69^ 



This peru^d, the darkest of the European annals, was the 

 time when^ Arabian literature was in its most flourishing 

 State. 



" The Saracens," (to use the words of Mr. Gibbon,) 

 confident in the riches of their native tongue, and disdain- 

 ing the study of any .foreign idiom, deprived themselves of 

 the principal benefit of a familiar intercourse with Greece 

 and Rome, the knowledge of antiquity, purity of taste, and 

 freedom of thought ; so that there is no example of a poet, 

 orator, or even historian, being taught to speak the language 

 W of the Saracens. Cordova, with a few adjacent towns, gave 



birth to more than three hundred writers, and a library was 

 formed, that consisted of 600,000 volumes."* The efi'ect of 

 all this on the Europeans was what might have been with 

 reason expected. A manuscript cited by Du Cange acquaints 

 us, that the Spaniards, soon after the irruption of the Sara- 

 cens, neglected the study of Latin, and captivated by the no- 

 velty of the oriental tales imported by the Saracens, suddenly 

 adopted a pomp of stile, and an affected elevation of dic- 

 tion I and the ideal tales of these eastern invaders, recom- 

 mended by a brilliancy of description, a variety of imagery 

 and an exuberance of invention, were eagerly caught up, 

 and universally diffused. -f- These tales passed over from 

 Spain into France and Italy, and from thence to the north : 

 and when the Europeans afterwards flocked in such numbers 



* Roman Empire, vol. x. 



t Warton's first Dissertation, Hist. English Poetry, vol. i. 



