a huge printing-house chiefly occupied for the last two
years in reprinting Plato's works.' Why, really Plato himself would look
graciously on that revolution, Master Conyers. But next, the dullest of
these monks would hear the Gloria in Excelsis.

Oh, how pitiful it is to hear B---- alleging against Mahomet that he had
done no public miracles. What? Would it, then, alter your opinion of
Mahomet if he _had_ done miracles? What a proof, how full, how perfect!
That Christianity, in spirit, in power, in simplicity, and in truth, had
no more hold over B---- than it had over any Pagan Pontiff in Rome, is
clear to me from that. So, then, the argument against Mahomet is not
that he wants utterly the meekness--wants? wants? No, that he utterly
hates the humility, the love that is stronger than the grave, the purity
that cannot be imagined, the holiness as an ideal for man that cannot be
approached, the peace that passeth all understanding, that power which
out of a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand grows for ever and
ever until it will absorb the world and all that it inherit, that first
of all created the terror of death and the wormy grave; but that first
and last she might triumph over time--not these, it seems by B----, are
the arguments against Mahomet, but that he did not play legerdemain
tricks, that he did not turn a cow into a horse!

In which position B---- is precisely on a level with those Arab Sheikhs,
or perhaps Mamelukes, whom Napoleon so foolishly endeavoured to surprise
by Chinese tricks: 'Aye, all this is very well, but can you make one to
be in Cairo and in Damascus at the same moment?' demanded the poor
brutalized wretches. And so also for B---- it is nothing. Oh, blind of
heart not to perceive that the defect was entirely owing to the age.
Mahomet came to a most sceptical region. There was no semblance or
shadow among the Arabs of that childish credulity which forms the
atmosphere for miracle. On the contrary, they were a hard, fierce
people, and in that sense barbarous; but otherwise they were sceptical,
as is most evident from all that they accomplished, which followed the
foundation of Islamism. Here lies the delusion upon that point. The
Arabs were evidently like all the surrounding nations. They were also
much distinguished among all Oriental peoples for courage. This fact has
been put on record in (1) the East Indies, where all the Arab troops
have proved themselves by far more formidable tha