310 



ON THE MIDDLE OR DARK AGES. 



TJnde habeas, quaerit nemo, sed oportet habere.* 

 None car'd what way he gain'd, so gain were his. 



" The more they discoursed about right, the greater their enormities. Those 

 who were called justiciaries, were the head of all injustice. The sheriffs and 

 magistrates, whose immediate duty was justice and judgment, were more 

 atrocious than the very thieves and robbers ; and were more cruel than even 

 the cruellest of other men ! The king himself, when he had leased his do- 

 mains as dear as was possible, transferred them immediately to another that 

 offered him more ; and then again to another, neglecting always his former 

 agreement ; and still labouring for bargains that were greater and more pro- 

 fitable."t 



I have observed that in the midst of this long and gloomy night a few 

 bright and splendid stars shot occasionally a solitary gleam athwart the 

 horizon ; and, in one or two corners of it, a radiance at times poured forth 

 like the dawn of the morning. Several of the Arabian caliphs, as soon as 

 the first paroxysm of their violence was exhausted, returned to that general 

 love of literature which had immemorially been characteristic of their coun- 

 try. And hence, when Europe was plunged into its thickest midnight, the 

 eastern and western caliphats, or courts of Bagdad and Cordova (by far the 

 most illustrious in Saracenic history), evinced a lustre and a liberality that 

 were nowhere else to be met with, and opened asylums to the learned of 

 every country. J " It was then," says Abulfeda, who was himself one of the 

 brightest gems that adorned the former court, " it was then that men of 

 learning were esteemed luminaries that dispel darkness, lords of human 

 kind, destitute of whom the world becomes brutalized."^ And from the 

 account of the Arabic manuscripts of the Escurial, drawn up by the learned 

 Casiri, it appears, that the public libraries in Spain, when under the Arabian 

 princes, were not fewer than seventy; a wonderful patronage of literature, 

 when copies of books were peculiarly scarce and enormously expensive. 



The tie, however, between science and Islamism was unnatural, and could 

 not continue long. The religion of Mahomet is, of itself, a choak-damp to 

 every generous purpose of the soul ; no moral harvest can flourish under it ; 

 and the few instances that it can boast of to the contrary are only exceptions 

 to the general rule : scarce and scattered oases, or plots of verdure, that un- 

 expectedly peep forth in the vast ocean of its sandy desert. All Moham- 

 medan patronage of learning, therefore, has long since died away; and 

 Arabia, which once shed so splendid a light on the rest of the world, is now 

 sunk in darkness, while all the rest of the world is beaming with light around 

 it. " Those vast regions," observes M. Sismondi, witli a just feeling of re- 

 gret, " where Islamism rules, or has ruled, are dead to all the sciences. 

 Those rich fields of Fez and Morocco, made illustrious through five centuries 

 by so many academies, so many universities, so many libraries, are now 

 nothing more than deserts of burning sands, where tyrants dispute with 

 tigers. All the laughing and fruitful coast of Mauritania, where commerce, 

 arts, and agriculture were raised to the highest prosperity, are at present 

 mere retreats for pirates, who spread terror, and resign their toils for abomi- 

 nable indulgences, as soon as the plague returns every year to make victims 

 of them, and to avenge offended humanity. Bagdad, formerly the seat of 

 luxury, of power, of knowledge, is in ruins. The far-famed universities of 

 Cufa and Bassora are closed for ever. That immense literary wealth of the 

 Arabians, which we have only had a glimpse of, exists no more in any region 

 where Arabians or Mussulmans govern. We are no longer to seek there for 

 the fame of their great men, or for their writings. Whatever has been pre- 

 served is entirely in the hands of their enemies, in the convents of monks, 

 or the libraries of European princes. Yet these extensive countries have 

 never been conquered : it is no stranger that has plundered them of their 



# Juv. xiv. 207. t Harris, ii. 515. $ Leo Afric, De Vir. Illustr. apud Arab. Bibl. 



§ Abulphar. Dynaet. p. 160. 



