ASSASSIN, a person who kills another with the advantage either of an inequality in the weapons, or by means of the situation of the place, or by attacking him at unawares. The word assassin is said by some to have been introduced from the Levant, where it took its rise from a certain prince of the family of the Arsacidoe, popularly called Assassins, living in a castle between Antioch and Damascus, and bringing up a number of young men, ready to pay a blind obedience to his commands; whom he employed in murdering the princes with whom he was at enmity. But according to Mr Volney, the word Has-sassin (from the root hass, to kill, to assassinate, to listen, to surprise), in the vulgar Arabic, signifies robbers of the night, persons who lie in ambush to hill ; and is universally understood in this sense at Cairo and at Syria. Hence it was applied to the Batenians, a tribe of Syria, who slew by surprise. This people probably owed their origin to the Carmatians, a famous heretical sect among the Mahometans, who settled in Persia about the year 1090; whence, in process of time, they sent a colony into Syria, where they became possessed of a considerable tract of land among the mountains of Lebanon, extending itself from the neighbourhood of Antioch to Damascus. The first chief and legislator of this remarkable tribe appears to have been Hassan Ben Sabah, a subtle impostor, who by his artifices made fanatical and implicit slaves of his subjects. Their religion was compounded of that of the Magi, the Jews, the Christians, and the Mahometans; but the capital article of their creed was to believe that the Holy Ghost resided in their chief; that his orders proceeded from God himself, and were real declarations of his divine pleasure. To this monarch the orientals gave the name of Sheihh-el-Jebelz ; but he is better known in Europe by the name of the Old Man of the Mountain. This chief, from his residence on Mount Lebanon, like a vindictive deity, with the thunderbolt in his hand, sent inevitable death to all quarters of the world; so that from one end of the earth to the other, caliphs, emperors, sultans, kings, princes, Christians, Mahometans, and Jews, every nation and people, execrated and dreaded his sanguinary power, from the strokes of which there was no security. At the least suggestion or whisper that he had threatened the death of any potentate, all immediately doubled their guards, and took every other precaution in their power. It is known that Philip Augustus, king of France, on a premature advice that the sheikh intended to have him assassinated, instituted a new body-guard of men distinguished for their activity and courage, called sergens d armes, with brass clubs, and bows and arrows; and he himself never appeared without a club, fortified either with iron or gold. Most sovereigns paid secretly a pension to the sheikh, however scandalous and derogatory it might be to the lustre of majesty, for the safety of their persons. The knights-templars alone dared to defy his secret machinations and open force. This people once had, or at least they feigned to have, an intention of embracing the Christian religion. They reigned a long time in Persia and on Mount Lebanon. Holagoo or Hulaku, a leader of the Mogul Tartars, in the year 655 of the Hegira, or 1254 of the Christian era, entered their country and dispossessed them of several places; but it was not till some years after that they were totally extirpated. This achievement was owing to the conduct and intrepidity of the Egyptian forces sent against them by the Sultan Bibars.

A History of the Assassins, in the German language, by Mr Von Hammer, was published at Stuttgard in 1818. It contains some new and striking views of the origin, proceedings, and doctrines of the sect. He represents them as forming a military and religious order, subject to the control and direction of a grand master, like the templars, to whom the title of Old Man of the Mountain was applied. We must content ourselves with referring our readers to this learned and curious work.