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least oppression in their doings; until finally they
collected into a nation, worshipping pleasure and
bent upon worldliness ; then arose concealment of
truth from the people, union by the strength of
parentage, combination by fraud, and enveigling by
means of enchantment and the like, by which idiots
were drawn into a net. When those who implored
protection were seized by the oppressors, helpless,
the prudent among them bent down their heads;
because when the strong become masters of the day,
men submit to them on account of their being supe-
rior to the weak people, who have timid souls; thus
they accepted their dominion by force, and conten-
tion ensued in the world. Moises was held to be
an enchanter, and called rdbi Moises; rabi being the
name given by the Jews to the learned; Jesus was
accounted a physician, and entitled Hakim Jesus,
son of Joseph, the carpenter; Muhammed bore the
name of " the prophet of God, the king of the Ara-
" bian poets ;"1 Krishna went under the name of

1 ^f ^j3^ oXL>. This is not quite correct: Muhammed
introduces in his Koran (ch. XXXVI. v. 69) the Lord saying: " We have
" not taught Muhammed the art of poetry; nor is it expedient for him
" to be a poet. This book is no other than an admonition from God,
" and a perspicuous Koran." The Arabian prophet, according to the
best accounts, liked to hear poetry read, but never perused any himself,
although he frequently spoke in the metre called ics.. rijex. The only

Arabic yerse which he often repeated was the celebrated one from the
poem of Lebid: