n:--O man! place not thy
confidence in this present world!" [50] The luxury of the caliphs, so
useless to their private happiness, relaxed the nerves, and terminated
the progress, of the Arabian empire. Temporal and spiritual conquest had
been the sole occupation of the first successors of Mahomet; and after
supplying themselves with the necessaries of life, the whole revenue
was scrupulously devoted to that salutary work. The Abbassides were
impoverished by the multitude of their wants, and their contempt of
oeconomy. Instead of pursuing the great object of ambition, their
leisure, their affections, the powers of their mind, were diverted by
pomp and pleasure: the rewards of valor were embezzled by women and
eunuchs, and the royal camp was encumbered by the luxury of the palace.
A similar temper was diffused among the subjects of the caliph. Their
stern enthusiasm was softened by time and prosperity. they sought riches
in the occupations of industry, fame in the pursuits of literature, and
happiness in the tranquillity of domestic life. War was no longer the
passion of the Saracens; and the increase of pay, the repetition of
donatives, were insufficient to allure the posterity of those voluntary
champions who had crowded to the standard of Abubeker and Omar for the
hopes of spoil and of paradise.

[Footnote 50: Cardonne, tom. i. p. 329, 330. This confession, the
complaints of Solomon of the vanity of this world, (read Prior's verbose
but eloquent poem,) and the happy ten days of the emperor Seghed,
(Rambler, No. 204, 205,) will be triumphantly quoted by the detractors
of human life. Their expectations are commonly immoderate, their
estimates are seldom impartial. If I may speak of myself, (the only
person of whom I can speak with certainty,) my happy hours have far
exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty numbers of the caliph of Spain; and
I shall not scruple to add, that many of them are due to the pleasing
labor of the present composition.]

Under the reign of the Ommiades, the studies of the Moslems were
confined to the interpretation of the Koran, and the eloquence and
poetry of their native tongue. A people continually exposed to the
dangers of the field must esteem the healing powers of medicine, or
rather of surgery; but the starving physicians of Arabia murmured a
complaint that exercise and temperance deprived them of the greatest
part of their practice. [51] After their civil and domestic wars, the
subjects of