imbecility that during these unfortunate periods degraded Europe. The art of war, unhappily for mankind, too much an object of attention in the dark ages, being destructive of rather than capable of promoting literature or science, I shall pass over without further notice, and hasten to conclude, what the history of such ages must be deemed, the unpleasant part of our subject.

From the brief review we have now taken of the state of Christian Europe during this dismal portion of its annals, it will not be too harsh to say, that a superstition the most gross, a credulity the most excessive, an ignorance almost total with regard to literature and science, are its leading features; and, in conformity to this gloomy picture, all historians have agreed in branding it with every epithet imagination could suggest as adequate to express their sense of its barbarism and degradation; turning, therefore, from an object so humiliating to the lover of letters, and of çivilized life, let us devote our attention to the more fertile regions of the east, where, during a great part of this period, the Caliphat of the

Abassides, in all its height of splendour, in all its luxury of literature, offers to the view the charm of contrast. Our succeeding sketch. will therefore attempt a delineation of the court of Bagdad, and a transient survey of the Ommiades of Spain, who, whilst Christian Europe was immersed in ignorance and sloth, greatly encouraged all that was beneficial and ornamental to human life.

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NUMBER XV.

Such the gay splendour, the luxurious state,
Of Caliphs old, who on the Tygris' shore
In mighty Bagdad, populous and great,

Held their bright court, where was of ladies store;
And verse, love, music, still the garland wore.
THOMSON.

Ar the commencement of the eighth century of the christian era, the empire of the Caliphs was of immense extent, stretching from the confines of India to the shores of the Atlantic ocean. Over this vast tract a similarity of religion diffused a similarity of manners and opinions, and became a bond of union to the various but otherwise discordant nations on its surface; and the inhabitants of Bagdad and Cordova, of Cairo and Samarcand, were alike believers in the mission of the Prophet, and in the eternity of the Koran. Uncircumscribed

in prerogative, uncontrolled by nobles, or commons, combining the sacerdotal and the regal functions, the caliphs reigned the most powerful monarchs on the globe.

That There Is Only One God, was the salutary and eternal truth imprinted by Mohammed on the minds of the rudest Idolaters, and prayer, fasting, and alms, were the duties he enjoined; the simplicity of his doctrine and precepts has never been corrupted, and in the splendid dome of St. Sophia, as in the humble tabernacle erected by the hands of the Prophet, the pure creed of Islam is preserved and professed inviolate. To the Son of Abdallah, the Arabs were indebted for an union of action and sentiment, of which they had no conception in any age previous to his existence; their idols, the causes of religious difference, always the most implacable, "were broken before the throne of God," and a system of rewards and punishments admirably adapted to their ignorance and appetites, stimulated the enthusiasm and inflamed the imagination of these lords of the desert. Their valour was now solely directed against the unbelievers, and the sword of the Prophet, resistless as his tenets of