Christian kingdoms were all but dependent for their existence on the Moorish one; as may be judged from the fact, that Mauregato, one of Fruela's successors, was obliged to purchase Abderrahman's favour by paying him an annual tribute of a hundred Christian virgins, one half of noble, and the other half of mean birth. A more formidable enemy to Abderrahman was Charlemagne, the grandson of Charles Martel, who, in 778, after extending the Frankish dominion into Italy and Germany, turned his conquering eye in the direction of Spain. Crossing the Pyrenees, he overran Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre, as far as the Ebro; but on his way back to France, he was attacked by a joint army of Moors and Spanish Christians, and sustained a great defeat, celebrated in many Spanish ballads as the defeat of Roncesvalles, where the famous Roland was slain.

Abderrahman died in 787. The period of two hundred and seventy-five years which elapse between the commencement of his caliphate in 756, and the death of the last of his dynasty in 1031, is usually regarded as the second era of the Moorish domination in Spain, and is known in history as the Caliphate of Cordova, or the rule of the Omeyades in Spain. About twenty sovereigns, all of the race of the good Abderrahman, occupied the throne in succession during these two hundred and seventy-five years, some of them celebrated for their virtues, others for their vices. To go over their names, and detail their acts in succession, would, considering our limits, be a dry and uninteresting labour; all that we shall attempt, is to give our readers as vivid a general view as possible of the condition of Spain during the period over which their reigns extend a period by far the most splendid in the Moorish annals of that country, and of much greater consequence in the history of Europe than most people are in the habit of conceiving. The remainder of this section, therefore, shall be devoted to an account of the condition of society in Moorish Spain from the year 756 to the year 1031, including notices of the progress, during that period, of Arabic literature, art, and science.

It has been well observed, that the advance of the Arabs to what is called a state of civilisation was much more rapid than that of the Greeks, the Romans, or any other people of whom we have distinct records. Before the time of Mohammed, they were noted only for their fiery energy, and a wild imaginativeness of character, delighting in the vast, the sublime, and the mystic, but totally innocent of what is denominated culture. In 641, Omar, one of the conquering successors of Mohammed, had set fire to the library of Alexandria, and, in the magnificent contempt for literature of a great uneducated soul, had consumed in the conflagration the written wisdom of ages. No sooner, however, was the career of Arabic conquest at an end, no sooner had the caliphs of Damascus begun to feel the instinct of government and repose becoming stronger in them than the hereditary instinct

of conquest, than a demand arose for the productions of intellect and taste. The foundation of an Arabic literature already existed in the Koran, which had not only given a direction to the literary genius of the Mohammedans, but had also established a literary idiom. During the sovereignty of the Omeyade caliphs, con siderable advances had been made in the arts of civilisation, the development of native genius being assisted by intercourse with the Greeks; so that the Mauritanian Arabs, who subdued Spain in the beginning of the eighth century, were decidedly superior in culture to their ancestors of the times of Mohammedbodiqozong It was not, however, till the accession of the dynasty of the Abbasides to the caliphate, that the genius of the Arabs began freely to develop itself in civilising studies. The Abbasides /removed the seat of the caliphate from Damascus to Bagdad, which thenceforth became the capital of Oriental luxury. Al mansur, the second of the Abbaside caliphs, distinguished himself as a patron of letters; and in his reign a Greek physician named George introduced the rudiments of medical science into the Arabic empire. But the golden age of Arabic culture and refine ment was during the reigns of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid, so celebrated in the Arabian Nights, who ascended the throne in 786, and his son and successor, Almamoun, who reigned from 813 to 833. Bagdad," says Dr Crichton in his History of Arabia, "then became the resort of poets, philosophers, and mathematicians from every country and of every creed. Ambassadors and agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, were ordered to collect the most important books that could be discovered. Hundreds of camels might be seen entering Bagdad, loaded with volumes of Greek, Hebrew, and Persian literature; and such of them as were thought to be adapted to the purposes of instruction, were, by the royal command, translated by the most skilful interpreters into the Arabic language, that all classes might read and understand them.”

T

Within a short time the genius of the Arabs had embraced the whole range of human culture. In speculative science, they acknowledged as their great master the Greek philosopher Aristotle; and it was through the Arabs that the influence of this extraordinary intellect was transmitted into modern Europe. In mathematics and astronomy, they seemed to be in their peculiar element; and it is needless to mention that our beautiful system of numeral notation, and our glorious algebra, came to us, if not from, at least through the Arabs. Chemistry is a science which they may be said to have originated; and many of the most ordinary chemical terms now in useas, for instance, alkali and alembic-are of Arab birth. In the arts they were no less proficient. Agriculture and horticulture were practised by them on ascertained principles. To architecture they gave the impress of their peculiar genius; and what we call the Gothic style, is generally believed to be a modification of their invention. Prohibited

by the Koran from using images of mentor animals for the purposes of embellishment, lest the practice should give rise to idolatry, they invented that style of ornament which is denomi nated the arabesque, and which consists in the use of imaginary plants, flowers, and foliage for ornamental purposes. In music they made great progress. Many admirable processes for working metals, weaving silk, dyeing and preparing leather, were discovered by them; and lastly, many of the drugs which for centuries have been administered to Christians all over Europe, were first prescribed for Mussulman patients by Mussulman physicians. In literature, the Arabs had their hundreds of thousands of authors; poets, historians, critics, and, above all, writers of fiction.

*

I

All that has been said above of the progress of Arabic culture, applies in an especial manner to the Arabs of Spain; for although, on the accession of the Abbasides to the caliphate of the Arabian empire, Spain had ceased to be a dependency of it, yet no province of the empire felt so immediately the influence of the civilising forces which were at work in Bagdad. "In Spain," says Dr Crichton, Arabian learning shone with a brighter lastre, and continued to flourish to a later period, than in the schools of the East Cordova, Seville, and Granada, rivalled each other in the magnificence of their academies, colleges, and libraries. Casiri has enumerated the names and writings of nearly 170 eminent men, natives of Cordova alone. Hakem founded here a college, and a royal library containing 400,000 volumes: he had carefully examined every work, and with his own hand wrote in each the genealogy, birth, and death of its respective author. The academy of Granada was long under the direction of Shamseddin of Murcia, so famous among the Arabs for his skill in polite literature. Casiri has recorded the names and works of 120 authors-theologians, civilians, historians, philosophers, and other professors whose talents conferred dignity and fame on the university of Granada. Toledo, Malaga, Murcia, and Valencia, were all furnished with splendid literary apparatus. In the cities of Andalusia alone, seventy libraries were open for the instruction of the public. Middeldorpf has enumerated seventeen distinguished colleges and academies which flourished under the patronage of the Saracens in Spain, and has given lists of the eminent professors and authors who taught and studied in them." Arabic art and magnificence, too, were carried to their highest pitch in Spain. The Alhambra, or palace of the Moorish kings, remains to this day the wonder of travellers."While little attention, comparatively, was bestowed by the Moors on the exterior of their mansions, on the furniture and accommodation within everything was lavished that could promote luxurious ease and personal comfort. Their rooms were so contrived that no reverberation of sound was heard. The light was generally admitted in such a manner as, by excluding external prospects, to confine the admiration of the

13

spectator chiefly to the ornaments and beauties of the interior. Their arrangements for ventilation were admirable; and by means of caleducts, or tubes of baked earth, warm air was admitted, so as to preserve a uniform temperature. The utmost labour and skill were expended in embellishing the walls and ceilings. The tiles had a blue glazing over them. Their paving bricks were made of different colours-blue, white, black, or yellow, which, when properly contrasted, had a very agreeable effect. Nothing is more astonishing than the durability of the Moorish edifices. The stucco composition on their walls became hard as stone; and even in the present century, specimens are found without a crack or flaw on their whole surface. Their woodwork also still remains in a state of wonderful preservation. The floors and ceilings of the Alhambra have withstood the neglect and dilapidation of nearly 700 years: the pine-wood continues perfectly sound, without exhibiting the slightest mark of dry rot, worm, or insect. The coat of white paint retains its colour so bright and rich, that it may be mistaken for mother-ofpearl," Again, "The pontanos or reservoirs of Spain were either erected or restored by the Moors. Their palaces and mosques were furnished with capacious cisterns. The gardens of the Alhambra contained sheets of water, in the surface of which the buildings were reflected; and in most of the principal cities fountains played in the streets, as well as in the courts of the houses, by which the atmosphere was attempered during summer. In the famous palace of Toledo was a pond, in the midst of which rose a vaulted room of stained glass, adorned with gold. Into this room the caliph could enter untouched by the water, and sit, while a cascade poured from above, with tapers burning before him." Many other proofs of the progress of the arts of convenience and luxury among the Moors of Spain might be adduced.

Some of the remarks above quoted apply to the whole period of Moorish domination in Spain; but it is admitted that the period of the caliphate of Cordova, during which the Omeyades swayed the sceptre, was the most brilliant. "Cordova, the seat of the caliphs," it is said, "was scarcely inferior in point of wealth and magnitude to its proud rival on the banks of the Tigris. A space of twenty-four miles in length and six in breadth along the margin of the Guadalquiver, was occupied with palaces, streets, gardens, and public edifices; and for ten miles the citizens could travel, by the light of lamps, along an uninterrupted extent of buildings. In the reign of Almansour, it could boast of 270,000 houses, 80,455 shops, 911 baths, 3877 mosques, from the minarets of which a population of 800,000 were daily summoned to prayers." The culminating point of the glory of the caliphate of Cordova was the reign of Abderrahman III., who ascended the throne in the year 912, and is accounted the greatest of all the Moorish sovereigns of Spain. The annual revenues of the caliphate during his reign are cal

culated at £5,500,000 sterling-a sum which was probably equal to the united revenues of all the other monarchies of Europe at the time. This vast revenue was derived from various sources: from taxes on produce, on exports and imports, on sales of goods, and lastly, on the property of Jews and Christians. Its magnitude is only to be accounted for when we consider the immense size of the population, the number of large and small cities, and, above all, the extent of the traffic which the Arabs of Spain carried on in all sorts of manufactures and commodities both with the states of Europe and with those of Asia.

Spain, therefore, was the medium of communication, during the middle ages, between the Arabic race and the rude RomanoGerman populations of Europe. The conquest of Spain by the Moors thus assumes a singular importance in connexion with European history. It was, as it were, the breaking open of the door through which there rushed a flood of new knowledge and new ideas into Europe. It would be difficult to estimate the amount of civilisation which flowed into Europe along with the Moors, or to calculate how much would have been lost to us, the white inhabitants of these northern nations, had not that handful of tawny Moors under Tarik leapt ashore, in the spring of 711, at the foot of the rock which we now name Gibraltar. They gave us astronomy, our system of numeral notation, and algebra; they gave us our first notions of Aristotle's philosophy, and a new style of architecture; they gave us a system of national police; they gave us the notion of public libraries; they gave us the telegraph; some say also gunpowder, paper-making, the pendulum, and the mariner's compass; they gave us morocco leather; they gave us the principle of rhyme in verse, which did not exist among the ancients; and lastly, to conclude a list which might be extended to much greater length, they gave us that spirit of chivalrous devotion to the fair sex which, although, since the time of the Crusades, it has attained such strength as to be regarded as innate in European society, is yet in reality an importation from the East, and had only a very modified existence among the Greeks and Romans of antiquity. The conquest of Spain by the Moors was, as we have said, the opening of the door for all these influences. As soon as they had fairly entered, the door was shut; or, in other words, the Moors were expelled from Europe. The action of those causes which ultimately led to their expulsion, and which had begun to manifest themselves even while the Omeyades held the caliphate of Cordova, we now proceed to describe, in giving an account of the internal condition of society in Spain under the Moorish dominion.

The population of the Moorish kingdom of Spain consisted of course of two classes-the Mohammedans or Moors, and the conquered Spaniards, known by the name of the Muzarabic Christians. The Christians in Spain enjoyed a much greater degree of toleration than the followers of Mohammed were in the custom