Caesars had to face in every
phasis of their energy, as it revolved from perfect barbarism, through
semi-barbarism, to that crude form of civilization which Mahometans can
support. And through all these transmigrations of their power we must
remember that they were under a martial training and discipline, never
suffered to become effeminate. One set of warriors after another _did_,
it is true, become effeminate in Persia: but upon that advantage
opening, always another set stepped in from Torkistan or from the Imaus.
The nation, the individuals melted away; the Moslem armies were
immortal.

Here, therefore, it is, and standing at this point of our review, that
we complain of Mr Finlay's too facile compliance with historians far
beneath himself. He has a fine understanding: oftentimes his
commentaries on the past are ebullient with subtlety; and his fault
strikes us as lying even in the excess of his sagacity applying itself
too often to a basis of facts, quite insufficient for supporting the
superincumbent weight of his speculations. But in this instance he
surrenders himself too readily to the ordinary current of history. How
would _he_ like it, if he happened to be a Turk himself, finding his
nation thus implicitly undervalued? For clearly, in undervaluing the
Byzantine resistance, he _does_ undervalue the Mahometan assault.
Advantages of local situation cannot _eternally_ make good the
deficiencies of man. If the Byzantines (being as weak as historians
would represent them) yet for ages resisted the whole impetus of
Mahometan Asia, then it follows, either that the Crescent was
correspondingly weak, or that, not being weak, she must have found the
Cross pretty strong. The _facit_ of history does not here correspond
with the numerical items.

Nothing has ever surprised us more, we will frankly own, than this
coincidence of authors in treating the Byzantine empire as feeble and
crazy. On the contrary, to us it is clear that some secret and
preternatural strength it must have had, lurking where the eye of man
did not in those days penetrate, or by what miracle did it undertake our
universal Christian cause, fight for us all, keep the waters open from
freezing us up, and through nine centuries prevent the ice of
Mahometanism from closing over our heads for ever? Yet does Mr Finlay
(p. 424) describe this empire as labouring, in A.D. 623, equally with
Persia, under "internal weakness," and as "equally incapable of offerin