ars.]

[Footnote 60: For the transactions of Charlemagne with the Holy Land,
see Eginhard, (de Vita Caroli Magni, c. 16, p. 79-82,) Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, (de Administratione Imperii, l. ii. c. 26, p. 80,) and
Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 800, No. 13, 14, 15.)]

[Footnote 61: The caliph granted his privileges, Amalphitanis viris
amicis et utilium introductoribus, (Gesta Dei, p. 934.) The trade of
Venice to Egypt and Palestine cannot produce so old a title, unless
we adopt the laughable translation of a Frenchman, who mistook the
two factions of the circus (Veneti et Prasini) for the Venetians and
Parisians.]

[Footnote 62: An Arabic chronicle of Jerusalem (apud Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. tom. i. p. 268, tom. iv. p. 368) attests the unbelief of the
caliph and the historian; yet Cantacuzene presumes to appeal to the
Mahometans themselves for the truth of this perpetual miracle.]

[Footnote 63: In his Dissertations on Ecclesiastical History, the
learned Mosheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle, (tom.
ii. p. 214-306,) de lumine sancti sepulchri.]

[Footnote 64: William of Malmsbury (l. iv. c. 2, p. 209) quotes the
Itinerary of the monk Bernard, an eye-witness, who visited Jerusalem
A.D. 870. The miracle is confirmed by another pilgrim some years older;
and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the Franks, soon after the decease
of Charlemagne.]

[Footnote 65: Our travellers, Sandys, (p. 134,) Thevenot, (p. 621-627,)
Maundrell, (p. 94, 95,) &c., describes this extravagant farce. The
Catholics are puzzled to decide when the miracle ended and the trick
began.]

[Footnote 66: The Orientals themselves confess the fraud, and plead
necessity and edification, (Memoires du Chevalier D'Arvieux, tom. ii. p.
140. Joseph Abudacni, Hist. Copt. c. 20;) but I will not attempt, with
Mosheim, to explain the mode. Our travellers have failed with the blood
of St. Januarius at Naples.]

The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the Abbassides to
the Fatimites was a benefit, rather than an injury, to the Holy Land.
A sovereign resident in Egypt was more sensible of the importance of
Christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were less remote from the
justice and power of the throne. But the third of these Fatimite caliphs
was the famous Hakem, [67] a frantic youth, who was delivered by his
impiety and despotism from the fear either of God or man; and whose
reign was a wild mixture of vice and folly. Regardles