432 The Field of Monuments : a Vision. [APRIL, 



around me ; I discovered a connecting chain ; I was arrested by many 

 pillars, records of the genius of the middle ages ; many, not indeed of 

 vast importance, but yet rising above the level, inscribed with the names 

 of those who had appreciated, and therefore preserved and multiplied the 

 relics of the ancient world ; and many, more lofty, bearing the names of 

 those to whose genius modern Europe is indebted for the germs of her 

 romantic poetry. I passed too, the monuments that had been raised to 

 those illustrious patrons of letters, whose zeal for the promotion of know- 

 ledge shed, for a time, something like the twilight of learning throughout 

 the sphere of their influence. I read the name of our great Alfred upon 

 the most distinguished of these pillars, and the name of Charlemagne 

 upon another ; and I transported myself, in fancy, to those days when 

 Christianity struggled with the relics of paganism ; when the sciences 

 had hardly any existence, when the refinements of life were unknown, 

 and when yet, the spectacle was seen, of sceptred kings and conquerors 

 listening to the instructions of wisdom, inviting the learned to their 

 courts, protecting genius, encouraging education, promoting knowledge, 

 and devoting the repose which victory had purchased, to the cultivation 

 of the arts of peace. 



' I had passed a dreary waste, and now approached a spot where stood 

 a group of tall pillars, surrounded by many lesser monuments. It was 

 already deep dusk ; the monuments of the ancients were no longer 

 visible, and the light only enabled me to read upon the columns around 

 me the names of Hafiz, Ferdusi, Al-Mamoun, and Haroun Al-Raschid. 

 These were the records of Arabian and Persian genius, when, at a 

 time that intellectual light was flickering with an uncertain flame over 

 Europe, that flame had found a shelter, and was burning with a steadier 

 blaze, in a land from which long ago all traces of its influence have 

 disappeared. 



I threw myself at the base of the column of Haroun Al-Raschid, and 

 abandoned myself to a dream of past glory and present debasement. 

 Arabia, a thousand years ago, the seat of learning, the cradle of genius, 

 the birth-place of poesy : how changed ! a thinly-peopled land, an 

 uncultivated soil; flocks of wild animals, wandering tribes, whose riches 

 are their camels ; cities, deserted and silent, ruins crumbling away ; 

 ignorance, superstition, idolatry, throwing their deepest shadows over a 

 parched and desolate land. Well may a contrast like this curb the 

 naughtiness of man, and lead him, from the mutability of human 

 endeavour, to look beyond it. I. 



