hen blooming groves and forests of fruit-trees were agreeably
intermingled with graceful domes and marble pavilions: then the sweet
perfume of the countless flowers that mingled their varied dyes in
delightful confusion, floated in the soft air. Then the delicate
tendrils of the vine clasped the supporting branches of the orange, and
both together hung the mingled gold and purple of their clustering
fruits over the bright waters that from marble founts

"Gushed up to sun and air!"

Then valour and beauty strayed side by side, beneath embowering
branches, the fire of the one attempered to gentleness by the softer
graces of the other, and the souls of both elevated and purified by
nature's holy and resistless influences.

But now the luxuriant vine lies prostrate, its climbing trunk and
clinging tendrils rudely torn from their once firm support: even the
voice of the fountain no longer warbles in the same gladsome tone as of
yore; the mouldering fragments of the polished column and sculptured
dome are now strewed on the earth; the sighing of the gentle breeze no
longer awake: is the soft breath {148} of responding flowers; the
loveliness and the glory of the _Home of Love_ are vanished away for
ever; and the crumbling stones of the tesselated pavements echo naught
but the lingering footfall of the solitary stranger, who wanders
thither to enjoy those mournful charms of which the destroyer cannot
divest a spot that must ever appeal so strongly to the vision and the
heart, to the memory and the imagination.

It is painful to quit the Alhambra and the Generalif, to return to the
ravages, incursions, and sanguinary quarrels of the Moors and
Christians.

It was the fate of Mohammed III. (surnamed the Blind) to be obliged at
the same time to repress the rebellious movements of his own subjects
and repel the invasions of his Catholic neighbours. Compelled by the
infirmity from which he derived his appellation to choose a prime
minister, he bestowed that important post upon Farady, the husband of
his sister, a judicious statesman and a brave soldier, who for some
time prosperously continued the war against the Castilians, and finally
concluded it by an honourable peace.

But the courtiers, jealous of the glory and {149} envious of the
good-fortune of the favourite, formed a conspiracy against his master,
and instigated revolts among the people. To complete his calamities,
foreign war again broke forth; the King of Cas