LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 97 



studies, he there applied himself to the cultivation 

 of philosophy and medicine,, in both of which his 

 progress was surprisingly rapid. Besides physic, 

 the range of his acquirements comprehended logic, 

 morals, metaphysics, astronomy, philology, mathe- 

 matics, natural history, and theology. While yet 

 in his nineteenth year, Avicenna was regarded 

 even by the old and experienced as a complete pro- 

 digy of learning, and the deference paid to his judg- 

 ment was sufficient to flatter his utmost vanity. Dur- 

 ing his residence at Hamadan, he was chosen first 

 physician to the sultan, and afterwards raised to the 

 dignity of vizier. His literary fame, and that of 

 the brilliant court to which he was attached, drew 

 the admiration of surrounding princes. But his 

 popularity was shortlived, and his life seemed des- 

 tined to be a restless one. Finding his liberty 

 endangered, for having refused the invitation of 

 Mahmoud of Ghizni to honour his capital with a 

 visit, he withdrew to Jorjan, where the splendour 

 of his reputation, not only as a physician but a man 

 of science, increased beyond all rivalry. 



The subsequent history of this remarkable person- 

 age is short. Though possessed of an excellent consti- 

 tution, he had so impaired it by the use of wine, and 

 its accompanying vice, that he died from intestinal 

 inflammation, in his 56th year, at Hamadan. Avi- 

 cenna is one of those on whom praise and vitupera- 

 tion have been lavished with equal excess. It may 

 be somewhat difficult to account for the despotic 

 supremacy which his writings acquired in the Sa- 

 racen schools; for they were not only translated, 

 abridged, and commented on, but formed text-books 

 for the professors in the principal colleges of Europe, 



