CALIPHS OP BAGDAD. 37 



politics, though less palpable, are no less fatal than 

 mistakes in the artificial management of rooks and 

 pawns ; and it is easy to discover, that so early as 

 the reign of this caliph the authority of the crown 

 in the remote provinces was already impaired. Dis- 

 tance slackened the reins of order and obedience 

 among the subjects of the Abbassides. A change was 

 scarcely visible so long as the lieutenants of the caliph 

 were content with their vicarious title ; so long as 

 they merely solicited for themselves, or their sons, a 

 renewal of the imperial grant ; and still maintained 

 on the coin, and in the pulpits of the mosque, the 

 name and prerogatives of the Commander of the 

 Faithful. But, in the settled and hereditary exercise 

 of power, the viceroys assumed the pomp and attri- 

 butes of royalty. The alternative of peace or war, 

 of punishment or reward, depended solely on their 

 will ; and the revenues of the government were 

 reserved for local services, or private magnificence. 

 Instead of a regular supply of men and money, the 

 successors of Mohammed were nattered with the 

 ostentatious gift of an elephant, a cast of hawks, a 

 few bales of silk, or a supply of musk and amber. 



Persia, from being a province, became itself the 

 heritage of several petty dynasties, who successively 

 threatened the capital and usurped the power of the 

 Abbassides. The earliest of these was that of the 

 Taherites, the posterity of the valiant Taher, who 

 had taken an active part in the civil wars of the 

 sons of Haroun. His descendants, or successors, 

 reigned in Khorasan till the fourth generation, when 

 they were supplanted by the Soffarides, a name bor- 

 rowed from the trade of their founder, Jacob ibn 

 Leith, who exercised the humble craft of a brazier, 



