trator; and truce there was none until the silence of
desolation brooded over those once fertile fields. How savage was the
fanaticism, and how blind the worldly wisdom, which could have
co-operated to such a result! The cause must have lain in the
unaccommodating nature of the Mahometan institutions, in the bigotry of
the Mahometan leaders, and in the defect of expansive views on the part
of their legislator. He had not provided even for other climates than
that of his own sweltering sty in the Hedjas, or for manners more
polished, or for institutions more philosophic, than those of his own
sun-baked Ishmaelites. "The construction of the political government of
the Saracen empire"--says Mr Finlay, (p. 462-3)--"was imperfect, and
shows that Mahomet had neither contemplated extensive foreign conquests,
nor devoted the energies of his powerful mind to the consideration of
the questions of administration which would arise out of the difficult
task of ruling a numerous and wealthy population, possessed of property,
but deprived of civil rights." He then shows how the whole power of the
state settled into the hands of a chief priest--systematically
irresponsible. When, therefore, that momentary state of responsibility
had passed away, which was created (like the state of martial law) "by
national feelings, military companionship, and exalted enthusiasm," the
administration of the caliphs became "far more oppressive than that of
the Roman empire." It is in fact an insult to the majestic Romans, if we
should place them seriously in the balance with savages like the
Saracens. The Romans were essentially the leaders of civilization,
according to the possibilities then existing; for their earliest usages
and social forms involved a high civilization, whilst promising a
higher: whereas all Moslem nations have described a petty arch of
national civility--soon reaching its apex, and rapidly barbarizing
backwards. This fatal gravitation towards decay and decomposition in
Mahometan institutions, which, at this day, exhibits to the gaze of
mankind one uniform spectacle of Mahometan ruins, all the great Moslem
nations being already in a _Strulbrug_ state, and held erect only by the
colossal support of Christian powers, could not, as a _reversionary_
evil, have been healed by the Arabian prophet. His own religious
principles would have prevented _that_, for they offer a permanent
bounty on sensuality; so that every man who serves a Mahomet