the temporal and spiritual fatigues of his mission. His epileptic fits,
an absurd calumny of the Greeks, would be an object of pity rather than
abhorrence; but he seriously believed that he was poisoned at Chaibar by
the revenge of a Jewish female. During four years the health of the
prophet declined; his infirmities increased; but his mortal disease was
a fever of fourteen days which deprived him by intervals of the use of
reason. As soon as he was conscious of his danger, he edified his
brethren by the humility of his virtue or penitence. "If there be any
man," said the apostle from the pulpit, "whom I have unjustly scourged,
I submit my own back to the lash of retaliation. Have I aspersed the
reputation of a Mussulman? let him proclaim _my_ thoughts in the face of
the congregation. Has any one been despoiled of his goods? the little
that I possess shall compensate the principal and the interest of the
debt." "Yes," replied a voice from the crowd, "I am entitled to three
drams of silver." Mahomet heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and
thanked his creditor for accusing him in this world rather than at the
day of judgment. He beheld with temperate firmness the approach of
death; enfranchised his slaves (seventeen men, as they are named, and
eleven women), minutely directed the order of his funeral, and moderated
the lamentations of his weeping friends, on whom he bestowed the
benediction of peace. Till the third day before his death, he regularly
performed the function of public prayer: the choice of Abubeker to
supply his place appeared to mark that ancient and faithful friend as
his successor in the sacerdotal and regal office; but he prudently
declined the risk and envy of a more explicit nomination. At a moment
when his faculties were visibly impaired, he called for pen and ink to
write, or more properly, to dictate, a Divine book, the sum and
accomplishment of all his revelations: a dispute arose in the chamber
whether he should be allowed to supersede the authority of the Koran,
and the prophet was forced to reprove the indecent vehemence of his
disciples. If the slightest credit may be afforded to the traditions of
his wives and companions, he maintained, in the bosom of his family, and
to the last moments of his life, the dignity of an apostle and the faith
of an enthusiast; described the visits of Gabriel, who bade an
everlasting farewell to the earth, and expressed his lively confidence
not only of the mercy but of the favor of the Supreme Being. In a
familiar discourse he had mentioned his special prerogative, that the
angel of death was not allowed to take his soul till he had respectfully
asked the permission of the prophet. The request was granted; and
Mahomet immediately fell into the agony of his dissolution: his head was
reclined on the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of all his wives; he
fainted with the violence of pain; recovering his spirits, he raised his
eyes towards the roof of the house, and with a steady look, though a
faltering voice, uttered the last broken though articulate words:--"O
God! ... pardon my sins ... Yes ... I come ... among my fellow-citizens
on high;" and thus peaceably expired on a carpet spread upon the floor.
An expedition for the conquest of Syria was stopped by this mournful
event: the army halted at the gates of Medina, the chiefs were assembled
round their dying master. The city, more especially the house, of the
prophet, was a scene of clamorous sorrow or silent despair: fanaticism
alone could suggest a ray of hope and consolation. "How can he be
dead--our witness, our intercessor, our mediator with God? By God, he is
not dead: like Moses and Jesus, he is wrapped in a holy trance, and
speedily will he return to his faithful people." The evidence of sense
was disregarded, and Omar, unsheathing his cimeter, threatened to strike
off the heads of the infidels who should dare to affirm that the prophet
was no more. The tumult was appeased by the weight and moderation of
Abubeker. "Is it Mahomet," said he to Omar and the multitude, "or the
God of Mahomet, whom you worship? The God of Mahomet liveth forever; but
the apostle was a mortal like ourselves, and according to his own
prediction, he has experienced the common fate of mortality." He was
piously interred by the hands of his nearest kinsman, on the same spot
on which he expired. Medina has been sanctified by the death and burial
of Mahomet, and the innumerable pilgrims of Mecca often turn aside from
the way, to bow in voluntary devotion before the simple tomb of the
prophet.
At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet it may perhaps be expected that
I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should decide whether
the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that
extraordinary man. Had I been intimately conversant with the son of
Abdallah, the task would still be difficult and the success uncertain:
at the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade
through a cloud of religious incense; and could I truly delineate the
portrait of an hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to
the solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the
conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to have
been endowed with a pious and contemplative disposition; so soon as
marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he avoided the paths
of ambition and avarice; and till the age of forty he lived with
innocence, and would have died without a name. The unity of God is an
idea most congenial to nature and reason; and a slight conversation with
the Jews and Christians would teach him to despise and detest the
idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the
doctrine of salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin
and error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object
would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the warm
suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt as the
inspirations of Heaven; the labor of thought would expire in rapture and
vision; and the inward sensation, the invisible monitor, would be
described with the form and attributes of an angel of God. From
enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery: the daemon of
Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive
himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may
slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary
fraud. Charity may believe that the original motives of Mahomet were
those of pure and genuine benevolence; but a human missionary is
incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers who reject his claims,
despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he might forgive his
personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the enemies of God; the stern
passions of pride and revenge were kindled in the bosom of Mahomet, and
he sighed, like the prophet of Nineveh, for the destruction of the
rebels whom he had condemned. The injustice of Mecca and the choice of
Medina transformed the citizen into a prince, the humble preacher into
the leader of armies; but his sword was consecrated by the example of
the saints, and the same God who afflicts a sinful world with pestilence
and earthquakes might inspire for their conversion or chastisement the
valor of his servants. In the exercise of political government, he was
compelled to abate of the stern rigor of fanaticism, to comply in some
measure with the prejudices and passions of his followers, and to employ
even the vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The use
of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, were often subservient
to the propagation of the faith; and Mahomet commanded or approved the
assassination of the Jews and idolaters who had escaped from the field
of battle. By the repetition of such acts the character of Mahomet must
have been gradually stained; and the influence of such pernicious habits
would be poorly compensated by the practice of the personal and social
virtues which are necessary to maintain the reputation of a prophet
among his sectaries and friends. Of his last years, ambition was the
ruling passion; and a politician will suspect that he secretly smiled
(the victorious impostor!) at the enthusiasm of his youth and the
credulity of his proselytes. A philosopher will observe that _their_
credulity and _his_ success would tend more strongly to fortify the
assurance of his Divine mission; that his interest and religion were
inseparately connected; and that his conscience would be soothed by the
persuasion that he alone was absolved by the Deity from the obligation
of positive and moral laws. If he retained any vestige of his native
innocence, the sins of Mahomet may be allowed as an evidence of his
sincerity. In the support of truth, the arts of fraud and fiction may be
deemed less criminal; and he would have started at the foulness of the
means, had he not been satisfied of the importance and justice of the
end. Even in a conqueror or a priest, I can surprise a word or action of
unaffected humanity; and the decree of Mahomet that in the sale of
captives the mothers should never be separated from their children, may
suspend or moderate the censure of the historian.
The good sense of Mahomet despised the pomp of royalty; the apostle of
God submitted to the menial offices of the family; he kindled the fire,
swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended with his own hands his
shoes and his woolen garment. Disdaining the penance and merit of a
hermit, he observed, without effort or vanity, the abstemious diet of an
Arab and a soldier. On solemn occasions he feasted his companions with
rustic and hospitable plenty; but in his domestic life, many weeks would
elapse without a fire being kindled on the hearth of the prophet. The
interdiction of wine was confirmed by his example; his hunger was
appeased with a sparing allowance of barley bread; he delighted in the
taste of milk and honey, but his ordinary food consisted of dates and
water. Perfumes and women were the two sensual enjoyments which his
nature required and his religion did not forbid; and Mahomet affirmed
that the fervor of his devotion was increased by these innocent
pleasures. The heat of the climate inflames the blood of the Arabs, and
their libidinous complexion has been noticed by the writers of
antiquity. Their incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious
laws of the Koran; their incestuous alliances were blamed; the boundless
license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or concubines:
their rights both of bed and of dowry were equitably determined; the
freedom of divorce was discouraged; adultery was condemned as a capital
offense; and fornication in either sex was punished with a hundred
stripes. Such were the calm and rational precepts of the legislator, but
in his private conduct Mahomet indulged the appetites of a man and
abused the claims of a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him from
the laws which he had imposed on his nation: the female sex, without
reserve, was abandoned to his desires; and this singular prerogative
excited the envy rather than the scandal, the veneration rather than the
envy, of the devout Mussulmans. If we remember the seven hundred wives
and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall applaud the
modesty of the Arabian, who espoused no more than seventeen or fifteen
wives; eleven are enumerated, who occupied at Medina their separate
apartments round the house of the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns
the favor of his conjugal society. What is singular enough, they were
all widows, excepting only Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker. _She_ was
doubtless a virgin, since Mahomet consummated his nuptials (such is the
premature ripeness of the climate) when she was only nine years of age.
The youth, the beauty, the spirit of Ayesha gave her a superior
ascendant; she was beloved and trusted by the prophet, and after his
death the daughter of Abubeker was long revered as the mother of the
faithful. Her behavior had been ambiguous and indiscreet; in a nocturnal
march she was accidentally left behind, and in the morning Ayesha
returned to the camp with a man. The temper of Mahomet was inclined to
jealousy; but a Divine revelation assured him of her innocence: he
chastised her accusers, and published a law of domestic peace, that no
woman should be condemned unless four male witnesses had seen her in the
act of adultery. In his adventures with Zeineb the wife of Zeid, and
with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet forgot the interest
of his reputation. At the house of Zeid, his freedman and adopted son,
he beheld in a loose undress the beauty of Zeineb, and burst forth into
an ejaculation of devotion and desire. The servile, or grateful,
freedman understood the hint, and yielded without hesitation to the love
of his benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some doubt and
scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from heaven to ratify the deed, to
annul the adoption, and gently to reprove the apostle for distrusting
the indulgence of his God. One of his wives, Hafna the daughter of Omar,
surprised him on her own bed, in the embraces of his Egyptian captive:
she promised secrecy and forgiveness; he swore that he would renounce
the possession of Mary. Both parties forgot their engagements; and
Gabriel again descended with a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from
his oath and to exhort him freely to enjoy his captives and concubines,
without listening to the clamors of his wives. In a solitary retreat of
thirty days, he labored, alone with Mary, to fulfill the commands of the
angel. When his love and revenge were satiated, he summoned to his
presence his eleven wives, reproached their disobedience and
indiscretion, and threatened them with a sentence of divorce, both in
this world and in the next; a dreadful sentence, since those who had
ascended the bed of the prophet were forever excluded from the hope of a
second marriage. Perhaps the incontinence of Mahomet may be palliated by
the tradition of his natural or preternatural gifts; he united the manly
virtue of thirty of the children of Adam; and the apostle might rival
the thirteenth labor of the Grecian Hercules. A more serious and decent
excuse may be drawn from his fidelity to Cadijah. During the twenty-four
years of their marriage, her youthful husband abstained from the right
of polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was
never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death he placed her
in the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister of Moses, the
mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of his daughters. "Was she
not old?" said Ayesha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty: "has not
God given you a better in her place?" "No, by God," said Mahomet, with
an effusion of honest gratitude, "there never can be a better! She
believed in me when men despised me; she relieved my wants when I was
poor and persecuted by the world."
THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY
I should deceive the expectation of the reader if I passed in silence
the fate of the Alexandrian library as it is described by the learned
Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou was more curious and liberal than
that of his brethren, and in his leisure hours the Arabian chief was
pleased with the conversation of John, the last disciple of Ammonius,
and who derived the surname of _Philoponus_ from his laborious studies
of grammar and philosophy. Emboldened by this familiar intercourse,
Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in _his_ opinion,
contemptible in that of the Barbarians--the royal library, which alone
among the spoils of Alexandria had not been appropriated by the visit
and the seal of the conqueror. Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of
the grammarian, but his rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest
object without the consent of the caliph; and the well-known answer of
Omar was inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic: "If these writings of
the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not be
preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be
destroyed." The sentence was executed with blind obedience, the volumes
of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand baths of the
city; and such was their incredible multitude, that six months were
barely sufficient for the consumption of this precious fuel. Since the
Dynasties of Abulpharagius have been given to the world in a Latin
version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every scholar,
with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable shipwreck of the
learning, the arts, and the genius, of antiquity. For my own part, I am
strongly tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences. The fact is
indeed marvelous. "Read and wonder!" says the historian himself; and the
solitary report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six hundred years
on the confines of Media is overbalanced by the silence of two annalists
of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of Egypt, and the
most ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the
conquest of Alexandria. The rigid sentence of Omar is repugnant to the
sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists: they expressly
declare that the religious books of the Jews and Christians which are
acquired by the right of war should never be committed to the flames;
and that the works of profane science, historians or poets, physicians
or philosophers, may be lawfully applied to the use of the faithful. A
more destructive zeal may perhaps be attributed to the first successors
of Mahomet; yet in this instance, the conflagration would have speedily
expired in the deficiency of materials. I shall not recapitulate the
disasters of the Alexandrian library, the involuntary flame that was
kindled by Caesar in his own defense, or the mischievous bigotry of the
Christians, who studied to destroy the monuments of idolatry. But if we
gradually descend from the age of the Antonines to that of Theodosius,
we shall learn from a chain of contemporary witnesses that the royal
palace and the temple of Serapis no longer contained the four, or the
seven, hundred thousand volumes which had been assembled by the
curiosity and magnificence of the Ptolemies. Perhaps the church and seat
of the patriarchs might be enriched with a repository of books; but if
the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed
consumed in the public baths, a philosopher may allow, with a smile,
that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind. I sincerely
regret the more valuable libraries which have been involved in the ruin
of the Roman Empire; but when I seriously compute the lapse of ages, the
waste of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures, rather
than our losses, are the objects of my surprise. Many curious and
interesting facts are buried in oblivion; the three great historians of
Rome have been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are
deprived of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and
dramatic poetry of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember that
the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic works to
which the suffrage of antiquity had adjudged the first place of genius
and glory; the teachers of ancient knowledge who are still extant had
perused and compared the writings of their predecessors; nor can it
fairly be presumed that any important truth, any useful discovery in art
or nature, has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.
[Illustration: _RUINED ROME._
From a Photograph.
TEMPLE OF ROMULUS
BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE
COLOSSEUM
ARCH OF TITUS]
THE FINAL RUIN OF ROME
In the last days of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, two of his servants, the
learned Poggius and a friend, ascended the Capitoline Hill, reposed
themselves among the ruins of columns and temples, and viewed from that
commanding spot the wide and various prospect of desolation. The place
and the object gave ample scope for moralizing on the vicissitudes of
fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which
buries empires and cities in a common grave; and it was agreed that in
proportion to her former greatness the fall of Rome was the more awful
and deplorable. "Her primeval state, such as she might appear in a
remote age, when Evander entertained the stranger of Troy, has been
delineated by the fancy of Virgil. This Tarpeian Rock was then a savage
and solitary thicket; in the time of the poet it was crowned with the
golden roofs of a temple; the temple is overthrown, the gold has been
pillaged, the wheel of fortune has accomplished her revolution, and the
sacred ground is again disfigured with thorns and brambles. The hill of
the Capitol, on which we sit, was formerly the head of the Roman Empire,
the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings; illustrated by the
footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched with the spoils and tributes of
so many nations. This spectacle of the world, how is it fallen! how
changed! how defaced! The path of victory is obliterated by vines, and
the benches of the senators are concealed by a dunghill. Cast your eyes
on the Palatine Hill, and seek among the shapeless and enormous
fragments the marble theatre, the obelisks, the colossal statues, the
porticos of Nero's palace; survey the other hills of the city,--the
vacant space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens. The Forum of the
Roman people, where they assembled to enact their laws and elect their
magistrates, is now inclosed for the cultivation of pot-herbs, or thrown
open for the reception of swine and buffaloes. The public and private
edifices that were founded for eternity lie prostrate, naked, and
broken, like the limbs of a mighty giant; and the ruin is the more
visible, from the stupendous relics that have survived the injuries of
time and fortune."
These relics are minutely described by Poggius, one of the first who
raised his eyes from the monuments of legendary to those of classic
superstition. 1. Besides a bridge, an arch, a sepulchre, and the
pyramid of Cestius, he could discern, of the age of the republic, a
double row of vaults in the salt office of the Capitol, which were
inscribed with the name and munificence of Catulus. 2. Eleven temples
were visible in some degree, from the perfect form of the Pantheon to
the three arches and a marble column of the temple of Peace which
Vespasian erected after the civil wars and the Jewish triumph. 3. Of the
number which he rashly defines, of seven _thermae_, or public baths, none
were sufficiently entire to represent the use and distribution of the
several parts; but those of Diocletian and Antoninus Caracalla still
retained the titles of the founders and astonished the curious spectator
who in observing their solidity and extent, the variety of marbles, the
size and multitude of the columns, compared the labor and expense with
the use and importance. Of the baths of Constantine, of Alexander, of
Domitian, or rather of Titus, some vestige might yet be found. 4. The
triumphal arches of Titus, Severus, and Constantine were entire, both
the structure and the inscriptions; a falling fragment was honored with
the name of Trajan; and two arches then extant in the Flaminian Way have
been ascribed to the baser memory of Faustina and Gallienus. 5. After
the wonder of the Coliseum, Poggius might have overlooked a small
amphitheatre of brick, most probably for the use of the praetorian camp;
the theatres of Marcellus and Pompey were occupied in a great measure by
public and private buildings; and in the Circus, Agonalis and Maximus,
little more than the situation and the form could be investigated. 6.
The columns of Trajan and Antonine were still erect; but the Egyptian
obelisks were broken or buried. A people of gods and heroes, the
workmanship of art, was reduced to one equestrian figure of gilt brass
and to five marble statues, of which the most conspicuous were the two
horses of Phidias and Praxiteles. 7. The two mausoleums or sepulchres of
Augustus and Hadrian could not totally be lost; but the former was only
visible as a mound of earth, and the latter, the castle of St. Angelo,
had acquired the name and appearance of a modern fortress. With the
addition of some separate and nameless columns, such were the remains of
the ancient city; for the marks of a more recent structure might be
detected in the walls, which formed a circumference of ten miles,
included three hundred and seventy-nine turrets, and opened into the
country by thirteen gates.