at of his predecessor, the conquerors of the East
were the trusty servants of God and the people; the mass of the public
treasure was consecrated to the expenses of peace and war; a prudent
mixture of justice and bounty maintained the discipline of the Saracens,
and they united, by a rare felicity, the despatch and execution of
despotism with the equal and frugal maxims of a republican government.
The heroic courage of Ali, the consummate prudence of Moawiyah,
excited the emulation of their subjects; and the talents which had been
exercised in the school of civil discord were more usefully applied to
propagate the faith and dominion of the prophet. In the sloth and
vanity of the palace of Damascus, the succeeding princes of the house of
Ommiyah were alike destitute of the qualifications of statesmen and of
saints. Yet the spoils of unknown nations were continually laid at the
foot of their throne, and the uniform ascent of the Arabian greatness
must be ascribed to the spirit of the nation rather than the abilities
of their chiefs. A large deduction must be allowed for the weakness of
their enemies. The birth of Mahomet was fortunately placed in the most
degenerate and disorderly period of the Persians, the Romans, and the
Barbarians of Europe: the empires of Trajan, or even of Constantine or
Charlemagne, would have repelled the assault of the naked Saracens, and
the torrent of fanaticism might have been obscurely lost in the sands of
Arabia.

In the victorious days of the Roman republic, it had been the aim of
the senate to confine their councils and legions to a single war,
and completely to suppress a first enemy before they provoked the
hostilities of a second. These timid maxims of policy were disdained
by the magnanimity or enthusiasm of the Arabian caliphs. With the same
vigor and success they invaded the successors of Augustus and those of
Artaxerxes; and the rival monarchies at the same instant became the prey
of an enemy whom they had been so long accustomed to despise. In the
ten years of the administration of Omar, the Saracens reduced to his
obedience thirty-six thousand cities or castles, destroyed four thousand
churches or temples of the unbelievers, and edified fourteen hundred
moschs for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. One hundred years
after his flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign of his successors
extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over the various and distant
provinces, which ma