tones; and when the sun penetrated them, the
reflection of its rays upon the roof and walls was sufficient to deprive
the beholders of sight! In the centre was a great basin filled with
quicksilver, and the Sultan, wishing to terrify a courtier, would cause
the metal to be set in motion, whereupon the apartment would seem
traversed by flashes of lightning, and all the company would fall
a-trembling.

The old author tells of running streams and of limpid water, of stately
buildings for the household guards, and magnificent palaces for the
reception of high functionaries of state; of the thronging soldiers,
pages, eunuchs, slaves, of all nations and of all religions, in
sumptuous habiliments of silk and of brocade; of judges, theologians,
and poets, walking with becoming gravity in the ample courts.... Alas!
that poets now should rush through Fleet Street with unseemly haste,
attired uncouthly in bowler hats and in preposterous tweeds!

* * *

From the celebrated legend of Roderick the Goth to that last scene when
Boabdil handed the keys of Granada to King Ferdinand, the history of the
Moorish occupation reads far more like romance than like sober fact. It
is rich with every kind of passionate incident; it has all the strange
vicissitudes of oriental history. What career could be more wonderful
than that of Almanzor, who began life as a professional letter-writer,
(a calling which you may still see exercised in the public places of
Madrid or Seville,) and ended it as absolute ruler of an Empire! His
charm of manner, his skill in flattery, the military genius which he
developed when occasion called, his generosity and sense of justice, his
love of literature and art, make him a figure to be contemplated with
admiration; and when you add his utter lack of scruple, his selfishness,
his ingratitude, his perfidy, you have a character complex enough to
satisfy the most exacting.

Those who would read of these things may find an admirable account in
Mr. Lane-Poole's _Moors in Spain_; but I cannot renounce the pleasure of
giving one characteristic detail. After the death of Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n,
the builder of that magnificent city of Az-Zahra, a paper was found in
his own handwriting, upon which he had noted those days in his long
reign which had been free from all sorrow: they numbered fourteen.
Sovereign lord of a country than which there is on earth none more
delightful, his life had been of uninterrupted prosperity; success