learn to number the story of the Mussulman dominion in the Peninsula among the most fascinating episodes of the middle ages. The imagination can realize few more brilliant pictures than the Moorish kingdoms of Cordova and Granada. The ruins of those splendid capitals survive to this hour, to attest the intellectual taste and voluptuous refinement of the Arabian mind; and Spain itself, as an accurate and classical historian of our days has well remarked, is chiefly interesting to the traveller, a circumstance sufficiently humiliating to that proud nation, for the monuments which a foreign and odious race of conquerors have left behind them.

The southern provinces, which were the seats of the Mussulman power, have, in later times, dwindled in population. and wealth; and the orange-groves of Andalusia and the banks of the Guadalquivir convey associations of beauty only as the favorite regions of the Moor. The richly ornamented yet light and fanciful tracery of the Arabesque architecture, the gilded cupola, the lofty and elegant turret, the marble fountain, and the sumptuous bath, all bestow the forms of enchantment upon our conceptions of the cities of the caliphs in the days of their pride. We picture them inhabited, too, by a nation whose ardent eastern temperament revelled in the enjoyment at once of intellect and sense. Even in a cultivation of the exact sciences far beyond their age, that imaginative people could not refrain from mingling the wildest speculations of astrology and alchymy; and their poetry threw all the delicacy and mysticism of sentiment over the grosser passion of love. We should err, says the elegantSismondi, in judging of the manners of these Mussulmans by those of the jealous and sombre Turk of our days. The Arabs, while they passionately adored their women, allowed them liberty and mental cultivation; and of all the countries subjected to the Arabs, Spain was that wherein their manners approximated the nearest to the gallant and chivalrous spirit of Europe.

Thus the interest attached to the Arabians of Spain, to their enthusiastic spirit, their poetical mind, their splendid architecture, their chequered fortunes, and their disastrous fall, is the strongest which romance could create. But no part of this interest can ever be transferred, on a cool examination, to their authentic political history. Even a more lively and accomplished writer than M. DE MARLÈS could only conceal the dreary uniformity of a thousand revolutions, by disregarding their tedious details, and veiling them in general views, or dazzling but fallacious pictures of romance. Very little new light is thrown upon the Christian annals by Conde's

Arabic writers; and though our acquaintance with the endless vicissitudes and intestine commotions of the Moorish kingdoms is considerably increased by his publication, the knowlege is of the most worthless kind. Neither, in the military annals of the Moors, is there much to interest, except the mere original story of the subjugation of Spain. In that we follow, with amazement, the first brilliant successes of the Mussulmans, the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other; and we almost forget their impious cause in admiration of their transcendant heroism. But after their first settlement in Spain, the historian will discover little to engage attention or to afford philosophical reflection. In the struggles of rival usurpers, and the perpetual din of civil wars, he will find neither the lessons of political wisdom, the display of patriotism, nor the generous assertion of personal rights.

A slight analysis of the contents of these volumes will at once enable us to explain the inconvenience, and shew the general train of the narrative. The author has, with sufficient judgment, embraced the Saracen conquest of Spain, the fall of the Gothic monarchy, and the subsequent lapse of forty-five years, in a general introduction. The conclusion of this period coincides with the elevation of the Abassides to the throne of Mohamed in Asia, and carries us to the end of the empire of the eastern caliphs in Spain. The reader need not be reminded that these events were immediately followed by the elevation of Abdérahman, a scion of the proscribed race of the Ommiades, to the caliphate of Cordova, or the sovereignty of the whole Mussulman kingdom of the Peninsula.

In this introduction there is little to learn for the English student of Gibbon, who has (in his ninth volume) so beautifully and accurately told the tale of the Moorish conquest of Spain. We next enter on the first part of M. DE MARLES's work, which contains the history of the Spanish or western caliphate under the Ommiaden princes to the extinction of that dynasty. This occupies the period from A.D. 757 to A. D. 1031: — a period which may be said to embrace the consolidation, the meridian grandeur, and the incipient decay of the Arabic power in Spain; and the obscure origin, the silent growth, and the gradual formation of the Christian communities, which gathered in the mountains of Asturias and Jaca, and expanded into the monarchies of Castile and Aragon. Here M. DE MARLÈS treats a long period of near 300 years, perhaps the most interesting in early Spanish history, and filling nearly a whole volume. Yet he has left it unbroken by a single division or pause, and unrelieved

by the slightest attempt to mark the striking gradations of the Christian and Moorish fortunes. On the Christian annals of this period, indeed, we cannot find that the Arabic researches of Conde have thrown the least novelty. We turned with some curiosity to the account of the famous expedition of Charlemagne into Spain, and the defeat of the French peerage at Fonterabbia, which have been so wildly disfigured by the romances of chivalry, and so elegantly adorned by the Italian muse. But Conde's Arabians have only added to the obscurity and perplexity of the subject. For, in opposition to the claims of the Christian mountaineers of Asturias, or Navarre, or Gascony, they assume the honor of the fight of Roncesvalles, and the defeat of Charlemagne, for their own infidel countrymen.

If there be attraction in any part of the political history of the Arabic power in Spain, it is to be found in the condition of Cordova under the Ommiaden caliphs. The first nine of these despots were all distinguished for their great qualities. Brave and warlike in the field, intellectual and enlightened in their private tastes, their reigns were a blaze of splendor. Their dominions were secure, and their capital was embellished by art and rendered illustrious for letters and science. Moreover, their despotism was in general relieved by the virtues of justice and humanity: -with only one exception, that of Alhakem I., whose heroism was stained by ferocity, and who deserved the distinctive epithet of the Cruel to mark, in a happy æra, his solitary departure from the merciful spirit of his race.

Conde's history, from the Arabian writers, of the caliphs of this illustrious dynasty, bears all the stamp of the oriental mind: its fondness for details of gorgeous splendor, its pompous imagery, its love of wonders, its endless exaggerations, and the full riot of exuberant fancy and heated temperament. But there is mingled with all this some portion of the simplicity of oriental manners, which appears so touchingly in the Arabian tales, and inculcates virtue by apologue and allegory. We must select, in proof of this, an anecdote which is told of the caliph Alhakem II.

Alhakem was not satisfied with encouraging agriculture, he promoted also manufactures and commerce. In order to facilitate the communications, he built bridges, and opened several roads, on which he had inns constructed for travellers. He was not less attentive to the administration of justice, and he anxiously and uniformly sought to place it only in pure hands. The following incident will shew that he knew how to make a good choice, and that the judges whom he appointed were worthy of holding an

office,

office, which numbers among its privileges that of disposing of the lives and fortunes of the people. It is told of him that, wishing to add a pavilion to his gardens of Azahra, he proposed to purchase an adjoining field from its proprietor. The latter refused. The agents of the Prince took possession of the field by force, and the pavilion was erected. The dispossessed proprietor went and preferred his complaint to the Cadi of Cordova. Abu Bécri ben Wéfid, one of the Wazirs of the Cadi, persuaded that the sovereign had no more right than the meanest of his subjects to appropriate to himself that which belonged to another, repaired, without delay, to Azahra, where the King was; and, proceeding to the pavilion, with his ass and an empty sack, he presented himself before Alhakem, and begged that he would give him leave to fill his empty sack with earth. The Prince, surprised at the request, granted it. When the sack was full, the Cadi prayed the King to help him to place it on the ass. Alhakem, taking the thing jocosely, readily acceded to the Cadi's request; but the sack was so heavy that he could scarcely lift it. "Prince of the faithful," Abu Bécri then said to him, in an austere tone, "this sack, which you are unable to carry, contains but a very small portion of the field which you have usurped; how shall you sustain the burden of the whole field when you must appear before the Supreme Judge ?" Alhakem thanked the Cadi for the sublime lesson which he had just received, and the field was instantly restored to its owner, who, moreover, was allowed to retain the pavilion, with all that it contained, by way of compensation for the momentary injury he had suffered.'

But by far the greatest of the Ommiaden caliphs of Spain was Abderahman III., the eighth of the race. His long and fortunate reign was beyond all doubt the most brilliant epoch in the Mussulman annals of Spain. Yet the happiness of his career was poisoned by the rebellion of his son; and on the only occasion of his benignant life in which he forgot the virtue of clemency, he violated with it the dictates of nature. His stern justice, in imitation of that of the Caliph Omar, doomed his son to death. The disturber of the public peace he could not forgive: but to the last hour of his life he mourned the fate of his offspring. This Abdérahman it was who numbered the happy days of a protracted and glorious life, and found them only FOURTEEN. It was this Abdérahman also, the conqueror of Western Africa, the protector of Arabic literature, commerce, agriculture, and manufactures, who filled Spain with some of the most finished monuments of Arabesque architecture. The description which Conde has copied and M. DE MARLÈS after him, of one of his superb works, the palace and city of Medina Azhara,-may convey some idea of the splendor of the Spanish caliphate, and of the minuteness of pompous detail in which the Arabic historians

historians delight to indulge. It is necessary to have some evidence, in the remains of Arabic architecture with which Murphy has illustrated his splendid work, to credit this dream of oriental magnificence.

From the extinction of the Ommiaden dynasty of Spain, and the end of the caliphate of the west in the year 1031, the second part of M. DE MARLÈS's work conducts us through nearly two hundred years to the great battle of Tolosa, A. D. 1212, between the Christian and Moslem powers of the Peninsula. Here again our author has carried us through several distinct and strongly marked epochs of ArabicSpanish history, without the least effort to define their subdivisions, or to separate leading and influential events from the chaos of minor circumstances. In this part of the work there is very little to awaken pleasure or interest. It is a revolting picture of those civil wars and dissensions among the Mussulmans, which changed the relation of national strength in the Peninsula, and happily gave an unequivocal preponderance to the Christian cause. In this long period of two centuries, the reigns of some of the Almohaden princes alone invite any agreeable attention. It was under Abdalmumen, the founder of the dynasty, that Cordova was in the twelfth century ennobled by the names and the residence of Averraes, Abenzoar, and Avicenna. Abdalmumen was himself of austere manners; and the practice of war had rendered him relentless and blood-thirsty: but he was nevertheless the patron of science and poesy; and under his fostering care the arts flourished both in Africa and Spain. Both the Almoraviden and Almohaden dynasties had sprung out of religious fanaticism, and had headed successive Mohammedan sects in Africa. The Almoravides (or men devoted to God) had prohibited the reading of the romances and tales of chivalry: Abdalmumen and his Almohades (teachers of the law), on the contrary, revived and encouraged the taste for this fanciful department of literature.

con.

It was under one of the successors of this prince, Jacubben-Jusef, who acquired from his victories the surname of Almanzor, or the conqueror, that the Spanish Moors defeated Alfonso VIII. of Castile, at the great battle of AlarThe beauteous tower of the Giralda at Seville, which still exists, was erected by Almanzor as a monument of his triumph. But this triumph was the last of the Mussulman cause. On the bloody field of Tolosa, Mahomed, the successor of Almanzor, staked the forces of Africa and Andalusia against the united Christian chivalry of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre; and the Crescent was trampled in the dust. The APP. REV. VOL. CVII. Moorish

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