But, oh! of Nature's lovely masterpiece, The face of Woman, let such tongues be dumb! Thus to blaspheme the sweetest gifts that come A soul of beauty, whose fine powers impart Y. LONDON MAGAZINE. No. XV.-June, 1829. WASHINGTON IRVING'S CONQUEST OF GRANADA*. THE domination of the Moors in Spain forms a subject of the highest interest; and it is one which has not, we think, received the attention in this country that it deserves. Few have any idea of the degree of civilization, in nearly every branch, which prevailed among them, especially during the period that their government was seated at Cordova. All the arts, fine and useful-science both abstract and practical— literature of every class-flourished there to an extraordinary extent; and, which is more valuable still, the security, nay, the comfort, of their daily life was carried to a pitch almost equal to that which prevails in many of the most civilized countries of our own times. We regret that there is not in our language any due account of this wonderful people. Their prowess in war has been shared by all nations in all ages; but their knowledge and cultivation of the arts of peace have been possessed by few. It is to us a perfect enigma how Cordova could have been what it was during the tenth century, before the invention of printing had given the human mind the power of speedy inter-communication. All the rest of Europe was sunk in the most brutal barbarism. War alone was cared for :-the noble classes ruled everything solely with a view to their own interests-the people were treated like animals or machines, existing merely for their behoofwhile Ignorance, the darkest and most dense, reigned over all. And how was it at this time in the Moorish dominions in Spain ?— We will set before our readers a picture of them towards the close of the tenth century. We translate it from Señor Conde's highly-learned and at the same time most interestingly and picturesquely written 'History of the Dominion of the Arabs in Spaint.' It is a sort of précis of the character and actions of Alhakem II., who died in the year of the Hegira 366.—A. D. 976. A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada.' By Fray Antonio Agapida.Carey, Lea, and Carey, Philadelphia: 1829.-This work is also announced by Mr. Murray; but the possession of an early American copy enables us to give our readers some account of the book before—or at least as soon as-its publication in this country. They are ordinarily called Moors, from the Spaniards having given them that name on account of their having come into their country from Africa. But they were really Arabs-and Señor Conde has entitled his book accordingly. In it, however, he nearly always calls them Muzlimes, which we translate Moslems. Its Arabic derivation shows that it signifies" followers of Islam"-the original appellation given by the Mahometans to the Almighty. 20 JUNE, 1829. After giving an account of the manner in which this prince educated his son and successor, drawing round him all the most learned men of the time, Señor Conde proceeds thus:-" The King Alhakem was a great lover of peace, and had caused it to be kept with the Christians much against the will of some of his Walis [governors, chieftains] of the frontier. It is told of him, that the counsels he was wont to give to his son, Hizem, concluded always by his saying to him Never make war without necessity: maintain peace for your happiness and that of your people-draw not your sword save against the unjust. What pleasure is there in invading and destroying the people, in ruining their property, and spreading waste and death through the confines of the land? Hold your people in peace and in justice, and be not dazzled by the false maxims of vanity. Let your justice be a lake always clear and pure. Moderate your views-put a curb on the impetuosity of your desires confide in God, and you will reach in serenity the appointed termination of your days!'" "He caused the people of his dominions to be enregistered; there were in [Moorish] Spain six great cities, the capitals of provinces, eighty of large population-three hundred of the third class, and the villages, hamlets, forts, and farm-homesteads, were innumerable. In the country watered by the Guadalquivir alone there were twelve thousand of them. It is said that Cordova contained two hundred thousand houses, six hundred mosques, five hundred hospitals and charitable houses, eight hundred public schools, and nine hundred baths for the commonalty*. The revenues of the state were worth, each year, twelve millions of mitcales of gold, without counting the taxes upon silk, which were paid in kind. The mines of gold, silver, and other metals, were improved very much, both those of the king and of private persons. There were also mines of precious stonestwo of rubies, in Beja and Malaga. There were fisheries of coral on the coast of Andalusia, and of pearls on that of Tarragona, In the long peace that King Alhakem maintained, he encouraged agriculture in all the provinces of Spain. Canals were cut in the plains of Granada, Murcia, Valencia, and Arragon. Pools or lakes, also, were constructed for irrigation; and plantations were made of every kind suited to the heat and the climate of those provinces. In short, this good king turned spears and swords into spades and ploughshares, and changed the warlike and restless Moslems into peaceful husbandmen and shepherds t." The cultivation of the earth was carried to the very highest pitchand we are indebted to the Moors for the introduction into Europe of many of its valuable plants and seeds. Their manufactures, also, and commerce were in a state the most flourishing. Their leather, their linens, their cottons, their woollens, above all their silks, were admirable. Their armis, also, were of the finest workmanship. Their commerce lay chiefly in the Levant, where, especially at Constantinople, their silks were held in the highest estimation. Literature also throve exceedingly. The reign of this very prince It is elsewhere said by Señor Conde, that Cordova at this time contained a million of inhabitants. † Conde, Vol. I. pp. 486, 487. was peculiarly distinguished by the great number of men of learning and of genius at his court. Much of their poetry has been preserved; and, to judge by the Spanish translations, it combines archness, vivacity, tenderness, pathos, and force. To their works of science all the moderns are confessedly indebted. But what was more valuable, even than all these, was the attention that was paid to the strictest justice being administered between man and man, whether equals, or prince on one side and peasant on the other. They tell, indeed, a curious anecdote, to this effect, of our friend King Alhakem. He was desirous of adding a pavilion to the gardens of his country-palace, and in consequence caused application to be made to the proprietor of the adjoining ground, to purchase it. The man refused, upon which the king's agents possessed themselves of the field by force, and built the pavilion. The owner went and complained to the Cadi of Cordova, who received the accusation, and promised redress: he set off at once for Azhara, the palace in question, and found the king occupying his new pavilion. He dismounted from his horse, and, advancing towards Alhakem, begged permission to fill with earth a sack he had brought with him. The king, who guessed he must have a hidden meaning, assented. It was a large sack, and when full, the cadi begged Alhakem to help him to put it upon his horse. He complied-but found it so heavy he could scarcely raise it from the ground. The cadi then said to him-" Prince of the faithful, this sack, which thou canst not lift, contains only a small portion of the field which thou hast usurped. How then shalt thou support the weight of this whole field, when thou shalt be called upon to appear before the Great Judge of all ?" Alhakem thanked the cadi for his noble lesson, and gave up to the owner the field, together with the pavilion and all the riches it contained. This anecdote proves more than a sudden impulse of compassionate repentance. It shews that the cadi could trust to the sense of justice in the king, not only for his own safety, but also for redress of the wrong of which he complained. During the whole, indeed, of this period of the Moorish dynasty, justice was most unfailingly admi nistered. There was another virtue, also, constantly in practice by this extraordinary people, which is the very last for which we should have given them credit, and from the total absence of which in the Spaniards they afterwards suffered so awfully. We mean Religious Toleration. They never interfered with the worship of those Christians-and there were many-who remained within their territories. On the contrary, they treated them with kindness and respect. We have just noted, briefly, these qualities of the Moors, that our readers may perceive that they are not a people to be lightly considered; but that, on the contrary, they are probably one of the most admirable, as well as extraordinary, of which we have any record. Look at Spain in the nineteenth century, and compare it with Spain in the tenth, and, in every item which forms part of civilization, the latter-named era is transcendantly the superior. We would that our limits would suffer us to make this fact uncontrovertibly apparent to our readers; for the little that is generally known of this race has, till within these very few years, been drawn wholly from Spanish sources-and therefore the Moors have never received impartial treatment. The old Castilian Monkish chroniclers have had all the feelings of nationality, of servility, and of bigotry, to guide their narrations. They ever laud the Spanish name, and the king for the time being, at the expense of the vile misbelievers, Mahound, as they termed all Moslems generically. Señor Conde, on the contrary, has had recourse to the Arabic writers also, which has enabled him to form a very impartial judgment. How he represents the Moors we have already shewn. For this, and we think many other, reasons, we cannot but consider it exceedingly ill-judged of Mr. Irving to throw aside his own character, and adopt the masquerade costume of the Fray Antonio Agapida, to narrate the conquest of Granada! We have shewn enough of the Moors, limited as our exposition has necessarily been, to prove that the awful extinction of such a people well merits to be spoken of in earnest, and not under a mountebank disguise, which must necessitate the sacrifice of soundness, simplicity, and truth, to an adherence to the fantastic character of the supposed narrator. Mr. Irving's work, of by far the greatest merit, though not, in this country at least, of the greatest success, is the ' History of New York, by Diedrick Knickerbocker.' To shew the queer manners of the early settlers, some such vehicle as that of the sententious burgher was highly advantageous. No one could know so well, and therefore no one could so aptly represent, the modes of living and thinking of his fellow-citizens around him. But a Castilian monk was the very last person in existence who could know anything in the world of the Arabs of Granada. Of their manners, habits, thoughts, and feelings, he must be of necessity in the most absolute ignorance; and, even for the events of the war, it is manifest he must be indebted wholly to the reports of the warriors on one side. Mr. Irving certainly has achieved the merit of writing in the tone in which such a person would write,—namely, incorrectly as to fact, with the most egregious partiality as to party. Mr. Irving has the honesty, however, to expose this in his very introduction that is, having read his work, we perceive, on recurring to the preface, the traces of those evil principles which we hope to lay bare to our readers before we have done. By the slight sample we have given of what the Moors really were, they will be able to judge of the degree of justice with which a man can write concerning them, who quotes in the following expressions the opinion of a Spanish historian. "Estevan de Garibay, one of the most distinguished among the Spanish historians, regards the war as a special act of divine clemency towards the Moors; to the end that those barbarians and infidels, who had dragged out so many centuries under the diabolical oppression of the absurd sect of Mahomet, should at length be reduced to the Christian faith." In We fear, alas! that in many ages, and among many sects, the corruptions thrust into the stream of Christianity have rendered it wholly different from that which sprang from its pure and holy source. those days, certainly, the Christians of Spain were wholly inferior to the Moslems. Since then, the means of the propagation of re |