period
of time when they were so powerfully exercised. The Moslem sovereigns
gave laws to a wide realm in arts as well as arms; and if the whole of
Europe did not acknowledge their political superiority, in the world of
science their supremacy was everywhere undisputed. That, like the
gradually enlarging circles made by a pebble thrown into calm water,
continued to spread farther and farther, until it reached the most
distant shores, and communicated a generous impulse to nations long sunk
in intellectual night.

* * * * * * * *

Such was the celebrated empire of the Abbassides in its halcyon days of
undiminished power--such the beautiful City of Peace, the favoured home
of imperial magnificence, ere the despoiling Tartar had profaned its
loveliness and destroyed its grandeur. Yet, when we look beneath the
brilliant exterior of these Oriental scenes and characters, we discover,
under the splendour and elegance by which the eyes of the world were so
long dazzled, the corruption and licentiousness of a government
containing within itself the seeds of its own insecurity and ultimate
destruction. We behold the absence of all fixed principles of
legislation; we frequently find absolute monarchs guided solely by
passion or caprice in the administration of arbitrary laws, and swaying
the destinies of a people who, as a whole, were far from deriving any
substantial advantage from the wealth and greatness of their despotic
rulers. We are thus led to observe the evils that necessarily result
from a want of those principles of vital religion, without which mere
human learning is so inadequate to discipline the passions or direct the
reason, and of those just and equal laws, the supremacy of which can
alone secure the happiness of a people or the permanency of political
institutions.--_Trans_.

[7] See note D, page 212.

[8] See note E, page 218.

[9] See note F, page 313.

[10] Cardonne, in his History of Spain.

[11] This word signifies, in the Arabic, _Flower_, or _Ornament of the
World_.

[12] See Note G, page 213.

[13] The _dinar_ is estimated by M. Florian to be equal to at least _ten
livres_. According to that computation, the aggregate cost of the palace
and city of Zahra would amount to considerably more than $14,000,000.
_Trans_.

[14] See note H, page 214.

[15] About $22,500,000.

[16] See Note I, page 214.

[17] Mahadi, Suleiman, Ali, Abderamus IV., Ca