of the
Peninsula, consists in the numerous well preserved remains of Arab art.
The most sumptuous of their palaces are, it is true, no longer in
existence, nor the principal mosques, with the exception of the
metropolitan temple of Cordova: but there remain sufficient specimens to
shew, that their architecture had attained the highest excellence in two
of the principal requisites for excellence in that science--solidity and
beauty.

The superiority of the Arabs in this branch of science and taste is so
striking, that all other departments of art, as well as the customs and
peculiarities of that race, and the events of their dominion in this
country, become at once the subjects of interest and inquiry. It is
consequently very satisfactory to discover that one can examine almost
face to face that people,--probably the most advanced in science and
civilization that ever set foot in Europe; so little are the traces of
their influence worn away, and so predominant is the portion of it still
discernible in the customs, manners, and race of the population of this
province, and even to a considerable extent in their language.

There is something so brilliant in the career of the Arab people, as to
justify the interest excited by the romantic and picturesque (if the
expression may be allowed), points of their character and customs. Their
civilization appears to have advanced abreast with their conquests, and
with the same prodigious rapidity; supposing, that is, that previously
to their issuing from their peninsula, they were as backward as
historians state them to have been: a point not sufficiently
established. Sallying forth, under the immediate successors of Mahomet,
they commenced, in obedience to the injunction of their new faith, a
course of conquest unrivalled in rapidity. Their happy physical and
mental organization, enabled them to appropriate whatever was superior
in the arts and customs of the conquered nations; and whatever they
imitated acquired during the process of adaptation, new and more
graceful modifications. It has been asserted that they owed their
civilization to the Greeks; and, certainly, the first subjected
provinces being Greek, their customs could not but receive some
impression from the contact; but it is not probable that the Greeks were
altogether their instructors in civilization. Had such been the case
their language would probably have undergone a change, instead of
continuing totally independ