Branas, the general sent against the rebels in 1187, after temporarily repulsing them, treacherously turned his arms nople, attempted to seize the city. There he met with more resistance than Isaac s vices had led him to expect, and in the ensuing battle was defeated and slain. After a hastily- arranged truce with the Bulgarians, the emperor s attention was next demanded in the east, where several claimants to the throne successively rose and fell. In 1189 Frederick Barbarossa of Germany sought and obtained leave to lead his troops on the third crusade through the Byzantine territory ; but he had no sooner crossed the border than the wily and treacherous Greek, who had meanwhile sought an alliance with Saladin, threw every impediment in his way, and was only by force of arms compelled to fulfil his engagements. The next five years were disturbed by fresh rebellions of the Wallachians, against whom Isaac led several expeditions in person. During one of these, in 1195, Alexius, the emperor s brother, taking advantage of the latter s absence from camp on a hunting expedition, proclaimed himself emperor, and was joyfully hailed by the soldiers, who heartily despised the craven vices of their late emperor. Isaac was seized; his eyes were put out, and he was imprisoned in a lonely tower at Constantinople. It has already been related (CRUSADES, vol. vi. p. 629) how after eight years Isaac was raised for six months from his dungeon to his throne once more. But both mind and body had been enfeebled by captivity, and his son Alexius IV. was the actual monarch. Isaac s feeble hold on life was loosened by the turmoil which followed the restoration,.
 * against his master, and, leading his troops to Constanti