LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 73 



and splendid city, that the golden age of Arabian 

 literature commenced in the East, and the Muses 

 were courted from their hallowed retreats beyond 

 the Bosphorus, to expiate the guilt of conquest, and 

 illustrate the fame of the Abbassides. Almansor, suc- 

 cessful in his domestic wars, turned his thoughts to 

 the acquisition of science. Accident brought him ac- 

 quainted with a Greek physician named George, who 

 was invited to court to prescribe for the removal of 

 a temporary indigestion. To him the Saracens were 

 indebted for the introduction of medicine. The 

 famous Haroun al Raschid has acquired a splendid 

 name as the encourager of letters. He was fond of 

 poetry and music, and himself considerably skilled 

 in these divine arts. Volumes have been written 

 on the learning of the Moslem empire during this 

 caliph's reign. Whenever he undertook a journey, 

 or a pilgrimage, he carried with him a retinue of a 

 hundred learned men. The Arabs were deeply 

 indebted to him for their rapid progress in educa- 

 tion, for he issued a law that a school should be at- 

 tached to every mosque erected within his dominions. 

 With a toleration superior to the fanaticism of his 

 creed, he did not despise the knowledge which the 

 believers of another faith possessed. The head of 

 his schools, and the chief director of academical 

 studies in his empire, was a Nestorian Christian of 

 Damascus, of the name of John ibn Messue. His 

 generous example was imitated by his successors ; 

 and in a short time the sciences that were cultivated 

 in the capital were diffused to the distant extremi- 

 ties of the caliphate. 



But the Augustus of Arabian literature was Al- 

 mamoun, whose attention from his youth had been 



