LITERATURE OF THE ARABIANS DURING THE CALIPHATS OF BAGDAD AND CORDOVA. W [From the same.] HEN we consider the de- seclusion. Whence then could so solating policy which in stupendous a multiplication of suspired the plans of the followers of perfluous words have proceeded; Mahomet, and the fanaticism by and at a time when their composi which they were achieved, the last tions were committed to the repoworder to be expected was, the cul- sitory of memory, rather than of tivation of learning and the gentle books? arts of peace. One hundred years after the flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina, which was in 622, and is the first year of the Hegira, the arms and dominions of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over the various and distant provinces, which may be comprised under the general names of Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Spain. "In the earliest accounts of the Arabias, the native inhabitants are said to have possessed a taste for letters, considered as restricted principally to eloquence and poetry; and great praise is bestowed upon the force and the harmony of their language but when we are told, they had fourscore words to signify honey, two hundred a serpent, five hundred a lion, a thousand a sword, and to illustrate each of which whole treatises were compiled, I must be allowed to withhold my assent from the philological prodigy. When a language is perplexed by synonymous words, these are known to have arisen from an intercourse with other nations, caused by conquest or by commerce; but it is said that the Arabians were never subjugated, and they lived in a state of independent "Their poets, as was primarily the case among all nations, were their historians, whose verses recorded the distinction of descents, of which the Arabians were proud, the rights of families, and the memory of great exploits. But even in poetry the freeborn spirit of the Arabians would not be shackled by many rules; and their eloquence has been compared to loose gems, brilliant, but not improved by artificial combination; or, less elegantly, to sand without lime.' It was not by a discourse methodically arranged, as among the Greeks and Romans, but by the fulness of insulated periods, the harmony of expression, and the acuteness of proverbial sayings, that the Arabian orator aimed to rouse his hearers. "Though edcuated in the purest dialect of the Arabian language, Mahomet is said to have been illiterate, and not even to have been able to read. As to acquired learning,' observes Sale, it is confessed, that he had none at all, having had no other education than what was customary in his tribe, who, neglected, and perhaps despis. ed, what we call literature; esteeming no language in comparison with their own, their skill in which they gained by use and not by books, and contenting themselves with improving their private experience by committing to memory such passages of their poets as they judged might be of use to them in life.' From Mahomet, therefore, learning, even in its lowest branches, could look for no encouragement; and when we follow him and his immediate successors through the progress of their mighty achievements, we tremble, lest-the monuments of past ages perishing in the general wreck of nations the rhapsodies of the Koran should alone survive. As to the books, of which you have made mention:' replied Omar, the second caliph, when consulted by his general Amrou about the Alexandrian library, if there be in them what accords with the book of God, (meaning the Koran), there is without them all that is sufficient: if there be any thing in them repugnant to that book, we in no respect want them. Command them to be all destroyed.' This fact which is not recorded by the historians nearest to the times, may not be untrue; but it is not less certain, that the triumph of their faith by arms, rather than the preservation or the dissemination of liberal knowledge, was the object of Moslem ambition. ardour or relaxed the energies of fanaticism; and bigotry gave way to the suggestions of a laudable curiosity. of the house of the Ommyiah, who, "Under the reign of the caliphs during ninety years, resided at Damascus, the studies of the Moslems were confined to the interpretation and poetry of their native tongue, of the Koran, and to the eloquence which was generally diffused through the vast extent of all their conquests. Indeed, the Caliph Walid I. prohibited the use of the Greek language, and ordered the Arabic to be substituted in its place. But, on the accession of the Abassides to the caliphate in 750, Almanzor, the second of the dynasty, removed the seat of empire to Bagdad, the foundations of which he laid on the laid on the banks of the Tigris, where it soon became the most splendid city of the East. The simplicity of the first caliphs was of the Persian court; and Almannow succeeded by the magnificence science, professed himself the lover zor, who had personally cultivated of letters and of learned men. He offered rewards to such as should produce authors on the subjects which were translations of Greek most adapted to the taste of his counthematics, and medicine by which trymen-philosophy,astronomy,maliterature, and to excite the attenmeans he hoped to enrich his native tion of his subjects to higher attain-. ments. "The Arabians began ill; but they began as other nations had done for it is only when success has ensured security, and empire is established, that the mind begins to think of letters, in the serenity The successors of Almanof repose, and to seek for satisfac- ambassadors at Constantinople, and zor pursued the same track. Their tion and for fame in other occupa- their agents in other parts, collected tions, than of those of arms. It the volumes of Grecian learning, may be said, that the Arabian which were translated by the most character had been suspended: that skilful interpreters. Men of genius it returned to its native habits, when were exhorted to pursue them with time and prosperity chilled the assiduity; and the vicars themselves of of the prophet were sometimes seen to assist with pleasure at the conversations of the learned. Then it was, in the lofty language of Eastern eloquence, that men of science were denominated luminaries that dispel darkness; lords of the human kind; of whom, when the world becomes destitute it again sinks into barbarism.' "When the son of Mesuach, a young Nestorian christian, retiring from his own country, first entered Bagdad, it is related that he appear ed to have discovered a new world. He saw that the followers of Christ and of Mahomet were there engaged in the pursuit of the liberal arts. Here then he remained, applying himself to medicine, philosophy, and astronomy. His acquirements became great, and his knowledge of languages extensive; whence, himself being a treasure of learning, he was chosen to attend on prince Alnamon, the son of the caliph, Heron-al-Raschid, and to accompany him on an important embassy. But the great deference which was shewn to him displeased the caliph. Why have you this christian,' he said to his son, so constantly about your person?'-'I keep him as an artist, replied Almamon, and not as the director of my conscience; and your highness is aware how much the Jews and Christians are necessarily employed in your states.' -Another instructor of Almamon was the Persian Kessai, who, one day, calling on the prince, when he was at table with his friends, was not admitted, but received from him the following lines: There is a season for study, and a season for amusement: the present hour belongs to friendship, and the joys of the table.-Kessai on the back of the same leaf wrote, Were you well apprised of the excellence of learning, you would prefer the pleasure which it can give, to what you now enjoy; and did you know, who waits at your door, you would rise, and coming on your knees thank heaven, for the favour which it shews you.' The prince rose, and attended on his master. "On the accession of Almamon to the caliphate in 813, anxious as he was himself to acquire knowledge, and to instil the same desire into the public mind, he invited learned meu from all nations to his court, whatever might be their religion; and collecting from them the names of the most celebrated authors, and the titles of the works which they had published in the Greek, the Syriac, and Persian languages, he directed journeys to be undertaken, and volumes to be purchased. The number of these, says the historian, was immense. The next point was, to select what was deemed most valuable under each head of science, and to proceed to the business of translation. The son of Mesuach presided over this important work, when, it is said, that among many others, the volumes of Galen on Medicine, and all the treatises of Aristotle, were translated into Arabic. Thus enriched, as it seemed to them, with the best stores of Grecian learning, they committed the residue to the flames, as useless, or perhaps, as dangerous to the Moslem faith. Indeed, as the austere Cato once feared the contagion of Grecian eloquence, the sages of the law look, ed with jealousy upon the introduction amongst them of philosophy and other speculative studies, to which their caliph was peculiarly addicted. And his friendship for Mesuach also gave offence to them, whea f when he observed: Surely, as I entrust to him the care of my body, wherein dwells the immortal part of me, I may well commit to him the superintendance over words and writings, in many of which neither his faith nor mine has any concern.' It was in the capacity of physicians that many Christians continued to be employed in the court of Bagdad. "Almamon reigned twenty years, He was the greatest prince of a dynasty, which was celebrated for great men, and is represented to us as possessing, besides the virtues of a king and the talents of a warrior, the more pleasing endowments of generosity and gentleness, which were embellished by literary taste. When, in terms highly courteous and flattering, he applied to the court of Byzantium, saying, that could the cares of government have allowed it, he would have waited in person on the emperor- he received the rude answer : 'That sciences, which had reflected glory on the Roman name, should not be communicated to barbarians.' the "But the splendour of the caliphat soon began to decline; and it is related, that Radhi, who reigned carly in the tenth century, was the last, who harangued the people from the pulpit; who passed the cheerful hours of leisure with men of learning and taste: whose expenses, revenues, and treasures, whose table or magnificence had any resemblance to those of the ancient caliphs. But the unwieldy weight, and cumbrous magnitude of the empire were the principal causes of its min. Extensive powers were necessarily delegated to the distant emirs or governors: and when they had armies and treasures at their command these soon became the instruments of ambition. We then behold the rise of independent monarchies. But if by these revolts the caliphate was divided, and weakened by division, it is probable, that ruin was by this means averted from the remaining kingdoms of the Christian world, which seemed to be threatened by the union of such a mighty power. "While the Arabian mind, by the means which I have mentioned, and principally through the course of the ninth century, was expanded, and enriched by the treasures of Greece-the reader will recollect what was the state of things in the West; when Charlemagne was dead, and all the hopes which his labours had excited, of the return of better days were extinguished. "The various revolts, which dismembered the Moslem empire, form the principal subject of the annals of the Saracens, but I shall notice, as connected with letters, those only of Africa and Spain. "By Amrou the general of Omar, Egypt had been completely subdued in 641; and, within a few years, was begun the conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic ocean. The usual tide of success attended the arms of Abdallab, and, after the establishment of the house of Ommiyah, Akbah, the general of the Caliph Moawiyah, we are told, pursued his career of victory till it was checked by the waves of the boundless ocean, Before the close of the century the conquest of Africa was complete; when Spain was invaded from its shores; and, about the year 713, reduced to a Moslem province. "This province, however, was the theatre of the first successful revolt against the caliphs.-In the proscription of the Ommiades, about about the year 750, a royal youth of the name of Abdalrahman alone escaped. He wandered from the banks of the Euphrates to the vallies of Mount Atlas; was invited into Spain by the friends to the fallen family; landed on the coast of Andalusia; and, after a successful struggle, established the throne of Cordova, in the year 755. "The example of Spain seems to have encouraged many similar acts of rebellion. In 812 the great revolution commenced in Africa, which finally terminated in the establishment of two independent sovereignties in the Fatimate dy pasty, the seats of which were at Cairo in Egypt, and at Fez on the shores of the Western Ocean. "We have seen the encourage ment which was given to letters by Almamon at Bagdad, which was sometimes imitated by his successors of the same line, and extended to many other cities. The same conduct calls for our admiration in their rivals, the Fatimites of Africa, and the Ommiades of Spain. They became the patrons of learning; and their example, communicating a general spirit of emulation, diffused a taste for letters; whilst rewards and stipends allured the learned to their courts, and operated as a powerful stimulus to intellectual exertion. If Bagdad could boast of its richly endowed college, in which instruction was freely communicated, and of its profusion of volumes, collected from every reigion by the curiosity of the studious and the vanity of the rich, the same splendid distinction was possessed by Cairo and Cordova. The royal library of the Fatimites is said to have consist ed of one hundred thousand manuscripts; and the collection of Spain was far more abundant. Cordova, with the adjacent towns of Malaga, Almeria, and Murcia, gave birth to many writers; and it is related that above seventy public libraries were opened in the cities of Andalusia. but it is now proper to be more particular. Let "I have before me an interesting work on the literature of the Saracens, during the most splendid æra of their government; and though its contents, under many heads, may principally regard Spain, they will be found adequately to represent the general standard of learning, in its full extent and character, whether at Cordova or Fez, at Cairo, or at Bagdad. In these seats of empire, though so widely separated, the same language was spoken; and the same taste seemed to prevail. It is, indeed, proper to add, that the works to which I now allude, and on the style and contents of which our judgment must be formed, are many of them not the peculiar offspring of the Spanish school. me, however, profess my ignorance of the oriental tongues, and my gratitude, therefore, to the learned interpreters, who have transfused their spirit into the languages most common in Europe. And if, when these versions are said to be most faithful, we feel not that glow of admiration, which is expressed by the adepts in the original idioms, the cause may be principally ascribed to the diversity of eastern manners, and to the extravagance of eastern imagery. If the more temperate climate of Spain have rendered this less glaring, and intercourse with its christian natives have effected other changes, still while the language remained unaltered, the primitive models must have left a permanent impression. "It must, at the same time, be adınitted, |