INTRODUCTION. 23 



of characters and incidents that will both engage 

 and reward our curiosity. The victories, revolu- 

 tions, and capricious vicissitudes of human fortune 

 that pass by in rapid succession are without exam- 

 ple in any nation of ancient or modern Europe. 

 The catalogue of the leading personages, the caliphs 

 and conquerors that figured on this remarkable 

 theatre, presents some strange contrasts to the or- 

 dinary history of successful adventurers, and the 

 distribution of earthly gi'andeur. Among other 

 nations, heroes and legislators generally require a 

 process of training, and it is only by slow and per- 

 severing degrees that the usurper ascends the pin- 

 nacle of his ambition. Here we have the rare spec- 

 tacle of slaves moimted on thrones ; lawless bandits 

 becoming the dispensers of justice and protection; 

 illiterate shepherds and merchants suddenly trans- 

 formed into the commanders of armies, or vested 

 with the solemai functions of kings and pontiifs. 

 Yet, singular as it may appear, not a few of them 

 were distinguished for civil and military talents ; 

 others have gained a lasting celebrity by their pat- 

 ronage and love of science ; and some of them shed 

 a lustre on the diadem, by the exercise of those 

 peaceful and princely virtues which have procured 

 for the rulers of other countries the venerable title 

 of fathers of their people. 



It was in the courts of Bagdad and Cufa, of Da- 

 mascus and Cordova, that learning found a hospit- 

 able asylum, when a succession of barbarous inroads 

 had nearly quenched the last rays of Greek and 

 Roman literature, and scarcely left a single monu- 

 ment of art or genius in Europe. Nothing, except 

 their own victories, is more surprising than the pro- 

 gress which this acute and ingenious people made 

 in the cultivation of every department of human 

 knowledge. From a state of ignorance and barba- 

 rism, in which they had been plunged for centuries, 

 they emerged with a lustre not more remarkable 



