,
WASHINGTON IRVING
SIMON OCKLEY

The Saracen Conquest of Syria (A.D. 636),
SIMON OCKLEY

Saracens Conquer Egypt
Destruction of the Library at Alexandria (A.D. 640),
WASHINGTON IRVING

Evolution of the Dogeship in Venice (A.D. 697),
WILLIAM C. HAZLITT

Saracens in Spain
Battle of the Guadalete (A.D. 711),
AHMED IBN MAHOMET AL-MAKKARI

Battle of Tours (A.D. 732),
SIR EDWARD S. CREASY

Founding of the Carlovingian Dynasty
Pepin the Short Usurps the Frankish Crown (A.D. 751),
FRANCOIS P.G. GUIZOT

Career of Charlemagne (A.D. 772-814),
FRANCOIS P.G. GUIZOT

Egbert Becomes King of the Anglo-Saxon
Heptarchy (A.D. 827),
DAVID HUME

Universal Chronology (A.D. 410-842),
JOHN RUDD

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME IV

A captive's wife pleads with the barbarian chief for
the life of her husband, Frontispiece
Painting by R. Peacock.

Mahomet, preaching the unity of God, enters Mecca
at the head of his victorious followers,
Painting by A. Mueller.

[Illustration: A captive's wife pleads with the barbarian chief for the
life of her husband

Painting by R. Peacock.]

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT
EVENTS

(FROM THE FALL OF ROME TO THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE)

CHARLES F. HORNE

Our modern civilization is built up on three great corner-stones, three
inestimably valuable heritages from the past. The Graeco-Roman
civilization gave us our arts and our philosophies, the bases of
intellectual power. The Hebrews bequeathed to us the religious idea,
which has saved man from despair, has been the potent stimulus to two
thousand years of endurance and hope. The Teutons gave us a healthy,
sturdy, uncontaminated physique, honest bodies and clean minds, the lack
of which had made further progress impossible to the ancient world.

This last is what made necessary the barbarian overthrow of Rome, if the
world was still to advance. The slowly progressing knowledge of the arts
and handicrafts which we have seen passed down from Egypt to Babylonia,
to Persia, Greece, and Rome, had not been acquired without heavy loss.
The system of slavery which allowed the few to think, while the many
were constrained to toil as beasts, had eaten like a canker into the
heart of society. The Roman world was repeating the oft-told tale of the
past, and sinking into the lifeless formalism of which Egy