ON THE MIDDLE OR DARK AGElS. i337 



people that, having subdued all Gaul, had established themselves in that 

 country for about three centuries already ; and had, through the greater 

 part of that period, professed the Christian religion. Charlemagne 

 entered Rome in triumph, and was crowned emperor of the Romans, with 

 great pomp and festivity, towards the close of the eighth century. 



While such was the series of misfortunes that attended, and at length 

 totally subverted the western empire, that of the east had to strive with 

 difficulties of another kind, and which produced a still greater change in 

 the political aspect of the world. 



The nations by whom the successive conquests of Europe had been 

 effected, proceeded, as we have already beheld, from different, though 

 contiguous tracts of country, spoke different languages, and were under 

 the command of different leaders. Yet, having originated from a like 

 cradle, from the solitude of mountain-fastnesses, and the savage wild of 

 precipitous scenery, nursed in the midst of snows and howling tempests, 

 they appear to have established, in almost every state which they sub- 

 dued, nearly the same legislative system ; a system known by the name 

 of the Feudal Law, and the introduction of which into Europe constitutes 

 one of the most prominent features of European history. 



It was about the middle of the period we have thus far contemplated, in 

 the year of our Lord 568, that Mahomet was born in Arabia : and a 

 period more auspicious to his unrivalled craft and overtowering ambition 

 . could not possibly have been produced by any concurrence of circum- 

 stances. The barbarians of the north had just completed their conquest 

 over regular monarchy ; the western empire was tottering to its foundation, 

 while the eastern was shorn of its limits and weakened by internal oppres- 

 sions. Yet neither the extent of the territories of the barbarian powers, 

 nor their respective forms of government, were definitively settled ; while, 

 at the same time, the fury which had accompanied their progress being 

 exhausted, they had sunk into a state of political lethargy, and no bond 

 of union or CQ-operation existed between them. Were we to search for 

 that period of the Christian era in which there was least of order, least 

 of power, least of science, and least of intercourse in Europe, we should 

 be compelled to pitch upon the century which immediately preceded^ and 

 that which immediately followed the commencement of the Hegira. 



Mahomet flourished in the middle of this period. Deriving his imme- 

 diate descent from the patriarch Abraham, through the line of Ismael, and^ 

 perhaps, eldest son of eldest son, from the commencement of the chain, 

 he was a man of unbounded ambition, most entei;prising courage, insinu- 

 ating address, and instructed in all the science of his day. He beheld 

 his own country without any fixed principles of religion, and ignorantly 

 intermixing the rites of Judaism with the doctrines of Christianity ; he 

 beheld the professors of the Christian church engaged in perpetual dis- 

 putes upon inexplicable mysteries ; and excommunicating and massacreing 

 each other, as they alternately possessed the power, upon a mere differ- 

 ence of recondite, or speculative points. It was the precise moment for 

 the invention of a new creed, and he invented one accordingly. With 

 a mastery of craft that has never been equalled, even ia our own eventful 

 age, he infused into the heterogeneous mass a charm adapted to captivate 

 every party and every passion ; and, to destroy every doubt of success, he 

 united the power of the sword to that of the new faith, and threw open 

 the gates of Paradise, and all the enjoyments of the beatified, to every 

 soldier who should fall under the banners of the crescent. 



43 



