the Cordoban persecution is the most singular episode. What a beam must have been in the eye of the Spaniards, who, in the age of the Philips, could look upon this as a great persecution! The Moors were, indeed, more intolerant among themselves than they were to the Christians under them. Two unhappy men, who at different times ventured to broach new opinions in their faith, were examined, pronounced heretical, and impaled in consequence. But from the general tenour of their history the Moorish character seems to have been mitigated in Spain, either by the inexplicable influence of climate and local circumstances, or by the great intermixture of European blood: it cannot have been occasioned by intercourse with the Christians, because that intercourse, even when respect for each others strength rendered it most courteous, never abated the contempt and hatred with which each nation regarded the religion of the other.

Symptoms of disunion among the Moors reappeared in Muhamad's reign, and some ambitious Walies, for the first time, sought to strengthen themselves by alliance with the Spaniards. That king was advised on this account to dismantle the walls of Toledo, when the city was delivered up to him, and the leaders of the rebellion had been put to death; but the historian says, it was not the will of God that this good counsel should be taken: he forgets that the city must have been deserted if its fortifications had been destroyed. Toledo was too near the debatable ground to be inhabited as an open town in times when the Spanish chiefs never lay down at night without having their horses in the room, ready to mount at the first alarm, and when the Spaniards compared their leaders and themselves, for the life which they led, to the devil and his ministers, whose whole delight it was, they said, to separate soul and body! The Galicians are always described in this work as the bravest of the Christians. Muhamad sent a naval expedition against them: it was wrecked off the mouth of the Minho; some of the Moors imputed this misfortune to the growing luxury and diminished zeal of the Mussulmen; others to the divine displeasure, that the true believers should have endeavoured to spare themselves the fatigue and trouble of marching by land in a holy war!

Muhamad, like his predecessor, encouraged literature, wrote verses, and moralized upon the cares of royalty and the uncertainty of human life. His son and successor, Almondhir, was slain in battle against a chief who had possessed himself of Toledo, always a disaffected city: the frequent revolts which occurred there are imputed to the number, and wealth, and temper of its Jewish and Christian inhabitants. Abdala, the brother of the slain king, succeeded; his reign was marked by so

dreadful a famine, that there were none to bury the dead, so that the dying crawled to the burial grounds, and there laid themselves down to expire, in hope that some charitable hand might strew the earth over them! Abdala was unfortunate in other respects: the Moors were defeated, with great slaughter, by Alonso the Great, near Zamora, and the conquerors took that city, and garnished its gates and towers with the heads of the slain; but Abdala made peace with them for the sake of directing his arms against the rebels, whom it was far more important to subdue, because they would have divided the kingdom, upon which the Christians could make little impression while it was united. The bigoted people were offended by a policy which they could not comprehend; a party was formed against him, and the name of the eastern caliph was substituted for his in the public prayer: his brother was put to death for being implicated in this treason; and it was believed also, that Abdala's son Muhamad, who had rebelled against him and been taken prisoner, was poisoned by his orders. Such tragedies are the frequent consequence of polygamy, and the unsettled principles of succession in Mahommedan kingdoms. It is, however, doubtful whether Muhamad died by any other poison than that of an irritated spirit; and his son Abderahman was chosen by Abdala to succeed him. Morales discovered among the archives of St. Isidore, at Leon, that this Abderahman III., the most magnificent of the Moorish sovereigns in Spain, was descended on the female side from the Navarrese King Inigo Arista, and this he calls "una extrana novedad." The story exhibits one of those strange turns of fortune which give to history the appearance of romance. His account is, that Aznario Fortuniones married Iniga, his own aunt, who was daughter of King Garci Iniguez, and that Iniga being taken prisoner, and carried to Cordoba with her brother Fortunio, became one of Abdala's wives, and was the mother of Muhamad. Conde's authorities say that Abderahman, not Muhamad, was born of a Christian mother, and that her name was Maria. Iniga may have borne both names, or she may have changed that by which she was called in her own country, because it would be less painful for her family to suppose that she was dead, than to know that she had become one of the wives of a Mahommedan. The Moorish historian notices Fortunio's capture, and speaks of him as a valiant and distinguished Christian, who had his liberty given him, lived a long time in Cordoba, and attained to the great age of 126. The Archbishop Rodrigo, writing from Arabic materials, gives the same account.

In whatever relation Abderahman stood to Fortunio, Fortunatus he might have been called if worldly prosperity could make

men truly fortunate. So splendid a court as his, in comparison with all contemporary ones, Europe has never seen in any earlier or later age; scarcely perhaps at any time one so splendid in itself. Yet this was the monarch who, when he had reigned fifty years in the height of human power, declared that upon a sober retrospect of his life, he could only reckon up fourteen days in which he had been altogether happy. The cause for this existed in his unnatural situation, not in his personal character, nor in the constitution of human nature, to which, in the ordinary distributions of Providence, a much greater proportion of happiness is allotted. There would, indeed, be one damnable stain upon his memory (any weaker epithet would be inadequate), if the story of St. Pelayo were true; but that legend rests upon the veracity. of a Cordoban, who related it to the Saxon nun, Rosweida; it has therefore no better authority than a traveller's tale, and the circumstances are as incredible as they are revolting. He has been charged also with putting his son Abdala to death, from jealousy, because of his popular qualities. But a very different and far more probable statement appears in the history which Señor Conde has followed. There it is affirmed that Abdala plotted against his father's government and the life of his brother Alhakem, whom Abderahman had designated for his successor. He was apprehended and confessed his guilt: Alhakem interceded for him; but the father replied that he could not act in this instance as his heart inclined him to do, and as if he were a private individual; being a king it was his duty to consider the public consequences, and leave an example of justice to posterity, though it would cost him tears of bitterness and a life-long regret.

The son whom he had chosen for his successor was worthy to succeed him. Two natural phenomena are noticed in Abderahman's reign: a shower of hail or rather fragments of ice, by which birds, cattle, and men were killed; and such a shower of meteors as was observed by Humboldt in his voyage to America. Alhakem was nearly fifty years of age when his father died. His delight from his earliest youth had been in books, and he had agents in all the principal cities of the Mohammedan world to collect them for his library; the catalogue of which is said to have filled fifty-four volumes, each containing fifty leaves. A love of literature was generally diffused among the Spanish Moors during his reign; even the women perceived the advantage of adding mental accomplishments to their attractions, and applied themselves to the severer studies as well as the ornamental branches of learning. Alhakem had women in his palace who copied manuscripts, excelling in calligraphy, and composed poems themselves; one of these was his confidential secretary. This

was the Augustan age of the Moors, but their historian says, it past away like a dream. Their happiness was thus transitory, because it depended upon the personal character of the ruler, not upon righteous principles and wise institutions. The intervals of prosperity which are enjoyed under a virtuous despot, are granted in mercy to mankind; the miseries which follow, and which are the sure consequence of false doctrines and erroneous systems, are the bitter lessons by which men are to be made to understand the folly and the wickedness of their ways. Alhakem's earnest desire was to keep peace with his Christian neighbours, to divert his own people from their warlike and turbulent habits to the quiet and beneficial pursuits of agriculture, and to improve by all the aids of art a country so blest with natural advantages. Then it was that aqueducts were constructed, and tanks formed upon a scale of oriental magnitude for irrigating the lands the south of Spain was like a highly cultivated garden. The most illustrious Moors prided themselves upon improving their own grounds; and as the people of many villages are said to have betaken themselves to the care of their flocks, and resumed the Bedoween manner of life, it is probable that to this time the origin must be ascribed of that system of pasturage which still prevails in Spain. Whatever advice Alhakem addressed to his son Hixem, concluded, it is said, with exhortations to "seek peace and ensue it," and never to engage in war unless from necessity, and in a just quarrel. "What contentment," he would say, "can there be in destroying villages, laying tracts of fertile country waste, and spreading devastation and slaughter over the earth? Govern thy people in peace and equity: let no vanity or pride mislead thee; let thine eye be single: bridle thy desires : put thy trust in God, and then shalt thou calmly come to thine appointed end."

Alhakem, like the best of his predecessors, had the temporal reward of righteousness, for his days were long in the land. Hixem, when he performed the wonted ceremony of prayer at his father's funeral, descended into his sepulchre, and was overpowered by his emotions. He might well be so at the loss of such a parent, and perhaps also at that moment he had a sad consciousness of his own weakness and inexperience! He was Alhakem's only son, the child of his old age. Sobecha, his mother, had in great measure governed the late king during the last ten years of his life, and she now confided her son to the tutelage of Mohamad ben Abdala, famous in Spanish history by the name which he soon obtained of Almanzor-the Victorious. Almanzor was the Campeador, the "Great Captain" of the Spanish Moors; the most formidable enemy with whom the rising kingdoms of

Leon and Navarre, and what was then the county of Castille, ever had to contend. Their division favoured his progress, but their union could not have resisted it with success, for he was one of those commanders who inspire their own army with full confidence, and strike fear into those who are opposed to it. Ali and Caled, the Lion and the Sword of the Lord, as they were denominated in their day, were not more entirely possest by the spirit of their warlike faith than Almanzor. The first act of his administration was to break the peace which Alhakem had so sedulously maintained with the Spaniards, and to declare perpetual war against them, with the intention of not leaving an independent Christian within the limits of Spain. This measure was condemned by those who approved the policy of the preceding reign, and who were of opinion that the government's first object should be to secure its internal stability and strength. Whilst he lived, that object seemed to be effected by his victories, which afforded employment not only for all the turbulent spirits of the country, but for auxiliaries whom he invited from Africa. The system was twice in every year to make a great inroad upon the Christians, sometimes beyond the Ebro, sometimes on the side of Leon and Galicia. A fifth part of the spoil was the King's; the Chiefs had the right of choice among the cattle and the prisoners, male and female; all that remained he distributed among the troops. It is said that he knew the person and the name of every one who served under him, for it was his custom to go frequently through the camp and into their tents: those who distinguished themselves he invited to his table, and after every victory he gave a feast to his whole army. Regarding his battles as religious works, the first thing which he did after every action was to shake the dust from his garments, and have it carefully collected and deposited in a coffer, which was always carried with the most valuable part of his baggage,—that with the dust thus gathered in the service of the Prophet, he might be covered in his grave.

Never was brave invader more bravely resisted; but his means and numbers, and name and fortune, prevailed; and had he been engaged against other people than the Spaniards, their subjugation must have been completed: their invincible spirit, their unweariable power of endurance, could alone have survived the series of defeats and losses which they sustained in two and fifty of his dreadful inroads. The bells of Santiago's own church were borne from Compostella to Cordoba as his trophies, and suspended to serve as lamps in the Great Mosque. The King of Leon found it necessary to remove the seat of government from that city back to the Asturian mountains; and the relics of the saints and the bodies of his predecessors were removed also. In