\
'
LIFE
OLIYER GOLDSMITH,
BY
WASHINGTON IRVING,
CHICAGO
BELFORD-CLARKE CO.
PUBLISHERS
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3^
2 7
BR/ \
i 2 3 1965 ])
1002081
PREFACE.
IN the course of a revised edition of my works I have como
to a biographical sketch of Goldsmith, published several years
since. It was written hastily, as introductory to a selection
from his writings ; and, though the facts contained in it were
collected from various sources, I was chiefly indebted for them
to the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, who had collected
and collated the most minute particulars of the poet's history
with unwearied research and scrupulous fidelity ; but had ren
dered them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid
with details and disquisitions, and matters uninteresting to the
general reader.
When I was about of late to revise my biographical sketch,
preparatory to republication, a volume was put into my hands,
recently given to the public by Mr. John Forster, of the Inner
Temple, who, likewise availing himself of the labors of the in
defatigable Prior, and of a few new lights since evolved, has
produced a biography of the poet, executed with a spirit, a
feeling, a grace and an eloquence, that leave nothing to be de
sired. Indeed it would have been presumption in me to under
take the subject after it had been thus felicitously treated, did
I not stand committed by my previous sketch. That sketch
now appeared too meagre and insufficient to satisfy public de
mand ; yet it had to take its place in the revised series of my
works unless something more satisfactory could be substituted.
Under these circumstances I have again taken up the subject^
and gone into it with more fulness than formerly, omitting
none of the facts which I considered illustrative of the lif e and
character of the poet, and giving them in as graphic a style as
I could command. Still the hurried manner in which I have
had to do this amidst the pressure of other claims on my atten
tion, and with the press dogging at my heels, has prevented
me from giving some parts of the subject the thorough han
dling I could have wished. Those who would like to see it
4 PREFACE.
treated still more at large, with the addition of critical disqui
sitions and the advantage of collateral facts, would do well to
refer themselves to Mr. Prior's circumstantial volumes, or to
the elegant and discursive pages of Mr. Forster.
For my own part, I can only regret my short-comings in
what to me is a labor of love ; for it is a tribute of gratitude to
the memory of an author whose writings were the delight of
my childhood, and have been a source of enjoyment to me
throughout life ; and to whom, of all others, I may address the
beautiful apostrophe of Dante to Virgil :
Tu se1 lo mio maestro, e '1 mio autore:
Tu se1 solo colui, da cu' io tolsi
Lo bello stile, che m' ha fato onore.
W.L
SUNNYSIDE. Aug. 1, 1S4&,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
CONTENTS.
PAOK
PREFJLCK 3
CHAPTER I.
Birth and parentage. — Characteristics of the Goldsmith race. — Poetical birth
place. — Goblin house. — Scenes of boyhood. — Lissoy. — Picture of a country par-
s. >n. — Goldsmith's schoolmistress. — Byrne, the village schoolmaster. — Gold
smith's hornpipe and epigram.— Uncle Contarine.— School studies and school
sports.— Mistakes of a night 11
CHAPTER H.
Improvident marriages in the Goldsmith family.— Goldsmith at the University.
—Situation of a sizer.— Tyranny of Wilder, the tutor.— Pecuniary straits.—
Street ballads.— College riots.— Gallows Walsh.— College prize.— A dance inter
rupted 20
CHAPTER HI.
Goldsmith rejected by the bishop.— Second sally to see the world.— Takes pas
sage for America.— Ship sails without him.— Return on Fiddle-back.— A hos
pitable friend. — The counsellor 80
CHAPTER IV.
Sallies forth as * law student.— Stumbles at the outset.— Cousin Jane and the
valentine.— A family oracle.— Sallies forth as a student of medicine.— Hocus-
pocus of a boardingrhouse.— Transformations of a leg of mutton.— The mock
ghost.— Sketches of Scotland.— Trials of Toryism.— A poet's purse for a Conti
nental tour 35
CHAPTER V.
The agreeable fellow-passengers.— Risks from friends picked up by the wayside.
—Sketches of Holland and the Dutch.— Shifts while a poor student at Leyden.
—The tulip speculation.— The provident flute.— Sojourn at Paris.— Sketch of
Voltaire.— Travelling shifts of a philosophic vagabond 44
6 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
PAOfi
Landing in England.— Shifts of a man without money. — The pestle and mortar.
— Theatricals in a barn. — Launch upon London. — A city night scene. — Strug
gles with penury. — Miseries of a tutor. — A doctor in the suburb. — Poor
practice and second-hand finery. — A tragedy in embryo. —Project of the
written mountains 62
CHAPTER VH.
Life of a pedagogue. — Kindness to schoolboys — pertness in return. — Expensive
charities.— The Griffiths and the " Monthly Review."— Toils of a literary hack.
— Rupture with the Griffiths §7
CHAPTER VHI.
Newbery, of picture-book memory.— How to keep up appearances.— Miseries
of authorship.— A poor relation.— Letter to Hodson 00
CHAPTER IX.
Hackney authorship. — Thoughts of literary suicide. — Return to Peckham. —
Oriental projects. — Literary enterprise to raise funds. — Letter to Edward
Wells — to Robert Bryanton. — Death of Uncle Contarine. — Letter to Cousin
Jane 65
CHAPTER X.
Oriental appointment— and disappointment.— Examination at the College of
Surgeons.— How to procure a suit of clothes.— Fresh disappointment.— A tale
of distress.— The suit as clothes in pawn.— Punishment for doing an act of
charity.— Gayeties of Green -Arbor Court.— Letter to his brother.— Life of Vol
taire.— Scroggins, an attempt at mock heroic poetry 72
CHAPTER XI.
Publication of "The Inquiry."— Attacked by Griffith's Review.— Kenrick, the
literary Ishmaelite.— Periodical literature.— Goldsmith's essays.— Garrick as a
manager.— Smollett and his schemes.— Change of lodgings.— The Robin Hood
Club : 83
CHAPTER XII.
New lodgings.— Visits of ceremony.— Hangers-on.— Pilkington and the white
mouse.— Introduction to Dr. Johnson.— Davies and his bookshop.— Pretty Mrs.
Davies.— Foote and his projects.— Criticism of the cudgel 88
CHAPTER XIH.
Oriental projects.— Literary jobs —The Cherokee chiefs.— Merry Islington and
the White Conduit House.— Letters on the History of England.— James Bos-
well.— Dinner of Davies.— Anecdotes of Johnson and Goldsmith »i
CHAPTER XIV.
Hogarth a visitor at Islington— his character.— Street studies.— Sympathies be
tween authors and painters.— Sir Joshua Reynolds— his character— his dinner*.
—The Literary Club— its members.— Johnson's reveU with Lanky and Beau.-*
Goldsmith at the club . 99
CONTENTS, 7
CHAPTER XV.
MM
Johnson a monitor to Goldsmith— finds him in distress with his landlady— re
lieved by the Vicar of Wakefleld.— The oratorio.— Poein of the Traveller.—
The poet and his dog.— Success of the poem.— Astonishment of the c4ub.— Ob
servations on the poem 1(X»
CHAPTER XVI.
New lodgings.— Johnson's compliment.— A titled patron.— The poet at Northum
berland House.— His independence of the great.— The Countess of Northum
berland.— Edwin and Angelina.— Gosford and Lord Clare.— Publication of
Essays. — Evils of a rising reputation. — Hangers-on. — Job writing. — Goody -
Two-shoes.— A medical campaign.— Mrs. Sidebotham Ill
CHAPTER XVII.
Publication of the Vicar of Wakefleld — opinions concerning It — of Dr. Johnson
—of Rogers the poet— of Goethe— its merits.— Exquisite extract.— Attack by
Kenrick.— Reply.— Book-building.— Project of a comedy lit
CHAPTER XVIII.
Social condition of Goldsmith— his colloquial contests with Johnson.— Anecdotes
and illustrations... 123
CHAPTER XIX.
Social resorts.— The shilling whist club.— A practical Joke.— The Wednesday
club.— The " tun of man."— The pig butcher.— Tom King.— Hugh Kelly.—
Glover and his characteristics 128
CHAPTER XX.
The Great Cham of literature and the King —Scene at Sir Joshua Reynolds'.—
Goldsmith accused of jealousy.— Negotiations with Garrick.— The author and
the actor — their correspondence 131
CHAPTER XXI.
More hack authorship. — Tom Davies and the Roman History. — Canonbury Cas
tle.— Political authorship.— Pecuniary temptation.— Death of Newbery th«
elder 13»
CHAPTER XXII.
Theatrical manosuvring.— The comedy of "False Delicacy."— First perform
ance of "The Good-natured Man."— Conduct of Johnson.— Conduct of the
author— Intermeddling of the press IV
CHAPTER XXIBL
Burning the candle at both ends. — Fine apartments. — Fine furniture. — Fine
clothes.— Fine acquaintances.— Shoemaker's holiday and jolly pigeon asso
ciates.— Peter Barlow, Glover, and the Hampstead hoax.— Poor friends among
great acquaintances 143
CHAPTER XXIV.
Reduced again to book-building.— Rural retreat at Shoemaker's Paradise.—
Death of Henry Goldsmith— tributes to his memory in the Deserted Village. . . 147
8 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXV.
PAOK
Dinner at Bickerstaff's.— Hiffernan and his impecuniosity.— Kenrick's epigram.
Johnson's consolation.— Goldsmith's toilet.— The bloom-colored coat.— New
acquaintances.— The Hornecks.— A touch of poetry and passion.— The Jesse-
my Bride 149
CHAPTER XXVI.
Goldsmith in the Temple.— Judge Day and Grattan.— Labor and dissipation.—
Publication of the Roman History. — Opinions of it. — History of Animated
Nature.— Temple rookery.— Anecdotes of a spider 154
CHAPTER XXVII.
Honors at the Royal Academy. — Letter to lu's brother Maurice. — Family for
tunes. — Jane Contarine and the miniature. — Portraits and engravings. — School
associations.— Johnson and Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey 161
CHAPTER XXVHI.
Publication of the Deserted Village— notices and illustrations of it 166
CHAPTER YTTT
The poet among the ladies— description of his person and manners.— Expedition
to Paris with the Homeck family.— The traveller of twenty and the traveller
of forty .— Hickey, the special attorney.— An unlucky exploit 170
CHAPTER XXX.
Death of Goldsmith's mother.— Biography of Parnell.— Agreement with Daries
for the History of Rome.— Life of Bolingbroke.— The haunch of venison 178
CHAPTER XXXI.
Dinner at the Royal Academy.— The Rowley controversy.— Horace Walpole's
conduct to Chatterton.— Johnson at Redcliffe Church.— Goldsmith's History
of England. — Davies's— criticism. — Letter to Bennet Langton 181
CHAPTER XXXH.
Marriage of Little Comedy.— Goldsmith at Barton.— Practical jokes at the ex
pense of his toilet.— Amusements at Barton.— Aquatic misadventure 185
CHAPTER XXXTTT.
Dinner at General Oglethorpe's.— Anecdotes of the general. — Dispute about
duelling.— Ghost stories 188
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Mr. Joseph Cradock.— An author's confldings.— An amanuensis.— Life at Edge-
ware.— Goldsmith conjuring.— George Colman.— The Fantoccini 191
CHAPTER XXXV.
Broken health.— Dissipation and debts.— The Irish Widow.— Practical jokes.—
Scrub.— A misquoted pun.— Malagrida.— Goldsmith proved to be a fool.— Dis-
tress***l»miad-singers.— The poet at Ranleigh 198
CONTENTS. 9
CHAPTER XXXVI.
PAGE
Invitation to Christmas.— The spring-velvet coat.— The hay-making wig.— The
mischances of loo.— The fair culprit.— A dance with the Jessamy Bride 206
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Theatrical delays.— Negotiations with Colman.— Letter to Qarrick.— Croaking
of the manager.— Naming of the play.— She Stoops to Conquer.— Foote's
Primitive Puppet Show.— Piety on Pattens.— First performance of the come
dy.— Agitation of the author.— Success.— Colman squibbed out »f town 208
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A newspaper attack.— The Brans affray.— Johnson's comment 217
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Boswell in Holy -Week.— Dinner at Oglethorpe's.— Dinner at Paoli's.— The policy
of truth.— Goldsmith affects independence of royalty. — Paoli's compliment. —
Johnson's eulogium on the fiddle.— Question about suicide.— Boswell '• subser
viency 221
CHAPTER XL.
Changes in the Literary Club.— Johnson's objection to Qarrick.— Election of
Boswell 227
CHAPTER XLI.
Dinner at Dilly's.— Conversations on natural history.— Intermeddling of Boswell.
—Dispute about toleration.— Johnson's rebuff to Goldsmith — his apology .—
Man-worship.— Doctors Major and Minor.— A farewell visit 280
CHAPTER XLH.
Project of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.— Disappointment.— Negligent
Authorship.— Application for a pension.— Beattie's Essay on Truth.— Public
adulation.— A high-minded rebuke ? 283
CHAPTER XLIII.
Toil without hope.— The poet in the green-room—in the flower garden— at Vauat-
hall— dissipation without gayety.— Cradock in town— friendly sympathy— a
parting scene— an invitation to pleasure 280
CHAPTER XLIV.
return to drudgery— forced gayety— retreat to the country.— The poem of Re
taliation.— Portrait of Garrick— of Goldsmith— of Reynolds.— Illness of the
poet— his death.— Grief of his friends.— A last word respecting the Jessamy
Bride 248
CHAPTER XLV.
funeral.— The monument.— The epitapk.— Concluding reflection* ttO
OLIVER GOLDSMITH:
A BIOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE— CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GOLDSMITH
RACE — POETICAL BIRTHPLACE — GOBLIN HOUSE— SCENES OF BOY
HOOD— LISSOY— PICTURE OF A COUNTRY PARSON — GOLDSMITH'S
SCHOOLMISTRESS— BYRNE, THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER— GOLD
SMITH'S HORNPIPE AND EPIGRAM— UNCLE CONTARINE— SCHOOL
STUDIES AND SCHOOL SPORTS— MISTAKES OF A NIGHT.
THERE are few writers for whom the reader feels such per
sonal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so emi
nently possessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with
their writings. We read his«character in every page, and grow
into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless be
nevolence that beams throughout his works; the whimsical,
yet amiable views of human life and human nature ; the un
forced humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good
sense, and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melan
choly ; even the very nature of his mellow, and flowing, and
softly-tinted style, all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his
intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same
time that we admire the author. While the productions of
writers of loftier pretension and more sounding names are suf
fered to moulder on our shelves, those of Goldsmith are cher
ished and laid in our bosoms. We do not quote them with os
tentation, but they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tem
pers, and harmonize our thoughts ; they put us in good humor
12 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
with ourselves and with the world, and in so doing they make
us happier and better men.
An acquaintance with the private biography of Goldsmith
lets us into the secret of his gifted pages. We there discover
them to be little more than transcripts of his own heart and
picturings of his fortunes. There he shows himself the same
kind, artless, good-humored, excursive, sensible, whimsical, in
telligent being that he appears in his writings. Scarcely an
adventure or character is given in his works that may not be
traced to his own parti-colored story. Many of his most ludi
crous scenes and ridiculous incidents have been drawn from
his own blunders and mischances, and he seems really to have
been buffeted into almost every maxim imparted by him for
the instruction of his reader.
Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of November, 1728,
at the hamlet of Pallas, or Pallasmore, county of Longford, in
Ireland. He sprang from a respectable, but by no means a
thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit kindliness and
incompetency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from
generation to generation. Such was the case with the Gold
smiths. * ' They were always, " according to their own accounts,
"a strange family ; they rarely acted like other people; their
hearts were in the right place, but their heads seemed to be
doing anything but what they ought." — " They were remark
able," says another statement, "for their worth, but of no
cleverness in the ways of the world." Oliver Goldsmith will be
found faithfully to inherit the virtues and weaknesses of his
race.
His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with hereditary im
providence, married when very young and very poor, and
starved along for several years on a small country curacy and
the assistance of his wife's friends. His whole income, eked
out by the produce of some fields which he farmed, and of
some occasional duties performed for his wife's .uncle, the
rector of an adjoining parish, did not exceed forty pounds.
" And passing rich with forty pounds a year."
He inhabited an old, half rustic mansion, that stood on a
rising ground in a rough, lonely part of the country, overlook
ing a low tract, occasionally flooded by the river Inny. In this
house Goldsmith was born, and it was a birthplace worthy of
a poet ; for, by all accounts, it was haunted ground. A tradition
handed down among the neighboring peasantry states that, in
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 13
after years, the house, remaining for some time untenanted,
went to decay, the roof fell in, and it became so lonely and for
lorn as to be a resort for the * * good people" or fairies, who in
Ireland are supposed to delight in old, crazy, deserted man
sions for their midnight revels. All attempts to repair it were
in vain ; the fairies battled stoutly to maintain possession. A
huge misshapen hobgoblin used to bestride the house every
evening with an immense pair of jack-boots, which,- in his
efforts at hard riding, he would thrust through the roof, kick
ing to pieces all the work of the preceding day. The house
was therefore left to its fate, and went uo ruin.
Such is the popular tradition abouf, Goldsmith's birthplace.
About two years after his birth a change came over the cir
cumstances of his father. By the death of his wife's uncle he
succeeded to the rectory ol Kilkenny West ; and, abandoning
the old goblin mansion, he removed to Lissoy, in the county of
Westmeath, where he occupied a farm of seventy acres, situ
ated on the skirts of that pretty little village.
This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world
whence he drew many of those pictures, rural and domestic,
whimsical and touching, which abound throughout his works,
and which appeal so eloquently both to the fancy and the
heart. Lissoy is confidently cited as the original of his "Au
burn" in the "Deserted Village;" his father's establishment, a
mixture of farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it is said,
for the rural economy of the Vicar of Wakefield; and his
father himself, with his learned simplicity, his guileless wis
dom, his amiable piety, and utter ignorance of the world, has
been exquisitely portrayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let
us pause for a moment, and draw from Goldsmith's writings
one or two of those pictures which, under feigned names, rep
resent his father and his family, and the happy fireside of his
childish days.
"My father," says the "Man in Black," who, in some re
spects, is a counterpart of Goldsmith himself, "my father, the
younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small living
hi the church. His education was above his fortune, and his
generosity greater than his education. Poor, as he was, he had
his flatterers poorer than himself; for every dinner he gave
them, they returned him an equivalent in praise ; and this was
all he wanted. The same ambition that actuates a monarch at
the head of his army influenced my father at the head of his
table : he told the story of the ivy-tree, and that was laughed
14 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
at ; he repeated the jest of the two scholars and one pair of
breeches, and the company laughed at that ; hut the story of
Taffy in the sedan-chair was sure to set the table in a roar.
Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he
gave ; he loved all the world, and he fancied all the world loved
him.
" As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent
of it; ae had no intention of leaving his children money,
for that was dross ; he resolved they should have learning, for
learning, he used to observe, was better than silver or gold.
For this purpose he undertook to instruct us himself, and took
as much care to form our morals as to improve our under
standing. We were told that universal benevolence was what
first cemented society; we were taught to consider all the
wants of mankind as our own: to regard the human face
divine with affection and esteem ; he wound us up to be mere
machines of pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding
the slightest impulse made either by real or fictitious distress.
In a word, we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving
away thousands before we were taught the necessary qualifica
tions of getting a farthing."
In the Deserted Village we have another picture of his father
and his father's fireside:
" His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
ClainVd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began."
The family of the worthy pastor consisted of five sons and
three daughters. Henry, the eldest, was the good man's pride
and hope, and he tasked his slender means to the utmost in
educating him for a learned and distinguished career. Oliver
was the second son, and seven years younger than Henry, who
was the guide and protector of his childhood, and to whom he
was most tenderly attached throughout life.
Oliver's education began when he was about three years
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
15
old ; that is to say, he was gathered under the wings of one of
those good old motherly dames, found in every village, who
cluck together the whole callow brood of the neighborhood, to
teach them their letters and keep them out of harm's way.
Mistress Elizabeth Delap, for that was her name, flourished in
this capacity for upward of fifty years, and ifc was the pride
and boast of her declining days, when nearly ninety years of
age, that she was the first that had put a book (doubtless a
hornbook) into Goldsmith's hands. Apparently he did not
much profit by it, for she confessed he was one of the dullest
boys sh£ had ever dealt with, insomuch that she had some
times doubted whether it was possible to make anything of
him : a common case with imaginative children, who are apt
to be beguiled from the dry abstractions of elementary study
by the picturings of the fancy.
At six years of age he passed into the Lands of the village
schoolmaster, one Thomas (or, as he was commonly and
irreverently named, Paddy) Byrne, a capital tutor for a poet.
He had been educated for a pedagogue, but had enlisted in
the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's
time, and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in
Spain. At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for
the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin
populace of Lissoy. Goldsmith is supposed to have had him
and his school in view in the following sketch in his Deserted
Village :
•' Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze unprofltably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trac*
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Convey d the dismal tidings when he frown'd.
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew,
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:
In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
}0 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around—
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew."
There are certain whimsical traits in the character of
Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of
talking of his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had
brought with him from the wars a world of campaigning
stories, of which he was generally the hero, and which he
would deal forth to his wondering scholars when he ought to
have been teaching them their lessons. These travellers' tales
had a powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Gold
smith, and awakened an unconquerable passion for wander
ing and seeking adventure.
Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly
superstitious. He was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions
which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to
believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as
great a proficient in fairy lore. From this branch of good-for-
nothing knowledge, his studies, by an easy transition, ex
tended to the histories of robbers, pirates, smugglers, and the
whole race of Irish rogues and rapparees. Everything, in
short, that savored of romance, fable, and adventure was
congenial to his poetic mind, and took instant root there ; but
the slow plants of useful knowledge were apt to be overrun, if
not choked, by the weeds of his quick imagination.
Another trait of his motley preceptor, Byrne, was a disposi
tion to dabble in poetry, and this likewise was caught by his
pupil. Before he was eight years old Goldsmith had con
tracted a habit of scribbling verses on small scraps of paper,
which, in a little while, he would throw into the fire. A few
of these sibylline leaves, however, were rescued from the
flames and conveyed to his mother. The good woman read
them with a mother's delight, and saw at once that her son
was a genius and a poet. From that time she beset her
husband with solicitations to give the boy an education
suitable to his talents. The worthy man was already strait
ened by the costs of instruction of his eldest son Henry, and
had intended to bring his second son up to a trade ; but the
mother would listen to no such thing ; as usual, her influence
prevailed, and Oliver, instead of being instructed in some
humble but cheerful and gainful handicraft, was devoted to
poverty and the Muse,
OLIVER GOLDSM1TB. 17
A severe attack of the. small-pox caused him to be taken
from under the care of his story-telling preceptor, Byrne.
His malady had nearly proved fatal, and his face remained
pitted through life. On his recovery he was placed under the
charge of the Eev. Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of Elphin, in
Roscommon, and became an inmate in the house of his uncle,
John Goldsmith, Esq., of Ballyoughter, in that vicinity. He
now entered upon studies of a higher order, but without
making any uncommon progress. Still a careless, easy
facility of disposition, an amusing eccentricity of manners,
and a vein of quiet and peculiar humor, rendered him a
general favorite, and a trifling incident soon induced his
uncle's family to concur in his mother's opinion of his genius.
A number of young folks had assembled at his uncle's to
dance. One of the company, named Cummings, played on
the violin. In the course of the evening Oliver undertook a
hornpipe. His short and clumsy figure, and his face pitted
and discolored with, the small-pox, rendered him a ludicrous
figure in the eyes of the musician, who made merry at his
expense, dubbing him his little JEsop. Goldsmith was nettled
by the jest, and, stopping short in the hornpipe, exclaimed,
" Our herald hath proclaimed this saying,
See ^sop dancing, and his monkey playing."
The repartee was thought wonderful for a boy of nine years
old, and Oliver became forthwith the wit and the bright
genius of the family. It was thought a pity he should not
receive the same advantages with his elder brother Henry,
who had been sent to the University ; and, as his father's
circumstances would not afford it", several of his relatives,
spurred on by the representations of his mother, agreed to
contribute toward the expense. The greater part, however,
was borne by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarine. This
worthy man had been the college companion of Bishop Berke
ley, and was possessed of moderate means, holding the living
of Carrick-on-Shannon, He had married the sister of Gold
smith's father, but was now a widower, with an only child, a
daughter, named Jane. Contarine was a kind-hearted man,
with a generosity beyond his means. He .took Goldsmith into
favor from his infancy; his house was open to him during
the holidays; his daughter Jane, two years older than the
poet, was his early playmate ; and uncle Contarine continued
18 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
to the last one of his most active, unwavering, and generous
friends.
Fitted out in a great measure by this considerate relative,
Oliver was now transferred to schools of a higher order, to
prepare him for the University ; first to one at Athlone, kept
by the Eev. Mr. Campbell, and, at the end of two years, to
one at Edgeworthstown, under the superintendence of the
Rev. Patrick Hughes.
Even at these schools his proficiency does not appear to have
been brilliant. He was indolent and careless, however, rather
than dull, and, on the whole, appears to have been well thought
of by his teachers. In his studies he inclined toward the Latin
poets and historians ; relished Ovid and Horace, and delighted
in Livy. He exercised himself with pleasure in reading and
translating Tacitus, and was brought to pay attention to style
in his compositions by a reproof from his brother Henry, to
whom he had written brief and confused letters, and who told
him in reply, that if he had but little to say, to endeavor to say
that little well.
The career of his brother Henry at the University was
enough to stimulate him to exertion. He seemed to be realiz
ing all his father's hopes, and was winning collegiate honors
that the good man considered indicative of his future success
in life.
In the meanwhile Oliver, if not distinguished among his
teachers, was popular among his schoolmates. He had a
thoughtless generosity extremely captivating to young hearts ;
his temper was quick and sensitive, and easily offended ; but
his anger was momentary, and it was impossible for him to
harbor resentment. He was the leader of all boyish sports and
athletic amusements, especially ball-playing, and he was fore
most in all mischievous pranks. Many years afterward, an
old man, Jack Fitzimmons, one of the directors of the sports
and keeper of the ball-court at Ballymahon, used to boast of
having been schoolmate of "Noll Goldsmith," as he called him,
and would dwell with vainglory on one of their exploits, in
robbing the orchard of Tirlicken, an old family residence of
Lord Annaly. The exploit, however, had nearly involved dis
astrous consequences; for the crew of juvenile depredators
were captured, like Shakespeare and his deer-stealing col
leagues, and nothing but the respectability of Goldsmith's
connections saved him from the punishment that would
have awaited more plebeian delinquents.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 13
An amusing incident is related as occurring in Goldsmith's
last journey homeward from Edgcworthstown. His father's
house was about twenty miles distant ; the road lay through
a rough country, impassable for carriages. Goldsmith pro
cured a horse for the journey, and a friend furnished him with
a guinea for travelling expenses. Ho was but a stripling of
sixteen, and being thus suddenly mounted on horseback, with
money in his pocket, it is no wonder that his head was
; turned. He determined to play the man, and to spend his
'money in independent traveller's style. Accordingly, instead
of pushing directly for home, ho halted for the night at the little
town of Ardagh, and, accosting the first person he met, in
quired, with somewhat of a consequential air, for the best
house in the place. Unluckily, the person he had accosted was
one Kelly, a notorious wag, who was quartered in the family
of one Mr. Featherstone, a gentleman of fortune. Amused
with the self-consequence of the stripling, and willing to play
off a practical joke at his expense, he directed him to what was
literally ''the best house in the place," namely, the family
mansion of Mr. Featherstone. Goldsmith accordingly rode up
to what he supposed to be an inn, ordered his horse to be taken
to the stable, walked into the parlor, seated himself by the fire,
and demanded what he could have for supper. On ordinary
occasions he was diffident and even awkward in his manners,
but here he was "at ease in his inn," and felt called upon to
show his manhood and enact the experienced traveller. His
person was by no means calculated to play off his pretensions,
for he was short and thick, with a pock-marked face, and an
air and carriage by no means of a distinguished cast. The
owner of the house, however, soon discovered his whimsical
mistake, and, being a man of humor, determined to indulge it,
ospecially as he accidentally learned that this intruding guest
was the son of an old acquaintance.
Accordingly Goldsmith was "fooled to the top of Ms bent,"
and permitted to have full sway throughout the evening. Never
was schoolboy more elated. When supper was served, he
most condescendingly insisted that the landlord, his wife and
daughter should partake, and ordered a bottle of wine to crown
the repast and benefit the house. His last flourish was on going
to bed, when he gave especial orders to ha^e a hot cul.
breakfast. His confusion and dismay, on discovering the next
morning that he had been swaggering in this free and easy
way in the houso of n pn'vnto gm tinman, may be readily con-
20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
ceived. True to his habit of turning the events of his life to
literary account, we find this chapter of ludicrous blunders
and cross purposes dramatized many years afterward in his
admirable comedy of "She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes
of a Night."
CHAPTER II.
IMPROVIDENT MARRIAGES IN THE GOLDSMITH FAMILY — GOLDSMITH
AT THE UNIVERSITY— SITUATION OF A SIZER— TYRANNY OF
WILDER, THE TUTOR — PECUNIARY STRAITS — STREET BALLADS —
COLLEGE RIOT— GALLOWS WALSH— COLLEGE PRIZE — A DANCE
INTERRUPTED.
WHILE Oliver was making his way somewhat negligently
through the schools, his elder brother Henry was rejoicing his
father's heart by his career at the University. He soon dis
tinguished himself at the examinations, and obtained a scholar
ship in 1743. This is a collegiate distinction which serves as a
stepping-stone in any of the learned professions, and which
leads to advancement in the University should the individual
choose to remain there. His father now trusted that he would
push forward for that comfortable provision, a fellowship, and
thence to higher dignities and emoluments. Henry, however,
had the improvidence or the " unworldliness" of his race; re
turning to the country during the succeeding vacation, he
married for love, relinquished, of course, all his collegiate
prospects and advantages, set up a school in his father's neigh
borhood, and buried his talents and acquirements for the re
mainder of his life in a curacy of forty pounds a year.
Another matrimonial event occurred not long afterward in
the Goldsmith family, to disturb the equanimity of its worthy
head. This was the clandestine marriage of his daughter
Catherine with a young gentleman of the name of Hodson,
who had been confided to the care of her brother Henry to
complete his studies. As the youth was of wealthy parentage,
it was thought a lucky match for the Goldsmith family ; but
the tidings of the event stung the bride's father to the soul.
Proud of his integrity, and jealous of that good name which was
his chief possession, he saw himself and his family subjected
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 21
to the degrading suspicion of having abused a trust reposed in
them to promote a mercenary match. In the first transports
of his feelings he is said to have uttered a wish that his daugh
ter might never have a child to bring like shame and sorrow
on her head.' The hasty wish, so contrary to the usual benig
nity of the man, was recalled and repented of almost as soon as
uttered; but it was considered baleful in its effects by the
superstitious neighborhood; for, though his daughter bore
three children, they all died before her.
A more effectual measure was taken by Mr. Goldsmith to
ward off the apprehended imputation, but one which imposed
a heavy burden on his family. This was to furnish a marriage
portion of four hundred pounds, that his daughter might not
be said to have entered her husband's family empty-handed.
To raise the sum in cash was impossible ; but he assigned to
Mr. Hodson his little farm and the income of his tithes until
the marriage portion should be paid. In the mean time, as his
living did not amount to £200 per annum, he had to practise
the strictest economy to pay off gradually this heavy tax in
curred by his nice sense of honor.
The first of his family to feel the effects of this economy was
Oliver. The time had now arrived for him to be sent to the
University, and, accordingly, on the llth June, 1745, when
sixteen years of age, he entered Trinity College, Dublin; but
his father was no longer able to place him there as a pensioner,
as he had done his eldest son Henry ; he was obliged, therefore,
to enter him as a sizer, or "poor scholar." He was lodged in
one of the top rooms adjoining the library of the building,
numbered 35, where it is said his name may still be seen,
scratched by himself upon a window frame.
A student of this class is taught and boarded gratuitously,
and has to pay but a very small sum for his room. It is ex
pected, in return for these advantages, that he will be a dili
gent student, and render himself useful in a variety of ways.
At Trinity College, at the time of Goldsmith's admission, sev-
<T;I! derogatory and indeed menial offices were exacted from
the sizer, as if the college sought to indemnify itself for confer
ring benefits by inflicting indignities. He was obliged to sweep
part of the courts in the morning, to carry up the dishes from
the kitchen to the fellows' table, and to wait in the hall until
that body had dined. His very dress marked the inferiority
of the "poor student" to his happier classmates. It was a
black gown of coarse stuff without sleeves, and a plain black
J2 OLIVER OOLDSMITIf.
cloth cap without a tassel. We can conceive nothing more
odious and ill-judged than these distinctions, which attached
the idea of degradation to poverty, and placed the indigent
youth of merit below the worthless minion of fortune. They
were calculated to wound and irritate the nohle mind, and to
render the base mind baser.
Indeed, the galling effect of these servile tasks upon youths
of proud spirits and quick sensibilities became at length too
notorious to be disregarded. About fifty years since, on a
Trinity Sunday, a number of persons were assembled to wit
ness the college ceremonies ; and as a sizer was carrying up a
dish of meat to the fellows' table, a burly citizen in the crowd
made some sneering observation on the servility of his office.
Stung to the quick, the high-spirited youth instantly flung the
dish and its contents at the head of the sneerer. The sizer was
sharply reprimanded for this outbreak of wounded pride, but
the degrading task was from that day forward very properly
consigned to menial hands.
It was with the utmost repugnance that Goldsmith entered
college in this capacity. His shy and sensitive nature was
affected by the inferior station he was doomed to hold among
his gay and opulent fellow-students, and he became, at times,
moody and despondent. A recollection of these early mortifi
cations induced him, in after years, most strongly to dissuade
his brother Henry, the clergyman, from sending a son to col
lege on a like footing. " If 'he has ambition, strong passions,
and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him
there, unless you have no other trade for him except your
own."
To add to his annoyances, the fellow of the college who had
the peculiar control of his studies, the Rev. Theaker Wilder,
was a man of violent and capricious temper, and of diametri
cally opposite tastes. The tutor was devoted to the exact
sciences ; Goldsmith was for the classics. Wilder endeavored
to force his favorite studies upon the student by harsh means,
suggested by his own coarse and savage nature. He abused
him in presence of the class as ignorant and stupid ; ridiculed
him as awkward and ugly, and at times in the transports of
his temper indulged in personal violence. The effect was to
aggravate a passive distaste into a positive aversion. Gold
smith was loud in expressing his contempt for mathematics
and his dislike of ethics and legic; and the prejudices thus
imbibed continued through life. Mathematics he always pro-
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. v'j
houhced a science to which the meanest intellects were compe
tent
A truer cause of this distaste for the severer studies may
probably be found in his natural indolence and his love of con
vivial pleasures; "I was a lover of mirth, good-humor, and
even sometimes of fun," said he, "from my childhood." He
sang a good song, was a boon companion, and could not resist
any temptation to social enjoyment. He endeavored to per
suade himself that learning and dulness went hand in hand,
and that genius was not to be put in harness. Even in riper
years, when the consciousness of his own deficiencies ought to
have convinced him of the importance of early study, he
speaks slightingly of college honors.
*' A lad," says he, "whose passions are not strong enough in
youth to mislead him from that path of science which his
tutors, and not his inclination, have chalked out, by four or
five years' perseverance will probably obtain every advantage
and honor his college can bestow. I would compare the man
whose youth has been thus passed in the tranquillity of dispas
sionate prudence, to liquors that never ferment, and, conse
quently, continue always muddy."
The death of his worthy father, which took place early in
1747, rendered Goldsmith's situation at college extremely irk
some. His mother was left with little more than the means of
providing for the wants of her household, and was unable to
furnish him any remittances. He would have been compelled,
therefore, to leave college, had it not been for the occasional
contributions of friends, the foremost among whom was his
generous and warm-hearted uncle Contarine. Still these sup
plies were so scanty and precarious, that in the intervals be
tween them he was put to great straits. He had two college as
sociates from whom he would occasionally borrow small sums ;
one was an early schoolmate, by the name of Beatty ; the other
a cousin, and the chosen companion of his frolics, Robert (or
rather Bob) Bryanton, of Ballymulvey House, near Ballyma-
hon. When these casual supplies failed him he was more than
once obliged to raise funds for his immediate wants by pawn
ing his books. At times he sank into despondency, but he had
what he termed ' ' a knack at hoping, " which soon buoyed him
up again. He began now to resort to his poetical vein as a
source of profit, scribbling street-ballads, which he privately
sold for five shillings each at a shop which dealt in such small
wares of literature. He felt an author's affection for thew
24 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
unowned bantlings, and we are told would stroll privately
through the streets at night to hear them sung, listening to
the comments and criticisms of bystanders, and observing the
degree of applause which each received.
Edmund Burke was a fellow-student with Goldsmith at the
college. Neither the statesman nor the poet gave promise of
their future celebrity, though Burke certainly surpassed his
contemporary in industry and application, and evinced more
disposition for self-improvement, associating himself with a
number of his fellow-students in a debating club, in which
they discussed literary topics, and exercised themselves in
composition.
Goldsmith may likewise have belonged to this association,
but his propensity was rather to mingle with the gay and
thoughtless. On one occasion we .find him implicated in an
affair that came nigh producing his expulsion. A report was
brought to college that a scholar was in the hands of the bail
iffs. This was an insult in which every gownsman felt him
self involved. A number of the scholars flew to arms, and
sallied forth to battle, headed by a hare-brained fellow nick
named Gallows Walsh, noted for his aptness at mischief and
fondness for riot. The stronghold of the bailiff was carried by
storm, the scholar set at liberty, and the delinquent catchpole
borne off captive to the college, where, having no pump to put
hun under, they satisfied the demands of collegiate law by
ducking him in an old cistern.
Flushed with this signal victory, Gallows Walsh now ha
rangued his followers, and proposed to break open Newgate,
or the Black Dog, as the prison was called, and effect a general
jail delivery. He was answered by shouts of concurrence,
and away went the throng of madcap youngsters, fully bent
upon putting an end to the tyranny of law. They were joined
by the mob of the city, and made an attack upon the prison
with true Irish precipitation and thoughtlessness, never hav
ing provided themselves with cannon to batter its stone walls.
A few shots from the prison brought them to their senses, and
they beat a hasty retreat, two of the townsmen being killed,
and several wounded.
A severe scrutiny of this affair took place at the University.
Four students, who had been ringleaders, were expelled; four
others, who had been prominent in the affray, were public
ly admonished; among the latter was the unlucky Gold
smith.
OLIYKR <;<>!. DXMIT1I. 25
To make up for this disgrace, he gained, within a month
afterward, one of the minor prizes of the college. It is true it
was one of the very smallest, amounting in pecuniary value to
but thirty shillings, but it was the first distinction he had
gained in his whole collegiate career. This turn of success
and sudden influx of wealth proved too much for the head of
our poor student. He forthwith gave a supper and dance at
his chamber to a number of young persons of both sexes from
the city, in direct violation of college rules. The unwonted
sound of the fiddle reached the ears of the implacable Wilder.
He rushed to the scene of unhallowed festivity, inflicted cor
poral punishment on the " father of the feast," and turned his
astonished guests neck and heels out of doors..
This filled the measure of poor Goldsmith's humiliations ; he
felt degraded both within college and without. He dreaded
the ridicule of his fellow-students for the ludicrous termina
tion of his orgie, and he was ashamed to meet his city acquain
tances after the degrading chastisement received in their pres
ence, and after their own ignominious expulsion. Above all,
he felt it impossible to submit any longer to the insulting ty
ranny of Wilder ; he determined, therefore, to leave, not merely
the college, but also his native land, and to bury what he con
ceived to be his irretrievable disgrace in some distant country.
He accordingly sold his books and clothes, and sallied forth
from the college walls the very next day, intending to embark
at Cork for— he scarce knew where— America, or any other
part beyond sea. With his usual heedless imprudence, how
ever, he loitered about Dublin until his finances were reduced
to a shilling; with this amount of specie he set out on his
journey.
For three whole days he subsisted on his shilling; when that
was spent, he parted with some of the clothes from his back,
until, reduced almost to nakedness, he was four-and-twenty
hours without food, insomuch that he declared a handful of
gray pease, given to him by a girl at a wake, was one of the
most delicious repasts he had ever tasted. Hunger, fatigue,
and destitution brought down his spirit and calmed his anger.
Fain would he have retraced his steps, could he have done so
with any salvo for the lingerings of his pride. In his extre
mity he conveyed to his brother Henry information of his dis
tress, and of the rash project on which he had set out. His
affectionate brother hastened to his relief ; furnished him with
money and clothes; soothed his feelings with gentle counsel,-
20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
prevailed upon him to return to college, and effected an indit
ferent reconciliation between him and Wilder.
After this irregular sally upon life he remained nearly two
years longer at the University, giving proofs of talent in occa
sional translations from the classics, for one of which he re
ceived a premium, awarded only to those who are the first in
literary merit. Still he never made much figure at college,
his natural disinclination to study being increased by tho
harsh treatment he continued to experience from his tutor.
Among the anecdotes told of him while at college, is one in
dicative of that prompt but thoughtless and often whimsical
benevolence which throughout life formed one of ^the most ec^
centric yet endearing points of his character. He'was engaged
to breakfast one day with a college intimate, but failed to make
his appearance. His friend repaired to his room, knocked at
the door, and was bidden to enter. To his surprise, he found
Goldsmith in his bed, immersed to his chin in feathers. A
serio-comic story explained the circumstance. In the course
of the preceding evening's stroll he had met with a woman with
five children who implored his charity. Her husband was in
the hospital ; she was just from the country, a stranger, and
destitute, without food or shelter for her helpless offspring.
This was too much for the kind heart of Goldsmith. He was
almost as poor as herself, it is true, and had no money in his
pocket ; but he brought her to the college gate, gave her the
blankets from his bed to cover her little brood, and part of his
clothes for her to sell and purchase food ; and, finding himself
cold during the night, had cut open his bed and buried himself
among the feathers.
At length, on the 27th of February, 1749, O. S., he was ad
mitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and took his final
leave of the University. He was freed from college rule, that
emancipation so ardently coveted by the thoughtless student,
and which too generally launches him amid the cares, the
hardships, and vicissitudes of life. He was freed, too, from the
brutal tyranny of Wilder. If his kind and placable nature
could retain any resentment for past injuries, it might have
been gratified by learning subsequently that the passionate
career of Wilder was terminated by a violent death in tho
course of a dissolute brawl; but Goldsmith took no delight in
the misfortunes even of his enemies.
He now returned to his friends, no longer the student to sport
away the happy interval of vacation, but the anxious man,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 21
who is henceforth to shift for himself and make his way
through the world. In fact, he had no legitimate home to re
turn to. At the death of his father, the paternal house at Lis-
soy, in which Goldsmith had passed his childhood, had been
taken by Mr. Hodson, who had married his sister Catherine.
His mother had removed to Ballymahon, where she occupied
a small house, and had to practise the severest frugality. His
elder brother Henry served the curacy and taught the school
of his late father's parish, and lived in narrow circumstances
at Goldsmith's birthplace, the old goblin-house at Pallas.
None of his relatives were in circumstances to aid him with
anything more than a temporary home, and the aspect of
every one seemed somewhat changed. In fact, his career at
college had disappointed his friends, and they began to doubt
his being the great genius they had fancied him. He whimsi
cally alludes to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography,
" The Man in Black," in the Citizen of the World.
"The first opportunity my father had of finding his expecta
tions disappointed was in the middling figure I made at the
University ; he had flattered himself that he should soon see me
rising into the foremost rank in literary reputation, but was
mortified to find me utterly unnoticed and unknown. His
disappointment might have been partly ascribed to his having
overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike of mathemati
cal reasonings at a time when my imagination and memory,
yet unsatisfied, were more eager after new objects than desir
ous of reasoning upon those I knew. This, however, did not
please my tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a little
dull, but at the same time allowed that I seemed to be very
good-natured, and had no harm in me." *
The only one of his relatives who did not appear to lose faith
in him was his uncle Contarine. This kind and considerate
man, it is said, saw in him a warmth of heart requiring some
skill to direct, and a latent genius that wanted time to mature,
and these impressions none of his subsequent follies and irregu
larities wholly obliterated. His purse and affection, therefore,
as well as his house, were now open to him, and he became his
chief counsellor and director after his father's death. He urged
him to prepare for holy orders, and others of his relatives con
curred in the advice. Goldsmith had a settled repugnance to a
clerical life. This had been ascribed by some to conscientious
• Citiaeu of th« World, Letter xxvUL
28 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
scruples, not considering himself of a temper and frame of mind
for such a sacred office ; others attributed it to his roving pro
pensities, and his desire to visit foreign countries ; he himself
gives a whimsical objection in his biography of the " Man in
Black :" " To be obliged to wear a long wig when I liked a short
one, or a black coat when I generally dressed in brown, I
thought such a restraint upon my liberty that I absolutely re
jected the proposal."
In effect, however, his scruples were overruled, and he
agreed to qualify himself for the office. He was now only
twenty-one, and must pass two years of probation. They were
two years of rather loitering, unsettled life. Sometimes he was
at Lissoy, participating with thoughtless enjoyment in the
rural sports and occupations of his brother-in-law, Mr. Hodson ;
sometimes he was with his brother Henry, at the old goblin
mansion at Pallas, assisting him occasionally in his school.
The early marriage and unambitious retirement of Henry,
though so subversive of the fond plans of his father, had proved
happy in their results. He was already surrounded by a
blooming family; he was contented with his lot, beloved by
his parishioners, and lived in the daily practice of all the ami
able virtues, and the immediate enjoyment of their reward.
Of the tender affection inspired in the breast of Goldsmith by
the constant kindness of this excellent brother, and of the
longing recollection with which, in the lonely wanderings of
after years, he looked back upon this scene of domestic felicity,
we have a touching instance in the well-known opening to his
poem of "• The Traveller:"
"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po;
* * * * *
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee ;
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend;
Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Bless'd that abode where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair:
Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tal«;
0/./\ m
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good."
During this loitering life Goldsmith pursued no study, but
rather amused himself with miscellaneous reading; such as
biography, travels, poetry, novels, plays — everything, in short,
that administered to the imagination. Sometimes he strolled
along the banks of the river Inny, where, in after years, when
he had become famous, his favorite seats and haunts used to
be pointed out. Often he joined in the rustic sports of the
villagers, and became adroit at throwing the sledge, a favorite
feat of activity and strength in Ireland. Recollections of these
''healthful sports" we find in his "Deserted Village:"
"How often have I bless'd the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labor free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree:
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round."
A boon companion in all his rural amusements was his
cousin and college crony, Robert Bryanton, with whom he
sojourned occasionally at Ballymulvey House in the neighbor
hood. They used to make excursions about the country on
foot, sometimes fishing, sometimes hunting otter in the Inny.
They got up a country club at the little inn of Ballymahon, of
which Goldsmith soon became the oracle and prime wit, aston
ishing his unlettered associates by his learning, and being
considered capital at a song and a story. From the rustic
conviviality of the inn at Ballymahon, and the company
which used to assemble there, it is surmised that he took some
hints in after life for his picturing of Tony Lumpkin and his
associates : ' ' Dick Muggins, the exciseman ; Jack Slang, the
horse doctor; little Aminidab, that grinds the music-box, and
Tom Twist, that spins the pewter platter." Nay, it is, thought
that Tony's drinking song at the "Three Jolly Pigeons" was
but a revival of one of the convivial catches at Ballymahon :
" Then come put the jorum about,
And let us be merry and clever,
Our hearts and our liquors are stout,
Here's the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever.
Let some cry of woodcock or hare,
Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeon*,
But of all the gay birds in the air,
Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeoni.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll."
30 OLlVttli GOLDSMITH.
Notwithstanding all these accomplishments and this rural
popularity, his friends began to shake their heads and shrug
their shoulders when they spoke of him; and his brother
Henry noted with anything but satisfaction his frequent visits
to the club at Ballymahon. He emerged, however, unscathed
from this dangerous ordeal, more fortunate in this respect
than his comrade Bryanton ; but he retained throughout life
a fondness for clubs ; often, too, in the course of his checkered
career, he looked back to this period of rural sports and care
less enjoyments as one of the few sunny spots of his cloudy
life ; and though he ultimately rose to associate with birds of a
finer feather, his heart would still yearn in secret after the
" THREE JOLLY PIGEONS."
CHAPTER III.
GOLDSMITH REJECTED BY THE BISHOP — SECOND SALLY TO SEE
THE WORLD — TAKES PASSAGE FOR AMERICA — SHIP SAILS WITH
OUT HIM— RETURN ON FIDDLE-BACK— A HOSPITABLE FRIEND
THE COUNSELLOR.
THE time was now arrived for Goldsmith to apply for orders,
and he presented himself accordingly before the Bishop of
Elfphn for ordination. We have stated his great objection to
clerical life, the obligation to wear a black coat; and, whim
sical as it may appear, dress seemed in fact to have formed an
obstacle to his entrance into the church. He had ever a pas
sion for clothing his sturdy but awkward little person in gay
colors; and on this solemn occasion, when it was to be sup
posed his garb would be of suitable gravity, he appeared
luminously arrayed in scarlet breeches! He was rejected by
the bishop; some say for want of sufficient studious prepara
tion ; his rambles and frolics with Bob Bryanton, and his revels
with the club at Ballymahon, having been much in the way of
his theological studies; others attribute his rejection to reports
of his college irregularities, which the bishop had received
from his old tyrant Wilder; but those who look into the
matter with more knowing eyes pronounce the scarlet breeches
to have been the fundamental objection. " My friends," says
Goldsmith, speaking through his humorous representative,
OLivr.ii <;<>Li»uiTn. 81
the "Man in Black"— "my friends were now perfectly satis
fied I was undone ; and yet they thought it a pity for one that
had not the least harm in him, and was so very good-natured."
His uncle Contarine, however, still remained unwavering in
his kindness, though much less sanguine in his expectations.
He now looked round for a humbler sphere of action, and
through his influence and exertions Oliver was received as
tutor in the family of a Mr. Flinn, a gentleman of the neigh
borhood. The situation was apparently respectable; he had
his seat at the table, and joined the family in their domestic
recreations and their evening game at cards. There was a
servility, however, in his position, which was not to his taste ;
nor did his deference for the family increase upon familiar in
tercourse. He charged a member of it with unfair play at
cards. A violent altercation ensued, which ended in his
throwing up his situation as tutor. On being paid off he found
himself in possession of an unheard of amount of money. His
wandering propensity and his desire to see the world were
instantly in the ascendency. Without communicating his
plans or intentions to his friends, he procured a good horse,
and with thirty pounds in his pocket made his second sally
forth into the world.
The worthy niece and housekeeper of the hero of La Mancha
could not have been more surprised and dismayed at one of
the Don's clandestine expeditions, than were the mother and
friends of Goldsmith when they heard of his mysterious de
parture. Weeks elapsed, and nothing was seen or heard of
him. It was feared that he had left the country on one of his
wandering freaks, and his poor mother was reduced almost to
despair, when one day he arrived at her door almost as for
lorn in plight as the prodigal son. Of his thirty pounds not a
shilling was left ; and instead of the goodly steed on which he
had issued forth on his errantry, he was mounted on a sorry
little pony, which he had nicknamed Fiddle-back. As soon as
his mother was well assured of his safety, she rated him
soundly for his inconsiderate conduct. His brothers and sis
ters, who were tenderly attached to him, interfered, and suc
ceeded in mollifying her ire ; and whatever lurking anger the
good dame might have, was no doubt effectually vanquished
by the following whimsical narrative which he drew up at his
brother's house and dispatched to her :
"My dear mother, if you will sit down and calmly listen to
what I say, you shall be 1 >lved in every one of those
32 0 LI TA' 'II GOLDSMITH.
many questions you have asked me. I went to Cork and con
verted my horse, which you prize so much higher than Fiddle-
back, into cash, took my passage in a ship bound for America,
and, at the same time, paid the captain for my freight and all
the other expenses of my voyage. But it so happened that the
wind did not answer for three weeks ; and you know, mother,
that I could not command the elements. My misfortune was,
that, when the wind served, I happened to be with a party in
the country, and my friend the captain never inquired after
me, but set sail with as much indifference as if I had been on
board. The remainder of my time I employed in the city and
its environs, viewing everything curious, and you know no one
can starve while he has money in his pocket.
' ' Reduced, however, to my last two guineas, I began to think
of my dear mother and friends whom I had left behind me,
and so bought that generous beast Fiddle-back, and bade adieu
to Cork with only five shillings in my pocket. This, to be sure,
was but a scanty allowance for man and horse toward a jour
ney of above a hundred miles ; but I did not despair, for I knew
I must find friends on the road.
UI recollected particularly an old and faithful acquaintance
I made at college, who had often and earnestly pressed me to
spend a summer with him, and he lived but eight miles from
Cork. This circumstance of vicinity he would expatiate on to
me with peculiar emphasis. 'We shall,' says he, 'enjoy the
delights of both city and country, and you shall command my
stable and my purse.'
"However, upon the way I met a poor woman all in tears,
who told me her husband had been arrested for a debt he was
not able to pay, and that his eight children must now starve,
bereaved as they were of his industry, which had been their
only support. I thought myself at home, being not far from
my good friend's house, and therefore parted with a moiety of
all my store ; and pray, mother, ought I not to have given her
the other half crown, for what she got would be of little use to
her? However, I soon arrived at the mansion of my affection
ate friend, guarded by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who
flew at me and would have torn me to pieces but for the assist
ance of a woman, whose countenance was not less grim than
that of the dog ; yet she with great humanity relieved me from
the jaws of this Cerberus, and was prevailed on to carry up my
uame to her master.
" Without suffering me to wait long, my old friend, who was
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 33
then recovering from a severe fit of sickness, came down in his
nightcap, nightgown, and slippers, and embraced me with the
most cordial welcome, showed me in, and, after giving me a
history of his indisposition, assured me that he considered him
self peculiarly fortunate in having under his roof the man he
most loved on earth, and whose stay with him must, above all
things, contribute to perfect his recovery. I now repented
sorely I had not given the poor woman the other half crown,
as I thought all my bills of humanity would be punctually an-'
swered by this worthy man. I revealed to him my whole soul ;
I opened to him all my distresses ; and freely owned that I had
but one half crown in my pocket; -but that now, like a ship
after weathering out the storm, I considered myself secure in a
safe and hospitable harbor. He made no answer, but walked
about the room, rubbing his hands as one in deep study. This
I imputed to the sympathetic feelings of a tender heart, which
increased my esteem for him, and, as that increased, I gave the
most favorable interpretation to his silence. I construed it into
delicacy of sentiment, as if he dreaded to wound my pride by
expressing his commiseration in words, leaving his generous
conduct to speak for itself.
" It now approached six o'clock in the evening; and as I had
eaten no breakfast, and as my spirits were raised, my appetite
for dinner grew uncommonly keen. At length the old woman
came into the room with two plates, one spoon, and a dirty
cloth, which she laid upon the table. This appearance, without
increasing my spirits, did not diminish my appetite. My pro
tectress soon returned with a small bowl of sago, a small por
ringer of sour milk, a loaf of stale brown bread, and the heel of
an old cheese all over crawling with mites. My friend apolo
gized that his illness obliged him to live on slops, and that bet
ter fare was not in the house; observing, at the same time,
that a milk diet was certainly the most healthful ; and at eight-
o'clock he again recommended a regular life, declaring that for
his part he would lie down with the lamb and rise with the lark.
My hunger was at this time so exceedingly sharp that I wished
for another slice of the loaf, but was obliged to go to bed with
out even that refreshment.
' ' This lenten entertainment I had received made me resolve
to depart as soon as possible ; accordingly, next morning, when
I spoke of going, he did not oppose my resolution ; he rather
commended iry design, adding some very sage counsel upon
the occasion, ' To be sure,' said he, ' the longer you stay away
34 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
from your mother, the more you will grieve her and your other
friends ; and possibly they are already afflicted at hearing of
this f oolish expedition you have made. ' Notwithstanding all
this, and without any hope of softening such a sordid heart, I
again renewed the tale of my distress, and asking 'how he
thought I could travel above a hundred miles upon one half
crown?' I begged to borrow a single guinea, which I assured
him should be repaid with thanks. ' And you know, sir,' said
I, ' it is no more than I have done for you. ' To which he firmly
answered, ' Why, look you, Mr. Goldsmith, that is neither here
nor there. I have paid you all you ever lent me, and this
sickness of mine has left me bare of cash. But I have be
thought myself of a conveyance for you ; sell your horse, and I
will furnish you a much better one to ride on.' I readily
grasped at his proposal, and begged to see the nag; on which
he led me to his bedchamber, and from under the bed he pulled
out a stout oak stick. ' Here he is,' said he ; ' take this in your
hand, and it will carry you to your mother's with more safety
than such a horse as you ride. ' I was in doubt, when I got it
into my hand, whether I should not, in the first place, apply it
to his pate ; but a rap at the street door made the wretch fly to
it, and when I returned to the parlor, he introduced me, as if
nothing of the kind had happened, to the gentleman who en
tered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his most ingenious and worthy friend,
of whom he had so often heard him speak with rapture. I
could scarcely compose myself, and must have betrayed indig
nation in my mien to the stranger, who was a counsellor-at-
law in the neighborhood, a man of engaging aspect and polite
address.
"After spending an hour, he asked my friend and me to
dine with him at his house. This I declined at first, as I
wished to have no farther communication with my hospitable
friend ; but at the solicitation of both I at last consented, de
termined as I was by two motives : one, that I was prejudiced
in favor of the looks and manner of the counsellor ; and the
other, that I stood in need of a comfortable dinner. And
there, indeed, I found everything that I could wish, abund
ance without profusion, and elegance without affectation. In
the evening, when my old friend, who had eaten very plenti
fully at his neighbor's table, but talked again of lying down
with the lamb, made a motion to me for retiring, our generous
host requested I should take a bed with him. upon which I
plainly told my old friend that he might go home and take
care of the horse he had given me, but that I should never re-
enter his doors. He went away with a laugh, leaving mo to
add this to the other little things the counsellor already knew
of his plausible neighbor.
"And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient to reconcile
me to all my follies ; for here I spent three whole days. The
counsellor had two sweet girls to his daughters, who played
enchantingly on the harpsichord ; and yet it was but a mel
ancholy pleasure I felt the first time I heard them; for that
being the first time also that either of them had touched the
instrument since their mother's death, I saw the tears in
silence trickle down their father's cheeks. I every day en
deavored to go away, but every day was pressed and obliged
to stay. On my going, the counsellor offered me his purse,
with a horse and servant to convey me home; but the latter I
declined, and only tool a guinea to bear my necessary ex
penses on the road.
" OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
"To Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, Ballyraahon. "
Such is the story given by the poet-errant of this his second
sally in quest of adventures. We cannot but think it was
In- K- and there touched up a little with the fanciful pen of the
future essayist, with a view to amuse his mother and soften
her vexation; but even in these respects it is valuable as
showing the early play of his humor, and his happy knack of
extracting sweets from that worldly experience which to
others yields nothing but bitterness.
CHAPTER IV.
SALLIES FORTH AS A LAW STUDENT— STUMBLES AT THE OUTSET
- COUSIN JANE AND THE VALENTINE— A FAMILY ORACLE — SAL
LIES FORTH AS A STUDENT OF MEDICINE— HOCUS-POCUS OF A
BOARDING-HOUSE — TRANSFORMATIONS OF A LEG OF MUTTON —
THE MOCK 'GHOST— SKETCHES OF SCOTLAND — TRIALS OF TOADY
ISM —A POET'S PURSE FOR A CONTINENTAL TOUR.
A NEW consultation was held among Goldsmith's friends as
to his ffiture course, and it was determined he should try the
law. His uncle Contarine agreed to advance the necessary
funds, and actually furnished him with fifty pounds, with
36 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
which he set off for London, to enter on his studies at the
Temple. Unfortunately, he fell in company at Dublin with a
Roscommon acquaintance, one whose wits had been sharpened
about town, who beguiled him into a gambling-house, and
soon left him as penniless as when he bestrode the redoubtable
Fiddle-back.
He was so ashamed of this fresh instance of gross heedless-
ness and imprudence that he remained some time in Dublin
without communicating to his friends his destitute condition.
They heard of it, however, and he was invited back to the
country, and indulgently forgiven by his generous uncle, but
less readily by his mother, who was mortified and disheart
ened at seeing all her early hopes of him so repeatedly blighted.
His brother Henry, too, began to lose patience at these suc
cessive failures, resulting from thoughtless indiscretion; and
a quarrel took place, which for some time interrupted their
usually affectionate intercourse.
The only home where poor erring Goldsmith still received a
welcome was the parsonage of his affectionate, forgiving
uncle. Here he used to talk of literature with the good,
simple-hearted man, and delight him and his daughter with
his verses. Jane, his early playmate, was now the woman
grown ; their intercourse was of a more intellectual kind than
formerly ; they discoursed of poetry and music ; she played on
the harpsichord, and he accompanied her with his flute. The
music may not have been very artistic, as he never performed
but by ear; it had probably as much merit as the poetry,
which, if we may judge by the following specimen, was as yet
but juvenile :
TO A YOUNG LADY ON VALENTINE'S DAY.
WITH THE DRAWING OF A HEART.
With submission at your shrine,
Comes a heart your Valentine;
From the side where once it grew,
See it panting flies to you.
Take it, fair one, to your breast,
Soothe the fluttering thing to rest;
Let the gentle, spotless toy,
Be your sweetest, greatest joy;
Every night when wrapped in sleep,
Next your heart the conquest keep;
Or if dreams your fancy move,
Hear it whisper me and love;
Then in pity to the swain,
Who must heartless else remain,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 37
Soft as gentle dewy show'rs,
Slow descend on April flow'rs;
Soft as gentle riv'lets glide,
Steal unnoticed to my side;
If the gem you have to spare,
Take your own and place it there.
If this valentine was intended for the fair Jane, and expres-
of a tender sentiment indulged by the stripling poet, it
was. unavailing, as not long afterward she was married to a
Mr. Lawder. We trust, however, it was but a poetical pas
sion of that transient kind which grows up in idleness and ex
hales itself in rhyme. While Oliver was thus piping and poet
izing at the parsonage, his uncle Contarine received a visit
from Dean Goldsmith of Cloyne; a kind of magnate in the
wide but improvident family connection, throughout which
his word was law and almost gospel. This august dignitary
was pleased to discover signs of talent in Oliver, and suggested
that as he had attempted divinity and law without success, he
should now try physic. The advice came from too important
a source to be disregarded, and it was determined to send him
to Edinburgh to commence his studies. The Dean having
given the advice, added to it, we trust, his blessing, but no
money ; that was furnished from the scantier purses of Gold
smith's brother, his sister (Mrs. Hodson) and his ever ready
uncle, Contarine.
It was in the autumn of 1752 that Goldsmith arrived in
Edinburgh. His outset in that city came near adding to the
list of his indiscretions and disasters. Having taken lodgings
at haphazard, he left his trunk there, containing all his worldly
effects, and sallied forth to see the town. After sauntering
about the streets until a late hour, he thought of returning
home, when, to his confusion, he found he had not acquainted
himself with the name either of his landlady or of the street in
which she lived. Fortunately, in the height of his whimsical
])cr])loxity, he met tfce cawdy or porter who had carried his
trunk, and who now served him as a guide.
He did not remain long in the lodgings in which he had put
up. The hostess was too adroit at that hocus-pocus of the
table which often is practised in cheap boarding-houses. No
one could conjure a single joint through a greater variety of
forms. A loin of mutton, according to Goldsmith's account,
would serve him and two fellow-students a whole week. "A
brandered chop was served up one day, a fried steak another,
3S OLIVKR GOLDSMITH.
collops with onion sauce a third, and so on until the fleshy
parts were quite consumed, when finally a dish of broth was
manufactured from the bones on the seventh day, and the
landlady rested from her labors." Goldsmith had a good-
humored mode of taking things, and for a short time amused
himself with the shifts and expedients of his landlady, which
struck him in a ludicrous manner ; he soon, however, fell in
with fellow-students from his own country, whom he joined at
more eligible quarters.
He now attended medical lectures, and attached himself to
an association of students called the Medical Society. He set
out, as usual, with the best intentions, but, as usual, soon fell
into idle, convivial, thoughtless habits. Edinburgh was in
deed a place of sore trial for one of his temperament. Con
vivial meetings were all the vogue, and the tavern was the
universal rallying-place of good-fellowship. And then Gold
smith's intimacies lay chiefly among the Irish students, who
were always ready for a wild freak and frolic. Among them
hie was a prime favorite and somewhat of a leader, from his
exuberance of spirits, his vein of humor, and his talent at
singing an Irish song and telling an Irish story.
His usual carelessness in money matters attended him.
Though his supplies from home were scanty and irregular, he
never could bring himself into habits of prudence and econ
omy ; often he was stripped of all his present finances at play :
often he lavished them away in fits of unguarded charity or
generosity. Sometimes among his boon companions he as
sumed a ludicrous swagger in money matters, which no one
afterward was more ready than himself to laugh at. At a
convivial meeting with a number of his fellow-students, he
suddenly proposed to draw lots with any one present which
of the two should treat the whole party to the play. The
moment the proposition had bolted from his lips, his heart
was in his throat. "To my great though secret joy," said he,
"they all declined the challenge. Had it been accepted, and
had I proved the loser, a part of my wardrobe must have been
pledged in order to raise the money. "
At another of these meetings there was an earnest dispute
on the question of ghosts, some being firm believers in the pos
sibility of departed spirits returning to visit their friends and
familiar haunts. One of the disputants set sail the next
day for London, but the vessel put back through stress of
weather. His return was unknown except to one of the be-
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 89
lievers in ghosts, who concerted with him a trick to be played
off on the opposite party. In the evening, at a meeting of the
students, the discussion was renewed; and one of the most
strenuous opposers of ghosts was asked whether he considered
himself proof against ocular demonstration? He persisted in
his scoffing. Some solemn process of conjuration was per
formed, and the comrade supposed to be on his way to Lon
don made his appearance. The effect was fatal. The unbe
liever fainted at the sight, and ultimately went mad. We
have no account of what share Goldsmith took in this transac
tion, at which he was present.
The following letter to his friend Bryanton contains some of
Goldsmith's impressions concerning Scotland and its inhabi
tants, and gives indications of that humor which characterized
some of his later writings.
"Robert .Bryanton, at Ballymahon, Ireland.
" EDINBURGH, September 26, 1753.
"MY DEAR BOB: How many good excuses (and you know
I was ever good at an excuse) might I call up to vindicate my
past shameful silence. I might tell how I wrote a long letter
on my first coming hither, and seem vastly angry at my not
receiving an answer ; I might allege that business (with busi
ness you know I was always pestered) had never given me
time to finger a pen. But I suppress those and twenty more
as plausible, and as easily invented, since they might be at
tended with a slight inconvenience of being known to be lies.
Let me then speak truth. An hereditary indolence (I have it
from the mother's side) has hitherto prevented my writing to
you, and still prevents my writing at least twenty-five letters
more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turn-spit-dog gets up
into his wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write ;
yet no dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better than I do
him I now address.
"Yet what shall I say now I am entered? Shall I tire you
with a description of this unfruitful country; where I must
lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys
scarcely able to feed a rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only
creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor soil.
Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape.
No grove, nor brook, lend their music to cheer the stranger, or
make the inhabitants forget their poverty. Yet with all
40 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
disadvantages to call him down to humility, a Scotchman is
one of the proudest things alive. The poor have pride ever
ready to relieve them. If mankind should happen to despise
them, they are masters of their own admiration, and that they
can plentifully bestow upon themselves.
"From their pride and poverty, as I take it, results one ad
vantage this country enjoys — namely, the gentlemen here are
much better bred than among us. No such character here as
our fox-hunters ; and they have expressed great surprise when
I informed them that some men in Ireland of one thousand
pounds a year spend their whole lives in running after a hare,
and drinking to be drunk. Truly if such a being, equipped in
his hunting dress, came among a circle of Scotch gentry, they
would behold him with the same astonishment that a country
man does King George on horseback.
' ' The men here have generally high cheek bones, and are
lean and swarthy, fond of action, dancing in particular. Now
that I have mentioned dancing, let me say something of their
balls, which are very frequent here. When a stranger enters
the dancing-hall, he sees one end of the room taken up by the
ladies, who sit dismally in a group by themselves ; in the other
end stand their pensive partners that are to be ; but no more
intercourse between the sexes than there is between two
countries at war. The ladles indeed may ogle, and the gentle
men sigh;, but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce.
At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady directress, or in-
tendant, or what you will, pitches upon a lady and gentleman
to walk a minuet ; which they perform with formality that ap
proaches to despondence. After five or six couple have thus
walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country dances; each
gentleman furnished with a partner from the aforesaid lady
directress; so they dance much, say nothing, and thus con
cludes our assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman that such
profound silence resembled the ancient procession of the
Roman matrons in honor of Ceres ; and the Scotch gentleman
told me (and, faith, I believe he was right) that I was a very
great pedant for my pains.
"Now I am come to the ladies; and to show that I love
Scotland, and everything that belongs to so charming a
country, I insist on it, and will give him leave to break my
head that denies it — that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand
times finer and handsomer than the Irish. To be sure, now,
I see your sisters Betty and Peggy vastly surprised at my
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 41
partiality— but tell them flatly, I don't value them— or their
fine skins, or eyes, or good sense, or , a potato ;— f or I say,
and will maintain it ; and as a convincing proof (I am in a
great passion) of what I assert, the Scotch ladies say it them
selves. But to be less serious ; where will you find a language
so prettily become a pretty mouth as the broad Scotch? And
the women here speak it in its highest purity ; for instance,
teach one of your young ladies at home to pronounce the
' Whoar wull I gong? ' with a becoming widening of mouth,
and I'll lay my life they'll wound every hearer.
" We have no such character here as a coquet, but alas ! how
many envious prudes ! Some days ago I walked into my Lord
Kilcoubry's (don't be surprised, my lord is but a glover),* when
the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her beauty
to her ambition, and her inward peace to a title and gilt equi
page) passed by in her chariot ; her battered husband, or more
properly the guardian of her charms, sat by her side. Straight
envy began, in the shape of no less than three ladies who sat
with me, to find faults in her faultless form. 'For my part,'
says the first, ' I think what I always thought, that the Duch
ess has too much of the red in her complexion.' 'Madam, I
am not of your opinion,' says the second ; ' I think her face has
a palish cast too much on the delicate order.' * And let me tell
you,' added the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up to
the size of an issue, * that the Duchess has fine lips, but she
wants a mouth.' At this every lady drew up her mouth as if
going to pronounce the letter P.
"But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridicule women
with whom I have scarcely any correspondence ! There are,
'tis certain, handsome women here; and 'tis certain they have
handsome men to keep them company. An ugly and poor
man is society only for himself; and such society the world
lets me enjoy in great abundance. Fortune has given you cir
cumstances, and nature a person to look charming in the eyes
of the fair. Nor do I envy my dear Bob such blessings, while
I may sit down and laugh at the world and at myself— the
most ridiculous object in it. But you see I am grown down
right splenetic, and perhaps the fit may continue till I receive
* William Maclellan, who claimed the title, and whose son succeeded in establish.
Ing the claim in 1773. The father is said to have voted at the election of the six
teen Peers for Scotland, and to have sold gloves in the lobby at this and other public
42 OLIVER
an answer to this. I know you cannot send me much news
from Ballymahon, but such as it is, send it all ; everything you
send will be agreeable to me.
"Has George Conway put up a sign yet; or John Binley left
off drinking drams ; or Tom Allen got a new wig? But I leave
you to your own choice what to write. While I live, know
you have a true friend in yours, etc., etc.,
"OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
"P.S. Give my sincere respects (not compliments, do you
mind) to your agreeable family, and give my service to my
mother, if you see her ; for, as you express it in Ireland, I have
a sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me, , Student
in Physic, in Edinburgh."
Nothing worthy of preservation appeared from his pen dur
ing his residence in Edinburgh ; and indeed his poetical powers,
highly as they had been estimated by his friends, had not as
yet produced anything of superior merit. He made on one oc
casion a month's excursion to the Highlands. ' ' I set out the
first day on foot," says he, in a letter to his uncle Contarine,
"but an ill-natured corn I have on my toe has -for the future
prevented that cheap mode of travelling; so the second day I
hired a horse about the size of a ram, and he walked away (trot
he could not) as pensive as his master. "
During his residence in Scotland his convivial talents gained
him at one time attentions in a high quarter, which, however,
he had the good sense to appreciate correctly. ' ' I have spent, "
says he, in one of his letters, "more than a fortnight every
second day at the Duke of Hamilton's ; but it seems they like
me more as a jester than as a companion, so I disdained so ser
vile an employment as unworthy my calling as a physician."
Here we again find the origin of another passage in his auto
biography, under the character of the "Man in Black," where
in that worthy figures as a flatterer to a great man. "At
first," says he, "I was surprised that the situation of a flat
terer at a great man's table could be thought disagreeable;
there was no great trouble in listening attentively when his
lordship spoke, and laughing when he looked round for ap
plause. This, even good manners might have obliged me to
perform. I found, however, too soon, his lordship was a
greater dunce than myself, and from that moment flattery was
at an end. I now rather aimed at setting him right, than at
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 43
receiving his absurdities with submission : to flatter those we
do not know is an easy task ; but to flatter our intimate ac
quaintances, all whose foibles are strongly in our eyes, is
drudgery insupportable. Every time I now opened my lips
in praise, my falsehood went to my conscience ; his lordship
soon perceived me to be very unfit for his service: I was
therefore discharged ; my patron at the same time being gra
ciously pleased to observe that he believed I was tolerably
_:«><)d-natured, and had not the least harm in me."
After spending two winters at Edinburgh, Goldsmith pre
pared to finish his medical studies on the Continent, for which
his uncle Contarine agreed to furnish the funds. "I intend,"
said he, in a letter to his uncle, ''to visit Paris, where the
j^reat Farheim, Petit, and Du Hamel de Monceau instruct
*heir pupils in all the branches of medicine. They speak
French, and consequently I shall have much the advantage of
most of my countrymen, as I am perfectly acquainted with
th.it language, and few who leave Ireland are so. I shall
spend the spring and summer in Paris, and the beginning of
next winter go to Ley den. The great Albinus is still alive
there, and 'twill be proper to go, though only to have it said
that we have studied in so famous a university.
' ' As I shall not have another opportumtyof receiving money
from your bounty till my return to Ireland, so I have drawn
for the last sum that I hope I shall ever trouble you for ; 'tis
£20. And now, dear sir, let me here acknowledge the humility
of the station in which you found me ; let me tell how I was
despised by most, and hateful to myself. Poverty, hopelesy
poverty, was mv lot, and Melancholy was beginning to make
me her own. When you— but I stop here, to inquire how your
health goes on? How does my cousin Jenny, and has she re
covered her late complaint? How does my poor Jack Gold
smith? I fear his ^disorder is of such a nature as he won't
asily recover. I wish, my dear sir, you would make me
!i,t])py by another letter before I go abroad, for there I shall
k hardly hear from you. . . . Give my— how shall I express it?
Give my earnest love to Mr. and Mrs. Lawder."
Mrs. Lawder was Jane, his early playmate— the object of
his valentine— his first poetical inspiration. She had been
for some time married.
Medical instruction, it will be perceived, was the ostensible
motive for this visit to the Continent, but the real one, i
probability, was his long-eh<M -\<}^\ desire to see foreign parts.
44 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
This, however, he would not acknowledge even to himself, but
sought to reconcile his roving propensities with some grand
moral purpose. "I esteem ttoe traveller who instructs the
heart," says he, in one of his subsequent writings, " but despise
him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves
home to mend himself and others is a philosopher ; but he who
^oes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of
curiosity, is only a vagabond." He, of course, was to travel as
a philosopher, and in truth his outfits for a continental tour
were in character. "I shall carry just £33 to France," said he,
"with good store of clothes, shirts, etc., and that with
economy will suffice. " He forgot to make mention of his flute,
which it will be found had occasionally to come in play when
economy could not replenish his purse, nor philosophy find
Kim a supper. Thus slenderly provided with money, pru
dence, or experience, and almost as slightly guarded against
"hard knocks" as the hero of La Mancha, whose head-piece
was half iron, half-pasteboard, he made his final sally forth
upon the world ; hoping all things ; believing all things : little
anticipating the checkered ills in store for him ; little thinking
when he penned his valedictory letter to his good uncle Conta-
rine, that he was never to see him more ; never to return after
all his wandering to the friend of his infancy ; never to revisit
his early and fondly-remembered haunts at "sweet Lissoy"
and Ballymahon.
CHAPTER V.
THE AGREEABLE FELLOW - PASSENGERS — RISKS FROM FRIENDS
PICKED UP BY THE WAYSIDE — SKETCHES OF HOLLAND AND
THE DUTCH — SHIFTS WHILE A POOR STUDENT AT LEYDEN —
THE TULIP SPECULATION— THE PROVIDENT FLUTE— SOJOURN
AT PARIS— SKETCH OF VOLTAIRE — TRAVELLING SHIFTS OF A
PHILOSOPHIC VAGABOND.
His usual indiscretion attended Goldsmith at the very outset
of his foreign enterprise. He had intended to take shipping at
Leith for Holland; but on arriving at that port he found a ship
about to sail for Bordeaux, with six agreeable passengers,
whose acquaintance he had probably made at the inn. He was
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
45
not a man to resist a sudden impulse ; so, instead of embarking
for Holland, he found himself ploughing the seas on his way to
the other side of the Continent. Scarcely had the ship been
two days at sea, when she was driven by stress of weather to
Newcastle-upoii-Tyne. Here "of course" Goldsmith and his
agreeable fellow-passengers found it expedient to go on shore
and "refresh themselves after the fatigues of the voyage."
" Of course" they frolicked and made merry until a late hour
in the evening, when, in the midst of their hilarity, the door
was burst open, and a sergeant and twelve grenadiers entered
with fixed bayonets, and took the whole convivial party pri
soners.
It seems that the agreeable companions with whom our
greenhorn had struck up such a sudden intimacy were Scotch
men in the French service, who had been in Scotland enlisting
recruits for the French army.
In vain Goldsmith protested his innocence ; he was marched
off with his fellow-revellers to prison, whence he with diffi
culty obtained his release at the end of a fortnight. With his
customary facility, however, at palliating his misadventures,
he found everything turn out for the best. His imprison
ment saved his life, for during his detention the ship proceeded
on her voyage, but was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne,
and all on board perished.
Goldsmith's second embarl^tion was for Holland direct, and
in nine days he arrived at Rotterdam, whence he proceeded,
without any more deviations, to Leyden. He gives a whimsical
picture, in one of his letters, of the appearance of the Holland
ers. "The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature
from him of former times : he in everything imitates a French
man but in his easy, disengaged air. He is vastly ceremonious,
and is, perhaps, exactly what a Frenchman might have been
in the reign of Louis XIV. Such are the better bred. But the
downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in nature.
Upon a lank head of hair he wears a half-cocked narrow hat,
laced with black riband; no coat, but seven waistcoats and
nine pair of breeches, so that his hips reach up almost to his
armpits. This well-clothed vegetable is now fit to see company
or make love. But what a pleasing creature is the object of
his appetite ! why, she wears a large fur cap, with a deal of
Flanders lace ; and for every pair of breeches he carries, she
puts on two petticoats.
"A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer
46 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every woman carries in
her hand a stove of coals, which, when she sits, she snugs
under her petticoats, and at this chimney dozing Strephon
lights his pipe."
In the same letter he contrasts Scotland and Holland.
"There hills and rocks intercept every prospect; here it is
all a continued plain. There you might see a well-dressed
Duchess issuing from a dirty close, and here a dirty Dutchman
inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may be compared to a tulip,
planted in dung; but I can never see a Dutchman in his own
house but I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated
to an ox."
The country itself awakened his admiration. "Nothing,''
said he, "can equal its beauty; wherever I turn my eyes, fine
houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottoes, vistas, present them
selves ; but when you enter their towns you are charmed be
yond description. No misery is to be seen here ; every one is
usefully employed." And again, in his noble description in
"The Traveller;"
" To men of other minds my fancy flies.
Imbosom'd in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand.
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amid the wateiy roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile.
Sees an amphibious world before him smile ;
The slow canal, the yellow blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail.
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign."
He remained about a year at Leyden, attending the lectures
of Gaubius on chemistry and Albinus on anatomy ; though his
studies are said to have been miscellaneous, and directed to
literature rather than science. The thirty-three pounds with
which he had set out on his travels were soon consumed, and
he was put to many a shift to meet his expenses until his pre
carious remittances should arrive. He had a good friend on
these occasions in a fellow-student and countryman, named
Ellis, who afterward rose to eminence as a physician. He
used frequently to loan small sums to Goldsmith, which were
Always scrupulously paid. Ellis discovered the innate merits
GOLB8MITH, 47
of the poor awkward student, and used to declare in after life
that it was a common remark in Leyden, that in all the pecu
liarities of Goldsmith, an elevation of mind was to be noted ; a
philosophical tone and manner; the feelings of a gentleman,
and the language and information of a scholar."
Sometimes, in his emergencies, Goldsmith undertook to
teach the English language. It is true he was ignorant r>f
the Dutch, but he had a smattering of the French, picket
up among the Irish priests at Bally mahon. He depicts his
whimsical embarrassment in this respect, in his account in
the Vicar of Wakefield of the philosophical vagabond who
went to Holland to teach the natives English, without know
ing a word of their own language. Sometimes, when sorely
pinched, and sometimes, perhaps, when flush, he resorted to
the gambling tables, which in those days abounded in Holland.
His good friend Ellis repeatedly warned him against this un
fortunate propensity, but in vain. It brought its own cure, or
rather its own punishment, by stripping him of every shilling.
Ellis once more stepped in to his relief with a true Irishman's
generosity, but with more considerateness than generally char
acterizes an Irishman, for he only granted pecuniary aid on
condition of his quitting the sphere of danger. Goldsmith
gladly consented to leave Holland, being anxious to visit other
parts. He intended to proceed to Paris and pursue his studies
there, and was furnished by his friend with money for the
journey. Unluckily, he rambled into the garden of a florist
just before quitting Leyden. The tulip mania was still preva
lent in Holland, and some species of that splendid flower
brought immense prices. In wandering through the garden
Goldsmith recollected that his uncle Contarine was a tulip
fancier. The thought suddenly struck him that here was an
opportunity of testifying, in a delicate manner, his sense of
that generous uncle's past kindnesses. In an instant his hand
was in his pocket ; a number "of choice and costly tulip-roots
were purchased and packed up for Mr. Contarine ; and it was
not until he had paid for them that he bethought himself that
he had spent all the money borrowed for his travelling ex
penses. Too proud, however, to give up his journey, and too
shamefaced to make another appeal to his friend's liberality,
he determined to travel on foot, and depend upon chance and
good luck for the means of getting forward ; and it is said that
he actually set off on a tour of the Continent, in February,
1755, with but one sparo shirt, a flute, and a single guinea.
4g OL1VE& GOLDSMITH.
" Blessed," says one of his biographers, "with a good consti
tution, an adventurous spirit, and with that thoughtless, or,
perhaps, happy disposition which takes no care for to-morrow,
he continued his travels for a long time in spite of innumerable
privations." In his amusing narrative of the adventures of a
"Philosophic Vagabond" in the "Vicar of Wakefield," we
find shadowed out the expedients he pursued. "I had some
knowledge of music, with a tolerable voice; I now turned
what was once my amusement into a present means of sub
sistence. I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders,
and among such of the French as were poor enough to be very
merry, for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their
wants. Whenever I approached a peasant's house toward
nightfall, I played one of my merriest tunes, and that pro
cured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day ;
but in truth I must own, whenever I attempted to entertain
persons of a higher rank, they always thought my perform
ance odious, and never made me any return for m.y endeavors
to please them. "
At Paris he attended the chemical lectures of Rouelle, then
in great vogue, where he says he witnessed as bright a circle
of beauty as graced the court of Versailles. His love of
theatricals, also, led him to attend the performances of the
celebrated actress Mademoiselle Clairon, with which he was
greatly delighted. He seems to have looked upon the state of
society with the eye of a philosopher, but to have read the
signs of the times with the prophetic eye of a poet. In his
rambles about the environs of Paris he was struck with the
immense quantities of game running about almost in a tame
state; and saw in those costly and rigid preserves for the
amusement and luxury of the privileged few a sure ' ' badge of
the slavery of the people." This slavery he predicted was
drawing toward a close. "When I consider that these parlia
ments, the members of which are all created by the court, and
the presidents of which can only act by immediate direction,
presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who till of
late received directions from the throne with implicit humi
lity ; when this is considered, I cannot help fancying that the
genius of Freedom has entered that kingdom in disguise. If
they have but three weak monarchs more successively on the
throne, the mask will be laid aside, and the country will
certainly once more be free." Events have testified to the
sage forecast of the poet.
49
During a brief sojourn in Paris he appears to have gained
access to valuable society, and to have had the honor and
pleasure of making the acquaintance of Voltaire ; of whom, in
after years, he wrote a memoir. " As a companion," says he,
u no man ever exceeded him when he pleased to lead the con
versation ; which, however, was not always the case. In com
pany which he either disliked or despised, few could be more
reserved than he ; but when he was warmed in discourse, and
got over a hesitating manner, which sometimes he was subject
to, it was rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed
insensibly to gather beauty : every muscle in it had meaning,
and his eye beamed with unusual brightness. The person who
writes this memoir," continues he, ''remembers to have seen
him in a select company of wits of both sexes at Paris, when
the subject happened to turn upon English taste and learning.
Fontenelle (then nearly a hundred years old), who was of the
party, and who being unacquainted with the language or au
thors of the country he undertook to condemn, with a spirit
truly vulgar began to revile both. Diderot, who liked the
English, and knew something of their literary pretensions,
attempted to vindicate their poetry and learning, but with
unequal abilities. The company quickly perceived that Fonte
nelle was superior in the dispute, and were surprised at the
silence which Voltaire had preserved all the former part of the
night, particularly as the conversation happened to turn upon
one of his favorite topics. Fontenelle continued his triumph
until about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last
roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated.
He began his defence with the utmost defiance mixed with
epirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery
upon his antagonist ; and his harangue lasted till three in the
morning. I must confess that, whether from national par
tiality or from the elegant sensibility of his manner, I never
was so charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory
as he gained in this dispute." Goldsmith's ramblings took him
into Germany and Switzerland, from which last mentioned
country he sent to his brother in Ireland the first brief sketch,
afterward amplified into his poem of the " Traveller."
At Geneva he became travelling tutor to a mongrel young
gentleman, son of a London pawnbroker, who had been sud
denly elevated into fortune and absurdity by the death of an
uncle. The youth, before setting up for a gentleman, had been
an attorney's apprentice, and was an arrant pettifogger iir
fiO OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
money matters. Never were two beings more illy assorted
than he and Goldsmith. We may form an idea of the tutor
and the pupil from the following extract from the narrative of
the " Philosophic Vagabond."
" I was to be the young gentleman's governor, but with a
proviso that he should always be permitted to govern himself.
My pupil, in fact, understood the art of guiding in money con
cerns much better than I. He was heir to a fortune of about
two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the West
Indies; and his guardians, to qualify him for the management of
it had bound him apprentice to an attorney. Thus avarice was
his prevailing passion ; all his questions on the road were how
money might be saved — which was the least expensive course
of travel— whether anything could be bought that would turn
to account when disposed of again in London. Such curiosities
on the way as could be seen for nothing he was ready enough
to look at; but if the sight of them was to be paid for, he
usually asserted that he had been told that they were not
worth seeing. He never paid a bill that he would not observe
how amazingly expensive travelling was ; and all this though
not yet twenty -one."
In this sketch Goldsmith undoubtedly shadows forth his an
noyances as travelling tutor to this concrete young gentleman,
compounded of the pawnbroker, the pettifogger, and the West
Indian heir, with an overlaying of the city miser. They had
continual difficulties on all points of expense until they reached
Marseilles, where both were glad to separate.
Once more on foot, but freed from the irksome duties of
"bear leader," and with some of his pay, as tutor, in his
pocket, Goldsmith continued his half-vagrant peregrinations
through part of France and Piedmont, and some of the Italian
States. He had acquired, as has been shown, a habit of shift
ing along and living by expedients, and a new one presented
itself in Italy. "My skill in music," says he, in the Philosophic-
Vagabond, " could avail me nothing in a country where every
peasant was a better musician than I ; but by this time I had
acquired another talent, which answered my purpose as well,
and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign univer
sities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical
theses maintained against every adventitious disputant; for
which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can
claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night."
Though a poor wandering scholar, his reception in these
GOLDSMITH. fa
learned piles was as free from humiliation as in the cottagos of
the peasantry. " With the members of these establishmc!
said he, "I could converse on topics of literature, and the,/ I
always forgot the meanness of my circumstances."
At Padua, where he remained some months, he is said to
have taken his medical degree. It is probable he was brought
to a pause in this city by the death of his uncle Contarine, who
had hitherto assisted him in his wanderings by occasional,
• Jiough, of course, slender remittances. Deprived of this source
of supplies, he wrote to his friends in Ireland, and especially to
his brother-in-law, Hod son, describing his destitute situation.
His letters brought him neither money nor reply. It appears
from subsequent correspondence that his brother-in-law actu
ally exerted himself to raise a subscription for his assistance
among his relatives, friends, and acquaintance, but without
success. Their faith and hope in him were most probably at
an end ; as yet he had disappointed them at every point, he
had given none of the anticipated proofs of talent, and they
were too poor to support what they may have considered the
wandering propensities of a heedless spendthrift.
Thus left to his own precarious resources, Goldsmith gave
up all further wandering in Italy, without visiting the south,
though Rome and Naples must have held out powerful attrac
tions to one of his poetical cast. Once more resuming his pil
grim staff, he turned his face toward England, "walking along
from city to city, examining mankind more nearly, and seeing
both sides of the picture." In traversing France his flute —
his magic flute !— was once more in requisition, as we may con
clude, by the following passage in his Traveller :
" Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir
With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire!
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew:
And haply though my harsh note falt'ring still.
But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill;
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour.
Alike all ages: Dames of ancient dnvs
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skiil'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd Ix-oeatt the burden of three-score."
52 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
CHAPTER VI.
LANDING IN ENGLAND— SHIFTS OF A MAN WITHOUT MONEY— THE
PESTLE AND MORTAR— THEATRICALS IN A BARN— LAUNCH UPON
LONDON — A CITY NIGHT SCENE — STRUGGLES WITH PENURY —
MISERIES OF A TUTOR — A DOCTOR IN THE SUBURB — POOR PRAC
TICE AND SECOND-HAND FINERY — A TRAGEDY IN EMBRYO— PRO
JECT OF THE WRITTEN MOUNTAINS.
AFTER two years spent in roving about the Continent, ' ' pur
suing novelty," as he said, "and losing content," Goldsmith
landed at Dover early in 1756. He appears to have had no
definite plan of action. The death of his uncle Contarine, and
the neglect of his relatives and friends to reply to his letters,
seem to have produced in him a temporary feeling of loneli
ness and destitution, and his only thought was to get to Lon
don and throw himself upon the world. But how was he to
get there? His purse was empty. England was to him as
completely a foreign land as any part of the Continent, and
where on earth is a penniless stranger more destitute? His
flute and his philosophy were no longer of any avail ; the Eng
lish boors cared nothing for music ; there were no convents ;
and as to the learned and the clergy, not one of them would
give a vagrant scholar a supper and night's lodging for the best
thesis that ever was argued. "You may easily imagine,"
says he, in a subsequent letter to his brother-in-law, "what
difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was without friends,
recommendations, money, or impudence, and that in a country
where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me un
employed. Many, in such circumstances, would have had
recourse to the friar's cord or the suicide's halter. But, with
all my follies, I had principle to resist the one, and resolution
to combat the other. "
He applied at one place, we are told, for employment in the
shop of a country apothecary; but all his medical science
gathered in foreign universities could not gain him the man
agement of a pestle and mortar. He even resorted, it is said,
to the stage as a temporary expedient, and figured in low com
edy at a country town in Kent. This accords with his last
shift of tlxe Philosophic Vagabond, and with the knowledge of
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 63
country theatricals displayed in his " Adventures of a Stroll
ing Player," or may be a story suggested by them. All this
part of his career, however, in which he must have trod the
lowest paths of humility, are only to be conjectured from
vague traditions, or scraps of autobiography gleaned from his
miscellaneous writings.
At length we find him launched on the great metropolis, or
rather drifting about its streets, at night, in the gloomy month
of February, with but a few half-pence in his pocket. The
deserts of Ara,bia are not more dreary and inhospitable than
the streets of London at such a tune, and to a stranger in such
a plight. Do we want a picture as an illustration L We have
it in his own words, and furnished, doubtless, from his own
experience.
"The clock has just struck two; what a gloom hangs all
around ! no sound is heard but of the chiming clock, or the
distant watch-dog. How few appear in those streets, which
but some few hours ago were crowded ! But who are those
who make the streets their couch, and find a short repose
from wretchedness at the doors of the opulent? They are
strangers, wanderers, and orphans, whose circumstances are
too humble to expect redress, and whose distresses are too
great even for pity. Some are without the covering even of
rags, and others emaciated with disease; the world has dis
claimed them ; society turns its back upon their distress, and
has given them up to nakedness and hunger. These poor shiv
ering femades have once seen happier days, and been flattered
into beauty. They are now turned out to meet the severity of
winter. Perhaps now, lying at the doors of their betrayers,
they sue to wretches whose hearts are insensible, or debau
chees who may curse, but will not relieve them.
" Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of
wretches I cannot relieve! Poor houseless creatures! The
world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief."
Poor houseless Goldsmith ! we may here ejaculate — to what
shifts he must have been driven to find shelter and sustenance
for himself in this his first venture into London ! Many years
afterward, in the days of his social elevation, he startled a
polite circle at Sir Joshua Eeynolds's by humorously dating an
anecdote about the time he " lived among the beggars of Axe
Lane." Such may have been the desolate quarters with which
he was fain to content himself when thus adrift upon the town,
with but a few half -pence in his pocket.
54 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
The first authentic trace we have of him in this new part of
his career, is filling the situation of an usher to a school, and
even this employ he obtained with some difficulty, after a ref
erence for a character to his friends in the University of Dub
lin. In the Vicar of Wakefield he makes George Primrose
undergo a whimsical catechism concerning the requisites for an
usher. "Have you been bred apprentice to the business?"
"No." u Then you won't do for a school. Can you dress the
boys' hair?" "No." " Then you won't do for a school. Can
you lie three in a bed?" "No." "Then you will never do for
a school. Have you a good stomach?" "Yes." "Then you
will by no means do for a school. I have been an usher in a
boarding-school myself, and may I die of an anodyne necklace,
but I had rather be under-turnkey at Newgate. I was up
early and late ; I was browbeat by the master, hated for my
ugly face by the mistress, worried by the boys."
Goldsmith remained but a short time in this situation, and
to the mortifications experienced there, we doubtless owe the
picturings given in his writings of the hardships of an usher's
life. "He is generally," says he, "the laughing-stock of the
school. Every trick is played upon him; the oddity of his
manner, his dress, or his language., is a fund of eternal ridi
cule ; the master himself now and then cannot avoid joining in
the laugh; and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill
usage, lives in a state of war with all the family."— "He is
obliged, perhaps, to sleep in the same bed with the French
teacher, who disturbs him for an hour every night in papering
and filleting his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion with his
rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on the
bolster."
His next shift was as assistant in the laboratory of a chemist
near Fish Street Hill. After remaining here a few months, he
heard that Dr. Sleigh, who had been his friend and fellow
student at Edinburgh, was in London. Eager to meet with a
friendly face in this land of strangers, he immediately called
on him; "but though it was Sunday, and it is to be supposed I
was in my best clothes, Sleigh scarcely knew me— such is the
tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when he did
recollect me, I found his heart as warm as ever, and he shared
his purse and friendship with me durtng his continuance in
London."
Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, he now
commenced the practice of medicine, but in a small way, in
55
Bankside, South wark, and chiefly among the poor; for he
\\antr.l the figure, address, polish, and niannp-nient, to succeed
among the rich. His old schoolmate and college companion.
Beatty, who used to aid him with his purse at the university,
met him about this time, decked out in the tarnished finery of
a second-hand suit of green and gold, with a shirt and neck
cloth of a fortnight's wear.
Poor Goldsmith endeavored to assume a prosperous air in
the eyes of his early associate. ' ' He was practising physic, "
he said, "and doing very well!" At this moment poverty was
pinching him to the bone in spite of his practice and his dirty
finery. His fees were necessarily small, and ill paid, and he
was fain to seek some precarious assistance from his pen.
Here his quondam fellow-student, Dr. Sleigh, was again of
service, introducing him to some of the booksellers, who gave
him occasional, though starveling, employment. According to
tradition, however, his most efficient patron just now was a
journeyman printer, one of his poor patients of Bankside, who
had formed a good opinion of his talents, and perceived his
poverty and his literary shifts. The printer was in the employ
of Mr. Samuel Richardson, the author of Pamela, Clarissa, and
Sir Charles Grandison; who combined the novelist and the
publisher, and was in flourishing circumstances. Through the
journeyman's intervention Goldsmith is said to have become
/icquainted with Richardson, who employed him as reader and
corrector of the press, at his printing establishment in Salis
bury Court ; an occupation which he alternated with his medi
cal duties.
Being admitted occasionally to Richardson's parlor, he began
to form literary acquaintances, among whom the most impor
tant was Dr. Young, the author of Night Thoughts, a poem in
the height of fashion. It is not probable, however, that much
familiarity took place at the time between the literary lion of
the day and the poor ^Esculapius of Bankside, the humble cor
rector of the press. Still the communion with literary men
had its effect to set his imagination teeming. Dr. Farr, one of
his Edinburgh fellow-students, who was at London about this
time, attending the hospitals and lectures, gives us an amusing
account of Goldsmith in his literary character.
* ' Early in January he called upon me one morning before I
was up, and, on my entering the room, I recognized my old
acquaintance, dressed in a rusty, full -trimmed black suit, with
his pockets full of papers, which instantly reminded nie of the
66 OLIVER, GOLDSMITH.
poet in Garrick's farce of Lethe. After we had finished oui4
breakfast he drew from his pocket part of a tragedy, which he
said had been brought for my correction. In vain I pleaded
inability, when he began to read ; and every part on which I
expressed a doubt as to the propriety was immediately blotted
out. I then most earnestly pressed him not to trust to my
judgment, but to take the opinion of persons better qualified
to decide on dramatic compositions. He now told me he had
submitted his productions, so far as he had written, to Mr.
Richardson, the author of Clarissa, on which I peremptorily
declined offering another criticism on the performance."
From the graphic description given of him by Dr. Farr, it
will be perceived that the tarnished finery of green and gold
had been succeeded by a professional suit of black, to which,
we are told, were added the wig and cane indispensable to
medical doctors in those days. The coat was a second hand
one, of rusty velvet, with a patch on the left breast, which he
adroitly covered with his three-cornered hat during his medical
visits; and we have an amusing anecdote of his contest of
courtesy with a patient who persisted in endeavoring to relieve
him from the hat, which only made him press it more devoutly
to his heart.
Nothing further has ever been heard of the tragedy men
tioned by Dr. Fair; it was probably never completed. The
same gentleman speaks of a strange Quixotic scheme which
Goldsmith had in contemplation at the time, "of going to
decipher the inscriptions on the written mountains, though he
was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which
they might be supposed to be written. "The salary of three
hundred pounds," adds Dr. Farr, " which had been left for the
purpose, was the temptation." This was probably one of
many dreamy projects with which his fervid brain was apt to
teem. On such subjects he was prone to talk vaguely and
magnificently, but inconsiderately, from a kindled imagination
rather than a well-instructed judgment. He had always a
great notion of expeditions to the East, and wonders to be seen
and effected in the oriental countries.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 67
CHAPTER VII.
LIFE OF A PEDAGOGUE— KINDNESS TO SCHOOLBOYS— PERTNESS IN
RETURN — EXPENSIVE CHARITIES — THE GRIFFITHS AND THE
u MONTHLY REVIEW" — TOILS OF A LITERARY HACK — RUPTURE
WITH THE GRIFFITHS.
AMONG the most cordial of Goldsmith's intimates in London
during this time of precarious struggle were certain of his
former fellow-students in Edinburgh. One of these was the
son of a Doctor Milner, a dissenting minister, who kept a
classical school of eminence at Peckham, in Surrey. Young
Milner had a favorable opinion of Goldsmith's abilities and
attainments, and cherished for him that good will which his
genial nature seems ever to have inspired among his school
and college associates. His father falling ill, the young man
negotiated with Goldsmith to take temporary charge of the
school. The latter readily consented ; for he was discouraged
by the slow growth of medical reputation and practice, and as
yet had no confidence in the coy smiles of the muse. Laying
by his wig and cane, therefore, and once more wielding the
ferule, he resumed the character of the pedagogue, and for
some time reigned as vicegerent over the academy at Peckham.
He appears to have been well treated by both Dr. Milner and
his wife, and became a favorite with the scholars from his
easy, indulgent good nature. He mingled in their sports, told
them droll stories, played on the flute for their amusement,
and spent his money in treating them to sweetmeats and other
schoolboy dainties. His familiarity was sometimes carried too
far; he indulged in boyish pranks and practical jokes, and
drew upon himself retorts hi kind, which, however, he bore
with great good humor. Once, indeed, he was touched to tha
quick by a piece of schoolboy pertness. After playing on the
flute, he spoke with enthusiasm of music, as delightful in itself,
and as a valuable accomplishment for a gentleman, whereupon
a youngster, with a glance at his ungainly person, wished to
know if he considered himself a gentleman. Poor Goldsmith,
feelingly alive to the awkwardness of his appearance and the
humility of his situation, winced at this unthinking sneer,
which long rankled in his mind.
58 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
As usual, while in Dr. Milner's employ, his benevolent feel
ings were a heavy tax upon his purse, for he never could
resist a tale of distress, and was apt to be fleeced by every
sturdy beggar; so that, between his charity and his munifi
cence, he was generally in advance of his slender salary.
"You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me take care of your
money," said Mrs. Milner one day, "as I do for some of the
young gentlemen. "—"In truth, madam, there is equal need!"
was the good-humored reply.
Dr. Milner was a man of some literary pretensions, and wrote
occasionally for the Monthly Review, of which a bookseller, by
the name of Griffiths, was proprietor. This work was an
advocate for Whig principles, and had been in prosperous
existence for nearly eight years. Of late, however, periodicals
had multiplied exceedingly, and a formidable Tory rival had
started up in the Critical Review, published by Archibald Ham
ilton, a bookseller, and aided by the powerful and popular pen
of Dr. Smollett. Griffiths was obliged to recruit Ms forces.
While so doing he met Goldsmith, a humble occupant of a seat
at Dr. Milner's table, and was struck with remarks on men and
books, which fell from him in the course of conversation. He
took occasion to sound him privately as to his inclination and
capacity as a reviewer, and was furnished by him with speci
mens of his literary and critical talents. They proved satis
factory. The consequence was that Goldsmith once more
changed his mode of life, and in April, 1757, became a contribu
tor to the Monthly Review, at a small fixed salary, with board
and lodging, and accordingly took up his abode with Mr.
Griffiths, at the sign of the Dunciad, Paternoster Eow. As
usual we trace this phase of his fortunes in his semi-fictitious
writings ; his sudden transmutation of the pedagogue into the
author being humorously set forth in the case of " George Prim
rose," in the "Vicar of Wakefield." "Come," says George's
adviser, "I see you are a lad of spirit and some learning;
what do you think of commencing author like me? You have
read in books, no doubt, of men of genius starving at the
trade ; at present I'll show you forty very dull fellows about
town that live by it in opulence. All honest, jog-trot men,
who go on smoothly and dully, and write history and politics,
and are praised : men, sir, who, had they been bred cobblers,
would all their lives only have mended shoes, but never made
them." " Finding" (says Georgex» "that there was no great de
gree of gentility offixed to the character of an usher, I resolved
OLIVER GOLD* Mini. &)
to accept his proposal; and having the highest respect for
literature, hailed the antiqua mater of Grub Street with rev
erence. I thought it my glory to pursue a track which
Dryden and Otway trod before me." Alas, Dryden struggled
with indigence all his days ; and Otway, it is said, fell a vic
tim to famine in his thirty-fifth year, being strangled by a roll
of bread, which he devoured with the voracity of a starvin
mail.
In Goldsmith's experience the track soon proved a thorn}'
one. Griffiths was a hard business man, of shrewd, worldly
good sense, but little refinement or cultivation. He meddled,
or rather muddled with literature, too, in a business way,
altering and modifying occasionally the writings of bis con
tributors, and in this he was aided by his wife, who, according
to Smollett, was "an antiquated female critic and a dabbler in
the Review" Such was the literary vassalage to which Gold
smith had unwarily subjected himself. A diurnal drudgery
was imposed on him, irksome to his indolent habits, and at
tended by circumstances humiliating to his pride. He had to
write daily from nine o'clock until two, and often throughout
the day ; whether in the vein or not, and on subjects dictated
by his taskmaster, however foreign to his taste ; in a word, he
was treated as a mere literary hack. But this was not the
worst ; it was the critical supervision of Griffiths and his wife
which grieved him: the "illiterate, bookselling Griffiths," as
Smollett called them, "who presumed to revise, alter, and
amend the articles contributed to their Review. Thank
heaven," crowed Smollet, "the Critical Review is not written
vinder the restraint of a bookseller and his wife. Its principal
writers are independent of each other, unconnected with book
sellers, and unawed by old women !"
This literary vassalage, however, did not last long. The
bookseller became more and more exacting. He accused his
hack writer of idleness; of abandoning his writing-desk and
literary workshop at an early hour of the day ; and of assum
ing a tone and manner above his situation. Goldsmith, in
return, charged him with impertinence ; his wife with mean
ness and parsimony in her household treatment of him, and
both of literary meddling and marring. The engagement was
broken off at the end of five months, by mutual consent, and
without any violent rupture, as it will be found they afterward
had occasional dealings with each other.
Though Goldsmith was now nearly thirty years of age, he
60 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
had produced nothing to give him a decided reputation. He
was as yet a mere writer for bread. The articles he had con
tributed to the Review were anonymous, and were never
avowed by him. They have since been, for the most part,
ascertained ; and though thrown off hastily, often treating on
subjects of temporary interest, and marred by the Griffith in
terpolations, they are still characterized by his sound, easy
good sense, and the genial graces of his style. Johnson ob
served that Goldsmith's genius flowered late ; he should have
said it flowered early, but was late in bringing its fruit to
maturity.
CHAPTER VIII.
PEARANCES— MISERIES OF AUTHORSHIP— A POOR RELATION-
LETTER TO HODSON.
BEING now known in the publishing world, Goldsmith began
to find casual employment in various quarters ; among others
he wrote occasionally for the Literary Magazine, a production
set on foot by Mr. John Newbery, bookseller, St. Paul's
Churchyard, renowned in nursery literature throughout the
latter half of the last century for his picture-books for children.
Newbery was a worthy, intelligent, kind-hearted man, and a
seasonable though cautious friend to authors, relieving them
with small loans when in pecuniary difficulties, though always
taking care to be well repaid by the labor of their pens. Gold
smith introduces him in a humorous yet friendly manner in
his novel of the Vicar of Wakefield. * ' This person was no
other than the philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul's Church
yard, who has written so many little books for children ; he
called himself their friend ; but he was the friend of all man
kind. He was no sooner alighted but he was in haste to be
gone ; for he was ever on business of importance, and was at
that time actually compiling materials for the history of one
Mr. Thomas Trip. I immediately recollected this good-natured
man's red-pimpled face."
Besides his literary job work, Goldsmith also resumed his
medical practice, but with very trifling success. The scanti-
OLtVKtl Uo/J>*.\//riL 61
ness of his purse still obliged him to live in obscure lodgings
somewhere in the vicinity of Salisbury Square, Fleet Street ;
but his extended acquaintance and rising importance caused
him to consult appearances. He adopted an expedient, then
very common, and still practised in London among those who
have to tread the narrow path between pride and poverty;
while he burrowed in lodgings suited to his means, he "hailed,"
as it is termed, from the Temple Exchange Coffee-house near
Temple Bar. Here he received his medical calls; hence he
dated his letters, and here he passed much of his leisure hours,
conversing with the frequenters of the place. " Thirty pounds
a year," said a poor Irish painter, who understood the art of
shifting, " is enough to enable a man to live in London with
out being contemptible. Ten pounds will find him in clothes
and linen ; he can live in a garret on eighteen pence a week ;
hail from a coffee-house, where, by occasionally spending
threepence, he may pass some hours each day in good com
pany ; he may breakfast on bread and milk for a penny ; dine
for sixpence; do without supper; and on clean-shirt-day he
may go abroad and pay visits."
Goldsmith seems to have taken a leaf from this poor devil's
manual in respect to the coffee-house at least. Indeed, coffee
houses in those days were the resorts of wits and literati, where
the topics of the day were gossiped over, and the affairs of
literature and the drama discussed and criticised. In this way
he enlarged the circle of his intimacy, which now embraced
several names of notoriety.
Do we want a picture of Goldsmith's experience in this part
of his career? we have it in his observations on the life of an
author in the " Inquiry into the state of polite learning" pub
lished some years afterward.
* ' The author, unpatronized by the great, has naturally re
course to the bookseller. There cannot, perhaps, be imagined
a combination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is the in
terest of the one to allow as little for writing, and for the other'
to write as much as possible ; accordingly tedious compilations
and periodical magazines are the result of their joint endeavors.
In these circumstances the author bids adieu to fame ; writes
for bread ; and for that only imagination is seldom called in.
He sits down to address' the venal muse with the most phleg
matic apathy ; and, as we are told of the Russian, courts his
mistress by falling asleep in her lap."
Again. "Those who are unacquainted with the world ari
62 OLIVER 60LDSM1TM.
apt to fancy the man of wit as leading a very agreeable life.
They conclude, perhaps, that he is attended with silent admi
ration, and dictates to the rest of mankind with all the elo
quence of conscious superiority. Very different is his present
situation. He is called an author, and all know that an author
is a thing only to be laughed at. His person, not his jest, be
comes the mirth of the company. At his approach the most
fat, unthinking face brightens into malicious meaning. Even
aldermen laugh, and avenge on him the ridicule which was
lavished on their forefathers. . . . The poet's poverty is a
standing topic of contempt. His writing for bread is an un
pardonable offence. Perhaps of all mankind, an author in
these times is used most hardly. We keep him poor, and yet
revile his poverty. We reproach him for living by his wit,
and yet allow him no other means to live. His taking refuge
in garrets and cellars has of late been violently objected to
him, and that by men who, I hope, are more apt to pity than
insult his distress. Is poverty a careless fault? No doubt he
knows how to prefer a bottle of champagne to the nectar of
the neighboring ale-house, or a venison pasty to a plate of po
tatoes. Want of delicacy is not in him, but in those who deny
him the opportunity of making an elegant choice. Wit cer
tainly is the property of those who have it, nor should we be
displeased if it is the only property a man sometimes has. We
must not underrate him who uses it for subsistence, and flees
from the ingratitude of the age, even to a bookseller for re
dress." . . .
" If the author be necessary among us, let us treat him witb
proper consideration as a child of the public, not as a rent-
charge on the community. And indeed a child of the public
he is in. all respects ; for while so well able to direct others, how
incapable is he frequently found of guiding himself. His sinv
plicity exposes him to all the insidious approaches of cunning :
his sensibility, to the slightest invasions of contempt. Though
possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the expected bursts
of an earthquake, yet of feelings so exquisitely poignant as to
agonize under the slightest disappointment. Broken rest,
tasteless meals, and causeless anxieties shorten life, and render
it unfit for active employments ; prolonged vigils and intense
application still farther contract his span, and make his time
glide insensibly away."
While poor Goldsmith was thus struggling with the difficul
ties and discouragements which in those days beset the path of
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 63
an author, his friends in Ireland received accounts of his lite
rary success and of the distinguished acquaintances he was
making. This was enough to put the wise heads at Lissoy and
Ballymahon in a ferment of conjectures. With the exaggera
ted notions of provincial relatives concerning the family great
man in the metropolis, some of Goldsmith's poor kindred pic
tured him to themselves seated in high places, clothed in purple
and fine linen, and hand and glove with the giver of gifts and
dispensers of patronage. Accordingly, he was one day sur
prised at the sudden apparition, in his miserable lodging, of his
younger brother Charles, a raw youth of twenty-one, endowed
with a double share of the family heedlessness, and who ex
pected to be forthwith helped into some snug by-path to for
tune by one or other of Oliver's great friends. Charles was
sadly disconcerted on learning that, so far from being able to
provide for others, his brother could scarcely take care of him
self. He looked round with a rueful eye on the poet's quarters,
and could not help expressing his surprise and disappointment
at finding him no better off. "All in good time, my dear
boy," replied poor Goldsmith, with infinite good-humor; "I
shall be richer by and by. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his
poem of the ' Campaign ' in a garret in the Haymarket, three
stories high, and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have
only got to the second story."
Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to embarrass his bro
ther in London. With the same roving disposition and incon
siderate temper of Oliver, he suddenly departed in an humble
capacity to seek his fortune in the West Indies, and nothing
was heard of him for above thirty years, when, after having
been given up as dead by his friends, he made his reappearance
in England.
Shortly after his departure, Goldsmith wrote a letter to his
brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, Esq., of which the following is
an extract; it was partly intended, no doubt, to dissipate any
further illusions concerning his fortunes which might float on
the magnificent imagination of his friends in Ballymahon.
UI suppose you desire to know my present situation. As
there is nothing in it at which I should blush, or which man
kind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. In
short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little
reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more
apt to introduce us to the gates of the muses than poverty ; but
it were well if *••!•»«*• only left us at the door. The mischief
84 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
is they sometimes choose to give us their company to the
entertainment; and want, instead of being gentleman-usher,
often turns master of the ceremonies.
' ' Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I starve ;
and the name of an author naturally reminds you of a garret.
In this particular I do not think proper to undeceive my
friends. But, whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor or
four pairs of stairs high, I still remember them with ardor ; nay,
my very country comes in for a share of my affection. Un
accountable fondness for country, this maladie du pais, as the
French call it! Unaccountable that he should still have an
affection for a place, who never, when in it, received above
common civility ; who never brought anything out of it except
his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally
ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be cured of the
itch because it made him unco' thoughtful of his wife and
bonny Inverary.
"But now, to be serious: let me ask myself what gives me a
wish to see Ireland again. The country is a fine one, perhaps?
No. There are good company in Ireland? No. The conversa
tion there is generally made up of a smutty toast or a bawdy
song ; the vivacity supported by some humble cousin, who had
just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then, perhaps, there is
more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, Lord, no ! There
has been more money spent in the encouragement ot the Pada-
reen mare there one season, than given in rewards to learned
men since the time of Usher. All their productions in learning
amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in divinity ;
and all their productions in wit to just nothing at all. Why
the plague, then, so fonJ of Ireland? Then, all at once, be
cause you, my dear friend, and a few more who are exceptions
to the general picture, have a residence there. This it is that
gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I carry
this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at present
possess. Is I go to the opera, where Signora Columba pours
out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lissoy fireside,
and Johnny Armstrong's ' Last Good-night ' from Peggy Gol
den. If I climb Hampstead Hill, than where nature never ex
hibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess it fine ; but then
I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lissoy gate,
and there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature.
" Before Charles came hither my thoughts sometimes found
refuge froni severer studies among my friends in Ireland, I
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 65
fancied strange revolutions at home ; but I find it was the ra
pidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to ob
jects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he
tells me, are still lean, but very rich ; others very fat, but still
very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you sally
out in visits among the neighbors, and sometimes make a mi
gration from the blue bed to the brown. I could from my
heart wish that you and she (Mrs. Hodson), and Lissoy and
Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration
into Middlesex ; though, upon second thoughts, this might be
attended with a few inconveniences. Therefore, as the moun
tain will not come to Mohammed, why Mohammed shall go to
the mountain ; or, to speak plain English, as you cannot con
veniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to be
absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them
among my friends in Ireland. But first, believe me, my de
sign is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy con
tributions ; neither to excite envy nor solicit favor ; in fact, my
circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too poor to be
gazed at, and too rich to need assistance."
CHAPTER IX.
HACKNEY AUTHORSHIP— THOUGHTS OF LITERARY SUICIDE— RE
TURN TO PECKHAM — ORIENTAL PROJECTS— LITERARY ENTER
PRISE TO RAISE FUNDS— LETTER TO EDWARD WELLS— TO
ROBERT BRYANTON— DEATH OP UNCLE CONTARINE— LETTER TO
COUSIN JANE.
FOR some time Goldsmith continued to write miscellaneously
for reviews and other periodical publications, but without mak
ing any decided hit, to use a technical term. Indeed, as yet he
appeared destitute of the strong excitement of literary ambi
tion, and wrote only on the spur of necessity and at the urgent
importunity of his bookseller. His indolent and truant dispo
sition, ever averse from labor and delighting in holiday, had
to be scourged up to its task ; still it was this very truant dis
position which threw an unconscious charm over everything
he wrote; bringing with it honeyed thoughts and pictured
images which had sprung up in his mind in the sunny hours of
66 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
idleness : these effusions, dashed off on compulsion in the exi«
gency of the moment, were published anonymously; so that
they made no collective impression on the public, and reflected
no f aihe on the name of their author.
In an essay published some time subsequently in the Bee,
Goldsmith adverts, in his own humorous way, to his
impatience at the tardiness with which his desultory and
unacknowledged essays crept into notice. "I was once
induced," says he, " to show my indignation against the pub
lic by discontinuing my efforts to please, and was bravely
resolved, like Raleigh, to vex them by burning my manu
scripts in a passion. Upon reflection, however, I considered
what set or body of people would be displeased at my rashness.
The sun, after so sad an accident, might shine next morning
as bright as usual ; men might laugh and sing the next day,
and transact business as before ; and not a single creature feel
any regret but myself. Instead of having Apollo in mourn
ing or the Muses in a fit of the spleen ; instead of having the
learned world apostrophizing at my untimely decease; per
haps all Grub Street might laugh at my fate, and self -approv
ing dignity be unable to shield me from ridicule."
Circumstances occurred about this time to give a new direc
tion to Goldsmith's hopes and schemes. Having resumed for
a brief period the superintendence of the Peckham school
during a fit of illness of Dr. Milner, that gentleman, in
requital for his timely services, promised to use his influence
with a friend, an East India director, to procure him a medical
appointment in India.
There was every reason to believe that the influence of Dr.
Mihier would be effectual ; but how was Goldsmith to find the
ways and means of fitting himself out for a voyage to the
Indies? In this emergency he was driven to a more extended
exercise of the pen than he had yet attempted. His skirmish
ing among books as a reviewer, and his disputatious ramble
junong the schools and universities and literati of the Con
tinent, had filled his mind with facts and observations which
he now set about digesting into a treatise of some magnitude,
to be entitled, " An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite
Learning in Europe." As the work grew on his hands his
sanguine temper ran ahead of his labors. Feeling secure of
success in England, he was anxious to forestall the piracy of
the Irish press ; for as yet, the union not having taken place,
the English law of copyright did not extend to the other side
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 67
of the Irish Channel. He wrote, therefore, to his friends in
Ireland, urging them to circulate his proposals for his contem
plated work, and obtain subscriptions payable in advance ;
the money to be transmitted to a Mr. Bradley, an eminent
bookseller in Dublin, who would give a receipt for it and be
accountable for the delivery of the books. The letters written
by him on this occasion are worthy of copious citation as
being full of character and interest. One was to his relative
and college intimate, Edward Wells, who had studied for,
the bar, but was now living at ease on his estate on Ros-
common. -"You have quitted," writes Goldsmith, uthe plan
of life which you once intended to pursue, and given up
ambition for domestic ti*anquillity. I cannot avoid feeling
some regret that one of my few friends has declined a pursuit
in which he had every reason to expect success. I have often
let my fancy loose when you were the subject, and have
imagined you gracing the bench, or thundering at the bar;
while A have taken no small pride to myself, and whispered to
all that I could come near, that this was my cousin. Instead
of this, it seems, that you are merely contented to be a happy
man; to be esteemed by your acquaintances; to cultivate
your paternal acres ; to take unmolested a nap under one of
your own hawthorns or in Mrs. Wells's bedchamber, which
even a poet must confess is rather the more comfortable place
of the two. But, however your resolutions may be altered
with regard to your situation in life, I persuade myself they
are unalterable with respect to your friends in it. I cannot
think the world has taken such entire possession of that heart
(once so susceptible of friendship) as not to have left a corner
there for a friend or two, but I flatter myself that even I have
a place among the number. This I have a claim to from the
similitude of our dispositions; or setting that aside, I can
demand it as a right by the most equitable law of nature ; I
mean that of retaliation ; for indeed you have more than your
share in mine. I am a man of few professions ; and yet at this
very instant I cannot avoid the painful apprehension that my
present professions (which speak not half my f eelings) should
be considered only as a pretext to cover a request, as I have a
request to make. No, my dear Ned, I know you are too
generous to think so, and you know me too proud to stoop to
unnecessary insincerity— I have a request, it is true, to make,
but as I know to whom I am a petitioner, I make it without
Umdcnce cr confusion. It is in short this, I am going to pub-
68 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
lish a book in London," etc. The residue of the let! 31 specifies
the nature of the request, which was merely to aid in circulat
ing his proposals and obtaining subscriptions. The letter of
the poor author, however, was unattended to and unac
knowledged by the prosperous x Mr. Wells, of Eoscommon,
though in after years he was proud to claim relationship to Dr.
Goldsmith, when he had risen to celebrity.
Another of Goldsmith's letters was to Robert Bryanton,
with whom he had long ceased to be in correspondence. " I
believe," writes he, " that they who are drunk, or out of their
wits, fancy everybody else in the same condition. Mine is a
friendship that neither distance nor time can efface, which is
probably the reason that, for the soul of me, I can't avoid
thinking yours of the same complexion ; and yet I have many
reasons for being of a contrary opinion, else why, in so long
an absence, was I never made a partner in your concerns?
To hear of your success would have given me the utmost
pleasure ; and a communication of your very disappointments
would divide the uneasiness I too frequently feel for my own.
Indeed, my dear Bob, you don't conceive how unkindly you
have treated one whose circumstances afford him few pros
pects of pleasure, except those reflected from the happiness of
his friends. However, since you have not let me hear from
you, I have in some measure disappointed your neglect by
frequently thinking of you. Every day or so I remember the
calm anecdotes of your life, from the fireside to the easy chair;
recall the first adventures that first cemented our friendship ;
the school, the college, or the tavern; preside in fancy over
your cards; and am displeased at your bad play when the
rubber goes against you, though not with all that agony of
soul as when I was once your partner. Is it not strange that
two of such like affections should be so much separated, and
so differently employed as we are? You seem placed at the
centre of fortune's wheel, and, let it revolve never so fast, are
insensible of the motion. I seem to have been tied to the cir
cumference, and whirled disagreeably round, as if on a whirli
gig."
He then runs into a whimsical and extravagant tirade about
his future prospects, the wonderful career of fame and for
tune that awaits him ; and after indulging in all kinds of humor
ous gasconades, concludes: "Let me, then, stop my fancy to
take a view of my future self — and, as the boys say, light down
to see myself on horseback. Well, now that I am down, where
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 69
the d— 1 is I? Oh gods! gods! here in a garret, writing for
bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk score!"
He would, on this occasion, have doubtless written to his
uncle Contarine, but that generous friend was sunk into
a helpless hopeless state from which death soon released
him.
Cut off thus from the kind co-operation of his uncle, he ad
dresses a letter to his cousin Jane, the companion of his
school-boy and happy days, now the wife of Mr. Lawder. The
object was to secure her interest with her husband in promoting
the circulation of his proposals. The letter is full of character.
"If you should aak," he begins, "why, in an interval of so
many years, you never heard from me, permit me, madam, to
ask the same question. I have the best excuse in recrimination.
I wrote to Kilmore from Leyden in Holland, from Louvain in
Flanders, and Rouen in France, but received no answer. To
what could I attribute this silence but to displeasure or forgetful-
ness? Whether I was right in my conjecture I do not pretend
to determine ; but this I must ingenuously own, that I have a
thousand times in my turn endeavored to forget them, whom I
could not but look upon as forgetting me. I have attempted to
blot their names from my memory, and, I confess it, spent whole
days in efforts to tear their image from my heart. Could I have
succeeded, you had not now been troubled with this renewal of
a discontinued correspondence ; but, as every effort the restless
make to procure sleep serves but to keep them waking, all my
attempts contributed to impress what I would forget deeper on
my imagination. But this subject I would willingly turn from,
and yet, 'for the soul of me,' I can't till I have said all. I was,
madam, when I discontinued writing to Kilmore, in such cir
cumstances that all my endeavors to continue your regards
might be attributed to wrong motives. My letters might be
looked upon as the petitions of a beggar, and not the offerings
of a friend ; while all my professions, instead of being consid*
ered as the result of disinterested esteem, might be ascribed t •
venal insincerity. I believe, indeed, you had too much gener
osity to place them in such a light, but I could not bear even
the shadow of such a suspicion. The most delicate friendships
are always most sensible of the slightest invasion, and the
strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the warmest regard. I
could not— I own I could not— continue a correspondence in
which every acknowledgment for past favors might be consid
ered as an indirect request for future ones ; and where it might
70 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
be thought I gave my heart from a motive of gratitude alone,
when I was conscious of having bestowed it on much more dis
interested principles. It is true, this conduct might have been
simple enough ; but yourself must confess it was in character.
Those who know me at all, know that I have always been actu
ated by different principles from the rest of mankind: and
while none regarded the interest of his friend more, no man on
earth regarded his own less. I have often affected bluntness to
avoid the imputation of flattery; have frequently seemed to
overlook those merits too obvious to escape notice, and pre
tended disregard to those instances of good nature and good
sense, which I could not fail tacitly to applaud ; and all this
lest I should be ranked among the grinning tribe, who say
' very true ' to all that is said ; who fill a vacant chair at a tea-
table ; whose narrow souls never moved in a wider circle than
the circumference of a guinea ; and who had rather be reckon
ing the money in your pocket than the virtue in your breast.
All this, I say, I have done, and a thousand other very silly,
though very disinterested, things in my time, and for all which
no soul cares a farthing about me. . . . Is it to be wondered
that he should once in his life forget you, who has been all his
life forgetting himself? However, it is probable you may one
of these days see me turned into a perfect hunks, and as dark
and intricate as a mouse-hole. I have already given my land
lady orders for an entire reform in the state of my finances. I
declaim against hot suppers, drink less sugar in my tea, and
check my grate with brickbats. Instead of hanging my room
with pictures, I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality.
Those will make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit
too expensive ; for I will draw them all out with my own hands,
and my landlady's daughter shall frame them with the parings
of my black waistcoat. Each maxim is to be inscribed on a
sheet of clean paper, and wrote with my best pen ; of which the
following will serve as a specimen. Look sharp : Mind the main
chance : Money is money now : If you have a thousand pounds
you can put your hands by your sides, and say you are worth a
thousand pounds every day of the year : Take a farthing from
a hundred and it will be a hundred no longer. Thus, which
way soever I turn my eyes, they are sure to meet one of those
friendly monitors ; and as we are told of an actor who hung his
room round with looking-glass to correct the defects of his per
son, my apartment shall be furnished in a peculiar manner, to
correct the errors of my mind. Faith ! madam, I heartily wish
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 71
to be rich, if it were only for this reason, to say without a
blush how much I esteem you. But, alas! I have many a
fatigue to encounter before that happy time comes, when your
poor old simple friend may again give a loose to the luxuriance
of his nature ; sitting by Kilmore fireside, recount the various
adventures of a hard-fought life ; laugh over the follies of the
day ; join his flute to your harpsichord ; and forget that ever
he starved in those streets where Butler and Otway starved be
fore him. And now I mention those great names— my uncle 1
he is no more that soul of fire as when I once knew him. New
ton and Swift grew dim with age as well as he. But what shall
I say? His mind was too active an inhabitant not to disorder
the feeble mansion of its abode : for the richest jewels soonest
wear their settings. Yet who but the fool would lament his
condition 1 He now forgets the calamities of life. Perhaps in
dulgent Heaven has given him a foretaste of that tranquillity
here, which he so well deserves hereafter. But I must come to
business ; for business, as one of my maxims tells me, must be
minded or lost. I am going to publish in London a book en
titled ' The Present State of Taste and Literature in Europe.'
The booksellers in Ireland republish every performance there
without making the author any consideration. I would, in
this respect, disappoint their avarice and have all the profits of
my labor to myself. I must therefore request Mr. Lawder to
circulate among his friends and acquaintances a hundred of my
proposals which I have given the bookseller, Mr. Bradley, in
Dame Street, directions to send to him. If, in pursuance of
such circulation, he should receive any subscriptions, I entreat,
when collected, they may be sent to Mr. Bradley, as aforesaid,
who will give a receipt, and be accountable for the work, or a
return of the subscription. If this request (which, if it be com
plied with, will in some measure be an encouragement to a man
of learning) should be disagreeable or troublesome, I would not
press it ; for I would be the last man on earth to have my
labors go a-begging; but if I know Mr. Lawder (and sure I
ought to know him), he will accept the employment with pleas
ure. All I can say — if he writes a book, I will get him two
hundred subscribers, and those of the best wits in Europe.
Whether this request is complied with or not, I shall not be
uneasy ; but there is one petition I must make to him and to
you, which I solicit with the warmest ardor, and in which I
cannot bear a refusal. I mean, dear madam, that I may be
allowed to subscribe myself, your ever affectionate and obliged
72 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
kinsman, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Now see how I blot and blun
der, when I am asking a favor."
CHAPTER X.
ORIENTAL APPOINTMENT— AND DISAPPOINTMENT— EXAMINATION
AT THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS— HOW TO PROCURE A SUIT OF
CLOTHES— FRESH DISAPPOINTMENT — A TALE OF DISTRESS — THE
SUIT OF CLOTHES IN PAWN — PUNISHMENT FOR DOING AN ACT
OF CHARITY— GAYETIES OF GREEN ARBOR COURT — LETTER TO
HIS BROTHER— LIFE OF VOLTAIRE — SCROGGIN, AN ATTEMPT AT
MOCK HEROIC POETRY.
WHILE Goldsmith was yet laboring at his treatise, the pro
mise made him by Dr. Milner was carried into effect, and he
was actually appointed physician and surgeon to one of the
factories on the coast of Coromandel. His imagination was
immediately on fire with visions of Oriental wealth and mag
nificence. It is true the salary did not exceed one hundred
pounds, but then, as appointed physician, he would have the
exclusive practice of the place, amounting to one thousand
pounds per annum ; with advantages to be derived from trade,
and from the high interest of money — twenty per cent ; in a
word, for once in his life, the road to fortune lay broad and
straight before him.
Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, he had said
nothing of his India scheme ; but now he imparted to them his
brilliant prospects, urging the importance of their circulating
his proposals and obtaining him subscriptions and advances on
his forthcoming work, to furnish funds for his outfit.
In the mean time he had to task that poor drudge, his muse,
for present exigencies. Ten pounds were demanded for his
appointment- warrant. Other expenses pressed hard upon
him. Fortunately, though as yet unknown to fame, his
literary capability was known to "the trade," and the coinage
of his brain passed current in Grub Street. Archibald Hamil
ton, proprietor of the Critical Review, the rival to that of Grif
fiths, readily made him a small advance on receiving three
articles for his periodical. His purse thus slenderly replen*
ished, Goldsmith paid for his warrant ; wiped off the score of
OLIVER UOLD3MIT1L 73
his milkmaid ; abandoned his garret, and moved into a shabby
first floor in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey ; there to await
the time for his migration to the magnificent coast of Coro-
mandel.
Alas! poor Goldsmith! ever doomed to disappointment.
Early in the gloomy month of November, that month of fog
and despondency in London, he learned the shipwreck of his
hope. The great Coromandel enterprise fell through ; or rather
the post promised to him was transferred to some other candi
date. The cause of this disappointment it is now impossible to
ascertain. The death of his quasi patron. Dr. Milner, which
happened about this time, may have had some effect in pro
ducing it; or there may have been some heedlessness and
blundering on his own part; or some obstacle arising from
his insuperable indigence; whatever may have been the
cause, he never mentioned it, which gives some ground to
surmise that he himself was to blame. His friends learned
with surprise that he had suddenly relinquished his appoint
ment to India about which he had raised such sanguine expec
tations; some accused him of fickleness and caprice; others
supposed him unwilling to tear himself from the growing fasci
nations of the literary society of London.
In the mean tune, cut down in his hopes, and humiliated in
his pride by the failure of his Coromandel scheme, he sought,
without consulting his friends, to be examined at the College o!
Physicians for the humble situation of hospital mate. Even
here poverty stood hi his way. It was necessary to appear in
a decent garb before the examining committee ; but how was
he to do so? He was literally out at elbows as well as out of
cash. Here again the muse, so often jilted and neglected by
him, came to his aid. In consideration of four articles fur
nished to the Monthly Review, Griffiths, his old taskmaster,
was to become his security to the tailor for a suit of clothes.
Goldsmith said he wanted them but for a single occasion, on
which depended his appointment to a situation in the army ; as
soon as that temporary purpose was served they would either
be returned or paid for. The books to be reviewed were ac
cordingly lent to him ; the muse was again set to her compul
sory drudgery ; the articles were scribbled off and sent to the
bookseller, and the clothes came in due time from the tailor.
From the records of the College of Surgeons, it appears that
Goldsmith underwent his examination at Surgeons' Hall on the
21st of December. 1758.
74 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Either from a confusion of mind incident to sensitive and
imaginative persons on such occasions, or from a real want of
surgical science, which last is extremely probable, he failed in
his examination, and was rejected as unqualified. The effect
of such a rejection was to disqualify him for every branch of
public service, though he might have claimed a re-examina
tion, after the interval of a few months devoted to further
study. Such a re-examination he never attempted, nor did he
ever communicate his discomfiture to any of his friends.
On Christmas day, but four days after his rejection by the
College of Surgeons, while he was suffering under the mortifi
cation of defeat and disappointment, and hard pressed for
means of subsistence, he was surprised by the entrance into his
room of the poor woman of whom he hired his wretched apart
ment, and to whom he owed some small arrears of rent. She
had a piteous tale of distress, and was clamorous in her afflic
tions. Her husband had been arrested in the night for debt,
and thrown into prison. This was too much for the quick
feelings of Goldsmith ; he was ready at any time to help the
distressed, but in this instance he was himself in some measure
a cause of the distress. What was to be done? He had n<?
money, it is true ; but there hung the new suit of clothes in
which he had stood his unlucky examination at Surgeons'
Hall. Without giving himself time for reflection, he sent it off
to the pawnbroker's, and raised thereon a. sufficient sum to pay
off his own debt, and to release his landlord from prison.
Under the same pressure of penury and despondency, he
borrowed from a neighbor a pittance to relieve his immediate
wants, leaving as a security the books which he had recently
reviewed. In the midst of these straits and harassments, he re
ceived a letter from Griffiths demanding in peremptory terms
the return of the clothes and books, or immediate payment for
the same. It appears that he had discovered the identical suit
at the pawnbroker's. The reply of Goldsmith is not known ;
it was out of his power to furnish either the clothes or the
money ; but he probably offered once more to make the muse
stand his bail. His reply only increased the ire of the wealthy
man of trade, and drew from him another letter still more
harsh than the first, using the epithets of knave and sharper,
and containing threats of prosecution and a prison.
The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives the most touch
ing picture of an inconsiderate but sensitive man, harassed by
care, stung by humiliations, and driven almost to desnondencT,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 75
" SIR: I know of no misery but a jail to which my own im
prudences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevi
table these three or four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it as
a favor— as a favor that may prevent something more fatal. I
have been some years struggling with a wretched being — with
all that contempt that indigence brings with it— with all those
passions which make contempt insupportable. What, then,
has a jail that is formidable? I shall at least have the society
of wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell you, again
and again, that I am neither able nor willing to pay you a
farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you or the
tailor shall make ; thus far, at least, I do not act the sharper,
since, unable to pay my own debts one way, I would generally
give some security another. No, sir ; had I been a sharper —
had I been possessed of less good-nature and native generosity,
I might surely now have been in better circumstances.
"I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty unavoid
ably brings with it ; my reflections are filled with repentance
for my imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a vil
lain ; that may be a character you unjustly charge me with.
Your books, I can assure you, are neither pawned nor sold,
but in the custody of a friend, from whom my necessities
obliged me to borrow some money ; whatever becomes of my
person, you shall have them in a month. It is very possible
both the reports you have heard and your own suggestions
may have brought you false information with respect to my
character; it is very possible that the man whom you now
regard with detestation may inwardly burn with grateful re
sentment. It is very possible that, upon a second perusal of
the letter I sent you, you may see the workings of a mind
strongly agitated with gratitude and jealousy. If such cir
cumstances should appear, at least spare invective till my book
with Mr. Dodsley shall be published, and then, perhaps, you
may see the bright side of a mind, when my professions shall
not appear the dictates of necessity, but of choice.
' ' You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps so ;
but he was a man I shall ever honor; but I have friendships
only with the dead ! I ask pardon for taking up so much time ;
nor shall I add to it by any other professions than that I am,
sir, your humble servant
" OLIVER GOLDMITH.
"P.S.— I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolu-
firm* "
76 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
The dispute between the poet and the publisher was after-
ward imperfectly adjusted, and it would appear that the
clothes were paid for by a short compilation advertised by
Griffiths in the course of the following month ; but the parties
were never really friends afterwards, and the writings of Gold
smith were harshly and unjustly treated in the Monthly Re
view.
We have given the preceding anecdote in detail, as furnish
ing one of the many instances in which Goldsmith's prompt
and benevolent impulses outran all prudent forecast, and in
volved him in difficulties and disgraces, which a more selfish
man would have avoided. The pawning of the clothes, charged
upon him as a crime by the grinding bookseller, and apparently
admitted by him as one of ' ' the meannesses which poverty
unavoidably brings with it," resulted, as we have shown, from
a tenderness of heart and generosity of hand in which another
man would have gloried ; but these were such natural elements
with him, that he was unconscious of their merit. It is a pity
that wealth does not oftener bring such "meannesses" in its
train.
And now let us be indulged in a few particulars about these
lodgings in which Goldsmith was guilty of this thoughtless act
of benevolence. They were in a very shabby house, No. 12
Green Arbor Court, between the Old Bailey and Fleet Market.
An old woman was still living in 1820 who was a relative of the
identical landlady whom Goldsmith relieved by the money re
ceived from the pawnbroker. She was a child about seven
years of age at the time that the poet rented his apartment of
her relative, and used frequently to be at the house in Green
Arbor Court. She was drawn there, in a great measure, by
the good-humored kindness of Goldsmith, who was always ex
ceedingly fond of the society of children. He used to assemble
those of the family in his room, give them cakes and sweet
meats, and set them dancing to the sound of his flute. He wa^
very friendly to those around him, and cultivated a kind of
intimacy with a watchmaker in the Court, who possessed
much native wit and humor. He passed most of the day,
however, in his room, and only went out in the evenings. His
days were no doubt devoted to the drudgery of the pen, and
it would appear that he occasionally found the booksellers
urgent taskmasters. On one occasion a visitor was shown up
to his room, and immediately their voices were heard in high
altercation, and the key was turned within the lock. The
OLIVKR GOLDbldrni. 77
landlady, at first, was disposed to go to the assistance of her
lodger ; but a calm succeeding, she forbore to interfere.
Late in the evening the door was unlocked ; a supper ordered
by the visitor from a neighboring tavern, and Goldsmith and
his intrusive guest finished the evening in great good-humor.
It was probably his old taskmaster Griffiths, whose press
might have been waiting, and who found no other mode of
getting a stipulated task from Goldsmith than by locking him
in, and staying by him until it was finished.
But we have a more particular account of these lodgings in
Green Arbor Court from the Rev. Thomas Percy, afterward
Bishop of Dromore, and celebrated for his relics of ancient
poetry, his beautiful ballads, and other works. During an
occasional visit to London, he was introduced to Goldsmith by
Grainger, and ever after continued one of his most steadfast
and valued friends. The following is his description of the
poet's squalid apartment : " I called on Goldsmith at his lodg
ings in March, 1759, and found him writing his * Inquiry ' in a
miserable dirty-looking room, in which there was but one
chair ; and when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he him
self was obliged to sit in the window. While we were con
versing together some one tapped gently at the door, and being
desired to come in, a poor, ragged little girl, of a very be
coming demeanor, entered the room, arid dropping a courte
sy, said, ' My mamma sends her compliments and begs the
favor of you to lend her a chamber-pot full of coals.' "
We are reminded in this anecdote of Goldsmith's picture of
the lodgings of Beau Tibbs. and of the peep into the secrets of a
makeshift establishment given to a visitor by the blundering
old Scotch woman.
"By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would
permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously
pleased to call the first floor down the chimney ; and, knocking
at the door, a voice from within demanded * Who's there?'
My conductor answered that it was him. But this not satisfy
ing the querist, the voice again repeated the demand, to which
he answered louder than before ; and now the door was opened
by an old woman with cautious reluctance.
" When we got in he welcomed me to his house with great
ceremony ; and, turning to the old woman, asked where was
her lady. 'Good troth,' replied she, in a peculiar dialect,
' she's washing your twa shirts at the next door, because they
have taken an oath against lending the tub any longer.' ' My
78 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
two shirts, ' cried he, in a tone that faltered with confusion ;
1 what does the idiot mean? ' * I ken what I mean weel enough,
replied the other ; ' she's washing your twa shirts at the next
door, because—' ' Fire and fury ! no more of thy stupid ex
planations,' cried he; 'go and inform her we have company.
Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in my family, she would
never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent
of hers, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high
life ; and yet it is very surprising too, as I had her from a Par
liament man, a friend of mine from the Highlands, one of the
politest men in the world; but that's a secret.' " *
Let us linger a little in Green Arbor Court, a place conse
crated by the genius and the poverty of Goldsmith, but re
cently obliterated in the course of modern improvements. The
writer of this memoir visited it not many years since on a
literary pilgrimage, and may be excused for repeating a de
scription of it which he has heretofore inserted in another
publication. ' ' It then existed in its pristine state, and was a
small square of tall and miserable houses, the very intestines
of which seemed turned inside out, to judge from the old gar
ments and frippery that fluttered from every window. It ap
peared to be a region of washerwomen, and lines were stretched
about the little square, on which clothes were dangling to dry.
' ' Just as we entered the square, a scuffle took place between
two viragoes about a disputed right to a washtub, and im-
mediately the whole community was in a hubbub. Heads in
mob-caps popped out of every window, and such a clamor of
tongues ensued that I was fain to stop my ears. Every amazon
took part with one or other of the disputants, and brandished
her arms, dripping with soapsuds, and fired away from her
window as from the embrasure of a fortress ; while the screams
of children nestled and cradled in every procreant chamber of
this hive, waking with the noise, set up their shrill pipes to
swell the general concert."!
While in these forlorn quarters, suffering under extreme de
pression of spirits, caused by his failure at Surgeons' Hall, the
disappointment of his hopes, and his harsh collisions with
Griffiths, Goldsmith wrote the following letter to his brother
Henry, some parts of which are most touchingly mournful.
* Citizen of the World, Letter iv.
t Tales of a Traveller,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
79
"DEAR SIR: Your punctuality in answering a man whose
trade is writing, is more than I had reason to expect; and yet
you see me generally lill a whole sheet, which is all the re
compense I can make for being so frequently troublesome.
The behavior of Mr. Wells and Mr. Lawder is a little extraor-
diiiary. However, their answering neither you nor me is a
sufficient indication of their disliking the employment which I
assigned them. As their conduct is different from what I had
expected, so I have made an alteration in mine. I shall, tho
beginning of next month, send over two hundred and fifty
books,* which are all that I fancy can be well sold among you,
and I would have you make some distinction in the persons
who have subscribed. The money, which will amount to sixty
pounds, may be left with Mr. Bradley as soon as possible. I
am not certain but I shall quickly have occasion for it.
' ' I have met with no disappointment with respect to my
East India voyage, nor are my resolutions altered ; though, at
the same time, I must confess, it gives me some pain to think
I am almost beginning the world at the age of thirty-one.
Though I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I am
not that strong, active man you once knew me. You scarcely
can conceive- how much eight years of disappointment, an
guish, and study have worn me down. If I remember right
you are seven or eight years older than me, yet I dare
venture to say, that, if a stranger saw us both, he would pay
me the honors of seniority. Imagine to yourself a pale,
melancholy visage, with two great wrinkles between the eye
brows, with an eye disgustingly severe, and a big wig ; and
you may have a perfect picture of my present appearance. On
the other hand, I conceive you as perfectly sleek and healthy,
passing many a happy day among your own children or those
who knew you a child.
"Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is a pleasure I
have not known. I have passed my days among a parcel of
cool, designing beings, and have contracted .all their suspicious
manner in my own behavior. I should actually be as unfit for
the society of my friends at home, as I detest that which I am
obliged to partake of here. I can now neither partake of the
pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to raise its jollity. I can
neither laugh nor drink; have contracted a hesitating, dis-
* The Inquiry into Polite Literature. His previous remarks apply to the sub
scription.
80 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
agreeable manner of speaking, and a visage that looks ill-
nature itself; in short, I have thought myself into a settled
melancholy, and an utter disgust of all that life brings with it.
Whence this romantic turn that all our family are possessed
with? Whence this love for every place and every country
but that in which we reside—for every occupation but our
own? this desire of fortune, and yet this eagerness to dissipate?
I perceive, my dear sir, that I am at intervals for indulging
this splenetic manner, and following my own taste, regardless
of yours.
' ' The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son a
scholar are judicious and convincing; I should, however, be
glad to know for what particular profession he is designed. If
he be assiduous and divested of strong passions (for passions
in youth always lead to pleasure), he may do very well in your
college ; for it must be owned that the industrious poor have
good encouragement there, perhaps better than in any other
in Europe. But if he has ambition, strong passions, and an
exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him there, unless
you have no other trade for him but your own. It is impossi
ble to conceive how much may be done by proper education at
home. A boy, for instance, who understands perfectly well
Latin, French, arithmetic, and the principles of the civil law,
and can write a fine hand, has an education that may qualify
him for any undertaking; and these parts of learning should
be carefully inculcated, let him be designed for whatever call
ing he will.
" Above all things, let him never touch a romance or novel;
these pakit beauty in colors more charming than nature, and
describe happiness that man never tastes. How delusive, how
destructive, are those pictures of consummate bliss! They
teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness
that never existed ; to despise the little good which fortune has
mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave ; and,
in general, take the word of a man who has seen the world,
and who has studied human nature more by experience than
precept ; take my word for it, I say, that books teach us very
little of the world. The greatest merit in a state of poverty
would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous — may diS'
tress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even avarice, in
the lower orders of mankind, are true ambition. These afford
the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. Teach
then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. Let his
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 81
poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I
had learned from books to be disinterested and generous,
before I was taught from experience the necessity of being
prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a phi
losopher, while I was exposing myself to the approaches of
insidious cunning ; and often by being, even with my narrow
finances, charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and
placed myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked
me for my bounty. When I am in the remotest part of the
world, tell him this, and perhaps he may improve from my
example. But I find myself again falling into my gloomy
habits of thinking.
u My mother, I am informed, is almost blind; even though I
had the utmost inclination to return home, under such circum
stances I could not, for to behold her in distress without a
capacity of relieving her from it, would add much to my
splenetic habit. Your last letter was much too short; it
should have answered some queries I had made in my former.
Just sit down as I do, and write forward until you have filled
all your paper. It requires no thought, at least from the ease
with which my own sentiments rise when they are addressed
to you. For, believe me, my head has no share in all I write ;
my heart dictates the whole. Pray give my love to Bob Bry-
anton, and entreat him from me not to drink. My dear sir,
give me some account about poor Jenny.* Yet her husband
loves her ; if so, she cannot be unhappy.
"I know not whether I should tell you— yet why should I
conceal these trifles, or, indeed, anything from you? There is
a book of mine will be published in a few days : the life of a
very extraordinary man; no less than the great Voltaire.
You know already by the title that it is no more than a
catch-penny. However, I spent but four weeks on the whole
performance, for which I received twenty pounds. When
published, I shall take some method of conveying it to you,
unless you may think it dear of the postage, which may
amount to four or five shillings. However, I fear you will not
find an equivalent of amusement.
"Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short; you should
have given me your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical
poem which I sent you. You remember I intended to intro-
* His sister, Mrs. Johnston; her marriage, like that of Mrs. Hudson, was private,
but in pecuniary matters much less fortunate.
82 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
duce the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry alehouse. You
may take the following specimen of the manner, which I flat
ter myself is quite original. The room in which he lies may
be described somewhat in this way :
" ' The window, patched with paper, lent a ray
That feebly show'd the state in which he lay;
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread,
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread;
The game of goose was there exposed to view,
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew;
The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place,
And Prussia's monarch show'd his lamp black face.
The morn was cold : he views with keen desire
A rusty grate unconscious of a fire;
An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored,
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board.'
"And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make
his appearance in order to dun him for the reckoning:
" ' Not with that face, so servile and so gay,
That welcomes every stranger that can pay:
Witn sulky eye he smoked the patient man,
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began,' etc.*
"All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good
remark of Montaigne's, that the wisest men often have friends
with whom they do not care how much they play the fool.
Take my present follies as instances of my regard. Poetry is
a much easier and more agreeable species of composition than
prose; and could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant
employment to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no space,
though I should fill it up only by telling you, what you very
well know already, I mean that I am your most affectionate
friend and brother,
"OLIVER GOLDSMITH."
The Life of Voltaire, alluded to in the latter part of the
preceding letter, was the literary job undertaken to satisfy the
demands of Griffiths. It was to have preceded a translation
of the Henriade, by Ned Purdon, Goldsmith's old schoolmate,
now a Grub Street writer, who starved rather than lived by
the exercise of his pen, and often tasked Goldsmith's scanty
means to relieve his hunger. His miserable career was
summed up by our poet in the following lines written some
* The projected poem, of which the above were specimens, appears never to
have been completed.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 83
years after the time we are treating of, on hearing that he had
suddenly dropped dead in Smithfield :
" Here lies poor Ned Pardon, from misery freed,
Who long was a bookseller's hack :
He led such a damnable lit".- in this world,
I don't think he'll wish to come back."
The memoir and translation, though advertised to form a
volume, were not published together; but appeared separately
hi a magazine.
As to the heroi- comical poem, also, cited in the foregoing
letter, it appears to have perished in embryo. Had it been
brought to maturity we should have had further traits of
autobiography ; the room already described was probably his
own squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court ; and in a subse
quent morsel of the poem we have the poet himself, under the
euphonious name of Scroggin:
" Where the Red Lion peering o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt and Parson's black champaigne
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane:
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The muse found Scroggin stretch'd beneath a rug;
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay,
A cap by night, a stocking all the day!"
It is to be regretted that this poetical conception was not
carried out; like the author's other writings, it might have
abounded with pictures of life and touches of nature drawn
from his own observation and experience, and mellowed by
his own humane and tolerant spirit ; and might have been a
worthy companion or rather contrast to his " Traveller" and
"Deserted Village," and have remained in the language &
first-rate specimen of the mock-heroic.
CHAPTER XI.
PUBLICATION OF " THE INQUIRY"— ATTACKED BY GRIFFITHS' RE-
\ -IKW— KENRICK THE LITERARY ISHMAELITE— PERIODICAL LIT
ERATURE— GOLDSMITH'S ESSAYS — GARRICK AS A MANAGER—
S^IOLLETT AND HIS SCHEMES — CHANGE OF LODGINGS — THE
ROBIN HOOD CLUB.
TOWARD the end of March, 1759, the treatise on which Gold-
smith had laid so rmioh strops, on whiVh ho nt ono time had
84 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
calculated to defray the expenses of his outfit to India, and to
which he had adverted in his correspondence with Griffiths,
made its appearance. It was published by the Dodsleys, and
entitled i ' An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning
in Europe."
In the present day, when the whole field of contemporary
literature is so widely surveyed and amply discussed, and
when the current productions of every country are constantly
collated and ably criticised, a treatise like that of Goldsmith
would be considered as extremely limited and unsatisfactory ;
but at that time it possessed novelty in its views and wideness
in its scope, and being indued with the peculiar charm of style
inseparable from the author, it commanded public attention
and a profitable sale. As it was the most important pro
duction that had yet come from Goldsmith's pen, he was
anxious to have the credit of it ; yet it appeared without his
name on the title-page. The authorship, however, was well
known throughout the world of letters, and the author had
now grown into sufficient literary importance to become an
object of hostility to the underlings of the press. One of the
most virulent attacks upon him was in a criticism on this
treatise, and appeared in the Monthly Review, to which he
himself had been recently a contributor. It slandered him as
a man while it decried him as an author, and accused him,
by innuendo, of "laboring under the infamy of having, by the
vilest and meanest actions, forfeited all pretensions to honor
and honesty, " and of practising ' ' those acts which bring the
sharper to the cart's tail or the pillory."
It will be remembered that the Review was owned by
Griffiths the bookseller, with whom Goldsmith had recently
had a misunderstanding. The criticism, therefore, was no
doubt dictated by the lingerings of resentment; and the impu
tations upon Goldsmith's character for honor and honesty,
and the vile and mean actions hinted at, could only allude to
the unfortunate pawning of the clothes. All this, too, was
after Griffiths had received the affecting letter from Gold
smith, drawing a picture of his poverty and perplexities, and
after the latter had made him a literary compensation.
Griffiths, in fact, was sensible of the falsehood and extrava
gance of the attack, and tried to exonerate himself*" by
declaring that the criticism was written by a person in his
employ ; but we see no difference in atrocity between him who
wields the knife and him who hires the cut-throat. It may be
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 83
well, however, in passing, to bestow our mite of notoriety
upon the miscreant who launched the slander. He deserves
it for a long course of dastardly and venomous attacks, not
merely upon Goldsmith, but upon most of the successful
authors of the day. His name was Kenrick. He was origi
nally a mechanic, but, possessing some degree of talent and
industry, applied himself to literature as a profession. This
he pursued for many years, and tried his hand in every
department of prose and poetry ; he wrote plays and satires,
philosophical tracts, critical dissertations, and works on phi
lology ; nothing from his pen ever rose to first-rate excellence,
or gained him a popular name, though he received from some
university the degree of Doctor of I^aws. Dr. Johnson
characterized his literary career in one short sentence. " Sir,
he is one of the many who have made themselves public with
out making themselves known.""
Soured by his owr want of success, jealous of the success of
others, his natural irritability of temper increased by habits
of intemperance, he at length abandoned himself to the
practice of reviewing, and became one of the Ishmaelites of
the press. In this his malignant bitterness soon gave him
a notoriety which his talents had never been able to attain.
We shall dismiss him for the present with the following sketch
of him by the hand of one of his contemporaries :
" Dreaming of genius which he never had,
Halfwit, half fool, half critic, and half mad;
Seizing, like Shirley, on the poet's lyre,
With all his rage, but not one spark of fire;
Eager for slaughter, and resolved to tear
From others' brows that wreath he must not wear-
Next Kenrick came: all furious and replete
With brandy, malice, pertness, and conceit;
Unskill'd in classic lore, through envy blind
To all that's beauteous, learned, or refined;
For faults alone behold the savage prowl.
With reason's offal glut his ravening soul;
Pleased with his prey, its inmost blood he drinks,
And mumbles, paws, and turns it— till it stinks."
The British press about this time was extravagantly fruitful
of periodical publications. That " oldest inhabitant," the Gen
tleman's Magazine, almost coeval with St. John's gate which
graced its title-page, had long been elbowed by magazines and
reviews of all kinds; Johnson's Rambler had introduced the
fashion of periodical essays, which he had followed up in his
Adventurer and Idler. Imitations had sprung up on every
86 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
side, under every variety of name ; until British literature was
entirely overrun by a weedy and transient efflorescence. Many
of these rival periodicals choked each other almost at the out
set, and few of them have escaped oblivion.
Goldsmith wrote for some of the most successful, such as
the Bee, the Busy-Body, and the Lady's Magazine. His es
says, though characterized by his delightful style, his pure,
benevolent morality, and his mellow, unobtrusive humor, did
not produce equal effect at first with more garish writings of
infinitely less value ; they did not "strike," as it is termed;
but they had that rare and enduring merit which rises in esti
mation on every perusal. They gradually stole upon the
heart of the public, were copied into numerous contemporary
publications, and now they are garnered up among the choice
productions of British literature.
In his Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning, Goldsmith
had given offence to David Garrick, at that time the autocrat
of the Drama, and was doomed to experience its effect. A
clamor had been raised against Garrick for exercising a des
potism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing but old
plays to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole joined
in this charge. " Garrick," said he, " is treating the town as
it deserves and likes to be treated ; with scenes, fireworks, and
his own writings. A good new play I never expect to see
more; nor have seen since the Provoked Husband, which
came out when I was at school." Goldsmith, who was ex
tremely fond of the theatre, and felt the evils of this system,
inveighed in his treatise against the wrongs experienced
by authors at the hands of managers. "Our poet's perform
ance," said he, "must undergo a process truly chemical before
it is presented to the public. It must be tried in the manager's
fire ; strained through a licenser, suffer from repeated correc
tions, till it may be a mere caput mortuum when it arrives
before the public." Again. " Getting a play on even in three
or four years is a privilege reserved only for the happy few
who have the arts of courting the manager as well as the muse ;
who have adulation to please his vanity, powerful patrons to
support their merit, or money to indemnify disappointment.
Our Saxon ancestors had but one name for a wit and a witch.
I will not dispute the propriety of uniting those characters
then ; but the man who under present discouragements ven
tures to write for the stage, whatever claim he may have to
the aTmellati.on of a wit at least has no riecht to be called a
OH V Kit (iOl.DSMlTir. 87
conjurer." But a passage perhaps which touched more sensi
bly than all the rest on the sensibilities of Garrick, was the
following.
"I have no particular spleen against the fellow who sweeps
the stage with the besom, or the hero who brushes it with his
train. It were a matter of indifference to me whether our
heroines are in keeping, or our candle-snuffers burn their
fingers, did not such make a great part of public care and
polite conversation. Our actors assume all that state off the
stage which they do on it ; and, to use an expression borrowed
from the green-room, every one is up in his part. I am sorry
to say it, they seem to forget their real characters."
These strictures were considered by Garrick as intended for
himself, and they were rankling in his mind when Goldsmith
waited upon him and solicited his vote for the vacant secre
taryship of the Society of Arts, of which the manager was a
member. Garrick, puffed up by his dramatic renown and his
intimacy with the great, and knowing Goldsmith only by his
budding reputation, may not have considered him of sufficient
importance to be conciliated. In reply to his solicitations, he
observed that he could hardly expect his friendly exertions
after the unprovoked attack he had made upon his manage
ment. Goldsmith replied that he had indulged in no person
alities, and had only spoken what he believed to be the truth.
He made no further apology nor application ; failed to get the
appointment, and considered Garrick his enemy. In the
second edition of his treatise he expunged or modified the
passages which had given the manager offence ; but though
the author and actor became intimate in after years, this false
step at the outset of their intercourse was never forgotten.
About this time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. Smollett, who
was about to launch the British Magazine. Smollett was a
complete schemer and speculator in literature, and intent upon
enterprises that had money rather than reputation in view.
Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this propensity in one
of his papers in the Bee, in which he represents Johnson,
Hume, and others taking seats in the stage-coach bound for
Fame, while Smollett prefers that destined for Riches.
Another prominent employer of Goldsmith was Mr. John
Newbery, who engaged him to contribute occasional essays to
a newspaper entitled the Public Ledger, which made its first
appearance on the 12th of January, 1760. His most valuable
and characteristic contributions to this paper were his Chinese
88 OLIVER O OLD SMITH.
Letters, subsequently modified into the Citizen of the World.
These lucubrations attracted general attention ; they were re^
printed in the various periodical publications of the day, and
met with great applause. The name of the author, however,
was as yet but little known.
Being now in easier circumstances, and in the receipt of fre
quent sums from the booksellers, Goldsmith, about the middle
of 1760, emerged from his dismal abode in Green Arbor Court,
and took respectable apartments in Wine- Office Court, Fleet
Street.
Still he continued to look back with considerate benevolence
to the poor hostess, whose necessities he had relieved by pawn
ing his gala coat, for we are told that "he often supplied her
with food from his own table, and visited her frequently with
the sole purpose to be kind to her."
He now became a member of a debating club, called the
Robin Hood, which used to meet near Temple Bar, and in
which Burke, while yet a Temple student, had first tried his
powers. Goldsmith spoke here- occasionally, and is recorded
in the Robin Hood archives as "a candid disputant, with a
clear head and an honest heart, though coming but seldom to
the society." His relish was for clubs of a more social, jovial
nature, and he was never fond of argument. An amusing
anecdote is told of his first introduction to the club, by Samuel
Derrick, an Irish acquaintance of some humor. On entering,
Goldsmith was struck with the self-important appearance of
the chairman ensconced in a large gilt chair. "This," said he,
"must be the Lord Chancellor at least." "No, no," replied
Derrick, "he's only master of the rolls."— The chairman was a
baker.
CHAPTER XII.
NEW LODGINGS— VISITS OF CEREMONY— HANGERS-ON— PILKING-
TON AND THE WHITE MOUSE— INTRODUCTION TO DR. JOHNSON
— DAVIES AND HIS BOOKSHOP — PRETTY MRS. DAVIES— FOOTE
AND HIS PROJECTS— CRITICISM OF THE CUDGEL,
IN his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court, Goldsmith began
to receive visits of ceremony, and to entertain his literary
friends. Among the latter he now numbered several names of
, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 89
note, such as Guthrie, Murphy, Christopher Smart, and Bick-
erstaff. He had also a numerous class of hangers-on, the
small-fry of literature; who, knowing his almost utter incapa
city to refuse a pecuniary request, were apt, now that he was
considered flush, to levy continual taxes upon his puree.
Among others, one Pilkington, an old college acquaintance,
but now a shifting adventurer, duped him in the most ludi
crous manner. He called on him with a face full of perplexi
ty. A lady of the first rank having an extraordinary fancy
for curious animals, for which she was willing to give enor
mous sums, he had procured a couple of white mice to be for
warded to her from India. They were actually on board of a
ship in the river. Her grace had been apprised of their
arrival, and was all impatience to see them. Unfortunately,
he had no cage to put them in, nor clothes to appear in before
a lady of her rank. Two guineas would be sufficient for his
purpose, but where were two guineas to be procured !
The simple heart of Goldsmith was touched; but, alas! he
had but half a guinea in his pocket. It was unfortunate ; but
after a pause his friend suggested, with some hesitation, uthat
money might be raised upon his watch ; it would but be the
loan of a few hours." So said, so done; the watch was de
livered to the worthy Mr. Pilkington to be pledged at a neigh
boring pawnbroker's, but nothing farther was ever seen of
him, the watch, or the white mice. The next that Goldsmith"
heard of the poor shifting scapegrace, he was on his death
bed, starving with want, upon which, forgetting or forgiving
the trick he had played upon him, he sent him a guinea. In
deed, he used often to relate with great humor the foregoing
anecdote of his credulity, and was ultimately in some degree
indemnified by its suggesting to him the amusing little story
of Prince Bonbennin and the White Mouse in the Citizen of the
World.
In this year, Goldsmith became personally acquainted with
Dr. Johftson, toward whom he was drawn by strong sympa
thies, though their natures were widely different. Both had
struggled from early life with poverty, but had struggled in
different ways. Goldsmith, buoyant, heedless, sanguine, toler
ant of evils and easily pleased, had shifted along by any tem
porary expedient ; cast down at every turn, but rising again
with indomitable good-humor, and still carried forward by his
talent at hoping. Johnson, melancholy, and hypochondriacal,
and prone to apprehend the worst, yet sternly resolute to
90 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
battle with and conquer it, had made his way doggedly and
gloomily, but with a noble principle of self-reliance and a di&
regard of foreign aid. Both had been irregular at college, —
Goldsmith, as we have shown, from the levity of his nature
and his social and convivial habits; Johnson, from his acerbity
and gloom. When, in after life, the latter heard himself
spoken of as gay and frolicsome at college, because he had
joined in some riotous excesses there, "Ah, sir!" replied he,
"I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mis
took for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight
my way by my literature and my wit. So I disregarded all
power and all authority."
Goldsmith's poverty was never accompanied by bitterness ;
but neither was it accompanied by the guardian pride which
kept Johnson from falling into the degrading shifts of poverty.
Goldsmith had an unfortunate facility at borrowing, and help
ing himself along by the contributions of his friends ; no doubt
trusting, in his hopeful way, of one day making retribution.
Johnson never hoped, and therefore never borrowed. In his
sternest trials he proudly bore the ills he could not master. In
his youth, when some unknown friend, seeing his shoes com
pletely worn out, left a new pair at his chamber door, he dis
dained to accept the boon, and threw them away.
Though like Goldsmith an immethodical student, he had
imbibed deeper draughts of knowledge, and made himself a
riper scholar. While Goldsmith's happy constitution and
genial humors carried him abroad into sunshine and enjoy
ment, Johnson's physical infirmities and mental gloom drove
him upon himself; to the resources of reading and meditation;
threw a deeper though darker enthusiasm into his mind, and
stored a retentive memory with all kinds of knowledge.
After several years of youth passed in the country as usher,
teacher, and an occasional writer for the press, Johnson, when
twenty-eight years of age, came up to London with a half-
written tragedy in his pocket; and David Garrick, 4ate his
pupil, and several years his junior, as a companion, both poor
and penniless, both, like Goldsmith, seeking their fortune in
the metropolis. "We rode and tied," said Garrick sportively
in after years of prosperity, when he spoke of their humble
wayfaring. "I came to London," said Johnson, "with two
pence half penny in my pocket. " "Eh, what's that you say?"
cried Garrick, "with twopence halfpenny in your pocket?"
"Why, yes; I came with twopence halfpenny in my pocket,
OLIVKli COLD^MITH. 91
and thou, Davy, with but three halfpence in thine. " Nor was
there much exaggeration in the picture ; for so poor were they
in purse and credit, that after their arrival they had, with diffi
culty, raised five pounds, by giving their joint note to a book
seller in the Strand.
Many, many years had Johnson gone on obscurely in London,
"fighting his way by his literature and his wit;" enduring all
the hardships and miseries of a Grub Street writer ; so desti
tute at one time, that he and Savage the poet had walked all
night about St. James's Square, both too poor to pay for a
night's lodging, yet both full of poetry and patriotism, and
determined to stand by their country ; so shabby in dress at
another time, that when he dined at Cave's, his bookseller,
when there was prosperous company, he could not make his
appearance at table, but had his dinner handed to him behind
a screen.
Yet through all the long and dreary struggle, often diseased
in mind as well as in body, he had been resolutely self-depen
dent, and proudly self-respectf ul ; he had fulfilled his college
vow, he had " fought his way by his literature and his wit."
His "Rambler" and " Idler" had made him the great moralist
of the age, and his "Dictionary and History of the English
Language," that stupendous monument of individual labor,
had excited the admiration of the learned world. He was now
at the head of intellectual society; and had become as dis
tinguished by his conversational as his literary powers. He
had become as much an autocrat in his sphere as his fellow-
wayfarer and adventurer Garrick had become of the stage,
and had been humorously dubbed by Smollett, "The Great
Cham of Literature."
Such was Dr. Johnson, when on the 31st of May, 1761, he
was to make his appearance as a guest at a literary supper
given by Goldsmith, to a numerous party at his new lodgings
in Wine-Office Court. It was the opening of their acquaint
ance. Johnson had felt and acknowledged the merit of Gold
smith as an author, and been pleased by the honorable mention
made of himself in the Bee and the "Chinese Letters." Dr.
Percy called upon Johnson to take him to Goldsmith's lodgings ;
he found Johnson arrayed with unusual care in a new suit of
clothes, a new hat, and a well-powdered wig; and could not
but notice his uncommon spruceness. "Why, sir," replied
Johnson, "I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven,
justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting
92 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better
example."
The acquaintance thus commenced ripened into intimacy in
the course of frequent meetings at the shop of Davies, the
bookseller, in Russell Street, Covent Garden. As this was one
of the literary gossiping places of the day, especially to the
circle over which Johnson presided, it is worthy of some
specification. Mr. Thomas Davies, noted in after times as the
biographer of Garrick, had originally been on the stage, and
though a small man had enacted tyrannical tragedy, with a
pomp and magniloquence beyond his size, if we may trust the
description given of him by Churchill in the Rosciad :
" Statesman all over- -in plots famous grown,
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a feone."
This unlucky sentence is said to have crippled him in the
midst of his tragic career, and ultimately to have driven him
from the stage. He carried into the bookselling craft some
what of the grandiose manner of the stage, and was prone to
be mouthy and magniloquent.
Churchill had intimated, that while on the stage he was more
noted for his pretty wife than his good acting:
" With him came mighty Davies; on my life,
That fellow has a very pretty wife."
" Pretty Mrs. Davies," continued to be the lode-star of his
fortunes. Her tea-table became almost as much a literary
lounge as her husband's shop. She found favor in the eyes of
the Ursa Major of literature by her winning ways, as she poured
out for him cups without stint of his favorite beverage. In
deed it is suggested that she was one leading cause of his habit
ual resort to this literary haunt. Others were drawn thither
for the sake of Johnson's conversation, and thus it became a
resort of many of the notorieties of the day. Here might
occasionally be seen Bennet Langton, George Steevens, Dr.
Percy, celebrated for his ancient ballads, and sometimes War-
burton in prelatic state. Garrick resorted to it for a time, but
soon grew shy and suspicious, declaring that most of the
authors who frequented Mr. Davies's shop went merely to
abuse him.
Foote, the Aristophanes of the day, was a frequent visitor;
his broad face beaming with fun and waggery, and his satirical
eye ever on the lookout for characters and incidents fox- his
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 93
farces. He was struck with the odd habits and appearance of
Johnson and Goldsmith, now so often brought together in
Davies's shop. He was about to put on the stage a farce called
The Orators, intended as a hit at the Robin Hood debating
club, and resolved to show up the two doctors in it for the
entertainment of the town.
" What is the common price of an oak stick, sir?" said
Johnson to Davies. ' ' Sixpence, " was the reply. * * Why, then,
sir, give me leave to send your servant to purchase a shilling
one. I'll have a double quantity ; for I am told Foote means
to take me off, as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow
shall not do it with impunity."
Foots had no disposition to undergo the criticism of the cud
gel wielded by such potent hands, so the farce of The Orators
appeared without the caricatures of the lexicographer and the
essayist.
CHAPTER XIII.
ORIENTAL PROJECTS— LITERARY JOBS— THE CHEROKEE CHIEFS-
MERRY ISLINGTON AND THE WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE— LETTERS
ON THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND— JAMES BOSWELL— DINNER OF
DAVIES— ANECDOTES OF JOHNSON AND GOLDSMITH.
NOTWITHSTANDING his growing success, Goldsmith continued
to consider literature a mere makeshift, and his vagrant im
agination teemed with schemes and plans of a grand but in
definite nature. One was for visiting the East and exploring
the interior of Asia. He had, as has been before observed, a
vague notion that valuable discoveries were to be made there,
and many useful inventions in the arts brought back to the
stock of European knowledge. "Thus, in Siberian Tartary,"
observes he in one of his writings, "the natives extract a
strong spirit from milk, which is a secret probably unknown
to the chemists of Europe. In the most savage parts of In
dia they are possessed of the secret of dying vegetable sub
stances scarlet, and that of refining lead into a metal which,
for hardness and color, is little inferior to silver."
Goldsmith adds a description of the kind of person suited
to such an enterprise, in which he evidently had himself in
view.
94 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
"He should be a man of philosophical turn, one apt to
deduce consequences of general utility from particular occur
rences ; neither sworn with pride, nor hardened by prejudice ;
neither wedded to one particular system, nor instructed only
in one particular science ; neither wholly a botanist, nor quite
an antiquarian; his mind should be tinctured with miscel
laneous knowledge, and his manners humanized by an inter
course with men. He should be in some measure an en
thusiast to the design; fond of travelling, from a rapid
imagination and an innate love of change; furnished with
a body capable of sustaining every fatigue, and a heart
not easily terrified at danger. "
In 1761, when Lord Bute became prime minister on the
accession of George the Third, Goldsmith drew up a me
morial on the subject, suggesting the advantages to be derived
from a mission to those countries solely for useful and
scientific purposes; and, the better to insure success, he
preceded his application to the government by an ingenious
essay to the same effect in the Public Ledger.
His memorial and his essay were fruitless, his project most
probably being deemed the dream of a visionary. Still it
continued to haunt his mind, and he would often talk of
making an expedition to Aleppo some time or other, when
his means were greater, to inquire into the arts peculiar
to the East, and to bring home such as might be valuable.
Johnson, who knew how little poor Goldsmith was fitted by
scientific lore for this favorite scheme of his fancy, scoffed at
the project when it was mentioned to him. "Of all men,"
said he, ' ' Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such an
inquiry, for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as we already
possess, and, consequently, could not know what would be
accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir,
he would bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in
every street in London, and think that he had furnished a
wonderful improvement."
His connection with Newbery the bookseller now led him
into a variety of temporary jobs, such as a pamphlet on the
Cock-lane Ghost, a Life of Beau Nash, the famous Master of
Ceremonies at Bath, etc. ; one of the best things for his fame,
however, was the remodelling and republication of his Chinese
Letters under the title of ' ' The Citizen of the World, " a work
which has long since taken its merited stand among the
classics of the English language. "Few works," it has been
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. J)j
observed by one of his biographers, "exhibit a nicer percep
tion, or more delicate delineation of life and manners. Wit,
humor, and sentiment pervade every page ; the vices and f ol-
lies of the day are touched with the most playful and diverting
satire ; and English characteristics, in endless variety, are hit
off with the pencil of a master."
In seeking materials for his varied views of life, he often
mingled in strange scenes and got involved in whimsical situa
tions. In the summer of 1762 he was one of the thousands
who went to see the Cherokee chiefs, whom he mentions in
one of his writings. The Indians made their appearance in
grand costume, hideously painted and besmeared. In the
course of the visit Goldsmith made one of the chiefs a present,
who, in the ecstasy of his gratitude, gave him an embrace
that left his face well bedaubed with oil and red ochre.
Toward the close of 1762 he removed to "merry Islington,"
then a country village, though now swallowed up in omni
vorous London. He went there for the benefit of country air,
his health being injured by literary application and confine
ment, and to be near his chief employer, Mr. Newbery, who
resided in the Canonbury House. In this neighborhood he'
used to take his solitary rambles, sometimes extending his
walks to the gardens of the "White Conduit House," so
famous among the essayists of the last century. While stroll
ing one day in these gardens, he met three females of the
family of a respectable tradesman to whom he was under
some obligation. With his prompt disposition to oblige, he
conducted them about the garden, treated them to tea, and
ran up a bill in the most open-handed manner imaginable ; it
was only when he came to pay that he found himself in one of
his old dilemmas— he had not the wherewithal in his pocket.
A scene of perplexity now took place between him and the
waiter, in the midst of which came up some of his acquaint
ances, in whose eyes he wished to stand particularly well.
This completed his mortification. There was no concealing
tho awkwardness of his position. The sneers of the waiter
revealed it. His acquaintances amused themselves for some
time at his expense, professing their inability to relieve him.
When, however, they had enjoyed their banter, the waiter
was paid, and poor Goldsmith enabled to convoy off the ladies
with flying colors.
Among the various productions thrown off by him for the
booksellers during this growing period of his reputation, was a
96 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
small work in two volumes, entitled "The History of England,
in a series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son." It was
digested from Hume, Rapin, Carte, and Kennet. These
authors he would read in the morning; make a few notes;
ramble with a friend into the country about the skirts of
"merry Islington;" return to a temperate dinner and cheerful
evening; and, before going to bed, write off what had arranged
itself in his head from the studies of the morning. In this
way he took a more general view of the subject, and wrote in
a more free and fluent style than if he had been mousing all
the time among authorities. The work, like many others
written by him in the earlier part of his literary career, was
anonymous. Some attributed it to Lord Chesterfield, others
to Lord Orrery, and others to Lord Lyttleton. The latter
seemed pleased to be the putative father, and never disowned
the bantling thus laid at his door; and well might he have
been proud to be considered capable of producing what has
been well pronounced "the most finished and elegant sum
mary of English history in the same compass that has been or.
is likely to be written."
The reputation of Goldsmith, it will be perceived, grew
slowly ; he was known and estimated by a few ; but he had
not those brilliant though fallacious qualities which flash upon
the public, and excite loud but transient applause. His works
were more read than cited ; and the charm of style, for which
he was especially noted, was more apt to be felt than talked
about. He used often to repine, in a half-humorous, half-
querulous manner, at his tardiness in gaining the laurels
which he felt to be his due. "The public," he would exclaim,
"will never do me justice; whenever I write anything, they
make a point to know nothing about it."
About the beginning of 1763 he became acquainted with Bos-
well, whose literary gossipings were destined to have a delete
rious effect upon his reputation. Boswell was at that time a
young man, light, buoyant, pushing, and presumptuous. He
had a morbid passion for mingling in the society of men noted
for wit and learning, and had just arrived from Scotland, bent
upon making his way into the literary circles of the metropo
lis. An intimacy with Dr. Johnson, the great literary lumi
nary of the day, was the crowning object of his aspiring and
somewhat ludicrous ambition. He expected to meet him at a
dinner to which he was invited at Davies the bookseller's, but
was disappointed. Goldsmith was present, but he was not as
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. tf
yet sufficiently renowned to excite the reverence of Boswell.
" At this time," says he in his notes, " 1 think he had published
nothing with his name, though it was pretty generally under
stood that one Dr. Goldsmith was the author of ' An Inquiry
into .the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe,' and of
* The Citizen of the World,' a series of letters supposed to be
written from London by a Chinese."
A conversation -took place at table between Goldsmith and
Mr. Robert Dodsley, compiler of the well-known collection of
modern poetry, as to the merits of the current poetry of the
day. Goldsmith declared there was none of superior merit.
Dodsley cited his own collection in proof of the contrary. "It
is true," said he, "we can boast of no palaces nowadays, like
Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia's Day, but we have villages com
posed of very pretty houses. " Goldsmith, however, maintained
that there was nothing above mediocrity, an opinion in which
Johnson, to whom it was repeated, concurred, and with reason,
for the era was one of the dead levels of British poetry.
Boswell has made no note of this conversation ; he was a
Unitarian in his literary devotion, and disposed to worship none
but Johnson. Little Davies endeavored to console him for his
disappointment, and to stay the stomach of his curiosity, by
giving him imitations of the great lexicographer ; mouthing his
words, rolling his head, and assuming as ponderous a manner
as his petty person would permit. Boswell was shortly after
ward made happy by an introduction to Johnson, of whom he
became the obsequious satellite. From him he likewise im
bibed a more favorable opinion of Goldsmith's merits, though
he was fain to consider them derived in a great measure from
his Magnus Apollo. "He had sagacity enough," says he, "to
cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his
faculties were gradually enlarged by the contemplation of such
a model. To me and many others it appeared that he studi
ously copied the manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a
smaller scale." So on another occasion he calls him (f one of
the brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian school." " His re
spectful attachment to Johnson," adds he, "was then at its
height; for his own literary reputation had not yet distinr
guished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition
with his great master."
What beautiful instances does the garrulous Boswell give of
the goodness of heart of Johnson, and the passing homage to it
t>\ Goldsmith. They were speaking of a Mr, Levett, long ap
98 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
inmate oi Johnson's house and a dependent on his bounty ; but
who, Boswell thought, must be an irksome charge upon him.
"He is poor and honest," said Goldsmith, "which is recom
mendation enough to Johnson."
Boswell mentioned another person of a very bad character,
and wondered at Johnson's kindness to him. ' ' He is now be
come miserable," said Goldsmith, "and that insures the protec
tion of Johnson. " Encomiums like these speak almost as much
for the heart of him who praises as of him who is praised.
Subsequently, when Boswell had become more intense in his
literary idolatry, he affected to undervalue Goldsmith, and a
lurking hostility to him is discernible throughout his writings,
which some have attributed to a silly spirit of jealousy of the
superior esteem evinced for the poet by Dr. Johnson. We
have a gleam of this in his account of the first evening he spent
in company with those two eminent authors at their famous
resort, the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet Street. This took place on
the 1st of July, 1763. The trio supped together, and passed
some time in literary conversation. On quitting the tavern,
Johnson, who had now been sociably acquainted with Gold
smith for two years, and knew his merits, took him with him
to drink tea with his blind pensioner, Miss Williams, a high
privilege among his intimates and admirers. To Boswell, a re
cent acquaintance whose intrusive sycophancy had not yet
made its way into his confidential intimacy, he gave no invita
tion. Boswell felt it with all the jealousy of a little mind.
" Dr. Goldsmith," says he, in his memoirs, " being a privileged
man, went with him, strutting away, and calling to me with
an air of superiority, like that of an esoteric over an exoteric
disciple of a sage of antiquity, ' I go to Miss Williams.' I con
fess I then envied him this mighty privilege, of which he
seemed to be so proud ; but it was not long before I obtained
the same mark of distinction."
Obtained ! but how ? not like Goldsmith, by the force of un
pretending but congenial merit, but by a course of the most
pushing, contriving, and spaniel-like subserviency. Really,
the ambition of the man to illustrate his mental insignificance,
by continually placing himself in juxtaposition with the great
lexicographer, has something in it perfectly ludicrous. Never,
since the days of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, has there
been presented to the world a more whimsically contrasted
pair of associates than Johnson and Boswell.
"Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?" asked some
99
one when i;<)s\vcll had worked his way into incessant com
panionship. "He is not a cur," replied Goldsmith, "you are
too severe; lie is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at John
son in sport, and he has the faculty of sticking."
CHAPTER XIV.
HOGARTH A VISITOR AT ISLINGTON— HIS CHARACTER— STREET
STUDIES -SYMPATHIES BETWEEN AUTHORS AND PAINTERS — SIR
JOSHUA REYNOLDS— HIS CHARACTER — HIS DINNERS— THE LITER
ARY CLUB— ITS MEMBERS— JOHNSON'S REVELS WITH LANKEY
AND BEAU— GOLDSMITH AT THE CLUB.
AMONG the intimates who used to visit the poet occasionally
in his retreat at Islington, was Hogarth the painter. Gold
smith had spoken well of him in his essays in the Public
Ledger, and this formed the first link in their friendship. He
was at this time upward of sixty years of age, and is described
as a stout, active, bustling little man, in a sky-blue coat, satiri-
<-nl and dogmatic, yet full of real benevolence and the love of
Inn n:m nature. He was the moralist and philosopher of the
pencil ; like Goldsmith he had sounded the depth of vice and
misery, without being polluted by them; and though his pic-
turings had not the pervading amenity of those of the essayist,
and dwelt more on the crimes and vices than the follies and
humors of mankind, yet they were all calculated, in like man
ner, to fill the mind with instruction and precept, and to make
the heart better.
Hogarth does not appear to have had much of the rural feel
ing with which Goldsmith was so amply endowed, and may
not have accompanied him in his strolls about hedges and
green lanes ; but he was a fit companion with whom to ex
plore the mazes of London, in which he was continually on
the look-out for character and incident. One of Hogarth's
admirers speaks of having come upon him in Castle Street,
engaged in one of his street studies, watching two boys who
were quarrelling; patting one on the back who flinched, and
endeavoring to spirit him up to a fresh encounter. " At him
again ! D — him, if I would take it of him ! at him again !"
A frail memorial of this intimacy between the painter and
the poet exists in a portrait in oil, called ' ' Goldsmith's Host-
100 OLIVER
ess." It is supposed to have been painted by Hogarth in the
course of his visits to Islington, and given by him to the poet
as a means of paying his landlady. There are no friendships
among men of talents more likely to be sincere than those be-
tween painters and poets. Possessed of the same qualities of
mind, governed by the same principles of taste and natural
laws of grace and beauty, but applying them to different yet
mutually illustrative arts, they are constantlyjn sympathy and
never in collision with each other.
A still more congenial intimacy of the kind was that con
tracted by Goldsmith with Mr. afterward Sir Joshua Rey
nolds. The latter was now about forty years of age, a few
years older than the poet, whom he charmed by the blandness
and benignity of his manners, and the nobleness and generos
ity of his disposition, as much as he did by the graces of his
pencil and the magic of his coloring. They were men of kin
dred genius, excelling in corresponding qualities of their sev
eral arts, for style in writing is what color is in painting ; both
are innate endowments, and equally magical in their effects.
Certain graces and harmonies of both may be acquired by dili
gent study and imitation, but only in a limited degree ; where
as by their natural possessors they are exercised spontaneous
ly, almost unconsciously, and with ever-varying fascination.
Reynolds soon understood and appreciated the merits of Gold-
smith, and -a sincere and lasting friendship ensued between
them.
At Reynolds's house Goldsmith mingled in a higher range of
company than he had been accustomed to. The fame of this
celebrated artist, and his amenity of manners, were gathering
round him men of talents of all kinds, and the increasing afflu
ence of his circumstances enabled him to give full indulgence
to his hospitable disposition. Poor Goldsmith had not yet,
like Dr. Johnson, acquired reputation enough to atone for his
external defects and his want of the air of good society. Miss
Reynolds used to inveigh against his personal appearance,
which gave her the idea, she said, of a low mechanic, a jour
neyman tailor. One evening at a large supper party, being
called upon to give as a toast, the ugliest man she knew, she
gave Dr. Goldsmith, upon which a lady who sat opposite, and
whom she had never met before, shook hands with her across
the table, and "hoped to become better acquainted."
We have a graphic and amusing picture of Reynolds's hos
pitable but motley establishment, in an account given by a
OLTVER GOLDSMITH. JO}
Mr. Courtenay to Sir James Mackintosh ; though it speaks of a
time after Reynolds had received the honor of knighthood.
"There was something singular," said he, uin the style and
economy of Sir Joshua's table that contributed to pleasantry
and good-humor, a coarse, inelegant plenty, without any re
gard to order and arrangement. At five o'clock precisely,
dinner was served, whether all the invited guests were arrived
or not. Sir Joshua was never so fashionably ill-bred as to
wait an hour perhaps for two or three persons of rank or title,
and put the rest of the company out of humor by this invidi
ous distinction. His invitations, however, did not regulate
the number of his guests. Many dropped in uninvited. A
table prepared for seven or eight was often compelled to con
tain fifteen or sixteen. There was a consequent deficiency
of knives, forks, plates, and glasses. The attendance was
in the same style, and those who were knowing in the ways
of the house took care on sitting down to call instantly for
beer, bread, or wine, that they might secure a supply before
the first course was over. He was once prevailed on to fur
nish the table with decanters and glasses at dinner, to save
time and prevent confusion. These gradually were demolished
in the course of service, and were never replaced. These tri
fling embarrassments, however, only served to enhance the hi
larity and singular pleasure of the entertainment. . The wine,
cookery and dishes were but little attended to ; nor was the
fish or venison ever talked of or recommended. Amid this
convivial animated bustle among his guests, our host sat per
fectly composed; always attentive to what was said, never
minding what was ate or drank, but left every one at perfect
liberty to scramble for himself.
Out of this casual but frequent meeting of men of talent at
this hospitable board rose that association of wits, authors,
scholars, and statesmen, renowned as the Literary Club. Rey
nolds was the first to propose a regular association of the kind,
and was eagerly seconded by Johnson, who proposed as a
model a club which he had formed many years previously in
Ivy Lane, but which was now extinct. Like that club the
number of members was limited to nine. They were to meet
and sup together once a week, on Monday night, at the Turk's
1 J»'M<1 on Gerard Street, Soho, and two members were to con
stitute a meeting. It took a regular form in the year 1764, but
did not receive its literary appellation until several years after
ward.
lo2 OLIVER GOLDSMITH:
The original members were Reynolds, Johnson, Burke, Dr.
Nugent, Bennet Langton, Topham Beauclerc, Chaniier, Haw
kins, and . Goldsmith ; and here a few words concerning some
of the members may be acceptable. Burke was at that time
about thirty-three years of age; he had mingled a little in
politics, and been Under Secretary to Hamilton at Dublin, but
was again a writer for the booksellers, and as yet but in the
dawning of his fame. Dr. Nugent was his father-in-law, a
Roman Catholic, and a physician of talent and instruction.
Mr. afterward Sir John Hawkins was admitted into this asso
ciation from having been a member of Johnson's Ivy Lane
club. Originally an attorney, he had retired from the prac
tice of the law, in consequence of a large fortune which fell
to him in right of his wife, and was now a Middlesex magis
trate. He was, moreover, a dabbler in literature and music,
and was actually engaged on a history of music, which he
subseuqently published in five ponderous volumes. To him
we are also indebted for a biography of Johnson, which ap
peared after the death of that eminent man. Hawkins was
as mean and parsimonious as he was pompous and conceited.
He forbore to partake of the suppers at the club, and begged
therefore to be excused from paying his share of the reckon
ing. "And was he excused?1' asked Dr. Burney of Johnson.
' ' Oh yes, for no man is angry at another for being inferior to
himself. We all scorned him and admitted his plea. Yet I
really believe him to be an honest man at bottom, though to
be sure he is penurious, and he is mean, and it must be owned
he has a tendency to savageness." He did not remain above
two or three years in the club ; being in a manner elbowed out
in consequence of his rudeness to Burke.
Mr. Anthony Chamier was secretary in the War Office, and
a friend of Beauclerc, by whom he was proposed. We
have left our mention of Bennet Langton and Topham Beau
clerc until the last, because we have most to say about them.
They were doubtless induced to join the club through their
devotion to Johnson, and the intimacy of these two very
young and aristocratic young men with the stern and some
what melancholy moralist is among the curiosities of literature.
Bennet Langton was of an ancient family, who held their
ancestral estate of Langton in Lincolnshire, a great title to
respect with Johnson. " Langton, sir," he would say, " has a
grant of free warren from Henry the Second; and Cardinal
Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family."
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 103
.Langton was of a niild, contemplative, enthusiastic nature.
When but eighteen years of age he was so delighted with
reading Johnson's " Rambler," that he came to London chiefly
with a view to obtain an introduction to the author. Bos-
well gives us an account of his first interview, which took
place in the morning. It is not often that the personal ap
pearance of an author agrees with the preconceived ideas of
his admirer. Langton, from perusing the writings of John
son, expected to find him a decent, well-dressed, in short a
remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead of which, down
from his bedchamber about noon, came; as newly risen, a
large uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely
covered his head, and his clothes hanging loose about him.
But his conversation was so rich, so animated, and so forci
ble, and his religious and political notions so congenial with
those in which Langton had been educated, that he conceived
for him that veneration and attachment which he ever pre
served.
Langton went to pursue his studies at Trinity College, Ox
ford, where Johnson saw much of him during a visit which
he paid to the university. He found him in close intimacy
with Topham Beauclerc, a youth two years older than him
self, very gay and dissipated, and wondered what sympathies
could draw two young men together of such opposite char
acters. On becoming acquainted with Beauclerc he found
that, rake though he was, he possessed an ardent love of lite
rature, an acute understanding, polished wit, innate gentility
and high aristocratic breeding. He was, morever, the only
son of Lord Sidney Beauclerc and grandson of the Duke of
St. Albans, and was thought in some particulars to have a
resemblance to Charles the Second. These were high recom
mendations with Johnson, and when the youth testified a
profound respect for him and an ardent admiration of his
talents the conquest was complete, so that in a "short time,'*
says Boswell, "the moral pious Johnson and the gay dissi
pated Beauclerc were companions."
The intimacy begun in college chambers was continued
when the youths came to town during the vacations. The un
couth, unwieldy moralist was flattered at finding himself an
object of idolatry to two high-born, high-bred, aristocrat]
young men, and throwing gravity aside, was ready to join in
their vagaries and play the part of a "young man upon
town.*' Snrh at ]ons|. is tho Tirtnro irivon of him by BosweH
104 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
on one occasion when Beauclerc and Langton having supped
together at a tavern determined to gire Johnson a rouse at
three o'clock in the morning. They accordingly rapped vio
lently at the door of his chambers in the Temple. The in
dignant sage sallied forth in his shirt, poker in hand, and a
little black wig on the top of his head, instead of helmet;
prepared to wreak vengeance on the assailants of his castle ;
but when his two young • friends, Lankey and Beau, as he
used to call them, presented themselves, summoning him forth
to a morning ramble, his Avhole manner changed. ' ' What,
is it you, ye dogs?" cried he. "Faith, I'll have a frisk with
you!"
So said so done. They sallied forth together into Covent
Garden; figured among the green grocers and fruit women,
just come in from the country with their hampers; repaired
to a neighboring tavern, where Johnson brewed a bowl of
bishop, a favorito beverage with him, grew merry over his
cups, and anathematized sleep in two lines from Lord Lans-
downe's drinking song :
" Short, very short, be then thy reign,
For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again."
They then took boat again, rowed to Billingsgate, and John
son and Beauclerc determined, like "mad wags," to "keep
it up" for the rest of the day. Langton, however, the most
sober-minded of the three, pleaded an engagement to break
fast with some young ladies; whereupon the great moralist
reproached him with ' ' leaving his social friends to go and
sit with a set of wretched unidea'd girls."
This madcap freak of the great lexicographer made a sensa
tion, as may well be supposed, among his intimates. " I heard
of your frolic t'other night, " said Garrick to him; "you'll be
in the Chronicle." He uttered worse forebodings to others.
"I shall have my old friend to bail out of the round-house,"
said he. Johnson, however, valued himself upon having thus
enacted a chapter in the "Rake's Progress," and crowed over
Garrick on the occasion. "He durst not do such a thing!"
chuckled he, "his wife would not let him!"
When these two young men entered the club, Langton was
about twenty-two, and Beauclerc about twenty-four years of
age, and both were launched on London life. Langton, how^
ever, was still the mild, enthusiastic scholar, steeped to the
lips with fine conversational powers, and an invaluable
nt.n'KR GOLDSMITH. 105
ti >r listening. He was upward of six feet high, and very spare.
"Oh! that we could sketch him," exclaims Miss Hawkins, in
her Memoirs, "with his mild countenance, his elegant features,
and his sweet smile, sitting with one leg twisted round the
other, as if fearing to occupy more space than was equitable ;
his person inclining forward, as if wanting strength to support
his \veight, and his arms crossed over his bosom, or his hands
locked together on his knee.1' Beauclerc, on such occasions,
sportively compared him to a stork in Raphael's Cartoons,
standing on one leg. Beauclerc was more ' ' a man upon town, "
a lounger in St. James's Street, an associate with George Selwy n,
with Walpole, and other aristocratic wits ; a man of fashion at
court; a casual frequenter of the gaming-table; yet with all
this, he alternated in the easiest and happiest manner the
scholar and the man of letters ; lounged into the club with the
most perfect self-possession, bringing with him the careless
grace and polished wit of high-bred society, but making him
self cordially at home among his learned fellow-members.
The gay yet lettered rake maintained his sway over Johnson,
who was fascinated by that air of the world, that ineffable
tone of good society in which he felt himself deficient, espe
cially as the possessor of it always paid homage to his superior
talent. " Beauclerc, " he would say, using a quotation from
Pope, * ' has a love of folly, but a scorn of fools ; everything he
does shows the one, and everything he says the other." Beau
clerc delighted in rallying the stern moralist of whom others
stood in awe, and no one, according to Boswell, could take
equal liberty with him with impunity. Johnson, it is Avell
known, was often shabby and negligent in his dress, and not
over-cleanly in his person. On receiving a pension from the
crown, his friends vied with each other in respectful congratu
lations. Beauclerc simply scanned his person with a whim
sical glance, and hoped that, like Falstaff, "he'd in future
purge and live cleanly like a gentleman." Johnson took the
hint with unexpected good humor, and profited by it.
Still Beauclerc's satirical vein, which darted shafts on every
side, was not always tolerated by Johnson. " Sir," said ho on
one occasion, " you never open your mouth but with intention
to give pain; and you have often given me pain, not from the
power of what you have said, but from seeing your inten
tion."
When it was first proposed to enroll Goldsmith among the
members of this association, there seems to have beeu some
106 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
demur; at least so says the pompous Hawkins. " As he wrote
for the booksellers, we of the club looked on him as a mere
literary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and translating,
but little capable of original and still less of poetical composi
tion."
Even for some time after his admission, he continued to be
regarded in a dubious light by some of the members. Johnson
and Reynolds, of course, were well aware of his merits, nor
was Burke a stranger to them ; but to the others he was as yet
a sealed book, and the outside was not prepossessing. His un
gainly person and awkward manners were against him with
men accustomed to the graces of society, and he was not suffi
ciently at home to give play to his humor and to that bonho
mie which won the hearts of all who knew him. He felt
strange and out of place in this new sphere ; he felt at times
the cool satirical eye of the courtly Beauclerc scanning him,
and the more he attempted to appear at his ease, the more
awkward he became.
CHAPTER XV.
JOHNSON A MONITOR TO GOLDSMITH — FINDS HIM IN DISTRESS
WITH HIS LANDLADY — RELIEVED BY THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD
— THE ORATORIO — POEM OF THE TRAVELLER — THE POET AND
HIS DOG— SUCCESS OF THE POEM — ASTONISHMENT OF THE
CLUB— OBSERVATIONS ON THE POEM.
JOHNSON had now become one of Goldsmith's best friends
and advisers. He knew all the weak points of his character,
but he knew also his merits ; and while he would rebuke him
like a child, and rail at his errors and follies, he would suffer
no one else to undervalue him. Goldsmith knew the sound
ness of his judgment and his practical benevolence, and often
sought his counsel and aid amid the difficulties into which his
heedlessness was continually plunging him.
"I received one morning," says Johnson, "a message from
poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was
not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to
him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to
come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 107
dressed, and found that his hii'llady had arrested him for his
rent, at which he was in a violent passion; I perceived that
he had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of
Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the
bntllc, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of
the means by which he might be extricated, He then told me
h<> had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me.
I looked into it and saw its merit ; told the landlady I should
soon return ; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty
pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged
his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for
having used him so ill."
The novel in question was the "Vicar of Wakefield;" the
bookseller to whom Johnson sold it was Francis Newbery,
nephew to John. Strange as it may seem, this captivating
work, which has obtained and preserved an almost unrivalled
popularity in various languages, was so little appreciated by
the bookseller, that he kept it by him for nearly two years un
published!
Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of moment in
poetry. Among his literary jobs, it is true, was an oratorio
entitled " The Captivity ," founded on the bondage of the Israel
ites in Babylon. It was one of those unhappy offsprings of
the muse ushered into existence amid the distortions of music.
Most of the oratorio has passed into oblivion ; but the f ollow-
ing song from it will never die :
" The wretch condemned from life to part,
Still, still on hope relies,
And every pang that rends the heart
Bids expectation rise.
" Hope, like the glimmering taper's light,
Illumes and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray."
Goldsmith distrusted his qualifications to succeed in poetry,
and doubted the disposition of the public mind in regard to it.
" I fear," said he, "I have come too late into the world; Pope
and other poets have taken up the places in the temple of
Fame ; and as few at any period can possess poetical reputa
tion, a man of i;vnius can now hardly acquire it." Again, on
another occasion, he observes: "Of all kinds of ambition, as
things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which pursues
poetical fame is the wildest. What from the increased refino-
108 OLIVER GOLDSMITH
ment of the times, from the diversity of judgment produced
by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent
divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and hap
piest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow circle."
At this very time he had by him his poem of ' ' The Travel
ler. " The plan of it, as has already been observed, was con
ceived many year's before, during his travels in Switzerland,
and a sketch of it sent from that country to his brother Henry
in Ireland. The original outline is said to have embraced a
wider scope ; but it was probably contracted through diffidence,
in the process of finishing the parts. It had lain by him for
several years in a crude state, and it was with extreme hesita
tion and after much revision that he at length submitted it to
Dr. Johnson. The frank and warm approbation of the latter
encouraged him to finish it for the press; and Dr. Johnson
himself contributed a fewlines toward the conclusion.
We hear much about "poetic inspiration, "and "the poet's
eye in a fine frenzy rolling;" but Sir Joshua Reynolds gives an
anecdote of Goldsmith while engaged upon his poem, calculated
to cure our notions about the ardor of composition. Calling
upon the poet one day, he opened the door without ceremony,
and found him in the double occupation of turning a couplet
and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches. At one time
he would glance his eye at his desk, and at another shake his
finger at the dog to make him retain his position. The last
lines on the page were still wet ; they form a part of the descrip
tion of Italy :
" By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child."
Goldsmith, with his usual good-humor, joined in the laugh
caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged that
his boyish sport with the dog suggested the stanza.
The poem was published on the 19th of December, 1764, in a
quarto form, by Newbery, and was the first of his works to
which Goldsmith prefixed his name. As a testimony of cher
ished and well-merited affection, he dedicated it to his brother
Henry. There is an amusing affectation of indifference as to its
fate expressed in the dedication. "What reception a poem
may find," says he, "which has neither abuse, party, nor blank
verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know. ''
The truth is, no one was more emulous and anxious for poetic
fame; and never was he more anxious than in the present
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 109
instance, for it was his grand stake. Dr. Johnson aided the
launching of the poem by a favorable notice in the Critical
Review; other periodical works came out in its favor. Some
of the author's friends complained that it did not command iri'
stant and wide? popularity ; that it was a poem to win, not to
strike ; it went on rapidly increasing in favor ; in three months
a second edition was issued ; shortly afterward a third ; then a
fourth; and, before the year was out, the author was pro
nounced the best poet of his tune.
The appearance of "The Traveller" at once altered Gold
smith's intellectual standing in the estimation of society ; "but
its effect upon the club, if we may judge from the account
given by Hawkins, was most ludicrous. They were lost in as
tonishment that a "newspaper essayist" and ''bookseller's
drudge" should have written such a poem. On the evening of
its announcement to them Goldsmith had gone away early,
after "rattling away as usual," and they knew not how to
reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene beauty, the
easy grace, the sound good sense, and the occasional elevation
of his poetry. 'They could scarcely believe that such magic
numbers had flowed from a man to whom in general, says
Johnson, "it was with difficulty they could give a hearing."
" Well," exclaimed Chamier, " I do believe he wrote this poem
himself, and let me tell you, that is believing a great deal."
At the next meeting of the club Chamier sounded the author
a little about his poem. "Mr. Goldsmith," said he, "what do
you mean by the last word in the first line of your ' Traveller,'
' remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow"? do you mean tardinesss
of locomotion?" "Yes," replied Goldsmith inconsiderately,
being probably flurried at the moment. " No, sir," interposed
his protecting friend Johnson, "you did not mean tardiness of
locomotion ; you meant that sluggishness of mind which comes
upon a man in solitude." " Ah," exclaimed Goldsmith, " that
was what I meant." Chamier immediately believed that John
son himself had written the line, and a rumor became pre
valent that he was the author of many of the finest passages.
This was ultimately set at rest by Johnson himself, who marked
with a pencil all the verses he had contributed, nine in number,
inserted toward the conclusion, and by no means the best in
the poem. He moreover, with generous warmth, pronounced
it the finest poem that had appeared since the days of Pope.
But one of the highest testimonials to the charm of the poem
was given by Miss Reynolds, who had toasted poor Goldsmith
HO OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
as the ugliest man of her acquaintance. Shoruy after the ap
pearance of "The Traveller," Dr. Johnson read it aloud from
beginning to end in her presence. ' ' Well, " [exclaimed she,
*rheii he had finished, ' ' I never more shall think Dr. Gold
smith ugly 1"
On another occasion, when the merits of "The Traveller"
wore discussed at Reynolds's board, Langton declared "There
was not a bad line in the poem, not one of Dryden's careless
verses." "I was glad," observed Reynolds, "to hear Charles
fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English language."
' k Why werb you glad ?" rejoined Langton ; ' ' you surely had no
doubt of this before." "No," interposed Johnson, decisively;
"the merit 01 'The Traveller' is so well established that Mr.
Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it."
Boswell, who was absent from England at the time of the
publication of *' The Traveller," was astonished, on his return,
to find Goldsmith, whom he had so much undervalued, sud
denly elevated almost to u par with his idoi. He accounted for
it by concluding that mudb both of the sentiments and expres
sion of the poem had been derived from conversations with
Johnson. "He imitates you, sir," said this incarnation of
toadyism. "Why, no, sir,*' replied Johnson, "Jack Hawks-
worth is one of my imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir,
has great merit." "But, sir, he is much indebted to you for
his getting so high in the public estimation." "Why, sir, he
has, perhaps, got sooner to it by his intimacy with me."
The poem went through several editions in the course of the
first year, and received some few additions and corrections
from the author's pen. It produced a golden harvest to Mr.
Newbery, but all the remuneration on record, doled out by his
, niggard hand to the author, was twenty guineas!
OLlVEli UULDSM1TH. HI
CHAPTER XVI.
NKW LODGINGS — JOHNSON'S COMPLIMENT — A TITLED PATRON — THE
POET AT NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE— HIS INDEPENDENCE OF THE
; HEAT — THE COUNTESS OF NORTHUMBERLAND — EDWIN AXI>
ANGELINA— GOSFORD AND LORD CLARE— PUBLICATION OF ES
SAYS I.VII.S OF A RISING REPUTATION — HANGERS-ON — JOB
WRITING — GOODY TWO SHOES — A MEDICAL CAMPAIGN — MRS.
SIDEBOTHAM.
GOLDSMITH, now that he was rising in the world, and becom
ing a notoriety, felt himself called upon to improve his style
of Irving. He accordingly emerged from Wine-Office Court,
and took chambers in the Temple. It is true they were but
of humble pretensions, situated on what was then the library
staircase, and it would appear that he was a kind of inmate
with Jeffs, the butler of the society. Still he was in the Tem
ple, that classic region rendered famous by the Spectator and
other essayists, as the abode of gay wits and thoughtful men
of letters; and which, with its retired courts and embow
ered gardens, in the very heart of a noisy metropolis, is,
to the quiet-seeking student and author, an oasis freshening
with verdure in the midst of a desert. Johnson, who had be
come a kind of growling supervisor of the poet's affairs, paid
him a visit soon after he had installed himself in his new quar
ters, and went prying about the apartment, in his near-sighted
manner, examining everything minutely. Goldsmith was
fidgeted by this curious scrutiny, and apprehending a dispo~
sition to find fault, exclaimed, with the air of a man who had
money in both pockets, " I shall soon be in better chambers
than these. " The harmless bravado drew a reply from John
son, which touched the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir,1'
said he, "never mind that. Nil te qusesiveris extra," imply
ing that his reputation rendered him independent of outward
show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith, could
he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind,
and squared his expenses accordingly.
Among the persons of rank who were struck with the merits
of "The Traveller" was the Earl (afterward Duke) of North
umberland. He procured several other of Goldsmith's writ'
112 OLIVfiR GOLDSMITH.
ings, the perusal of which tended to elevate the author in hig
good opinion, and to gain for him his good will. The earl held
the office of Lord Lieutenant of] Ireland, and understanding
Goldsmith was an Irishman, was disposed to extend to him
the patronage which his high post afforded. He intimated
the same to his relative, Dr. Percy, who, he found, was well
acquainted with the poet, and expressed a wish that the latter
should wait upon him. Here, then, was another opportunity
for Goldsmith to hetter his fortune, had he been knowing and
worldly enough to profit by it. tluluckily the path to fortune
lay through the aristocratical mazes of Northumberland House,
and the poet blundered at the outset. The following is the ac
count he used to give of his visit : "I dressed myself in the
best manner I could, and, after studying some compliments I
thought necessary on such an occasion, proceeded to North
umberland House, and acquainted the servants that I had par
ticular business with the duke. They showed me into an ante
chamber, where, after waiting some time, a gentleman, very
elegantly dressed, made his appearance; taking him for the
duke, I delivered all the fine things I had composed in order
to compliment him on the honor he had done me ; when, to
my great astonishment, he told me I had mistaken him for
his master, who would see me immediately. At that instant
the duke came into the apartment, and I was so confounded
on the occasion, that I wanted words barely sufficient to ex
press the sense I entertained of the duke's politeness, and
went away exceedingly chagrined at the blunder I had com
mitted."
Sir John Hawkins, in his life of Dr. Johnson, gives some
further particulars of this visit, of which he was, in part, a
witness. " Having one day," says he, " a call to make on the
late Duke, then Earl, of Northumberland, I found Goldsmith
waiting for an audience in an outer room ; I asked him what
had brought him there; he told me, an invitation from his
lordship. I made my business as short as I could, and, as a
reason, mentioned that Dr. Goldsmith was waiting without.
The earl asked me if I was acquainted with him. I told him
that I was, adding what I thought most likely to recommend
him. I retired, and stayed in the outer room to take him
home. Upon his coming out, I asked him the result of his con
versation. 'His lordship,' said he, 'told me he had read my
poem, meaning * ' The Traveller, " and was much delighted
with it ; that he was going to be lord-lieutenant of Ireland,
OLIVER GOLDSMITB. 113
and that hearing I was a native of that country, he should
be glad to do me any kindness/ * And what did you answer,'
said I, 'to this gracious offer?' ' Why,' said he, 'I could say
nothing but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood
in need of help : as for myself, I have no great dependence on
the promises of great men ; I look to the booksellers for sup
port ; they are my best friends, and I am not inclined to for
sake them for others/" "Thus," continues Sir John, "did
this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his fortunes,
and put back the hand that was held out to assist him,"
We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly sneer at the
conduct of Goldsmith on this occasion. While we admire that
honest independence of spirit which prevented him from ask
ing favors for himself, we love that warmth of affection which
instantly sought to advance the fortunes of a brother : but the
peculiar merits of Goldsmith seem to have been little under
stood by the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the other biogra
phers of the day.
After all, the introduction to Northumberland House did not
prove so complete a failure as the humorous account given by
Goldsmith, and the cynical account given by Sir John Haw
kins, might lead one to suppose. Dr. Percy, the heir male of
the ancient Percies, brought the poet into the acquaintance of
his kinswoman, the countess, who, before her marriage with
the earl, was in her own right heiress of the House of North
umberland. "She was a lady," says Boswell, "not only of
high dignity of spirit, such as became her noble blood, but of
excellent understanding and lively talents." Under her aus
pices a poem of Goldsmith's had an aristocratical introduction
to the world. This was the beautiful ballad of the " Hermit,"
originally published under the name of " Edwin and Angelina."
It was suggested by an old English ballad beginning "Gentle
Herdsman, " shown him by Dr. Percy, who was at that time
making his famous collection, entitled "Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry," which he submitted to the inspection of
Goldsmith prior to publication. A few copies only of the
"Hermit" were printed at first, with the following title-page:
" Edwin and Angelina : a Ballad. By Mr. Goldsmith. Printed
for the Amusement of the Countess of Northumberland."
All this, though it may not have been attended with any
immediate pecuniary advantage, contributed to give Gold
smith's name and poetry the high stamp of fashion, so potent
in England; the circle at Northumberland House, however,
114 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
was of too stately and aristocratical a nature to be much to
his taste, and we do not find that he became familiar in it.
He was much more at home at Gosfield, the noble seat of his
countryman, Robert Nugent, afterward Baron Nugent and
Viscount Clare, who appreciated his merits even more heartily
than the Earl of Northumberland, and occasionally made him
his guest both in town and country. Nugent is described as a
jovial voluptuary, who left the Roman Catholic for the Pro
testant religion, with a view to bettering his fortunes ; he had
an Irishman's inclination for rich widows, and an Irishman's
luck with the sex ; having been thrice married and gained a
fortune with each wife. He was now nearly sixty, with a re
markably loud voice, broad Irish brogue, and ready, but some
what coarse wit. With all his occasional coarseness he was
capable of high thought, and had produced poems which
showed a truly poetic vein. He was long a member of the
House of Commons, where his ready wit, his fearless decision,
and good-humored audacity of expression, always gained him
a hearing, though his tall person and awkward manner gained
him the nickname of Squire Gawky, among the political scrib
blers of the day. With a patron of this jovial temperament,
Goldsmith probably felt more at ease than with those of higher
refinement.
The celebrity which Goldsmith had acquired by his poem of
"The Traveller," occasioned a resuscitation of many of his
miscellaneous and anonymous tales and essays from the va
rious newspapers and other transient publications in which
they lay dormant. These he published in 1765, in a collected
form, under the title of " Essays by Mr. Goldsmith." "The
following essays," observes he in his preface, "have already
appeared at different times, and in different publications.
The pamphlets in which they were inserted being generally
unsuccessful, these shared the common fate, without assisting
the booksellers' aims, or extending the author's reputation.
The public were too strenuously employed with their own fol
lies to be assiduous in estimating mine ; so that many of my
best attempts in this way have fallen victims to the transient
topic of the times— the Ghost in Cock-lane, or the Siege of
Ticonderoga.
"But, though they have passed pretty silently into the
world, I can by no means complain of their circulation. The
magazines and papers of the day have indeed been liberal
enough in this respect. Most of these essays have been regu-
(JLIVKU <;<>L1)*UITH. H5
larly reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to the
public through the kennel of some engaging compilation. If
there be a pride in multiplied editions, I have seen some of my
labors sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by different parents
as their own. I have seen them flourished at the beginning
with praise, and signed at the end with the names of Philautos,
Philalethes, Phileleutheros, and Philanthropes. It is time,
however, at last to vindicate my claims; and as these enter
tainers of the public, as they call themselves, have partly lived
upon me for some years, let me now try if I cannot live a little
upon myself."
It was but little, in fact, for all the pecuniary emolument he
received from the volume was twenty guineas. It had a good
circulation, however, was translated into French, and has
maintained its stand among the British classics.
Notwithstanding that the reputation of Goldsmith had
greatly risen, his finances were often at a very low ebb, owing
to his heedlessness as to expense, his liability to be imposed
upon, and a spontaneous and irresistible propensity to give to
every one who asked. The very rise in his reputation had in
creased these embarrassments. It had enlarged his circle of
needy acquaintances, authors poorer in pocket than himself,
who came in search of literary counsel ; which generally meant
a guinea and a breakfast. And then his Irish hangers-on!
"Our Doctor," said one of these sponges, "had a constant
levee of his distressed countrymen, whose wants, as far as he
was able, he always relieved ; and he has often been known to
leave himself without a guinea, in order to supply the neces
sities of others."
This constant drainage of the purse therefore obliged him to
undertake all jobs proposed by the booksellers, and to keep up
a kind of running account with Mr. Newbery ; who was his
banker on all occasions, sometimes for pounds, sometimes for
shillings ; but who was a rigid accountant, and took care to be
amply repaid in manuscript. Many effusions hastily penned
in these moments of exigency, were published anonymously,
and never claimed. Some of them have but recently been
traced to his pen; while of many the true authorship will
probably never be discovered. Among others it is suggested,
and with great probability, that he wrote for Mr. Newbery the
famous nursery story of " Goody Two Shoes," which appeared
in 1765, at a moment when Goldsmith was scribbling for New
bery, and much pressed for funds. Several quaint little tales
116 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
introduced in his Essays show that he had a turn for this
species of mock history ; and the advertisement and title-page
bear the stamp of his sly and playful humor.
"We are desired to give notice, that there is in the press, and
speedily will be published, either by subscription or otherwise,
as the public shall please to determine, the History of Little
Goody Two Shoes, otherwise Mrs. Margery Two Shoes; with
the means by which she acquired learning and wisdom, and,
in consequence thereof, her estate; set forth at large for the
benefit of those
* Who, from a state of rags and care,
And having shoes but half a pair,
Their fortune and their fame should fix,
And gallop in a coach and six."
The world is probably not aware of the ingenuity, humor,
good sense, and sly satire contained in many of the old Eng
lish nursery-tales. They have evidently been the sportive pro
ductions of able writess, who would not trust their names to
productions that might be considered beneath their dignity.
The ponderous works on which they relied for immortality
have perhaps sunk into oblivion, and carried their names
down with them ; while their unacknowledged offspring, Jack
the Giant Killer, Giles Gingerbread, and Tom Thumb, nourish
in wide-spreading and never-ceasing popularity.
As Goldsmith had now acquired popularity and an extensive
acquaintance, he attempted, with the advice of his friends, to
procure a more regular and ample support by resuming the
medical profession. He accordingly launched himself upon the
town in style ; hired a man-servant ; replenished his wardrobe
at considerable expense, and appeared in a prof essional wig and
cane, purple silk small-clothes, and a scarlet roquelaure but
toned to the chin: a fantastic garb, as we should think at the
present day, but not unsuited to the fashion of the times.
With his sturdy little person thus arrayed in the unusual
magnificence of purple and fine linen, and his scarlet roquelaure
flaunting from his shoulders, he used to strut into the apart
ments of his patients swaying his three-cornered hat in one
hand and his medical sceptre, the cane, in the other, and as
suming an air of gravity and importance suited to the solem
nity of his wig ; at least, such is the picture given of him by
the waiting gentlewoman who let him into the chamber of one
of his lady patients.
GOLDSMITH. 117
He soon, however, grew tired and impatient of the duties
and restraints of his profession ; his practice was chiefly among
his friends, and the fees were not sufficient for his maintenance ;
he was disgusted with attendance on sick-chambers and capri
cious patients, and looked back with longing to his tavern
haunt sand broad convivial meetings, from which the dignity
and duties of his medical calling restrained him. At length,
on prescribing to a lady of his acquaintance who, to use a hack
neyed phrase, " rejoiced "in the aristocratical name of Side-
botham, a warm dispute arose between him and the apothecary
as to the quantity of medicine to be administered. The doctor
stood up for the rights and dignities of his profession, and re
sented the interference of the compounder of drugs. His rights
and dignities, however, were disregarded; his wig and cane
and scarlet roquelaure were of no avail ; Mrs. Sidebotham sided
with the hero of the pestle and mortar ; and Goldsmith flung
out of the house in a passion. " I am determined henceforth,"
said he to Topham Beauclerc, "to leave off prescribing for
friends." "Do so, my dear doctor," was the reply; "when
ever you undertake to kill, let it be only your enemies."
This was the end of Goldsmith's medical career.
CHAPTER XVII.
PUBLICATION OF THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD— OPINIONS CONCERN
ING IT — OF DR. JOHNSON— OF ROGERS THE POET— OF GOETHE-
ITS MERITS— EXQUISITE EXTRACT — ATTACK BY KENRICK— RE
PLY— BOOK-BUILDING— PROJECT OF A COMEDY.
THE success of the poem of "The Traveller," and the popu
larity which it had conferred on its author, now roused the at
tention of the bookseller in whose hands the novel of "The
Vicar of Wakefield " had been slumbering for nearly two long
years. The idea has generally prevailed that it was Mr. John
Newbery to whom the manuscript had been sold, and much
surprise has been expressed that he should be insensible to its
merit and suffer it to remain unpublished, while putting forth
various inferior writings by the same author. This, however,
is a mistake ; it was his nephew, Francis Newbery, who had
become the fortunate* purchaser. Still the delay is equally un-
118 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
accountable. Some have imagined that the uncle and nephew
had business arrangements together, in which this work was
included, and that the elder Newbery, dubious of its success,
retarded the publication until the full harvest of ' ' The Trav
eller" should be reaped. Booksellers are prone to make egre
gious mistakes as to the merit of works in manuscript ; and to
undervalue, if not reject, those of classic and enduring excel
lence, when destitute of that false brilliancy commonly called
" effect." In the present instance, an intellect vastly superior
to that of either of the booksellers was equally at fault. Dr.
Johnson, speaking of the work to Boswell, some time subse
quent to its publication, observed, "I myself did not think it
would have had much success. It was written and sold to a
bookseller before 'The Traveller,' but published after, so little
expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after
'The Traveller,' he might have had twice as much money;
though sixty guineas was no mean price.'1''
Sixty guineas for the Vicar of Wakefield ! and this could be
pronounced no mean price by Dr. Johnson, at that time the
arbiter of British talent, and who had had an opportunity of
witnessing the effect of the work upon the public mind; for its
success was immediate. It came out on the 27th of March,
1766 ; before the end of May a second edition was called for ; in
three months more a third ; and so it went on, widening in a
popularity that has never flagged. Rogers, the Nestor of
British literature, whose refined purity of taste and exquisite
mental organization, rendered him eminently calculated to
appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all the books,
which, through the fitful changes of three generations he had
seen rise and fall, the charm of the Vicar of Wakefield had
alone continued as at first ; and could he revisit the world after
an interval of many more generations, he should as surely look
to find it undiminished. Nor has its celebrity been confined
to Great Britain. Though so exclusively a picture of British
scenes and manners, it has been translated into almost every
language, and everywhere its charm has been the same.
Goethe, the great genius of Germany, declared in his eighty-
first year, that it was his delight at the age of twenty, that it
had in a manner formed a part of his education, influencing his
taste and feelings throughout life, and that he had recently
read it again from beginning to end — with renewed delight, and
with a grateful sense of the early benefit derived from it.
It is needless to expatiate upon the qualities of a work which
OLIVKH <;<)/J>*MfT//. 119
has thus passed from country to country, and language to lan
guage, until it is now known throughout the whole reading
world, and is become a household book in every hand. The
secret of its universal and enduring popularity is undoubtedly
its truth to nature, but to nature of the most amiable kind ; to
nature such as Goldsmith saw it. The author, as we have occa
sionally shown in the course of this memoir, took his scenes
and characters in this as in his other writings, from originals
in his own motley experience ; but he has given them as seen
through the medium of his own indulgent eye, and has set them
forth with the colorings of his own good head and heart. Yet
how contradictory it seems that this, one of the most delightful
pictures of home and homefelt happiness, should be drawn by
a homeless man ; that the most amiable picture of domestic vir
tue and all the endearments of the married state should be
drawn by a bachelor, who had been severed from domesti- life
almost from boyhood ; that one of the most tender, touching,
and affecting appeals on behalf of female loveliness should
have been made by a man whose deficiency in all the graces
of pereon and manner seemed to mark him out for a cynical
disparager of the sex.
We cannot ref rain from transcribing from the work a short
passage illustrative of what we have said, and which within a
wonderfully small compass comprises a world of beauty of
imagery, tenderness of feeling, delicacy and refinement of
thought, and matchless purity of style. The two stanzas
which conclude it, in which are told a whole history of a
woman's wrongs and sufferings, is, for pathos, simplicity, and
euphony, a gem in the language. The scene depicted is where
the poor Vicar is gathering around him the wrecks of his shat
tered family, and endeavoring to rally them back to happiness.
' ' The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for
the season, so that we agreed to breakfast together on the
honeysuckle bank ; where, while we sat, my youngest daugh
ter at my request joined her voice to the concert on the trees
about us. It was in this place my poor Olivia first met her
seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness. But
that melancholy which is excited by objects of pleasure, or
inspired^ by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of
corroding it.' Her mother, too, upon this occasion, felt a
pleasing distress, and wept, and loved her daughter as before.
' Do, my pretty Olivia,' cried she, ' let us have that melancholy
air your father was so fond of ; your sister Sophy has already
120 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
obliged us. Do, child; it will please your old father.1 Sh<S
complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me.
" ' When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
*' ' The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
Arid wring his bosom— is to die.' ''
Scarce had the Vicar of Wakefield made its appearance and
been received with acclamation, than its author was subjected
to one of the usual penalties that attend success. He was at
tacked in the newspapers. In one of the chapters he had in
troduced his ballad of the Hermit, of which, as we have men
tioned, a few copies had been printed some considerable time
previously for the use of the Countess of Northumberland.
This brought forth the following article in a fashionable jour
nal of the day.
" To the Printer of the St. James's Chronicle.
"Sin: In the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, published about
two years ago, is a very beautiful little ballad, called ' A Friar
of Orders Gray.' The ingenious editor, Mr. Percy, supposes
that the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of Hamlet were
parts of some ballad well known in Shakespeare's time, and
from these stanzas, with the addition of one or two of his own
to connect them, he had formed the above-mentioned ballad ;
the subject of which is, a lady comes to a convent to inquire
for her love who had been driven there by her disdain. She
is answered by a friar that he is dead :
" ' No, no, he is dead, gone to his death's be<*
He never will come again.'
The lady weeps and laments her cruelty ; the friar endeavors
to comfort her with morality and religion, but all in vain ; she
expresses the deepest grief and the most tender sentiments of
love, till at last the friar discovers himself :
" ' And lo ! beneath this gown of gra>
Thy own true love appears.'
"This catastrophe is very fine, and the whole, joined with
the greatest tenderness, has the greatest simplicity; yet,
though this ballad was so recently published in the Ancient
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 121
Reliques, Dr. Goldsmith has been hardy enough to publish a
poem called ' The Hermit,' where the, circumstances and catas
trophe are exactly the same, only with this difference, that
the natural simplicity and tenderness of the original are al
most entirely lost in the languid smoothness and tedious para
phrase of the copy, which is as short of the merits of Mr.
Percy's K-illad as the insipidity of negus is to the genuine
flavor of champagne.
" I am, sir, yours, etc.,
''DETECTOR."
This attack, supposed to be by Goldsmith's constant perse
cutor, the malignant Kenrick, drew from him the following
note to the editor :
"SiR: As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper
controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as con
cise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours that I
recommended Blainville's travels because I thought the book
was a good one; and I think so still. I said I was told by the
bookseller that it was then first published ; but in that it seems
I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough
to set me right.
"Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having
taken a ballad I published some time ago, from one by the in
genious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great resem
blance between the two pieces in question. If there be any,
his ballad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some
years ago ; and he, as we both considered these things as trifles
at best, told me, with his usual good-humor, the next time I
saw him, that he had taken my plan to form the fragments of
Shakespeare into a ballad of his own. He then read me his
little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such
petty anecdotes as these are scarcely worth printing; and
were it not for the busy disposition of some of your corre
spondents, the public should never have known that he owes
me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friend
ship and learning for communications of a much more impor
tant nature.
* I am, sir, yours, etc.,
" OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 1S
The uiu-xj ected circulation of the l< Vicar of W.-iketieM " en-
122 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
riched the publisher, but not the author. Goldsmith no doubt
thought himself entitled to participate in the profits of the re
peated editions ; and a memorandum, still extant, shows that
he drew upon Mr. Francis Newbery, in the month of June, for
fifteen guineas, but that the bill was returned dishonored. He
continued therefore his usual job-work for the booksellers,
writing introductions, prefaces, and head and tail pieces for
new works ; revising, touching up, and modifying travels and
voyages; making compilations of prose and poetry, and
" building books," as he sportively termed it. These tasks re^
quired little labor or talent, but that taste and touch which are
the magic of gifted minds. His terms began to be propor
tioned to his celebrity. If his price was at any time objected
to, " Why, sir," he would say, "it may seem large; but then
a man may be many years working in obscurity before his
taste and reputation are fixed or estimated ; and then he is, as
in other professions, only paid for his previous labors. "
He was, however, prepared to try his fortune in a different
walk of literature from any he had yet attempted. We have
repeatedly adverted to his fondness for the drama ; he was a
frequent attendant at the theatres ; though, as we have shown,
he considered them under gross mismanagement. He thought,
too, that a vicious taste prevailed among -those who wrote for
the stage. " A new species of dramatic composition," says he,
in one of his essays, " has been introduced under the name of
sentimental comedy, in which the virtues of private life are
exhibited, rather than the vices exposed ; and the distresses
rather than the faults of mankind make our interest in the
piece. In these plays almost all the characters are good, and
exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their tin
money on the stage; and though they want humor, have
abundance of sentiment and feeling. If they happen to have
faults or foibles, the spectator is taught not only to pardon,
but to applaud them in consideration of the goodness of their
hearts; so that folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended,
and the comedy aims at touching our passions, without the
power of being truly pathetic. In this manner we are likely
to lose one great source of entertainment on the stage; for
while the comic poet is invading the province of the tragic
muse, he leaves her lively sister quite neglected. Of this,
however, he is no ways solicitous, as he measures his fame by
his profits. . . .
" Hnroor at present seems to be departing from the stage;
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 123
and it will soon happen that our comic players will have noth
ing left for it but a fine coat and a song. It depends upon the
audience whether they will actually drive those poor merry
creatures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy as at the
tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once lost;
and it will be a just punishment, that when, by our being too
fastidious, we have banished humor from the stage, we slumM.
ourselves be deprived of the art of laughing."
Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently taken place.
The comedy of the Clandestine Marriage, the joint production
of Colman and Garrick, and suggested by Hogarth's inimitable
pictures of "Marriage a la mode," had taken the town by
storm, crowded the theatres with fashionable audiences, and
formed one of the leading literary topics of the year. Gold
smith's emulation was roused by its success. The comedy was
in what he considered the legitimate line, totally different from
the sentimental school; it presented pictures of real life, de
lineations of character and touches of humor, in which he felt
himself calculated to excel. The consequence was that in the
course of this year (17CG), he commenced a comedy of the
same class, to be entitled the Good-Natured Man, at which he
diligently wrought whenever the hurried occupation of " book
building" allowed him leisure.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SOCIAL POSITION OP GOLDSMITH — HIS COLLOQUIAL CONTESTS
WITH JOHNSON— ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE social position of Goldsmith had undergone a material
change since the publication of " The Traveller." Before that
event he was but partially known as the author of some clever
anonymous writings, and had been a tolerated member of the
club and the Johnson circle, without much being expected
from him. Now he had suddenly risen to literary fame, and
become one of the lions of the day. The highest regions of
intellectual society were now open to him ; but he was not
prepared to move in them with confidence and success. Bally-
mahon had not been a good school of manners at the outset of
life; nor had his experience as a "poor student" at colleges
and medical schools contributed to give him the polish of
124. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
society. He had brought from Ireland, as he said, nothing
but his "brogue and his blunders," and they had never left
him. He had travelled, it is true; but the Continental tour
which in those days gave the finishing grace to the education
of a patrician youth, had, with poor Goldsmith, been little
better than a course of literary vagabondizing. It had en
riched his mind, deepened and widened the benevolence of his
heart, and filled his memory with enchanting pictures, but it
had contributed little to disciplining him for the polite inter
course of the world. His life in London had hitherto been a
struggle with sordid cares and sad humiliations. "You
scarcely can conceive," wrote he some time previously to his
brother, ' ' how much eight years of disappointment, anguish,
and study have worn me down." Several more years had
since been added to the term during which he had trod the
lowly walKs of life. He had been a tutor, an apothecary's
drudge, a petty physician of the suburbs, a bookseller's hack,
drudging for daily bread. Each separate walk had been beset
by its peculiar thorns and humiliations. It is wonderful how
his heart retained its gentleness and kindness through all these
trials; how his mind rose above the "meannesses of poverty,"
to which, as he says, he was compelled to submit ; but it would
be still more wonderful, had his manners acquired a tone
corresponding to the innate grace and refinement of his in
tellect. He was near forty years of age when he published
" The Traveller," and was lifted by it into celebrity. As is
beautifully said of him by one of his biographers, "he has
fought his way to consideration and esteem; but he bears
upon him the scars of his twelve years' conflict ; of the mean
sorrows through which he has passed; and of the cheap in
dulgences he has sought relief and help from. There is noth
ing plastic in his nature now. His manners and habits are
completely formed ; and in them any further success can make
little favorable change, whatever it may effect for his mind or
genius."*
We are not to be surprised, therefore, at finding him make
an awkward figure in the elegant drawing-rooms which were
now open to him, and disappointing those who had formed an
idea of him from the fascinating ease and gracefulness of his
poetry.
Even the literary club, and the circle of which it formed a
* Forster's Goldsmith.
part, after their surprise at the intellectual flights of which he
showed himself capable, fell into a conventional mode of judg
ing and talking of him, and of placing him in absurd and
whimsical points of view. His very celebrity operated here to
his disadvantage. It brought him into continual comparison
with Johnson, who was the oracle of that circle and had given
it a tone. Conversation was the great staple there, and of this
Johnson was a master. He had been a reader and thinker
from childhood ; his melancholy temperament, which unfitted
him for the pleasures of youth, had made him so. For many
years past the vast variety of works he had been obliged to
consult in preparing his Dictionary, had stored an uncom
monly retentive memory with facts on all kinds of subjects ;
making it a perfect colloquial armory. "He had all his life,"
s;iy-- Boswell, "habituated himself to consider conversation as
a trial of intellectual vigor and skill. He had disciplined him
self as a talker as well as a writer, making it a rule to impart
whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put
it in, so that by constant practice and never suffering any
careless expression to escape him, he had attained an extraor
dinary accuracy and command of language."
His common conversation in all companies, according to Sir
Joshua Reynolds, was such as to secure him universal atten
tion, something above the usual colloquial style being always
expected from him.
" I do not care," said Orme, the historian of Hindostan, " on
what subject Johnson talks ; but I love better to hear him talk
than anybody. He either gives you new thoughts or a new
coloring. "
A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given by Dr.
Percy. "The conversation of Johnson," says he, "is strong
and clear, and may be compared to an antique statue, where
every vein and muscle is distinct and clear."
Such was the colloquial giant with which Goldsmith's cele
brity and his habits of intimacy brought him into continual
comparison; can we wonder that he should appear to dis
advantage ? Conversation grave, discursive, and disputatious,
such as Johnson excelled and delighted in, was to him a severe
task, and he never was good at a task of any kind. He had
not, like Johnson, a vast fund of acquired facts to draw upon ;
nor a retentive memory to furnish them forth when wanted.
He could not, like the great lexicographer, mould his ideas
and balance his periods while talking. He had a flow of ideas,
126 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
but it was apt to be hurried and confused, and as he said oi
himself, he had contracted a hesitating and disagreeable man
ner of speaking. He used to say that he always argued best
when he argued alone ; that is to say, he could master a sub
ject in his study, with Ins pen in his hand ; but, when he came
into company he grew confused, and was unable to talk about
it. Johnson made a remark concerning him to somewhat oi
the same purport. " No man, " said he, "is more foolish than
Goldsmith when he has not a pen in his hand, or more wise
when he has." Yet with all this conscious deficiency he was
continually getting involved in colloquial contests with John
son and other prime talkers of the literary circle. He felt that
he had become a notoriety ; that he had entered the lists and
was expected to make fight ; so with that heedlessness which
characterized him in everything else he dashed on at a ven
ture ; trusting to chance in this as in other things, and hoping
occasionally to make a lucky hit. Johnson perceived his hap
hazard temerity, but gave him no credit for the real diffidence
which lay at bottom. "The misfortune of Goldsmith in con
versation," said he, "is this, he goes on without knowing how
he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is
small. As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not
rich, we may say of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing.
He would not keep his knowledge to himself." And, on
another occasion, "he observes: "Goldsmith, rather than not
talk, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which
can only end in exposing him. If in company with two foun
ders, he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon,
though both of them would soon see that he did not know
what metal a cannon is made of." And again: "Goldsmith
should not be forever attempting to shine in conversation ; he
has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails.
Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of
chance ; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the
tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself against
another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot
spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man
should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it,
though he has a hundred chances for him ; he can get but a
guinea, rand he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this
state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very
little addition to a man of his literary reputation ; if he does
not get the better, he is miserably vexed. "
OLIVKR GOLDSMITH. 127
Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blamo
in producing this vexation. " Goldsmith." said Miss Reynolds,
"always appeared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly
when in company with people of any consequence ; always as
if impressed with fear of disgrace ; and indeed well he might.
I have been witness to many mortifications he has suffered in
Dr. Johnson's company."
It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness.
The great lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, was
still more prone than himself to lose temper when the argu
ment wont against him. He could not brook appearing to be
worsted ; but would attempt to bear down his adversary by
the rolling thunder of his periods; and when that failed,
would become downright insulting. Boswell called it "having
recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry ;" but Gold
smith designated it much more happily. "There is no argu
ing with Johnson," said he, "/or when his pistol misses fire, he
knock* you doini with the butt end ofit." *
In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell
as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Gold
smith had ~the best both, of the wit and the argument, and
especially of the courtesy and good-nature.
On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof
as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables. Gold
smith observed that the animals introduced in them seldom
talked in character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of
the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envy
ing them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The
skill consists in making them talk like little fishes." Just then
observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laugh
ing, he immediately added, ' ' Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so
easy as you seem to think ; for if you were to make little fishes
talk, they would talk like whales."
But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in so
ciety from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of
Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When
royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Sheb-
beare, a punster remarked, that the king had pensioned a she-
* The following is givm by Boswell, as an instance of robust sophistry: "Once,
when T was prrssiiii,' up->ii him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus, 'My
dear!'.' iuiv no more of thi<: you'll Tn.-ik.- nnthim: <>f it. I'd nithrr h.-ar
you \vh;-!l'- n Sr<i:<-li ini'c
128 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
bear and a Tie-bear; to which Goldsmith replied, " Johnson, to
be sure, has a roughness in his manner, but no man alive has
a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but the skin."
Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least
thought of shining; when he gave up all effort to appear wise
and learned, or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of
Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses. Even Bos-
well could perceive his merits on these occasions. "For my
part," said he, condescendingly, " I like very w^ell to hear hon
est Goldsmith talk away carelessly ;" and many a much wiser
man than Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fertile
fancy and a generous heart. In his happy moods, Goldsmith
had an artless simplicity and buoyant good-humor, that led to
a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much
to the entertainment of his intimates ; yet, in his most thought
less garrulity, there was occasionally the gleam of the gold
and the flash of the diamond.
CHAPTER XIX.
SOCIAL RESORTS — THE SHILLING WHIST CLUB— A PRACTICAL JOKE
—THE WEDNESDAY CLUB — THE " TUN OF MAN" — THE PIG
BUTCHER— TOM KING— HUGH KELLY— GLOVER AND HIS CHAR
ACTERISTICS.
THOUGH Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle
occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial
conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at
ease and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some so
cial resorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints
by indulging his humor without control. One of them was a
shilling whist club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tav
ern, near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by
a club held there in old times, to which ' ' rare Ben Jonson"
had furnished the rules. The company was of a familiar, un
ceremonious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit
which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each other.
Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the
club one night in a hackney coach, he gave the coachman by
mistake a guinea instead of a shilling, which he set down as a
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
dead loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of
this class would have the honesty to return the money. On
the next club evening he was told a person at the street door
wished to speak with him. He went forth, but soon returned
with a radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight the
coachman had actually brought back the guinea. While he
launched forth in praise of this unlooked-for piece of honesty
he declared it ought not to go unrewarded. Collecting a small
sum from the club, and no doubt increasing it largely from his
own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with many encomiums on
his good conduct. He was still chanting his praises, when one
of the club requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly re
turned. To Goldsmith's confusion it proved to be a counter
feit. The universal burst of laughter which succeeded, and
the jokes by which he was assailed on every side, showed him
that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as
much a counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it
is said, that he soon beat a retreat for the evening.
Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday
evenings at the Globe Tavern in Fleet Street. It was some
what in the style of the Three Jolly Pigeons; songs, jokes,
dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies and broad sallies of
humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedan
tic casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here
a huge utun of man," by the name of Gordon, used to delight
Goldsmith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and*
looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pig butcher,
charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of "The Trav
eller, " aspired to be on the most social footing with the author,
and here was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen to con
sequence by his performance of Lord Ogleby in the new com
edy of the Clandestine Marriage.
A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a second-rate
author, who, as he became a kind of competitor of Gold
smith's, deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman,
about twenty-eight years of age, originally apprenticed to a
staymaker in Dublin ; then writer to a London attorney ; then
a Grub Street hack, scribbling for magazines and newspapers.
Of late he had set up for theatrical censor and satirist, and, in
a paper called Thespis, in emulation of Churchill's Rosciad,
had harassed many of the poor actors without mercy, and
often without wit ; but had lavished his incense on Garrick,
who, in consequence, took him into favor, He was the author
330 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
of several works of superficial merit, but which had sufficient
vogue to inflate his vanity. This, however, must have been
mortified on his first introduction to Johnson ; after sitting a
short time he got up to take leave, expressing a fear that a
longer visit might be troublesome. "Not in the least, sir,"
said the surly moralist, "I had forgotten you were in the
room." Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had
written more than he had read.
A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor coun
trymen and hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had ori
ginally been educated for the medical profession, but had taken
in early life to the stage, though apparently without much suc
cess. While performing at Cork, he undertook, partly in jest,
to restore life to the body of a malefactor, who had just been
executed. To the astonishment of every one, himself among
the number, he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He aban
doned the stage, resumed the wig and cane, and considered his
fortune as secure. Unluckily, there were not many dead peo
ple to be restored to life in Ireland ; his practice did not equal
his expectation, so he came to London, where he continued to
dabble indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic and
literature.
He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns,
where he used to amuse the company by his talent at story
telling and his powers of mimicry, giving capital imitations of
Garrick, Foote, Colman, Sterne, and other public characters
of the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to
pay his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready
purse among those who had been amused by his humors.
Goldsmith, of course, was one of the readiest. It was through
him that Glover was admitted to the Wednesday Club, of
which his theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover,
however, was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron,
which appeared to him to suffer from the over-familiarity of
some of the members of the club. He was especially shocked
by the free and easy tone in which Goldsmith was addressed
by the pig-butcher: " Come, Noll," would he say as he pledged
him, " here's my service to you, old boy!"
Glover whispered to Goldsmith that he "should not allow
such liberties." ''Let him alone," was the reply, "you'll see
how civilly I'll let him down." After a time, he called out,
with marked ceremony and politeness, "Mr. B., I have the
honor of drinking your good health." Alas I dignity was noti
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 131
poor Goldsmith's forte: he could keep no one at a distance.
"Thank'ce, thank'ee, Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce
taking the pipe out of his mquth. "I don't sec the effect of
your reproof," whispered Glover. "I give it up," replied
Goldsmith, with a good-humored shrug, "I ought to have
known before now there is no putting a pig in the right way."
Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in
these motley circles, observing, that, having been originally
poor, he had contracted a love for low company. Goldsmith,
however, was guided not by a taste for what was low, but for
what was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling of tho
artist ; the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes
in familiar life; the feeling with which "rare Ben Jonson"
sought these very haunts and circles in days of yore, to study
" Every Man in his Humor."
It was not always, however, that tho humor of these asso
ciates was to his taste: as they became boisterous in their
merriment, he was apt to become depressed. "The company
of fools," says he, in ons of his essays, " may at first make us
smile; but at last never fails of making us melancholy."
" Often he would become moody," says Glover, "and would
leave the party abruptly to go home and brood over his mis
fortune."
It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a differ
ent purpose ; to commit to paper some scene or passage sug
gested for his comedy of The Good-Natured Man. Tho ela
boration of humor is often a most serious task ; and we have
never witnessed a more perfect picture of mental misery than
was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer — still,
we hope, living— whom we found in the agonies of producing
a farce which subsequently set the theatres in a roar.
CHAPTER XX.
THE GREAT CHAM OF LITERATURE AND THE KTNO — SCENE AT SIR
JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S — GOLDSMITH ACCUSED OF JEALOUSY—
NEGOTIATIONS WITH GARRICK— THE AUTHOR AND THE ACTOR
—THEIR CORRESPONDENCE.
THE comedy of The Good-Natured Man was completed by
Goldsmith early in 17G7, and submitted to tho'perusal of John-
132 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
son, Burke, Reynolds, and others of the literary club, by
whom it was heartily approved. Johnson, who was seldom
half way either in censure or applause, pronounced it the best
comedy that had been written since The Provoked Husband,
and promised to furnish the prologue. This immediately
became an object of great solicitude with Goldsmith, knowing
the weight an introduction from the Great Cham of literature
would have with the public ; but circumstances occurred which
he feared might drive the comedy and the prologue from
Johnson's thoughts. The latter was in the habit of visiting
the royal library at the Queen's (Buckingham) House, a noble
collection of books, in the formation of which he had assisted
the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One evening, as
he was seated there by the fire reading, he was surprised by
the entrance of the King (George III.), then a young man; who
sought this occasion to have a conversation with him. The
conversation was varied and discursive ; the king shifting from
subject to subject according to his wont; "during the whole
interview," says Bos well, "Johnson talked to his majesty
with profound respect, but still in his open, manly manner,
with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which
is commonly used at the levee and in the drawing-room. ' I
found his majesty wished I should talk,' said he, kand I made
it my business to talk. I find it does a man good to be talked
to by his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a
passion—' " It would have been well for Johnson's colloquial
disputants, could he have often been under such decorous
restraint. He retired from the interview highly gratified with
the conversation of the King and with his gracious behavior.
"Sir," said he to the librarian, "they may talk of the King as
they will, but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen."
" Sir," said he subsequently to Bennet Langton, "his manners
are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Lewis the
Fourteenth or Charles the Second."
While Johnson's face was still radiant with the reflex of
royalty, he was holding forth one day to a listening group at
Sir Joshua Reynolds's, who were anxious to hear every par
ticular of this memorable conversation. Among other ques^
tions, the King had asked him whether he was writing any>
thing. His reply was that he thought he had already done his
part as a writer. "I should have thought so too," said the
King, "if you had not written so well." "No man," said
Johnson, commenting on this speech, "could have made a
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 133
handsomer compliment ; and it was fit for a king to pay. It
was decisive." *' But did you make no reply to this high com
pliment?" asked one of the company. "No, sir," replied the
profoundly deferential Johnson, "when the King had said it,
it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my
sovereign."
During all the time that Johnson was thus holding forth,
Goldsmith, who was present, appeared to take no interest in
til.- royal theme, but remained seated on a sofa at a distance,
in a moody fit of abstraction ; at length recollecting himself,
he sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, with what Boswell
calls his usual "frankness and simplicity," "Well, you ac
quitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have
done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the
whole of it." He afterward explained his seeming inattention,
by saying that his mind was completely occupied about his
play, and by fears lest Johnson, in his present state of royal
excitement, would fail to furnish the much-desired prologue.
How natural and truthful is this explanation. Yet Boswell
presumes to pronounce Goldsmith's inattention affected, and
attributes it to jealousy. ult was strongly suspected," says
he, "that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singu
lar honor Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed." It needed the
littleness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful motives
to Goldsmith, and to entertain such exaggerated notions of the
honor paid to Dr. Johnson.
The Good-Natured Man was now ready for performance, but
the question was how to get it upon the stage. The affairs of
Covent Garden, for which it had been intended, were thrown
in confusion by the recent death of Rich, the manager. Dniry
Lane was under the management of Garrick, but a feud, it
will be recollected, existed between him and the poet, from the
animadversions of the latter on the mismanagement of theat
rical affairs, and the refusal of the former to give -the poet his
vote for the secretaryship of the Society of Arts. Times, how
ever, were changed. Goldsmith when that feud took place
was an anonymous writer, almost unknown to fame, and of no
circulation in society.
Now he had become a literary lion; he was a member
of the Literary Club; he was the associate of Johnson,
Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates— in a word,
he had risen to consequence in the public eye, and of course
was of consequence in the eyes of David Garrick. Sir
134 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Joshua Reynolds saw the lurking scruples of pride exist
ing between the author and actor, and thinking ft a pity that
two men of such congenial talents, and who might be so ser
viceable to each other, should be kept asunder by a wornout
pique, exerted his friendly offices to bring them together. The
meeting took place in Reynolds's house in Leicester Square.
Garrick, however, could not entirely put off the mock majesty
of the stage ; he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gra
cious and condescending. Tom Davies, in his "Life of Gar-
rick," gives an amusing picture of the coming together of these
punctilious parties. "The manager," says he, "was fully
conscious of his (Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps more osten
tatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author than became
a man of his prudence ; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully
persuaded of his own importance and independent greatness.
Mr. Garrick, who had so long been treated with the compli
mentary language paid to a successful patentee and admired
actor, expected that the writer would esteem the patronage of
his play a favor; Goldsmith rejected all ideas of kindness in a
bargain that was intended to be of mutual advantage to both
parties, and in this he was certainly justifiable ; Mr. Garrick
could reasonably expect no thanks for the acting a new play,
which he would have rejected if he had not been convinced it
would amply reward his pains and expense. I believe the
manager was willing to accept the play, but he wished to
be courted to it ; and the doctor was not disposed to purchase
his friendship by the resignation of his sincerity. " They sepa
rated, however, with an understanding on the part of Gold
smith that his play would be acted. The conduct of Garrick
subsequently proved evasive, not through any lingerings of
past hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters of the
kind, and from real scruples of delicacy. He did not think the
piece likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed that opinion
to Reynolds and Johnson; but hesitated to say as much to
Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his feelings. A further
misunderstanding was the result X)f this want of decision and
frankness ; repeated interviews and some correspondence took
place without bringing matters to a point, and in the meantime
the theatrical season passed away.
Goldsmith's pocket, never well supplied, suffered grievously
by this delay, and he considered himself entitled to call upon
the manager, who still talked of acting the play, to advance
him forty pounds upon a note of the younger Newbery.
GOLDSMITH. 135
rick readily complied, but subsequently suggested certain im
portant alterations in the comedy as indispensable to its
success; these were indignantly rejected by the author, but
pertinaciously insisted on by the manager. Garrick proposed
to leave the matter to the arbitration of Whitehead, the lau
reate, who officiated as his "reader" and elbow critic. Gold
smith was more indignant than ever, and a violent dispute
ensued, which was only calmed by the interference of Burke
and Reynolds.
Just at this time order came out of confusion in the affairs of
Coveiit Garden. A pique having risen between Colman and
Garrick, in the course of their joint authorship of The Clandes
tine Marriage, the former had become manager and part pro
prietor of Covent Garden, and was preparing to open a power
ful competition with his former colleague. On hearing of this,
Goldsmith made overtures to Colman ; who, without waiting
to consult his fellow proprietors, who were absent, gave
instantly a favorable reply. Goldsmith felt the contrast of this
warm, encouraging conduct, to the chilling delays and objec
tions of Garrick. He at once abandoned his piece to the
discretion of Colman. "Dear sir," says he in a letter dated
Temple Garden Court, July 9th, "I am very much obliged to
you for your kind partiality in my favor, and your tenderness
in shortening the interval of my expectation. That the play is
liable to many objections I well know, but I am happy that
it is in hands the most capable in the world of removing
them. If then, dear sir, you will complete your favor by put
ting the piece into such a state as it may be acted, or of direct
ing me how to do it, I shall ever retain a sense of your goodness
to me. And indeed, though most probably this be the last I
shall ever write, yet I can't help feeling a secret satisfaction
that poets for the future are likely to have a protector who de
clines taking advantage of their dreadful situation ; and scorns
that importance which may be acquired by trifling with their
anxieties."
The next day Goldsmith wrote to Garrick, who was at Lich-
field, informing him of his having transferred his piece to
Covent Garden, for which it had been originally written, and
by the patentee of which it was claimed, observing, "As I
found you had very great difficulties about that piece, I com
plied with his desire. ... I am extremely sorry that you
should think me warm at our last meeting; your judgment
certainly ought to be free, especially in a matter which must in
136 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
some measure concern your own credit and interest. I assure
you, sir, I have no disposition to differ with you on this or any
other account, but am, with a high opinion of your abilities,
and a very real esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble ser
vant, OLIVER GOLDSMITH."
In his reply, Garrick observed, ' ' I was, indeed, much hurt
that your warmth at our last meeting mistook my sincere and
friendly attention to your play for the remains of a former
misunderstanding, which I had as much forgot as if it had
never existed. What I said to you at my own house I now re
peat, that I felt more pain in giving my sentiments than you
possibly would in receiving them. It has been the business,
and ever will be, of my life to live on the best terms with men
of genius ; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith will have no reason
to change his previous friendly disposition toward me, as I
shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince him how
much I am his obedient servant and well-wisher, D. GARRICK."
CHAPTER XXI.
MORE HACK AUTHORSHIP — TOM DAVIES AND THE ROMAN HISTORY
— CANONBURY CASTLE— POLITICAL AUTHORSHIP — PECUNIARY
TEMPTATION — DEATH OF NEWBERY THE ELDER.
THOUGH Goldsmith's comedy was now in train to be per
formed, it could not be brought out before Christmas; in the
meantime, he must live. Again, therefore, he had to resort to
literary jobs for his daily support. These obtained for him
petty occasional sums, the largest of which was ten pounds,
from the elder Newbery, for an historical compilation; but
this scanty rill of quasi patronage, so sterile in its products,
was likely soon to cease ; Newbery being too ill to attend to
business, and having to transfer the whole management of it
to his nephew.
At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Roscius, sometime
bibliopole, stepped forward to Goldsmith's relief, and proposed
that he should undertake an easy popular history of Rome in
two volumes. An arrangement was soon made. Goldsmith
undertook to complete it in two years, if possible, for two hun
dred and fifty guineas, and forthwith set about his task with
GOLDSMITH. 137
cheerful alacrity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat during
the summer months, where he might alternate his literary
labors with strolls about the green fields. "Merry Islington''
Was again his resort, but he now aspired to better quarters
than formerly, and engaged the chambers occupied occasion
ally by Mr. Newbery in Canonbury House, or Castle as it is
popularly called. This had been a hunting lodge of Queen
Elizabeth, in whose time it was surrounded by parks and for
ests. In Goldsmith's day, nothing remained of it but an old
brick tower ; it was still in the country, amid rural scenery,
and was a favorite nestling-place of authors, publishers, and
others of the literary order.* A number of these he had for
fellow occupants of the castle ; and they formed a temporary
club, which held its meetings at the Crown Tavern, on the
Islington lower road ; and here he presided in his own genial
style, and was the life and delight of the company.
The writer of these pages visited old Canonbury Castle some
years since, out of regard to the memory of Goldsmith. The
apartment was still shown which the poet had inhabited, con
sisting of a sitting-room and small bedroom, with panelled
wainscots and Gothic windows. The quaintness and quietude
of the place were still attractive. It was one of the resorts of
citizens on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the top
of the tower and amuse themselves with reconnoitring the
city through a telescope. Not far from this tower were the
gardens of the White Conduit House, a Cockney Elysium,
where Goldsmith used to figure in the humbler days of his for
tune. In the first edition of his " Essays" he speaks of a stroll
in these gardens, where he at that time, no doubt, thought him
self in perfectly genteel society. After his rise in the world,
however, he became too knowing to speak of such plebeian
haunts. In a new edition of his "Essays," therefore, the
White Conduit House and its garden disappears, and he speaks
of "a stroll in the Park."
1 See on the distant slope, majestic shows
Old Canonbury's tower, an ancient pile
To various fates assigned ; and where by turns
Meanness and grandeur have alternate reign'd;
Thither, iu latter days, hath genius fled
From yonder city, to respire and die.
There the sweet bard of Auburn sat, and tuned
The plaintive moanings of his village dirge.
There learned Chambers treasured lore for men,
iJid Newbery there his A B C's for b«U>tt.
138 OLIVER GOLDSMlftt
While Goldsmith was literally living from hand to mouth
by the forced drudgery of the pen, his independence of spirit
was subjected to a sore pecuniary trial. It was the opening of
Lord North's administration, a time of great political excite
ment. The public mind was agitated by the question of Amer
ican taxation, and other questions of like irritating tendency.
Junius and Wilkes and other powerful writers were attacking
the administration with all their force ; Grub Street was stirred
up to its lowest depths ; inflammatory talent of all kinds was
in full activity, and the kingdom was deluged with pamphlets,
lampoons and libels of the grossest kinds. The ministry were
looking anxiously round for literary support. It was thought
that the pen of Goldsmith might be readily enlisted. His hos
pitable friend and countryman, Robert Nugent, politically
known as Squire Gawky, had come out strenuously for colo
nial taxation ; had been selected for a lordship of the board of
trade, and raised to the rank of Baron Nugent and Viscount
Clare. His example, it was thought, would be enough of
itself to bring Goldsmith into the ministerial ranks, and then
what writer of the day was proof against a full purse or a pen
sion? Accordingly one Parson Scott, chaplain to Lord Sand
wich, and author of Ante Sejanus Panurge, and other political
libels in support of the administration, was sent to negotiate
with the poet, who at this time was returned to town. Dr.
Scott, in after years, when his political subserviency had been
rewarded by two fat crown livings, used to make what he con
sidered a good story out of this embassy to the poet. ' ' I found
him," said he, " in a miserable suit of chambers in the Temple.
I told him my authority : I told how I was empowered to pay
most liberally for his exertions ; and, would you believe it ! he
was so absurd as to say, * I can earn as much as will supply my
wants without writing for any party ; the assistance you offer
is therefore unnecessary to me ; '—and so I left him in his gar
ret 1" Who docs not admire the sturdy independence of poor
Goldsmith toiling in his garret for nine guineas the job, and
smile with contempt at the indignant wonder of the political
divine, albeit his subserviency was repaid by two fat crown
livings?
Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith's old friend,
though frugal-handed employer; Newbery, of picture-book
renown, closed his mortal career. The poet has celebrated him
as the friend of all mankind ; he certainly lost nothing by his
friendship. He coined the brains of his authors in ihe times c<
OLIVER GOLDtmTH. 139
their exigent y, and made them pay dear for the plank put out
to keep them from drowning. It is not likely his death caused
much lamentation among the scribbling tribe; we may ex
press decent respect for the memory of the just, but we shed
tears only at the grave of the generous.
CHAPTER XXII
THEATRICAL MANOSUTRINa — THE COMEDY OF "FALSE DELICACY*'
—FIRST PERFORMANCE OF "THE GOOD-NATURED MAN" — CON
DUCT OF JOHNSON—CONDUCT OF THE AUTHOR— INTERMEDDLING
OF THE PRESS.
THE comedy of The Good-Nalured Man was doomed to ex
perience delays and difficulties to the very last. Garrick, not
withstanding his professions, had still a lurking grudge against
the author, and tasked his managerial arts to thwart him in his
theatrical enterprise. For this purpose he undertook to build
up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith's boon companion of the Wednes
day Club, as a kind of rival. Kelly had written a comedy
called False Delicacy, in which were embodied all the meretri
cious qualities of the sentimental school. Garrick, though he
had decried that school, and had brought out his comedy of
The Clandestine Marriage in opposition to it, now lauded
False Delicacy to the skies, and prepared to bring it out at
Dmry Lane with all possible stage effect. He even went so
far as to write a prologue and epilogue for it, and to touch up
some parts of the dialogue. He had become reconciled to his
former colleague, Colman, and it is intimated that one condi
tion in the treaty of peace between these potentates of the
realms of pasteboard (equally prone to play into each other's
hands with the confederate potentates on the great theatre of
life) was, that Goldsmith's play should be kept back until
Kelly's had been brought forward.
In the mean time, the poor author, little dreaming of the
deleterious influence at work behind the scenes, saw the ap
pointed time arrive and pass by without the performance of
his play ; while False Delicacy was brought out at Drury Lane
(January 23, 1768) with all the trickery of managerial manage
ment. Houses were pocked to applaud it to the echo; the
140 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
newspapers vied Avith each other in their venal praises, and
night after night seemed to give it a fresh triumph.
While False Delicacy was thus borne on the full tide of fic
titious prosperity, The Good-Natured Man was creeping through
the last rehearsals at Covent Garden. The success of the rival
piece threw a damp upon author, manager, and actors. Gold
smith went about with a face full of anxiety ; Colman's hopes
in the piece declined at each rehearsal ; as to his fellow pro
prietors, they declared they had never entertained any. All
the actors were discontented with their parts, excepting Ned
Shuter, an excellent low comedian, and a pretty actress named
Miss Waif ord ; both of whom the poor author ever afterward
held in grateful recollection.
Johnson, Goldsmith's growling monitor and unsparing casti-
gator in times of heedless levity, stood by him at present with
that protecting kindness with which he ever befriended him in
time of need. He attended the rehearsals ; he furnished the
prologue according to promise ; he pish'd and pshaw'd at any
doubts and fears on the part of the author, but gave him sound
counsel, and held him up with a steadfast and manly hand.
Inspirited by his sympathy, Goldsmith plucked up new heart,
and arrayed himself for the grand trial with unusual care.
Ever since his elevation into the polite world, he had improved
in his wardrobe and toilet. Johnson could no longer accuse
him of being shabby in his appearance ; he rather went to the
other extreme. On the present occasion there is an entry in
the books of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, of a suit of
" Tyrian bloom, satin grain, and garter blue silk breeches, £8
2s. 7d" Thus magnificently attired, he attended the theatre
and watched the reception of the play, and the effect of each
individual scene, with that vicissitude of feeling incident to
his mercurial nature.
Johnson's prologue was solemn in itself, and being delivered
by Brinsley in lugubrious tones suited to the ghost in Hamlet,
seemed to throw a portentous gloom on the audience. Some
of the scenes met with great applause, and at such times Gold
smith was highly elated ; others went off coldly, or there were
slight tokens of disapprobation, and then his spirits would sink.
The fourth act saved the piece; for Shuter, who had the main
comic character of Croaker, was so varied and ludicrous in his
execution of the scene in which he reads an incendiary letter,
that he drew down thunders of applause. On his coming be
hind the scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an overflowing
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 141
heart ; declaring that he exceeded his own idea of the charac
ter, and made it almost as new to him as to any of the audi
ence.
On the whole, however, both the author and his friends were
disappointed at the reception of the piece, and considered it a
failure. Poor Goldsmith left the theatre with his towering
hopes completely cut down. He endeavored to hide his morti
fication, and even to assume an air of unconcern while among
his associates ; but, the moment he was alone with Dr. John
son, in whose rough but magnanimous nature he reposed un
limited confidence, he threw off all restraint and gave way to
an almost childlike burst of grief. Johnson, who had shown
no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the
partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant
such ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what
he termed a silly affectation, saying that " No man should be
expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity."
When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, he, with his
usual unreserve, made his past distress a subject of amusement
to"his friends. Dining, one day, in company with Dr. John
son, at the chaplain's table at St. James's Palace, he enter
tained the company with a particular and comic account of all
his feelings on the night of representation, and his despair when
the piece was hissed. How he went, he said, to the Literary
Club ; chatted gayly , as if nothing had gone amiss ; and, to give
a greater idea of his unconcern, sang his favorite song about
an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen tunes as high as
the moon. . . . u All this while," added he, "I was suffering
horrid tortures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily be
lieve it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so exces
sively ill : but I made more noise than usual to cover all that ;
so they never perceived my not eating, nor suspected the an
guish of my heart ; but, when all wore gone except Johnson
here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never
write again."
Dr. Johnson sat in amaze at the odd frankness and childlike
self-accusation of poor Goldsmith. When the latter had come
to a pause, " AH this, doctor," said he dryly, " I thought had
been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would not
have said anything about it for the world." But Goldsmith
had no secrets : his f ollies, his weaknesses, his errors were all
thrown to the surface ; his heart was really too guileless and
innocent to seek mystery and concealment. It is too often the
142 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
false, designing man that is guarded in his conduct and never
offends proprieties. ^
It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who thus in convex
sation could keep nothing to himself, should be the author of a
maxim which would inculcate the most thorough dissimula
tion. "Men of the world," says he, in one of his papers of the
Bee, "maintain that the true end of speech is not so much to
express our wants as to conceal them." How often is this
quoted as one of the subtle remarks of the fine-witted Talley
rand!
The Good-Natured Man was performed for ten nights in
succession; the third, sixth, and ninth nights were for the
author's benefit; the fifth night it was commanded by their
majesties; after this it was played occasionally, but rarely,
having always pleased more in the closet than on the stage.
As to Kelly's comedy, Johnson pronounced it entirely devoid
of character, and it has long since passed into oblivion. Yet
it is an instance how an inferior production, by dint of puffing
and trumpeting, may be kept up for a time on the surface of
popular opinion, or rather of popular talk. What had been
done for False Delicacy on the stage was continued by the
press. The booksellers vied with the manager in launching it
upon the town. They announced that the first impression of
three thousand copies was exhausted before two o'clock on the
day of publication ; four editions, amounting to ten thousand
copies, were sold in the course of the season ; a public break
fast was given to Kelly at the Chapter Coffee House, and a
piece of plate presented to him by the publishers. The com
parative merits of the two plays were continually subjects of
discussion in green-rooms, coffee-houses, and other places
where theatrical questions were discussed.
Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, that "viper of the press,"
endeavored on this as on many other occasions to detract from
his well-earned fame; the poet was excessively sensitive to
these attacks, and had not the art and self-command to conceal
his feelings.
Some scribblers on the other side insinuated that Kelly had
seen the manuscript of Goldsmith's play, while in the hands of
Garrick or elsewhere, and had borrowed some of the situations
and sentiments. Some of the wags of the day took a mis
chievous pleasure in stirring up a feud between the two authors.
Goldsmith became nettled, though he could scarcely be deemed
jealous of one so far his inferior. He spoke disparagingly,
OLIVER QOLDtMI'lll. 143
though no doubt sincerely, of Kelly's play : the latter retorted.
Still, when they met one day behind the scenes of Covent
Garden, Goldsmith, with his customary urbanity, congratu
lated Kelly on his success. "If I thought you sincere, Mr.
Goldsmith," replied the other, abruptly, "I should thank you."
Goldsmith was not a man to harbor spleen or ill-will, and soon
laughed at this unworthy rivalship : but the jealousy and envy
awakened in Kelly's mind long continued. He is even accused
of having given vent to his hostility by anonymous attacks in
the newspapers, the basest resource of dastardly and malig
nant spirits ; but of this there is no positive proof.
CHAPTER XXHL
BURNING THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS— FINE APARTMENTS — FINE
FURNITURE — FINE CLOTHES — FINE ACQUAINTANCES — SHOE
MAKER'S HOLIDAY AND JOLLY PIGEON ASSOCIATES — PETER
BARLOW, GLOVER, AND THE HAMPSTEAD HOAX — POOR FRIENDS
AMONG GREAT ACQUAINTANCES.
THE profits resulting from The Good-Natured Man were be
yond any that Goldsmith had yet derived from his works. He
netted about four hundred pounds from the theatre, and one
hundred pounds from his publisher.
Five hundred pounds! and all at one miraculous draught!
It appeared to him wealth inexhaustible. It at once opened his
heart and hand, and led him into all kinds of extravagance.
The first symptom was ten guineas sent to Shuter for a box
ticket for his benefit, when The Good-Natured Man was to be
performed. The next was an entire change in his domicile.
The shabby lodgings with Jeffs the butler, in which he had
been worried by Johnson's scrutiny, were now exchanged for
chambers more becoming a man of his ample fortune. The
apartments consisted of three rooms on the second floor of No.
2 Brick Court, Middle Temple, on the right hand ascending the
staircase, and overlooked the umbrageous walks of the Temple
garden. The lease he purchased for £400, and then went on to
furnish his rooms with mahogany sofas, card-tables, and book
cases ; with curtains, mirrors, and Wilton carpets. His awk
ward little person was also furnished out in a style befitting
his apartment; for, in addition to his suit of " Tyrian bloom,
144 OLIVER GOLD8MITI1.
satin grain," we find another charged about this time, in the
books of Mr. Filby, in no less gorgeous terms, being "lined
with silk and furnished with gold buttons." Thus lodged and
thus arrayed, he invited the visits of his most aristocratic ac
quaintances, and no longer quailed beneath the courtly eye of
Beauclerc. He gave dinners to Johnson, Eeynolds, Percy,
Bickerstaff, and other friends of note; and supper parties to
young folks of both sexes. These last were preceded by round
games of cards, at which there was more laughter than skill,
and in which the sport was to cheat each other ; or by romping
games of forfeits and blind-man's buff, at which he enacted
the lord of misrule. Blackstone, whose chambers were imme
diately below, and who was studiously occupied on his "Com
mentaries," used to complain of the racket made overhead by
his revelling neighbor.
Sometimes Goldsmith would make up a rural party, com
posed of four or five of his "jolly pigeon" friends, to enjoy
what he humorously called a "shoemaker's holiday." These
would assemble at his chambers in the morning, to partake of
a plentiful and rather expensive breakfast; the remains of
which, with his customary benevolence, he generally gave to
some poor woman in attendance. The repast ended, the party
would set out on foot, in high spirits, making extensive ram
bles by foot-paths and green lanes to Blackheath, Wandsworth,
Chelsea, Hampton Court, Highgate, or some other pleasant
resort, within a few miles of London. A simple but gay and
heartily relished dinner, at a country innr crowned the excur
sion. In the evening they strolled back to town, all the better
in health and spirits for a day spent in rural and social enjoy
ment. Occasionally, when extravagantly inclined, they ad
journed from dinner to drink tea at the White Conduit House ;
and, now and then, concluded their festive day by supping at
the Grecian or Temple Exchange Coffee Houses, or at the
Globe Tavern, in Fleet Street. The whole expenses of the day
never exceeded a crown, and were oftener from three and six
pence to four shillings ; for the best part of their entertainment,
sweet air and rural scenes, excellent exercise and joyous con
versation, cost nothing.
One of Goldsmith's humble companions, on these excursions,
was his occasional amanuensis, Peter Barlow, whose quaint
peculiarities afforded much amusement to the company. Peter
was poor but punctilious, squaring his expenses according to
his means. He always wore the same garb ; fixed his regular
OLIVER OOLDSMTTir. 145
expenditure for dinner at a trifling sum, which, if left to him
self, he never exceeded, but which he always insisted on paying.
His oddities always made him a welcome companion on the
"shoemaker's holidays." The dinner, on these occasions, gen
erally exceeded considerably his tariff; he put down, however,
no more than his regular sum, and Goldsmith made up the
difference.
Another of these hangers-on, for whom, on such occasions,
he was content to "pay the shot, "was his countryman, Glover,
of whom mention has already been made, as one of the wags'
and sponges of the Globe and Devil taverns, and a prime mimic
at the Wednesday Club.
This vagabond genius has bequeathed us a whimsical story
of one of his practical jokes upon Goldsmith, in the course of a
rural excursion in the vicinity of London. They had dined at
an inn on Hampstead Heights, and were descending the hill,*
when, in passing a cottage, they saw through the open window
a party at tea. Goldsmith, who was fatigued, cast a wistful
glance at the cheerful tea-table. " How I should like to be of
that party," exclaimed he. "Nothing more easy," replied
Glover, "allow me to introduce you." So saying, he entered
the house with an air of the most perfect familiarity, though
an utter stranger, and was followed by the unsuspecting Gold
smith, who supposed, of course, that he was a friend of the
family. The owner of the house rose on the entrance of the
strangers. The undaunted Glover shook hands with him in
the most cordial manner possible, fixed his eye on one of the
company who had a peculiarly good-natured physiognomy,
muttered something like a recognition, and forthwith launched
into an amusing story, invented at the moment, of something
which he pretended had occurred upon the road. The host
supposed the new-comers were friends of his guests ; the guests
that they were friends of the host. Glover did not give them
time to find out the truth. He followed one droll story with
another; brought his powers of mimicry into play, and kept
the company in a roar. Tea was offered and accepted ; an hour
went off in the most sociable manner imaginable, at the end of
which Glover bowed himself and his companion out of the
house with many facetious last words, leaving the host and
his company to compare notes, and to find out what an im
pudent intrusion they had experienced.
Nothing could exceed the dismay and vexation of Goldsmith
when triumphantly told by Glover that it was all a hoax, and
146 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
that he did not know a single soul in the house. His first
impulse was to return instantly and vindicate himself from all
participation in the jest ; but a few words from his free and
easy companion dissuaded him. " Doctor," said he, coolly,
' ' we are unknown ; you quite as much as I ; if you return and
tell the story, it t will be in the newspapers to-morrow; nay,
upon recollection, I remember in one of their offices the face of
that squinting fellow who sat in the corner as if he was trea
suring up my stories for future use, and we shall be sure of
being exposed ; let us therefore keep our own counsel."
This story was frequently afterward told by Glover, with rich
dramatic effect, repeating and exaggerating the conversation,
and mimicking, in ludicrous style, the embarrassment, surprise,
and subsequent indignation of Goldsmith.
It is a trite saying that a wheel cannot run in two ruts ; nor
a man keep two opposite sets of intimates. Goldsmith some
times found his old friends of the " jolly pigeon" order turning
up rather awkwardly when he was in company with his new
aristocratic acquaintances. He gave a whimsical account of
the sudden apparition of one of them at his gay apartments in
the Temple, who may have been a welcome visitor at his
squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court. ' ' How do you think
he served me?" said he to a friend. " Why, sir, after staying
away two years, he came one evening into my chambers, halt
drunk, as I was taking a glass of wine with Topham Beauclerc
and General Oglethorpe ; and sitting himself down, with most
intolerable assurance inquired after my health and literary
pursuits, as if he were upon the most friendly footing. I was
at first so much ashamed of ever having known such a fellow,
that I stifled my resentment, and drew him into a conversation
on such topics as I knew he could talk upon ; in which, to do
him justice, he acquitted himself very reputably ; when all of
a sudden, as if recollecting something, he pulled two papers
out of his pocket, which he presented to me with great cere
mony, saying, ' Here, my dear friend, is a quarter of a pound
of tea, and a half pound of sugar, 1 have brought you; for
though it is not in my power at present to pay you the two
guineas you so generously lent me, you, nor any man else,
shall ever have it to say that I want gratitude.' This," added
Goldsmith, "was too much. I could no longer keep in my
feelings, but desired him to turn out of my chambers directly ;
which he very coolly did, taking up his tea and sugar ; and I
never saw him afterward."
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 147
CHAPTER XXTY.
REDUCED A«AIN TO BOOK-BUILDING—RURAL RETREAT AT (SHOE
MAKER'S PARADISE — DEATH OP HENRY GOLDSMITH — TRIBUTES
TO HIS MEMORY IN "THE DESERTED VILLAGE."
THE heedless expenses of Goldsmith, as may easily be sup
posed, soon brought him to the end of his " prize money," but
when his purse gave out he drew upon futurity, obtaining
advances from his booksellers and loans from his friends in the
confident hope of soon turning up another trump. The debts
which he thus thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of a
transient gleam of prosperity embarrassed him for -the rest of
his Me ; so that the success of the Good-Natured Man may be
said to have been ruinous to him.
He was soon obliged to resume his old craft of book-building,
and set about his History of Rome, undertaken for Da vies.
It was his custom, as we have shown, during the summer
time, when pressed by a multiplicity of literary jobs, or urged
to the accomplishment of some particular task, to take country
lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow or
Edge ware roads, and bury himself there for weeks and months
together. Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his
room, at other times he would stroll out along the lanes and
hedge-rows, and taking out paper and pencil, note down
thoughts to be expanded and connected at home. His summer
retreat for the present year, 1768, was a little cottage with a
garden, pleasantly situated about eight miles from town on the
Edge ware road. He took it in conjunction with a Mr. Edmund
Botts, a barrister and man of letters, his neighbor in the Tem
ple, having rooms immediately opposite him on the same floor.
They had become cordial intimates, and Botts was one of those
with whom Goldsmith now and then took the friendly but
pernicious liberty of borrowing.
The cottage which they had hired belonged to a rich shoe
maker of Piccadilly, who had embellished his little domain of
half an acre with statues and jets, and all the decorations of
landscape gardening ; in consequence of which Goldsmith pave
it the name of The Shoemaker's Paradise. As his fellow-
occupant, Mr. Botts, drove a gif?, he sometimes, in an interval
148 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
of literary labor, accompanied him to town, partook of a social
dinner there, and returned with him in the evening. On one
occasion, when they had probably lingered too long at the
table, they came near breaking their necks on their way
homeward by driving against a post on the sidewalk, while
Botts was proving by the force of legal eloquence that thej
were in the very middle of the broad Edgeware road.
In the course of this summer Goldsmith's career of gay-
ety was suddenly brought to a pause by intelligence of the
doath of his brother Henry, then but forty-five years of age.
He had led a quiet and blameless life amid the scenes of his
youth, fulfilling the duties of village pastor with unaffected
piety; conducting the school at Lissoy with a degree of in
dustry and ability that gave it celebrity, and acquitting him
self in all the duties of life with undeviating rectitude and the
mildest benevolence. How truly Goldsmith loved and vener
ated him is evident in all his letters and throughout his works ;
in which his brother continually forms his model for an ex
emplification of all the most endearing of the Christian
virtues ; yet his affection at his death was embittered by the
fear that he died with some doubt upon his mind of the
warmth of his affection. Goldsmith had been urged by his
friends in Ireland, since his elevation in the world, to use his
influence with the great, which they supposed to'be all power
ful, in favor of Henry, to obtain for him church preferment.
He did exert himself as far as his diffident nature would
permit, but without success; we have seen that, in the case
of the Earl of Northumberland, when, as Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, that nobleman proffered him his patronage, he asked
nothing for himself, but only spoke on behalf of his brother.
Still some of his friends, ignorant of what he had done and of
how little he was able to do, accused him of negligence. It is
not likely, however, that his amiable and estimable brother
joined in the accusation.
To the tender and melancholy recollections of his early days
awakened by the death of this loved companion of his child
hood, we may attribute some of the most heartfelt passages in
his " Deserted Village." Much of that poem, we are told, was
composed this summer, in the course of solitary strolls about
the green lanes and beautifully rural scenes of the neighbor
hood ; and thus much of the softness and sweetness of English
landscape became blended with the ruder features of Lissoy.
It was in these lonely and subdued moments, when tender
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 149
regret was half mingled with self -upbraiding, that he poured
forth that homage of the heart, rendered as it were at the
grave of his brother. The picture of the village pastor in this
poem, which, we have already hinted, was taken in part from
the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollections
of his brother Henry ; for the natures of the father and son
seem to have been identical. In the following lines, however,
Goldsmith evidently contrasted the quiet, settled life of his
brother, passed at home in the benevolent exercise of the
Christian duties, with his own restless, vagrant career:
" Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place."
To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expia
tory spirit ; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness,
he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which
he had not been able to practise :
" At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn' d the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway.
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
The -service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children follow'd, with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile:
His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd.
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
And as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies.
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.
CHAPTER XXV.
DINNER AT BICKERSTAFF'S— HIFFERNAN AND HIS IMPECITNIOSITY— -
KENRICK'S EPIGRAM — JOHNSON'S CONSOLATION — GOLDSMITH'S
TOILET — THE BLOOM-COLORED COAT — NEW ACQUAINTANCES —
THE HORNECKS— 'A TOUCH OF POETRY AND PASSION— THE
JESSAMY BRIDE.
IN October Goldsmith returned to town and resumed his
usual haunts. We hear of him at a dinner given by his
150 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
•ountryman, Isaac Bickerstaff, author of " Love in a Village,'1
"Lionel and Clarissa," and other successful dramatic pieces.
The dinner was to be followed by the reading by Bickerstafl
of a new play. Among the guests was one Paul Hiffernan,
likewise an Irishman; somewhat idle and intemperate; who
lived nobody knew how nor where, sponging wherever he had
a chance, and often of course upon Goldsmith, who was ever
the vagabond's friend, or rather victim. Hiffernan was some
thing of a physician, and elevated the emptiness of his purse
into the dignity of a disease, which he termed impecuniosity,
and against which he claimed a right to call for relief from
the healthier purses of his friends. He was a scribbler for the
newspapers, and latterly a dramatic critic, which had proba
bly gained him an invitation to the dinner and reading. The
wine and wassail, however, befogged his senses. Scarce had
the author got into the second act of his play, when Hiffernan
began to nod, and at length snored outright. Bickerstaff was
embarrassed, but continued to read in a more elevated tone.
The louder he read, the louder Hiffernan snored; until the
author came to a pause. "Never mind the brute, Bick, but
go on," cried Goldsmith. " He would have served Homer just
so if he were here and reading his own works. "
Kenrick, Goldsmith's old enemy, travestied this anecdote in
the following lines, pretending that the poet had compared hit
countryman Bickerstaff to Homer.
" What are your Bretons, Romans, Grecians,
Compared with thorough-bred Milesians!
Step into Griffin's shop, he'll tell ye
Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly . . .
And, take one Irish evidence for t'other.
E'en Homer's self is but their foster brother."
Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when wincing under
an attack of this kind. "Never mind, sir," said he to Gold
smith, when he saw that he felt the sting. ' ' A man whose
business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked.
Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock ; if it be struck only at one end ol
the room, it will soon fall to the ground ; to keep it up, it must
be struck at both ends."
Bickerstaff, at the time of which we are speaking, was in high
vogue, the associate of the first wits of the day ; a few years
afterward he was obliged to fly the country to escape the
punishment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed great
astonishment at hearing the offence for which he had fled.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. \ ;, i
•' Why, sir," said ThTale; "he had long been a suspected i»i;m.
LVrhaps there was a knowing look on the part of the eminent
biv\vor, which provoked a somewhat contemptuous reply.
" By those who look close to the ground," said Johnson, '' dirt
will sometimes be seen; I hope I see things from a greater di.s
tance."
We have already noticed the improvement, or rather the
increased expense, of Goldsmith's wardrobe since his eleva
tion into polite society. " He was fond," says one of his con
temporaries, "of exhibiting his muscular little person in the
gayest apparel of the day, to which was added a bag-wig and
sword." Thus arrayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine
in the Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to
the amusement of his acquaintances.
Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of his suits forever
famous. That worthy ^ on the 16th of October in the same
vear, cave a dinner to Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick,
Murphy, Bickerstaff, and Davies. Goldsmith was generally
apt to bustle in at the last moment, when the guests were
taking their seats at table, but on this occasion he was unusu
ally early. While waiting for some lingerers to arrive, uhe
strutted about," says Boswell, "bragging of his dress, and, I
believe, was seriously vain of it, for his mind was undoubtedly
prone to such impressions. 'Come, come,' said Garrick, 'talk
no more of that. You are perhaps the worst — eh, eh? ' Gold
smith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick
went on, laughing ironically, * Nay, you will always look like
a gentleman ; but I am talking of your being well or ill dressed.'
'Well, let me tell you,' said Goldsmith, 'when the tailor
brought home my bloom-colored coat, he said, "Sir, I have a
favor to beg of you ; when anybody asks you who made your
clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in
Water Lane." ' ' Why, sir,' cried Johnson, ' that was because
he knew the strange color would attract crowds to gaze at it,
and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could
make a coat of so absurd a color.' "
But though Goldsmith might permit this raillery on the part
of his friends, he was quick to resent any personalities of the
kind from strangers. As he was one day walking the Strand
in grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited the merri
ment of two coxcombs, one of whom called to the other to
"look at that fly with a long pin stuck through it." Stung to
the quick, Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the paowra-
^ OLIVER
by to be on their guard against ' ' that brace of disguised pick
pockets" — his next was to step into the middle of the street,
where there was room for action, half draw his sword, .and
beckon the joker, who was armed in like manner, to follow
him. This was literally a war of wit which the other had not
anticipated. He had no inclination to push the joke to such
an extreme, but abandoning the ground, sneaked off with his
ibrother wag amid the hootings of the spectators.
This proneness to finery in dress, however, which Boswell
and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, who did not under
stand the secret plies of his character, attributed to vanity,
arose, we are convinced, from a widely different motive. It
was from a painful idea of his own personal defects, which had
been cruelly stamped upon his mind in his boyhood by the
sneers and jeers of his playmates, and had been ground deeper
into it by rude speeches made to him in every step of his strug
gling career, until it had become a constant cause of awkward
ness and embarrassment. This he had experienced the more
sensibly since his reputation had elevated him into polite
society ; and he was constantly endeavoring by the aid of dress
to acquire that personal acceptability, if we may use the
phrase, which nature had denied him. If ever he betrayed a
little self-complacency on first turning out in a new suit, it may
perhaps have been because he felt as if he had achieved a tri
umph over his ugliness.
There were circumstances too about the time of which we
are treating which may have rendered Goldsmith more than
usually attentive to his personal appearance. He had recently
made the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from Devon
shire, which he met at fche house of his friend, Sir Joshua Rey
nolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane
Horneck ; two daughters, seventeen and nineteen years of age,
and an only son, Charles, the Captain in Lace, as his sisters
playfully and somewhat proudly called him, he having lately
entered the Guards. The daughters are described as uncom
monly beautiful, intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Cath
arine, the eldest, went among her friends by the name of
Little Comedy, indicative, very probably, of her disposition.
She was engaged to William Henry Bunbury, second son of a
Suffolk baronet. The hand and heart of her sister Mary were
yet unengaged, although she bore the by-name among her
friends of the Jessamy Bride. This family was prepared, by
their intimacy with Reynolds and his sister, to appreciate the
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. ].,.,
merits of Goldsmith. The poet had always been a chosen
friend of the eminent painter, and Miss Reynolds, as we li;iv<>
shown, ever since she had heard his poem of "The Traveller"
read aloud, had ceased to consider him ugly. The Hornecks
were equally capable of forgetting his person in admiring his
works. On becoming acquainted with him, too, they were de
lighted with his guileless simplicity, his buoyant good-nature
and his innate benevolence, and an enduring intimacy soon
^prung up between them. For once poor Goldsmith had met,
with polite society with which he was perfectly at home, and
by which he was fully appreciated ; for once he had met with
lovely women, to whom his ugly features were not repulsive.
A proof of the easy and playful terms on which he was with
them remains in a whimsical epistle in verse, of which the fol
io \\ing was the occasion. A dinner was to be given to their
family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their mother's, at which
Reynolds and Angelica Kauffman were to be present. The
young ladies were eager to have Goldsmith of the party, and
their intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the
liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at the last
moment. It came too late, and drew from him the following
reply; on the top of which was scrawled, "This is a poeml
This is a copy of verses 1"
Your mandate I got,
Yon may all go to pot;
Had your senses been right,
You'd have sent before night—
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,
And Kauffman beside,
And the Jessamy Bride,
With the rest of the crew,
The Reynoldses too,
Little Comedy's face,
And the Captain in Lac*—
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,
For sending so late
To one of my state.
But 'tis Reynolds's way
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica's whim
Tobefroliclikehim;
But alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser,
When both have been spoil'd in to-day's Advertiser f *
* The following lines had appeared in that day's Advertiser, on the portrait <•!
Sir Joshua by Angelica Kauffman:
While fair Angelica, with matchless grace,
Paints Conway's burly form and Stanhope's fac«;
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay,
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away.
But when the likeness she hath done for thee,
O Reynolds! with astonishment we see,
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own,
Such strength, such harmony excelled by none,
And thou art rivalled by thyself aloue,
* * LITER GOLDSMITH.
It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor Goldsmith
with the Miss Hornecks, which began in so sprightly a vein,
gradually assumed something of a more tender nature, and that
he was not insensible to the fascinations of the younger sister.
This may account for some of the phenomena which about
this time appeared in his wardrobe and toilet. During the
first year of his acquaintance with these lovely girls, the tell
tale book of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, displays entries of
four or five full suits, beside separate articles of dress.
Among the items we find a green half -trimmed frock and
breeches, lined with silk; a queen's blue dress suit; a half-
dress suit of ratteen, lined with satin ; a pair of silk stocking
breeches, and another pair of a bloom color. Alas! poor
Goldsmith ! how much of this silken finery was dictated, not
by -vanity, but humble consciousness of thy defects ; how
much of it was to atone for the uncouthness of thy person,
and to win favor in the eyes of the Jessamy Bride 1
CHAPTER XXVL
•OLDSMITH IN THE TEMPLE— JUDGE DAY AND ORATTAN— LABOR
AND DISSIPATION— PUBLICATION OP THE ROMAN HISTORY-
OPINIONS OF IT— HISTORY OF ANIMATED NATURE — TEMPLB
ROOKERY— ANECDOTES OF A SPIDER.
IN the winter of 1768-69 Goldsmith occupied himself at his
quarters in the Temple, slowly "building up" his Roman
History. Wo have pleasant views of him in this learned and
half -cloistered retreat of wits and lawyers and legal students,
in the reminiscences of Judge Day of the Irish Bench, who in
his advanced age delighted to recall the days of his youth,
when he was a Templar, and to speak of the kindness with
which he and his fellow-student, Grattan, were treated by the
poet. "I was just arrived from college," said he, "full
freighted with academic gleanings, and our author did not
disdain to receive from me some opinions and hints toward his
Greek and Roman histories. Being then a young man, I felt
much flattered by the notice of so celebrated a person. He
took great delight in the conversation of Grattan, whose
brilliancy in the morning of life furnished full earnest of the
OLIVEll GOLDSMITH.
'54
unrivalled splendor which awaited his meridian ; and finding
us dwelling together in Essex Court, near himself, where he
frequently visited my immortal friend, his warm heart
became naturally prepossessed toward the associate of one
whom he so much admired."
The judge goes on, in his reminiscences, to give a picture of
Goldsmith's social habits, similar in style to those already
furnished. He frequented much the Grecian Coffee-House,
then the favorite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars.
He delighted in collecting his friends around him at evening
parties at his chambers, where he entertained them with a
cordial and unostentatious hospitality. " Occasionally," adds
the judge, "he amused them with his flute, or with whist,
neither of which he played well, particularly the latter, but,
on losing his money, he never lost his temper. In a run of
bad luck and worse play, he would fling his cards upon the
floor and exclaim, Byefore George, I ought forever to re
nounce thee, fickle, faithless Fortune.' '
The judge was aware at the time that all the learned labor
of poor Goldsmith upon his Roman History was mere hack
work to recruit his exhausted finances. ' ' His purse replen
ished," adds he, "by labors of this kind, the season of relaxa
tion and pleasure took its turn, in attending the theatres,
Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and other scenes of gayety and amuse
ment. Whenever his funds were dissipated— and they fled
more rapidly from being the dupe of many artful persons,
male and female, who practised upon his benevolence— he
returned to his literary labors, and shut himself up from
society to provide fresh matter for his bookseller, and fresh
supplies for himself."
How completely had the young student discerned the charac
teristics of poor, genial, generous, drudging, holiday-loving
Goldsmith ; toiling that he might play ; earning his bread by
the sweat of his brains, and then throwing it out of the
window.
The Roman History was published in the middle of May, in
two volumes of five hundred pages each. It was brought out
without parade or pretension, and was announced as for the
use of schools and colleges; but, though a work written for
bread, not fame, such is its ease, perspicuity, good sense, and
the delightful simplicity of its style, that it was well received
by tho critics, commanded a prompt and extensive sale, and
kas evor since remained in the hands of young and old.
OLIVER &OLJ)tfMlTff.
\-
Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, rarely praised or
dispraised things by halves, broke forth in a warm eulogy of
the author and the work, in a conversation with Boswell, to
the great astonishment of the latter. "Whether we take
Goldsmith," said he, uas a poet, as a comic writer, or as an
historian, he stands in the first class." Boswell. — "An his
torian ! My dear sir, you surely will not rank his compilation
of the Roman History with the works of other historians of
this age." Johnson.— "Why, who are before him?" Boswell.
— " Hume— Robertson— Lord Lyttelton." Johnson (his antip
athy against the Scotch beginning, to rise). — "I have not read
Hume; but doubtless Goldsmith's History is better than the
verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple." Boswell.
—"Will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, in whose
history we find such penetration, such painting?" Johnson. —
"Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that paint
ing are employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He
who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy. Robert
son paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history-piece;
he imagines an heroic countenance. You must look upon
Robertson's work as romance, and try it by that standard.
History it is not. Besides, sir, it is the great excellence of a
writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold.
Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Robertson might
have put twice as much in his book. Robertson is like a man
who has packed gold in wool ; the wool takes up more room
than the gold. No, sir, I always thought Robertson would be
crushed with his own weight— ivould be buried under his own
ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know ;
Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read
Robertson's cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith's
plain narrative will please again and again. I would say to
Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his
pupils, * Read over your compositions, and whenever you meet
with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it
out 1 ' Goldsmith's abridgment is better than that of Lucius
Florus or Eutropius ; and I will venture to say, that if you
compare him with Vertot in the same places of the Roman His
tory, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art
of compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a
pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and
will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale."
The Natural History to which Johnson alluded was the
OLIVER QOLDSMITS. 157
•
''History of Animated Nature," which Goldsmith commenced
in 17G9, under an engagement with Griffin, the bookseller, to
complete it as soon a^ possible in eight volumes, each contain
ing upward of four hundred pages, in pica ; a hundred guineas
to be paid to the author on the delivery of each volume in
manuscript.
He was induced to engage in this work by the urgent solici
tations of the booksellers, who had been struck by the sterling
merits and captivating style of an introduction which he wrote
to Brookes's Natural History. It was Goldsmith's intention
originally'to make a translation of Pliny, with a popular com
mentary ; but the appearance of Buffon's work induced him to
change his plan, and make use of that author for a guide and
model.
Cumberland, speaking, of this work, observes: "Distress
drove Goldsmith upon undertakings neither congenial with his
studies nor worthy of his talents. I remember him when, in
his chambers in the Temple, he showed me the beginning of his
' Animated Nature;' it was with a sigh, such as genius draws
when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for
bread, and talk of birds, and beasts, and creeping things,
which Pidock's showman would have done as well. Poor fel
low, he hardly knows an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a
goose, but when he sees it on the table."
Others of Goldsmith's friends entertained similar ideas with
respect to his fitness for the task, and they were apt now and
then to banter him on the subject, and to amuse themselves
with his easy credulity. The custom among the natives of
Otaheite of eating dogs being once mentioned in company,
Goldsmith observed that a similar custom prevailed in China;
that a dog-butcher is as common there as any other butcher ;
and that when he walks abroad all the dogs fall on him. John
son.—" That is not owing to his killing dogs; sir, I remember
a butcher at Liehfield, whom a dog that was in the house
where I lived always attacked. It is the smell of carnage
which provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what
they may." Goldsmith.— "Yes, there is a general abhorrence
in animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of
blood into a stable, the horses are likely to go mad." Johnson.
-"I doubt that." Goldsmith.— "Nay, sir, it is a fact well
authenticated. " Thrale. — ' ' You had better prove it before you
put it into your book on Natural History. You may do it in
my stable if you will." Johnson.— " Nay, sir, I would not
168 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
have him prove it. If he is content to take his information
from others, he may get through his book with little trouble,
and without much endangering his reputation. But if he
makes experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there
would be no end to them ; his erroneous assertions would fall
then upon himself ; and he might be blamed for not having
made experiments as to every particular."
Johnson's original prediction, however, with respect to this
work, that Goldsmith would make it as entertaining as a Per
sian tale, was verified ; and though much of it was borrowed
from Buffon, and but little of it written from his own observa
tion ; though it was by no means profound, and was charge
able with many errors, yet the charms of his style and the play
of his happy disposition throughout have continued to render
it far more popular and readable than many works on the sub
ject of much greater scope and science. Cumberland was mis^-
taken, however, in his notion of Goldsmith's ignorance and
lack of observation as to the characteristics of animals. On
the contrary, he was a minute and shrewd observer of them ;
but he observed them with the eye of a poet and moralist as
well as a naturalist. We quote two passages from his works
illustrative of this fact, and we do so the more readily because
they are in a manner a part of his history, and give us another
peep into his private life in the Temple ; of his mode of occupy
ing himself in his lonely and apparently idle moments, and of
another class of acquaintances which he made there.
Speaking in his "Animated Nature" of the habitudes of
Rooks, "I have often amused myself," says he, " with observ
ing their plans of policy from my window in the Temple, that
looks upon 'a grove, where they have made a colony in the
midst of a city. At the commencement of spring the rookery,
which, during the continuance of winter, seemed to have been
deserted, or only guarded by about five or six, like old soldiers
in a garrison, now begins to be once more frequented ; and in a
short time, all the bustle and hurry of business will be fairly
commenced."
The other passage, which we take the liberty to quote at some
length, is from an admirable paper in the Bee, and relates to
the House Spider.
"Of all the solitary insects I have ever remarked, the spider
is the most sagacious, and its motions to me, who have atten
tively considered them, seem almost to exceed belief. ... I
perceived, about four years ago, a large spider in one corner of
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
my room making its web; and, though the maid frequently
levelled her broom against the labors of the little animal, I
had the good fortune then to prevent its destruction, and
I may say it more than paid me by the entertainment it
afforded.
uln three days the web was, with incredible diligence, com
pleted ; nor could I avoid thinking that the insect seemed to
exult in its new abode. It frequently traversed it round,
examined the strength of every part of it, retired into its hole,
and came out very frequently. The first enemy, however, it
had to encounter was another and a much larger spider,
which, having no web of its own, and having probably ex
hausted all its stock in former labors of this kind, came tc>
invade the property of its neighbor. Soon, then, a terrible*
encounter ensued, in which the invader seemed to have the
victory, and the laborious spider was obliged to take refuge in
its hole. Upon this I perceived the victor using every art to
draw the enemy from its stronghold. He seemed to go off,
but quickly returned ; and when he found all arts in vain,
began to demolish the new web without mercy. This brought
on another battle, and, contrary to my expectations, the
laborious spider became conqueror, and fairly killed his an
tagonist.
"Now, then, in peaceable possession of what was justly its
own, it waited three days with the utmost patience, repairing
the breaches of its web, and taking no sustenance that I could
perceive. At last, however, a largo blue fly fell into the snare,
and struggled hard to get loose. The spider gave it leave to
entangle itself as much as possible, but it seemed to be too
strong for the cobweb. I must own I was greatly surprised
when I saw the spider immediately sally out, and in less than
a minute weave a new net round its captive, by which the
motion of its wings was stopped; and when it was fairly
hampered in this manner it was seized and dragged into the
hole.
"In this manner it lived, in a precarious state; and nature
seemed to have fitted it for such a life, for upon a single fly it
subsisted for more than a week. I once put a wasp into the
net; but when the spider came out in order to seize it, as
usual, upon perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal
with, it instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and
contributed all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable
an antagonist, Wken the wasp was set at liberty, I expected
160 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
the spider would have set about repairing the breaches that
were made in its net; but those, it seems, were irreparable:
wherefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new
one begun, which was completed in the usual time.
" I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider
could furnish ; wherefore I destroyed this, and the insect set
about another. When I destroyed the other also, its whole
stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more.
The arts it made use of to support itself, now deprived of its
great means of subsistence, were indeed surprising. I have
seen it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours
together, but cautiously watching all the time : when a fly
happened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all
at once, and often seize its prey.
"Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and
resolved to invade the possession of some other spider, since it
could not make a web of its own. It formed an attack upon a
neighboring fortification with great vigor, and at first was as
vigorously repulsed. Not daunted, however, with one defeat,
in this manner it continued to lay siege to another's web for
three days, and at length, having killed the defendant, actually
took possession. When smaller flies happen to fall into the
snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently
waits till it is surf of them ; for, upon his immediately ap
proaching, the terror of his appearance might give the captive
strength sufficient to get loose ; the manner, then, is to wait
patiently, till, by ineffectual and impotent struggles, the cap
tive has wasted ah1 its strength, and then he becomes a certain
and easy conquest.
"The insect I am now describing lived three years; every
year it changed its skin and got a new set of legs. I have
sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew again in two or three
days. At first it dreaded my approach to its web, but at last
it became so familiar as to take a fly out of my hand ; and,
upon my touching any part of the web, would immediately
leave its hole, prepared either for a defence or an attack."
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. r 161
CHAPTER XXVH.
HONORS AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY — LETTER TO HIS BROTHER
MAURICE — FAMILY FORTUNES — JANE CONTARTNE AND THE
MINIATURE— PORTRAITS AND ENGRAVINGS— SCHOOL ASSOCIA
TIONS—JOHNSON AND GOLDSMITH IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
THE latter part of the year 1768 had been made memorable
in the world of taste by the institution of the Royal Academy
of Arts, under the patronage of the King, and the direction of
forty of the most distinguished artists. Reynolds, who had
been mainly instrumental in founding it, had been unani
mously elected president, and had thereupon received the
hor.or of knighthood.* Johnson was so delighted with his
friend's elevation, that he broke through a rule of total absti
nence with respect to wine, which he had maintained for
several years, and drank bumpers on the occasion. Sir Joshua
eagerly sought to a£~ociate his old and valued friends with
him in his new honors, and it is supposed to be through his
suggestions that, on the first establishment of professorships,
which took place in December, 1769, Johnson was nominated
to that of Ancient Literature, and Goldsmith to that of His
tory. They were mere honorary titles, without emolument,
but gave distinction, from the noble institution to which they
appertained. They also gave the possessors honorable places
at the annual banquet, at which were assembled many of the
most distinguished persons of rank and talent, all proud to be
classed among the patrons of the arts.
The following letter of Goldsmith to his brother alludes to
the foregoing appointment, and to a small legacy bequeathed
to him by his uncle Contarine.
" To Mr. Maurice Goldsmith, at James Ladder's, Esq., at Kil~
more, near Carrick-on- Shannon.
" January, 1770.
"DEAR BROTHER: I should have answered your letter sooner,
but, in truth, I am not fond of thinking of the necessities of
* Wo must apologize for the anachronism we have permitted ourselves in the
course of this memoir, in speaking of Reynolds as Sir Joshua, when treating of
circumstances which occurred prior to his being dubbed; but it is so customary to
speak of him by that title, that we found it difficult to dispense with, it.
162 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
those I love, when it is so very little in my power to help them.
I am sorry to find you are every way unprovided 'for; and
what adds to my uneasiness is, that I have received a letter
from my sister Johnson, hy which I learn that she is pretty
much in the same circumstances. As to myself, I believe I think
I could get both you and my poor brother-in-law something like
that which you desire, but I am determined never to ask for
little things, nor exhaust any little interest I may have, until
I can serve you, him, and myself more effectually. As yet, no
opportunity has offered ; but I believe you are pretty well con
vinced that I will not be remiss when it arrives.
" The king has lately been pleased to make me Professor of
Ancient History in the Royal Academy of Painting which he
has just established, but there is no salary annexed ; and I took
it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit
to myself. Honors to one in my situation are something like
ruffles to one that wants a shirt.
" You tell me that there are fourteen or fifteen pounds left
me in the hands of my cousin Lawder, and you ask me what
I would have done with them. My dear brother, I would by
no means give any directions to my dear worthy relations at
Kilmore how to dispose of money which is, properly speaking,
more theirs than mine. All that I can say is, that I entirely,
and this letter will serve to witness, give up any right and title
to it ; and I am sure they will dispose of it to the best advan
tage. To them I entirely leave it ; whether they or you may
think the whole necessary to fit you out, or whether our poor
sister Johnson may not want the half, I leave entirely to their
and your discretion. The kindness of that good couple to our
shattered family demands our sincerest gratitude ; and, though
they have almost forgotten me, yet, if good things at last ar
rive, I hope one day to return and increase their good-humor
by adding to my own.
"I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of my«
self, as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer.
I have ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkner's, folded
in a letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough, but it is
finely painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the
Shannon some mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of
my friends here, such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Col-
man. I believe I have written a hundred letters to different
friends in your country, and never received an answer to any
of them. I do not know how to account for this, or why they
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 163
are unwilling to keep up for me those regards which I must
ever retain for them.
"If, then, you have a mind to oblige me, you will write
often, whether I answer you or not. Let me particularly have,
the news of our family and old acquaintances. For instance,
you may begin by? telling me about the family where you re
side, how they spend their time, and whether they ever make
mention of me. Tell me about my mother, my brother Hod-
son and his son, my brother Harry's son and daughter, my
Bister Johnson, the family of Ballyoughter, what is become of
them, where they live, and how they do. You talked of being
my only brother: I don't understand you. Where is Charles?
A sheet of paper occasionally filled with the news of this kind
would make me very happy, and would keep you nearer my
mind. As it is, my dear brother, believe me to be
"Yours, most affectionately,
"OLIVER GOLDSMITH."
By this letter we find the Goldsmiths the same shifting, shift
less race as formerly ; a " shattered family, " scrambling on each
other's back as soon as any rise above the surface. Maurice
is "every way unprovided for;" living upon cousin Jane and
her husband ; and, perhaps, amusing himself by hunting otter
in the river Inny. Sister Johnson and her husband are as
poorly off as Maurice, with, perhaps, no one at hand to quar
ter themselves upon; ai to the rest, "what is become of them;
where do they live ; how do they do ; what is become of
Charles?" What forlorn, haphazard life is implied by these
questions! Can we wonder that, with all the love for his
native place, which is shown throughout Goldsmith's writ
ings, he had not the heart to return there? Yet his affections
are still there. He wishes to know whether the Lawders
(which means his cousin Jane, his early Valentine) ever make
mention of him; he sends Jane his miniature; he believes "it
is the most acceptable present he can offer;" he evidently,
therefore, does not believe she has almost forgotten him,
although he intimates that he does: in his memory she is
still Jane Contarine, as he last saw her, when he accompanied
her harpsichord with his flute. Absence, like death, sets a
seal on the image of those we have loved ; we cannot realize
the intervening changes which time may have effected.
As to the rest of Goldsmith's relatives, he abandons his
legacy of fifteen pounds, to be shared among them. * It is all ho
164 OLIVER GOLDXMU'il.
has to give. His heedless improvidence is eating up the pay
of the booksellers in advance. With all his literary success,
he has neither money nor influence ; but he has empty fame,
and he is ready to participate with them ; he is honorary pro
fessor, without pay ; his portrait is to be engraved in mezzo
tint, in company with those of his friends, Burke, Eeyiiolds,
Johnson, Colman, and others, and he will send prints of them
to his friends over the Channel, though they may not have a
house to hang them up in. What a motley letter ! How indi
cative of the motley character of the writer ! By the by, the
publication of a splendid mezzotinto engraving of his likeness
by Eeynolds, was a great matter of glorification to Gold
smith, especially as it appeared in such illustrious company.
As he was one day walking the streets in a state of high ela
tion, from having just seen it figuring in the print-shop win
dows, he met a young gentleman with a newly married wife
hanging on his arm, whom he immediately recognized for
Master Bishop, one of the boys he had petted and treated with
sweetmeats when a humble usher at Milner's school. The
kindly feelings of old times revived, and he accosted him with
cordial familiarity, though the youth may have found some
difficulty in recognizing in the personage, arrayed, perhaps, in
garments of Tyrian dye, the dingy pedagogue of the Milners.
"Come, my boy," cried Goldsmith, as if still speaking to a
schoolboy, "Come, Sam, I am delighted to see you. I must
treat you to something— what shall it be? Will you have some
apples?" glancing at an old woman's stall; then, recollecting
the print-shop window: " Sam," said he, "have you seen my
picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds? Have you seen it, Sam?
Have you got an engraving?" Bishop was caught; he equivo
cated ; he had not yet bought it ; but he was furnishing his
house, and had fixed upon the place where it was to be hung.
"Ah, Sam!" rejoined Goldsmith reproachfully, "if your pic
ture had been published, I should not have waited an hour
without having it."
After all, it was honest pride, not vanity, in Goldsmith, that
was4 gratified at seeing his portrait deemed worthy of being
perpetuated by the classic pencil of Reynolds, and ' * hung up
in history" beside that of his revered friend, Johnson. Even
the great moralist himself was not insensible to a feeling oi
this kind. Walking one day with Goldsmith, in Westminster
Abbey, among the tombs of monarchs, warriors, and states-*
men, they 'came to the sculptured mementos of literary wors
OL1VKH GOLDSMITH. 165
thies in poets' corner. Casting his eye round upon these me
morials of genius, Johnson muttered in a low tone to his
companion,
Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istls.
Goldsmith treasured up the intimated hope, and shortly after
ward, as they were passing by Temple bar, where the heads of
Jacobite rebels, executed for treason, were mouldering aloft on
spikes, pointed up to the grizzly mementos, and echoed the in
timation,
Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF IT.
SEVERAL years had now elapsed since the publication of
"The Traveller," and much wonder was expressed that the
great success of that poem had not excited the author to
further poetic attempts. On being questioned at the annual
dinner of the Royal Academy by the Earl of Lisburn, why he
neglected the muses to compile histories and write novels,
44 My Lord," replied he, "by courting the muses I shall starve,
but by my other labors I eat, drink, have good clothes, and
can enjoy the luxuries of life. " So, also, on being asked by a
poor writer what was the most profitable mode of exercising
the pen, "My dear fellow," replied he, good-humoredly, "pay
no regard to the draggle-tailed muses; for my part I have
found productions hi prose much more sought after and better
paid for."
Still, however, as we have heretofore shown, he found sweet
moments of dalliance to steal away from his prosaic toils, and
court the muse among the green lanes and hedge-rows in the
rural environs of London, and on the 26th of May, 1770, he
was enabled to bring his "Deserted Village" before the public.
The popularity of "The Traveller" had prepared the way
for this poem, and its sale was instantaneous and immense.
The first edition was immediately exhausted ; in a few days a
second was issued ; in a few days more a third, and by the
166 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
16th of August the fifth edition was hurried through the press.
As is the case with popular writers, he had become his own
rival, and critics were inclined to give the preference to his
first poem ; but with the public at large we believe the ; ' De
serted Village" has ever been the greatest favorite. Previous
to its publication the bookseller gave him in advance a note
for the price agreed upon, one hundred guineas. As the latter
was returning home he met a friend to whom he mentioned
the circumstance, and who, apparently judging of poetry by
quantity rather than quality, observed that it was a great sum
for so small a poem. "In truth," said Goldsmith, "I think so
too ; it is much more than the honest man can afford or the
piece is worth. I have not been easy since I received it." In
fact, he actually returned the note to the bookseller, and left
it to him to graduate the payment according to the success of
the work. The bookseller, as may well be supposed, soon re
paid him in full with many acknowledgments of his disinter
estedness. This anecdote has been called in question, we
know not on what grounds ; we see nothing in it incompatible
with the character of Goldsmith, who was very impulsive,
and prone to acts of inconsiderate generosity.
As we do not pretend in this summary memoir to go into a
criticism or analysis of any of Goldsmith's writings, we shall
not dwell upon the peculiar merits of this poem ; we cannot
help noticing, however, how truly it is a mirror of the author's
heart, and of all the fond pictures of early friends and early life
forever present there. It seems to us as if the very last ac
counts received from home, of his "shattered family," and the
desolation that seemed to have settled upon the haunts of his
ohilhood, had cut to the roots one feebly cherished hope, and
produced the following exquisitely tender and mournful lines:
" In all my wand'rings round this world of care,
In all my griefs— and God has giv'n my share—
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amid these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting by repose;
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amid the swains to show my book-learn'd skill,
Around my fire an ev'ning group to draw,
And tell of all I felt and all I saw;
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew;
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return— and die at home at last."
OLIVEK GOLD&MTTU. 167
How touchingly expressive are the succeeding lines, wrung
from a heart which all the trials and temptations and buffet-
ings of the world could not render worldly; which, amid a
thousand follies and errors of the head, still retained its child
like innocence ; and which, doomed to struggle on to the last
amid the din and turmoil of the metropolis, has ever been
cheating itself with a dream of rural quiet and seclusion:
" Oh bless'd retirement ! friend to life's decline,
Retreats from care, that never must be mine,
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labor with an age of ease ;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly !
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
Nor surly porter stands, in guilty state,
To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past."
NOTE.
The following article, which appeared in a London periodi
cal, shows the effect of Goldsmith's poem in renovating the
fortunes of Lissoy.
" About three miles from Ballymahon, a very central town
in the sister kingdom, is the mansion and village of Auburn,
so called by their present possessor, Captain Hogan. Through
the taste and improvement of this gentleman, it is now a beau
tiful spot, although fifteen years since it presented a very bare
and unpoetical aspect. This, however, was owing to a cause
which serves strongly to corroborate the assertion that Gold
smith had this scene in view when he wrote^his poem of ' The
Deserted Village.' The then possessor, General Napier, turned
all his tenants out of their farms that he might inclose them hi
his own private domain. Littleton, the mansion of the gen
eral, stands not far off, a complete emblem of the desolating
spirit lamented by the poet, dilapidated and converted into a
barrack.
" The chief object of attraction is Lissoy, once the parsonage
house of Henry Goldsmith, that brother to whom the poet
168 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
dedicated his * Traveller,' and who is represented as the village
pastor,
' Passing rich with forty pounds a year.'
' ' When I was in the country, the lower chambers were in
habited by pigs and sheep, and the drawing-rooms by goats.
Captain Hogan, however, has, I believe, got it since into his
possession, and has, of course, improved its condition.
" Though at first strongly inclined to dispute the identity of
Auburn, Lissoy House overcame my scruples. As I clambered
over the rotten gate, and crossed the grass-grown lawn or
court, the tide of association became too strong for casuistry ;
here the poet dwelt and wrote, and here his thoughts fondly
recurred when composing his ' Traveller ' in a foreign land.
Yonder was the decent church, that literally ' topped the neigh
boring hill.' Before me lay the little hill of Knockrue, on which
he declares, in one of his letters, he had rather sit with a book
in hand than mingle in the proudest assemblies. And, above
all, startlingly true, beneath my feet was
' Yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden-flower grows wild.'
" A painting from the life could not be more exact. 'The
stubborn currant-bush ' lifts its head above the rank grass, and
the proud hollyhock flaunts where its sisters of the flower-knot
are no more.
''In the middle of the village stands the old ' hawthorn-tree,'
built up with masonry to distinguish and preserve it; it is old
and stunted, and suffers much from the depredations of post-
chaise travellers, who generally stop to procure a twig. Op
posite to it is the village alehouse, over the door of which
swings ' The Three Jolly Pigeons. ' Within everything is ar
ranged according to the letter:
'The whitewash'd wall, the nicely-sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door:
TheTshest, contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.'
"Captain Hogan, I have heard, found great difficulty in ob
taining ' the twelve good rules,' but at length purchased them
at some London bookstall to adorn the whitewashed parlor of
'The Three Jolly Pigeons.' However laudable this may be,
nothing shook my faith in the reality of Auburn so much as
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. . 169
this exactness, which had the disagreeable air of being got up
for the occasion. The last object of pilgrimage is the quondam
habitation of the schoolmaster,
' There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule.'
It is surrounded with fragrant proofs of identity in
4 The. blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay.'
"There is to be seen the chair of the poet, which fell into the
hands of its present possessors at the wreck of the parsonage-
house ; they have frequently refused large offers of purchase ;
.but more, I dare say, for the sake of drawing contributions
from the curious than from any reverence for the bard. The
chair is of oak, with back and seat of cane, which precluded
all hopes of a secret drawer, like that lately discovered in
Gay's. There is no fear of its being worn out by the devout
earnestness of sitters — as the cocks and hens have usurped un
disputed possession of it, and protest most clamorously against
all attempts to get it cleansed or to seat one's self.
"The controversy concerning the identity of this Auburn
was formerly a standing theme of discussion among the
learned of the neighborhood; but, since the pros and cons
have been all ascertained, the argument has died away. Its
abettors plead the singular agreement between the local his
tory of the place and the Auburn of the poem, and the exact
ness with which the scenery of the one answers to the descrip
tion of the other. To this is opposed the mention of the night
ingale,
'And flll'd each pause the nightingale had made;'
there being no such bird in the island. The objection is
slighted, on the other hand, by considering the passage as a
mere poetical license. ; Besides, ' say they, 4the robin is the Irish
nightingale.' And if it be hinted how unlikely it was that
Goldsmith should have laid the scene in a place from which
he was and had been so long absent, the rejoinder is always,
'Pray, sir, was Milton in hell when he built Pandemonium? '
"The line is naturally drawn between; there can be no
doubt that the poet intended England by
'The land to hast'ning ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.'
But it is very natural to suppose that, at the same time, his
imagination had in view the scenes of his youth, which give
such strong features of resemblance to the picture."
170 . OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Best, an Irish clergyman, told Davis, the traveller in Amer
ica, that the hawthorn-bush mentioned in the poem was still
remarkably large. " I was riding once," said he, " with Brady,
titular Bishop of Ardagh, when he observed to me, ' Ma f oy,
Best, this huge overgrown bush is mightily in the way. I will
order it to be cut down.' — 'What, sir ! ' replied I, ' cut down the
bush that supplies so beautiful an image in " The Deserted Vil
lage"? ' — ' Ma foy ! ' exclaimed the bishop, ' is that the hawthorn-
bush? Then let it be sacred from the edge of the axe, and evil
be to him that should cut off a branch. ' " — The hawthorn-bush,
however, lias long since been cut up, root and branch, in fur
nishing relics to literary pilgrims.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE POET AMONG THE LADIES— DESCRIPTION OF HIS PERSON AND
MANNERS — EXPEDITION TO PARIS WITH THE HORNECK FAMILY
— THE TRAVELLER OF TWENTY AND THE TRAVELLER OF FORTY
— HICKEY, THE SPECIAL ATTORNEY— AN UNLUCKY EXPLOIT.
THE "Deserted Village" had shed an additional poetic grace
round the homely person of the author ; he was becoming more
and more acceptable in ladies' eyes, and finding himself more
arid more at ease in their society ; at least in the society of
those whom he met in the Reynolds circle, among whom he
particularly affected the beautiful family of the Hornecks.
But let us see what were really the looks and mariners of
G-oldsmith about this time, and what right he had to aspire to
ladies' smiles ; and in so doing let us not take the sketches of
Boswell and his compeers, who had a propensity to represent
him in caricature ; but let us take the apparently truthful and
discriminating picture of him as he appeared to Judge Day,
when the latter was a student in the Temple.
"In person," says the judge, " he was short; about five feet
five or six inches ; strong, but not heavy in make ; rather fair
in complexion, with brown hair ; such, at least, as could be dis
tinguished from his wig. His features were plain, but not re
pulsive — certainly not so when lighted up by conversation.
His manners were simple, natural, and perhaps on the whole,
we may say, not polished ; at least without the refinement and
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
171
good-breeding which the exquisite polish of his compositions
would lead us to expect. He was always cheerful and ani
mated, often, indeed, boisterous in his mirth; entered with
spirit into convivial society ; contributed largely to its enjoy
ments by solidity of information, and the naivete and origi
nality of his character; talked often without premeditation,
and laughed loudly without restraint."
This, it will be recollected, represents him as he appeared to
a young Templar, who probably saw him only in Temple coffee
houses, at students' quarters, or at the jovial supper parties
given at the poet's own chambers; here, of course, his mind
was in its rough dress ; his laugh may have been loud and his
mirth boisterous ; but we trust all these matters became soft
ened and modified when he found himself in polite drawing-
rooms and in female society.
But what say the ladies themselves of him ? And here, fortu
nately, we have another sketch of him, as he appeared at the
time to one of the Horneck circle ; in fact, we believe, to the
Jessamy Bride herself. After admitting, apparently with
some reluctance, that u he was a very plain man," she goes on
to say, "but had he been much more so, it was impossible not
to love and respect his goodness of heart, which broke out on
every occasion. His benevolence was unquestionable, and his
countenance bore every trace of it : no one that knew him inti
mately could avoid admiring and loving his good qualities."
When to all this we add the idea of intellectual delicacy and
refinement associated with him by his poetry and the newly
plucked bays that were flourishing round his brow, we can
not be surprised that fine and fashionable ladies should be
proud of his attentions, and that even a young beauty should
not be altogether displeased with the thoughts of having a
man of his genius in her chains.
We are led to indulge some notions of the kind from finding
him in the month of July, but a few weeks after the publica
tion of the "Deserted Village," setting off on a six weeks' ex
cursion to Paris, in company with Mrs. Horneck and her two
beautiful daughters. A day or two before his departure, we
find another new gala suit charged to him on the books of Mr.
William Filby. Were the bright eyes of the Jessamy Bride
responsible for this additional extravagance of wardrobe ?
Goldsmith had recently been editing the works of Parnell;
had he taken courage from the example of Edwin in the fairy
tale?—
172 OLIVER: GOLDSMITH.
4 Yet spite of all that nature did
To make his uncouth form forbid,
This creature dared to love.
He felt the force of Edith's eyes,
Nor wanted hope to gain the prize
Could ladies look within "
All this we throw out as mere hints and surmises, leaving it
to our readers to draw their own conclusions. It will be
found, however, that the poet was subjected to shrewd banter
ing among his contemporaries about the beautiful Mary Hor-
neck, and that he was extremely sensitive on the subject.
It was in the month of June that he set out for Paris with
his fair companions, and the following letter was written by
him to Sir Joshua Reynolds, soon after the party landed at
Calais:
"MY DEAR FRIEND: We had a very quick passage from
Dover to Calais, which we performed in three hours and
twenty minutes, all of us extremely sea-sick, which must
necessarily have happened, as my machine to prevent sea
sickness was not completed. We were glad to leave Dover,
because we hated to be imposed upon ; so were in high spirits
at coming to Calais, where we were told that a little money
would go a great way.
uUpon landing, with two little trunks, which was all we
carried with us, we were surprised to see fourteen or fifteen
fellows all running down to the ship to lay their hands upon
them; four got under each trunk, the rest surrounded and
held the hasps; and in this manner our little baggage was
conducted, with a kind of funeral solemnity, till it was safely
lodged at the custom-house. We were well enough pleased
with the people's civility till they came to be paid ; every crea
ture that had the happiness of but touching our trunks with
their finger expected sixpence; and they had so pretty and
civil a manner of demanding it, that there was no refusing
them.
" When we had done with the porters, we had next to speak
with the custom-house officers, who had their pretty civil
way too. We were directed to the Hotel d'Angleterre, where
a valet-de-place came to offer his service, and spoke to me ten
minutes before I once found out that he was speaking English.
We had no occasion for his services, so we gave him a little
money because he spoke English, and because he wanted it. I
cannot help mentioning another circumstance : I bought a new
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 173
ribbon for my wig at Canterbury, and the barber at Calais
broke it in order to gain sixpence by buying me a new one."
An incident which occurred in the course of this tour has
been tortured by that literary magpie, Boswell, into a proof
of Goldsmith's absurd jealousy of any admiration shown to
others in his presence. While stopping at a hotel in Lisle,
they were drawn to the windows by a military parade in front.
The extreme beauty of the Miss Hornecks immediately at
tracted the attention of the officers, who broke forth with en
thusiastic speeches and compliments intended for their ears.
Goldsmith was amused for a while, but at length affected im
patience at this exclusive admiration of his beautiful compan
ions, and exclaimed, with mock severity of aspect, "Elsewhere
I also would have my admirers."
It is difficult to conceive the obtuseness of intellect necessary
to misconstrue so obvious a piece of mock petulance and dry
humor into an instance of mortified vanity and jealous self-
conceit.
Goldsmith jealous of the admiration of a group of gay offi
cers for the charms of two beautiful young women ! This even
out-Boswells Boswell; yet this is but one of several similar
absurdities, evidently misconceptions of Goldsmith's peculiar
vein of humor, by which the charge of envious jealousy has
been attempted to be fixed upon him. In the present instance
it was contradicted by one of the ladies herself, who was an
noyed that it had been advanced against him. "I am sure,"
said she, "from the peculiar manner of his humor, and as
sumed frown of countenance, what was often uttered in jest
was mistaken, by those who did not know him, for earnest."
No one was more prone to err on this point than Boswell. He
had a tolerable perception of wit, but none of humor.
The following letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds was subse
quently written:
" To Sir Joshua Reynolds.
" PARIS, July 29 (1770).
" MY DEAR FRIEND: I began a long letter to you from Lisle,
giving a description of all that wo had done and seen, but,
finding it very dull, and knowing that you would show it
again, I threw it aside and it was lost. You see by the top of
this letter that we are at Paris, and (as I havo often heard you
174 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
say) we have brought our own amusement with us, for the
ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we have yet se'en.
' ' With regard to myself, I find that travelling at twenty and
forty are very different things. I set out with all my con
firmed habits about me, and can find nothing on the Continent
so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief amuse
ments here is scolding at everything we meet with, and prais
ing everything and every person we left at home. You may
judge, therefore, whether your name is not frequently ban
died at table among us. To tell you the truth, I ne^er thought
I could regret your absence so much as our various mortifica
tions on the road have taught me to do. I could tell you of
disasters and adventures without number; of our lying in
barns, and of my being half poisoned with a dish of green peas ;
of our quarrelling with postilions, and being cheated by our
landladies; but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I
expect to share with you upon my return.
"I have little to tell you more but that we are at present all
well, and expert returning when we have stayed out one
month, which I do not care if it were over this very day. I
long to hear from ^ou all, how you yourself do, how Johnson,
Burke, Dyer, Chamisr. Colman, and every one of the club do.
I wish I could send you some amusement in this letter, but I
protest I am so stupefied by the air of this country (for I am
sure it cannot be natural) that I have not a word to say. I
have been thinking of the plot of a comedy, which shall b^
entitled A Journey to Paris> *u which a family shall be intlp-
duced with a full intention of pv*ing to France to save money?
You know there is not a place =10. the world more promising
for that purpose. As for the meat of this country, I can
scarce eat it ; and, though we pay t*ve good shillings a head
for our dinner, I found it all so tough *hat I have spent less
time with my knife than my picktooth. .* said this as a good
thing at the table, but it was not understock, I believe it to
be a good thing.
" As for our intended journey to Devonshire I find it out of
my power to perform it; for, as soon as I arr'vo at Dover,
I intend to let the ladies go on, and I will take ^ eountry
lodging somewhere near that place in order to do spm* busi
ness. I have so outrun the constable that I must mortify &
little to bring it up again. For God's sake, the night you re
ceive this, take your pen in your hand and tell me something
about yourself and myself, if you know anything that has
OLIVE Ji GOLDSMITH. 175
happened. About Miss Reynolds, about Mr. Bickerstaff, my
nephew, or anybody that you regard. I beg you will send to
Griffin the bookseller to know if there be any letters left for
me, and be so good as to send them to me at Paris. They may
perhaps be left for me at the Porter's Lodge, opposite the
pump in Temple Lane. The same messenger will do. I ex
pect one from Lord Clare, from Ireland. As for the others, I
am not much uneasy about.
kk Is there anything I can do for you at Paris? I wish you
would tell me. The whole of my own purchases here is one
silk coat, which I have put on, and which makes me look like
a fool. But no more of that. I find that Colman has gained
his lawsuit. I am glad of it. I suppose you often meet. I
will soon be among you, better pleased with my situation at
home than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that if
anything could make France pleasant, the very good women
with whom I am at present would certainly do it. I could say
more about that, but I intend showing them the letter before I
send it away. What signifies teasing you longer with moral
observations, when the business of my writing is over? I have
one thing only more to say, and of that I think every hour in
the day, namely that I am your most sincere and most af
fectionate friend,
" OUTER GOLDSMITH.
" Direct to me at the Hotel de Danemarc, I
Rue 'Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains." J
A word of comment on this letter:
Travelling is, indeed, a very different thing with Goldsmith
the poor student at twenty, and Goldsmith the poet and pro
fessor at forty. At twenty, though obliged to trudge on foo';
from town to town, and country to country, paying for a supper
and a bed by a tune on the flute, everything pleased, every
thing was good ; a truckle bed in a garret was a couch cf down,
and the homely fare of the peasant a feast fit for an epicure.
Now, at forty, when he posts through the country in a carriage,
with fair ladies by his side, everything goes wrong : he has to
quarrel with postilions, he is cheated by landladies, the hotels
are barns, the meat is too tough to be eaten, and he is half
poisoned by green peas ! A line in his letter explains the secret :
"the ladies do not seem to bo very fond of what we have yet
seen." U0ne of our chief amusements is scolding at every,
thing we meet with, and praising everything and every person
176 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
we have left at home !" the tnie English travelling amusement.
Poor Goldsmith ! he has ' ' all his confirmed habits about him ;"
that is to say, he has recently risen into high lif e, and acquired
high-bred notions ; he must be fastidious like his fellow-travel
lers; he dare not be pleased with what pleased the vulgar
tastes of his youth. He is unconsciously illustrating the trait
so humorously satirized by him in Ned Tibbs, the shabby
beau, who, can find "no such dressing as he had at Lord
Crump's or Lady Crimp's;" whose very senses have grown
genteel, and who no longer "smacks at wretched wine or
praises detestable custard." A lurking thorn, too, is worrying
him throughout this tour; he has "outrun the constable;"
that is to say, his expenses have outrun his means, and he
will have to make up for this butterfly flight by toiling like a
grub on his return.
Another circumstance contributes to mar the pleasure he
had promised himself in this excursion. At Paris the party is
unexpectedly joined by a Mr. Hickey, a bustling attorney,
who is well acquainted with that metropolis and its environs,
and insists on playing the cicerone on all occasions. He and
Goldsmith do not relish each other, and they have several
petty altercations. The lawyer is too much a man of business
and method for the careless poet, and is disposed to manage
everything. He has perceived Goldsmith's whimsical pecu
liarities without properly appreciating his merits, and is prone
to indulge in broad bantering and raillery at his expense, par
ticularly irksome if indulged in presence of the ladies. He
makes himself merry on his return to England, by giving the
following anecdote as illustrative of Goldsmith's vanity :
"Being with a party at Versailles, viewing the waterworks,
a question arose among the gentlemen present, whether the
distance from whence they stood to one of the little islands
was within the compass of a leap. Goldsmith maintained the
affirmative; but, being bantered on the subject, and remem
bering his former prowess as a youth, attempted the leap, but,
falling short, descended into the water, to the great amuse
ment of the company. "
Was the Jessamy Bride a witness of this unlucky exploit?
This same Hickey is the one of whom Goldsmith, some time
subsequently, gave a good-humored sketch, in his poem of
"TheKetaliation."
" Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature,
And slander itself must allow him good nature;
OLIVKR GOLDSMITH. 177
He cherish'd his friend, and he n-lish'd a bumper.
Yet onr fault h«- had, and Unit one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser;
I answer No, no, for he always was wiser;
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat,
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that;
Perhaps he coniUled in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest? Ah, no!
Then what was his failing? Come, tell it, and burn ye—
He was, could he help it? a special attorney."
One of the few remarks extant made by Goldsmith during
his tour is the following, of whimsical import, in his "Ani
mated Nature."
"In going through the towns of France, some time since, I
could not help observing how much plainer their parrots spoke
than ours, and how very distinctly I understood their parrots
speak French, when I could not understand our own, though
they spoke my native language. I at first ascribed it to the
different qualities of the two languages, and was for entering
into an elaborate discussion on the vowels and consonants ; but
a friend that was with me solved the difficulty at once, by as
suring me that the French women scarce did anything else the
whole day than sit and instruct their feathered pupils ; and
that the birds were thus distinct in their lessons in consequence
of continual schooling."
His tour does not seem to have left in his memory the
most fragrant recollections ; for, being asked, after his return,
whether travelling on the Continent repaid "an Englishman
for the privations and annoyances attendant on it," he replied,
' ' I recommend it by all means to the sick if they are without
the sense of smelling, and to the poor if they arc without the
sense of feeling ; and to both if they can discharge from their
minds all idea of what in England we term comfort."
It is needless to say that the universal improvement in the
art of living on the Continent has at the present day taken
away the force of Goldsmith's reply, though even at the time
it was more humorous than correct.
178 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
CHAPTER XXX.
DEATH OF GOLDSMITH'S MOTHER— BIOGRAPHY OF PARNELL— -
AGREEMENT WITH DAVIES FOR THE HISTORY OF ROME— LIFE
OF BOLJNGBROKE — THE HAUNCH OF VENISON.
ON his return to England, Goldsmith received the melan
choly tidings of the death of his mother. Notwithstanding
the fame as an author to which he had attained, she seems to
have been disappointed in her early expectations from him.
Like others of his family, she had been more vexed by his
early follies than pleased by his proofs of genius ; and in sub
sequent years, when he had risen to fame and to intercourse
with the great, had been annoyed at the ignorance of the
world and want of management, which prevented him from
pushing his fortune. He had always, however, been an affec
tionate son, and in the latter years of her life, when she had
become blind, contributed from his precarious resources to pre
vent her from feeling want.
He now resumed the labors of the pen, which his recent ex
cursion to Paris rendered doubly necessary. We should have
mentioned a "Life of Parnell," published by him shortly after
the " Deserted Village." It was, as usual, a piece of job work,
hastily got up for pocket-money. Johnson spoke slightingly
of it, and the author, himself, thought proper to apologize for
its meagreness; yet, in so doing, used a simile, which for
beauty of imagery and felicity of language, is enough of itself
to stamp a value upon the essay.
"Such," says he, "is the very unpoetical detail of the life of
a poet. Some dates and some few facts, scarcely more in
teresting than those that make the ornaments of a country
tombstone, are all that remain of one whose labors now begin
to excite universal curiosity. A poet, while living, is seldom
an object sufficiently great to attract much attention ; his real
merits are known but to a few, and these are generally sparing
in their praises. When his fame is increased by time, it is
then too late to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition ;
the dews of morning are past, and we vainly try to continue the
chase by the meridian splendor."
He now entered into an agreement with Davies to prepare
an abridgment, in one volume duodecimo, of his History of
Borne; but first to write a work for which there was a more
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
179
immediate demand. Davies was about to republish Lord
Bolingbroke's "Dissertation on Parties," which he conceived
would be exceedingly applicable to the affairs of the day, and
make a probable hit during the existing state of violent poli
tical excitement ; to give it still greater effect and currency he
engaged GoldsmitJh to introduce it with a prefatory lif e of Lord
Bolingbroke.
About this time Goldsmith's friend and countryman Lord
Clare, was in great affliction, caused by the death of his only
son, Colonel Nugent, and stood in need of the sympathies of a
kind-hearted friend. At his request, therefore, Goldsmith
paid him a visit at his noble seat of Gosfield, taking his tasks
with himt Davies was in a worry lest Gosfield Park should
prove a Capua to the poet, and the time be lost. "Dr. Gold
smith," writes he to a friend, " has gone with Lord Clare into
the country, and I am plagued to get the proofs from him of
the Life of Lord Bolingbroke." The proofs, however, were
furnished in time for the publication of the work in December.
The Biography, though written during a time of political
turmoil, and introducing a work intended to be thrown into
the arena of politics, maintained that freedom from party pre
judice observable in all the writings of Goldsmith. It was a
selection of facts drawn from many unreadable sources, and
arranged into a clear, flowing narrative, illustrative of the
career and character of one who, as he intimates, "seemed
formed by nature to take delight in struggling with opposi
tion ; whose most agreeable hours were passed in storms of his
own creating ; whose life was spent in a continual conflict of
politics, and as if that was too short for the combat, has left
his memory as a subject of lasting contention." The sum
received by the author for this memoir, is supposed, from
circumstances, to have been forty pounds.
Goldsmith did not find the residence among the great unat
tended with mortifications. He had now become accustomed
to be regarded in London as a literary lion, and was annoyed,
at what he considered a slight, on the part of Lord Camden.
He complained of it on his return to town at a party of his
friends. " I met him," said he, "at Lord Clare's house in the
country ; and he took no more notice of me than if I had been
an ordinary man." "The company," says Boswell, " laughed
heartily at this piece of 'diverting simplicity."' And fore
most among the laughers was doubtless the rattle-pated Bos-
well. Johnson, however, stepped forward, as usual, to defend
180 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
the poet, whom he would allow no one to assail but himself ;
perhaps in the present instance he thought the dignity of
literature itself involved in the question. " Nay, gentlemen,"
roared he, " Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought
to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith, and I think it is
much against Lord Camden that he neglected him."
After Goldsmith's return to town he received from Lord
Clare a present of game, which he has celebrated and perpetu
ated in his amusing verses entitled the " Haunch of Venison."
Some of the lines pleasantly set forth the embarrassment
caused by the appearance of such an aristocratic delicacy in
the humble kitchen of a poet, accustomed to look up to mutton
as a treat :
" Thanks, my lord, for your venison ; for finer or fatter
Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a plattor:
The haunch was a picture for painters to study,
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy;
Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting,
To spoil such a delicate picture by eating:
I had thought in my chambers to place it, in view,
To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu:
As in some Irish houses where things are so-so,
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show ;
But, for eating a rasher, of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it was fry'd in,
******
But hang it — to poets, who seldom can eat,
Your very good mutton's a very good treat;
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;
It' 's like sending them ruffles, when ivanting a shirt.1"1
We have an amusing anecdote of one of Goldsmith's blun
ders which took place on a subsequent visit to Lord Clare's,
when that nobleman was residing in Bath.
Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland had houses
next to each other, of similar architecture. Eeturning home
one morning from an early walk, Goldsmith, in one of his fre
quent fits of absence, mistook the house, and walked up into
the duke's dining-room, where he and the duchess were about
to sit down to breakfast. Goldsmith, still supposing himself
in the house of Lord Clare, and that they were visitors, made
them an easy salutation, being acquainted with them, and
threw himself on a sofa in the lounging manner of a man per
fectly at home. The duke and duchess soon perceived his
mistake, and, while they smiled internally, endeavored, with
the considerateness of well-bred people, to prevent any awk*
ward embarrassment. They accordingly chatted sociably wit^
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 181
him about matters in Bath, until, breakfast being served, they
invited him to partake. The truth at once flashed upon poor
heedless Goldsmith ; he started up from his free-and-easy posi
tion, made a confused apology for his blunder, and would have
retired perfectly disconcerted, had not the duke and duchess
treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to throw him in their
way, and exacted a promise from him to dine with them.
This may be hung up as a companion-piece to his blunder on
his first visit to Northumberland House.
CHAPTER XXXI.
DINNER AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY— THE ROWLEY CONTROVERSY-
HORACE WALPOLE'S CONDUCT TO CHATTERTON— JOHNSON AT
REDCLIFFE CHURCH — GOLDSMITH'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND —
DAVIES'S CRITICISM— LETTER TO BENNET LANGTON.
ON St. George's day of this year (1771), the first annual ban
quet of the Royal Academy was held in the exhibition room ;
the walls of which were covered with works of art, about to be
submitted to public inspection. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who first
suggested this elegant festival, presided in his official character;
Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, of course, were present, as pro
fessors of the academy ; and beside the academicians, there was
a large number of the most distinguished men of the day as
guests. Goldsmith on this occasion drew on himself the atten1
tion of the company by launching out with enthusiasm on the
poems recently given to the world by Chatterton as the works
of an ancient author by the name of Rowley, discovered in the
tower of Redcliffe Church, at Bristol. Goldsmith spoke of them
with rapture, as a treasure of old English poetry. This imme
diately raised the question of their authenticity ; they having
been pronounced a forgery of Chatterton's. Goldsmith was
warm for their being genuine. When he considered, he said,
the merit of the poetry ; the acquaintance with life and the
human heart displayed in them, the antique quaintness of the
language and the familiar knowledge of historical events of
their supposed day, he could not believe it possible they could
be the work of a boy of sixteen, of narrow education, and con
fined to the duties of an attorney's office. They must be the
productions of Rowley.
182 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Johnson, who was a stout unbeliever in Eowley, as he had
been in Ossian, rolled in his chair and laughed at the enthusi
asm of Goldsmith. Horace Walpole, who sat near by, joined
in the laugh and jeer as soon as he found that the "trouvaille"
as he called it, "of his friend Chatterton" was in question.
This matter, which had excited the simple admiration of Gold
smith, was no novelty to him, he said. "He might, had he
pleased, have had the honor of ushering the great discovery to
the learned world." And so he might, had he followed his first
impulse in the matter, for he himself had been an original be
liever ; had pronounced some specimen verses sent to him by
Chatterton wonderful for their harmony and spirit ; and had
been ready to print them and publish. them to the world with
his sanction. When he found, however, that his unknown cor
respondent was a mere boy, humble in sphere and indigent in
circumstances, and when Gray and Mason pronounced the
poems forgeries, he had changed his whole conduct toward the
unfortunate author, and by his neglect and coldness had dashed
all his sanguine hopes to the ground.
Exulting in his superior discernment, this cold-hearted man
of society now went on to divert himself, as he says, with the
credulity of Goldsmith, whom he was accustomed to pronounce
"an inspired idiot;" but his mirth was soon dashed, for on ask.
ing the poet what had become of this Chatterton, he was an
swered, doubtless in the feeling tone of one who had experi
enced the pangs of despondent genius, that "he had been to
London and had destroyed himself."
The reply struck a pang of self-reproach even to the cold
heart of Walpole ; a faint blush may have visited his cheek at
his recent levity. "The persons of honor and veracity who
were present," said he in after years, when he found it neces
sary to exculpate himself from the charge of heartless neg
lect of genius, "will attest with what surprise and concern
I thus first heard of his death." Well might he feel concern.
His cold neglect had doubtless contributed to madden the spirit
of that youthful genius, and hurry him toward his untimely
end; nor have all the excuses and palliations of Walpole's
friends and admirers been ever able entirely to clear this
stigma from his fame.
But what was there in the enthusiasm and credulity of hon
est Goldsmith in this matter, to subject him to the laugh of
Johnson or the raillery of Walpole? Granting the poems were
not ancient, were they not good? Granting they were not the
OI.IVKll dOLDSMITll. 183
productions of Rowley, were they the less admirable for being
the productions of Chatterton? Johnson himself testified to
their merits and the'genius of their composer when, some years
afterward, he visited the tower of Redcliffe Church, and was
shown the coffer in which poor Chatterton had pretended to
find them. " This," said he, " is the most extraordinary young
man that has encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful how
the whelp has written such things.'11
As to Goldsmith, he persisted in his credulity, and had sub
sequently a dispute with Dr. Percy on the subject, which in
terrupted and almost destroyed their friendship. After all, his
enthusiasm was of a generous, poetic kind ; the poems remain
beautiful monuments of genius, and it is even now difficult to
persuade one's self that they could be entirely the production
of a youth of sixteen.
In the month of August was published anonymously the His
tory of England, on which Goldsmith had been for some time
employed. It was in four volumes, compiled chiefly, as he ac
knowledged in the preface, from Rapin, Carte, Smollett, and
Hume, "each of whom," says he, "have their admirers, in
proportion as the reader is studious of political antiquities,
fond of minute anecdote, a warm partisan, or a deliberate rea-
soner." It possessed the same kind of merit as his other his
torical compilations ; a clear, succinct narrative, -a simple, easy,
and graceful style, and an agreeable arrangement of facts ; but
was not remarkable for either depth of observation or minute
accuracy of research. Many passages were transferred, with
little if any alteration, from his " Letters from a Nobleman to
his Son" on the same subject. The work, though written with
out party feeling, met with sharp animadversions from political
scribblers. The writer was charged with being unfriendly to
liberty, disposed to elevate monarchy above its proper sphere ;
a tool of ministers ; one who would betray his country for a
pension. Tom Davies, the publisher, the pompous little bibli
opole of Russell Street, alarmed lest the book should prove
unsalable, undertook to protect it by his pen, and wrote a long
article in its defence in The Public Advertiser. He was vain of
his critical effusion, and sought by nods and winks and innuen
does to intimate his authorship. " Have you seen," said he in a
letter to a friend, " ' An Impartial Account of Goldsmith's His
tory of England ' ? If you want to know who was the writer of
it, you will find him in Russell Street ;— but mum ! "
The history, on the whole, however, was well received ; some
184 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
of the critics declared that English history had never before
been so usefully, so elegantly, and agreeably epitomized, "and,
like his other historical writings, it has kept its ground " in
English literature.
Goldsmith had intended this summer, in company with Sir
Joshua Reynolds, to pay a visit to Bennet Langton, at his seat
in Lincolnshire, where he was settled in domestic life, having
the year previously married the Countess Dowager of Rothos.
The following letter, however, dated from his chambers in the
Temple, on the 7th of September, apologizes for putting off the
visit, while it gives an amusing account of his summer occu
pations and of the attacks of the critics on his History of Eng
land:
" MY DEAR SIR: Since I had the pleasure of seeing you last,
I have been almost wholly in the country, at a farmer's house,
quite alone, trying to write a comedy. It is now finished ; but
when or how it will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all,
are questions I cannot resolve. I am therefore so much em
ployed upon that, that I am under the necessity of putting off
my intended visit to Lincolnshire for this season. Reynolds is
just returned from Paris, and finds himself now in the case of
a truant that must make up for his idle time by diligence.
We have therefore agreed to postpone our journey till next
summer, when we hope to have the honor of waiting upon
Lady Rothes and you, and staying double the time of our late
intended visit. We often meet, and never without remember
ing you. I see Mr. Beauclerc very often both in town and
country. He is now going directly forward to become a second
Boyle ; deep in chemistry and physics. Johnson has been down
on a visit to a country parson, Doctor Taylor ; and is returned
to his old haunts at Mrs. Thrale's. Burke is a farmer, en atten
dant a better place; but visiting about too. Every soul is
visiting about and merry but myself. And that is hard too, as
I have been trying these three months to do something to make
people laugh. There have I been strolling about the hedges,
studying jests with a most tragical countenance. The Natural
History is about half finished, and I will shortly finish the rest.
God knows I am tired of this kind of finishing, which is but
bungling work ; and that not so much my fault as the fault of
my scurvy circumstances. They begin to talk in town of the
Opposition's gaining ground ; the cry of liberty is still as loud
as ever. I have published, or Davies has published for me, an
OLIVKR GOLDSMITH.
1 Abridgment of the History of England,' for which I have
been a good deal abused in the newspapers, for betraying the
liberties of the people. God knows I had no thought for or
against liberty in my head ; my whole aim being to make up a
book of a decent size, that, as 'Squire Richard says, would do no
harm to nobody. However, they set me down as an arrant
Tory, and consequently an honest man. When you come to
look at any part of it, you'll say that I am a sore Whig. God
bless you, and with my most respectful compliments to her
Ladyship, I remain, dear Sir, your most affectionate humblo
servant,
" OLIVER GOLDSMITH."
CHAPTER XXXIL
MARRIAGE OF LITTLE COMEDY— GOLDSMITH AT BARTON — PRACTI
CAL JOKES AT THE EXPENSE OF HIS TOILET— AMUSEMENTS AT
BARTON— AQUATIC MISADVENTURE.
THOUGH Goldsmith found it impossible to break from his
literary occupations to visit Bennet I^angton, in Lincolnshire,
he soon yielded to attractions from another cfuarter, in which
somewhat of sentiment may have mingled. Miss Catherine
Horneck, one of his beautiful fellow-travellers, otherwise called
Little Comedy, had been married in August to Henry William
Bunbury, Esq., a gentleman of fortune, who has become cele
brated for the humorous productions of his pencil. Goldsmith
was shortly afterward invitecl to pay the newly married couple
a visit at their seat at Barton, in Suffolk. How could he re
sist such an invitation— especially as the Jessamy Bride would,
of, course, be among the guests? It is true, he was hampered
with work ; he was still more hampered with debt ; his accounts
with Newbery were perplexed ; but all must give way. New
advances are procured from Newbery, on the promise of a new
tale in the style of the Vicar of Wakefield, of which he showed
him a few roughly-sketched chapters ; so, his purse replenished
in the old way, " by hook or by crook," he posted off to visit
the bride at Barton. He found there a joyous household, and
one where he was welcomed with affection. Garrick was
there, and played the part of master of the revels, for he was
186 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
an intimate friend of the master of the house. Notwithstand
ing early misunderstandings, a social intercourse between the
actor and the poet had grown up of late, from meeting together
continually in the same circle. A few particulars have reached
us concerning Goldsmith while on this happy visit. We be
lieve the legend has come down from Miss Mary Horneck her
self. " While at Barton," she says, " his manners were always
playful and amusing, taking the lead in promoting any scheme
of innocent mirth, and usually prefacing the invitation with
' Come, now, let us play the fool a little.' At cards, which was
commonly a round game, and the stake small, he was always
the most noisy, affected great eagerness to win, and teased his
opponents of the gentler sex with continual jest and banter on
their want of spirit in not risking the hazards of the game.
But one of his most favorite enjoyments was to romp with the
children, when he threw off all reserve, and seemed one of the
most joyous of the group.
"One of the means by which he amused us was his songs,
chiefly of the comic kind, which were sung with some taste
and humor; several, I believe, were of his own composition,
and I regret that I neither have copies, which might have been
readily procured from him at the time, nor do I remember their
names."
His perfect good humor made him the object of tricks of all
kinds ; often in retaliation of some prank which he himself had
played off. Unluckily these tricks were sometimes made at
the expense of his toilet, which, with a view peradventure to
please the eye of a certain fair lady, he had again enriched to
the impoverishment of his purse. " Being at all times gay in
his dress," says this ladylike legend, " he made his appearance
at the breakfast-table in a smart black silk coat with an expen
sive pair of ruffles ; the coat some one contrived to soil, and it
was sent to be cleansed ; but, either by accident, or probably
by design, the day after it came home, the sleeves became
daubed with paint, which was not discovered until the ruffles
also, to his great mortification, were irretrievably disfigured.
' ' He always wore a wig, a peculiarity which those who judge
of his appearance only from the fine poetical head of Reynolds
would not suspect ; and on one occasion some person contrived
seriously to injure this important adjunct to dress. It was the
only one he had in the country, and the misfortune seemed ir
reparable until the services of Mr. Bunbury 's valet were .called
in, who, however, performed his functions so indifferently that
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 187
JHXH* Goldsmith's appearance became the signal for a general
smile."
This was wicked waggery, especially when it was directed to
mar all the attempts of the unfortunate poet to improve his
personal appearance, about which he was at all times dubiously
sensitive, and particularly when among the ladies.
We have in a former chapter recorded his unlucky tumble
into a fountain at Versailles, when attempting a feat of agility
in presence of the fair Hornecks. Water was destined to be
equally baneful to him on the present occasion. ' ' Some differ
ence of opinion," says the fair narrator, " haying arisen with
Lord Harrington respecting the depth of a pond, the poet re
marked that it was not so deep but that, if anything valuable
was to be found at the bottom, he would not hesitate to pick it
up. His lordship, after some banter, threw in a guinea ; Gold
smith, not to be outdone in this kind of bravado, in attempting
to fulfil his promise without getting wet, accidentally fell in,
to the amusement of all present, but persevered, brought out
the money, and kept it, remarking that he had abundant ob
jects on whom to bestow any farther proofs of his lordship's
whim or bounty. "
All this is recorded by the beautiful Mary Horneck, the Jes-
samy Bride herself ; but while she gives these amusing pictures
of poor Goldsmith's eccentricities, and of the mischievous
pranks played off upon him, she bears unqualified testimony,
which we have quoted elsewhere, to the qualities of his head
and heart, whioh shone forth in his countenance, and gained
him the love of all who knew him.
Among the circumstances of this visit vaguely called to mind
by this fair lady in after years, was that Goldsmith read to her
and her sister the first part of a novel which he had in hand.
It was doubtless the manuscript mentioned at the beginning of
this chapter, on which he had obtained an advance of money
from Newbery to stave off some pressing debts, and to provide
funds for this very visit. It never was finished. The book
seller, when he came afterward to examine the manuscript,
objected to it as a mere narrative version of the Good-Natured
Maff. Goldsmith, too easily put out of conceit of his writings,
threw it aside, forgetting that this was the very Newbery who
kept his Vicar of Wakefield by him nearly two years through
doubts of its success. The loss of the manuscript is deeply to
be regretted ; it doubtless would have been properly wrought
up before given to the press, and might have given us new
188 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
scenes in life and traits of character, while it could not fail to
bear traces of his delightful style. What a pity he had not
been guided by the opinions of his fair listeners at Barton,
instead of that of the astute Mr. Newbery !
CHAPTER XXXIII.
DINNER AT GENERAL OGLETHORPE'S— ANECDOTES OF THE GEN'
ERAL— DISPUTE ABOUT DUELLING — GHOST STORIES.
WE have mentioned old General Oglethorpe as one of Gold
smith's aristocratical acquaintances. This veteran, born in
1698, had commenced life early, by serving, when a mere strip
ling, under Prince Eugene, against the Turks. He had con
tinued in military life, and been promoted to the rank of major-
general in 1745, and received a command during the Scottish
rebellion. Being of strong Jacobite tendencies, he was suspectecj
and accused of favoring the rebels ; and though acquitted by a
court of inquiry, was never afterward employed ; or, in techni
cal language, was shelved. He had since been repeatedly a
member of parliament, and had always distinguished himself
by learning, taste, active benevolence, and high Tory principles.
His name, however, has become historical, chiefly from his
transactions in America, and the share he took in the settle
ment of the colony of Georgia. It lies enbalmed in honorable
immortality in a single line of Pope's :
" One, driven by strong benevolence of soul,
Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole."
The veteran was now seventy-four years of age, but healthy
and vigorous, and as much the preux chevalier as in his
younger days, when he served with Prince Eugene. His table
was often the gathering-place of men of talent. Johnson was
frequently there, and delighted in drawing from the general
details of his various " experiences." He was anxiou^ that he
should give the world his life. "I know no man," said %e,
"whose life would be more interesting." Still the vivacity of
the general's mind and the variety of his knowledge made him
skip from subject to subject too fast for the Lexicographer.
" Oglethorpe," growled he, "never completes what he haa to
say."
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Boswell gives us an interesting and characteristic account of
a dinner party at the general's (April 10th, 1772), at which
Goldsmith and Johnson were present. After dinner, when the
cloth was removed, Oglethorpe, at Johnson's request, gave an
account of the siege of Belgrade, in the true veteran style.
Pouring a little wine upon the table, he drew his lines and par
allels with a wet finger, describing the positions of the opposing
forces. " Here were we — here were the Turks," to all which
Johnson listened with the most earnest attention, poring over
the plans and diagrams with his usual purblind closeness.
In the course of conversation, the general gave an anecdote
of himself in early life, when serving under Prince Eugene.
Sitting at table once in company with a prince of Wurtem-
berg, the latter gave a fillip to a glass of wine, so as to make
some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. The manner in which it
was done was somewhat equivocal. How was it to be taken
by the stripling officer? If seriously, he must challenge the
prince ; but in so doing he might fix on himself the character
of a drawcansir. If passed over without notice, he might be
charged with cowardice. His mind was made up in an in
stant. " Prince," said he, smiling, "that is an excellent joke;
but we do it much better in England." So saying, he threw a
whole glass of wine in the prince's face. "II a bien fait, mon
prince," cried an old general present, " vous Favez commence*."
(He has done right, my prince; you commenced it.) The
prince had the good sense to acquiesce in the decision of the
veteran, and Oglethorpe's retort in kind was taken in good
part.
It was probably at the close of this story that the officious
Boswell, ever anxious to promote conversation for the benefit
of his note-book, started the question whether duelling were
consistent with moral duty. The old gentleman fired up in
an instant. "Undoubtedly," said he, with a lofty air; "un
doubtedly a man has a right to defend his honor." Goldsmith
immediately carried the war into Boswell's own quarters, and
pinned him with the question, "what he would do if affronted?"
The pliant Boswell, who for the moment had the fear of the
general rather than of Johnson before his eyes, replied, "he
should think it necessary to fight." "Why, then, that solves
the question," replied Goldsmith. "No, sir!" thundered out
Johnson; "it does not follow that what a man would do, is
therefore right." He, however, subsequently went into a dis
cussion to show that there were necessities in the case arising
190 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
out of the artificial refinement of society, and its proscription
of any one who should put up with an affront without fighting
a duel. "He then," concluded he, "who fights a duel does
not fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self-
defence, to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent him
self from being driven out of society. I could wish there were
not that superfluity of refinement ; but while such notions pre
vail, no doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel. "
Another question started was, whether people who disagreed
on a capital point could live together in friendship. Johnson
said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had
not the idem velle atque idem nolle— the same likings and
aversions. Johnson rejoined, that they must shun the subject
on which they disagreed. "But, sir," said Goldsmith, "when
people live together who have something as to which they dis
agree, and which they want to shun, the.y will be in the situa
tion mentioned in the story of Blue Beard : ' you may look into
all the chambers but one ;' but we should have the greatest in
clination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject."
"Sir," thundered Johnson, in a loud voice, " I am not saying
that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you
differ as to some point; I am only saying that /could do it."
Who will not say that Goldsmith had the best of this petty
contest? How just was his remark! how felicitous the illus
tration of the blue chamber ! how rude and overhearing was
the argumentum ad hominem of Johnson, when he felt that
he had the worst of the argument !
The conversation turned upon ghosts. General Oglethorpe
told the story of a Colonel Prendergast, an officer in the Duke
of Marlborough's army, who predicted among his comrades
that he should die on a certain day. The battle of Malplaquet
took place on that day. The colonel was in the midst of it,
but came out unhurt. The firing had ceased, and his brother
officers jested with him about the fallacy of his prediction.
"The day is not over," replied he, gravely; "I shall die, not
withstanding what you see." His words proved true. The
order for a cessation of firing had not reached one of the
French batteries, and a random shot from it killed the colonel
on the spot. Among his effects was found a pocket-book, in
which he had made a solemn entry, that Sir John Friend, who
had been executed for high treason, had appeared to him,
either in a dream or vision, and predicted that he would meet
him on a certain day (the very day of the battle). Colonel
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
11)1
Cecil, who took possession of the effects of Colonel Prender-
gast, and read the entry in the pocket-book, told this story to
Pope, the poet, in the presence of General Oglethorpe.
This story, as related by the general, appears to have been
well received, if not credited, by both Johnson and Goldsmith,
each of whom had something to relate in kind. Goldsmith's
brother, the clergyman in whom ho had such implicit confi
dence, had assured him of his having seen an apparition.
Johnson also had a friend, old Mr. Cave, the printer, at St.
John's Gate, "an honest man, and a sensible man," who told
him he had seen a ghost : he did not, however, like to talk of
it, and seemed to be in great horror whenever it was men
tioned. "And pray, sir," asked Boswell, "what did he say
was the appearance?"
"Why, sir, something of a shadowy being."
The reader will not be surprised at this superstitious turn in
the conversation of such intelligent men, when he recollects
that, but a few years before this time, all London had been
agitated by the absurd story of the Cock-lane ghost ; a matter
which Dr. Johnson had deemed worthy of his serious investi
gation, and about which Goldsmith had written a pamphlet.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MR. JOSEPH CRADOCK— AN AUTHOR'S CONFIDINGS— AN AMANUEN
SIS— IJFE AT EDGEWARE — GOLDSMITH CONJURING — GEORGE
COLMAN— THE FANTOCCINI.
AMONG the agreeable acquaintances made by Goldsmith
about this time was a Mr. Joseph Cradock, a young gentleman
of Leicestershire, living at his ease, but disposed to "make
himself uneasy," by meddling with literature and the theatre;
in fact, he had a passion for plays and players, and had come
up to town with a modified translation of Voltaire's tragedy of
Zobeide, in a view to get it acted. There was no great diffi
culty in tbe case, as he was a man of fortune, had letters of
introduction to persons of note, and was altogether in a dif
ferent position from the indigent man of genius whom mana
gers might harass with impunity. Goldsmith met him at the
house of Yates, the actor, and finding that he was a friend of
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Lord Clare, soon became sociable with him. Mutual tastes
quickened the intimacy, especially as they found means of
serving each other. Goldsmith wrote an epilogue for the tra
gedy of Zobeide ; and Cradock, who was an amateur musician,
arranged the music for the Threnodia Augustalis, a lament on
the death of the Princess Dowager of Wales, the political mis-
cress and patron of Lord Clare, which Goldsmith had thrown
off hastily to please that nobleman. The tragedy was played
with some success at Covent Garden ; the Lament was recited
and sung at Mrs. Cornelys' rooms^a very fashionable resort in
Soho Square, got up by a woman of enterprise of that name.
It was in whimsical parody of those gay and somewhat pro
miscuous assemblages that Goldsmith used to call the motley
evening parties at his lodgings "little Cornelys."
The Threnodia Augustalis was not publicly known to be by
Goldsmith until several years after his death.
Cradock was one of the few polite intimates who felt more
disposed to sympathize with the generous qualities of the poet
than to sport with his eccentricities. He sought his society
whenever he came to town, and occasionally had him to his
seat in the country. Goldsmith appreciated his sympathy,
and unburthened himself to him without reserve. Seeing the
lettered ease in which this amateur author was enabled to li ve,
and the time he could bestow on the elaboration of a manu
script, "Ah! Mr. Cradock," cried he, "think of me that must
write a volume every month 1" He complained to him of the
attempts made by inferior writers, and by others who could
scarcely come under that denomination, not only to abuse and
depreciate hi& writings, but to render him ridiculous as a man ;
perverting every harmless sentiment and action into charges
of absurdity, malice, or folly. "Sir," said he, in the fulness of
his heart, " I am as a lion baited by curs !"
Another acquaintance which he made about this time, was
a young countryman of the name of M'Donnell, whom he met
in a state of destitution, and, of course, befriended. The fol
lowing grateful recollections of his kindness and his merits
were furnished by that person in after years :
" It was in the year 1772," writes he, "that the death of my
elder brother— when in London, on my way to Ireland— left
me in a most forlorn situation ; I was then about eighteen ; I
possessed neither friends nor money, nor the means of getting
to Ireland, of which or of England I knew scarcely anything,
from having so long resided in France. In this situation I had
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 193
strolled about for two or three days, considering what to do,
but unable to come to any determination, when Providence
directed mo to the Temple Gardens. I threw myself on a seat,
and, willing to forget my miseries for a moment, drew out a
book; that book was a volume of Boileau. I had not been
there long when a gentleman, strolling about, passed near me,
and observing, perhaps, something Irish or foreign in my garb
or countenance, addressed me: 'Sir, you seem studious; I hope
you find this a favorable place to pursue it.' ' Not very studi
ous, sir ; I fear it is the want of society that brings mo hither ;
I am solitary and unknown in this metropolis;' and a passage
from Cicero— Oratio pro Archia— occurring to me, I quoted it;
'Haec studia pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.'
4 You are a scholar, too, sir, I perceive. ' * A piece of one, sir ;
but I ought still to have been in the college where I had the
good fortune to pick up the little I know.' A good deal of con
versation ensued ; I told him part of my history, and he, in
return, gave his address in the Temple, desiring me to call
soon, from which, to my infinite surprise and gratification, I
found that the person who thus seemed to take an interest in
my fate was my countryman, and a distinguished ornament of
letters.
*• I did not fail to keep the appointment, and was received in
the kindest manner. He told mo, smilingly, that ho was not
rich ; that he could do little for me in direct pecuniary aid, but
would endeavor to put me hi the way of doing something for
myself; observing, that ho could at least furnish me with ad
vice not wholly useless to a young man placed in the heart of
a great metropolis. ' In London,' ho continued, ' nothing is to
be got for nothing ; you must work ; and no man who chooses
to be industrious need bo under obligations to another, for
here labor of every kind commands its reward. If you
think proper to assist me occasionally as amanuensis, I shall
be obliged, and you will be placed under no obligation, until
something more permanent can be secured for you.' This
employment, which I pursued for some time, was to translate
passages from Buffon, which was abridged or altered, accord
ing to circumstanced, for his Natural 'History."
Goldsmith's literary tasks were fast getting ahead of him,
and he began now to " toil after them in vain."
Five volumes of the Natural History here spoken of had long
since boen paid for by Mr. Griffin, yet most of them were still
to be written. His young amanuensis bears testimony to his
194 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
embarrassments and perplexities, but to the degree of equa,
nimity with which he bore them :
"It has been said," observes he, "that he was irritable.
Such may have been the case at times ; nay, I believe it was
so ; for what with the continual pursuit of authors, printers,
and booksellers, and occasional pecuniary embarrassments,
few could have avoided exhibiting similar marks of impa
tience. But it was never so toward me. I saw him only in
his bland and kind moods, with a flow, perhaps an overflow,
of the milk of human kindness for all who were in any manner
dependent upon him. I looked upon him with awe and venera
tion, and he upon me as a kind of parent upon a child.
"His manner and address exhibited much frankness and
cordiality, particularly to those with whom he possessed any
degree of intimacy. His good-nature wafc equally apparent.
You could not dislike the man, although several of his follies
and foibles you might be tempted to condemn. He was
generous and inconsiderate; money with him had little
value."
To escape from many of the tormentors just alluded to, and
to devote himself without interruption to his task, Godsmith
took lodgings for the summer at a farm-house near the six-mile
stone on the Edgeware road, and carried down his books in
two return post-chaises. He used to say he believed the
farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that
in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her chil
dren : he was TJie Gentleman. Boswell tells us that he went
to visit him at the place in company with Mickle, translator of
the Lusiad. Goldsmith was not at home. Having a curiosity
to see his apartment, however, they went in, and found curi
ous scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall
with a black lead pencil.
The farm-house in question is still in existence, though much
altered. It stands upon a gentle eminence in Hyde Lane, com
manding a pleasant prospect toward Hendon. The room is
still pointed out in which She Stoops to Conquer was written ;
a convenient and airy apartment, up one flight of stairs.
Some matter of fact traditions concernirg the author were
furnished, a few years since, by a son of the farmer, who was
sixteen years of age at the time Goldsmith resided with his
father. Though he had engaged to board with the family, his
meals were generally sent to him in his room, in which he
passed the most of his tune, negligently dressed, with his shirt-
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 195
collar open, busily engaged in writing. Sometimes, probably
when in moods of composition, he would wander into the
kitchen, without noticing any one, stand musing with his back
to the fire, and then hurry off again to his room, no doubt to
commit to paper some thought which had struck him,
Sometimes he strolled about the fields, or was to be seen
loitering and reading and musing under the hedges. He was
subject to fits of wakefulness and read much in bed ; if not dis
posed to read, he still kept the candle burning; if he wished to
extinguish it, and it was out of his reach, he flung his slipper
at it, which would be found in the morning near the over
turned candlestick and daubed with grease. He was noted
here, as everywhere else, for his charitable feelings. No beg
gar applied to him in vain, and he evinced on all occasions
great commiseration for the poor.
He had the use of the parlor to receive and entertain com
pany, and was visited by Sir Joshur, Reynolds, Hugh Boyd,
the reputed author of " Junius," Sir William Chambers, and
other distinguished characters. He gave occasionally, though
rarely, a dinner party ; and on one occasion, when his guests
were detained by a thunder shower, he got up a dance and car
ried the merriment late into the night.
As usual, he was the promoter of hilarity among the young,
and at one time took the children of the house to see a com
pany of strolling players at Hendon. The greatest amusement
to the party, however, was derived from his own jokes on the
road and his comments on the performance, which produced
infinite laughter among his youthful companions.
Near to his rural retreat at Edgeware, a Mr. Seguin, an
Irish merchant, of literary tastes, had country quarters for his
family, where Goldsmith was always welcome.
In this family he would indulge in playful and even grotesque
humor, and was ready for anything— conversation, music, or a
game of romps. He prided himself upon his dancing, and
would walk a minuet with Mrs. Seguin, to the infinite amusc-
lent of herself and the children, whose shouts of laughter he
bore with perfect good-humor. He would sing Irish songs, and
the Scotch ballads*of Johnny Armstrong. He took the lead in
the children's sports of blind-man's buff, hunt the slipper, etc.,
or in their games at cards, and was the most noisy of the party,
affecting to cheat and to be excessively eager to win; while
with children of smaller size he would turn the hind part of his
wig before, and play all kinds of tricks to amuse them.
196 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
One word as to his musical skill and his performance on the
flute, which comes up so invariably in all his fireside revels.
He really knew nothing of music scientifically ; he had a good
.ear, and may have played sweetly; but we ars told he could
not read a note of music. Koubillac, the statuary, once played
a trick upon him in this respect. He pretended to score down
an air as the poet played it, but put down crotchets and semi-
breves at random. When he had finished, Goldsmith cast his
eyes over it and pronounced it correct ! It is possible that iiis
execution in music was like his style in writing; in sweetness
and melody he may have snatched a grace beyond the reach of
art!
Ho was at all times a capital companion for children, and
knew how to fall in with their humors. "I little thought,"
said Miss Hawkins, the woman grown, "what I should have to
boast, when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill by two
bits of paper on his fingers." He entertained Mrs. Garrick, we
are told, with a whole budget of stories and songs ; delivered
the "Chimney Sweep" with exquisite taste as a solo; and per
formed a duet with Garrick of "Old Rose and Burn the
Bellows."
"I was only five years old," says the late George Colman,
" when Goldsmith one evening, when drinking coffee with my
father, took me on his knee and began to play with me, which
amiable act I returned with a very smart slap in the face ; it
must have been a tingler, for I left the marks of my little
spiteful paw upon his cheek. This infantile outrage was fol
lowed by summary justice, and I was locked up by my father
in an adjoining room, to undergo solitary imprisonment in the
dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably.
At length a friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy ; it
was the good-natured doctor himself, with a lighted candle in
his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still
partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and
Fobbed, and he fondled and soothed until I began to brighten.
He seized the propitious moment, placed three hats upon the
carpet, and a shilling under each; the shillings, he told me,
were England, France, and Spain. ' Hey, presto, cockolorum ! '
cried the doctor, and lo ! on uncovering the shillings, they were
all found congregated under one. I was no politician at the
time, and therefore might not have wondered at the sudden
revolution which brought England, France, and Spain all under
one crown ; but, as I was also no conjurer, it amazed me be-
OL1VEU GOLDSMITH. 197
yond measure. From that time, whenever the doctor came to
visit my father,
' I pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile ;*
a game of romps constantly ensued, and we were always cor
dial friends and merry playfellows."
Although Goldsmith made the Edgeware farmhouse his head
quarters for the summer, he would absent himself for weeks at
a time on visits to Mr. Cradock, Lord Clare, and Mr. Langton,
at their country-seats. He would often visit town, also, to
dine and partake of the public amusements. On one occasion
he accompanied Edmund Burke to witness a performance of
the Italian Fantoccini or Puppets, in Panton Street; an exhibi
tion which had hit the caprice of the town, and was in great
vogue. The puppets were set in motion by wires, so well con
cealed as to be with difficulty detected. Boswell, with his
usual obtuseness with respect to Goldsmith, accuses him of be
ing jealous of tne puppets ! ' ' When Burke, " said he, ' ' praised
the dexterity with which one of them tossed a pike," * Pshaw,'
said Goldsmith with some warmth, 4 1 can do it better myself.' "
"The same evening," adds Boswell, "when supping at Burke's
lodgings, he broke his shin by attempting to exhibit to the
company how much better he could jump over a stick than the
puppets."
Goldsmith jealous of puppets ! This even passes in absurdity
Bos well's charge upon him of being jealous of the beauty of
the two Miss Hornecks.
The Panton Street puppets were destined to bo a source of
further amusement to the town, and of annoyance to the little
autocrat of the stage. Foote, the Aristophanes of the English
drama, who was always on the alert to turn every subject of
popular excitement to account, seeing the success of the Fan
toccini, gave out that he should produce a Primitive Puppet-
show at the ITaymarket, to be entitled The Handsome Cham
bermaid, or Piety in Pattens : intended to burlesque the senti
mental comedy which Garrick still maintained at Drury Lane.
The idea of a play to be performed in a regular theatre by
puppets excited the curiosity and talk of the town. "Will
your puppets be as large as life, Mr. Footc?" demanded a lady
of rank. " Oh, no, my lady;" replied Footo, "not much larger
than Gcuiricb "
OLIVER 0 OLD SMITH.
CHAPTER XXXV.
BROKEN HEALTH-DISSIPATION AND DEBTS— THE IRISH WIDOW—
PRACTICAL JOKES — SCRUB— A MISQUOTED PUN— MALAQRIDA —
GOLDSMITH PROVED TO BE A FOOL — DISTRESSED BALLAD
SINGERS— THE POET AT RANELAGH.
GOLDSMITH returned to town in the autumn (1772), with his
health much disordered. His close fits of sedentary applica
tion, during which he in a manner tied himself to the mast,
had 'laid the seeds of a lurking malady in his system, and pro
duced a severe illness in the course of the summer. Town life
was not favorable to the health either of body or mind. He
could not resist the siren voice of temptation, which, now that
he had become a notoriety, assailed him on every side. Ac
cordingly we find him launching away in a career of social
dissipation; dining and supping out; at clubs, at routs, at
theatres ; he is a guest with Johnson at the Thrales', and an
object of Mrs. Thrale's lively sallies; he is a lion at Mrs. Vesey's
and Mrs. Montagu's, where some of the high-bred blue-stock
ings pronounce him a "wild genius, "and others, perad venture,
a "wild Irishman." In the meantime his pecuniary difficul
ties are increasing upon him, conflicting with his proneness to
pleasure and expense, and contributing by the harassment of
his mind to the wear and tear of his constitution. His "Ani
mated Nature," though not finished, has been entirely paid for,
and the money spent. The money advanced by Garrick on
Newbery's note still hangs over him as a debt. The tale on
which Newbery had loaned from two to three hundred pounds
previous to the excursion to Barton has proved a failure. The
bookseller is urgent for the settlement of his complicated ac
count ; the perplexed author has nothing to off er him in liqui
dation but the copyright of the comedy which he has in his
portfolio; "Though to tell you the truth, Frank," said he,
"there aro great doubts of its success." The offer was ac
cepted, and, like bargains wrung from Goldsmith in times of
emergency, turned out a golden speculation to the bookseller.
In this way Goldsmith went on "overrunning the consta
ble," as he termed it; spending everything in advance; work
ing with an overtasked head and weary heart to pay for psurt
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 199
pleasures and past extravagance, and at the same time incur-
ring new debts, to perpetuate his struggles and darken his
future prospects. While the excitement of society and the ex
citement of composition conspire to keep up a feverishiiess of
the system, he has incurred an unfortunate habit of quacking
himself with James' powders, a fashionable panacea of the
day.
A farce, produced this year by Garrick, and entitled The
Irish Widow, perpetuates the memory of practical jokes
played off a year or two previously upon the alleged vanity
of poor, simple-hearted Goldsmith. He was one evening at
the house of his friend Burke, when he was beset by a tenth
muse, an Irish widow and authoress, just arrived from Ire
land, full of brogue and blunders, and poetic fire and rantipole
gentility. She was soliciting subscriptions for her poems ; and
assailed Goldsmith for his patronage; the great Goldsmith—
her countryman, and of course her friend. She overpowered
him with eulogiums on his own poems, and then read some
of her own, with vehemence of tone and gesture, appealing
continually to the great Goldsmith to know how he relished
them.
Poor Goldsmith did all that a kind-hearted and gallant gen
tleman could do in such a case ; he praised her poems as far as
the stomach of his sense would permit : perhaps a little fur
ther ; he offered her his subscription, and it was not until she
had retired with many parting compliments to the great Gold
smith, that he pronounced the poetry which had been inflicted
on him execrable. The whole scene had been a hoax got up
by Burke for the amusement of his company, and the Irish
widow, so admirably performed, had been personated by a
Mrs. Balfour, a lady of his connection, of great sprightliness
and talent.
We see nothing in the story to establish the alleged vanity
of Goldsmith, but we think it tells rather to the disadvantage
of Burke ; being unwarrantable under their relations of friend
ship, and a species of waggery quite beneath his genius.
Croker, in his notes to Boswell, gives another of these prac
tical jokes perpetrated by Burke at the expense of Goldsmith's
credulity. It was related to Croker by Colonel O'Moore, of
Cloghan Castle, in Ireland, who was a party concerned. The
colonel and Burke, walking one day through Leicester Square
on their way to Sir Joshua Eeynolds's, with whom they were
to dine, observed Goldsmith, who was likewise to be a guest,
200 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
standing and regarding a crowd which was staring and shout
ing at some foreign ladies in the window of a hotel. " Observe
Goldsmith, "said Burke to O'Moore, "and mark what passes be
tween us at Sir Joshua's." They passed on and reached there
before him. Burke received Goldsmith with affected reserve
and coldness; being pressed to explain the reason, "Really,"
said he, "I am ashamed to keep company with a person who
could act as you have just done in the Square." Goldsmith
prote.-.ted ho was ignorant of what was meant. "Why," said
Burke, " did you not exclaim as you were looking up at those
women, what stupid beasts the crowd must bo for staring
with such admiration at those painted Jezebels, while a man of
your talents passed by unnoticed?" "Surely, surely, my dear
friend, "cried Goldsmith, with alarm, "surely I did not say
so?" "Nay," replied Burke, "if you had not said so, how
should I have known it?" "That's true," answered Gold
smith; "I am very sorry— it was very foolish: I do recollect
that something of the kind passed through my mind, but I did
not think I had littered it."
It is proper to observe that these jokes were played off
by Burke before he had attained the full eminence of his social
position, and that he may have felt privileged to take liberties
with Goldsmith as his countryman and college associate. It is
evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his
guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of
some of his associates; while others more polished, though
equally perfidious, were on the watch to give currency to his
bulls and blunders.
The Stratford jubilee, in honor of Shakespeare, where Bos-
well had made a fool of himself, was still in every one's mind.
It was sportively suggested that a fete should be held at Lich-
field in honor of" Johnson and Garrick, and that the Beaux1
Stratagem should be played by the members of the Literary
Club. "Then," exclaimed Goldsmith, "I shall certainly play
Scrub. I should like of all things to try my hand at that char
acter." The unwary speech, which any one else might have
made without comment, has been thought worthy of record as
whimsically characteristic. Beauclerc was extremely apt to
circulate anecdotes at his expense, founded perhaps on some
trivial incident, but dressed up with the embellishments of his
sarcastic brain. One relates to a venerable dish of peas, served
up at Sir Joshua's table, which should have been green, but
were any other color. A wag suggested to Goldsmith, in a
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
201
whisper, that they should be sent to Hammersmith, as that
was the way to turn-cm-grcen (Turnham-Grecn). Goldsmith,
delighted with the pun, endeavored to repeat it at Burke's
table, but missed the point. "That is the way to make 'em
green," said he. Nobody laughed. He perceived he was at
fault. "I mean that is the road to turn 'em green." A dead
pause and a stare; " whereupon," adds Beauclerc, " he started
up disconcerted and abruptly left the table. " This is evidently
one of Beauclcrc's caricatures.
On another occasion the poet and Beauclerc were seated at
the theatre next to Lord Shclburne, the minister, whom politi
cal writers thought proper to nickname Malagrida. " Do you
know," said Goldsmith to his lordship in the course of conver
sation, "that I never could conceive why they call ycu Mal
agrida. for Malagrida was a very good sort of man." This was
too good a trip of the tongue for Beauclerc to let pass: he
serves it up in his next letter to Lord Charlemont, as a speci
men of a mode of turning a thought the wrong way, peculiar
to the poet ; he makes merry over it with his witty and sarcas
tic compeer, Horace Walpole, who pronounces it " a picture of
Goldsmith's F-hole life." Dr. Johnson alone, when he hears it
bandied about as Goldsmith's last blunder, growls forth a
friendly defence: "Sir," said he, "it was a mere blunder in
emphasis. He meant to say, I wonder they should use Mala
grida as a term of reproach." Poor Goldsmith! On such
points he was ever doomed to be misinterpreted. Rogers, tho
poet, meeting in times long subsequent with a survivor of
those days, asked him what Goldsmith really was in conversa
tion. The old conversational character was too deeply stamped
in the memory of tho veteran to be effaced. " Sir." replied the
old wiseacre, " he icas a fool. The right word never came to
him. If you gave him back a bad shilling, he'd say, Why it's
as good a shilling as ever was from. You know he ought to
have said coined. Coined, sir, never entered his head. He was
a/ooZ, sir."
We have so many anecdotes in which Goldsmith's simplicity
is played upon, that it is quite a treat to meet with one in which
he is represented playing upon the simplicity of others, espe
cially when the victim of his joke is the " Great Cham" himself,
whom all others are disposed to hold so much in awe. Gold
smith and Johnson were supping cosily together at a tavern in
Dean 'Street, Soho, kept by Jack Roberts, a singer at Drury
Lane, and a protege of Garrick's. Johnson delighted in theso
202 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
gastronomical tete-a-tetes, and was expatiating in high good
humor on rumps and kidneys, the veins of his forehead swell
ing with the ardor of mastication. "These," said he, "are
pretty little things ; but a man must eat a great many of them
before he is filled." "Aye; but how many of them," asked
Goldsmith, with affected simplicity, "would reach to the
moon?" "To the moon! Ah, sir, that, I fear, exceeds your
calculation." "Not at all, sir; I think I could tell." "Psny
then, sir, let us hear." "Why, sir, one, if it were long
enough!" Johnson growled for a time at finding himself
caught in such a trite schoolboy trap. "Well, sir," cried he at
length, "I have deserved it. I should not have provoked so
foolish an answer by so foolish a question."
Among the many incidents related as illustrative of Gold
smith's vanity and envy is one which occurred one evening
when he was in a drawing-room with a party of ladies, and a
ballad-singer under the window struck up his favorite song of
" Sally Salisbury." " How miserably this woman sings!" ex
claimed he. "Pray, doctor," said the lady of the house,
"could you do it better?" "Yes, madam, and the company
shall be judges." The company, of course, prepared to be
entertained by an absurdity ; but their smiles were well-nigh
turned to tears, for he acquitted himself with a skill and
pathos that drew universal applause. He had, in fact, a deli
cate ear for music, which had been jarred by the false notes of
the ballad-singer; and there were certain pathetic ballads,
associated with recollections of his childhood, which were sure
to touch the springs of his heart. We have another story of
him, connected with ballad-singing, which is still more charac
teristic. He was one evening at the house of Sir William
Chambers, in Berners Street, seated at a whist-table with Sir
William, Lady Chambers, and Baretti, when all at once he
threw down his cards, hurried out of the room and into the
street. He returned in an instant, resumed his seat, and the
game went on. Sir William, after a little hesitation, ventured
to ask the cause of his retreat, fearing, he had been overcome
by the heat of the room. "Not at all," replied Goldsmith;
' ' but in truth I could not bear to hear that unfortunate woman
in the street, half singing, half sobbing, for such' tones could
only arise from the extremity of distress; her voice grated
painfully on my ear and jarred my frame, so that I could not
rest until I had sent her away." " It was in fact a poor ballad-
singer, whose cracked voice had been heard by others of the
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 203
party, but without having the same effect on their sensibilities.
It was the reality of his fictitious scene in the story of the
>4 Man in Black;" wherein he describes a woman in rags with
one child in her arms and another on her back, attempting to
sing ballads, but with such a mournful voice that it was diffi
cult to determine whether she was singing or crying. "A
v, i-etch," he adds, "who, in the deepest distress, still aimed at
good humor, was an object my friend was by no means capable
of withstanding." The Man in Black gave the poor woman all
that he had— a bundle of matches. Goldsmith, it is probable,
sent his ballad-singer away rejoicing with all the money in his
pocket.
Ranelagh was at that time greatly in vogue as a place of
public entertainment. It was situated near Chelsea ; the prin
cipal room was a rotunda of great dimensions, with an orches
tra in the centre, and tiers of boxes ah1 round. It was a place
to which Johnson resorted occasionally. " I am a great friend
to public amusements," said he, ufor they keep people from
vice.''* Goldsmith was equally a friend to them, though per
haps not altogether on such moral grounds. He was particu
larly fond of masquerades, which were then exceedingly popu
lar, and got up at Ranelagh with great expense and magnifi
cence. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had likewise a taste for
such amusements, was sometimes his companion, at other
times he went alone; his peculiarities of person and manner
would soon betray him, whatever might be his disguise, and
he would be singled out by wags, acquainted with his foibles,
and more successful than himself in maintaining their incog
nito, as a capital subject to be played upon. Some, pretend
ing not to know him, would decry his writings, and praise
tliose of his contemporaries ; others would laud his verses to
the skies, but purposely misquote and burlesque them; others
would annoy him with parodies; while one young lady, whom
he was teasing, as he supposed, with great success and infinite
humor, silenced his rather boisterous laughter by quoting his
own line about u the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.v
* "Alas, sir:" said Johnson, speaking, when in another mood, of grand houses,
fine gardens, and splendid pl.ices of public amusement; "alas, sir! these are only
struggles for happiness. When I first entered Ranelagh it gave an expansion aud
erny sensation to my mind, such as I never experienced anywhere else. Cut, cs
Xerxes wept when he viewed his immense nrmy. and considered that not one of
that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterward, so it went to in
heart to consider that there was not ouo in all that brilliant circle that was not afrc : i
to go home aud Uiiuk."
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
On one occasion he was absolutely driven out of the house by
the persevering jokes of a wag, whose complete disguise gave
him no means of retaliation.
His name appearing in the newspapers arcong the distin
guished pei-sons present at one of these amusemenos, his old
enemy, Kcnrick, immediately addressed to him a copy of
anonymous verses, to the following purport.
To Dr. Goldsmith; on seeing his name in the list of mum
mers at the late masquerade :
" How widely different, Goldsmith, are the ways
Of Doctors now, and those of ancient days!
Theirs taught the truth in academic shades,
Ours in lewd bops and midnight masquerades.
So changed the times! *ay, philosophic sage,
Whose genius suits so well this tasteful age,
Is the Pantheon, late a sink obscene,
Beco-ie the fountain of chaste Hippocrene?
Or do thy moral numbers quaintly flow,
Inspired by th' Aganippe of Soho?
Do wisdom's sons gorge cates and vermicelli,
Like beastly Bickerstaffe or bothering Kelly?
Or art thou tired of th' undeserved applause
Bestowed on bards affecting Virtue's cause?
Is this the good that makes the humble vain,
The good philosophy should not disdain?
If so, let pride dissemble all it can,
A modern sage is still much less than man."
Goldsmith was keenly sensitive to attacks of the kind, and
meeting Kenrick at the Chapter Coffee-house, called him to
sharp account for taking such a liberty with his name, and
calling his morals in question, merely on account of his being
ceen at a place of general resort and amusement. Kenrick
shuffled and sneaked, protesting that he meant nothing dero
gatory to his private character. Goldsmith let him know,
however, that he was aware of his having more than once in
dulged in attacks of this dastard kind, and intimated that an-
othor such outrage would be followed by personal chastise
ment.
Kenrick having played the craven in his presence, avenged
himself as soon as he was gone by complaining of his having
made a wanton attack upon him, and by making coarse com
ments upon his writings, conversation, and person.
The scurrilous satire of Kenrick, however unmerited, may
have checked Goldsmith's taste for masquerades. Sir Joshua
Reynolds calling on the poet one morning, found him walking
about his room in somewhat of a reverie., kicking a bundle of
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 205
clothes before him like a foot-ball. It proved to be an expen
sive masquerade dress, which ho said he had been fool enough
to purchase, and as there was no other way of getting the
worth of his money, he was trying to take it out in exercise.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
E1TITATION TO CHRISTMAS— THE SPRING VELVET COAT— THE
HAYMAKING WIG— THE MISCHANCES OP LOO— THE FAIR CUL
PRIT—A DANCE WITH THE JESSAMY BRIDE.
*
FROM the feverish dissipations of town, Goldsmith is sum
moned away to partake of the genial dissipations of the coun
try. In the month of December, a letter from Mrs. Bunbury
invites him down to Burton, to pass the Christmas holidays.
The letter is written hi the usual playful vein which marks his
intercourse with this charming family. He is to come in his
" smart spring- velvet coat," to bring a new wig to dance with
the haymakers in, and above all, to follow the advice of herself
and her sister (the Jossamy Bride), in playing loo. This letter,
which plays so archly, yet kindly, with some of poor Gold
smith's peculiarities, and bespeaks such real ladylike regard
for huii, requires a word or two of annotation. The spring-
velvet suit alluded to appears to have been a gallant adorn
ment (somewhat in the style of the famous bloom-colored coat)
in which Goldsmith had figured in the preceding month of
May— the season of blossoms— for, on the 21st of that month,
wo find the follpwing entry hi the chronicle of Mr. William
Filby , tailor : To your blue velvet suit, £21 10s. 9c?. Also, about
the same time, a suit of livery and a crimson collar for the
serving man. Again we hold the Jessamy Bride responsible
for this gorgeous splendor of wardrobe.
The new wig no doubt is a bag-wig and solitaire, still highly
the mode, and in which Goldsmith is represented as figuring
when in full dress, equipped with his sword.
As to the dancing with the haymakers, wo presume it al
ludes to some gambol of the poet, in the course of his former
visit to Barton ; when he ranged the fields and lawns a char
tered libertine, and tumbled into the fish-ponds.
As to the suggestions about loo, they are in sportive allusion
to the doctor's mode of playing that game in their merrj
206 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
evening parties; affecting the desperate gambler and easy
dupe ; running counter to all rule ; making extravagant ven
tures ; reproaching all others with cowardice ; dashing at all
hazards at the pool, and getting himself completely loo'd, to
the great amusement of the company. The drift of the fair
sisters' advice was most probably to tempt him on, and then
leave him in the lurch.
With these comments we subjoin Goldsmith's reply to Mrs.
Bunbury, a fine piece of off-hand, humorous writing, which
has but in late years been given to the public, and which
throws a familiar light on the social circle at Barton.
"MADAM: I read your letter with all that allowance which
critical candor could require, but after all find so much to
object to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I cannot
help giving it a serious answer. I am not so ignorant,
madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms contained in it,
and solecisms also. (Solecism is a word that comes from the
town of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon,
and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains
from a town also of that name— but this is learning you have
no taste for!)— I say, madam, there are many sarcasms in it,
and solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, I'll
take leave to quote your own words, and give you my
remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows :
4 1 hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here,
And your spring- velvet coat veiy smart will appear,
To open our ball the first day of the year.'
"Pray, madam, where did you ever find the epithet 'good,'
applied to the title of doctor? Had you called me 'learned
doctor,' or 'grave doctor,1 or 'noble doctor,' it might be
allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to
cavil at trifles, you talk of 'my spring-velvet coat,' and advise
me to wear it the first day in the year, that is, in the middle
of winter !— a spring-velvet coat in the middle of winter ! ! !
That would be a solecism indeed! and yet to increase the
inconsistence, in another part of your letter you call me a
beau. Now, on one side or other you must be wrong. If I
am a beau, I can never think of wearing a spring-velvet in
winter; and if I am not a beau, why then, that explains
itself. But let me go on to your two next strange lines;
• And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay.
To dance with the girls that are makers of hay,'
OUVER GOLDSMITH 207
"The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you yourself
seem sensible of: you say your sister will laugh; and so
indeed she well may! The Latins have an expression for a
contemptuous kind of laughter, 'naso contemnere adunco;'
that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you
in the manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But n
come to the most extraordinary of all extraordinary proposi
tions, which is, to take your and your sister's advice in
playing at loo. The presumption of the offer raises my indig
nation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires me at once
\vith verse and resentment. I take ad vice I and from whom I
You shall hear.
" First let me suppose, what may shortly be true,
The company set, and the word to be Loo:
All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure,
And ogling the stake which is HxM in the centre.
Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn
At never once finding a visit from Pam.
I lay down my stake, apparently cool,
While the harpies about me all pocket the pooL
I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly,
I wish all my friends may be bolder than I:
Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim
By losing their money to venture at fame. •
Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold,
Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold :
All play their own way, and they think me an ass, . . .
4 What does Mrs. Bunbury? ' . . . • I, sir? I pass.'
' Pray what does Miss Horneck? take courage, com* do,' . . .
' Who, I? let me see, sir, why I must pass too.'
Mr. Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil,
To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil.
Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on.
Till, made by my losses as bold as a lion,
I venture at all, while my avarice regards
The whole pool as my own. . . . ' Come give me five card*.'
' Well done! ' cry the ladies; ' Ah, Doctor, that's goodl
The pool's very rich, ... ah ! the Doctor is loo'd ! '
Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplext,
I ask for advice from the lady that's next:
4 Pray, ma'am, be so good as to give your advice;
Don't you think- the best way is to venture for't twice?'
'I advise,' cries the lady, ' to try it, I own. . . .
' Ah! the Doctor is loo'd ! Come, Doctor, put down.*
Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager,
And so bold, and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar.
Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skill'd in,
Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding:
For giving advice that is not worth a straw,
May well be call'd picking of pockets in law;
And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye,
Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy.
£03 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
What justice, when both to the Old Bailey brought 1
By the gods, I'll enjoy it, tho' 'tis but in thought!
Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum,
With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em;
Both cover their faces with mobs and all that,
But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat.
When uncover'd, a buzz of inquiry runs round,
'Pra^ what are their crimes?' . . . .'They've been pilfering found.'
'.But* pray, who have they pilfer'd? ' . . . ' A doctor, I hear.'
4 What, you solemn-faced, odd-lookimj man that stands near?1
'The same.' . . . 'What a pity! how does it surprise one,
Two handsomer culprits 1 never set eyes on!1
Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering,
To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing.
First Sir Charles advances with phrases well-strung,
'Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.'
1 The younger the wrose,' I return him again,
' It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.'
'But then they're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.*
* What signifies handsome, when people are thieves? '
Tut where is your justice? their cases ure hard.'
' What signifies justice? I want the reward.
"' There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty pounds;
there's the parish of St. Leonard Shoreditch offers forty
pounds; there's the parish of Tyburn, from the Hog-in-thc-
pound to St. Giles' watch-house, offers forty pounds— I shall
have all that if I convict them ! ' —
,"' But consider their case, . . . it may yet be your own!
And see how they kneel ! Is your heart made of stone?'
This moves! . . . so nt last I agree to relent,
For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent.
"I challenge you all to answer this: I tell you, you cannot.
It cuts deep. But now for the rest of the letter: and next— but
I want room— so I believe I shall battle the rest out at Barton
some day next week. I don't value you all 1
"O. G."
Wo regret that we have no record of this Christmas visit to
Barton ; that tho poet had no Boswell to follow at his heels,
and take note of all his sayings and doings. We can only
picture him in our minds, casting off all care; enacting the lord
of misrule; presiding at the Christmas revels; providing all
kinds of merriment ; keeping the card-table in an uproar, and
finally opening the ball on tho first day of the year in his
spring-velvet suit, with tho Jessamy Bride for a partner.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 209
CHAPTER XXXVII,
THEATRICAL DELAYS— NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLMAN — LETTER TO
OARRICK— CROAKING OF THE MANAGER— NAMING OF THE PLAY
— SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER — FOOTE'S PRIMITIVE PUPPET-SHOW,
PIETY ON PATTENS— FIRST PERFORMANCE OF THE COMEDY-
AGITATION OF THE AUTHOR— SUCCESS— COLMAN SQUIBBED OUT
OF TOWN.
THE gay life depicted in the two last chapters, while it kept
Goldsmith in a state of continual excitement, aggravated the
malady which was impairing his constitution ; yet his increas
ing perplexities in money matters drove him to the dissipation
of society as a relief from solitary care. The delays of the
theatre added to those perplexities. He had long since finished
his new comedy, yet the year 1772 passed away without his
being able to get it on the stage. No one, uninitiated in the
interior of a theatre, that little world of traps and trickery,
can have any idea of the obstacles and perplexities multiplied
in the way of the most eminent and successful author by the
mismanagement of managers, the jealousies and intrigues of
rival authors, and the fantastic and impertinent caprices of
actors. A long and baffling negotiation was carried on between
Goldsmith and Colman, the manager of Covcnt Garden ; who
retained the play in his hands until the middle of January
(1773), without coming to a decision. The theatrical season
was rapidly passing away, and Goldsmith's pecuniary difficul
ties were augmenting and pressing on him. We may judge of
his anxiety by the following letter:
" To George Colman, Esq.
"DEAR SIR: I entreat you'll relieve me from that state of
suspense in which I have been kept for a long time. Whatever
objections you have made or shall make to my play, I will en
deavor to remove and not argue about them. To bring in any
new judges either of its merits or faults I can never submit to.
Upon a former occasion, when my other play was before Mr.
Garrick, he offered to bring me before Mr. Whitehead's tribu
nal, but I refused the proposal with indignation : I hope I shall
not experience as harsh treatment from you as from him. I
210 OLIVER GOLDSMITB.
have, as you know, a large sum of money to make up shortly ;
by accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my creditor that
way ; at any rate, I must look about to some certainty to be
prepared. For God's sake take the play, and let us make the
best of it, and let me have the same measure, at least, which
you have given as bad plays as mine.
" I am your friend and servant,
"OLIVER GOLDSMITH."
Colman returned the manuscript with the blank sides of the
leaves scored with disparaging comments and suggested alter
ations, but with the intimation that the faith of the theatre
should be kept, and the play acted notwithstanding. Gold
smith submitted the criticisms to some of his friends, who pro
nounced them trivial, unfair, and contemptible, and intimated
that Colman, being a dramatic writer himself, might be actu
ated by jealousy. The play was then sent, with Colman's
comments written on it, to Garrick ; but he had scarce sent it
when Johnson interfered, represented the evil that might result
from an apparent rejection of it by Covent Garden, and under
took to go forthwith to Colman, and have a talk with him oi»
the subject. Goldsmith, therefore, penned the following note
to Garrick :
u DEAR SIR: I ask many pardons for the trouble I gave you
yesterday. Upon more mature deliberation, and the advice of
a sensible friend, I began to think it indelicate in me to throw
upon you the odium of confirming Mr. Colman's sentence. I
therefore request you will send my play back by my servant ;
for having been assured of having it acted at the other house,
though I confess yours in every respect more to my wish, yet
it would be folly in me to forego an advantage which lies in
my power of appealing from Mr. Colman's opinion to the
judgment of the town. I entreat, if not too late, you will keep
this affair a secret for some time.
" I am, dear sir, your very humble servant,
" OLIVER GOLDSMITH."
The negotiation of Johnson with the manager of Covent
Garden was effective. "Colman," he says, "was prevailed on
at last, by much solicitation, nay, a kind of force," to bring
forward the comedy. Still the manager was ungenerous ; or,
at least, indiscreet enough to express his opinion, that it would
not reach a second representation. The plot, he said, was bad,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
211
and the interest not sustained; "it dwindled, and dwindled,
and at last went out like the snuff of a candle." The effect of
his croaking was soon apparent within the walls of the theatre.
Two of the most popular actors, Woodward and Gentleman
Smith, to whom the parts of Tony Lumpkin and Young Mar-
low were assigned, refused to act them ; one of them alleging,
in excuse, the evil predictions of the manager. Goldsmith was
advised to postpone the performance of his play until he could
;5ct these important parts well supplied. "No, "said he, "I
would sooner that my play were damned by bad players than
merely saved by good acting."
Quick was substituted for vVood ward in Tony Lumpkin, and
Lee Lewis, the harlequin of the theatre, for Gentleman Smith
in Young Marlow ; and both did justice to their parts.
Great interest was taken by Goldsmith's friends in the suc
cess of his piece. The rehearsals were attended by Johnson,
Cradock, Murphy, Keynolds and his sister, and the whole Hor-
neck connection, including, of course, the Jessamy Bride,
whose presence may have contributed to nutter the anxious
heart of the author. The rehearsals went off with great ap
plause, but that Colman attributed to the partiality of friends.
He continued to croak, and refused to risk any expense in new
scenery or dresses on a play which he was sure would prove a
failure.
The time was at hand for the first representation, and as yet
the comedy was without a title. " We are all in labor for a
name for Goldy's play," said Johnson, who, as usual, took a
kind of fatherly protecting interest in poor Goldsmith's affairs.
The Old House a New Inn was thought of for a time, but still
did not please. Sir Joshua Reynolds proposed The Belle's
Stratagem, an elegant title, but not considered applicable, the
perplexities of the comedy being produced by the mistake of
the hero, not the stratagem of the heroine. The name was
nftcrward adopted by Mrs. Cowley for one of her comedies.
The Mistakes of a Night was the title at length fixed upon, to
which Goldsmith prefixed the words She Stoops to Conquer.
The evil bodings of Colman still continued ; they were even
communicated in the box office to the servant of the Duke of
Gloucester, who was sent to engage a box. Never did the play
of a popular writer struggle into existence through more diffi
culties.
In the meantime Foote's Primitive Puppetshow, entitled the
Handsome &ousemaid, or Piety on Pattens, had been brought
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
out at the Haymarket on the 15th of February. All the world,
fashionable and unfashionable, had crowded to the theatre.
The street was thronged with equipages — the doors were
stormed by the mob. The burlesque was completely success
ful, and sentimental comedy received its quietus. Even Gar-
rick, who had recently befriended it, now gave it a kick, as he
saw it going down hill, and sent Goldsmith's humorous pro
logue to help his comedy of the opposite school. Garrick and
Goldsmith, however, were now on very cordial terms, to which
the social meetings in the circle of the Hornecks and Bunburys
may have contributed.
On the 15th of March the new comedy was to be performed.
Those who had stood up for its merits, and been irritated and
disgusted by the treatment it had received from the manager,
determined to muster their forces, and aid in giving it a good
launch upon the town. The particulars of this confederation,
and its triumphant success, are amusingly told by Cumberland
in his memoirs.
"We were not over sanguine of success, but perfectly de
termined to struggle hard for our author. We accordingly
assembled our strength at the Shakespeare tavern, in a con
siderable body, for an early dinner, where Samuel Johnson
took the chair at the head of a long table, and was the life and
soul of the corps: the poet took post silently by his side, with
the Burkes, Sir Joshua Keynolds, Fitzherbert, Caleb White-
foord, and a phalanx of North British, predetermined applaud-
ers, under the banner of Major Mills, all good men and true.
Our illustrious president was in inimitable glee; and poor
Goldsmith that day took all his raillery as patiently and com
placently as my friend Boswell would have done any day or
every day of his life. In the meantime, we did not forget our
duty; and though we had a better comedy going, in which
Johnson was chief actor, we betook ourselves in good time to
our separate and allotted posts, and waited the awful drawing
up of the curtain. As our stations were preconcerted, so were
our signals for plaudits arranged and determined upon in a
manner that gave every one his cue where to look for them,
and how to follow them up.
"We had among us a very worthy and efficient member,
long since lost to his friends and the world at large, Adam
Drummond, of amiable memory, who was gifted by naturo
with the most sonorous, and at the same time, the most con
tagious laugh that ever echoed from the human lungs. Tho
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 213
neighing of tho horse of the son of Hystaspes was a whisper to
it ; the whole thunder of the theatre could not drown it. This
kind and ingenious friend fairly forewarned us that ho knew
no more when to give his fire than the cannon did that was
planted on a battery. He desired, therefore, to have a flapper
at his elbow, and I had the honor to be deputed to that office.
I planted him in an upper box, pretty nearly over tho stage, in
full view of the pit and galleries, and perfectly well situated to
give the echo all its play through the hollows and recesses of
tho theatre. The success of our manoeuvre was complete.
All eyes were upon Johnson, who sat in a front row of a side
box; and when he laughed, everybody thought themselves
warranted to roar. In the meantime, my friend followed
signals with a rattle so irresistibly comic that, when he had
repeated it several times, the attention of the spectators was so
engrossed by his person and performances, that the progress
of the play seemed likely to become a secondary object, and I
found it prudent to insinuate to him that he might halt his
music without any prejudice to the author ; but alas ! it was
now too late to rein him in ; he had laughed upon my signal
where he found no joke, and now, unluckily, he fancied that
he found a joke in almost everything that was said; so that
nothing in nature could be more mal-apropos than some of
his bursts every now and then were. These were dangerous
moments, for the pit began to take umbrage ; but we carried
our point through, and triumphed not only over Colman's
judgment, but our own. "
Much of this statement has been condemned as exaggerated
or discolored. Cumberland's memoirs have generally been
characterized as partaking of romance, and in the present in
stance he had particular motives for tampering with the truth.
He was a dramatic writer himself, jealous of the success of a
rival, and anxious to have it attributed to the private manage
ment of friends. According to various accounts, public and
private, such management was unnecessary, for the piece was
" received throughout with the greatest acclamations."
Goldsmith in the present instance, had not dared, as on a
former occasion, to be present at the first performance. He
had been so overcome by his apprehensions that, at the pre
paratory dinner he could hardly utter a word, and was so
choked that he could not swallow a mouthful. When his
friends trooped to the theatre, he stole away to St. James'
Park : there he was found by a friend between seven and eight
914 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
o'clock, wandering up and down the Mall like a troubled spirit.
With difficulty he was persuaded to go to the theatre, where
his presence might be important should any alteration be
necessary. He arrived at the opening of the fifth act, and
made his way behind the scenes. Just as he entered there was
a slight hiss at the improbability of Tony Lumpkin's trick on
his mother, in persuading her she was forty miles off, on Crack
skull Common, though she had been trundled about on her
own grounds. ''What's that? what's that!" cried Goldsmith
to the manager, in great agitation. "Pshaw! Doctor,'1 replied
Colman, sarcastically, "don't be frightened at a squib, whm
we've been sitting these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder!''
Though of a most forgiving nature Goldsmith did not easily
forget this ungracious and ill-timed sally.
If Colman was indeed actuated by the paltry motives as-
scribed to him in his treatment of this play, he was most am
ply punished by its success, ttnd by the taunts, epigrams, and
censures levelled at hirn through the press, in which his false
prophecies were jeere> *+ • his critical judgment called in ques
tion; and he was op?n!^ cased with literary j*\? lousy. So
galling and unremitting was Ji\e fire, that he at ^ngth wrote
to Goldsmith -^treating him ' " .,o take him off the rack of the
newspapers;" in >ao lueantime, to escape the laugn that was
rnisod abou. hirr in the theatrical world of London, he took
refuge in . ,f th during the triumphant career of the comedy.
The following is one of the many squibs which assailed tho
ears of the jianager:
To George Colman, Esq.
ON THE SUCCESS OF DR. GOLDSMITH'S NEW COMEDY.
" Come, Coley, doff those mourning weeds,
Nor thus with jokes be flamm'd;
Tho' Goldsmith's present play succeeds,
His next may still be damm'd.
An this has 'scaped without a fall,
To sink his next prepare;
New actors hire from Wapping Wall
And dresses from Rag Fair.
For scenes let tatter'd blankets flj,
The prologue Kelly write;
Then swear again the piece .must di«
Before the author's night.
Should these tricks fail, the luckj elf.
To bring to lasting shame,
E'en write 1he best you can yowraelj, . .
And print it in his uawe."
,.' QdLb&toftB. 21 r>
Hie solitary hiss, which had startled Goldsmith, was as-
Bribed hy some of the newspaper scribblers to Cumbc-rlari'l
himself, who was "manifestly miserable" at the delight of tho
audience, or to Ossian Macpherson, who was hostile to tho
whole Johnson clique, or to Goldsmith's dramatic rival, Kelly.
The following is one of the epigrams which appeared :
" At Dr. Goldsmith's merry play,
All the spectators lau^h. they say:
The assertion, sir, I must deny,
For Cumberland and Kelly cry.
Ride, si sapis."
Another, addressed to Goldsmith, alludes to Kelly's early
apprenticeship to stay-making:
" If Kelly finds fault with the shape of your mus«.
And thinks that too loosely it plays,
He surely, dear Doctor, will never refuse
To make it a new Pair of Stays /"
Cradock had returned to the country before the production
of the play; the following letter, written just after the per
formance, gives an additional picture of the thorns which be
set an author in the path of theatrical li terature :
" MY DEAR SIR: The play has met with a success much be
yond your expectations or mine. I thank you sincerely for
your epilogue, which, however, could not be used, but with
your permission shall be printed. The story in short is this.
Murphy sent me rather the outline of an epilogue than an
epilogue, which was to be sung by Miss Catley, and which she
approved ; Mrs. Bulkley hearing this, insisted on throwing up
her part" (Miss Hardcastle) "unless, according to the custom
of the theatre she were permitted to speak the epilogue. In
this embarrassment I thought of making a quarrelling epilogue
between Catley and her, debating who should speak tho
epilogue : but then Mrs. Catley refused after I had taken the
trouble of drawing it out. I was then at a loss indeed; an
epilogue was to be made, and for none but Mrs. Bulkley. I
made one, and Colman thought it too bad to be spoken : I was
obliged, therefore, to try a fourth time, and I made a very
mawkish thing, as you'll shortly see. Such is the history of
my stage adventures, and which I have at last done with. I
• -an not help saying that I am very sick of the stage; and
though I believe I shall get three tolerable benefits, yet I shall,
on the whole, be a loser, even in a pecuniary light ; my ease
and comfort I certainly lost wnile it was in agitation.
216 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
"I am, my dear Cradock, your obliged and obedient ser'
vant,
"OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
u P.S. Present my most humble respects to Mrs. Cradock."
Johnson, who had taken such a conspicuous part in promot
ing the interests of poor " Goldy," was triumphant at the sue-
cess of the piece. "I know of no comedy for many years,"
said he, "that has so much exhilarated an audience; that has
answered so much the great end of comedy— making an au
dience merry."
Goldsmith was happy, also, in gleaning applause from less
authoritative sources. Northcote, the painter, then a youth
ful pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds ; and Ralph, Sir Joshua's con
fidential man, had taken their stations in the gallery to lead
the applause in that quarter. Goldsmith asked Northcote's
opinion of the play. The youth modestly declared he could
not presume to judge in such matters. ' ' Did it make you
laugh?" " Oh, exceedingly !" " That is all I require," replied
Goldsmith ; and rewarded him for his criticism by box-tickets
for his first benefit night.
The comedy was immediately put to press, and dedicated to
Johnson in the following grateful and affectionate terms :
u In inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean
so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some
honor to inform the public, that I have lived many years in
intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind
also to inform them that the greatest wit may be found in a
character, without impairing the most unaffected piety. "
The copyright was transferred to Mr. Newberry, according
to agreement, whose profits on the sale of the work far ex
ceeded the debts for which the author in his perplexities had
pre-engaged it. The sum which accrued to Goldsmith from his
benefit nights afforded but a slight palliation of his pecuniary
difficulties. His friends, while they exulted in his success,
little knew of his continually increasing embarrassments, and
of the anxiety of mind which kept tasking his pen while it im
paired the ease and freedom of spirit necessary to felicitous
composition.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
217
CHAPTER XXXVIIL
A NEWSPAPER ATTACK— THE EVANS AFFRAY— JOHNSON'S COM
MENT.
THE triumphant success of She Stoops to Conquer brought
forth, of course, those carpings and cavillings oi underling
scribblers, which are the thorns and briers in the path ot suc
cessful authors.
Goldsmith, though easily nettled by attacks of the kind,
was at present too well satisfied with the reception of his
comedy to heed them; but the following anonymous letter,
which appeared in a public paper, was not to be taken with
equal equanimity :
" For the London Packet.
"TO DR. GOLDSMITH.
" Vous vous noyez par vanite".
"SiR: The happy knack which you have learned of puffing
your own compositions, provokes mo to come forth. You
have not been the editor of newspapers and magazines not to
discover the trick of literary humbug ; but the gauze is so thin
than the very foolish part of the world sec through it, and dis
cover the doctor's monkey face and cloven foot. Your poetic
vanity is as unpardonable as your personal. Would man be
lieve it, and will woman bear it, to bo told that for hours the
great Goldsmith will stand surveying his grotesque orang
outang's figure in a pier-glass ? Was but the lovely H— k as
much enamored, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in
vain. But your vanity is preposterous. How will this same
bard of Bedlam ring the changes in the praise of Goldy!
But what has he to be either proud or vain of ? ' The Trav
eller ' is a flimsy poem, built upon false principles — principles
diametrically opposite to liberty. What is The Good-Naturcd
Man but a poor, water-gruel dramatic dose ? What is ' Tho
Deserted Village ' but a pretty poem of easy numbers, without
fancy, dignity, genius, or fire ? And, pray, what may be the
last sjjwtkiug pantomime, so praised by the doctor himself, but
an incoherent piece of stuff, the figure of a woman with a fish's
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
tail, without plot, incident, or intrigue? We are made to
laugh at stale, dull jokes, wherein we mistake pleasantry for
wit, and grimace for humor ; wherein every scene is unnatural
and inconsistent with the rules, the laws of nature and of the
drama; viz., two gentlemen come to a man of fortune's house,
eat, drink, etc., and take it for an inn. The one is intended
as a lover for the daughter ; he talks with her for some hours ;
and, when he sees her again in a different dress, he treats her
as a bar-girl, and swears she squinted. He abuses the master
of the house, and threatens to kick him out of his own doors.
The squire, whom we are told is to be a fool, proves to be the
most sensible being of the piece ; and he makes out a whole act
by bidding his mother lie close behind a bush, persuading her
that his father, her own husband, is a highwayman, and that
he has come to cut their throats, and, to give his cousin an
opportunity to go off, he drives his mother over hedges,
ditches, and through ponds. There is not, sweet, sucking
Johnson, a natural stroke in the whole play but the young
fellow's giving the stolen jewels to the mother, supposing her
to be the landlady. That Mr. Colrnan did no justice to this
piece, I honestly allow ; that he told all his friends it would be
damned, I positively aver ; and, from such ungenerous insinu
ations, without a dramatic merit, it rose to public notice, and
it is now the ton to go and see it, though I never saw a person
that either liked it or approved it, any more than the absurd
plot of Home's tragedy of Alonzo. Mr. Goldsmith, correct
your arrogance, reduce your vanity, and endeavor to believe,
as a man, you are of the plainest sort ; and as an author, but a
mortal piece of mediocrity.
* Brise le miroir infld&le
Qui vous cache la v6rit6.
" TOM TICKLK."
It would be difficult to devise a letter more calculated to
wound the peculiar sensibilities of Goldsmith. The attacks
upon him as an author, though annoying enough, he could
have tolerated; but then the allusion to his ''grotesque" per
son, to his studious attempts to adorn it; and above all, to his
being an unsuccessful admirer of the lovely H — k (the Jessamy
Bride), struck rudely upon the most sensitive part of his
highly sensitive nature. The paragraph, it was said, was
first pointed out to him by an officious friend, an Irishman,
who told hirr- **•* -%s bound in honor to resent it; but be
GOLDSMITH.
needed no such prompting. He was in a high state of excite
ment and indignation, and accompanied by his friend, who is
said to have been a Captain Higgins, of the marines, he re
paired to Paternoster Row, to the shop of Evans, the pub
lisher, whom he supposed to be the editor of the paper. Evans
was summoned by his shopman from an adjoining room.
Goldsmith announced his name. "I have called, " added he,
1 ' in consequence of a scurrilous attack made upon me, and an
unwarrantable liberty taken with the name of a young lady.
As for myself, I care little ; but her name must not be sported
with."
Evans professed utter ignorance of the matter, and said he
would speak to the editor. He stooped to examine a file of
the paper, in search of the offensive article; whereupon Gold
smith's friend gave him a signal, that now was a favorable
moment for the exercise of his cane. The hint was taken as
quick as given, and the cane was vigorously applied to the
back of the stooping publisher. The latter rallied in an in
stant, and, being a stout, high-blooded Welshman, returned
the blows with interest. A. lamp hanging overhead was
broken, and sent down a shower of oil upon the combatants ;
but the battle raged with unceasing fury. The shopman ran
off for a constable ; but Dr. Kendrick, who happened to be in
the adjacent room, sallied, forth, interfered between the com
batants, and put an end to the affray. He conducted Gold
smith to a coach, in exceedingly battered and tattered plight,
and accompanied him home, soothing him with much mock
commiseration, though he was generally suspected, and on
good grounds, to be the author of the libel.
Evans immediately instituted a suit against Goldsmith for
an assault, but was ultimately prevailed upon to compromise
the matter, the poet contributing fifty pounds to the Welsh
charity.
Newspapers made themselves, as may well be supposed, ex
ceedingly merry with the combat. Some censured him severely
for invading the sanctity of a man's own house ; others accused
him of having, in his former capacity of editor of a maga
zine, been guilty of the very offences that he now resented in
others. This drew from him the following vindication :
" To the Public.
"Lest it should be supposed that I have been willing to
•orrect in others an abuse of which I have been guilty myself,
220 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
I beg leave to declare, that, in all my life, I never wrote or
dictated a single paragraph, letter, or essay in a newspaper,
except a few moral essays under the character of a Chinese,
about ten years ago, in the Ledger, and a letter, to which I
signed my name in the St. James1 Chronicle. If the liberty of
the press, therefore, has been abused, I have had no hand in it,
"I have always considered the press as the protector of our
freedom, as a watchful guardian, capable of uniting the weak
against the encroachments of power. What concerns the pub
lic most properly admits of a public discussion. But, of late,
the press has turned from defending public interest to making
inroads upon private life ; from combating the strong to over
whelming the feeble. No condition is now too obscure for its
abuse, and the protector has become the tyrant of the people.
In this manner the freedom of the press is beginning to sow
the seeds of its own dissolution ; the great must oppose it from
principle, and the weak from fear; till at last every rank of
mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, content with
security from insults.
"How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by which all aro
indiscriminately abused, and by which vice consequently es
capes in the general censure, I am unable to tell ; all I could
wish is that, as the law gives us no protection against the
injury, so it should give caluminators no shelter after having
provoked correction. The insults which we receive before the
public, by being more open, are the more distressing; by
treating them with silent contempt we do not pay a sufficient
deference to the opinion of the world. By recurring to legal
redress we too often expose the weakness of the lawr which
only serves to increase our mortification by failing to relieve
us. In short, every man should singly consider himself as the
guardian of the liberty of the press, and, as far as his influence
can extend, should endeavor to prevent its licentiousness be
coming at last the grave of its freedom.
u OLIVER GOLDSMITH."
Boswell, who had just arrived in town, met with this article
in a newspaper which he found at Dr. Johnson's. The doctor
was from home at the time, and Bozzy and Mrs. Williams, in
a critical conference over the letter, determined from the style
that it must have been written by the lexicographer himself.
The latter on his return soon undeceived them. u Sir," said he
to Boswell, " Goldsmith would no more have asked me to have
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
221
wrote such a thing as that for him, than he would have asked
me to feed him with a spoon, or do any tiling else that denoted
his imbecility. Sir, had he shown it to any one friend, he
would not have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed,
done it very well ; but it is a foolish thing well done. I sup
pose he has been so much elated with the success of his new
comedy, that ho has thought everything that concerned him
must bo of importance to the public."
CHAPTER XXXIX.
BOSWELL IN HOLY WEEK— DINNER AT OGLETHORPE'S— DINNER
AT PAOLl'S— THE POLICY OF TRUTH— GOLDSMITH AFFECTS IN
DEPENDENCE OF ROYALTY— PAOLI'S COMPLIMENT— JOHNSON'S
EULOGIUM ON THE FIDDLE— QUESTION ABOUT SUICIDE — BOS-
WELL'S SUBSERVIENCY.
THE return of Boswell to town to his task of noting down
the conversations of Johnson enables us to glean from his
journal sonic scanty notices of Goldsmith. It was now Holy
Week, a time during which Johnson was particularly solemn
in his manner and strict in his devotions. Boswell, who was
the imitator of the great moralist in everything, assumed, of
course, an extra devoutness on the present occasion. "He had
an odd mock solemnity of tone and manner," said Miss Burney
(afterward Madame D'Arblay), "which he had acquired from
constantly thinking and imitating Dr. Johnson. " It would seem
that ho undertook to deal out some second-hand homilies, a la
Johnson, for the edification of Goldsmith during Holy Week.
The poet, whatever might be his religious feeling, had no dis
position to be schooled by so shallow an apostle. "Sir," said
he in reply, " as I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my
coat from the tailor, so I take my religion from the priest."
Boswell treasured up the reply in his memory or his memo
randum book. A few days afterward, the 9th of April, he
kept Good Friday with Dr. Johnson, in orthodox style ; break
fasted with him on tea and crossbuns ; went to church with
him morning and evening; fasted in the interval, and read
with him in the Greek Testament : then, in the piety of his
heart, complained of the sore rebuff he had met with *u the
OLIVER GOLDSMliti.
course of his religious exhortations to the poet, and lamented
that the latter should indulge in "this loose way of talking."
"Sir," replied Johnson, "Goldsmith knows nothing— he has
made up his mind about nothing. "
This reply seems to have gratified the lurking jealousy of
Bos well, and he has recorded it in his journal. Johnson, how
ever, with respect to Goldsmith, and indeed with respect to
everybody else, blew hot as well as cold, according to the hu
mor he was in. Bos well, who was astonished and piqued at
the continually increasing celebrity of the poet, observed some
time after to Johnson, in a tone of surprise, that Goldsmith had
acquired more fame than all the officers of the last war who
were not generals. "Why, sir," answered Johnson, his old
feeling of good- will working uppermost, "you will find ten
thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one to do
what Goldsmith has done. You must consider that a thing is
valued according to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street
is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger."
On the 13th of April we find Goldsmith and Johnson at the
table of old General Oglethorpe, discussing the question of the
degeneracy of the human race. Goldsmith asserts the fact,
and attributes it to the influence of luxury. Johnson denies
the fact; and observes that, even admitting it, luxury could
not be the cause. It reached but a small proportion of
the human race. Soldiers, on sixpence a day, could not in
dulge in luxuries ; the poor and laboring classes, forming the
great mass of mankind, were out of its sphere. Wherever it
could reach them, it strengthened them and rendered them
prolific. The conversation was not of particular force or point
as reported by Boswell; the dinner party was a very small
one, in which there was no provocation to intellectual display.
After dinner they took tea with the ladies, where we find
poor Goldsmith happy and at home, singing Tony Lumpkin's
song of the "Three Jolly Pigeons," and another, called the
" Humors of Ballamagiiery," to a very pretty Irish tune. It
was to have been introduced in She Stoops to Conquer, but was
left out, as the actress who played the heroine could not sing.
It was in these genial moments that the sunshine 01 Gold
smith's nature would break out, and he would say and do a
thousand whimsical and agreeable things that made him the
life of the strictly social circle. Johnson, with whom conver
sation was everything, used to judge Goldsmith too much by
his own colloquial standard, and undervalue him for being less
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
223
provided than himself with acquired facts, the ammunition of
the tongue and of ton. the mere lumber of the memory ; others,
however, valued him for the native felicity of his thoughts,
however carelessly expressed, and for certain good-fellow
qualities, less calculated to dazzle than to endear. u It is amaz
ing," said Johnson one day, after he himself had been talking
like an oracle ; " it is amazing how little Goldsmith knows ; he
seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than anyone
else." " Yet," replied Sir Joshua Reynolds, with affectionate
promptness, " there is no man whose company is more liked"
Two or three days after the dinner at General Oglcthorpe's,
Goldsmith met Johnson again at the table of General Paoli,
the hero of Corsica. Martinelli, of Florence, author of an
Italian History of England, was among the guests; as was
Boswell, to whom we are indebted for minutes of the conversa
tion which took place. The question was debated whether
Martinelli should continue his history down to that day. " To
be sure he should, " said Goldsmith. ' ' No, sir ;" cried Johnson,
"it would give great offence. He would have to tell of almost
all the living great what they did not wish told." Goldsmith.
— " It may, perhaps, be necessary for a native to be more cau
tious ; but a foreigner, who comes among us without prejudice,
may be considered as holding the place of a judge, and may
speak his mind freely." Johnson. — uSir, a foreigner, when he
sends a work from the press, ought to be on his guasrd against
catching the error and mistaken enthusiasm of the people
among whom he happens to be." Goldsmith. — " Sir, he wants
only to sell his history, and to tell truth ; one an honest, the
other a laudable motive." Johnson. — "Sir, they are both
laudable motives. It is laudable in a man to wish to live by
his labors ; but he should write so as he may live by them, not
so as he may be knocked on the head. I would advise him to
be at Calais before he publishes his history of the present age.
A foreigner who attaches himeclf to a political party in this
country is in the worst state that can be imagined ; he is looked
upon as a mere intermeddler. A native may do it from inter
est." Boswell.— "Or principle." Goldsmith.— "There are
people who tell a hundred political lies every day, and are not
hurt by it. Surely, then, one may tell truth •with perfect
safety." Johnson. — "Why, sir, in the first place, he who tells
a hundred lies has disarmed the force of his lies. But, besides,
a man had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one
truth which he doe* not wish to be told." Goldsmith.—" For
224 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
my part, I'd tell the truth, and shame the devil." Johnson.—
"Yes, sir, but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame the
devil as much as you do, but I should choose to be out of the
reach of his claws." Goldsmith. — " His claws can do you no
hurt where you have the shield of truth."
This last reply was one of Goldsmith's lucky hits, and closed
the argument in his favor.
"We talked," writes Bos well, "of the king's coming to see
Goldsmith's new play." "I wish he would," said Goldsmith,
adding, however, with an affected indifference, "Not that it
would do me the least good." "Well, then," cried Johnson,
laughing, " let us say it would do him good. No, sir, this affec
tation will not pass ; it is mighty idle. In such a state as ours,
who would not wish to please the chief magistrate?"
" I do wish to please him," rejoined Goldsmith. " I remem
ber a line in Dry den :
'And every poet is the monarch's friend,'
it ought to be reversed." "Nay, "said Johnson, "there are
finer lines hi Dry den on this subject :
'For colleges on bounteous kings depend,
And never rebel was to arts a friend.' "
General Paoli observed that "successful rebels might be."
"Happy rebellions," interjected Martinelli. "We have no
such phrase, " cried Goldsmith. * ' But have you not the thing?"
asked Paoli. "Yes," replied Goldsmith, "all our happy revo
lutions. They have hurt our constitution, and will hurt it, till
we mend it by another HAPPY REVOLUTION. " This was a sturdy
sally of Jacobitism that quite surprised Boswell, but must have
been relished by Johnson.
General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, which had
been construed into a compliment to a lady of distinction,
whose marriage with the Duke of Cumberland had excited the
strong disapprobation of the king as a mesaillancc. Boswell,
to draw Goldsmith out, pretended to think the compliment
unintentional. The poet smiled and hesitated. The general
came to his relief. "Monsieur Goldsmith," said he, "est
comme la mer, qui jette des perles et bcaucoup d'autres belles
choses, sans s'en appercevoir" (Mr. Goldsmith is like the sea,
which casts forth pearls and many other beautiful things with
out perceiving it).
"Tres-bien dit, et tres-elegamment" (very well said, and
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
225
very elegantly), exclaimed Goldsmith; delighted with so beau
tiful a compliment from such a quarter.
Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of a Mr. Harris,
of Salisbury, and doubted his being a good Grecian. " He
is what is much better," cried Goldsmith, with prompt good
nature, uhe is a worthy, humane man." "Nay, sir," rejoined
the logical Johnson, " that is not to the purpose of our argu
ment; that will prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well,
as Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian." Goldsmith
found he had got into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini to
help him out of it. "The greatest musical performers," said
he, dexterously turning the conversation, "have but small
emoluments; Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven
hundred a year." "That is indeed but little for a man to get,"
observed Johnson, " who does best that which so many endea
vor to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of
art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other
things we can do something at first. Any man will forge a
bar of iron, if you give him a hammer ; not so well as a smith,
but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a
box, though a clumsy one ; but give him a fiddle and fiddlestick,
and he can do nothing."
This, upon the whole, though reported by the one-sided Bos-
well, is a tolerable specimen of the conversations of Goldsmith
and Johnson; the former heedless, often illogical, always on
the kind-hearted side of the question, and prone to redeem him
self by lucky hits; the latter closely argumentative, studiously
sententious, often profound, and sometimes laboriously pro-
saic.
They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table,
on the subject of suicide. " Do you think, sir," said Boswell,
"that all who commit suicide are mad?" " Sir," replied John
son, "they are not often universally disordered in their intel
lects, but one passion presses so upon them that they yield to
it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab another.
I have often thought," added he, "that after a man has taken
the resolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do
anything, however desperate, because he has nothing to fear."
" I don't see that," observed Goldsmith. "Nay, but, my dear
sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should you not see what every
one else does?" " It is," replied Goldsmith, " for fear of some
thing that he has resolved to kill himself; and will not that
timid disposition restrain him?" "It does not signify," pur-
226 OL1VKR GOLDSMITH.
sued Johnson, "that the fear of something made him resolve;
it is upon the state of his mind, after the resolution is taken,
that I argue. Suppose a man either from fear, or pride, or
conscience, or whatever motive, has resolved to kill himself;
when once the resolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He
may then go and take the King of Prussia by the nose at the
head of his army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined
to kill himself." Boswell reports no more of the discussion,
though Goldsmith might have continued it with advantage:
for the very timid disposition, which through fear of some
thing, was impelling the man to commit suicide, might restrain
him from an act, involving the punishment of the rack, more
terrible to him than death itself.
It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell, we have
scarcely anything but the remarks of Johnson; it is only by
accident that he now and then gives us the observations of
others, when they are necessary to explain or set off those of
his hero. "When in that presence," says Miss Burney, "he
was unobservant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In
truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore
even answering anything that was said, or attending to any
thing that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound
from that voice, to which he paid such exclusive, though mer
ited homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the atten
tion which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain.
His eyes goggled with eagerness ; he leaned his ear almost on
the shoulder of the doctor; and his mouth dropped open to
catch every syllable that might be uttered; nay, he seemed
not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss
a breathing ; as if hoping from it latently, or mystically, some
information."
On one occasion the Doctor detected Boswell, or Bozzy, as
he called him, eavesdropping behind his chair, as he was con
versing with Miss Burney at Mr. Thrale's table. "What are
you doing there, sir?" cried he, turning round angrily,- and
clapping his hand upon his knee. " Go to the table, sir."
Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which
raised a smile on every face. Scarce had he taken his seat,
however, at a distance, than impatient to get again at the side
of Johnson, he rose and was running off in quest of something
to show him, when the doctor roared after him authoritatively,
"What are you thinking of, sir? Why do you get up before
the cloth is removed? Come back to your place, sir;" — and
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
227
the obsequious spaniel did as he was commanded. ' ' Running
about in the middle of meals !" muttered the doctor, pursing
his mouth at the same time to restrain his rising risibility.
Boswell got another rel/uff from Johnson, which would have
demolished any other man. He had been teasing him with
many direct questions, such as What did you do, sir? What
did you say, sir? until the great philologist became perfectly
enraged. "I will not be put to the question!" roared he.
"Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a
gentleman? I will not be baited with what and why; What is
this? What is that? Why is a cow's tail long? Why is a fox's
tail bushy?" "Why, sir," replied pil-garlick, "you are so
good that I venture to trouble you." " Sir," replied Johnson,
"my being so good is no reason why you should be so ill.'1'1
" You have but two topics, sir;" exclaimed he on another oc
casion, "yourself and me, and I am sick of both."
BoswelTs inveterate disposition to toad was a sore cause of
mortification to his father, the old laird of Auchinleck (or Af
fleck). He had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion to
Paoli, but then he was something of a military hero ; but this
tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson, whom he considered a
kind of pedagogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment. " There's
nae hope for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend; "Jamie is gaen
clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli;
he's off wi' the lond-louping scoundrel of a Corsican ; and whose
tail do you think he has pinn'd himself to now, mon? A do
minie, mon; an auld dominie: he keeped a schule, and cau'd
it an acaadamy."
We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's devotion to
the dominie did not go unrewarded.
CHAPTER XL.
CHANGES IN THE LITERARY CLUB— JOHNSON'S OBJECTION TO GAR-
RICK — ELECTION OF BOSWELL.
THE Literary Club (as we have termed the club in Gerard
Street, though it took that name some time later) had now
being in existence several years. Johnson was exceedingly
chary at first of its exclusiveness, and opposed to its being
augmented in number. Not long after its institution, Sir
228 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
Joshua Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. "I like it
much," said little David, briskly; " I think I shall be of you."
" When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson," says Bos-
well, "he was much displeased with the actor's conceit.
' He'll be of us ? ' growled he. * How does he know we will
permit him? The first duke in England has no right to hold
such language.' "
When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Garrick's pre
tensions, "Sir," replied Johnson, "he will disturb us by his
buffoonery." In the same spirit he declared to Mr. Thrale,
that if Garrick should apply for admission, he would black-ball
him. "Who, sir?" exclaimed Thrale, with surprise ; " Mr. Gar-
rick— y our friend, your companion— black-ball him ! " " W hy ,
sir," replied Johnson, "I love my little David dearly— better
than all or any of his flatterers do ; but surely one ought to sit
in a society like ours,
0 'Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.' "
The exclusion from the club was a sore mortification to Gar
rick, though he bore it without complaining. He could not
help continually to ask questions about it — what was going on
there— whether he was ever the subject of conversation. By
degrees the rigor of the club relaxed: some of the members
grew negligent. Beauclerc lost his right of membership by
neglecting to attend. On his marriage, however, with Lady
Diana Spencer, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, and
recently divorced from Viscount Bolingbroke, he had claimed
and regained his seat in the club. The number of members
had likewise been augmented. The proposition to increase it
originated with Goldsmith. " It would give, " he thought, ' ' an
agreeable variety to their meetings ; for there can be nothing
new among us," said he; " we have travelled over each other's
minds." Johnson was piqued at the suggestion. "Sir, "said
he, "you have not travelled over my mind, I promise you."
Sir Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his
mind, felt and acknowledged the force of Goldsmith's suggest
ion. Several new members, therefore, had been added; the
first, to his great joy, was David Garrick. Goldsmith, who
was now on cordial terms with him, had zealously promoted
his election, and Johnson had given it his warm approbation.
Another new member was Beauclerc's friend, Lord Charle-
mont; and a still more important one was Mr., afterward Sir
OLIVEH UOLD.-UITII. 229
William Jones, the famous Orientalist, at that time a young
lawyer of the Temple and a distinguished scholar.
To the great astonishment of the club, Johnson now proposed
his devoted follower, Boswell, as a member. He did it in a
note addressed to Goldsmith, who presided on the evening of
the 23d of April. The nomination was seconded by Beauclerc.
According to the rules of the club, the ballot would take place
Lat the next meeting (on the 30th) ; there was an intervening
'week, therefore, in which to discuss the pretensions of the can
didate. We may easily imagine the discussions that took
place. Boswell had made himself absurd in such a variety of
ways, that the very idea of his admission was exceedingly irk
some to some of the members. * ' The honor of being elected
into the Turk's Head Club," said the Bishop of St. Asaph, ''is
not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster and
Surrey ;" what had Boswell done to merit such an honor? what
chance had he ot gaining it? The answer was simple: he had
been the persevering worshipper, if not sycophant of Johnson.
The great lexicographer had a heart to be won by apparent af
fection ; he stood forth authoritatively in support of his vassal.
If asked to state the merits of the candidate, he summed them
up in an indefinite but comprehensive word of his own coining ;
he was dutiable. He moreover gave significant hints that if
Boswell were kept out he should oppose the admission of any
other candidate. No further opposition was made; in fact
none of the members had been so fastidious and exclusive in
regard to the club as Johnson himself ; and if he were pleased,
they were easily satisfied ; besides, they knew that with all his
faults, Boswell was a cheerful companion, and possessed lively
social qualities.
On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, Beauclerc
gave a dinner, at his house in the Adelphi, where Boswell met
several of the members who were favorable to his election.
After dinner the latter adjourned to the club, leaving Boswell
in company with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his elect
ion should be known. He sat, he says, in a state of anxiety
which even the charming conversation of Lady Di could not
entirely dissipate. It was not long before tidings were brought
of his election, and he was conducted to the place of meeting,
where, beside the company he had met at dinner, Burke, Dr.
Nugent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones were
waiting to receive him. The club, notwithstanding all its
learned dignity in the eyes of the world, could at times uun-
230 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
bend and play the fool" as well as less important bodies.
Some of its jocose conversations have at times leaked out, and
a society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of
" an old woman tossed in a blanket," could not be so very staid
in its gravity. We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had
been passing among the members while awaiting the arrival of
Boswell. Beauclerc himself could not have repressed his dis
position for a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we have a right to
presume all this from the conduct of Dr. Johnson himself.
With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of quiet hu
mor, and felt a kind of whimsical responsibility to protect the
club from the absurd propensities of the very questionable
associate he had thus inflicted on them. Rising, therefore, as
Boswell entered, he advanced with a very doctorial air, placed
himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pul
pit, and then delivered, ex cathedra, a mock solemn charge,
pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member
of the club ; what he was to do, and especially what he was to
avoid; including in the latter, no doubt, all those petty, pry
ing, questioning, gossiping, babbling habits which had so often
grieved the spirit of the lexicographer. It is to be regretted
that Boswell has never thought proper to note down the par
ticulars of this charge, which, from the well known characters
and positions of the parties, might have furnished a parallel to
the noted charge of Launcelot Gobbo to his dog.
CHAPTER XLI.
DINNER AT DILLY'S— CONVERSATIONS ON NATURAL HISTORY— IN
TERMEDDLING OF BOSWELL — DISPUTE ABOUT TOLERATION —
JOHNSON'S REBUFF TO GOLDSMITH— HIS APOLOGY — MAN-WOR
SHIP—DOCTORS MAJOR AND MINOR— A FAREWELL VISIT.
A FEW days after the serio-comic scene of the elevation of
Boswell into the Literary Club, we find that indefatigable
biographer giving particulars of a dinner at the Dillys, book
sellers, in the Poultry, at which he met Goldsmith and John
son, with several other literary characters. His anecdotes of
the conversation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson ; for, as
he observes in his biography, " his conversation alone, or what
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
231
led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this
work." Still on the present, as on other occasions, he gives
unintentional and perhaps unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's
good sense, which show that the latter only wanted a less pre
judiced and more impartial reporter, to put down the charge of
colloquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The conver
sation turned upon the natural history of birds, a beautiful
subject, on which the poet, from his recent studies, his habits
of observation, and his natural tastes, must have talked with
instruction and feeling; yet, though we have much of what
Johnson said, we have only a casual remark or two of Gold
smith. One was on the migration of swallows, which he pro
nounced partial; "The stronger ones," said he, "migrate, the
others do not."
Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason.
"Birds," said he, "build by instinct; they never improve;
they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build."
" Yet we see," observed Goldsmith, " if you take away a bird's
nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay
again." " Sir'" replied Johnson, "that is because at first she
has full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case
you mention, she is pressed to lay, and must, therefore, make
her nest quickly, and consequently it will be slight." "The
nidification of birds," rejoined Goldsmith, "is what is least
known in natural history, though one of the most curious
things in it." While conversation was going on in this placid,
agreeable and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and
busy-body Boswell, must intrude, to put it in a brawl. The
Dillys were dissenters ; two of their guests were dissenting
clergymen; another, Mr. Toplady, was a clergyman of the
established church. Johnson, himself, was a zealous, uncom
promising churchman. None but a marplot like Boswell would
have thought, on such an occasion, and in such company, to
broach the subject of religious toleration; but, as has been
well observed, "it was his perverse inclination to introduce
subjects that he hoped would produce difference and debate."
In this present instance he gained his point. An animated
dispute immediately arose, in which, according to BoswelTs
report, Johnson monopolized the greater part of the conversa
tion ; not always treating the dissenting clergymen with the
greatest courtesy, and even once wounding the feelings of the
mild and amiable Bennet Langton by his harshness.
Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and with some ad-
232 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
vantage, but was cut short by flat contradictions when most
in the right. He sat for a time silent but impatient under
such overbeaiing dogmatism, though Boswell, with his usual
misinterpretation, attributes his " restless agitation" to a wish
to got in and shine. "Finding himself excluded," continues
Boswell, " he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a
time with it in his hand, like a gamester, who, at the end of a
long night, lingers for a little while to see if he can have a
favorable opportunity to finish with success." Once he was
beginning to speak when he was overpowered by the loud
voice of Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, and
did not perceive his attempt ; whereupon he threw down, as it
were, his hat and his argument, and, darting an angry glance
at Johnson, exclaimed in a bitter tone, " Take it."
Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak,
when Johnson uttering some sound, as if about to interrupt
him, Goldsmith, according to Boswell, seized the opportunity
to vent his own envy and spleen under pretext of supporting
another person. "Sir, "said he to Johnson, " the gentleman
has heard you patiently for an hour ; pray allow us now to
hear him." It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own style,
and he may have felt that he merited it; but he was not
accustomed to be reproved. "Sir," said he, sternly, "I was
not interrupting the gentleman; I was only giving him a
signal of my attention. Sir, you are impertinent. " Goldsmith
made no reply, but after some time went away, having an
other engagement.
That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and
Langton to the club, he seized the occasion to make some dis
paraging remarks on Goldsmith, which he thought would just
then be acceptable to the great lexicographer. "It was a
pity," he said, "that Goldsmith would, on every occasion,
endeavor to shine, by which he so often exposed himself."
Langton contrasted him with Addison, who, content with the
fame of his writings, acknowledged himself unfit for conversa
tion ; and on being taxed by a lady with silence in company,
replied, " Madam, I have but nine pence in ready money, but
I can draw for a thousand pounds." To this Boswell rejoined
that Goldsmith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was
always taking out his purse. "Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson,
" and that so often an empty purse."
By this time Johnson arrived at the club, however, his angry
feelings had subsided, and his native generosity and sense of
u/JY /•:/,' GOLDSMITH.
justice had got the uppermost. He found Goldemith in com
pany with Burke, Garrick, and other members, but sitting
silent and apart, "brooding," as Boswell says, "over the
reprimand he had received." Johnson's good heart yearned to
ward him; and knowing his placable nature, " I'll make Gold
smith forgive me," whispered he; then, with a loud voice,
"Dr. Goldsmith," said he, "something passed to-day where
you and I dined— I ask your pardon." The ire of the poet was
extinguished in an instant, and his gratef ul affection for the
magnanimous though sometimes overbearing moralist rushed
to his heart. "It must be much from you, sir," said he, " that
I take ill!" "And so," adds Boswell, "the difference was
over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith
rattled away as usual. " We do not think these stories tell to
the poet's disadvantage, even though related by Boswell.
Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be ignorant of
his proper merit; and must have felt annoyed at times at
being undervalued and elbowed aside by light-minded or dull
men, in their bund and exclusive homage to the literary auto
crat. It was a fine reproof he gave to Boswell on one occasion,
for talking of Johnston as entitled to the honor of exclusive
superiority. "Sir, you are for making a monarchy what
should be a republic." On another occasion, when he was con
versing in company with great vivacity, and apparently to the
satisfaction of those around him, an honest Swiss, who sat
near, one George Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal Acad
emy, perceiving Dr. Johnson rolling himself as if about to
speak, exclaimed, "Stay, stay! Toctor Shonson is going to
say something." " And are you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith,
sharply, "that you can comprehend what he says?"
This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest to the anec
dote, is omitted by Boswell, who probably did not perceive the
point of it.
He relates another anecdote of the kind, on the authority of
Johnson himself. The latter and Goldsmith were one evening
in company with the Rev. George Graham, a master of Eton,
who, notwithstanding the sobriety of his cloth, had got intoxi
cated " to about the pitch of looking at one man and talking
to another." " Doctor," cried he in an ecstacy of devotion and
good-will, but goggling by mistake upon Goldsmith, " I should
be glad to see you at Eton." "I shall be glad to wait upon
you," replied Goldsmith. "No, no!" cried the other eagerly,
*l*tis not you I mean, Doctor Minor, 'tis Doctor Major there."
234 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
tl You may easily conceive," said Johnson in relating the anec
dote, " what effect this had upon Goldsmith, who was irascible
as a hornet." The only comment, however, which he is said
to have made, partakes more of quaint and dry humor than
bitterness: "That Graham," said he, "is enough to make one
commit suicide." What more could be said to express the in
tolerable nuisance of a consummate bore ?
We have now given the last scenes between Goldsmith and
Johnson which stand recorded by Boswell. The latter called
on the poet a few days after the dinner at Dilly's, to take
leave of him prior to departing for Scotland ; yet, even in this
last interview, he contrives to get up a charge of "jealousy
and envy." Goldsmith, he would fain persuade us, is very
angry that Johnson is going to travel with him in Scotland ;
and endeavors to persuade him that he will be a dead weight
" to lug along through the Highlands and Hebrides. " Any one
else, knowing the character and habits of Johnson, would
have thought the same ; and no one but Boswell would have
supposed his office of bear-leader to the ursa major a thing to
be envied.*
* One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) most amusing jeux d' esprit is his congratu
latory epistle to Boswell on this tour, of which we subjoin a few lines.
O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name,
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame;
Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth,
To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north;
To frighten grave professors with his roar,
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore.
Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy,
Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi;
Heavens! with what laurels shall thy head be crown'dl
A grove, a forest, shall thy ears surround !
Yes! whilst the Rambler shall a comet blaze,
And gild a, world of darkness with his rays,
Thee, too, that world with wonderment shall hail,
A lively, bouncing cracker at his tail!
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 235
CHAPTER XLII.
PROJECT OF A DICTIONARY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES— DISAPPOINT
MENT — NEGLIGENT AUTHORSHIP— APPLICATION FOR A PENSION
— BEATTIE'S ESSAY ON TRUTH— PUBLIC ADULATION— A HIGH-
MINDED REBUKE.
THE work which Goldsmith had still in hand being already
paid for, and the money gone, some new scheme must be de
vised to provide for the past and the future— for impending
debts which threatened to crush him, and expenses which
were continually increasing. He now projected a work of
greater compass than any he had yet undertaken ; a Diction
ary of Arts and Sciences on a comprehensive scale, which was
to occupy a number of volumes. For this he received promises
of assistance from several powerful hands. Johnson was to
contribute an article on ethics; Burke, an abstract of his
" Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," an essay on the Berk-
leyan system of philosophy, and others on political science;
Sir Joshua Reynolds, an essay on painting ; and Garrick, while
he undertook on his own part to furnish an essay on acting,
engaged Dr. Burney to contribute an article on music. Here
was a great array of talent positively engaged, while other
writers of eminence were to be sought for the various depart
ments of science. Goldsmith was to edit the whole. An un
dertaking of this kind, while it did not incessantly task and
exhaust his inventive powers by original composition, would
give agreeable and profitable exercise to his taste and judg
ment in selecting, compiling, and arranging, and he calculated
to diffuse over the whole the acknowledged graces of his style.
He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is said by Bishop
Percy, who saw it, to have been written with uncommon
ability, and to have had that perspicuity and elegance for
which his writings are remarkable. This paper, unfortu
nately, is no longer in existence.
Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine respecting any
new plan, were raised to an extraordinary height by the pre
sent project ; and well they might be, when we consider the
powerful coadjutors already pledged. They were doomed,
however, to complete disappointment. Dalies. thr>
236 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
of Russell Street, lets us into the secret of this failure. ' ' The
booksellers," said he, "notwithstanding they had a very good
opinion of his abilities, yet were startled at the bulk, import
ance, and expense of so great an undertaking, the fate of
which was to depend upon the industry of a man with whose
indolence of temper and method of procrastination they had
long been acquainted."
Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such distrust by
the heedlessness with which he conducted his literary under
takings. Those unfinished, but paid for, would be suspended
to make way for some job that was to provide for present ne
cessities. Those thus hastily taken up would be as hastily exe
cuted, and the whole, however pressing, would be shoved aside
and left " at loose ends," on some sudden call to social enjoy
ment or recreation.
Cradock tells us that on one occasion, when Goldsmith was
hard at work on his Natural History, he sent to Dr. Percy and
himself, entreating them to finish some pages of his work
which lay upon his table, and for which the press was urgent,
he being detained by other engagements at Windsor. They
met by appointment at his chambers in the Temple, where they
found everything in disorder, and costly books lying scattered
about on the tables and on the floor ; many of the books on
natural history which he had recently consulted lay open
among uncorrected proof-sheets. The subject in hand, and
from which he had suddenly broken off, related to birds.
"Do you know anything about birds?" asked Dr. Percy, smil
ing. '" Not an atom, "replied Cradock; " do you?" "Not I! I
scarcely know a goose from a swan: however, let us try what
we can do." They set to work and completed their friendly
task. Goldsmith, however, when he came to revise it, made
such alterations that they could neither of them recognize their
own share. The engagement at Windsor, which had thus
caused Goldsmith to break off suddenly from his multifarious
engagements, was a party of pleasure with some literary ladies.
Another anecdote was current, illustrative of the carelessness
with which he executed works requiring accuracy and re
search. On the 22d of June he had received payment in ad
vance for a Grecian History in two volumes, though only one
was finished. As he was pushing on doggedly at the second
volume, Gibbon, the historian, called in. "You are the man
of all others I wish to see," cried the poet, glad to be saved the
trouble of reference to his books. "What wap flip •n^m<=» of
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
237
that Indian king who gave Alexander the Great so much
trouble?" " Montezuma, " replied Gibbon, sportively. The
heedless author was about committing the name to paper with
out reflection, when Gibbon pretended to recollect himself,
and gave the true name, Porus.
This story, very probably, was a sportive exaggeration ; but
it was a multiplicity of anecdotes like this and the preceding
one, some true and some false, which had impaired the confi
dence of booksellers in Goldsmith, as a man to be relied on for
a task requiring wide and accurate research, and close and
long-continued application. The project of the Universal
Dictionary, therefore, met with no encouragement, and fell
through.
The failure of this scheme, on which he had built such spa
cious hopes, sank deep into Goldsmith's heart. He was still
further grieved and mortified by the failure of an effort made
by some of his friends to obtain for him a pension from gov
ernment. There had been a talk of the disposition of the min
istry to extend the bounty of the crown to distinguished liter
ary men in pecuniary difficulty, without regard to their politi
cal creed : when the merits and claims of Goldsmith, however,
were laid before them, they met no favor. The sin of sturdy
independence lay at his door. He had refused to become a
ministerial hack when offered a carte blanche by Parson Scott,
the cabinet emissary. The wondering parson had left him in
poverty and "his garret" and there the ministry were dis
posed to suffer him to remain.
In the meantime Dr. Beattie comes out with his " Essay on
Truth," and all the orthodox world are thrown into a paroxysm
of contagious ecstasy. He is cried up as the great champion
of Christianity against the attacks of modern philosophers and
infidels ; he is feted and flattered in every way. He receives
at Oxford the honorary degree of doctor of civil law, at the
same time with Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king sends for him,
praises his "Essay," and gives him a pension of two hundred
pounds.
Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a pension to him
self when one has thus been given unsolicited to a man he
might without vanity consider so much his inferior. He was
not one to conceal his feelings. "Here's such a stir," said he
one day at Thrale's table, "about a fellow that has written
one book, and I have written so many 1"
" Ah. doctor!" exclaimed Johnson, in one of his cau<*tic
238 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
moods, "there go two and forty sixpences, you know, to one
guinea." This is one of the cuts at poor Goldsmith in which
Johnson went contrary to head and heart in his love for say
ing what is called a "good thing." No one knew better than
himself the comparative superiority of the writings of Gold
smith ; but the jingle of the sixpences and the guinea was not
to be resisted.
"Everybody," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, "loves Dr. Beattie,
but Goldsmith, who says he cannot bear the sight of so much
applause as they all bestow upon him. Did he not tell us
so himself no one would believe he was so exceedingly ill-
natured."
He told them so himself because he was too open and unre
served to disguise his feelings, and because he really consid
ered the praise lavished on Beattie extravagant, as in fact it
was. It was all, of course, set down to sheer envy and un-
charitableness. To add to his annoyance, he found his friend,
Sir Joshua Eeynolds, joining in the universal adulation. He
had painted a full-length portrait of Beattie decked in the doc
tor's robes in which he had figured at Oxford, with the "Essay
on Truth" under his arm and the angel of truth at his side,
while Voltaire figured as one of the demons of infidelity, so
phistry, and falsehood, driven into utter darkness.
Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life ; he had been his
admirer and his biographer ; he grieved to find him receiving
such an insult from the classic pencil of his friend. " It is un
worthy of you," said he to Sir Joshua, "to debase so high a
genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie
and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's
fame will last forever. Take care it does not perpetuate this
picture to the shame of such a man as you." This noble and
high-minded rebuke is the only instance on record of any re
proachful words between the poet and the painter; and we are
happy to find that it did not destroy the harmony of their
intercourse.
OLIVMi <HJLU*Mmi. 289
CHAPTER XLin.
TOIL WITHOUT HOPE — THE POET IN THE GREEN-ROOM—IN THE
FLOWER GARDEN— AT VAUXHALL— DISSIPATION WITHOUT GAY-
ETY— CRADOCK IN TOWN— FRIENDLY SYMPATHY— A PARTING
SCENE— AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE.
THWARTED in the plans and disappointed in the hopes which
had recently cheered and animated him, Goldsmith found the
labor at his half -finished tasks doubly irksome from the consci
entiousness that the completion of them could not relieve him
from his pecuniary embarrassments. His impaired health,
also, rendered him less capable than formerly of sedentary
application, and continual perplexities disturbed the flow of
thought necessary for original composition. He lost his usual
gayety and good-humor, and became, at times, peevish and
irritable. Too proud of spirit to seek sympathy or relief from
his friends, for the pecuniary difficulties he had brought upon
himself by his errors and extravagance ; and iinwilling, per
haps, to make known their amount, he buried his cares and
anxieties in his own bosom, and endeavored in company to
keep up his usual air of gayety and unconcern. This gave his
conduct an appearance of fitfulness and caprice, varying sud
denly from moodiness to mirth, and from silent gravity to
shallow laughter ; causing surprise and ridicule in those who
were not aware of the sickness of heart which lay beneath.
His poetical reputation, too, was sometimes a disadvantage
to him ; it drew upon him a notoriety which he was not always
in the mood or the vein to act up to. " Good heavens, Mr.
Foote," exclaimed an actress at the Haymarket theatre, "what
a humdrum kind of a man Dr. Goldsmith appears in our green
room compared with the figure he makes in his poetry !" " The
reason of that, madam," replied Foote, "is because the muses
are better company than the players."
Beauclerc's letters to his friend, Lord Charlemont, who was
absent in Ireland, give us now and then an indication of the
whereabout of the poet during the present1 year. 4< I have
been but once to the club since you left England," writes he;
" we were entertained, as usual, with Goldsmith's absurdity."
With Beauclerc everything was absurd that was not polished
240 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
and pointed. In another letter he threatens, unless Lord
Charlemont returns to England, to bring over the whole club,
and let them loose upon him to drive him home by their pecu
liar habits of annoyance— Johnson shall spoil his books ; Gold
smith shall pull his flowers ; and last, and most intolerable of
all, Boswell shall— talk to him. It would appear that the poet,
who had a passion for flowers, was apt to pass much of his
time in the garden when on a visit to a country seat, much to
the detriment of the flower-beds and the despair of the gar~
dener.
The summer wore heavily away with Goldsmith, lie had
not his usual solace of a country retreat ; his health was im
paired and his spirits depressed. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who
perceived the state of his mind, kindly gave him much of his
company. In the course of their interchange of thought,
Goldsmith suggested to him the story of Ugolino, as a subject
for his pencil. The painting founded on it remains a memento
of their friendship.
On the 4th of August we find them together at Vauxhall ; at
that time a place in high vogue, and which had once been to
Goldsmith a scene of Oriental splendor and delight. We have,
in fact, in the " Citizen of the World," a picture of it as it had
struck him in former years and in his happier moods. ' ' Upon
entering the gardens," says the Chinese philosopher, " I found
every sense occupied with more than expected pleasure ; the
lights everywhere glimmering through the scarcely -moving
trees ; the full-bodied concert bursting on the stillness of the
night; the natural concert of the birds in the more retired
part of the grove, vying with that which was formed by art ;
the company gayly dressed, looking satisfaction, and the tables
spread with various delicacies, all conspired to fill my imagin
ation with the visionary happiness of the Arabian lawgiver,
and lifted me into an ecstasy of admiration.' *
Everything now, however, is seen with different eyes ; with
him it is dissipation without pleasure ; and he finds it impos
sible any longer, by mingling in the gay and giddy throng ol
apparently prosperous and happy beings, to escape from the
carking care which is clinging to his heart.
His kind friend, Cradock, came up to town toward autumn,
when all the fashionable world was in the country, to give his
wif Q the benefit of a skilful dentist. He took lodgings in Nor-
* Citizen of the World, Letter xxi.
OLIVER UULDtMLTLl. 04 1
folk Street, to be in Goldsmith's neighborhood, and passed
most of his mornings with him. "I found him," ho says,
"much altered and at times very low. He wished me to look
over and revise some of his works ; but, with a select friend or
two, I was more pressing that he should publish by subscription
his two celebrated poems of the ' Traveler' and the ' Deserted
Village,' with notes." The idea of Cradock was, that the sub
scription would enable wealthy persons, favorable to Gold
smith, to contribute to his pecuniary relief without wounding
his pride. "Goldsmith," said he, "readily gave up to me his
private copies, and said, 'Pray do what you please with them.'
But while he sat near me, he rather submitted to than encour
aged my zealous proceedings."
" I one morning called upon him, however, and found him
infinitely better than I had expected ; and, in a kind of exulting
style, he exclaimed, 'Here are some of the best of my prose
writings ; / have been hard at work since midnight, and I desire
you to examine them.' ' These,' said I, 'are excellent indeed.'
'They are,' replied he, 'intended as an introduction to a body
of arts and sciences.' "
Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together the frag
ments of his shipwreck; the notes and essays, and memoranda
collected for his dictionary, and proposed to found on them a
work in two volumes, to be entitled "A Survey of Experi
mental Philosophy."
The plan of the subscription came to nothing, and the pro
jected survey never was executed. The head might yet devise,
but the heart was failing him ; his talent at hoping, which gave
him buoyancy to carry out his enterprises, was almost at an
end.
Cradock's farewell scene with him is told in a simple but
touching manner.
"The day before I was to set out for Leicestershire, I insisted
upon his dining with us. He replied, 1 1 will, but on one con
dition, that you will not ask me to eat anything.' ' Nay,' said
I, ' this answer is absolutely unkind, for I had hoped, as we are
supplied from the Crown and Anchor, that you would have
named something you might have relished.' 'Well,' was the
reply, l if you will but explain it to Mrs. Cradock, I will cer
tainly wait upon you.'
"The doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, newspapers
and pamphlets, and with a pen and ink he amused himself as
well as he could. I had ordered from the tavern some fish, a
242 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
roasted joint of lamb, and a tart; and the doctor either sat
down or walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he took
some wine with biscuits ; but I was obliged soon to leave him
for a while, as I had matters to settle prior to my next day's
journey. On my return coffee was ready, and the doctor ap
peared more cheerful (for Mrs. Cradock was always rather a
favorite with him), and in the evening he endeavored to talk
and remark as usual, but all was forced. He stayed till mid
night, and I insisted on seeing him safe home, and we most
cordially shook hands at the Temple gate." Cradock little
thought that this was to be their final parting. He looked
back to it with mournful recollections in after years, and
lamented that he had not remained longer in town at every
inconvenience, to solace the poor broken-spirited poet.
The latter continued in town all the autumn. At the open
ing of the Opera House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates,
an actress whom he held in great esteem, delivered a poetical
exordium of his composition. Beauclerc, in a letter to Lord
Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that it
would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however,
to have been ever published. In his fitful state of mind Gold
smith may have taken no care about it, and thus it has been
lost to the world, although it was received with great applause
by a crowded and brilliant audience.
A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom that was
gathering over the poet. Toward the end of the year he re
ceives another Christmas invitation to Barton. A country
Christmas ! with all the cordiality of the fireside circle, and the
joyous revelry of the oaken hall — what a contrast to the lone
liness of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple ! It is not to be
resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and
means? His purse is empty; his booksellers are already in ad
vance to him. As a last resource, he applies to Garrick. Their
mutual intimacy at Barton may have suggested him as an al -
ternative. The old loan of forty pounds has never been paid ;
and Newbery's note, pledged as a security, has never been
taken up. An additional loan of sixty pounds is now asked
for, thus increasing the loan to one hundred; to insure the
payment, he now offers, besides Newbery's note, the transfer
of the comedy of the Good-Natured Man to Drury Lane, with
such alterations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in reply,
evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes significantly to
a new one which Goldsmith had talked of writing for him,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 243
and offers to furnish the money required on his own accept
ance.
The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful of gratitude
and overflowing with fond anticipations of Barton and the
smiles of its fair residents. " My dear friend," writes he, "I
thank you. I wish I could do something to serve you. I shall
have a comedy for you in a season, or two at farthest, that I
believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will make
it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. ... I will draw
upon you one month after date for sixty pounds, and your ac
ceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go down
to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, foi
he has my heart. Ever,
" OLIVER GOLDSMITH."
And having thus scrambled together a little pocket money,
by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care
and trouble, and Temple quarters, to forget for a time his des
olate bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas fireside
at Barton.
CHAPTER XLIV.
A RETURN TO DRUDGERY— FORCED GAYETY — RETREAT TO THE
COUNTRY — THE POEM OF RETALIATION — PORTRAIT OF GARRICK
—OF GOLDSMITH— OF REYNOLDS— ILLNESS OF THE POET— HIS
DEATH— GRIEF OF HIS FRIENDS— A LAST WORD RESPECTING
THE JESSAMY BRIDE.
THE Barton festivities are over; Christmas, with all its
home-felt revelry of the heart, has passed like a dream; the
Jessamy Bride has beamed her last smile upon the poor poet,
and the early part of 1774 finds him in his now dreary bachelor
abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a multi
plicity of tasks. His " Animated Nature," so long delayed, so
often interrupted, is at length announced for publication,
though it has yet to receive a few finishing touches. He is
preparing a third " History of England," to be compressed and
condensed hi one volume, for the use of schools. He is revis
ing his " Inquiry into Polite Learning," for which he receives
the pittance of five guinea?, much needed in his present scanti-
244 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
ness of purse; he is arranging his " Survey of Experimental
Philosophy," and he is translating the "Comic Romance of
Scarron." Such is a part of the various labors of a drudging,
depressing kind, by which his head is made weary and his
heart faint. u If there is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter
Scott, ' ' which lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like
the toil of a slave, it is that which is exacted by literary com
position, when the heart is not in unison with the work upon
which the head is employed. Add to the unhappy author's
task sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable circum
stances, and the labor of the bondsman becomes light in com
parison." Goldsmith again makes an effort to rally his spirits
by going into gay society. "Our club," writes Beauclerc to
Charlemont, on the 12th of February, "has dwindled away to
nothing. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have got into such a
round of pleasures that they have no time." This shows how
little Beauclerc was the companion of the poet's mind, or could
judge of him below the surface. Reynolds, the kind participator
in joyless dissipation, could have told a different story of his
companion's heart-sick gayety.
In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments in his
chambers in the Temple; the last of which was a dinner to
Johnson, Reynolds, and others of his intimates, who partook
with sorrow and reluctance of his imprudent hospitality. The
first course vexed them by its needless profusion. When a
second, equally extravagant, was served up, Johnson and Rey
nolds declined to partake 01 it ; the rest of the company, under
standing their motives, followed their example, and the dishes
went from the table untasted. Goldsmith felt sensibly this
silent and well-intended rebuke.
The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine for any
length of time a mind diseased. Wearied by the distractions
and harassed by the expenses of a town life, which he had not
the discretion to regulate, Goldsmith took the resolution, too
tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet and cheap and
healthful pleasures of the country, and of passing only two
months of the year in London. He accordingly made arrange
ments to sell his right in the Temple chambers, and in the
month of March retired to his country quarters at Hyde, there
to devote himself to toil. At this dispirited juncture when in
spiration seemed to be at an end, and the poetic fire extin
guished, a spark fell on his combustible imagination and set in
a blaze.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
245
He belonged to a temporary association of men of talent,
some of them members of the Literary Club, who dined to
gether occasionally at the St. James' Coffee-house. At these
dinners, as usual, he was one of the last to arrive. On one oc
casion, when he was more dilatory than usual, a whim seized
the company to write epitaphs on him, as " The late Dr. Gold
smith," and several were thrown off in a playful vein, hitting
off his peculiarities. The only one extant was written I:
Garrick, and has been preserved, very probably, by its pun
gency:
" Here lies poor Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll."
Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially as coming
from such a quarter. He was not very ready at repartee ; but
he took his time, and in the interval of his various tasks,
concocted a series of epigrammatic sketches, under the title of
Ketaliation, in which the characters of his distinguished inti
mates were admirably hit off, with a mixture of generous
praise and good-humored raillery. In fact the poem for its
graphic truth; its nice discrimination; its terse good sense,
and its shrewd knowledge of the world, must have electrified
the club almost as much as the first appearance of The Travel
ler, and let them still deeper into the character and talents of
the man they had been accustomed to consider as their butt.
Retaliation, in a word, closed his accounts with the club, and
balanced all his previous deficiencies.
The portrait of David Garrick is one of the most elaborate in
the poem. When the poet came to touch it off, he had some
lurking piques to gratify, which the recent attack had re
vived. He may have forgotten David's cavalier treatment of
him in the early days of his comparative obscurity; he may
have forgiven his refusal of his plays; but Garrick had been
capricious in his conduct in the times of their recent inter
course; sometimes treating him with gross familiarity, at
other times affecting dignity and reserve, and assuming airs
of superiority; frequently he had been facetious and witty in
company at his expense, and lastly he had been guilty of the
couplet just quoted. Goldsmith, therefore, touched off the
lights and shadows of his character with a free hand, and, at
the same time, gave a side hit at his old rival, Kelly, and his
critical persecutor, Kenrick, in making them sycophantic
satellites of the actor. Goldsmith, however, was void of gall,
246 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
even in bis revenge, and his very satire was more humorous
than caustic :
" Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ;
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine;
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line :
Yet,£with talents like these, and an excellent heart,
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread,
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day:
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick:
He cast off his f n'ends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them ba%k.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind,
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave.
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gavet
How did Grub Street reecho the shouts that you raised,
While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised.'
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
To act as an angel and mix with the skies:
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill,
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;
Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love.
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above."
This portion of Eetaliation soon brought a retort from
Garrick, which we insert, as giving something of a likeness of
Goldsmith, though in broad caricature :
" Here, Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar was mellow,
Go fetch me some clay— I will make an odd fellow:
Right and wrong shall be jumbled, much gold and some dross,
Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross;
Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions,
A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions;
Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking
Turn'd to learning and gaming, religion, and raking.
With the love of a wench, let his writings be chaste ;
Tip his tongue with strange matters, his lips with fine taste;
That the rake and the poet, o'er all may prevail,
Set fire to the head and set fire to the tail;
For the joy of each sex on the world I'll bestow it,
. This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet.
Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame,
And among brother mortals be Goldsmith his name;
When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear,
You, Hermes, shall fetch him, to make us sport here."
GOLDSMITH.
247
The charge of raking, so repeatedly advanced in the fore
going lines, must be considered a sportive one, founded per
haps, on an incident or two within Garrick's knowledge, but
not borne out by the course of Goldsmith's life. He seems to
have had a tender sentiment for the sex, but perfectly free
from libertinism. Neither was he an habitual gamester. The
strictest scrutiny has detected no settled vice of the kind. He
was fond of a game of cards, but an unskilful and careless
player. Cards in those days were universally introduced into
society. High play was, in fact, a fashionable amusement, as
at one time was deep drinking; and a man might occasionally
lose large sums, and be beguiled into deep potations, without
incurring the character of a gamester or a drunkard. Poor
Goldsmith, on his advent into high society, assumed fine
notions with fine clothes ; he was thrown occasionally among
high players, men of fortune who could sport their cool
hundreds as carelessly as his early comrades at Ballymahon
could their half-crowns. Being at all times magnificent in
money matters, he may have played with them in their own
way, without considering that what was sport to them to him
was ruin. Indeed part of his financial embarrassments may
have arisen from Losses of the kind, incurred inadvertently,
not in the indulgence of a habit. " I do not believe Goldsmith
to have deserved the name of gamester," said one of his con
temporaries; "he liked cards very well, as other people do,
and lost and won occasionally ; but as far as I saw or heard,
and I had many opportunities of hearing, never any consider
able sum. If he gamed with any one, it was probably with
Beauclerc, but I do not know that such was the case."
Retaliation, as we have already observed, was thrown off in
parts, at intervals, and was never completed. Some charac
ters, originally intended to be introduced, remained unat-
tempted; others were but partially sketched — such was the
one of Reynolds, the friend of his heart, and which ho
commenced with a felicity which makes us regret that it
should remain unfinished.
44 Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind,
He has not left a wiser or better behind.
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland;
Still born to improve us in every part,
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart.
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,
When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing:
248 OL1VKR GOLDSMITH.
When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggioe, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff.
By flattery unspoiled ' '
The friendly portrait stood unfinished on the easel ; the hand
of the artist had failed ! An access of a local complaint, under
which he had suffered for some time past, added to a general
prostration of health, brought Goldsmith back to town before
he had well settled himself in the country. The local complaint
subsided, but was followed by a low nervous fever. He was
not aware of his critical situation, and intended to be at the
club on the 25th of March, on which occasion Charles Fox, Sir
Charles Bunbury (one of the Horneck connection), and two
other new members were to be present. In the afternoon, how
ever, he felt so unwell as to take to his bed, and his symptoms
soon acquired sufficient force to keep him there. His malady
fluctuated for several days, and hopes were entertained of his
recovery, but they proved fallacious. He had skilful medical
aid and faithful nursing, but he would not follow the advice of
his physicians, and persisted in the use of James' powders,
which he had once found beneficial, but which were now inju
rious to him. His appetite was gone, his strength failed him,
but his mind remained clear, and was perhaps too active for his
frame. Anxieties and disappointments which had previously
sapped his constitution, doubtless aggravated his present com
plaint and rendered him sleepless. In reply to an inquiry of
his physician, he acknowledged that his mind was ill at ease.
This was his last reply ; he was too weak to talk, and in gen
eral took no notice of what was said to him. He sank at last
into a deep sleep, and it was hoped a favorable crisis had ar
rived. He awoke, however, in strong convulsions, which con
tinued without intermission until he expired, on the fourth of
April, at five o'clock in the morning ; being in the forty-sixth
year of his age.
His death was a shock to the literary world, and a deep af
fliction to a wide circle of intimates and friends ; for with all
his foibles and peculiarities, he was fully as much beloved as he
was admired. Burke, on hearing the news, burst into tears.
Sir Joshua Reynolds threw by his pencil for the day, and
grieved more than he had done in times of great family distress.
"I was abroad at the time of his death," writes Dr. M'Donnell,
the youth whom when in distress he had employed as an
amanuensis, "and I wept bitterly when the intelligence first
reached me. A blank came over my heart as if I had lost one
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
249
of my nearest relatives, and was followed for some days by a
feeling of despondency." Johnson felt the blow deeply and
gloomily. In writing some time afterward to Boswell, he ob
served, "Of poor Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told more
than the papers have made public. He died of a fever, made,
I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts
began to be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted. Sir
Joshua is of opinion that he' owed no less than two thousand
pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before?"
Among his debts were seventy-nine pounds due to his tailor,
Mr. William Filby, from whom he had received a new suit but
a few days before his death. "My father," said the younger
Filby, "though a loser to that amount, attributed no blame to
Goldsmith; he had been a good customer, and had he lived
would have paid every farthing." Others of his tradespeople
evinced the same confidence in his integrity, notwithstanding
his heedlessness. Two sister milliners in Temple Lane, who
had been accustomed to deal with him, were concerned, when
told, some time before his death, of his pecuniary embarrass
ments. " Oh, sir," said they to Mr. Cradock, "sooner persuade
him to let us work for him gratis than apply to any other; we
are sure he will pay us when he can."
On the stairs of his apartment there was the lamentation of
the old and infirm, and the sobbing of women ; poor objects of
his charity to whom he had never turned a deaf ear, even when
struggling himself with poverty.
But there was one mourner, whose enthusiasm for his mem
ory, could it have been foreseen, might have soothed the bitter
ness of death. After the coffin had been screwed down, a lock
of his hair was requested for a lady, a particular friend, who
wished to preserve it as a remembrance. It was the beautiful
Mary Horneck— the Jessamy Bride. The coffin was opened
again, and a lock of hair cut off; which she treasured to her
dying day. Poor Goldsmith ! could he have foreseen that such
a memorial of him was to be thus cherished.
One word more concerning this lady, to whom we have so
often ventured to advert. She survived almost to the present
day. Hazlitt met her at Northcote's painting-room, about
twenty years since, as Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a General
Gwyn of the army. She was at that time upward of seventy
years of age. Still, he said, she was beautiful, beautiful even
in years. After she was gone, Hazlitt remarked how handsome
she still was. "I do not know," said Northcote, uwhy she
250 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
is so kind as to come and see me, except that I am the last link
in the chain that connects her with all those she most esteemed
when young— Johnson, Eeynolds, Goldsmith— and remind her
of the most delightful period of her life." "Not only so,"
observed Hazlitt, "but you remember what she was at twenty ;
and you thus bring back to her the triumphs of her youth—
that pride of beauty, which must be the more fondly cherished
as it has no external vouchers, and lives chiefly in the bosom
of its once lovely possessor. In her, however, the Graces had
triumphed over time ; she was one of Ninon de 1'Enclos' people,
of the last of the immortals. I could almost fancy the shade of
Goldsmith in the room, looking round with complacency."
The Jessamy Bride survived her sister upward of forty years,
and died in 1840, within a few days of completing her eighty-
eighth year. "She had gone through all the stages of life,"
says Northcote, "and had lent a grace to each." However
gayly she may have sported with the half -concealed admiration
of the poor awkward poet in the heydey of her youth and
beauty, and however much it may have been made a subject
of teasing by her youthful companions, she evidently prided
herself in after years upon having been an object of his affec
tionate regard ; it certainly rendered her interesting through
out life in the eyes of his admirers, and has hung a poetical
wreath above her grave.
CHAPTER XLV.
THE FUNERAL— THE MONUMENT— THE EPITAPH— CONCLUDING
REMARKS.
IN the warm feeling of the moment, while the remains of the
poet were scarce cold, it was determined by his friends to
honor them by a public funeral, and a tomb in Westminster
Abbey. His very pall-bearers were designated: Lord Shel-
burne, Lord Lowth, Sir Joshua Reynolds; the Hon. Mr.
Beauclerc, Mr. Burke, and David Garrick. This feeling cooled
down, however, when it was discovered that he died in debt,
and had not left wherewithal to pay for such expensive obse
quies. Five days after his death, therefore, at five o'clock of
Saturday evening, the 9th of April, he was privately interred
in the burying-ground of the Temple Church, a few persons
attending as mourners, among whom we do not find specified
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
251
any of his peculiar and distinguished friends. The chie*
mourner was Sir Joshua Reynolds's nephew, Palmer, after
ward Dean of Cashel. One person, however, from whom it
was but little to be expected, attended the funeral and evinced
real sorrow on the occasion. This was Hugh Kelly, once the
dramatic rival of the deceased, and often, it is said, his anony
mous assailant in the newspapers. If he had really been guilty
of this basest of literary offences, he was punished by the
stings of remorse, for we are told that he shed bitter tears
over the grave of the man he had injured. His tardy atone
ment only provoked the lash of some unknown satirist, as the
following lines will show :
M Hence Kelly, who years, without honor or shame,
Had been sticking his bodkin in Oliver's fame,
Who thought, like the Tartar, by this to inherit
His genius, his learning, simplicity, spirit;
Now sets every feature to weep o'er his fate,
And acts as a mourner to blubber in state."
One base wretch deserves to be mentioned, the reptile Ken-
rick, who, after having repeatedly slandered Goldsmith, while
living, had the audacity to insult his memory when dead. The
following distich is sufficient to show his malignity, and to
hold him up to execration :
" By his own art, who justly died,
A blund'ring, artless suicide:
Share, earthworms, share, since now he's dead,
His megrim, maggot-bitten head."
This scurrilous epitaph produced a burst of public indigna
tion that awed for a time even the infamous Kenrick into
silence. On the other hand, the press teemed with tributes in
verse and prose to the memory of the deceased ; all evincing
the mingled feeling of admiration for the author and affection
for the man.
Not long after his death the Literary Club set on foot a sul •
scription. and raised a fund to erect a monument t* his mem
ory in Westminster .Abbey. It was executed by Nollekins,
and consisted simply of a bust of the poet in profile, in high
relief, in a medallion, and was placed in the area of a pointed
arch, over the south door in Poets' Corner, between the monu
ments of Gay and the Duke of Argyle. Johnson furnished a
Latin epitaph, which was read at the table of Sir Joshua Rey
nolds, where several members of the club and other friends of
the deceased were present. Though considered by them a
252 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
masterly composition, they thought the literary character of
the poet not defined with sufficient exactness, and they pre
ferred that the epitaph should be in English rather than Latin,
as "the memory of so eminent an English writer ought to be
perpetuated in the language to which his works were likely to
be so lasting an ornament. "
These objections were reduced to writing, to be respectfully
submitted to Johnson, but such was the awe entertained of his
frown, that every one shrank from putting his name first to
the instrument ; whereupon their names were written about in
a circle, making what mutinous sailors call a Round Robin.
Johnson received it half graciously, half grimly. ' ' He was
willing," he said, "to modify the sense of the epitaph in any
manner which the gentlemen pleased ; but he never would con
sent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English
inscription" Seeing the names of Dr. Wharton and Edmund
Burke among the signers, "he wondered," he said, " that Joe
Wharton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool ; and
should have thought that Mund Burke would have had more
sense." The following is the epitaph as it stands inscribed on
a white marble tablet beneath the bust :
"OLIVARII GOLDSMITH,
Poetae, Physici, Historic!,
Qui nullum f er6 scribendi genus
Non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit
Sive risus essent movendi,
Sive lacrymae,
Affectuum potens ac lenis dominator:
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis,
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus:
Hoc monumento memoriam coluit
Sodalium amor,
Amicorum fides,
Lectorum veneratio.
Natus in HiberniS, Forniae Longfordiensis,
In loco cui nomen Pallas,
Nov. xxix. MDCCXXXI. ;
Eblanse literis institutus;
Obiit Londini,
April iv. MDCCLXXIV."*
* The following translation is from Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson.
OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH—
A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adoni;
OLIVKR GOLDSMITH. 253
We shall not pretend to follow these anecdotes of the life of
Goldsmith with any critical dissertation on his writings ; their
merits have long since been fully discussed, and their station
in the scale of literary merit permanently established. They
have outlasted generations of works of higher power and wider
scope, and will continue to outlast succeeding generations, for
they have that magic charm of style by which works are em
balmed to perpetuity. Neither shall wo attempt a regular
analysis of the character of the poet, but will indulge in a few
desultory remarks in addition to those scattered throughout
the preceding chapters.
Never was the trite, because sage apothegm, that " The child
is father to the man, "more fully verified than in the case of
Goldsmith. He is shy, awkward, and blundering in child
hood, yet full of sensibility; he is a butt for the jeers and
jokes of his companions, but apt to surprise and confound
them by sudden and witty repartees ; he is dull and stupid at
his tasks, yet an eager and intelligent devourer of the travel
ling tales and campaigning stories of his half military peda
gogue ; he may be a dunce, but he is already a rhymer ; and
his early scintillations of poetry awaken the expectations of
his friends. He seems from infancy to have been compounded
of two natures, one bright, the other blundering; or to have
had fairy gifts laid in his cradle by the ' * good people" who
haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion on the banks
of the Inny.
He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so
term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail
at school, academy, or college ; they unfit him for close study
Of all the passions,
. Whether smiles were to be moved or tears,
A powerful yet pen tie master;
In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile,
In style, elevated, clear, elegant—
The love of companions,
The fidelity of friends,
And the veneration of readers,
Have by this monument honored the memory.
He was born in Ireland,
At a place called Pallas,
[In the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford,
On the 29th Nov., 1731.
Educated at [the University of] Dublin,
And died in London,
April 4th, 1774.
254 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
and practical science, and render him heedless of everything
that does not address itself to his poetical imagination a»d
genial and festive feelings; they dispose him to break away
from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted
streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the
country like a gipsy in quest of odd adventures.
As if confiding in these delusive gifts, he takes no heed of
the present nor care for the future, lays no regular and solid
foundation of knowledge, follows out no plan, adopts and dis
cards those recommended hy his friends, at one time prepares
for the ministry, next turns to the law, and then fixes upon
medicine. He repairs to Edinburgh, the great emporium of
medical science, but the fairy gifts accompany him ; he idles
and frolics away his time there, imbibing only such knowledge
as is agreeable to him; makes an excursion to the poetical
regions of the Highlands ; and having walked the hospitals for
the customary time, sets off to ramble over the Continent, in
quest of novelty rather than knowledge. His whole tour is a
poetical one. He fancies he is playing the philosopher while
he is really playing the poet; and though professedly he
attends lectures and visits foreign universities, so deficient is
he on his return, in the studies for which he set out, that he
fails in an examination as a surgeon's mate ; and while figur
ing as a doctor of medicine, is outvied on a point of practice
by his apothecary. Baffled in every regular pursuit, after
trying in vain some of the humbler callings of commonplace
life, he is driven almost by chance to the exercise of his pen,
and here the fairy gifts come to his assistance. For a long
time, however, he seems unaware of the magic properties of
that pen ; he uses it only as a makeshift until he can find a
legitimate means of support. He is not a learned man, and
can write but meagrely and at second-hand on learned sub
jects ; but he has a quick convertible talent that seizes lightly
on the points of knowledge necessary to the illustration of a
theme ; his writings for a time are desultory, the fruits of
what he has seen and felt, or what he has recently and hastily
read ; but his gifted pen transmutes everything into gold, and
his own genial nature reflects its sunshine through his pages.
Still unaware of his powers he throws off his writings
anonymously, to go with the writings of leas favored men;
and it is a long time, and after a bitter struggle with poverty
and humiliation, before he acquires confidence in his literary
talent as a means of support, and begins to dream of reputation.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 255
From tliis time his pen is a wand of power in his hand, and
he has only to use it discreetly, to make it competent to all his
wants. But discretion is not a part of Goldsmith's nature;
and it seems the property of those fairy gifts to be accom
panied by moods and temperaments to render their effect
precarious. The heedlessness of his early days ; his disposition
for social enjoyment ; his habit of throwing the present on the
nock of the future, still continue. His expenses forerun his
moans ; ho incurs debts on the faith of what his magic pen is
to produce, and then, under the pressure of his debts, sacrifices
its productions for prices far below their value. It is a
redeeming circumstance in his prodigality, that it is lavished
of tenor upon others than upon himself; he gives without
thought or stint, and is the continual dupe of his benevolence
and his trustfulness in human nature. We may say of him as
he says of one of his heroes, " He could not stifle the natural
impulse which ho had to do good, but frequently borrowed
money to relieve the distressed ; and when he knew not con
veniently where to borrow, he has been observed to shed tears
as he passed through the wretched suppliants who attended
his gate. "...
" His simplicity in trusting persons whom he had no previous
reasons to place confidence in, seems to be one of those lights
of his character which, while they impeach his understanding,
do honor to his benevolence. The low and the timid are ever
suspicious; but a hoarfc impressed with honorable sentiments
expects from others sympathetic sincerity." *
His heedlessness in pecuniary matters, which had rendered
his life a struggle with poverty even in the days of his ob
scurity, rendered his struggle still more intense when his lu^'ry
gifts had elevated him into the society of the wealthy anft
luxurious, and imposed on his simple and generous spirii
fancied obligations to a more ample and bounteous display.
' ' How comes it, " says a recent and ingenious critic, ' ' thai
in all the miry paths of life which he had trod, no ",peck evei
sullied the robe of his modest and graceful muse, flow amid
all that love of inferior company, which never to t he last for
sook him, did he keep his geoius so free from every touch of
vulgarity?"
We answer that it was owing to the innate purity and good
ness of his nature ; there was nothing in it that assimilated to
* Goldsmith's Life of Nash.
256 OL1VKR GOLDSMITH.
vice and vulgarity. Though his circumstances often com
pelled him to associate with the poor, they never could betray
him into companionship with the depraved. His relish for
humor and for the study of character, as we have before
observed, brought him often into convivial company of a
vulgar kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity
and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole
those familiar features of life which form the staple of his
most popular writings.
Much, too, of this intact purity of heart may be ascribed to
the lessons of his infancy under the paternal roof; to the
gentle, benevolent, elevated, unworldly maxims of his father,
who "passing rich with forty pounds a year," infused a spirit
into his child which riches could not deprave nor poverty
degrade. Much of his boyhood, too, had been passed in the
household of his uncle, the amiable and generous Contarine ;
where he talked of literature with the good pastor, and prac
tised music with his daughter, and delighted them both by his
juvenile attempts at poetry. These early associations breathed
a grace and refinement into his mind and tuned it up, after
the rough sports on the green, or the frolics at the tavern.
These led him to turn from the roaring glees of the club, to
listen to the harp of his cousin Jane; and from the rustic
triumph of "throwing sledge," to a stroll with his flute along
the pastoral banks of the Inny.
The gentle spirit of his father walked with him through life,
a pure and virtuous monitor ; and in all the vicissitudes of his
career we find him ever more chastened in mind by the sweet
and holy recollections of the home of his infancy.
It has been questioned whether he really had any religious
feeling. Those who raise the question have never considered
well his writings ; his Vicar of Wakefield, and his pictures of
the Village Pastor, present religion under its most endearing
forms, and with a feeling that could only flow from the deep
convictions of the heart. When his fair travelling companions
at Paris urged him to read the Church Service on a Sunday, he
replied that "he was not worthy to do it." He had seen in
early life the sacred offices performed by his father and his
brother, with a solemnity which had sanctified them in his
memory; how could he presume to undertake such functions?
His religion has been called in question by Johnson and by
Boswell; he certainly had not the gloomy hypochondriacal
piety of the one, nor the babbling mouth-piety of the other;
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 257
but the spirit of Christian charity breathed forth in his writ
ings and illustrated in his conduct give us reason to believe he
had the indwelling religion of the soul.
We have made sufficient comments in the preceding chapters
on his conduct in elevated circles of literature and fashion.
The fairy gifts which took him there, were not accompanied by
the gifts and graces necessary to sustain him in that artificial
sphere. He can neither play the learned sage with Johnson,
nor the fine gentleman with Beauclerc, though he has a mind
replete with wisdom and natural shrewdness, and a spirit free
from vulgarity. The blunders of a fertile but hurried intellect,
and the awkward display of the student assuming the man of
fashion, fix on him a character for absurdity and vanity which,
like the charge of lunacy, it is hard to disprove, however weak
the grounds of the charge and strong the facts in opposition to
it.
In truth, he is never truly in his place in these learned and
fashionable circles, which talk and live for display. It is not
the kind of society he craves. His heart yearns for domestic
life ; it craves familiar, confiding intercourse, family firesides,
the guileless and happy company of children ; these bring out
the heartiest and sweetest sympathies of his nature.
"Had it been his fate," says the critic we have already
quoted, "to meet a woman who could have loved him, despite
his faults, and respected him despite his foibles, we cannot but
think that his life and his genius would have been much more
harmonious ; his desultory affections would have been concen
tred, his craving self-love appeased, his pursuits more settled,
his character more solid. A nature like Goldsmith's, so affec
tionate, so confiding— so susceptible to simple, innocent enjoy
ments — so dependent on others for the sunshine of existence,
does not flower if deprived of the atmosphere of home."
The cravings of his heart in this respect are evident, we
think, throughout hik) career ; and if we have dwelt with more
significancy than others, upon his intercourse with the beauti
ful Horneck family, it is because we fancied we could detect,
amid his playful attentions to one of its members, a lurking
sentiment of tenderness, kept down by conscious poverty and
a humiliating idea of personal defects. A hopeless feeling of
this kind— the last a man would communicate to his friends-
might account for much of that fitfulness of conduct, and that
gathering melancholy, remarked, but not comprehended by
his associates, during the last year or two of his life; and may
258 OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
have been one of the troubles of the mind which aggravated
his last illness, and only terminated with his death.
We shall conclude these desultory remarks with a few which
have been used by us on a former occasion. From the general
tone of Goldsmith's biography, it is evident that his faults, at
the worst, were but negative, while his merits were great and
decided. He was no one's enemy but his own ; his errors, in
the main, inflicted evil on none but himself, and were so
blended with humorous, and even affecting circumstances, as
to disarm anger and conciliate kindness. Where eminent
talent is united to spotless virtue, we are awed and dazzled
into admiration, but our admiration is apt to be cold and rever
ential ; while there is something in the harmless infirmities of
a good and great, but erring individual, that pleads touchingly
to our nature ; and we turn more kindly toward the object of
our idolatry, when we find that, like ourselves, he is mortal
and is frail. The epithet so often heard, and in such kindly
tones, of "Poor Goldsmith," speaks volumes. Few who con-
side]4 the real compound of admirable and whimsical qualities
which form his character, would wish to prune away its eccen
tricities, trim its grotesque luxuriance, and clip it down to the
decent formalities of rigid virtue. "Let not his frailties be
remembered," said Johnson; "he was a very great man."
But, for our part, we rather say "Let them be remembered,"
since their tendency is to endear; and we question whether he
himself would not feel gratified in hearing his reader, after
dwe^ing with admiration on the proofs of his greatness, cl^e
the volume with the kind-hearted phrase, so fondly and iasoi-
<r\rly ejaculated, of "POOR GOLDSMITH."
THE
M A H 0 M E T
Alt*
HIS SUCCESSORS,
BY
WASHINGTON IRVING.
PREFACE.
SOME apology may seem necessary for presenting a life of Ma
homet at the present day, when no new fact can be added to
those already known concerning him. Many years since, dur
ing a residence in Madrid, the author projected a series of
writings illustrative of the domination of the Arabs in Spain.
These were to be introduced by a sketch of the life of the foun
der of the Islam faith, and the first mover of Arabian conquest.
Most of the particulars for this were drawn from Spanish
sources, and from Gagnier's translation of the Arabian histo
rian Abulf eda, a copy of which the author found in the Jesuits'
Library of the Convent of St. Isidro, at Madrid.
Not having followed out in its extent, the literary plan de
vised, the manuscript life lay neglected among the author's
papers until the year 1831, when he revised and enlarged it for
the Family Library of Mr. John Murray. Circumstances pre
vented its publication at the time, and it again was thrown
aside for years.
During his last residence in Spain, the author beguiled the
tediousness of a lingering indisposition, by again revising the
manuscript, profiting in so doing by recent lights thrown on
the subject by different writers, and particularly by Dr. Gustav
Weil, the very intelligent and learned librarian of the Univer
sity of Heidelberg, to whose industrious researches and able
disquisitions, he acknowledges himself greatly indebted.*
Such is the origin of the work now given to the public ; on
which the author lays no claim to novelty of fact, nor profun
dity of research. It still bears the type of a work intended for
a family library ; in constructing which the whole aim of the
* Mohammed der Prophef sein Leben mad seine Lehre. Stutteart. 1843
4 PREFACE.
writer has been to digest into an easy, perspicuous, and flow
ing narrative, the admitted facts concerning Mahomet, together
with such legends and traditions as have been wrought into the
whole system of oriental literature ; and at the same time to
give such a summary of his faith as might be sufficient for the
more general reader. Under such circumstances, he has not
thought it worth while to incuniber his pages with a scaffolding
of references and citations, nor depart from the old English no
menclature of oriental names.
W. L
SUNNYSIDB, 1849.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUOCESSOES.
CONTENTS.
PAET I.
PAGE
PREFACE a
CHAPTER L
Preliminary notice of Arabia and the Arabs 15
CHAPTER II.
Birth and parentage of Mahomet.— His infancy and childhood a>
CHAPTER IIL
Traditions concerning Mecca and the Caaba 29
CHAPTER IV.
First journey of Mahomet with the caravan to Syria 3S
CHAPTER V.
Commercial occupations of Mahomet.— His marriage with Cadflffn 80
CHAPTER VI.
Conduct of Mahomet after his marriage.— Becomes anxious for religious re
form.— His habits of solitary abstraction.— The vision of the cave.— His
annunciation as a prophet 89
CHAPTER VII.
Mahomet inculcates his doctrines secretly and slowly.— Receives further
revelations and commands.— Announces it to his kindred.— Manner in which
it was received.— Enthusiastic devotion of AH.— Christian portents 44
CHAPTER VIH.
Outlines of the Mahometan faith 48
CHAPTER IX.
Ridicule cast on Mahomet and his doctrines. —Demand for miracles.— Conduct
of Abu Taleb.— Violence of the Koreishites.— Mahomet's daughter Rokaia,
with her uncle Othman and a number of disciples, take refuge in Abyssinia. —
Mahomet in the house of Orkham.— Hostility of Abu .Tahl ; his punishment. . . 54
Q CONTENTS.
CHATTER X.
PAGE
Omar Ibn al Kattab, nephew of Abu Jahl, undertakes to revenge his uncle by
slaying Mahomet.— His wonderful conversion to the faith. — Mahomet takes
refuge in a castle of Abu Taleb.— Abu Sofian, at the head of the rival branch
of the Koreishites, persecutes Mahomet and his followers.— Obtains a decree
of non-intercourse with them.— Mahomet leaves his retreat and makes con
verts during the month of pilgrimage.— Legend of the conversion of Habib
the Wise 60
CHAPTER XI.
The ban of non-intercourse mysteriously destroyed. — Mahomet enabled to
return to Mecca. — Death of Abu Taleb ; of Cadijah. — Mahomet betroths him
self to Ayesha. — Marries Sawda. — The Koreishites renew their persecution. —
Mahomet seeks an asylum in Tayef.— His expulsion thence.— Visited by genii
in the desert of Naklah '. 66
CHAPTER XII.
Night journey of the prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem ; and thence to the
seventh heaven . 72
CHAPTER XIH.
Mahomet makes converts of pilgrims from Medina.— Determines to fly to that
city.— A plot to slay him.— His miraculous escape.— His Hegira, or flight.—
His reception at Medina 80
CHAPTER XIV.
Moslems in Medina, Mohadjerins and Ansarians.— The party of Abdallah Ibn
Obba and the Hypocrites.— Mahomet builds a mosque ; preaches ; makes
converts among the Christians.— The Jews slow to believe.— Brotherhood
established between fugitives and allies 88
CHAPTER XV.
Marriage of Mahomet with Ayesha.— Of his daughter Fatima with Ali.— Their
household arrangements 93
CHAPTER XVI.
The sword announced as the instrument i of faith.— First foray against the
Koreishites.— Surprisal of a caravan 95
CHAPTER XVII.
The battle of Beder. 99
CHAPTER XVIII.
Death of the prophet's daughter Rokaia.— Restoration of his daughter Zeinab.
— Effect of the prophet's malediction on Abu Lahab and his family.— Frantic
rage of Henda, the wife of Abu Sofian. — Mahomet narrowly escapes assassina
tion.— Embassy of the Koreishites.— The King of Abyssinia 106
CHAPTER XIX.
Growing power of Mahomet.— His resentment against the Jews.— Insult to an
Arab damsel by the Jewish tribe of Kaiuoka.— A tumult.— The Beni Kajnoka.
CONTENTS 7
PACK
takes refuge in their castle.— Subdued nml punished by confiscation and
banishment.— Marriage of Othraan to the prophet's daughter Omm Kalthum,
and of the prophet to Hafza 109
CHAPTER XX.
Henda incites Abu Sofian and the Koreishites to revenge the death of her
relations slain in the battle of Beder.— The Koreishites sally forth, followed
b)' Henda and her female companions. — Battle of Ohod. — Ferocious triumph
of Henda.— Mahomet consoles himself by marrying Hend, the daughter of
Omeya 112
CHAPTER XXI.
Treachery of certain Jewish tribes ; their punishment. — Devotion of the
prophet's freedman Zeid ; divorces his beautiful wife Zeinab, that she may
become the wife of the prophet 117
CHAPTER XXII.
Expedition of Mahomet against the Beni Mostalek.— He espouses Barra, a cap
tive.— Treachery of Abdallah Ibn Obba.— Ayesha slandered.— Her vindication.
—Her innocence proved by a revelation 120
CHAPTER XXHI.
The battle of the Moat.— Bravery of Saad Ibn Moad.— Defeat of the Koreishites.
— Capture of the Jewish castle of Coraida. — Saad decides as to the punishment
of the Jews.— Mahomet espouses Rehana, a Jewish captive.— His life endan
gered by sorcery ; saved by a revelation of the angel Gabriel 124
CHAPTER XXTV.
Mahomet undertakes a pilgrimage to Mecca.— Evades Khaled and a troop of
horse sent against him.— Encamps near Mecca.— Negotiates with the Koreish
ites for permission to enter and complete his pilgrimage.— Treaty for ten
years, by which he is permitted to make a yearly visit of three days.— He re
turns to Medina 130
CHAPTER XXV.
Expedition against the city of Khaibar ; siege.— Exploits of Mahomet's cap
tains.— Battle of Ali and Marhab.— Storming of the citadel.— AH makes a
buckler of the gate.— Capture of the place.— Mahomet poisoned; he marru s
Saflya, a captive; also Omm Habiba, a widow 133
CHAPTER XXVI.
Missions to various princes; to Heraclius; to Khosru II.; to the Prefect of
Egypt.— Their result 138
CHAPTER XXVII.
Mahomet's pilgrimage to Mecca; his marriage with Maimuna.— Khaled Ibn al
Waled and Amru Ibn al Aass become proselytes 140
CHAPTER XXVHI.
A*Moslem envoy slain in Syria.— Expedition to avenge his death.— Battle of
Muta.-Its results .148
3 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Designs upon Mecca,— Mission of Abu Soflan.— Its result 145
CHAPTER XXX.
Surprise and capture of Mecca 147
CHAPTER XXXI.
Hostilities in the mountains.— Enemy's camp in the valley of Autas.— Battle at
the pass of Honein.— Capture of the enemy's camp.— Interview of Mahomet
with the nurse of his childhood.— Division of spoil.— Mahomet at his mother's
grave 157
CHAPTER XXXH.
Death of the prophet's daughter Zeinab.— Birth of his son Ibrahim.— Deputa
tions from distant tribes.— Poetical contest in presence of the prophet.—
His susceptibility to the charms of poetry.— Reduction of the city of Tayef ;
destruction of its idols.— Negotiation with Amir Ibn Taflel, a proud Bedouin
chief ; independent spirit of the latter.— Interview of Adi, another chief, with
Mahomet 164
CHAPTER XXXHI.
Preparations for an expedition against Syria.— Intrigues of Abdallah Ibn Obba.
—Contributions of the faithful.— March of the army.— The accursed region of
Hajar.— Encampment at Tabuc.— Subjugation of the neighboring provinces.
— Khaled surprises Okaidor and his castle.— Return of the army to Medina.. . . 170
CHAPTER XXXTV.
Triumphal entry into Medina.— Punishment of those who had refused to join
the campaign.— Effects of excommunication.— Death of Abdallah Ibn Obba.—
Dissensions in the prophet's harem 175
CHAPTER XXXV.
Abu Beker conducts the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca.— Mission of Ali to an
nounce a revelation 178
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Mahomet sends his captains on distant enterprises.— Appoints lieutenants to
govern in Arabia Felix.— Sends Ali to suppress an insurrection in that pro
vince.— Death of the prophet's only son Ibrahim.— His conduct at the death
bed and the grave.— His growing infirmities.— His valedictory pilgrimage to
Mecca, and his conduct and preaching while there 180
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Of the two false prophets Al Aswad and Moseilma 185
CHAPTER XXXVm.
An army prepared to march against Syria.— Command given to Osama.— The%
prophet's farewell address to the troops.— His last illness.— His sermons in the
mosque.— His death and the attending circumstances 188
CONTENTS. 9
CHAPTER XXXIX.
PAGB
Person and character of Mahomet, and speculations on his prophetic career. . . . 19S
APPENDIX.
Of the Islam Faith 204
PART II.
PREFACE 222
•
CHAPTER I.
Election of Abu Beker, first Caliph, Hegira llth, A.D. 632 224
CHAPTER II.
Moderation of Abu Beker.— Traits of his character.— Rebellion of Arab tribes.—
Defeat and death of Malec Ibn Nowirah.— Harsh measures of Khaled con
demned by Omar, but excused by Abu Beker.— Khaled defeats Mosellma the
false prophet.— Compilation of the Koran 228
CHAPTER HI.
Campaign against Syria.— Army sent under Yezed Ibn Abu Soflan.— Successes.
—Another army under Amru Ibn al Aass.— Brilliant achievements of Khaled
in Irak 232
CHAPTER IV.
Incompetency of Abu Obeidab to the general command in Syria. — Khaled sent
to supersede him.— Peril of the Moslem army before Bosra.— Timely arrival
of Khaled.— His exploits during the siege.— Capture of Bosra 238
CHAPTER V.
Khaled lays siege to Damascus 243
CHAPTER VI.
Siege of Damascus continued.— Exploits of Derar.— Defeat of the imperial
army 247
CHAPTER Vn.
Siege of Damascus continued.— Sally of the garrison.— Heroism of the Moslem
women — 250
CHAPTER VILI.
Battle of Aiznadin *53
CHAPTER IX.
Occurrences before Damascus.— Exploits of Thomas.— Ab&n Ibn Zeid and his
Amazonian wife . . 869
10 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
PAGE
Surrender of Damascus.— Disputes of the Saracen generals.— Departure of
Thomas and the exiles 263
CHAPTER XI.
Story of Jonas and Eudocea.— Pursuit of the exiles.— Death of the Caliph Abu
Beker 267
CHAPTER XII.
Election of Omar, second Caliph.— Khaled superseded in command by Abu
Obeidah.— Magnanimous conduct of those generals.— Expedition to the con
vent of Abyla 275
CHAPTER XIII.
Moderate measures of Abu Obeidah.— Reproved by the Caliph for his slowness. 282
CHAPTER XIV.
Siege and capture of Baalbec 286
CHAPTER XV.
Siege of Emessa.— Stratagems of the Moslems.— Fanatic devotion of Ikremah.
—Surrender of the city 290
CHAPTER XVI.
Advance of a powerful Imperial army. — Skirmishes of Khaled. — Capture of
Derar.— Interview of Khaled and Manuel 294
CHAPTER XVII.
Thebattirof Yermouk 298
CHAPTER XVm.
Biege and capture of Jerusalem 300
CHAPTER XIX.
Progress of the Moslem aims in Syria.— Siege of Aleppo.— Obstinate defence by
Youkenna.— Exploit of Damas.— Capture of the castle.— Conversion of You
kenna 307
CHAPTER XX.
Perfidy of Youkenua to his former friends.— Attempts the castle of Aazaa by
treachery.— Capture of the castle. 314
CHAPTER XXI.
Intrigues of Youkenna at An tioch.— Siege of that city by the Moslems.— Flight
of the emperor to Constantinople.— Surrender of Antioch 317
CHAPTER XXII.
Expedition into the mountains of Syria.— Story of a miraculous cap 322
CONTENTS. 11
CHAPTER XXHI.
PJLQK
Expedition of Amru Ibn al Aass against Prince Constantine in Syria.— Their
conference.— Capture of Tripoli and Tyre.— Flight of Constantine.— Death of
Khaled 325
CHAPTER XXIV.
Invasion of Egypt by Amru.— Capture of Memphis.— Siege and surrender of
Alexandria.— Burning of the Alexandrian library 333
CHAPTER XXV.
Enterprises of the Moslems in Persia.— Defence of the kingdom by Queen Arze-
mia.-Battle of the Bridge 341
CHAPTER XXVI.
Mosenna Ibn Hans ravages the country along the Euphrates.— Death ol
Arzemia.— Yezdegird in. raised to the throne.— Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas given
the general command.— Death of Mosenna.— Embassy to Yezdegird.— Its
reception 345
CHAPTER XXVH.
The battle of Kadesia 350
CHAPTER XXVHL
Founding of Bassora.— Capture of the Persian capital.— Flight of Yezdegird to
Holwan 353
CHAPTER XXIX.
Capture of Jalula.— Flight of Yezdegird to Rei.— Founding of Cufa.— Saad
receives a severe rebuke from the Caliph for his magnificence 357
CHAPTER XXX.
War with Hormuzan, the Satrap of Ahwaz.— His conquest and conversion 360
CHAPTER XXXI.
Saad suspended from the command.— A Persian army assembled at Nehavend.
—Council at the mosque of Medina.— Battle of Nehavend 368
CHAPTER XXXII.
Capture of Hamadan; of Rei.— Subjugation of Tabaristan; of Azerbi Jan.— Cam
paign among the Caucasian mountains 367
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Caliph Omar assassinated by a fire-worshipper.— His character.— Oth man
elected Calip . . . . h 378
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Conclusion of the Persian conquest. --Flight and death of Yezdegird 977
12 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Amru displaced from the government of Egypt.— Revolt of the inhabitants.—
Alexandria retaken by the Imperialists.— Amru reinstated in command.— Re
takes Alexandria, and tranquillizes Egypt.— Is again displaced.— Abdallah Ibn
Saad invades the north of Africa 380
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Moawyah, Emir of Syria.— His naval victories.— Othman loses the prophet's
ring.— Suppresses erroneous copies of the Koran.— Conspiracies against him.
-His death 886
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Candidates for the Caliphat.— Inaguration of All, fourth Caliph.— He under
takes measures of reform.— Their consequences.— Conspiracy of Ayesha.—
She gets possession of Bassora 393
CHAPTER XXXVIH.
Ali defeats the rebels under Ayesha.— His treatment of her 401
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Battles between Ali and Moawyah.— Their claims to the Caliphat left to arbitra
tion; the result.— Decline of the power of Ali.— Loss of Egypt 408
CHAPTER XL.
Preparations of Ali for the invasion of Syria.— His assassination 413
CHAPTER XLL
Succession of Hassan, fifth Caliph.— He abdicates in favor of Moawyah. 416
CHAPTER XLII.
Reign of Moawyah I., sixth Caliph.— Account of his illegitimate brother Zeyad.
—Death of Amru 419
CHAPTER XLIH.
Siege of Constantinople.— Truce with the emperor.— Murder of Hassan.— Death
of Ayesha 423
CHAPTER XLIV.
Moslem conquests in Northern Africa.— Achievements of Acbah ; his death.... 426
CHAPTER XLV.
Moawyah names his successor.— His last acts and death.— Traits of his char
acter 430
CHAPTER XLVI.
Succession of Yezid, seventh Caliph.— Final fortunes of Hosein, the son of Ali. . 434
CHAPTER XLVH.
Insurrection of Abdallah Ibn Zobeir.— Medina taken and sacked.— Mecca
besieged.— Death of Yezid . . 444
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XLVm.
PAUE
Inauguration of Moawyah n., eighth Caliph.— His abdication and death.— Mer-
wan Ibn Hakem and Abdallah Ibn Zobeir, rival Caliphs.— Civil wars in Syria. 447
CHAPTER ILIX.
State of affairs in Khorassan.— Conspiracy at Cuf a.— Faction of the Penitents;
their fortunes.— Death of the Caliph Merwan 451
CHAPTER L.
Inauguration of Abd'almalec, the eleventh Caliph.— Story of Al Moktar, the
Avenger 454
CHAPTER LI.
Musab Ibn Zobeir takes possession of Babylonia.— Usurpation of Amru Ibn
Saad; his death.— Expedition of Abd'almalec against Musab.— The result.—
Omens; their effect upon Abd'almalec.— Exploits of Al Mohalleb 461
CHAPTER LJI.
Abd'almalec makes war upon his rival Caliph in Mecca.— Siege of the sacred
city.— Death of Abdallah.— Demolition and reconstruction of the Caaba 465
CHAPTER LHI.
Administration of Al Hejagi as emir of Babylonia 470
CHAPTER LTV.
Renunciation of tribute to the emperor. — Battles in Northern Africa. — The
prophet queen Cahina; her achievements and fate 478
CHAPTER LV.
Musa Ibn Nosseyr made emir of Northern Africa.— His campaigns against the
Berbers 482
CHAPTER LVI.
Naval enterprises of Musa.— Cruisings of his son Abdolola.— Death of Abd'al
malec 487
CHAPTER LVn.
Inauguration of Waled, twelfth Caliph.— Revival of the arts under his reign.—
His taste for architecture.— Erection of mosques.— Conquests of his generals. 490
CHAPTER LVm.
Further triumphs of Musa Ibn Nosseyr.— Naval enterprises.— Descents in Sicily,
Sardinia and Mallorca.— Invasion of Tingitania.— Projects for the invasion of
Spain.— Conclusion . . 495
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS,
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY NOTICE OF ARABIA AND THE ARABS.
DURING a long succession of ages, extending from the earliest
period of recorded history down to the seventh century of the
Christian era, that great Chersonese or peninsula formed by
the Red Sea, the Euphrates, the Gulf of Persia, and the Indian
Ocean, and known by the name of Arabia, remained unchanged
and almost unaffected by the event? which convulsed the rest
of Asia, and shook Europe and Africa to their centre. While
kingdoms and empires rose and fell ; while ancient dynasties
passed away; while the boundaries and names of countries
were changed, and their inhabitants were exterminated or
carried into captivity, Arabia, though its frontier provinces
experienced some vicissitudes, preserved in the depths of its
deserts its primitive character and independence, nor had its
nomadic tribes ever bent their haughty necks to servitude.
The Arabs carry back the traditions of their country to the
highest antiquity. It was peopled, they say, soon after the
deluge, by the progeny of Shem, the son of Noah, who gradu
ally formed themselves into several tribes, the most noted of
which are the Adites and Thamudites. All these primitive
tribes are said to have been either swept from the earth in
punishment of their iniquities, or obliterated in subsequent
modifications of the races, so that little remains concerning
them but shadowy traditions and a few passages in the Koran.
They are occasionally mentioned in oriental history as the
"old primitive Arabians"— the " lost tribes."
The primitive population of the peninsula is ascribed, by
the same authorities, to Kahtan or Joctan, a descendant in the
fourth generation from Shem. His posterity spread over the
io MAHOMKT AXD ins SUCCESSOR.
southern part of the peninsula and along the Eed Sea. Yarab,
one of his sons, founded the kingdom of Yemen, where the ter
ritory of Araba was called after him ; whence the Arabs derive
the names of themselves and their country. Jurham, another
son, founded the kingdom of Hedjaz, over which his descend
ants bore sway for many generations. Among these people
Hagar and her son Ishmael were kindly received, when exiled
from their home by the patriarch Abraham. In the process of
time Ishmael married the daughter of Modad, a reigning prince
of the line of Jurham; and thus a stranger and a Hebrew be
came grafted on the original Arabian stock. It proved a vigor
ous graft. Ishmael's wife bore him twelve sons, who acquired
dominion over the country, and whose prolific race, divided
into twelve tribes, expelled or overran and obliterated the
primitive stock of Joctan.
Such is the account given by the peninsular Arabs of their
origin ; * and Christian writers cite it as containing the fulfil
ment of the covenant of God with Abraham, as recorded in
Holy Writ. " And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael
might live before thee ! And God said, As for Ishmael, I have
heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him
fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly: twelve princes
shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation" (Genesis 17 :
18, 20).
These twelve princes with their tribes are further spoken of
in the Scriptures (Genesis 25 : 18) as occupying the country
"from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest
toward Assyria ;" a region identified by sacred geographers with
part of Arabia. The description of them agrees with that of
the Arabs of the present day. Some are mentioned as holding
towns and castles, others as dwelling in tents, or having villages
in the wilderness. Nebaioth and Kedar, the two first-born of
Ishmael, are most noted among the princes for their wealth in
flocks and herds, and for the fine wool of their sheep. From
Nebaioth came the Nabathai who inhabited Stony Arabia;
* Besides the Arabs of the peninsula, who were all of ttie Sbemitic race, there were
others called Cushites, being descended from Cush the son of Ham. They inhabited
the banks of the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf. The name of Cush is often given
in Scripture to the Arabs generally as well as to their country. It must be the
Arabs of this race who at present roam the deserted regions of ancient Assyria, and
have been employed recently in disinterring the long-buried ruins of Nineveh. They
are sometimes distinguished as the Syro- Arabians. The present work relates only
to the Arabs of the peninsula, or Arabia Proper.
PRELIMINARY NOTICE OF ARABIA. 17
while the name of Kedar is occasionally given in Holy Writ to
designate the whole Arabian nation. " Woe is me,'' says the
Psalmist, "that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents
of Kedar." Both appear to have been the progenitors of the
wandering or pastoral Arabs; the free rovers of the desert.
"The wealthy nation," says the prophet Jeremiah, "that
dwelleth without care; which have neither gates nor bars,
which dwell alone."
A strong distinction grew up in the earliest times between
the Arabs who uheld towns and castles," and those who
"dwelt in tents." Some of the former occupied the fertile
wadies, or valleys, scattered here and there among the moun
tains, where these towns and castles were surrounded by vine
yards and orchards, groves of palm-trees, fields of grain, and
well-stocked pastures. They were settled in their habits, de
voting themselves to the cultivation of the soil and the breed
ing of cattle.
Others of this class gave themselves up to commerce, having
ports and cities along the Red Sea ; the southern shores of the
peninsula and the Gulf of Persia, and carrying on foreign trade
by means of ships and caravans. Such especially were the
people of Yemen, or Arabia the Happy, that land of spices,
perfumes, and frankincense; the Sab«a of the poets; the
Sheba of the sacred Scriptures. They were among the most
active mercantile navigators of the eastern seas. Their ships
brought to their shores the myrrh and balsams of the opposite
coast of Berbera, with the gold, the spices, and other rich com
modities of India and tropical Africa. These, with the prod
ucts of their own country, were transported by caravans across
the deserts to the semi- Arabian states of Ammon, Moab, and
Edom or Idumea to the Phoenician ports of the Mediterranean,
and thence distributed to the western world.
The camel has been termed the ship of the desert ; the cara
van may be termed its fleet. The caravans of Yemen were
generally fitted out, manned, conducted, and guarded by the
nomadic Arabs, the dwellers in tents, who, in this respect,
might be called the navigators of the desert. They furnished
the innumerable camels required, and also contributed to the
freight by the fine fleeces of their countless flocks. The writ
ings of the prophets show the importance, in scriptural times,
of this inland chain of commerce by which the rich countries
of the south, India, Ethiopia, and Arabia the Happy,
linked with ancient Syria.
18 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Ezekiel, in his lamentations for Tyre, exclaims, "Arabia,
and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs,
and rams, and goats ; in these were they thy merchants. The
merchants of Sheba and Eaamah occupied in thy fairs with
chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold.
Haran, and Canneh, and Eden,* the merchants of Sheba, As-
shur, and Chelmad, were thy merchants." And Isaiah, speak
ing to Jerusalem, says : ' k The multitude of camels shall cover
thee; the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from
Sheba shall come ; they shall bring gold and incense.
All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee ;
the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee" (Isaiah 60: 6, 7).
The agricultural and trading Arabs, however, the dwellers
in towns and cities, have never been considered the true type
of the race. They became softened by settled and peaceful
occupations, and lost much of their original stamp by an inter
course with strangers. Yemen, too, being more accessible
than the other parts of Arabia, and offering greater temptation
to the spoiler, had been repeatedly invaded and subdued.
It was among the other class of Arabs, the rovers of the desert,
the "dwellers in tents," by far the most numerous of the two,
that the national character was preserved in all its primitive
force and freshness. Nomadic in their habits, pastoral in their
occupations, and acquainted by experience and tradition with
all the hidden resources of the desert, they led a wandering
life, roaming from place to place in quest of those wells and
springs which had been the resort of their forefathers since the
days of the patriarchs; encamping wherever they could find
date-trees for shade, and sustenance and pasturage for their
flocks, and herds, and camels ; and shifting their abode when
ever the temporary supply was exhausted.
These nomadic Arabs were divided and subdivided into
innumerable petty tribes or families, each with its Sheikh or
Emir, the representative of the patriarch of yore, whose spear,
planted beside his tent, was the ensign of command. His
office, however, though continued for many generations in the
same family, was not strictly hereditary, but depended upon
the good- will of the tribe. He might be deposed, and another
of a different line elected in his place. His power, too, was
limited, and depended upon his personal merit and the confi
dence reposed in him. His prerogative consisted in conducting
* Haran, Canaa, and Aden, ports on the Indian Sea.
PRELIMINARY NOTICE OF ARABIA. \$
negotiations of peace and war; in leading his tribe against the
enemy ; in choosing the place of encampment, and in recei Ting
and entertaining strangers of note. Yet, even in these and
similar privileges, he was controlled by the opinions and incli
nations of his people.*
However numerous and minute might be the divisions of a
tribe, the links of affinity were carefully kept in mind by the
several sections. All the Sheikhs of the same tribe acknowl-
edge a common chief called the Sheikh of Sheikhs, who,
whether ensconced in a rock-built castle, or encamped amid his
flocks and herds in the desert, might assemble under his
standard all the scattered branches on any emergency affect
ing the common weal.
The multiplicity of these wandering tribes, each with its
petty prince and petty territory, but without a national head,
produced frequent collisions. Revenge, too, was almost a
religious principle among them. To avenge a relative slam
was the duty of his family, and often involved the honor of
* In summer the wandering Arabs, says Burckhardt, seldom remain above three
or four days on the same spot; as soon as their cattle have consumed the herbage
near a watering place, the tribe removes in search of pasture, and the grass again
springing up, serves for a succeeding camp. The encampments vary in the
number of tents, from six to eight hundred; when the tents are but few, they are
pitched in a circle ; but more considerable numbers in a straight line, or a row of
single tents, especially along a rivulet, sometimes three or four behind as many
others. In winter, when water and pasture never fail, the whole tribe spreads itself
over the* plain in parties of three or four tents each, with an interval of half an
hour's distance between each party. The Sheikh's tent is always on the side on
which enemies or guests may be expected. To oppose the former and to honor the
latter, is the Sheikh's principal business. Every father of a family sticks his lance
into the ground by the side of his tent, and ties his horse in front. There also his
camels repose at night.— Burckhardt, Notes on Bedouins, vol. i. p. 33.
The following is descriptive of the Arabs of Assyria, though it is applicable, in a
great degree, to the whole race :
" It would be difficult to describe the appearance of a large tribe when migrating
to new pastures. We soon found ourselves in the midst of wide-spreading flocks of
sheep and camels. As far as the eye could reach, to the right, to the left, and in
front, still the same moving crowd. Long lines of asses and bullocks, laden with
black tents, huge caldrons, and variegated carpets; aged women and men, no
longer able to walk, tied on the heap of domestic furniture: infants crammed into
saddlebags, their tiny heads thrust through the narrow opening, balanced on the
animal's back by kids or lambs tied on the opposite side; young girls clothed only
in the close-fitting Arab shirt which displayed rather than concealed their graceful
forms; mothers with their children on their shoulders; boys driving flocks of lambs:
horsemen armed with their long tufted spears, scouring the plain OB their fleet
mares; riders urging their dromedaries with their short hooked sticks, and leading
their high-bred steeds by the halter; colts galloping among the throng— such was
the motley crowd through which we had to wend our way."— Layar&s Nineveh, \. i.
20 MAUOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
his tribe ; and these debts of blood sometimes remained unset-
tied for generations, producing deadly feuds.
The necessity of being always on the alert to defend his
flocks and herds made the Arab of the desert familiar from his
infancy with the exercise of arms. None could excel him in
the use of the bow, the lance, and the scimitar- and the adroit
and graceful management of the horse. He was a- predatory
warrior also ; for though at times he was engaged in the ser
vice of the merchant, furnishing him with camels and guides
and drivers for the transportation of his merchandise, he was
more apt to lay contributions on the caravan or plunder it
outright in its toilful progress through the desert. All this he
regarded as a legitimate exercise of arms; looking down upon
the gainful sons of traffic as an inferior race, debased by sordid
habits and pursuits.
Such was the Arab of the desert, the dweller in tents, in
whom was fulfilled the prophetic destiny of his ancestor Ish-
mael : " He will be a wild man ; his hand will be against every
man, and every man's hand against him." * Nature had fitted
him for his destiny. His form was light and meagre, but
sinewy and active, and capable of sustaining great fatigue and
hardship. He was temperate and even abstemious, requiring
but little food, and that of the simplest kind. His mind, like
his body, was light and agile. He eminently possessed the
intellectual attributes of the Shemitic race, penetrating sagac
ity, subtle wit, a ready conception, and a brilliant imagina
tion. His sensibilities were quick and acute, though ifot last
ing; a proud and daring spirit was stamped on his sallow
visage and flashed from his dark and kindling eye. He was
easily aroused by the appeals of eloquence, and charmed by
the graces of poetry. Speaking a language copious in the
extreme, the words of which have been compared to gems and
flower j, he was naturally an orator; but he delighted in prov
erbs and apothegms, rather .than in sustained flights of decla
mation, and was prone to convey his ideas in the oriental style
by apologue and parable.
Though a restless and predatory warrior, he was generous
and hospitable. He delighted in giving gifts; his door was
always open to the wayfarer, with whom he was ready to
share his last morsel ; and his deadliest foe, having once broken
* Genesis 16: 12.
PRELIMINARY NOTICE Of ARABIA. 21
bread with him, might repose securely beneath the inviolable
sanctity of his tent.
In religion the Arabs, in what they term the Days of Igno
rance, partook Jargely of the two faiths, the Sabean and the
Magian, which at that time prevailed over the eastern world.
The Sabean, however, was the one to which they most
adhered. They pretended to derive it from Sabi the son of
Seth, who, with his father and his brother Enoch, they sup
posed to be buried in the pyramids. Others derive the name
from the Hebrew word, Saba, or the Stars, and trace the
origin of the faith to the Assyrian shepherds, who as they
watched their flocks by night on their level plains, and beneath
their cloudless skies, noted the aspects and movements of the
heavenly bodies, and formed theories of their good and evil
influences on human affairs ; vague notions which the Chal
dean philosophers and priests reduced to a system, supposed to
be more ancient even than that of the Egyptians.
By others it is derived from still higher authority, and
claimed to be the religion of the antediluvian world. It sur
vived, say they, the deluge, and was continued among the
patriarchs. It was taught by Abraham, adopted by his de
scendants, the children of Israel, and sanctified and confirmed
in the tablets of the law, delivered unto Moses amid the thun
der and lightning of Mount Sinai.
In its original state the Sabean faith was pure and spiritual ;
inculcating a belief in the unity ot God, the doctrine of a
future state of rewards and punishments, and the necessity of a
virtuous and holy life to obtain a happy immortality. So pro
found was the reverence of the Sabeans for the Supreme
Being, that they never mentioned his name, nor did they ven
ture to approach him, but through intermediate intelligences
or angels. These were supposed to inhabit and animate the
heavenly bodies, in the same way as the human body is inhab
ited and animated by a soul. They were placed in their
respective spheres to supervise and govern the universe in sub
serviency to the Most High. In addressing themselves to the
stars and other celestial luminaries, therefore, the Sabeans did
not worship them as deities, but sought only to propitiate their
angelic occupants as intercessors with the Supreme Being;
looking up through these created things to God the great Ore
ator.
By degrees this religion lost its original simplicity and
purity, and became obscured by mysteries, and degraded by
22 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS,
idolatries. The Sabeans, instead of regarding the heavenly
bodies as the habitations of intermediate agents, worshipped
them as deities; set up graven images in honor of them, in
sacred groves and in the gloom of forests; and at length
enshrined these idols in temples, and worshipped them as if
instinct with divinity. The Sabean faith too underwent
changes and modifications in the various countries through
which it was diffused. Egypt has long been accused of reduc
ing it to the most abject state of degradation; the statues,
hieroglyphics, and painted sepulchres of that mysterious coun
try, being considered' records of the worship, not merely of
celestial intelligences, but of the lowest order of created beings,
and even of inanimate objects. Modern investigation and
research, however, are gradually rescuing the most intellect
ual nation of antiquity from this aspersion, and as they slowly
lift the veil of mystery which hangs over the tombs of Egypt,
are discovering that all these apparent objects of adoration
were but symbols of the varied attributes of the one Supreme
Being, whose name was too sacred to be pronounced by mor
tals. Among the Arabs the Sabean faith became mingled with
wild superstitions, and degraded by gross idolatry. Each
tribe worshipped its particular star or planet, or set up its par
ticular idol. Infanticide mingled its horrors with their relig
ious rites. Among the nomadic tribes the birth of a daughter
was considered a misfortune, her sex rendering her of little
service in a wandering and predatory life, while she might
bring disgrace upon her family by misconduct or captivity.
Motives of unnatural policy, therefore, may have mingled
with their religious feelings, in offering up female infants as
sacrifices to their idols, or in burying them alive.
The rival sect of Magians or Guebres (fire worshippers),
which, as we have said, divided the religious empire of the
East, took its rise in Persia, where, after a while, its oral doc
trines were reduced to writing by its great prophet and
teacher Zoroaster, in his volume of the Zendavesta. The
creed, like that of the Sabeans, was originally simple and
spiritual, inculcating a belief in one supreme and eternal God,
in whom and by whom the universe exists : that he produced,
through his creating word, two active principles, Ormusd, the
principle or angel of light or good, and Ahriman, the principle
or angel of darkness or evil : that these formed the world out
of a mixture of their opposite elements, and were engaged in a
perpetual contest in the regulation of its affairs. Hence the
PRELIMINARY NOTICE OF ARABIA. 33
vicissitudes of good and evil, accordingly as the angel of light
or darkness has the upper hand : this contest would continue
until the end of the world, when there would be a general
IVM infection and a day of judgment; the angel of darkness
and his disciples would then be banished to an abode of woeful
gloom, and their opponents would enter the blissful realms of
ever-during light.
The primitive rites of this religion were extremely simple.
The Magians had neither temples, altars, nor religious symbols
of any kind, but addressed their prayers and hymns directly
to the Deity, in what they conceived to be his residence, the
sun. They reverenced this luminary as being his abode, and
as the source of the light and heat of which all the other
heavenly bodies were composed ; and they kindled fires upon
the mountain tops to supply light during its absence. Zoroas
ter first introduced the use of temples, wherein sacred fire,
pretended to be derived from heaven, was kept perpetually
alive through the guardianship of priests, who maintained a
watch over it iiight and day.
In process of time this sect, like that of the Sabeans, lost
sight of the divine principle in the symbol, and came to wor
ship light or fire, as the real deity, and to abhor darkness as
Satan or the devil. In their fanatic zeal, the Magians would
seize upon unbelievers and offer them up in the flames to pro
pitiate their fiery deity.
To the tenets of these two sects reference is made in that
beautiful text of the wisdom of Solomon: " Surely vain are all
men by nature who are ignorant of God, and could not, by
considering the work, acknowledge the work master; but
deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of
the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be
gods, which govern the world."
Of these two faiths the Sabean, as we have before observed,
was much the most prevalent among the Arabs; but in an
extremely degraded form, mingled with all kinds of abuses,
and varying among the various tribes. The Magian faith pre
vailed among those tribes which, from their frontier position,
had frequent intercourse with Persia ; while other tribes par
took of the superstitions and idolatries of the nations on which
they bordered.
Judaism had made its way into Arabia at an early period,
but very vaguely and imperfectly. Still many of its rites and
ceremonies, and fanciful traditions, became implanted in the
24 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
country. At a later day, however, when Palestine was rav
aged by the Romans, and the city of Jerusalem taken and
sacked, many of the • Jews took refuge among the Arabs ; be
came incorporated with the native tribes ; formed themselves
into communities; acquired possession of fertile tracts; built
castles and strongholds, and rose to considerable power and
influence.
The Christian religion had likewise its adherents among the
Arabs. St. Paul himself declares, in his epistle to the Gala-
tians, that soon after he had been called to preach Christianity
among the heathens, he "went into Arabia." The dissensions,
also, which rose in the Eastern church, in the early part of the
third century, breaking it up into sects, each persecuting the
others as it gained the ascendency, drove many into exile into
remote parts of the East; filled the deserts of Arabia with
anchorites, and planted the Christian faith among some of the
principal tribes.
The foregoing circumstances, physical and moral, may give
an idea of the causes which maintained the Arabs for ages in
an unchanged condition. While their isolated position and
their vast deserts protected them from conquest, their internal
feuds and their want of a common tie, political or religious,
kept them from being formidable as conquerors. They were a
vast aggregation of distinct parts ; full of individual vigor, but
wanting coherent strength. Although their nomadic life ren
dered them hardy and active; although the greater part of
them were warriors from infancy, yet their arms were only
wielded against each other, excepting some of the frontier
tribes, which occasionally engaged as mercenaries in external
wars. While, therefore, the other nomadic races of Central
Asia, possessing no greater aptness for warfare, had, during a
course of ages, successively overrun and conquered the civil
ized world, this warrior race, unconscious of its power, re
mained disjointed and harmless in the depths of its native
deserts.
The time at length arrived when its discordant tribes were
to be united in one creed, and animated by one common
cause ; when a mighty genius was to arise, who should bring
together these scattered limbs, animate them with his own
enthusiastic and daring spirit, and lead them forth, a giant of
the desert, to shake and overturn the empires of the earth.
lilRTU AND PARENTAGE OF MAHOMET.
CHAPTER II.
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE OF MAHOMET— HIS INFANCY AND
CHILDHOOD.
MAHOMET, the great founder of the faith of Islam, was born
in Mecca, in April, in the year 569 of the Christian era. He
was of the valiant and illustrious tribe of Koreish, of which
there were two branches, descended from two brothers, Has-
chem and Abd Schems. Haschem, the progenitor of Mahomet,
was a great benefactor of Mecca. This city is situated in the
midst of a barren and stony country, and in former times was
often subject to scarcity of provisions. At the beginning of
the sixth century, Haschem established two yearly caravans,
one in the winter to South Arabia or Yemen ; the other in the
summer to Syria. By these means abundant supplies were
brought to Mecca, as well as a great variety of merchandise.
The city became a commercial mart, and the tribe of Koreish,
which engaged largely in these expeditions, became wealthy
and powerful. Haschem, at this time, was the guardian of
the Caaba, the great shrine of Arabian pilgrimage and wor
ship, the custody of which was confided to none but the most
honorable tribes and families, in the same manner as in old
times the temple of Jerusalem was intrusted only to the care
of the Levites. In fact, the guardianship of the Caaba was
connected with civil dignities and privileges, and gave the
holder of it the control of the sacred city.
On the death of Haschem, his son, Abd al Motalleb, suc
ceeded to his honors, and inherited his patriotism. He de
livered the holy city from an invading army of troops and
elephants, sent by the Christian princes of Abyssinia, who
at that time held Yemen in subjection. These signal services
rendered by father and son confirmed the guardianship of the
Caaba in the line of Haschem, to the great discontent and
envy of the line of Abd Schems.
Abd al Motalleb had several sons and daughters. Those of
his sons who figure in history were, Abu Taleb, Abu Lahab,
Abbas, Hamza, and Abdallah. The last named was the
youngest and best beloved. He married Amina, a maiden
of a distant branch of the same illustrious stock of Koreish.
26 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
So remarkable was Abdallah for personal beauty and those
qualities which win the affections of women, that, if Moslem
traditions are to be credited, on the night of his marriage with
Amina, two hundred virgins of the tribe of Koreish died of
broken hearts.
Mahomet was the first and only fruit of the marriage thus
sadly celebrated. His birth, according to similar traditions
with the one just cited, was accompanied by signs and por
tents announcing a child of wonder. His mother suffered
none of the pangs of travail. At the moment of his coming
into the world, a celestial light illumined the surrounding
country, and the new-born child, raising his eyes to heaven,
exclaimed: "God is great! There is no God but God, and I
am his prophet."
Heaven and earth, we are assured, were agitated at his
advent. The Lake Sawa shrank back to its secret springs,
leaving its borders dry ; while the Tigris, bursting its bounds,
overflowed the neighboring lands. The palace of Khosru the
King of Persia shook to its foundations, and several of its
towers were toppled to the earth. In that troubled night
Kadhi, or the Judge of Persia, beheld, in a dream, a feroci
ous camel conquered by an Arabian courser. He related his
dream in the morning to the Persian monarch, and inter
preted it to portend danger from the quarter of Arabia.
In the same eventful night the sacred fire of Zoroaster,
which, guarded by the Magi, had burned without interrup
tion for upward of a thousand years, was suddenly extin
guished, and all the idols in the world fell down. The
demons, or evil genii, which lurk in the stars and the signs
of the zodiac, and exert a malignant influence over the chil
dren of men, were cast forth by the pure angels, and hurled,
with their arch leader, Eblis, or Lucifer, into the depths of the
The relatives of the new-born child, say the like authorities,
were fill with awe and wonder. His mother's brother, an
astrologer, cast his nativity, and predicted that he would rise
to vast power, found an empire, and establish a new faith
among men. His grandfather, Abd al Motalleb, gave a feast
to the principal Koreishites, the seventh day after his birth,
at which he presented this child, as the dawning glory of their
race, and gave him the name of Mahomet (or Muhamed),
indicative of his future renown.
Such are the marvellous accounts given by Moslem writers
BIRTH AXD PARENTAGE OF MAHOMET. 27
of the infancy of Mahomet, and we have little else than similar
fables about his early years. He was scarce two months old
when his father died, leaving him no other inheritance than
five camels, a few sheep, and a female slave of Ethiopia,
named Barakat. His mother, Amina, had hitherto nurtured
him, but care and sorrow dried the fountains of her breast,
and the air of Mecca being unhealthy for children, she sought
a nurse for him among the females of the neighboring Bedouin
tribes. These were accustomed to come to Mecca twice a year,
in spring and autumn, to foster the children of its inhabitants ;
but they looked for the offspring of the rich, where they were
sure of ample recompense, and turned with contempt from
this heir of poverty. At length Halema, the wife of a Saadite
shepherd, was moved to compassion, and took the helpless
infant to her home. It was in one of the pastoral valleys of
the mountains.*
Many were the wonders related by Halema of her infant
charge. On the journey from Mecca, the mule which bore
him became miraculously endowed with speech, and pro
claimed aloud that he bore on his back the greatest of
prophets, the chief of ambassadors, the favorite of the Al
mighty. The sheep bowed to him as he passed; as he lay
in his cradle and gazed at the moon it stooped to him in
reverence.
The blessing of heaven, say the Arabian writers, rewarded
the charity of Halema. While the child remained under her
roof, everything around her prospered. The wells and springs
were never dried up ; the pastures were always green ; her
flocks and herds increased tenfold; a marvellous abundance
reigned over her fields, and peace prevailed in her dwelling.
The Arabian legends go on to extol the almost supernatural
powers, bodily and mental, manifested by this wonderful child
at a very early age. He could stand alone when three months
old; run abroad when he was seven, and at ten could join
other children in their sports with bows and arrows. At eight
months he could speak so as to be understood; and in the
course of another month could converse with fluency, display
ing a wisdom astonishing to all who heard him.
* The Beni Sad (or children of Sad) date from the most remote antiquity, and
with the Katan Arabs, are the only remnants of the primitive tribes of Arabia.
Their valley is among the mountains which range southwardly from the
Burckhardt on the Bedouins, vol. ii. p. 47.
28 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
At the age of three years, while playing in the fields with
his foster-brother, Masroud, two angels in shining apparel
appeared before them. They laid Mahomet gently upon the
ground, and Gabriel, one of the angels, opened his breast, but
without inflicting any pain. Then taking forth his heart, he
cleansed it from all impurity, wringing from it those black
and bitter drops of original sin, inherited from our forefather
Adam, and which lurk in the hearts of the best of his descend
ants, inciting them to crime. When he had thoroughly puri
fied it, he filled it with faith and knowledge and prophetic
light, and replaced it in the bosom of the child. Now, we are
assured by the same authorities, began to emanate from his
countenance that mysterious light which had continued down
from Adam, through the sacred line of prophets, until the time
of Isaac and Ishmael ; but which had lain dormant in the de
scendants of the latter, until it thus shone forth with renewed
radiance from the features of Mahomet.
At this supernatural visitation, it is added, was impressed
between the shoulders of the child the seal of prophecy, which
continued throughout life the symbol and credential of his
divine mission; though unbelievers saw nothing in it but a
large mole, the size of a pigeon's egg.
When the marvellous visitation of the angel was related to
Halema and her husband, they were alarmed lest some misfor
tune should be impending over the child, or that his super
natural visitors might be of the race of evil spirits or genii,
which haunt the solitudes of the desert, wreaking mischief on
the children of men. His Saadite nurse, therefore, carried
him back to Mecca, and delivered him to his mother Amina.
He remained with his parent until his sixth year, when she
took him with her to Medina, on a visit to her relatives of the
tribe of Adrj, but on her journey homeward she died, and was
buried at Abwa, a village between Medina and Mecca. Her
grave, it will be found, was a place of pious resort and tender
recollection to her son, at the latest period of his life.
The faithful Abyssinian slavej Barakat, now acted as a
mother to the orphan child, and conducted him to his grand
father Abd al Motalleb, in whose household he remained for
two years, treated with care and tenderness. Abd al Motalleb
was now well stricken in years ; having outlived the ordinary
term of human existence. Finding his end approaching, he
called to him his eldest son, Abu Taleb, and bequeathed Ma
homet to his especial protection. The good Abu Taleb took his
TRADITIONS CONCERNING MECCA. 2i)
nephew to his bosom, and ever afterward was to him as a
parent. As the former succeeded to the guardianship of the
Caaba at the death of his father, Mahomet continued for
several years in a kind of sacerdotal household, where the
rites and ceremonies of the sacred house were rigidly observed.
And here we deem it necessary to give a more especial notice
of the alleged origin of the Caaba, and of the rites and tradi
tions and superstitions connected with it, closely interwoven
as they are with the faith of Islam and the story of its founder.
CHAPTER III.
TRADITIONS CONCERNING MECCA AND THE CAABA.
WHEN Adam and Eve were cast forth from Paradise, say
Arabian traditions, they fell in different parts of the earth;
Adam on a mountain of the island of Serendib, or Ceylon ; Eve
in Arabia on the borders of the Red Sea, where the port of
Joddah is now situated. For two hundred years they wan
dered separate and lonely about the earth, until, in considera
tion of their penitence and wretchedness, they were permitted
to come together again on Mount Arafat, not far from the
present city of Mecca. In the depth of his sorrow and repent
ance, Adam, it is said, raised his hands and eyes to heaven,
and implored the clemency of God ; entreating that a shrine
might be vouchsafed to him similar to that at which he had
worshipped when in Paradise, and round which the angels used
to move in adoring processions.
The supplication of Adam was effectual. A tabernacle or
temple formed of radiant clouds was lowered down by the
hands of angels, and placed immediately below its prototype
in the celestial paradise. Toward this heaven-descended shrine
Adam thenceforth turned when in prayer, and round it he
daily made seven circuits in imitation of the rites of the ador
ing angels.
At the death of Adam, say the same traditions, the taber
nacle of clouds passed away, or was again drawn up to heaven ;
but another, of the same form and in the same place, was built
of stone and clay by Seth, the son of Adam. This was swept
away by the deluge. Many generations afterward, in the time
30 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
of the patriarchs, when Hagar and her child Ishmael were near
perishing with thirst in the desert, an angel revealed to them a
spring or well of water, near to the ancient site of the taber
nacle. This was the well of Zem Zem, held sacred by the pro
geny of Ishmael to the present day. Shortly afterward two
individuals of the gigantic race of the Amalekites, in quest of
a camel which had strayed from their camp, discovered this
well, and, having slaked their thirst, brought their companions
to the place. Here they founded the city of Mecca, taking
Ishmael and his mother under their protection. They were
soon expelled by the proper inhabitants of the country, among
whom Ishmael remained. When grown to man's estate, he
married the daughter of the ruling prince, by whom he had a
numerous progeny, the ancestors of the Arabian people. In
process of time, by God's command he undertook to rebuild
the Caaba, on the precise site of the original tabernacle of
clouds. In this pious work he was assisted by his father Abra
ham. A miraculous stone served Abraham as a scaffold,
rising and sinking with him as he built the walls of the sacred
edifice. It still remains there an inestimable relic, and the
print of the patriarch's foot is clearly to be perceived on it by
all true believers.
While Abraham and Ishmael were thus occupied, the angel
Gabriel brought them a stone, about which traditional ac
counts are a little at variance ; by some it is said to have been
one of the precious stones of Paradise, which fell to the earth
with Adam, and was afterward lost in the slime of the deluge,
until retrieved by the angel Gabriel. ' The more received tra
dition is, that it was originally the guardian angel appointed
to watch over Adam in Paradise, but changed into a stone and
ejected thence with him at his fall, as a punishment for not hav
ing been more vigilant. This stone Abraham and Ishmael re
ceived with proper reverence, and inserted it in a corner of the
exterior wall of the Caaba, where it remains to the present day,
devoutly kissed by worshippers each time they make a circuit
of the temple. When first inserted in the wall it was, we are
told, a single jacinth of dazzling whiteness, but became gradu
ally blackened by the kisses of sinful mortals. At the resur
rection it will recover its angelic form, and stand forth a testi
mony before God in favor of those who have faithfully
performed the rites of pilgrimage.
Such are the Arabian traditions, which rendered the Caaba
and the well of Zem Zem objects of extraordinary veneration
TRADITIONS CONCERNING MECCA. %\
from the remotest antiquity among the people of the East,
and especially the descendants of Ishmael. Mecca, which in
closes these sacred objects within its walls, was a holy city
many ages before the rise of Mahometan ism, and was the re
sort of pilgrims from all parts of Arabia. So universal and
profound was the religious feeling respecting this observance,
that four months in every year were devoted to the rites ot
pilgrimage, and held sacred from all violence and warfare.
Hostile tribes then laid aside their arms ; took the heads from
their spears; traversed the late dangerous deserts in secu
rity ; thronged the gates of Mecca clad in the pilgrim's garb ;
made their seven circuits round the Caaba in imitation of the
angelic host ; touched and kissed the mysterious black stone ;
drank and made ablutions at the well Zem Zem in memory
of their ancestor Ishmael ; and having performed all the other
primitive rites of pilgrimage returned home in safety, again to
resume their weapons and their wars.
Among the religious observances of the Arabs in these their
"days of ignorance;" that is to say, before the promulgation
of the Moslem doctrines, fasting and prayer had a foremost
place. They had three principal fasts within the year ; one of
seven, one of nine, and one of thirty days. They prayed three
times each day; about sunrise, at noon, and about sunset;
turning their faces in the direction of the Caaba, which was
their kebla, or point of adoration. They had many religious
traditions, some of them acquired in early times from the
Jews, and they are said to have nurtured their devotional
feelings with the book of Psalms, and with a book said to be
by Seth, and filled with moral discourses.
Brought up, as Mahomet was, in the house of the guardian
of the Caaba, the ceremonies and devotions connected with
the sacred edifice may have given an early bias to his mind,
and inclined it to those speculations in matters of religion by
which it eventually became engrossed. Though his Moslem
biographers would fain persuade us his high destiny was
clearly foretold in his childhood by signs and prodigies, yet
his education appears to have been as much neglected as that
of ordinary Arab children ; for we find that he was not taught
either to read or write. He was a thoughtful child, however ;
quick to observe, prone to meditate on all that he observed,
and possessed of an imagination fertile, daring, and expansive.
The yearly influx of pilgrims from distant parts made Mecca a
receptacle for all kinds of floating knowledge, which he
32 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
appears to have imbibed with eagerness and retained in a
tenacious memory; and as he increased in years, a more
extended sphere of observation was gradually opened to him.
CHAPTER IV.
FIRST JOURNEY OF MAHOMET WITH THE CARAVAN TO SYRIA.
MAHOMET was now twelve years of age, but, as we have
shown, he had an intelligence far beyond his years. The
spirit of inquiry was awake within him, quickened by inter
course with pilgrims from all parts of Arabia. His uncle Abu
Taleb, too, beside his sacerdotal character as guardian of the
Caaba, was one of the most enterprising merchants of the
tribe of Koreish, and had much to do with those caravans set
on foot by his ancestor Haschem, which traded to Syria and
Yemen. The arrival and departure of those caravans, which
thronged the gates of Mecca and filled its streets with pleasing
tumult, were exciting events to a youth like Mahomet, and
carried his imagination to foreign parts. He could no longer
repress the ardent curiosity thus aroused ; but once, when his
uncle was about to mount his camel to depart with the caravan
for Syria, clung to him, and entreated to be permitted to ac
company him: "For who, oh my uncle," said he, "will take
care of me when thou art away?"
The appeal was not lost upon the kind-hearted Abu Taleb.
He bethought him, too, that the youth was of an age to enter
upon the active scenes of Arab life, and of a capacity to render
essential service in the duties of the caravan; he readily,
therefore, granted his prayer, and took him with him on the
journey to Syria.
The route lay through regions fertile in fables and traditions,
which it is the delight of the Arabs to recount in the evening
halts of the caravan. The vast solitudes of the desert, in
which, that wandering people pass so much of their lives, are
prone to engender superstitious fancies ; they have accordingly
peopled them with good and evil genii, and clothed them with
tales of enchantment, mingled up with wonderful events
which happened in days of old. In these evening halts of the
caravan, the youthful mind of Mahomet doubtless imbibed
FIRST JOURNEY OF MAIIOMET. 33
many of those superstitions of the desert which ever after
ward dwelt in his memory, and had a powerful influence over
his imagination. We may especially note two traditions
which he must have heard at this time, and which we find
recorded by him in after years in the Koran. One related to
the mountainous district of Hedjar. Here, as the caravan
wound its way through silent and deserted valleys, caves were
pointed out in the sides of the mountains once inhabited by
the Beni Thamud, or children of Thamud, one of the "lost
tribes" of Arabia; and this was the tradition concerning
them.
They were a proud and gigantic race, existing before the
time of the patriarch Abraham. Having fallen into blind
idolatry, God sent a prophet of the name of Saleh, to restore
them to the right way. They refused, however, to listen to
him unless he should prove the divinity of his mission by
causing a camel, big with young, to issue from the entrails ot
a mountain. Saleh accordingly prayed, and lo ! a rock opened,
and a female camel came forth, which soon produced a foal
Some of the Thamudites were convinced by the miracle, and
were converted by the prophet from their idolatry ; the greater
part, however, remained in unbelief. Saleh left the cainei
among them as a sign, warning them that a judgment from
heaven would fall on them, should they do her any harm.
For a time the camel was suffered to feed quietly in their
pastures, going forth in the morning and returning in the
evening. It is true, that when she bowed her head to drink
from a brook or well, she never raised it until she had drained
the last drop of water; but then in return she yielded milk-
enough to supply the whole tribe. As, however, she frightened
the other camels from the pasture, she became an object of
offence to the Thamudites, who hamstrung and slew her.
Upon this there was a fearful cry from heaven, and great claps
of thunder, and in the morning all the offenders were found
lying on their faces, dead. Thus the whole race was swept
from the earth, and their country was laid forever afterward
under the ban of heaven.
This story made a powerful impression on the mind of Ma
homet, insomuch that in after years he refused to let his
people encamp in the neighborhood, but hurried them away
from it as an accursed region.
Another tradition, gathered on this journey, related to the
city of Eyla, situated near the Bed Sea. This place, he was
34 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
told, had been inhabited in old times by a tribe of Jews, who
lapsed into idolatry and profaned the Sabbath, by fishing on
that sacred day; whereupon the old men were transformed
into swine, and the young men into monkeys.
We have noted these two traditions especially because they
are both cited by Mahomet as instances of divine judgment on
the crime of idolatry, and evince the bias his youthful mind
was already taking on that important subject.
Moslem writers tell us, as usual, of wonderful circumstances
which attended the youth throughout this journey, giving
evidence of the continual guardianship of heaven. At on<*.
time, as he traversed the burning sands of the desert, an angel
hovered over him unseen, sheltering him with his wings; a
miracle, however, which evidently does not rest on the evi
dence of an eye-witness ; at another time he was protected by
a cloud which hung over his head during the noontide heat ;
and on another occasion, as he sought the scanty shade of a
withered tree, it suddenly put forth leaves and blossoms.
After skirting the ancient domains of the Moabites and the
Ammonites, often mentioned in the sacred Scriptures, the
caravan arrived at Bosra, or Bostra, on the confines of Syria,
in the country of the tribe of Manasseh, beyond the Jordan.
In Scripture days it had been a city of the Levites, but now
was inhabited by Nestorian Christians. It was a great mart,
annually visited by the caravans; and here our wayfarers
came to a halt, and encamped near a convent of Nestorian
monks.
By this fraternity Abu Taleb and his nephew were enter
tained with great hospitality. One of the monks, by some
called Sergius, by others Bahira,* on conversing with Ma
homet, was surprised at the precocity of his intellect, and
interested by his eager desire for information, which appears
to have had reference, principally, to matters of religion.
They had frequent conversations together on such subjects,
in the course of which the efforts of the monk must have been
mainly directed against that idolatry in which the youthful
Mahomet had hitherto been educated ; for the Nestorian Chris
tians were strenuous in condemning not merely the worship
of images, but even the casual exhibition of them ; indeed, so
far did they carry their scruples on this point, that even the
* Some assert that these two names indicate two monks who held conversations
with Mahomet.
FIRST JOUltXEY OF MAHOMET. 35
cross, that general emblem of Christianity, was in a great
degree included in this prohibition.
Many have ascribed that knowledge of the principles and
traditions of the Christian faith displayed by Mahomet in
after life, to those early conversations with this monk ; it is
probable, however, that he had further intercourse with the
latter in the course of subsequent visits which he made to
Syria.
Moslem writers pretend that the interest taken by the monk
in the youthful stranger arose from his having accidentally
perceived between his shoulders the seal of prophecy. He
warned Abu Taleb, say they, when about to set out on his
return to Mecca, to take care that his nephew did not fall into
the hands of the Jews ; foreseeing with the eye of prophecy
the trouble and opposition he was to encounter from that
people.
It required no miraculous sign, however, to interest a secta
rian monk, anxious to make proselytes, in an intelligent and
inquiring youth, nephew of the guardian of the Caaba, who
might carry back with him to Mecca the seeds of Christianity
sown in his tender mind ; and it was natural that the monk
should be eager to prevent his hoped-for convert, in the pres
ent unsettled state of his religious opinions, from being be
guiled into the Jewish faith.
Mahomet returned to Mecca, his imagination teeming with
the wild tales and traditions picked up in the desert, and his
mind deeply impressed with the doctrines imparted to him in
the Nestorian convent. He seems ever afterward to have
entertained a mysterious reverence for Syria, probably from
the religious impressions received there. It was the land
whither Abraham the patriarch had repaired from Chaldea,
taking with him the primitive worship of the one true God.
" Verily," he used to say in after years, " God has ever main
tained guardians of his word in Syria ; forty in number ; when
one dies another is sent in his room ; and through them the
land is blessed." And again: " Joy be to the people of Syria,
for the angels of the kind God spread their wings over them."*
NOTK.— The conversion of Abraham from the idolatry into which the world had
fallen after the deluge is related in the sixth chapter of the Koran. Abraham's
father, Azer, or Zerah, as his name is given in the Scriptures, was a statuary and an
idolater.
* Mischat-ul-Masabih, vol. ii. p. 812.
36 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
" And Abraham said unto his father Azer, ' Why dost thou take graven images
for gods? Verily, thou and thy people are in error.'
44 Then was the firmament of heaven displayed unto Abraham, that he might see
how the world was governed.
" When night came, and darkness overshadowed the earth, he beheld a bright
star shining in the firmament, and cried out to his people who were astrologers,
'This, according to your assertions, is the Lord.'
" But the star set, and Abraham said, ' I have no faith in gods that set,'
" He beheld the moon rising, and exclaimed, 'Assuredly, this is the Lord.' But
the moon likewise set, and he was confounded, and prayed unto God, saying,
1 Direct me, lest I become as one of these people, who go astray.'
" When he saw the sun rising, he cried out, ' This is the most glorious of all ; this
of a certainty is the Lord.' But the sun also set. Then said Abraham, 'I believe
not, oh my people, in those things which ye call gods. Verily, I turn my face unto
Him, the Creator, who hath formed both the heavens and the earth.' "
CHAPTER V.
COMMERCIAL OCCUPATIONS OF MAHOMET — HIS MARRIAGE WITH
CADIJAH.
MAHOMET was now completely launched in active life, ac
companying his uncles in various expeditions. At one time,
when about sixteen years of age, we find him with his uncle
Zobier, journeying with the caravan to Yemen; at another
time acting as armor-bearer to the same uncle, who led a war
like expedition of Koreishites in aid of the Kenanites against
the tribe of Hawazan. This is cited as Mahomet's first essay
in arms, though he did little else than supply his uncle with
arrows in the heat of the action, and shield him from the darts
of the enemy. It is stigmatized among Arabian writers as
al Fadjar, or the impious war, having been carried on during
the sacred months of pilgrimage.
As Mahomet advanced in years he was employed by different
persons as commercial agent or factor in caravan journeys to
Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere ; all which tended to enlarge the
sphere of his observation, and to give him a quick insight into
character and a knowledge of human affairs.
He was a frequent attender of fairs also, which, in Arabia,
were not always mere resorts of traffic, but occasionally scenes
of poetical contests between different tribes, where prizes were
adjudged to the victors, ani their prize poems treasured up in
the archives of princes. Such, especially, was the case with
the fair of Ocadh; and seven of the prize poems adjudged
COMMERCIAL OCCUPATIONS OF MAHOMET. 37
there were hung up as trophies in the Caaba. At these fairs,
also, were recited the popular traditions of the Arabs, and incul
cated the various religious faiths which were afloat in Arabia.
From oral sources of this kind Mahomet gradually accum
ulated much of that varied information as to creeds and doc
trines which he afterward displayed.
There was at this time residing in Mecca a widow, named
Cadijah (or Khadijah), of the tribe of Kcreish. She had been
twice married. Her last husband, a wealthy merchant, nad
recently died, and the extensive concerns of the house were in
need of a conductor. A nephew of the widow, named Chu-
zirna, had become acquainted with Mahomet in the course of
his commercial expeditions, and had noticed the ability and
integrity with which he acquitted himself on all occasions.
He pointed him out to his aunt as a person well qualified to
be her factor. The personal appearance of Mahomet may have
strongly seconded this recommendation ; for he was now about
twenty-five years of age, and extolled by Arabian writers for
his manly beauty and engaging manners. So desirous was
Cadijah of securing his services, that she offered him double
wages to conduct a caravan which she was on the point of
sending off to Syria. Mahomet consulted his uncle Abu Taleb,
and by his advice accepted the offer. He was accompanied
and aided in the expedition by the nephew of the widow, and
by her slave Maisara, and so highly satisfied was Cadijah with
the way in which he discharged his duties, that, on his return,
she paid him double the amount of his stipulated wages. She
afterward sent him to the southern parts of Arabia on similar
expeditions, in all which he gave like satisfaction.
Cadijah was now in her fortieth year, a woman of judgment
and experience. The mental qualities of Mahomet rose more
and more in her estimation, and her heart began to yearn
toward the fresh and comely youth. According to Arabian
legends, a miracle occurred most opportunely to confirm and
sanctify the bias of her inclinations. She was one day with her
handmaids, at the hour of noon, on the terraced roof of her
dwelling, watching the arrival of a caravan conducted by Ma
homet. As it approached, she beheld, with astonishment, two
angels overshadowing him with their wings to protect him
from the sun. Turning, with emotion, to her handmaids, "Be
hold!" said she, u the beloved of Allah, who sends two angels
to watch over him !"
Whether or not the handmaidens looked forth with the same
38 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS
eyes of devotion as their mistress, and likewise discerned the
angels, the legend does not mention. Suffice it to say, the
widow was filled with a lively faith in the superhuman merits
of her youthful steward, and forthwith commissioned her
trusty slave, Mai'sara, to offer him her hand. The negotiation
is recorded with simple brevity. " Mahomet," demanded Mai'
sara, " why dost thou not marry?" "I have not the means,"
replied Mahomet. ** Well, but if a wealthy dame should offer
thee her hand; one also who is handsome and of high birth?"
" And who is she?" " Cadijah !" " How is that possible?" " Let
me manage it." Mai'sara returned to his mistress and reported
what had passed. An hour was appointed for an interview,
and the affair was brought to a satisfactory arrangement with
that promptness and sagacity which had distinguished Ma
homet in all his dealings with the widow. The father of Cadi
jah made some opposition to the match, on account of the
poverty of Mahomet, following the common notion that wealth
should be added to wealth ; but the widow wisely considered
her riches only as the means of enabling her to follow the dic
tates of her heart. She gave a great feast, to which were in
vited her father and the rest of her relatives, and Mahomet's
uncles Abu Taleb and Hamza, together with several others
of the Koreishites. At this banquet wine was served in abun
dance, and soon diffused good humor round the board. The
objections to Mahomet's poverty were forgotten; speeches
were made by Abu Taleb on the one side, and by Waraka, a
kinsman of Cadijah, on the other, in praise of the proposed
nuptials ; the dowry was arranged, and the marriage formally
concluded.
Mahomet then caused a camel to be killed before his door,
and the flesh distributed among the poor. The house was
thrown open to all comers; the female slaves of Cadijah
danced to the sound of timbrels, and all was revelry and re
joicing. Abu Taleb, forgetting his age and his habitual melan
choly, made merry on the occasion. He had paid down from
his purse a dower of twelve and a hali okks of gold, equivalent
to twenty young camels. Halema, who had nursed Mahomet
in his infancy, was summoned to rejoice at his nuptials, and
was presented with a flock of forty sheep, with which she re
turned, enriched and contented, to her native valley, in the
desert of the Saadites.
CONDUCT OF MAHOMET AFTER HIS MARRIAGE. 39
CHAPTER VI.
CONDUCT OF MAHOMET AFTER HIS MARRIAGE— BECOMES ANXIOUS
FOR RELIGIOUS REFORM— HIS HABITS OF SOLITARY ABSTRAC
TION—THE VISION OF THE CAVE— HIS ANNUNCIATION AS A
PROPHET.
THE marriage with Cadijah placed Mahomet among the
most wealthy of his native city. His moral worth also gave
him great influence in the community. Allah, says the his
torian Abulfeda, had endowed him with every gift necessary
to accomplish and adorn an honest man ; he was so pure and
sincere; so free /from every evil thought, that he was com
monly known by*the name of Al Amin, or The Faithful.
The great confidence reposed in his judgment and probity
caused him to be frequently referred to as arbiter in disputes
between his townsmen. An anecdote is given as illustrative of
his sagacity on such occasions. The Caaba having been in
jured by fire, was undergoing repairs, in the course of which
the sacred black stone was to be replaced. A dispute arose
among the chiefs of the various tribes, as to which was en
titled to perform so august an office, and they agreed to abide
by the decision of the first person who should enter by the
gate al Haram. That person happened to be Mahomet. Upon
hearing their different claims, he directed that a great cloth
should be spread upon the ground, and the stone laid thereon ;
and that a man from each tribe should take hold of the border
of the cloth. In this way the sacred stone was raised equally
and at the same time by them all to a level with its allotted
place, in which Mahomet fixed it with his own hands.
Four daughters and one son were the fruit of the marriage
with Cadijah. The son was named Kasim, whence Mahomet
was occasionally called Abu Kasim, or the father of Kasim,
according to Arabian nomenclature. This son, however, died
in his infancy.
For several years after his marriage he continued in com
merce, visiting the great Arabian fairs, and making distant
journeys- with the caravans. His expeditions were not as
profitable as in the days of his stewardship, and the wealth
acquired with his wife diminished rather than increased
40 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
in the course of his operations. That wealth, in fact, had
raised him above the necessity of toiling for subsistence, and
given him leisure to indulge the original bias of his mind ; a
turn for reverie and religious speculation, which he had
evinced from his earliest years. This had been fostered in the
course of his journeyings, by his intercourse with Jews and
Christians, originally fugitives from persecution, but now
gathered into tribes, or forming part of the population of
cities. The Arabian deserts, too, rife as we have shown them
with fanciful superstitions, had furnished aliment for his
enthusiastic reveries. Since his marriage with Cadijah, also,
he had a household oracle to influence him in his religious
opinions. This was his wife's cousin Waraka, a man of specu
lative mind and flexible faith ; originally a Jew, subsequently
a Christian, and withal a pretender to astrology. He is
worthy of note as being the first on record to translate parts
of the Old and New Testament into Arabic. From him
Mahomet is supposed to have derived much of his information
respecting those writings, and many of the traditions of the
Mishnu and the Talmud, on which he draws so copiously in
his Koran.
The knowledge thus variously acquired and treasured up in
an uncommonly retentive memory, was in direct hostility to
the gross idolatry prevalent in Arabia, and practised at the
Caaba. That sacred edifice had gradually become filled and
surrounded by idols, to the number of three hundred and
sixty, being one for every day of the Arab year. Hither had
been brought idols from various parts, the deities of other
nations, the chief of which, Hobal, was from Syria, and sup
posed to have the power of giving rain. Among these idols, too,
were Abraham and Ishmael, once revered as prophets and pro
genitors, now represented with divining arrows in their hands,
symbols of magic.
Mahomet became more and more sensible of the grossness
and absurdity of this idolatry, in proportion as his intelligent
mind contrasted it with the spiritual religions, which had
been the subjects of his inquiries. Various passages in the
Koran show the ruling idea which gradually sprang up in his
mind, -until it engrossed his thoughts and influenced all his
actions. That idea was a religious reform. It had become his
fixed belief, deduced from all that he had learned and medi
tated, that the only true religion had been revealed to Adam
at his creation, and been promulgated and practised in the
CONDUCT OF MAHOMET AFTER HIS MARRIAGE. 41
days of innocence. That religion inculcated the direct and
spiritual worship of one true and only God, the creator of the
universe.
It was his belief, furthermore, that this religion, so elevated
and simple, had repeatedly been corrupted and debased by
man, and especially outraged by idolatry; wherefore a suc
cession of prophets, each inspired by a revelation from the
Most High, had been sent from time to time, and at distant
periods, to restore it to its original purity. Such was Noah,
such was Abraham, such was Moses, and such was Jesus Christ.
By each of these the true religion had been reinstated upon
earth, but had again been vitiated by their followers. The
faith as taught and practised by Abraham when he came out
of the land of Chaldea seems especially to have formed a re
ligious standard in his mind, from his veneration for the
patriarch as the father of Ishmael, the progenitor of his race.
It appeared to Mahomet that the time for another reform
was again arrived. The world had once, more lapsed into
blind idolatry. It needed the advent of another prophet,
authorized by a mandate from on high, to restore the erring
children of men to the right path, and to bring back the
worship of the Caaba to what it had been in the days of
Abraham and the patriarchs. The probability of such an
advent, with its attendant reforms, seems to have taken pos
session of his mind, and produced habits of reverie and medi
tation, incompatible with the ordinary concerns of life and the
bustle of the world. We are told that he gradually absented
himself from society, and sought the solitude of a cavern on
Mount Hara, about three leagues north of Mecca, where, in
emulation of the Christian anchorites of the desert, he would
remain days and nights together, engaged in prayer and medi
tation. In this way he always passed the month of Ramad-
han, the holy month of the Arabs. Such intense occupation
of the mind on one subject, accompanied by fervent enthu
siasm of spirit, could not but have a powerful effect upon his
frame. He became subject to dreams, to ecstasies and trances.
For six months successively, according to one of his histo
rians, he had constant dreams bearing on the subject of his
waking thoughts. Often he would lose all consciousness of
surrounding objects, and lie upon the ground as if insensible.
Cadijah, who was sometimes the faithful companion of his
solitude, beheld these paroxysms with anxious solicitude, and
entreated to know the cause; but he evaded her inquiries, or
42 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
answered them mysteriously. Some of his adversaries have
attributed them to epilepsy, but devout Moslems declare them
to have been the workings of prophecy ; for already, say they,
the intimations of the Most High began to dawn, though
vaguely, on his spirit ; and his mind labored with conceptions
too great for mortal thought. At length, say they, what had
hit*herto been shadowed out in dreams, was made apparent
and distinct by an angelic apparition and a divine annun
ciation.
It was in the fortieth year of his age when this famous
revelation took place. Accounts are given of it by Moslem
writers as if received from his own lips, and it is alluded to in
certain passages of the Koran. He was passing, as was his
wont, the month of Ramadhan in the cavern of Mount Hara,
endeavoring by fasting, prayer, and solitary meditation, to
elevate his thoughts to the contemplation of divine truth. It
was on the night called by Arabs Al Kader, or the Divine
Decree ; a night in which, according to the Koran, angels de
scend to earth, and Gabriel brings down the decrees of God.
During that night there is peace on earth, and a holy quiet
reigns over all nature until the rising of the morn.
As Mahomet, in the silent watches of the night, lay wrapped
in his mantle, he heard a voice calling upon him ; uncovering
his head, a flood of light broke upon him of such intolerable
splendor that he swooned, away. On regaining his senses, he
beheld an angel in a human form, which, approaching from a
distance, displayed a silken cloth covered with written charac
ters. ' ' Read 1" said the angel.
" I know not how to read !" replied Mahomet.
" Read 1" repeated the angel, u in the name of the Lord, who
has created all things ; who created man from a clot of blood.
Read in the name of the Most High, who taught man the use
of the pen ; who sheds on his soul the ray of knowledge, and
teaches him what before he knew not."
Upon this Mahomet instantly felt his understanding illum
ined with celestial light, and read what was written on the
cloth, which contained the decrees of God, as afterward pro
mulgated in the Koran. When he had finished the perusal,
the heavenly messenger announced, "Oh, Mahomet, of a
verity, thou art the prophet of God! and I am his angel
Gabriel!"
Mahomet, we are told, came trembling and agitated to Cadi-
jah in the morning, not knowing whether what he had heard
CONDUCT OF MAHOMET AFTKR HIS MARRIAGE. 43
and seen was indeed true, and that he was a prophet decreed
to effect that reform so long the object of his meditations ; or
whether it might not be a mere vision, a delusion of the
senses, or, worse than all, the apparition of an evil spirit.
Cadijah, however, saw everything with the eye of faith, and
the credulity of an affectionate woman. She saw in it the
fruition of her husband's wishes, and the end of his paroxysms
and privations. "Joyful tidings dost thou bring! "exclaimed
she. "By him, in whose hand is the soul of Cadijah, I will
henceforth regard thee as the prophet of our nation. Re
joice," added she, seeing him still cast down; " Allah will not
suffer thee to fall to shame. Hast thou not been loving to thy
kinsfolk, kind to thy neighbors, charitable to the poor, hospi
table to the stranger, faithful to thy word, and ever a defender
of the truth?"
Cadijah hastened to communicate what she had heard to her
cousin Waraka, the translator of the Scriptures ; who, as we
have shown, had been a household oracle of Mahomet in mat
ters of religion. He caught at once, and with eagerness, at
this miraculous annunciation. " By him in whose hand is the
soul of Waraka," exclaimed he; " thou speakest true, oh Cadi
jah ! The angel who has appeared to thy husband is the same
who, in days of old, was sent to Moses, the son of Amram.
His annunciation is true. Thy husband is indeed a prophet !"
The zealous concurrence of the learned Waraka is said to
have had a powerful effect in fortifying the dubious mind of
Mahomet.
NOTE.— Dr. Gustav Weil, in a note to Mohammed der Prophet, discusses the ques
tion of Mahomet's being subject to attacks of epilepsy; which has generally been
represented as a slander of his enemies and of Christian writers. It appears, how
ever, to have been asserted by some of the oldest Moslem biographers, and given
on the authority of persons about him. He would be seized, they said, with violent
trembling followed by a kind of swoon, or rather convulsion, during which perspira
tion would stream from his forehead in the coldest weather; he would lie with his
eyes closed, foaming at the mouth, and bellowing like a young camel. Ayesha, one
of his wives, and Zeid, one of his disciples, are among the persons cited as testify
ing to that effect. They considered him at such times as under the inflnence of a
revelation. He had such attacks, however, in Mecca, before the Koran was re
vealed to him. Cadijah feared that he was possessed by evil spirits, and would
have called in the aid of a conjuror to exorcise them, but he forbade her. He did
not like that any one should see him during these paroxysms. His visions, how
ever, were not always preceded by such attacks. Hareth Ibn Haschem, it is said,
once asked him in what manner the revelations were made. "Often," replied he,
" the angel appears to me in a human form, and speaks to me. Sometimes I hear
sounds like the tinkling of a bell, but see nothing. [A ringing in the ears Is a
symptom of epilepsy.] When the invisible angel has departed, I am possessed o<
what hb has. revealed." S&me of his revelations lie protest**! to receive direcl
44 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
from God, others in dreams; for the dreams of prophets, he used to say, are
revelations.
The reader will find this note of service in throwing some degree of light upon
the enigmatical career of this extraordinary man.
CHAPTEE VII.
MAHOMET INCULCATES HIS DOCTRINES SECRETLY AND SLOWLY—
RECEIVES FURTHER REVELATIONS AND COMMANDS— ANNOUNCES
IT TO HIS KINDRED— MANNER IN WHICH IT WAS RECEIVED-
ENTHUSIASTIC DEVOTION OF ALI — CHRISTIAN PORTENTS.
FOR a time Mahomet confided his revelations merely to his
own household. One of the first to avow himself a believer
was his servant Zeid, an Arab of the tribe of Kalb. This youth
had been captured in childhood by a freebooting party of
Koreishites, and had come by purchase or lot into the posses
sion of Mahomet. Several years afterward his father, hearing
of his being in Mecca, repaired thither, and offered a consider
able sum for his ransom. "If he chooses to go with thee,"
said Mahomet, " he shall go without ransom; but if he chooses
to remain with me, why should I not keep him?" Zeid pre
ferred to remain, having ever, he said, been treated more as a
son than as a slave. Upon this, Mahomet publicly adopted
him, and he had ever since remained with him in affectionate
servitude. Now, on embracing the new faith, he was set
entirely free, but it will be found that he continued through
life that devoted attachment which Mahomet seems to have
had the gift of inspiring in his followers and dependents.
The early steps of Mahomet in his prophetic career were
perilous and doubtful, and taken in secrecy. He had hostility
to apprehend on every side ; from his immediate kindred, the
Koreishites of the line of Haschem, whose power and pros
perity were identified with idolatry ; and still more from the
rival line of Abd Schems, who had long looked with envy and
jealousy on the Haschemites, and would eagerly raise the cry
of heresy and impiety to dispossess them of the guardianship
of the Caaba. At the head of this rival branch of Koreish was
Abu Sofian, the son of Harb, grandson of Omeya, and great-
of Abd Schems. He was an able and ambitious
DOCTRINES Or MAHOMET.
45
man, of great wealth and influence, and will be found one of
the most persevering and powerful opponents of Mahomet.*
Under these adverse circumstances the new faith was propa
gated secretly and slowly, insomuch that for the first three
years the number of converts did not exceed forty ; these, too,
for the most part, were young persons, strangers, and slaves.
Their meetings for prayer were held in private, either at the
house of one of the initiated, or in a cave near Mecca. Their
secrecy, however, did not protect them from outrage. Their
meetings were discovered; a rabble broke into their cavern,
and a scuffle ensued. One of the assailants was wounded in
the head by Saad, an armorer, thenceforth renowned among
the faithful as the first of their number who shed blood in the
cause of Islam.
One of the bitterest opponents of Mahomet was his uncle,
Abu Lahab, a wealthy man, of proud spirit and irritable tem
per. His son Otha had married Mahomet's third daughter,
Rokaia, so that they were doubly allied. Abu Lahab, how
ever, was also allied to the rival line of Koreish, having mar
ried Omm Jemil, sister of Abu Sofian, and he was greatly
under the control of his wife and his brother-in-law. He rep
robated what 'he termed the heresies of his nephew, as calcu
lated to bring disgrace upon their immediate line, and to draw
upon it the hostilities of the rest of the tribe of Koreish. Ma
homet was keenly sensible of the rancorous opposition of this
uncle, which he attributed to the instigations of his wife, Omm
Jemil. He especially deplored it, as he saw that it affected the
happiness of his daughter Rokaia, whose inclination to his doc
trines brought on her the reproaches of her husband and nis
family.
These and other causes of solicitude preyed upon his spirits,
and increased the perturbation of his mind. He became worn
and haggard, and subject more and more to fits of abstraction.
Those of his relatives who were attached to him noticed his
altered mien, and dreaded an attack of illness ; others scoff -
ingly accused him of mental hallucination ; and the foremost
* Niebuhr (Travels, vol. ii.) speaks of the tribe of Harb, which possessed several
cities, and a number of villages in the highlands of Hedjas, a mountainous range
between Mecca and Medina. They have castles on precipitous rocks, and harass
and lay under contribution the caravans. It is presumed that this tribe takes Its
uame from the father of Abu Soften, as did the great line of the Omeyade* from
46 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
among these scoffers was her uncle's wife, Omm Jemil, the
sister of Abu Sofian.
The result of this disordered state of mind and body was an
other vision, or revelation, commanding him to " arise, preach,
and magnify the Lord. " He was now to announce, publicly
and boldly, his doctrines, beginning with his kindred and
tribe. Accordingly, in the fourth year of what is called his
mission, he summoned all the Koreishites of the line of
Haschem to meet him on the hill of Safa, in the vicinity of
Mecca, when he would unfold matters important to their wel
fare. They assembled there, accordingly, and among them
came Mahomet's hostile uncle, Abu Lahab, and with him his
scoffing wife, Omm Jemil. Scarce had the prophet begun to
discourse of his mission, and to impart his revelations, when
Abu Lahab started up in a rage, reviled him for calling them
together on so idle an errand, and catching up a stone, would
have hurled it at him. Mahomet turned upon him a wither
ing look, cursed the hand thus raised in menace, and predicted
his doom to the fire of Jehennam ; with the assurance that his
wife, Omm Jemil, would bear the bundle of thorns with which
the fire would be kindled.
The assembly broke up in confusion. Abu Lahab and his
wife, exasperated at the curse dealt out to them, compelled
their son, Otha, to repudiate his wife, Rokaia, and sent her
back weeping to Mahomet. She was soon indemnified, how
ever, by having a husband of the true faith, being eagerly
taken to wife by Mahomet's zealous disciple, Othman Ibn
Affan.
Nothing discouraged by the failure of his first attempt,
Mahomet called a second meeting of the Haschemites at his
own house, where, having regaled them with the flesh of a
lamb, and given them milk to drink, he stood forth and an
nounced, at full length, his revelations received from heaven,
and the divine command to impart them to those of his im
mediate line. ' ' Oh, children of Abd al Motalleb, " cried he, with
enthusiasm, "to you, of all men, has Allah vouchsafed these
most precious gifts. In his name I offer you the blessings of
this world, and endless joys hereafter. Who among you will
share the burden of my offer? Who will be my brother: my
lieutenant, my vizier?"
All remained silent; some wondering, others smiling with
incredulity and derision, At length Ali, starting up with
youthful zeal, offered himself to. the service of the prophet,
-:* OF MAHOMET. 47
though modestly acknowledging his youth and physical weak
ness.* Mahomet threw his arms round the generous youth,
and pressed him to his bosom. "Behold my brother, my
vizier, my vicegerent," exclaimed he; "let all listen to his
words, and obey him."
The outbreak of such a stripling as Ali, however, was an
swered by a scornful burst of laughter of the Koreishites, who
taunted Abu Taleb, the father of the youthful proselyte, with
having to bow down before his son, and yield him obedience.
But though the doctrines of Mahomet were thus ungra
ciously received by his kindred and friends, they found favor
among the people at large, especially among the women, who
are ever prone to befriend a persecuted cause. Many of the
Jews, also, followed him for a time, but when they found that
he permitted his disciples to eat the flesh of the camel, and ot
other animals forbidden by their law, they drew back and re
jected his religion as unclean.
Mahomet now threw off all reserve, or rather was inspired
with increasing enthusiasm, and went about openly and
earnestly proclaiming his doctrines, and giving himself out as
a prophet, sent by God to put an end to idolatry, and to miti
gate the rigor of the Jewish and the Christian law. The hills
of Safa and Kubeis, sanctified by traditions concerning Hagar
and Ishmael, were his favorite places of preaching, and Mount
Kara was his Sinai, whither he retired occasionally, in fits of
excitement and enthusiasm, to return from its solitary cave
with fresh revelations of the Koran.
The good old Christian writers, on treating of the advent of
one whom they denounce as the Arab enemy of the church,
make superstitious record of divers prodigies which occurred
about this time, awf ill forerunners of the troubles about to
agitate the world. In Constantinople, at that time the seat of
Christian empire, were several monstrous births and prodigi
ous apparitions, which struck dismay into the hearts of all
beholders. In certain religious processions in that neighbor
hood, the crosses on a sudden moved of themselves, and were
violently agitated, causing astonishment and terror. The Nile,
too, that ancient mother of wonders, gave birth to two hideous
forms, seemingly man and woman, which rose out of ite
* By an error of translators, Ali iu made to accompany his offer of adhesion hj
an extravagant threat against all who should oppose Mahomet.
48 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
waters, gazed about them for a time with terrific aspect, and
sank again beneath the waves. For a whole day the sun ap
peared to be diminished to one third of its usual size, shedding
pale and baleful rays. During a moonless night a furnace
light glowed throughout the heavenb, and bloody lances glit
tered in the sky.
All these, and sundry other like marvel^ were interpreted
into signs of coming troubles. The ancient servants of God
shook their heads mournfully, predicting the reign of anti
christ at hand; with vehement persecution of the Christian
faith, and great desolation of the churches ; and to such holy
men who have passed through the trials and troubles of the
faith, adds the venerable Padre Jayme Bleda, it is given to
understand and explain these mysterious portents, which fore
run disasters of the church; even as it is given to ancient
mariners to read in the signs of the air, the heavens, and the
deep, the coming tempest which is to overwhelm their bark.
Many of these sainted men were gathered to glory before the
completion of their prophecies. There, seated securely in the
empyreal heavens, they may have looked down with compas
sion upon the troubles of the Christian world ; as men on the
serene heights of mountains look down upon the tempests
which sweep the earth and sea, wrecking tall ships, and rend
ing lofty towers.
CHAPTER VIII.
OUTLINES OF THE MAHOMETAN FAITH.
THOUGH it is not intended in this place to go fully into the
doctrines promulgated by Mahomet, yet it is important to the
right appreciation of his character and conduct, and of the
events and circumstances set forth in the following narrative,
to give their main features.
It must be particularly borne in mind that Mahomet did not
profess to set up a new religion ; but to restore that derived, in
the earliest times, from God himself. " We follow," says the
Koran, ''the religion of Abraham the orthodox, who was no
idolater. We believe in God and that which hath been sent
down to us, and that which hath been sent down unto Abra-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 49
ham and Ishmael, and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and that
which was delivered unto Moses and Jesus, and that which
was delivered unto the prophets from the Lord; we make
no distinction between any of them, and to God we are re
signed."*
The Koran, t which was the great book of his faith, was
delivered in portions from time to time, according to the ex
citement of his feelings or the exigency of circumstances. It
was not given as his own work, but as a divine revelation ; as
the very words of God. The Deity is supposed to speak in
every instance. "We have sent thee down the book of truth,
confirming the scripture which was revealed before it, and
preserving the same in its purity." \
The law of Moses, it was said, had for a time been the guide
and rule of human conduct. At the coming of Jesus Christ it
was superseded by the Gospel; both were now to give place
to the Koran, which was more full and explicit than the pre
ceding codes, and intended to reform the abuses which had
crept into them through the negligence or the corruptions of
their professors. It was the completion of the law ; after it
there would be no more divine revelations. Mahomet was the
last, as he was the greatest, of the line of prophets sent to
make known the will of God.
The unity of God was the corner-stone of this reformed re
ligion. "There is no God but God," was its leading dogma.
Hence it received the name of the religion of Islam, § an Ara
bian word, implying submission to God. To this leading
dogma was added, " Mahomet is the prophet of God;" an ad
dition authorized, as it was maintained, by the divine annun-
* Koran, chap. ii.
t Derived from the Arabic word Kora, to read or teach.
$ Koran, ch. v.
§ Some etymologists derive Islam from Salem or Aslama, which signifies salva
tion. The Christians form from it the term Islamism, and the Jews have varied it
into Ismailism, which they intend as a reproach, and an allusion to the origin of the
Arabs as descendants of Ishmael.
From Islam the Arabians drew the terms Moslem or Muslem, and Musulman, a
professor of the faith of Islam. These terms are in the singular number and make
Musliman in the dual, and Muslimen in the plural. The French and some other
nations follow the idioms of their own languages in adopting or translating the
Arabic terms, and form the plural by the addition of the letters; writing Musul
man and Musulmans. A few English writers, of whom Gibbon is ttie chief, hav«
imitated them, imagining that they were following the Arabian usage. Most Eng
lish authors, however, follow the idiom of their own language, writing Moslem and
Moslems, Musulman and Musulmen; this usage is also the more harmonious.
50 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
elation, and important to procure a ready acceptation of his
revelations.
Besides the unity of God, a belief was inculcated in his
angels or ministering spirits; in his prophets; in the resur
rection of the body; in the last judgment and a future state of
rewards and punishments, and in predestination. Much of
the Koran may be traced to the Bible, the Mishnu, and the
Talmud of the Jews,* especially its wild though often beauti
ful traditions concerning the angels, the prophets, the patri
archs, and the good and evil genii. He had at an early age
imbibed a reverence for the Jewish faith, his mother, it is sug
gested, having been of that religion.
The system laid down in the Koran, however, was essen
tially founded on the Christian doctrines inculcated in the
New Testament; as they had been expounded to him by the
Christian sectarians of Arabia. Our Saviour was to be held
in the highest reverence as an inspired prophet, the greatest
that had been sent before the time of Mahomet, to reform the
law ; but all idea of his divinity was rejected as impious, and
the doctrine of the Trinity was denounced as an outrage on tlie
unity of God. Both were pronounced errors and interpola
tions of the expounders ; and this, it will be observed, was the
opinion of some of the Arabian sects of Christians.
The worship of saints and the introduction of images and
paintings representing them, were condemned as idolatrous
lapses from the pure faith of Christ, and such, we have already
observed, were the tenets of the Nestorians, with whom Maho
met is known to have had much communication.
All pictures representing living things were prohibited. Ma
homet used to say that the angels would not enter a house in
which there were such pictures, and that those who made them
would be sentenced, in the next world, to find souls for them,
or be punished.
Most of the benignant precepts of our Saviour were incorpo
rated in the Koran. Frequent almsgiving was enjoined as an
* The Mishnu of the Jews, like the Sonna of the Mahometans, is a collection of
traditions forming the Oral law. It was compiled in the second century by Judah
Hakkodish, a learned Jewish Rabbi, during the reign of Antoninus Pius, the Roman
Emperor.
The Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonish Talmud are both commentaries on
the Mishnu. The former was compiled at Jerusalem, about three hundred years
after Christ, and the latter in Babylonia, about two centuries later. The Mishau 10
the m&St onbfeht recbiti possessed by the Jewfe except tne Bible.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 51
imperative duty, and the immutable law of right and wrong,
"Do unto another as thou wouldst he should do unto thee,"
was given for the moral conduct of the faithful.
"Deal not unjustly with others," says the Koran, " and ye
shall not be dealt with unjustly. If there be any debtor under
a difficulty of paying his debt, let his creditor wait until it be
easy for him to do it ; but if he remit it in alms, it will be better
for him."
Mahomet inculcated a noble fairness and sincerity in dealing.
" Oh merchants!" would he say, " falsehood and deception are
apt to prevail in traffic, purify it therefore with alms ; give
something in charity as an atonement ; for God is incensed by
dece~ j in dealing, but charity appeases his anger. He who sells
a defective thing, concealing its defect, will provoke the anger
of God and the curses of the angels.
"Take not advantage of the necessities of another to buy
things at a sacrifice : rather relieve his indigence.
" Feed the hungry, visit the sick, and free the captive if con
fined unjustly.
" Look not scornfully upon thy fellow man ; neither walk the
earth with insolence ; for God loveth not the arrogant and vain
glorious. Be moderate in thy pace, and speak with a moder
ate tone; for the most ungrateful of all voices is the voice of
asses.
n *
Idolatry of all kinds was strictly forbidden ; indeed it was
what Mahomet held in most abhorrence. Many of the religious
usages, however, prevalent since time immemorial among the
Arabs, to which he had been accustomed from infancy, and
* The following words of Mahomet, treasured up by one of his disciples, appear to
have been suggested by a passage in Matthew 25 : 35-45:
" Verily, God will say at the day of resurrection, ' Oh sons of Adam! I was sick,
»nd ye did not visit me.' Then they will say. 'How could we visit thee? for thou
Art the Lord of the universe, and art free from sickness.' And God will reply,
4 Knew ye not that such a one of my servants was sick, and ye did not visit him? Had
you visited that servant, it would have been counted to you as righteousness.' And
God will say, ' Oh sons of Adam ! I asked you for food, and ye gave it me not.' And
the sons of Adam will say, ' How could we give thee food, seeing tbou art the sus-
tainer of the universe, and art free from hunger? ' And God will say, 'Such a one
of my servants asked you for bread, and ye refused it. Had you given him to eat.
ye would have received your reward from me.' And God will say. 'Oh sons of
Adam! I asked you for water, and ye gave it me not.' They will reply, 'Oh, our
supporter! How could we give thee water, seeding thou art the sustainer of the
universe, and not subject to thirst?' And God will say. 'Such a one of my servants
a«kad you for water, and ye did not givb it to him. Had ye done so, ye would have
teceiveil ybur reward freni me.' "
52 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
which were not incompatible with the doctrine of the unity of
God, were still retained. Such was the pilgrimage to Mecca,
including all the rights connected with the Caaba, the well of
Zem Zem, and other sacred places in the vicinity ; apart from
any worship of the idols by which they had been profaned.
The old Arabian rite of prayer, accompanied or rather pre
ceded by ablution, was still continued. Prayers indeed were
enjoined at certain hours of the day and night ; they were sim
ple in form and phrase, addressed directly to the Deity with
certain inflections, or at times a total prostration of the body,
and with the face turned toward the Kebla, or point of adora
tion.
At the end of each prayer the following verse from the second
chapter of the Koran was recited. It is said to have great
beauty in the original Arabic, and is engraved on gold and sil
ver ornaments, and on precious stones worn as amulets. " God !
There is no God but He, the living, the ever living ; he sleepeth
not, neither doth he slumber. To him belongeth the heavens,
and the earth, and all that they contain. Who shall intercede
with him unless by his permission? He knoweth the past and
the future, but no one can comprehend anything of his knowl
edge but that which he revealeth. His sway extendeth over
the heavens and the earth, and to sustain them both is no bur
den to him. He is the High, the Mighty 1"
Mahomet was strenuous in enforcing the importance and
efficacy of prayer. " Angels," said he, " come among you both
by night and day; after which those of the night ascend to
heaven, and God asks them how they left bis creatures. We
found them, say they, at their prayers, and we left them at
their prayers."
The doctrines in the Koran respecting the resurrection and
final judgment, were in some respects similar to those of
the Christian religion, but were mixed up with wild notions
derived from other sources; while the joys of the Moslem
heaven, though partly spiritual, were clogged and debased by
the sensualities of earth, and infinitely below the ineffable
purity and spiritual blessedness of the heaven promised by our
Saviour.
Nevertheless, the description of the last day, as contained in
the eighty-first chapter of the Koran, and which must have
been given by Mahomet at the outset of his mission at Mecca,
as one of the first of his revelations, partakes of sublimity.
" In the name of the all merciful God ! a day shall come when
MAHOMICT AND JUS SUCCESSORS. 53
the sun will be shrouded, and the stars will fall from the
heavens.
" When the camels about to foal will be neglected, and wild
beasts will herd together through fear.
" When the waves of the ocean will boil, and the souls of the
dead again be united to the bodies.
' ' When the female infant that has been buried alive will de
mand, for what crime was I sacrificed? and the eternal books
will be laid open.
" When the heavens will pass away like a scroll, and hell will
burn fiercely ; and the joys of paradise will be made manifest.
" On that day shall every soul make known that which it
hath performed.
"Verily, I swear to you by the stars which move swiftly
and are lost in the brightness of the sun, and by the darkness
of the night, and by the dawning of the day, these are not the
words of an evil spirit, but of an angel of dignity and power,
who possesses the confidence of Allah, and is revered by the
angels under his command. Neither is your companion, Ma
homet, distracted. He beheld the celestial messenger in the
light of the clear horizon, and the words revealed to him are
intended as an admonition unto all creatures."
NOTE.— To exhibit the perplexed maze of controversial doctrines from which
Mahomet had to acquire his notions of the Christian faith, we subjoin the leading
points of the jarring sects of oriental Christians alluded to in the foregoing article;
all of which have been pronounced heretical or schismatic.
The Sabellians, so called from Sabellius, a Libyan priest of the third century,
believed in the unity of God, and that the Trinity expressed but three different
states or relation*. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all forming but one substance, as
a man consists of body and soul.
The Arians, from Arius, an ecclesiastic of Alexandria in the fourth century,
affirmed Christ to be the Son of God, but distinct from him and inferior to him,
and denied the Holy Ghost to be God.
The Nestorians. from Nestorius. bishop of Constantinople in the fifth century,
maintained that Christ had two distinct natures, divine and human; that Mary was
only his mother, and Jesus a man, and that it was an abomination to style her, as
was the custom of the church, the Mother of God.
The Monophysites maintained the single nature of Christ, as their name betokens.
They affirmed that he was combined of God and man, so mingled and united as to
form but one nature.
The Eutychians, from Eutyches, abbot of a convent in Constantinople in the fifth
century, were a branch of the Monophysites, expressly opposed to the Nestorians.
They denied the double nature of Christ, declaring that he was entirely God previ
ous to the incarnation, and entirely man during the incarnation.
The Jacobites, from Jacobus, bishop of Edessa, In Syria, in the sixth century,
were a very numerous branch of the Monophysites, varying but little from the
Eutychians. Most of the Christian tribes of Arabs were Jacobites.
The Mariamites, or worshippers of Mary, regarded the Trinity as consisting of
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Virgin Mary.
54 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
The Collyridians were a sect of Arabian Christians, composed chiefly of females.
They worshipped the Virgin Mary as possessed of divinity, and made offerings to
her of a twisted cake, called collyris, whence they derived their name.
The Nazarseans, or Nazarenes, were a sect of Jewish Christians, who considered
Christ as the Messiah, as born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost, and as possessing
something of a divine nature; but they conformed in all other respects to the rites
and ceremonies of the Mosaic law.
The Ebionites, from Ebion, a converted Jew who lived in the first century, were I
also a sect of judaizing Christians, little differing from the Nazarseans. They be- \
lieved Christ to be a pure man, the greatest of the prophets, but denied that he had '
any existence previous to being born of the Virgin Mary. This sect, as well as that
of the Nazaraeans, had many adherents in Arabia.
Many other sects might be enumerated, such as the Corinthians, Maronites, and
Marcionites, who took their names from learned and zealous leaders; and the Do-
cetes and Gnostics, who were subdivided into various sects of subtle enthusiasts.
Some of these asserted the immaculate purity of the Virgin Mary, affirming that
her conception and delivery were effected like the transmission of the rays of light
through a pane of glass, without impairing her virginity; an opinion still main-
tained strenuously in substance by Spanish Catholics.
Most of the Docetes asserted that Jesus Christ was of a nature entirely divine;
that a phantom, a mere form without substance, was crucified by the deluded Jews,
and that the crucifixion and resurrection were deceptive mystical exhibitions at
Jerusalem for the benefit of the human race.
The Carpocratians, Basilidians. and Valentinians, named after three Egyptian
controversialists, contended that Jesus Christ was merely a wise and virtuous
mortal, the son of Joseph and Mary, selected by God to reform and instruct man
kind; but that a divine nature was imparted to him at the maturity of his age, and
period of his baptism, by St. John. The former part of this creed, which is that of
the Ebionites, has been revived, and is professed by some of the Unitarian Chris
tians, a numerous and increasing sect of Protestants of the present day.
It is sufficient to glance at these dissensions, which we have not arranged in
chronological order, but which convulsed the early Christian church, and continued
to prevail at the era of Mahomet, to acquit him of any charge of conscious
blasphemy in the opinions he inculcated concerning the nature and mission of our
Saviour.
CHAPTER IX.
RIDICULE CAST ON MAHOMET AND HIS DOCTRINES— DEMAND FOR
MIRACLES— CONDUCT OF ABU TALEB — VIOLENCE OF THE KORE-
ISHITES— MAHOMET'S DAUGHTER ROKAIA, WITH HER UNCLB
OTHMAN, AND A NUMBER OF DISCIPLES TAKE REFUGE IN ABYS
SINIA — MAHOMET IN THE HOUSE OF ORKHAM— HOSTILITY OF
ABU JAHL; HIS PUNISHMENT.
THE greatest difficulty with which Mahomet had to contend
at the outset of his prophetic career was the ridicule of his
opponents. Those who had known him from his infancy—
who had seen him a boy about the streets of Mecca, and after-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
55
ward occupied in all the ordinary concerns of life, scoffed at
his assumption of the apostolic character. They pointed
with a sneer at him as he passed, exclaiming, " Behold the
grandson of Abd al Motalleb, who pretends to know what is
going on in heaven!" Some who had witnessed his fits of
mental excitement and ecstasy considered him insane ; others,
declared that he was possessed with a devil, and some charged
him with sorcery and magic.
When he walked the streets he was subject to those jeers
and taunts and insults which the vulgar are apt to vent upon
men of eccentric conduct and unsettled mind. If he attempted
to preach, his voice was drowned by discordant noises and
ribald songs; nay, dirt was thrown upon him when he was
praying in the Caaba.
Nor was it the vulgar and ignorant alone who thus insulted
him. One of his most redoubtable assailants was a youth
named Amru; and as he subsequently made a distinguished
figure in Mahometan history, we would impress the circum
stances of this, his first appearance, upon the mind of the
reader. He was the son of a courtesan of Mecca, who seems to
have rivalled in fascination the Phrynes and Aspasias of
Greece, and to have numbered some of the noblest of the land
among her lovers. When she gave birth to this child, she
mentioned several of the tribe of Koreish who had equal claims
to the paternity. The infant was declared to have most
resemblance to Aass, the oldest of her admirers, whence, in
addition to his name of Amru, he received the designation of
Ibn al Aass, the son of Aass.
Nature had lavished her choicest gifts upon this natural
child, as if to atone for the blemish of his birth. Though
young, he was already one of the most popular poets of Ara
bia, and equally distinguished for the pungency of his satirical
effusions and the captivating sweetness of his serious lays.
When Mahomet first announced his mission, this youth as
sailed him with lampoons and humorous madrigals; which,
falling in with the poetic taste of the Arabs, were widely circu
lated, and proved greater impediments to the growth of Is-
lamism than the bitterest persecution.
Those who were more serious in their opposition demanded
of Mahomet supernatural proofs of what he asserted. "Moses
and Jesus, and the rest of the prophets," said they, "wrought
miracles to prove the divinity of their missions. If thou art
indeed a prophet, greater than they, work the like miracles."
56 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
The reply of Mahomet may be gathered from his own words
in the Koran. " What greater miracle could they have than
the Koran itself: a book revealed by means of an unlettered
man; so elevated in language, so incontrovertible in argument,
that the united skill of men and devils could compose nothing
comparable. What greater proof could there be that it came
from none but God himself? The Koran itself is a miracle."
They demanded, however, more palpable evidence ; miracles
addressed to the senses; that he should cause the dumb to
speak, the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the dead to rise ; or
that he should work changes in the face of nature : cause foun
tains to gush forth ; change a sterile place into a garden, with
palm-trees and vines and running streams ; cause a palace of
gold to rise, decked with jewels and precious stones ; or ascend
by a ladder into heaven in their presence. Or, if the Koran
did indeed, as he affirmed, come down from heaven, that they
might see it as it descended, or behold the angels who brought
it ; and then they would believe.
Mahomet replied sometimes by arguments, sometimes by de
nunciations. He claimed to be nothing more than a man sent
by God as an apostle. Had angels, said he, walked familiarly
on earth, an angel had assuredly been sent on this mission ; but
woeful had been the case of those who, as in the present in
stance, doubted his word. They would not have- been able, as
with me, to argue, and dispute, and take time to be convinced ;
their perdition would have been instantaneous. ' ' God, " added
he, " needs no angel to enforce my mission. He is a sufficient
witness between you and me. Those whom he shall dispose to
be convinced will truly believe ; those whom he shall permit to
remain in error will find none to help their unbelief. On the
day of resurrection they will appear blind, and deaf, and dumb,
and grovelling on their faces. Their abode will be in the eter
nal flames of Jehennam. Such will be the reward of their un
belief.
"You insist on miracles. God gave to Moses the power of
working miracles. What was the consequence? Pharaoh dis
regarded his miracles, accused him of sorcery, and sought to
drive him and his people from the land; but Pharaoh was
drowned, and with him all his host. Would ye tempt God to
miracles, and risk the punishment of Pharaoh?"
It is recorded by Al Maalem, an Arabian writer, that some of
Mahomet's disciples at one time joined with the multitude in
this cry for miracles, and besought him to prove, at once, the
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. £7
divinity of his mission, by turning the hill of Safa into gold.
Being thus closely urged he betook himself to prayer; and
having finished, assured his followers that the angel Gabriel
had appeared to him, and informed him that, should God
grant his prayer, and work the desired miracle, all who dis
believed it would be exterminated. In pity to the multitude,
therefore, who appeared to be a stiff-necked generation, he
would not expose them to destruction : so the hill of Safa was
permitted to remain in its pristine state.
Other Moslem writers assert that Mahomet departed from
his self-prescribed rule, and wrought occasional miracles, when
he found his hearers unusually slow of belief . Thus we are
told that, at one time, in presence of a multitude, he called to
him a bull, and took from his horns a scroll containing a chap
ter of the Koran, just sent down from heaven. At another
time, while discoursing in public, a white dove hovered over
him, and, alighting on his shoulder, appeared to whisper in his
ear ; being, as he said, a messenger from the Deity. On an
other occasion he ordered the earth before him to be opened,
when two jars were found, one filled with honey, the other
with milk, which he pronounced emblems of the abundance
promised by heaven to all who should obey his law.
Christian writers have scoffed at these miracles ; suggesting
that the dove had been tutored to its task, and sought grains
of wheat which it had been accustomed to find in the ear of
Mahomet ; that the scroll had previously been tied to the horns
of the bull, and the vessels of milk and honey deposited in the
ground. The truer course would be to discard these miracu
lous stories altogether, as fables devised by mistaken zealots ;
and such they have been pronounced by the ablest of the Mos
lem commentators.
There is no proof that Mahomet descended to any artifices of
the kind to enforce his doctrines or establish his apostolic
claims. He appears to have relied entirely on reason and elo
quence, and to have been supported by religious enthusiasm in
this early and dubious stage of his career. His earnest attacks
upon the idolatry which had vitiated and superseded the primi
tive worship of the Caaba, began to have a sensible effect, and
alarmed the Koreishites. They urged Abu Taleb to silence his
nephew or to send him away ; but finding their entreaties un
availing, they informed the old man that if this pretended
prophet and his followers persisted in their heresies, they
phould pay for them with their li ves.
58 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Abu Taleb hastened to inform Mahomet of these menaces,
imploring him not to provoke against himself and family such
numerous and powerful foes.
The enthusiastic spirit of Mahomet kindled at the words.
" Oh my uncle!" exclaimed he, " though they should array the
sun against me on my right hand, and the moon on my left,
yet, until God should command me, or should take me hence,
would I not depart from my purpose."
He was retiring with dejected countenance, when Abu Taleb
called him back. The old man was as yet unconverted, but
he was struck with admiration of the undaunted firmness
of his nephew, and declared that, preach what he might, he
would never abandon him to his enemies. Feeling that of him
self he could not yield sufficient protection, he called upon the
other descendants of Haschem and Abd al Motalleb to aid in
shielding their kinsman from the persecution of the rest of the
tribe of Koreish ; and so strong is the family tie among the
Arabs, that though it was protecting him in what they con
sidered a dangerous heresy, they all consented excepting his
uncle, Abu Lahab.
The animosity of the Koreishites became more and more
virulent, and proceeded to personal violence. Mahomet was
assailed and nearly strangled in the Caaba, and was rescued
with difficulty by Abu Beker, who himself suffered personal
injury in the affray. His immediate family became objects of
hatred, especially his daughter Eokaia and her husband, Oth-
man Ibn Affan. Such of his disciples as had no powerful
friends to protect them were in peril of their lives. Full of
anxiety for their safety, Mahomet advised them to leave his
dangerous companionship for the present, and take refuge in
Abyssinia. The narrowness of the Eed Sea made it easy to
reach the African shore. The Abyssinians were Nestorian
Christians, elevated by their religion above their barbarous
neighbors. Their najashee or king was reputed to be tolerant
and just. With him Mahomet trusted his daughter and his
fugitive disciples would find refuge.
Othman Ibn Affan was the leader of this little band of Mos
lems, consisting of eleven men and four women. They took
the way by the sea-coast to Jodda, a port about two days' jour
ney to the east of Mecca, where they found two Abyssinian
vessels at anchor, in which they embarked, and sailed for the
land of refuge.
This event, which happened in the fifth year of the mission,
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
59
of Mahomet, is called the first Hegira or Flight, to distinguish
it from the second Hegira, the flight of the prophet himself
from Mecca to Medina. The kind treatment experienced by
the fugitives induced others of the same faith to follow their
example, until the number of Moslem refugees in Abyssinia
amounted to eighty-three men and eighteen women, besides
children.
The Koreishites finding that Mahomet was not to be silenced,
and was daily making converts, passed a law banishing all who
should embrace his faith. Mahomet retired before the storm,
and took refuge in the house of a disciple named Orkham,
situated on the hill of Safa. This hill, as has already been
mentioned, was renowned in Arabian tradition as the one on
which Adam and Eve were permitted to come once more to
gether, after the long solitary wandering about the earth
which followed their expulsion from paradise. It was likewise
connected in tradition with the fortunes of Hagar and Ishmael.
Mahomet remained for a month in the house of Orkham,
continuing his revelations and drawing to him sectaries from
various parts of Arabia. The hostility of the Koreishites fol
lowed him to his retreat. Abu Jahl, an Arab of that tribe,
sought him out, insulted him with opprobrious language, and
even personally maltreated him. The outrage was reported
to Hamza, an uncle of Mahomet, as he returned to Mecca from
hunting. Hamza was no proselyte to Islamism, but he was
pledged to protect his nephew. Marching with his bow un
strung in his hand to an assemblage of the Koreishites, where
Abu Jahl was vaunting his recent triumph, he dealt the boaster
a blow over the head that inflicted a grievous wound. The
kinsfolk of Abu Jahl rushed to his assistance, but the brawler
stood in awe of the vigorous arm and fiery spirit of Hamza,
and sought to pacify him. "Let him alone," said he to his
kinsfolk; "in truth I have treated his nephew very roughly."
He alleged in palliation of his outrage the apostasy of Mahomet ;
but Hamza was not to be appeased. " Well !" cried he, fiercely
and scornfully, "I also do not believe in your gods of stone;
can you compel me?" Anger produced in his bosom what
reasoning might have attempted in vain. He forthwith de
clared himself a convert; took the oath of adhesion to the
prophet, and became one of the most zealous and valiant chanv
pions of the new faith.
60 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER X.
OMAR IBN AL KHATTAB, NEPHEW OF ABU JAHL, UNDERTAKES TO
REVENGE HIS UNCLE BY SLAYING MAHOMET — HIS WONDERFUL
CONVERSION TO THE FAITH —MAHOMET TAKES REFUGE IN A
CASTLE OF ABU TALEB— ABU SOFIAN, AT THE HEAD OF THE
RIVAL BRANCH OF KOREISHITES, PERSECUTES MAHOMET AND
HIS FOLLOWERS — OBTAINS A DECREE OF NON-INTERCOURSE WITH
THEM— MAHOMET LEAVES HIS RETREAT AND MAKES CONVERTS
DURING THE MONTH OF PILGRIMAGE— LEGEND OF THE CON
VERSION OF HABIB THE WISE.
THE hatred of Abu Jahl to the prophet was increased by the
severe punishment received at the hands of Hamza. He had
a nephew named Omar Ibn al Khattab ; twenty-six years of
age; of gigantic stature, prodigious strength, and great cour
age. His savage aspect appalled the bold, and his very walk
ing-staff struck more terror into beholders than another man's
sword. Such are the words of the Arabian historian, Abu
Abdallah Mohamed Ibn Omal Alwakedi, and the subsequent
feats of this warrior prove that they were scarce chargeable
with exaggeration.
Instigated by his uncle Abu Jahl, this fierce Arab undertook
to penetrate to the retreat of Mahomet, who was still in the
house of Orkham, and to strike a poniard to his heart. The
Koreishites are accused of having promised him one hundred
camels and one thousand ounces of gold for this deed of blood ;
but this is improbable, nor did the vengeful nephew of Abu
Jahl need a bribe.
As he was on his way to the house of Orkham he met a
Koreishite, to whom he imparted his design. The Koreishite
was a secret convert to Islamism, and sought to turn him from
his bloody errand. ' ' Before you slay Mahomet, " said he, * ' and
draw upon yourself the vengeance of his relatives, see that
your own are free from heresy." "Are any of mine guilty of
backsliding ?" demanded Omar with astonishment. "Even
so," was the reply; "thy sister Amina and her husband Seid."
Omar hastened to the dwelling of his sister, and, entering it
abruptly, found her and her husband reading the Koran. Seid
attempted to conceal it, but his confusion convinced Omar of
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 61
the truth of the accusation, and heightened his fury. In his
rage he struck Seid to the earth, placed his foot upon his breast,
and vrould have plunged his sword into it, had not his sister
interposed. A blow on the face bathed her visage in blood.
" Enemy of Allah!" sobbed Amina, "dost thou strike me thus
for believing in the only true God? In despite of thee and thy
violence, I will persevere in the true faith. Yes," added she
with fervor, " 'There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his
prophet;' and now, Omar, finish thy work!"
Omar paused, repented of his violence, and took his foot
from the bosom of Seid.
" Show me the writing," said he. Amina, however, refused
to let him touch the sacred scroll until he had washed his
hands. The passage which he read is said to have been the
twentieth chapter of the Koran, which thus begins :
" In the name of the-most merciful God 1 We have not sent
down the Koran to inflict misery on mankind, but as a moni
tor, to teach him to believe in the true God, the creator of the
earth and the lofty heavens.
"The all merciful is enthroned on high, to him belongeth
whatsoever is in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath,
and in the regions under the earth.
" Dost thou utter thy prayers with a loud voice? know that
there is no need. God knoweth the secrets of thy heart ; yea,
that which is most hidden.
"Verily, I am God; there is none beside me. Serve me,
serve none other. Offer up thy prayer to none but me."
The words of the Koran sank deep into the heart of Omar.
He read farther, and was niQre and more moved, but when
he came to the parts treating of the resurrection and of judg
ment his conversion was complete.
He pursued his way to the house of Orkham, but with an
altered heart. Knocking humbly at the door, he craved ad
mission. " Come in, son of al Khattab," exclaimed Mahomet.
" What brings thee hither?"
" I come to enroll my name among the believers of God and
his prophet. " So saying, he made the Moslem profession of
faith.
He was not content until his conversion was publicly
known. At his request Mahomet accompanied him instantly
to the Caaba, to perform openly the rites of Islamism. Omar
walked on the left hand of the prophet, and Hamza on the
right, to protect him from injury and insult, and they were
62 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
followed by upward of forty disciples. They passed in open
day through the streets of Mecca, to the astonishment of its
inhabitants. Seven times did they make the circuit of the
Caaba, touching each time the sacred black stone, and com
plying with all the other ceremonials. The Koreishites re
garded this procession with dismay, but dared not approach
nor molest the prophet, being deterred by the looks of those
terrible men of battle, Hamza and Omar; who, it is said,
glared upon them like two lions that had been robbed of their
young.
Fearless and resolute in everything, Omar went by himself
the next day to pray as a Moslem in the Caaba, in open defi
ance of the Koreishites. Another Moslem, who entered the
temple, was interrupted in his worship, and rudely treated;
but no one molested Omar, because he was the nephew of Abu
Jahl. Omar repaired to his uncle. "I renounce tky protec
tion," said he. "I will not be better off than my fellow-believ
ers." From that time he cast his lot with the followers of
Mahomet, and was one of his most strenuous defenders.
Such was the wonderful conversion of Omar, afterward the
most famous champion of the Islam faith. So exasperated
were the Koreishites by this new triumph of Mahomet, that
his uncle, Abu Taleb, feared they might attempt the life of his
nephew, either by treachery or open violence. At his earnest
entreaties, therefore, the latter, accompanied by some of his
principal disciples, withdrew to a kind of castle, or stronghold,
belonging to Abu Taleb, in the neighborhood of the city.
The protection thus given by Abu Taleb, the head of the
Haschemites, and by others of his line, to Mahomet and his
followers, although differing from them in faith, drew on them
the wrath of the rival branch of the Koreishites, and produced
a schism in the tribe. Aba Sofian, the head of that branch,
availed himself of the heresies of the prophet to throw dis
credit, not merely upon such of his kindred as had embraced
his faith, but upon the whole line of Haschem, which, though
dissenting from his doctrines, had, through mere clannish
feelings, protected him. It is evident the hostility of Abu
Sofian arose, not merely from personal hatred or religious
scruples, but from family feud. He was ambitious of trans
ferring to his own line the honors of the city so long engrossed
by the Haschemites. The last measure of the kind-hearted
Abu Taleb, in placing Mahomet beyond the reach of persecu
tion, and giving him a castle as a refuge, was seized upon by
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 63
Abu Sofian and his adherents, as a pretext for a general ban of
the rival line. They accordingly issued a decree, forbidding
the rest of the tribe of Koreish from intermarrying, or holding
any intercourse, even of bargain or sale, with the Haschem,-
ites, until they should deliver up their kinsman, Mahomet,
for punishment. This decree, which took place in the seventh
year of what is called the mission of the prophet, was written
on parchment and hung up in the Caaba. It reduced Ma
homet and his disciples to great straits, being almost famished
at times in the stronghold in which they had taken refuge.
The fortress was also beleaguered occasionally by the Koreish-
ites, to enforce the ban in all its rigor, and to prevent the pos
sibility of supplies.
The annual season of pilgrimage, however, when hosts of
pilgrims repair from all parts of Arabia to Mecca, brought
transient relief to the persecuted Moslems. During that sacred
season, according to immemorial law and usage among the
Arabs, all hostilities were suspended, and warring tribes met
in temporary peace to worship at the Caaba. At such times
Mahomet and his disciples would venture from their strong
hold and return to Mecca. Protected also by the immunity of
the holy month, Mahomet would mingle among the pilgrims
and preach and pray: propound his doctrines, and proclaim
his revelations. In this way he made many converts, who, on
their return to their several homes, carried with them the seeds
of the new faith to distant regions. Among these converts
were occasionally the princes or heads of tribes, whose exam
ple had an influence on their adherents. Arabian legends give
a pompous and extravagant account of the conversion of one
of these princes; which, as it was attended by some of the
most noted miracles recorded of Mahomet, may not be un
worthy of an abbreviated insertion.
The prince in question was Habib Ibn Malec, surnamed the
Wise on account of his vast knowledge and erudition : for he
is represented as deeply versed in magic and the sciences, and
acquainted with all religions, to their very foundations, hav
ing read all that had been written concerning them, and also
acquired practical information, for he had belonged to them
all by turns, having been Jew, Christian, and one of the Magi
It is true, he had had more than usual time for his studies and
experience, having, according to Arabian legend, attained to
the age of one hundred and forty years. He now came to
Mecca at the head of a powerful host of twentv thousand men,
64 MAHOMET AND HIS
bringing with him a youthful daughter, Satiha, whom he must
have begotten in a ripe old age ; and for whom he was putting
up prayers at the Caaba, she having been struck dumb and
deaf, and blind, and deprived of the use of her limbs.
Abu Sofian and Abu Jahl, according to the legend, thought
the presence of this very powerful, very idolatrous, and very
wise old prince, at the head of so formidable a host, a favor-
able opportunity to effect the ruin of Mahomet. They accord
ingly informed Habib the Wise of the heresies of the pretended
prophet, and prevailed upon the venerable prince to summon
him into his presence at his encampment in the Valley of
Flints, there to defend his doctrines, in the hope that his
obstinacy in error would draw upon him banishment or death.
The legend gives a magnificent account of the issuing forth
of the idolatrous Koreishites, in proud array, on horseback
and on foot, led by Abu Sofian and Abu Jahl, to attend the
grand inquisition in the Valley of Flints : and of the oriental
state in which they were received by Habib the Wise, seated
under a tent of crimson, on a throne of ebony > inlaid with
ivory and sandalwood and covered with plates of gold.
Mahomet was in the dwelling of Cadijah when he received a
summons to this formidable tribunal. Cadijah was loud in her
axpressions of alarm, and his daughters hung about his neck,
weeping and lamenting, for they thought him going to certain
death ; but he gently rebuked their fears, and bade them trust
in Allah.
Unlike the ostentatious state of his enemies, Abu Sofian and
Abu Jahl, he approached the scene of trial in simple guise,
clad in a white garment, with a black turban, and a mantle
which had belonged to his grandfather Abd al Motalleb, and
was made of the stuff of Aden. His hair floated below his
shoulders, the mysterious light of prophecy beamed from his
countenance; and though he had not anointed his beard, nor
used any perfumes, excepting a little musk and camphor for
the hair of his upper lip, yet wherever he passed a bland odor
diffused itself around, being, say the Arabian writers, the fra
grant emanations from his person.
He was preceded by the zealous Abu Beker, clad in a scar
let vest and a white turban, with his mantle gathered up
under his arms, so as to display his scarlet slippers.
A silent awe, continues the legend, fell upon the vast assem
blage as the prophet approached. Not a murmur, not a whis
per was tr- be heard. The very brute animals were charmed
MAHOMET ANT) JUS SUCCESSORS. <>;">
to silence ; and the neighing of the steed, the bellowing of the
camel, and the braying of the ass were mute.
The venerable Habib received him graciously : his first ques
tion was to the point. "They tell thou dost pretend to be a
prophet sent from God? Is it so?"
' ' Even so, " replied Mahomet. ' ' Allah has sent me to pro
claim the veritable faith."
"Good," rejoined the wary sage, "but every prophet has
given proof of his mission by signs and miracles. Noah had
his rainbow ; Solomon his mysterious ring ; Abraham the fire
of the furnace, which became cool at his command ; Isaac the
ram, which was sacrificed in his stead; Moses his wonder
working rod, and Jesus brought the dead to life, and appeased
jempests with a word. If, then, thou art really a prophet,
give us i miracle in proof."
The adherents of Mahomet trembled for him when they
heard this request, and Abu Jahl clapped his hands and ex
tolled the sagacity of Habib the Wise. But the prophet
7ebuked him with scorn. "Peace ! dog of thy race !" exclaimed
ae; "disgrace of thy kindred, and of thy tribe." He then
calmly proceeded to execute the wishes of Habib.
The first miracle demanded of Mahomet was to reveal what
Habib had within his tent, and why he had brought it to
Mecca.
Upon this, says the legend, Mahomet bent toward the earth
and traced figures upon the sand. Then raising his head, he
replied, "Oh Habib! thou hast brought hither thy daughter,
Satiha, deaf and dumb, and lame and blind, in the hope of
obtaining relief of Heaven. Go to thy tent ; speak to her, and
hear her reply, and know that God is all powerful."
The aged prince hastened to his tent. His daughter met him
with light step and extended arms, perfect in all her facul
ties, her eyes beaming with joy, her face clothed with smiles,
and more beauteous than the moon in an unclouded night.
The second miracle demanded by Habib was still more diffi
cult. It was that Mahomet should cover the noontide heaven
with supernatural darkness, and cause the moon to descend
and rest upon the top of the Caaba.
The prophet performed this miracle as easily as the first. At
his summons, a darkness blotted out the whole light of day.
The moon was then seen straying from her course and wander
ing about the firmament. By the irresistible power of the
prophet, she was drawn from the heavens and rested on the
66 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
top of the Caaba. She then performed seven circuits about it,
after the manner of the pilgrims, and having made a profound
reverence to Mahomet, stood before him with lambent waver
ing motion, like a naming sword ; giving him the salutation of
peace, and hailing him as a prophet.
Not content with this miracle, pursues the legend, Mahomet
compelled the obedient luminary to enter by the right sleeve
of his mantle, and go out by the left ; then to divide into two
parts, one of which went toward the east, and the other
toward the west, and meeting in the centre of the firmament,
reunited themselves into a round and glorious orb.
It is needless to say that Habib the Wise was convinced, and
converted by these miracles, as were also four hundred and
seventy of the inhabitants of Mecca. Abu Jahl, however, was
hardened in unbelief , exclaiming that all was illusion and en
chantment produced by the magic of Mahomet.
NOTE. — The miracles here recorded are not to be found in the pages of the accu
rate Abulfeda, nor are they maintained by any of the graver of the Moslem writers;
but they exist in tradition, and are set forth with great prolixity by apocryphal au
thors, who insist that they are alluded to in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Koran
They are probably as true as many other of the wonders related of the prophet. It
will be remembered that he himself claimed but one miracle, " the Koran."
CHAPTER XI.
THE BAN OF NON-INTERCOURSE MYSTERIOUSLY DESTROYED—
MAHOMET ENABLED TO RETURN TO MECCA — DEATH OF ABIT
TALEB; OF CADIJ AH— MAHOMET BETROTHS HIMSELF TO AYE-
SHA — MARRIES SAWDA — THE KOREISHITES RENEW THEIR PER
SECUTION—MAHOMET SEEKS AN ASYLUM IN TAYEF— HIS EX
PULSION THENCE — VISITED BY GENII IN THE DESERT OF
NAKLAH.
THREE years had elapsed since Mahomet and his disciples
took refuge in the castle of Abu Taleb. The ban or decree still
existed in the Caaba, cutting them off from all intercourse
with the rest of their tribe. The sect, as usual, increased un
der persecution. Many joined it in Mecca; murmurs arose
against the unnatural feud engendered among the Koreishites,
and Abu Sofian was made to blush for the lengths to which he
had carried his hostility against some of his kindred.
I
MMIOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 07
All at once it was discovered that the parchment in the Caaba,
on which the decree had been written, was so substantially
destroyed that nothing of the writing remained but the initial
words, "In thy name, oh Almighty Godl" The decree was,
therefore, declared to be annulled, and Mahomet and his fol
lowers were permitted to return to Mecca unmolested. !The
mysterious removal of this legal obstacle has been considered
by pious Moslems another miracle wrought by supernatural
agency in favor of the prophet ; though unbelievers have sur
mised that the document, which was becoming embarrassing in
its effects to Abu Sofian himself, was secretly destroyed by
mortal hands.
The return of Mahomet and his disciples to Mecca was fol
lowed by important conversions, both of inhabitants of the
city and of pilgrims from afar. The chagrin experienced by
the Koreishites from the growth of this new sect was soothed
by tidings of victories of the Persians over the Greeks, by
which they conquered Syria and a part of Egypt. The idola
trous Koreishites exulted in the defeat of the Christian Greeks,
whose faith, being opposed to the worship of idols, they as
similated to that preached by Mahornct. The latter replied to
their taunts and exultations by producing the thirtieth chapter
of the Koran, opening with these words : ' ' The Greeks have
been overcome by the Persians, but they shall overcome the
latter in the course of a few years."
The zealous and believing Abu Beker made a wager of ten
camels that this prediction would be accomplished within three
years. " Increase the wager, but lengthen the time, " whispered
Mahomet. Abu Beker staked one hundred camels, but made
the time nine years. The prediction was verified, and the
wager won. This anecdote is confidently cited by Moslem
doctors as a proof that the Koran came down from heaven,
and that Mahomet possessed the gift of prophecy. The whole,
if true, was no doubt a shrewd guess into futurity, suggested
by a knowledge of the actual state of the warring powers.
Not long after his return to Mecca, Mahomet was summoned
to close the eyes of his uncle, Abu Taleb, then upward of four
score years of age, and venerable in character as in person.
As the hour of death drew nigh, Mahomet exhorted his uncle
to make the profession of faith necessary, according to the
Islam creed, to secure a blissful resurrection.
A spark of earthly pride lingered in the breast of the dying1
patriarch. " Oh son of my brother !" replied he, "should I re-
t5£ MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
peat those words, the Koreishites would say, I did so through
fear of death, '*
Abulfeda, the historian, insists that Abu Taleb actually died
in the faith. Al Abbas, he says, hung over the bed of his ex
piring brother, and perceiving his lips to move, approached his
ear to catch his dying words. They were the wished-f or confes
sion. Others affirm that his last words were, "I die ii: the
faith of Abd al Motalleb." Commentators have sought to
reconcile the two accounts by asserting that Abd al Motalleb,
in his latter days, renounced the -worship of idols, and believed
in the unity of God.
Scarce three days had elapsed from the death of the vener
able Abu Taleb, when Cadijah, the faithful and devoted wife
of Mahomet, likewise sank into the grave. She was sixty-five
years of age. Mahomet wept bitterly at her tomb, and clothed
himself in mourning for her, and for Abu Taleb, so that this
year was called the year of mourning. He was comforted in
his affliction, says the Arabian author, Abu Horaira, by an
assurance from the angel Gabriel that a silver palace was
allotted to Cadijah in Paradise, as a reward for her great faith
and her early services to the cause.
Though Cadijah had been much older than Mahomet at the
time of their marriage, and past the bloom of years when
women are desirable in the East, and though the prophet was
noted for an amorous temperament, yet he is said to have
remained true to her to the last, nor ever availed himself of the
Arabian law, permitting a plurality of wives, to give her a
rival in his house. When, however, she was laid in the grave,
and the first transport of his grief had subsided, he sought to
console himself for her loss by entering anew into wedlock.,
and henceforth indulged in a plurality of wives. He permit
ted, by his law, four wives to each of his followers; but did
not limit himself to that number; for he observed that a
prophet, being peculiarly gifted and privileged, was not bound
to restrict himself to the same laws as ordinary mortals.
His first choice was made within a month after the death of
Cadijah, and fell upon a beautiful child named Ayesha, the
daughter of his faithful adherent, Abu Beker. Perhaps he
sought by this alliance to grapple Abu Beker still more strongly
to his side ; he being one of the bravest and most popular of
his tribe. Ayesha, however, was but seven years of age, and,
though females soon bloom and ripen in those eastern climes,
she was yet too young to enter into the married state. He
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 69
was merely betrothed to her, therefore, and postponed their
nuptials for two years, during which time he caused her to be
carefully instructed in the accomplishments proper to an
Arabian maiden of distinguished rank.
Upon this wife, thus chosen in the very blossom of her years,
the prophet doted more passionately than upon any of those
whom he subsequently married. All these had been previously
experienced in wedlock; Ayesha, he said, was the only one
who came a pure unspotted virgin to his arms.
Still, that he might not be without due solace while Ayesha
was attaining the marriageable age, he took as a wife Sawda,
the widow of Sokran, one of his followers. She had been nurse
to his daughter Fatima, and was one of the faithful who fled
into Abyssinia from the early persecutions of the people of
Mftcca. It is pretended that, while in exile, she had a mysteri
ous intimation of the future honor which awaited her ; for she
dreamt that Mahomet laid his head upon her bosom. She
recounted the dream to her husband Sokran, who interpreted
it as a prediction of his speedy death, and of her marriage
with the prophet.
The marriage, whether predicted or not, was one of mere
expediency. Mahomet never loved Sawda with the affection
he manifested for his other wives. He would even have put
her away in after years, but she implored to be allowed the
honor of still calling herself his wife ; proffering that, whenever
it should come to her turn to share the marriage bed, she
would relinquish her right to Ayesha. Mahomet consented to
an arrangement which favored his love for the latter, and
Sawda continued, as long as she lived, to be nominally his
wife.
Mahomet soon became sensible of the loss he had sustained
in the death of Abu Taleb, who had been not merely an affec
tionate relative, but a steadfast and powerful protector, from
his great influence in Mecca. At his death there was no one
to chock and counteract the hostilities of Abu Sofian and Abu
Jahl, who soon raised up such a spirit of persecution among
the Koreishites that Mahomet found it unsafe to continue in
his native place. He set out, therefore, accompanied by his
freedman Zeid, to seek a refuge at Tayef, a small walled town,
about seventy miles from Mecca, inhabited by the Thakifites,
or Arabs of the tribe of Thakeef . It was one of the favored
places of Arabia, situated among vineyards and gardens.
Here grew peaches and plums, melons and pomegranates ; figs,
70 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
blue and green, the nebeck-tree producing the lotus, and palm«
trees with their clusters of green and golden fruit. So fresh
were its pastures and fruitful its fields, contrasted with the
sterility of the neighboring deserts, that the Arabs fabled it to
have originally been a part of Syria, broken off and floated
hither at the time of the deluge.
Mahomet entered the gates of Tayef with some degree of
confidence, trusting for protection to the influence of his uncle
Al Abbas, who had possessions there. He could not have
chosen a worse place of refuge. Tayef was one of the strong
holds of idolatry. Here was maintained in all its force the
worship of El Lat, one of the female idols already mentioned.
Her image of stone was covered with jewels and precious
stones, the offerings of her votaries ; it was believed to be in
spired with life, and the intercession of El Lat was implored as
one of the daughters of God.
Mahomet remained about a month in Tayef, seeking in vain
to make proselytes among its inhabitants. When he attempt
ed to preach his doctrines, his voice was drowned by clamors.
More than once he was wounded by stones thrown at him,
and which the faithful Zeid endeavored in vain to ward off.
So violent did the popular fury become at last that he was
driven from the city, and even pursued for some distance be
yond the walls by an insulting rabble of slaves and children.
Thus driven ignominiously from his hoped-for place of
refuge, and not daring to return openly to his native city, he
remained in the desert until Zeid should procure a secret
asylum for him among his friends in Mecca. In this extrem
ity he had one of those visions or supernatural visitations
which appear always to have occurred in lonely or agitated
moments, when we may suppose him to have been in a state
of mental excitement. In was after the evening prayer, he
says, in a solitary place in the valley of Naklah, between
Mecca and Tayef. He was reading the Koran, when he was
overheard by a passing company of Gins or Genii. These are
spiritual beings, some good, others bad, and liable like man to
future rewards and punishments. " Hark ! give ear !" said the
Genii one to the other. They paused and listened as Maho
met continued to read. " Verily," said they at the end, " we
have heard an admirable discourse, which directeth unto the
right institution; wherefore we believe therein."
This spiritual visitation consoled Mahomet for his expulsion
from Tayef, showing that though he and his doctrines might
MA1IUMKT A.\D U1S SUCCESSORS. 71
be rejected by men, they were held in reverence by spiritual
intelligences. At least, so we may infer from the mention he
makes of it in the forty-sixth and seventy-second chapters of
the Koran. Thenceforward he declared himself sent for the
conversion of these genii as well as of the human race.
NOTE. — The belief in genii was prevalent throughout the East, long before the
time of Mahomet. They were supposed to haunt solitary places, particularly
toward nightfall; a superstition congenial to the habits and notions of the inhabi
tants of lonely and desert countries. Tlie Arabs supposed every valley and barren
waste to have its tribe of genii, who wero subject to a dominant spirit, and roamed
forth at night to beset the pilgrim and the traveller. Whenever, therefore, they
entered a lonely valley toward the close of evening, they used to supplicate the
presiding spirit or lord of the place to protect them from the evil genii under his
command.
Those columns of dust raised by whirling eddies of wind, and which sweep across
the desert, are supposed to be caused by some evil genius or sprite of gigantic
size.
The serpents which occasionally infest houses were thought to be often genii,
some infidels and ?ome believers. Mahomet cautioned his followei-s to be slow to
kill a house serpent. " Warn him to depart; if he do not obey, then kill him, for it
itf a sign that he is a mere reptile or an infidel genius."
It is fabled that in earlier times the genii had admission to heaven, but were ex
pelled on account of their meddling propensities. They have ever since been of a
curious and prying nature, often attempting to clamber up to the constellations;
thence to peep into heaven, and see and overhear what is going on there. They
are, however, driven thence by angels with flaming swords; and those meteors
called shooting stars are supposed by Mahometans to be darted by the guardian
angels at these intrusive genii.
Other legends pretend that the earth was originally peopled by these genii,
but they rebelled against the Most High, and usurped terrestrial dominion, which
they maintained for two thousand years. At length, Azazil, or Lucifer, was sent
against them, and defeated them, overthrowing their mighty king Gian ben Gian,
the founder of the pyramids, whose magic buckler of talismanic virtue fell subse
quently into the hands of king Solomon the Wise, giving him power over the spells
and charms of magicians and evil genii. The rebel spirits, defeated and humili
ated, were driven into an obscure corner of the earth. Then it was that God
created man, with less dangerous faculties and powers, and gave him the world for
a habitation.
The angels, according to Moslem .lotions, were created from bright gems; the
genii from fire without smoke, and Adam from clay.
Mahomet, when in the seventy-second chapter of the Koran he alludes to the
visitation of the genii in the valley of Naklah, makes them give the following frank
account of themselves:
"We formerly attempted to pry into what was transacting in heaven, but we
found the same guarded by angels with flaming darts; and we sat on some of the
seats thereof to hear the discourse of its inhabitants; but whoso listeneth now finds
a flame prepared to guard the celestial confines. There are some among us who
are Moslems, and there are others who swerve from righteousness. Whoso em-
braceth Islamism seeketh the true direction; but those who swerve from righteous
ness shall be fuel for the fire of Jehennam."
72 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER XII.
JOURNEY OF THE PROPHET FROM MECCA TO JERUSALEM.
AND THENCE TO THE SEVENTH HEAVEN.
AN asylum being provided for Mahomet in the house of
Mutem Ibn Adi, one of his disciples, he ventured to return to
Mecca. The supernatural visitation of genii in the valley of
Naklah was soon followed by a vision or revelation far more
extraordinary, and which has ever since remained a theme of
comment and conjecture among devout Mahometans. We
allude to the famous night journey to Jerusalem, and thence
to the seventh heaven. The particulars of it, though given as
if in the very words of Mahomet, rest merely on tradition;
some, however, cite texts corroborative of it, scattered here
and there in the Koran.
We do not pretend to give this vision or revelation in its
amplitude and wild extravagance, but will endeavor to seize
upon its most essential features.
The night on which it occurred is described as one of the
darkest and most awfully silent that had ever been known.
There was no Crowing of cocks nor barking of dogs ; no howl
ing of wild beasts nor hooting of owls. The very waters ceased
to murmur, and the winds to whistle; all nature seemed
motionless and dead. In the mid watches of the night Ma
homet was roused by a voice, crying, " Awake, thou sleeper!"
The angel Gabriel stood before him. His forehead was clear
and serene, his complexion white as snow, his hair floated on
his shoulders ; he had wings of many dazzling hues, and his
robes were sown with pearls and embroidered with gold.
He brought Mahomet a white steed of wonderful form and
qualities, unlike any animal he had ever seen ; and in truth it
differs from any animal ever before described. It had a
human face, but the cheeks of a horse; its eyes were as ja
cinths and radiant as stars. It had eagle's wings all glittering
with rays of light ; and its whole form was resplendent with
gems and precious stones. It was a female, and from its daz
zling splendor and incredible velocity was called Al Borak, or
Lightning.
MAHOMET AXD II IS SUCCESSORS.
73
Mahomet prepared to mount this supernatural steed, but as
he extended his hand, it drew back and reared.
"Be still, oh Borak!" said Gabriel; "respect the prophet oi
God. Never wert thou mounted by mortal man more honored
of Allah."
" Oh Gabriel !': A-v-*«d Al Borak, who at this time was mi
raculously endowed with speech ; "did not Abraham of old, the
friend of God, bestride me when he visited his son Ishmaeli
Oh Gabriel! is not this the mediator, the intercessor, thfl
author of the profession of faith?"
' ' Even so, oh Borak, this is Mahomet Ibn Abdallah, of one
of the tribes of Arabia the Happy, and of the true faith. He is
chief of the sons of Adam, the greatest of the divine legates,
the seal of the prophets. All creatures must have his interces
sion before they can enter paradise. Heaven is on his right
hand, to be the reward of those who believe in him : the fire of
Jehennam is on his left hand, into which all shall be thrust
who oppose his doctrines."
"Oh Gabriel!" entreated Al Borak; "by the faith existing
between thee and him, prevail on him to intercede for me at
the day of the resurrection."
"Be assured, oh Borak !" exclaimed Mahomet, "that through
my intercession thou shalt enter paradise."
No sooner had he uttered these words than the animal ap
proached and submitted to be mounted, then rising with Ma
homet on its back, it soared aloft far above the mountains of
Mecca.
As they passed like lightning between heaven and earth,
Gabriel cried aloud, "Stop, oh Mahomet! descend to the earth,
and make the prayer with two inflections of the body."
They alighted on the earth, and having made the prayer —
"Oh friend and well beloved of my soul," said Mahomet,
" why dost thou command me to pray in this place?"
"Because it is Mount Sinai, on which God communed with
Moses."
Mounting aloft, they again passed, rapidly between heaven
and earth, until Gabriel called out a second time, "Stop, oh
Mahomet! descend and make the prayer with two inflections."
They descended, Mahomet prayed, and again demanded,
"Why didst thou command me to pray in this place?"
" Because it is Bethlehem, where Jesus the Son of Mary was
born."
They resumed their course through the air. until a voice was
74 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
heard on the right, exclaiming, "Oh Mahomet, tarry a mo*
ment, that I may speak to thee; of all created beings I am
most devoted to thee."
Rut Borak pressed forward, and Mahomet forbore to tarry,
for he felt that it was not with him to stay his course, but with
God, the all-powerful and glorious.
Another voice was now heard on the left, calling on Mahomet
in like words to tarry ; but Borak still pressed forward, and
Mahomet tarried not. He now beheld before him a damsel of
ravishing beauty, adorned with all the luxury and riches of
the earth. She beckoned him with alluring smiles: "Tarry a
moment, oh Mahomet, that 1 may talk with thee. I, who, of
all beings, am the most devoted to thee." But still Borak
pressed on, and Mahomet tarried not ; considering that it was
not with him to stay his course, but with God the all-powerful
and glorious.
Addressing himself, however, to Gabriel, ' ' What voices are
those I have heard?" said he; "and what damsel is this who
has beckoned to me?"
"The first, oh Mahomet, was the voice of a Jew; hadst thou
listened to him, all thy nation would have been won to Juda
ism.
"The second was the voice of a Christian; hadst thou lis
tened to him, thy people would have inclined to Christianity.
" The damsel was the world, with all its riches, its vanities,
and allurements ; hadst thou listened to her, thy nation would
have chosen the pleasures of this life, rather than the bliss of
eternity, and all would have been doomed to perdition."
Continuing their aerial course, they arrived at the gate of
the holy temple at Jerusalem, where, alighting from Al Borak,
Mahomet fastened her to the rings where the prophets before
him had fastened her. Then entering the temple he found
there Abraham, and Moses, and Isa (Jesus), and many more of
the prophets. After he had prayed in company with them for
a time, a ladder of light was let down from heaven, until the
lower end rested on the Shakra, or foundation stone of the
sacred house, being the stone of Jacob. Aided by the angel
Gabriel, Mahomet ascended this ladder with the rapidity of
lightning.
Being arrived at the first heaven, Gabriel knocked at the
gate. Who is there? was demanded from within. Gabriel.
Who is with thee? Mahomet. Has he received his missions
He has. Then he is welcome ! and the gate was opened.
A31) 2I1S SUCCESSORS. 75
This first heaven was of pure silver; and in its resplendent
vault the stars are suspended by chains of gold. In each star
an angel is placed sentinel, to prevent the demons from scaling
the sacred abodes. As Mahomet entered an ancient man ap
proached him, and Gabriel said, "Here is thy father Adam,
pay him reverence." Mahomet did so, and Adam embraced
him, calling liim the greatest among his children, and the first
among the prophets.
In this heaven were innumerable animals of all kinds, whkn
Gabriel said were angels, who, under these forms, interceded
with Allah for the various races of animals upon earth.
Among these was a cock of dazzling whiteness, and of such
marvellous height that his crest touched the second heaven,
though five hundred years' journey above the first. This won
derful bird saluted the ear of Allah each morning with his
melodious chant. All creatures- on earth, save man, aro
awakened by his voice, and all the fowls of his kind chant hal
lelujahs in emulation cf his note.*
They now ascended to the second heaven. Gabriel, as
before, knocked at the gate; the same questions and replies
were exchanged ; the door opened and they entered.
This heaven was all of polished steel, and dazzling splendor.
Here they found Noah, who, embracing Mahomet, hailed him
as the greatest among the prophets.
Arrived at the third heaven, they entered with the same
ceremonies. It was all studded with precious stones, and too
brilliant for mortal eyes. Here was seated an angel of immear
surable height, whose eyes were seventy thousand days' jour
ney apart. He had at his command a hundred thousand batta-
* There are three to which, say the Moslem doctors, God ahvajis lends a willing
ear: the voice of him who reads the Koran; of him who prays for pardon; and of
this cock who crows to the glory of the Most High. When the last day is near,
they add, Allah will bid this bird to close his wings and chant no more. Then all
the cocks on earth will cease to crow, and their silence will be a sign that the great
di v- of judgment is impending.
The Reverend Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, in his Life of Mahomet,
accuses him of having stolen this wonderful cock from the tract Bava Bartha of
the Babylonish Talmud, " wherein," says he, " we have a story of such a prodi
gious bird, called Zig, which, standing with his feet on the earth, reacheth up to
the heavens with his head, and with the spreading of his wings darkeneth the whole
orb of the sun, and causeth a total eclipse thereof. This bird the Chaldee para-
phrast ou the Psalms says is a cock, and that he crows before the Lord; and the
Chaldoe paraphrast on Job tells us of his crowing every morning before tha Lord,
I that God '.rlveth him wisdom for that purpose."
76 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
lions of armed men. Before him was spread a vast book, in
which he was continually writing and blotting out.
"This, oh Mahomet," said Gabriel, "is Azrael, the angel of
death, who is in the confidence of Allah. In the book before
him he is continually writing the names of those who are to be
born, and blotting out the names of those who have lived
their allotted time, and who, therefore, instantly die."
They now mounted to the fourth heaven, formed of the
finest silver. Among the angels who inhabited it was one five
hundred days' journey in height. His countenance was trou
bled, and rivers of tears ran from his eyes. "This, "said
Gabriel, ' ' is the angel of tears, appointed to weep over the sins
of the children of men, and to predict the evils which await
them."
The fifth heaven was of the finest gold. Here Mahomet was
received by Aaron with embraces and congratulations. The
avenging angel dwells in this heaven, and presides over the
element of fire. Of all the angels seen by Mahomet, he was
the most hideous and terrific. His visage seemed of copper,
and was covered with wens and warts. His eyes flashed light
ning, and he grasped a flaming lance. He sat on a throne sur
rounded by flames, and before him was a heap of red-hot
chains. Were he to alight upon earth in his true form, the
mountains would be consumed, the seas dried up, and all the
inhabitants would die with terror. To him, and the angels his
ministers, is intrusted the execution of divine vengeance on
infidels and sinners.
Leaving this awful abode, they mounted to the sixth heaven,
composed of a transparent stone, called Hasala, which may be
rendered carbuncle. Here was a great angel, composed half of
snow and half of fire ; yet the snow melted not, nor was the
fire extinguished. Around him a choir of lesser angels con
tinually exclaimed, "Oh Allah! who hast united snow and
fire, unite all thy faithful servants in obedience to thy law."
" This," said Gabriel, " is the guardian angel of heaven and
earth. It is he who dispatches angels unto individuals of thy
nation, to incline them in favor of thy mission, and call them
to the service of God ; and he will continue to do so until the
day of resurrection."
Here was the prophet Musa (Moses), who, however, instead
of welcoming Mahomet with joy, as the other prophets had
done, shed tears at sight of him.
" Wherefore dost thoti weep?" inquired Mahomet. " Because
T AM) ill* 8UCCX88OR& 77
I behold a successor who *« destined to conduct more of his
nation into paradise than ever I could of the backsliding chil
dren of Israel."
Mounting hence to the seventh heaven, Mahomet was re
ceived by the patriarch Abraham. This blissful abode is
formed of divine light, and of such transcendent glory that the
tongue of man cannot describe it. One of its celestial inhabi
tants will suffice to give an idea of the rest. He surpassed the
whole earth in magnitude, and had seventy thousand heads ;
each head seventy thousand mouths; each mouth seventy
thousand tongues ; each tongue spoke seventy thousand differ
ent languages, and all these were incessantly employed in
chanting the praises of the Most High.
While contemplating this wonderful being Mahomet was
suddenly transported aloft to the lotus-tree, called Sedrat,
which flourishes on the right hand of the invisible throne of
Allah. The branches of this tree extend wider than the dis
tance between the sun and the earth. Angels more numerous
than the sands of the sea-shore, or of the beds of all the
streams and rivers, rejoice beneath its shade. The leaves re
semble the ears of an elephant ; thousands of immortal birds
sport among its brances, repeating the sublime verses of the
Koran. Its fruits are milder than milk and sweeter than
honey. If all the creatures of God were assembled, one of
these fruits would be sufficient for their sustenance. Each
seed encloses a houri, or celestial virgin, provided for the feli
city of true believers. From this tree issue four rivers; two
flow into the interior of paradise, two issue beyond it, and
become the Nile and Euphrates.
Mahomet and his celestial guide now proceeded to Al Mamour,
or the House of Adoration, formed of red jacinths or rubies,
and surrounded by innumerable lamps, perpetually burning.
As Mahomet entered the portal, three vases were offered him,
one containing wine, another milk, and the third honey. He
took and drank of the vase containing milk.
"Well hast thou done; auspicious is thy choice," exclaimed
Gabriel. "Hadst thou drunk of the wine, thy people had all
gone astray."
The sacred house resembles in form the Caaba at Mecca, and
is perpendicularly above it in the seventh heaven. It is visited
every day by seventy thousand angels of the highest order.
They were at this very time making their holy circuit, and
Mahomet, joining with them, walked round it seven times.
78 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Gabriel could go no farther. Mahomet now traversed, quicker
than thought, an immense space ; passing through two regions
of dazzling light, and one of profound darkness. Emerging
from tthis utter gloom, he was filled with awe and terror at
finding himself in the presence of Allah, and but two bow
shots from his throne. The face of the Deity was covered
with twenty thousand veils, for it would have annihilated mac
to look upon its glory. He put forth his hands, and placed one
upon the breast and the other upon the shoulder of Mahomet,
who felt a freezing chill penetrate to his heart and to the very
marrow of his bones. It was followed by a feeling of ecstatic
bliss, while a sweetness and fragrance prevailed around, which
none can understand but those who have been in the divine
presence.
Mahomet now received from the Deity himself , many of the
doctrines contained in the Koran ; and fifty prayers were pre
scribed as the daily duty of all true believers.
When he descended from the divine presence and again met
with Moses, the latter demanded what Allah had required.
" That I should make fifty prayers every day."
' ' And thinkest thou to accomplish such a task ? I have made
the experiment before thee. I tried it with the children of
Israel, but in vain ; return, then, and beg a diminution of the
task."
Mahomet returned accordingly, and obtained a diminution
of ten prayers ; but when he related his success to Moses, the
latter made the same objection to the daily amount of forty.
By his advice Mahomet returned repeatedly, until the number
was reduced to five.
Moses still objected. "Thinkest thou to exact five prayers
daily from thy people? By Allah! I have had experience with
the children of Israel, and such a demand is vain; return, there
fore, and entreat still further mitigation of the task."
" No," replied Mahomet, " I have already asked indulgence
until I am ashamed." With these words he saluted Moses and
departed.
By the ladder of light he descended to the temple of Jerusa
lem, where he found Borak fastened as he had left her, and
mounting, was borne back in an instant to the place whence
he had first been taken.
This account of the vision, or nocturnal journey, is chiefly
according to the words of the historians Abulfeda, Al Bokhari,
and Abu Horeira, and is given more &t large in the Life of Ma-
MAHOMET Aj\D ///.< 81 " 7->vo/f,S'. 79
hornet by Gagnier. The journey itself has given rise to endless
commentaries and disputes among the doctors. Some affirm
that it was no more than a dream or vision of the night, and
support their assertion by a tradition derived from Ayesha, the
wife of Mahomet, who declared that, on the night in question,
his body remained perfectly still, and it was only in spirit that
he made his nocturnal journey. In giving this tradition, how
ever, they did not consider that at the time the journey wa»
said to have taken place, Ayesha was still a child, and, though
espoused, had not become the wife of Mahomet.
Others insist that he made the celestial journey bodily, and
that the whole was miraculously effected in so short a space of
time, that, on his return, he was able to prevent the complete
overturn of a vase of water which the angel Gabriel had struck
with his wing on his departure.
Others say that Mahomet only pretended to have made the
nocturnal journey to the temple of Jerusalem, and that the
subsequent ascent to heaven was a vision. According to Ah
med ben Joseph, the nocturnal visit to the temple was testified
by the patriarch of Jerusalem himself. " At the time," says
he, ' ' that Mahomet sent an envoy to the emperor Heraclius, at
Constantinople, inviting him to embrace Islamism, the patri
arch was in the presence of the emperor. The envoy having
related the nocturnal journey of the prophet, the patriarch
was seized with astonishment, and informed the emperor of a
circumstance coinciding with the narrative of the envoy. * It
is my custom,' said he, ' never to retire to rest at night until I
have fastened every door of the temple. On the night here
mentioned, I closed them according to my custom, but there
was one which it was impossible to move. Upon this, I sent
for the carpenters, who, having inspected the door, declared
that the lintel over the portal, and the edifice itself, had settled
ito such a degree that it was out of their power to close the
(door. I was obliged, therefore, to leave it open. Early in the
morning at the break of day I repaired thither, and behold,
the stone placed at the corner of the temple was perforated,
and there were vestiges of the place where Al Borak had been
fastened. Then, said I, to those present, this portal would not
have remained fixed unless some prophet had been here to
pray.'"
Traditions go on to say that when Mahomet narrated his
nocturnal journey to a large assembly in Mecca, many mar
velled yet believed, some were perplexed with doubt, but the
80 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Koreishites laughed it to scorn. " Thou sayest that thou hast
been to the temple of Jerusalem, " said Abu Jahl ; ' ' prove the
truth of thy words by giving a description of it."
For a moment Mahomet was embarrassed by the demand,
for he had visited the temple in the night, when its form was
not discernible ; suddenly, however, the angel Gabriel stood by
his side, and placed before his eyes an exact type of the sacred
edifice, so that he was enabled instantly to answer the most
minute questions.
The story still transcended the belief even of some of his
disciples, until Abu Beker, seeing them wavering in their faith,
and in danger of backsliding, roundly vouched for the truth of
it ; in reward for which support, Mahomet gave him the title of
Al Seddek, or the Testifier to the Truth, by which he was
thenceforth distinguished.
As we have already observed, this nocturnal journey rests
almost entirely upon tradition, though some of its circum
stances are vaguely alluded to in the Koran. The whole may
be a fanciful superstructure of Moslem fanatics on one of
those visions or ecstasies to which Mahomet was prone, and
the relation of which caused him to be stigmatized by the
Koreishites as a madman.
CHAPTER XIII.
MAHOMET MAKES CONVERTS OF PILGRIMS FROM MEDINA— DETER
MINES TO FLY TO THAT CITY — A PLOT TO SLAY HIM— HIS
MIRACULOUS ESCAPE— HIS HEGIRA, OR FLIGHT — HIS RECEP
TION AT MEDINA.
THE fortunes of Mahomet were becoming darker and darker
in his native place. Cadijah, his original benefactress, the
devoted companion of his solitude and seclusion, the zealous
believer in his doctrines, was in her grave ; so also was Abu
Taleb, once his faithful and efficient protector. Deprived of
the sheltering influence of the latter, Mahomet had become,
in a manner, an outlaw, in Mecca; obliged to conceal himself,
and remain a burden on the hospitality of those whom his
own doctrines had involved in persecution. If worldly
advantage had been his object, how had it been attained?
MAHOMET AND HI* SUCCESSORS.
81
Upward of ten years had elapsed since first he announced his
prophetic mission; ten long years of enmity, trouble, and
misfortune. Still he persevered, and now, at a period of life
when men seek to enjoy in repose the fruition of the past,
rather than risk all in new schemes for the future, we find
him, after having sacrificed ease, fortune, and friends, pre
pared to give up home and country also, rather than his
religious creed.
As soon as the privileged time of pilgrimage arrived, he
emerged once more from his concealment, and mingled with
the multitude assembled from all parts of Arabia. His
earnest desire was to find some powerful tribe, or the inhabi
tants of some important city, capable and willing to receive
him as a guest, and protect him in the enjoyment and propa
gation of his faith.
His quest was for a time unsuccessful. Those who had
come to worship at the Caaba drew back from a man stigma
tized as an apostate ; and the worldly-minded were unwilling
to befriend one proscribed by the powerful of his native place.
At length, as he was one day preaching on the hill Al
Akaba, a little to the north of Mecca, he drew the attention of
certain pilgrims from the city of Yathreb. This city, since
called Medina, was about two hundred and seventy miles
north of Mecca. Many of its inhabitants were Jews and
heretical Christians. The pilgrims in question were pure
Arabs of the ancient and powerful tribe of Khazradites, and
in habits of friendly intercourse with the Keneedites and
Naderites, two Jewish tribes inhabiting Mecca who claimed to
be of the sacerdotal line of Aaron. The pilgrims had often
heard their Jewish friends explain the mysteries of their faith,
and talk of an expected Messiah. They were moved by the
eloquence of Mahomet, and struck with the resemblance of
,his doctrines to those of the Jewish law ; insomuch that when
they heard him proclaim himself a prophet, sent by heaven to
restore the ancient faith, they said, one to another, "Surely
tlus must be the promised Messiah of which we have been
told." The more they listened, the stronger became their
persuasion of the fact, until in the end they avowed their
conviction, and made a final profession of the faith.
As the Khazradites belonged to one of the most powerful
tribes of Yathreb, Mahomet sought to secure their protection,
and proposed to accompany them on their return; but they
informed him that they were at deadly feud with the Awsites,
82 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
another powerful tribe of that city, and advised him to defer
his coming until they should be at peace. He consented; but
on the return home of the pilgrims, he sent with them Musab
Ibn Omeir, one of the most learned and able of his disciples,
with instructions to strengthen them in the faith, and to
preach it to their townsmen. Thus were the seeds of Islam-
ism first sown in the city of Medina. For a time they thrived
but slowly. Musab was opposed by the idolaters, and his life
threatened; but he persisted in his exertions, and gradually
made converts among the principal inhabitants. Among
these were Saad Ibn Maads, a prince or chief of the Awsites,
and Osaid Ibn Hodheir, a man of great authority in the city.
Numbers of the Moslems of Mecca also, driven away by
persecution, took refuge in Medina, and aided in propagating
the new faith among its inhabitants, until it found its way
into almost every household.
Feeling now assured of being able to give Mahomet an
asylum in the city, upward of seventy of the converts of
I ""edina, led by Musab Ibn Omeir, repaired to Mecca with the
pilgrims in the holy month of the thirteenth year of "the
mission," to invite him to take up his abode in their city.
Mahomet gave them a midnight meeting on the hill Al Akaba.
His uncle Al Abbas, who, like the deceased Abu Taleb, took
an affectionate interest in his welfare, though no convert to
his doctrines, accompanied him to this secret conference,
which he feared might lead him into danger. He entreated
the pilgrims from Medina not to entice his nephew to their
city until more able to protect him : warning them that their
open adoption of the new faith would bring all Arabia in arms
against them. His warnings and entreaties were in vain : a
solemn compact was made between the parties. Mahomet
demanded that they should abjure idolatry, and worship the
one true God openly and fearlessly. For himself he exacted
obedience in weal and woe ; and for -the disciples who might
accompany him, protection ; even such as they would render
to their own wives and children. On these terms he offered
to bind himself to remain among them, to be the friend of
their friends, the enemy of their enemies. "But, should we
perish in your cause," asked they, "what will be our reward?"
"Paradise!" replied the prophet.
The terms were accepted; the emissaries from Medina
placed their hands in the hands of Mahomet, and swore to
abide by the compact. The latter then singled out twelve
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 88
from among them, whom he designated as his apostles ; in
imitation, it is supposed, of the example of our Saviour, Just
then a voice was heard from the summit of the hill, denounc
ing them as apostates, and menacing them with punishment.
The sound of this voice, heard in the darkness of the night,
inspired temporary dismay. "It is the voice of the fiend
Iblis," said Mahomet scornfully; " he is the foe of God : iVar
him not. " It was probably the voice of some spy or eaves
dropper of the Koreishites ; for the very next morning they
manifested a knowledge of what had taken place in the night ;
and treated the new confederates with great harshness as they
were departing from the city.
It was this early accession to the faith, and this timely aid
proffered and subsequently afforded to Mahomet and his dis
ciples, which procured for tho Moslems of Medina the appella
tion of Ansariaiis, or auxiliaries, by which they were afterward
distinguished.
After the departure of the Ansarians, and the expiration of
the holy month, the persecutions of the Moslems were resumed
with increased virulence, insomuch that Mahomet, seeing a
crisis was at hand, and being resolved to leave the city,
advised his adherents generally to provide for their safety. For
himself, he still lingered in Mecca with a few devoted followers.
Abu Sofian, his implacable foe, was at this time governor of
the city. He was both incensed and alarmed at the spreading
growth of the new faith, and held a meeting of the chief of the
Koreishites to devise some means of effectually putting a stop
to it. Some advised that Mahomet should be banished the
city ; but it was objected that he might gain other tribes to his
interest, or perhaps the people of Medina, and return at their
head to take his revenge. Others proposed to wall him up in
a dungeon, and supply him with food until he died ; but it was
surmised that his friends might effect his escape. All these
objections were raised by a violent and pragmatical old man,
a stranger from the province of Nedja, who, say the Moslem
writers, was no other than the devil in disguise, breathing his
malignant spirit into those present. At length it was declared
by Abu Jahl, that the only effectual check on the growing evil
was to put Mahomet to death. To this all agreed, and as a
means of sharing the odium of the deed, and withstanding the
vengeance it might awaken among the relatives of the victim,
it was arranged that a member of each family should plunge
his sword into the bodv of Mahomet.
84 MAHOMET AXD UIS SUCCESSORS.
It is to this conspiracy that allusion is made in the eighth
chapter of the Koran. ' ' And call to mind how the unbelievers
plotted against thee, that they might either detain thee in
bonds, or put thee to death, or expel thee the city ; but God
laid a plot against them; and God is the best layer of plots."
In fact, by the time the murderers arrived before the dwell
ing of Mahomet, he was apprised of the impending danger.
As usual, the warning is attributed to the angel Gabriel, but
it is probable it was given by some Koreishite, less bloody-
minded than his confederates. It came just in time to save
Mahomet from the hands of his enemies. They paused at
his door, but hesitated to enter. Looking through a crevice
they beheld, as they thought, Mahomet wrapped in his green
mantle, and lying asleep on his couch. They waited for a
while, consulting whether to fall on him while sleeping, or
wait until he should go forth. At length they burst open
the door and rushed toward the couch. The sleeper started
up : but, instead of Mahomet, Ali stood before them. Amazed
and confounded, they demanded, ''Where is Mahomet?" "I
know not," replied Ali sternly, and walked forth; nor did any
one venture to molest him. Enraged at the escape of their
victim, however, the Koreishites proclaimed a reward of a
hundred camels to any one who should bring them Mahomet
alive or dead.
Divers accounts are given of the mode in which Mahomet
made his escape from the house after the faithful Ali had
wrapped himself in his mantle and taken his place upon the
couch. The most miraculous account is, that he opened the
door silently, as the Koreishites stood before it, and, scatter
ing a handful of dust in the air, cast such blindness upon them
that he walked through the midst of them without being per
ceived. This, it is added, is confirmed by the verse of the 30th
chapter of the Koran : ' ' We have thrown blindness upon them,
that they shall not see."
The most probable account is, that he clambered over the
wall in the rear of the house, by the help of a servant, who
bent his back for him to step upon it.
He repaired immediately to the house of Abu Beker, and
they arranged for instant flight. It was agreed that they
should take refuge in a cave in Mount Thor, about an hour's
distance from Mecca, and wait there until they could proceed
safely to Medina : and in the mean time the children of Abu
Beker should secretly bring them food. They left Mecca while
MAUOMKT AMD JI1H
it was yet dark, making their way on foot by the light of the
stars, and the day dawned as they found themselves at the
foot of Mount Thor. Scarce were they within the cave when
they heard the sound of pursuit. Abu Beker, though a brave
man, quaked with fear. " Our pursuers," said he, u are many,
and we are but two." "Nay," replied Mahomet, "there is a
third ; God Is with us !" And here the Moslem writers relate a
miracle, dear to the minds of ail true believers. By the time,
say they, that the Koreishites reached the mouth of the
cavern, an acacia-tree had sprung up before it, in the spread
ing branches of which a pigeon had made its nest, and laid its
eggs, and over the whole a spider had woven its web. When
the Koreishites beheld these signs of undisturbed quiet, they
concluded that no one could recently have entered the cavern ;
so they turned away, and pursued their search in another
direction.
Whether protected by miracle or not, the fugitives remained
for three days undiscovered in the cave, and Asama, the
daughter of Abu Beker, brought them food in the dusk of the
evenings.
On the fourtti day, when they presumed the ardor of pursuit
had abated, the fugitives ventured forth, and set out for
Medina, on camels which a servant of Aub Beker had brought
in the night for them. Avoiding the main road usually taken
by the caravans, they bent their course nearer to the coast of
the Red Sea. They had not proceeded far, however, before
they were overtaken by a troop of horse headed by Soraka Ibn
Malec. Abu Beker was again dismayed by the number of
their pursuers; but Mahomet repeated the assurance, " Be not
troubled; Allah is with us." Soraka was a grim warrior, with
shagged iron gray locks and naked sinewy arms rough with
hair. As he overtook Mahomet, his horse reared and fell with
him. His superstitious mind was struck with it as an evil
sign. Mahomet perceived the state of his feelings, and by an
eloquent appeal wrought upon him to such a degree that
Soraka, filled with awe, entreated his forgiveness, and turning
back with his troop suffered him to proceed on his way un
molested.
The fugitives continued their journey without further inter
ruption, until they arrived at Koba, a hill about two miles
from Medina. It was a favorite resort of the inhabitants of
the city, and a place to which they sent their si«k and infirm,
for the air was pure and salubrious. Hence, too, the city was
80' MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
supplied with fruit; the hill and its environs being covered
with vineyards, and with groves of the date and lotus ; with
gardens producing citrons, oranges, pomegranates, figs, peaches,
and apricots; and being irrigated with limpid streams.
On arriving at this fruitful spot, Al Kaswa, the camel of
Mahomet, crouched on her knees, and would go no further.
The prophet interpreted it as a favorable sign, and determined
to remain at Koba, and prepare for entering the city. The
place where his camel knelt is still pointed out by pious Mos
lems, a mosque named Al Takwa having been built there to
commemorate the circumstance. Some affirm that it was
actually founded by the prophet. A deep well is also shown in
the vicinity, beside which Mahomet reposed under the shade
of the trees, and into which he dropped his seal ring. It is
believed still to remain there, and has given sanctity to the
well, the waters of which are conducted by subterraneous con
duits to Medina. At Koba he remained four days, residing in
the house of an Awsite named Coithum Ibn Hadem. While
at this village he was joined by a distinguished chief, Boreida
Ibn Hoseib, with seventy followers, all of the tribe of Sahara.
These made profession of faith between the hands of Maho
met.
Another renowned proselyte who repaired to the prophet at
this village, was Salman al Parsi (or the Persian). He is said
to have been a native of a small place near Ispahan, and that,
on passing one day by a Christian church, he was so much
struck by the devotion of the people, and the solemnity of the
worship, that he became disgusted with the idolatrous faith in
which he had been brought up. He afterward wandered about
the east, from city to city, and convent to convent, in quest of
a religion, until an ancient monk, full of years and infirmities,
told him of a prophet who had arisen in Arabia to restore the
pure faith of Abraham.
This Salman rose to power in after years, and was reputed
by the unbelievers of Mecca to have assisted Mahomet in com
piling his doctrine. This is alluded to in the sixteenth chapter-
of the Koran: " Verily, the idolaters say, that a certain man
assisted to compose the Koran; but the language of this man is
Ajami Cor Persian), and the Koran is indited in the pure Ara
bian tongue." *
* The renowned and learned Humphrey Prideaux, Doctor of Divinity and Dean
»f Norwich, in his Life of Mahomet, confounds this Salman the Persian with Air
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
87
The Moslems of Mecca, who had taken refuge some time be
fore in Medina, hearing that Mahomet was at hand, came forth
to meet him at Koba; among these was the early convert
Talha, and Zobeir, the nephew of Cadijah. These, seeing the
travel-stained garments of Mahomet and Abu Beker, gave
them white mantles, with which to make their entrance into
Medina. Numbers of the Ansarians, or auxiliaries, of Medina,
who had made their compact with Mahomet in the preceding
year, now hastened to renew their vow of fidelity.
Learning from them that the number of proselytes in the
city was rapidly augmenting, and that there was a general dis
position to receive him favorably, he appointed Friday, the
Moslem sabbath, the sixteenth day of the month Rabi, for his
public entrance.
Accordingly on the morning of that day he assembled all
his followers to prayer ; and after a sermon, in which he ex
pounded the main principles of his faith, he mounted his
camel Al Kaswa, and set forth for that city, which was to be
come renowned in after ages as his city of refuge.
Boreida Ibn al Hoseib, with his seventy horsemen of the
tribe of Saham, accompanied him as a guard. Some of the dis
ciples took turns to hold a canopy of palm-leaves over his head,
and by his side rode Abu Beker. " Oh apostle of God!" cried
Boreida, "thoushalt not enter Medina without a standard;"
so saying, he unfolded his turban, and tying one end of it to
the point of his lance, bore it aloft before the prophet.
The city of Medina was fair to approach, being extolled for
beauty of situation, salubrity of climate, and fertility of soil;
for the luxuriance of its palm-trees, and the fragrance of its
shrubs and flowers. At a short distance from the city a crowd
of new proselytes to the faith came forth in sun and dust to
meet the cavalcade. Most of them had never seen Mahomet,
and paid reverence to Abu Beker through mistake ; but the
latter put aside the screen of palm-leaves, and pointed out
the real object of homage, who was greeted with loud accla
mations.
In this way did Mahomet, so recently a fugitive from his
native city, with a price upon his head, enter Medina, more as
a conqueror in triumph, than an exile seeking an asylum. He
dallah Ibn Salan, a learned Jew; by some called Abdias Ben Salan in the Hebrew
dialect, and by others Abdallah Salen; who is accused by Christia* writers of
assisting Mahomet in fabricating his revelations.
gg MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
alighted at the house of a Khazradite, named Abu Ayub, a
devout Moslem, to whom moreover he was distantly related ;
here he was hospitably received, and took up his abode in the
basement story.
Shortly after his arrival he was joined by the faithful Ah,
who had fled from Mecca, and journeyed on foot, hiding him
self in the day and travelling only at night, lest he should fall
into the hands of the Koreishites. He arrived weary and way
worn, his feet bleeding with the roughness of the journey.
Within a few days more came Ayesha, and the rest of Abu
Beker's household, together with the family of Mahomet, con
ducted by his faithful freedman Zeid, and by Abu Beker's ser
vant Abdallah.
Such is the story of the memorable Hegira, or " Flight of the
prophet"— the era of the Arabian kalendar, from which time
is calculated by all true Moslems: it corresponds to the 622d
year of the Christian era.
CHAPTER XIV.
MOSLEMS IN MEDINA, MOHADJERINS AND ANSARIANS— THE PARTY
OF ABDALLAH IBN OBBA AND THE HYPOCRITES— MAHOMET
BUILDS A MOSQUE, PREACHES, MAKES CONVERTS AMONG THE
CHRISTIANS — THE JEWS SLOW TO BELIEVE — BROTHERHOOD
ESTABLISHED BETWEEN FUGITIVES AND ALLIES.
MAHOMET soon found himself at the head of a numerous and
powerful sect in Medina ; partly made up of those of his disciples
who had fled from Mecca, and were thence called Mohadjerins
or Fugitives, and partly of inhabitants of the place, who on
joining the faith were called Ansarians or Auxiliaries. Most of
these latter were of the powerful tribes of the Awsites and
Khazradites, which, though descended from two brothers, Al
Aws and Al Khazraj, had for a hundred and twenty years dis
tracted Medina by their inveterate and mortal feuds, but had
now become united in the bonds of faith. With such of these
tribes as did not immediately adopt his doctrines he made a
covenant.
The Khazradites were very much under the sway of a
prince or chief, named Abdallah Ibn Obba; who, it is said,
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 89
was on the point of being made king, when the arrival of Ma
homet and the excitement caused by his doctrines gave the
popular feeling a new direction. Abdallah was stately in per
son, of a graceful demeanor, and ready and eloquent tongue ;
he professed great friendship for Mahomet, and with several
companions of his own type and character, used to attend the
meetings of the Moslems. Mahomet was captivated at first by
their personal appearance, their plausible conversation, and
their apparent deference ; but he found in the end that Abdal
lah was jealous of his popularity and cherished secret animos
ity against him, and that his companions were equally false in
their pretended friendship ; hence, he stamped them with the
name of ''The Hypocrites." Abdallah Ibn Obba long con
tinued his political rival in Medina.
Being now enabled publicly to exercise his faith and preach
his doctrines, Mahomet proceeded to erect a mosque. The
place chosen was a grave-yard or burying-ground, shaded by
date-trees. He is said to have been guided in his choice by
what he considered a favorable omen ; his camel having knelt
opposite to this place on his public entry into the city. The
dead were removed, and the trees cut down to make way for
the intended edifice. It was simple in form and structure,
suited to the unostentatious religion which he professed, and
to the scanty and precarious means of its votaries. The walls
were of earth and brick ; the trunks of the palm-trees recently
felled, served as pillars to support the roof, which was framed
of their branches and thatched with their leaves. It was about
a hundred ells square, and had three doors ; one to the south,
where the Kebla was afterward established, another called the
gate of Gabriel, and the third the gate of Mercy. A part of
the edifice, called Soffat, was assigned as a habitation to such
of the believers as were without a home.
Mahomet assisted with his own hands in the construction of
this mosque. With all his foreknowledge, he little thought
that he was building his own tomb and monument ; for in that
edifice his remains are deposited. It has in after times been
repeatedly enlarged and beautified, but still bears the name
Mesjed al Nebi (the Mosque of the Prophet), from having been
founded by his hands. He was for some time at a loss in what
manner his followers should be summoned to their devotions ;
whether with the sound of trumpets as among the Jews, or by
lighting fires on high places, or by the striking of timbrels.
While in this perplexity a form of words to be cried aloud was
90 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
suggested by Abdallah, the son of Zeid. who declared that it
was revealed to him in a vision. It was instantly adopted by
Mahomet, and such is given as the origin of the following sum
mons, which is to this day heard from the lofty minarets
throughout the East, calling the Moslems to the place of wor
ship : * ' God is great ! God is great ! There*is no God but God.
Mahomet is the apostle of God. Come to prayers! come to
prayers! God is great! God is great! There is no God but
God." To which at dawn of day is added the exhortation,
" Prayer is better than sleep ! Prayer is better than sleep !"
Everything in this humble mosque was at first conducted
with great simplicity. At night it was lighted up by splinters
of the date-tree ; and it was some time before lamps and oil
were introduced. The prophet stood on the ground and
preached, leaning with his back against the trunk of one of
the date-trees, which served as pillars. He afterward had a
pulpit or tribune erected, to which he ascended by three steps,
so as to be elevated above the congregation. Tradition asserts,
that when he first ascended this pulpit, the deserted date-tree
uttered a groan ; whereupon, as a consolation, he gave it the
choice either to be transplanted to a garden again to flourish,
or to be transferred k> paradise, there to yield fruit, in after
life, to true believers. The date-tree wisely chose the latter,
and was subsequently buried beneath the pulpit, there to await
its blissful resurrection.
Mahomet preached and prayed in the pulpit, sometimes
sitting, sometimes standing and leaning on a staff. His pre
cepts as yet were all peaceful and benignant, inculcating devo
tion to God and humanity to man. He seems to have emu-
-lated for a time the benignity of the Christian faith. "He
who is not affectionate to God's creatures, and to his own
children," would he say, " God will not be affectionate to him.
Every Moslem who clothes the naked of his faith, will be
clothed by Allah in the green robes of paradise."
In one of his traditional sermons, transmitted by his dis
ciples, Is the following apologue on the subject of charity:
" When God created the earth it shook and trembled, until he
put mountains upon it, to make it firm. . Then the angels
asked, 'Oh, God, is there anything of thy creation stronger
than these mountains?' And God replied, 'Iron is stronger
than the mountains; for it breaks them.' * And is there any
thing of thy creation stronger than iron?' 'Yes; fire is
Stronger than iron, for it melts it.' ' Is there anything of thy
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 91
creation stronger than fire?' 4Yes; water, for it quenches
fire.' 'Oh Lord, is there anything of thy creation stronger
than water?' 'Yes, wind; for it overcomes water and puts it
in motion.' ' Oh, our Sustainer ! is there anything of thy crea
tion stronger than wind?' 'Yes, a good man giving alms; if
he give with his right hand and conceal it from his left, he
overcomes all things.' "
His definition of charity embraced the wide circle of kind
ness. Every good act, he would say, is charity. Your smiling
in your brother's face is charity ; an exhortation of your fel
low-man to virtuous deeds is equal to alms-giving ; your put
ting a wanderer in the right road is charity ; your assisting the
blind is charity ; your removing stones and thorns and other
obstructions from the road is charity; your giving water to
the thirsty is charity.
" A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he does in this
world to his fellow-man. When he dies, people will say, What
property has he left behind him? But the angels, who examine
him in the grave, will ask, ' What good deeds hast thou sent
before thee?'"
"Oh prophet !" said one of his disciples, " my mother, Omm-
Sad, is dead ; what is the best alms I can send for the good of
her soul?" "Water!" replied Mahomet, bethinking himself of
the panting heats of the desert. " Dig a well for her, and give
water to the thirsty." The man digged a well in his mother's
name, and said, " This well is for my mother, that its rewards
may reach her soul."
Charity of the tongue also, that most important and least
cultivated of charities, was likewise earnestly inculcated by
Mahomet. Abu Jaraiya, an inhabitant of Basrah, coming to
Medina, and being persuaded of the apostolical office of Ma
homet, entreated him some great rule of conduct. "Speak
evil of no one," answered the prophet. "From that time,"
says Abu Jaraiya, ' ' I never did abuse any one, whether free
man or slave."
The rules of Islamism extended to the courtesies of life.
Make a salam (or salutation) to a house on entering and leav
ing it. Return the salute of friends and acquaintances, and
wayfarers on the road. He who rides must be the first to
make the salute to him who walks ; he who walks to him who
is sitting; a small party to a large party, and the young to the
old.
On the arrival of Mahomet at Medina, some of the Christians
92 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
rtf the city promptly enrolled themselves among his followers;
they were probably of those sectarians who held to the human
nature of Christ, and found nothing repugnant in Islamism;
which venerated Christ as the greatest among the prophets.
The rest of the Christians resident there showed but little hos
tility to the new faith, considering it far better than the old
idolatry. Indeed, the schisms and bitter dissensions among
the Christians of the East had impaired their orthodoxy,
weakened their zeal, and disposed them easily to be led away
by new doctrines.
The Jews, of which there were rich and powerful families in
Medina and its vicinity, showed a less favorable disposition.
With some of them Mahomet made covenants of peace, and
trusted to gain them in time to accept him as their promised
Messiah or prophet. Biassed, perhaps unconsciously, by such
views, he had modelled many of his doctrines on the dogmas
of their religion, and observed certain of their fasts and ordi
nances. He allowed such as embraced Islamism to continue in
the observance of their Sabbath, and of several of the Mosaic
laws and ceremonies. It was the custom of the different relig
ions of the East, to have each a Kebla or sacred point toward
which they turned their faces in the act of adoration ; the Sa-
beans toward the north star; the Persian fire-worshippers
toward the east, the place of the rising sun ; the Jews toward
their holy city of Jerusalem. Hitherto Mahomet had pre
scribed nothing of the kind ; but now, out of deference to the
Jews, he made Jerusalem the Kebla, toward which all Moslems
were to turn their faces when in prayer.
While new converts were daily made among the inhabi
tants of Medina, sickness and discontent began to prevail
among the fugitives from Mecca. They were not accustomed
to the climate ; many suffered from fevers, and in their sick
ness and debility languished after the home whence they were
exiled.
To give them a new home, and link them closely with their
new friends and allies, Mahomet established a brotherhood be
tween fifty-four of them and as many of the inhabitants of
Medina. Two persons thus linked together were pledged to
stand by each other in weal and woe ; it was a tie, which knit
their interests more closely even than that of kindred, for they
were to be heirs to each other in preference to blood relations.
This institution was one of expediency, and lasted only until
the new comers had taken firm root in Medina; extended
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 93
merely to those of the people of Mecca who had fled from per
secution ; and is alluded to in the following verse of the eighth
chapter of the Koran : ' ' They who have believed and have fled
their countiy, and employed their substance and their persons
in fighting for the faith, and they who have given the prophet
a refuge among them, and have assisted him, these shall be
deemed the one nearest of kin to the other."
In this shrewd but simple way were laid the foundations of
that power which was soon to attain stupendous strength, and
to shake the mightiest empires of the world.
CHAPTER XV.
MARRIAGE OF MAHOMET WITH AYESHA— OP HIS DAUGHTER
FATIMA WITH ALJ— THEIR HOUSEHOLD ARRANGEMENTS.
THE family relations of Mahomet had been much broken up
by the hostility brought upon him by his religious zeal. His
daughter Rokaia was still an exile with her husband, Othman
Ibn Aff an, in Abyssinia ; his daughter Zeinab had remained in
Mecca with her husband, Abul Aass, who was a stubborn
opposer of the new faith. The family with Mahomet in Medina
consisted of his recently wedded wife Sawda, and Fatima, and
CJm Colthum, daughters of his late wife Cadijah. He had a
heart prone to affection, and subject to female influence, but
he had never entertained much love for Sawda; and though he
always treated her with kindness, he felt the want of some one
to supply the place of his deceased wife Cadijah.
" Oh Omar," said he one day, " the best of man's treasures is
a virtuous woman, who acts by God's orders, and is obedient
and pleasing to her husband: he regards her personal and
mental beauties with delight ; when he orders her to do any
thing she obeys him ; and when he is absent she guards his right
in property in honor."
He now turned his eyes upon his betrothed spouse Ayesha,
the beautiful daughter of Abu Beker. Two years had elapsed
since they were betrothed, and she had now attained her ninth
year ; an infantine age, it would seem, though the female form
is wonderfully precocious in the quickening climates of the
East. Their nuptials took place a few months after their
arrival in Medina, and were celebrated with great simplicity;
94 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the wedding supper was of milk, and the dowry of the bride
was twelve okk of silver.
The betrothing of Fatiina, his youngest daughter, with his
loyal disciple Ali, followed shortly after, and their marriage at
a somewhat later period. Fatima was between fifteen and six
teen years of age, of great beauty, and extolled by Arabian
writers as one of the four perfect women with whom Allah has
deigned to bless the earth. The age of Ali was about twenty-
two.
Heaven and earth, say the Moslem writers, joined in paying
honor to these happy espousals. Medina resounded with fes
tivity, and blazed with illuminations, and the atmosphere was
laden with aromatic odors. As Mahomet, on the nuptial night,
conducted his daughter to her bridegroom, heaven sent down a
celestial pomp to attend her: on her right hand was the arch
angel Gabriel, on her left was Michael, and she was followed
by a train of seventy thousand angels, who all night kept
watch round the mansion of the youthful pair.
Such are the vaunting exaggerations with which Moslem
writers are prone to overlay every event in the history of the
prophet, and destroy the real grandeur of his career, which
consists in its simplicity. A more reliable account states that
the wedding feast was of dates and olives ; that the nuptial
couch was a sheep-skin ; that the portion of the bride consisted
of two skirts, one head-tire, two silver armlets, one leathern
pillow stuffed with palm-leaves, one beaker or drinking cup,
one hand-mill, two large jars for water, and one pitcher. All
this was in unison with the simplicity of Arab housekeeping,
and with the circumstances of the married couple; and to
raise the dowry required of him, Ali, it is said, had to sell
several camels and some shirts of mail.
The style of living of the prophet himself was not superior to
that of his disciple. Ayesha, speaking of it in after years, ob
served: "For a whole month together we did not light a fh*e
to dress victuals ; our food was nothing but dates and water,
unless any one sent us meat. The people of the prophet's
household never got wheat bread two successive days."
His food, in general, was dates and barley-bread, with milk
and honey. He swept his chamber, lit his fire, mended his
clothes, and was, in fact, his own servant. For each of his
two wives he provided a separate house adjoining the mosque.
He resided with them by turns, but Ayesha ever remained his
favorite.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 95
Mahomet has been extolled by Moslem writers for the chas
tity of his early life ; and it is remarkable that, with all the
plurality of wives indulged in by the Arabs, and which he per
mitted himself in subsequent years, and with all that constitu
tional fondness which he evinced for the sex, he remained sin
gle in his devotion to Cadijah to her dying day, never giving
her a rival in his house nor in his heart. Even the fresh and
budding charms of Ayesha, which soon assumed such empire
over him, could not obliterate the deep and mingled feeling of
tenderness and gratitude for his early benefactress. Ayesha
was piqued one day at hearing him indulge in these fond recol
lections: u Oh apostle of God," demanded the youthful beauty,
"was not Cadijah stricken in years? Has not Allah given
thee a better wife in her stead?''
"Never !" exclaimed Mahomet, with an honest burst of feel-
big — "never did God give me a better 1 When I was poor, she
enriched me ; when I was pronounced a liar, she believed in
me ; when I was opposed by all the world, she remained true
tome!"
CHAPTER XVI.
THE SWORD ANNOUNCED AS THE INSTRUMENT OF FAITH — FIRST
FORAY AGAINST THE KOREISHITES— SURPRISAL OF A CARAVAN.
WE come now to an important era in the career of Mahomet.
Hitherto ho had relied on argument and persuasion to make
proselytes, enjoining the same on his disciples. His exhorta
tions to them to bear with patience and long-suffering the vio
lence of their enemies, almost emulated the meek precept of
our Saviour, "if they smite thee on the one cheek, turn to
them the other also.1' He now arrived at a point where he
completely diverged from the celestial spirit of the Christian
doctrines, and stamped his religion with the alloy of fallible
mortality. His human nature was not capable of maintaining
the sublime forbearance he had hitherto inculcated. Thirteen
years of meek endurance had been rewarded by nothing but
avated injury and insult. His greatest persecutors had
n those of his own tribe, the Koreishites, especially those
of the rival line of Abd Schems, whoso vindictive chief, Abu
Sofian, had now the sway of Mecca. By their virulent hog-
96 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
tility his fortunes had been blasted ; his family degraded, im
poverished, and dispersed, and he himself driven into exile.
All this he might have continued to bear with involuntary
meekness, had not the means of retaliation unexpectedly
sprung up within his reach. He had come to Medina a fugi
tive seeking an asylum, and craving merely a quiet home.
In a little while, and probably to his own surprise, he found
an army at his command : for among the many converts daily
made in Medina, the fugitives flocking to him from Mecca, and
proselytes from the tribes of the desert, were men of resolute
spirit, skilled in the use of arms, and fond of partisan warfare.
Human passions and mortal resentments were awakened by
this sudden accession of power. They mingled with that zeal
for religious reform, which was still his predominant motive.
In the exaltations of his enthusiastic spirit he endeavored to
persuade himself, and perhaps did so effectually, that the
power thus placed within his reach was intended as a means
of effecting his great purpose, and that he was called upon by
divine command to use it. Such at least is the purport of the
memorable manifestp which he issued at this epoch, and which
changed the whole tone and fortunes of his faith.
"Different prophets," said he, "have been sent by God to
illustrate his different attributes: Moses his clemency and
providence; Solomon his wisdom, majesty, and glory; Jesus
Christ his righteousness, omniscience, and power — his righte
ousness by purity of conduct ; his omniscience by the knowl
edge he displayed of the secrets of all hearts ; his power by the
miracles he wrought. None of these attributes, however, have
been sufficient to enforce conviction, and even the miracles of
Moses and Jesus have been treated with unbelief. I, therefore,
the last of the prophets, am sent with the sword ! Let those
who promulgate my faith enter into no argument nor discus
sion, but slay all who refuse obedience to the law. Whoever
fights for the true faith, whether he fall or conquer, will as
suredly receive a glorious reward "
" The sword," added he, "is the Key of heaven and hell; all
who draw it in the cause of the faith will be rewarded with
temporal advantages; every drop shed of their blood, every
peril and hardship endured by them, will be registered on high
as more meritorious than even fasting or praying. If they fall
in battle their sins will at once be blotted out, and they will b$
transported to paradise, there to revel in eternal pleasures in
the arms of black-eyed houris.'*
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
97
Predestination was brought to aid these belligerent doctrines.
Every event, according to the Koran, was predestined from
eternity, and could not be avoided. No man could die sooner
or later than bis allotted hour, and when it arrived it would be
the same, whether the angel of death should find him in the
quiet of his bed, or amid the storm of battle.
Such were the doctrines and revelations which converted
Islamism of a sudden from a religion of meekness and philan
thropy, to one of violence and the sword. They were pecu
liarly acceptable to the Arabs, harmonizing with their habits,
and encouraging their predatory propensities. Virtually pi
rates of the desert, it is not to be wondered at that, after this
open promulgation of the Religion of the Sword, they should
flock in crowds to the standard of the prophet. Still no vio
lence was authorized by Mahomet against those who should
persist in unbelief , provided they should readily submit to his
temporal sway, and agree to pay tribute ; and here we see the
first indication of worldly ambition and a desire for temporal
dominion dawning upon his mind. Still it will be found that
the tribute thus exacted was subsidiary to his ruling passion,
and mainly expended by him in the extension of the faith.
The first warlike enterprises of Mahomet betray the lurking
resentment we have noted. They were directed against the
caravans of Mecca, belonging to his implacable enemies the
Koreishites. The three first were headed by Mahomet in per
son, but without any material result. The fourth was con
fided to a Moslem, named Abdallah Ibn Jasch ; who was sent
out with eight or ten resolute followers on the road toward
South Arabia. As it was now the holy month of Radjab,
sacred from violence and rapine, Abdallah had sealed orders,
not to be opened until the third day. These orders were
vaguely yet significantly worded. Abdallah was to repair to
the valley of Naklah, between Mecca 'and Tayef (the same in
which Mahomet had the revelation of the Genii), where he
was to watch for an expected caravan of the Koreishites.
"Perhaps," added the letter of instructions, shrewdly— " per
haps thou mayest be able to bring us some tidings of it."
Abdallah understood the true meaning of the letter, and
acted up to it. Arriving in the valley of Naklah, he descried
the caravan, consisting of several camels laden with merchan
dise, and conducted by four men. Following it at a distance,
he sent one of his men, disguised as a pilgrim, to overtake it.
From the words of the latter, the Koreishites supposed hia
98 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOR.
companions to be like himself, pilgrims bound to Mecca. Be
sides, it was the month of Kadjah, when the desert might bo
travelled in security. Scarce had they come to a halt, how
ever, when Abdallah and his comrades fell on them, killed one,
and took two prisoners ; the fourth escaped. The victors then
returned to Medina with their prisoners and booty.
All Medina was scandalized at this breach of the holy
month. Mahomet, finding that he had ventured too far, pre
tended to be angry with Abdallah, and refused to take the
share of the booty offered to him. Confiding in the vagueness
of his instructions, he insisted that he had not commanded
Abdallah to shed blood, or commit any violence during the
holy month.
The clamor still continuing, and being echoed by the Kore-
ishites of Mecca, produced the following passage of the Koran:
" They will ask thee concerning the sacred month, whether
they may make war therein. Answer: To war therein is
grievous ; but to deny God, to bar the path of God against his
people, to drive true believers from his holy temple, and to
worship idols, are sins far more grievous than to kill in the
holy months/
Having thus proclaimed divine sanction for the deed, Maho
met no longer hesitated to take his share of the booty. He
delivered one of the prisoners on ransom ; the other embraced
Islamism.
h The above passage of the Koran, however satisfactory it
may have been to devout Moslems, will scarcely serve to ex
culpate their prophet in the eyes of the profane. The expedi
tion of Abdallah Ibn Jasch was a sad practical illustration of
the new religion of the sword. It contemplated not merely an
act of plunder and revenge, a venial act in the eyes of Arabs,
and justified by the new doctrines by being exercised against
the enemies of the faith, but an outrage also on the holy
month, that period sacred from time immemorial against vio
lence and bloodshed, and which Mahomet himself professed to
hold in reverence. The craft and secrecy also with which the
whole was devised and conducted, the scaled letter of instruc
tions to Abdallah, to be opened only at the end of three days,
at the scene of projected outrage, and couched in language
vague, equivocal, yet sufficiently significant to the agent— all
were in direct opposition to the conduct of Mahomet in the
earlier part of his career, when he dared openly to pursue the
path of duty, "though the sun should be arrayed against him
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 99
on the right hand, and the moon on the left ;" all showed that
he was conscious of the turpitude- *of the act he was authoriz
ing. His disavowal of the violence committed by Abdallah,
yet his bringing the Koran to his aid to enable him to profit by
it with impunity, give still darker shades to this transaction;
which altogether shows how immediately and widely he went
wrong the moment he departed from the benevolent spirit of
Christianity, which he at first endeavored to emulate. World
ly passions and worldly interests were fast getting the ascend
ency over that religious enthusiasm which first inspired him.
As has well been observed, "the f "st drop of blood shed in his
name in the Holy Week displayed him a man in whom the
slime of earth had quenched the holy flame of prophecy."
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BATTLE OF. BEDER.
IN the second year of the Hegira, Mahomet received intelli
gence that his arch foe, Abu Sofian, with a troop of thirty
horsemen, was conducting back to Mecca a caravan of a thou
sand camels, laden with the merchandise of Syria. Their
route lay through the country of Medina, between the range
of mountains and the sea. Mahomet determined to intercept
them. About the middle of the month Eamadhan, therefore,
he sallied forth with three hundred and fourteen men, of
whom eighty-three were Mohadjerms, or exiles from Mecca;
sixty-one Awsites, and a hundred and seventy Khazradites.
Each troop had its own banner. There were but two horses in
this little army,* btlt there were seventy fleet camels, which
the troop mounted by turns, so as to make a rapid march,
without much fatigue.
Othman Ibn Aifan, the son-in-law of Mahomet, was now re
turned with his wife Rokaia from their exile in Abyssinia, and
* "The Arabs of the desert," says Burckbardt, " are not rich in horses. Among
the great tribes on the Red Sea, between Akaba and Mecca, and to thvi 3outh and
south-east of Mecca, as far as Yemen, horses are very scarce, especially among
those of the mountainous districts. The settled inhabitants of Hedjaz and Yemen
are not much in the habit of keeping horses. The trices most rich in hoi-ses are
those who dwell in the comparatively fertile plains of Mesopotamia, on the banks
•f the river Euphrates, and on the Syrian plains."— Burckhardt, ii. 50.
100 MAHOMET AND H2S SUCCESSORS.
would have joined the enterprise, but his wife was ill almost
unto death, so that he was obliged reluctantly to remain in
Medina.
Mahomet for a while took the main road to Mecca, then
leaving it to the left, turned toward the Eed Sea and entered a
fertile valley, watered by the brook Beder. Here he laid in
wait near a ford, over which the caravans were accustomed to
pass. He caused his men to dig a deep trench, and to divert
the water therein, so that they might resort thither to slake
their thirst, out of reach of the enemy.
In the mean time Abu Sofian, having received early intel
ligence that Mahomet had sallied forth to waylay him with a
superior force, dispatched a messenger named Omair, on a fleet
dromedary, to summon instant relief from Mecca. The mes
senger arrived at the Caaba haggard and breathless. Abu
Jahl mounted the roof and sounded the alarm. All Mecca was
in confusion and consternation. Henda, the wife of Abu Sofian,
a woman of a fierce and intrepid nature, called upon her father
Otha, her brother Al Walid, her uncle Shaiba, and all the war
riors of her kindred, to arm and hasten to the relief of hsr hus
band. The brothers, too, of the Koreishite slain by Abdallah
Ibn Jasch, in the valley of Naklah, seized their weapons to
avenge his death. Motives of interest were mingled with
eagerness for vengeance, for most of the Koreishites had pro
perty embarked in the caravan. In a little while a force of
one hundred horse and seven hundred camels hurried forward
on the road toward Syria. It was led by Abu Jahl, now three
score and ten years of age, a veteran warrior of the desert, who
still retained the fire and almost the vigor and activity of
youth, combined with the rancor of old age.
While Abu Jahl, with his forces, was hurrying on in one
direction, Abu Sofian was approaching ii^ another. On arriv
ing at the region of danger, he preceded his caravan a con
siderable distance, carefully regarding every track and foot
print. At length he came upon the track of the little army of
Mahomet. He knew it from the size of the kernels of the
dates, which the troops had thrown by the wayside as they
marched— those of Medina being remarkable for their small-
ness. On such minute signs do the Arabs depend in tracking
their foes through the deserts.
Observing the course Mahomet had taken, Abu Sofian
changed his route, and passed along the coast of the Eed Sea
until he considered himself out of danger. He then sent an-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 1Q7
other messenger to meet any Koreishites that might have sal
lied forth, and to let them know that the caravan was safe,
and they might return to Mecca.
The messenger met the Koreishites when in full march. On
hearing that the caravan was safe, they came to a halt and
held council. Some were for pushing forward and inflicting a
signal punishment on Mahomet and his followers ; others were
for turning back. In this dilemma they sent a scout to recon
noitre the enemy. He brought back word that they were
about three hundred strong ; this increased the desire of those
who were for battle. Others remonstrated. " Consider," said
they, "these are men who have nothing to lose; they have
nothing but their swords ; not one of them will fall without
slaying his man. Besides, we have relatives among them ; if
we conquer, we will not be able to look each other in the face,
having slain each other's relatives." These words were pro
ducing their effect, but the brothers of the Koreishite who had
been slain in the valley of Naklah were instigated by Abu Jahl
to cry for revenge. That fiery old Arab seconded their appeal.
" Forward !" cried he ; " let us get water from the brook Beder
for the feast with which we shall make merry over the escape
of our caravan." The main body of the troops, therefore,
elevated their standards and resumed "their march, though a
considerable number turned back to Mecca.
The scouts of Mahomet brought him notice of the approach
of this force. The hearts of some of his followers failed them ;
they had come forth in the expectation of little fighting and
much plunder, and were dismayed at the thoughts of such an
overwhelming host; but Mahomet bade them be of good cheer,
for Allah had promised him an easy victory.
The Moslems posted themselves on a rising ground, with
water at the foot of it. A hut, or shelter of the branches of
trees, had been hastily erected on the sumixiit for Mahomet,
and a dromedary stood before it, on which he might fly to
Medina in case of defeat.
The vanguard of the enemy entered the valley panting with
thirst, and hastened to the stream for drink ; but Ham^a, tho
uncle of Mahomet, set upon them with a number of his men,
and slew the leader with his own hand. Only one of the van
guard escaped, who was afterward converted to the faith.
The main body of the enemy now approached with sound
of trumpet. Three Koreishito warriors advancing in front,
defied the bravest of the Moslems to equal combat. ' Two of
102 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
these challengers were Otha, the father-in-law of Abu Sofian,
and Al Walid, his brother-in-law. The third challenger was
Shaiba, the brother of Otha. These it will be recollected had
been instigated to sally forth from Mecca, by Henda, the wife
of Abu Sofian. They were all men of rank in their tribe.
Three warriors of Medina stepped forward and accepted
their challenge; but they cried, "No! Let the renegades of
our own city of Mecca advance, if they dare." Upon this
Hamza and Ali, the uncle and cousin of Mahomet, and Obeidah
Ibn al Hareth, undertook the tight. After a fierce and obsti
nate contest, Hamza and Ali each slew his antagonist. They
then went to the aid of Obeidah, who was severely wounded
and nearly overcome by Otha. They slew the Koreishite and
bore away their associate, but he presently died of his wounds.
The battle now became general. The Moslems, aware of the
inferiority of their number at first merely stood on the defen
sive, maintaining their position on the rising ground, and gall
ing the enemy with flights of arrows whenever they sought to
slake their intolerable thirst at the stream below. Mahomet
remained in his hut on the hill, accompanied by Abu Beker,
and earnestly engaged in prayer. In the course of the battle
he had a paroxysm, or fell into a kind of trance. Coming to
himself, he declared that God in a vision had promised him
the victory. Eushing out of the hut, he caught up a handful
of dust and cast it into the air toward the Koreishites, exclaim
ing, "May confusion light upon their faces." Then ordering
his followers to charge down upon the enemy: "Fight, and
fear not," cried he ; "the gates of paradise are under the shade
of swords. He will assuredly find instant admission who falls
fighting for the faith."
In the shock of battle which ensued, Abu Jahl, who was
urging his horse into the thickest of the conflict, received a
blow of a scimetar in the thigh which brought him to the
ground. Abdallah Ibn Masoud put his foot upon his breast,
and while the fiery veteran was still uttering imprecations and
curses on Mahomet, severed his head from his body.
The Koreishites now gave way and fled. Seventy remained
dead on the field, and nearly the same number were taken
prisoners. Fourteen Moslems were slam, whose names remain
on record as martyrs to the faith.
This signal victory was easily to be accounted for on natural
principles ; the Moslems being fresh and unwearied, and hav
ing the advantage of a rising ground, and a supply pf water;
MAHOMET AND JUS SUCCESSORS. 1Q3
while the Korcishites were fatigued by a hasty march, parched
with thirst, and diminished in force, by the loss of numbers
who had turned back to Mecca. Moslem writers, however,
attribute this early triumph of the faith to supernatural
agency. When Mahomet scattered dust in the air, say they,
three thousand angelic warriors in white and yellow turbans,
«nd long dazzling robes, and mounted on black and white
steeds, came rushing like a blast, and swept the Koreishitea
before them. Nor is this affirmed on Moslem testimony alone,
but given on the word of an idolater, a peasant who was at
tending sheep on an adjacent hill. " I was with a companion,
a cousin," said the peasant, "upon the fold of the mountain,
watching the conflict, and waiting to join with the conquerors
and share the spoil. Suddenly we baheld a great cloud sailing
toward us, and within it were the neighing of steeds and bray
ing of trumpets. As it approached, squadrons of angels sallied
forth, and we heard the terrific voice of the archangel as he
urged his mare Haizum, 'Speed! speed! oh Haizum!' At
which awful sound the heart of my companion burst with
terror, and he died on the spot ; and I had well nigh shared his
fate."*
When the conflict was over, Abdallah Ibn Masoud brought
the head of Abu Jahl to Mahomet, who eyed the grisly trophy
with exultation, exclaiming, " This man was the Pharaoh of
our nation." The true name of this veteran warrior was Amru
Ibn Hasham. The Koreishites had given him the name of
Abu 'Ihoem, or Father of Wisdom, on account of his sagacity.
The Moslems had changed it to Abu Jahl, Father of Folly.
The latter appellation has adhered to him in history, and he is
never mentioned by true believers without the ejaculation,
" 'May he be accursed of God!"
The Moslems who had fallen in battle wore honorably in
terred ; aS to the bodies of the Koreishites, they were contemp-
* This miraculous aid is repeatedly mentioned In the Koran, e.g.:
" God had already given you the victory at Beder, when ye were inferior in num
ber. When thou saidst unto the faithful, Is it not enough for you that your Lord
should assist you with three thousand angels, sent down from heaven? Verily. If
ye persevere, and fear God, and your enemits come upon you suddenly, your
Lord will assist you with five thousand angels, distiuguished by their horses and
attire.
"O true believers, ye slew not those who were slain at Beder yourselves, but God
glew them. Neither didst thou, O Mahomet, cast the gravel into their eyes, when
thou didst seem to cast it; but God cast it."— Sale's Koran, chap. lii.
104 MAHOMET AND SIS SUCCESSORS.
tuously thrown into a pit which had been digged for then!
The question was how to dispose of the prisoners. Omar was
for striking off their heads ; but Abu Beker advised that they
should be given up on ransom. Mahomet observed that Omar
was like Noah, who prayed for the destruction of the guilty
by the deluge ; but Abu Beker was like Abraham, who inter
ceded for the guilty. He decided on the side of mercy. But
two of the prisoners were put to death ; one, named Nadhar,
for having ridiculed the Koran as a collection of Persian tales
and fables ; the other, named Okba, for the attempt upon the
life of Mahomet when he first preached in the Caaba, an<?
when he was rescued by Abu Beker. Several of the prisoners
who were poor were liberated on merely making oath never
again to take up arms against Mahomet or his followers. The
rest were detained until ransoms should be sent by their
friends.
Among the most important of the prisoners was Al Abbas,
the uncle of Mahomet. He had been captured by Abu Yaser,
a man of small stature. As the bystanders scoffed at the dis
parity of size, Al Abbas pretended that he really had surren
dered to a horseman of gigantic size, mounted on a steed the
'ike of which he had never seen before. Abu Yaser would
lave steadily maintained the truth of his capture, but Maho
met, willing to spare the humiliation of his uncle, intimated
that the captor had been aided by the angel Gabriel.
Al Abbas would have excused himself from paying ransom,
alleging that he was a Moslem in heart, and had only taken
part in the battle on compulsion; but his excuse did not avail.
It is thought by many that he really had a secret understand
ing with his nephew, and was employed by him as a spy in
Mecca, both before and after the battle of Beder.
Another prisoner of great importance to Mahomet was Abul
Aass, the husband of his daughter Zeinab. The prophet would
fain have drawn his son-in-law to him and enrolled him among
his disciples, but Abul Aass remained stubborn in unbelief.
Mahomet then offered to set him at liberty on condition of his
returning to him his daughter. To this the infidel agreed, and
Zeid, the faithful freedman of the prophet, was sent with sev
eral companions to Mecca, to bring Zeinab to Medina; in the
mean time her husband, Abul Aass, remained a hostage for
the fulfilment of the compact.
Before the army returned to Medina there was a division of
the spoil; for, though the caravan of Abu Sofian had escapad,
MAUOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
105
yet considerable booty of weapons and camels bad been taken
in the battle, and a large sum of money would accrue from the
ransom of the prisoners. On this occasion Mahomet ordered
that the whole should be equally divided among all the Mos
lems engaged in the enterprise ; and though it was a long-
established custom among the Arabs to give a fourth part of
the booty to the chief, yet he contented himself with the same
In re as the rest. Among the spoil which fell to his lot was a
famous sword of admirable temper, called Dhul Fakar, or the
Piercer. He ever afterward bore it when in battle ; and his
son-in-law, Ali, inherited it at his death.
This equal distribution of the booty caused great murmurs
among the troops. Those who had borne the brunt of the
fight, and had been most active in taking the spoil, complained
that they had to share alike with those who had stood aloof
from the affray, and with the old men who had remained to
guard the camp. The dispute, observes Sale, resembles that
of the soldiers of David in relation to spoils taken from the
Amalekites; those who had been in the action insisting that
they who tarried by the stuff should have no share of the spoil.
The decision was the same— that they should share alike
(1 Samuel 30: 21-25). Mahomet, from his knowledge of Bible
history, may have been guided by this decision. The division
of the spoils was an important point to settle, for a leader
about to enter on a career of predatory warfare. Fortunately,
he had a timely revelation shortly after his return to Mecca,
regulating for the future the division of all booty gained in
fighting for the faith.
Such are the particulars of the famous battle of Beder, the
first victory of the Saracens under the standard of Mahomet ;
inconsiderable, perhaps, in itself, but stupendous in its results ;
being the commencement of a career of victories which changed
the destinies of the world.
106 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER
DEATH OP THE PROPHET'S DAUGHTER ROKAIA— RESTORATION OF
HIS DAUGHTER ZEINAB— EFFECT OF THE PROPHET'S MALEDIC
TION ON ABU LAHAB AND HIS FAMILY — FRANTIC RAGE OF HEN-
DA, THE WIFE OF ABU SOFIAN— MAHOMET NARROWLY ESCAPES
ASSASSINATION— EMBASSY OF THE KOREISHITES— THE KING OF
ABYSSINIA.
MAHOMET returned in triumph to Medina with the spoils and
prisoners taken in his first battle. His exultation, however,
was checked by domestic grief. Rokaia, his beloved daughter,
so recently restored from exile, was no more. The messenger
who preceded Mahomet with tidings of his victory met the
funeral train at the gate of the city, bearing her body to the
tomb.
The affliction of the prophet was soothed shortly afterward
by the arrival from Mecca of his daughter Zeinab, conducted
by the faithful Zeid. The mission of Zeid had been attended
with difficulties. The people of Mecca were exasperated by
the late defeat, and the necessity of ransoming the prisoners.
Zeid remained, therefore, without the walls, and sent in a
message to Kenanah, the brother of Abul Aass, informing him
of the compact, and appointing a place where Zeinab should
be delivered into his hands. Kenanah set out to conduct her
thither in a litter. On the way he was beset by a throng of
Koreishites, determined to prevent the daughter of Mahomet
from being restored to him. In the confusion one Habbar Ibn
Aswad made a thrust at the litter with a lance, which, had not
Kenanah parried it with his bow, might have proved fatal to
Zeinab. Abu Sofian was attracted to the place by the noise
and tumult, and rebuked Kenanah for restoring Mahomet's
daughter thus publicly, as it might be construed into a weak
concession; Zeinab was taken back, therefore, to her home,
and Kenanah delivered her up secretly to Zeid in the course
of the following night.
Mahomet was so exasperated at hearing of the attack on his
daughter that he ordered whoever should take Habbar, to
burn him alive. When his rage had subsided, he modified this
command. "It is for God alone," said he, "to punish man
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 1Q7
with fire. If taken, let Habbar be put to death with the
sword."
The recent triumph of the Moslems at Beder struck the
Korcishites of Mecca with astonishment and mortification.
The man so recently driven a fugitive from their walls had
suddenly started up a powerful foe. Several of their bravest
and most important men had fallen beneath his sword ; others
were his captives, and awaited a humiliating ransom. Abu
Lahab, the uncle of Mahomet, and always his vehement op-
poser, had been unable, from illness, to take the field. He
died a few days after hearing of the victory, his death being
hastened by the exasperation of his spirits. Pious Moslems,
however, attribute it to the curse pronounced by Mahomet
aforetime on him and his family, when he raised his hand to
hurl a stone at the prophet on the hilt of Safa. That curse,
say they, fell heavily also on his son Otho, who had repudiated
the prophet's daughter Rokaia ; he was torn to pieces by a lion,
in the presence of a whole caravan, when on a journey to
Syria.
By no one was the recent defeat at Beder felt so severely as
by Abu Sofian. He reached Mecca in safety with his caravan,
it is true; but it was to hear of the triumph of the man he
detested, and to find his home desolate. His wife Henda met
him with frantic lamentations for the death of her father, her
uncle, and her brother. Rage mingled with her grief, and she
cried night and day for vengeance on Hamza and Ali, by
whose hands they had fallen.*
Abu Sofian summoned two hundred fleet horsemen, each
with a sack of meal at his saddle-bow, the scanty provisions of
an Arab for a foray ; as he sallied forth he vowed neither to
anoint his head, perfume his beard, nor approach a female,
until he had met Mahomet face to face. Scouring the country
* It is a received law among all the Arabs, that whoever sheds the blood of a man.
owes blood on that account to the family of the slain person. This ancient law is
sanctioned by the Koran. "O true believers, the law of retaliation is ordained to
yon for the slain: the free shall die for the free." The Blood revenge, or Thar, as it
is termed in Arabic, is claimed by the relatives of all who have been killed in open
war. and not merely of the actual homicide, but of all his relations. For those
billed in wars between two tribes, the price of blood is required from the persons
who were known to have actually killed them.
The Arab regards this blood revenge as one of his most sacred rights, as well as
duties; no earthly consideration could induce him to give it up. He has a prover
bial saying. "Were hell-fire to be my lot, I would not relinquish the Thar "-
Burckhardt, v. I. 314, Notes.
108 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
to within three miles of the gates of Medina, he slew two of
the prophet's followers, ravaged the fields, and burned the
date-trees.
Mahomet sallied forth to meet him at the head of a superior
force. Abu Sofian, regardless of his vow, did not await his
approach, but turned bridle and fled. His troop clattered
after him, throwing oif their sacks of meal in the hurry of
their flight; whence this scampering affair was derisively
called "The war of the meal sacks."
Moslem writers record an imminent risk of the prophet
while yet in the field on this occasion. He was one day sleep
ing alone at the foot of a tree, at a distance from his camp,
when he was awakened by a noise, and beheld Durthur, a
hostile warrior, standing over him with a drawn sword. " Oh
Mahomet, " cried ho, ' ' who is there now to save thee?" * ' God !"
replied the prophet. Struck with conviction, Durthur let fall
his sword, which was instantly seized upon by Mahomet.
Brandishing the weapon, lie exclaimed in turn, "Who is there
•now to save thee, oh Durthur?" " Alas, no one!" replied the
soldier. " Then learn from me to be merciful." So saying, he
returned the sword. The heart of the warrior was overcome ;
he acknowledged Mahomet as the prophet of God, and em
braced the faith."
As if the anecdote were not sufficiently marvellous, other
devout Moslems affirm that the deliverance of Mahomet was
through the intervention of the angel Gabriel, who, at the
moment Durthur was about to strike, gave him a blow on the
breast with his invisible hand, which caused him to let fall his
sword.
About this time the Koreishites of Mecca bethought them
selves of the relatives and disciples of Mahomet who had taken
refuge from there persecutions in Abyssinia, most of whom
still remained there under the protection of the Najashee or
Abyssinian king. To this potentate the Koreishites sent an
embassy to obtain the persons of the fugitives. One of the
ambassadors was Abdallah Ibn Rabia ; another was Amru Ibn
Al Aass, the distinguished poet who had assailed Mahomet at
the outset of his mission with lampoons and madrigals. He
was now more matured in years, and as remarkable for his
acute sagacity as for his poetic talents. He was still a re
doubtable opponent of the faith of Islam, of which in after
years he was to prove one of the bravest and most distin
guished champions.
MAHOMET AND HfS SUCCESSORS. 109
Amru and Abdallah opened their embassy in the oriental
style by the parade of rich presents, and then requested, in
the name of the Koreish authorities of Mecca, that the fugi
tives might be delivered up to them. The king was a just man,
and summoned the Moslems bei'orc him to explain this new
and dangerous heresy of which they were accused. Among
their number was Giafar, or Jaafar, the son of Abu Taleb, and
brother of Ali, consequently the cousin of Mahomet. He was
a man of persuasive eloquence and a most prepossessing ap
pearance. He stood forth on this occasion, and expounded
the doctrines of Islam with zeal and power. The king, who,
as has been observed, was a Nestorian Christian, found these
doctrines so similar in many respects to those of his sect, and
so opposed to the gross idolatry of the Korcishites, that, so far
from giving up the fugitives, he took them more especially
into favor and protection, and returning to Amru and Ab
dallah the presents they had brought, dismissed them from his
court.
CHAPTER XIX.
GROWING POWER OF MAHOMET— HIS RESENTMENT AGAINST THE
JEWS— INSULT TO AN ARAB DAMSEL BY THE JEWISH TRIBE OP
KAIXOKA— A TUMULT— THE BENI KAINOKA TAKE REFUGE IN
THEIR CASTLE— SUBDUED AND PUNISHED BY CONFISCATION AND
BANISHMENT— MARRIAGE OF OTHMAN TO THE PROPHET'S DAUGH
TER OMM KOLTHUM AND OF THE PROPHET TO HAFZA.
THE battle of Beder had completely changed the position of
Mahomet ; he was now a triumphant chief of a growing power.
The idolatrous tribes of Arabia were easily converted to a
faith which flattered their predatory inclinations with the
hope of spoil, and winch, after all, professed but to bring them
back to the primitive religion of their ancestors ; the first cav
alcade, therefore, which entered the gates of Medina with the
plunder of a camp made converts of almost all its heathen
inhabitants, and gave Mahomet the control of the city. His
own tone now became altered, and he spoke as a lawgiver and
a sovereign. The first evidence of this change of feeling was
in his treatment of the Jews, of whom there were three prin
cipal and powerful families in Medina.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
All the concessions made by him to that stiff-necked race
had proved fruitless ; they not only remained stubborn in un
belief, but treated him and his doctrines with ridicule. Assma,
the daughter of Merwan, a Jewish poetess, wrote satires
against him. She was put to death by one of his fanatic dis
ciples. Abu Afak, an Israelite, one hundred and twenty years
of age, was likewise slain for indulging in satire against the
prophet. Kaab Ibn Aschraf, another Jewish poet, repaired to
Mecca, after the battle of Beder, and endeavored to stir up the
Koreishites to vengeance, reciting verses in which he extolled
the virtues and bewailed the death of those of their tribe who
had fallen in the battle. ' Such was his infatuation that he re
cited these verses in public, on Ms return to Medina, and in
the presence of some of the prophet's adherents who were
related to the slain. Stung by this invidious hostility, Ma
homet one day exclaimed in his anger, ' ' Who will rid me of
this son of Aschraf?" Within a few days afterward Eaab
paid for his poetry with his life, being slain by a zealous An-
sarian of the Awsite tribe.
An event at length occurred which caused the anger of Ma
homet against the Jews to break out in open hostility. A
damsel of one of the pastoral tribes of Arabs who brought
milk to the city was one day in the quarter inhabited by the
Beni Kainoka, or children of Kainoka, one of the three princi
pal Jewish families. Here she was accosted by a number of
young Israelites, who having heard her beauty extolled, be
sought her to uncover her face. The damsel refused an act
contrary to the laws of propriety among her people. A young
goldsmith, whose shop was hard by, secretly fastened the end
of her veil to the bench on which she was sitting, so that when
she rose to depart the garment remained, and her face was
exposed to view. Upon this there was laughter and scoffing
among the young Israelites, and the damsel stood in the midst
confounded and abashed. A Moslem present, resenting the
shame put upon her, drew his sword, and thrust it through
the body of the goldsmith ; he in his turn was instantly slain
by the Israelites. The Moslems from a neighboring quarter
flew to arms, the Beni Kainoka did the same, but being infe
rior in numbers, took refuge in a stronghold. Mahomet inter
fered to quell the tumult; but, being generally exasperated
against the Israelites, insisted that the offending tribe should
forthwith embrace the faith. They pleaded the treaty which
lie had made with them on his coming to Medina, by which
MAHOMET AND ffTS SUCCESSORS. \\\
they were allowed the enjoyment of their religion ; but ho was
not to be moved. For some time the Beni Kainoka refused to
yield, and remained obstinately shut up in their stronghold ;
but famine compelled them to surrender. Abdallah Ibn Obba
Solul, the leader of the Khazradites, who was a protector of
this Jewish tribe, interfered in their favor, and prevented
their being put to the sword ; but their wealth and effects were
confiscated, and they were banished to Syria, to the number
of seven hundred men.
The arms and riches accruing to the prophet and his follow
ers from this confiscation were of great avail in the ensuing
wars of the faith. Among the weapons which fell to the share
of Mahomet are enumerated three swords : Medham, the Keen ;
al Batter, the Trenchant, and Hatef, the Deadly. Two lances,
al Monthari, the Disperser, anu al Monthawi, the Destroyer.
A cuirass or silver, named al Fadha, and another named al
Saadia, said to have been given by Saul to David, when about
to encounter Goliath. There was a bow, too, called al Catum,
or the Strong, but it did not answer to its name, for in the first
battle in which the prophet used it he drew it with such force
that he broke it in pieces. In general he used the Arabian
kind of bow, with appropriate arrows and lances, and forbade
his followers to use those of Persia.
Mahomet now sought no longer to conciliate the Jews ; on
the contrary, they became objects of his religious hostility. He
revoked the regulation by which he had made Jerusalem the
Kebla or point of prayer, and established Mecca in its place ;
toward which, ever since, the Mahometans turn their faces
when performing their devotions.
The death of the prophet's daughter Rokaia had been prop
erly deplored by hsr husband Othman. To console the latter
for his loss, Oinar, his brother in arms, offered him, in the
course of the year, his daughter Hafza for wife. She was the
widow of Hobash, a Suhamite, eighteen years of age, and of
tempting beauty, yet Othman declined the match. Omar was
indignant at what he conceived a slight to his daughter and to
himself, and complained of it to Mahomet. "Be not grieved,
Omar," replied the prophet, "a better wife is destined for Oth
man, and a better husband for thy daughter." He in effect
gave his own daughter Omm Kolthum to Othman, and took
the fair Hafza to wife himself. By these politic alliances he
grappled both Othman and Omar more strongly to his side,
while ho gratified his own inclinations for female beauty.
MAHOMET AND HIS SVCCESSOUS.
flaf za, next to Ayesha, was the most favored of his wives ; ana
was intrusted with the coffer containing the chapters and
verses of the Koran as they were revealed.
CHAPTER XX.
flENDA INCITES ABU SOFIAN AND THE KOREISHITES TO REVENGES
THE DEATH OF HER RELATIONS SLAIN IN THE BATTLE OF
BEDER— THE KOREISHITES SALLY FORTH, FOLLOWED BY HENI>A
AND HER FEMALE COMPANIONS— BATTLE OF OHOD —FEROCIOUS
TRIUMPH OF HENDA— MAHOMET CONSOLES HIMSELF BY MARRY
ING HEND, THE DAUGHTER OF OMEYA.
As the power of Mahomet increased in Medina, the hostility
of the Koreishites in Mecca augmented in virulence. Abu So-
fian held command in the sacred city, and was incessantly
urged to warfare by his wife Henda, whose fierce spirit could
take no rest, until "blood revenge" had been wreaked on those
by whom her father and brother had been slain. Akrema,
also, a son of Abu Jahl, and who inherited his father's hatred
of the prophet, clamored £or vengeance. In the third year of
the Hegira, therefore, the year after the battle of Beder, Abu
Sofian took the field at the head of three thousand men, most
of them Koreishites, though there were also Arabs of the tribes
of Kanana and Tehama. Seven hundred were armed with
corselets, and two hundred were horsemen. Akrema was one
of the captains, as was also Khaled Ibn al Waled, a warrior of
indomitable valor, who afterward rose to great renown. The
banners were borne in front by the race of Abd al Dar, a branch
of the tribe of Koreish, who had a hereditary right to the fore
most place in council, the foremost rank in battle, and to bear
the standard in the advance of the army.
In the rear of the host followed the vindictive Henda, with
fifteen principal women of Mecca, relatives of those slain in the
battle of Beder; sometimes filling the air with wailings and
lamentations for the dead, at other times animating the troops
with the sound of timbrels and warlike chants. As they passed
through the village of Abwa, where Amina the mother of Ma
homet was interred, Henda was with difficulty prevented from
tearing the mouldering bones out of the grava
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 113
Al Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet, who still resided in Mecca,
and was considered hostile to the new faith, seeing that destruc
tion threatened his nephew should that army come upon him
by surprise, sent secretly a swift messenger to inform him of
his danger. Mahomet was at the village of Koba when the
message reached him. He immediately -hastened back to Me
dina, and called a council of his principal adherents. Repre
senting the insufficiency of their force to take the field, he gave
it as his opinion that they should await an attack in Medina,
whore the very women and children could aid them by hurling
stones from the house-tops. The elder among his followers
joined in his opinion ; but the young men, of heady valor at all
times, and elated by the late victory at Beder, cried out for a
fair fight in the open field.
Mahomet yielded to their clamors, but his forces, when mus
tered, were scarce a thousand men; one hundred only had
cuirasses, and but two were horsemen. The hearts of those re
cently so clamorous to sally forth now misgave them, and they
would fain await the encounter within the walls. "No, "re
plied Mahomet, "it becomes not a prophet when once he has
drawn the sword to sheathe it ; nor when once he has advanced,
to turn back, until God has decided between him and the foe."
So saying, he led forth his army. Part of it was composed of
Jews and Khazradites, led by Abdallah Ibn Obba Solul. Ma
homet declined the assistance of the Jews, unless they embraced
the faith of Islam, and as they refused, he ordered them back
to Medina, upon which their protector, Abdallah, turned back
also with his Khazradites, thus reducing [the army to about
seven hundred men.
With this small force Mahomet posted himself upon the hill
of Ohod, about six miles from Medina. His position was partly
defended by rocks and the asperities of the hill, and archers
were stationed to protect him in flank and rear from the at
tacks of cavalry. He was armed with a helmet and two shirts
of mail. On his sword was engraved, "Fear brings disgrace;
forward lies honor. Cowardice saves no man from his fate."
As he was not prone to take an active part in battle, he confided
his sword to a brave warrior, Abu Dudjana, who swore to
wield it as long as it had edge and temper. For himself, he, as
usual, took a commanding stand whence he might overlook the
field.
The Koreishites, confident in their numbers, came marching to
the foot of the hill with banners flying. Abu Sofian led the cen-
114 MAHOMET AXD HIS SUCCESSORS.
tre ; there were a hundred horsemen on each wing ; the left com*
manded by Akrema, the son of Abu Jahl, the right by Khaled
Ibn al Waled. As they advanced, Henda and her companions
struck their timbrels and chanted their war song, shrieking out
at intervals the names of those who had been slain in the battle
of Beder. "Courage, sons of Abel al Dar!" cried they to the
standard-bearers. "Forward to the fight! close with the foe!
strike home and spare not. Sharp bo your swords and pitiless
ycur hearts !"
Mahomet restrained the impatience of his troops, ordering
them not to commence the fight, but to stand firm and main
tain their advantage of the rising ground. Above all, the arch
ers were to keep to their post, let the battle go as it might, lest
the cavalry should fall upon his rear.
The horsemen of the left wing, led by Akrema, now at
tempted to take the Moslems in flank, but were repulsed by the
archers, and retreated in confusion. Upon this Hamza set up
the Moslem war-cry, Amit ! amit ! (Death ! death !) and rushed
down with his forces upon the centre. Abu Dudjana was at
his right hand, armed with the sword of Mahomet and hav
ing a red band round his head, on which was written, "Help
comes from God! victory is ours!"
The enemy was staggered by the shock. Abu Dudjana
dashed into the midst of them, dealing deadly blows on every
side, and exclaiming, "The sword of God and his prophet!"
Seven standard-bearers, of the race of Abd el Dar, were, one
after the other, struck down, and the centre began to yield.
The Moslem archers, thinking the victory secure, forgot the
commands of Mahomet, and leaving their post, dispersed in
quest of spoil, crying "Booty! booty!" Upon this Khaled, ral
lying the horse, got possession of the ground abandoned by the
archers, attacked the Moslems in rear, put some to flight, and
threw the rest in confusion. In the midst of the confusion a
horseman, Obbij Ibn Chalaf by name, pressed through the
throng, crying, "Where is Mahomet? There is no safety while
he lives." But Mahomet, seizing a lance from an attendant,
thrust it through the throat of the idolater, who fell dead from
his horse. "Thus," says the pious Al Jannabi, "died this
enemy of God, who, some years before, had menaced the pro
phet, saying, 'I shall find a day to slay thee.' ' Have a care,'
was the reply; 'if it please Allah \ thou thyself shall fall be
neath my hand.* "
In the midst of the melee a stone from a sling struck Maho«
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
met on the moutn, cutting his lip and knocking out one of his
front teeth ; he was wounded in the face also by an arrow, the
iron head of which remained in the wound. Hamza, too, while
slaying a Koreishite, was transfixed by the lance of Waksa, an
Ethiopian slave, who had been promised his freedom if he
should revenge the death of his master, slain by Hamza in tho
battle of Beder. Mosaab Ibn Omair, also, who bore the stand
ard of Mahomet, was laid low, but Ali seized the sacred ban
ner, and bore it aloft amid the storm of battle.
As Mosaab resembled the prophet in person, a shout was put
up by the enemy that Mahomet was slain. The Koreishites
were inspired with redoubled ardor at the sound ; the Moslems
fled in despair, bearing with them Abu Beker and Omar, who
were wounded. Raab, the son of Malek, however, beheld Ma
homet lying among the wounded in a ditch, and knew him by
his armor. u Oh believers !" cried he, " the prophet of God yet
lives. To the rescue! to the rescue!" Mahomet was drawn
forth and borne up the hill to the summit of a rock, where the
Moslems prepared for a desperate defence. The Koreishites,
however, thinking Mahomet slain, forbore to pursue them, con
tenting themselves with plundering and mutilating the dead.
Henda and her female companions were foremost in the savage
work of vengeance ; and the ferocious heroine sought to tear
out and devour the heart of Hamza. Abu Sofian bore a part
of the mangled body upon his lance, and descending the hill
in triumph, exclaimed exultingly, "War has its vicissitudes.
The battle of Ohod succeeds to the battle of Beder."
The Korsishites having withdrawn, Mahomet descended
from the rock and visited the field of battle. At sight of the
body of his uncle Hamza, so brutally mangled and mutilated,
he vowed to inflict like outrage on seventy of the enemy when
in his power. His grief, we are told, was soothed by the angel
Gabriel, who assured him that Hamza was enregistered an in
habitant of the seventh heaven, by the title of "The lion of
God and of his prophet."
The bodies of the slain were interred two and two, and three
and three, in the places where they had fallen. Mahomet for
bade his followers to mourn for the dead by cutting off their
hair, rending their garments, and the other modes of lamenta
tion usual among the Arabs ; but he consented that they should
weep for the dead, as tears relieve the overladen heart.
The night succeeding the battle was one of great disquie
tude, lest the Koreishites should make another attack, or
116 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
should surprise Medina. On the following day he marched
in the direction of that city, hovering near the enemy, and
on the return of night lighting numerous watch-fires. Abu
Sofian, however, had received intelligence that Mahomet was
still alive. He felt himself too weak to attack the city, there
fore, while Mahomet was in the field, and might come to its
assistance, and he feared that the latter might be reinforced by
its inhabitants, and seek him with superior numbers. Con
tenting himself, therefore, with the recent victory, he made a
truce with the Moslems for a year, and returned in triumph to
Mecca.
Mahomet sought consolation for this mortifying defeat by
taking to himself another wife, Hend, the daughter of Omeya,
a man of great influence. She was a widow, and had, with her
husband, been among the number of the fugitives in Abyssinia.
She was now twenty-eight years of age, and had a son named
Salma, whence she was commonly called Omm Salma, or the
Mother of Sahna. Being distinguished for grace and beauty,
she had been sought by Abu Beker and Omar, but without suc
cess. Even Mahomet at first met with difficulty. "Alas !" said
she, " what happiness can the prophet of God expect with me?
I am no longer young; I have a son, and I am of a jealous dis
position. " " As to thy age, " replied Mahomet, * ' thou art much
younger than I. As to thy son, I will be a father to him ; as
to thy jealous disposition, I will pray Allah to root it from thy
heart."
A separate dwelling was prepared for the bride, adjacent to
the mosque. The household goods, as stated by a Moslem
writer, consisted of a sack of barley, a hand-mill, a pan, and a
pot of lard or butter. Such were as yet the narrow means of
the prophet; or rather, such the frugality of his habits and
the simplicity of Arab life.
UAMOMET AND HIS SUCCZSSO&S. H7
CHAPTER XXI.
ifcEACHERY OP CERTAIN JEWISH TRIBES; THEIR PUNISHMENT-
DEVOTION OF THE PROPHET'S FREEDMAN ZEID; DIVORCES ms
BEAUTIFUL WIFE ZEINAB, THAT SHE MAY BECOME THE WIFE
OF THE PROPHET.
THE defeat of Mahomet at the battle of Ohod acted for a time
unfavorably to his cause among some of the Arab and Jewish
tribes, as was evinced by certain acts of perfidy. The inhabi
tants of two towns, Adhal and Kara, sent a deputation to him,
professing an inclination to embrace the faith, and requesting
missionaries to teach them its doctrines. He accordingly sent
six disciples to accompany the deputation ; but on the journey,
while reposing by the brook Radje within the boundaries of
the Hodseitites, the deputies fell upon the unsuspecting Mos
lems, slew four of them, and carried the other two to Mecca,
where they gave them up to the Koreishites, who put them to
death.
A similar act of treachery was practised by the people of the
province of Nadjed. Pretending to be Moslems, they sought
succor from Mahomet against their enemies. He sent a number
of his followers to their aid, who were attacked by the Beni
Suleim or Suleimites, near the brook Manna, about four days'
journey from Medina, and slain almost to a man. One of the
Moslems, Amru Ibn Omeya, escaped the carnage and made for
Medina. On the way he met two unarmed Jews of the Beni
Amir; either mistaking these for enemies, or provoked to
wanton rage by the death of his comrades, he fell upon them
and slew them. The tribe, who were at peace with Mahomet,
called upon him for redress. He referred the matter to the
mediation of another Jewish tribe, the Beni Nadher, who had
rich possessions and a castle, called Zohra, within three miles
of Medina. This tribe had engaged by treaty, when he came a
fugitive from Mecca, to maintain a neutrality between him
and his opponents. The chief of this tribe being now applied
to as a mediator, invited Mahomet to an interview. He went,
accompanied by Abu Beker, Omar, Ali, and a few others. A
repast was spread in the open air before the mansion of the
chief. Mahomet, however, received private information that
MAHOMET AND 1118 SUCCESSORS
he had been treacherously decoyed hither and was to be slain
as he sat at the repast: it is said that he was to be crushed by
a millstone, flung from the terraced roof of the house. With
out intimating his knowledge of the treason, he left the com
pany abruptly, and hastened back to Medina.
His rage was now kindled against the whole race of Nadher,
and he ordered them to leave the country within ten days on
pain of death. They would have departed, but Abdallah the
Khazradite secretly persuaded them to stay by promising
them aid. He failed in his promise. The Beni Nadher, thus
disappointed by the "Chief of the Hypocrites," shut them
selves up in their castle of Zohra, where they were besieged by
Mahomet, who cut down and burned the date-trees, on which
they depended for supplies. At the end of six days they
capitulated, and were permitted to depart, each with a camel
load of effects, arms excepted. Some were banished to Syria,
others to Kha'ibar, a strong Jewish city and fortress, distant
several days' journey from Medina. As the tribe was wealthy,
there was great spoil, which Mahomet took entirely to him
self. His followers demurred that this was contrary to the
law of partition revealed in the Koran ; but he let them know
that, according to another revelation, all booty gained, like
the present, without striking a blow^was not won by man, but
was a gift from God, and must be delivered over to the pro
phet to be expended by him in good works, and the relief of
orphans, of the poor, and the traveller. Mahomet in effect did
not appropriate it to his own benefit, but shared it among the
Mohadjerins, or exiles from Mecca; two Nadherite Jews who
had embraced Islamism, and two or three Ansarians or Auxi
liaries of Medina, who had proved themselves worthy, and
were poor.
We forbear to enter into details of various petty expeditions
of Mahomet about this time, one of which extended to the
neighborhood of Tabuk, on the Syrian frontier, to punish a
horde which had plundered the caravans of Medina. These
expeditions were checkered in their results, though mostly
productive of booty, which now began to occupy the minds of
the Moslems almost as much as the propagation of the faith.
The spoils thus suddenly gained may have led to riot and de
bauchery, as we find a revelation of the passage of the Koran,
forbidding wine and games of hazard, those fruitful causes of
strife and insubordination in predatory camps.
During this period of his career Mahomet in more than ono
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. H9
instance narrowly escaped falling by the hand of an assassin.
He himself is charged with the use of insidious means to rid
himself of an enemy; for it is said that he sent Amru Ibn
Omeya on a secret errand to Mecca, to assassinate Abu Sofian,
but that the plot was discovered, and the assassin only
escaped by rapid flight. The charge, however, is not well
substantiated, and is contrary to his general character and
conduct.
If Mahomet had relentless enemies, he had devoted friends,
an instance of which we have in the case of his freedman and
adopted son Zeid Ibn Horeth. He had been one of the first
converts to the faith, and one of its most valiant champions.
Mahomet consulted him on all occasions, and employed him in
his domestic concerns. One day he entered his house with the
freedom with which a father enters the dwelling of a son.
Zeid was absent, but Zeinab his wife, whom he had recently
married, was at home. She was the daughter of Djasch, of
the country of Kaiba, and considered the fairest of her tribe.
In the privacy of home she had laid aside her veil and part of
her attire, so that her beauty stood revealed to the gaze of
Mahomet on his sudden entrance. He could not refrain from
expressions of wonder and admiration, to which she made no
reply, but repeated them all to her husband on his return.
Zeid knew the amorous susceptibility of Mahomet, and saw
that he had been captivated by the beauty of Zeinab. Hasten
ing after him. he offered to repudiate his wife ; but the pro
phet forbade it as contrary to the law. The zeal of Zeid was
not to be checked ; he loved his beautiful wife, but he vene
rated the prophet, and he divorced himself without delay.
When the requisite term of separation had elapsed, Mahomet
accepted, with gratitude, this pious sacrifice. His nuptials
with Zeinab surpassed in splendor all his other marriages.
His doors were thrown open to all comers ; they were feasted
with the flesh of sheep and lambs, with cakes of barley, with
honey, and fruits, and favorite beverages; so they ate and
drank their fill and then departed — railing against the divorce
as shameful, and the marriage as incestuous.
At this critical juncture was revealed that part of the thirty-
third chapter of the Koran, distinguishing relatives by adop
tion from relatives by blood, according to which there was no
sin in marrying one who had been the wife of an adopted son.
This timely revelation pacified the faithful ; but, to destroy all
shadow of a scruple, Mahomet revoked his adoption, and di-
120 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
rected Zeid to resume his original appellation of Ibn Haretk,
after his natural father. The beautiful Zeinab, however,
boasted thenceforth a superiority over the other wives of the
prophet on the score of the revelation, alleging that her mar
riage was ordained by heaven.*
CHAPTER XXH.
EXPEDITION OF MAHOMET AGAINST THE BENI MOSTALEK — HE
ESPOUSES BARRA, A CAPTIVE— TREACHERY OF ABDALLAH IBN
OBBA — AYESHA SLANDERED — HER VINDICATION — HER INNO
CENCE PROVED BY A REVELATION.
- *
AMONG the Arab tribes wkich ventured to take up arms
against Mahomet after his defeat at Ohod, were the Beni MoS'
talek. a powerful race of Koreishite origin. Mahomet received
intelligence of their being assembled in warlike guise under
their prince Al Hareth, near the wells of Mora'isi, in the terri
tory of Kedaid, and within five miles of the Bed Sea. He
immediately took the field at the head of a chosen band of
the faithful, accompanied by numbers of the Khazradites, led
by their chief Abdallah Ibn Obba. By a rapid movement he
surprised the enemy ; Al Hareth was killed at the onset by the
flight shot of an arrow; his troops fled in confusion after a
brief resistance, in which a few were slain. Two hundred
prisoners, five thousand sheep, and one thousand camels were
the fruits of this easy victory. Among the captives was Barra,
the daughter of Al Hareth, and wife to a young Arab of her
kin. In the division of the spoil she fell to the lot of Thabet
Ibn Reis, who demanded a high ransom. The captive ap
pealed to Mahomet against this extortion, and prayed that the
ransom might be mitigated. The prophet regarded her with
eyes of desire, for she was fair to look upon. "I can serve
thee better," said he, "than by abating thy ransom: be my
wife." The beautiful Barra gave ready consent; her ransom
was paid by the prophet to Thabet; her kindred were liberated
by the Moslems, to whose lot they had fallen ; most of them
* This was Mahomet's second wife of the name of Zei»ab«r the first, who had died
pome time previous, was the daughter of Chuzeima.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 121
embraced the faith, and Barra became the wife of Mahom/
after his return to Medina.
After the battle the troops crowded round the wells of Me
raisi to assuage their thirst. In the press a quarrel rose be
tween some of the Mohadjerins, or exiles of Mecca, and the
Khazradites, in which one of the latter received a blow. His
comrades rushed to revenge the insult, and blood would have
been shed but for the interference of Mahomet. The Khazra
dites remained incensed, and other of the people of Medina made
common cause with them. Abdallah Ibn Obba, eager to take
advantage of every circumstance adverse to the rising jpower
of Mahomet, drew his kindred and townsfolk apart. "Be
hold," said he,' "the insults you have brought upon yourselves
by harboring these fugitive Koreishites. You have taken them
to your houses and given them your goods, and now they turn
upon and maltreat you. They would make themselves your
masters even in your own house ; but by Allah, when we re
turn to Medina, we will see which of us is strongest. "
Secret word was brought to Mahomet of this seditious speech.
Omar counselled him at once to make way with Abdallah ; but
the prophet feared to excite the vengeance of the kindred and
adherents of the powerful Khazradite. To leave no time for
mutiny, he set off immediately on the homeward march, al
though it was in the heat of the day, and continued on through
out the night, nor halted until the following noon, when the
wearied soldiery cared for nothing but repose.
On arriving at Medina, he called Abdallah to account for his
seditious expressions. He flatly denied them, pronouncing the
one who had accused him a liar. A revelation from heaven,
however, established the charge against him and his adherents.
"These are the men," says the Koran, "who say to the in
habitants of Medina, do not bestow anything on the refugees
who are with the apostle of God, that they may be compelled
to separate from him. They say, verily, if we return to Me
dina, the worthier will expel thence the meaner. God curse
them! how are they turned aside from the truth."
Some of the friends of Abdallah, convinced by 4his revela
tion, advised him to ask pardon of the prophet ; but he spurned
their counsel. " You have already," said he, "persuaded me
to give this man my countenance and friendship, and now
you would have me put myselt beneath his very feet."
Nothing could persuade him that Mahomet was not an idola
ter at heart, and his revelations all imposture and deceit He
122 MAHOM&T AND BIS SUCCESSORS.
considered him, however, a formidable rival, and sought in
every way to injure and annoy him. To this implacable hos
tility is attributed a scandalous story which he propagated
about Ayesha, the favorite wife ct the prophet.
It was the custom with Mahomet always to have one of his
wives with him, on his military expeditions, as companion and
solace ; she was taken by lot, and on the recent occasion the
lot had fallen on Ayesha. She travelled in a litter, inclosed
by curtains, and borne on the back of a camel, which was led
by an attendant. On the return homeward, the army, on one
occasion, coming to a halt, the attendants of Ayesha were as
tonished to find the litter empty. Before they had recovered
from their surprise, she arrived on a camel, led by a youthtul
Arab named Safwan Ibn al Moattel. This circumstance hav
ing come to the knowledge of Abdallah, he proclaimed it to the
world after his return to Medina, affirming that Ayesha had
been guilty of wantonness with the youthful Safwan.
The story was eagerly caught up and circulated by Hamna,
the sister of the beautiful Zeinab, whom Mahomet had re
cently espoused, and who hoped to benefit her sister by the
downfall of her deadly rival Ayesha; it was echoed also by
Mistah, a kinsman of Abu Beker, and was celebrated in satiri
cal verses by a poet named Hasan.
It was some tune before Ayesha knew of the scandal thus
circulating at her expense. Sickness had confined her to the
house on her return to Medina, and no one ventured to tell her
of what she was accused. She remarked, however, that the
prophet was stern and silent, and no longer treated her with
his usual tenderness. On her recovery she heard with con
sternation the crime alleged against her, and protested her
innocence. The following is her version of the story.
The army on its homeward march had encamped not far
from Medina, when orders were given in the night to march.
The attendants, as usual, brought a camel before the tent of
Ayesha, and placing the litter on the ground, retired until she
could take her seat within it. As she was about to enter she
missed her*iecklace, and returned into the tent to seek it. In
the mean time the attendants lifted the litter upon the camel
and strapped it fast, not perceiving that it was empty; she
being slender and of little weight. When she returned from
seeking the necklace, the camel was gone, and the army was
on the march ; whereupon she wrapped herself in her mantle
and sat down, trusting that, when her absence should be
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 1»J3
discovered, some persons would be sent back in quest of
her.
While thus seated, Safwan Ibn al Moattel, the young Arab,
being one of the rear-guard, came up, and, recognizing her, ac
costed hor with the usual Moslem salutation. u To God we be
long, and to God we must return ! Wife of the prophet, why
*dost thou remain behind ?"
Ayesha made no reply, but drew her veil closer over her face.
Safwan then alighted, aided her to mount the camel, and, tak
ing the bridle, hastened to rejoin the army. The sun had
risen, however, before he overtook it, just without the walls of
Medina.
This accoum, given by Ayesha, and attested by Safwan Ibn al
Moattel, was satisfactory to her parents and particular friends,
but was scoffed at by Abdallah and his adherents, "the Hypo
crites." Two parties thus arose on the subject, and great strife
ensued. As to Ayesha, she shut herself up within her dwell
ing, refusing all food, and weeping day and night in the bitter
ness of her soul.
Mahomet was sorely troubled in mind, and asked counsel of
Ali in his perplexity. The latter made light of the affair, ob
serving that his misfortune was the frequent lot of man. The
prophet was but little consoled by this suggestion. He re
mained separated from Ayesha for a month; but his heart
yearned toward her ; not merely on account of her beauty, but
because he loved her socfety. In a paroxysm of grief, he fell
into one of those trances which unbelievers have attributed to
epilepsy ; in the course of which he received a seasonable reve
lation, which will be found in a chapter of the Koran. It was
to this effect.
They who accuse a reputable female of adultery, and produce
not four witnesses of the fact, shall be scourged with fourscore
stripes, and their testimony rejected. As to those who have
made the charge against Ayesha, have they produced four wit-
nep^es thereof? If they have not, they are liars in the sight of
God. Let them receive, therefore, the punishment of their
crime.
The innocence of the beautiful Ayesha being thus miracu
lously made manifest, the prophet took her to his bosom with
augmented affection. Nor was he slow in dealing the pre
scribed castigation, It is true Abdallah Ibn Obba was too pow
erful a personage to be subjected to the scourge, but it fell the
heavier <ui the shoulders of his fellow calumniators. The poot
124 MAnoMiLT AJ\D HIS s&ccEssom.
Hasan was cured for some time of his propensity to make sa,
tirical verses, nor could Hamna, though a female and of great
personal charms, escape the infliction of stripes ; for Mahomet
observed that such beauty should have been accompanied by a
gentler nature.
The revelation at once convinced the pious Ali of the purity
of Ayesha; but she never forgot nor forgave that he had
doubted; and the hatred thus implanted in her bosom was
manifested to his great detriment in many of the most impor
tant concerns of his after lif e
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BATTLE OF THE MOAT — BRAVERY OF SAAD IBN MO AD— DE
FEAT OF THE KOREISHITES— CAPTURE OF THE JEWISH CASTLE
OF KORAIDA— SAAD DECIDES AS TO THE PUNISHMENT OF THE
JEWS— MAHOMET ESPOUSES REHANA, A JEWISH CAPTIVE— HIS
LIFE ENDANGERED BY SORCERY; SAVED BY A REVELATION OF
THE ANGEL GABRIEL.
DURING the year of truce which succeeded the battle of Ohod,
Abu Sofian, the restless chief of the Koreishites, formed a con
federacy with the Arab tribe of Gha^tafan and other tribes of
the desert, as well as with many of the Jews of the race of
Nadher, whom Mahomet had driven from their homes. The
truce being ended, he prepared to march upon Medina, with
these confederates, their combined forces amounting to ten
thousand men.
Mahomet had early intelligence of the meditated attack, but
his late reverse at Ohod made him wary of taking the field
against such numbers ; especially as he feared the enemy might
have secret allies in Medina ; where he distrusted the Jewish
inhabitants and the Hypocrites, the partisans of Abdallah Ibn
Obba, who were numerous and powerful.
Great exertions were now made to put the city in a state of
defence. Salman the Persian, who had embraced the faith, ad
vised that a deep moat should be digged at some distance be
yond the wall, on the side on which the enemy would approach.
This mode of defence, hitherto unused in Arabia, was eagerly
adopted by Mahomet, who set a great number of men to dig
MAHQMF.T AND HIS SUCCESSOR*.
the moat, and even assisted personally in the laoor. Many
miracles are recorded of him during the progress of this work.
At one time, it is said, he fed a great multitude from a single
basket of dates, which remained full after all were satisfied.
At another time ho feasted a thousand men upon a roasted
lamb and a loaf of barley bread ; yet enough remained for all
his fellow-laborers in the moat. Nor must we omit to note the
wonderful blows which he gave to a rock with an iron mallet,
striking off sparks which in one direction lighted up all Yemen,
or Arabia the Happy ; in another revealed the imperial palace
at Constantinople ; and in a third illumined the towers of the
royal residence of Persia— all signs and portents of the future
conquests of Islam.
Scarcely was the moat completed when the enemy appeared
in great force on the neighboring hills. Leaving Ibn 0mm
Mactum, a trusty officer, to command in the city, and keep a
vigilant eye on the disaffected, Mahomet sallied forth with
three thousand men, whom he formed in battle array, having
the deep moat in front. Abu Sofian advanced confidently with
his combined force of Koreishites and Ghatafanites, but was
unexpectedly checked by the moat, and by a galling fire from
the Moslems drawn up beyond it. The enemy now encamped;
the Koreishites in the lower part of the valley, and the Ghatafa
nites in the upper ; and for some days the armies remained on
each side of the moat, keeping up a distant combat with slings
and stones and flights of arrows.
In the mean time spies brought word to Mahomet that a Jew
ish tribe, the Beni Koraida, who had a strong castle near the
city, and had made a covenant of peace with him, wero in
secret league with the enemy. He now saw the difficulty with
his scanty forces to man the whole extent of the moat; to
guard against a perfidious attack from the Koraidites, and to
maintain quiet in the city where the Jews must have secret
confederates. Summoning a council of war he consulted with
his captains on the policy of bribing the Ghatafanites to a sepa
rate peace by offering them a third of the date-harvest of Me
dina. Upon this, Saad Ibn Moad, a stout leader of the Awsites
of Medina, demanded: "Do you propose this by the command
of Allah, or is it an idea of your own?" " If it had been a com
mand of Allah," replied Mahomet, "I should never have asked
your advice. I see you pressed by enemies on every side, and
I seek to break their confederacy/' " Oh prophet of God!" re
joined Saad, " when wo were fellow-idolaters with these people
126 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
of Ghataf an, they got none of our dates without paying for
them ; and shall we give them up gratuitously now that wo arc
of the true faith, and led by thee? No, by Allah ! if they want
our dates they must win them with their swords !"
The stout Saad had his courage soon put to the proof. A
prowling party of Koreishite horsemen, among whom was
Akrema, the son of Abu Jahl, and Amru, uncle of Mahomet's
first wife Cadijah, discovered a place where the moat was
narrow, and putting spurs to their steeds succeeded in leap
ing over, followed by some of their comrades. They then
challenged the bravest of the Moslems to equal combat. The
challenge was accepted by Saad Ibn Moad, by Ali, and several
of their companions. Ali had a close combat with Amru;
they fought on horseback and on foot, until, grappling with
each other, they rolled in the dust. In the end Ali was
victorious, and slew his foe. The general conflict was main
tained with great obstinacy ; several were slain on both sides,
and Saad Ibn Moad was severely wounded. At length the
Koreishites gave way, and spurred their horses to recross the
moat. The steed of one of them, Nawfal Ibn AbdalJah, leaped
short ; his rider was assailed with stones while in the moat,
and defied the Moslems to attack him with nobler weapons.
In an instant Ali sprang down into the moat, and Nawfal soon
fell beneath his sword. Ali then joined his companions in
pursuit of the retreating foe, and wounded Akrema with a
javelin. This skirmish was dignified with the name of the
battle of the Moat.
Mahomet, still unwilling to venture a pitched battle, sent
Rueim, a secretly converted Arab of the tribe of Ghatafan, to
visit the camps of the confederates and artfully to sow dissen
sions among them. .Rueim first repaired to the Koraiditcs,
with whom he was in old habits of friendship. "What folly
is this," said he, "to suffer yourselves to be drawn by the
Koreishites of Mecca into their quarrel. Bethink you how
different is your situation from theirs. If defeated, they have
only to retreat to Mecca, and be secure. Their allies from the
desert will also retire to their distant homes, and you will be
left to bear the whole brunt of the vengeance of Mahomet and
the people of Medina. Before you make common cause with
them, therefore, let them pledge themselves and give hostages,
never to draw back until they have broken the power of
Mahomet."
He then went to the Koreishites and the tribe of Ghatafan,
MAllOMLT A.\D JUS SUCCESSORS. 127
and warned them against confiding in the -Tews of Koraida,
who intended to get hostages from them, and deliver them up
into the hands of Mahomet.
The distrust thus artfully sown among the confederates soon
produced its effects. Abu Sofian sent word on Friday even
ing, to the Koraidites, to be ready to join next morning in a
general assault. The Jews replied that the following day was
their Sabbath, on which they could not engage in battle; at
the same time they declined to join in any hostile act, unless
their allies should give hostages to stand by them to the end.
The Koreishites and Ghatafanites were now convinced of the
perfidy of the Koraidites, and dared not venture upon the
meditated attack, lest these should fall upon them in the rear.
While they lay idly in their camp a cold storm came on, with
drenching rain and sweeping blasts from the desert. Their
tents were blown down ; their camp-fires were extinguished ;
in the midst of the uproar the alarm was given that Mahomet
had raised the storm by enchantment, and was coming upon
them with his forces. All now was panic and confusion. Abu
Sofian, finding all efforts vain to produce order, mounted his
camel in despair, and gave the word to retreat. The con
federates hurried off from the scene of tumult and terror, the
Koreishites toward Mecca, the others to their homes in the
desert.
Abu Sofian, in rage and mortification, wrote a letter to
Mahomet, upbraiding him with his cowardice in lurking
behind a ditch, a thing unknown in Arabian warfare; and
threatening to take his revenge on some future day, when
they might meet in open fight, as in the field of Ohod. Maho
met hurled back a defiance, and predicted that the day was
approaching when he would break in pieces the idols of the
Koreishites.
The invaders having disappeared, Mahomet turned to take
vengeance on the Beni Koraida, who shut themselves up in
their castle, and withstood a siege of many days. At length,
pinched by famine, they implored the intercession of their
ancient friends and protectors, the Awsites. The latter
entreated the prophet to grant these Hebrews the same
terms he had formerly granted to the Beni Kainoka, at the
prayer of Abdallah the Khazradite. Mahomet reflected a
moment, and offered to leave their fate to the decision of
Raad Ibn Moad, the Awsite chief. The Koraidites gladly
agreed, knowing him to have been formerly their friend,
128 MA1IOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
They accordingly surrendered themselves to the number of
seven hundred and were conducted in chains to Medina.
Unfortunately for them, Saad considered their perfidious
league with the enemy as one cause of the recent hostility.
He was still smarting with the wound received in the battle
of the Moat, and in his moments of pain and anger had re
peatedly prayed that his life might be spared to see ven
geance wreaked on the Koraidites. Such was the state of
his feelings when summoned to decide upon their fate.
Being a gross, tull-blooded man, he was with difficulty
helped upon an ass, propped up by a leathern cushion, and
supported in his seat until he arrived at the tribunal of justice.
Before ascending it, he exacted an oath from all present to
abide by his decision. The Jews readily took it, anticipating
a favorable sentence. No sooner was he helped into the tri-
bunalj than, extending his hand, he condemned the men to
death, the women and children to slavery, and their effects to
be shared among the victors.
The wretched Jews looked aghast, but there was no appeal.
They were conducted to a public place since called the Market
of the Koraidites, where great graves had been digged. Into
these they were compelled to descend, one by one, their prince
Hoya Ibn Ahktab among the number, and were successively
put to death. Thus the prayer of Saad Ibn Moad for ven
geance on the Koraidites was fully gratified. He witnessed
the execution of the men he had condemned, but such was his
excitement that his- wound broke out afresh, and he died
shortly afterward.
In the Castle of Koraida was found a great quantity of pikes,
lances, cuirasses, and other armor ; and its lands were covered
with flocks, and herds, and camels. In dividing the spoil each
foot soldier had one lot, each horseman three; two for his
horse and one for himself. A fifth part of the whole was set
apart for the prophet.
The most precious prize in the eyes of Mahomet was Bihana,
daughter of Simeon, a wealthy and powerful Jew, and tho
moso beautiful female of her tribe. He took her to himself,
and, having converted her to the faith, added her to the num
ber of his wives.
But, though thus susceptible of the charms of the Israelitish
women, Mahomet became more and more vindictive in his
hatred of the men ; no longer putting faith in their covenants,
and suspecting them of the most insidious attempts upon his
ASD yy/> 81 ' CE8£OjttS. VJ'j
life. Moslem writers attribute to the spells of Jewish sorcerers
a long and languishing illness> with which he was afflicted
about this time, and which seemed to defy all remedy. They
describe the very charm by which it was produced. It was
prepared, say they, by a Jewish necromancer from the moun
tains, aided by his daughters, who were equally skilled in the
diabolic art. They formed a small waxen effigy of Mahomet ;
wound round it some of his hair, and thrust through it eleven
needles. They then made eleven knots in a tow-string, blow
ing with their breaths on each ; and, winding a string round
the effigy, threw the whole into a well.
Under the influence of this potent spell Mahomet wasted
away, until his friend, the angel Gabriel, revealed the secret
to him in a vision. On awaking he sent Ali to the well, where
the image was discovered. When it was brought to Mahomet,
continues the legend, he repeated over it the two last chapters
of the Koran, which had been communicated to him in the
recent vision. They consist of eleven verses, and are to the
following purport.
In the name of the all merciful God ! I will fly for refuge to
the Lord of the light of day.
That he may deliver me from the danger of beings and
things created by himself.
From the dangers of the darksome night, and of the moon
when in eclipse.
From the danger of sorcerers, who tie knots and blow on
them with their breath.
From the danger of the envious, who devise deadly harm,
I will fly for refuge to Allah, the Lord of. men.
To Allah, the King of men.
To Allah, the God of men.
That he may deliver me from the evil spirit who flies at the
mention of his holy name.
Who suggests evil thoughts into the hearts of the children
of men.
And from the evil Genii and men who deal in magic.
At the repetition of each one of these verses, says the legend.
a knot of the bowstring came loose, a needle fell from the
effigy, and Mahomet gained strength. At the end of the
eleventh verse he rose, renovated in health and vigor, as one
restored to freedom after having been bound with cords.
The two final chapters of the Koran, which comprise those
verses, are entitled the amulets, and considered by the super-
130 MAHOMET AND HIS 8VOQESSOM8.
stitious Moslems effectual talismans against sorcery and magic
charms.
The conduct of Mahomet in the affair narrated in this chap
ter has been censured as weak and vacillating, and deficient in
military decision, and his measures as wanting in true great
ness of mind, and the following circumstances are adduced to
support these charges. When threatened with violence from
without, and perfidy from within, he is for bribing a part of
his confederate foes to a separate peace ; but suffers himself to
be, in a manner, hectored out of this crafty policy by Saad Ibn
Moad; yet, subsequently, he resorts to a scheme still more
subtle and crafty, by which he sows dissension among his
enemies. ' Above all, his conduct toward the Jews has been
strongly reprobated. His referring the appeal of the Beni
Koraida for mercy, to the decision of one whom he knew to
be bent on their destruction, has been stigmatised as cruel
mockery ; and the massacre of those unfortunate men in the
market-place of Medina is pronounced one of the darkest pages
of his history. In fact, his conduct toward this race from the
time that he had power in his hands forms an exception to the
general tenor of his disposition, which was forgiving and
humane. He may have been especially provoked against
them by proofs of treachery and deadly rancor on their part;
but we see in this, as in other parts of his policy in this part of
his career, instances of that worldly alloy which at times was
debasing his spirit, now that he had become the Apostle of the
Sword.
CHAPTER XXIV.
MAHOMET UNDERTAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA— EVADES KHA-
LED AND A TROOP OF HORSE SENT AGAINST HIM— ENCAMPS
NEAR MECCA — NEGOTIATES WITH THE KOREISHITES FOR PER
MISSION TO ENTER AND COMPLETE HIS PILGRIMAGE— TREATY
FOR TEN YEARS, BY WHICH HE IS PERMITTED TO MAKE A
YEARLY VISIT OF THREE DAYS— HE RETURNS TO MEDINA.
Six years had now elapsed since the flight of Mahomet from
Mecca. As that city was sacred in the eyes of the Arabs and
their great point of pilgrimage, his long exile from it, and his
open warfare with the Koreishites, who had charge of the
AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 131
Caaba, prejudiced him in the opinion of many of the tribes,
and retarded the spread of his doctrines. His followers, too,
who had accompanied him in his flight, languished once more
to see their native home, and there was danger of their faith
becoming enfeebled under a protracted exile.
Mahomet felt more and more the importance of linking the
sacred city with his religion, and maintaining the ancient
usages of his race. Besides, he claimed but to be a reformer,
anxious to restore the simplicity and purity of the patriarchal
faith. The month Doul Kaada was at hand, the month of pil
grimage, when there was a truce to warfare, and enemies
might meet in peace within the holy boundaries. A timely
vision assured Mahomet that he and his followers might safely
avail themselves of the protection of this venerable custom to
revisit the ancient shrines of Arabian worship. The revelation
was joyfully received by his followers, and in the holy month
he set forth for Medina on his pilgrimage, at the head of four
teen hundred men, partly Mohadjerms or Fugitives, and
partly Ansarians or Auxiliaries. They took with them
seventy camels to be slain in sacrifice at the Caaba. To
manifest publicly that they came in peace and not in war,
they halted at Dsu Huleifa, a village about a day's journey
from Medina, where they laid aside all their weapons, except
ing their sheathed swords, and thence continued on in pilgrim
garb.
In the mean time a confused rumor of this movement had
reached Mecca. The Koreishites, suspecting hostilities, sent
forth Khaled Ibn Waled with a powerful troop of horse, to
take post in a valley about two days' journey from Mecca, and
check the advance of the Moslems.
Mahomet, hearing that the main road was thus barred
against him, took a rugged and difficult route through the de
files of the mountains, and, avoiding Khaled and his forces,
descended into the plain near Mecca, where he encamped at
Hodei'ba, within the sacred boundaries. Hence he sent assur
ances to the Koreishites of his peaceable intentions, and claimed
the immunities and rights of pilgrimage.
Envoys from the Koreishites visited • his camp to make ob
servations. They were struck with the reverence with which
he was regarded by his followers. The water with which he per
formed his ablutions became sanctified ; a hair falling from his
head, or the paring of a nail, was caught up as a precious rolic.
One of the envoys in the course of conversation, unconsciously
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
touched the flowing beard of the prophet ; he was thrust back
by the disciples, and warned of the impiety of the act. In
making his report to the Koreishites on his return, "I have
seen the king of Persia and the emperor of Constantinople
surrounded by their courts," said he, " but never did I behold
a sovereign so revered by his subjects, as is Mahomet by his
followers."
The Koreishites were the more loath to admit into their city
an adversary to their sect, so formidable in his influence over
the minds and affections of his fellow-men. Mahomet sent re
peated missions to treat for a safe access to the sacred shrines,
but in vain. Othman Ibn Affan, his son-in-law, was his last
envoy. Several days elapsed without his return, and it was
rumored that he was slain. Mahomet determined to revenge
his fall. Standing under a tree, and summoning his people
around him, ho exacted an oath to defend him even to the death,
and never to desert the standard of the faith. This ceremony
is known among Mahometans by the name of the Spontaneous
Inauguration.
The reappearance of Othman in the camp restored tranquil
lity. He was accompanied by Solhail, an ambassador from the
Koreishites, to arrange a treaty of peace. They perceived the
impolicy of warring with a man whose power was incessantly
increasing, and who was obeyed with such fanatic devotion.
The treaty proposed was for ten years, during which time Ma
homet and his adherents were to have free access to Mecca as
pilgrims, there to remain, three days at a time, in the exercise
of their religious rites. The terms were readily accepted, and
Ali was employed to draw up the treaty. Mahomet dictated
the words. ' ' Write, " said he, ' ' these are the conditions of peace
made by Mahomet the apostle of God." " Hold !" cried Solhail,
the ambassador; " had I believed thee to be the apostle of God,
I should never have taken up arms against thee. Write, there
fore, simply thy name, and the name of thy father." Mahomet
was fain to comply, for he felt he was not sufficiently in force
at this moment to contend about forms ; so he merely denomi
nated himself in the treaty, Mahomet Ibn Abdallah (Mahomet
the son of Abdallah), an abnegation which gave some little
scandal to his followers. Their discontent was increased when
he ordered them to shave their heads, and to sacrifice on the
spot the camels brought to be offered up at the Caaba, as it
showed he had not the intention of entering Mecca, these rites
being properly done at the conclusion of the ceremonials of
KT A\f> ///N SUCCESSORS.
pilgrimage. They reminded him of his vision which promised
a safe entrance of the sacred city ; he replied, that the pi-
treaty was an earnest of its fulfilment, which would assuredly,
take place on the following year. With this explanation they
had to content themselves; and having performed the cere
mony, and made the sacrifice prescribed, the camp was broken
tip, and the pilgrim host returned, somewhat disappointed and
l-'jccted, to Medina.
CHAPTER XXV.
EXPEDITION AGAINST THE CITY OF KHAIBAR; SIEGE— EXPLOITS
OF MAHOMET'S CAPTAINS— BATTLE OF ALI AND MARHAB— STORM
ING OF THE CITADEL— ALI MAKES A BUCKLER OF THE GATE —
CAPTURE OF THE PLACE— MAHOMET POISONED; HE MARRIES
SAFIYA, A CAPTIVE ; ALSO OMM HABIBA, A WIDOW.
To console his followers for the check their religious devotion
had experienced at Mecca, Mahomet now set on foot an expe
dition calculated to gratify that love of plunder, which began
to rival fanaticism in attaching them to his standard.
About five days' journey to the northeast of Medina was situ
ated the city of Khaibar, and its dependent territory. It was
inhabited by Jews, who had grown wealthy by commerce as
well as agriculture. Their rich domain was partly cultivated
with grain, and planted with groves of palm-trees ; partly de
voted to pasturage and covered with flocks and herds ; and iir
was fortified by several castles. So venerable was its antiquity
that Abulfeda, the Arabian historian, assures us that Moses,
after the passage of the Red Sea, sent an army against the
Amalekites, inhabiting Gothreb (Medina), and the strong city
of Khaibar.
This region had become a place of refuge for the hostile Jews,
driven by Mahomet from Medina and its environs, and for all
those who had made themselves obnoxious to his vengeance.
These circumstances, together with its teeming wealth, pointed
it out as a fit and ripe object for that warfare which he had
declared against all enemies of the faith.
In the beginning of the seventh year of the Hegira, he de
parted on an expedition against Khaibar, at the head of twelve
hundred foot and two hundred horse, accompanied by Abu
134 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Beker, by All, by Omar, and other of his principal officers. He
had two standards ; one represented the sun, the other a black
•eagle ; which last became famous in after years as the standard
of Khaled.
Entering the fertile territory of Eha'ibar, he began his war
fare by assailing the inferior castles with which it was studded.
Some of these capitulated without making resistance ; in which
cases, being considered "gifts from God," the spoils went to
the prophet, to be disposed of by him in the way before men
tioned. Others of more strength, and garrisoned by stouter
hearts, had to be taken by storm.
After the capture of these minor fortresses, Mahomet ad
vanced against the city of Kha'ibar. It was strongly defended
by outworks, and its citadel, Al Kamus, built on a steep rock,
was deemed impregnable, insomuch that Kenana Ibn al Rabi,
the chief or king of the nation, had made it the depository of
all his treasures.
The siege of this city was the most important enterprise the
Moslems had yet undertaken. When Mahomet first came in
sight of its strong and frowning walls, and its rock-built cita
del, he is said to have put up the following prayer :
"Oh Allah! Lord of the seven heavens, and of all things
which they cover! Lord of the seven earths, and all which
they sustain ! Lord of the evil spirits, and of all whom they
lead astray ! Lord of the winds, and of all whom they scatter
and disperse! We supplicate thee to deliver into our hands
this city, and all that it contains, and the riches of all its lands.
To thee we look for aid against this people, and against all the
perils by which we are environed."
To give more solemnity to his prayers, he chose as his place
of worship a great rock, in a stony place called Mansela, and,
during all the time that he remained encamped before Kha'ibar,
made daily seven circuits round it, as are made round the
Caaba. A mosque was erected on this rock in after times in
memorial of this devout ceremonial, and it became an object of
veneration to all pious Moslems.
The siege of the citadel lasted for some time, and tasked the
skill and patience of Mahomet and his troops, as yet but little
practised in the attack of fortified places. They suffered too
from want of provisions, for the Arabs in their hasty expedi
tions seldom burden themselves with supplies, and the Jews on
their approach had laid waste the level country, and destroyed
the palm-trees round their capital.
MAHOMUT AM) 111* SLL'UtiSSOUS. \: .
Mahomet directed the attacks in person ; the besiegers pro
tected tli by trenches, and brought battering-rams to
play upon the walls ; a breach was at length effected, but for
several days every attempt to enter was vigorously repelled.
Abu Beker at one time led the assault, bearing the standard of
the prophet ; but, after fighting with great bravery, was com
pelled to retreat. The next attack was headed by Omar Ibn
khattab, who fought until the close of day with no better
success. A third attack was led by Ali, whom Mahomet armed
with his own scimetar, called Dhu'l-Fakar, or the Trenchant.
On confiding to his hands the sacred banner, he pronounced
him " a man who loved God and his prophet; and whom God
and his prophet loved. A man who knew not fear, nor ever
turned his back upon a foe. "
And here it may be well to give a traditional account of the
person and character of Ah". He was of the middle height, but
robust and square, and of prodigious strength. He had a
smiling countenance, exceedingly florid, with a bushy beard.
He was distinguished for an amiable disposition, sagacious
intellect, and religious zeal, and, from his undaunted courage,
was surnamed the Lion of God.
Arabian writers dwell with fond exaggeration on the exploits
at Khaibar of this their favorite hero. He was clad, they say,
in a scarlet vest, over which was buckled a cuirass of steel.
Scrambling with his followers up the great heap of stones and
rubbish in front of the breach, he planted his standard on the
top, determined never to recede until the citadel was taken.
The Jews sallied forth to drive down the assailants. In the
conflict which ensued, Ah fought hand to hand with tho Jew
ish commander, Al Hareth, whom he slew. The brother of
the slain advanced to revenge his death. He was of gigantic
stature, with a double cuirass, a double turban, wound round
a helmet of proof, in front of which sparkled an immense dia
mond. He had a sword girt to each side, and brandished a
three-pronged spear, like a trident. The warriors measured
each other with the eye, and accosted each other in boasting
oriental style.
"I," said the Jew, "am Marhab, armed at all points, and
terrible in battle. "
"And I am Ali, whom his mother, at his birth, surnamed
41 Haklara (the rugged lion)."
.'ho Moslem writers make short work of the Jewish cham
pion. He made a thrust at Ah' with his three-pronged lance,
136 MAHOMET AXU HIS SUCCESSOR
but it was dexterously parried, and before he could recover
himself , a blow from the scimetar Dhu'l-Fakar divided his
buckler, passed through the helm of proof, through doubled
t ;irban and stubborn skull, cleaving his head even to his teeth.
His gigantic form fell lifeless to the earth.
The Jews now retreated into the citadel, and a general as-
,ault took place. In the heat of the action the shield of Ali
was severed from his arm, leaving his body exposed; wrench
ing a gate, however, from its hinges, he used it as a buckler-
through the remainder of the fight. Abu Kafe, a servant of
Mahomet, testifies to the fact. "I afterward," says he, "ex
amined this gate in company with seven men, and all eight of
us attempted in vain to wield it."*
The citadel being captured, every vault and dungeon was
ransacked for the wealth said to be deposited there by Kenana,
the Jewish prince. None being discovered, Mahomet de
manded of him where he had concealed his treasure. He
declared that it had all been expended in the subsistence of his
troops, and in preparations for defence. One of his faithless
subjects, however, revealed the place where a great amount
had been hidden. It did not equal the expectations of the
victors, and Kenana was put to the torture to reveal the rest
of his supposed wealth. He either could not or would not
make further discoveries, so he was delivered up to the ven
geance of a Moslem, whose brother he had crushed to death
by a piece of millstone hurled from the wall, and who struck
off his head with a single blow of his sabre, t
While in the citadel of Khaibar, Mahomet came near falling
a victim to Jewish vengeance. Demanding something to eat,
a shoulder of lamb was set before him. At the first mouthful
he perceived something unusual in the taste, and spat it forth,
but instantly felt acute internal pain. One of his followers,
named Baschar, who had eaten more freely, fell down and ex
pired in convulsions. All now was confusion and consterna
tion: on diligent inquiry, it was found that the lamb had been
* This stupendous feat is recorded by the historian Abulfeda, c. 24. " Abu Rafe,"
observes Gibbon, "was an eye-witness; but who will be witness for Abu Rafe?"
We join with the distinguished historian in his doubt; yet if we scrupulously ques
tion the testimony of an eye witness, what will become of history?
t The Jews inhabiting the tract of country called Khafbar are still known In
Arabia by the name of Beni Kheibar, They are divided Into three tribes, undei *
independent Sheikhs, the Beni Messiad, Beni Schahan, and Beni Anaesse. Th»j
we accused of pillaging the caravans.— Niebuhr, v. ii. p. 48.
.V,1770.V7iT AXD HIS SUCCESSORS. 137
cooked by Zainab, a female captive, niece to Marhab, the
gigantic warrior slain by Ali. Being brought before Mahomet,
and charged with having infused poison into the viand, she
boldly avowed it, vindicating it as a justifiable revenge for
the ills he had brought upon her tribe and her family. '*!
thought," said she, "if thou wert indeed a prophet, tliou
wouldst discover thy danger ; if but a chieftain, thou woulds*
fall, and we should be delivered from a tyrant."
Arabian writers are divided as to the fate of this heroine.
According to some, she was delivered up to the vengeance of
the relatives of Baschar, who had died of the poison. Accord
ing to others, her beauty pleaded in her behalf, and Mahome*
restored her unharmed to her family.
The same writers seldom permit any remarkable event ol
Mahomet's life to pass without a miracle. In the present
instance, they assure us that the poisoned shoulder of lamb be
came miraculously gifted with speech, and warned Mahomet
of his danger. If so, it was rather slow of speech, for ho had
imbibed sufficient poison to injure hife constitution throughout
the remainder of his life, affecting Mm often with paroxysms
of pain ; and in his last moments he complained that the veins
of his heart throbbed with the poison of Khaibar. He experi
enced kinder treatment at the hands of Safiya (or Sophia),
another female captive, who had still greater motives for ven
geance than Zainab ; for she was the recently espoused wife of
Kenana, wno had just been sacrificed for his wealth, and she
was the daughter of Hoya Ibn Akhtab, prince of the Beni
Koraida, who, with seven hundred of his people, had been put
to death in the square of Medina, as has been related.
This Safiya was of great beauty ; it is not surprising, there
fore, that she should find instant favor in the eyes of Mahomet,
and that he should seek, as usual, to add her to his harem; but
;1 may occasion surprise that she should contemplate such a lot
with complacency. Moslem writers, however, explain this by
issuring us that she was supernaturally prepared for the event:
While Mahomet was yet encamped before the city, and carry
ing on the siege, she had a vision of the night, in which the sun
descended from the firmament and nestled in her bosom. On
recounting her dream to her husband Kenana in the morning,
he smote her on the face, exclaiming, " Woman, you speak in
parables of this Arab chief who has come against us."
The vision of Safiya was made true, for having converted her
with all decent haste to the faith of Islam, Mahomet took her
133 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
to wife before he left Khaibar. Their nuptials took place on
the homeward mc.rch, at Al Sahba, where the army halted for
three days. Abu Ayub, one of the prophet's most ardent dis
ciples and marshal of his household, patrolled around the nup
tial tent throughout the night, sword in hand. Safiya was
one of the most favored wives of Mahomet, whom she survived
for forty years of widowhood.
Besides the marriages of affection which we have recorded,
the prophet, about this time, made another of policy. Shortly
after his return to Medina he was gladdened by the arrival,
from Abyssinia, of the residue of the fugitives. Among these
was a comely widow, thirty years ot age, whose husband, Ab-
dallah, had died while in exile. She was generally known by
the name of Omm Habiba, the mother of Habiba, from a
daughter to whom she had given birth. This widow was the
daughter of Mahomet's arch enemy, Abu Sofian; and the
prophet conceived that a marriage with the daughter might
soften the hostility of the father; a politic consideration,
which is said to have been either suggested or sanctioned by a
revelation of a chapter of the Koran.
When Abu Sofian heard of the espousals, "By heaven," ex
claimed he, "this camel is so rampant that no muzzle can
restrain him."
CHAPTER XXVI.
MISSIONS TO VARIOUS PRINCES ; TO HERACLIUS ; TO KHOSRU H. ;
TO THE PREFECT OF EGYPT— THEIR RESULT.
DURING the residue of the year Mahomet remained at
Medina, sending forth his trusty disciples, by this time experi
enced captains, on various military expeditions; by which
refractory tribes were rapidly brought into subjection. His
views as a statesman widened as his territories increased.
Though he professed, in cases of necessity, to propagate his
religion 'by the sword, he was not neglectful of the peaceful
measures of diplomacy, and sent envoys to various princes
and potentates, whose dominions bordered on his political
horizon, urging them to embrace the faith of Islam ; which was,
in effect, to acknowledge him, through his apostolic office,
their superior.
MA110MKT AND JITS PUCCESSORf*. J39
Two of the most noted of these missions were to Khosru II.,
king of Persia, and Heraclius, the Roman emperor, at Constan
tinople. The wars between the Romans and the Persians, for
the dominion of the East, which had prevailed from time to
time through several centuries, had been revived by these two
potentates with varying fortunes, and for several years past
had distracted the eastern world. Countries had been overrun
by either power; states and kingdoms had changed hand?,
under alternate invasions, and according to the conquests and
defeats of the warring parties. At one time Khosru with three
armies, one vauntingly called the Fifty Thousand Golden
Spears, had wrested Palestine, Cappadocia, Armenia, and
several other great and wealthy provinces from the Roman
emperor; had made himself master of Jerusalem, and carried
off the Holy Cross to Persia ; had invaded Africa, conquered
Libya and Egypt, and extended his victories even to Carthage.
In the midst of his triumphant career, a Moslem envoy
arrived bearing him a letter from Mahomet. Khosru sent for
his secretary or interpreter, and ordered him to read it. The
letter began as follows :
"In the name of the most merciful God! Mahomet, son of
Abdallah, and apostle of God, to Khosru, king of Persia."
"What!" cried Khosru, starting up in haughty indignation,
4 ' does one who is my slave dare to put his name first in writ
ing to me?" So saying, he seized the letter and tore it in pieces
without seeking to know its contents. He then wrote to his
viceroy in Yemen, saying, "I am told there is in Medina a
madman, of the tribe of Koreish, who pretends to be a prophet.
Restore him to his senses; or if you cannot, send me his head."
When Mahomet was told how Khosru had torn his letter,
" Even so," said he, " shall Allah rend his empire in pieces."
The letter from the prophet to Heraclius was more favorably
received, reaching him probably during his reverses. It was
signed in characters of silver, Mahomet Azzarel, Mahomet the
messenger of God, and invited the emperor to renounce Chris
tianity, and embrace the faith of Islam. Heraclius, we are
told, deposited the epistle respectfully upon his pillow, treated
the envoy with distinction, and dismissed him with magnifi
cent presents. Engrossed, however, by his Persian wars, he
paid no further attention to this mission, from one whom he
probably considered a mere Arab fanatic ; nor attached suffi
cient importance to his military operations, which may have
appeared mere predatory forays of the wild tribes of the desert.
140 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Another mission of Mahomet was to the Mukowkia, or
governor of Egypt, who had originally been sent there by
Heraclius to collect tribute ; but who, availing himself of th«
confusion produced by the wars between the Romans and Per
sians, had assumed sovereign power, and nearly thrown off all
allegiance to the emperor. He received the envoy with signal
honor, but evaded a direct reply to the invitation to embrace
the faith, observing that it was a grave matter requiring much
consideration. In the mean time he sent presents to Mahomet
of precious jewels; garments of Egyptian linen; exquisite
honey and butter ; a white she-ass, called Yaf ur ; a white mule,
called Daldal, and a fleet horse called Lazlos, or the Prancer.
The most acceptable of his presents, however, were two Coptic
damsels, sisters, called Mariyah (or Mary), and Shiren.
The beauty of Mariyah caused great perturbation in the
mind of the prophet. He would fain have made her his con
cubine, but was impeded by his own law in the seventeenth
chapter of the Koran, ordaining that fornication should be
punished with stripes.
He was relieved from his dilemma by another revelation
revoking the law in regard to himself alone, allowing him
intercourse with his handmaid. It remained in full force,
however, against all other Moslems. Still, to avoid scandal,
and above all, not to excite the jealousy of his wives, he carried
on his intercourse with the beautiful Mariyah in secret ; which
may be one reason why she remained long a favorite.
CHAPTER XXVtt
MAHOMET'S PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA; HIS MARRIAGE WITH MAIM-
UNA— KHALED IBN AL WALED AND AMRU IBN AL AASS BECOME
PROSELYTES.
THE time had now arrived when, by treaty with the Koreish-
ites, Mahomet and his followers were permitted to make a
pilgrimage to Mecca, and pass three days unmolested at the
sacred shrines. He departed accordingly with a numerous and
well-armed host, and seventy camels for sacrifices. His old
adversaries would fain have impeded his progress, but they
were overawed, and on his approach withdrew silently to ths
MAHOMET AMJ ms
141
Neighboring hills. On entering the bounds of Mecca, the
pilgrims, according to compact and usage, laid aside all their
warlike accoutrements excepting their swords, which they
carried sheathed.
Great was their joy on beholding once more the walls and
towers of the sacred city. They entered the gates in pilgrim
garb, with devout and thankful hearts, and Mahomet per
formed all the ancient and customary rites, with a zeal and
devotion which gratified beholders, and drew to him many
converts. When he had complied with all the ceremonials he
threw aside the Irani or pilgrim's garb, and withdrew to Sarif ,
a hamlet two leagues distant, and without the sacred bounda
ries. Here he had a ceremonial of a different kind to perform,
but one in which he was prone to act with unfeigned devotion.
It was to complete his marriage with Maimuna, the daughter
of Al Hareth, the Helalite. He had become betrothed to her
on his arrival at Mecca, but had postponed the nuptials until
after he had concluded the rites of pilgrimage. This was
doubtless another marriage of policy, for Maimuna was fifty-
one years of age, and a widow, but the connection gained him
two powerful proselytes. One was Khaled Ibn al Waled, a
nephew of the widow, an intrepid warrior who had come near
destroying Mahomet at the battle of Ohod. He now became
one of the most victorious champions of Islamism, and by his
prowess obtained the appellation of "The Sword of God."
The other proselyte was Khaled's friend Amru Ibn al Aass,
the same who assailed Mahomet with poetry and satire at the
commencement of his prophetic career; who had been an
ambassador from the Koreishites to the king of Abyssinia, to
obtain the surrender of the fugitive Moslems, and who was
henceforth destined with his sword to carry victoriously into
foreign lands the faith he had once so strenuously opposed.
NOTE. — Maimuna was the last spouse of the prophet, and, old as she was at her
marriage, survived all his other wives. She died many years after him, in a pavi
lion at Serif, under the same tree in the shade of which her nuptial tent had l>t><-n
pitched, and was there interred. The pious historian, Al Jannabi, who styles him-
•elf "a poor servant of Allah, hoping for the pardon of his sins through the mercy
of God," visited her tomb on returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year of
the Hegira 9C3, A.D. 1555. " I saw there," said he, " a dome of black marble erected
In memory of Maimuna, on the very spot on which the apostle of God had reposed
with her. God knows the truth ! and also the reason of the black color of the ston«.
There is a place of ablution, and on oratory; but the building has fallen to decay."
142 MAHOMET AND BIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A. MOSLEM ENVOY SLAIN IN SYRIA— EXPEDITION TO AVENGE ma
DEATH — BATTLE OF MUTA— ITS RESULTS.
AMONG the different missions which had been sent by
Mahomet beyond the bounds of Arabia to invite neighboring
princes to embrace his religion, was one to the governor of
Bosra, the great mart on the confines of Syria, to which he had
niade his first caravan journey in the days of his youth.
Syria had been alternately under Roman and Persian domina
tion, but was at that time subject to the emperor, though prob
ably in a great state of confusion. The envoy of Mahomet was
*lain at Muta, a town about three days' journey eastward from
Jerusalem. The one who slew him was an Arab of the Chris
tian tribe of Gassan, and son to Shorhail, an emir, who gov
erned Muta in the name of Heraclius.
To revenge the death of his legate, and to insure respect to
his envoys in future, Mahomet prepared to send an army of
three thousand men against the offending city. It was a mo
mentous expedition, as it might, for the first time, bring the
arms of Islam in collision with those of the Roman Empire ;
but Mahomet presumed upon his growing power, the energy of
his troops, and the disordered state of Syrian affairs. The
command was intrusted to his freedman Zeid, who had given
such signal proof of devotion in surrendering to him his
beautiful wife Zeinab. Several chosen officers were associated
with him. One was Mahomet's cousin Jaafai, son of Abu
Taleb, and brother of Ali, the same who, by his eloquence, had
vindicated the doctrines of Islam before the king of Abyssinia,
and defeated the Koreish embassy. He was now in the prime
of life, and noted for great courage and manly beauty. An
other of the associate officers was Abdallah Ibn Kawaha, the
poet, but who had signalized himself in arms as well as poetry.
A third was the new proselyte Ehaled, wh' joined the expedi
tion as a volunteer, being eager to prove by his sword the
sincerity of his conversion.
The orders to Zeid were to march rapidly, so as to come upon
Muta by surprise, to summon the inhabitants to embrace the
faith, and to treat them with lenity. Women, children, monks,
AND UTS 8VOO&880&& 143
and the blind were to be spared at all events; nor were any
houses to be destroyed, nor trees cut down.
The little army sallied from Medina in the full confidence of
coming upon the enemy unawares. On their march, however,
they learned that a greatly superior force of Romans, or rather
Greeks and Arabs, was advancing to meet them. A council of
war was called. Some were for pausing, and awaiting further
Drders from Mahomet ; but Abdallah, the poet, was for pushing
fearlessly forward without regard to numbers. " We fight for
the faitjil" cried he; "if we fall, paradise is our reward. On,
then, to victory or martyrdom !"
All caught a spark of the poet's fire, or rather, fanaticism.
They met the enemy near Muta, and encountered them with
fury rather than valor. In the heat of the conflict Zeid re
ceived a mortal wound. The sacred banner was falling from
his grasp, but was seized and borne aloft by Jaafar. The
battle thickened round him, for the banner was the object of
fierce contention. He defended it with desperate valor. The
hand by which he held it was struck off ; he grasped it with
the other. That, too, was severed; he embraced it with his
bleeding arms. A blow from a scimetar cleft his skull; he
sank dead upon the field, still clinging to the standard of the
faith. Abdaiiah the poet next reared the banner; but he too
fell beneath the sword. Khaled, the new convert, seeing the
three Moslem leaders slain, now grasped the fatal standard,
but in his hand it remained aloft. His voice rallied the waver
ing Moslems ; his powerful arm cut its way through the thick
est of the enemy. If his own account may be credited, and he
was one whose deeds needed no exaggeration, nine scimetars
were broken in his hand by the fury of the blows given by him
in this deadly conflict.
Night separated the combatants. In the morning Khaled,
whom the army acknowledged as their commander, proved
Himself as wary as he was valiant. By dint of marches and
counter-marches he presented his forces in so many points of
view that the enemy were deceived as to his number, and sup>
posed he had received a strong reinforcement. At his first
charge, therefore, they retreated ; their retreat soon became a
flight, in which they were pursued with great slaughter.
Khaled then plundered their camp, in which was found great
booty. Among the slain in the field of battle was found the
body of Jaafar, covered with wounds, but all in front. Out of
respect to his valor, and to his relationship with the prophet,
144 MAHOMET AMs HIS SUCCESSORS.
Khaled ordered that his corpse should not be buried on tho
spot, but borne back for honorable interment at Medina.
The army, on its return, though laden with spoil, entered the
city more like a funeral train than a triumphant pageant, and
was received with mingled shouts and lamentations. While
the people rejoiced in the success of their arms, they mourned
fche loss of three of their. favorite generals. All bewailed the
fate of Jaafar, brought home a ghastly corpse to that city
whence they had so recently ' seen him sally forth in all the
pride of valiant manhood, the admiration of every beholder.
He had left behind him a beautiful wife and infant son. The
heart of Mahomet was touched by her affliction. He took the
orphan child in ins arms and bathed it with his tears. But
most he was affected when he beheld the young daughter of his
faithful Zeid approaching him. He fell on her neck and wept
in speechless emotion. A bystander expressed surprise that he
should give way to tears for a death which, according to Mos
lem doctrine, was but a passport to paradise. " Alas !" replied
the prophet, "these are the tears of friendship for the loss of a
friend!"
The obsequies of Jaafar were performed on the third day
after the arrival of the army. By that time Mahomet had re
covered his self-possession, and was again the prophet. He
gently rebuked the passionate lamentations of the multitude,
taking occasion to inculcate one of the most politic and consol
atory doctrines of his creed. " Weep no more," said he, " over
the death of this my brother. In place of the two hands lost
in defending the standard of the faith, two wings have been
given him to bear him to paradise ; there to enjoy the endless
delights insured to all believers who fall in battle."
It was in consequence of the prowess and generalship dis
played by Khaled in this perilous fight that he was honored by
Mahomet with the appellation of "The Sword of God," by
which he was afterward renowned.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 145
CHAPTER XXTX.
DESIGNS UPON MECCA — MISSION OF ABU SOFIAN— ITS RESULT.
MAHOMET, by force either of arms or eloquence, had now ac
quired dominion over a great number of the Arabian tribes. He
had many thousand warriors under his command ; sons of the
desert, inured to hunger, thirst, and the scorching rays of the
sun, and to whom war was a sport rather than a toil. He had
corrected their intemperance, disciplined their valor, and sub
jected them to rule. Repeated victories had given them con
fidence in themselves and in their leader, whose standard they
followed with the implicit obedience of soldiers and the blind
fanaticism of disciples.
The views of Mahomet expanded with his means, and a grand
enterprise now opened upon his mind. Mecca, his native city
the abode of his family for generations, the scene of his hap
piest years, was still in the hands of his implacable foes. The
Caaba, the object of devotion and pilgrimage to all the children
of Ishmael, the shrine of his earliest worship, was still pro
faned by the emblems and rites of idolatry. To plant the
standard of the faith on the walls of his native city, to rescue
the holy house from profanation, restore it to the spiritual
worship of the one true God, and make it the rallying point of
Islamism, formed now the leading object of his ambition.
The treaty of peace existing with the Koreishites was an im
pediment to any military enterprise ; but some casual feuds
and skirmishings soon gave a pretext for charging them with
having violated the treaty stipulations. The Koreishites had
by this time learned to appreciate and dread the rapidly in-
nva sing" power of the Moslems, and were eager to explain
away, or atone for, the quarrels and misdeeds of a few heed
less individuals. They even prevailed on their leader, Abu
Sofian, to repair to Medina as ambassador of peace, trusting
that he might have some influence with the prophet through
his daughter Omm Habiba.
It was a sore trial to this haughty chief to come almost a
suppliant to the man whom he had scoffed at as an impostor,
and treated with inveterate hostility ; and his proud spirit was
to still further mortification, for Mahomet, judging
146 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
from his errand of the weakness of his party, and being se
cretly bent on war, vouchsafed him no reply.
Repressing his rage, Abu Sofian sought the intermediation of
Abu Beker, of Omar, and Ali; but they all rebuked and re
pulsed him; for they knew the secret wishes of Mahomet.
He next endeavored to secure the favor of Fatima, the daugh
ter of Mahomet and wife of Ali, by flattering a mother's
pride, entreating her to let her son Hasan, a child but six
years old, be his protector; but Fatima answered haughtily,
* ' My son is too young to be a protector ; and no protection can
avail against the will of the prophet of God." Even his daugh
ter, Omm Habiba, the wife of Mahomet, on whom Abu Sofian
had calculated for influence, added to his mortification, for on
his offering to seat himself on a mat in her dwelling, she has
tily folded it up, exclaiming, "It is the bed of the prophet
of God, and too sacred to be made the resting-place of an
idolater."
The cup of humiliation was full to overflowing, and in the
bitterness of his heart Abu Sofian cursed his daughter. He
now turned again to Ali, beseeching his advice in the desperate
state of his embassy.
"I can advise nothing better," replied Ali, "than for thee to
promise, as the head of the Koreishites, a continuance of thy
protection; and then to return to thy home."
"But thinkest thou that promise will be of any avail?"
"I think not," replied Ali dryly; "but I know not to the
contrary."
In pursuance of this advice, Abu Sofian repaired to the
mosque, and made public declaration, in behalf of the Koreish
ites, that on their part the treaty of peace should be faith
fully maintained; after which he returned to Mecca, deeply
humiliated by the imperfect result of his mission. He was re
ceived with scoffs by the Koreishites, who observed that his
declaration of peace availed nothing without the concurrence
?£ Mahomet,
MAUOMKT AXD UIS SUCCESSORS. 147
CHAPTER XXX.
SURPRISE AND CAPTURE OF MECCA,
MAHOMET now prepared for a secret expedition to take Mecca
by surprise. His allies were summoned from all quarters to
Medina; but no intimation was given of the object he had in
view. All the roads leading to Mecca were barred to prevent
any intelligence of his movements being carried to the Koreish-
ites. With all his precautions the secret came near being
discovered. Among his folloVers, fugitives from Mecca, was
one named Hateb, whose family had remained behind, and
were without connections or friends to take an interest in
their welfare. Hateb now thought to gain favor for them
among the Koreishites, by betraying the plans of Mahomet.
He accordingly wrote a letter revealing the intended enter
prise, and gave it in charge to a singing woman, named Sara,
a Haschemite slave, who undertook to carry it to Mecca.
She was already on the road when Mahomet was apprised of
the treachery. Ali and five others, well mounted, were sent
in pursuit of the messenger. They soon overtook her, but
searched her person in vain. Most of them would have given
up the search and turned back, but Ali was confident that
the prophet of God could not be mistaken nor misinformed.
Drawing his scimetar, he swore to strike off the head of the
messenger, unless the letter were produced. The threat was
effectual. She drew forth the letter from among her hair.
Hateb, on being taxed with his perfidy, acknowledged it, but
pleaded his anxiety to secure favor for his destitute family,
and his certainty that the letter would be harmless, and of
no avail against the purposes of the apostle of God. Omar
spurned at his excuses, and would have struck off his head ;
but Mahomet, calling to mind that Hateb had fought bravely
in support of the faith in the battle of the Beder, admitted his
excuses and forgave him.
The prophet departed with ten thousand men on this mo
mentous enterprise. Omar, who had charge of regulating the
march and appointing the encampments, led the army by
lonely passes of the mountains ; prohibiting the sound of atta-
bal or trumpet, or anything else that could betray their move*
148 • MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
ments. While on the march Mahomet was joined by his
uncle Al Abbas, who had come forth with his family from
Mecca, to rally under the standard of the faith. Mahomet re
ceived him graciously, yet with a hint at his tardiness. ' ' Thou
art the last of the emigrants," said he, "as I am the last of
the prophets." Al Abbas sent his family forward to Medina,
while he turned and accompanied the expedition. The army
reached the valley of Marr Azzahran, near to the sacred city,
without being discovered. It was nightfall when they silently
pitched their tents, and now Omar for the first time permitted
them to light their watchfires.
In the mean time, though Al Abbas had joined the standard
of the faith in all sincerity, yet he was sorely disquieted at
seeing his nephew advancing against Mecca with such a pow
erful force and such hostile intent, and feared the entire de
struction of the Koreishites, unless they could be persuaded in
time to capitulate. In the dead of the night he mounted Ma
homet's white mule Fadda, and rode forth to reconnoitre. In
skirting the camp he heard the tramp of men and sound of
voices. A scouting party were bringing in two prisoners cap
tured near the city. Al Abbas approached, and found the
captives to be Abu Sofian and one of his captains. They were
conducted to the watchfire of Omar, who recognized Abu
Sofian by the light. " God be praised," cried he, "that I have
such an enemy in my hands, and without conditions." His
ready scimetar might have given fatal significance to -his
words, had not Al Abbas stepped forward and taken Abu
Sofian under his protection, until the will of the prophet
should be known. Omar rushed forth to ascertain that will,
or rather to demand the life of the prisoner ; but Al Abbas,
taking the latter up behind him, put spurs to his mule, and
xvas the firstfto reach the tent of the prophet, followed hard by
Omar, clamping for the head of Abu Sofian.
Mahomet £ius beheld in his power his inveterate enemy, who
had driven him from his home and country, and persecuted
his family and friends ; but he beheld in him the father of his
wife Omm Habiba, and felt inclined to clemency. He post
poned all decision in the matter until morning, giving. Abu
Sofian in charge of Al Abbas.
When the captain was brought before him on the following
day, "Well, Ab» Sofian," cried he, "is it not at length time
to know that there is no other God but God?"
"That I already knew/' replied Abu Sofian.
MA110MKT AND MS 8UOOKS80SS. 149
Good ! and is it not time for thee to acknowledge me as the
of God?"
''Dearer art thou tome than my father and my mother,"
it j.l I od Abu Sofian, using an oriental phrase of compliment;
' ' but I am not yet prepared to acknowledge thee a prophet. "
"Out upon thee!" cried Omar, "testify instantly to the
truth, or thy head shall be severed from thy body."
To these threats were added the counsels and entreaties of Al
Abbas, who showed himself a real friend in need. The rancor
of Abu Sofian had already been partly subdued by the unex
pected mildness of Mahomet; so, making a merit of necessity,
he acknowledged the divinity of his mission ; furnishing an il
lustration of the Moslem maxim, " To convince stubborn unbe
lievers there is no argument like the sword."
Having now embraced the faith, Abu Sofian obtained favor
able terms for the people of Mecca, in case of their submission.
None were to fee harmed who should remain quietly in their
houses ; or should take refuge in the houses of Abu Sofian and
Hakim ; or under the banner of Abu Rawaiha.
That Abu Sofian nught take back to the city a proper idea of
the force brought against it, he was stationed with Al Abbas
at a narrow defile where the whole army passed in review. As
the various Arab tribes marched by with their different arms
and ensigns, Al Abbas explained the name and country of
each. Abu Sofian was surprised at the number, discipline, and
equipment of the troops ; for the Moslems had been rapidly im
proving in the means and art of war ; but when Mahomet ap
proached, in the midst of a chosen guard, armed at all points
and glittering with steel, his astonishment passed all bounds.
' * There is no withstanding this !" cried he to Al Abbas, with an
oath—" truly thy nephew wields a mighty power."
" Even so," replied the other; "return then to thy people;
provide for their safety, and warn them not to oppose the
apostle of God."
Abu Sofian hastened back to Mecca, and assembling the in
habitants, told them of the mighty host at hand, led on by Ma
homet ; of the favorable terms offered in case of their submis
sion, and of the vanity of all resistance. As Abu Sofian had
been the soul of the opposition to Mahomet and his doctrines,
his words had instant effect in producing acquiescence in an
event which seemed to leave no alternative. The greater part
of the inhabitants, therefore, prepared to witness, without re-
distance, the entry of the prophet.
MAHOMET AND His SUCCESSORS.
Mahomet, in the mean time, who knew not what resistance
he might meet with, made a careful distribution of his forces as
he approached the city. While the main body marched direct-
ly forward, strong detachments advanced over the hills on each
side. To Ali, who commanded a large body of cavalry, was
confided the sacred banner, which he was to plant on Mount
Hadjun, and maintain it there until joined by the prophet.
Express orders were given to all the generals to practise for
bearance, and in no instance to make the first attack ; for it
was the earnest desire of Mahomet to win Mecca by modera
tion and clemency, rather than subdue it by violence. It is
true, all who offered armed resistance were to be cut down, but
none were to be harmed who submitted quietly. Overhearing
one of his captains exclaim, in the heat of his zeal, that ' ' no
place was sacred on the day of battle," he instantly appointed
a cooler-headed commander in his place.
The main body of the army advanced without molestation.
Mahomet brought up the rear-guard, clad in a scarlet vest, and
mounted on his favorite camel Al Kaswa. He proceeded but
slowly, however; his movements being impeded by the im
mense multitude which thronged around him. Arrived on
Mount Hadjun, where Ali had planted the standard of the
faith, a tent was pitched for him. Here he alighted, put off
his scarlet garment, and assumed the black turban and the pil
grim garb. Casting a look down into the plain, however, he
beheld, with grief and indignation, the gleam of swords and
lances, and Khaled, who commanded the left wing, in a full
career of carnage. His troops, composed of Arab tribes con
verted to the faith, had been galled by a flight of arrows from
a body of Koreishites ; whereupon the fiery warrior charged
into the thickest of them with sword and lance; his troops
pressed after him ; they put the enemy to flight, entered the
gates of Mecca pell-mell with them, and nothing but the swift
commands of Mahomet preserved the city from a general
massacre.
The carnage being stopped, and no further opposition mani
fested, the prophet descended from the mount and approached
the gates, seated on his camel, accompanied by Abu Beker on
his right hand, and followed by Osama, the son of Zeid. The
sun was just rising as he entered the gates of his native city,
with the glory of a conqueror, but the garb and humility of a
pilgrim. He entered, repeating verses of the Koran, which he
said had been revealed to him at Medina, aod were prophetic
Ul-T AM) UTS SUCCESSORS. 151
of the event. He triumphed in the spirit of a religious zealot,
not of a warrior. 4< Unto God," said he, "belong the hosts of
heaven and earth, and God is mighty and wise. Now hath
God verified unto his apostle the vision, wherein he said, ye
shall surely enter the holy temple of Mecca in full security."
Without dismounting, Mahomet repaired directly to the
Caaba, the scene of his early devotions, the sacred shrine of
worship since the days of the patriarchs, and which he regarded
as the primitive temple of the one true God. Here he made
the seven circuits round the sacred edifice, a reverential rite
from the days of religious purity ; with the same devout feel
ing he each time touched the black stone with his staff; regard
ing it as a holy relic. He would have entered the Caaba, but
Othman Ibn Talha, the ancient custodian, locked the door.
Ali snatched the keys, but Mahomet caused them to*be returned
to the venerable officer, and so won him by his kindness that
he not merely threw open the doors, but subsequently em
braced the faith of Islam ; whereupon he was continued in his
office.
Mahomet now proceeded to execute the great object of his
religious aspirations, the purifying of the sacred edifice from
the symbols of idolatry, with which it was crowded. All the
idols in and about it, to the number of three hundred and
sixty, were thrown down and destroyed. Ajnong these the
most renowned was Hobal, an idol brought from Balka, in
Syria, and fabled to have the power of granting rain. It was,
of course, a great object of worship among the inhabitants of
the thirsty desert. There were statues of Abraham and Ish-
mael also, represented with divining arrows in their hands;
"an outrage on their memories," said Mahomet, "being sym
bols of a diabolical art which they had never practised." In
reverence of their memories, therefore, these statues were
demolished. There were paintings, also, depicting angels in
the guise of beautiful women. 'The angels," said Mahomet
indignantly, "are no such beings. There are celestial houris
provided in paradise for the solace of true believers ; but angels
are ministering spirits of the Most High, and of too pure a
nature to admit of sex." The paintings were accordingly
obliterated.
Even a dove, curiously carved of wood, he broke with his
own hands, and cast upon the ground, as savoring of idolatry.
From the Caaba he proceeded to the well of Zem Zem. It
was sacred in his eyes, from his belief that it was the identical
152 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
well revealed by the angel to Hagar and Ishmael, in their ex
tremity ; he considered the rite connected with it as pure and
holy, and continued it in his faith. As he approached the
well, his uncle Al Abbas presented him a cruse of the wat' r,
that he might drink, and make the customary ablution. rn
commemoration of this pious act, he appointed his UB le
guardian of the cup of the well ; an office of sacred digniry,
which his descendants retain to this day.
At noon one of his followers, at his command, summoned
the people to prayer from the top of the Caaba, a custom con
tinued ever since throughout Mahometan countries, from
minarets or towers provided in every mosque. He also estab
lished the Kebla, toward which the faithful in every part of
the world should turn their faces in prayer.
He afterward addressed the people in a kind of sermon, set
ting forth his principal doctrines, and announcing the triumph
of the faith as a fulfilment of prophetic promise. Shouts burst
from the multitude in reply. "Allah Achbar ! God is great !"
cried they. "There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his
prophet."
The religious ceremonials being ended, Mahomet took his
station on the hill Al Safa, and the people of Mecca, male and
female, passed before him, taking the oath of fidelity to him
as the prophet of God, and renouncing idolatry. This was in
compliance with a revelation in the Koran : '*' God hath sent
his apostle with the direction, and the religion of truth that
he may exalt the same over every religion. Verily, they who
swear fealty to him, swear fealty unto God ; the hand of God
is over their hands." In the midst of his triumph, however,
he rejected all homage paid exclusively to himself, and all
regal authority. " Why dost thou tremble?" said he, to a man
who approached with timid and faltering steps. " Of what
dost thou stand in awe? I am no king, but the son of a
Koreishite woman, who ate flesh dried in the sun."
His lenity was equally conspicuous. The once haughty
chiefs of the Koreishites appeared with abject countenances
before the man they had persecuted, for their lives were in his
power.
"What can you expect at my hands?" demanded he sternly.
" Mercy, oh generous brother! Mercy, oh son of a generous
line!"
"Be it so!" cried he, with P mixture of scorn and pity,
•' Away 1 begone ! ye are free I"
XAUUMEL AXU JJJ*
««f his followers who had shnivd his persecutions were
dis ppointed in their anticipations of a bloody revenge, and
murmured at his clemency; but he persisted in it, and estab
lished Mecca as an inviolable sanctuary, or place of refuge, so
to continue until the final resurrection. He reserved to him
self, however, the right on the present occasion, and during
that special day, to punish a few of the people of the city, who
had grievously offended, and been expressly proscribed; yet
even these, for the most part, were ultimately forgiven.
Among the Koreishite women who advanced to take the
oath he descried Henda, the wife of Abu Sofian ; the savage
woman who had animated the infidels at the battle of Ohod,
and had gnawed the heart of Hamza, in revenge for the death
of her father. On the present occasion she had disguised her
self to escape detection; but seeing the eyes of the prophet
fixed on her, she threw herself at his feet, exclaiming, " I am
Henda : pardon ! pardon !" Mahomet pardoned her— and was
requited for his clemency by her making his doctrines the sub
ject of contemptuous sarcasms.
Among those destined to punishment was Wacksa, the
Ethiopian, who had slain Hamza ; but he had fled from Mecca
on the entrance of the army. At a subsequent period he pre
sented himself before the prophet, and made the profession of
faith before he was recognized. He was forgiven, and made
to relate the particulars of the death of Hamza ; after which
Mahomet dismissed him with an injunction never again to
come into his presence. He survived until the time of the
Caliphat of Omar, during whose reign he was repeatedly
scourged for drunkenness.
Another of the proscribed was Abdallah Ibn Saad, a young
Koreishite, distinguished for wit and humor as well as for
warlike accomplishments. As he held the pen of a ready
writer, Mahomet had employed him to reduce the revelations,
of the Koran to writing. In so doing he had often altered and
amended the text ; nay, it was discovered that, through care
lessness or design, he had occasionally falsified it, and ren
dered it absurd. He had even made his alterations and
amendments matter of scoff and jest among his companions,
observing that if the Koran proved Mahomet to be a prophet,
he himself must be half a prophet. His interpolations being
detected, he had fled from the wrath of the prophet, and re
turned to Mecca, where he relapsed into idolatry. On the cap
ture of tho city his foster-brother concealed him in his house
154 MAHOMET AND If IS
until the tumult had subsided, when he led him into the pres
ence of the prophet, and supplicated for his pardon. This
was the severest trial of the lenity of Mahomet. The offender
had betrayed his confidence; held him up to ridicule; ques
tioned his apostolic mission, and struck at the very foundation
of his faith. For some time he maintained a stern silence,
hoping, as he afterward declared, some zealous . disciple might
strike off the offender's head. No one, however, stirred ; so,
yielding to the entreaties of Othman, he granted a pardon.
Abdallah instantly renewed his profession of faith, and con
tinued a good Mussulman. His name will be found in the
wars of the Caliphs. He was one of the most dexterous horse
men of his tribe, and evinced his ruling passion to the last, for
he died repeating the hundredth chapter of the Koran, entitled
' ' The war steeds." Perhaps it was one which had experienced
his interpolations.
Another of the proscribed was Akrema Ibn Abu Jahl, who
on many occasions had manifested a deadly hostility to the
prophet, inherited from his father. On the entrance of Ma
homet into Mecca, Akrema threw himself upon a fleet horse,
and escaped by an opposite gate, leaving behind him a beauti
ful wife, Omm Hakem, to whom he was recently married.
She embraced the faith of Islam, but soon after learnt that
her husband, in attempting to escape by sea to Yemen, had
been driven back to port. Hastening to the presence of the
prophet, she threw herself on her knees before him, loose, di
shevelled, and unveiled, and implored grace for her husband.
The prophet, probably more moved by her beauty ihan her
grief, raised her gently from the earth, and told her her prayer
was granted. Hurrying to the seaport, she arrived just as the
vessel in which her husband had embarked was about to sail.
She returned, mounted behind him, -to Mecca, and brought
.him, a true believer, into the presence of the prophet. On this
occasion, however, she was so closely veiled that her dark eyes
alone were visible. Mahomet received Akrema's profession of
faith ; made him commander of a battalion of Hawazenites, as
the dower of his beautiful and devoted wife, and bestowed lib
eral donations on the youthful couple. Like many other con
verted enemies, Akrema proved a valiant soldier in the wars
of the faith, and after signalizing himself on various occasions,
fell in battle, hacked and pierced by swords and lances.
The whole conduct of Mahomet, on gaining possession of
Mecca, showed that it was a religious more than a military
MAHOMET AND IllS StfCCESSOtiS.
triumph. His heart, too, softened toward his native place,
now that it was in his power; his resentments were extin
guished by success, and his inclinations were all toward for
giveness.
The Ansarians, or Auxiliaries of Medina; who had aided him
in his campaign, began to fear that its success might prove
fatal to their own interests. They watched him anxiously, as
one day, after praying on the hill Al Safa, he sat gazing down
AvistfuUy upon Mecca, the scene of his early struggles and
recent glory: "Verily," said he, "thou art the best of cities,
and the most beloved of Allah ! Had I not been driven out
from thee by my own tribe, never would I have left thee !"
On hearing this, the Ansarians said, one to another, " Behold!
Mahomet is conqueror and master of his native city ; he will,
doubtless, establish himself here, and forsake Medina !" Their
words reached his ear, and he turned to them with reproach
ful warmth: "Nor cried he, " when you plighted to me your*
allegiance, I swore to live and die with you. I should not act
as the servant of God, nor as his ambassador, were I to leave
you."
He acted according to his words, and Medina, which had
been his city of refuge, continued to be his residence to his
dying day.
Mahomet did not content himself with purifying the Caaba
and abolishing idolatry from his native city ; he sent forth his
captains at the head of armed bands, to cast down the idols of
different tribes set up in the neighboring towns and villages,
and to convert their worshippers to his faith.
Of all these military apostles, none was so zealous as Khaled,
whose spirit was still fermenting with recent conversion.
Arriving at Naklah, the resort of the idolatrous Koreishites, to
worship at the shrine of Uzza, he penetrated the sacred grove,
laid waste the temple, and cast the idol to the ground. A hor
rible hag, black and naked, with dishevelled hair, rushed forth,
shrieking and wringing her hands; but Khaled severed her
through the middle with one blow of his scimetar. He
reported the deed to Mahomet, expressing a doubt whether
she were priestess or evil spirit. " Of a truth," replied the pro
phet, " it was Uzza herself whom thou hast destroyed."
On a similar errand into the neighboring province of Teha-
ma, Khaled had with him three hundred and fifty men, some
of them of the tribe of Suleim, and was accompanied by Ab-
da'lrahman, one of the earliest proselytes of the faith. His
156 MAHOMi:i AND 11 IS SUCCESSORS.
instructions from the prophet were to preach peace and good
will, to inculcate the faith, and to abstain from violence,
unless assailed. When about two days' journey on his way to
Tehama, he had to pass through the country of the tribe of
Jadsima. Most of the inhabitants had embraced the faith,
but some were still of the Sabean religion. On a former occa
sion this tribe had plundered and slain an uncle of Khaled,
also the father of Abda'lrahman, and several Suleimites, au
they were returning from Arabia Felix. Dreading that
Khaled and his host might take vengeance for these misdeeds,
they armed themselves on their approach.
Khaled was secretly rejoiced at seeing them ride forth to
meet him in this military array. Hailing them with an impe
rious tone, he demanded whether they were Moslems or infi
dels. They replied in faltering accents, "Moslems." "Why,
then, come ye forth to meet us with weapons in your hands?"
" Because we have enemies among some of the tribes who may
attack us unawares."
Khaled sternly ordered them to dismount and lay by their
weapons. Some complied, and were instantly seized and
bound ; the rest fled. Taking their flight as a confession of
guilt, he pursued them with great slaughter, laid waste the
country, and in the effervescence of his zeal even slew some of
the prisoners.
Mahomet, when he heard of this unprovoked outrage, raised
his hands to heaven, and called God to witness that he was
innocent of it. Khaled, when upbraided with it on his return,
would lain have shifted the blame on Abda'lrahman, but Maho
met rejected indignantly an imputation against one of the ear
liest and worthiest of his followers. The generous Ali was
sent forthwith to restore to the people of Jadsima what
Khaled had wrested from them, and to make pecuniary com
pensation to the relatives of the slain. It was a mission con
genial with his nature, and he executed it faithfully. Inquir
ing into the losses and sufferings of each individual, he paid
him to his full content. When every loss was made good, and
all blood atoned for, he distributed the remaining money
among the people, gladdening every heart by his bounty. So
Ali received the thanks and praises of the prophet, but the
vindictive Khaled was rebuked even by those whom he had
thought to please.
"Behold!" said he to Abda'lrahman, "I have avenged tho
death of thy father." " Rather say," replied tho other i
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 157
nantly, "thou hast avenged the death of thino uncle. Thou
hast disgraced the faith by an act worthy of an idolater."
CHAPTER XXXL
HOSTILITIES IN THE MOUNTAINS — ENEMY'S CAMP IN THE VALLEY
OF AUTAS — BATTLE AT THE PASS OF HONEIN — CAPTURE OF THE
ENEMY'S CAMP— INTERVIEW OF MAHOMET WITH THE NURSE OF
HIS CHILDHOOD— DIVISION OF SPOIL— MAHOMET AT HIS MOTHER'S
GRAVE.
WHILE the military apostles of Mahomet were spreading his
doctrines at the point of the sword in the plains, a hostile
storm was gathering in the mountains. A league was formed
among the Thakefites, the Hawazins, the Joshmites, the Saad-
ites, and several other of the hardy mountain tribes of Be
douins, to check a power which threatened to subjugate all
Arabia. The Saadites, or Beni Sad, here mentioned, are the
same pastoral Arabs among whom Mahomet had been nur
tured in his childhood, and in whose valley, according to tra
dition, his heart had been plucked forth and purified by an
angel. The Thakefites, who were foremost in the league, were
a powerful tribe, possessing the strong mountain- town of
Tayef and its productive territory. They were bigoted idola
ters, maintaining at their capital the far-famed shrine of the
female idol Al Lat. The reader will remember the ignomini
ous treatment of Mahomet, when he attempted to preach his
doctrines at Tayef; being stoned in the public square, and
ultimately driven with insult from the gates. It was probably
a dread of vengeance at his hands which now made the Thakef
ites so active in forming a league against him.
Malec Ibn Auf, the chief of the Thakefites, had the general
command of the confederacy. He appointed the valley of
Autas, between Honein and Tayef, as the place of assemblage
and encampment; and as he knew the fickle nature of the
Arabs, and their proneness to return home on the leact ca
price, he ordered them to bring with them their families and
effects. They assov^tlod. accordingly, from various parts, to
153 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the number of four thousand fighting men; but the camp was
crowded with women and children, and encumbered with
flocks and herds.
The expedient of Malec Ibn Auf to secure the adhesion of the
warriors was strongly disapproved by Doraid, the chief of the
Joshmites. This was an ancient warrior, upward of a hundred
years old; meagre as a skeleton, almost blind, and so feeble
that he had to be borne in a litter on the back of a camel.'
'Still, though unable to mingle in battle, he was potent in coun
cil from his military experience. This veteran of the desert
advised that the women and children should be sent home
forthwith, and the army relieved from all unnecessary incum-
brances. His advice was not taken, and the valley of Autas
continued to present rather the pastoral encampment of a tribe
than the hasty levy of an army.
In the mean time Mahomet, hearing of the gathering storm,
had sallied forth to anticipate it, at the head of about twelve
thousand troops, partly fugitives from Mecca and auxiliaries
from Medina, partly Arabs of the desert, some of whom had
not yet embraced the faith.
In taking the field he wore a polished cuirass and helmet,
and rode his favorite white mule Daldal, seldom mounting a
charger, as he rarely mingled in actual fight. His recent suc
cesses and his superiority in numbers making him confident of
an easy victory, he entered the mountains without precaution,
and pushing forward for the enemy's camp at Mutas, came to
a deep gloomy valley on the confines of Honein. The troops
marched without order through the rugged defile, each one
choosing his own path. Suddenly they were assailed by
showers of darts, stones, and arrows, which laid two or three
of Mahomet's soldiers dead at his feet, and wounded several
others. Malec, in fact, had taken post with his ablest warriors
about the heights commanding this narrow gorge. Every
cliff and cavern was garrisoned with archers and slingers, and
some rushed down to contend at close quarters.
Struck with a sudden panic, the Moslems turned and fled. In
vain did Mahomet call upon them as their general, or appeal
to them as the prophet of God. Each man sought but his own
safety, and an escape from this horrible valley.
For a moment all seemed lost, and some recent but unwill
ing converts betrayed an exultation in the supposed reverse of
fortune of the prophet.
"By heavens!" cried Abu Sofian~as he looked after the fly
MAUOMLT AND Ills SUCCESSORS. 159
ing Moslems, "nothing will stop them until they reach the
sea."
" Ay," exclaimed another, " the magic power of Mahomet is
;it an end!"
A third, who cherished a lurking revenge for the death of
his father, slain by the Moslems in the battle of Ohod, would
have killed the prophet in the confusion, had he not been sur
rounded and protected by a few devoted followers. Mahomet
himself, in an impulse of desperation, spurred his mule upon
the enemy ; but Al Abbas seized the bridle, stayed him from
rushing to certain death, and at the same time put up a shout
that echoed through the narrow valley. Al Abbas was re
nowned for strength of lungs, and at this critical moment it
was the salvation of the army. The Moslems rallied when
they heard his well-known voice, and finding they were not
pursued returned to the combat. The enemy had descended
from the heights, and now a bloody conflict ensued in the de
file. "The furnace is kindling," cried Mahomet exultingly,
as he saw the glitter of arms and flash of weapons. Stooping
from his saddle and grasping a handful of dust, he scattered it
in the air towards the enemy. ' ' Confusion on their faces !" cried
he, "may this dust blind them!" They were blinded accord
ingly , and fled in confusion, say the Moslem writers ; though
their defeat may rather be attributed to the Moslem superior
ity of force and the zeal inspired by the acclamations of the
prophet. Malec and the Thakefites took refuge in the distant
city of Tayef, the rest retreated to the camp in the valley of
Autas.
While Mahomet remained in the valley of Honein, he sent
Abu Amir, with a strong force, to attack the camp. The
Hawazins made a brave defence. Abu Amir was slain; but
his nephew, Abu Musa, took the command, and obtained a
complete victory, killing many of the enemy. The camp af
forded great booty and many captives, from the unwise expe
dient of Malec Ibn Auf , in incumbering it with the families
and effects, the flocks and herds of the confederates ; and from
his disregard of the sage advice of the veteran Doraid. The
fate of that ancient warrior of the desert is worthy of mention.
While the Moslem troops, scattered through the camp, were
intent on booty, Rabia Ibn Rafi, a young Suleimite, observed a
litter borne off on the back of a camel, and pursued it, suppos
ing it to contain some beautiful female. On overtaking it, and
flrnwing the curtain, he bohrltl tin? skeleton form of the on
1(50 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
cient Doraid. Vexed and disappointed, he struck at him
with his sword, but the weapon broke in his hand. "Thy
mother," said the old man sneeringly, "has furnished thee
with wretched weapons ; thou wilt find a better one hanging
behind my saddle."
The youth seized it, but as he drew it from the scabbard,
Doraid perceiving that he was a Suleimite, exclaimed, "Tell
thy mother thou hast slain Doraid Ibn Simm?,, who has pro
tected many women of her tribe in the day of battle." The
words were ineffectual ; the skull of the veteran was cloven
with his own seimetar. When Rabia, on his return to Mecca,
told his mother of the deed, " Thou hast indeed slain a bene
factor of thy race," said she reproachfully. " Three women of
thy family has Doraid Ibn Simma freed from captivity. "
Abu Musa returned in triumph to Mahomet, making a great
display of the spoils of the camp of Autas, and the women and
children whom he had captured. One of the female captives
threw herself at the feet of the prophet, and implored his
mercy as his foster-sister Al Shima, the daughter of his nurse
Halema, who had nurtured him in the Saadite valley. Ma
homet sought in vain to recognize in her withered features the
bright playmate of his infancy, but she laid bare her back, and
showed a scar where he had bitten her in their childish gam
bols. He no longer doubted; but treated her with kindness,
giving her the choice either to remain with Mm and under his,
protection, or to return to her home and kindred.
A scruple rose among the Moslems with respect to their
female captives. Could they take to themselves such as were
married, without committing the sin of adultery? The revela
tion of a text of the Koran put an end to the difficulty. "Ye
shall not take to wife free women who are married unless your
right hand shall have made them slaves." According to this
all women taken in war may be made the wives of the captors,
though their former husbands be living. The victors of Honein
failed not to take immediate advantage of this law.
Leaving the captives and the booty in a secure place, and
properly guarded, Mahomet now proceeded in pursuit of the
Thakefites who had taken refuge in Tayef. A sentiment of
vengeance mingled with his pious ardor as he approached this
idolatrous place, the scene of former injury and insult, and
beheld the gate whence he had once been ignominiously driven
forth. The walls were too strong, however to be stormed, and
there was a protecting castle ; for the first time, therefore, he
MAltOXET AND Ills Xl'C'CtiSSORS. 161
had recourse to catapults, battering-rams, and other engines
used in sieges, but unknown in Arabian warfare. These were
prepared under the direction of Salman al Farsi, the converted
Persian.
The besieged, however, repulsed every attack, galling the
assailants with darts and arrows, and pouring down melted
iron upon the shields of bull-hides, under covert of which they
approached the walls. Mahomet now laid waste the fields, the
orchards, and vineyards, and proclaimed freedom to all slaves
who should desert from the city. For twenty days he carried
on an ineffectual siege— daily offering up prayers midway be
tween the tents of his wives Omm Salama and Zeinab, to whom
it had fallen by lot to accompany him in this campaign. His
hopes of success began to fail, and he was further discourage I
by a dream, which was unfavorably interpreted by Abu Beker,
renowned for his skill in expounding visions. He would have
raised the siege, but his troops murmured; whereupon he
ordered an assault upon one of the gates. As usual, it was
obstinately defended ; numbers were slain on both sides ; Abu
Sofian, who fought valiantly on the occasion, lost an eye, and
the Moslems were finally repulsed.
Mahomet now broke up his camp, promising his troops to
renew the siege at a fuhire day, and proceeded to the place
where were collected the spoils of his expedition. These, say
Arabian writers, amounted to twenty-four thousand camels,
forty thousand sheep, four thousand ounces of silver, and six
thousand captives.
In a little while appeared a deputation from the Hawazins,
declaring the submission of their tribe, and begging the
restoration of their families and effects. With them came
Halema, Mahomet's foster-nurse, now well stricken in years.
The recollections of his childhood again pleaded with his heart.
"Which is dearest to you, "said he to the Hawazins, "your
families or your goods?" They replied, " Our families."
"Enough," rejoined he, "as far as it concerns Al Abbas and
myself, we are ready to give up our share of the prisoners ;
but there are others to be moved. Come to me after noontide
prayer, and say, ' We implore the ambassador of God that he
counsel his followers to return us<our wives and children; and
we implore his followers that they intercede with him in our
favor.'"
The envoys did as he advised. Mahomet and Al Abbas im
mediately renounced their share of the captives ; their example
;'!' AM) JUS S
was i'ollor.-cd by all excepting the tribes of Tamini and Fazaru,
but Mahomet brought them to consent by promising them a six^
fold share of the prisoners taken in the next expedition. Thus
the intercession of Halema procured the deliverance of all the
captives ot her tribe. A traditional anecdote shows the defer
ence with which Mahomet treated this humble protector of his
infancy. "I was sitting with the prophet," said one of his
disciples, "when all of a sudden a woman presented herself,
and he rose and spread his cloth for her to sit down upon.
When she went away, it was observed, ' That woman suckled
the prophet.'"
Mahomet now sent an envoy to Malec, who remained shut up
in Tayef, offering the restitution of all the spoils taken from
him at Honein, and a present of one hundred camels, if he
would submit and embrace the faith. Malec was conquered
and converted by this liberal offer, and brought several of his
confederate tribes with him to the standard of the prophet.
He was immediately made their chief; and proved, subse
quently, a severe scourge in the cause of the faith to his late
associates the Thakefites.
The Moslems now began to fear that Mahomet, in these mag
nanimous impulses, might squander away all the gains of their
recent battles ; thronging round him, therefore, they clamored
for a division of the spoils and captives. Regarding them
indignantly, " Have you ever," said he, " found me avaricious,
or false, or disloyal?" Then plucking a hair from the back of
a camel, and raising his voice, "By Allah!" cried he, "I have
never taken from the common spoil the value of that camel's
hair more than my fifth, and that fifth has always been ex
pended for your good. "
He then shared the booty as usual ; four fifths among the
troops ; but his own fifth he distributed amoBg those whose
fidelity he wished to insure. The Koreishites he considered
dubious allies; perhaps he had overheard the exultation of
some of them in anticipation of his defeat ; he now sought to
rivet them to him by gifts. To Abu Sofian he gave one hun
dred camels and forty okks of silver, in compensation for the
eye lost in the attack on the gate of Tayef. To Akrema Ibn
Abu Jahl, and others of like note, he gave in due proportions,
and all from his own share.
Among the lukewarm converts thus propitiated, was Abbas
Ibn Mardas, a poet. He was dissatisfied with his share, and
vented his discontent in satirical verses. Mahomet overheard
MAHOMKT AND ms aVOOX88o&& 165
him. "Take that man hence," said he, "and cut out his
tongue." Omar, ever ready for rigorous measures, would
have executed the sentence literally, and on the spot; but
others, better instructed in the prophet's meaning, led Abbas,
all trembling, to the public square where the captured cattle
were collected, and bade him choose what he liked from among
them.
"What!" cried the poet joyously, relieved from the horrors
of mutilation, ** is this the way the prophet would silence my
tongue? By Allah! I will take nothing." Mahomet, however,
persisted in his politic generosity, and sent him sixty camels.
From that time forward the poet was never weary of chant
ing the liberality of the prophet.
While thus stimulating the good- will of lukewarm proselytes
of Mecca, Mahomet excited the murmurs of his auxiliaries of
Medina. "See," said they, "how he lavishes gifts upon the
treacherous Koreishites, while we, who have been loyal to him
through all dangers, receive nothing but our naked share.
What have we done that we should be thus thrown into the
background?"
Mahomet was told of their murmurs, and summoned their
leaders to his tent. "Hearken, ye men of Medina," said he;
"were ye not in discord among yourselves, and have I not
brought you into harmony ? Were ye not in error, and have
I not brought you into the path of truth? Were ye not poor,
and have I not made you rich?"
The,y acknowledged the truth of his words. "Look ye!"
continued he, ' ' I came among you stigmatized as a liar, yet
you believed in me ; persecuted, yet you protected me ; a fugi
tive, yet you sheltered me ; helpless, yet you aided me. Think
you I do not feel all this? Think you I can be ungrateful?
You complain that I bestow gifts upon these people, and give
none to you. It is true, I give them worldly gear, but it is to
win their worldly hearts. To you, who have been true, I give
-myself! They return home with sheep and camels; ye re
turn with the prophet of God among you. For by him in
whose hands is the soul of Mahomet, though the whole world
should go one way and ye another, I would remain with you !
Which of you, then, have I most rewarded?"
The auxiliaries were moved even to tears by this appeal.
" Oh, prophet of God," exclaimed they, " we are content with
our lot !"
The booty being divided, Mahomet returned to Mecca, not
164 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
with the parade and exultation of a conqueror, but in pilgrim
garb, to complete the rites of his pilgrimage. All these being
scrupulously performed, he appointed Moad Ibn Jabal as iman,
or pontiff, to instruct the people in the doctrines of Islam, and
gave the government of the city into the hands of Otab, a
youth but eighteen years of age ; after which he bade farewell
to his native place, and set out with his troops on the return
to Medina.
Arriving at the village of Al Abwa, where his mother was
buried, his heart yearned to pay a filial tribute to her mem
ory, but his own revealed law forbade any respect to the grave
of one who had died in unbelief. In the strong agitation of his
feelings he implored from heaven a relaxation of this law. If
there was any deception on an occasion of this kind, one would
imagine it must have been self-deception, and that he really
believed in a fancied intimation from heaven relaxing the law,
in part, in the present instance, and permitting him. to visit
the grave. He burst into tears on arriving at this trying place
of the tenderest affections ; but tears were all the filial tribute
he was permitted to offer. " I asked leave of God," said he
mournfully, "to visit my mother's grave, and it was granted •
but when I asked leave to pray for her, it was denied me''
CHAPTER XXXII.
DEATH OP THE PROPHET'S DAUGHTER ZEINAB— BIRTH OF HIS
SON IBRAHIM— DEPUTATIONS FROM DISTANT TRIBES— POETICAL
CONTEST IN PRESENCE OF THE PROPHET — HIS SUSCEPTIBILITY
TO THE CHARMS OF POETRY — REDUCTION OF THE CITY OF
TAYEF; DESTRUCTION OF ITS IDOLS— NEGOTIATION WITH AMIR
IBN TAFIEL, A PROUD BEDOUIN CHIEF ; INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF
THE LATTER— INTERVIEW OF ADI, ANOTHER CHIEF, WITH MA
HOMET.
SHORTLY after his return to Medina, Mahomet was afflicted
by the death of his daughter Zeinab, the same who had been
given up to him in exchange for her husband Abul Aass, the
unbeliever, captured at tho battle of Beder. The domestic
affections of the prophet were strong, and he felt deeply this
bereavement ; he was consoled, however, by the birth of a son,
MAUOXKT ASD HIS SUCCESSORS. 165
by his favorite concubine Mariyah. He called the child Ibra
him, and rejoiced in the hope that this son of his old age, his
only male issuo living, would continue his name to after gen
erations.
His fame, either as a prophet or a conqueror, was now
spreading to tho uttermost parts of Arabia, and deputations
from distant tribes were continually arriving at Medina, some
acknowledging him as a prophet and embracing Islamism;
others submitting to him as a temporal sovereign, and agree
ing to pay tribute The talents of Mahomet rose to the exi
gency of the moment ; his views expanded with his fortunes,
and he now proceeded with statesmanlike skill to regulate the
tiscal concerns of his rapidly growing empire. Under the
specious appellation of alms, a contribution was levied on true
believers, amounting to a tithe of the productions of the earth,
where it was fertilized by brooks and rain ; and a twentieth
part where its fertility was the result of irrigation. For every
ten camels two sheep were required ; for forty head of cattle,
one cow ; for thirty head, a two years' calf ; for every forty
sheep, one ; whoever contributed more than at this rate would
be considered so much the more devout, and would gain a pro
portionate favor in the eyes of God.
The tribute exacted from those who submitted to temporal
eway, but continued in unbelief, was at the rate of one dinar
in money or goods, for each adult person, bond or free.
Some difficulty occurred in collecting the -charitable contri
butions ; the proud tribe of Tamim openly resisted them, and
drove away the collector. A troop of Arab horse was sent
against them, and brought away a number of men, women,
and children, captives. A deputation of the Tamimites came
to reclaim the prisoners. Four of the deputies were renowned
as orators and poets, and instead of humbling themselves
before Mahomet, proceeded to declaim in prose and verse,
defying the Moslems to a poetical contest.
"I am not sent by God as a poet," replied Mahomet, " neither
do I seek fame as an orator."
Some of his followers, however, accepted the challenge, and
a war of ink ensued, in which the Tamimites acknowledged
themselves vanquished. So well pleased was Mahomet with
the spirit of their defiance, with their poetry, and with their
frank acknowledgment of defeat, that he not merely gave
them up the prisoners, hut dismissed them with presents.
Bother instance of his susceptibility to the charms of
166 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
poetry is recorded in the case of Caab Ibn Zohair, a celebrated
poet of Mecca, who had made him the subject of satirical
verses, and had consequently been one of the proscribed, but
had fled on the capture of the sacred city. Caab now came to
Medina to make his peace, and approaching Mahomet when in
the mosque, began chanting his praises in a poem afterward
renowned among the Arabs as a masterpiece. He concluded
by especially extolling his clemency, "for with the prophet of
God the pardon of injuries is, of all his virtues, that on which
one can rely with the greatest certainty. "
Captivated with the verse, and soothed by , the flattery,
Mahomet made good the poet's words, for he not merely for
gave him, but taking off his own mantle, threw it upon his
shoulders. The poet preserved the sacred garment to the day
of his death, refusing golden offers for it. The Caliph Moa-
wyah purchased it of his heirs for ten thousand drachmas, and
it continued to be worn by the Caliphs in processions and
solemn ceremonials, until the thirty-sixth Caliphat, when it
was torn from the back of the Caliph Al-Most'asem Billah, by
Holaga, the Tartar conqueror, and burnt to ashes.
While town after town and castle after castle of the Arab
tribes were embracing the faith, and professing allegiance to
Mahomet. Tayef, the stronghold of the Thakefites, remained
obstinate in the worship of its boasted idol Al Lat. The in
habitants confided in their mountain position, and in the
strength ci their, walls and castle. But, though safe from
assault, they found themselves gradually hemmed in and
isolated by the Moslems, so that at length they could not stir
beyond their walls without being attacked. Thus threatened
and harassed, they sent ambassadors to Mahomet to treat for
peace.
The prophet cherished a deep resentment against this stiff-
necked and most idolatrous city, which had at one time ejected
him from its gates, and at another time repulsed him from its
walls. His terms were conversion and unqualified submission.
The ambassadors readily consented to embrace Islamism them
selves, but pleaded the danger of suddenly shocking the people
of Tayef, by a demand to renounce their ancient Laith. In
their name, therefore, they entreated permission for three
years longer to worship their ancient idol Al Lat. The re
quest was peremptorily denied. They then asked at least one
month's delay, to prepare the public mind. This likewise
refused, all idolatry being incompatible with the worship
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 167
God. They then entreated to be excused from the observance
oi the daily prayers.
44 There can be no true religion without prayer," replied
Mahomet. In fine, they were compelled to make an uncon
ditional submission.
Abu Sofian, Ibn Harb, and Al Mogheira were sent to Tayot',
to destroy the idol Al Lat, which was of stone. Abu Sofian
struck at it with a pickaxe, but missing his blow fell prostrate
on his face. The populace set up a shout, considering it a
good augury, but Al Mogheira demolished their hopes, and
the statue, at one blow of a sledge-hammer. He then stripped
it of the costly robes, the bracelets, the necklace, the earrings,
and other ornaments of gold and precious stones wherewith it
had been decked by its worshippers, and left it in fragments
on the ground, with the women of Tayef weeping and lament
ing over it.*
Among those who still defied the power of Mahomet was the
Bedouin chief Amir Ibn Tufiel, head of the powerful tribe of
Amir. He was renowned for personal beauty and princely
magnificence ; but was of a haughty spirit, and his magnifi
cence partook of ostentation. At the great fair of Okaz,
between Tayef and Naklah, where merchants, pilgrims, and
poets were accustomed to assemble from all parts of Arabia, a
herald would proclaim: " Whoso wants a beast of burden, let
him come to Amir ; is any one hungry, let him come to Amir,
and he will be fed ; is he persecuted, let him fly to Amir, and
ho will be protected."
Amir had dazzled every one by his generosity, and his
ambition had kept pace with his popularity. The rising
power of Mahomet inspired him with jealousy. When ad
vised to make terms with him; "I have sworn," Teplied he
haughtily, "never to rest until I had won all Arabia; and
shall I do homage to this Koreishite ?"
The recent conquests of the Moslems, however, brought him
to listen to the counsels of his friends. He repaired to Medina,
and coming into the presence of Mahomet, demanded frankly,
" Wilt thou be my friend ?"
* The Thakefites continue a powerful tribe to this day, possessing the sanu> fer
tile region on the eastern declivity of tli»- Hodjas chain of mountains. Some in.
habit the nncient town of Tayef, others dwell in tents and have flocks of gonts and
sheep. They can raise two thousand matchlocks, and defended their stronghold of
Tayef in the wars with the Wahabys.— BurckhardVs Notes, v. 2.
168 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOfiS.
"Never, by Allah!" was the reply, "unless thou dost em
brace the faith of Islam."
" And if I do, wilt thou content thyself with the cway over
the Arabs of the cities, and leave to me the Bedouins of the
deserts?"
Mahomet replied in the negative.
"What, then, will I gain by embracing thy faith?"
"The fellowship of all true believers."
"I covet no such fellowship!" replied the proud Amir; and
with a warlike menace he returned to his tribe.
A Bedouin chiei'tain of a different character was Adi, a prince
of the tribe of Tai'. His father Hatim had been famous, not mere
ly for warlike deeds, but for boundless generosity, insomuch
that the Arabs were accustomed to say, "as generous as
Hatim." Adi the son was a Christian; and however he might
have inherited his father's generosity, was deficient in his
valor. Alarmed at the ravaging expeditions of the Moslems,
he ordered a young Arab, who tended his camels in the desert,
to have several of the strongest and fleetest at hand, and to
give instant notice of the approach of an enemy.
It happened that Ali, who was scouring that part of the
country with a band of horsemen, came in sight, bearing with
him two banners, one white, the other black. The young Be
douin beheld them from afar, and ran to Adi, exclaiming,
" The Moslems are at hand. I see their banners at a distance 1"
Adi instantly placed his wife and children on the camels, and
fled to Syria. His sister, surnamed Saffana, or the Pearl, fell
into the hands of the Moslems, and was carried with other cap
tives to Medina. Seeing Mahomet pass near to the place of her
confinement, she cried to him:
" Have pity upon me, oh ambassador of God! My father is
dead, and he who should have protected has abandoned me.
Have pity upon me, oh ambassador of God, as God may have
pity upon thee !"
"Who is thy protector?" asked Mahomet.
"Adi, the son of Hatim."
"He is a fugitive from God and his prophet," replied Maho
met, and passed on.
On the following day, as Mahomet was passing by, Ali, who
had been touched by the woman's beauty and her grief, whis
pered to her to arise and entreat the prophet once more. She
accordingly repeated her prayer. "Oh prophet of God! my
father is dead; my brother, who should have been my pro
MAHOMET AND II1S SUCCESSORS. 169
tector, has abandoned me. Have mercy upon mo, as God will
have mercy upon thee."
Mahomet turned to him benignantly. "Be it so," said he;
and he not only set her free, but gave her raiment and a camel,
and sent her by the first caravan bound to Syria.
Arriving in presence of her brother, she upbraided him with
his desertion. He acknowledged his fault, and was forgiven.
She then urged him to make his peace with Mahomet; "he is
truly a prophet," said she, "and will soon have universal
sway ; hasten, therefore, in time to win his favor. "
The politic Adi listened to her counsel, and hastening to Me
dina, greeted the prophet, who was in the mosque. His OWD
account of the interview presents a striking picture of the sim
ple manners and mode of life of Mahomet, now in the full ex
ercise of sovereign power, and the career of rapid conquest.
"He asked me," says Adi, "my name, and when I gave it, in
vited me to accompany him to his home. On the way a weak
emaciated woman accosted him. He stopped and talked to her
of her affairs. This, thought I to myself, is not very kingly.
When we arrived at his house he gave me a leathern cushion
stuffed with palm-leaves to sit upon, while he sat upon the bare
ground. This, thought I, is not very princely !
" He then asked me three times to embrace Islamism. I re
plied, I have a faith of my own. * I know thy faith,' said he,
'better than thou dost thyself. As prince, thou takest one-
fourth of the booty from thy people. Is this Christian doc
trine?' By these words I perceived him to be a prophet, who
knew more than other men.
" * Thou dost not incline to Islamism,' continued he, 'because
thou seest we are poor. The time is at hand when true be
lievers will have more wealth than they will know how to
manage. Perhaps thou art deterred by seeing the small num
ber of the Moslems in comparison with the hosts of their ene
mies. By Allah ! in a little while a Moslem woman will be able
to make a pilgrimage on her camel, alone and fearless, from
Kadesia to God's temple at Mecca. Thou thinkest, probably,
that the might is in the handn of the unbelievers ; know that
the time is not far off when we will plant our standards on the
white castles of Babylon.' " *
The politic Adi believed in the prophecy, and forthwith em
braced the faith.
* W«iT8 Mohammed, p. 347.
170 MAHOMET AJVD HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
PREPARATIONS FOR AN EXPEDITION AGAINST SYRIA— INTRIGUES
OF ABDALLAH IBN OBBA-— CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE FAITHFUL-
MARCH OF THE ARMY— THE ACCURSED REGION OF HAJAR—
ENCAMPMENT AT TABUC— SUBJUGATION OF THE NEIGHBORING
PROVINCES— KHALED SURPRISES OKAIDER AND HIS CASTLE-
RETURN OF THE ARMY TO MEDINA.
MAHOMET had now, either by conversion or conquest, made
himself sovereign of almost all Arabia. The scattered tribes
heretofore dangerous to each other, but by their disunion pow
erless against the rest of the world, he had united into one na
tion, and thus fitted for external conquest. His prophetic
character gave him absolute control of the formidable power
thus conjured up in the desert, and he was now prepared to
lead it forth for the propagation of the faith and the extension
of the Moslem power in foreign lands.
His numerous victories, and the recent affair at Muta, had at
length, it is said, roused the attention of the Emperor Herac-
lius, who was assembling an army on the confines of Arabia
to crush this new enemy. Mahomet determined to anticipate
his hostilities, and to carry the standard of the faith into the
very heart of Syria.
Hitherto he had undertaken his expeditions with secrecy,
imparting his plans and intentions to none but his most con
fidential officers, and beguiling his followers into enterprises
of danger. The present campaign, however, so different from
the brief predatory excursions of the Arabs, would require
great preparations ; an unusual force was to be assembled, and
all kinds of provisions made for distant marches, and a long
absence. He proclaimed openly, therefore, the object and
nature of the enterprise.
There was not the usual readiness to flock to his standard.
Many remembered the disastrous affair at Muta, and dreaded
to come again in conflict with disciplined Roman troops. The
time of year also was unpropitious for such a distant and pro
longed expedition. It was the season of summer heat; the
earth was parched, and the springs and brooks were dried up.
The date-harvest too was approaching, when the men should
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 171
be at home to gather the fruit, rather than at>road on predatory
enterprises.
All these things were artfully urged upon the people by Ab-
dallah Ibn Obba, the Khazradite, who continued to be the cov
ert enemy of Mahomet, and seized every occasion to counteract
his plans. " A fine season this," would he cry, " to undertake
such a distant march in defiance of dearth and drought, and the
fervid heat of the desert ! Mahomet seems to think a war with
Greeks quite a matter of sport ; trust me, you will find it very
different from a war of Arab against Arab. By Allah ! me-
thinks I already see you all in chains."
By these and similar scoffs and suggestions, he wrought upon
the fears and feelings of the Khazradites, his partisans, and
rendered the enterprise generally unpopular. Mahomet, as
usual, had resort to revelation. "Those who would remain
behind, and refuse to devote themselves to the service of God,"
said a timely chapter of the Koran, "allege the summer heat
as an excuse. Tell them the fire of hell is hotter ! They may
hug themselves in the enjoyment of present safety, but end
less tears will be their punishment hereafter."
Some of his devoted adherents manifested their zeal at this
lukewarm moment. Omar. Al Abbas, and Abda'lrahman gave
large sums of money ; several female devotees brought their
ornaments and jewels. Othman delivered one thousand, some
say ten thousand, dinars to Mahomet, and was absolved from
his sins, past, present, or to come. Abu Beker gave four thou
sand drachmas ; Mahomet hesitated to accept the offer, know
ing it to be all that he possessed. "What will remain," said
he, "for thee and thy family ?" " God and his prophet," was
the reply.
These devout examples had a powerful effect ; yet it was with
much difficulty that an army of ten thousand horse and twenty
thousand foot was assembled. Mahomet now appointed Ali
governor of Medina during his absence, and guardian of both
their families. He accepted the trust with great reluctance,
having been accustomed always to accompany the prophet, and
share all his perils. All arrangements being completed, Ma
homet marched forth from Medina on this momentous expedi
tion. A part of his army was composed of Khazradites and
their confederates, led by Abdallah Ibn Obba. This man, whom
Mahomet had t\ oil denominated the Chief of the Hypocrites,
encamped separately with his adherents at night, at some
distance in the rear of the main army ; and when the latter
172 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
marched forward in the morning, lagged behind, and led his
troops back to Medina. Repairing to Ali, whose dominion in
the city was irksome to him and his adherents, he endeavored
to make him discontented with his position, alleging that Ma
homet had left him in charge of Medina solely to rid himself
of an ineumbrance. Stung by the suggestion, Ali hastened
after Mahomet, and demanded if what Abdallah and his fol
lowers said were true.
"These men," replied Mahomet, "are liars. They are the
party of Hypocrites and Doubters, who would breed sedition
in Medina. I left fchee behind to keep watch over them, and to
be a guardian to both our families. I would have thee to be to
me what Aaron was to Moses ; excepting that thou canst not
be, like him, a prophet ; I being the last of the prophets." With
this explanation, Ali returned contented to Medina.
Many have inferred from the foregoing that Mahomet in
tended Ali for his Caliph or successor ; that being the significa
tion of the Arabic word used to denote the relation of Aaron
to Moses.
The troops who had continued on with Mahomet soon began
to experience the difficulties of braving the desert in this sultry
season. Many turned back on the second day, and others on
the third and fourth. Whenever word was brought to the
prophet of their desertion, "Let them go," would be the reply ;
"if they are good for anything God will bring them back to
us; if they are not, we are relieved from so many incum-
brances."
While some thus lost heart upon the march, others who had
remained at Medina repented of their faint-heartedness. One,
named Abu Khaithama, entering his garden during the sultry
heat of the day, beheld a repast of viands and fresh water
spread for him by his two wives in the cool shade of a tent.
Pausing at the threshold, "At this moment," exclaimed he,
"the prophet of God is exposed to the winds and heats of the
desert, and shall Khaithama sit here in the shade beside his
beautiful wives ? By Allah ! I will not enter the tent !" He
immediately armed himself with sword and lance, and mount
ing his camel, hastened off to join the standard of the faith.
In the mean time the army, after a weary march of seven
days, entered the mountainous district of Hajar, inhabited in
days of old by the Tharnudites, one of the lost tribes of Arabia,
It was the accursed region, the tradition concerning which has
already been related. The advance of the army, knowing
MAHOMET AXfl HIS SUCCESSORS.
nothing of this tradition, and being heated and fatigued, be
held with delight a brook running through a verdant valley,
and cool caves cut in the sides of the neighboring hills, once
the abodes of the heaven-smitten Thamudites. Halting along
the brook, some prepared to bathe, others began to cook and
make bread, while all promised themselves cool quarters for
the night in the caves.
Mahomet, in marching, had kept, as was his wont, in the
rear of the army to assist tlie weak ; occasionally taking up a
wayworn laggard behind him. Arriving at the place where
the troops had halted, he recollected it of old, and the tradi
tions concerning it, which had been told to him when he passed
here in the days of his boyhood. Fearful of incurring the ban
which hung over the neighborhood, he ordered his troops to
throw away the meat cooked with the water of the brook, to
give the bread kneaded with it to the camels, and to hurry
away from the heaven-accursed place. Then wrapping his face
in the folds of his mantle, and setting spurs to his mule, he
hastened through that sinful region; the army following him
as if flying from an enemy.
The succeeding night was one of great suffering; the army
had to encamp without water ; the weather was intensely hot,
with a parching wind from the desert ; an intolerable thirst
prevailed throughout the camp, as though the Thamudite ban
still hung over it. The next day, however, an abundant rain
refreshed and invigorated both man and beast. The march
was resumed with new ardor, and the army arrived, without
further hardship, at Tabuc, a small town on the confines of the
Roman empire, about half way between Medina and Damascus,
and about ten days' journey from either city.
Here Mahomet pitched his camp in the neighborhood of a
fountain, and in the midst of groves and pasturage. Arabian
traditions affirm that the fountain was nearly dry, insomuch
that, when a small vase was filled for the prophet, not a drop
was left; having assuaged his thirst, however, and made his
ablutions, Mahomet threw what remained in the vase back into
the fountain ; whereupon a stream gushed forth sufficient for
the troops and all the cattle.
From this encampment Mahomet sent out his captains to
proclaim and enforce the faith, or to exact tribute. Some of
the neighboring princes sent embassies, either acknowledging
the divinity of his mission or submitting to his temporal sway.
One of these was Johanna Ibn Kuba, prince of Eyla, a Chris-
j?4 MAtioMKf ANJJ HIS SUCCESSOR.
tian city near the Red Sea. This was the same city about
which the tradition is told, that in days of old, when its in
habitants were Jews, the old men were turned into swine, and
the young men into monkeys, for fishing on the Sabbath, a
judgment solemnly recorded in the Koran.
The prince of Eyla made a covenant of peace with Mahomet,
agreeing to pay an annual tribute of three thousand dinars or
crowns of gold. The form of the covenant became a precedent
in treating with other powers.
Among the Arab princes who professed the Christian faith,
and refused to pay homage to Mahomet, was Okaider Ibn
Malec, of the tribe of Kenda. He resided in a castle at the
foot of a mountain, in the midst of his domain. Khaled was
sent with a troop of horse to bring him to terms. Seeing the
castle was too strong to be carried by assault, he had recourse
to stratagem. One moonlight night, as Okaider and his wife
were enjoying the fresh air on the terraced roof of the castle,
they beheld an animal grazing, which they supposed to be a
wild ass from the neighboring mountains. Okaider, who was
a keen huntsman, ordered horse and lance, and sallied forth
to the chase, accompanied by his brother Hassan and several
of his people. The wild ass proved to be a decoy. They had
not ridden far before Khaled and his men rushed from am
bush and attacked them. They were too lightly armed to
make much resistance. Hassan was killed on the spot, and
Okaider taken prisoner ; the rest fled back to the castle, which,
however, was soon surrendered. The prince was ultimately
set at liberty on paying a heavy ransom and becoming a
tributary.
As a trophy of the victory, Khaled sent to Mahomet the vest
stripped from the body of Hassan. It was of silk, richly
embroidered with gold. The Moslems gathered round, and
examined it with admiration. "Do you admire this vest?"
said the prophet. ' ' I swear by him in whose hands is the
soul of Mahomet, the vest which Saad, the son of Maadi,
wears at this moment in paradise, is far more precious." This
Saad was the judge who passed sentence of death on seven
hundred Jewish captives at Medina, at the conclusion of a
former campaign.
His troops being now refreshed by the sojourn at Ta*buc,
and the neighboring country being brought into subjection,
Mahomet was bent upon prosecuting the object of his cam
paign, and pushing forward into the heart of Syria. His
AM) HIS SUCCESSOR-. t7f>
ardor, however, was not shared by his followers. Intelligence
of immense bodies of hostile troops, assembled on the Syrian
borders, had damped the spirits of the army. Mahomet
ivmark'-d the general discouragement, yet was loath to
abandon the campaign when but half completed. Calling a
council of war, he propounded the question whether or not
to continue forward. To this Omar replied dryly, "If thou
hast the command of God to proceed further, do so," " If 1
iiad the command of God to proceed further," observed Ma-
hornet, "I should not have asked thy counsel."
Omar felt the rebuke. He then, in a respectful tone, repre-
s. Mitvd the impolicy of advancing in the face of the over-
v lit -lining force said to be collected on the Syrian frontier;
he represented, also, how much Mahomet had already effected
in this campaign. He had checked the threatened invasion of
the imperial arms, and had received the homage and sub
mission of various tribes and people, from the head of the Red
Sea to the Euphrates : he advised him, therefore, to be content
for the present year with what he had achieved, and to defer
the completion of the enterprise to a future campaign.
His counsel was adopted ; for, whenever Mahomet was not
under strong excitement, or fancied inspiration, he was rather
prone to yield up his opinion in military matters to that of his
generals. After a sojourn of about twenty days, therefore, at
Tabuc, he broke up his camp, and conducted his army back to
Medina.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO MEDINA — PUNISHMENT OF THOSE W-TO
HAD REFUSED TO JOIN THE CAMPAIGN — EFFECTS OF EXCOM
MUNICATION—DEATH OF ABDALLAH IBN OBBA— DISSENSIONS IN
THE PROPHET'S HAREM.
THE entries of Mahomet into Medina on returning from his
warlike triumphs, partook of the simplicity and absence of
parade, which characterized all his actions. On approaching
the city, when his household came forth with the multitude to
meet him, he would stop to greet them, and take up the chil
dren of the house behind him on his horse. It was in this
176 MAIlOMfiT AND HIS
simple way he entered Medina-, OP returning from the cam
paign against Tabuo.
The arrival of an army laden with spoil, gathered in the
most distant expedition ever undertaken by the soldiers of
Islam, was an event of too great moment, not to be hailed
with triumphant exultation by the community. Those alone
were cast down in spirit who had refused to march forth with
the army, or had deserted it when on the march. All these
were at first placed under an interdict ; Mahomet forbidding
his faithful followers to hold any intercourse with them.
Mollified, however, by their contrition or excuses, he gradually
forgave the greater part of them. Seven of those who con
tinued under interdict, finding themselves cut off from
communion with their acquaintance, and marked with oppro
brium amid an exulting community, became desperate, and
chained themselves to the walls of the mosque, swearing to
remain there until pardoned. Mahomet, on the other hand,
swore he would leave them there unless otherwise commanded
by Grod. Fortunately he received the command in a revealed
verse of the Koran; but. in freeing them from their self-
imposed fetters, he exacted one third of their possessions, to
be expended in the service of the faith.
Among those still under interdict were Kaab Ibn Malec,
Murara Ibn Rabia, and Hilal Ibn Omeya. These had once
been among the most zealous of professing Moslems; their
defection was, therefore, ten times more heinous in the eyes
of the prophet, than that of their neighbors, whose faith had
been lukewarm and dubious. Toward them, therefore, he
continued implacable. Forty days they remained interdicted,
and the interdict extended to communication with their wives.
The account given by Kaab Ibn Malec of his situation,
while thus excommunicated, presents a vivid picture of the
power of Mahomet over the minds of his adherents. Kaab
declared that everybody shunned him, or regarded him with
an altered mien. His two companions in disgrace did not
leave their homes; he, however, went about from place to
place, but no one spake to him. He sought the mosque, sat
down near the prophet, and saluted him, but his salutation
was not returned. On the forty-first day came a command,
that he should separate from his wife. He now left the city,
and pitched a tent on the hill of Sala, determined there to
undergo in its severest rigor the punishment meted out to him.
His heart, however, was dying away ; the wide world, he said,
MAHOMET AXD ins SUCCESSORS. 177
appeared to grow narrow to him. On the fifty-first day came
a messenger holding out the hope of pardon. He hastened to
Medina, and sought the prophet at the mosque, who received
him with a radiant countenance, and said that God had for
given him. The soul of Kaab was lifted up from the depths of
despondency, and in the transports of his gratitude, he gave a
portion of his wealth in atonement of his error.
Not long after the return of the army to Medina, Abdallah
IbnObba, the Khazradite, "the chief of the Hypocrites," fell
ill, so that his life was despaired of. Although Mahomet was
well aware of the perfidy of this man, and the secret arts he
had constantly practised against him, he visited him repeatedly
during his illness; was with him at his dying hour, and fol
lowed his body to the grave. There, at the urgent entreaty of
the son of the deceased, he put up prayers that his sins might
be forgiven.
Omar privately remonstrated with Mahomet for praying for
a hypocrite ; reminding him how often he had been slandered
by Abdallah ; but he was shrewdly answered by a text of the
Koran: "Thou mayest pray for the 'Hypocrites' or not, as
thou wilt ; but though thou shouldcst pray seventy times, yet
will they not be forgiven."
The prayers at Abdallah's grave, therefore, were put up out
of policy, to win favor with the Khazradites, and the powerful
friends of the deceased ; and in this respect the prayers were
successful, for most of the adherents of the deceased became
devoted to the prophet, whose sway was thenceforth undis
puted in Medina. Subsequently he announced another revela
tion, which forbade him to pray by the death-bed or stand by
the grave of any one who died in unbelief.
But though Mahomet exercised such dominion over his dis
ciples, and the community at large, he had great difficulty in
governing his wives, and maintaining tranquillity in his
harem. He appears to have acted with tolerable equity in his
connubial concerns, assigning to each of his wives a separate
habitation, of which she was sole mistress, and passing the
twenty-four hours with them by turns. It so happened, that
on one occasion, when he was sojourning with Hafsa, the latter
left her dwelling to visit her father. Returning unexpectedly,
she surprised the prophet with his favorite and fortunate
slave Mariyah, the mother of his son Ibrahim. The jealousy
of Hafsa was vociferous. Mahomet endeavored to pacify her,
dreading lest her outcries should rouse his whole harem to re*
178 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
bellion; but she was only to be appeased by an oath on his
part never more to cohabit with Mariyah. On these terms she
forgave the past and promised secrecy.
She broke her promise, however, and revealed to Ayesha the
infidelity of the prophet ; and in a little while it was known
throughout the harem. His wives now united in a storm of
reproaches ; until, his patience being exhausted, he repudiated
Hafsa, and renounced all intercourse with the rest. For a
month he lay alone on a mat in a separate apartment; but
Allah, at length, in consideration of his lonely state, sent down
the first and sixth chapters of the Koran, absolving him from
the oath respecting Mariyah, who forthwith became the com
panion of his solitary chamber.
The refractory wives were now brought to a sense of their
error, and apprised by the same revelation, that the restric
tions imposed on ordinary men did not apply to the prophet.
In the end he took back Hafsa, who was penitent ; and he was
reconciled to Ayesha, whom he tenderly loved, and all the rest
were in due time received into favor; but he continued to
cherish Mariyah, for she was fair to look upon, and was the
mother of his only son.
CHAPTER XXXV.
ABU BEKER CONDUCTS THE YEARLY PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA-
MISSION OF ALI TO ANNOUNCE A REVELATION.
THE sacred month of yearly pilgrimage was now at hand,
but Mahomet was too much occupied with public and domestic
concerns to absent himself from Medina: he deputed Abu
Beker, therefore, to act in his place as emir or commander of
the pilgrims, who were to resort from Medina to the holy city.
Abu Beker accordingly departed at the head of three hundred
pilgrims, with twenty camels for sacrifice.
Not long afterward, Mahomet summoned his son-in-law and
devoted disciple Ali, and, mounting him on Al Adha, or the
slit-eared, the swiftest of his camels, urged him to hasten with
all speed to Mecca, there to promulgate before the multitude
of pilgrims assembled from all parts, an important sura, or
chapter of the Koran, just received from heaven.
Ali executed his mission with his accustomed zeal and fidel-
.MMlu.MI.T AM) ///>' >-6rr/-»V;/,'.< 17<)
ity. He reached the sacred city in the height of the grent
religious festival. On the day of sacrifice, when the cere
monies of pilgrimage were completed by the slaying of the
victims in the valley of Mina, and when Abu Beker had
preached and instructed the people in the doctrines and rites
of Islamism, Ali rose before an immense multitude assembled
at the hill Al Akaba, and announced himself a messenger from
the prophet, bearing an important revelation. He then read
the sura, or chapter of the Koran, of which he was the bearer ;
in which the religion of the sword was declared in all its rigor.
It absolved Mahomet from all truce or league with idolatrous
and other unbelievers, should they in any wise have been false
to their stipulations, or given aid to his enemies. It allowed
unbelievers four months of toleration from the time of this
announcement, during which months they might ' k go to and
fro about the earth securely," but at the expiration of that
time all indulgence would cease ; war would then be made in
every way, at every time, and in every place, by open force
or by stratagem, against those who persisted in unbelief;
no alternative would be left them but to embrace the faith
or pay tribute. The holy months and the holy places would
no longer afford them protection. "When the months where
in ye are not allowed to attack them shall be passed," said
the revelation, "kill the idolatrous wherever ye shall find
them, or take them prisoners ; besiege them, or lay in wait for
thorn.1' The ties of blood and friendship were to be alike dis
regarded ; the faithful were to hold no communion with their
nearest relatives and dearest friends, should they persist in
idolatry. After the expiration of the current year, no un
believer was to be permitted to tread the sacred bounds of
Mecca, nor to enter the temple of Allah, a prohibition which
continues to the present day.
This stringent chapter of the Koran is thought to have been
provoked, in a great measure, by the conduct of some of the
lo wish and idolatrous Arabs, with whom Mahomet had made
covenants, but who had repeatedly played him false, and even
made treacherous attempts upon his life. It evinces, however,
the increased confidence he felt in consequence of the death of
his insidious and powerful foe, Abdallah Ibn Obba, and the
rapid conversion or subjugation of the Arab tribes. It was. in
fact, a decisive blow for the exclusive domination of his la it h.
When Abu Beker and Ali returned to Mecca, the former ex
pressed surprise and dissatisfaction that he had not been made
180 MAHOMET AND 1118 SUCCESSORS.
the promulgator of so important a revelation, as it seemed to
be connected with his recent mission, but he was pacified by
the assurance that all new revelations must be announced by
the prophet himself, or by some one of his immediate family,
5
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MAHOMET SENDS HIS CAPTAINS ON DISTANT ENTERPRISES — AP
POINTS LIEUTENANTS TO GOVERN IN ARABIA FELIX— SENDS ALI
TO SUPPRESS AN INSURRECTION IN THAT PROVINCE— DEATH OF
THE PROPHET'S ONLY SON IBRAHIM— HIS CONDUCT AT THE
DEATH-BED AND THE GRAVE— HIS GROWING INFIRMITIES— HIS
VALEDICTORY PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA, AND HIS CONDUCT AND
PREACHING WHILE THERE.
THE promulgation of the last-mentioned chapter of the
Koran, with the accompanying denunciation of exterminating
war against all who &.u.ould refuse to believe or submit, pro
duced hosts of converts and tributaries; so that, toward the
close of the month, and in the beginning of the tenth year of
the Hegira, the gates of Medina were thronged with envoys
from distant tribes and princes. Among those who bowed to
the temporal power of the prophet was Farwa, lieutenant of
Heraclius, in Syria, and governor of Amon, the ancient capital
of the Ammonites. His act of submission, however, was dis
avowed by the emperor, and punished with imprisonment.
Mahomet felt and acted more and more as a sovereign, but
his grandest schemes as a conqueror were always sanctified by
his zeal as an apostle. His captains were sent on more distant
expeditions than formerly, but it was always with a view to
destroy idols and bring idolatrous tribes to subjection ; so that
his temporal power but kept pace with the propagation of his
faith. He appointed two lieutenants to govern in his name in
Arabia Felix ; but a portion of that rich and important coun
try having shown itself refractory, Ali was ordered to repair
thither at the head of three hundred horsemen, and bring the
inhabitants to reason.
The youthful disciple expressed a becoming diffidence to un
dertake a mission where he would have to treat with men far
older and wiser than himself; but Mahomet laid one hand
upon his lips, and the other upon his breast, and raising hie
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOHS. 181
eyes to heaven, exclaimed, "Oh, Allah! loosen his tongue and
guide his heart!" He gave him one rule for his conduct as
a judge. "When two parties come before thee, never pro
nounce in favor of one until thou hast heard the other." Then
giving into his hands the standard of the faith, and placing the
turban on his head, he bade him farewell.
When the military missionary arrived in the heretical re
gion of Yemen, his men, indulging their ancient Arab propen
sities, began to sack, to plunder, and destroy. AH checked
their excesses, and arresting the fugitive inhabitants, began to
expound to them the doctrines of Islam. His tongue, though
so recently consecrated by the prophet, failed to carry convic
tion, for he was answered by darts and arrows ; whereupon he
returned to the old argument of the sword, which he urged
with such efficacy that, after twenty unbelievers had been
slain, the rest avowed themselves thoroughly convinced. This
zealous achievement was followed by others of a similar kind,
after each of which he dispatched messengers to the prophet,
announcing a new triumph of the faith.
While Mahomet was exulting in the tidings of success from
every quarter, he was stricken to the heart by one of the
severest of domestic bereavements. Ibrahim, his son by his
favorite concubine Mariyah, a child but fifteen months old,
his only male issue, on whom reposed his hope of transmitting
his name to posterity, was seized with a mortal malady, and
expired before his eyes. Mahomet could not control a father's
feelings as he bent in agony over this blighted blossom of his
hopes. Yet even in this trying hour he showed that submis
sion to the will of God which formed the foundation of his
faith. "My heart is sad," murmured he, "and mine eyes
overflow with tears at parting with thec, oh, my son! And
still greater would be .my grief, did I not know that I must
soon follow thec ; for we are of God ; from him we came, and
to him wo must return."
Abda'lrahman seeing him in tears, demanded: "Hast thou
not forbidden us to weep for the dead?" "No," replied the
prophet. ' ' I have forbidden ye to utter shrieks and outcries,
to boat your faces and rend your garments : these are sugges
tions of tho evil one ; but tears shed for a calamity are as balm
to the heart, and arc sent in mercy."
IIo followed his child to tho grave, where amidst the agonies
of ssparation, he gave another proof that the elements of his
religion wero over present to his mind. " My soul my son!"
182 MAHOMET AND SIS SUCCESSORS
exclaimed he as the body was committed to the tomb, "say
God is my Lord ! the prophet of God was my father, and Islam-
ism is my faith !" This was to prepare his child for the ques
tioning by examining angels, as to religious belief, which,
according to Moslem creed, the deceased would undergo while
in the grave.*
An eclipse of the sun which happened about that time was
interpreted by some of his zealous followers as a celestial sign
of mourning for the death of Ibrahim ; but the afflicted father
rejected such obsequious flattery. "The sun and the moon,r
said he, "are among the wonders of God, through which at
times he signifies his will to his servant ; but their eclipse has
nothing to do either with the birth or death of any mortal."
The death of Ibrahim was a blow which bowed him toward
the grave. His constitution was already impaired by the ex
traordinary excitements and paroxysms of his mind, and the
physical trials to which he had been exposed ; the poison, too,
administered to him at Khaibar had tainted the springs of lif e,
subjected him to excruciating pains, and brought on a prema
ture old age. His religious zeal took the alarm from the increase
of bodily infirmities, and he resolved to expend his remaining
strength in a final pilgrimage to Mecca, intended to serve as a
model for all future observances of the kind.
The announcement of his pious intention brought devotees
from all parts of Arabia, to follow the pilgrim-prophet. The
streets of Medina were crowded with the various tribes from
the towns and cities, from the fastnesses of the mountains, and
the remote parts of the desert, and the surrounding valleys
were studded with their tents. It was a striking picture of the
triumph of a faith, these recently disunited, barbarous, and
* One of the funeral rites of the Moslems is for the Mulakken or priest to address
the deceased when in the grave, in the following words: " O servant of God! O son
of a handmaid of God ! know that, at this time, there will come down to thee two
angels commissioned respecting thee and the like of thee; when they say to thee,
'Who is thy Lord!' answer them, 'God is my Lord;' in truth, and when they ask
thee concerning thy prophet, or the man who hath been sent unto you, say to them,
' Mahomet is the apostle of God,' with veracity, and when they ask thee concerning
thy religion, say to them, 'Islamism is my religion.' And when they ask thee con
cerning thy book of direction, say to them, ' The Koran is my book of direction, and
the Moslems are my brothers;' and when they ask thee concerning thy Kebla, say
to them, ' The Caaba is my Kebla, and I have lived and died in the assertion that
there is no deity but God, and Mahomet is God's apostle,' and they will say, 'Sleep,
O servant of God, in the protection of God !' "—See Lane's Modern Egyptians, vol
ii. p. 338.
\.\f) iirs SUCCESSORS. 183
warring tribes brought together as brethren, and inspired by
one sentiment of religious zeal.
Mahomet was accompanied on this occasion by his nine
wives, who were transported on litters. He departed at the
head of an immense train. : ''»me say of fifty-five, others ninety,
and others a hundred and fourteen thousand pilgrims. There
was a lar^o number of camels also, decorated with garlands of
flowers and fluttering streamers, intended to be offered up in
sacrifice.
The first night's halt was a few miles from Medina, at the
village of Dhu'l Holai'fa, where, on a former occasion, he and
his followers had laid aside their weapons and assumed the
pilgrim garb. Early on the following morning, after praying
in the mosque, he mounted his camel, Al Aswa, and entering
the plain of Baida, uttered the prayer or invocation called in
Arabic Talbijah, in which he was joined by all his followers.
The following is the unport of this solemn invocation: " Here
am I in thy service, oh God ! Here am I in thy service ! Thou
hast no companion. To thee alone belongeth worship. From
thee cometh all good. Thine alone is the kingdom. There is
none to share it with thee."
This prayer, according to Moslem tradition, was uttered by
the patriarch Abraham, when, from the top of the hill of Ku-
beis, near Mecca, he preached the true faith to the whole hu
man race, and so wonderful was the power of his voice that it
was heard by every living being throughout the world ; inso
much that the very child in the womb responded, " Here am I
in thy service, oh God !"
In this way the pilgrim host pursued its course, winding in
a lengthened train of miles, over mountain and valley, and
making the deserts vocal at times with united prayers and
ejaculations. There were no longer any hostile armies to im
pede or molest it, for by this time the Islam faith reigned se
renely over all Arabia. Mahomet approached the sacred city
over the same heights which he had traversed in capturing it.
and he entered through the gate Beni Scheiba, which still bears
the name of The Holy.
A few days after his arrival he was joined by Ali, who had
hastened back from Yemen; and who brought with him a
number of camels to be slain in sacrifice.
As this was to be a model pilgrimage, Mahomet rigorously
observed all the rites which he had continued in compliance
with patriarchal usage, or introduced in compliance with reve-
184 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
lation. Being too weak and infirm to go on foot, he mounted
his camel, and thus performed the circuits round the Caaba,
and the journey ings to and fro, between the hills of Safa and
Mcrwa.
When the camels were to be offered up in sacrifice, he slew
sixty-three with his own hand, one for each year of his age,
and Ali, at the same time, slew thirty-seven on his own ac
count.
Mahomet then shaved his head, beginning on the right side
and ending on the left. The locks thus shorn away were
equally divided among his disciples, and treasured up as sacred
relics. Khaled ever afterward wore one in his turban, and
affirmed that it gave him supernatural strength in battle.
Conscious that life was waning away within him, Mahomet,
during this last sojourn in the sacred city of his faith, sought
to engrave his doctrines deeply in the minds and hearts of his
followers. For this purpose he preached frequently in the
Caaba from the pulpit, or in the open air from the back of his
camel. "Listen to my words," would he say, "for I know
not whether, after tin's year, we shall ever meet here again.
Oh, my hearers, I am but a man like yourselves ; the angel of
death may at any time appear, and I must obey his summons."
He would then proceed to inculcate not merely religious doc
trines and ceremonies, but rules for conduct in all the concerns
of life, public and domestic ; and the precepts laid down and
enforced on this occasion have had a vast and durable influ
ence on the morals, manners, and habitudes "of the whole Mos
lem world.
It was doubtless in view of his approaching end, and in
solicitude for the welfare of his relatives and friends after his
death, and especially of his favorite Ali, who, he perceived, had
given dissatisfaction in the conduct of his recent campaign in
Yemen, that he took occasion, during a moment of strong ex
citement and enthusiasm among his hearers, to address to them
a solemn adjuration.
" Ye believe," said he, " that there is but one God; that Ma
homet is his prophet and apostle ; that paradise and hell are
truths ; that death and the resurrection are certain ; and that
there is an appointed time when all who rise from the grave
must be brought to judgment."
They all answered, " We believe these things." He then ad
jured them solemnly by these dogmas of their faith ever to
hold his family, and especially Ali, in love and reverence.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOHS. 185
"Whoever loves me," said he, "let him receive Ali as his
friend. May God uphold those who befriend him, and may he
turn from his enemies."
It was at the conclusion of one of his discourses in the open
air, from the back of his camel, that the famous verse of the
Koran is said to have come down from heaven in the very
voice of the Deity. " Evil to those this day, who have denied
your religion. Fear them not ; fear me. This day I have per
fected your religion, and accomplished in you my grace. It is
my good pleasure that Islamism be your faith."
On heaiing these words, say the Arabian historians, the
camel Al Karwa, on which the prophet was seated, fell on its
knees in adoration. These words, add they, were the seal and
conclusion of the law, for after them there were no further
revelations.
Having thus fulfilled all the rites and ceremonies of pilgrim
age, and made a full exposition of his faith, Mahomet bade a
last farewell to his native city, and, putting himself at the
head of his pilgrim army, set out on his return to Medina.
As he came in sight of it, he lifted up his voice and ex
claimed, " God is great ! God is great ! There is but one God ;
he has no companion. His is the kingdom. To him alone be-
longeth praise. He is almighty. He hath fulfilled his prom
ise. He has stood by his servant, and alone dispersed his
enemies. Let us return to our homes and worship and praise
him!"
Thus ended what has been termed the valedictory pilgrim
age, being the last made by the prophet.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
OF THE TWO FALSE PROPHETS AL ASWAD AND MOSEILMA.
THE health of Mahomet continued to decline after his return
to Medina ; nevertheless his ardor to extend his religious em
pire was nnabated, and he prepared, on a great scale, for the
invasion of Syria and Palestine. While he was meditating
foreign conquest, however, two rival prophets arose to dispute
his sway in Arabia. One was named Al Aswad, the other
Moseilma; they received from the faithful the well-merited
appellation of u The two Liars."
MMlvMMT AND Ills 8VOCS80&8,
M Aswad, a quick-witted man, and gifted with persuasive
eloquence, was originally an idolater, then a convert to Islam-
ism, from which he apostatized to set up for a prophet, and
establish a religion of his own. His fickleness in matters of
faith gained him the appellation of Ailhala, or " The Weather
cock." In emulation of Mahomet he pretended to receive
revelations from heaven through the medium of two angels.
Being versed in juggling arts and natural magic, he astonished
and confounded the multitude with spectral illusions, which
he passed off as miracles, insomuch that certain Moslem writ
ers believe he was really assisted by two evil genii or demons.
His schemes, for a time, were crowned with great success,
which shows how unsettled the Arabs were in those days in
matters of religion, and how ready to adopt any new faith.
Budhan, the Persian whom Mahomet had continued as
viceroy of Arabia Felix, died in this year; whereupon Al
Aswad, now at the head of a powerful sect, slew his son and
successor, espoused his widow after putting her father to
death, and seized upon the reins of government. The people
of Najran invited him to their city ; the gates of Sanaa, the
capital of Yemen, were likewise thrown open to him, so that,
in a little while, all Arabia Felix submitted to his sway.
The news of this usurpation found Mahomet suffering in the
first stages of a dangerous malady, and engrossed by prepara
tions for the Syrian invasion. Impatient of any interruption
to his plans, and reflecting that the whole danger and difficulty
in question depended upon the life of an individual, he sent
orders to certain of his adherents, who were about Al Aswad,
to make way with him openly or by stratagem, either way
being justifiable against enemies of the faith, according to the
recent revelation promulgated by Ali. Two persons under
took the task, less, however, through motives of religion than
revenge. One, named Eais, had received a mortal offence
from the usurper; the other, named Firuz the Dailemite,
was cousin to Al Aswad's newly espoused wife and nephew
of her murdered father. They repaired to the woman, whose
marriage with the usurper had probably been compulsory,
and urged upon her the duty, according to the Arab law of
blood, of avenging the deaths of her father and her former
husband. With much difficulty they prevailed upon her to
facilitate their entrance at the dead of night into the cham
ber of Al Aswad, who was asleep. Firuz stabbed him in
the throat with a poniard. The blow was not effectual Al
MAllo.Mi'.'l AM) Ills aVOOl
As\vad started up, and his cries alarmed the tfiuml. Hint wife,
however, went forth and quieted them. "The prophet," said
she, "is under tho influence of divine inspiration." By this
linn- the rries had ceased, for tbo assassins had stricken off
the head of their victim. When the day dawned the standard
of Mahomet floated once more on the walls of the city, and
A herald proclaimed, by sound of trumpet, the death of Al
As wad, otherwise called the Liar arid Impostor. His career of
power began and was terminated within the space of four
months. The people, easy of faith, resumed Islamism with as
much facility as they had abandoned it.
Mosei'lma, the other impostor, was an Arab of the tribe of
Honeifa, and ruled over the city and province of Yamama,
situated between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia.. In the
ninth year of the Hegira he had come to Mecca at the head of
an embassy from his tribe, and had made profession of faith
between the hands of Mahomet; but, on returning to His own
country, had proclaimed that God had gifted him likewise
with prophecy, and appointed him to aid Mahomet in convert
ing the human race. To this effect he likewise wrote a Koran,
which he gave forth as a volume of inspired truth. His creed
was noted for giving the soul a humiliating residence in the
region of the abdomen. Being a man of influence and address,
he soon made hosts of converts among his credulous country
men. Rendered confident by success, he addressed an epistle
to Mahomet, beginning as follows :
" From Moseilrna the prophet of Allah, to Mahomet the pro
phet of Allah ! Come now, and let us make a partition of the
world, and let half be thine and hah:' be mine."
This letter came also to the hands of Mahomet while bowed
down by infirmities and engrossed by military preparations.
He contented himself for the present with the following reply :
''From Mahomet the prophet of God, to Moseilma the Liar!
The earth is the Lord's, and he giveth it as an inheritance to
such of his servants as find favor in his sight. Happy shall
those be who live in his fear."
In the urgency of other affairs, the usurpation of Moseilma
iv! named unchecked. His punishment was reserved for a
future day.
tl
188 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
AN ARMY PREPARED TO MARCH AGAINST SYRIA— COMMAND GIVEN
TO OSAMA— THE PROPHET'S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE TROOPS
— HIS LAST ILLNESS—HIS SERMONS IN THE MOSQUE— HIS DEATH
AND THE ATTENDING CIRCUMSTANCES.
IT was early in the eleventh year of the Hegira that, after
unusual preparations, a powerful army was ready to march
for the invasion of Syria. It would almost seem a proof of
the failing powers of Mahomet's mind, that he gave the com
mand of such an army, on such an expedition, to Osama, a
youth but twenty years of age, instead of some one of his vet
eran and well-tried generals. It seems to have been a matter
of favor, dictated by tender and grateful recollections. Osama
was the son of Zeid, Mahomet's devoted freedman, who had
given the prophet such a signal and acceptable proof of devo
tion in relinquishing to him his beautiful wife Zeinab. Zeid
had continued to the last the same zealous and self-sacrificing
disciple, and had fallen bravely fighting for the faith in the
battle of Muta.
Mahomet was aware of the hazard of the choice he had made,
and feared the troops might be insubordinate under so young
a commander. In a general review, therefore, he exhorted
them to obedience, reminding them that Osama's father, Zeid,
had commanded an expedition of this very kind, against the
very same people, and had fallen by their hands ; it was but a
just tribute to his memory, therefore, to give his son an oppor
tunity of avenging his death. Then placing his banner in the
hands of the youthful general, he called upon him to fight
valiantly the fight of the faith against all who should deny the
unity of God. The army marched forth that very day, and
encamped at Djorf, a few miles from Medina; but circum
stances occurred to prevent its further progress.
That very night Mahomet had a severe access of the malady
which for some time past had affected him, and which was
ascribed by some to the lurking eifects of the poison given to
him at Khai'bar. It commenced with a violent pain in the
head, accompanied by vertigo, and the delirium which seems
to have mingled with all his paroxysms of illness. Starting up
MAIIOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 189
in the mid-watches of the night from a troubled dream, he
called upon an attendant slave to accompany him, saying ho
was summoned by the dead who lay interred in the public
burying-place of Medina to come and pray for them. Fol
lowed by the slave, he passed through the dark and silent city,
where all were sunk in sleep, to the great buiying-ground,
outside of the walls.
Arrived in the midst of the tombs, he lifted up his voice and
made a solemn apostrophe to their tenants. "Rejoice, ye
dwellers in the grave!" exclaimed he. "More peaceful is the
morning to which ye shall awaken, than that which attends
the living. Happier is your condition than theirs. God has
delivered you from the storms with which they are threatened,
and which shall follow one another like the watches of a
stormy night, each darker than that which went before."
After praying for the dead, he turned and addressed his
slave. "The choice is given me," said he, "either to remain
in this world to the end of time, in the enjoyment of all its
delights, or to return sooner to the presence of God; and I
have chosen the latter."
From this time his illness rapidly increased, though he en
deavored to go about as usual, and shifted his residence from
day to day, with his different wives, as he had been accustomed
to do. He was in the dwelling of Maimona, when the violence
of his malady became so great, that he saw it must soon prove
fatal. His heart now yearned to be with his favorite wife
Ayesha, and pass with her the fleeting residue of life. With
his head bound up, and his tottering frame supported by All
and Fadhl, the son of Al Abbas, he repaired to her abode.
She, likewise, was suffering with a violent pain in the head,
and entreated of him a remedy.
4 ' Wherefore a remedy ?" said he, * ' Better that thou shouldst
die before me. I could then close thine eyes, wrap thee in thy
funeral garb, lay thee in the tomb, and pray for thee."
"Yes," replied she, "and then return to my house and dwell
with one of thy other wives, who would profit by my death."
Mahomet smiled at this expression of jealous fondness, and
resigned himself into her care. His only remaining child,
Fatima, the wife of AH, came presently to see him. Ayesha
used to say that she never saw any one resemble the prophet
more in sweetness of temper, than this his daughter. He
treated her always with respectful tenderness. When she
came to him, he used to rise up, go toward her, take her by
190 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the hand, and kiss it, and would seat her in his own place.
Their meeting on this occasion is thus elated by Ayesha, in
the traditions preserved by Abulfeda.
" 'Welcome, my child!' said the prophet, and made her sit
beside him. He then whispered something in her ear, at which
she wept. Perceiving her affliction, he whispered something
more, and her countenance brightened with joy. ' What is
the meaning of this?' said I to Fatima. 'The prophet honors
thee with a mark of confidence never bestowed on any of his
wives.' 'I cannot disclose the secret of the prophet of God,'
replied Fatima. Nevertheless, after his death, she declared
that at first he announced to her his impending death ; but,
seeing her weep, consoled her with the assurance that she
would shortly follow him, and become a princess in heaven,
among the faithful of her sex."
In the second day of his illness, Mahomet was tormented by
a burning fever, and caused vessels of water to be emptied on
his head and over his body, exclaiming, amidst his paroxysms,
" Now I feel the poison of Khalbar rending my entrails."
When somewhat relieved, he was aided in repairing to the
mosque, which was adjacent to his residence. Here, seated in
his chair, or pulpit, he prayed devoutly ; after which, address
ing the congregation, which was numerous, "If any of you,"
said he, " have aught upon his conscience, let him speak out,
that I may ask God's pardon for him. "
Upon this a man, who had passed for a devout Moslem, stood
forth and confessed himself a hypocrite, a liar, and a weak
disciple. "Out upon thee!" cried Omar, "why dost thou
make known what God hath suffered to remain concealed ?"
But Mahomet turned rebukingly to Omar. ' ' Oh son of Khat-
tab," said he, "better is it to blush in this ^vorld, than suffer in
the next." Then lifting his eyes to heaven, and praying for
the self -accused, " Oh God, "exclaimed he, "$ive him rectitude
and faith, and take from him all weakness in fulfilling such of
thy commands as his conscience dictates."
Again addressing the congregation, ' ' Is there any one among
you," said he, " whom I have stricken; here is my back, tei
him strike me in return. Is there any one whose character 1
have aspersed ; let him now cast reproach upon m&. Is there
any one from whom I have taken aught unjustly ; let him now
come forward and be indemnified. "
Upon this, a man among the throng reminded Mahomet of a
debt of three dinars of silver, and was instantly rep&dd with
MAUOMKT AM> ///> SUCCESSORS.
interest. ''Much easier is it," said the prophet, "to bear pun
ishment in this world than throughout eternity."
He now prayed fervently for the faithful who had fallen by
his side in the battle of Ohod, and for those who had suffered
for the faith in other battles; interceding with them in
virtue of the pact which exists between the living and the
dead.
After this he addressed the Mohadjerins or Exiles, who had
accompanied him from Mecca, exhorting them to hold in honor
the Ansarians, or allies of Medina. ' l The number of believers, "
said he, "will increase, but that of the allies never can. They
were my family; with whom I found a home. Do good to
those who do good to them, and break friendship with those
who are hostile to them. "
He then gave three parting commands :
First. — Expel all idolaters from Arabia.
Second.— Allow all proselytes equal privileges with your
selves.
Third. — Devote yourselves incessantly to prayer.
His sermon and exhortation being finished, he was affection
ately supported back to the mansion of Ayesha, but was so ex
hausted on arriving there that he fainted.
His malady increased from day to day, apparently with in
tervals of delirium ; for he spoke of receiving visits from the
angel Gabriel, who came from God to inquire after the state of
his health ; and told him that it rested with himself to fix his
dying moment; the 'angel of death being forbidden by Allah to
enter his presence without his permission.
In one of his paroxysms he called for writing implements,
that he might leave some rules of conduct for his followers.
His attendants were troubled, fearing he might do something
to impair the authority of the Koran. Hearing them debate
among themselves, whether to comply with his request, he
ordered them to leave the room, and when they returned said
nothing more on the subject.
On Friday, the day of religious assemblage, he prepared, not
withstanding his illness, to officiate in the mosque, and had
water again poured over him to refresh and strengthen him, ^
but on making an effort to go forth, fainted. On recovering,
he requested Abu Beker to perform the public prayers; observ
ing, u Allah has given his servant the right to appoint whom
he pleases in his place." It was afterward maintained by some
that he thus intended to designate this long-tried friend and ad-
192 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
herent as his successor in office ; but Abu Beker shrank from
construing the words too closely.
Word was soon brought to Mahomet, that the appearance of
Abu Beker in the pulpit had caused great agitation, a rumor
being circulated that the prophet was dead. Exerting his re
maining strength, therefore, and leaning on the shoulders of
Ali and Al Abbas, he made his way into the mosque, where his
appearance spread joy throughout the congregation. Abu
Beker ceased to pray, but Mahomet bade him proceed, and tak
ing his seat behind him in the pulpit, repeated the prayers after
him. Then addressing the congregation, "I have heard," said
he, "that a rumor of the death of your prophet filled you with
alarm; but has any prophet before me lived forever, that ye
think I would never leave you ? Everything happens accord
ing to the will of God, and has its appointed time, which is not
to be hastened nor avoided. I return to him who sent me ; and
my last command to you is, that ye remain united; that ye
love, honor, and uphold each other ; that ye exhort each other
to faith and constancy in belief, and to the performance of
pious deeds ; by these alone men prosper ; all else leads to de
struction."
In concluding his exhortation he added, " I do but go before
you ; you will soon follow me. Death awaits us all ; let no one
then seek to turn it aside from me. My life has been for your
good; so will be my death."
These were the last words he spake in public ; he was again
conducted back by Ali and Abbas to the dwelling of Ayesha.
On a succeeding day there was an interval during which he
appeared so well that Ali, Abu Beker, Omar, and the rest of
those who had been constantly about him, absented themselves
for a time, to attend to their affairs. Ayesha alone remained
with him. The interval was but illusive. His pains returned
with redoubled violence. Finding death approaching he gave
orders that all his slaves should be restored to freedom, and all
the money in the house distributed among the poor ; then rais
ing his eyes to heaven, ' ' God be with me in the death struggle, "
exclaimed he.
Ayesha now sent in haste for her father and Hafza. Left
alone with Mahomet, she sustained his head on her lap, watch
ing over him with tender assiduity, and endeavoring to soothe
his dying agonies. From time to time he would dip his hand in
a vase of water, and with it feebly sprinkle his face. At length
raising his eyes and gazing upward for a time with unmoving
MAHOMET ASD HIS SUCCESSORS. 193
eyelids, "Oh Allah!" ejaculated he, in broken accents, "be it
so !— among the glorious associates in paradise I"
" I knew by this," said Ayesha, who related the dying scene,
"that his last moment had arrived, and that he had made
choice of supernal existence."
In a few moments his hands were cold, and life was extinct.
Ayesha laid his head upon the pillow, and beating her head
and breast, gave way to loud lamentations. Her outcries
brought the other wives of Mahomet, and their clamorous
grief soon made the event known throughout the city. Con
sternation seized upon the people, as if some prodigy had hap
pened. All business was suspended. The army which had
struck its tents was ordered to halt, and Osama, whose foot
was in the stirrup for the inarch, turned his steed to the gates
of Medina, and planted his standard at the prophet's door.
The multitude crowded to contemplate the corpse, and agi
tation and dispute prevailed even in the chamber of death.
Some discredited the evidence of their senses. u " How can he
be dead?" cried they. "Is he not our mediator with God?
How then can he be dead? Impossible ! He is but in a trance,
and carried up to heaven like Isa (Jesus) and the other
prophets."
The throng augmented about the house, declaring with
clamor that the body should not be interred; when Omar, who
had just hoard the tidings, arrived. He drew his scimetar,
and pressing through the crowd, threatened to strike off the
hands and feet of any one who should affirm that the prophet
was dead. "He has but departed for a time," said he, "as
Musa (Moses) the son of Imrarn, went up forty days into the
mountain; and like him he will return again."
Abu Beker, who had been in a distant part of the city,
arrived in time to soothe the despair of the people, and calm
the transports of Omar. Passing into the chamber, he raised
the cloth which covered the corpse, and kissing the pale face
of Mahomet, "Oh thou!" exclaimed he, "who wert to me
as my father and my mother ; sweet art thou even in death,
and living odors dost thou exhale ! Now livest thou in ever
lasting bliss, for never will Allah subject thee to a second
death."
Then covering the corpse, he went forth and endeavored to
silence Omar, but finding it impossible, he addressed the mul
titude : " Truly if Mahomet is the sole object of your adoration,
he is dead; but if it be God you worship, he cannot die. Ma-
194 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
hornet was but the prophet of God, and has shared the fate of
the apostles and holy men who have gone before him. Allah,
himself has said in his Koran that Mahomet was but his am
bassador, and was subject to death. What then! will you
turn the heel upon him, and abandon his doctrine because he
is dead ? Eemember your apostasy harms not God, but insures
your own condemnation ; while the blessings of God will be
poured out upon those who continue faithful to him."
The people listened to Abu Beker with tears and sobbings,
and as they listened, their despair subsided. Even Omar was
convinced but not consoled, throwing himself on the earth,
and bewailing the death of Mahomet, whom he remembered
as his commander and his friend.
The death of the prophet, according to the Moslem historians
Abulfeda and Al Jannabi, took place on his birthday, when he
had completed his sixty-third year. It was in the eleventh
year of the Hegira, and the 632d year of the Christian era.
The body was prepared for sepulture by several of the dear
est relatives and disciples. They affirmed that a marvellous
fragrance which, according to the evidence of his wives and
daughters, emanated from his person during life, still contin
ued; so that, to use the words of Ali, " it seemed as if he were,
at the same time, dead and living."
The body having been washed and perfumed, was wrapped
in three coverings; two white, and the third of the striped
cloth of Yemen. The whole was then perfumed with amber,
musk, aloes, and odoriferous herbs. After this it was exposed
in public, and seventy-two prayers were offered up.
The body remained three days unburied, in compliance with
oriental custom, and to satisfy those who still believed in the
possibility of a trance. When the evidences of mortality
could no longer be mistaken, preparations were made for inter
ment. A dispute now arose as to the place of sepulture. The
Mohadjerins or disciples from Mecca contended for that city,
as being the place of his nativity ; the Ansarians claimed for
Medina, as his asylum and the place of his residence, during
the last ten years of his life. A third party advised that his
remains should be transported to Jerusalem, as the place of
sepulture of the prophets. Abu Beker, whose word had
always the greatest weight, declared it to have been the
expressed opinion of Mahomet, that a prophet should be buried
in the place where he died. This in the present instance was
complied with to the very letter, for a grave was digged in the
MAHOMET A3D 11JS 8UOCX880B3. 195
house of Ayesha, beneath the very bed on which Mahomet had
expired.
NOTE.— The house of Ayesha was immediately adjacent to the mosque; which
was at that time a humble edifice with clay walls, and a roof thatched with '.aim-
leaves, and supported by the trunks cf trees. It has since been included in a spa
cious temple, on the plan of a colonnade, inclosing an oblong square, 105 pact's by
180, open to the heavens, with four gates of entrance. The colonnade, of s.-\. i.d
rows of pillars, of various sizes, covered with stucco and gaily painted, supports a
succession of small white cupolas on the four sides of the square. At the four cor
ners are lofty and tapering minarets.
Near the south-east corner of the square is an inclosure, surrounded by an iroit
railing, painted green, wrought with filagree work and interwoven with brass uncr
gilded wire; admitting no view of the Ulterior, excepting through small windows,
about six inches square. This inclosure, the great resort of pilgrims, is called the
Hadglra, and contains the tombs of Mahomet, and his two friends and early suc
cessors, Abu Beker and Omar. Above this sacred inclosure rises a lofty dome
surmounted with a gilded globe and crescent, at the first sight of which, pilgrims,
as they approach Medina, salute the tomb of the prophet with profound inclina
tions of the body and appropriate prayers. The marvellous tale, so long consid
ered veritable, that the coffin of Mahomet remained suspended in the air without
any support, and which Christian writers accounted for by supposing that it was of
iron, and dexterously placed midway between two magnets, is proved to be an idle
fiction.
The mosque has undergone changes. It was at one time partially thrown down
and destroyed in an awful tempest, but was rebuilt by the Soldan of Egypt. It has
been enlarged and embellished by various Caliphs, and in particular by Waled I.,
under whom Spain was invaded and conquered. It was plundered of its immense
votive treasures by the Wahabees when they took and pillaged Medina. It is now
maintained, though with diminished splendor, under the care of about thirty Agas,
whose chief is called Sheikh Al Haram, or chief of the Holy House. He is the
principal personage in Medina. Pilgrimage to Medina, though considered a most
devout and meritorious act, is not imposed on Mahometans, like pilgrimage to
Mecca, as a religious duty, and has much declined in modern days.
The foregoing particulars are from Burckhardt, who gained admission into Me
dina, as well as into Mecca, in disguise and at great peril; admittance into theae
cities being prohibited to all but Moslems.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
PERSON AND CHARACTER OF MAHOMET, AND SPECULATIONS ON"
HIS PROPHETIC CAREER.
MAHOMET, according to accounts handed down by tradition
from his contemporaries, was of the middle stature, square
built and sinewy, with large hands and feet. In his youth he
was uncommonly strong and vigorous ; in the latter part of his
life he inclined to corpulency. His head was capacious, well
shaped, and well set on a neck which rose like a pillar from his
196 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
ample chest. His forehead was high, broad at the temples
and crossed by veins extending down to the eyebrows, which
swelled whenever he was angry or excited. He had an oval
face, marked and expressive features, an aquiline nose, black
eyes, arched eyebrows, which nearly met, a mouth large and
flexible, indicative of eloquence ; very white teeth, somewhat
parted and irregular ; black hair, which waved without a curl
on his shoulders, and a long and very full beard.
His deportment, in general, was calm and equable ; he some
times indulged in pleasantry, but more commonly was grave
and dignified ; though he is said to have possessed a smile of
captivating sweetness. His complexion was more ruddy than
is usual with Arabs, and in his excited and enthusiastic mo
ments there was a glow and radiance in his countenance,
which his disciples magnified into the supernatural light of
prophecy.
His intellectual qualities were undoubtedly of an extra
ordinary kind. He had a quick apprehension, a retentive
memory, a vivid imagination, and an inventive genius. Ow
ing but little to education, he had quickened and informed his
mind by close observation, and stored it with a great variety
of knowledge concerning the systems of religion current in his
day, or handed down by tradition from antiquity. His ordi
nary discourse was grave and sententious, abounding with
those aphorisms and apologues so popular among the Arabs ;
at times he was excited and eloquent, and his eloquence was
aided by a voice musical and sonorous.
He was sober and abstemious in his diet, and a rigorous
observer of fasts. He indulged in no magnificence of apparel,
the ostentation of a petty mind ; neither was his simplicity in
dress affected, but the result of a real disregard to distinction
from so trivial a source. His garments were sometimes of
wool, sometimes of the striped cotton of Yemen, and were
often patched. He wore a turban, for he said turbans were
worn by the angels ; and in arranging it he let one end hang
down between his shoulders, which he said was the way they
wore it. He forbade the wearing of clothes entirely of silk;
but permitted a mixture of thread and silk. He forbade also
red clothes and the use of gold rings. He wore a seal ring of
silver, the engraved part under his finger close to the palm of
his hand, bearing the inscription, " Mahomet the messenger of
God." He was scrupulous as to personal cleanliness, and ob
served frequent ablutions. In some respects he was a volup-
MAHOMET AND 1113 SUCCESSORS. 197
tuary. "There are two things in this world," would he say,
"which delight me, women and perfumes. These two things
rejoice my eyes and render me more fervent in devotion."
From his extreme cleanliness, and the use of perfumes and of
sweet-scented oil for his hair, probably arose that sweetness
and fragrance of person, which his disciples considered innate
and miraculous. His passion for the sex had an influence over
all his affairs. It is said that when in the presence of a beauti
ful female, he was continually smoothing his brow and adjust
ing his hair, as if anxious to appear to advantage.
The number of his wives is uncertain. Abulfeda, who writes
with more caution than other of the Arabian historians, limits
it to fifteen, though some make it as much as twenty-five. At
the time of his death he had nine, each in her separate dwell
ing, and all in the vicinity of the mosque at Medina. The plea
alleged for his indulgiug in a greater number of wives than he
permitted to his followers, was a desire to beget a race of pro
phets for his people. If such indeed were his desire, it was
disappointed. Of all his children, Fatima the wife of Ali alone
survived him, and she died within a short time after his death.
Of her descendants none excepting her eldest son Hassan ever
sat on the throne of the Caliphs.
In his private dealings he was just. He treated friends and
strangers, the rich and poor, the powerful and the weak, with
equity, and was beloved by the common people for the affabil
ity with which he received them, and listened to thv,ir com
plaints.
He was naturally irritable, but had brought his temper under
great control, so that even in the self-indulgent intercourse of
domestic life he was kind and tolerant. " I 'served him from
the time I was eight years old," said his servant Anas, "and he
never scolded me for any thing, though things were spoiled by
me."
The question now occurs, Was he the unprincipled impostor
that he has been represented? Were all his visions and revela
tions deliberate falsehoods, and was his whole system a tissue
of deceit? In considering this question we must bear in mind
that he is not chargeable with many extravagancies which
exist in his name. Many of the visions and revelations handed
down as having been given by him are spurious. The miracles
ascribed to him are all fabrications of Moslem zealots. He
expressly and repeatedly disclaimed all miracles excepting the
Koran; which, considering its incomparable merit, and the
198 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
way in which it had come down to him from heaven, ho pro
nounced the greatest of miracles. And here we must indulge
a few observations on this famous document. While zealous
Moslems and some of the most learned doctors of the faith
draw proofs of its divine origin from the inimitable excellence
of its style and composition, and the avowed illiteracy of
Mahomet, less devout critics have pronounced it a chaos of
beauties and defects ; without method or arrangement ; full of
obscurities, incoherences, repetitions, false versions of scrip
tural stories, and direct contradictions. The truth is that the
Koran as it now exists is not the same Koran delivered by
Mahomet to his disciples, but has undergone many corruptions
and interpolations. The revelations contained in it were given
at various times, in various places, and before various persons ;
sometimes they were taken down by his secretaries or disciples
on parchment, on palm-leaves, or the shoulder-blades of sheep,
and thrown together in a chest, of which one of his wives had
charge; sometimes they were merely treaasured up in the
memories of those who heard them. No care appears to have
been taken to systematize and arrange them during his life ;
and at his death they remained in scattered fragments, many
of them at the mercy of fallacious memories. It was not until
some time after his death that Abu Beker undertook to have
them gathered together and transcribed. Zeid Ibn Thabet,
who had been one of the secretaries of Mahomet, was employed
for the purpose. He professed to know many parts of the
Koran by heart, having written them down under the dicta
tion of the prophet ; other parts he collected piecemeal from
various hands, written down in the rude way we have men
tioned, and many parts he took down as repeated to him by
various disciples who professed to have heard them uttered by
the prophet himself. The heterogeneous fragments thus col
lected were thrown together without selection, without chrono
logical order, and without system of any kind. The volume
thus formed during the Caliphat of Abu Beker was transcribed
by different hands, and many professed copies put in circula
tion and dispersed throughout the Moslem cities. So many
errors, interpolations, and contradictory readings soon crept
into these copies, that Othman, the third Caliph, called in the
various manuscripts, and forming what he pronounced the
genuine Koran, caused all the others to be destroyed.
This simple statement may account for many of the inco-
herencies, repetitions, and other discrepancies charged upon
MAllOMh'T AXD HIS SUCCESSORS. 199
this singular document. Mahomet, as has justly been ob
served, may have given the same precepts, or related the same
apologue at different times, to different persons in different
words ; or various persons may have been present at one time,
and given various versions of his words; and reported his apo
logues and scriptural stories in different ways, according to
their imperfect memoranda or fallible recollections. Many
revelations given by him as having been made in foregone
times to the prophets, his predecessors, may have been re
ported as having been given as relations made to himself. It
has been intimated that Abu Beker, in the early days of his
Caliphat, may have found it politic to interpolate many things
in the Koran, calculated to aid him in emergencies, and con
firm the empire of Islamism. What corruptions and interpo
lations may have been made by other and less scrupulous
hands, after the prophet's death, we may judge by the daring
liberties of the kind taken by Abdallah Ibn Saad, one of his
secretaries, during his lifetime.
From all these circumstances it will appear, that even the
documentary memorials concerning Mahomet abound with
vitiations, while the traditional are full of fable. These in
crease the difficulty of solving the enigma of his character and
conduct. His history appears to resolve itself into two grand
divisions. During the first part, up to the period of middle
life, we cannot perceive what adequate object he had to gain
by the impious and stupendous imposture with which he
stands charged. Was it riches? His marriage with Cadijah
had already made him wealthy, and for years preceding his
pretended vision he had manifested no desire to increase his
store. Was it distinction? He already stood high in his
native place, as a man of intelligence and probity. He was of
the illustrious tribe of Koreish, and of the most honored branch
of that tribe. Was it power? The guardianship of the Caaba,
and with it the command of the sacred city, had been for gen
erations in his immediate family, and his situation and circum
stances entitled him to look forward with confidence to that
exalted trust. In attempting to subvert the faith in which he
had been brought up, he struck at the root of all these advan
tages. On that faith were founded the fortunes and dignities
of his family. To assail it must draw on himself the hostility
of his kindred, the indignation of his fellow-citizens, and the
horror and odium of all J" ^s countrymen, who were worshippers
at the Caaba.
200 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Was there anything brilliant in the outset of his prophetic
career to repay him for these sacrifices, and to lure him on?
On the contrary, it was begun in doubt and secrecy. For
years it was not attended by any material success. In propor
tion as he made known his doctrines, and proclaimed his reve
lations, they subjected him to ridicule, scorn, obloquy, and
finally to an inveterate persecution ; which ruined the fortunes
of himself and his friends ; compelled some of his family and
followers to take refuge in a foreign land ; obliged him to hide
from sight in his native city, and finally drove him forth a
fugitive to seek an uncertain home elsewhere. Why should
he persist for years in a course of imposture which was thus
prostrating all his worldly fortunes, at a time of life when it
was too late to build them up anew?
In the absence of sufficient worldly motives, we are com
pelled to seek some other explanation of his conduct in this
stage of his most enigmatical history; and this we have en
deavored to set forth in the early part of this work ; where we
have shown his enthusiastic and visionary spirit gradually
wrought up by solitude, fasting, prayer, and meditation, and
irritated by bodily disease into a state of temporary delirium,
in which he fancies he receives a revelation from heaven, and
is declared a prophet of the Most High. We cannot but think
there was self-deception in this instance ; and that he believed
in the reality of the dream or vision ; especially after his doubts
had been combated by the zealous and confiding Cadijah, and
the learned and crafty Waraka.
Once persuaded of his divine mission to go forth and preach
the faith, all subsequent dreams and impulses might be con
strued to the same purport ; all might be considered intimations
of the divine will, imparted in their several ways to him as a
prophet. We find him repeatedly subject to trances and ec
stasies in times of peculiar agitation and excitement, when he
may have fancied himself again in communication with the
Deity, and these were almost always followed by revela
tions.
The general tenor of his conduct up to the time of his flight
from Mecca, is that of an enthusiast acting under a species ot
mental delusion ; deeply imbued with a conviction of his being
a divine agent for religious reform; and there is something
striking and sublime in the luminous path which his enthu
siastic spirit struck out for itself through the bewildering
maze of adverse faiths and wild traditions ; the pure and spiri-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 201
tual worship of the one true God, which he sought to substitute
for the blind idolatry of his childhood.
All the parts of the Koran supposed to have been promul
gated by him at this time, incoherently as they have come
down to us, and marred as their pristine beauty must be in
passing through various hands, are of a pure and elevated
character, and breathe poetical if not religious inspiration.
They show that he had drunk deep of the living waters of
Christianity, and if he had failed to imbibe them in their
crystal purity, it might be because he had to drink from
broken cisterns, and streams troubled and perverted by those
who should have been their guardians. The faith he had
hitherto inculcated was purer than that held forth by some of
the pseudo Christians of Arabia, and his life, so far, had been
regulated according to its tenets.
Such is our view of Mahomet and his conduct during the
early part of his career, while he was a persecuted and ruined
man in Mecca. A signal change, however, took place, as we
have shown in the foregoing chapters, after his flight to
Medina, when, in place of the mere shelter and protection
which he sought, he finds himself revered as a prophet, impli
citly obeyed as a chief, and at the head of a powerful, growing,
and warlike host of votaries. From this time worldly pas
sions and worldly schemes too often give the impulse to his
actions, instead of that visionary enthusiasm which, even if
mistaken, threw a glow of piety on his earlier deeds. The old
doctrines of forbearance, long-suffering, and resignation, are
suddenly dashed aside; he becomes vindictive toward those
who have hitherto oppressed him, and ambitious of extended
rule. His doctrines, precepts, and conduct become marked by
contradictions, and his whole course is irregular and unsteady.
His revelations, henceforth, are so often opportune and fitted
to particular emergencies, that we are led to doubt his sin
cerity, and that he is any longer under the same delusion
concerning them. Still, it must be remembered, as we have
shown, that the records of these revelations are not always to
be depended upon. What he may have uttered as from his
own will may have been reported as if given as the will of
God. Often, too, as we have already suggested, he may have
considered his own impulses as divine intimations; and that,
being an agent ordained to propagate the faith, all impulses
; and conceptions toward that end might be part of a continued
and divine inspiration.
202 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
If we are far from considering Mahomet the gross and im
pious impostor that some have represented him, so also are we
indisposed to give him credit for vast forecast, and for that
deeply concerted scheme of universal conquest which has been
ascribed to him. He was, undoubtedly, a man of great genius
and a suggestive imagination, but it appears to us that he was,
in a great degree, the creature of impulse and excitement, and
very much at the mercy of circumstances. His schemes grew
out of his fortunes, and not his fortunes out of his schemes.
He was forty years of age before he first broached his doc
trines. He suffered year after year to steal away before he
promulgated them out of his own family. When he fled from
Mecca thirteen years had elapsed from the announcement of
his mission, and from being a wealthy merchant he had sunk
to be a ruined fugitive. When he reached Medina he had no
idea of the worldly power that awaited him ; his only thought
was to build a humble mosque where he might preach ; and his
only hope that he might be suffered to preach with impunity.
When power suddenly broke upon him he used it for a time in
petty forays and local feuds. His military plans expanded
with his resources, but were by no means masterly, and were
sometimes unsuccessful. They were not struck out with bold
ness, nor executed with decision ; but were often changed in
deference to the opinions of warlike men about him, and some
times at the suggestion of inferior minds, who occasionally led
him wrong. Had he, indeed, conceived from the outset the
idea of binding up the scattered and conflicting tribes of
Arabia into one nation by a brotherhood of faith, for the pur
pose of carrying out a scheme of external conquest, he would
have been one of the first of military projectors ; but the idea
of extended conquest seems to have been an after-thought pro
duced by success. The moment he proclaimed the religion of
the sword, and gave the predatory Arabs a taste of foreign
plunder, that moment he was launched in a career of conquest,
which carried him forward with its own irresistible impetus.
The fanatic zeal with which he had inspired his followers did
more for his success than his military science ; their belief in
his doctrine of predestination produced victories which no
military calculation could have anticipated. In his dubious
outset, as a prophet, he had been encouraged by the crafty
counsels of his scriptural oracle Waraka; in his career as a
conqueror he had Omar, Khaled, and other fiery spirits by his
side to urge him on, and to aid him in managing the tremen-
MAHOMET AND UIS SUCCESSOR?. on:>
dous power which he had evoked into action. Even with all
their aid, he had occasionally to avail himself of his super
natural machinery as a prophet, and in so doing may have re
conciled himself to the fraud by considering the pious end to
be obtained.
His military triumphs awakened no pride nor vainglory, as
they would have dene had they been effected for selfish pur
poses. In the time of his greatest power, he maintained the
same simplicity of manners and appearance as in the days of
his adversity. So far from affecting regal state, he was dis
pleased if, on entering a room, any unusual testimonial of
respect were shown him. If he aimed at universal dominion,
it was the dominion of the faith : as to the temporal rule which
grew up in his hands, as he used it without ostentation, so he
took no step to perpetuate it in his family.
The riches which poured in upon him from tribute and the
spoils of war were expended in promoting the victories of the
faith, and in relieving the poor among its votaries ; insomuch
that his treasury was often drained of its last coin. Omar Ibn
Al Hareth declares that Mahomet, at his death, did not leave a
golden dinar nor a silver dirhem, a slave nor a slave girl, nor
anything but his gray mule Daldal, his arms, and the ground
which he bestowed upon his wives, his children, and the poor.
4 'Allah," says an Arabian writer, "offered him the keys
of all the treasures of the earth; but he refused to accept
them."
It is this perfect abnegation of self, connected with this
apparently heartfelt piety, running throughout the various
phases of his fortune, which perplex one in forming a just esti
mate of Mahomet's character. However he betrayed the alloy
of earth after he had worldly power at his command, the
early aspirations of his spirit continually returned and bore
him above all earthly things. Prayer, that vital duty of
Islamism, and that infallible purifier of the soul, was his con
stant practice. " Trust in God," was his comfort and support
in times of trial and despondency. On the clemency of God,
we are told, he reposed all his hopes of supernal happiness.
Ayesha relates that on one occasion she inquired of him, "Oh
prophet, do none enter paradise but through God's mercy ?"
"None—none— none!" replied he, with earnest and emphatic
repetition. "But you, oh prophet, will not yon enter excepting
through his compassion?" Then Mahomet put his hand upon
his head, and replied thrse times, with great solemnity^
204 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
" Neither shall I enter paradise unless God cover mo with bis
mercy !"
When he hung over the death-hed of his infant son Ibrahim,
resignation to the will of God was exhibited in his conduct
under this keenest of afflictions ; and the hope of soon rejoin
ing his child in paradise was his consolation. When he fol
lowed him to the grave, he invoked his spirit, in the awful
examination of the tomb, to hold fast to the foundations of the
faith, the unity of God, and his own mission as a prophet.
Even in his own dying hour, when there could be no longer a
worldly motive for deceit, he still breathed the same religious
devotion, and the same belief in his apostolic mission. The
last words that trembled on his lips ejaculated & trust of soon
entering into blissful companionship with the prophets who
had gone before him.
It is difficult to reconcile such ardent, persevering piety, with
an incessant system of blasphemous imposture ; nor such pure
and elevated and benignant precepts as are contained in the
Koran, with a mind haunted by ignoble passions, and devoted
to the grovelling interests of mere mortality ; and we find no
other satisfactory mode of solving the enigma of his character
and conduct, than by supposing that the ray of mental hallu
cination which flashed upon his enthusiastic spirit during his
religious ecstasies in the midnight cavern of Mount Hara, con
tinued more or less to bewilder him with a species of monoma
nia to the end of his career, and that he died in the delusive
belief of his mission as a prophet.
APPENDIX.
OF THE ISLAM FAITH.
IN an early chapter of this work we have given such particu
lars of the faith inculcated by Mahomet as we deemed impor
tant to the understanding of the succeeding narrative : we now,
though at the expense of some repetition, subjoin a more com
plete summary, accompanied by a few observations.
. The religion of Islam, as we observed on the before-men
tioned occasion, is divided into two parts: FAITH and PRACTICE:
—and first of faith. This is distributed under six different
MAHOMKT AND 1118 SUCCESSORS. 20£
heads, or articles, viz. : 1st, faith in God ; 2d, in his angels ; 3d,
in his Scriptures or Koran; 4th, in his prophets; 5th, in the
resurrection and final judgment; Gth, in predestination. Of
these we will briefly treat in the order we have enumerated
them.
FAITH IN GOD. — Mahomet inculcated the belief that there is,
was, and ever will be, one only God, the creator of all things;
who is single, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, all merciful,
and eternal. The unity of God was specifically and strongly
urged, in contradistinction to the Trinity of the Christians. It
was designated, in the profession of faith, by raising one finger,
and exclaiming, " La illaha il Allah !" There is no God but God
— to which was added, " Mohamed Resoul Allah!" Mahomet is
the prophet of God.
FAITH IN ANGELS.— The beautiful doctrine of angels, or min
istering spirits, which was one of the most ancient and uni
versal of oriental creeds, is interwoven throughout the Islam
system. They are represented as ethereal beings, created from
fire, the purest of elements, perfect in form and radiant in
beauty, but without sex ; free from all gross or sensual passion,
and all the appetites and infirmities of frail humanity; and
existing in perpetual and unfading youth. They are various
in their degrees and duties, and in their favor with the Deity.
Some worship around the celestial throne ; others perpetually
hymn the praises of Allah; some are winged messengers to
execute his orders, and others intercede for the children of
men.
The most distinguished of this heavenly host are four arch
angels. Gabriel, the angel of revelations, who writes down the
divine decrees ; Michael, the champion, who fights the battles
of the faith ; Azrail, the angel of death ; and Israfil, who holds
the awful commission to sound the trumpet on the day of
resurrection. There was another angel named Azazil, the same
as Lucifer, once the most glorious of the celestial band : but he
became proud and rebellious. When God commanded his
angels to worship Adam, Azazil refused, saying, " Why should
I, whom thou hast created of fire, bow down to one whom thou
hast formed of clay ?" For this offence he was accursed and
cast forth from paradise, and his name changed to Eblis, which
signifies despair. In revenge of his abasement, he works all
kinds of mischief against the children of men, and inspires
them with disobedience and impiety.
Among tho angels of inferior rank is a class called Moak
206 MAHOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
kibat ; two of whom keep watch upon each mortal, one on the
right hand, the other on the left, taking note of every word
arid action. At thf close of each day they fly up to heaven
with a written report, and are replaced by two similar angels
on the following day. According to Mahometan tradition,
every good action is recorded ten times by the angel on the
right; and if the mortal commit a sin, the same benevolent
spirit says to the angel on the left, ' ' Forbear for seven hours to
record it ; peradventure he may repent and pray and obtain
forgiveness. "
Besides the angelic orders Mahomet inculcates a belief in
spiritual beings called Gins or Genii, who, though likewise cre
ated of fire, partake of the appetites and frailties of the children
of the dust, and like them are ultimately liable to death. By
beings of this nature, which haunt the solitudes of the desert,
Mahomet, as we have shown, professed to have been visited
after his evening orisons in the solitary valley of Al Naklah.
When the angel Azazil rebelled and fell and became Satan or
Eblis, he still maintained sovereignty over these inferior spirits ;
who are divided by Orientalists into Dives and Peri : the for
mer ferocious and gigantic ; the latter delicate and gentle, sub
sisting on perfumes. It would seem as if the Peri were all of
the female sex, though on this point there rests obscurity.
From these imaginary beings it is supposed the European
fairies are derived.
Besides these there are other demi-spirits called Tacwins or
Fates, being winged females of beautiful forms, who utter
oracles and defend mortals from the assaults and machinations
of evil demons.
There is vagueness and uncertainty about all the attributes
given by Mahomet to these half -celestial beings ; his ideas on
the subject having been acquired from various sources. His
whole system of intermediate spirits has a strong though indis
tinct infusion of the creeds and superstitions of the Hebrews,
the Magians, and the Pagans or Sabeans.
The third article of faith is a belief in the KORAN, as a book
of divine revelation. According to the Moslem creed a book
was treasured up in the seventh heaven, and had existed there
from all eternity, in which were written down all the decrees
of God and all events, past, present, or to come. Transcripts
from these tablets of the divine will were brought down to the
lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel, an<i by him revealed to
Mahomet from time k> time, "in' {Vrjruoijs' adapted i-u
MAHOMET AMJ JUti tiUCt'KtitiOlte. :>07
event or emergency. Being the direct words of God, they were
all spoken in the first person.
Of the way in which these revelations were taken down Dr
treasured up by secretaries and disciples, and gathered to
gether by Abu Beker after the death of Mahomet, we have
macle sufficient mention. The compilation, for such in fact it
is, f onns the Moslem code of civil and penal as well as religious
law, and is treated with the utmost reverence by all true
believers. A zealous pride is shown in having copies of it
splendidly bound and ornamented. An inscription on the
cover forbids any one to touch it who is unclean, and it is con
sidered irreverent, in reading it, to hold it below the girdle.
Moslems swear by it, and take omens from its pages, by open
ing it and reading the first text that meets the eye. With all
its errors and discrepancies, if we consider it mainly as the
work of one man, and that an unlettered man, it remains a
stupendous monument of solitary legislation.
Besides the Koran or written law, a number of precepts and
apologues which casually fell from the lips of Mahomet were
collected after his death from ear-witnesses, and transcribed
into a book called the Sonna or Oral Law. This is held equally
sacred with the Koran by a sect of Mahometans thence called
Sonnites ; others reject it as apocryphal ; these last are termed
Schiites. Hostilities and persecutions have occasionally taken
place between these sects almost as virulent as those which,
between Catholics and Protestants, have disgraced Christian
ity. The Sonnites are distinguished by white, the Schiites by
red turbans; hence the latter have received from their antago
nists the appellation of Kussilbachi, or Red Heads.
It is remarkable that circumcision, which is invariably prac
tised by the Mahometans, and forms a distinguishing rite of
their faith, to which all proselytes must conform, is neither
mentioned in the Koran nor the Sonna. It seems to have been
a general usage in Arabia, tacitly adopted from the Jews, and
is even said to have been prevalent throughout the East before
the time of Moses.
It is said that the Koran forbids the making likenesses oH
any living thing, which has prevented the introduction of por
trait-painting among Mahometans. The passage of the Koran,
however, which is thought to contain the prohibition, seems
merely an echo of the second commandment, held sacred by
Jews and Christians, not to form images or pictures for wor
ship. One of Mahomet's standards was a black eagle. Amon;;
208 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the most distinguished Moslem ornaments of the Alhambra at
Granada is a fountain supported by lions carved of stone, and
some Moslem monarchs have had their effigies stamped on
their coins.
Another and an important mistake with regard to the system
of Mahomet is the idea that it denies souls to the female sex,
and excludes them from paradise. This error arises from his
omitting to mention their enjoyments in a future state, while
he details those of his own sex with the minuteness of a volup
tuary. The beatification of virtuous females is alluded to in
the 56th Sura of the Koran, and also in other places, although
from the vagueness of the language a cursory reader might
suppose the Houris of paradise to be intended.
The fourth article of faith relates to the PROPHETS. Their
number amounts to two hundred thousand, but only six are
supereminent, as having brought new laws and dispensations*
upon earth, each abrogating those previously received where-
ever they varied or were contradictory. These six distin
guished prophets were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus,
and Mahomet.
The fifth article of Islam faith is on the RESURRECTION and
the FINAL JUDGMENT. On this awful subject Mahomet blended
some of the Christian belief with certain notions current among
the Arabian Jews. One of the latter is the fearful tribunal of
the Sepulchre. When Azra'il, the angel of death, has per
formed his office, and the corpse has been consigned to the
tomb, two black angels, Munkar and Nakeer, of dismal and
appalling aspect, present themselves as inquisitors; during
whose scrutiny the soul is reunited to the body. The defunct,
being commanded to sit up, is interrogated as to the two great
points of faith, the unity of God, and the divine mission of
Mahomet, and likewise as to the deeds done by him during
life ; and his replies are recorded in books against the day of
judgment. Should they be satisfactory, his soul is gently
drawn forth from his lips, and his body left to its repose;
should they be otherwise, he is beaten about the brows with
iron clubs, and his soul wrenched forth with racking tortures.
.For the convenience of this awful inquisition, the Mahometans
generally deposit their dead in hollow or vaulted sepulchres ;
merely wrapped in funeral clothes, but not placed in cof-
.nns.
The space of time between death and resurrection is called
Berzak, or the Interval During this period the body rests in
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 2()0
the grave, but the soul has a foretaste, in dreams or visions, of
its future doom.
The souls of prophets are admitted at once into the full frui
tion of paradise. Those of martyrs, including all who die in
battle, enter into the bodies or crops of green birds, who feed
on the fruits and drink of the streams of paradise. Those of
the great mass of true believers are variously disposed of, but,
according to the most received opinion, they hover, in a state
of seraphic tranquillity, near the tombs. Hence the Moslem
usage of visiting the graves of their departed friends and rel
atives, in the idea that their souls are the gratified witnesses
these testimonials of affection.
Many Moslems believe that the souls of the truly faithful as
sume the forms of show-white birds, and nestle beneath the
throne of Allah ; a belief in accordance with an ancient super
stition of the Hebrews, that the souls of the just will have a
place in heaven under the throne of glory.
With regard to the souls of infidels, the most orthodox opi
nion is that they will be repulsed by angels both from heaven
and earth, and cast into the cavernous bowels of the earth,
there to await in tribulation the day of judgment.
THE DAY OF RESURRECTION will be preceded by signs and por
tents in heaven and earth. A total eclipse of the moon; a
change hi the course of the sun, rising in the west instead of
the east ; wars and tumults ; a universal decay of faith ; the
advent of Antichrist ; the issuing forth of Gog and Magog to
desolate the world ; a great smoke, covering the whole earth —
these and many more prodigies and omens affrighting and
harassing the souls of men, and producing a wretchedness of
spirit and a weariness of life ; insomuch that a man passing by
a grave shall envy the quiet dead, and say, " Would to God I
were in thy place !"
The last dread signal of the awful day will be the blast of a
trumpet by the archangel Israfil. At the sound thereof the
earth will tremble ; castles and towers will be shaken to the
ground, and mountains levelled with the plains. The face of
heaven will be darkened ; the firmament will melt away, and
the sun, the moon, and stars will fall into the sea. The ocean
will be either dried up, or will boil and roll in fiery billows.
At the sound of that dreadful trump a panic will fall on the
human race ; men will fly from their brothers, their parents,
and their wives ; and mothers, in frantic terror, abandon the
infant at the breast. The savage beasts of the forests and
210 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the tame animals of the pasture will forget their fierceness
and their antipathies, and herd together in affright.
The second blast of the trumpet is the blast of extermination.
At that sound, all creatures in heaven and on earth and in the
waters under the earth, angels and genii and men and animals,
all will die ; excepting the chosen few especially reserved by
Allah. The last to die will be Azrail, the angel of death !
Forty days, or, according to explanations, forty years of
continued rain will follow this blast of extermination; then
will be sounded for the third time the trumpet of the arch
angel Israfil ; it is the call to judgment ! At the sound of this
blast the whole space between heaven and earth will be filled
with the souls of the dead flying in quest of their respective
bodies. Then the earth will open ; and there will be a rattling
of dry bones, and a gathering together of scattered limbs ; the
very hairs will congregate together, and the whole body be re
united, and the soul will re-enter it, and the dead will rise from
mutilation, perfect in every part and naked as when born.
The infidels will grovel with their faces on the earth, but the
faithful will tmlk erect; as to the truly pious, they will be
borne aloft on winged camels, white as milk, with saddles of
fine gold.
Every human being will then be put upon his trial as to the
manner in which he has employed his faculties, and the good
and evil actions of his life. A mighty balance will be poised
by the angel Gabriel ; in one of the scales, termed Light, will
be placed his good actions ; in the other, termed Darkness, his
evil deeds. An atom or a grain of mustard-seed will suffice to
turn this balance ; and the nature of the sentence will depend
on the preponderance of either scale. At that moment retri
bution will be exacted for every wrong and injury. He who
has wronged a fellow-mortal will have to repay him with a
portion of his own good deeds, or, if he have none to boast of,
will have to take upon himself a proportionate weight of the
other's sins.
The trial of the balance will be succeeded by the ordeal of the
bridge. The whole assembled multitude will have to follow
Mahomet across the bridge Al Serat, as fine as the edge of a
scimetar, which crosses the gulf of Jehennam or Hell. Infidels
and sinful Moslems will grope along it darkling and fall into
the abyss ; but the faithful, aided by a beaming light, will cross
with the swiftness of birds and enter the realms of paradise.
The idea of this bridge, and of the dreary realms of Jehennam,
MA 110 MET AM) 7/AS SUCCESSORS. 211
is supposed to have been derived partly from the Jews, but
chiefly from the Magians.
Jehennam is a region fraught with all kinds of horrors. The
very trees have writhing serpents for branches, bearing for
fruit the heads of demons. We forbear to dwell upon the par
ticulars of this dismal abode, which are given with painful and
often disgusting minuteness. It is described as consisting of
seven stages, one below the other, and varying in the nature
and intensity of torment. The first stage is allotted to Athe
ists, who deny creator and creation, and believe the world to
be eternal. The second for Manicheans and others that admit
two divine principles; and for the Arabian idolaters of the era
of Mahomet. The third is for the Brahmins of India ; the fourth
for the Jews; the fifth for Christians; the sixth for the Magians
or Ghebers of Persia ; the seventh for hypocrites, who profess
without believing in religion.
The fierce angel Thabeck, that is to say, the executioner, pre
sides over this region of terror.
We must observe that the general nature of Jehennam, and
the distribution of its punishments, have given rise to various
commentaries and expositions among the Moslem doctors. It
is maintained by some, and it is a popular doctrine, that none
of the believers in Allah and his prophets will be condemned to
eternal punishment. Their sins will be expiated by propor
tionate periods of suffering, varying from nine hundred to
Hine thousand years.
Some of the most humane among the Doctors contend
against eternity of punishment to any class of sinners, saying
that, as God is all merciful, even infidels will eventually be
pardoned. Those who have an intercessor, as the Christians
have in Jesus Christ, will be first redeemed. The liberality of
these worthy commentators, however, does not extend so far
as to admit them into paradise among true believers ; but con
cludes that, after long punishment, they will be relieved from
their torments by annihilation.
Between Jehennam and paradise is Al Araf or the Partition,
a region destitute of peace or pleasure, destined for the recep
tion of infants, lunatics, idiots, and such other beings as have
done neither good nor evil. For such, too, whose good and
evil deeds balance each other; though these may bo admitted
to paradise through the intercession of Mahomet, on perform
ing an act of adoration, to turn the scales in thoir favor. It is
said that the teaantb of this region can converse with tV«ir
212 MAHOMEZ AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
neighbors on either hand, the blessed and the condemned ; and
that Al Araf appears a paradise to those in hell and a hell to
those in paradise.
AL JANET, OR THE GARDEN. — When the true believer has
passed through all his trials, and expiated all his sins, he re
freshes himself at the Pool of the Prophet. This is a lake of
fragrant water, a month's journey in circuit, fed by the river
Al Cauther, which flows from paradise. The water of this lake
is sweet as honey, cold as snow, and clear as crystal ; he who
once tastes of it will never more be tormented by thirst; a
blessing dwelt upon with peculiar zest by Arabian writers, ac
customed to the parching thirst of the desert.
After the true believer has drunk of this water of life, the
gate of paradise is opened to him by the angel Eushvan. The
same prolixity and minuteness which occur in the description
of Jehennam, are lavished on the delights of paradise, until
the imagination is dazzled and confused by the details. The
soil is of the finest wheaten flour, fragrant with perfumes,
and strewed with pearls and hyacinths instead of sands and
pebbles.
Some of the streams are of crystal purity, running between
green banks enamelled with flowers; others are of milk, of
wine and honey ; flowing over beds of musk, between margins
of camphire, covered with moss and saffron I The air is sweet
er than the spicy gales of Sabea, and cooled by sparkling
fountains. Here, too, is Taba, the wonderful tree of life, so
large that a fleet horse would need a hundred years to
cross itc shade. The boughs are laden with every variety of
delicious fruit, and bend to the hand of those who seek to
gather.
The inhabitants of this blissful garden are clothed in raiment
sparkling with jewels; they wear crowns of gold enriched with
pearls and diamonds, and dwell in sumptuous palaces or silken
pavilions, reclining on voluptuous couches. Here every be
liever will have hundreds of attendants, bearing dishes and
goblets of gold, to serve him with every variety of exquisite
viand and beverage. He will eat without satiety, and drink
without inebriation ; the last morsel and the last drop wiU be
equally relished with the first ; he will feel no repletion, and
need no evacuation.
The air will resound with the melodious voice of Israfil, and
the songs of the daughters of paradise; the very rustling of the
trees will produce ravishing harmony, while myriads of beUs.
MA110MKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 213
hanging among their branches, will be put in dulcet motion by
airs from the throne of Allah.
Above all, the faithful will be blessed with female society to
the full extent even of oriental imaginings. Besides the wives
he had on earth, who will rejoin him in all their pristine
charms, he will be attended by the Hur al Oyun, or Houris, so
called from their large black eyes ; resplendent beings, free from
every human defect or frailty; perpetually retaining their
youth and beauty, and renewing their virginity. Seventy-two
of these are allotted to every believer. The intercourse with
them will be fruitful or not according to their wish, and the
offspring will grow within an hour to the same stature with the
parents.
That the true believer may be fully competent to the enjoy
ments of this blissful region, he will rise from the grave in the
prime of manhood, at the age of thirty, of the stature of Adam,
which was thirty cubits ; with all his faculties improved to a
state of preternatural perfection, with the abilities of a hundred
men, and with desires and appetites quickened rather than
sated by enjoyment.
These and similar delights are promised to the meanest of the
faithful; there are gradations of enjoyment, however, as of
merit; but, as to those prepared for the most deserving, Ma
homet found the powers of description exhausted, and was
fain to make use of the text from Scripture, that they should
be such things "as eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,
neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive."
The expounders of the Mahometan law differ in their opinions
as to the whole meaning of this system of rewards and punish
ments. One set understanding everything in a figurative, the
other in a literal sense. The former insist that the prophet
spake in parable, in a manner suited to the coarse perceptions
and sensual natures of his hearers ; and maintain that the joys
of heaven will be mental as well as corporeal ; the resurrection
being of both soul and body. The soul will revel in a super
natural development and employment of all its faculties ; in a
knowledge of all the arcana of nature ; the full revelation of
everything past, present, and to come. The enjoyments of the
body will be equally suited to its various senses, and perfected
to a supernatural degree.
The same expounders regard the description of Jehennam as
equally figurative ; the torments of the soul consisting in the
anguish of perpetual remorse for past crimes, and deep and
214 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
ever-increasing despair for the loss of heaven ; those of the body
in excruciating and never-ending pain.
The other doctors, who construe everything in a literal
sense, are considered the most orthodox, and their sect is be
yond measure the most numerous. Most of the particulars in
the system of rewards and punishments, as has been already
observed, have close affinity to the superstitions of the Magians
and the Jewish Rabbins. The Houri, or black-eyed nymphs,
who figure so conspicuously in the Moslem's paradise, are said
to be the same as the Huram Behest of the Persian Magi, and
Mahomet is accused by Christian investigators of having pur
loined much of his description of heaven from the account of
the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse ; with such variation as
is used by knavish jewellers, when they appropriate stolen
jewels to their own use.
The sixth and last article of the Islam faith is PREDESTINA
TION, and on this Mahomet evidently reposed his chief depend
ence for the success of his military enterprises. He inculcated
that every event had been predetermined by God, and written
down in the eternal tablet previous to the creation of the world.
That the destiny of every individual, and the hour of his death,
were irrevocably fixed, and could neither be varied nor evaded
by any effort of human sagacity or foresight. Under this per
suasion, the Moslems engaged in battle without risk; and, as
death in battle was equivalent to martyrdom, and entitled
them to an immediate admission into paradise, they had in
either alternative, death or victory, a certainty of gain.
This doctrine, according to which men by their own free will
can neither avoid sin nor avert punishment, is considered by
many Mussulmen as derogatory to the justice and clemency of
God ; and several sects have sprung up, who endeavor to soften
and explain away this perplexing dogma ; but the number of
these doubters is small, and they are not considered orthodox.
The doctrine of Predestination was one of those timely reve
lations to Mahomet, that were almost miraculous from their
seasonable occurrence. It took place immediately after the
disastrous battle of Ohod, in which many of his followers, and
among them his uncle Hamza, were slain. Then it was, in a
moment of gloom and despondency, when his followers around
him were disheartened, that he promulgated this law, telling
them that every man must die at the appointed hour, whether
in bed or in the field of battle. He declared, moreover, that the
angel Gabriel had announced to him the reception of Hamza
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 215
into the seventh heaven, with the title of Lion of God and of
the Prophet. He added, as he contemplated the dead bodies,
" I am witness for these, and for all who have been slain for
the cause of God, that they shall appear in glory at the resur
rection, with their wounds brilliant as vermilion and odoriferous
as musk."
What doctrine could have been devised more calculated to
hurry forward, in a wild career of conquest, a set of ignorant
and predatory soldiers than this assurance of booty if they sur
vived, and paradise if they fell? * It rendered almost irresisti
ble the Moslem arms ; but it likewise contained the poison that
was to destroy their dominion. From the moment the succes
sors of the prophet ceased to be aggressors and conquerors, and
sheathed the sword definitively, the doctrine of predestination
began its baneful work. Enervated by peace, and the sensuality
permitted by the Koran — which so distinctly separates its doc
trines from the pure and self-denying religion of the Messiah —
the Moslem regarded every reverse as preordained by Allah,
and inevitable ; to be borne stoically, since human exertion and
foresight were vain. " Help thyself and God will helpthee,"
was a precept never in force with the followers of Mahomet,
and its reverse has been their fate. The crescent has waned
before the cross, and exists in Europe, where it was once so
mighty, only by the suffrage, or rather the jealousy, of the
great Christian powers, probably ere long to furnish another
illustration, that " they that take the sword shall perish with
the sword."
RELIGIOUS PRACTICE.
The articles of religious practice are fourfold: Prayer, in
cluding ablution, Alms, Fasting, Pilgrimage.
ABLUTION is enjoined as preparative to PRAYER, purity of
body being considered emblematical of purity of soul. It is
prescribed in the Koran with curious precision. The face,
arms, elbows, feet, and a fourth part of the head, to be washed
once ; the hands, mouth, and nostrils, three times, the ears to
be moistened with the residue of the water used for the head,
and the teeth to be cleaned with a brush. The ablution to
commence on the right and terminate on the left ; in washing
* The reader may recollect that a belief in predestination, or destiny, was en*
couraged by Napoleon, and had much influence on his troops.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the hands and feet to begin with the fingers and toes; where
water is not to be had, fine sand may be used.
PRAYER is to be performed five times every day, viz. : the
first in the morning, before sunrise ; the second at noon ; the
third in the afternoon, before sunset ; the fourth in the even
ing, between sunset and dark ; the fifth between twilight and
the first watch, being the vesper prayer. A sixth prayer is
volunteered by many between the first watch of the night and
the dawn of day. These prayers are but repetitions of the
same laudatory ejaculation, u God is great ! God is powerful !
God is all powerful 1" and are counted by the scrupulous upon
a string of beads. They may be performed at the mosque, or
in any clean place. During prayer tLe eyes are turned to the
Kebla, or point of the heaven in the direction of Mecca ; which
is indicated in every mosque by a niche called Al Mehrab, and
externally by the position of the minarets and doors. Even
the postures to be observed in prayer are prescribed, and the
most solemn act of adoration is by bowing the forehead to the
ground. Females in praying are not to stretch forth their
arms, "but to fold them on their bosoms. They are not to make
as profound inflections as the men. They are to pray in a low
and gentle tone of voice. They are not permitted to accom
pany the men to the mosque, lest the minds of the worshippers
should be drawn from their devotions. In addressing them
selves to God, the faithful are enjoined" to do so with humility ;
putting aside costly ornaments and sumptuous apparel.
Many of the Mahometan observances with respect to prayer
were similar to those previously maintained by the Sabeans ;
others agreed with the ceremonials prescribed by the Jewish
Rabbins. Such were the postures, inflections, and prostra
tions, and the turning of the face toward the Kebla, which,
however, with the Jews, was in the direction of the temple at
Jerusalem.
Prayer, with the Moslem, is a daily exercise ; but on Friday
there is a sermon in the mosque. This day was generally held
sacred among oriental nations as the day on which man was
created. The Sabean idolaters consecrated it to Astarte or
Venus, the most beautiful of the planets and brightest of the
stars. Mahomet adopted it as his Sabbath, partly perhaps
from early habitude, but chiefly to vary from the Saturday of
the Jews and Sunday of the Christians.
The second article of religious practice is CHARITY, or the
giving of alms. There are two kinds of alms, viz. : those pre-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCChSSORS. 217
scribed by law, called Zacat, like tithes in the Christian
church, to be made in specified proportions, whether in money,
wares, cattle, corn, or fruit ; and voluntary gifts, termed Sada-
kat, made at the discretion of the giver. Every Moslem is
enjoined, in one way or the other, to dispense a tenth of his
revenue in^relief of the indigent and distressed.
The third article of practice is FASTING, also supposed to
have been derived from the Jews. In each year for thirty
days, during the month Rhamadan, the true believer is to ab
stain rigorously, from the rising to the setting of the sun, from
meat and drink, baths, perfumes, the intercourse of the sexes,
and all other gratifications and delights of the senses. This is
considered a great triumph of self-denial, mortifying and sub
duing the several appetites, and purifying both body and soul.
Of these three articles of practice the Prince Abdalasis used
to say, u Prayer leads us half way to God; fasting conveys us
to his threshold, but alms conduct us into his presence."
PILGRIMAGE is the fourth grand practical duty enjoined
upon Moslems. Every true believer is bound to make one pil
grimage to Mecca in the course of his lifer either personally or
by proxy. In the latter case his name toust be mentioned in
every prayer offered up by his substitute.
Pilgrimage is incumbent only on free persons of mature age,
sound intellect, and who have health and wealth enough to
bear the fatigues and expenses of the journey. The pilgrim
before his departure from home arranges all his affairs, public
and domestic, as if preparing for his death.
On the appointed day, which is either Tuesday, Thursday,
or Saturday, as being propitious for the purpose, he assembles
his wives, children, and all his household, and devoutly com
mends them and all his concerns to the care of God during his
holy enterprise. Then passing one end of his turban beneath
his chin to the opposite side of his head, like the attire of a
nun, and grasping a stout staff of bitter almonds, he takes
leave of his household, and sallies from the apartment, ex^
claiming, " In the name of God I undertake this holy work,
confiding in his protection. I believe in him, and place in-
his hands my actions and my life."
On leaving the portal he turns his face toward the Kebla,
repeats certain passages of the Koran, and adds, "I turn my
face to the Holy Caaba, the throne of God, to accomplish the
pilgrimage commanded by his law, and which shall draw me
near to him."
218 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
He finally puts his foot in the stirrup, mounts into the sad-
die, commends himself again to God, almighty, all- wise, all-
merciful, and sets forth on his pilgrimage. The time of
departure is always calculated so as to insure an arrival at
Mecca at the beginning of the pilgrim month Dhu'l-hajji.
Three laws are to be observed throughout this pious journey :
1. To commence no quarrel.
2. To bear meekly all harshness and reviling.
3. To promote peace and good-will among his companions in
the caravan.
He is, moreover, to be liberal in his donations and charities
throughout his pilgrimage.
When arrived at some place in the vicinity of M^cca, he
allows his hair and nails to grow, strips himself to the skin,
and assumes the Ihram or pilgrim garb, consisting of two
scarfs, without seams or decorations, and of any stuff except
ing silk. One of these is folded round the loins, the other
thrown over the neck and shoulders, leaving the right arm
free. The head is uncovered, but the aged and infirm are per
mitted to fold something round it in consideration of alms
given to the poor. . Umbrellas are allowed as a protection
against the sun, and indigent pilgrims supply their place by a
rag on the end of a staff.
The instep must be bare ; and peculiar sandals are provided
for the purpose, or a piece of the upper leather of the shoe is
cut out. The pilgrim, when thus attired, is termed Al Moh-
rem.
The Ihram of females is an ample cloak and veil, enveloping
the whole person, so that, in strictness, the wrists, the ankles,
and even the eyes should be concealed.
When once assumed, the Ihram must be worn until the pil
grimage is completed, however unsuited it may be to the sea
son or the weather. While wearing it, the pilgrim must
abstain from all licentiousness of language ; all sensual inter
course; all quarrels and acts of violence; he must not even
take the life of an insect that infests him ; though an exception
is made in regard to biting dogs, to scorpions, and birds of prey.
On arriving at Mecca, he leaves his baggage in some shop,
and, without attention to any worldly concern, repairs straight
way to the Caaba, conducted by one of the Metowefs or guides,
who are always at hand to offer their services to pilgrims.
Entering the mosque by the Bab el Salam, or Gate of Salu
tation, he makes four prostrations, and repeats certain prayers
MAHOMKT AM} HIS SL'CCk'.<.<O2iS. 219
as he passes under the arch. Approaching the Caaba, he
makes four prostrations opposite the Black Stone, which he
then kisses ; or, if prevented by the throng, he touches it with
his right hand, and kisses that. Departing from the Black
Stone, and keeping the building on his left hand, he makes the
seven circuits, the three first quickly, the latter four with slow
and solemn pace. Certain prayers are repeated in a low voice,
and the Black Stone kissed, or touched, at the end of every
circuit.
The Towaf , or procession, round the Caaba was an ancient
ceremony, observed long before the time of Mahomet, and per
formed by both sexes entirely naked. Mahomet prohibited
this exposure, and prescribed the Ihram, or pilgrim dress.
The female Haj ji walk the Towaf generally during the night ;
though occasionally they perform it mingled with the men
in the daytime.*
The seven circuits being completed, the pilgrim presses his
breast against the wall between the Black Stone and the door
of the Caaba, and with outstretched arms prays for pardon of
his sins.
He then repairs to the Makam, or station of Abraham, makes
four prostrations, prays for the intermediation of the Patri
arch, and thence to the well Zem Zem, and drinks as much of
the water as he can swallow.
During all this ceremonial the uninstructed Hajji has his
guide or Metowef close at his heels, muttering prayers for him
to repeat. He is now conducted out of the mosque by the gate
Bab el Zafa to a slight ascent about fifty paces distant, called
the Hill of Zafa, when, after uttering a prayer with uplifted
hands, he commences the holy promenade, called the Saa or
Say. This lies through a straight and level street, called Al
Messa, six hundred paces in length, lined with shops like a
J^azaar, and terminating at a place called Merowa. The walk
of the Say is in commemoration of the wandering of Hagar
over the same ground, in search of water for her child Ish-
mael. The pilgrim, therefore, walks at times slowly, with an
inquisitive air, then runs in a certain place, and again walks
gravely, stopping at times and looking anxiously back.
Having repeated the walk up and down this street seven
times, the Hajji enters a barber's shop at Merowa; his head is
shaved, his nails pared, the barber muttering prayers and the
* Burckhardt's Travels In Arabia, vol. 1. p. 260. Loud, edit., 1889.
220 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
pilgrim repeating them all the time. The paring and shearing
are then buried in consecrated ground, and the most essential
duties of the pilgrimage are considered as fulfilled.*
t On the ninth of the month Al Dhu'l-hajji, the pilgrims make
a hurried and tumultuous visit to Mount Arafat, where they
remain until sunset ; then pass the night in prayer at an Ora
tory, called Mozdalifa, and before sunrise next morning repair
to the valley of Mena, where they throw seven stones at each
of three pillars, in imitation of Abraham, and some say also
of Adam, who drove away the devil from this spot with
stones, when disturbed by him in his devotions.
Such are the main ceremonies which form this great Moslem
rite of pilgrimage ; but, before concluding this sketch of Islam
faith, and closing this legendary memoir of its founder, we
cannot forbear to notice one of his innovations, which has en
tailed perplexity on ah1 his followers, and particular inconven
ience on pious pilgrims.
The Arabian year consists of twelve lunar months, contain
ing alternately thirty and twenty-nine days, and making three
hundred and fifty-four in the whole, so that eleven days were
lost in every solar year. To make up the deficiency, a thir
teenth or wandering month was added to every third year,
previous to the era of Mahomet, to the same effect as one day
is added in the Christian calendar to every leap-year. Maho
met, who was uneducated and ignorant of astronomy, re
trenched this thirteenth or intercalary month, as contrary to
the divine order of revolutions of the moon, and reformed the
calendar by a divine revelation during his last pilgrimage.
This is recorded in the ninth sura or chapter of the Koran, to
the following effect :
" For the number of months is twelve, as was ordained by
Allah, and recorded on the eternal tables t on the day wherein
he created the heaven and the earth.
* The greater part of the particulars concerning Mecca and Medina, and their re
spective pilgrimages, are gathered from the writings of that accurate and indefati
gable traveller, Burckhardt, who, in the disguise of a pilgrim, visited these shrines
and complied with all the forms and ceremonials. His works throw great light
upon the manners and customs of the East, and practice of the Mahometan faith,
The facts related by Burckhardt have been collated with those of other travellers
and writers, and many particulars have been interwoven with them from other
sources.
t The eternal tables or tablet was of white pearl, extended from east to west and
from earth to heaven. All the decrees of God were recorded on it, and all events
past, present, and to come, to all eternity. It was guarded by angels.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 221
"Transfer not a sacred month unto another month, for
verily it is an innovation of the infidels."
The number of days thus lost amount in 33 years to 363. it
becomes necessary, therefore, to add an intercalary year at
the end of each thirty-third year to reduce the Mahometan
into the Christian era.
One great inconvenience arising from this revelation of ths
prophet is, that the Moslem months do not indicate the season,
as they commence earlier by eleven days every year. This at
certain epochs is a sore grievance to the votaries to Mecca, as
the great pilgrim month Dhu'l-hajji, during which they are
compelled to wear the Ihram, or half-naked pilgrim garb, runs
the round of the seasons, occurring at one tune in the depth of
winter, at another in the fervid heat of summer.
Tfius Mahomet, though according to legendary history he
could order the moon from the firmament and make her re
volve about the sacred house, could not control her monthly
revolutions ; and found that the science of numbers is superior
even to the gift of prophecy, and se*s miracles at defiance.
PART II.
PEEFACE.
IT is the intention of the author in the following pages to
trace the progress of the Moslem dominion from the death of
Mahomet, in A.D. 622, to the invasion of Spain, in A.D. 710. In
this period, which did not occupy fourscore and ten years, and
passed within the lifetime of many an aged Arah, the Moslems
extended their empire and their faith over the wide regions ot
Asia and Africa, subverting the empire of the Khosrus, sub
jugating great territories in India, establishing a splendid sea-v
of power in Syria, dictating to the conquered kingdom of the
Pharaohs, overrunning the whole northern coast of Africa,
scouring the Mediterranean with their ships, carrying their
conquests in one direction to the very walls of Constantinople,
and in another to the extreme limits ot Mauritania ; in a word,
trampling down all the old dynasties which once held haughty
and magnificent sway in the East. The whole presents a
striking instance of the triumph of fanatic enthusiasm over
disciplined valor, at a period when the invention of firearms
had not reduced war to a matter«of almost arithmetical calcu
lation. There is also an air of wild romance about many of
the events recorded in this narrative, owing to the character
of the Arabs, and their fondness for stratagems, daring ex
ploits, and individual achievements of an extravagant nature.
These have sometimes been softened, if not suppressed, by
cautious historians; but the author has found them so in
unison with the people and the times, and with a career of
conquest, of itself out of the bounds of common probability,
that he has been induced to leave them in all their graphic
force.
Those who have read the life of Mahomet will find in the fol
lowing pages most of their old acquaintances again engaged,
but in a vastly grander field of action; leading armies, sub-
MAHOME1 AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 223
Jugating empires, and dictating from the palaces and thrones
of deposed potentates.
In constructing his work, which is merely intended for pop
ular use, the author has adopted a form somewhat between
biography and chronicle, admitting of personal anecdote, and
a greater play of familiar traits and peculiarities than is con
sidered admissible in the stately walk of history. His igno
ranee of the oriental languages has obliged him to take hig
materials at second hand, where he could have wished to read
them in the original : such, for instance, has been the case with
the accounts given by the Arabian writer, Al Wakidi, of the
conquest of Syria, and especially of the siege of Damascus,
which retain much of their dramatic spirit even in the homely
pages of Ockley. To this latter writer the author has been
much indebted, as well as to the Abbe de Marigny's History of
the Arabians, and to D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale. In
fact his pages are often a mere digest of facts already before
the public, but divested of cumbrous diction and uninteresting
details. Some, however, are furnished from sources recently
laid open, and not hitherto wrought into the regular web of
history.
In his account of the Persian conquest, the author has been
much benefited by the perusal of the Gemaldesaal of the
learned Hammer-Purgstall, and by a translation of the Per
sian historian Tabari, recently given to the public through the
pages of the Journal of the American Oriental Society, by Mr.
John P. Brown, dragoman of the United States legation at
Constantinople.
In the account of the Moslem conquests along the northern
coast of Africa, of which so little is known, he has gleaned
many of his facts from Conde's Domination of the Arabs in
Spain, and from the valuable work on the same subject, re
cently put forth under the sanction of the Oriental Translation
Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, by his estimable friend,
Don Pascual de Gayangos, formerly Professor of Arabic in the
Athenaeum of Madrid.
The author might cite other sources whence he has derived
scattered facts; but it appears to him that he has already said
enough on this point, about a work written more through in
clination than ambition ; and which, as before intimated, does
not aspire to be consulted as authority, but merely to be read
as a digest of current knowledge, adapted to popular use.
SUNMYSIDE. 1850,
224 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER I.
ELECTION OP ABU BEKER, FIRST CALIPH, HEGIRA 11, A.D. 632.
THE death of Mahomet left his religion without a head and
his people without a sovereign ; there was danger, therefore,
of the newly formed empire falling into confusion. All Me
dina, on the day of his death, was in a kind of tumult, and
nothing but the precaution of Osama Ibn Zeid in planting the
standard before the prophet's door, and posting troops in
various parts, prevented popular commotions. The question
was, on whom to devolve the reins of government? Four
names stood prominent as having claims of affinity: Abu
Beker, Omar, Othman, and Ali. Abu Beker was the father of
Ayesha, the favorite wife of Mahomet. Omar was father of
Hafsa, another of his wives, and the one to whose care he had
confided the coffer containing the revelations of the Koran.
Othman had married successively two of his daughters, but
they were dead, and also their progeny. Ali was cousin
german of Mahomet and husband of Fatima, his only daugh
ter. Such were the ties of relationship to him of these four
great captains. The right of succession, in order of consan
guinity , lay with Ali ; and his virtues and services eminently
entitled him to it. On the first burst of his generous zeal,
when Islamism was a derided and persecuted faith, he had
been pronounced by Mahomet his brother, his vicegerent ; he
had ever since been devoted to him in word and deed, and had
honored the cause by his magnanimity as signally as he had
vindicated it by his valor. His friends, confiding in the jus
tice of his claims, gathered round him in the dwelling of his
wife Fatima, to consult about means of putting him quietly in
possession of the government.
Other interests, however, were at work, operating upon the
public mind. Abu Beker was held up, not merely as connected
by marriage ties with the prophet, but as one of the first and
most zealous of his disciples ; as the voucher for the truth of his
night journey ; as his fellow-sufferer in persecution ; as the one
who accompanied him in his flight from Mecca ; as his compan^
ion in the cave wnen they were miraculously saved from dis
covery ; as his counsellor and co-operator in all his plans and
MAHOMET AXI> LTS SVCCEMOHS.
undertakings; as the one in fact whom the prophet had plainly
pointed out as his successor, by deputing him to officiate in his
stead in the religious ceremonies during his last illness. His
claims were strongly urged by his daughter Ayesha, who had
great influence among the faithful ; and who was stimulated
not so much by zeal for her father, as by hatred of Ali, whom
she had never forgiven* for having inclined his ear to the
charge of incontinence against her in the celebrated case
entitled The False Accusation.
Omar also had a powerful party among the populace, who
admired him for his lion-like demeanor, his consummate mili
tary skill, his straightforward simplicity, and dauntless courage.
He also had an active female partisan in his daughter Hafsa.
While therefore Ali and his friends were in quiet counsel in
the house of Fatima, many of the principal Moslems gathered
together without their knowledge, to settle the question of
succession. The two most important personages in this assem
blage were Abu Beker and Omar. The first measure was to
declare the supreme power not hereditary but elective; a
measure which at once destroyed the claims of Ah' on the score
of consanguinity, and left the matter open to the public choice.
This has been ascribed to the jealousy of the Koreishites of the
line of Abd Schems ; who feared, should Ali's claims be recog
nized, that the sovereign power, like the guardianship of the
Caaba, might be perpetuated in the haughty line of Haschem.
Some, however, pretend to detect in it the subtle and hostile
influence of Ayesha.
A dispute now arose between the Mohadjerins or refugees
from Mecca and the Ansarians or Helpers of Medina, as to the
claims of their respective cities in nominating a successor to
Mahomet. The former founded the claims of Mecca on its
being the birthplace of the prophet, and the first in which his
doctrines had been divulged ; they set forward their own claims
also as his townsmen, his relatives, and the companions of his
exile. The Ansarians, on the other hand, insisted on the
superior claims of Medina, as having been- the asylum of the
prophet, and his chosen residence ; and on their own claims as
having supported him in his exile, and enabled him to with
stand and overcome his persecutors.
The dispute soon grew furious, and scimctars flashed from
their scabbards, when one of the people of Medina proposed as
a compromise that each party should furnish a ruler and the
government have two heads. Omar derided the proposition
226 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
with scorn. "Two blades," said he, "cannot go into one
sheath." Abu Beker also remonstrated against a measure cal
culated to weaken the empire in its very infancy. He con*
jured the Moslems to remain under one head, and named
Omar and Abu Obeidah as persons worthy of the office, and
between whom they should choose. Abu Obeidah was one of
the earliest disciples of Mahomet ; he had accompanied him in
his flight from Mecca, and adhered to him in all his fortunes.
The counsel of Abu Beker calmed for a time the turbulence
of the assembly, but it soon revived with redoubled violence.
Upon this Omar suddenly rose, advanced to Abu Beker, and
hailed him as the oldest, best, and most thoroughly-tried of the
adherents of the prophet, and the one most worthy to succeed
him. So saying, he kissed his hand in token of allegiance, and
swore to obey him as his sovereign.
This sacrifice of his own claims in favor of a rival struck the
assembly with surprise, and opened their eyes to the real merits
of Abu Beker. They beheld in him the faithful companion
of the prophet, who had always been by his side. They knew
his wisdom and moderation, and venerated his gray hairs. It
appeared but reasonable that the man whose counsels had con
tributed to establish the government, should be chosen to carry
it on. The example of Omar, therefore, was promptly followed,
and Abu Beker was hailed as chief.
Omar now ascended the pulpit. " Henceforth," said he, "if
any one shall presume to take upon himself the sovereign
power without the public voice, let him suffer death ; as well as
all who may nominate or uphold him." This measure was
instantly adopted, and thus a bar was put to the attempts of
any other candidate.
The whole policy of Omar in these measures, which at first
sight appears magnanimous, has been cavilled at as crafty and
selfish. Abu Beker, it is observed, was well stricken in years,
being about the same age with the prophet ; it was not prob
able he would long survive. Omar trusted, therefore, to
succeed in a little while to the command. His last measure
struck at once at the hopes of AH, his most formidable compet
itor; who, shut up with his friends in the dwelling of Fatima,
knew nothing of the meeting in which his pretensions were
thus demolished. Craft, however, we must observe, was not
one of Omar's characteristics, and was totally opposed to the
prompt, stern, and simple course of his conduct on all occa
sions ; nor did he ever show any craving lust for power. He
227
seems ever to have been a zealot in the cause of Islam, and to
have taken no indirect measures to promote it.
His next movement was indicative of his straightforward
cut-and-thrust policy. Abu Beker, wary and managing, feared
there might be some outbreak on the part of Ali and his friends
when they should hear of the election which had taken place.
He requested Omar, therefore, to proceed with an armed band
to the mansion of Fatima, and maintain tranquillity in that
quarter. Omar surrounded the house with his followers ; an
nounced to AH the election of Abu Beker, and demanded his
concurrence. Ali attempted to remonstrate, alleging his own
claims ; but Omar proclaimed the penalty of death decreed to
all who should attempt to usurp the sovereign power in defi
ance of public will, and threatened to enforce it by setting fire
to the house and consuming its inmates.
"Oh son of Khattab!" cried Fatima reproachfully, "thou
wilt not surely commit such an outrage !"
4 'Ay will I in very truth!" replied Omar, "unless ye all
make common cause with the people."
The friends of Ali were fain to yield, and to acknowledge the
sovereignty of Abu Beker. Ali, however, held himself apart
in proud and indignant reserve until the death of Fatima,
which happened in the course of several months. He then
paid tardy homage to Abu Beker, but, in so doing, upbraided
him with want of openness and " good faith in managing the
election without Ins privity ; a reproach which the reader will
probably think not altogether unmerited. Abu L'eker, how
ever, disavowed all intrigue, and declared he had accepted the
sovereignty merely to allay the popular commotion ; and was
ready to lay it down whenever a more worthy candidate could
be found who would unite the wishes of the people.
Ali was seemingly pacified by this explanation; but he
spurned it in his heart, and retired in disgust into the interior
of Arabia, taking with him his two sons Hassan and Hoscin, the
only descendants of the prophet. From these have sprung a
numerous progeny, who to this day are considered noble, and
wear green turbans as the outward sign of their illustrious
lineage.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER II.
MODERATION OF ABU BEKER— TRAITS OF HIS CHARACTER— REBEL
LION OF ARAB TRIBES— DEFEAT AND DEATH OF MALEC IBN
NOWIRAH — HARSH MEASURES OF KHALED CONDEMNED BY
OMAR, BUT EXCUSED BY ABU BEKER— KHALED DEFEATS MO-
SEILMA THE FALSE PROPHET — COMPILATION OF THE KORAN.
ON assuming the supreme authority, Abu Beker refused to
take the title of king or prince ; several of the Moslems hailed
him as God's vicar on earth, but he rejected the appellation ;
he was not the vicar of God, he said, but of his prophet, whose
plans and wishes it was his duty to carry out and fulfil. " In
so doing," added he, "I will endeavor to avoid all prejudice
and partiality. Obey me only so far as I obey God and the
prophet. If I go beyond these bounds, I have no authority
over you. If I err, set me right ; I shall be open to convic
tion."
He contented himself, therefore, with the modest title of
Caliph, that is to say, successor, by which the Arab sovereigns
have ever since been designated. They have not all, however,
imitated the modesty of Abu* Beker, in calling themselves suc
cessors of the prophet ; but many, in after times, arrogated to
themselves the title of Caliphs and Vicars of God, and his
Shadow upon Earth. The supreme authority, as when exer
cised by Mahomet, united the civil and religious functions:
the Caliph was sovereign and pontiff.
It may be well to observe, that the original name of the
newly elected Caliph was Abdallah Athek Ibn Abu Kahafa.
He was also, as we have shown, termed Al Seddek, or The
Testifier to the Truth ; from having maintained the verity of
Mahomet's nocturnal journey; but he is always named in
Moslem histories, Abu Beker; that is to say, The Father of
the Virgin; his daughter Ayesha being the only one of the
prophet's wives that came a virgin to his arms, the others
having previously been in wedlock.
At the time of his election Abu Beker was about sixty -two
years of age ; tall, and well formed, though spare ; with a florid
complexion and thin beard, which would have been gray, but
that he tinged it after the oriental usage. He was a man of
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
great judgment and discretkn, whose wariness and manage
ment at times almost amounted to craft; yet his purposes
appear to have been honest and unselfish ; directed to the good
of the cause, not to his own benefit. In the administration of
his office he betrayed nothing of sordid worldliness. Indiffer
ent to riches, and to all pomps, luxuries, and sensual indulg-
encies, he accepted no pay for his services but a mere pittance,
sufficient to maintain an Arab establishment of the simplest
kind, in which all his retinue consisted of a camel and a black
slave. The surplus funds accruing to his treasury he dispensed
every Friday; part to the meritorious, the rest to the poor;
and was ever ready, from his own private means, to help the
distressed. On entering office he caused his daughter Ayesha
to take a strict account of his private patrimony, to stand as
a record against him should he enrich himself while in office.
Notwithstanding all his merits, however, his advent to power
was attended by public commotions. Many of the Arabian
tribes had been converted by the sword, and it needed the com
bined terrors of a conqueror and a prophet to maintain them
in allegiance to the faith. On the death of Mahomet, there
fore, they spurned at the authority of his successor, and re
fused to pay the Zacat, or religious contributions of tribute,
tithes, and alms. The signal of revolt flew from tribe to tribe,
until the Islam empire suddenly shrank to the cities of Mecca,
Medina, and Tayef.
A strong body of the rebels even took the field and advanced
upon Medina. They were led on by a powerful and popular
Sheikh named Malec Ibn Nowirah. He was a man of high
birth and great valor, an excellent horseman, and a distin
guished poet; all great claims on Arab admiration. To these
may be added the enviable fortune of having for wife the most
beautiful woman in all Arabia.
Hearing of the approach of this warrior poet and his army,
Abu Beker hastened to fortify the city, sending the women and
children, the aged and infirm, to the rocks and caverns of the
neighboring mountains.
But though Mahomet was dead, the sword of Islam was not
buried with him; and Khaled Ibn Waled now stood forward
to sustain the fame acquired by former acts of prowess. He
was sent out against the rebels at the head of a hasty levy of
four thousand five hundred men and eleven banners. The
wary Abu Beker, with whom discretion kept an equal pace
with valor, had a high opinion of the character and talents of
230 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the rebel chief, and hoped, notwithstanding his defection, to
conquer him by kindness. Khaled was instructed, therefore,
should Malec fall into his power, to treat him with great re
spect; to be lenient to the vanquished, and to endeavor, by
gentle means, to win all back to the standard of Islam.
Khaled, however, was a downright soldier, who had no liking
for gentle means. Having overcome the rebels in a pitched
battle, he overran their country, giving his soldiery permission
to seize upon the flocks and herds of the vanquished, and make
slaves of their children.
Among the prisoners brought into his presence were Malec
and bis beautiful wife. The beauty of the latter dazzled the
eyes even of tho rough soldier, but probably hardened his
heart against her husband.
"Why," demanded he of Malec, "do you refuse to pay the
Zacat S»
" Because I can pray to God without paying these exactions,"
was the reply.
" Prayer, without alms, is of no avail," said Khaled.
"Does your master say so ?" demanded Malec haughtily.
"My master!" echoed" Khaled, "and is he not thy master
likewise ? By Allah, I have a mind to strike off thy head !"
" Are these also the orders of your master ?" rejoined Maleo
with a sneer.
' ' Again !" cried Khaled, in a fury ; ' ' smite off the head of this
rebel."
His officers interfered, for all respected the prisoner ; but the
rage of Khaled was not to be appeased.
"The beauty of this woman kills me," said Malec, signifi
cantly, pointing to his wife.
"Nay!" cried Khaled, "it is Allah who kills thee because of
thine apostasy."
"I arn no apostate," said Malec; "I profess the true faith — "
It was too late ; the signal of death had already been given.
Scarce had the declaration of faith passed the lips of the un
fortunate Malec, when his head fell beneath the scimetar of
Derar Ibn al Azwar, a rough soldier after Khaled's own heart.
This summary execution, to which the beauty of a woman
was alleged as the main excitement, gave deep concern to Abu
Beker, who remarked, that the prophet had pardoned even
Wacksa, the Ethiop, the slayer of his uncle Hamza, when the
culprit made profession of the faith. As to Omar, he declared
that Khaled, according to the laws of the Koran, ought to be
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
stoned to death for adultery, or executed for the murder of a
Moslem. The politic Abu Beker, however, observed that
Khaled had sinned through error rather than intention. " Shall
I," added he, "sheathe the sword of God? The sword which
he himself has drawn against the unbelieving ?"
So far from sheathing the sword, we find it shortly afterward
employed in an important service. This was against the false
prophet Moseilma, who, encouraged by the impunity with
which, during the illness of Mahomet, he had been suffered to
propagate his doctrines, had increased greatly the number of
his proselytes and adherents, and held a kind of regal and
sacerdotal sway over the important city and fertile province of
Yamama, between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia.
There is quite a flavor of romance in the story of this impos
tor. Among those dazzled by his celebrity and charmed by his
rhapsodical effusions, was Sedjah, wife of Abu Cahdla, a poet
ess of the tribe of Tamim, distinguished among the Arabs for
her personal and mental charms. She came to see Moseilma
in like manner as the Queen of Sheba came to witness the wis
dom and grandeur of King Solomon. They were inspired with
a mutual passion at the first interview, and passed much of
their time together in tender, if not religious intercourse. Sed
jah became a convert to the faith of her lover, and caught
from him the imaginary gift of prophecy. He appears to have
caught, in exchange, the gift of poetry, for certain amatory
effusions, addressed by him to his beautiful visitant, are still
preserved by an Arabian historian, and breathe all the warmth
of the Song of Solomon.
This dream of poetry and prophecy was interrupted by th&
approach of K>a!ed at the head of a numerous army. Mose-
flma sallied forth to meet him with a still greater force. A
battle took place at Akreba, not far from the capital city of
Yamama. At the onset the rebels had a transient success, and
twelve hundred Moslems bit the dust. Khaled, however, rallied
his forces ; the enemy were overthrown, and ten thousand cut
to pieces. Moseilma f ought with desperation, but fell covered
with wounds. It is said his death-blow was given by Wacksa,
the Ethiopian, the same who had killed Hamza, uncle of Ma
homet, in the battle of Ohod, and that he used the self-same
spear. Wacksa, since his pardon by Mahomet, had become a
zealous Moslem.
The surviving disciples of Moscilma became promptly con<
verted to Islamism under the pious but heavy hand of Khaled,
MAHOMET AND HIS
whose late offence in the savage execution of Malec was com
pletely atoned for by his victory over the false prophet. He
added other services of the same military kind in this critical
juncture of public affairs ; reinforcing and co-operating with
certain commanders who had been sent in different directions
to suppress rebellions ; and it was chiefly through his prompt
and energetic activity that, before the expiration of the first
year of the Caliphat, order was restored, and the empire of
Islam re-established in Arabia.
It was shortly after the victory of Khaled over Moseilma
that Abu Beker undertook to gather together, from written
and oral sources, the precepts and revelations of the Koran,
which hitherto had existed partly in scattered documents, and
partly in the memories of the disciples and companions of the
prophet. He was greatly urged to this undertaking by Omar,
that ardent zealot for the faith. The latter had observed with
alarm the number of veteran companions of the prophet who
had fallen in the battle of Akreba. " In a little while," said he,
"all the living testifiers to the faith, who bear the revelations
of it in their memories, will have passed away, and with them
so many records of the doctrines of Islam." He urged Abu
Beker, therefore, to collect from the surviving disciples all that
they remembered ; and to gather together from all quarters
whatever parts of the Koran existed in writing. The manner
in which Abu Beker proceeded to execute this pious task has
been noticed in the preceding volume ; it was not, however,
completed until under a succeeding Caliph.
CHAPTER III.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST SYRIA— ARMY SENT UNDER YEZED IBN ABU
SOFIAN — SUCCESSES — ANOTHER ARMY UNDER AMRU IBN AL
AASS — BRILLIANT ACHIEVEMENTS OF KHALED IN IRAK.
THE rebel tribes of Arabia being once more brought into
allegiance, and tranquillity established at home, Abu Beker
turned his thoughts to execute the injunction of the prophet,
to propagate the faith throughout the world, until all nations
should be converted to Islamism, by persuasion or the sword.
The moment was auspicious for such a gigantic task. The
' AND UIS SUCCESSORS. 233
long and desolating wars between the Persian and Byzantine
emperors, though now at an end, had exhausted those once
mighty powers, and left their frontiers open to aggression. In
the second year of his reign, therefore, Abu Beker prepared to
carry out the great enterprise contemplated by Mahomet in m>
latter days— the conquest of Syria.
Under this general name, it should be observed, were com
prehended the countries lying between the Euphrates and the
Mediterranean, including Phoenicia and Palestine.* These
countries, once forming a system of petty states and king
doms, each with its own government and monarch, were now
merged into the great Byzantine Empire, and acknowledged
the sway of the emperor Heraclius at Constantinople.
Syria had long been a land of promise to the Arabs. They
had known it for ages by the intercourse of the caravans, and
had drawn from it their chief supplies of corn. It was a land
of abundance. Part of it was devoted to agriculture and hus
bandry, covered with fields of grain, with vineyards and trees
producing the finest fruits ; with pastures well stocked with
flocks and herds. On the Arabian borders it had cities, the
rich marts of internal trade; while its seaports, though de
clined from the ancient splendor and pre-eminence of Tyre and
Sidon, still were the staples of an opulent and widely extended
commerce.
In the twelfth year of the H'egira, the following summons
was sent by Abu Beker to the chiefs of Arabia Petrea and
Arabia Felix.
"In the name of the Most Merciful God! Abdallah Athek
Ibn Abu Kahafa to all true believers, health, happiness, and
the blessing of God. Praise be to God, and to Mahomet his
prophet ! This is to inform you that I intend to send an army
of the faithful into Syria, to deliver that country from the in
fidels, and I remind you that to fight for the true faith is to
obey God!"
There needed no further inducement to bring to his standard
every Arab that owned a horse or a camel, or could wield a
lance. Every day brought some Sheikh to Medina at the head
of the fighting men of his tribe, and before long the fields
round the city were studded with encampments. The com-
* Syria, in its widest oriental acceptation, included likewise Mesopotamia, Chal-
dea and even Assyria, the whole forming what in Scriptural geography was denom
inated Aram.
234 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
mand of the army was given to Yezed Ibn Abu Sofian. The
troops soon became impatient to strike their sunburnt tents
and march. "Why do we loiter?" cried they; "all our fight
ing men are here ; there are none more to come. The plains of
Medina are parched and bare, there is no food for man or
steed. Give us the word, and let us march for the fruitful
land of Syria."
Abu Beker assented to their wishes. From the brow of a
hill ho reviewed the army on the point of departure. The
heart of the Caliph swelled with pious exultation as he looked
down upon the stirring multitude, the glittering array of arms,
the squadrons of horsemen, the lengthening line of camels, and
called to mind the scanty handful that used to gather round
the standard of the prophet. Scarce ten years had elapsed
since the latter had been driven a fugitive from Mecca, and
now a mighty host assembled at the summons of his successor,
and distant empires were threatened by the sword of Islam.
Filled with these thoughts, he lifted up his voice and prayed
to God to make these troops valiant and victorious. Then
giving the word to march, the tents were struck, the camels
laden, and in a little while the army poured in a long con
tinuous train over hill and valley.
Abu Beker accompanied them on foot on the first day's
march. The leaders would have dismounted a"iid yielded him
their steeds. "Nay," said he, "ride on. You are in the ser
vice of Allah. As for me, I shall be rewarded for every step I
take in his cause."
His parting charge to Yezed, the commander of the army,
was a singular mixture of severity and mercy.
"Treat your soldiers with kindness and consideration; be
just in all your dealings with them, and consult their feelings
and opinions. Fight valiantly, and never turn your back
upon a foe. When victorious, harm not the aged, and protect
women and children. Destroy not the palm-tree nor fruit-
trees of any kind ; waste not the cornfield with fire ; nor kill
any cattle excepting for food. Stand faithfully to every cove
nant and promise; respect all religious persons who live in
hermitages, or convents, and spare their edifices. But should
you meet with a class of unbelievers of a different kind, who
go about with shaven crowns, and belong to the synagogue of
Satan, be sure you cleave their skulls unless they embrace the
true faith, or render tribute."
Having received this summary charge, Yezed continued his
MAHOMET AND F^S SUCCESSORS. 235
march toward Syria, and the pious Caliph returned to Medina.
Tin- pray era which the latter had put up for the success of
the army appeared to be successful. Before long a great
cavalgada of horses, mules, and camels laden with booty
poured into the gates of Medina. Yezed had encountered, on
the confines of Syria, a body of troops detached by the em
peror Heraclius to observe him, and had defeated them, kill
ing the general and twelve hundred men. He had been equally
successful in various subsequent skirmishes. All the booty
gained in these actions had been sent to the Caliph, as an
offering by the army of the first fruits of the harvest of Syria.
Abu Beker sent tidings of this success to Mecca and the sur
rounding country, calling upon all true believers to press for
ward in the career of victory, thus prosperously commenced.
Another army was soon set on foot, the command of which
was given to Seid Ibn Khaled. This appointment, however,
not being satisfactory to Omar, whose opinions and wishes
had vast weight at Medina, Ayesha prevailed on her father to
invite Seid to resign, and to appoint in his place Amru Ibn al
Aass ; the same who in the early days of the faith ridiculed
Mahomet and his doctrines in satirical verses, but who, since
his conversion to Islamism, had risen to eminence in its ser
vice, and was one of its most valiant and efficient champions.
Such was the zeal of the Moslems in the prosecution of this
holy war, that Seid Ibn Khaled cheerfully resigned his com
mand and enlisted under the standard which he had lately
reared.
At the departure of the army, Abu Beker, who was excellent
at counsel, and fond of bestowing it, gave Amru a code of con
duct for his government, admonishing him to live righteously,
as a dying man in the presence of God, and accountable for all
things in a future state. That he should not trouble himself
about the private concerns of others, and should forbid his men
all religious disputes about events and doctrines of the " times
of ignorance;" that is to say, the times antecedent to Mahomet;
but should enforce the diligent reading of the Koran, which
contained all that was necessary for them to know.
As there would now be large bodies of troops in Syria, and
various able commanders, Abu Beker in maturing the plan of
his campaign assigned them different points of action. Amru
was to draw towards Palestine; Abu Obeidah to undertake
Emessa; Seid Ibn Abu Sofian, Damascus; and Serhil Ibia
Hasan, the country about the Jordan. They were all to act as
236 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
much as possible in concert, and to aid each other in case of
need. When together they were all to be under the orders of
Abu Obeidah, to whom was given the general command in
Syria. This veteran disciple of the prophet stood high, as we
have shown, in the esteem and confidence of Abu Beker, having
been one of the two whom he had named as worthy of the
Caliphat. He was now about fifty years of age ; zealously de
voted to the cause, yet one with whom the sword of faith was
sheathed in meekness and humanity; perhaps the cautious
Abu Beker thought his moderation would be a salutary check
to the headlong valor of the fanatical soldiers of Islam.
While this grand campaign was put in operation against the
Roman possessions in Syria, a minor force was sent to invade
Irak. This province, which included the ancient Chaldea and
the Babylonia of Ptolemy, was bounded on the east by Susiana
or Khurzestan and the mountains of Assyria and Medea, on
the north by part of Mesopotamia, on the west and south by
the Deserts of Sham or Syria and by a part of Arabia Deserta.
It was a region tributary to the" Persian monarch, and so far a
part of his dominions. The campaign in this quarter was con
fided to Khaled, of whose prowess Abu Beker had an exalted
opinion, and who was at this time at the head of a moderate
force in one of the rebellious provinces which he had brought
into subjection. The Caliph's letter to him was to the follow
ing effect. " Turn thee toward Arabian Irak! The conquest
of Hira and Cufa is intrusted to thee. After the subjection of
those lands, turn thee against Aila and subdue it with God's
help!"
Hira was a kingdom to the west of Babylonia, on the verge
of the Syrian Desert ; it had been founded by a race of Arabs,
descendants of Kahtan, and had subsisted upward of six hun
dred years ; the greater part of the time it had been under a
line of princes of the house of Mondar; who acknowledged
allegiance to the kings of Persia and acted as their lieutenants
over the Arabs of Irak.
During the early part of the third century many Jacobite
Christians had been driven lay the persecutions and disorders
of the Eastern Church to take refuge among the Arabs of Hira.
Their numbers had been augmented in subsequent times by
fugitives from various quarters, until, shortly before the birth
of Mahomet, the king of Hira and all his subjects had embraced
Christianity.
Much was said of the splendor of the capital, which bore the
ASJJ ins BVbO&ssoM 237
Same name with the kingdom. Here were two palaces of ex
traordinary magnificence, the beauty of one of which, if Ara
bian legends speak true, was fatal to the architect; for the
king, fearing that he might build one still more beautiful for
some other monarch, had him thrown headlong from the
tower.
Khaled acted with his usual energy and success in the in
vasion of this kingdom. With ten thousand men he besieged
the city of Hira ; stormed its palaces ; slew the king in battle ;
subdued the kingdom; imposed on it an annual tribute of
seventy thousand pieces of gold, the first tribute ever levied by
Moslems on a foreign land, and sent the same with the son of
the deceased king to Medina.
He next carried his triumphant arms against Aila, defeated
Hormuz, the Persian governor, and sent his crown, with a fifth
part of the booty, to the Caliph. The crown was of great
value, being one of the first class of those worn by the seven
vicegerents of the Persian "King of Kings." Among the
trophies of victory sent to Medina was an elephant. Three
other Persian generals and governors made several attempts,
with powerful armies, to check the victorious career of Khaled,
but were alike defeated. City after city fell into his hands ;
nothing seemed capable of withstanding his arms. Planting
his victorious standard on the bank of the Euphrates, he wrote
to the Persian monarch, calling upon him to embrace the faith
or pay tribute. " If you refuse both," added he, " I will come
upon you with a host who love death as much as you do life."
The repeated convoys of booty sent by Khaled to Medina
after his several victories, the sight of captured crowns and
captured princes, and of the first tribute imposed on foreign
lands, had excited the public exultation to an uncommon degree.
Abu Beker especially took pride in his achievements; con
sidering them proofs of his own sagacity and foresight, which
he had shown in refusing to punish him with death when
strongly urged to do so by Omar. As victory after victory was
announced, and train after train laden with spoils crowded the
prates of Medina, he joyed to see his anticipations so far out
stripped by the deeds of this headlong warrior. " By Allah,"
exclaimed he, in an ecstasy, 4 ' womankind is too weak to give
birth to another Khaled."
238 MAHOMET AXD 1118 SUCCESSORS-
CHAPTER IV.
INCOMPETENCY OF ABU OBEIDAH TO THE GENERAL COMMAND IN
SYRIA— KHALED SENT TO SUPERSEDE HIM— PERIL OF THE MOS
LEM ARMY BEFORE BOSRA— TIMELY ARRIVAL OF KHALED— HIS
EXPLOITS DURING THE SIEGE— CAPTURE OF BOSRA.
THE exultation of the Caliph over the triumphs in Irak was
checked by tidings of a different tons from the army in Syria.
Abu Obeidah, who had the general command, wanted the
boldness and enterprise requisite to an invading general. A
partial defeat of some of his troops discouraged him, and he
heard with disquiet of vast hosts which the emperor Heraclius
was assembling to overwhelm him. His letters to the Caliph
partook of the anxiety and perplexity of his mind. Abu Beker,
whose generally sober mind was dazzled at the time by the
daring exploits of Khaled, was annoyed at finding that, while
the latter was dashing forward in a brilliant career of conquest
in Irak, Abu Obeidah was merely standing on the defensive in
Syria. In the vexation of the moment he regretted that he had
intrusted the invasion of the latter country to one who appeared
to him a nerveless man; and he forthwith sent missives to
Khaled ordering him to leave the prosecution of the war in
Irak to his subordinate generals, and repair, in all haste, to
aid the armies in Syria, and take the general command there.
Khaled obeyed the orders with his usual promptness. Leaving
his army under the charge of Mosenna Ibn Haris, he put him
self at the head of fifteen hundred horse, and spurred over the
Syrian borders to join the Moslem host, which he learned,
while on the way, was drawing toward the Christian city of
Bosra.
This city, the reader will recollect, was the great mart on
the Syrian frontier, annually visited by the caravans, and
where Mahomet, when a youth, had his first interview with
Sergius, the Nestorian monk, from whom he was said to have
received instructions in the Christian faith. It was a place
usually filled with merchandise, and held out a promise of
great booty ; but it was strongly walled, its inhabitants were
inured to arms, and it could at any tune pour forth twelve
thousand horse. Its very name, in the Syrian tongue, signi-
MAHOMET AXD HIS SUCCESSOR*.
fied a tower of safety. Against this place Abu Obeidah It .•"!
sent Serjabil Ibn Hasaiiah, a veteran secretary of Mahomet,
with a troop of ten thousand horse. On his approach, Ro-
manus, the governor of the city, notwithstanding the strength
of the place and of the garrison, would fain have paid tribute,
for he was dismayed by the accounts he had received of the
fanatic zeal and irresistible valor of the Moslems, but his peo
ple were stout of heart, and insisted on fighting.
The venerable Serjabil, as he drew near to the city, called
upon Allah to grant the victory promised in his name by his
apostle ; and to establish the truth of his unity by confounding
its opposers. His prayers apparently were of no avail. Squad
ron after squadron of horsemen wheeled down from the gates
of Bosra, attacked the Moslems on every side, threw them into
confusion, and made great slaughter. Overwhelmed by num
bers, Serjabil was about to order a retreat, when a great cloud
of dust gave notice of another army at hand.
There was a momentary pause on both sides, but the shout
of Allah Achbar ! Allah Achbar ! resounded through the Moslem
host, as the eagle banner of Khaled was descried through the
cloud. That warrior came galloping to the field, at the haad
of his troop of horsemen, all covered with dust. Charging the
foe with his characteristic impetuosity, he drove them back to
the city, and planted his standard before the walls.
The battle over, Serjabil would have embraced his deliverer,
who was likewise his ancient friend, but Khaled regarded him
reproachfully. " What madness possessed thee," said he, " to
attack with thy handful of horsemen a fortress girt with stone
walls and thronged with soldiers?"
"I acted/' said Serjabil, "not for myself, but at the com
mand of Abu Obeidah."
" Abu Obeihah," replied Khaled, bluntly, " is a very worthy
man, but he knows little of warfare."
In effect the army of Syria soon found the difference between
the commanders. The soldiers of Khaled, fatigued with a hard
march, and harder combat, snatched a hasty repast, and
throwing themselves upon the ground, were soon asleep. Kha
led alone took no rest ; but, mounting a fresh horse, prowled
all night round the city and the camp, fearing some new ir
ruption from the foe.
At daybreak he roused his army for the morning prayer.
Some of the troops perf ormed their ablutions with water, others
with sand. Khaled put up the matin prayer; then every man
240 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
grasped his weapon and sprang to horse, for the gates of Bosra
were already pouring forth their legions. The eyes of Khaled
kindled as he saw them prancing down into the plain and glit
tering in the rising sun. " These infidels," said he, " think us
weary and wayworn, but they will be confounded. Forward
to the fight, for the blessing of Allah is with us !"
As the armies approached each other, Romanus rode in ad
vance of his troops and defied the Moslem chief to single com-
bot. Khaled advanced 'on the instant. Romanus, however,
instead of levelling his lance, entered into a parley in an un
dertone of voice. He declared that he was a Mahometan at
heart, and had incurred great odium among the people of the
place, by endeavoring to persuade them to pay tribute. He
now offered to embrace Islamism, and to return and do his best
to yield the city into the hands of the Moslems, on condition
of security for life, liberty, and property.
Khaled readily consented to the condition, but suggested
that they should exchange a few dry blows, to enable Romanus
to return to the city with a better grace, and prevent a sus
picion of collusion. Romanus agreed to the proposal, but with
no great relish, for he was an arrant craven. He would fain
have made a mere feint and flourish of weapons ; but Khaled
had a heavy hand and a kindling spirit, and dealt such hearty
blows that he would have severed the other in twain, or cloven
him to the saddle, had he struck with the edge instead of the
flat of the sword.
" Softly, softly," cried Romanus. "Is this what you call
sham fighting; or do you mean to slay me?"
"By no means," replied Khaled, "but we must lay on our
blows a little roughly, to appear in earnest. "
Romanus, battered and bruised, and wounded in several
places, was glad to get back to 'his army with his life. He now
extolled the prowess of Khaled, and advised the citizens to ne
gotiate a surrender ; but they upbraided him with his coward
ice, stripped him of his command, and made him a prisoner
in his own house ; substituting in his place the general who had
come to them with reinforcements from the emperor Herac-
clius.
The new governor, as his first essay in command, sallied in
advance of the army, and defied Khaled to combat. Abda'lrah-
man, son of the Caliph, a youth of great promise, begged of
Khaled the honor of being his champion. His request being
granted, he rode forth, well armed, to the encounter. The
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 241
combat was of short duration. At the onset the governor was
daunted by the fierce countenance of the youthful Moslem, and
confounded by the address with which he managed his horse
and wielded his lance. At the first wound he lost all presence
of mind, and turning the reins endeavored to escape by dint of
hoof. His steed was swiftest, and he succeeded in throwing
himself into the midst of his forces. The impetuous youth
spurred after him, cutting and slashing, right and left, and
hewing his way with his scimetar.
Khaled, delighted with his valor, but alarmed at his peril,
gave the signal for a general charge. To the fight! to the
fight! Paradise! Paradise! was the maddening cry. Horse
was spurred against horse ; man grappled man. The desperate
conflict was witnessed from the walls, and spread dismay
through the city. The bells rang alarums, the shrieks of women
and children mingled with the prayers and chants of priests
and monks moving in procession through the streets.
The Moslems, too, called upon Allah for succor, mingling
prayers and execrations as they fought. At length the troops
of Bosra gave way: the squadrons that had sallied forth so
gloriously in the morning were driven back in broken and
headlong masses to the city ; the gates were hastily swung to
and barred after them ; and, while they panted with fatigue
and terror behind their bulwarks, the standards and banners
of the cross were planted on the battlements, and couriers
were sent off imploring reinforcements from the emperor.
Night closed upon the scene of battle. The stifled groans of
wounded warriors, mingled with the wailings of women, and
the prayers of monks and friars, were heard in the once joyful
streets of Bosra ; while sentinels walked the rounds of the Arab
camp to guard it against the desperation of the foe.
Abda'lrahman commanded one of the patrols. Walking his
round beneath the shadow of the city walls, he beheld a man
come stealthily forth, the embroidery of whose garments,
faintly glittering in the starlight, betrayed him to be a person
of consequence. The lance of Abda'lrahman was at his breast,
when he proclaimed himself to be Romanus, and demanded to
be led to Khaled. On entering the tent of that leader he in
veighed against the treatment he had experienced from the
people of Bosra, and invoked vengeance. They had confined
hun to .his house, but it was built against the wall of the city.
He had caused his sons and servants, therefore, to break a hole
through it, by which he had issued forth, and by which he
242 MAHOMET AND JTTS SUCCESSORS.
offered to introduce a band of soldiers, who might throw open
the city gates to the army.
His offer was instantly accepted, and Abda'lrahman was in
trusted with the dangerous enterprise. He took with him a
hundred picked men, and, conducted by Romanus, entered in
the dead of night, by the breach in the wall, into the house of
the traitor. Here they were refreshed with food, and disguised
to look like the soldiers of the garrison. Abda'lrahman then
divided them into four bands of twenty-five men each, three
of which he sent in different directions, with orders to keep
quiet until he and his followers should give the signal shout of
Allah Achbar ! He then requested Romanus to conduct him
to the quarters of the governor, who had fled the fight with
him that day. Under the guidance of the traitor he and his
twenty-five men passed with noiseless steps through the streets.
Most of the unfortunate people of Bosra had sunk to sleep; but
now and then the groan of some wounded warrior, or the
lament of some afflicted woman, broke the stillness of the
night and startled the prowlers.
Arrived at the gate of the citadel, they surprised the senti
nels, who mistook them for a friendly patrol, and made their
way to the governor's chamber. Komanus entered first, and
summoned the governor to receive a friend.
"What friend seeks me at this hour of the night?"
" Thy friend Abda'lrahman," cried Romanus with malignant
triumph ; " who comes to send thee to hell !"
The wretched poltroon would have fled. "Nay," cried
Abda'lrahman, "you escape me not a second time!" and with
a blow of his scimetar laid him dead at his feet. He then gave
the signal shout of Allah Achbar ! It was repeated by his fol
lowers at the portal ; echoed by the other parties in different
quarters; the city gates were thrown open, the legions of
Khaled and Serjabil rushed in, and the whole city resounded
with the cries of Allah Achbar ! The inhabitants, startled from
their sleep, hastened forth to know the meaning of the uproar,
but were cut down at their thresholds, and a horrible carnage
took place until there was a general cry for quarter. Then, in
compliance with one of the precepts of Mahomet, Khaled put a
stop to the slaughter, and received the survivors under the
yoke.
The savage tumult being appeased, the unhappy inhabitants
of Bosra inquired as to the mode in which they had been sur
prised, Khaled hesitated to expose the baseness of Romanus;
MA I10MET AIT) HIS SUCCESSOR*.
243
but the traitor gloried in Lis siuinic, and in tho vengeance ho
had wivnki'd upon former friends. I!'' cried he, with
demoniac exultation. ;'I renounce ye both in Uiio world and
the next. I deny him who was crucified, and despise his
\\Mishippers. I choose Islam for my faith, tho Caaba for my
temple, the Moslems for my brethren, Mahcmet for rny
prophet ; and I bear witness that there is but one only God,
who has no partner in his power and glory."
Having made this full recantation of his old faith and pro
fession of his new, in fulfilment of his traitorous compact,
the apostate departed from Bosra, followed by the execrations
of its inhabitants, among whom he durst no longer abide : and
Khaled, although he despised him in his heart, appointed a
guard to protect his property from plunder.
CHAPTEE V.
KHALED LAYS SIEGE TO DAMASCUS.
THE capture of Bosra increased the ambition and daring of
the Moslems, and Khaled now aspired to the conquest of Da
mascus. This renowned and beautiful city, one of the largest
and most magnificent of the East, and reputed to be the oldest
in the world, stood in a plain of wonderful richness and fer
tility, covered with groves and gardens, and bounded by an
amphitheatre of hills, the skirts of Mount Lebanon. A river
called by the ancients Chrysorrhoa, or the stream* of gold,
flows through this plain, feeding the canals and water-courses
of its gardens, and the fountains of the city.
The commerce of the place bespoke the luxuriance of tho
soil; dealing in wines, silks, wool, prunes, raisins, figs of un
rivalled flavor, sweet scented waters and perfumes. The fields
were covered with odoriferous flowers, and tho rose of Damas
cus has become famous throughout the world. This is one of
the few, the very few, cities famous in ancient times, which
still retain a trace of ancient delights. "The citron," says a
recent traveller, "perfumes the air for many miles round the
city; and the fig-trees are of vast size. The pomegranate and
orange grow in thickets. There is the trickling of water on
244 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
every hand. Wherever you go there is a trotting brook, or a
full and silent stream beside the track ; and you have frequently
to cross from one vivid green meadow to another by fording,
or by little bridges. These streams are all from the river
beloved by Naaman of old. He might well ask whether the
Jordan was better than Pharpar and Abana, the rivers of Da
mascus."
In this city too were invented those silken stuffs called dam
ask from the place of their origin, and those swords and scime-
tars proverbial for their matchless temper.
When Khaled resolved to strike for this great prize, he had
but fifteen hundred horse, which had followed him from Irak,
in addition to the force which he found with Ser jabil ; having,
however, the general command of the troops in Syria, he wrote
to Abu Obeidah to join him with his army, amounting to
thirty-seven thousand men.
The Moslems, accustomed to the aridity of the desert, gazed
with wonder and delight upon the rich plain of Damascus. As
they wound in lengthening files along the banks of the shining
river, through verdant and flowery fields, or among groves
and vineyards and blooming gardens, it seemed as if they were
already realizing the paradise promised by the prophet to true
believers ; but when the fanes and towers of Damascus rose to
sight from among tufted bowers, they broke forth into shouts
of transport.
Heraclius the emperor was at Antioch, the capital of his
Syrian dominions, when he heard of the advance of the Arabs
upon the city of Damascus. He supposed the troops of Kha
led, however, to be a mere predatory band, intent as usual on
hasty ravage, and easily repulsed when satisfied with plunder ;
and he felt little alarm for the safety of the city, knowing it
to be very populous, strongly fortified, and well garrisoned.
He contented himself, therefore, with dispatching a general
named Caloiis with five thousand men to reinforce it.
In passing through the country, Caloiis found the people
flying to castles and other strongholds and putting them in a
state of defence. As he approached Baalbec, the women came
forth with dishevelled hair, wringing their hands and uttering
cries of despair. " Alas !" cried they, " the Arabs overrun the
land, and nothing can withstand them. Aracah and Sachnah,
and Tadmor and Bosra, have fallen, and who shall protect
Damascus !"
Caloiis inquired the force of the invaders.
MAHOMET AND RtS 8VQQ&S80H8.
They knew but of the troops of Khaled, and answered, "Fif
teen hundred horse. "
" Be of good cheer," said Calous; " in a few days I will re
turn with the head of Khaled on the point of this good spear."
He arrived at Damuscus before the Moslem army came in
sight, and the same self-confidence marked his proceedings.
Arrogating to himself the supreme command, he would have
deposed and expelled the fonmer governor Azrail, a meritori
ous old soldier, w?ll beloved by the people. Violent dissen
sions immediately arose, and the city, instead of being pre
pared for defence, was a prey to internal strife.
In the height of these tumults the army of Khaled, forty
thousand strong, being augmented by that of Abu Obeidah,
was descried marching across the plain. The sense of danger
calmed the fury of contention, and the two governors sallied
forth, with a great part of the garrison, to encounter the in
vaders.
Both armies drew up in battle array. Khaled was in front
of the Moslem line, and with him was his brother in arms,
Derar Ibn al Azwar. The latter was mounted on a fine Ara
bian mare, and poised a ponderous lance, looking a warrior
at all points. Khaled regarded him with friendly pride, and
resolved to give him an opportunity of distinguishing himself.
For this purpose he detached him with a small squadron of
horse to feel the pulse of the enemy. " Now is the time, De
rar," cried he, " to show thyself a man, and emulate the deeds
of thy father and other illustrious soldiers of the faith. For
ward in the righteous cause, and Allah will protect thee."
Derar levelled his lance, and at the head of his handful of
followers charged into the thickest of the foe. In the first en
counter four horsemen fell beneath his arm; then wheeling
off, and soaring as it were into the field to mark a different
quarry, he charged with his little troop upon the foot soldiers,
slew six with his own hand, trampled down others, and pro
duced great confusion. The Christians, however, recovered
from a temporary panic, and opposed him with overwhelming
numbers and Roman discipline. Derar saw the inequality of
the fight, and having glutted his martial fury, showed the
Arab dexterity at retreat, making his way back safely to the
Moslem army, by whom he was received with acclama
tion.
Abda'lrahman gave a similar proof of fiery courage ; but his
cavalry was received by a battalion of infantry arranged in
246 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
phalanx with extended spears, while stones and darts hurled
from a distance galled both horse and rider. He also, after
making a daring assault and sudden carnage, retired upon the
spur and rejoined the army.
Khaled now emulated the prowess of his friends, and career
ing in front of the enemy, launched a general defiance to single
combat.
The jealousies of the two Christian commanders continued
in the field. Azrail, turning to Caloiis, taunted him to accept
the challenge as a matter of course ; seeing he was sent to pro
tect the country in this hour of danger.
The vaunting of Caloiis was at an end. He had no inclina
tion for so close a fight with such an enemy, but pride would
not permit him to refuse. He entered into the conflict with a
faint heart, and in a short time would have retreated, but Kha
led wheeled between him and his army. He then fought with
desperation, and the contest was furious on both sides, until
Caloiis beheld his blood streaming down his armor. His heart
failed him at the sight; his strength nagged; he fought
merely on the defensive. Khaled perceiving this, suddenly
closed with him, shifted his lance to his left hand, grasped
Caloiis with the right, dragged him out of the saddle, and bore
him off captive to the Moslem host, who rent the air with tri
umphant shouts.
Mounting a fresh horse, Khaled prepared again for battle.
" Tarry, my friend," cried Derar; "repose thyself for a
time, and I will take thy place."
"Oh, Derar," replied Khaled, "he who labors to-day shall
rest to-morrow. There will be repose sufficient amid the de
lights of paradise 1"
When about to return to the field, Caloiis demanded a mo
ment's audience, and making use of the traitor Romanus as
an interpreter, advised Khaled to bend all his efforts against
Azrail, the former governor of the city, whose death he said
would be the surest means of gaining the victory. Thus a
spirit of envy induced him to sacrifice the good of his country
to the desire of injuring a rival.
Khaled was willing to take advice even from an enemy,
especially when it fell in with his own humor; he advanced,
therefore, in front, challenging Azrail loudly by name. The
latter quickly appeared, well armed and mounted, and with
undaunted bearing.
The contest was long and obstinate. The combatants paused
MMIOXET AND U1S SUCCESSORS. 241
for breath. Khaled could not but regard his adversary with
admiration.
"Thy name," said he, "is Azrail?" (This is the Arabic
name for the angel of death.)
"Azrail is my name," replied the other.
"By Allah!" replied Khaled, "thy namesake is at hand,
waiting to carry thy soul to the fire of Jehennam !"
They renewed the fight. Azrail, who was the most fleetly
mounted, being sorely pressed, made use of an Arabian strata
gem, and giving the reins to his steed pretended to fly the
field. Having distanced his adversary and fatigued his horse,
he suddenly wheeled about and returned to the charge. Kha
led, however, was not to be outdone in stratagem. Throwing
himself lightly from his saddle just as his antagonist came
galloping upon him, he struck at the legs of his horse, brought
him to the ground, and took his rider prisoner.
The magnanimity of Khaled was not equal to his valor; or
rather his fanatical zeal overcame all generous feelings. He
admired Azrail as a soldier, but detested him as an infidel.
Placing him beside his late rival Caloiis, he called upon both
to renounce Christianity and embrace the faith of Islam.
They persisted in a firm refusal, upon ^vhich he gave the sig
nal, and their heads were struck off and thrown over the walls
into the city, a fearful warning to the inhabitants.
CHAPTER VL
lP DAMASCUS CONTINUED— EXPLOITS OF DERAR— DEFEAT
OF THE IMPERIAL ARMY.
THE siege of Damascus continued with increasing rigor.
The inhabitants were embarrassed and dismayed by the loss of
tin Mr two governors, and the garrison was thinned by frequent
skirmishes, in which the bravest warriors were sure to fall.
At length the soldiers ceased to sally forth, and the place
mo strictly invested. Khaled, with one half of the army,
drew near to the walls on the east side, while Abu Obeidah,
with the other half, was stationed on the west. The inhab
itants now attempted to corrupt Khaled, offering him a
ili»u>and ounces of gold and two hundred magnificent damask
248 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
robes to raise the siege. His reply was, that they must em
brace the Islam faith, pay tribute, or fight unto the death.
While the Arabs lay thus encamped round the city, as if
watching its expiring throes, they were surprised one day by
the unusual sound of shouts of joy within its walls. Sending
out scouts, they soon learned the astounding intelligence that
a great army was marching to the relief of the place.
The besieged, in fact, in the height of their extremity, had
lowered a messenger from the walls in the dead of the night,
bearing tidings to the emperor at Antioch of their perilous
condition, and imploring prompt and efficient succor. Aware
for the first time of the real magnitude of the danger, Herac-
lius dispatched an army of a hundred thousand men to their
relief, led on by Werdan, prefect of Emessa, an experienced
general.
Khaled would at once have marched to meet the foe, alleging
that so great a host could come only in divisions, which might
be defeated in detail; the cautious and quiet Abu Obeidah,
however, counselled to continue the siege, and send some able
officer with a detachment to check and divert the advancing
army. His advice was adopted, and Derar, the cherished
companion in arms of Khaled, was chosen for the purpose.
That fiery Moslem was ready to march at once and attack the
enemy with any handful of men that might be assigned him ;
but Khaled rebuked his inconsiderate zeal. "We are ex
pected," said he, " to fight for the faith, but not to throw our
selves away." Allotting to his friend, therefore, one thousand
chosen horsemen, he recommended to him to hang on the
flanks of the enemy and impede their march.
The fleetly mounted band of Derar soon came in sight of the
van of Werdan's army, slowly marching in heavy masses.
They were for hovering about it and harassing it in the Arab
manner, but the impetuous valor of Derar was inflamed, and
he swore not to draw back a step without hard fighting. He
was seconded by Rafi Ibn Omeirah, who reminded the troops
that a handful of the faithful was sufficient to defeat an army
of infidels.
The battle cry was given. Derar, with some of his choicest
troops, attacked the centre of the army, seeking to grapple
with the general, whom he beheld there, surrounded by his
guard. At the very onset he struck down the prefect's right-
hand man, and then his standard-bearer. Several of Derar's
followers sprang from their steeds to seize the standard, a
MAllOMtiT AND 1HS SUCCESSORS. 249
Across richly adorned with precious stones, while he beat off the
enemy who endeavored to regain it. The captured cross was
borne off in triumph ; but at the same moment Derar received
a wound in the left arm from a javelin, launched by a son of
Werdan. Turning upon the youth, he thrust his lance into
his body, but, in withdrawing it, the iron head remained in
the wound. Thus left, unarmed, he defended himself for a
time with the mere truncheon of the lance, but was over
powered and taken prisoner. The Moslems fought furiously
to rescue him, but in vain, and he was borne captive from the
field. They would now have fled, but were recalled by Rafi
Ibn Omeirah. "Whoever flies," cried he, "turns his back
upon God and his prophet. Paradise is for those who fall in
battle. If your captain be dead, God is living, and sees your
actions."
They rallied and stood at bay. The fortune of the day was
against them; they were attacked by tenfold their number,
and though they fought with desperation, they would soon
have been cut to pieces, had not Khaled, at that critical
moment, arrived at the scene of action with the greater part
of his forces ; a swift horseman having brought him tidings of
this disastrous affray, and the capture of his friend.
On arriving, he stopped not to parley, but charged into the
thickest of the foe, where he saw most bannei-s, hoping there
to find his captive friend. Wherever he turned he hewed a
path before him, but Derar was not to be found. At length a
prisoner told him that the captive had been sent off to Emessa
under a strong escort. Khaled instantly dispatched Rafi Ibn
Omeirah with a hundred horse in pursuit. They soon over
took the escort, attacked them furiously, slew several, and
put the rest to flight, who left Derar, bound with cords, upon
his charger.
By the time that Rafi and Derar rejoined the Moslem army,
Khaled had defeated the whole forces of Werdan, division
after division, as they arrived successively at the field of
action. In this manner a hundred thousand troops were
defeated, in detail, by less than a third of their number, in
spired by fanatic valor, and led on by a skilful and intrepid
chief. Thousands of the fugitives were killed in the pursuit ;
an immense booty in treasure, arms, baggage, and horses fell
to the victors, and Khaled led back his army, flushed with
conquest, but fatigued with fighting and burdened with spoils,
to resume the siege of Damascus.
250 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS
CHAPTER VII.
SIEGE OP DAMASCUS CONTINUED— SALLY OF THE GARRISON-
HEROISM OF THE MOSLEM WOMEN.
THE tidings of the defeat of Werdan and his powerful army
made the emperor Heraclius tremble in his palace at Antioch
for the safety of his Syrian kingdom. Hastily levying another
army of seventy thousand men, he put them under the com
mand of Werdan, at Aiznadan, with orders to hasten to the
relief of Damascus, and attack the Arab army , which must be
diminished and enfeebled by the recent battle.
Khaled took counsel of Abu Obeidah how to avoid the im
pending storm. It was determined to raise the siege of Da
mascus, and seek the enemy promptly at Aiznadin. Conscious,
however, of the inadequacy of his forces, Khaled sent missives
to all the Moslem generals within his call.
" In the name of the most merciful God! Khaled Ibn al
Walid to Aniru Ibn al Aass, health and happiness. The Mos
lem brethren are about to march to Aiznadin to do battle with
seventy thousand Greeks, who are coming to extinguish the
light of God. But Allah will preserve his light in despite of
all the infidels. Come to Aiznadin with thy troops ; for, God,
willing, thou shalt find me there." These missives sent, he
broke up his encampment before Damascus, and marched,
with his whole force, towards Aiznadin. He would have
placed Abu Obeidah at the head of the army ; but the latter
modestly remarked, that as Khaled was now commander-in-
chief, that station appertained to him. Abu Obeidah, there
fore, brought up the rear, where were the baggage, the booty,
the women, and the children.
When the garrison of Damascus saw their enemy on the
march, they sallied forth under two brothers named Peter and
Paul. The former led ten thousand infantry, the latter six
thousand horse. Overtaking the rear of the Moslems, Paul
with his cavalry charged into the midst of them, cutting down
some, trampling others under foot, and spreading wide con
fusion. Peter in the mean time, with his infantry, made a
sweep of the camp equipage, the baggage, and the accumulated
booty, and capturing most of tho women, made off with his
spoils towards Damascus.
MMIOMKT AM)
Tidings of this onset having reached Khalcd in the van, he
eent Derar, Abda'lrahman, and Bafi Ihn Omeirah, scouring
back, each at the head of two hundred horse, while he followed
with the main force.
Derar and his associates soon turned the tide of battle, rout
ing Paul and his cavalry with such slaughter, that of the six
thousand but a small part escaped to Damascus. Paul threw
himself from his horse, and attempted to escape on foot, but
was taken prisoner. The exultation of the victors, however,
was damped by the intelligence that their women had been
carried away captive, and great was the grief of Derar, on
learning that his sister Caulah, a woman of great beauty, was
among the number.
In the moan time Peter and his troops, with their spoils and
captives, had proceeded on the way to Damascus, but halted
under some trees beside a fountain, to refresh themselves and
divide their booty. In the division, Caulah the sister of Derar
was allotted to Peter. This done, the captors went into their
tents to carouse and make merry with the spoils, leaving the
women among the baggage, bewailing their captive state.
Caulah, however, was the worthy sister of Derar. Instead
of weeping and wringing her hands, she reproached her com
panions with their weakness. "What!" cried she, " shall we,
the daughters of warriors and followers of Mahomet, submit
to be the slaves and paramours of barbarians and idolaters?
For my part, sooner will I die I"
Among her fellow-captives were Hamzarite women, descend
ants as it is supposed of the Amalekites of old, and others of
the tribe of Himiar, all bold viragos, accustomed from their
youth to mount the horse, ply the bow, and launch the javelin.
They were roused by the appeal of Caulah. "What, however,
can we do," cried they, "having neither sword nor lance nor
bow?"
" Let us each take a tent pole," replied Caulah, " and defend
Dili-selves to the utmost. God may deliver us ; if not, we shall
die and be at rest, leaving no stain upon our country." She
was seconded by a resolute woman named Offeirah. Her
words prevailed. They all armed themselves with tent poles,
and Caulah placed them closely side by side in a circle
"Stand firm," said she. "Let no one pass between you;
parry the weapons of your assailants, and strike at their
heads."
With Caulah, as with her brother, the word was accon>
MAHOMET ANJ) frS SUCC&SSOllS.
panied by the deed ; for scarce haa she spoken, when a Greek
soldier happening to approach, with one blow of her staff she
shattered his skull.
The noise brought the carousers from the tents. They sur
rounded the women, and sought to pacify them ; but whoever
came within reach of their staves was sure to suffer. Peter
was struck with the matchless form and glowing beauty of
Caulah, as she stood, fierce and fearless, dealing her blows on
all who approached. He charged his men not to harm her,
and endeavored to win her by soothing words and offers of
wealth and honor ; but she reviled him as an infidel, a dog,
and rejected with scorn his brutal love. Incensed at length by
her taunts and menaces, he gave the word, and his followers
rushed upon the women with their scimetars. The unequal
combat would soon have ended, when Khaled and Derar came
galloping with their cavalry to the rescue. Khaled was heavily
armed; but Derar was almost naked, on a horse without a
saddle, and brandishing a lance.
At sight of them Peter's heart quaked ; he put a stop to the
assault on the women, and would have made a merit of de
livering them up unharmed. " We have wives and sisters of
our own," said he, "and respect your courageous defence. Go
in peace to your countrymen."
He turned his horse's head, but Caulah smote the legs of the
animal and brought him to the ground ; and Derar thrust his
spear through the rider as he fell. Then alighting and striking
off the head of Peter, he elevated it on the point of his lance.
A general action ensued. The enemy were routed and pur
sued with slaughter to the gates of Damascus, and great booty
was gained of horses and armor.
The battle over, Paul was brought a prisoner before Khaled,
and the gory head of his brother was shown to him. " Such,"
cried Khaled, c ' will be your fate unless you instantly embrace
the faith of Islam." Paul wept over the head of his brother,
and said he wished not to survive him, "Enough," cried
Khaled; the signal was given, and the head of Paul was
severed from his body.
The Moslem army now retired to their old camp, where they
found Abu Obeidah, who had rallied his fugitives and in
trenched himself, for it was uncertain how near Werdan and
his army might be. Here the weary victors reposed them
selves from their dangers and fatigues; talked over the
fortunes of the day, and exulted in the courage of their women
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 253
CHAPTER VIII.
BATTLE OF AIZNADIN.
THE army of the prefect Werdan, though seventy thousand
in number, was for the most part composed of newly levied
troops. It lay encamped at Aiznadin, and ancient historians
speak much of the splendid appearance of the imperial camp,
rich in its sumptuous furniture of silk and gold, and of the
brilliant array of the troops in burnished armor, with glitter
ing swords and lances.
While thus encamped, Werdan was surprised one day to
behold clouds of dust rising in different directions, from which
as they advanced broke forth the flash of arms and din of
trumpets. These were in fact the troops which Khaled had
summoned by letter from various parts, and which, though
widely separated, arrived at the appointed time with a punc
tuality recorded by the Arabian chroniclers as miraculous.
The Moslems were at first a little daunted by the number and
formidable array of the imperial host ; but Khaled harangued
them in a confident tone. "You behold," said he, uthe last
stake of the infidels. This army vanquished and dispersed,
they can never muster another of any force, and all Syria is
ours."
The armies lay encamped in sight of each other all night,
and drew out in battle array in the morning.
" Who will undertake," said Khaled, " to observe the enemy
near at hand, and bring me an account of the number and
disposition of his forces?"
Derar immediately stepped forward. " Go, "said Khaled,
"and Allah go with thee. But I charge thee, Derar, not to
strike a blow unprovoked, nor to expose thy life unneces
sarily."
When Werdan saw a single horseman prowling in view
of his army and noting its strength and disposition, he sent
forth thirty horsemen to surround and capture h" Derar
retreated before them until they became separated in the
eagerness of pursuit, then suddenly wheeling he received tht
first upon the point of his lance, and so another and another,
thrusting them through or striking them from their
254 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOES.
until he had killed or unhorsed seventeen, and so daunted the
rest that he was enabled to make his retreat in safety.
Khaled reproached him with rashness and disobedience of
orders.
" I sought not the fight," replied Derar. " They came forth
against me, and I feared that God should see me turn my back.
He doubtless aided me, and had it not been for your orders, I
should not have desisted when I did. "
Being informed by Derar of the number and positions of the
enemy's troops, Khaled marshalled his army accordingly. He
gave command of the right wing to Mead and Noman; the
left to Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas and Serjabil, and took charge
of the centre himself, accompanied by Amru, Abda'lrahman,
Derar, Kais, Eafi, and other distinguished leaders. A body of
four thousand horse, under Yezed Ebn Abu Sofian, was posted
in the rear to guard the baggage and the women.
But it was not the men alone that prepared for this mo
mentous battle. Caulah and Offeirah, and their intrepid com
panions, among whom were women of the highest rank,
excited by their recent success, armed themselves with such
weapons as they found at hand, and prepared to mingle in the
fight. Khaled applauded their courage and devotion, assuring
them that, if they fell, the gates of paradise would be open to
them. He then formed them into two battalions, giving com
mand of one to Caulah, and of the other to Offeirah; and
charged them, besides defending themselves against the enemy,
to keep a strict eye upon his own troops ; and whenever they
saw a Moslem turn his back upon the foe, to slay him as a
recreant and an apostate. Finally he rode through the ranks
of his army, exhorting them all to fight with desperation, sinco
they had wives, children, honor, religion, everything at stake,
and no place of refuge should they be defeated.
The war cries now arose from either army ; the Christianr
shouting for "Christ and for the faith;" the Moslems, "La
I'laha ilia Allah, Mohammed Eesoul Allah !" * ' There is but one
God! Mahomet is the prophet of God."
Just before the armies engaged, a venerable man came forth
from among the Christians, and, approaching Khaled, de
manded, "Art thou the general of this army?" "I am con
sidered such," replied Khaled, "while I am true to God, the
Koran, and the prophet."
"Thou art come unprovoked," said the old man, "thou and
thy host, to invade this Christian land. Bo not too certain of
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 255
success. Others who have heretofore invaded this land have
found a tomb instead of a triumph. Look at this host. It is
more numerous and perhaps better disciplined than thine.
Why wilt thou t&mpt a battle which may end in thy defeat,
and must at all events cost thee most lamentable bloodshed !
Retire, then, in peace, and spare the miseries which must
otherwise fall upon either army. Shouldst thou do so, I am
authorized to offer, for every soldier in thy host, a suit of gar
ments, a turban, and a piece of gold; for thyself a hundred
pieces and ten silken robes, and for thy Caliph a thousand
pieces and a hundred robes."
"You proffer a part," replied Khaled scornfully, "to one
who will soon possess the whole. For yourselves there are but
three conditions : embrace the faith, pay tribute, or expect the
sword." With this rough reply the venerable man returned
sorrowfully to the Christian host.
Still Khaled was unusually wary. " Our enemies are two to
one," said he; "we must have patience and outwind them.
Let us hold back until nightfall, for that with the prophet was
the propitious time of victory."
The enemy now threw their Armenian archers in the ad
vance, and several Moslems were killed and wounded with
flights of arrows. Still Khaled restrained the impatience of
his troops, ordering that no man should stir from his post.
The impetuous Derar at length obtained pern ission to attack
the assaulting band of archers, and spurred vigorously upon
them with his troop of horse. They faltered, but were re
inforced ; troops were sent to sustain Derar ; many were slain
on both sides, but success inclined to the Moslems.
The action was on the point of becoming general, when a
horseman from the advance army galloped up, and inquired
for the Moslem general. Khaled, considering it a challenge,
levelled his lance for the encounter. " Turn thy lance aside, I
pray thee," cried the Christian eagerly; " I am but a messen
ger, and seek a parley."
Khaled. quietly reined up his steed, and laid his lance athwart
the pommel of his saddle: " Speak to the purpose," said he,
"and tell no lies."
"I will tell the naked truth; dangerous for me to tell, but
most important for thee to hear ; but first promise protection
for myself and family."
Having obtained tm>, promise, the messenger, whose name
was David, proceed; " J am se^t by Werdan to entreat that
256 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the battle may cease, and the hlood of brave men be spared ;
and that thou wilt meet him to-morrow morning, singly, in
sight of either army, to treat of terms of peace. Such is my
message ; but beware, oh Khaled ! for treason lurks beneath it.
Ten chosen men, well armed, will be stationed in the night
close by the place of conference, to surprise and seize, or kill
thee, when defenceless and off thy guard."
lie then proceeded to mention the place appointed for the con
ference, and all the other particulars. ' ' Enough, " said Khaled.
" Return to Werdan, and tell him I agree to meet him."
The Moslems were astonished at hearing a retreat sounded,
when the conflict was inclining in their favor ; they withdrew
reluctantly from the field, and Abu Obeidah and Derar de
manded of Khaled the meaning of his conduct. He informed
them of what had just been revealed to him. " I will keep
this appointment," said he. "I will go singly, and will bring
back the heads of all the assassins." Abu Obeidah, however,
remonstrated against his exposing himself to such unnecessary
danger. * ' Take ten men with thee, " said he, ' ' man for man. "
" Why defer the punishment of their perfidy until morning?"
cried Derar. "Give me the ten men, and I will counterplot
these lurkers this very night."
Having obtained permission, he picked out ten men of
assured coolness and courage, and set off with them in the
dead of the night for the place of ambush. As they drew near
Derar caused his companions to halt, and, putting off his
clothes to prevent all rustling noise, crept warily with his
naked scimetar to the appointed ground. Here he beheld the
ten men fast asleep, with their weapons beneath their heads.
Returning silently, and beckoning his companions, they sin
gled out each his man, so that the whole were dispatched at
a blow. They then stripped the dead, disguised themselves in
their clothes, and awaited the coming day.
The rising sun shone on the two armies drawn out in battle
array, and awaiting the parley of the chiefs. Werdan rode
forth on a white mule, and was arrayed in rich attire, with
chains of gold and precious stones. Khaled was clad in a
yellow silk vest and green turban. He suffered himself to be
drawn by Werdan toward the place of ambush ; then, alighting
and 'seating themselves on the ground, they entered into a
parley. Their conference was brief and boisterous. Each
considered the other in his power, and conducted himself with
haughtiness and acrimony. Werdan spoke of the Moslems aa
T AXD ins
needy spoilers, who lived by the sword, and invaded the fer
tile territories (J their neighbors in quest of plunder. " We,
on the other hanu," said he, "are wealthy, and desire peace.
Speak, what do you require to relieve your wants and satisfy
your rapacity?"
"Miserable infidel!" replied Khaled. "We are not so poor
as to accept alms at your hands. Allah provides for us. You
offer us a part of what is ail our own ; for Allah has put all
that you have into our hands* ? even to your wives and chil
dren. But do you desire peace? We have already told you
our conditions. Either acknowledge that there is no other
God but God, and that Mahomet is his prophet, or pay us
such tribute as we may impose. Do you refuse? For what,
then, have you brought me here? You knew our terms yester
day, and that all your propositions were rejected. Do you
entice me here alone for single combat? Be it so, and let our
weapons decide between us."
So saying, he sprang upon his feet. Werdan also rose, but
expecting instant aid, neglected to draw his sword. Khaled
seized him by the throat, upon which he called loudly to his
men in ambush. The Moslems in ambush rushed forth, and,
deceived by their Grecian dresses, Werdan for an instant
thought himself secure. As they drew near he discovered his
mistake, and shrank with horror at the sight of Derar, who
advanced, almost naked, brandishing a scimetar, and in whom
he recognized the slayer of his son. " Mercy! Mercy!" cried
he to Khaled, at finding himself caught in his own snare.
" There is no mercy," replied Khaled, " for him who has no
faith. You came to me with peace on your lips, but murder
in your heart. Your crime be upon your head."
The sentence was no sooner pronounced than the powerful
sword of Derar performed its office, and the head of Werdan
was struck off at a blow. The gory trophy was elevated on
the point of a lance and borne by the little band toward the
Christian troops, who, deceived by the Greek disguises, sup
posed it the head of Khaled and shouted with joy. Their
triumph was soon turned to dismay as they discovered their
error. Khaled did not suffer them to recover from their con
fusion, but bade his trumpets sound a general charge. What
ensued was a massacre rather than a battle. The imperial
army broke and fled in all directions; some toward Csesarea,
others to Damascus, and others to Antioch. The booty was
Immense; crosses of silver and gold, adorned with precious
258 'MAHOMET AND HIS 8VQC&880RS.
stones, rich chains and bracelets, jewels of price, silken robes,
armor and weapons of all kinds, and numerous banners, all
which Khaled declared should not be divided until after the
capture of Damascus.
Tidings of this great victory was sent to the Caliph at Me
dina, by his brave and well-beloved son Abda'lrahman. On
receiving it, Abu Beker prostrated, himself and returned thanks
to God. The news spread rapidly throughout Arabia. Hosts
of adventurers hurried to Medina from all parts, and especially
from Mecca. All were eager to serve in the cause of the faith,
now that they found it crowned with conquest and rewarded
with riches.
The worthy Abu Beker was disposed to gratify their wishes,
but Omar, on being consulted, sternly objected. " The greater
part of these fellows," said he, "who are so eager to join us now
that we are successful, are those who sought to crush us when
we were few and feeble. They care not for the faith, but they
long to ravish the rich fields of Syria, and share the plunder of
Damascus. Send them not to the army to make brawls and
dissensions. Those already there are sufficient to complete
what they have begun. They have won the victory ; let them
enjoy the spoils."
In compliance with this advice, Abu Beker refused the
prayer of the applicants. Upon this the people of Mecca, and
especially those of the tribe of Koreish, sent a powerful depu
tation, headed by Abu Sofian, to remonstrate with the Caliph.
" Why are we denied permission," said they, " to fight in the
cause of our religion? It is true that in the days of darkness
and ignorance we made war on the disciples of the prophet,
because we thought we were doing God service. Allah, how
ever, has blessed us with the light; we have seen and re
nounced our former errors. We are your brethren in the
faith, as we have ever been your kindred in blood, and hereby
take upon ourselves to fight in the common cause. Let there
then no longer be jealousy and envy between us."
The heart of the Caliph was moved by these remonstrances.
He consulted with Ali and Omar, and it was agreed that the
tribe of Koreish should be permitted to join the army. Abu
Beker accordingly wrote to Khaled congratulating him on his
success, and informing him that a large reinforcement would
join him conducted by Abu Sofian. This letter he sealed with
the seal of the prophet, and dispatched it by his son Abda'lrafr
man.
MMiUMl.i ASH JUS Xi'
CHAPTER IX.
OCCURRENCES BEFORE DAMASCUS — EXPLOITS OF THOMAS — A HAS
IBN ZEID AND HIS AMAZONIAN WIFE.
THE fugitives from the field of Aiznadin carried to Damascus
the dismal tidings that the army was overthrown, and the last
hope of succor destroyed. Great was the consternation of the
inhabitants, yet they set to work, with desperate activity, to
prepare for the coming storm. The fugitives had reinforced the
garrison with several thousand effective men. New fortifica
tions were hastily erected. The walls were -lined with engines
to discharge stones and darts, which were managed by Jews
skilled in their use.
In the midst of their preparation, they beheld squadron
after squadron of Moslem cavalry emerging from among dis
tant groves, while a lengthening line of foot soldiers poured
along between the gardens. This was the order of march of
the Moslem host. The advance guard, of upward of nine
thousand horsemen, was led by Amru. Then came two thou
sand Koreishite horse, led by Abu Sofian. Then a like num
ber under Serjabil. Then Omar Ibn Rabiyah with a similar
division; then the main body of the army led by Abu Obeidah,
and lastly the rear-guard displaying the black eagle, the fateful
banner of Khaled, and led by that invincible warrior.
Khaled now assembled his captains, and assigned to them
their different stations. Abu Sofian was posted opposite the
southern gate. Serjabil opposite that of St. Thomas. Amru
before that of Paradise, and Kais Ibn Hobeirah before that of
Kaisan. Abu Obeidah encamped at some distance, in front of
the gate of Jabiyah, and was charged to be strict and vigilant,
and to make frequent assaults, for Khaled knew his humane
and easy nature. As to Khaled himself, he took his station
and planted his black eagle before the eastern gate.
There was still a southern gate, that of St. Mark, so situated
that it was not practicable to establish posts or engage in
skirmishes before it: it was, therefore, termed the Gate of
Peace. As to the active and impetuous Derar, he was ordered
to patrol round the walls and scour the adjacent plain at the
head of two thousand horse, protecting the camp from surprise
and preventing supplies and reinforcements to the city. "If
you should be attacked," said Khaled, "send me word, and I
260 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
will come to your assistance." " And must I stand peaceably
until you arrive?" said Derar, in recollection of former re
proofs of his rash contests. " Not so," rejoined Khaled, " but
fight stoutly, and be assured I will not fail you. The rest of
the army were dismounted to carry on the siege on foot.
The Moslems were now better equipped for war than ever,
having supplied themselves with armor and weapons taken in
repeated battles. As yet, however/ they retained their Arab
frugality and plainness, neglecting the delicate viands, the
sumptuous raiment, and other luxurious indulgences of their
enemies. Even Abu Obeidah, in the humility of his spirit,
contented himself with his primitive Arab tent of camel's hair ;
refusing the sumptuous tents of the Christian commanders,
won in the recent battle. Such were the stern and simple-
minded invaders of the effeminate and sensual nations of the
East.
The first assaults of the Moslems were bravely repelled, and
many were slain by darts and stones hurled by the machines
from the wall. The garrison even ventured to make a sally,
but were driven back with signal slaughter. The siege was
then pressed with unremitting rigor, until no one dared to
venture beyond the bulwarks. The principal inhabitants now
consulted together whether it were not best to capitulate,
while there was yet a chance of obtaining favorable terms.
There was at this time living in Damascus a noble Greek,
named Thomas, who was married to a daughter of the emperor
Heraclius. He held no post, but was greatly respected, for he
was a man of talents and consummate courage. In this mo
ment of general depression he endeavored to rouse the spirits
of the people; representing their invaders as despicable, bar
barous, naked, and poorly armed, without discipline or mili
tary service, and formidable only through their mad fanati
cism, and the panic they had spread through the country.
Finding all arguments in vain, he offered to take the lead
himself, if they would venture upon another sally. His offer
was accepted, and the next morning appointed for the effort.
Khaled perceived a stir of preparation throughout the night,
lights gleaming in the turrets and along the battlements, and
exhorted his men to be vigilant, for he anticipated some des
perate movement. "Let no man sleep, " said he. " We shall
have rest enough after death, and sweet will be the repose that
is never more to be followed by labor."
The Christians were sadly devout in this hour of extremity.
MAUOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 261
At early dawn the bishop, in his robes, proceeded at the head
of the clergy to the gate by which the sally was to be made,
where he elevated the cross, and laid beside it the New Testa
ment. As Thomas passed out at the gate, he laid his hand
upon the sacred volume. " Oh God!" exclaimed he, "if our
faith be true, aid us, and deliver us not into the hands of its
enemies."
. The Moslems, who had been on the alert, were advancing to
attack just at the time of the sally, but were checked by a gen
eral discharge from the engines on the wall. Thomas led his
troops bravely to the encounter, and the conflict was fierce
and bloody. He was a dexterous archer, and singled out the
most conspicuous of the Moslems, who fell one after another
beneath his shafts. Among others, he wounded Aban Ibn Zeid
with an arrow tipped with poison. The latter bound up the
wound with his turban, and continued in the field, but being
overcome by fhe venom was conveyed to the camp. He had
but recently been married to a beautiful woman of the intrepid
race of the Himiar, one of those Amazons accustomed to use
the bow and arrow, and to mingle in warfare.
Hearing that her husband was wounded, she hastened to his
tent, but before she could reach it he had expired. She uttered
no lamentation, nor shed a tear, but, bending over the body,
" Happy art thou, oh my beloved," said she, "for thou art with
Allah, who joined us but to part us from each other. But I
will avenge thy death, and then seek to join thee in paradise.
Henceforth shall no man touch me more, for I dedicate myself
to God."
Then grasping her husband's bow and arrows, she hastened
to the field in quest of Thomas, who, she had been told, was
the slayer of her husband. Pressing toward the place where
he was fighting, she let fly a shaft, which wounded his stand
ard-bearer in the hand. The standard fell, and was borne off
by the Moslems. Thomas pursued it, laying about him furi
ously, and calling upon his men to rescue their banner. It was
shifted from hand to hand until it came into that of Serjabil.
Thomas assailed him with his scimetar; Serjabil threw the
standard among his troops and closed with him. They fought
with equal ardor, but Thomas was gaining the advantage,
when an arrow, shot by the wife of Aban, smote him in the
eye. He staggered with the wound, but his men, abandoning
the contested standard, rushed to his support and bore him off
to the city. He refused to retire to his home, and, his wound
262 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
being dressed on the ramparts, would have returned to tho
conflict, but was overruled by the public. He took his station,
however, at the city gate, whence he could survey the field and
issue his orders. The battle continued with great fury; but
such showers of stones and darts and other missiles were dis
charged by the Jews from the engines on the walls that the be
siegers were kept at a distance. Night terminated the conflict.
The Moslems returned to their camp wearied with a long day's
fighting; and, throwing themselves on the earth, were soon
buried in profound sleep.
Thomas, finding the courage of the garrison roused by the
stand they had that day made, resolved to put it to further
proof. At his suggestion preparations were made in the dead
of the night for a general sally at daybreak from all the gates
of the city. At the signal of a single stroke upon a bell at the
first peep of dawn, all the gates were thrown open, and from
each rushed forth a torrent of warriors upon the nearest en
campment.
So silently had the preparations been made that the besiegers
were completely taken by surprise. The trumpets sounded
alarms, the Moslems started from sleep and snatched up their
weapons, but the enemy were already upon them, and struck
them down before they had recovered from their amazement.
For a time it was a slaughter rather than a fight, at the vari
ous stations. Khaled is said to have shed tears at beholding
the carnage. " Oh thou, who never sleepest !" cried he, in the
agony of his heart, "aid thy faithful servants; let them not
fall beneath the weapons of these infidels." Then, followed by
four hundred horsemen, he spurred about the field wherever
relief was most needed.
The hottest of the fight was opposite the gate whence Thomas
had sallied. Here Serjabil had his station, and fought with
undaunted valor. Near him was the intrepid wife of Aban,
doing deadly execution with her shafts. She had expended all
but one, when a Greek soldier attempted to seize her. In an
instant the arrow was sped through his throat, and laid him
dead at her feet ; but she was now weaponless, and was taken
prisoner.
At the same time Serjabil and Thomas were again engaged
hand to hand with equal valor ; but the scimetar of Serjabil
broke on the buckler of his adversary, and he was on the point
of be,ing slain or captured, when Khaled and Abda'lrahman
galloped up with a troop of horse. Thomas was obliged to
MAHOMET AND ms SUCCESSORS.
take refuge in the city, and Serjabi1 and the Amazonian.widow
were rescued.
The troops who sallied out at che gate of Jabiyah met with
the severest treatment. The meek Abu Obeidah was stationed
in front of that gate, and was slumbering quietly in his hair
tent at the time of the sally. His first care in the moment of
alarm was to repeat the morning prayer. He then ordered
forth a body of chosen men to keep the enemy at bay, and
while they were fighting, led another detachment, silently but
rapidly, round between the combatants and the city. The
Greeks thus suddenly found themselves assailed in front and
rear ; they fought desperately, but so successful was the strata
gem, and so active the valor of the meek Abu Obeidah, when
once aroused, that never a man, says the Arabian historian,
that sallied from that gate, returned again.
The battle of the night was almost as sanguinary as that of
the day; the Christians were repulsed in all quarters, and
driven once more within their walls, leaving several thousand
dead upon the field. The Moslems followed them to the very
gates, but were compelled to retire by the deadly shower
hurled by the Jews from the engines on the walls.
CHAPTER X.
SURRENDER OF DAMASCUS— DISPUTES OF THE SARACEN GENERALS
—DEPARTURE OF THOMAS AND THE EXILES.
FOR seventy days had Damascus been besieged by the fa
natic legions of the desert : the inhabitants had no longer the
heart to make further sallies, but again began to talk of ca-
pi'tulating. It was in vain that Thomas urged them to have
patience until he should write to the emperor for succor ; they
listened only to their fears, and sent to Khaled begging a truce,
that they might have time to treat of a surrender. That fierce
warrior turned a deaf ear to their prayer : he wished for no
surrender, that would protect the lives and property of the be
sieged ; he was bent upon taking the city by the sword, and
giving it up to be plundered by his Arabs.
In their extremity the people of Damascus turned to the
good Abu Obeidah, whom they knew to be meek and humane.
MAHOMET
Having first treated with Lkn bj a n^esst..:^!* who understood
Arabic, and received his promise of security, a hundred of the
principal inhabitants, including the most veusrable of the
clergy, issued privately one night by the gate of Jabiyah, and
sought his presence. They found this leader of a mighty force,
that was shaking the empire of the Orient, living in a humble
tent of hair-cloth, like a mere wanderer of the desert. He
Listened favorably to their propositions, for his object was con
version rather than conquest; tribute rather than plunder.
A covenant was soon written, in which he engaged that
hostilities should cease on their delivering the city into his
hands; that such of the inhabitants as pleased might depart
in safety with as much of their effects as they could carry,
and those who remained as tributaries should retain their
property, and have seven -churches allotted to them. This
covenant was not signed by Abu Obeidah, not being com-
mander-in-chief , but he assured the envoys it would be held
sacred by the Moslems.
The capitulation being arranged, and hostages given for the
good faith of the besieged, the gate opposite to the encamp
ment of Abu Obeidah was thrown open, and the venerable
chief entered at the head of a hundred men to take possession.
While these transactions were taking place at the gate of
Jabiyah, a different scene occurred at the eastern gate.
Khaled was exasperated by the death of a brother of Amru,
shot from the walls with a poisoned arrow. In the height of
his indignation, an apostate priest, named Josias, undertook
to deliver the gate into his hands, on condition of security of
person and property for himself and his relatives.
By means of this traitor, a hundred Arabs were secretly
introduced within the walls, who, rushing to the eastern gate,
broke the bolts and bars and chains by which it was fastened,
and threw it open with the signal shout of Allah Achbar !
Khaled and his legions poured in at the gate with sound of
trumpet and tramp of steed; putting all to the sword, and
deluging the streets with blood. "Mercy! Mercy!" was the
cry. " No mercy for infidels !" was Khaled's fierce response.
He pursued his career of carnage into the great square be.
fore the church of the Virgin Mary. Here, to his astonish
ment, he beheld Abu Obeidah and his attendants, their swords
sheathed, and marching in solemn procession with priests and
monies and the principal inhabitants, and s^rounded by
women and children.
Af A J/OM /•:'/' AM) II r$ SUCCESSORS, 265
Abu Obeidah saw fury and surprise in the looks of Khaled,
and hastened to propitiate him by gentle words. "Allah in
his mercy," said he, "has delivered this city into my hands
by peaceful surrender ; sparing the effusion of blood and the
necessity of fighting."
" Not so," cried Khaled in a furo. " I have won it with thifl
sword, and I grant no quarter."
"But I have given the inhabitants a covenant written with
my own hand."
" And what right had you," demanded Khaled, " to grant a
capitulation without consulting me? Am I not the general?
Yes, by Allah ! and to prove it I will put every inhabitant to
the sword."
Abu Obeidah felt that in point of military duty he had erred,
but he sought to pacify Khaled, assuring him he had intended
all for the best, and felt sure of his approbation, entreating
him to respect the covenant he had made in the name of God
and the prophet, and with the approbation of all the Moslems
present at the transaction.
Several of the Moslem officers seconded Abu Obeidah, and
endeavored to persuade Khaled to agree to the capitulation.
While he hesitated, his troops, impatient of delay, resumed
the work of massacre and pillage.
The patience of the good Abu Obeidah was at an end. " By
Allah!" cried he, "my word is treated as nought, and. my
covenant is trampled under foot !''
Spurring his horse among the marauders, he commanded
them, in the name of the prophet, to desist until he and
Khaled should have time to settle their dispute. The name of
the prophet had its effect ; the soldiery paused in their bloody
career, and the two generals with their officers retired to the
church of the Virgin.
Here, after a sharp altercation, Khaled, callous to all claims
of justice and mercy, was brought to listen to policy. It was
represented to him that he was invading a country where
many cities were yet to be taken; that it was important to
respect the capitulations of his generals, even though they
might not be altogether to his mind; otherwise the Moslem
word would cease to be trusted, and other cities, warned by
the fate of Damascus, instead of surrendering */n favorable
terms, might turn a deaf ear to all offers of mercj nnd fight to
the last extremity.
It was with the utmost difficulty that Abu Obeidah wrunr;
266 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
from the iron soul of Khaled a slow consent to his capitulation,
on condition that the whole matter should he referred to the
Caliph. At every article he paused and murmured. He
would fain have inflicted death upon Thomas, and another
leader named Herbis, but Abu Obeidah insisted that they were
expressly included in the covenant. 9
Proclamation was then made that such of the inhabitants as
chose to remain tributaries to the Caliph should enjoy the
exercise of their religion; the rest were permitted to depart.
The greater part preferred to remain ; but some determined to
follow their champion Thomas to Antioch. The latter prayed
for a passport or a safe-conduct through the country con
trolled by the Moslems. After much difficulty Khaled granted
them three days' grace, during which they should be safe from
molestation or pursuit, on condition they took nothing with
them but provisions.
Here the worthy Abu Obeidah interfered, declaring that he
had covenanted to let them go forth with bag and baggage.
" Then," said Khaled, "they shah1 go unarmed." Again Abu
Obeidah interfered, and Khaled at length consented that they
should have arms sufficient to defend themselves against rob
bers and wild beasts ; he, however, who had a lance, should
have no sword ; and he who had a bow should have no lance.
Thomas and Herbis, who were to conduct this unhappy
caravan, pitched their tents in the meadow adjacent to the
city, whither all repaired who were to follow them into exile,
each laden with plate, jewels, silken stuffs, and whatever was
most precious and least burdensome. Among other things was
a wardrobe of the emperor Heraclius, in which there were
above three hundred loads of costly silks and cloth of gold.
All being assembled, the sad multitude set forth on their
wayfaring. Those who from pride, from patriotism, or from
religion, thus doomed themselves to poverty and exile, were
among the noblest and most highly bred of the land ; people
accustomed to soft and luxurious life, and to the silken abodes
of palaces. Of this number was the wife of Thomas, a daughter
of the emperor Heraclius, who was attended by her maidens.
It was a piteous sight to behold aged men, delicate and shrink
ing women, and helpless children, thus setting forth on a
wandering journey through wastes and deserts, and rugged
mountains, infested by savage hordes. Many a time did they
turn to cut a look of fondness and despair on those sumptuous
palaces and delightful gardens, once their pride and }oy ; and
l/. I //<).!/ /•;•/• AM) UlS SUCCESSORS. 207
ptill would they turn and weep, and beat their breasts, and
gaze through their tears on the stately towers of Damascus, and
the flowery banks of the Pharpar.
Thus terminated the hard-contested siege of Damascus,
which Voltaire has likened for its stratagems, skirmishes, and
single combats to Homer's siege of Troy. More than twelve
months elapsed between the time the Saracens first pitched
their tents before it and the day of its surrender.
CHAPTER XI.
STORY OF JONAS AND EUDOCEA — PURSUIT OP THE EXILES— DEATH
OF THE CALIPH ABU BEKER.
IT is recorded that Derar gnashed his teeth with rage at see
ing the multitude of exiles departing in peace, laden with
treasures, which he considered as so much hard-earned spoil,
lost to the faithful ; but what most incensed him was, that so
many unbelievers should escape the edge of the scimetar.
Khaled would have been equally indignant, but that he had
secretly covenanted with himself to regain this booty. For
this purpose he ordered his men to refresh themselves and
their horses, and be in readiness for action, resolving to pursue
the exiles when the three days of grace should have expired.
A dispute with Abu Obeidah concerning a quantity of grain,
which the latter claimed for the citizens, detained him one day
longer, and he was about to abandon the pursuit as hopeless,
when a guide presented himself who knew all the country,
and the shortest passes through the mountains. The story of
this guide is worthy of notice, as illustrating the character of
these people and these wars.
During the siege Derar, as has been related, was appointed
to patrol round the city and the camp with two thousand
horse. As a party of these were one night going their rounds,
near the walls, they heard the distant neighing of a horse, and
looking narrowly round, descried a horseman coming stealthily
from the gate Keisan. Halting in a shadowy place, they waited
until he came close to them, when, rushing forth, they made
him prisoner. He was a youthful Syrian, richly and gallantly
arrayed, and apparently a person of distinction. Scarcely bad
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS,
they seized him when they beheld another horseman issuing
^rom the same gate, who in a soft voice called upon their cap-
*ive, by the name of Jonas. They commanded the latter to
invite his companion to advance. He seemed to reply, and
called out something in Greek : upon hearing which the other
turned bridle and galloped back into the city. The Arabs, igno
rant of Greek, and suspecting the words to be a warning, would
have slain their prisoner on the spot ; but, upon second thoughts,
conducted him to Khaled.
The youth avowed himself a nobleman of Damascus, and
betrothed to a beautiful maiden named Eudocea ; but her par
ents, from some capricious reason, had withdrawn their con
sent to his nuptials ; whereupon the lovers had secretly agreed
to fly from Damascus. A sum of gold had bribed the sentinels
who kept watch that night at the gate. The damsel, disguised
in male attire, and accompanied by two domestics, was follow
ing her lover at a distance, as he sallied in advance. His reply
in Greek when she called upon him was, " The bird is caught !"
a warning at the hearing of which she had fled back to the
city.
Khaled was not the man to be moved by a love tale ; but he
gave the prisoner his alternative. " Embrace the faith of
Islam," said he, "and when Damascus falls into our power,
you shall have your betrothed ; refuse, and your head is for
feit."
The youth paused not between a scimetar and a bride. He
made immediate profession of faith between the hands of Khaled,
and thenceforth fought zealously for the capture of the city,
since its downfall was to crown his hopes.
When Damascus yielded to its foes, he sought the dwelling
of Eudocea, and learnt a new proof of her affection. Supposing,
on his capture by the Arabs, that he had fallen a martyr to
his faith, she had renounced the world, and shut herself up in
a convent. With throbbing heart he hastened to the convent,
but when the lofty-minded maiden beheld in him a renegade,
she turned from him with scorn, retired to her cell, and refused
to see him more. She was among the noble ladies who followed
Thomas and Herbis into exile. Her lover, frantic at the
thoughts of losing her, reminded Khaled of his promise to re
store her to him, and entreated that she might be detained ; but
Khaled pleaded the covenant of Abu Obeidah, according to
which all had free leave to depart.
When Jonas afterward discovered that Khaled meditated a
MMluMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 269
pursuit of the exiles, but was discouraged by the lapse of time,
he offered to conduct him by short and secret passes through
the mountains, which would insure his overtaking them. His
offer was accepted. On the fourth day after the departure of
the exiles, Khaled set out in pursuit, with four thousand chosen
horsemen; who, by the advice of Jonas, were disguised as
Christian Arabs. For some time they traced the exiles along
the plains, by the numerous footprints of mules and camels,
and by articles thrown away to enable them to travel more
expeditiously. At length the footprints turned toward the
mountains of Lebanon, and were lost in their arid and rocky
defiles. The Moslems began to falter. "Courage I" cried
Jonas, "they will be entangled among the mountains. They
cannot now escape."
They continued their weary course, stopping only at the
stated hours of prayer. They had now to climb the high and
cragged passes of Lebanon, along rifts and glens worn by
winter torrents. The horses struck fire at every tramp ; they
cast their shoes, their hoofs were battered on the rocks, and
many of them were lamed and disabled. The horsemen dis
mounted and scrambled up on foot, leading their weary and
crippled steeds. Their clothes were worn to shreds, and the
soles of their iron-shod boots were torn from the upper leathers.
The men murmured and repined ; never In all their marches
had they experienced such hardships ; they insisted on halting,
-to rest and to bait their horses. Even Khaled, whose hatred
of infidels furnished an impulse almost equal to the lover's pas
sion, began to flag, and reproached the renegade as the cause
of all this trouble.
Jonas still urged them forward: he pointed to fresh foot
prints and tracks of horses that must have recently passed.
After a few hours' refreshment they resumed the pursuit;
passing within sight, of Jabalah and Laodicea, but without ven
turing within their gates, lest the disguise of Christian Arabs,
which deceived the simple peasantry, might not avail with the
shrewder inhabitants of the towns.
Intelligence received from a country boor increased their
perplexity. The emperor Heraclius, fearing that the arrival of
the exiles might cause a panic at Antioch, had sent orders for
them to proceed along the sea-coast to Constantinople. This
gave their pursuers a greater chance to overtake them ; but
Khaled was startled at learning, in addition, that troops were
assembling to be sent against him, and that but a single moun
2rO MASOMMT AXb SIS
tain separated him from them. He now feared they might
intercept his return, or fall upon Damascus in his absence. A
sinister dream added to his uneasiness, but it was fa yorably in
terpreted by Abda'lrahman, and he continued the pursuit.
A tempestuous night closed on them : the rain fell in torrents,
and man and beast were ready to sink with fatigue ; still they
were urged forward ; the fugitives could not be far distant, the
enemy was at hand : they must snatch their prey and retreat.
The morning dawned ; the storm cleared up, and the sun shone
brightly on the surrounding heights. They dragged their steps
wearily, however, along the defiles, now swept by torrents or
filled with mire, until the scouts in the advance gave joyful
signal from the mountain brow. It commanded a grassy
meadow, sprinkled with flowers, and watered by a running
stream.
On the borders of the rivulet was the caravan of exiles, repos
ing in the sunshine from the fatigues of the recent storm.
Some were sleeping on the grass, others were taking their morn
ing repast ; while the meadow was gay with embroidered robes
and silks of various dyes spread out to dry upon the herbage.
The weary Moslems, worn out with the horrors of the moun
tains, gazed with delight on the sweetness and freshness of the
meadow ; but Khaled eyed the caravan with an eager eye, and
the lover only stretched his gaze to catch a glimpse of his be
trothed among the females reclining on the margin of the
stream.
Having cautiously reconnoitred the caravan without being
perceived, Khaled disposed of his band in four squadrons ; the
first commanded by Derar, the second by Ran Ibn Omeirah, the
third by Abda'lrahman, and the fourth led by himself. He
gave orders that the squadrons should make their appearance
successively, one at a time, to deceive the enemy as to their
force, and that there should be no pillaging until the victory
was complete.
Having offered up a prayer, he gave the word to bis division,
"In the name of Allah and the prophet !" and led to the attack.
The Christians were roused from their repose on beholding a
squadron rushing down from the mountain. They were de
ceived at first by the Greek dresses, but were soon aware of
the truth ; though the small number of the enemy gave them
but little dread. Thomas hastily marshalled five thousand men
to receive the shock of the onset, with such weapons as had
been left them. Another and another division came hurrying
MAHOMET AXI> ms SUCCESSORS. 07 1
down from the mountain ; and the fight was furious and well
contested. Thomas and Khaled fought hand to hand ; but the
Christian champion was struck to the ground. Abda'lrahman
cut off his head, elevated it on the spear of the standard of the
cross which he had taken at Damascus, and called upon the
'. iinstians to behold the head of their leader.
Rafi Ibn Omeirah penetrated with his division into the midst
of the encampment to capture the women. They stood coura
geously on the defensive, hurling stones at their assailants.
Among them was a female of matchless beauty, dressed in
splendid attire, with a diadem of jewels. It was the reputed
daughter of the emperor, the wife of Thomas. Rafi attempted
to seize her, but she hurled a stone that struck his horse in the
head and killed him. The Arab drew his scimetar, and would
have slain her, but she cried for mercy, so he took her prisoner,
and gave her in charge to a trusty follower.
In the midst of the carnage and confusion Jonas hastened in
search of his betrothed. If she had treated him with disdain
as a renegade, she now regarded him with horror, as the traitor
who had brought this destruction upon his unhappy country
men. All his entreaties for her to forgive and be reconciled to
him were of no avail. She solemnly vowed to repair to Con
stantinople and end her days in a convent. Finding supplica
tion fruitless, he seized her, and after a violent struggle, threw
her on the ground and made her prisoner. She made no fur
ther resistance, but submitting to captivity, seated herself
quietly on the grass. The lover flattered himself that she re
lented ; but, watching her opportunity, she suddenly drew forth
a poniard, plunged it in her breast, and fell dead at his feet.
While this tragedy was performing, the general battle, or
rather carnage, continued. Khaled ranged the field in quest
of Herbis, but, while fighting pell-mell among a throng of
Christians, that commander came behind him and dealt a blow
that severed his helmet, and would have cleft his skull but for
the folds of his turban. The sword of Herbis fell from his
hand with the violence of the blow, and before he could recover
it he was cut in pieces by the followers of Khaled. The strug
gle of the unhappy Christians was at an end ; all were slain, or
taken prisoners, except one, who was permitted t<Mepart, and
who bore the dismal tidings of the massacre to Constantinople.
The renegade Jonas was loud in his lamentations for the loss
of his betrothed, but his Moslem comrades consoled him with
one of the doctrines of the faith he had newly embraced. " It
MAHOMET AM) tiis StfCCfiSSO&&
was written in the book of fat 3," said they, "that you should
never possess that woman ; but be comforted, Allah has doubt
less greater blessings in store for you ;" and, in fact, Rafi Ibn
Omeirah, out of compassion for his distress, presented him
with the beautiful princess he had taken captive. Khaled con
sented to the gift, provided the emperor did not send to ransom
her.
There was now no time to be lost. In this headlong pursuit
they had penetrated above a hundred and fifty miles into the
heart of the enemy's country, and might be cut off in their
retreat. "To horse and away," therefore, was the word. The
plunder was hastily packed upon the mules, the scanty num
ber of surviving exiles were secured, and the marauding band
set off on a forced march for Damascus. While on their way,
they were one day alarmed by a cloud of dust, through which
their scouts descried the banner of the cross. They prepared
for a desperate conflict. It proved, however, a peaceful mis
sion. An ancient bishop, followed by a numerous train,
sought from Khaled, in the emperor's name, the liberation of
his daughter. The haughty Saracen released her without
ransom. " Take her," said he, "but tell your master I intend
to have him in exchange ; never will I cease this war until I
have wrested from him every foot of territory."
To indemnify the renegade for this second deprivation, a
large sum of gold was given him, wherewith to buy a wife
from among the captives ; but he now disclaimed forever all
earthly love, and, like a devout Mahometan, looked forward
for consolation among the black-eyed Houris of paradise. He
continued more faithful to his new faith and new companions
than he had been to the religion of his fathers and the friends
of his infancy ; and after serving the Saracens in a variety of
ways, earned an undoubted admission to the paradise of the
prophet, being shot through the breast at the battle of Yer-
mouk.
Thus perished this apostate, says the Christian chronicler;
but Alwakedi, the venerable Cadi of Bagdad, adds a supple
ment to the story, for the encouragement of all proselytes to
the Islam faith. He states that Jonas, after his death, was
seen in a vitton by Rafi Ibn Omeirah, arrayed in rich robes
and golden sandals, and walking in a flowery mead ; and the
beatified renegade assured him that, for his exemplary ser
vices, Allah had given him seventy of the black-eyed damsels
of paradise, each of resplendent beauty, sufficient to throw the
MAIIOVKT A.\T) 7775
Bun and moon in the shade. Rafi related his vision to Khaled,
who heard it with implicit faith. ' ' This it is, " said that Moslem
zealot, uto die a martyr to the faith. Happy the man to
whose lot it falls!"*
Khaled succeeded in leading his adventurous band safely
back to Damascus, where they were joyfully received by their
companions in arms, who had entertained great fears for their
safety. He now divided the rich spoils taken in his expedi
tion; four parts were given to the officers and soldiers, a fifth
'he reserved for the public treasury, and sent it off to the
Caliph, with letters inf orining him of the capture of Damascus ;
of his disputes with Abu Obeidah as to the treatment of the
city and its inhabitants, and lastly of his expedition in pursuit
of the exiles, and his recovery of the wealth they were bearing
away. These missives were sent in the confident expectation
that his policy of the sword would far outshine, in the estima
tion of the Caliph, and of all true Moslems, the more peaceful
policy of Abu Obeidah.
It was written in the book of fate, say the Arabian histo
rians, that the pious Abu Beker should die without hearing of
the brightest triumph of the Islam faith; the very day that
Damascus surrendered, the Caliph breathed his last at Medina.
Arabian authors differ as to the cause of his death. Abulfeda
asserts that he was poisoned by the Jews, in his frugal repast
of rice ; but his daughter Ayesha, with more probability, as
cribes his death to bathing on an unusually cold day, which
threw him into a fever. While struggling with his malady,
he directed his chosen friend Omar to perform the religious
functions of his office in his stead.
Feeling his end approaching, he summoned his secretary,
Othman Ibn Affan, and in presence of several of the principal
Moslems, dictated as follows: "I, Abu Beker Ibn Abu Kahafa,
being on the point of leaving this world for the next, and at
that moment when infidels believe, when the wicked cease to
doubt, and when liars speak the truth, do make this declara
tion of my will to the Moslems. I nominate as my successor17
— Here he was overtaken with faintness so that he could not
speak. Othman, who knew his intentions, added the name of
Omar Ibn al Khattab. When Abu Beker came to himself, and
* The story of Jonas and Euclocea has been made the subject of ah English
tragedy by Hughes, entitled The Siege of Damascus; but the lover's name is
changed to Phocyas, the incidents ore altered, and the catastrophe is made entirely
different
274 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
saw what his secretary had written, "God bless thee," said
he, * ' for this foresight 1" He then continued to dictate. ' ' Lis
ten to him, and obey him, for, as far as I know him, and have
seen him, he is integrity itself. He is competent to every
thing he undertakes. . He will rule with justice; if not, God,
who knows all secrets, will reward him according to his
works. I mean all for the best, but I cannot see into the
hidden thoughts of men. Farewell. Act uprightly, and the
blessing of Allah be upon you."
He ordered this testament to be sealed with his seal, and
copies of it to be sent to the principal authorities, civil and
military. Then, having sent for Omar, he told him of his
having nominated him as his successor.
Omar was a stern and simple-minded man ; unambitious of
posts and dignities. "Oh, successor to the apostle of God!"
said he; "spare me from this burden. I have no need of the
Caliphat." "But the Caliphat has need of you!" replied the
dying Abu Beker.
He went on to claim his acceptance of the office as a proof
of friendship to himself, and of devotion to the public good, for
he considered him eminently calculated to maintain an undi
vided rule over the restless people so newly congregated into
an empire. Having brought him to accept, he gave him much
dying counsel, and after he had retired, prayed fervently for
his success, and that the dominion of the faith might be
strengthened and extended during his reign. Having thus
provided for a quiet succession to his office, the good Caliph
expired in the arms of his daughter Ayesha, in the sixty-fourth
year of his age, having reigned two years, three months, and
nine days. At the time of his death his father and mother
were still living, the former ninety-seven years of age. When
the ancient Moslem heard of the death of his son, he merely
said, in scriptural phrase, ' ' The Lord hath given, and the
Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord !"
Abu Beker had four wives; the last had been the widow of
Jaafar, who fell in the battle of Muta. She bore him two sons
after his sixtieth year. He does not appear, however, to have
had the same fondness for the sex as the prophet, notwith
standing his experience in wedlock. "The women," he used
to say, "are all an evil ; but the greatest evil of all is, that they
are necessary."
Abu Beker was universally lamented by his subjects, and he
deserved their lamentations, for he had been an excellent ruler.
MA/IOM/-JT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 275
just, moderate, temperate, frugal, and disinterested. His
reign was too short to enable him to carry out any extensive
schemes ; but it was signalized by the promptness and ability
with which, through the aid of the sword, he quelled the wide-
spreading insurrections on the death of the prophet, and pre
served the scarcely launched empire of Islam from perfect ship
wreck. He left behind him a name dear to all true Moslems,
and an example which, Omar used to say, would be a difficult
pattern for his successors to imitate.
CHAPTER XII.
ELECTION OP OMAR, SECOND CALIPH — KHALED SUPERSEDED IN
COMMAND BY ABU OBEID AH— MAGNANIMOUS CONDUCT OF THOSE
GENERALS— EXPEDITION TO THE CONVENT OF ABYLA.
THE nomination of Omar to the succession was supported by
Ayesha, and acquiesced in by Ali, who saw that opposition
would be ineffectual. The election took place on the day of the
decease of Abu Beker. The character of the new Caliph has
already, through his deeds, been made known in some measure
to the reader ; yet a sketch of him may not be unacceptable.
He was now about fifty-three years of age, a tall, dark man,
with a grave demeanor and a bald head. He was so tall, says
one of his biographers, that when he sat he was higher than
those who stood. His strength was uncommon, and he used
the left as adroitly as the right hand. Though so bitter an
enemy of Islamism at first as to seek the life of Mahomet, he
became from the moment of his conversion one of its most sin
cere and strenuous champions. He had taken an active part
in the weightiest and most decisive events of the prophet's ca
reer. His name stands at the head of the weapon companions
at Beder, Ohod, Khalbar, Honein, and Tabuc, at the defence of
Medina, and the capture of Mecca, and indeed he appears to
have been the soul of most of the early military enterprises of
the faith. His zeal was prompt and almost fiery in its opera
tions. He expounded and enforced the doctrines of Islam like
a soldier; when a question was too knotty for his logic, he v, ;:s
ready to sever it with the sword, and to strike off the head of
him who persisted in false arguing and unbelief.
In the administration of affairs, his probity and justice were
276 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS,
proverbial. In private life ne was noted for abstinence and
frugality, and a contempt for the false grandeur of the world.
Water was his only beverage. His food a few dates, or a few
bits of barley bread and salt ; but in time of penance even salt
was retrenched as a luxury. His austere piety and self-denial,
and the simplicity and almost poverty of his appearance, were
regarded with reverence in those primitive days of Islam. He
had shrewd maxims on which he squared his conduct, of which
the following is a specimen. "Four things come not back: the
spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected
opportunity. "
During his reign mosques were erected without number for
the instruction and devotion of the faithful, and prisons for the
punishment of delinquents. He likewise put in use a scourge
with twisted thongs for the correction of minor offences, among
which he included satire and scandal, and so potently and ex
tensively was it plied that the word went round, "Omar's
twisted scourge is more to be feared than his sword."
On assuming his office he was saluted as Caliph of the Caliph
of the apostle of God, in other words, successor to the successor
of the prophet. Omar objected, that such a title must lengthen
with every successor, until it became endless ; upon which it
was proposed and agreed that he should receive the title of
Emir-al-Moumenin, that is to say, Commander of the Faithful.
This title, altered into Miramamolin, was subsequently borne
by such Moslem sovereigns as held independent sway, ac
knowledging no superior, and is equivalent to that of emperor.
One of the first measures of the new Caliph was with regard
to the army in Syria. His sober judgment was not to be daz
zled by daring and brilliant exploits in arms, and he doubted
the fitness of Khaled for the general command. He acknowl
edged his valor and military skill, but considered him rash,
fiery, and prodigal ; prone to hazardous and extravagant ad
venture, and more fitted to be a partisan than a leader. He
resolved, therefore, to take the principal command of the army
out of such indiscreet hands, and restore it to Abu Obeidah,
who, he said, had proved himself worthy of it by his piety,
modesty, moderation, and good faith. He accordingly wrote
on a skin of parchment, a letter to Abu Obeidah, informing
him of the death of Abu Beker, and his own elevation as Ca
liph, and appointing him commander-in-chief of the army of
Syria.
The letter was delivered to Abu Obeidah at the time that
MAHO.MKT AND ma SUCCESSOR.
Khaled was absent in pursuit of the caravan of exiles. The
good Obeidah was surprised, but sorely perplexed by the con
tents. His own modesty made him unambitious of high com
mand, and his opinion of the signal valor and brilliant services
of Khaled made him loath to supersede him, and doubtful
whether the Caliph would not feel disposed to continue him as
commander-in-chief when he should hear of his recent success
at Damascus. He resolved, therefore, to keep for the present
the contents of the Caliph's letter to himself ; and accordingly
on Khaled's return to Damascus continued to treat him as
commander, and suffered him to write his second letter to Abu
Beker, giving him an account of his recent pursuit and plun
dering of the exiles.
Omar had not been long installed in office when he received
the first letters of Khaled announcing the capture of Damas
cus. These tidings occasioned the most extravagant joy at
Medina, and the valor of Khaled was extolled by the multitude
to the very skies. In the midst of their rejoicings they learnt
with astonishment that the general command had been trans
ferred to Abu Obeidah. The admirers of Khaled were loud in
their expostulations. "What!" cried they, "dismiss Khaled
when in the full career of victory ? Remember the reply of Abu
Beker, when a like measure was urged upon him * I will not
sheathe the sword of God drawn for the promotion of the
faith.'"
Omar revolved their remonstrances in his mind, but his
resolution remained unchanged. "Abu Obeidah," said he, "ifl
tender and merciful, yet brave. He will be careful of his peo
ple, not lavishing their lives in rash adventures and plunder
ing inroads ; nor will he be the less formidable in battle for
being moderate when victorious."
In the mean time came the second dispatches of Khaled, ad
dressed to Abu Beker, announcing the success of his expedi
tion in pursuit of the exiles, and requesting his decision of the
matters in dispute between him and Abu Obeidah. The
Caliph was perplexed by this letter, which showed that his
election as Caliph was yet unknown to the army, and that
Abu Obeidah had not assumed the command. He now wrote
again to the latter, reiterating his appointment, and deciding
upon the matters in dispute. He gave it as his opinion that
Damascus had surrendered on capitulation, and had not been
taken by the sword, and directed that the stipulations of the
covenant should be fulfilled. He declared the pursuit of the
MAHOMET AND StS 8VC0ti880ttS.
exiles iniquitous and rash, and that it would have proved
fatal, but for the mercy of God. The dismissal of the em
peror's daughter free of ransom, he termed a prodigal action,
as a large sum might have been obtained and given to the
poor. He counselled Abu Obeidah, of whose mild and humane
temper he was well aware, not to be too modest and compliant,
but at the same time not to risk the lives of the faithful in the
mere hope of plunder. This latter hint was a reproof to
Khaled.
Lest this letter should likewise be suppressed through the
modesty of Abu Obeidah, he dispatched it by an officer of dis
tinction, Shaded Ibn Aass, whom he appointed his representa
tive in Syria, with orders to have the letter read in presence
of the Moslems, and to cause him to be proclaimed Caliph at
Damascus.
Shaded made good his journey, and found Khaled in his
tent, still acting as commander-in-chief, and the army igno
rant of the death of Abu Beker. The tidings he brought struck
every one with astonishment. The first sentiment expressed
was grief at the death of the good Abu Beker, who was uni
versally lamented as a father ; the second was surprise at the
deposition of Khaled from the command, in the very midst of
such signal victories; and many of his officers and soldiers
were loud in expressing their indignation.
If Khaled had been fierce and rude in his career of triumph,
he proved himself magnanimous in this moment of adversity.
" I know," said he, " that Omar does not love me; but since
Abu Beker is dead, and has appointed him his successor, I sub
mit to his commands." He accordingly caused Omar to be
proclaimed Caliph at Damascus, and resigned his command
to Abu Obeidah. The latter accepted it with characteristic
modesty; but evinced a fear that Khaled would retire in dis
gust, and his signal services be lost to the cause of Islam.
Khaled, however, soon let him know that he was as ready to
serve as to command, and only required an occasion to prove
that his zeal for the faith was unabated. His personal sub
mission extorted admiration even from his enemies, and
gained him the fullest deference, respect, and confidence of
Abu Obeidah.
About this time one of the Christian tributaries, a base-
spirited wretch, eager to ingratiate himself with Abu Obeidah,
came and informed him of a fair object of enterprise. " At no
great distance from this, between Tripoli and Harran, there is
.\M> ///>' *l'cr/-;.«soR8. 979
d convent called Daiz £ bil Kodos, or the monastery of the
Holy Father, from being inhabited by a Christian hermit, so
eminent for wisdom, piety, and mortification, of the flesh, that
he is looked up to as a saint ; so that young and old, rich and
poor, resort from all parts to seek his advice and blessing, and
not a marriage takes place among the nobles of the country,
but the bride and bridegroom repair to receive from him the
nuptial benediction. At Easter there is an annual fair held at
Abyla in front of the convent, to which are brought the rich
est manufactures of the surrounding country; silken stuffs,
jewels of gold and silver, and other precious productions of
art ; and as the fair is a peaceful congregation of people un
armed and unguarded, it will afford ample booty at little risk
or trouble."
Abu Obeidah announced the intelligence to his troops.
"Who," said he, "will undertake this enterprise?" His eye
glanced involuntarily upon Khaled ; it was just such a foray
as he was wont to delight in; but Khaled remained silent.
Abu Obeidah could not ask a service from one so lately in
chief command ; and while he hesitated, Abdallah Ibn Jaafar,
stepson of Abu Beker, came forward. A banner was given
him, and five hundred veteran horsemen, scarred in many a
battle, sallied with him from the gates of Damascus, guided by
the traitor Christian. They halted to rest before arriving at
Abyla, and sent forward the Christian as a scout. As he ap
proached the place he was astonished to see it crowded with an
immense concourse of Greeks, Armenians, Copts, and Jews, in
their various garbs ; besides these there was a grand proces
sion of nobles and courtiers in rich attire, and priests in re
ligious dresses, with a guard of five thousand horse ; all, as he
learned, escorting the daughter of the prefect of Tripoli, who
was lately married, and had come with her husband to receive
the blessing of the venerable hermit. The Christian scout
hastened back to the Moslems, and warned them to retreat.
" I dare not," said Abdallah promptly; " I fear the wrath ot'
Allah, should I turn my back. I will fight these infidels.
Those who help me, God will reward ; those whose hearts fail
them are welcome to retire." Not a Moslem turned his back.
" Forward!" said Abdallah to the Christian, and thou shalt be
hold what the companions of the prophet can perform." The
traitor hesitated, however, and was with difficulty persuaded
to guide them on a service of such peril.
Alxlallah Jed his band near to Abyla, where they lay ck>s$
g80 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
until morning. At the dawn of day, having performed the
customary prayer, he divided his host into five squadrons of a
hundred each ; they were to charge at once in five different
places, with the shout of Allah Achbar 1 and to slay or capture
without stopping to pillage until the victory should be com
plete. He then reconnoitred the place. The hermit was
preaching in front of his convent to a multitude of auditors ;
the fair teemed with people in the variegated garbs of th«
Orient. One house was guarded by a great number of horse
men, and numbers of persons, richly clad, were going in and
out, or standing about it. In this house evidently was the
youthful bride.
Abdallah encouraged his followers to despise the number of
these foes. "Remember," cried he, " the words of tlie pro
phet. ' Paradise is under the shadow of swords ! ' If we con
quer, we shall have glorious booty ; if we fall, paradise awaits
us!"
The five squadrons charged as they had been ordered, with
the well-known war-cry. The Christians were struck with dis
may, thinking the whole Moslem army upon them. There was
a direful confusion; the multitude flying in all directions;
women and children shrieking and crying; booths and tents
overturned, and precious merchandise scattered about the
streets. The troops, however, seeing the inferior number o£
the assailants, plucked up spirits and charged upon them.
The merchants and inhabitants recovered from their panic and
flew to arms, and the Moglem band, hemmed in among such a
host of foes, seemed, say the Arabian writers, like a white
spot on the hide of a black camel. A Moslem trooper, seeing
the peril of his companions, broke his way out of the throng,
and, throwing the reins on the neck of his steed, scoured back
to Damascus for succor.
In this moment of emergency Abu Obeidah forgot all scru
ples of delicacy, and turned to the man he had superseded in
office. "Fail us not," cried he, "in this moment of peril;
but, for God's sake, hasten to deliver thy brethren from de
struction."
"Had Omar given the command of the army to a child," re
plied the gracious Khaled, "I should have obeyed him; how
much more thee, my predecessor in the faith of Islam !"
He now arrayed himself in a coat of mail, the spoil of the
false prophet Moseilma ; he put on a helmet of proof, and over
it a skull-cap, which he called the blessed cap, and attributed
AM) JIRS SUCCESSOR. 281
to it wonderful virtues, having received the prophet's benedic
tion. Then springing on his horse, and putting himself at the
head of a chosen band, he scoured off toward Abyla, with the
bold Derar at his side.
In the mean time the troops under Abdallah had maintained
throughout the day a desperate conflict ; heaps of the slain tes
tified their prowess ; but their ranks were sadly thinned, scarce
one of the survivors but had received repeated wounds, and
I hey were ready to sink under heat, fatigue and thirst. To
ward sunset a cloud of dust is seen : is it a reinforcement of
their enemies? A troop of horsemen emerge. They bear the
black eagle of Khaled. The air resounds with the shout of
Allah Achbar. The Christians are assailed on either side;
some fly and are pursued to the river by the unsparing sword
of Khaled ; others rally round the monastery. Derar engages
hand to hand with the prefect of Tripoli; they grapple; they
struggle; they fall to the earth; Derar is uppermost, and,
drawing a poniard, plunges it into the heart of his adversary.
He springs upon his feet ; vaults into the saddle of the prefect's
horse, and, with the shout of Allah Achbar, gallops in quest of
new opponents. \
The battle is over. The fair is given up to plunder. Horses,
mules, and asses are laden with silken stuffs, rich embroidery,
jewels of gold and silver, precious stones, spices, perfumes, and
other wealthy plunder of the merchants; but the most precious
part of the spoil is the beautiful bride, with forty damsels, who
formed her bridal train.
The monastery was left desolate, with none but the holy an
chorite to inhabit it. Khaled called upon the old man, but re
ceived no answer ; he called again, but the only reply was to
invoke the vengeance of heaven upon his head for the Chris
tian blood he had spilt. The fierce Saracen paused as he was
driving off the spoil, and laying his hand upon the hilt of his
scimetar, looked backed grimly upon the hermit. " What we
have done," said he, uis in obedience to the law of God, who
commands us to slay all unbelievers ; and had not the apostle
of God commanded us to let such men as thee alone, thou
shouldst have shared the fate of thy fellow-infidels."
The old man saw his danger in time, and discreetly held his
peace, and the sword of Islam remained within its scabbard.
The conquerors bore their booty and their captives back in
triumph to Damascus. One fifth of the spoil was set apart for
the public treasury : the rest was distributed among the sol
MABOMB AND HIS SUCCESSORS^
diery. Derar, as a trophy of his exploit, received the horse oi
the prefect of Tripoli, but he made it a present to his Amazo
nian sister Caulah. The saddle and trappings were studded
with precious stones ; these she picked out and distributed
among her female companions.
Among the spoils was a cloth curiously wrought with a like
ness of the blessed Saviour ; which, from the exquisite workman
ship or the sanctity of the portrait, was afterwards sold in
Arabia Felix for ten times its weight in gold.
Abdallah, for his part of the spoil, asked for the daughter of
the prefect, having been smitten with her charms. His de^
mand was referred to the Caliph Omar and granted, and the
captive beauty lived with him many years. Obeidah, in his
letters to the Caliph, generously set forth the magnanimous
conduct and distinguished prowess of Khaled on this occasion,
and entreated Omar to write a letter to that general expressive
of his sense of his recent services, as it might soothe the mortifi
cation he must experience from his late deposition. The Caliph,
however, though he replied to every other part of the letter of
Obeidah, took no notice, either by word or deed, of that relat
ing to Khaled, from which it was evident that, in secret, he en
tertained no great regard for the unsparing sword of Islam.
CHAPTER XIII.
MODERATE MEASURES OF ABU OBEIDAH— REPROVED BY THE
CALIPH FOR HIS SLOWNESS.
THE alertness and hardihood of the Saracens in their rapid
campaigns have been attributed to their simple and abstemious
habits. They knew nothing of the luxuries of the pampered
Greeks, and were prohibited the use of wine. Their drink was
water, theJr food principally milk, rice, and the fruits of the
earth, and their dress the coarse raiments of the desert. An
army of such men was easily sustained ; marched rapidly from
place to place ; and was fitted to cope with the vicissitudes of
war. The interval of repose, however, in the luxurious city
of Damascus, and the general abundance of the fertile regions
of Syria, began to have their effect upon the Moslem troops, and
the good Abu Obeidah was especially scandalized at discover-
AND BIS SUCCESSORS. 283
ing that they were lapsing into the use of wine, so strongly
forbidden by the prophet. He mentioned the prevalence of
this grievous sin in his letter to the Caliph, who read it in the
mosque in presence of his officers. "By Allah," exclaimed
the abstemious Omar ; "these fellows are only fit for poverty
and hard fare ; what is to be done with these wine-bibbers?"
"Let him who drinks wine," replied Ah, promptly, "receive
twenty bastinadoes on the soles of his feet."
" Good, it shall bi so," rejoined the Caliph; and he wrote to
that effect to the commander-in-chief. On receiving the letter,
Abu Obeidah forthwith summoned the offenders, and had the
punishment publicly inflicted for the edification of his troops ; he
took the occasion to descant on the enormity of the offence, and
to exhort such as had sinned in private to come forward like
good Moslems, make public confession, and submit to the bas
tinado in token of repentance ; whereupon many, who had in
dulged in secret potations, moved by his paternal exhortation,
avowed their crime and their repentance, and were set at ease
in their consciences by a sound bastinadoing and the forgive
ness of the good Abu Obeidah.
That worthy commander now left a garrison of five hundred
horse at Damascus, and issued forth with his host to prosecute
the subjugation of Syria. He had a rich field of enterprise
before him. The country of Syria, from the amenity of its
climate, tempered by the vicinity of the sea and the moun
tains, from the fertility of its soil, and the happy distribution
of woods and streams, was peculiarly adapted for the vigor
ous support and prolific increase of animal life ; it accordingly
teemed with population, and was studded with ancient and
embattled cities and fortresses. Two of the proudest and most
splendid of these were Emessa (the modern Hems), the capital
of the plains ; and Baalbec, the famous city of the Sun, situated
between the mountains of Lebanon.
These two cities, with others intermediate, were the objects
of Abu Obeidah's enterprise, and he sent.Khaled in advance,
with Derar and Rafi Ibn Omeirah, at the head of a third of the
army, to scour the country about Emessa. In his own slower
march, with the main body of the army, he approached the
city of Jusheyah, but was met by the governor, who purchased
a year's truce with the payment of four hundred pieces of gold
and fifty silken robes ; and the promise to surrender the city
Lit the expiration of a year, if in that interval Baalbec and
Emessa should have been taken.
«>s4 MAHOMET AND ms SUCCESSORS.
When Abu Obeidah came before Emessa he found Khaled in
active operation. The governor of the place had died on the
day on which the Moslem force appeared, and the city was not
fully provisioned 'for a siege. The inhabitants negotiated a
truce for one year by the payment of ten thousand pieces of
gold and two hundred suits of silk, with the engagement to
surrender at the end of that term, provided he should have
taken Aleppo, Alhadir, and Kennesrin, and defeated the army
of the emperor. Khaled would have persevered in the siege,
but Abu Obeidah thought it the wisest policy to agree to
these golden terms, by which he provided himself with the
sinews of war, and was enabled to proceed more surely in his
career.
The moment the treaty was concluded the people of Emessa
threw open their gates; held a market or fair beneath the
walls, and began to drive a lucrative trade; for the Moslem
camp was full of booty, and these marauding warriors, flushed
with sudden wealth, squandered plunder of all kinds, and never
regarded the price of anything that struck their fancy. In the
mean time predatory bands foraged the country both far and
near, and came in driving sheep and cattle, and horses and
camels, laden with household booty of all kinds, besides multi
tudes of captives. The piteous lamentations of these people,
torn from their peaceful homes and doomed to slavery, touched
the heart of Abu Obeidah. He told them that all who would
embrace the Islam faith should have their lives and property.
On such as chose to remain in infidelity, he imposed a ransom
of five pieces of gold a head, besides an annual tribute ; caused
their names and places of abode to be registered in a book, and
then gave them back their property, their wives and children,
on condition that they should act as guides and interpreters to
the Moslems in case of need.
The merciful policy of the good Abu Obeidah promised to
promote the success of Islam, even more potently than the
sword. The Syrian Greeks came in, in great numbers, to have
their names enregistered in the book of tributaries ; and other
cities capitulated for a year's truce on the terms granted to
Emessa. Khaled, however, who was no friend to truces and
negotiations, murmured at these peaceful measures, and
offered to. take these cities in less time than it required to treat
with them ; but Abu Obeidah was not to be swerved from the
path of moderation ; thus, in a little time the whole territories
of Emessa, Alhadir, and Kennesrin were rendered sacred from
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 285
maraud. The predatory warriors of the desert were some
what impatient at being thus hemmed in by prohibited boun
darics, and on one occasion had well nigh brought the truce
to an abrupt termination. A party of Saracen troopers, in
prowling along the confines of Kennesrin, came to where the
Christians, to .mark their boundary, had erected a statue of
the emperor Heraclius, seated on his throne. The troopers,
who had a Moslem hatred of images, regarded this with de
rision, and amused themselves with careering round and tilt
ing at it, until one of them, either accidentally or in sport,
struck out one of the eyes with his lance.
The Greeks were indignant at this outrage Messengers were
sent to Abu Obeidah, loudly complaining of it as an intentional
breach of the truce, and a flagrant insult to the emperor. Abu
Obeidah mildly assured them that it was his disposition most
rigorously to observe the truce ; that the injury to the statue
must have been accidental, and that no indignity to the
emperor could have been intended. His moderation only in
creased the arrogance of the ambassadors ; their emperor had
been insulted ; it was for the Caliph to give redress according
to the measure of the law: u An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth." "What!" cried some of the over-zealous Moslems;
<kdo the infidels mean to claim an eye from the Caliph?" In
their rage they would have slain the messengers on the spot ;
but the quiet Abu Obeidah stayed their wrath. " They speak
bvt figuratively," said he; then taking the messengers aside,
he shrewdly compromised the matter, and satisfied their
wounded loyalty, by agreeing that they should set up a statue
of the Caliph, with glass eyes, and strike out one of them in
retaliation.
While Abu Obeidah was pursuing this moderate course, and
subduing the country by clemency rather than by force o£
arms, missives came from the Caliph, who was astonished at
receiving no tidings of further conquests, reproaching him
with his slowness, and with preferring worldly gain to the
pious exercise of the sword. Thb soldiers when they heard of
the purport of this letter, took the reproaches to themselves,
and wept with vexation. A.bu Obeidah himself was stung to
the quick and repented him of the judicious truces he had
made. In the excitement of the moment he held a council of
war, and it was determined to lose not a day, although the
truces had but about a month to run. He accordingly left
Khaled with a strong force in the vicinity of Emessa to await
286 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSES.
the expiration of the truce, while he marched with the main
host against the city of Baalbec.
, CHAPTER XIV.
SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF BAALBEO.
BAALBEC, so called from Baal, the Syrian appellation of the
sun, or Apollo, to which deity it was dedicated, was one of
the proudest cities of ancient Syria. It was the metropolis of
the great and fertile valley of Bekaa, lying between the moun
tains of Lebanon, and anti-Lebanon. During the Grecian
domination it was called Heliopolis, which likewise means the
City of the Sun. It was famous for its magnificent temple of
Baal, which, tradition affirms, was built by Solomon the Wise,
to please one of his wives, a native of Sidon and a worshipper
of the Sun. The immense blocks of stone of which it was
constructed were said to have been brought by the genii, over
whom Solomon had control by virtue of his talismanic seal.
Some of them remain to this day objects of admiration to the
traveller, and perplexity to the modern engineer.*
On his march against Baalbec Abu Obeidah intercepted a
caravan of four hundred camels laden with silk and sugars,
on the way to that city. With his usual clemency he allowed
the captives to ransom themselves ; some of whom carried to
Baalbec the news of his approach, and of the capture of the
caravan. Herbis, the governor, supposing the Saracens to be
a mere marauding party, sallied forth with six thousand horse
and a multitude of irregular foot, in hope to recover the spoils,
but found to his cost that he had an army to contend with,
and was driven back to the city with great loss, after receiv
ing seven wounds.
Abu Obeidah set himself down before the city, and ad
dressed a letter to the inhabitants, reminding them of the
invincible arms of the faithful, and inviting them to profess
Islamism, or pay tribute. This letter he gave in charge to a
Syrian peasant; and with it a reward of twenty pieces of
silver; "for Allah forbid," said the conscientious general,
* Among these huge, blocks some measure fifty-eight, and one sixty-nine feet in
length,
MAUOMET AND JUS SUCCKSSOR8. 287
"that I should employ thee without pay. The laborer is
worthy of his hire."
The messenger was drawn up by a cord to the battlements,
and delivered the letter to the inhabitants, many of whom, on
hearing the contents, were inclined to surrender. Herbis, the
governor, however, who was still smarting with his wounds,
tore the letter in pieces, and dismissed the messenger without
deigning a reply.
Abu Obeidah now ordered his troops to the assault, but the
garrison made brave defence, and did such execution with
their engines from the walls, that the Saracens were repulsed
with considerable loss. The weather was cold; so Abu
Obeidah, who was ever mindful of the welfare of his men,
sent a trumpeter round the camp next morning, forbidding
any man to take the field until he had made a comfortable
meal. All were now busy cooking, when, in the midst of their
preparations, the city gates were thrown open, and the Greeks
came scouring upon them, making great slaughter. They
were repulsed with some difficulty, but carried off prisoners
and plunder.
Abu Obeidah now removed his camp out of reach of the
engines, and where his cavalry would have more room.
He threw out detachments also, to distract the attention
of the enemy and oblige them to fight in several places.
Saad Ibn Zeid, with five hundred horse and three hundred
foot, was to show himself in the valley opposite the gate look
ing toward the mountains; while Derar, with three hundred
horse and two hundred foot, was stationed in front of the gate
on the side toward Damascus.
Herbis, the governor, seeing the Saracens move back their
tents, supposed them to be intimidated by their late loss.
"These Arabs," said he, "are half -naked vagabonds of the
desert, who fight without object; we are locked up in steel,
and fight for our wives and children, our property and our
lives." He accordingly roused his troops to make another
sally, and an obstinate battle ensued. One of the Moslem
officers, Sohail Ibn Sabah, being disabled by a sabre cut in
the right arm, alighted from his horse, and clambered a
neighboring hill which overlooked the field, the city, and its
vicinity. Here he sat watching the various fortunes of the
field. The sally had been made through the gate before which
Abu Obeidah was posted, who of course received the whole
brunt of the attack. The battle was hot, and Sohail perceived
288 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
from his hill that the Moslems in this quarter were hard
pressed, and that the general was giving ground, and in
imminent danger of being routed; while Derar and Saad re
mained inactive at their distant posts; no sally having been
made from the gates before which they were stationed. Upon
this Sohail gathered together some green branches, and set
fire to them, so as to make a column of smoke ; a customary
signal by day among the Arabs, as fire was by night. Derar
and Saad beheld the smoke and galloped with their troops in
that direction. Their arrival changed the whole fortune of
the field. Herbis, who had thought himself on the eve of
victory, now found himself beset on each side and cut off from
the city ! . Nothing but strict discipline and the impenetrable
Grecian phalanx saved him. His men closed shield to shield,
their lances in advance, and made a slow and defensive retreat,
the Moslems wheeling around and charging incessantly upon
them. Abu Obeidah, who knew nothing of the arrival of
Derar and Saad, imagined the retreat of the Christians a mere
feint, and called ba*;k his troops ; Saad, however, who heard
not the general's order, kept on in pursuit, until he drove the
enemy to the top of a hill, where they ensconced themselves
in an old deserted monastery.
When Abu Obeidah learned the secret of this most timely
aid, and that it was in consequence of a supposed signal from
him, he acknowledged that the smoke was an apt thought, and
saved his camp from being sacked ; but he prohibited any man
from repeating such an act without orders from the general.
In the mean time Herbis, the governor, finding the small
number that invested the convent, sallied forth with his
troops, in hopes of cutting his way to the city. Never did
men fight more valiantly, and they had already made great
havoc, when the arrival of a fresh swarm of Moslems drove
them back to their forlorn fortress, where they were so closely
watched that not a Grecian eye could peer from the old walls
without being the aim of a Moslem arrow.
Abu Obeidah now invested the city more closely than ever,
leaving Saad, with his forces, to keep the governor encaged in
the monastery. The latter perceived it would be impossible
to hold out longer in this shattered edifice, destitute of pro
visions. His proud spirit was completely broken, and, throw
ing off his silken robes, and clothing him in a worn woollen
garb, as suited to his humble situation, he sought a conference
with Saad to treat on terms of capitulation. The Moslem
MAllOMKT AM) JUS SUCCESSORS.
captain replied that he could only treat for the party in the
convent, whom he would receive as brothers, if they would
acknowledge God and the prophet, or would let them free on
the pledge not to bear arms against the Moslems. He prof
fered to lead Herbis to the general, if he wished to treat for
the city also^ and added that, should the negotiation fail, he
and his Greeks might return into their convent, and let God
and the sword decide.
Herbis was accordingly led through the besieging camp into
the presence of Abu Obeidah, and gnawed his lip when he saw
the inconsiderable number of the Moslem host. He offered, as
a ransom for the city, one thousand ounces of gold, two thou
sand of silver, and one thousand silken robes ; but Abu Obei
dah demanded that he should double the amount, and add
thereto one thousand sabres, and all the arms of the soldiers
in the monastery ; as well as engage in behalf of the city to
pay an annual tribute ; to engage to erect no more Christian
churches, nor ever more act in hostility against the Moslem
power.
These harsh terms being conceded, Herbis was permitted to
enter the city alone, and submit them to the inhabitants, all
his attendants being detained as hostages. The townsmen at
first refused to capitulate, saying their city was the strongest
in all Syria ; but Herbis offered to pay down one fourth of the
ransom himself, and they at length complied. One point was
conceded to the people of Baalbec to soothe their wounded
pride. It was agreed that Rafi Ibn Abdallah, who was to
remain with five hundred men, acting as lieutenant of Baalbec
for Abu Obeidah, should encamp without the walls, and not
enter the city. These matters being arranged, Abu Obeidah
marched with his host on other enterprises.
The Saracen troops, under Eafi Ibn Abdallah, soon ingrati
ated themselves with the people of Baalbec. They pillaged the
surrounding country, and sold their booty for low prices to the
townsfolk, who thus grew wealthy on the spoils of their own
countrymen. Herbis, the governor, felt a desire to participate
in these profits. He reminded his fellow-citizens how much
he had paid for their ransom, and what good terms he had
effected for them ; and then proposed that he should have one
tenth of what they gained in traffic with the Moslems to reim
burse him. They consented, though with extreme reluctance.
In a few days he found the gain so sweet that he thirsted for
more ; he therefore told them that his reimbursement would
290 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
be tedious at this rate, and proposed to receive one fourth.
The people, enraged at his cupidity, rushed on him with furi
ous outcries, and killed him on the spot. The noise of the
tumult reached the camp of Eafi Ibn Abdallah, and a deputa
tion of the inhabitants coming forth, entreated him to enter
the city and govern it himself. He scrupled to* depart from
the terms of the treaty until he had written to Abu Obeidah ;
but on receiving permission from the general, he entered and
took command. Thus did the famous Baalbec, the ancient
Heliopolis, or City of the Sun, fall under the Saracen sway on
the 20th of January, A.D. 636, being the fifteenth year of the
Hegira.
CHAPTER XV.
SIEGE OF *;MESSA — STRATAGEMS OF THE MOSLEMS — FANATIC DE
VOTION OF IKREMAH — SURRENDER OF THE CITY.
THE year's truce with the city of Emessa having now
expired, Abu Obeidah appeared before that place, and sum
moned it in the following form :
"In the name of the most merciful God. Abu Obeidah Ibn
Aljerah, general of the armies of the Commander of the Faith
ful, Omar al Khattab, to the people of Emessa. Let not the
loftiness of your walls, the strength of your bulwarks, nor
the robustness of your bodies, lead you into error. Allah hath
conquered stronger places through the means of his servants.
Your city would be of no more consideration against us than
a kettle of pottage set in the midst of our camp.
"I invite you to embrace our holy faith, and the law re
vealed to our prophet Mahomet ; and we will send pious men
to instruct you, and you shall participate in all our fortunes.
u If you refuse, you shall still be left in possession of all your
"property on the payment of annual tribute. If you reject
both conditions, come forth from behind your stone walls, and
let Allah, the supreme judge, decide between us."
This summons was treated with scorn; and the garrison
toade a bold sally, and handled their besiegers so roughly that
they were glad when night put an end to the conflict. In the
evening a crafty old Arab sought the tent of Abu Obeidah ; ho
represented the strength of the place, the intrepidity of the
MAUOM1-T AM) HIS SUCCESSORS 291
soldiers, and the ample stock of provisions, which would ena
ble it to stand a weary siege. He suggested a stratagem, how
ever, by which it might be reduced; «.nd Abu Obeidah adopted
his counsel. Sending a messenger into the city, he offered to
the inhabitants to strike his tents, and lead his troops to the
attack of other places, provided they would furnish him pro-
visions for five days' march. His offer was promptly accepted,
and the provisions were furnished. Abu Obeidah now pre
tended that, as his march would be long, a greater supply
would be necessary : he continued to buy, therefore, as long as
the Christians had provisions to sell, ancl in this manner ex
hausted their magazines ; and as the scouts from other cities
beheld the people of Emessa throw open their gates and bring
forth provisions, it became rumored throughout the country
that the city had surrendered.
Abu Obeidah, according to promise, led Ms host against
other places. The first was Arrestan, a fortified city, well wat
ered, provisioned, and garrisoned. His summons being re
peated, and rejected, he requested the governor of the place to
let him leave there twenty chests of cumbrous articles, which
impeded him in his movements. The request was granted
with great pleasure at getting clear so readily of such maraud
ers. The twenty chests, secured with padlocks, were taken
into the citadel, but every chest had a sliding bottom, and con
tained an armed man. Among the picked warriors thus con
cealed were Derar, Abda'lrahman, and Abdallah Ibn Jaafar;
while Khaled with a number of troops was placed in ambush
to co-operate with those in the chests.
The Moslem host departed. The Christians went to church
to return thanks for their deliverance, and the sounds of their
hymns of triumph reached the ears of Derar and his comrades.
Upon this they issued forth from their chests, seized the wife
of the governor, and obtained from her the keys of the gates.
Abdallah, with fourteen men, hastened to the church and
closed the doors upon the congregation; while Derar, with
four companions, threw open the gates with ttie cry of Allah
Achbar ; upon which Khaled and his forces rushed from their
ambuscade, and the city was taken almost without bloodshed.
The city of Shaizar was next assailed, and capitulated on
favorable terms; and now Abu Obeidah returned before
Emessa, and once more summoned it to surrender. The gov
ernor remonstrated loudly, reminding the Moslem general of
his treaty, by which he engaged to depart from Emessa and
292 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
carry the war against other places. "I engaged to depart,7'
replied Abu Obeidah, "but I did not engage not to return. I
have carried the war against other places, and have subdued
Arrestan and Shaizar."
The people of Emessa now perceived how they had been cir
cumvented. Their magazines had been drained of provisions,
and they had not wherewithal to maintain tliem against a
siege. The governor, however, encouraged them to try the
chance of a battle as before. They prepared for the fight by
prayers in the churches ; and the governor took the sacrament
in the church of St. *George ; but he sought to enhearten him
self by grosser means, for we are told he ate the whole of a
roasted kid for his supper, rvnd caroused on wine until the
crowing of the cock. In the morning, early, he arrayed him
self in rich apparel, and sallied forth at the head of five thou
sand horsemen, all men of strength and courage, and well
armed. They charged the besiegers so bravely, and their
archers so galled them from the walls, that the Moslem force
gave way.
Khaled now threw himself in front of the battle, and enacted
wondrous feats to rally his soldiers and restore the fight. In
an encounter, hand to hand, with a Greek horseman, his
scimetar broke, and he was weaponless, but closing with his
adversary, he clasped him in his arms, crushed his ribs, and
drawing him from his saddle threw him dead to the earth.
The imminent peril of the fight roused a frantic valor in the
Moslems. In the heat of enthusiasm Ikremah, a youthful
cousin of Khaled, galloped about the field, fighting with reck
less fury, and raving about the joys of paradise promised to all
true believers who fell in the battles of the faith. "I see,"
cried he, "the black-eyed Houris of Paradise. One of them, if
seen on earth, would make mankind die of love. They are
smiling on us. One of them waves a handkerchief of green
silk and holds a cup of precious stones. She beckons me;
come hither quickly, she cries, my well beloved !" In this way
he went, shouting Al Jennah ! Al Jennah ! Paradise ! Paradise !
charging into the thickest of the Christians, and making fear
ful havoc, until he reached the place where the governor was
fighting, who sent a javelin through his heart, and dispatched
him in quest of his vaunted Elysium.
Nigh' alone parted the hosts, and the Moslems retired ex
hausted to their tents, glad to repose from so rude a fight.
Even Khaled counselled Abu Obeidah to have recourse to
MM l<) MKT AM) 1I1S SUCCESSORS. 293
stratagem, and make a pretended fight the next morning; to
draw the Greeks, confident through this day's success, into
disorder : for while collected their phalanx presented an im
penetrable wall to the Moslem horsemen.
Accordingly, at the dawning of the day, the Moslems re
treated: at first with a show of order: then with a feigned
confusion, for it was an Arab stratagem of war to scatter and
rally again in the twinkling of an eye. The Christians, think-
4ng their flight unfeigned, broke up their steady phalanx, some
making headlong pursuit, while others dispersed to plunder
the Moslem camp.
Suddenly the Moslems faced about, surrounded the confused
mass of Christians, and fell upon it, as the Arabian historian
says, "like eagles upon a carcass." Khaled and Derar and
other chiefs spirited them on with shouts of Allah Achbar, and
a terrible rout and slaughter ensued. The number of Christian
corpses on that field exceeded sixteen hundred. The governor
was recognized among the slain by his enormous bulk, his
bloated face, and his costly apparel, fragrant with perfumes.
The city of Emessa surrendered as a sequel to that fight, but
the Moslems could neither stay to take possession nor afford to
leave a garrison. Tidings had reached them of the approach
of an immense army, composed of the heavily armed Grecian
soldiery and the light troops of the desert, that threatened
completely to overwhelm them. Various and contradictory
were the counsels in this moment of agitation and alarm.
Some advised that they should hasten back to their native
deserts, where they would be reinforced by their friends, and
where the hostile army could not find sustenance; but Abu
Obeidah objected that such a retreat would be attributed to
cowardice. Others cast a wistful eye upon the stately dwell
ings, the delightful gardens, the fertile fields, and green
pastures, which they had just won by the sword, and chose
rather to stay and fight for this land of pleasure and abun
dance than return to famine and the desert. Khaled decided
the question. It would not do to linger there, he said ; Constan-
tine, the emperor's son, being not far off, at Caesarea, with
forty thousand men ; he advised, therefore, that they shoul<J
march to Yermouk, on the borders of Palestine and Arabia,
where they 'would be within reach of assistance from the Caliph,
and might await, with confidence, the attack of the imperia?
army. The advice of Khaled was adopted.
294 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER XVI
ADVANCE OF A POWERFUL IMPERIAL ARMY— SKIRMISHES OF
KHALED — CAPTURE OF DERAR — INTERVIEW OF KHALED AND
MANUEL.
THE rapid conquests of the Saracens had alarmed the emperor
Heraclius for the safety of his rich province of Syria. Troops
had been levied both in Europe and Asia, and transported, by
sea and land, to various parts of the invaded country. The
main body, consisting of eighty thousand men, advanced to
seek the Moslem host, under the command of a distinguished
general, called Mahan by the Arabian writers, and Manuel by
the Greeks. On its way the imperial army was joined by
Jabalah Ibn al Aynham, chief or king of the Christian tribe of
Gassan. This Jabalah had professed the Mahometan faith, but
had apostatized in consequence of the following circumstance:
He had accompanied the Caliph Omar on a pilgrimage to
Mecca, and was performing the religious ceremony of the
Towah, or sacred walk seven times round the Caaba, when an
Arab of the tribe of Fezarah accidentally trod on the skirt of
his Ihram or pilgrim scarf, so as to draw it from his shoulders.
Turning fiercely upon the Arab, "Woe be unto thee," cried he,
"for uncovering my back in the sacred house of God." The
pilgrim protested it was an accident, but Jabalah buffeted him
in the face, bruising him sorely, and beating out four of his
teeth. The pilgrim complained to Omar, but Jabalah justified
himself, stating the indignity he had suffered. "Had it not
been for my reverence for the Caaba, and for the prohibition
to shed blood within the sacred city,- 1 would have slain the
offender on the spot." "Thou hast confessed thy fault," said
Omar, "and unless forgiven by thy adversary, must submit to
the law of retaliation, ' an eye for an eye, and a tooth f 01* a
tooth.'" "I am a king," replied Jabalah, proudly, "and he is
but a peasant." "Ye are both Moslems," rejoined Omar,
"and in the sight of Allah, who is no respecter of persons, ye
are equal." The utmost that Jabalah could obtain from the
rigid justice of Omar was, that the execution of the sentence
might be postponed until the next day. In the night he made
his escape and fled to Constantinople, where he abjured Islam-
ism, resumed the Christian faith, and went over to the service
of the emperor Heraclius. He had now brought sixty thousand
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Arabs to the aid of Manuel. Such was the powerful host, the
approach of which had compelled the Moslems to abandon
Emessa on the very moment of surrender. They had marched
to Yermouk, a place noted for its pleasant groves and the"
sweet salubrity of its air, and lay encamped on the banks of a
little stream of the same name, heretofore obscure, but now-
destined to become" famous by a battle decisive of the fate of
Syria.
Manuel advanced slowly and deliberately with his heavily
armed Grecian soldiery ; but he sent Jabalah in the e^-'-^ce,
to scour the country with his light Arab troops, as b6b. td
to cope with the skirmishing warriors of the desert ; thus, as
he said, " using diamond to cut diamond." The course of these
combined armies was marked with waste, rapine, and outrage,
and they inflicted all kinds of injuries and indignities on those
Christian places which had made treaties with or surrendered
to the Moslems.
While Manuel with his main army was yet at a distance, he
sent proposals of peace to Abu Obeidah, according to the com
mands of the emperor. His proposals were rejected ; but Obei
dah sent several messengers to Jabalah, reproaching him with
his apostasy, and his warfare against his countrymen, and en
deavoring to persuade him to remain neutral in the impending
battle. Jabalah replied, however, that his faith was commit
ted to the emperor, and he was resolved to fight in his cause.
Upon this Khaled came forward, and offered to take this *
apostate in his own hands. 4 He is far in the advance of the
main army," said he; "let me have a small body of picked
men chosen by myself, and I will fall upon him and his infidel
Arabs before Manuel can come up to their assistance."
His proposal was condemned by many as rash and extrava
gant. " By no means, " cried Khaled, with zealous zeal ; ' ' tliia
infidel force is the army of the devil, and can do nothing
against the army of Allah, who will assist us with his angels. n
So pious an argument was unanswerable. Khaled was per
mitted to choose his men, all well-seasoned warriors whose
valor he had proved. With them he fell upon Jabalah, who
was totally unprepared for so hare-brained an assault, threw
his host into complete confusion, and obliged him, after much
slaughter, to retreat upon the main body. The triumph of
Khaled, however, was damped by the loss of several valiant
officers, among whom were Yezed, Rafi, and Derar, who were
borne off captives by the retreating Christians.
296 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
In the mean time a special messenger, named Abdallah Ibn
Kort, arrived at Medina, bringing letters to the Caliph from
Abu Obeidah, describing the perilous situation of the Moslem
army, and entreating reinforcements. The Caliph ascended
the pulpit of Mahomet, and preached up the glory of fighting
the good fight of faith for God and the prophet. He then gave
Abdallah an epistle for Abu Obeidah, filled with edifying texts
from the Koran, and ending with an assurance that he would
pray for him, and would, moreover, send him a speedy rein
forcement. This done, he pronounced a blessing on Abdallah,
and bade him depart with all speed.
Abdallah was well advanced on his return, when he called to
mind that he had omitted to visit the tomb of the prophet.
Shocked at his forgetfulness, he retraced his steps, and sought
the dwelling of Ayesha, within which the prophet lay interred.
He found the beautiful widow reclining beside the tomb, and
listening to Ali and Abbas, who were reading the Koran, while
Hassan and Hosein, the two sons of Ali and grandsons of the
prophet, were sitting on their knees.
Having paid due honors to the prophet's tomb, the consider
ate messenger expressed his fears that this pious visit might
prevent his reaching the army before the expected battle;
whereupon the holy party lifted up their hands to heaven, and
Ali put up a prayer for his speedy journey. Thus inspirited,
he set out anew, and travelled with such unusual and incredi-
*ble speed that the army looked upon it as miraculous, and at
tributed it to the blessing of Omar and the prayer of AJi.
The promised reinforcement was soon on foot. It consisted
of eight thousand men under the command of Seid Ibn Amir,
to whom the Caliph gave a red silk banner, and a word of ad
vice at parting ; cautioning him to govern himself as well as
his soldiers, and not to let his appetites get the better of his
self-command.
Seid, with Moslem frankness, counselled him, in return, to
fear God and not man ; to love all Moslems equally with his
own kindred ; to cherish those at a distance equally with those
at hand ; finally, to command nothing but what was right and
to forbid nothing but what was wrong. The Caliph listened
attentively, his forehead resting on his staff and his eyes cast
upon the ground. When Seid had finished, he raised his head,
and the tears ran down his cheek. "Alas !" said he, " wno can
do all this without the aid of God."
Seid Ibn Amir led his force by the shortest route across the
MAHOMKT A.\D 1I1S SUCCESSORS. 297
deserts, and hurrying forward with more rapidity than heed,
lost his way. While he halted one night, in the vicinity of
some springs, to ascertain his route, he was apprised by his
scouts that the prefect of Ammon, with five thousand men,
was near at hand. He fell upon him instantly and cut the in
fantry to pieces. The prefect fled with his cavalry, but en
countered a foraging party from the Moslem camp, the leader
of which, Zobeir, thrust a lance through his body, and between
the two parties not a man of his troop escaped. The Moslems
then placed the heads of the Christians on their lances, and ar
rived with their ghastly trophies at the camp, to the great en
couragement of Abu Obeidah and his host.
The imperial army had now drawn near, and Manuel, the
general, attempted again to enter into negotiations. Khaled
offered to go and confer with him ; but his real object was to
attempt the release of his friends and brethren in arms, Abu
Sofian, Derar, Rafi, and the two other officers captured in the
late skirmish with the apostate Jabalah.
When Khaled reached the outpost of the Christian army, he
was required to leave his escort of one hundred chosen war
riors, and proceed alone to the presence of the general ; but he
refused. He equally refused a demand that he and his men
should dismount and deliver up their scimetars. After some
parley he was permitted to enter into the presence of the
general in his own way.
Manuel was seated in. state on a kind of throne, surrounded
by his officers, all splendidly arrayed, while Khaled entered
with his hundred war-worn veterans, clad in the simplest
guise. Chairs were set out for him and his principal compan
ions, but they pushed them aside and seated themselves cross-
legged on the ground, after the Arabic manner. When Manuel
demanded the reason, Khaled replied by quoting a verse from
the twentieth chapter of the Koran. " Of earth ye are created,
. from earth ye came, and unto earth ye must return." "God
made the earth," added he, " and what God has made for men
to sit upon is more precious than your silken tapestries."
The conference was begun by Manuel, who expostulated on
the injustice of the Moslems hi making an unprovoked inroad
into the territories of their neighbors, molesting them hi their
religious worship, robbing them of their wives and property,
and seizing on their persons as slaves, Khaled retorted, that
it was all owing to their own obstinacy, in refusing to acknow
ledge that there was but one God, without relation or associate,
298 MAHOMET A AD HIS SUCCESSORS.
and that Mahomet was his prophet. Their discussion grew
violent, and Khaled, in his heat, told Manuel that he should one
day see him dragged into the presence of Omar with a halter
round his neck, there to have his head struck off as an example
to all infidels and for the edification of brue believers.
Manuel replied, in wrath, that Khaled was protected by his
character of ambassador ; but that he would punish his inso
lence by causing the five Moslem captives, his friends, to be
instantly beheaded. Khaled defied him to execute his threat,
swearing by Allah, by his prophet, and by the holy Caaba, that
if a hair of their heads were injured, he would slay Manuel with
his own hand on the spot, and that each of his Moslems present
should slay his man. So saying, he rose and drew his scimetar,
as did likewise his companions.
The imperial general was struck with admiration at his in
trepidity. He replied calmly, that what he had said was a
mere threat, which his humanity and his respect for the mis
sion of Khaled would not permit him to fulfil. The Saracens
were pacified and sheathed their swords, and the conference
went on calmly.
In the end, Manuel gave up the five prisoners to Khaled as a
token of his esteem ; and in return Khaled presented him with
a beautiful scarlet pavilion, which he had brought with him,
and pitched in the Christian camp, and for which Manuel had
expressed a desire. Thus ended this conference, and both par
ties retired from it with soldier-like regard for each other.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BATTLE OF YERMOUK.
THE great battle was now at hand that was to determine the
fate of Syria, for the emperor had staked the fortunes of this
favorite province on a single but gigantic blow. Abu Obeidah,
conscious of the momentous nature of the conflict, and diffi
dent of his abilities in the field, gave a proof of his modesty
and magnanimity by restoring to Khaled the command of the
whole army. For himself he took his station with the women
in the rear, that he might rally the Moslems should any of
them be inclined to fly the field. Here he erected his standard.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 299
a yellow flag, given him by Abu Beker, being the same which
Mahomet had displayed in the battle of Khaibar.
Before the action commenced Khaled rode among his troops,
making a short but emphatic speech. "Paradise," cried he,
" is before you; the devil and hell behind. Fight bravely, and
you will secure the one; fly, and you will fall into the other."
The armies closed, but the numbers of the Christians and
the superiority of Greek and Roman discipline bore down the
right wing of the Moslems. Those, however, who turned their
backs and attempted to fly were assailed with reproaches and
blows by the women, so that they found it easier to face the
enemy than such a storm. Even Abu Sofian himself received
a blow over the face with a tent-pole from one of those vira
goes, as he retreated before the enemy.
Thrice were the Moslems beaten back by the steady bearing
of the Grecian phalanx, and thrice were they checked and
driven back to battle by the women. Night at length brought
a cessation of the bloody conflict ; when Abu Obeidah went
round among the wounded, ministering to them with his own
hands, while the women bound up their wounds with tender
care.
The battle was renewed on the following morning, and again
the Moslems were sorely pressed. The Christian archers made
fearful havoc, and such was their dexterity that, among the
great number of Moslems who suffered from their arrows on
that day, seven hundred lost one or both eyes. Hence it was
commemorated as "the Day of the Blinding;" and those who
had received such wounds gloried in them, in after years, as
so many trophies of their having struggled for the faith in that
day of hard fighting. There were several single combats of
note ; among others, Serjabil was engaged hand to hand with a
stout Christian; but Serjabil, having signalized his piety by
excessive watching and farting, was so reduced in flesh and
strength that he was no match for his adversary, and would
infallibly have been overpowered had not Derar come behind
the Christian and stabbed him to the heart. Both warriors
claimed the spoil, but it was adjudged to him who slew the
enemy. In the course of this arduous day the Moslems more
than once wavered, but were rallied back by the valor of
the women. Caulah, the heroic sister of Derar, mingling in
the fight, was wounded and struck down; but Offei'rah, her
female friend, smote off the head of her opponent and rescued
her. The battle lasted as long as there was ligrht enough to
300 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
distinguish friend from foe ; but the night was welcome to the
Moslems, who needed all their enthusiasm and reliance on the
promises of the prophet to sustain them, so hard was the strug
gle and so overwhelming the numbers of the enemy. On this
night the good Abu Obeidah repeated at once the prayers be
longing to two separate hours, that his weary soldiers might
enjoy uninterrupted sleep.
For several successive days this desperate battle, on which
hung the fate of Syria, was renewed with various fortunes.
In the end the fanatic valor of the Moslems prevailed ; the
Christian host was completely routed and fled in all direc
tions. Many were overtaken and slain in the difficult passes
of the mountains; others perished in a deep part of the river
to which they were decoyed by one of their own people, in
revenge for an injury. Manuol, the imperial general, fell by
the hand of a Moslem named Noman Ibn Alkamah.
Abu Obeidah went over the battle-field in person, seeing that
the wounded Moslems were well taken care of, and the slain
decently interred. He was perplexed for a time on finding
some heads without bodies, to know whether they were Mos
lems or infidels, but finally prayed over them at a venture and
had them buried like the rest.
In dividing the spoils, Abu Obeidah, after setting aside one
fifth for the Caliph and the public treasury, allotted to each
foot soldier one portion and to each horseman three— two for
himself and one for his steed ; but for each horse of the pure
Arabian breed he allowed a double portion. This last allot
ment met with opposition, but was subsequently confirmed by
the Caliph, on account of the superior value of true Arabian
horses.
Such was the great battle fought on the banks of the Yer-
mouk, near the city of that name, in the month of November
A.D. 636, and in the 15th year of the Hegira.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM.
THE Moslem invaders reposed for a month at Damascus
from the toil of conquest, during which time Abu Obeidah sent
to the Caliph to know whether he should undertake the siege
T AM> yyys 8UC0888OR& noi
of Csesarea or Jerusalem. All was with Omar at the time,
and advised the instant siege of the latter ; for such, he said,
had been the intention of the prophet. The enterprise against
Jerusalem was as a holy war to the Moslems, for they rever
enced it as an ancient seat of prophecy and revelation, con
nected with the histories of Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, and
sanctified by containing the tombs of several of the ancient
prophets. The Caliph adopted the advice of Ali, and ordered
Abu Obeidah to lead his army into Palestine, and lay siege to
Jerusalem.
On receiving these orders, Abu Obeidah sent forward Yezed
Abu Sofian with five thousand men, to commence the siege,
and for five successive days detached after him considerable
reinforcements. The people of Jerusalem saw the approach of
these portentous invaders, who were spreading such consterna
tion throughout the East, but they made no sally to oppose
them, nor sent out any one to parley, but planted engines on
their walls, and prepared for vigorous defence. Yezed ap
proached the city and summoned it by sound of trumpet, pro
pounding the customary terms, profession of the faith or
tribute : both were rejected with disdain. The Moslems would
have made instant assault, but Yezed had no such instructions :
he encamped, therefore, and waited until orders arrived from
Abu Obeidah to attack the city, when he made the necessary
preparations.
At cock-crow in the morning the Moslem host waa mar
shalled, the leaders repeated the matin prayer each at the
head of his battalion, and all, as if by one consent, with a loud
voice gave the verse from the Koran,* " Enter ye, oh people,
into the holy land which Allah hath destined for you."
For ten days they made repeated but unavailing attacks ; on
the eleventh day Abu Obeidah brought the whole army to
their aid. He immediately sent a written summons requiring
the inhabitants to believe in the unity of God, the divine*
mission of Mahomet, the resurrection and final judgment; or
else to acknowledge allegiance, and pay tribute to the Caliph ;
"otherwise," concluded the letter, "I will bring men against
you, who love death better than you love wine or swine's flesh ;
nor will I leave you, God willing, until I have destroyed your
fighting men, and made slaves of your children. "
* These words are from the fifth chapter of the Koran, where Mahomet puts
them into the mouth of Moses, as addressed to the childi jn cf Israel.
3()2 If A 110 MET AXD HIS SUCCESSORS.
The summons was addressed to the magistrates and princi
pal inhabitants of JElia, for so Jerusalem was named after the
emperor vElius Adrian, when he rebuilt that city.
Sophronius, the Christian patriarch, or bishop of Jerusalem,
replied that this was the holy city, and the holy land, and
that whoever entered either, for a hostile purpose, was an
offender in the eyes of God. He felt some confidence in set
ting the invaders at defiance, for the walls and towers of the
city had been diligently strengthened, and the garrison had
been reinforced by fugitives from Yermouk, and from various
parts of Syria. The city, too, was strong in its situation,
being surrounded by deep ravines and a broken country ; and
above all there was a pious incentive to courage and persever
ance in defending the sepulchre of Christ.
Four wintry months elapsed; every day there was sharp
skirmishing; the besiegers were assailed by sallying parties,
annoyed by the engines on the walls, and harassed by the in
clement weather; still they carried on the siege with un-
diminished spirit. At length the Patriarch Sophronius held a
parley from the walls with Abu Obeidah. "Do you not
know," said he, "that this city is holy; and that whoever
offers violence to it, draws upon his head the vengeance of
Heaven?"
"We know it," replied Abu Obeidah, "to be the house of
the prophets, where their bodies lie interred; we know it to
be the place whence our prophet Mahomet made hie nocturnal
ascent to heaven; and we know that we are more worthy of
possessing it than you are, nor will we raise the siege until
Allah has delivered it into our hands, as he has done many
other places."
Seeing there was no further hope, the patriarch consented
to give up the city, on condition that the Caliph would come
in person to take possession and sign the articles of surrender.
When this unusual stipulation was made known to the
Caliph, he held a council with his friends. Othman despised
the people of Jerusalem, and was for refusing their terms, but
Ali represented the sanctity and importance of the place in the
eyes of the Christians, which might prompt them to reinforce
it, and to make a desperate defence if treated with indignity.
Besides, he added, the presence of the Caliph would cheer and
inspirit the army in their long absence, and after the hardships
of a wintry campaign.
The words of Ali had their weight with the Caliph: thougly
HIS tiUOOE860n$.
certain Arabian writers pretend that he was chiefly moved by a
tradition handed down in Jerusalem from days of yore, which
said that a man of his name, religion, and personal appearance
should conquer the holy city. Whatever may have been his
inducements, the Caliph resolved to receive in person the sur
render of Jerusalem. He accordingly appointed Ali to officiate
in his place during his absence from Medina; then, having
prayed at the mosque, and paid a pious visit to the tomb of the
prophet, he set out on his journey.
The progress of this formidable potentate, who already held
the destinies of empires in his grasp, and had the plunder of
the Orient at his command, is characteristic of the primitive
days of Mahometanism, and reveals, in some measure, the
secret of its success. He travelled on a red or sorrel camel,
across which was slung an alforja, or wallet, with a huge sack
or pocket at each end, something like the modern saddle-bags.
One pocket contained dates and dried fruits, the other a provi
sion called sawik, which was nothing more than barley, rice,
or wheat, parched or sodden. Before him hung a leathern
bottle, or sack, for water, and behind him a wooden platter.
His companions, without distinction of rank, ate with him out
of the same dish, using their fingers according to Oriental
usage. He slept at night on a mat spread out under a tree, or
under a common Bedouin tent of hair-cloth, and never re
sumed his march until ho had offered up the morning prayer.
As he journeyed through Arabia in this simple way, he
listened to the complaints of the people, redressed their griev
ances, and administered justice with sound judgment and a
rigid hand. Information was brought to him of an Arab who
was married to two sisters, a practice not unusual among
idolaters, but the man was now a Mahometan. Omar cited
the culprit and his two wives into his presence, and taxed him
roundly with his offence j but he declared his ignorance that
it was contrary to the law of the prophet.
"Thou liest !" said Omar; " thou shalt part with one of them
instantly, or lose thy head."
44 Evil was the day that I embraced such a religion," mut
tered the culprit. " Of what advantage has it been to me?"
" Come nearer to me," said Omar; and on his approaching,
the Caliph bestowed two wholesome blows on his head with
his walking-staff.
"Enemy of God and of thyself," cried he, "let these blows
reform thy manners, and teach thee to speak with more rever-
304 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
ence of a religion ordained by Allah- and acknowledged by the
best of his creatures."
He then ordered the offender to choose between his wives,
and finding him at a loss which to prefer, the matter was
determined by lot, and he was dismissed by the Caliph w^ith
this parting admonition: "Whoever professes Islam, and
afterward renounces it, is punishable with death; therefore
take heed to your faith. And as to your wife's sister, whom
you have put away, if ever I hear that you have meddled with
her, you shall be stoned."
At another place he beheld a number of men exposed to the
burning heat of the sun by their Moslem conquerors, as a pun
ishment for failing to pay their tribute. Finding, on inquiry,
that they were entirely destitute of means, he ordered them
to be released ; and turning reproachfully to their oppressors,
" Compel no men," said he, "to more than they can bear; for
I heard the apostle of God say he who afflicts his fellow man
in this world will be punished with the fire of Jehennam."
While yet within a day's journey of Jerusalem, Abu Obei-
dah came to meet him and conduct him to the camp. The
Caliph proceeded with due deliberation, never forgetting his
duties as a priest and teacher of Islam. In the morning he
said the usual prayers, and preached a sermon, in which he
spoke of the security of those whom God should lead in the
right way ; but added, that there was no help for such as God
should lead into error.
A gray-headed Christian priest, who sat before him, could not
resist the opportunity to criticise the language of the Caliph
preacher. " God leads no man into error," said he, aloud.
Omar deigned no direct reply, but, turning to those around,
"Strike off that old man's head," said he, "if he repeats his
words."
The old man was discreet, and held his peace. There was no
arguing against the sword of Islam.
On his way to the camp Omar beheld a number of Arabs,
who had thrown by the simple garb of their country, and
arrayed themselves in the silken spoils of Syria. Re saw the
danger of this luxury and effeminacy, and ordered that they
should be dragged with their faces in the dirt, and their silken
garments torn from their backs.
When he came in sight of Jerusalem he lifted up his voice
and exclaimed, "Allah Achbar? God is mighty! God grant
us an easy conquest!" Then commanding his tent co be
MAHOMET AXD HIS SUCCESSORS. 305*
pitched, he dismounted from his camel and sat down within it
on the ground. The Christians thronged to see the sovereign
of this new and irresistible people, who were overrunning and
subduing the earth. The Moslems, fearful of an attempt at
assassination, would have kept them at a distance, but Omai
rebuked their fears. "Nothing will befall us but what God
hath decreed. Let the faithful trust in him."
The arrival of the Caliph was followed by immediate capitu
lation. When the deputies from Jerusalem were admitted to a
parley, they were astonished to find this dreaded potentate a
bnld-headed man, simply clad, and seated on the ground in a
tent of hair-cloth.
The articles of surrender were drawn up in writing by Omar,
and served afterward as a model for the Moslem leaders in
other conquests. The Christians were to build no new
churches in the surrendered territory. The church doors were
to be set open to travellers, and free ingress permitted to
Mahometans by day and night. The bells should only toll, and
not ring, and no crosses should be erected on the churches, nor
shown publicly in the streets. The Christians should not teach
the Koran to their children ; nor speak openly of their religion ;
nor attempt to make proselytes; nor hinder then- kinsfolk
from embracing Islam. They should not assume the Moslem
dress, either caps, slippers, or turbans, nor part their hair like
Moslems, but should always be distinguished by girdles. They
should not use the Arabian language in inscriptions on their
signets, nor salute after the Moslem manner, nor be called by
Moslem surnames. They should rise on the entrance of a Mos
lem, and remain standing until he should be seated. They
should entertain every Moslem traveller three days gratis.
They should sell no wine, bear no arms, and use no saddle in
riding ; neither should they have any domestic who had been
in Moslem service.
Such were the degrading conditions imposed upon the proud
city of Jerusalem, once the glory and terror of the East, by the
leader of a host of wandering Arabs. They were the conditions
generally imposed by the Moslems in their fanatical career of
conquest. Utter scorn and abhorrence of their religious adver
saries formed one of the main pillars of their faith.
The Christians having agreed to surrender on these terms,
the Caliph gave them, under his own hand, an assurance of
protection in their lives and fortunes, the use of their churches,
and the exercise of thoir religion.
306 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Omar entered the once splendid city of Solomon on foot, in
his simple Arab garb, with his walking-staff in his hand, and
accompanied by the venerable Sophronius, with whom he
talked familiarly, inquiring about the antiquities and public
edifices. The worthy patriarch treated the conqueror with all
outward deference, but, if we may trust the words of a Chris
tian historian, he loathed the dirty Arab in his heart, and was
particularly disgusted with his garb of coarse woollen, patched
with sheepskin. His disgust was almost irrepressible when
they entered the church of the Resurrection, and Sophronius
beheld the Caliph in his filthy attire, seated in the midst of the
sacred edifice. ' ' This, of a truth, " exclaimed he, ' ' is the abom
ination of desolation predicted by Daniel the prophet, standing
in the holy place."
It is added that, to pacify the cleanly scruples of the patri
arch, Omar consented to put on clean raiment which he offered
him, until his own garments were washed.
An instance of the strict good faith of Omar is related as oc
curring on this visit to the Christian temples. While he was
standing with the patriarch in the church of the Resurrection,
one of the stated hours for Moslem worship arrived, and he
demanded where he might pray. "Where you no ware, "re
plied the patriarch. Omar, however, refused, and went forth.
The patriarch conducted him to the church of Constantine,
and spread a mat for him to pray there : but again he refused.
On going forth, he knelt, and prayed on the flight of steps
leading down from the east gate of the church. This done, he
turned to the patriarch, and gave him a generous reason for
his conduct. ' ' Had I prayed in either of the churches, " said
he, " the Moslems would have taken possession of it, and con
secrated it as a mosque."
So scrupulous was he in observing his capitulations respect
ing the churches, that he gave the patriarch a writing, forbid
ding the Moslems to pray upon the steps where he had prayed,
except one person at a time. The zeal of the faithful, however,
outstripped their respect for his commands, and one half of the
steps and porch was afterward included in a mosque built over
the spot which he had accidentally sanctified.
The Caliph next sought the place where the temple of Solo
mon had stood, where he founded a mosque ; which, in after
times, being enlarged and enriched by succeeding Caliphs, be
came one of the noblest edifices of Islam worship, and second
only to the magnificent mosque of Cordova.
MAIIOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 307
The surrender of Jerusalem took place in the seventeenth
year of the Hegira, and the six hundred and thirty-seventh
year of the Christian era.
CHAPTER XIX.
1
PROGRESS OF THE MOSLEM ARMS IN SYRIA— SIEGE OP ALEPPO-
OBSTINATE DEFENCE BY YOUKENN A— EXPLOIT OF DAMAS— CAP
TURE OF THE CASTLE — CONVERSION OF YOUKENNA.
THE Caliph Omar remained ten days in Jerusalem, regulating
the great scheme of Islam conquest. To complete the subju
gation of Syria, he divided it into two parts. Southern Syria,
consisting of Palestine and the maritime towns, he gave in
charge to Yezed Ibn Abu Sofian, with a considerable portion
of the army to enable him to master it ; while Abu Obeidah,
with a larger force, had orders promptly to reduce all north
ern Syria, comprising the country lying between Hauran and
Aleppo. At the same time, Amru Ibn al Aass, with a body of
Moslem troops, was ordered to invade Egypt, which venerable
and once mighty empire was then in a state of melancholy de
cline. Such were the great plans of Islam conquest in these
regions; while at the same time, Saad Ibn Abi Wakkas, an
other of Omar's generals, was pursuing a career of victories in
the Persian territories.
The return of Omar to Medina was hailed with joy by the
inhabitants, for they had regarded with great anxiety and ap
prehension his visit to Jerusalem. They knew the salubrity
of the climate, the fertility of the country, and the sacred char
acter of the city, containing the tombs of the prophets, and
being the place, according to Moslem belief, where all mankind
were to be assembled in the day of the resurrection. They had
feared, therefore, that he would be tempted to fix his residence,
for the rest of his days, in that consecrated city. Great was
their joy, therefore, when they saw their Caliph re-enter their
gates in his primitive simplicity, clad in his coarse Arab garb,
and seated on his camel with his wallets of dried fruits and
sodden corn ; his leathern bottle and his wooden platter.
Abu Obeidah departed from Jerusalem shortly after the
Caliph, and marched with his army to the north, receiving: in
808 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the course of his progress through Syria the submission of the
cities of Kennesrin and Alhadir, the inhabitants of which ran
somed themselves and their possessions for five thousand
ounces of gold, the like quantity of silver, two thousand suits
of silken raiment, and as much figs and aloes as would load
five hundred mules; he then proceeded toward the city of
Aleppo, which the Caliph had ordered him to besiege. The
inhabitants of this place were much given to commerce, and
had amassed great wealth; they trembled, therefore, at the
approach of these plundering sons of the desert, who had laid
so many cities under contribution.
The city of Aleppo was walled and fortified ; but it depended
chiefly for defence upon its citadel, which stood without the
walls and apart from the city, on an artificial hill or mound,
shaped like a truncated cone or sugar loaf , and faced with
stone. The citadel was of great size, and commanded all the
adjacent country ; it was encompassed by a deep moat, which
could be filled from springs of water, and was considered the
strongest castle in all Syria. The governor, who had been
appointed to this place by the emperor Heraclius, and who had
held all the territory between Aleppo and the Euphrates, had
lately died, leaving two sons, Youkenna and Johannas, who
resided in the castle and succeeded to his command. They
were completely opposite in character and conduct. You
kenna, the elder of the two, was a warrior, and managed the
government, while Johannas passed his life in almost monkish
retirement, devoting himself to study, to religious exercises,
and to acts of charity. On the approach of the Moslems Jo
hannas sympathized with the fears of the wealthy merchants,
and advised his brother to compound peaceably with the
enemy for a ransom in money. "You talk like a monk,"
replied the fierce Youkenna; "you know nothing that is due
to the honor of a soldier. Have we not strong walls, a brave
garrison, and ample wealth to sustain us, and shall we meanly
buy a peace without striking a blow? Shut yourself up with
your books and beads ; study and pray, and leave the defence
of the place to me."
The next day he summoned his troops, distributed money
among them, and having thus roused their spirit, ' ' The
Arabs," said he, "have divided their forces; some are in Pal
estine, some have gone to Egypt, it can be but a mere detach
ment that is coming against us ; I am for meeting them on the
way, and giving them battle before they come near to Aleppo."
MAHOMET AND ///> xrrr/^outi. 3()9
His troops answered his harangue with shouts, so he put him
self at the head of twelve thousand men, and sallied forth to
encounter the Moslems on their march.
Scarcely had this reckless warrior departed with his troops
when the timid and trading part of the community gathered
together, and took advantage of his absence to send thirty of
the most important and opulent of the inhabitants to Abu
Obeidah, with an offer of a ransom for the city. These worth
ies, when they entered the Moslem camp, were astonished at
the order and tranquillity that reigned throughout, under the
wise regulations of the commander-in-chief. They were re
ceived by Abu Obeidah with dignified composure, and in
formed him that they had come without the knowledge of
Youkenna, their warlike governor, who had sallied out on a
foray, and whose tyranny they found insupportable. After
much discussion Abu Obeidah offered indemnity to the city of
Aleppo, on condition that they should pay a certain sum of
money, furnish provisions to his army, make discovery of
everything within their knowledge prejudicial to his interests,
and prevent Youkenna from returning to the castle. They
agreed to all the terms except that relating to Uie castle, which
it was impossible for them to execute.
Abu Obeidah dispensed with that point, but exacted from
them all an oath to fulfil punctually the other conditions, as
suring them of his protection and kindness, should they ob
serve it; but adding that, should they break it, they need
expect no quarter. He then offered them an escort, which
they declined, preferring to return quietly by the way they
had come.
In the mean time Youkenna, on the day after his sallying
forth, fell in with the advance guard of the Moslem army, con
sisting of one thousand men under Caab Ibn Damarrah. He
came upon them by surprise while watering their horses and
resting themselves on the grass in negligent security. A des
perate fight was the consequence ; the Moslems at first were
successful, but were overpowered by numbers. One hundred
and seventy were slain, most of the rest wounded, and their
frequent cries of "Ya Mahommed! Ya Mahommed!" (Oh Ma
homet ! Oh Mahomet !) showed the extremity of their despair.
Night alone saved them from total massacre; but Youkenna
resolved to pursue the work of extermination with the morn
ing light. In the course of the night, however, one of his
scouts brought him word of the peaceful negotiation carried
310 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
on by the citizens of Aleppo during his absence. Boiling with
rage, he gave up all further thought about Caab and his men,
and hastening back to Aleppo, drew up his forces, and threat
ened to put everything to fire and sword unless the inhabi
tants renounced the treaty, joined him against the Moslems,
and gave up the devisers of the late traitorous schemes. On
their hesitating to comply with his demands, he charged on
them with his troops, and put three hundred to the sword.
The cries and lamentations of the multitude reached the pious
Johannas in his retirement in the castle. He hastened to the
scene of carnage, and sought, by prayers and supplications
and pious remonstrances, to stay the fury of his brother.
"What!" cried the fierce Youkenna, "shall I spare traitors
who are leagued with the enemy and selling us for gold?"
"Alas!" replied Johannas, "they have only sought their
own safety; they are not fighting men."
" Base wretch !" cried Youkenna in a frenzy, "'tis thou hast
been the contriver of this infamous treason."
His naked sword was in his hand; his actions were even
more frantic than his words, and in an instant the head of his
meek and pious brother rolled on the pavement.
The people of Aleppo were in danger of suffering more from
the madness of the army than they had apprehended from the
sword of the invader, when a part of the Moslem army ap
peared in sight, led on by Khaled. A bloody battle ensued
before the walls of the town, three thousand of Youkenna's
troops were slain, and he was obliged to take refuge with a
considerable number within the castle, where he placed en
gines on the walls and prepared to defend himself to the last
extremity.
A council was held in the Moslem camp. Abu Obeidah was
disposed to besiege the citadel and starve out the garrison, but
Khaled, with his accustomed promptness, was for instant as
sault, before the emperor could send reinforcements and sup
plies. As usual his bold counsel prevailed: the castle was
stormed, and he headed the assault. The conflict was one of
the fiercest in the wars of Syria. The besieged hurled huge
stones from the battlements ; many of the assailants were slain,
many maimed, and Khaled was compelled to desist from the
attack.
In the dead of that very night, when the fires of the camp
were extinguished, and the Moslems were sleeping after their
hard-fought battle, Youkenna sallied forth with his troops,
AM) LL1X 8UGQB880R8. 31 x
fell on the enemy sword in hanc/, killed sixty, and bore off
fifty prisoners; Khaled, however, -was hard on his traces, and
killed above a hundred of his men before they could shelter
ti i« M uselves within the castle. On the next morning Youkenna
paraded his fifty prisoners on the walls of the citadel, ordered
them to be beheaded, and threw their heads among the be
siegers.
Learning from his spies that a detachment of Moslems, were
foraging the country, Youkenna sent out, secretly, a troop of
horse in the night, who fell upon the foragers, killed nearly
seven score of them, slew or hamstrung their camels, mules,
and horses, and then hid themselves in the recesses of the
mountains, awaiting the night to get back to the castle.
Some fugitives carried tidings of this skirmish to the camp,
and Khaled and Derar, with a troop of horse, were soon at the
scene of combat. They found the ground strewed with the
dead bodies of men and animals, learned from some peasants
whither the enemy had retreated, and were informed of a nar
row defile by which they must return to the castle. Khaled
and Derar stationed their troops in ambush in this defile.
Late in the night they perceived the enemy advancing. They
suffered them to get completely entangled in the defile, when,
closing suddenly upon them on every side, they slew a number
on the spot, and took three hundred prisoners. These were
brought in triumph to the Moslem camp, where they would
have redeemed themselves with ample ransom, but their heads
were all stricken off in front of the castle, by way of retaliation.
For five months did the siege of this fortress continue ; all
the attacks of the Moslems were repulsed, all their stratagems
discovered and circumvented, for Youkenna had spies in the
very camp of the enemy, who gave him intelligence by word,
or signal, of every plan and movement. Abu Obeidah de
spaired of reducing this impregnable castle, which impeded
him in his career of conquest, and wrote to the Caliph, propos
ing to abandon the siege and proceed against Antioch. The
Caliph, in reply, ordered him by no means to desist, as that
would give courage to the enemy, but to press the siege hard,
and trust the event to God. As an additional reliance, he sent
him a reinforcement of horse and foot, with twenty camels
to facilitate the march of the infantry. Notwithstanding all
this aid, the siege was continued for seven-aud-forty days,
with no greater prospect of success.
While in this state of vexatious impediment and delay, Abu
312 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Obeidah was one day accosted by one of the newly arrived sol
diers, who told him that, if he would give him thirty men, all
strong and valiant, he would pledge his head to put him in
possession of the castle. The man who made this singular ap
plication was named Damas ; he was of herculean strength and
gigantic size, a brave soldier, and of great natural sagacity,
although unimproved by education, as he was born a slave.
Khaled backed his application, having heard of great exploits
performed by him in Arabia. Abu Obeidah, in his perplexi
ties, was willing to adopt any expedient to get possession of
this obstinate castle, and the Arabs were always prone to
strange and extravagant stratagems in their warfare. He ac
cordingly placed thirty of his bravest men under command of
Damas, charging them to obey him implicitly, notwithstand
ing his base condition ; at the same time, in compliance with
his request, he removed with his army to the distance of a
league, as though about to abandon the siege.
It was now night, and Damas concealed his thirty men near
to the castle, charging them not to stir, nor utter a sound. He
then went out alone and brought in six Christian prisoners,
one after another. He questioned them in Arabic, but they
were ignorant of the language, and replied in their own
tongue. "The curse of Allah on these Christian dogs and
their barbarous jargon, which no man can understand," cried
the rude Arab, and in his rage he smote off their heads.
He went forth again, and saw a man sliding down the wall,
whom he seized the moment he touched the ground. He was
a Christian Arab, and was endeavoring to escape from the
tyranny of Youkenna, and from him Damas obtained the in
formation he desired. He instantly dispatched two men to
Abu Obeidah, requesting him to send him some horse about
sunrise. He then took a goat-skin from his wallet, with which
he covered his back and shoulders, and a dry crust of bread in
his hand, and crept on all-fours close to the wall of the castle.
His men crept silently after mm, When he heard a noise he
gnawed his crust with a sound like that of a dog gnawing a
bone, and his followers remained motionless. In this way he
reached a part of the castle wall which was easiest of access.
Then seating himself on the ground he made one of his men
seat himself on his shoulders, and so on until seven were thus
mounted on each other. Then he who was uppermost stood
upright, and so did the others in succession, until Damas rose
from the ground upon his feet, and sustained the whole by his
MAHOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
•wondrous strength, each rendering such aid as he could by
bearing against the wall. The uppermost man was now en
abled to scramble upon the battlement, where he Yound a
Christian sentinel drunk and asleep. He seized and threw
him down to the Moslems below the wall, who instantly dis
patched him. He then unfolded his turban and drew up the
man below him, and they two the next, and so on until Damas
was also on the wall.
Damas now enjoined silence on them all, and left them. He
found two other sentinels sleeping, whom he despatched with
his dagger, and then made his way to an aperture for the dis
charge of arrows, looking through which he beheld Youkenna
in a spacious chamber, richly clad, seated on tapestry of scar
let silk, flowered with gold, drinking and making merry with
a large company ; for it would seem as if, on the apparent de
parture of the besieging army, the whole castle had been given
up to feasting and carousing.
Damas considered the company too numerous to be at
tacked; returning to his men, therefore, he explored cau
tiously with them the interior of the castle. Coming suddenly
upon the guards at the main entrance, who had no apprehen
sion of danger from within, they killed them, threw open the
gate, let down the drawbridge, and were joined by the residue
of their party. The castle was by this time alarmed ; the gar
rison, half drunk and half asleep, came rushing from all quar
ters in wild confusion. The Moslems defended themselves
stoutly on the drawbridge and in the narrow pass of the bar
bican until the dawn of day, when a shout of Allah Achbar
was heard, and Khaled, with a troop of horse, came thunder
ing through the gate.
The Christians threw down their arms and cried for mercy.
Khaled offered them their choice, death or the faith of Islam.
Youkenna was the first to raise his finger and pronounce the
formula ; his example was followed by several of his leading
men, whereupon their wives and children and property were
secured to them. The castle, having been taken by storm,
was completely plundered, and the spoils were divided among
the army, excepting the usual fifth part reserved for the Ca
liph. Damas and his brave companions, who had been almost
cut to jrieces in the fight, were praised to the skies, nor would
Abu Obeidah stir with his host until those of them who sur
vived were out of danger from their wounds:
314 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER XX.
PERFIDY OF YOUKENNA TO HIS FORMER FRIENDS — ATTEMPTS
THE CASTLE OF AAZAZ BY TREACHERY— CAPTURE OF THE
CASTLE.
IT is a circumstance worthy of remark in the history both of
Mahomet and his successors, that the most inveterate enemies
of the Islam faith, when once converted to it, even though
their conversion were by the edge of the sword, that great
Moslem instrument of persuasion, became its faithful de
fenders. Such was the case with Youkenna, who, from the
time he embraced Islam with the Arab scimetar at his throat,
became as determined a champion of its doctrines as he had
before been an opponent. Like all new converts, he was
anxious to give striking proofs of his zeal; he had slain a
brother in supporting his old faith, he now proposed to betray
a cousin in promoting the interests of the new. This cousin,
whose name was Theodorus, was governor of an important
town and fortress, named Aazaz, situated at no great distance
from Aleppo, and which it was necessary for the Moslems to
secure before they left that neighborhood. The castle was of
great strength, and had a numerous garrison, but Youkenna
offered to put it into the hands of Abu Obeidah by stratagem.
His plan was, to have one hundred Moslems disguised as
Christian soldiers; with these he would pretend to fly to the
fortress of Aazaz for refuge ; being pursued at a distance by a
large body of Arabs, who, after coming in sight of the place,
would appear to retire in despair, but would conceal them
selves in the neighborhood. His cousin Theodorus, who knew
nothing of his conversion, would receive him with perfect con
fidence; at a concerted hour of the night he and his men
would fall suddenly upon the garrison, and at the same time
throw open the gates to the party without the walls, and
between them both he had no doubt of carrying the place
without difficulty.
Abu Obeidah held counsel with Khaled, who pronounced
the stratagem apt and feasible, provided the sincerity of You-
kenna's conversion might be depended upon. The new prose
lyte managed to obtain their confidence, and was dispatched
on his enterprise with one hundred chosen men, selected by
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 315
tens from ten tribes of Arabs. After they had departed a
sufficient time, one thousand men were sent in pretended
pursuit, headed by Malec Alashtar, who was instructed in the
whole stratagem.
These Moslem wars were always a tissue of plot and counter
plot, of which this whole story of Youkenna is a striking
example. Scarce had this scheme of treachery been devised
in the Moslem camp, when the distant governor of Aazaz was
apprised of it, with a success and celerity that almost seemed
like magic. He had at that time a spy in the Moslem camp,
an Arab of the tribe of Gassan, who sent him a letter tied
under the wing of a carrier-pigeon, informing him of the
apostasy of Youkenna, and of his intended treachery ; though
the spy was ignorant of that part of the plan relating to the
thousand men under Malec Alashtar. On receiving this letter,
Theodorus put his town and castle in a posture of defence,
called in the Christian Arabs of the neighboring villages
capable of bearing arms, and despatched a messenger named
Tarik al Gassani to Lucas the prefect of Arrawendan, urging
him to repair with troops to his assistance.
Before the arrival of the latter, Youkenna appeared with his
pretended fugitives before the gates of Aazaz, announcing that
his castle was taken, and that he and his band were flying
before pursuers. Theodorus sallied forth on horseback, at the
head of many of his troops, as if to receive his cousin with all
due honors. He even alighted from his steed, and, approach
ing Youkenna in a reverential manner, stooped as if to kiss
his stirrup ; but suddenly cutting the saddle girth, he pulled
him with his face on the ground, and in an instant his hundred
followers were likewise unhorsed and made prisoners. Theo
dorus then spat in the face of the prostrate Youkenna and
reproached him with his apostasy and treachery ; threatening
to send him to answer for his crimes before tjie emperor
Heraclius, and to put all his followers to the sword.
In the mean time Tarik al Gassani, the Christian Arab, who
had been sent by Theodorus to summon the prefect of Arra
wendan to his aid, had executed his errand, but on the way
back fell into the hand of Malec, who was lying in ambus
cade with his thousand men. The sight of a naked scimetar
drew from Tarik information that the plot of Youkenna had
been discovered; that he had been sent after aid, and that
Lucas, the prefect of Arrawendan, must be actually on his
way with five hundred cavalry.
310 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Profiting by this information, Malec placed his thousand
men so advantageously as completely to surprise and capture
Lucas and his reinforcement, as they were marching in the
night. He then devised a stratagem still to outwit the gov
ernor of Aazaz. First he disguised his five hundred men in
dresses taken from their Christian prisoners, and gave them
the Christian standard of the prefect of Arrawendan. Then
summoning Tarik the messenger before him, and again dis
playing the scimetar, he exhorted him most earnestly to turn
Mahometan. There was no resisting his arguments, and Tarik
made a full and hearty profession of the faith. Malec then
ordered him to prove his zeal for the good cause by proceeding
to Aazaz and informing Theodorus that the prefect of Arra
wendan was at hand with a reinforcement of five hundred
men. The double-faced courier departed on his errand, accom
panied by a trusty Moslem, who had secret orders to smite off
his head if he should be found to waver ; but there were still
other plots at work in this tissue of stratagems.
As Tarik and his companion approached Aazaz, they heaiti
great shouting and the sound of trumpets, and this was the
cause of the change. Theodorus, the governor, had committed
Youkenna and his men into the custody of his son Leon. Now
it so happened that the youth having frequently visited his
father's kinsmen at the castle of Aleppo, had become violently
enamored of the daughter of Youkenna, but had met strong
opposition to his love. The present breach between his father
any\ Youkenna threatened to place an inseparable barrier
between him and the gratification of his passion. Maddened
by his desires, the youth now offered to Youkenna, if he would
give him his daughter to wife, to embrace Mahometanism, and
to set him and his companions at liberty. The offer was
accepted. At the dead of the night, when the prisoners were
armed and liberated, they fell upon the sleeping garrison; a
tumultuous fight ensued, in the course of which Theodorus>
was slain, by the hand, it is said, of his unnatural son.
It was in the height of this conflict that Tarik and his com
panion arrived at the place, and, learning the situation of
affairs, hastened back to Malec Alashtar with the news. The
latter hurried on with his troops and came in time to complete
the capture of the place. He bestowed great praises on You
kenna, but the latter, taking him by the hand, exclaimed,
u Thank Allah and this youth." He then related the whole
iStory. The pious Malec lifted up his eyes and hands in wonder
VMK>MI<:T AND ms SUCCESSORS. 317
'* When Allah wills a thing," exclaimed he, "he prepares the
means."
Leaving Seid Ibn Amir in command of the place, with You-
kenna's band of a hundred men as a garrison, Malec Alashtar
returned to the main army with great booty and many prison
ers. Youkenna, however, refused to accompany him. He
was mortified at the questionable result of his undertaking
against Aazaz, the place having been taken by other means
than his own, and vowed not to show himself in the Moslem
camp until he had retrieved his credit by some signal blow.
Just at this time there arrived at Aazaz a foraging party of a
thousand Moslems, that had been ravaging the neighboring
country ; among them were two hundred renegades, who had
apostatized with Youkenna, and whose families and effects
were in the castle of Aleppo. They were the very men for his
purpose, and with these he marched off to execute one of his
characteristic stratagems at Antioch. »
CHAPTER XXI.
INTRIGUES OF YOUKENNA AT ANTIOCH— SIEGE OP THAT CITY BY
THE MOSLEMS— FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR TO CONSTANTINOPLE
—SURRENDER OF ANTIOCH.
THE city of Antioch was at that time the capital of Syria,
and the seat of the Roman government in the East. It was of
great extent, surrounded by stone walls and numerous towers,
and stood in the midst of a fertile country, watered by wells
and fountains and abundant streams. Here Heraclius held his
court, and here the Greeks, sunk in luxury and effeminacy,
had lost all the military discipline and heroism that had made
them conquerors in Asia.
Toward this capital Youkenna proceeded with his band of
two hundred men; but in the second watch of the night he
left them, after giving them orders to keep on in the highway
of the caravans, and on arriving at Antioch, to give themselves
out as fugitives from Aleppo. In the meantime he, with* two
of his relatives, struck into a by-road, and soon fell into the
hands of one of the emperor's outposts. On announcing him
self Youkenna, late governor of Aleppo, he was sent under a
guard of horse to Antioch.
818 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
The emperor Heraclius, broken in spirit by his late reverses
and his continual apprehensions, wept at the sight of Youj
kenna, and meekly upbraided him with his apostasy and
treason, but the latter, with perfect self-possession and effront
ery, declared that whatever he had done was for the purpose
of preserving his life for the emperor's service ; and cited the
obstinate defence he had made at Aleppo and his present volun
tary arrival at Antioch as proofs of his fidelity. The emperor
was easily deceived by a man he had been accustomed to regard
as one of his bravest and most devoted officers; and indeed
the subtle apostate had the address to incline most of the cour
tiers in his favor. To console him for what was considered
his recent misfortunes, he was put in command of the two
hundred pretended fugitives of his former garrison, as soon as
they arrived at Antioch ; he had thus a band of kindred rene
gades, ready to aid him in any desperate treachery. Further
more, to show his entire confidence in him, the emperor sent
him with upward of two thousand men, to escort his youngest
daughter from a neighboring place to the court at Antioch.
He performed his mission with correctness; as he and his
troop were escorting the princess about midnight, the neighing
of their horses put them on the alert, and sending out scouts
they received intelligence of a party of Moslems asleep, with
their horses grazing near them. They proved to be a body of a
thousand Christian Arabs, under Haim, son of the apostate
Jabalah Ibn al Ayam, who had made captives of Derar Ibn al
Azwar and a foraging party of two hundred Moslems. They
all proceeded together to Antioch, where the emperor received
his daughter with great joy, and made Youkenna one of his
chief counsellors.
Derar and his men were brought into the presence of the
emperor, and commanded to prostrate themselves before him,
but they held themselves erect and took no heed of the com
mand. It was repeated more peremptorily. "*We bow to no
created being," replied Derar; "the prophet bids us to yield
adoration to God alone."
The emperor, struck with this reply, propounded several
questions touching Mahomet and his doctrines, but Derar,
whose province did not lie in words, beckoned to Kais Ibn
Amir, an old gray-headed Moslem, to answer them. A long
and edifying conference ensued, in which, in reply to the
searching questions of the emperor, the venerable Kais went
Into a history of the prophet, and of the various modes in
AND T7TS SUCCESSOR. 319
wJiich inspiration camo upon him. Sometimes like the sound
of a bell; sometimes in the likeness of an angel in human
cliapc ; sometimes in a dream ; sometimes like the brightness of
the dawning day ; and that when it was upon him great drops
of sweat rolled from his forehead, and a tremor seized upon his
limbs. Ho furthermore descanted with eloquence upon the
miracles of Mahomet, of his nocturnal journey to heaven, and
Lis conversation with the Most High. The emperor listened
vrith seeming respect to all these matters, but they roused the
indignation of a bishop who was present, and who pronounced
Ilahomet an impostor. Derar took fire in an instant ; if he
could not argue, ho could make use of a soldier's vocabulary,
end he roundly gave the bishop the lie, and assailed him with
ell kinds of epithets. Instantly a number of Christian swords
Hashed from their scabbards, blows were aimed at him from
every side; and according to Moslem accounts he escaped
death only by miracle ; though others attribute it to the hurry
and confusion of his assailants, and to the interference of You-
kenna. The emperor was now for having him executed on the
spot ; but here the good offices of Youkenma again saved him,
and his execution was deferred.
In [the mean time Abu Obeidah, with his main army, was
making his victorious approaches, and subjecting all Syria to
his arms. The emperor, in his miserable imbecility and blind
infatuation, put the treacherous Youkenna in full command of
the city and army. He would again have executed Derar and
his fellow-prisoners, but Youkenna suggested that they had
better be spared to be exchanged for any Christians that might
be taken by the enemy They were then, by advice of the
bishops, taken to one of the churches, and exhorted to embrace
the Christian faith, but they obstinately refused. The Arabian
writers, as usual, give them sententious replies to the questions
put to them. "What hinders ye," demanded the patriarch,
' ' from turning Christians ?" ' * The truth of our religion, " replied
they. Heraclius had heard of the mean attire of the Caliph
Omar, and asked them why, having gained so much wealth by
Lis conquests, ho did not go richly cLod like other princes? They
replied that he cared not for this world, but for the world to
come, and sought favor in the eyes of God alone. " In what
kind of a palace docs he reside?" asked the emperor. "In a
house built of mud." "Who are his attendants?" "Beggars
and the poor." " What tapestry does he sit upon?" " Justice
and equity," " What is his throne?" " Abstinence and true
320 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
knowledge." " What is his treasure?" " Trust in God." "And
who are his guard?" " The bravest of the Unitarians."
Of all the prisoners one only could be induced to swerve
from his faith ; and he was a youth fascinated by the beauty
and the unveiled charms of the Greek women. He was bap
tized with triumph ; the bishops strove who most should honor
him, and the emperor gave him a horse, a beautiful damsel to
wife, and enrolled him in the army of Christian Arabs, com
manded by the renegade Jabalah ; but he was upbraided in
bitter terms by his father, who was one of the prisoners, and
ready to die in the faith of Islam.
The emperor now reviewed his army, which was drawn up
outside of the walls, and at the head of every battalion was a
wooden oratory with a crucifix ; while a precious crucifix out
of the main church, exhibited only on extraordinary occasions,
was borne as a sacred standard before the treacherous You-
kenna. One of the main dependences of Heraclius for the
safety of Antioch was in the Iron Bridge, so called from its
great strength. It was a bridge of stone across the river
Orontes, guarded by two towers and garrisoned by a great
force, having not less than three hundred officers. The fate of
this most important pass shows the degeneracy of Greek dis
cipline and the licentiousness of the soldiery, to which in a
great measure has been attributed the rapid successes of the
Moslems. An officer of the court was charged to visit this
fortress each day, and see that everything was in order. On
one of his visits he found those who had charge of the towers
drinking and revelling, whereupon he ordered them to be
punished with fifty stripes each. They treasured the disgrace
in their hearts ; the Moslem army approached to lay siege to
that formidable fortress, and when the emperor expected to
hear of a long and valiant resistance, he was astonished by the
tidings that the Iron Bridge had been surrendered without a
blow.
Heraclius now lost heart altogether. Instead of calling a
council of his generals, he assembled the bishops and wealth
iest citizens in the cathedral, and wept over the affairs of
Syria. It was a time for dastard counsel ; the apostate Jaba-
Jah proposed the assassination of the Caliph Omar as a means
of throwing the affairs of the Saracens into confusion. The
emperor was weak enough to consent, and Vathek Ibn Mo-
sapher, a bold young Arab of the tribe of Jabalah, was dis
patched to Mediqa t° effect the treacherous deed, The Ara-
MAHOMET AND ms SUCCESSORS. 321
bian historians give a miraculous close to this undertaking.
Arriving at Medina, Vathek concealed himself in a tree, with
out the walls, at a place where the Caliph was accustomed to
walk after the hour of prayers. After a time Omar ap
proached the place, and lay down to sleep near the foot of the
tree. The assassin drew his dagger, and was descending, when
he beheld a lion walking round the Caliph, licking his feet and
guarding him as he slept. When he woke the lion went away
upon which Vathek, convinced that Omar was under the pro
tection of Heaven, hastened down from the tree, kissed his
hand in token of allegiance, revealed his treacherous errand,
and avowed his conversion to the Islam faith.
The surrender of the Iron Bridge had laid open Antioch to
the approach of Abu Obeidah, and he advanced in battle array
to where the Christian army was drawn up beneath its walls.
Nestorius, one of the Christian commanders, sallied forth
from among the troops and defied the Moslems to single com
bat. Damas, the herculean warrior, who had taken the castle
of Aleppo, spurred forward to meet him, but his horse stum
bled and fell with him, and he was seized as the prisoner of
Nestorius, and conveyed to his tent, where he was bound hand
and foot. Dehac, another Moslem, took his place, and a brave
fight ensued between him and Nestorius. The parties, how
ever, were so well matched that, after fighting for a long time
until both were exhausted, they parted by mutual consent.
While this fight was going on, the soldiers, horse and foot, of
either army, thronged to see it, and in the tumult the tent of
Nestorius was thrown down. There were but three servants
left in charge of it. Fearful of the anger of their master, they
hastened to set it up again, and loosened the bands of Damas
that he might assist them ; but the moment he was free he
arose in his giant strength, seized two of the attendants, one
in each hand, dashed their heads against the head of the third,
and soon laid them all lifeless on the ground. Then opening a
chest, he arrayed himself in a dress belonging to Nestorius,
armed himself with a sabre, sprang on a horse that stood
ready saddled, and cut his way through the Christian Arabs
of Jabalah to the Moslem host.
While these things were happening without the walls, trea
son was at work in the city. Youkenna, who commanded
there, set free Derar and his fellow-prisoners, furnished them
with weapons, and joined to them his own band of renegadoes.
The tidings of this treachery and the apprehension of revolt
322 MA&OHET AND It IS SUCCESSES.
among his own troops struck despa;r to the heart of Heraelius.
He had been terrified by a dream in which he had found him
self thrust from his throne, and his crown falling from his
head ; the fulfilment appeared to be at hand. Without wait
ing to withstand the evil, he assembled a few domestics, made
a secret retreat to the sea-shore, and set sail for Constanti
nople.
The generals of Heraelius, more brave than their emperor,
fought a pitched battle beneath the walls ; but the treachery
of Youkenna and the valor of Derar and his men, who fell on
them unawares, rendered their gallant struggle unavailing;
the people of Antioch seeing the battle lost capitulated for the
safety of their city at the cost of three hundred thousand
golden ducats, and Abu Obediah entered the ancient capital
of Syria in triumph. This event took place on the 21st of
August, in the year of redemption G38.
OHAPTER XXH.
EXPEDITION INTO THE MOUNTAINS OF SYRIA— STORY OF A
MIRACULOUS CAP.
THE discreet Abu Obeidah feared to exposed his troops to the
enervating delights of Antioch, and to the allurements of the
Greek women, and, after three days of repose and refresh
ment, marched forth from that luxurious city. He wrote a
letter to the Caliph, relating his important conquest, and the
flight of the emperor Heraelius ; and added that he discovered^
a grievous propensity ainong his troops to intermarry with the
beautiful Grecian females, which he had forbidden them to do,
as contrary to the injunctions of the Koran.
The epistle was delivered to Omar just as he was departing
on a pilgrimage to Mecca, accompanied by the widows of the
prophet. When he had read the letter he offered prayers and
thanksgiving to Allah, but wept over Abu Obeidah's rigor to
his soldiers. Seating himself upon the ground, he immedi
ately wrote a reply to his general, expressing his satisfaction
at his success, but exhorting him to more indulgence to bis
soldiers. Those who had fought the good fight ought to be
permitted to rest themselves, and to enjoy the good things
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 323
they had gained. Such as had no wives at home, might marry
in Syria, and those who had a desire for female slaves might
purchase as many as they chose.
While the main army reposed after the taking of Antioch,
the indefatigable Khaled, at the head of a detachment, scoured
the country as far as to the Euphrates; took Membege, the
ancient Hierapolis, by force, and Berah and Bales, and other
places, by capitulation, receiving a hundred thousand pieces
of gold by way 01 ransom, besides laying the inhabitants under
annual tribute.
Abu Obeidah, in an assemblage of his officers, now proposed
an expedition to subdue the mountains of Syria; but no one
stepped forward to volunteer. The mountains were rugged
and sterile, and covered with ice and snow for the greater part
of the year, and the troops already began to feel the effects of
the softening climate and delights of Syria. At length a can
didate presented himself, named Meisara Ibn Mesroud ; a num
erous body of picked men was placed under his command, and
a black flag was given him, bearing the inscription, ' ' There is
no God but God. Mahomet is the messenger of God." Damas
accompanied him at the head of one thousand black Ethiopian
slaves. The detachment suffered greatly in the mountains, for
they were men of sultry climates, unaccustomed to ice and
snow, and they passed suddenly from a soft Syrian summer to
the severity of frozen winter, and from the midst of abundance
to regions of solitude and sterility. The inhabitants, too, of
the scanty villages, fled at their approach. At length they cap
tured a prisoner, who informed them that an imperial army of
many thousand men was lying in wait for them in a valley
about three leagues distant, and that all the passes behind them
were guarded. A scout, dispatched in search of intelligence,
confirmed this news; whereupon they intrenched themselves
in a commanding position, and dispatched a fleet courier to
Abu Obeidah, to inform him of their perilous situation.
The courier made such speed that when he reached the pres
ence of Obeidah he fainted through exhaustion. Khaled, who
had just returned from his successful expedition to the Eu
phrates, instantly hastened to the relief of Meisara, with three
thousand men, and was presently followed by Ayad Ibn Ga-
nam, with two thousand more.
Khaled found Meisara and his men making desperate stand
against an overwhelming force. At the sight of this powerful
reinforcement, with the black eagle of Khaled in the advance,
324 MA110MRT ANJ) HIS
the Greeks gave over the attack and returned to their camp,
but secretly retreated in the night, leaving their tents stand
ing, and bearing off captive Abdallah Ibn Hodafa, a near rela
tive of the prophet and a beloved friend of the Caliph Omar,
whom they straightway sent to the emperor at Constantinople.
The Moslems forbore to pursue the enemy through these
difficult mountains, and, after plundering the deserted tents,
returned to the main army. When the Caliph Omar received
tidings from Abu Obeidah of the capture of Abdallah Ibn
Hodafa, he was grieved at heart, and dispatched instantly an
epistle to the emperor Heraclius at Constantinople.
" Bismillah ! In the name of the all-merciful God !
"Praise be to Allah, the Lord of this world, and of that
which is to come, who has neither companion, wife, nor son ;
and blessed be Mahomet his apostle. Omar Ibn al Khattab,
servant of God, to Heraclius, emperor of the Greeks. As soon
as thou shalt receive this epistle, fail not to send to me the
Moslem captive whose name is Abdallah Ibn Hodafa. If thou
doest this, I shall have hope that Allah will conduct thee in
the right path. If thou dost refuse, I will not fail to send thee
such men as traffic and merchandise have not turned from
the fear of God. Health and happiness to all those who tread
in the right way I"
In the mean time the emperor had treated his prisoner with
great distinction, and as Abdallah was a cousin-german to the
prophet, the son of one of his uncles, he was an object of great
curiosity at Constantinople. The emperor proffered him lib
erty if he would only make a single sign of adoration to the
crucifix, and magnificent rewards if he would embrace the
Christian faith ; but both proposals were rejected. Heraclius,
say the Arab writers, then changed his treatment of him ; shut
him up for three days with nothing to eat and drink but
swine's flesh and wine, but on the fourth day found both un
touched. The faith of Abdallah was put to no further proof,
as by this time the emperor received the stern letter from the
Caliph. The letter had its effect. The prisoner was dismissed,
with costly robes and rich presents, and Heraclius sent to
Omar a diamond of great size and beauty ; but no jeweller at
Medina could estimate its value. The abstemious Omar re
fused to appropriate it to his own use, though urged to do so
by the Moslems. He placed it in the public treasury, of which,
from his office, he was the guardian and manager. It was
ifterward sold for a great sum.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
A singular story is related by a Moslem writer, but not sup
ported by any rumor or surmise among Christian historians.
It is said that the emperor Heraclius wavered in his faith, if he
did not absolutely become a secret convert of Mahometanism,
and this is stated as the cause. He was afflicted with a vio
lent pain in the head, for which he could find no remedy, until
the Caliph Omar sent him a cap of mysterious virtue. So long
as he wore this cap he was at ease, but the moment he laid
it aside the pain returned. Heraclius caused the cap to be
ripped open, and found within the lining a scrap of paper, on
which was written in Arabic character, Bismillah! Arrah-
mani Arrahimi ! In the name of the all-merciful God. This
cap is said to have been preserved among the Christians until
the year 833, when it was given up by the governor of a be
sieged town to the Caliph Almotassem, on condition of his
raising the siege. It was found still to retain its medicinal vir
tues, which the pious Arabians ascribed to the efficacy of the
devout inscription. An unbelieving Christian will set it down
among the charms and incantations which have full effect on
imaginative persons inclined to credulity, but upon none
others ; such persons abounded among the Arabs.
CHAPTER XXin.
EXPEDITION OP AMRU IBN AL AASS AGAINST PRINCE CONSTAN-
TINE IN SYRIA— THEIR CONFERENCE — CAPTURE OF TRIPOLI AND
TYRE— FLIGHT OF CONSTANTINE — DEATH OF KHALED.
THE course of our history now turns to record the victories
of Amru Ibn al Aass, to whom, after the capture of Jerusa
lem, the Caliph had assigned the invasion and subjugation of
Egypt. Amru, however, did not proceed immediately to that
country, but remained for some time with his division of the
army, hi Palestine, where some places still held out for the
emperor. The natural and religious sobriety of the Arabs was
still sorely endangered among the temptations of Syria. Sev
eral of the Moslem officers being seized, while on the march,
with chills and griping pains in consequence of eating unripe
grapes, were counselled by a crafty old Christian Arab to
drink freely of wine which ho produced, and which he pro
nounced a sovereign remedy. They followed his prescriptions
326 MAHOMET ANI> UTS SUCCESSORS.
so lustily that they all came reeling into the camp to the great
scandal of Amru. The punishment for drunkenness, recom
mended by Ali and adopted by the Caliph, was administered
to the delinquents, who each received a sound bastinado on the
eoles of the feet. This sobered them completely, but so en
raged them with the old man who had recommended the pota
tions that they would have put him to death, had it not been
represented to them that he was a stranger and under Moslem
protection.
Amru now advanced upon the city of Csesarca, where Con-
etantine, son of the emperor, was posted with a large army.
The Moslems were beset by spies, sent by the Christian com
mander to obtain intelligence. These were commonly Chris
tian Arabs, whom it was almost impossible to distinguish from
those of the faith of Islam. One of these, however, after sit
ing one day by the camp fires, as he rose trod on the end of hisx
own robe and stumbled ; in his vexation he uttered an oath
"by Christ I" He was immediately detected by his blasphemy
to be a Christian and a spy, and was cut to pieces by the by
standers. Amru rebuked them for their precipitancy, as he
might have gained information from their victim, and ordered
bhat in future all spies should be brought to him.
The fears of Constantine increased with the approach of the
army, and he now dispatched a Christian priest to Amru, so
liciting him to send some principal officer to confer amicably
with him. An Ethiopian negro, named Belal Ibn Rebah, of
fered to undertake the embassy. He was a man of powerful
frame and sonorous voice, and had been employed by Ma
homet as a Muezzin or crier, to summon the people to prayers.
Proud of having officiated under the prophet, he retired from
office at his death, and had raised his voice but once since that
event, and that was on the taking possession of Jerusalem, the
city of the prophets, when, at the Caliph Omar's command, he
summoned the true believers to prayers with a force of lungs
that astonished the Jewish inhabitants.
Amru would have declined the officious offer of the vocifer
ous Ethiopian, representing to him that such a mission re
quired a smooth-spoken Arab, rather than one of his country;
but, on Bclal conjuring him in the name of Allah and the
prophet to let Mm go, he reluctantly consented. When the
priest saw who was to accompany him back to Constantine,
he objected stoutly to such an ambassador, and glancing con
temptuously a,t the negro features of the Ethiopian, observed
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 327
that Constantino had not sent for a slave but for an officer.
The negro ambassador, however, persisted in his diplomatic
errand, but was refused admission, and returned mortified and
indignant.
Amru now determined to undertake the conference in per
son. Repairing to the Christian camp, he was conducted to
Constantino, whom he found seated in state, and who ordered
a chair to be placed for him ; but he put it aside, and seated
himself cross-legged on the ground after the Arab fashion,
with his scimetar on his thigh and his lance across his knees.
The curious conference that ensued is minutely narrated by
that pious Imam and Cadi, the Moslem historian Alwakedi, in
his chronicle of the conquest of Syria.
Constantine remonstrated against the invasion, telling Amru
that the Romans and Greeks and Arabs were brethren, as be
ing all the children of Noah, although, it was true, the Arabs
were misbegotten, as being the descendants of Ishmael, tho
son of Hagar, a slavo and a concubine, yet being thus breth
ren, it was sinful for them to war against each other.
Amni replied that what Constantine had said was true, and
that the Arabs gloried m acknowledging Ishmael as their pro
genitor, and envied not the Greeks their forefather Esau, who
had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. He added that
their difference related to their religion, upon which ground
even brothers were justified in warfare.
Amru proceeded to state that Noah, after the deluge, divided
the earth into three parts, between his sons Shem, Ham, and
Japhet, and that Syria was in the portion assigned to Shcm,
which continued down through his descendants Kathan and
Tesm, and Jodais to Amalek, the father of the Amalekito
Arabs; but that the Arabs had been pushed from their fertile
inheritance of Syria into the stony and thorny deserts of
Arabia.
"We come now," continued Amru, uto claim our ancient
inheritance, and resume the ancient partition. Take you tho
stones and the thorns and the barren deserts we have occupied,
and gives us back the pleasant land of Syria, with its groves,
its pastures, its fair cities and running streams."
To this Constantino replied, that the partition was already
made ; that time and possession had confirmed it ; and that
the groves had been planted, and the cities built by the present
inhabitants. Each, therefore, ought to be contented with tho'
lot that had fallen to him.
328 MAHOMET AND EI8 SUCCESSORS.
"There are two conditions," rejoined Amru, "on which thd
land may remain with its present inhabitants. Let them pro
fess the religion of Islam, or pay tribute to the Caliph, as is due
from all unbelievers."
"Not so," said Constantine, "but let each continue tc possess
the land he has inhabited, and enjoy the produce of his own
toil, and profess the faith which he believes, in his own con
science, to be true."
Upon this Amru sternly rose. "One only alternative," said
he, "remains. Since you obstinately refuse the conditions I
propose, even as your ancestor Esau refused obedience to his
mother, let God and the sword decide between us."
As he was about to depart, he added: "We will acknowledge
no kindred with you, while ye continue unbelievers. Ye are the
children of Esau, we of Ishmael, through whom alone the seal
and gift of prophecy descended from father to son, from our
great forefather Adam, until it reached the prophet Mahomet.
Now Ishmael was the best of the sons of his father, and made
the tribe of Kenanah, the best tribe of Arabia; and the family
of Koreish is the best of the tribe of Kenanah ; and the children
of Haschem are the best of the family of Koreish ; and Abdallah
Motalleb, grandsire of Mahomet, was the best of the sons of
flaschem ; and Abdallah, the youngest and best of the thirteen
sons of Abu Motalleb, was the father of Mahomet (on whom be
peace!), who was the best and only issue of his sire; and to
him the angel Gabriel descended from Allah, and inspired him
with the gift of prophecy."
Thus terminated this noted conference, and Amru returned
to his host. The armies now remained in sight of each other,
prepared for battle, but without coming to action. One day
an officer richly arrayed came forth from the Christian camp,
defying the Moslems to single combat. Several were eager to
accept the challenge in hopes of gaining such glittering spoil;
but Amru rebuked their sordid motives. "Let no man fight
for gain," said he, "but for the truth. He who loses his life
fighting for the love of God will have paradise as a reward ; but
he who loses it fighting for any other object will lose his life
and all that ho fights for."
A stripling now advanced, an Arab from Yemen, or Arabia
the Happy, who had sought these wars not, as he said, for the
delights of Syria, or the fading enjoyments of this world, but
to devote himself to the service of God and his apostle. His
mother and sister had in vain opposed nis leaving his peaceful
MA HO VET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 329
home to seek a life of danger. "If I fall in the service of
Allah," said he, "I shall be a martyr; and the prophet has
said that the spirits of the martyrs shall dwell in the crops of
the green birds that eat of the fruits and drink of the rivers of
paradise." Finding their remonstrances of no avail, his mother
and sister had f ollowed him to the wars, and they now endeav
ored to dissuade him from fighting with an adversary so much
his superior in strength and years ; but the youthful enthusiast
was not to be moved. "Farewell, mother and sister!" cried
he; uwe shall meet again by that river of joy provided int
paradise for the apostle and his followers."
The youth rushed to the combat, but obtained almost in
stantly the crown of martyrdom he sought. Another and
another succeeded him, but shared the same fate. Serjabil Ibn
Hasanah stepped forth. As on a former occasion, in purifying
the spirit, ho had reduced the flesh ; and a course of watching
and fasting had rendered him but little competent to face his
powerful adversary. After a short combat the Christian bore
him to the earth, and sotting his foot upon his breast, was
about to take his life, when his own hand was suddenly severed
from his.body. The prostrate Serjabil looked up with surprise
at his deliverer; for he was in Grecian attire, and had come
from the Grecian host. He announced himself as the unhappy
Tulei'a Ibn Chowailed, formerly a pretended prophet and an
associate of Moseflma. After the death of that impostor, he
had repented of his false prophecies, and become a Moslem in
heart, and had sought an opportunity of signalizing his devo
tion to the Islam cause.
"Oh brother!" cried Serjabil, "the mercy of Allah is infinite,
and repentance wipes away all crimes."
Serjabil would now have taken him to the Moslem host, but
Tulei'a hung back ; and at length confessed that he would long
since have joined the standard of Islam, but that he was afraid
of Khaled, that terror and scourge of false prophets, who had
killed his friend Moseilma, and who might put him to death
out of resentment for past misdeeds. Serjabil quieted his fears
by assuring him that Khaled was not in the Moslem camp ; he
then conducted him to Amru, who received him with great
favor, and afterward gave him a letter to the Caliph setting
forth the signal service he had performed, and his sincere de
votion to the cause of Islam. He was subsequently employed
In tho wars of the Moslems against the Persians.
The weather was cold and tempostuous, and the Christians,
530 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
disheartened by repeated rev jrses, began daily to desert their
colors. The prince Constantino dreaded, with his diminished
and discouraged troops, to encounter an enemy flushed with
success, and continually augmenting in force. Accordingly,
he took advantage of a tempestuous night, and abandoning his
camp to be plundered by the Moslems, retreated with his army
to Csesarea, and shut himself up within its walls. Hither he
was soon followed by Amru, who laid close siege to the place,
but the walls were strong, the garrison was numerous, and
Constantine hoped to be able to hold out until the arrival of
reinforcements. The tidings of further disasters, and disgraces
to the imperial cause, however, destroyed this hope ; and these
were brought about by the stratagems and treacheries of that
arch deceiver Youkenna. After the surrender of Antioch, that
wily traitor still kept up his pretended devotion to the Chris
tian cause, and retreated with his band of renegadoes to the
town of Tripoli, a seaport in Syria, situated on the Mediterra
nean. Here he was cordially admitted, as his treachery was
still unknown. Watching his opportunity, he rose with his
devoted band, seized on the town and citadel without noise or
tumult, and kept the standard of the cross still flying, while he
sent secret intelligence of his exploit to Abu Obeidah. Just at
this time, a fleet of fifty ships from Cyprus and Crete put in
there, laden with arms and provisions for Constantino's army.
Before notice could be given of the posture of affairs, You
kenna gained possession of the ships, and embarked on board
of them with Ms renegadoes and other troops, delivering the
city of Tripoli into the hands of the force sent by Abu Obeidah
to receive it.
Bent on new treacheries, Youkenna now sailed with the fleet
to Tyre, displaying the Christian flag, and informing the gov
ernor that he was come with a reinforcement for the army of
the emperor. He was kindly received, and landed with nine
hundred of his troops, intending to rise on the garrison in the
night. One of his own men, however, betrayed the plot, and
Youkenna and his followers were seized and imprisoned in tho
citadel.
In the mean time Yezed Ibn Abu Sofian, who had marched
with two thousand men against Csesarea, but had left Amru
to subdue it, came with his troops into the neighborhood of
Tyre, in hopes to find it in possession of Youkenna. Tho
governor of the city, despising so slender a force, sallied forth
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 331
with the greater part of his garrison, and the inhabitant*
mounted on the walls to see the battle.
It was the fortune of Youkenna, which he derived from his
consummate skill in intrigue, that his failure and captivity on
this occasion, as on a former one in the castle of Aazaz, served
only as a foundation for his success. He contrived to gain
over a Christian officer named Basil, to whose keeping he and
the other prisoners were intrusted, and who wa/5 already dis
posed to embrace the Islam faith ; and he sent information of
his plan by a disguised messenger to Yezed, and to those of his
own followers who remained on board of the fleet. All this
was the work of a few hours, while the opposing forces were
preparing for action.
The battle was hardly begun when Youkenna and his nine
hundred men, set free by the apostate Basil, and conducted to
the arsenal, armed themselves and separated in different par
ties. Some scoured the streets, shouting La ilaha Allah ! and
Alia Achbar ! Others stationed themselves at the passages by
which alone the guard could descend from the walls. Others
ran to the port, where they were joined by their comrades
from the fleet, and others threw wide the gates to a detach
ment of the army of Yezed. All this was suddenly effected,
and with such co-operation from various points, that the
place was presently in the hands of the Moslems. Most of the
inhabitants embraced the Islam faith ; the rest were pillaged
and made slaves.
It was the tidings of the loss of Tripoli and Tyre, and of the
capture of the fleet with its munitions of war, that struck
dismay into the heart of the prince Constantino, and made
him quake within the walls of Caesarea. He felt as if Amru
and his besieging army were already within the walls, and,
taking disgraceful counsel from his fears, and example from
his father's flight from Antioch, he removed furtively from
Csesarea with his family and vast treasure, gained promptly a
convenient port, and set all sail for Constantinople.
The people of Caesarea finding one morning that the son of
their sovereign had fled in the night, capitulated with Amru,
offering to deli ver up the city, with all the wealth belonging to
the family of the late emperor, and two hundred thousand
pieces of silver, as ransom for their own property. Their
terms were promptly accepted, Amm being anxious to depart
on the invasion of Egypt.
332 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
The surrender of Csesarea was followed by the other placets
in the province which had still held out, and thus, after a war
of six years, the Moslem conquest of Syria was completed, in
the fifth year of the Caliph Omar, the 29th of the reign of
the emperor Heraclius, the 17th of the Hegira, and the (j39th
year of our redemption.
The conquest was followed by a pestilence, one of the cus
tomary attendants upon war. Great numbers of the people of
Syria perished, and with them twenty- five thousand of their
Arabian conquerors. Among the latter was Abu Obeidah, the
cominander-in-chief , then fifty-eight years of age ; also Yezed
Ibn Abu Soficm, Serjabil, and other distinguished generals, so
that the 18th year of the Hegira became designated as "The
year of the mortality."
In closing this account of the conquest of Syria, we must
note the fate of one of the most efficient of its conquerors, the
invincible Khaled. He had never been a favorite of Omar,
who considered him rash and headlong, arrogant in the ex
ercise of command, unsparing in the use of the sword, and
rapacious in grasping the spoils of victory. His brilliant
achievements in Irak and Syria, and the magnanimity with
which he yielded the command to Abu Obeidah, and zeal
ously fought under his standard, had never sufficed to efface
the prejudice of Omar.
After the capture of Emessa, which was mainly effected by
the bravery of Khaled, he received congratulations on all
hands as the victor. Eschaus, an Arabian poet, sang his ex
ploits in lofty verse, making him the hero 01 the whole Syrian
conquest. Khaled, who was as ready to squander as to grasp,
rewarded the adulation of the poet with thirty thousand pieces
of silver. All this, when reported to Omar, excited his quick
disgust ; he was indignant at Khaled for arrogating to himself,
as he supposed, all the glory of the war ; and he attributed the
lavish reward of the poet to gratified vanity. "Even if the
money came from his own purse," said he, "it was shameful
squandering; and God, says the Koran, loves not a squan
derer."
He now gave faith to a charge made against Khaled of em
bezzling the spoils set apart for the public treasury, and forth
with sent orders for him to be degraded from his command in
presence of the assembled army ; it is even said his arms were
tied behind his back with his turban.
A rigid examination proved the charge of embezzlement to
MAUOIJKT A\D HIS SUCCESS Jliti. 333
be unfounded, but Khaled was subjected to a lieavy fine. Tho
sentence causing great dissatisfaction in the army, the Caliph
wrote to the commanders: "I have punished Khaled not on
account of fraud or falsehood, but for his vanity and prodigal
ity ; paying poets for ascribing to him alone all the successes
of the holy war. Good and evil conio from God, not from
Khaled!"
These indignities broke the heart of the veteran, who was
already infirm from the wounds and hardships of his arduous
campaigns, and he gradually sank into the grave, regretting
in his last moments that he had not died in the field of battle.
He left a name idolized by the soldiery and beloved by his
kindred; at his sepulture, all the women of his race cut off
their hair in token of lamentation. When it was ascertained,
at his death, that instead of having enriched himself by the
wars, his whole property consisted of his war-horse, his arms,
and a single slave, Omar became sensible of the injustice he had
done to his faithful general, and shed tears over his grave.
CHAPTER XXIV.
INVASION OF EGYPT BY AMRU— CAPTURE OF MEMPHIS— SIEGE AND
SURRENDER OF ALEXANDRIA— BURNING OF THE ALEXANDRIAN
LIBRARY.
A PROOF of the religious infatuation, or the blind confidence
in destiny, which hurried the Moslem commanders of those
days into the most extravagant enterprises, is furnished in
the invasion of the once proud empire of the Pharaohs, the
mighty, the mysterious Egypt, with an army of merely five
thousand men. The Caliph, himself, though he had suggested
this expedition, seems to have been conscious of its rashness;
or rather to have been chilled by the doubts of his prime coun
sellor Othman; for, while Amru was on the march, he dis-
pnU-hed missives after him to the following effect: "If this
epistle reach thee before thou hast crossed the boundary of
Egypt, come instantly back; but if it find thee within the
Egyptian territory, march on with the blessing of Allah, and
be assured I will send thee all necessary aid."
The bearer of the letter overtook Amru while yet within the
334 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
bounds of Syria ; that wary general either had secret informa
tion, or made a shrewd surmise as to the purport of his errand,
and continued his march across the border without admitting
him to an audience. Having encamped at the Egyptian village
of Arish, he received the courier with all due respect, and read
the letter aloud in the presence of his officers. When he had
finished, he demanded of those about him whether they were
in Syria or Egypt. ' ' In Egypt, " was the reply. ' ' Then, " said
Amru, " we will proceed, with the blessing of Allah, and fulfil
the commands of the Caiiph."
The first place to which he laid siege was Farwak, or Pe-
lusium, situated on the shores of the Mediterranean, on the
Isthmus which separates that sea from the Arabian Gulf, and
connects Egypt with Syria and Arabia. It was therefore con
sidered the key to Egypt. A month's siege put Amru in pos
session of the place ; he then examined the surrounding country
with more forethought than was generally manifested by the
Moslem conquerors, and projected a canal across the Isthmus,
to connect tho waters of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
His plan, however, was condemned by the Caliph, as calculated
to throw open Arabia to a maritime invasion of the Christians.
Amru now proceeded to Misrah, the Memphis of the ancients,
and residence of the early Egyptian kings. This city was at
that time the strongest fortress in Egypt, except Alexandria,
and still retained much of its ancient magnificence. It stood
on the western bank of the Nile, above the Delta, and a little
cast of the Pyramids. The citadel was of great strength, and
well garrisoned, and had recently been surrounded with a deep
ditch, into which nails and spikes had been thrown, to impede
assailants.
The Arab armies, rarely provided with the engines necessary
for the attack of fortified places, generally beleaguered them ;
cut off all supplies ; attacked all foraging parties that sallied
forth, and thus destroyed the garrison in detail, or starved it
to a surrender. This was the reason of the long duration of
their sieges. This of Misrah, or Memphis, lasted seven months ;
in the course of which the little army of Amru was much re
duced by frequent skirmishings. At the end of this time he
received a reinforcement of four thousand men, sent to him at
his urgent entreaties by the Caliph. Still his force would have
been insufficient for the capture of the place, had he not been
aided by the treachery of its governor, Mokawkas.
This man, an original Egyptian, or Copt, by birth, and of
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 335
noble rank, was a profound hypocrite. Like most of the Copts,
he was of the Jacobite sect, who denied the double nature of
Christ, lie had dissembled his sectarian creed, however, and
deceived the empwor Hcraclius by a show of loyalty, so as to
be made prefect of his native province, and governor of the
city. Most of the inhabitants of Memphis were Copts and Ja
cobite Christians, and held their Greek fellow-citizens, who
were of the regular Catholic church of Constantinople, in great
antipathy.
Mokawkas in the course of his administration had collected,
by taxes and tribute, an immense amount of treasure, which
he had deposited in the citadel. He saw that the power of the
emperor was coming to an end in this quarter, and thought
the present a good opportunity to provide for his own fortune.
Carrying on a secret correspondence with the Moslem general,
he agreed to betray the place into his hands, on condition of
receiving the treasure as a reward for his treason. He accord
ingly, at an appointed time, removed the greater part of the
garrison from the citadel to an island in the Nile. The fortress
was immediately assailed by Amru, at the head of his fresh
troops, and was easily carried by assault, the Copts rendering
no assistance. The Greek soldiery, on the Moslem standard
being hoisted on the citadel, saw through the treachery, and,
giving up all as lost, escaped in their ships to the main land ;
upon which the prefect surrendered the place by capitulation.
An annual tribute of two ducats a head was levied on all the in
habitants of the district, with the exception of old men, women,
and boys under the age of sixteen years. It was further con
ditioned that the Moslem army should be furnished with provis
ions, for which they would pay, and that the inhabitants of the
country should, forthwith, build bridges over all the streams
on the way to Alexandria. It was also agreed that every
Mussulman travelling through the country should be entitled
to three days' hospitality, free of charge.
The traitor Mokawkas was put in possession of hi3 ill-gotten
wealth. He begged of Amru to be taxed with the Copts, and
always to be enrolled among them; declaring his abhorrence of
the Greeks and their doctrines; urging Amru to persecute
them with unremitting violence. He extended his sectarian
bigotry even into the grave, stipulating that, at his death, he
Ghould be buried in the Christian Jacobite church of St. John,
at Alexandria.
Amru, who was politic as well as brave, seeing tho irrecon-
836 MAHOMET AND BIS SUCCESSORS.
eilable hatred of the Coptic or Jacobite Christians to the
Greeks, showed some favor to that sect, in order to make use
of them in his conquest of the country. He even prevailed
upon their patriarch Benjamin to emerge from nis desert and
hold a conference with him; and subsequently declared that
" he had never conversed with a Christian priest of more inno
cent manners or venerable aspect." This piece of diplomacy
had its effect, for we are told that all the Copts above and be-
Sow Memphis swore allegiance to the Caliph.
Amru now pressed on for the city of Alexandria, distant
c>bout one hundred and twenty-five miles. According to stipu
lation, the people of the country repaired the roads and erected
bridges to facilitate his march; the Greeks, however, driven
i'rom various quarters by the progress of their invaders, had
collected at different posts on the island of the Delta, and the
channels of the Nile, and disputed with desperate but fruitless
obstinacy, the onward course of the conquerors. The severest
check was given at Keram al Shoraik, by the late garrison of
Memphis, who had fortified themselves there after retreating
from the island of the Nile. For three days did they maintain
a gallant conflict with the Moslems, and then retired in good
order to Alexandria. With all the facilities furnished to them
on their march, it cost the Moslems two-and-twenty days to
fight their way to that great city.
Alexander now lay before them, the metropolis of wealthy
Egypt, the emporium of the East, a place strongly fortified,
stored with all the munitions of war, open by sea to all kinds
of supplies and reinforcements, and garrisoned by Greeks, ag
gregated from various quarters, who here were to make the
last stand for their Egyptian empire. It would seem that noth
ing short of an enthusiasm bordering on madness could have
led Amru and his host on an enterprise against this powerfu
city.
The Moslem leader, on planting his standard before the place,
summoned it to surrender on the usual terms, which being
promptly refused, he prepared for a vigorous siege. The garri
son did not wait to be attacked, but made repeated sallies, and
fought with desperate valor. Those who gave greatest annoy
ance to the Moslems were their old enemies, the Greek troops
from Memphis. Amru, seeing that the greatest defence was
from a main tower, or citadel, made a gallant assault upon it,
and carried it sword in hand. The Greek troops, however,
rallied to that point from all parts of the city ; the Moslems,
MA110MKT AND III* SUCCESSORS. 337
after a furious struggle, gave way, and Amru, his faithful
slave Werdan, and one of his generals, named Moslema Ibn al
Mokalled, fighting to the last, were surrounded, overpowered,
and taken prisoners.
The Greeks, unaware of the importance of thoir captives,
led them before the governor. He demanded of them, haugh
tily, what was their object in thus overrunning the world, and
disturbing the quiet of peaceable neighbors. Amru made the
usual reply, that they came to spread the faith of Islam ; and
that it was their intention, before they laid by the sword, to
make the Egyptians either converts or tributaries. The bold
ness of his answer and the loftiness of his demeanor awakened
the suspicions of the governor, who, supposing him to be a war
rior of note among the Arabs, ordered one of his guards to
strike off his head. Upon this Werdan, the slave, understand
ing the Greek language, seized his master by the collar, and,
giving him a buffet on the cheek, called him an impudent dog,
and ordered him to hold his peace, and let his superiors speak.
Moslema, perceiving the meaning of the slave, now interposed,
and made a plausible speech to the governor, telling him that
Araru had thoughts of raising the siege, having received a
letter to that effect from the Caliph, who intended to send am
bassadors to treat for peace, and assuring the governor that, if
permitted to depart, they would make a favorable report to
Amru.
The governor, who, if Arabian chronicles may be believed
on this point, must have been a man of easy faith, ordered the
prisoners to be set at liberty ; but the shouts of the besieging
army on the safe return of their general soon showed him how
completely he had been duped.
But scanty details of the siege of Alexandria have reached
the Christian reader, yet it was one of the longest, most ob
stinately contested and sanguinary, in the whole course of tho
Moslem wars. It endured fourteen months with various suc
cess; the Moslem army was repeatedly reinforced, and lost
twenty-three thousand men ; at length their irresistible ardor
and perseverance prevailed; the capital of Egypt was con
quered, and the Greek inhabitants were dispersed in all direc
tions. Some retreated in considerable bodies into the interior
of the country, and fortified themselves in strongholds ; others
took refuge in the ships, and put to sea.
Amru, on taking possession of the city, found it nearly
abandoned; he prohibited his troops from plundering; and
3S8 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
leaving a small garrison to guard the place, hastened with his
main army in pursuit of the fugitive Greeks. In the mean time
the ships which had taken off a part of the garrison were still
lingering on the coast, and tidings reached them that the Mos
lem general had departed, and had left the captured city nearly
defenceless. They immediately made sail back for Alexandria,
and entered the port in the night. The Greek soldiers surprised
the sentinels, got possession of the city, and put most of the
Moslems they found there to the sword.
Amru was in full pursuit of the Greek fugitives when he
heard of the recapture of the city. Mortified at his own neg
ligence in leaving so rich a conquest with so slight a guard, he
returned in all haste, resolved to retake it by storm. The
Greeks, however, had fortified themselves strongly in the
castle, and made stout resistance. Amru was obliged, there
fore, to besiege it a second time, but the siege was short. The
castle was carried by assault ; many of the Greeks were cut to
pieces, the rest escaped once more to their ships, and now gave
up the capital as lost. All this occurred in the nineteenth year
of the Hegira, and the year 640 of the Christian era.
On this second capture of the city by force of arms, and
without capitulation, the troops were clamorous to be permit
ted to plunder. Amru again checked their rapacity, and com
manded that all persons and property in the place should re
main inviolate, until the will of the Caliph could be known.
So perfect was his command over his troops, that not the most
trivial article was taken. His letter to the Caliph shows what
must have been the population and splendor of Alexandria,
and the luxury and effeminacy of its inhabitants, at the time
of the Moslem conquest. It states the city to have contained
four thousand palaces, five thousand baths, four hundred thea
tres and places of amusement, twelve thousand gardeners
which supply it with vegetables, and forty thousand tributary
Jews. It was impossible, he said, to do justice to its riches
and magnificence. He had hitherto held it sacred from plun
der, but his troops, having won it by force of arms, considered
themselves entitled to the spoils of victory.
The Caliph Omar, in reply, expressed a high sense of his im
portant services, but reproved him for oven mentioning the
desire of the soldiery to plunder so rich a city, one of the great
est emporiums of the East. He charged him, therefore, most
rigidly to watch over the rapacious propensities of his men ; to
prevent all pillage, violence, and waste; to collect and make
MAHOMET AND IUS SUCCESSORS. 339
out an account of all moneys, jewels, household furniture, and
everything else that was valuable, to be appropriated toward
defraying the expenses of this war of the faith. He ordered
the tribute also, collected in the conquered country, to be
treasured up at Alexandria, for the supplies of the Moslem
troops.
The surrender of all Egypt followed the capture of its capital.
A tribute of two ducats was laid on every male of mature age,
besides a tax on all lands in proportion to their value, and the
revenue which resulted to the Caliph is estimated at twelve
millions of ducats.
We have shown that Amru was a poet in his youth ; and
throughout all his campaigns he manifested an intelligent and
inquiring spirit, if not more highly informed, at least more
liberal and extended in its views than was usual among the
early Moslem conquerors. He delighted, in his hours of
leisure, to converse with learned men, and acquire through
their means such knowledge as had been denied to him by
the deficiency of his education. Such a companion he found
at Alexandria in a native of the place, a Christian of the sect
of the Jacobites, eminent for his philological researches, his
commentaries on Moses and Aristotle, and his laborious treat
ises of various kinds, surnamed Philoponus from his love of
study, but commonly known by the name of John the Gram
marian. An intimacy soon arose between the Arab conqueror
and the Christian philologist ; an intimacy honorable to Amru,
but destined to be lamentable in its result to the cause of let
ters. In an evil ho'ur, John the Grammarian, being encour
aged by the favor shown him by the Arab general, revealed to
him a treasure hitherto unnoticed, or rather unvalued, by the
Moslem conquerors. This was a vast collection of books or
manuscripts, since renowned in history as the ALEXANDRIAN
LIBRARY. Perceiving that in taking an account of everything
raluable in the city, and sealing up all its treasures, Amru
had taken no notice of the books, John solicited that they
might be given to him. Unfortunately, the learned zeal of
the Grammarian gave a consequence to the books in the eyes
of Amru, and made him scrupulous of giving them away with
out permission of the Caliph. He forthwith wrote to Omar,
stating the merits of John, and requesting to know whether
the books might be given to him. The reply of Omar was
laconic, but fatal. "The contents of those book.V said he,
''are in conformity with the Koran, or they are not. If they
340 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
are, the Koran is sufficient without them; if they are not, they
are pernicious. Let them, therefore, be destroyed."
Amru, it is said, obeyed the order punctually. The books
and manuscripts were distributed as fuel among the five thou
sand baths of the city ; but so numerous were they that it took
six months to consume them. This act of barbarism, recorded
by Abulpharagius, is considered somewhat doubtful by Gib
bon, in consequence of its not being mentioned by two of the
most. ancient chroniclers, Elmacin in his Saracenic history, and
Eutychius in his annals, the latter of whom was patriarch of
Alexandria, and has detailed the conquest of that city. It is
inconsistent, too, with the character of Amru, as a poet and a
man of superior intelligence; and it has recently been re
ported, we know not on what authority, that many of the
literary treasures thus said to have been destroyed, do actu
ally exist in Constantinople. Their destruction, however, is
generally credited and deeply deplored by historians. Amru,
as a man of genius and intelligence, may have grieved at the
order of the Caliph; while, as a loyal subject and faithful sol-
dier, he felt bound to obey it.*
The fall of Alexandria decided the fate of Egypt and like
wise that of the emperor Heraclius. He was already afflicted
with a dropsy, and took the loss of his Syrian, and now that of
his Egyptian dominions, so much to heart, that he underwent
a paroxysm, which ended in his death, about seven weeks after
the loss of his Egyptian capital. He was succeeded by his son
Constantine.
While Amru was successfully extending his conquests, a
great dearth and famine fell upon all Arabia, insomuch that
the Caliph Omar had to call upon him for supplies from the
fertile plains of Egypt; whereupon Amru dispatched such a
train of camels laden with grain, that it is said, when the first
of the line had reached the city of Medina, the last had not yet
left the land of Egypt. But this mode of conveyance proving
too tardy, at the command of the Caliph he dug a canal of
* The Alexandrian Library was formed by Ptolemy Soter, and placed in a build
ing called the Bruchion. It was augmented in successive reigns to 400.000 volumes,
and an additional 300,000 volumes were placed in a temple called the Serapeon.
The Bruchion, with the books it contained, was burnt in the war of Caesar, but the
Serapeon was preserved. Cleopatra, it is said, added to it the library of Pergamas.
given to her by Marc Antony, consisting of 200,000 volumes. It sustained repeated
injuries during various subsequent revolutions, but was always restored to its
ancient splendor, and numerous additions made to it. Such was its state at the
capture of Alexandria by the Moslems.
M.[jiv.M/-:r A:U> ins sucoEsson- 341
*
communication from the Nile to the Red Sea, a distance of
eighty miles, by which provisions might be conveyed to the
Arabian shores. This canal had been commenced by Trajan,
the Roman emperor.
The able and indefatigable Amru went on in this manner,
executing the commands and fulfilling the wishes of the
Caliph, and governed the country he had conquered with
such sagacity and justice that he rendered himself one of the
most worthily renowned among the Moslem generals.
CHAPTER XXV.
ENTERPRISES OF THE MOSLEMS IN PERSIA— DEFENCE OF THE
KINGDOM BY QUEEN ARZEMIA— BATTLE OF THE BRIDGE.
FOR the sake of perspicuity, we have recorded the Moslem
conquests in Syria and Egypt in a continued narrative, with
out pausing to notice events which were occurring at the same
time in other quarters ; we now recede several years to take up
the course of affairs in Persia, from the time that Khaled, in
the thirteenth year of the Hegira, in obedience to the orders of
Abu Beker, left his victorious army on the banks of the Eu-
phratos, to take the general command in Syria. The victories
of Khaled had doubtless been owing in part to the distracted
state of the Persian empire. In the course of an inconsidera
ble number of years, the proud sceptre of the Khosrus had
passed from hand to hand; Khosru II., surnamed Parviz, hav
ing been repeatedly defeated by Heraclius, was deposed in
628, by a party of his nobles, headed by his own son Siroes (or
Shiruyah), and was put to death by the latter in a vault under
the palace, among the treasures he had amassed. To secure
possession of the throne, Siroes followed up the parricide by
the massacre of seventeen of his brothers. It was not ambition
alone that instigated these crimes. He was enamored of a
sultana in the harem of his father, the matchless Shireen.
While yet reeking with his father's blood he declared his pas
sion to her. She recoiled from him with horror, and when he
would have used force, gave herself instant death to escape
from his embraces. The disappointment of his passion, the
upbraidings of his sisters for the murders of their father and
842 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
•
their brothers, and the stings of his own conscience, threw
Siroes into a moody melancholy, and either caused, or added
acuteness to a malady, of which he died in the course of eight
months.
His infant son Ardisheer was placed on the throne about the
end of G28, but was presently slain, and the throne usurped by
Sheriyar, a Persian noble, who was himself killed after a very
short reign. Turan-Docht, a daughter of Khosru Parviz, was
now crowned and reigned eighteen months, when she was set
aside by her cousin Shah Shenandeh, who was himself deposed
by the nobles, and Arzemi-Docht * or Arzemia, as the name is
commonly given, another daughter of Khosru Parviz, was
placed on the throne in the year 632 of the Christian era. The
Persian seat of government, which had been often changed,
was at this time held in the magnificent city of Madain, or
Madayn, on the Tigris, where was the ancient Ctesiphon.
Arzemia was distinguished alike for masculine talents and
feminine beauty ; she had been carefully instructed under her
father Khosru, and had acquired sad experience, during the
series of conspiracies and assassinations which had beset the
throne for the last four years. Rejecting from her council
the very traitors who had placed the crown upon her head, she
undertook to wield the sceptre without the aid of a vizir, there
by giving mortal offence to the most powerful nobles of her
realm. She was soon called upon to exert her masculine spirit
by the continued aggressions of the Moslems.
The reader will recollect that the Moslem army on the Eu
phrates, at the departure of Khaled, was left under the com
mand of Mosenna Ibn Haris (or Muthenna Ibn Harith, as the
name is sometimes rendered). On the accession of Omar to
the Caliphat, he appointed Mosenna emir or governor of
Sewad, the country recently conquered by Khaled, lying
about the lower part of the Euphrates and the Tigris, forming
a portion of the Persian province of Irak-Arabi. This was in
compliance with the wishes and intentions of Abu Beker;
though Omar does not appear to have had great confidence in
the military talents of Mosenna, the career of conquest having
languished in his hands since the departure of Khaled. He
accordingly sent Abu Obeidah Sakfi, one of the most impor
tant disciples of the prophet, at the head of a thousand chosen
* Dockt or Dokht, diminutive of dukhter, signifies the unmarried or
state.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 343
men, to reinforce tho army under Mosenna, and to take the
lead in military enterprises.* He was accompanied by Sabit
Ibn Kais, one of the veterans of the battle of Beder.
The Persian queen, hearing of the advance of tho Moslem
army thus reinforced, sent an able general, Rustam Ibn
Fcrukh-Zad (or Feruchsad), with thirty thousand more, to
repel them. Rustam halted on tho confines of Irak, and sent
forward strong detachments under a general named Dschaban,
and a Persian prince named Narsi (or Narsis). These were so
roughly handled by the Moslems that Rustam found it neces
sary to hasten with his main force to their assistance. He ar
rived too late; they had been severally defeated and put to
flight, and the whole country of Sewad was in the hands of the
Moslems.
Queen Arzemia, still more aroused to the danger of her king
dom, sent Rustam a reinforcement led by Behman Dschadu,
surnamed the Veiled, from tho shaggy eyebrows which over
shadowed his visage. *He brought with him three thousand
men and thirty elephants. These animals, of little real utility
in warfare, were formidable in the eyes of those unaccustomed
to them, and were intended to strike terror into the Arabian
troops. One of them was the white elephant Mahmoud,
famous for having been ridden by Abraha, the Ethiopian king,
in foregone times, when he invaded Mecca, and assailed the
Caaba. It was considered a harbinger of victory, all the en
terprises in which it had been employed having proved suc
cessful.
With Behman, the heavy-browed, came also the standard of
Kaoh, the sacred standard. It was originally the leathern
apron of tho blacksmith Kaoh, which he reared as a banner
when he roused tho people, and delivered Persia from the
tyranny of Sohak. It had been enlarged from time to time
with costly silk, embroidered with gold, until it was twenty-
two feet long and fifteen broad ; and was decorated with gems
of inestimable value. With this standard the fate of tho
kingdom was believed, by superstitious Persians, to be con
nected.
The Moslem forces, even with the reinforcement brought by
Abu Obeidah Sakfi, did not exceed nine thousand in number ;
* This Abu Obeidah has sometimes been confounded with the general of the
same name, who commanded in Syria; the latter, however, was ^bu Obeidah fbn
(the son of Aljerah).
344 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the Persians, encamped near the ruins of Babylon, were vastly
superior. It was the counsel of Mosenna and the veteran
Sabit, that they should fall back into the deserts, and remain
encamped there until reinforcements could be obtained from
the Caliph. Abu Obeidah, however, was for a totally different
course. He undervalued the prowess of the Persians ; he had
heard Mosenna censured for want of enterprise, and Khaled
extolled to the skies for his daring achievements in this quar
ter. He was determined to emulate them, to cross the Euphra
tes and attack the Persians in their encampment. In vain
Mosenna and Sabit remonstrated. He caused a bridge of boats
to be thrown across the Euphrates, and led the way to the op
posite bank. His troops did not follow with their usual alac
rity, for they felt the rashness of the enterprise. While they
were yet crossing the bridge, they were severely galled by a
body of archers, detached in the advance by Rustam ; and were
met at the head of the bridge by that warrior with his van
guard of cavalry.
The conflict was severe. The banner of Islam passed from
hand to hand of seven brave champions, as one after another
fell in its defence. The Persians were beaten back, but now
arrived the main body of the army with the thirty elephants.
Abu Obeidah breasted fearlessly the storm of war which he
had so rashly provoked. He called to his men not to fear the
elephants, but to strike at their trunks. He himself severed,
with a blow of his scimetar, the trunk of the famous white ele
phant, but in so doing his foot slipped, he fell to the earth, and
was trampled to death by the enraged animal.
The Moslems, disheartened by his loss, and overwhelmed by
numbers, endeavored to regain the bridge. The enemy had
thrown combustibles into the boats on which it was construct
ed, and had set them on fire. Some of the troops were driven
into the water and perished there ; the main body retreated
along the river, protected in the rear by Mosenna, who now
displayed the skill of an able general, and kept the enemy at
bay until a slight bridge could be hastily thrown across another
part of the river. He was the last to cross the bridge, and
caused it to be broken behind him.
Four thousand Moslems were either slain or drowned in this
rash affair; two thousand fled to Medina, and about three
thousand remained with Mosenna, who encamped and in
trenched them, and sent a fleet courier to the Caliph, entreat
ing instant aid. Nothing saved this remnant of the army
MAHOMET AND HI8 SUCCESSORS. 345
from utter destruction but a dissension which took place be
tween the Persian commanders, who, instead of following up
their victory, returned to Madayn, the Persian capital.
This was the severest and almost the only severe check that
Moslem audacity had for a long time experienced. It took
place in the 13th year of the Hegira, and the year 634 of the
Christian era, and was long and ruefully remembered by the
Arabs as the battle of " El Jisir," or The Battle of the Bridge.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MOSENNA EBN HARIS RAVAGES THE COUNTRY ALONG THE EU
PHRATES—DEATH OP ARZEMIA— YEZDEGIRD HI. RAISED TO THE
THRONE— SAAD IBN ABU WAKKAS GIVEN THE GENERAL COftT-
MAND— DEATH OF MOSENNA— EMBASSY TO YEZDEGIRD— ITS RE
CEPTION.
HAVING received moderate reinforcements, Mosenna again
took the field in Arab style, hovering about the confines of
Babylonia, and sending detachments in different directions to
plunder and lay waste the country bordering on the Euphra
tes. It was an instance of the vicissitude of human affairs,
and the instability of earthly grandeur, that this proud region,
which once held the world in awe, should be thus marauded
and insulted by a handful of predatory Arabs.
To check their ravages, Queen Arzemia sent out a general
named Mahran, with twelve thousand chosen cavalry. Mo-
senna, hearing of their approach, called in his plundering
parties and prepared for battle. The two hosts met near
Hirah, on the borders of the desert. Mosenna, who in the
battle of the bridge had been the last man to retire, was now
the foremost man to charge. In the fuiy of the fight he made
his way, almost alone, into the heart of the Persian army, and
with difficulty fought his way out again and back to his own
men. The Persians, as wo have noted, were chosen troops,
and fought with unusual spirit. The Moslems, in some parts
of the field, began to give way. Mosenna galloped up and
threw himself before them; he expostulated, he threatened, he
tore his beard in the agony of his feelings ; he succeeded in
leading them back to the fight, which endured from noon until
346 MAHOMET AND fits succmsom.
sunset, and still continued doubtful. At the close of the day
Mosenna encountered Mahran hand to hand, in the midst of
his guards, and received a powerful blow, which might have
proved fatal but for his armor. In return he smote the Persian
commander with his scimetar just where the neck joins to the
shoulder, and laid him dead. The Persians, seeing their
leader fall, took to flight, nor stopped until they reached Ma
dayn.
The Moslems next made a plundering expedition to Bagdad,
at that time a mere village, but noted for a great fair, the
resort of merchants from various parts of the East. An Arab
detachment pounced upon it at the time of the fair, and car
ried off many captives and immense booty.
The tidings of the defeat of Mahran and the plundering of the
fair spread consternation in the Persian capital. The nobles
and priests, who had hitherto stood in awe of the spirit of the
queen, now raised -a tumult. " These are the fruits," said they,
" of having a woman to reign over us."
The fate of the beautiful Arzemia was hastened by private
revenge. Faruch-Zad, one of the most powerful of her nobles,
and governor of Khorassan, incited by love and ambition, had
aspired to her hand. At first, it is said, she appeared to favor
his addresses, fearing to provoke his enmity, but afterward
slighted them ; whereupon he entered the palace by night, and
attempted to get possession of her person. His attempt failed,
and, by her command, he received instant death at the hands
of her guards, accompanied by some indignities.
His son, Bustam, who had been left by him in the govern
ment of Khorassan, hastened, at the head of an armed force,
to avenge his death. He arrived in the height of the public
discontent ; entered the city without opposition, stormed the
palace, captured the young and beautiful queen, subjected her
to degrading outrages, and put her to death in the most crue\
manner. She was the sixth of the usurping sovereigns, and
had not yet reigned a year.
A remaining son of Khosru Parviz was now brought for
ward and placed on the slippery throne, but was poisoned
within forty days, some say by his courtiers, others by a slave.
The priests and nobles now elevated a youth about fifteen
years of age to this perilous dignity. He was a grandson of
Khosru Parviz, and had been secluded, during the late period
of anarchy and assassination, in the city of Istakar, the an-
cient Persepolis. He is known by the name of Yezdegird III.,
MAHOMET AND ms SUCCESSORS. 347
though some historians call him flermisdas IV., from his
family, instead of his personal appellation. He was of a good
natural disposition, but werk and irresolute, and apt, from
his youth and inexperience, to become a passive instrument in
the hands of the faction which had placed him on the throne.
One of the first measures of the new reign was to assemble a
k powerful army and place it under the command of Eustam,
the same general who had so signally revenged the death of hia
father. It was determined, by a signal blow, to sweep the
Arabian marauders from the land.
Omar, on his part, hearing of the changes and warlike prep
arations in the Persian capital, made a hasty levy of troops,
and would have marched in person to carry the war into the
heart of Persia. It was with great difficulty he was dissuaded
from this plan by his discreet counsellors, Othman and AH,
and induced to send in his place Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas. This
was a zealous soldier of the faith who used to boast that he
was the first who had shed the blood of the unbelieving, and,
moreover, that the prophet, in the first holy war, had in
trusted to him the care of his household during his absence,
saying, "To you, oh Saad, who are to me as my father and my
mother, I confide my family." To have been a favored and
confidential companion of the prophet was fast growing to be
a title of great distinction among the faithful.
Saad was invested with the general command of the forces
in Persia; and Mosenna, though his recent good conduct and
signal success entitled him to the highest consideration, was
ordered to serve under him.
Saad set out from Medina with an army of but six or seven
thousand men; among these, however, were one thousand
well-tried soldiers who had followed the prophet in Ms cam
paigns, and one hundred of the veterans of Beder. They were
led on also by some of the most famous champions of the faith.
The army was joined on its march by recruits from all quar
ters, so that by the time it joined the troops under Mosenna it
amounted to upward of thirty thousand men.
Mosenna died three days after the arrival of his successor in
the camp; the cause and nature of his death are not mentioned.
He left behind him a good name, and a wife remarkable for
her beauty. The widow was easily brought to listen to the
addresses of Saad, who thus succeeded to Mosenna in his matri
monial as well as his military capacity.
The Persian force under Rustam lay encamped at Kadosia
^48 MAHOMET AND HJ8 SUCCESSORS.
(or KiiMe&iyab), on the frontier of Sawad or Irak-Arabi, and
was vastly superior in numbers to the Moslems. Saad sent
expresses to the Caliph entreating reinforcements. He was
promised them, but exhorted in the mean time to doubt noth
ing; never to regard the number of the foe, but to think always
that he was fighting under the eye of the Caliph. He was in
structed, however, before commencing hostilities, to send a
delegation to Yezdegird inviting him to embrace the faith.
Saad accordingly sent several of his most discreet and vete
ran officers on this mission. They repaired to the magnificent
city of Madayn, and were ushered through the sumptuous halls
and saloons of the palace of the Khosrus, crowded with guards
and attendants all richly arrayed, into the presence of the
youthful monarch, whom they found seated in state on a
throne, supported by silver columns, and surrounded by the
dazzling splendor of an oriental court.
The appearance of the Moslem envoys, attired in simple
Arab style, in the striped garments of Yemen, amidst the gor
geous throng of nobles arrayed in jewels and embroidery, waa
but little calculated to inspire deference in a young and inconr
siderate prince, brought up in pomp and luxury, and accus
tomed to consider dignity inseparable from splendor. He had
no doubt, also, been schooled for the interview by his crafty
counsellors.
The audience opened by a haughty demand on his part,
through his interpreter, as to the object of their embassy.
Upon this, one of their number, Na'man Ibn Muskry, set forth
the divine mission of the prophet and his dying command to
enforce his religion by the sword, leaving no peaceable alterna
tive to unbelievers but conversion or tribute. He concluded
by inviting the king to embrace the faith ; if not, to consent to
become a tributary; if he should refuse both, to prepare for
battle.
Yezdegird restrained his indignation, and answered in words
which had probably been prepared for him. "You Arabs,"
said he, "have hitherto been known to us by report, as wan
derers of the desert ; your food dates, and sometimes lizards
and serpents; your drink brackish water; your garments
coarse hair-cloth. Some of you who by chance have wandered
into our realms have found sweet water, savory food, and soft
raiment. They have carried back word of the same to their
brethren in the desert, and now you come in swarms to rob ua
of our goods and our very land. Ye are like the starving fox,
VAIIOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 349
to whom the husbandman afforded shelter in his vineyard, and
who in return brought a troop of his brethren to devour his
grapes. Receive from my generosity whatever your wants
require ; load your camels with corn and dates, and depart in
peace to your native land ; but if you tarry in Persia, beware
the fate of the fox who was slain by the husbandman."
The most aged of the Arab envoys, the Sheikh Mukair Ibn
Zarrarah, replied with great gravity and decorum, and an unal
tered countenance. *' Oh king! all thou hast said of the Arabs
is most true. The green lizard of the desert was their some
time food ; the brackish water of wells their drink ; their gar
ments were of hair-cloth, and they buried their infant daugh
ters to restrain the increase of their tribes. All this was in the
days of ignorance. They knew not good from evil. They were
guilty, and they suffered. But Allah in his mercy sent his
apostle Mahomet, and his sacred Koran among them. He ren
dered them wise and valiant. He commanded them to war
with infidels until all should be converted to the true faith.
On his behest we come. All we demand of thee is to acknowl
edge that there is no God but God, and that Mahomet is his
apostle, and to pay from thy income the customary contribu
tion of the Zacat, paid by all true believers, in charity to the
poor, and for the support of the family of the prophet. Do
this, and not a Moslem shall enter the Persian dominions with
out thy leave ; but if thou refuse it, and refuse to pay the tri
bute exacted from all unbelievers, prepare for the subjugation
of the sword."
The forbearance of Yezdegird was at an end. " Were it not
unworthy of a great Padischah," said he, "to put ambassadors
to death, the sword should be the only tongue with which I
would reply to your insolence. Away ! ye robbers of the lands
of others! take with ye a portion of the Persian soil ye crave."
So saying, he caused sacks of earth to be bound upon their
shoulders ; to be delivered by them to their chiefs as symbols
of the graves they would be sure to find at Kadesia.
When beyond the limits of the city, the envoys transferred
the sacks of earth to the backs of their camels, and returned
with them to Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas, shrewdly interpreting
into a good omen what had been intended by the Persian mon
arch as a scornful taunt. u Earth," said they, "is the emblem
of empire. As surely, oh Saad, as we deliver thee these sacks
of earth, so surely will Allah deliver the empire of Persia into
the hands of true believers,"
$50 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER XXVIL
THE BATTLE OP KADESIA.
THE hostile armies came in presence of each other en the
plains of Kadesia (or Kadesiyah), adjacent to a canal derived
from the Euphrates. The huge mass of the Persian army
would have been sufficient to bear down the inferior number
of the Moslems, had rt possessed the Grecian or Roman disci
pline ; but it was a tumultuous multitude, unwieldy i'rom its
military pomp, and encumbered by its splendid trappings.
The Arabs, on the contrary, were veteran skirmishers of the
desert; light and hardy horsemen; dexterous with the bow and
lance, and skilled to wheel and retreat, and to return again to
the attack. Many individual acts of prowess took place be
tween champions of either army, who dared each other to
single combat in front of the hosts when drawn out in battle
array. The costly armor of the Persians, wrought with gold,
and their belts or girdles studded with gems, made them rich
prizes to their Moslem victors ; while the Persians, if victorious,
gained nothing from the rudely clad warriors of the desert but
honor and hard blows.
Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas was in an unfortunate plight for a
leader of an army on such a momentous occasion. He was
grievously afflicted with boils in his reins, so that he sat on his
horse with extreme difficulty. Still he animated his troops by
his presence, and gave the tekbir or battle-cry— Allah Achbar !
The Persian force came on with great shouts, their elephants
in the van. The horses of the Moslem cavalry recoiled at sight
of the latter, and became unmanageable. A great number of
the horsemen dismounted, attacked the unwieldy animals
with their swords, and drove them back upon their own host.
Still the day went hard with the Moslems ; their force being so
inferior, and their general unable to take the lead and mingle
in the battle. The arrival of a reinforcement from Syria put
them in new heart, and they fought on until the approach of
night, when both parties desisted and drew off to their encamp
ments. Thus ended the first day's fight, which the Persians
called the battle of Armath ; but the Moslems, The Day of Suc
cor, from the timely arrival of reinforcements.
On the following morning the armies drew out again in
MAUOMET AND JJ1JS SUCCESSORS. 351
tie array, but no general conflict took place. Saad was unable
to mount his horse and lead his troops into action, and the
Persians, aware of the reinforcements received by the Mos
lems, were not disposed to provoke a battle. The day passed
in light skirmishes and single combats between the prime war
riors of either host, who defied each other to trials of skill and
prowess. These combats, of course, were desperate, and com
monly cost the life of one, if not both of the combatants.
Saad overlooked the field from the shelter of a tent, where
lie sat at a repast with his beautiful bride beside him. Her
heart swelled with grief at seeing so many gallant Moslems
laid low ; a thought of the valiant husband she had lost passed
across her mind, and the unwary ejaculation escaped her,
"Alas ! Mosenna Ibn Haris, where art thou?" Saad was stung
to the quick by what he conceived a reproach on his courage
or activity, azid in the heat of the moment struck her on the
face with his dagger. "To-morrow," muttered he to himself,
"I will mount my horse."
In the night he secretly sent out a detachment in the direc
tion of Damascus, to remain concealed until the two armies
should be engaged on the following day, and then to come
with banners displayed, and a great sound of drum and trum
pet, as though they were a reinforcement hurrying to the field
of action.
The morning dawned, but still, to his great mortification,
Saad was unable to sit upon his horse, and had to entrust the
conduct of the battle to one of his generals. It was a day of
bloody and obstinate conflict ; and from the tremendous shock
of the encountering hosts was celebrated among the Arabs as
" The day of the Concussion."
The arrival of the pretended reinforcement inspirited the
Moslems, who were ignorant of the stratagem, and dismayed
the enemy. Rustam urged on his elephants to break down the
Arab host, but they had become familiar with those animals,
and attacked them so vigorously that, as before, they turned
upon their own employers and trampled them down in their
unwieldy flight from the field.
The battle continued throughout the day with varying for
tune; nor did it cease at nightfall, for Rustam rode about
among his troops urging them to fight until morning. That
night was called by some the night of delirium ; for in the dark
and deadly struggle the combatants struck at random, and
often caught each other by the beard; by others it was
352 MAI10MKT AXD HIS SUCCESSORS.
the night of howling and lamentation, from the cries of the
wounded.
The battle ceased not even at the dawning, but continued
until the heat of the day. A whirlwind of dust hid the armies
from each other for a time, and produced confusion on the
field, but it aided the Moslems, as it blew in the faces of the
enemy. During a pause in the conflict, Rustam, panting with
heat and fatigue, and half blinded with dust, took shelter from
the sun under a tent which had been pitched near the water,
and was surrounded by camels laden with treasure, and with the
luxurious furniture of the camp. A gust of wind whirled the
tent into the water. He then threw himself upon the earth in
the shade of one of the camels. A band of Arab soldiers came
upon him by surprise. One of them, Hellal Ibn Alkameh by
name, in his eagerness for plunder, cut the cords which bound
the burden on the camel. A package 01 silver fell upon Rustam
and broke his spine. In his agony he fell or threw himself into
the water, but was drawn out by the leg, his head stricken off,
and elevated on the lance of Hellal. The Persians recognized
the bloody features, and ned amain, abandoning to the victors
their camp, with all its rich furniture and baggage, and scores
of beasts of burden, laden with treasure and with costly gear.
The amount of booty was incalculable.
The sacred standard, too, was among the spoils. To the sol
dier who had captured it, thirty thousand pieces of gold are
said to have been paid at Saad's command; and the jewels
with which it was studded wore put with the other booty, to
be shared according to rule. Hellal, too, who brought the
head of Rustam to Saad, was allowed as a reward to strip the
body of his victim. Never did Arab soldier make richer spoil.
The garments of Rustam were richly embroidered, and he
wore two gorgeous belts, ornamented with jewels, one worth
a thousand pieces of gold, the ether seventy thousand dirhems
of silver.
Thirty thousand Persians are said to have fallen in this bat
tle, and upward of seven thousand Moslems. The loss most
deplored by the Persians was that of their sacred banner, with
which they connected the fate of the realm.
This battle took place in the fifteenth year of the Hegira, and
the six hundred and thirty-sixth year of the Christian era,
and is said to be as famous among the Arabs as that of Arbela
among the Greeks.
Complaints having circulated among the troops that Saad
MAHOMET AND ms SUCCESSORS.
had not mingled in the fight, he summoned several of the old
men to his tent, and, stripping himself, showed the boils by
which he was so grievously afflicted ; after which there were
no f lu-ther expressions of dissatisfaction. It is to be hoped he
found some means, equally explicit, of excusing himself to hir
beautiful bride for the outrage he had committed upon her.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FOUNDING OF BASSORA— CAPTURE OF THE PERSIAN CAPITAL-'
FLIGHT OF YEZDEGIRD TO HOLWAN.
AFTER the signal victory of Kadesia, Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas,
by command of the Caliph, remained for sonic months in the
neighborhood, completing the subjugation of the conquered
country, collecting tax and tribute, and building mosques in
every direction for the propagation of the faith. About the
same time Omar caused the city of Basra, or Bassora, to be
founded in the lower part of Irak Arabi, on that great river
formed by the junction of the Euphrates and the Tigris. This
city was intended to protect the region conquered by the Mos
lems about the mouth of the Euphrates ; to cut off the trade
of India from Persia, and to keep a check upon Anwaz (a parl
of Susiana or Khusestan), the prince or satrap of which, Hor-
musan by name, had taken an active part in the late battle of
Kadesia. The city of Bassora was founded in the fourteenth
year of the Hegira, by Orweh Ibn Otbeh. It soon gathered
Trithin its walls great numbers of inhabitants from the sur
rounding country; rose rapidly in importance, and has ever
since been distinguished as a mart for the Indian commerce.
Having brought all the country in the neighborhood of Ka
desia into complete subjection, Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas, by
command of the Caliph, proceeded in the conquest of Persia.
The late victories, and the capture of the national banner, had
struck despair into the hearts of the Persians. They con
sidered the downfall of their religion and empire at hand, and
for a time made scarcely any resistance to the invaders. Cities
and strongholds surrendered almost without a blow. Babel is
incidentally enumerated among the captured places; but the
once all-poworf ul Babylon was now shrunk into such insignifi-
;;•).[ MAHOMED AM His
cance that its capture seemed no^ t/orthy of a boast. Saad
crossed the Tigris and advanced upon Madayn, the Persian
capital. His army, on departing from Kadesia, had not
exceeded twenty thousand men, having lost many by battle
and more by disease. Multitudes, however, from the subju
gated cities, and from other parts, joined his standard while
on the march, so that, as he approached Madayn, his forces
amounted to sixty thousand men.
There was abundance of troops in Madayn, the wrecks of
vanquished armies and routed garrisons, but there was no one
capable or willing to take the general command. All seemed
paralyzed by their fears. The king summoned his counsellors
about him, but their only advice was to fly. " Khorassan and
Kerman are still yours," said they; "let us depart while we
may do so in safety ; why should we remain here to be made
captives?"
Yezdegird hesitated to take this craven advice; but more
from weakness and indecision of character than from any
manly repugnance. He wavered and lingered, until what
might have been an orderly retreat became a shameful flight.
When the invaders were within one day's march of his capi
tal he ordered his valuables to be packed upon beasts of burden,
and set off, with a worthless retinue of palace minions, attend
ants, and slaves, male and female, for Holwan, at the foot of
the Medean hills. His example was followed throughout the
city. There was hurry and tumult in every part. Fortunate
was he who had a camel, or a horse, or an ass, to load with his
most valuable effects ; such as were not so provided, took what
they could on their shoulders ; but, in such a hasty and panic-
stricken flight, where personal safety was the chief concern,
little could be preserved; the greater part of their riches re
mained behind. Thus, the wealthy Madayn, the once famous
Ctesiphon, which had formerly repulsed a Roman army,
though furnished with battering rams and other warlike
engines, was abandoned without a blow at the approach of
these nomad warriors.
As Saad entered the deserted city he gazed with wonder and
admiration at its stately edifices, surrounded by vineyards and
gardens, all left to his mercy by the flying owners. In pious
exultation he repeated aloud a passage of the Koran, alluding
to the abandonment by Pharoah and his troops of their habita
tions, when they went in pursuit of the children of Israel.
"How many gardens and fountains, and fields of corn and
MI'.T .-L\/> II '/.'>.
fair dwellings, and other soiu-ces of delight, did they leave
heliiml them: Thus we dispossessed them thereof, and gave
the same for an inheritance to another people. Neither heaven
IK >r ca'l h wept for them. They were unpitied." *
The deserted city was sacked and pillaged. One may imag
ine the sacking of such a place by the ignorant hordes of the
desert. The rude Arabs beheld themselves .surrounded by
treasures beyond their conception ; works of art, the value of
which they could not appreciate, and articles of luxury which
moved their ridicule rather than their admiration. In roving
through the streets they came to the famous palace of the Khos-
rus, begun by Khobad Ibn Firuz, and finished by his son Nush-
invan, constructed of polished marble, and called the white
palace, from its resplendent appearance. As they gazed at it
in wonderment, they called to mind the prediction of Ma
homet, when he heard that the haughty monarch of Persia
had torn his letter: "Even so shall Allah rend his empire in
pieces.1' u Behold the white palace of Khosru," cried the Mos
lems to one another! "This is the fulfilment of the prophecy
of the apostle of God!"
Saad entered the lofty portal of the palace with feelings of
devotion. His first act was to make his salaam and prostra
tions, and pronounce the confession of faith in its deserted
halls. He then took note of its contents, and protected it from
the ravage of the soldiery, by making it his headquarters. It
was furnished throughout with oriental luxury. It had ward
robes filled with gorgeous apparel. In the armory were weap
ons of all kinds, magnificently wrought ; a coat of mail and
sword, for state occasions, bedecked with jewels of incalculable
value ; a silver horseman on a golden horse, and a golden rider
on a silver camel, all likewise studded with jewels.
In the vaults were treasures of gold and silver and precious
stones ; with money, the vast amount of which, though stated
by Arabian historians, we hesitate to mention.
In some of the apartments were gold and silver vessels filled
with oriental perfumes. In the magazines were stored ex
quisite spices, odoriferous gums, and medicinal drugs. Among
the latter were quantities of camphor, which the Arabs mis
took for salt and mixed with their food.
In one of the chambers was a silken carpet of great size,
which the king used in winter. Art and expense had been
* Koran, chapter 24.
356 MAHOMET' AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
lavished upon it. It was made to represent a garden. Thd
leaves of the plants were emeralds ; the flowers were embroid
ered in their natural colors, with pearls and jewels and pre
cious stones ; the fountains were wrought with diamonds and
sapphires, to represent the sparkling of their waters. The
value of the whole was beyond calculation.
The hall of audience surpassed every other part in magnifi
cence. The vaulted roof, says D'Herbolot, resembled a firma
ment decked with golden spheres, each with a corresponding
movement, so as to represent the planets and the signs of the
zodiac. The throne was of prodigious grandeur, supported on
silver columns. Above it was the crown o2 Khosru Nashir-
wan, suspended by a golden chain to bear the immense weight
of its J3wels, but contrived to appear as if on the head^of the
mor °rch when seated.
L. mule is said to have been overtaken, on which a trusty
officer of the palace was bearing away some of the jewels of
the crown, the tiara or diadem of Yezdegird, with his belt and
scimetar and bracelets.
Saad appointed Omar Ibn Muskry to take charge of all the
spoils for regular distribution, and criers were sent about to
make proclamation that the soldiers should render in their
booty to that officer. Such was the enormous amount that,
after a fifth had been set apart for the Caliph, the remainder,
divided among sixty thousand men, gave each of them twelve
hundred dirhems of silver.
It took nine hundred heavily laden camels to convey to
Medina the Caliph's fifth of the spoil, among which the
carpet, the clothing, and regalia of the king were included.
The people of Medina, though of late years accustomed to the
rich booty of the armies, were t..,ionished at such an amount
of treasure. Omar ordered that a mosque should be built of
pa~t of the proceeds. A consultation was held over the royal
carpet, whether it should be stored away in the public treasury
to be used by the Caliph on state occasions, or whether it
should be included in the booty to be shared.
Omar hesitated to decide with his usual promptness, and
referred the matter to Ali. ' ' Oh, prince of true believers !"
exclaimed the latter; "how can one of thy clear perception
doubt in this matter? In the world, nothing is thine but what
thou expendest in well-doing. What thou wearest will be worn
out ; what thou eatest will be consumed ; but that which thou
expendest in well-doing is sent before thee to -the other world."
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 357
Omar determined that the carpet should be shared among
his chiefs. He divided it literally, with rigid equity, cutting
it up without regard to the skill and beauty of the design, or
its value as an entire piece of workmanship. Such was tho
richness of the materials, that the portion allotted to Ali alone
sold for eight thousand dirhems of silver.
This signal capture of the capita] of Persia took place in the
month Safar, in the sixteenth year of the Hegira, and the year
C37 of the Christian era, ; the same year with tho capture of
Jerusalem. The fame of such immense spoil, such treasures
of art, in the hands of ignorant Arab soldiery, summoned the
crafty and the avaricious from all quarters. All the world, it
is said, nocked from tho West, from Yemen, and from Egypt,
to purchase the costly stuffs, captured from tho Persians.
It was like the vultures, winging their way from all parts of
the heavens, to gorge on the relics of a hunting camp.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CAPTURE OF j ALUL£ — FLIGHT OF YEZDEGIRD TO REI — FOUNDING
OF CUFA— SAAD RECEIVES A SEVERE REBUKE FROM THE CA
LIPH FOR HIS MAGNIFICENCE.
SAAD IBN ABU WAKKAS would fain have pursued Yezdegird
to Holwan, among tho hills of ancient Medea, where he had
taken refuge ; but he was rsstrained by the Caliph Omar, who
kept a cautious check from Medina upon his conquering gen
erals ; fearful that in the flush and excitement of victory they
might hurry forward beyond the reach of succor. By tho
command of Omar, therefore, he remained with his main
army in Madayn, and sent his brother Hashem with twelve
thousand men in pursuit of the fugitive monarch. Hashem
found a large force of Persians, relics of defeated armies, as
sembled in Jalula, not far from Holwtln, where they were dis
posed to make a stand. He laid siege to tho place, but it was
of groat strength and maintained a brave and obstinate
defence for six months, during which there were eighty as
saults. At length, the garrison being reduced by famine and
incessant fighting, and the commander slain, it surrendered.
Yezdegird on hearing of the capture of Jalula abandoned tha
358 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
city of Holwan, leaving troops there under a general named
Habesh, to check the pursuit of the enemy. The place of
refuge which he now sought was the city of Rei, or Rai, the
Rhages of Arrian ; the Rhaga and Rhageia of the Greek geog
raphers ; a city of remote antiquity, contemporary, it is said,
with Nineveh and Ecbatana, and mentioned in the book of
Tobit; who, we are told, travelled from Nineveh to Rages, a
city of Medea. It was a favorite residence of the Parthian
kings in days of yore. In his flight though the mountains the
monarch was borne on a chair or litter between mules ; travel
ling a station each day and sleeping in the litter. Habesh,
whom he had left behind, was soon defeated, and followed him
in his flight.
Saad again wrote to the Caliph, urging that he might be
permitted to follow the Persian king to his place of refuge
among the mountains, before he should have time to assemble
another army; but he again met with a cautious check.
"You have this year," said the Caliph, "taken Sawad and
Irak ; for Holwan is at the extremity of Irak. That is enough
for the present. The welfare of true believers is of more value
than booty." So ended the sixteenth year of the Hegira.
The climate of Madayn proving unhealthy to his troops, and
Saad wishing to establish a fortified camp in the midst of his
victories, was ordered by the Caliph to seek some favorable
site on the western side of the Euphrates, where there was
good air, a well- watered plain and plenty of grass for the
camels ; things highly appreciated by the Arabs.
Saad chose for the purpose the village of Cufa, which, accord
ing to Moslem tradition, was the spot where Noah embarked
in the ark. The Arabs further pretend that the serpent after
tempting Eve was banished to this place. Hence, they say,
the guile and treachery for which the men of Cufa are prover
bial. This city became so celebrated that the Euphrates was at
one time generally denominated G-ahar Cufa, or the river of
Cufa. The most ancient characters of the Arabic alphabet
are termed Cufic to the present day.
In building Cufa, much of the stone, marble, and timber for
the principal edifices were furnished from the ruins of Madayn ;
there being such a scarcity of those materials in Babylonia and
its vicinity that the houses were generally constructed of
bricks baked in the sun and cemented with bitumen. It used
to be said, therefore, that the army on its remove took with it
all the houses of Sawad. Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas, who appears
to have imbibed a taste for Persian splendor, erected a sump«
tuous Kiosk or summer residence, and decorated it with a
grand portal taken from the palace of the Khosrus at Madayn,
When Omar heard of this he was sorely displeased, his great
apprehension being that his generals would lose the good old
Arab simplicity of manners in the luxurious countries they
were conquering. He forthwith dispatched a trusty envoy,
Mahomet Ibn Muslemah, empowered to give Saad a salutary
rebuke. On arriving at Cufa, Mahomet caused a great quan
tity of wood to be heaped against the door of the Kiosk and set
fire to it. When Saad came forth in amazement at this out
rage, Mahomet put into his hands the following letter from the
Caliph:
" I am told thou hast built a lofty palace, like to that of the
Khosrus, and decorated it with a door taken from the latter,
with a view to have guards and chamberlains stationed about
it to keep off those who may come in quest of justice or assist
ance, as was the practice of the Khosrus before thee. In so
doing thou hast departed from the ways of the prophet (on
whom be benedictions), and hast fallen into the ways of the
Persian monarchs. Know that the Khosrus have passed
from their palace to the tomb; while the prophet, [from his
lowly habitation on earth, has been elevated to the highest
heaven. I have sent Mahomet Ibn Muselmah to burn thy pal
ace. In this world two houses are sufficient for thee — one to
dwell in, the other to contain the treasure of the Moslem."
Saad was too wary to make any opposition to the orders of
the stern-minded Omar ; so he looked on without a murmur as
his stately Kiosk was consumed by the flames. He even
offered Mahomet presents, which the latter declined, and re
turned to Medina. Saad removed to a different part of the
city, and built a more modest mansion for himself, and an
other for the treasury.
In the same year with the founding of Cufa the Caliph Omar
married Omm Kolsam, the daughter of Ali and Fatima, and
granddaughter of the prophet. This drew him in still closer
bonds of friendship and confidence with Ali, who with Othman
shared his councils, and aided him in managing from Medina
the rapidly accumulating affairs of the Moslem empire.
It must be always noted, that however stern and strict may
appear the laws and ordinances of Omar, he was rigidly im
partial in enforcing them; and one of his own sons, having
been found intoxicated, received the twenty bastinadoes oo
§60 MAHOMET AXD HIS SUCCESSORS.
the soles of the feet, which he had decreed for offences of the
kind,
CHAPTER xxx,
WAR WITH HORMUZlN, THE SATRAP OF AHWAZ— HIS OONQtfEST
AND CONVERSION.
THE founding of the city of Bassora had given great annoy
ance and uneasiness to Hormuzan, the satrap or viceroy of
Ahwaz, or Susiana. His province lay between Babylonia and
Farsistan, and he saw that this rising city of the Arabs was in
tended as a check upon him. His province was one of the
richest and most important of Persia, producing cotton, rice,
sugar, and wheat. It was studded with cities, which the his
torian Tabari compared to a cluster of stars. In the centre
stood the metropolis Susa, one of the royal resorts of the Per
sian kings, celebrated in scriptural history, and said to possess
the tomb of the prophet Daniel. It was once adorned with
palaces and courts, and parks of prodigious extent, though now
all is a waste, "echoing only to the roar of the lion, or yell of
the hyena."
Here Hormuzan, the satrap, emulated the state and luxury
of a king. He was of a haughty spirit, priding himself upon
his descent, his ancestors having once sat on the throne of
Persia. For this reason his sons, being of the blood royal,
were permitted to wear crowns, though of smaller size than
those worn by kings, and his family was regarded with great
deference by the Persians.
This haughty satrap, not rendered wary by the prowess of
the Moslem arms, which he had witnessed and experienced at
Kadesia, made preparations to crush the rising colony of Bas
sora. The founders of that city called on the Caliph for pro
tection, and troops were marched to their assistance from Me
dina, and from the headquarters of Saad at Cufa. Hormuzan
soon had reason to repent his having provoked hostilities. He
was defeated in repeated battles, and at length was glad to
make peace with the loss of half of his territories, and all but
four of his cluster oi' cities. He was not permitted long to en
joy even this remnant of domain. Yczdegird, from his re
treat at Bei, reproached Hormuzan and the satrap of the adja-
MAHOMET AND HIS SVCOSSSOHS, 361
cent province of Farsistan, ior not co-operating to withstand
the Moslems. At his command they united their forces, and
Hormuziii broke the treaty of peace which he had so recently
concluded.
The devotion of Hormuzan to his fugitive sovereign ended in
his ruin. The Caliph ordered troops to assemble from the
different Moslem posts, and complete the conquest of Ahwaz.
Hormuzan disputed his territory bravely, but was driven from
place to place, until he made his last stand in the fortress of
Ahwaz, or Susa. For six months he was beleaguered, during
which time there were many sallies and assaults, and hard
fighting on both sides. At length, Bara Ibn Malek was sent
to take command of the besiegers. He had been an especial
favorite of the prophet, and there was a superstitious feeling
concerning him. Ho manifested at all tim.es an indifference to
life or death; always pressed forward to the place of danger,
and every action in which he served was successful.
On his taking the command, his troops gathered round him.
"Oh Bara! swear to overthrow these infidels, and the Most
High will favor us."
Bara swore that the place would be taken, and the infidels
put to flight, but that ho would fall a martyr.
In the very next assault ho was killed by an arrow sped by
Hormuzan. The army took his death as a good omen. " One
half of his oath is fulfilled," said they, "and so will be the
other."
Shortly afterward a Persian traitor came to Abu Shebrah,
who had succeeded to the Moslem command, and revealed a
secret entrance by a conduit under the castle, by which it was
supplied with water. A hundred Moslems entered it by night,
threw open the outward gates, and let in the army into the
court-yards. Hormuzan was ensconced, however, in a strong
tower, or keep, from the battlements of which he held a parley
with the Moslem commander. "I have a thousand expert
archers with me," said he, "who never miss their aim. By
every arrow they discharge you will lose a man. Avoid this
useless sacrifice. Let me depart in honor; give mo safe
conduct to the Caliph, and let him dispose of mo as he
pleases."
It was agreed. Hormuzan was treated witk respect as he
issued from his fortress, and was sent under an escort to
Medina. Ho maintained the air of one not conducted as a
prisoner, but attended by a guard of honor. As he approached
362 MAHOMET AND 2IIS SUCCESSORS.
the city he halted, arrayed himself in sumptuous apparel, with
his jewelled belt and regal crown, and in this guise entered the
gates. The inhabitants gazed in astonishment at such un
wonted luxury of attire.
Omar was not at his dwelling ; he had gone to the mosque.
Hormuzan was conducted thither. On approaching the sacred
edifice, the Caliph's cloak was seen hanging against the wall,
while he himself, arrayed in patched garments, lay asleep with
his staff under his head. The officers of the escort seated
themselves at a respectful distance until he should awake.
"This," whispered they to Hormuzan, "is the prince of true
believers."
"This the Arab king!" said the astonished satrap; "and is
this his usual attire?" "It is." "And does he sleep thus
without guards?" "He does; he comes and goes alone; and
lies down and sleeps where he pleases." "And can he adminis
ter justice, and conduct affairs without officers and messengers
and attendants?" "Even so," was the reply. "This," ex
claimed Hormuzan, at length, "is the condition of a prophet,
but not of a king." "He is not a prophet," was the reply,
" but he acts like one."
As the Caliph awoke he recognized the officers of the escort.
"What tidings do you bring?" demanded he.— " But who is
this so extravagantly arrayed?" rubbing his eyes as they fell
upon the embroidered robes and jewelled crown of the satrap.
"This is Hormuzan, the king of Ahwaz." "Take the infidel
out of this place," cried he, turning away his head. "Strip
him of his riches, and put on him the riches of Islam."
Hormuzan was accordingly taken forth, and in a little time
was brought again before the Caliph, clad in a simple garb of
the striped cloth of Yemen.
The Moslem writers relate various quibbles by which Hormu
zan sought to avert the death with which he was threatened,
for having slain Bara Ibn Malek. He craved water to allay his
thirst. A vessel of water was brought. Affecting to appre
hend immediate execution: "Shall I be spared until I have
drunk this?" Being answered by the Caliph in the affirmative,
he dashed the vessel to the ground. "Now," said he, "you
cannot put me to death, for I can never drink the water."
The straightforward Omar, however, was not to be caught
by a quibble. "Your cunning will do you no good," said he.
"Nothing will save you but to embrace Islamisrn." The
haughty Hormuzan was subdued. He made the profession of
MAHOMET AM) ///>' SUCCESSORS. \\\\:\
faith in due style, and was at once enrolled among true be
lievers.
He resided thenceforth in Medina, received rich presents
from the Caliph, and subsequently gave him much serviceable
information and advice in his prosecution of the war with
Persia. The conquest of Ahwaz was completed in the nine
teenth year of the Hegira.
CHAPTER XXXI.
SAAD SUSPENDED FROM THE COMMAND— A PERSIAN ARMY AS
SEMBLED AT NEHAVEND— COUNCIL AT THE MOSQUE OP MEDINA
—BATTLE OF NEHiVEND.
OMAR, as we have seen, kept a jealous and vigilant eye upon
his distant generals, being constantly haunted by the fear that
they would become corrupted in the rich and luxurious
countries they were invading, and lose that Arab simplicity
which he considered inestimable in itself, and all-essential to
the success of the cause of Islam. Notwithstanding the severe
reproof he had given to Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas hi burning
down his palace at Cufa, complaints still reached him that the
general affected the pomp of a Caliph, that he was unjust and
oppressive, unfair in the division of spoils, and slow in conduct
ing military concerns. These charges proved, for the most
part, unfounded, but they caused Saad to be suspended from
his command until they could be investigated.
When the news reached Yezdegird at Rei that the Moslem
general who had conquered at Kadesia, slam Rustam, captured
Madayn, and driven himself to the mountains, was deposed
from the command, he conceived fresh hopes, and wrote letters
•to all the provinces yet unconquered, calling on the inhabitants
to take up arms and make a grand effort for the salvation of
the empire. Nehavend was appointed as the place where the
troops were to assemble. It was a place of great antiquity,
founded, says tradition, by Noah, and called after him, and was
about fifteen leagues from Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana.
Here troops gathered together to the number of one hundred
ttnd fifty thousand.
Omar assembled his counsellors at the mosque of Medina,
364 MAHOMET AMD SIS SUCCESSORS.
and gave them intelligence, just received, of this great arma
ment. "This, "said he, "is probably the last great effort ol:
tlie Persians. If we defeat them now they will never be able
to unite again." He expressed a disposition, therefore, to take
the command in person. Strong objections were advanced.
" Assemble troops from various parts," said Othman; "but
remain, yourself, either at Medina, Cufa, or Holwan, to send
reinforcements if required, or to form a rallying point for the
Moslems, if defeated." Others gave different counsel. At
length the matter was referred to Abbas Ibn Abd al Motalleb,
who was considered one of the sagest heads for counsel in the
tribe of Koreish. He gave it as his opinion that the Caliph
should remain in Medina, and give the command of the cam
paign to Nu'man Ibn Mukry, who was already in Ahwaz,
where he had been ever since Saad had sent him thither from
Irak. It is singular to see the fate of the once mighty and
magnificent empires of the Orient — Syria, Chaldea, Babylonia,
and the dominions of the Medes and Persians— thus debated
and decided in the mosque of Medina— by a handful of gray-
headed Arabs, who but a few years previously had been home
less fugitives.
Orders were now sent to Nu'man to march to Nehavend,
and reinforcements joined him from Medina, Bassora, and
Cufa. His force, when thus collected, was but moderate, but
it was made up of men. hardened and sharpened by incessant
warfare, rendered daring and confident by repeated victory,
and led by able officers. He was afterward joined by ten
thousand men from Sawad, Holwan, and other places, many
of whom were tributaries.
The Persian army now collected at Nehavend was com
manded by Firuzan ; he was old and infirm, but full of intelli
gence and spirit, and the only remaining general considered
capable of taking charge of such a force, the best generals hav
ing fallen in battle. The veteran, knowing the impetuosity of
the Arab attack, and their superiority in the open field, had
taken a strong position, fortified his camp, and surrounded it
with a deep moat filled with water. Here he determined to
tire out the patience of the Moslems, and await an opportunity
to strike a decisive blow.
Nu'man displayed his forces before the Persian camp, and
repeatedly offered battle, but the cautious veteran was not to
be drawn out of his intrenchments. Two months elapsed
without any action, and the Moslem troops, as Firuzan had
MAHOMET AND tns SUCCESSORS. 355
foreseen, began to grow discontented . and to murmur at their
general,
A stratagem was now resorted to by Nu'man to draw out the
enemy. Breaking up his camp, he made a hasty retreat, leav
ing behind him many articles of little value. The stratagem
succeeded. The Persians sallied, though cautiously, in pur-'
suit. Nu'man continued his feigned retreat for another day,
still followed by the enemy. Having drawn them to a sufli
cient distance from their fortified camp, he took up a position
at nightfall. " To-morrow," said he to his troops, " before tho
day reddens, be ready for battle. I have been with the pro
phet in many conflicts, and he always commenced battle after
the Friday prayer."
The following day, when the troops were drawn out in order
of battle, he made this prayer in their presence: "Oh Allah 1
sustain this day the cause of Islamism; give us victory over
the infidels, and grant me the glory of martyrdom." Then
turning to his officers, ho expressed a presentiment that he
should fall in tho battle, and named the person who, in such
case, should take the command.
He now appointed tho signal for battle. "Three times,"
said he, "I will cry the tekbir, and each time will shake my
standard. At the third time let every one fall on as I shall
do." He gave the signal, Allah Achbarl Allah Achbar! Allah
Achbar ! At the third shaking of the standard the tekbir was
responded by the army, and the air was rent by the universal
shout of Allah Achbar!
Tho shock of the two armies was terrific ; they were soon
enveloped in a cloud of dust, in which the sound of scimetars
and battle-axes told the deadly work that was going on, while
tho shouts of Allah Achbar continued, mingled with furious
cries and execrations of the Persians, and dismal groans of tho
wounded. In an hour the Persians were completely routed.
" Oh Lord!" exclaimed Nu'man in pious ecstasy, "my prayer
for victory has been heard ; may that for martyrdom be like
wise favored !"
He advanced his standard in pursuit of the enemy, but at
the same moment a Parthian arrow from the flying foe gave
him the death he coveted. His body, with the face covered,
was conveyed to his brother, and his standard given to
Hadireh, whom he had named to succeed him in tho com
mand.
The Persians were pursued with groat slaughter. Firuzan
366 MAHOMET AND ins SUCCJESSOM
fled toward Hamadan, but was overtaken at midnight as he"
was ascending a steep hill, embarrassed among a crowd of
mules and camels laden with the luxurious superfluities of a Per
sian camp. Here he and several thousand of his soldiers and
camp-followers were cut to pieces. The booty was immense.
Forty of the mules were found to be laden with honey ; which
made the Arabs say, with a sneer, that Firuzan's army was
clogged with its own honey, until overtaken by the true be
lievers. The whole number of Persians slain in this battle,
which sealed the fate of the empire, is said to have amounted
to one hundred thousand. It took place in the twenty-first
year of the Hegira, and the year 641 of the Christian era, and
was commemorated among Moslems as * ' The Victory of Vic
tories."
On a day subsequent to the battle a man mounted on an ass
rode into the camp of Hadifeh. He was one who had served
in the temples of the fire- worshippers, and was in great con
sternation, fearing to be sacrificed by the fanatic Moslems.
" Spare my life," said he to Hadifeh, "and the life of another
person whom I shall designate, and I will deliver into your
hands a treasure put under my charge by Yezdegird when he
fled to Rei." His terms being promised, he produced a sealed
box. On breaking the seal, Hadifeh found it filled with rubies
and precious stones of various colors, and jewels of great price.
He was astonished at the sight of what appeared to him incal
culable riches. ' ' These jewels, " said he, ' ' have not been gained
in battle, nor by the sword; we have, therefore, no right to any
share in them. " With the concurrence of his officers, therefore,
he sent the box to the Caliph to be retained by himself or
divided among the true believers as he should think proper.
The officer who conducted the fifth part of the spoils to Medina
delivered the box, and related its history to Omar. The Ca
liph, little skilled in matters of luxury, and holding them in
supreme contempt, gazed with an ignorant or scornful eye at
the imperial jewels, and refused to receive them. "You know
not what these things are," said he. "Neither do I; but they
justly belong to those who slew the infidels, and to no one
else." He ordered the officer, therefore, to depart forthwith
and carry the box back to Hadifeh. The jewels were sold by
the latter to the merchants who followed the camp, and when
the proceeds were divided among the troops, each horseman
received for his share four thousand pieces of gold.
Far other was the conduct of the Caliph when he received
>ro,
itter giving an account of the victory at Nehavend. His
iirst inquiry was after his old companion in the faith, Nu'man.
" May God grant you and him mercy !" was the reply. " He
has become a martyr !"
Omar, it is said, wept. He next inquired who also were mar
tyrs. Several were named with whom he was acquainted;
but many who were unknown to him. " If I know them not,"
s:iid he, piously quoting a text of the Koran, u God does!"
CHAPTER XXXII.
CAPTURE OF HAMAD AN; OF REI— SUBJUGATION OF TABARISTAN;
OF AZERBIJAN— CAMPAIGN AMONG THE CAUCASIAN MOUNTAINS.
THE Persian troops who had survived the signal defeat of
Kiruzan assembled their broken forces near the city of Hama-
uan, but wer 3 soon routed again by a detachment sent against
them by H? dlifeh, who had fixed his headquarters at Neha-
vend. The /• then took refuge in Hamadan, and ensconced
themselves In its strong fortress or citadel.
Hamadan was the second city in Persia for grandeur, and
was built upon the site of Ecbatana, in old times the principal
city of the Medes. There were more Jews among its inhabi
tants than were to be found in any other city of Persia, and it
boasted of possessing the tombs of Esther and Mordecai. It
was situated on a steep eminence, down the sides of which it
descended into a fruitful plain, watered by streams gushing
down from the lofty Orontes, now Mount Elwand. The place
\. as commanded by Habesh, the same general who had been
driven from Holwan after the flight of Yezdegird. Habesh
sought an interview with Hadifeh, at his encampment at
Nehavend, and made a treaty of peace with him ; but it was a
fraudulent one, and intended merely to gain time. Returning
to Hamadan, he turned the whole city into a fortress, and
assembled a strong garrison, being reinforced from the neigh
boring province of Azerbijan.
On being informed of this want of good faith on the part of
the governor of Hamadan, the Caliph Omar dispatched a
strong force against the place, led by an able officer named
Nu'haim Ibn Mukrin. Habesh had more courage than cau
tion. Confident in the large force he had assembled, instead
368 MAHOMET AND ms SUCCESSOR*.
of remaining within his strongly fortifiei city, ho sallied forth
and met the Moslems in open field. The battle lasted for three
days, and was harder fought than even that of Nelmvend, but
ended in leaving the Moslems triumphant masters of the once
formidable capital of Medea.
Nu'haim now marched against Rei, late the place of refuge
of Yezdegird. That prince, however, had deserted it on the
approach of danger, leaving it in charge of a noble named
Siyawesh Ibn Barham. Hither the Persian princes had sent
troops from the yet unconquered provinces, for Siyawesh had
nobly offered to make himself as a buckler to them, and con
quer or fall in their defence. His patriotism was unavailing;
treachery and corruption were too prevalent among the Per
sians. Zain, a powerful noble resident in Rei, and a deadly
enemy of Siyawesh, conspired to admit two thousand Moslems
in at one gate of the city, at the time when its gallant governor
was making a sally by another. A scene of tumult and car
nage took place in the streets, where both armies engaged in
deadly conflict. The patriot Siyawesh was slain, with a great
part of his troops ; the city was captured and sacked, and its
citadel destroyed, and the traitor Zain was rewarded for his
treachery by being made governor of the ruined place.
Nu'haim now sent troops in different directions against
Kumish, and Dameghan, and Jurgan (the ancient Hircania),
and Tabaristan. They met with feeble resistance. The na
tional spirit was broken; even the national religion was nearly
at an end. " This Persian religion of ours has become obso
lete," said Farkham, a military sage, to an assemblage of com
manders, who asked his advice; " the new religion is carrying
everything before it ; my advice is to make peace and pay trib
ute." His advice was adopted. All Tabaristan became tribu
tary in the annual sum of five hundred thousand dirhems,
with the condition that the Moslems should levy no troops in
that quarter.
Azerbijan was next invaded ; the country which had sent
troops to the aid of Hamadan. This province lay north of Rei
and Hamadan, and extended to the Rocky Caucasus. It was
the stronghold of the Magians or Fire-worshippers, where they
had their temples, and maintained their perpetual fire. Hence
the name of the country, Azer signifying fire. The princes of
the country made an ineffectual stand; their army was de
feated; the altars of the fire-worshippers were overturned;
their temples destroyed, and Azerbijan won.
JfAHOMST AND 77/5 SUCCESSORS. 3CQ
The arms of Islam bad now been carried triumphantly to the
very defiles of tbe Caucasus ; tboso mountains were yet to be
subdued. Their rocky sierras on the east separated Azerbijan
from Haziz and the shores of the Caspian, and on the north
from the vast Sarmatian regions. The passes through these
mountains were secured of yoro by fortresses and walls and
iron gates, to bar against irruptions from the shadowy land of
Gog and Magog, the terror of the olden time, for by these
passes had poured in the barbarous hordes of the north, "a
mighty host all riding upon horses," who lived in tents, wor
shipped the naked sword planted in the earth, and decorated
their steeds with the scalps of their enemies slain in battle.*
* By some Gog and Magog are taken In an allegorical sense, signifying the
princes of heathendom, enemies of saints and the church.
According to the prophet Ezekiel, Gog •«'*.•> the king of Magog; Magog signifying
the people, and Gog the king of the country. They are names that loom vaguely
and fearfully in the dark denunciations of the prophets, and in the olden time in
spired awe throughout the Eastern world.
The Arabs, says Lane, call Gog and Magog, Yajuj and Majuj, and say they are
two nations or tribes descended from Japhet, the son of Noah ; or, as others write,
Gog is a tribe of the Turks, and Magog those of Gilan ; the Geli and the Gelse of
Ptolemy and Strabo. They made their irruptions into the neighboring countries hi
the spring, and carried off all the fruits of the earth.— Sale' s Koran, note to ch. 18.
According to Moslem belief, a great irruption of Gog and Magog is to be one of
the signs of the latter days, forerunning the resurrection and final judgment.
They are to come from the north in a mighty host, covering the land as a cloud ; so
that when subdued, their shields and bucklers, their bows and arrows and quivers,
and the staves of their spears, shall furnish the faithful with fuel for seven years.
— All which is evidently derived from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, with which
Mahomet had been made acquainted by his Jewish instructors.
The Koran makes mention of a wall built as a protection against these fearful
people of the north by Dhif Ikarneim, or the Two Horned; by whom some suppose
is meant Alexander the Great, others a Persian king of the first race, contemporary
with Abraham.
And they said, O Dhu'lkarneim, verily, Gog and Magog waste the land. . .
Re answered, I will set a strong wall between you and them. Bring me iron in
large pieces, until it fill up the space between the two sides of these mountains.
And he said to the workmen, Blow with your bellows until it make the iron red hot;
and bring me molten brass, that I may pour upon it. Wherefore, when this wall
was finished. Gog and Magog could not scale it, neither could they dig through
it.— Sale's Koran, chap. 18.
The Czar Peter the Great, in his expedition against the Persians, saw in the
neighborhood of the city of Derbend, which was then besieged, the ruins of a wall
which went up hill and down dale, along the Caucasus, and was said to extend
from the Euxine to the Caspian. It was fortified from place to place, by towers or
castles. It was eighteen llussi.m statics in height; built of stones laid up dry;
some of them three ells long and very wide. The color of the stones, and the tradi
tions of the country, showed it to be of great antiquity. The Arabs and Persians
said that it was built against the invasions of Gog and Magog.— See Travel* in th«
East, by Sir William? Ouscley.
370 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Detachments of Moslems under different leaders penetrated
the denies of these mountains and made themselves masters of
the Derbends, or mountain barriers. One of the most im
portant, and which cost the greatest struggle, was a city or
fortress called by the Persians Der-bend ; by the Turks Demir-
Capi or the Gate of Iron, and by the Arabs Bab-el-abwab (the
Gate of Gates). It guards a defile between a promontory of
Mount Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. A superstitious belief
is still connected with it by the Moslems. Originally it had
three gates, two only are left ; one of these has nearly sunk
into the earth ; they say when it disappears the day of judg
ment will arrive.
Abda'lrahman Ibn Kabiah, one of the Moslem commanders
who penetrated the defiles of the Caucasus, was appointed by
Omar to the command of the Derbends or passes, with orders
to keep vigilant watch over them ; for the Caliph was in con
tinual solicitude about the safety of the Moslems on these re
mote expeditions, and was fearful that the Moslem troops
might be swept away by some irruption from the north.
Abda'lrahman, with the approbation of the Caliph, made a
compact with Shahr-Zad, one of the native chiefs, by which
the latter, in consideration of being excused from paying
tribute, undertook to guard the Derbends against the northern
hordes. The Arab general had many conversations with
Shahr-Zad about the mountains, which are favored regions of
Persian romance and fable. His imagination was fired with
what he was told about the people beyond the Derbends, the
Allani and the Eus ; and about the great wall or barrier of
Yajuj and Majuj, built to restrain their inroads.
In one of the stories told by Shahr-Zad, the reader will per
ceive the germ of one of the Arabian tales of Sinbad the Sailor.
It is recorded to the following purport by Tabari, the Persian
historian: "One day as Abda'lrahman was seated by Shahr-
Zad, conversing with him, he perceived upon his finger a ring
decorated with a ruby, which burned like fire in the day
time, but at night was of dazzling brilliancy. ' It came,' said
Shahr-Zad, ' from the wall of Yajuj and Majuj ; from a king
whose dominions between the mountains is traversed by the
wall. I sent him many presents and asked but one ruby in
return.' Seeing the curiosity of Abda'lrahman aroused, fee
sent for the 'man who had brought the ring, and commanded
him to relate the circumstances of his errand.
** ' When I delivered the presents and the letter of Shahr-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 371
Zad to that king,' said the rnan, 'he called his chief falconer,
and ordered him to procure the jewel required. The falconer
kept an eagle for three days without food, until he was nearly
starved; he then took him up into the mountains near the
wall, and I accompanied him. From the summit of one of
these mountains, we looked down into a deep dark chasm like
an abyss. The falconer now produced a piece of tainted
meat ; threw it into the ravine, and let loose the eagle. He
swept down after it ; pounced upon it as it reached the ground,
and returning with it, perched upon the hand of the falconer.
The ruby which now shines in that ring was found adhering
to the meat.'
" Abda'lrahman asked an account of the wall. * It is built,'
replied the man, ' of stone, iron, and brass, and extends down
one mountain and up another.' 'This,' said the devout and
all-believing Abda'lrahman, * must be the very wall of which
the Almighty makes mention in the Koran.'
"He now inquired of Shahr-Zad what was the value of
the ruby. 'No one knows its value,' was the reply; 'though
presents to an immense amount had been made in return for
it.' Shahr-Zad now drew the ring from his finger, and offered
it to Abda'lrahman, but the latter refused to accept it, saying
that a gem of that value was not suitable to him. ' Had you
been one of the Persian kings, ' said Shahr-Zad, ' you would
have taken it from me by force ; but men who conduct like
you will conquer all the world.' "
The stories which he had heard had such an effect upon
Abda'lrahman, that he resolved to make a foray into the
mysterious country beyond the Derbends. Still it could only
be of a partial nature, as he was restrained from venturing far
by the cautious injunctions of Omar. " Were I not fearful of
displeasing the Caliph," said he, "I would push forward even
to Yajuj and Majuj, and make converts of all the infidels."
On issuing from the mountains, he found himself among a
barbarious people, the ancestors of the present Turks, who in
habited a region of country between the Euxine and the
Caspian seas. A soldier who followed Abda'lrahman in this
foray gave the following account of these people to the Caliph
on his return to Medina. "They were astonished," said he,
"at our appearance, so different from their old enemies the
Persians, and asked us, ' Are you angels, or the sons of Ad;i i a?1
to which we replied, we are sons of Adam; but the angels of
heaven are on our side and aid us in our warfare."
372 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
The infidels forbore to assail men thus protected ; one, how
ever, more shrewd or dubious than the rest, stationed himself
behind a tree, sped an arrow, and slew a Moslem. The de
lusion was at an end ; the Turks saw that the strangers were
mortal, and from that time there was hard fighting. Abdalrah-
man laid siege to a place called Belandscher, the city or
stronghold of the. Bulgarians or Huns, another semi-barbarous
and warlike people like the Turks, who, like them, had not yet
made themselves world-famous by their conquering migra
tions. The Turks came to the aid of their neighbors ; a severe
battle took place, the Moslems were defeated, and Abda'lrah-
man paid for his daring enterprise and romantic curiosity
with his life. The Turks, who still appear to have retained a
superstitious opinion of their unknown invaders, preserved
the body of the unfortunate general as a relic, and erected a
shrine in honor of it, at which they used to put up their
prayers for rain in time of drought.
The troops of Abda'lrahman retreated within the Derbends ;
his brother Seiman Ibn Rabiah was appointed to succeed him
in the command of the Caucasian passes, and thus ended the
unfortunate foray into the land of Gog and Magog.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE OJLIPH OMAR ASSASSINATED BY A FIRE-WORSHIPPER— HIS
CHARACTER— OTHMAN ELECTED CALIPH.
THE life and reign of the Caliph Omar, distinguished by such
great and striking events, were at length brought to a sudden
and sanguinary end. Among the Persians who had been
brought as slaves to Medina, was one named Firuz, of the sect
of the Magi, or fire- worshippers. Being taxed daily by his
master two pieces of silver out of his earnings, he complained
of it to Omar as an extortion. The Caliph inquired into his
condition, and, finding that he was a carpenter, and expert in
the construction of windmills, replied, that the man who ex
celled in such a handicraft could well afford to pay two dirliems
a day. "Then," muttered Firuz, "I'll construct a windmill
for you that shall keep grinding until the day of judgment. "
Omar was struck with his menacing air. ' ' The slave threatens
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOR*.
me," said he, calmly. "If I were disposed to punish any one
on suspicion, I should take off his head;" ho suffered him,
however, to depart without further notice,
Three days afterward, as he was praying in the mosque,
Firuz entered suddenly and stabbed him thrice with a dagger.
The attendants rushed upon the assassin. He made furious
resistance, slew some and wounded others, until one of his
assailants threw his vest over him and seized him, upon which
he stabbed himself to the heart and expired. Religion may
have had some share in prompting this act of violence ; perhaps
revenge for the ruin brought upon his native country. " God
be thanked," said Omar, "that he by whose hand it was de
creed I should fall was not a Moslem !"
The Caliph gathered strength sufficient to finish the prayer
in which he had been interrupted; "for he who deserts his
prayers," said he, "is not in Islam." Being taken to his
house, he languished three days without hope of recovery, but
could not be prevailed upon to nominate a successor. " I can
not presume to do that," said he, " which the prophet himself
did not do." Some suggested that he should nominate his
son Abdallah. "Omar's family," said he, "has had enough
in Omar, and needs no more." Ho appointed a council of six
persons to determine as to the succession after his decease ; all
of whom he considered worthy of the Caliphat; though ho
gave it as his opinion that the choice would be either Ah' or
Othman. " Shouldst thou become Caliph," said he to Ali, " do
not favor thy relatives above all others, nor place the house of
Haschem on the neck of all mankind ;" and he gave the same
caution to Othman in respect to the family of Omcya.
Calling for ink and paper, he wrote a letter as his last testa
ment, to whosoever might be his successor, full of excellent
counsel for the upright management of affairs, and the promo
tion of the faith. He charged his son Abdallah in the most
earnest manner, as one of the^ highest duties of Islamism, to
repay eighteen thousand dirhems which he had borrowed out
of the public treasury. All present protested against this as
unreasonable, since the money had been expended in relief of
the poor and destitute, but Omar insisted upon it as his last
will. He then sent to Ayesha and procured permission of her
to be buried next to her father Abu Beker.
Ibn Abbas and Ali now c*poke to him in words of comfort,
setting forth the blessings of Islam, which had crowned his
administration, and that he would leave no one behind him
§74 MAllOMKT A.Xl> ITT8
,who could charge him with injustice. " Testify this for me,*
said he, earnestly, " at the day of judgment." They gave him
their hands in promise ; but he exacted that they should give
him a written testimonial, and that it should be buried with
-him in the grave.
Having settled all his worldly affairs, and given directions
about his sepulture, he expired, the seventh day after hie
assassination, in the sixty-third year of his age, after a trium
phant reign of ten years and six months.
His death was rashly and bloodily revenged. Mahomet Ibn
Abu Beker, the brother of Ayesha, and imbued with her mis
chief-making propensity, persuaded Abdallah, the son of Omar,
that his father's murder was the result of a conspiracy ; Firuz
having been instigated to the act by his daughter Lulu, a
Christian named Dschofeine, and Horinuzan, the once haughty
and magnificent satrap of Susiana. In the transport of his
rage, and instigated by the old Arab principle of blood revenge,
Abdallah slew all three of the accused, without reflecting on
the improbability of Hormuzan, at least, being accessory to the
murder; being, since his conversion, in close friendship with
the late Caliph, and his adviser, on many occasions, in the
prosecution of the Persian war.
The whole history of Omar shows him to have been a man
of great powers of mind, inflexible integrity, and rigid justice.
He was, more than any one else, the founder of the Islam em
pire, confirming and carrying out the inspirations of the prophet ;
aiding Abu Beker with his counsels during his brief Caliphat ;
and establishing wise regulations for the strict administration
of the laws throughout the rapidly-extending bounds of the
Moslem conquests. The rigid hand which he kept upon his
most popular generals in the midst of their armies, and in the
most distant scenes of their triumphs, give signal evidence of his
extraordinary capacity to rule. In the simplicity of his habits,
and his contempt for all pomp and luxury, he emulated the
example of the prophet and Abu Beker. He endeavored in
cessantly to impress the merit and policy of the same in his
letters to his generals. " Beware," he would say, " of Persian
luxury, both in food and raiment. Keep to the simple habits
of your country, and Allah will continue you victorious; de
part from them, and he will reverse your fortunes." It was
his strong conviction of the truth of this policy, which made
him so severe in punishing all ostentatious style and luxurious
indulgence in his officers.
AM) ///.< SUCCESSORS. -
Some of his ordinances do credit to his heart as well as his
head. He forbade that any female captive who had borne a
child should be sold as a slave. In his weekly distributions of
the surplus money of his treasury ho proportioned them to the
wants, not the merits of the applicant. " God," said lie, '' has
bestowed the good things of this world to relieve our neces
sities, not to reward our virtues: those will be rewarded in
mother world."
One of the early measures of his reign was the assigning
pensions to the most faithful companions of the prophet, and
t hose who had signalized themselves in the early service of the
faith. Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, had a yearly pension
of 200,000 dirhems; others of his relatives in graduated pro
portions ; those veterans who had fought in the battle of Beder
5000 dirhems ; pensions of less amount to those who had dis
tinguished themselves in Syria, Persia, and Egypt. Each of
the ] irophet's wives was allowed ten thousand dirhems yearly,
and Ayesha twelve thousand. Hasan and Hosein, the sons of
Ali and grandsons of the prophet, had each a pension of five
thousand dirhems. On any one who found fault with these
disbursements out of the public wealth, Omar invoked the
curse of Allah.
He was the first to establish a chamber of accounts or ex
chequer ; the first to date events from the Hegira or flight of
the prophet : and the first to introduce a coinage into the Mos
lem dominions ; stamping the coins with the name of the reign
ing Caliph; and the words, " There is no God but God."
During his reign, we are told, there were thirty-six thousand
towns, castles, and strongholds taken; but he was not a waste
ful conqueror. He founded new cities, established important
marts, built innumerable mosques, and linked the newly ac
quired provinces into one vast empire by his iron inflexi'
bility of purpose. As has well been observed, "His Cali-
phat, crowned with the glories of its triple conquest of Syria,
Persia, and Egypt, deserves to be distinguished as the heroic
age of Saracen history. The gigantic foundations of the Sara*
cenic power were perfected in the short space of less than ten
years." Let it be remembered, moreover, that this great con
queror, this great legislator, this magnanimous sovereign, was
originally a rude, half-instructed Arab of Mecca. Well may
we say in regard to the early champions of Islam, "Thero
were giants in those da
After the de-iili of ( )mar the six pers.-n; met (•>• vth<-r whom
376 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
he had named as a council to elect his successor. They were
Ali, Othman, Telha, Ibn Obeid'allah (Mahomet's son-in-law),
Zobeir, Abda'lrahman, Ibn Awf , and Saad Ibn Abu Wakkas.
They had all been personally intimate with Mahomet, and
were therefore styled THE COMPANIONS.
After much discussion and repeated meetings the Caliphat
was offered to Ali, on condition that he would promise to gov
ern according to the Koran and the traditions of Mahomet, and
the regulations established by the two seniors or elders, mean
ing the two preceding Caliphs, Abu Beker and Omar.
Ali repliod that he would govern according to the Koran and
the authentic traditions ; but would, in all other respects, act
according to his own judgment, without reference to the ex
ample of the seniors. This reply not being satisfactory to the
council, they made the same proposal to Othman Ibn Affan,
who assented to all the conditions, and was immediately
elected, and installed three days after the death of his prede
cessor. He was seventy years of age at the time of his elec
tion. He was tall and swarthy, and his long gray beard was
tinged with henna. He was strict in his religious duties ; fast
ing, meditating, and studying the Koran ; not so simple in his
habits as his predecessors, but prone to expense and lavish
of his riches. His bountiful spirit, however, was evinced at
times in a way that gained him much popularity. In a time
of famine he had supplied the poor of Medina with corn. He
had purchased at great cost the ground about the mosque of
Medina, to give room for houses for the prophet's wives. He
had contributed six hundred and fifty camels and fifty horses
for the campaign against Tabuc.
He derived much respect among zealous Moslems for having
married two of the prophet's daughters, and for having been
in both of the Hegiras or flights, the first into Abyssinia, the
second, the memorable flight to Medina. Mahomet used to say
of him, ''Each thing has its mate, and each man his associate:
my associate in paradise is Othman."
Scarcely was the new Caliph installed in office when the re
taliatory punishment prescribed by the law was invoked upon
Obeid'allah, the son of Omar, for the deaths so rashly inflicted
on those whom he had suspected of instigating his father's as
sassination. Othman was perplexed between the letter of the
law and the odium of following the murder of the father by
the execution of the son. He was kindly relieved from his per
plexity by the suggestion, that as the act of Obeid'allah took
UAHOVET AXD ins succzssons. 377
place in the interregnum between the Caliphate of Omar and
Othman, it did not come under the cognizance of either. Oth-
man gladly availed himself of the quibble; Obeid'allah escaped
unpunished, and the sacrifice of the once magnificent Hoiinu •
zan and his fellow- victims remained unavenged.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CONCLUSION OF THE PERSIAN CONQUEST — FLIGHT AND DEATH OF
YEZDEGIRD.
THE proud empire of the Khosrus had received its death
blow during the vigorous Caliphat of Omar ; what signs of lifo
it yet gave were but its dying struggles. The Moslems, led
by able generals, pursued their conquests in different direc
tions. Some, turning to the west, urged their triumphant
way through ancient Assyria ; crossed the Tigris by the bridge
of Mosul, passing the ruins of mighty Nineveh as unheedingly
as they had passed those of Babylon ; completed the subjuga
tion of Mesopotamia, and planted their standards beside those
of their brethren who had achieved the conquest of Syria.
Others directed their course into the southern and eastern
provinces, following the retreating steps of Yezdegird. A fiat
issued by the late Caliph Omar had sealed the doom of that
unhappy monarch. "Pursue the fugitive king wherever he
may go, until you have driven him from the face of the
earth!"
Yezdegird, after abandoning Rei, had led a wandering life,
shifting from city to city and province to province, still flying
at the approach of danger. At one time we hear of him in the
splendid city of Ispahan ; next among the mountains of Farsis-
tan, the original Persis, the ci exile of the conquerors of Asia;
and it is another of the lessons furnished by history, to see the
last of the Khosrus a fugitive among those mountains whence,
in foregone times, Cyrus had led his hardy but frugal and
rugged bands to win, by force of arms, that vast empire which
was now falling to ruin through its effeminate degeneracy.
For a time the unhappy monarch halted in Istakar, the
pride of Persia, where the tottering remains of Persepolis, and
its hall of a thousand columns, speak of the ancient glories of
the Persian kings. Here Yezdegird had been fostered and
378 h^ttoMET AND SIS SVOC£S80R8.
concealed during his youthful days, and here he came
being taken among the relics of Persian magnificence.
From Farsistan he was driven to Kerman, the ancient Car-
mania; thence into Khorassan, in the northern part of which
vast province he took breath at the city of Merv, or Merou, on
the remote boundary of Bactriana. In all his wanderings he
was encumbered by the shattered pageant of an oriental court,
a worthless throng which had fled with him from Madayn,
and which he had no means of supporting. At Merv he had
four thousand persons in his train, all minions of the palace,
useless hangers-on, porters, grooms, and slaves, together with
his wives and concubines, and their female attendants.
In this remote halting-place he devoted himself to building
a fire-temple ; in the mean time he wrote letters to such of the
cities and provinces as were yet unconquered, exhorting his
governors and generals to defend, piece by piece, the frag
ments of empire which he had deserted.
The city of Ispahan, one of the brightest jewels of his
crown, was well garrisoned by wrecks of the army of Neha-
vend, and might have made brave resistance; but its gover
nor, Kadeskan, staked the fortunes of the place upon a single
combat with the Moslem commander who had invested it, and
capitulated at the first shock of lances; probably through
some traitorous arrangement.
Ispahan has never recovered from that blow. Modern
travellers speak of its deserted streets, its abandoned palaces,
its silent bazaars. " I have ridden for miles among its ruins,"
says one, "without meeting any living creature, excepting
perhaps a jackal peeping over a wall, or a fox miming into
his hole. Now and then an inhabited house was to be seen,
the owner of which might be assimilated to Job's forlorn man
dwelling in desolate cities, and in houses which no man in-
habiteth ; which are ready to become heaps. "
Istakar made a nobler defence. The national pride of the
Persians was too much connected with this city, once their
boast, to let it fall without a struggle. There was another
gathering of troops from various parts; one hundred and
twenty thousand are said to have united under the standard
of Shah-reg the patriotic governor. It was all in vain. The
Persians were again defeated in a bloody battle ; Shah-reg was
slain, and Istakar, the ancient Persepolis, once almost the
mistress of the Eastern world, was compelled to pay tribute
to the Arabian Caliph.
AND 7//-S' 8VOOB880B8.
The course of Moslem conquest now turned into the vast
province of Khorassan ; subdued one part of it after another,
and approached the remote region where Yezdegird had taken
refuse. Driven to the boundaries of his dominions, the fugi
tive monarch crossed the Oxus (the ancient Gihon) and the
sandy deserts beyond, and threw himself among the shepherd
hordes of Scythia. His wanderings are said to have extended
to the borders of Tshin, or China, from the emperor of which
he sought assistance-
Obscurity hangs over this part of his story ; it is affirmed
that he succeeded in obtaining aid from the great Khan of the
T,-irtars, and re-crossing the Gihon was joined by the troops of
Jialkh or Bactria, which province was still unsubdued and
loyal. With these he endeavored to make a stand against
his unrelenting pursuers. A slight reverse, or some secret
treachery, put an end to the adhesion of his barbarian ally.
The Tartar chief returned with his troops to Turkestan*
Yezdegird's own nobles, tired of following his desperate
fortunes, now conspired to betray him and his treasures into
the hands of the Moslems as a price for their own safety. He
was at that time at Merv, or Merov, on the Oxus, called Merou
al Roud, or " Merou of the River," to distinguish it from Merou
in Khorassan. Discovering the intended treachery of his
nobles, and of the governor of the place, he caused his slaves
to let him down with cords from a window of his palace and
fled, alone and on foot, under cover of the night. At the
break of day he found himself near a mill, on the banks of the
river, only eight miles from the city, and offered the miller
his ring and bracelets, enriched with gems, if he would ferry
him across the stream. The boor, who knew nothing of
jewels, demanded four silver oboli, or drachms, the amount of
a day's earnings, as a compensation for leaving his work.
While they were debating, a party of horsemen who were hi
pin-suit of the king came up and clove him with then* scime-
t.irs. Another account states that, exhausted and fatigued
with the weight of his embroidered garments, he sought rest
and concealment hi the mill, and that the miller spread a mat,
on which he laid down and slept. His rich attire, however,
his belt of gold studded with jewels, his rings and bracelets,
<'\« itod the avarice of the miller, who slew him with an axe
while he slept, and, having stripped the body, threw it into
the water. In the morning several horsemen in search of
him arrived at the mill, where discovering, by his clothes and
8SO MAliOMfiT AND HIS &V&G&SSOM&
jewels, that he had been murdered, they put the miller td
death.
This miserable catastrophe to a miserable career is said to
have occurred on the 23d August, in the year 651 of the Chris
tian era. Yezdegird was in the thirty-fourth year of his age,
having reigned nine years previous to the battle of Nehavend,
and since that event having been ten years a fugitive. His
tory lays no crime to his charge, yet his hard fortunes and un-
untimely end have failed to awaken the usual interest and
sympathy. He had been schooled in adversity from his early
youth, yet he failed to profit by it. Carrying about with him
the wretched relics of an effeminate court, he sought only his
personal safety, and wanted the courage and magnanimity to
throw himself at the head of his armies, and battle for his
crown and country like a .great sovereign and a patriot prince.
Empires, however, like all other things, have their allotted
time, and die, if not by violence, at length of imbecility and
old age. That of Persia had long since lost its stamina, and
the energy of a Cyrus would have been unable to infuse new
life into its gigantic but palsied limbs. At the death of Yezde
gird it fell under the undisputed sway of the Caliphs, and be
came little better than a subject province.*
CHAPTER XXXV.
AMRU DISPLACED FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF EGYPT— REVOLT
OF THE INHABITANTS— ALEXANDRIA RETAKEN BY THE IMPERI
ALISTS— AMRU REINSTATED IN COMMAND— RETAKES ALEXAN
DRIA, AND TRANQUILLIZES EGYPT— IS AGAIN DISPLACED— AB
DALLAH IBN SAAD INVADES THE NORTH OF AFRICA.
U!N the conquests of Syria, Persia, and Egypt," says a mod
ern writer, "the fresh and vigorous enthusiasm of the personal
companions and proselytes of Mahomet was exercised and ex-
* According to popular traditions in Persia, Yezdepird, in the course of his
wanderings, took refuge for a time in the castle of Fahender, near Schiraz, and
buried the crown jewels and treasures of Nushirwan, in a deep pit or well under
tho castle, where they still remain guarded by a talisman, so that they cannot be
found or drawn forth. Others say that he had them removed and deposited in
trust with the Khacan, or emperor of Chin or Tartary. After the extinction of
the royal Persian dynasty, those treasures and the crown remained in Chin. — Sif
WiUiam Ouseley'8 Travels in the East, vol. ii. p. 34.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 381
pended, and the generation of warriors whose simple fanati
cism had been inflamed by the preaching of the pseudo prophet,
was in a great measure consumed in the sanguinary and per
petual toils of ten arduous campaigns."
Wo shall now see the effect of those conquests on the na
tional character and habits ; the avidity of place and power
and wealth superseding religious enthusiasm ; and the enervat
ing luxury and soft voluptuousness of Syria and Persia sap
ping the rude but masculine simplicity of the Arabian desert.
Above all, the single-mindedness of Mahomet and his two
immediate successors is at an end. Other objects beside the
mere advancement of Islamism distract the attention of its
leading professors ; and the struggle for worldly wealth and
worldly sway, for the advancement of private ends, and the
aggrandizement of particular tribes and families, destroy th&
unity of the empire, and beset the Caliphat with intrigue, trea>
son, and bloodshed.
It was a great matter of reproach against the Caliph Oth-
man that he was injudicious in his appointments, and had an
inveterate propensity to consult the interests of his relatives
and friends before that of the public. One of his greatest er
rors in this respect was the removal of Amru Ibn Al Aass from
the government of Egypt, and the appointment of his own
foster-brother, Abdallah Ibn. Saad, in his place. Tin's was the
same Abdallah who, in acting as amanuensis to Mahomet, and
writing down his revelations, had interpolated passages of his
own, sometimes of a ludicrous nature. For this and for his
apostasy he had been pardoned by Mahomet at the solicitation
of Othman, and had ever since acted with apparent zeal, his
interest coinciding with his duty.
He was of a courageous spirit, and one of the most expert
horsemen of Arabia ; but what might have fitted him to com
mand a horde of the desert was insufficient for the govern
ment of a conquered province. He was new and inexperienced
in his present situation ; whereas Amru had distinguished him
self as a legislator as well as a conqueror, and had already won
the affections of the Egyptians by his attention to their inter
ests, and his respect for their customs and habitudes. His
dismission was, therefore, resented by the people, and a dis
position was manifested to revolt against the new governor.
The emperor Constantine, who had succeeded to his father
fleraclius, hastened to take advantage of these circumstances.
A fleet and army were sent against Alexandria under a prefect
382 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
named Manuel. The Greeks in the city secretly co-operated
with him, and the metropolis was, partly by force of arms,
partly by treachery, recaptured by the imperialists without
much bloodshed.
Othman, made painfully sensible of the error he had com
mitted, hastened to revoke the appointment of his foster-
brother, and reinstated Amru in the command in Egypt
That able general went instantly against Alexandria with an
army, in which were many Copts, irreconcilable enemies of
the Greeks. Among these was the traitor Makawkas, who,
from his knowledge of the country and his influence among
its inhabitants, was able to procure abundant supplies for the
army.
The Greek garrison defended the city bravely and obsti
nately. Amru, enraged at having thus again to lay siege to a
place which he had twice already taken, swore, by Allah, that
if he should master it a third time, he would render it as easy
of access as a brothel. He kept his word, for when he took
the city he threw down the walls and demolished all the forti
fications. He was merciful, however, to the inhabitants, and
checked the fury of the Saracens, who were slaughtering all
they met. A mosque was afterward erected on the spot at
which he stayed the carnage, called the Mosque of Mercy.
Manuel, the Greek general, found it expedient to embark with
all speed with such of his troops as he could save, and make
sail for Constantinople.
Scarce, however, had Amru quelled every insurrection and
secured the Moslem domination in Egypt, when he was again
displaced from the government, and Abdallah Ibn Saad ap
pointed a second time in his stead.
Abdallah had been deeply mortified by the loss of Alexan
dria, which had been ascribed to his incapacity ; he was emu
lous too of the renown of Amru, and felt the necessity of
vindicating his claims to command by some brilliant achieve
ment. The north of Africa presented a new field for Moslem
enterprise. We allude to that vast tract extending west from
the desert of Libya or Barca, to Cape Non, embracing more
than two thousand miles of sea-coast; comprehending the
ancient divisions of Mamarica, Cyrenaica, Carthage, Numidia,
and Mauritania ; or, according to modern geographical desig
nations, Barca, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco.
A few words respecting the historical vicissitudes of this
once powerful region may not be inappropriate. The original
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 383
inhabitants are supposed to have come at a remote time from
Asia ; or rather, it is said that an influx of Arabs drove the
original inhabitants from the sea-coast to the mountains, and
the borders of the interior desert, and continued their nomade
and pastoral life along the shores of the Mediterranean.
About nine hundred years before the Christian era, the Phoe
nicians of Tyre founded colonies along the coast ; of these Car
thage was the greatest. By degrees it extended its influence
along the African shores and the opposite coast of Spain, and
rose in prosperity and power until it became a rival republic
to Rome. On the wars between Rome and Carthage it is need
less to dilate. They ended in the downfall of the Carthaginian
republic and the domination of Rome over Northern Africa.
This domination continued for about four centuries, until the
Roman prelect Bonif acius invited over the Vandals from Spain
to assist him in a feud with a political rival. The invitation
proved fatal to Roman ascendancy. The Vandals, aided by
the Moors and Berbers, and by numerous Christian sectarians
recently expelled from the Catholic Church, aspired to gain
possession of the country, and succeeded. Genseric, the Van
dal general, captured and pillaged Carthage, and having sub
jugated Northern Africa, built a navy, invaded Italy, and
sacked Rome. The domination of the Vandals by sea and land
lasted above half a century. In 533 and 534 Africa was re
gained by Belisarius for the Roman empire, and the Vandals
were driven out of the land. After the departure of Beli
sarius the Moors rebelled, and made repeated attempts to get
the dominion, but were as often defeated with great loss, and
the Roman sway was once more established.
All these wars and changes had a disastrous effect on the
African provinces. The Vandals had long disappeared ; many
of the Moorish families had been extirpated; the wealthy
inhabitants had fled to Sicily and Constantinople, and a stran
ger might wander whole days over regions once covered with
towns and cities, and teeming with population, without meet
ing a human being.
For near a century the country remained sunk in apathy
and inaction, until now it was to be roused from its torpor by
the all-pervading armies of Islam.
Soon after the reappointment of Abdallah to the govern
ment of Egypt, he set out upon the conquest of this country,
at the head of forty thousand Arabs. After crossing the
western boundary of Egypt he had to traverse the desert of
384 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Libya, but his army was provided with camels accustomed to
the sandy wastes of Araoia, and, after a toilsome march, he en
camped before the walls of Tripoli, then, as now, one of the
most wealthy and powerful cities of the Barbary coast. The
place was well fortified, and made good resistance. A body of
Greek troops which were sent to reinforce it were surprised
by the besiegers on the sea-coast, and dispersed with great
slaughter.
The Roman prefect Gregorius having assembled an army of
one hundred and twenty thousand men, a great proportion of
whom were the hastily levied and undisciplined tribes of
Barbary, advanced to defend his province. He was accom
panied by an Amazonian daughter of wonderful beauty, who
had been taught to manage the horse, to draw the bow, and
wield the scimetar, and who was always at her father's side in
battle.
Hearing of the approach of this army, Abdallah suspended
the siege and advanced to meet it. A brief parley took
place between the hostile commanders. Abdallah proposed
the usual alternatives, profession of Islamism or payment of
tribute. Both were indignantly rejected. The armies engaged
before the walls "of Tripoli. Abdallah, whose fame was staked
on this enterprise, stimulated his troops by word and example,
and charged the enemy repeatedly at the head of his squad
rons. Wherever he pressed the fortune of the day would in
cline in favor of the Moslems ; but on the other hand Grego
rius fought with desperate bravery, as the fate of the province
depended on this conflict; and wherever he appeared his
daughter was at his side, dazzling all eyes by the splendor of
her armor and the heroism of her achievements. The contest
was long, arduous, and uncertain. It was not one drawn
battle, but a succession of conflicts, extending through several
days, beginning at early dawn, but ceasing toward noon,
when the intolerable heat of the sun obliged both armies to
desist, and seek the shade of their tents.
The prefect Gregorius was exasperated at being in a manner
held at bay by an inferior force, which he had expected to
crush by the superiority of numbers. Seeing that Abdallah
was the life and soul of his army, he proclaimed a reward of
one hundred thousand pieces of gold and the hand of his
daughter to the warrior who should bring him his head.
The excitement caused among the Grecian youth by this
tempting prize made the officers of Abdallah tremble for his
M i/, "i//./ UMD /;/>• >/ 385
safety. They represented to him the importance of his life to
the army and tin- p'licral cause, and prevailed upon him to
keep aloof from the field of battle. His absence, however, pro-
iluccd an immediate change, and the valor of his troops,
hitherto stimulated by his presence, began to languish.
Zobeir, a noble Arab of the tribe of Koreish, arrived at the
field of battle with a small reinforcement, in the heat of one ot
the engagements. He found the troops fighting to a disadvan
tage, and looked round in vain for the general. Being told
that he was in his tent, he hastened thither and reproached
him with his inactivity. Abdallah blushed, but explained the
reason of his remaining passive. u Retort on the infidel com
mander his perfidious bribe," cried Zobeir; " proclaim that his
daughter as a captive, and one hundred thousand pieces of
gold, shall be the reward of the Moslem who brings his head."
The advice was adopted, as well as the following stratagem
suggested by Zobeir. On the next morning Abdallah sent
forth only sufficient force to keep up a defensive fight; but
when the sun had reached its noontide height, and the panting
troops retired as usual to their tents, Abdallah and Zobeir sal
lied forth at the head of the reserve, and charged furiously
among the fainting Greeks. Zobeir singled out the prefect,
and slew him after a well-contested fight. His daughter
pressed forward to avenge his death, but was surrounded and
made prisoner. The Grecian army was completely routed, and
fled to the opulent town of Safetula, which was taken and
sacked by the Moslems.
The battle was over, Gregorius had fallen, but no one came
forward to claim the reward set upon his head. His captive
daughter, however, on beholding Zobeir, broke forth into
tears and exclamations, and thus revealed the modest victor.
Zobeir refused to accept the maiden or the gold. IJe fought,
he said, for the faith, not for earthly objects, and looked for
his reward in paradise. In honor of his achievements he was
HI 'lit with tidings of this victory to the Caliph; but when he
announced it, in the great mosque at Medina, in presence of the
assembled people, he made no mention of his own services.
His modesty enhanced his merits in the eyes of the public, and
his name was placed by the Moslems beside of those of Khaled
and Amru.
Abdallah found his forces too much reduced and enfeebled
by battle and disease to enable him to maintain possession of
the country he had subdued, and after a campaign of fifteen
886 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
months he led back his victorious, but diminished army into
Egypt, encumbered with captives and laden with booty.
He afterward, by the Caliph's command, assembled an army
in the Thebaid or Upper Egypt, and thence made numerous
successful excursions into Nubia, the Christian king of which
was reduced to make a humiliating treaty, by which he bound
loimself to send annually to the Moslem commander in Egypt
a great number of Nubian or Ethiopian slaves by way of
tribute.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MOAWYAH, EMIR OF SYRIA— HIS NAVAL VICTORIES — OTHMAN
LOSES THE PROPHET'S RING — SUPPRESSES ERRONEOUS COPIES
OF THE KORAN— CONSPIRACIES AGAINST HIM— HIS DEATH.
AMONG the distinguished Moslems who held command of the
distant provinces during the Caliphat of Othman, was Moa-
wyah Ibn Abu Sofian. As his name denotes, he was the son of
Abu Sofian, the early foe and subsequent proselyte of Ma
homet. On his father's death he had become chief of the tribe
of Koreish, and head of the family of Omeya or Ommiah. The
late Caliph Omar, about four years before his death, had ap
pointed him emir, or governor of Syria, and he was continued
in that office by Othman. He was between thirty and forty
years of age, enterprising, courageous, of quick sagacity, ex
tended views, and lofty aims. Having the maritime coast and
ancient ports of Syria under his command, he aspired to ex
tend the triumphs of the Moslem arms by sea as well as land.
He had repeatedly endeavored, but in vain, to obtain permis
sion from Omar to make a naval expedition, that Caliph being
always apprehensive of the too wide and rapid extension of the
enterprises of his generals. Under Othman he was more suc
cessful, and in the twenty-seventh year of the Hegira was
permitted to fit out a fleet, with which he launched forth on
the Sea of Tarshish, or the Phoenician Sea, by both which
names the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea was desig
nated in ancient times.
His first enterprise was against the island of Cyprus, which
was still held in allegiance to the emperor of Constantinople.
MAHOMET AND HIS
The Christian garrison was weak, and the inhabitants of tht*
island soon submitted to pay tribute to the Caliph.
His next enterprise was against the island of Aradus, where
he landed his troops and besieged the city or fortress, batter
ing it with military engines. The inhabitants made vigorous
resistance, repelled him from the island, and it was only after
I>.c had come a second time, with superior force, that he was
nble to subdue it. He then expelled the natives, demolished
the fortifications, and set fire to the city.
! lis most brilliant achievement, however, was a battle with
a large fleet, in which the emperor was cruising in the Phoeni
cian tfea. It was called in Arab history The Battle of Masts.
from the forest of masts in the imperial fleet. The Christians
went into action singing psalms and elevating the cross, the
Moslems repeating texts of the Koran, shouting Allah Achbar,
and waving the standard of Islam. The battle was severe;
the imperial fleet dispersed, and the emperor escaped by dint
of sails and oars.
Moawyah now swept the seas victoriously, made landings
on Crete and Malta, captured the island of Rhodes, demolished
its famous colossal statue of brass, and, having broken it to
pieces, transported the fragments to Alexandria, where they
were sold to a Jewish merchant of Edissa, and were sufficient
to load nine hundred camels. He had another fight with a
Christian fleet in the bay 01 Feneke, by Castel Rosso, in which
both parties claimed the victory. He even carried his expedi
tions along the coasts of Asia Minor, and to the very port of
Constantinople.
These naval achievements, a new feature in Arab warfare,
rendered Moawyah exceedingly popular in Syria, and laid the
foundation for that power and importance to which he subse
quently attained.
It is worthy of remark how the triumphs of an ignorant
people, who had heretofore dwelt obscurely in the midst of
their deserts, were overrunning all the historical and poetical
regions of antiquity. They had invaded and subdued the once
mighty empires on land, they had now launched forth from
the old scriptural ports of Tyre and Sidon, swept the Sea of
Tarshish, and were capturing the isles rendered famous by
(•lassie fable.
In the midst of these foreign successes an incident, con
sidered full of sinister import, happened to Othman. Ho ac
cidentally dropped in a brook a silver ring, on which wr.s
888 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
inscribed "Mahomet the apostle of God." It had originally
belonged to Mahomet, and since his death had been worn by
Abu Beker, Omar, and Othman, as the symbol of command,
as rings had been considered throughout the East from the
earliest times. The brook was searched with the most anxious
care, but the ring was not to be found. This was an ominous
loss in the eyes of the superstitious Moslems.
It happened about this time that, scandalized by the various
versions of the Koran, and the disputes that prevailed concern
ing their varying texts, he decreed, in a council of the chiet
Moslems, [that all copies of the Koran which did not agree with
the genuine one in the hands of Hafza, the widow of Mahomet,
should be burnt. Seven copies of Hafza's Koran were accord
ingly made; six were sent to Mecca, Yemen, Syria, Bahrein,
Bassora, and Cufa, and one was retained in Medina. All
copies varying from these were to be given to the flames.
This measure caused Othman to be called the Gatherer of the
Koran. It, at any rate, prevented any further vitiation of the
sacred Scripture of Islam, which has remained unchanged
from that time to the present. Besides this pious act, Othman
caused a wall to be built round the sacred house of the Caaba,
and enlarged and beautified the mosque of the prophet in
Medina.
Notwithstanding all this, disaffection and intrigue were
springing up round the venerable Caliph in Medina. He was
brave, open-handed, and munificent, but he wanted shrewd
ness and discretion ; was prone to favoritism ; very credulous,
and easily deceived.
Murmurs rose against him on all sides, and daily increased
in virulence. His conduct, both public and private, was re
viewed, and circumstances, which had been passed by as
trivial, were magnified into serious offences. He was charged
with impious presumption in having taken his stand, on being
first made Caliph, on the uppermost step of the pulpit, where
Mahomet himself used to stand, whereas Abu Beker had stood
one step lower, and Omar two. A graver accusation, and one
too well merited, was that he had displaced men of worth,
eminent for their services, and given their places to his own
relatives and favorites. This was especially instanced in dis
missing Amru Ibn al Aass from the government of Egypt, and
appointing in his stead his own brother Abdallah Ibn Saad,
who had once been proscribed by Mahomet. Another accusa
tion was, that he had lavished the public money upon para-
UMUMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 880
sites, giving one hundred thousand dinars to one, four hundred
thous; UK! t<. anoiher. and no less than five hundred ;md four
thousand upon his secretary of state, Merwan Ibn Makem.
who h;id. it was said. ;in undue ascendency over him, ai'd was,
in 1'aet, the subtle and active spirit of his government. The
sum, it was alleged, was taken cut of a portion of the
jp -Ms of Africa, which had been set apart for the family of ttic
urnphet.
The ire of the old Caliph was kindled at having his lavish
liberality thus charged upon him as a crime. He mounted the
pulpit and declared that the money in the treasury belonged to
Clod, the distribution to the Caliph at his own discretion as
successor of the prophet ; and he prayed God to confound who-
• \ . r should gainsay what he had set forth.
Upon this Ammar Ibn Yaser, one of the primitive Moslems,
of whom Mahomet himself had said that he was filled with
faith from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, rose
and disputed the words of Othman, whereupon some of the
Caliph's kindred of the house of Ommian fell upon the venera
ble Ammar and beat him until he fainted.
The outrage offered to the person of one of the earliest disci
ples and especial favorites of the propnet was promulgated far
and wide, and contributed to the general discontent, which
no\v assumed the aspect of rebellion. The ringleader of the
disaffected was Ibn Caba, formerly a Jew. This son of mis
chief made a factious tour from Yemen to Hidschaf, thence to
Bassora, to Cufa, to Syria, and Egypt, decrying the Caliph and
the emirs he had appointed ; declaring that the Caliph at had
been usurped by Othman from Aii, to whom it rightly be
longed, as the nearest relative of the prophet, and suggesting
by word of mouth and secret correspondence, that the mal
contents should assemble simultaneously in various parts
under pretext of a pilgrimage to Mecca.
The plot of the renegade Jew succeeded. In the fulness of
time deputations arrived from all parts. One amounting to
a hundred and fifty persons from Bassora; another of two
hundred under Malec Alashtar from Cufa ; a third of six hun
dred from Egypt headed by Mahomet, the son of Abu Beker,
and brother of Ayesha, together with numbers of a sect of
zealots called Karegites, who took the lead. These deputies
encamped like an army within a league of Medina and sum
moned the Caliph by message either to red^as their grievance*
or to abdi-
390 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Othman in consternation applied to Ali to go forth and pacify
the multitude. He consented on condition that Othman would
previously make atonement for his errors from the pulpit.
Harassed and dismayed, the aged Caliph mounted the pulpit,
and with a voice broken by sobs and tears, exclaimed, "My
God, I beg pardon of thee, and turn to thee with penitence and
sorrow." The whole assemblage were moved and softened, and
wept with the Caliph.
Merwan, the intriguing and well-paid secretary of Othman,
and the soul of his government, had been absent during these
occurrences, and on returning reproached the Caliph with what
he termed an act of weakness. Having his permission, he ad
dressed the populace in a strain that soon roused them to ten
fold ire. Ali, hereupon, highly indignant, renounced any
further interference in the matter.
Naile, the wife of Othman, who had heard the words of
Merwan, and beheld the fury of the people, warned her hus
band of the storm gathering over his head, and prevailed upon
him again to solicit the mediation of Ali. The latter suffered
himself to be persuaded, and went forth among the insurgents.
Partly by good words and liberal donations from the treasury,
partly by a written promise from the Caliph to redress all their
grievances, the insurgents were quieted, all but the deputies
from Egypt who came to complain against the Caliph's foster-
brother, Abdallah Ibn Saad, who they said had oppressed them
with exactions, and lavished their blood in campaigns in Bar-
bary, merely for his own fame and profit, without retaining a
foothold in the country. To pacify these complainants, Oth
man displaced Abdallah from the government, and left them
to name his successor. They unanimously named Mahomet,
the brother of Ayesha, who had in fact been used by that in
triguing woman as a firebrand to kindle this insurrection ; her
object being to get Telha appointed to the Caliphat.
The insurgent camp now broke up. Mahomet with his fol
lowers set out to take possession of his post, and the aged
Caliph flattered himself he would once more be left in peace.
Three days had Mahomet and his train been on their journey,
when they were overtaken by a black slave on a dromedary.
They demanded who he was, and whither he was travelling so
rapidly. He gave himself out as a slave of the secretary Mer
wan, bearing a message from the Caliph to his emir in Egypt.
• ' I am the emir, " said Mahomet. ' ' My errand, " said the slave,
"is to the emir Abdallah Ibn Saad." He was asked if he had
MAHOMET AND BIS SUCCESSORS. 891
a letter, and on his prevaricating was searched. A letter was
found concealed in a water-flask. It was from the Caliph,
briefly ordering the emir, on the arrival of Mahomet Ibn Abu
BrkiT, to make way with him secretly, destroy his diploma,
and imprison, until further orders, those who had brought
complaints to Medina.
Mahomet Ibn Abu Beker returned furious to Medina, and
showed the perfidious letter to Ali, Zobeir, and Telha, who
repaired with him to Othman. The latter denied any knowl
edge of the letter. It must then, they said, be a forgery of
Me r wall's, and requested that he might be summoned. Oth
man would not credit such treason on the part of his secretary,
and insisted it must have been a treacherous device of one of
his enemies. Medina was now in a ferment. There was a
gathering of the people. All were incensed at such an atro
cious breach of faith, and insisted that if the letter originated
with Othman, he should resign the Caliphat ; if with Merwan,
that he should receive the merited punishment. Their de
mands had no effect upon the Caliph.
Mahomet Ibn Abu Beker now sent off swift messengers to
recall the recent insurgents from the provinces, who were re
turning home, and to call in aid from the neighboring tribes.
The dwelling of Othman was beleaguered; the alteraative was
left him to deliver up Merwan or to abdicate. He refused both.
His life was now threatened. He barricadoed himself in his
dwelling. The supply of water was cut off. If he made his
appearance on the terraced roof he was assailed with stones.
Ali, Zobeir, and Telha endeavored to appease the multitude,
but they were deaf to their entreaties. Saad Ibn al Aass ad
vised the Caliph, as the holy month was at hand, to sally forth
on a pilgrimage to Mecca, as the piety of the undertaking and
the sanctity of the pilgrim garb would protect him. Othman
rejected the advice. "If they seek my life," said he, "they
will not respect the pilgrim garb."
Ali, Zobeir, and Telha, seeing the danger imminent, sent their
three sons, Hassan, Abdallah, and Mahomet, to protect the
house. They stationed themselves by the door, and for some
time kept the rebels at bay; but the rage of the latter knew
no bounds. They stormed the house; Hassan was wounded
in its defence. The rebels rushed in ; among the foremost
was Mahomet, the brother of Ayesha, and Ammer Ibn Yaser,
whom Othman had ordered to be beaten. They found the
venerable Caliph seated 011 a cushion, his beard flowing on his
£92 MAHOMfiT AND HIS SVGCE880RS.
breast ; the Koran open on his lap, and his wife Naile beside
him.
One of the rebels struck him on the head, another stabbed
him repeatedly with a sword, and Mahomet Ibn Abu Beker
thrust a javelin into his body after he was dead. His wife was
wounded in endeavoring to protect him, and her life was only
saved through the fidelity of a slave. His house was plundered,
as were some of the neighboring houses, and two chambers of
the treasury.
As soon as the invidious Ayesha heard that the murder was
accomplished, she went forth in hypocritical guise loudly be
wailing the death of a man to whom she had secretly been hos
tile, and joining with the Ommiah family in calling for blood
revenge.
The noble and virtuous Ali, with greater sincerity, was in
censed at his sons for not sacrificing their lives in defence of
the Caliph, and reproached the sons of Telha and Zobeir with
being lukewarm. ' ' Why are you so angry, father of Hassan?"
said Telha; "had Othrnan given up Merwan this evil would
not have happened."
In fact, it has been generally affirmed that the letter really
was written by Merwan, without the knowledge of the Caliph,
and was intended to fall into the hands of Mahomet, and pro
duce the effect which resulted from it. Merwan, it is alleged,
having the charge of the correspondence of the Caliphat, had
repeatedly abused the confidence of the weak and superan
nuated Othman in like manner, but not with such a nefarious
aim. Of late he had secretly joined the cabal against the
Caliph.
The body of Othman lay exposed for three days, and was
then buried in the clothes in which he was slain, unwashed
and without any funeral ceremony. He was eighty-two years
old at the time of his death, and had reigned nearly twelve
years. The event happened in the thirty-fifth year of the
Hegira, in the year 655 of the Christian era. Notwithstanding
his profusion and the sums lavished upon his favorites, immense
treasures were found in his dwelling, a considerable part of
which he had set apart for charitable purposes.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CANDIDATES FOR THE CALIPHAT— INAUGURATION OF ALJ, FOURtli
CALIPH— HE UNDERTAKES MEASURES OF REFORM— THEIR CONSE
QUENCES—CONSPIRACY OF AYESHA— SHE GETS POSSESSION O*
BASSORA.
WE have already seen that the faith of Islam had begun to
lose its influence in binding together the hearts of the faithful,
and uniting their feelings and interests in one common cause.
The factions which sprang up at the very death of Mahomet
had increased with the election of every successor, and candi
dates for the succession multiplied as the brilliant successes of
the Moslem arms elevated victorious generals to popularity and
renown. On the assassination of Othman, four candidates
were presented for the Caliphat ; and the fortuitous assemblage
of deputies from the various parts of the Moslem empire
threatened to make the election difficult and tumultuous.
The most prominent candidate was Ali, who had the strongest
natural claim, bein^ cousin and son-in-law of Mahomet, and
his children by Fatima being the only posterity of the prophet,
He was of the noblest branch of the noble race of Koreish. He
possessed the three qualities most prized by Arabs— courage,
eloquence, and munificence. His intrepid spirit had gained
him from the prophet the appellation of The Lion of God;
specimens of his eloquence remain in some verses and sayings
preserved among the Arabs ; and his munificence was mani
fested in sharing among others, every Friday, what remained
in the treasury. Of his magnanimity we have given repeated
instances ; his noble scorn of everything false and mean, and
the absence in his conduct of everything like selfish intrigue.
His right to the Caliphat was supported by the people of Cufa,
the Egyptians, and a great part of the Arabs who were desirous
of a line of Caliphs of the blood of Mahomet. He was opposed,
however, as formerly, by the implacable Ayesha, who, though
well stricken in years, retained an unforgiving recollection ot
his having once questioned her chastity.
A second candidate was Zobeir, the same warrior who dis
tinguished himself by his valor in the campaign of Barbary, by
his modesty in omitting to mention his achievements, and in
declining to accept their reward. His pretensions to the Cali
phat were urged by the people of Bassorar
394 MAHOMET AND EIS SUCCESSORS.
A third candidate was Telha, who had been one of the six
electors of Othman, and who had now the powerful support of
Ayesha.
A fourth candidate was Moawyah, the military governor of
Syria, and popular from his recent victories by sea and land.
He had, moreover, immense wealth to back his claims, and
was head of the powerful tribe of Koreish ; but he was distan-
from the scene of election, and in his absence his partisan'?
could only promote confusion and delay.
It was a day of tumult and trouble in Medina. The body of
Othman was still unburied. His wife Naile, at the instigation
of Ayesha, sent off his bloody vest to be carried through the
distant provinces, a ghastly appeal to the passions of the in
habitants.
The people, apprehending discord and disunion, clamored
for the instant nomination of a Caliph. The deputations, which
had come from various parts with complaints against Othman,
became impatient. There were men from Babylonia and
Mesopotamia, and other parts of Persia; from Syria and
Egypt, as well as from the three divisions of Arabia ; these as
sembled tumultuously, and threatened the safety of the three
candidates, Ali, Telha, and Zobeir, unless an election were
made in four-and-twenty hours.
In this dilemma, some of the principal Moslems repaired to
Ali, and entreated him to accept the office. He consented
with reluctance, but would do nothing clandestinely, and re
fused to take their hands, the Moslem mode at that time of
attesting fealty, unless it were in public assembly at the
mosque; lest he should give cause of cavil or dispute to his
rivals. He refused, also, to make any promises or conditions.
" If I am elected Caliph," said he, "I will administer the gov
ernment with independence, and deal with you all according
to my ideas of justice. If you elect another, I will yield obedi
ence to him, and be ready to serve him as his vizier." They
assented to everything he said, and again entreated him to
accept, for the good of the people and of the faith.
On the following morning there was a great assemblage of
the people at the mosque, and Ali presented himself at tho
portal. He appeared in simple Arab style, clad in a thin cot
ton garb girded round his loins, a coarse turban, and using a
bow as a walking-staff, He took off his slippers in reverence
of the place, apd entered the mosque, bearing them in his left
hand,
AXD ms SUCCESSORS. 395
Finding that Telha and Zobeir were not present, he caused
1 1 ioi n to be sent for. They came, and knowing the state of
the public mind, and that all immediate opposition would be
useless, offered their hands in token of allegiance. Ali paused,
;m«l asked them if their hearts went with their hands. "Speak
franldy," said he; "if you disapprove of my election, and will
accept the office, I will give my hand to either of you." They
declared their perlcct satisfaction, and gave their hands.
Telha's right arm had been maimed in the battle of Ohod, and
he stretched it fcrth with difficulty. The circumstance struck
Ihe Arabs as an evil omen. " It is likely to be a lame business
that is begun with a lame hand," muttered a bystander.
Subsequent events seemed to justify the foreboding.
Moawyah, the remaining candidate, being absent at his gov
ernment in Syria, the whole family of Ommiah, of which he
was the head, withdrew from the ceremony. This likewise
boded future troubles.
After the inauguration, Telha and Zobeir, with a view, it is
said, to excite disturbance, applied to Ah' to investigate and
avenge the death of Othman. Ali, who knew that such a
measure would call up a host of enemies, evaded the insidious
proposition. It was not the moment, he said, for such an in
vestigation. The event had its origin in old enmities and dis
contents instigated by the devil, and when tha devil once
gained a foothold, he never relinquished it willingly. The veiy
measure they recommended was one of the devil's suggesting,
for the purpose of fomenting disturbances. " However, "added
he, ' ' if you will point out the assassins of Othman, I will not
fail to punish them according to their guilt."
While Ali thus avoided the dangerous litigation, he endeav
ored to cultivate the good will of the Koreishites, and to
strengthen himself against apprehended difficulties vrith the
family of Ommiah. Telha and Zobeir, being disconcerted in
their designs, now applied for important commands — Telha
for the government of Cufa, and Zobeir for that of Bassora ;
but Ali again declined complying with their wishes ; observing
that he needed such able counsellors at hand in his present
emergencies. They afterward separately obtained permission
from him to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, and set off on that
devout errand with piety on their lips, but crafty policy in
tli-ir ln-cnsts; Aycsha had already repaired to the holy city,
bent upon opposition to the government of the man she hated.
Ali was now Caliph, but did not feel himself securely fixed
396 MAHOMET AND HIS, SUCCESSORS.
in his authority. Many abuses had grown up during the
dotage of his predecessor, which called for redress, and most
of the governments of provinces were in the hands of persons
in whose affection and fidelity he felt no confidence. He de
termined upon a general reform ; and as a first step, to remove
from office all the governors who had been appointed by the
superannuated Othrnan. This measure was strongly opposed
by some of his counsellors. They represented to him that he
was not yet sufficiently established to venture upon such
changes ; and that he would make powerful enemies of men
who, if left in office, would probably hasten to declare allegi-
ence to him, now that he was Caliph.
Ali was not to be persuaded. ' ' Sedition, " he said, ' ' like fire,
is easily extinguished at the commencement ; but the longer it
burns the more fiercely it blazes."
He was advised, at least, to leave his formidable rival Moa-
wyah, for the present, in the government of Syria, as he was
possessed of great wealth and influence, and a powerful army,
and might rouse that whole province to rebellion ; and in such
case might be joined by Telha and Zobeir, who were both dis
appointed and disaffected men. He had recently shown his
influence over the feelings of the people under his command ;
when the bloody vest of Othman arrived in the province, he
had displayed it from the pulpit of the mosque in Damascus.
The mosque resounded with lamentations mingled with clam
ors for the revenge of blood ; for Othman had won the hearts
of the people of Syria by his munificence. Some of the noblest
inhabitants of Damascus swore to remain separate from their
wives, and not to lay their heads on a pillow until blood for
blood had atoned for the death of Othman. Finally the vest
had been hoisted as a standard, and had fired the Syrian army
with a desire for vengeance.
Ali's counsellor represented all these things to him. " Suf
fer Moawyah, therefore," added he, "to remain in command
until he has acknowledged your government, and then he may
be displaced without turmoil. Nay, I will pledge myself to
bring him bound hand and foot into your presence."
AH spurned at this counsel, and swore he would practise no
such treachery, but would deal with Moawyah with the sword
alone. He commenced immediately his plan of reform, with
Ihe nomination of new governors devoted to his service. Ab-
dallah Ibn Abbas was appointed to Arabia Felix, Ammar Ibn
Sahel to Ctifa, Othman Ibn Hanif to Bassora, Sahel Ibn Hanif
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 397
to Syria, and Saad Ibn Kais to ^gypc. These generals lost no
time in repairing to their respective governments, but the re
sult soon convinced Ah" that he had been precipitate.
Jaali, the governor of Arabia Felix, readily resigned his post
to Abdallah Ibn Abbas, and retired to Mecca ; but ho took with
him the public treasure, and delivered it into the hands of
Ayesha, and her confederates Telha and Zobeir, who were
already plotting rebellion.
Othman Ibn Hanif, on arriving at Bassorah to take the com
mand, found the people discontented and rebellious, and
having no force to subjugate them, esteemed himself fortunate
in escaping from their hands and returning to the Caliph.
When Ammar Ibn Sahel reached the confines of Cufa, he
learnt that the people were unanimous hi favor of Abu Musa
Alashari, their present governor, and determined to support
him by fraud or force. Ammar had no disposition to contend
with them, the Cufians being reputed the most treacherous and
perfidious people of the East ; so he turned the head of his
horse, and journeyed back mortified and disconcerted to Ah.
Saad Ibn Kais was received in Egypt with murmurs by the
inhabitants, who were indignant at the assassination of Oth
man, and refused to submit to the government of Ali until jus
tice was done upon the perpetrators of that murder. Saad
prudently, therefore, retraced his steps to Medina.
Sahel Ibn Hanif had no better success in Syria. He was met
at Tabuc by a body of cavalry, who demanded his name and
business. "For my name," said he, "I am Sahel, the son of
Hanif; and for my business, I am governor of this province, as
lieutenant of the Caliph Ali, commander of the Faithful."
They assured him in reply, that Syria had already an able
governor in Moawyah, son of Abu Sofian, and that to their
certain knowledge there was not room in the province for the
sole of his foot ; so saying, they unsheathed their scimetars.
The new governor, who was not provided with a body of
troops sufficient to enforce his authority, returned also to the
Caliph with this intelligence. Thus of the five governors so
promptly sent forth by Ali in pursuance of his great plan of
reform, Abdallah Ibn Abbas was the only one permitted to
assume his post.
When Ali received tidings of the disaffection of Syria he
wrote a letter to Moawyah, claiming his allegiance, and trans
mitted it by an especial messenger. The latter was detained
many days by the Syrian commander, and then sent back,
898 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
accompanied by another messenger, bearing a sealed letter
superscribed "From Moawyah to Ali." The two couriers
arrived at Medina in the cool of the evening, the hour of
concourse, and passed through the multitude bearing the letter
aloft on a staff, so that all could see the superscription. The
people thronged after the messengers into the presence of Ali.
On opening the letter it was found to be a perfect blank, in
token of contempt and defiance.
Ali soon learned that this was no empty bravado. He was
apprised by his own courier that an army of sixty thousand
men was actually on foot in Syria, and that the bloody gar
ment of Othman, the standard of rebellion, was erected in the
mosque at Damascus. Upon this he solemnly called Allah and
the prophet to witness that he was not guilty of that murder ;
but made active preparations to put down the rebellion by
force of arms, sending missives into all the provinces, demand
ing the assistance of the faithful.
The Moslems were now divided into two parties ; those who
adhered to Ali, among whom were the people of Medina gen
erally : and the Motazeli, or Separatists, who were in the oppo
sition. The latter were headed by the able and vindictive
Ayesha, who had her headquarters at Mecca, and with the
aid of Telha and Zobeir, was busy organizing an insurrection.
She had induced the powerful family of Ommiah to join her
cause, and had sent couriers to all the governors of provinces
whom Ali had superseded, inviting them to unite in the re
bellion. The treasure brought to her by Jaali, the displaced
governor of Arabia Felix, furnished her with the means of
war, and the bloody garment of Othman proved a powerful
auxiliary.
A council of the leaders of this conspiracy was held at
Mecca. Some inclined to join the insurgents in Syria, but it
was objected that Moawyah was sufficiently powerful in that
country without their aid. The intrepid Ayesha was for pro
ceeding immediately to Medina and attacking Ali in his
capital, but it was represented that the people of Medina were
unanimous in his favor, and too powerful to be assailed with
success. It was finally determined to march for Bassora,
Telha assuring them that he had a strong party in that city,
and pledging himself for its surrender.
A proclamation was accordingly made by sound of trumpet
through the streets of Mecca to the following effect :
" In the name of the Most High God. Ayesha, Mother of the
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 899
Faithful, accompanied by the chiefs Tf ;lha and Zobsir, is going
in person to Bassora. All those of the faithful who burn with
a desire to defend the faith and avenge the death of the Caliph
Othman, have only to present themselves and they shall be
furnished with all necessaries for the journey."
Ayesha sallied forth from one of the gates of Mecca, borne
in a litter placed on the back of a strong camel named Alascar.
Telha and Zobeir attended her on each side, followed by six
hundred persons of some note, all mounted on camels, and a
promiscuous multitude of about six thousand on foot.
After marching some distance, the motley host stopped to
refresh themselves on the bank of a rivulet near a village.
Their arrival aroused the dogs of the village, who surrounded
Ayesha and barked at her most clamorously. Like all Arabs,
she was superstitious, and considered this an evil omen. Her
apprehensions were increased on learning that the name of the
village was Jowab. "My trust is in God," exclaimed she,
solemnly. " To him do I turn in time of trouble"— a text from
the Koran, used by Moslems in time of extreme danger. In
fact, sho called to mind some proverb of the prophet about the
dogs of Jowab, and a prediction that one of his wives would be
barked at by them when in a situation of imminent peril. " I
will go no further," cried Ayesha; "I will halt here for the
night." Bo saying, she struck her camel on the leg to make
him kneel that she might alight.
Telha and Zobeir, dreading any delay, brought some peasants
whom they had suborned to assign a different name to the vil
lage, and thus quieted her superstitious fears. About the same
time some horsemen, likewise instructed by them, rode up
with a false report that Ali was not far distant with a body of
troops. Ayesha hesitated no longer, but mounting nimbly on
her camel, pressed to the head of her little army, and they all
pushed forward with increased expedition toward Bassora.
Arrived before the city, they had hoped, from the sanguine
declarations of Telha, to see it throw open its gates to receive
them ; the gates, however, remained closely barred. Othman
Ibn Hanef, whom Ali had sent without success to assume the
government of Cufa, was now in command at Bassora, whither
he had been invited by a part of the inhabitants.
Ayesha sent a summons to the governor to come forth and
join the standard of the faithful, or at least to throw open his
gates ; but he was a timid, undecided man, and confiding the
defence of tho city to his lieutenant Ammar, retired in great
400 MAHOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
tribulation within his own dwelling in the citadel, and went to
prayers.
Ammar summoned the people to arms, and called a meeting
of the principal inhabitants in the mosque. He soon found
out, to his great discouragement, that the people were nearly
equally divided into two factions — one for Ali, since he was
regularly elected Caliph, the other composed of partisans of
Telha. The parties, instead of deliberating, fell to reviling,
.and ended by throwing dust in each other's faces.
In the mean time Ayesha and her host approached the walls,
and many of the inhabitants went forth to meet her. Telha
and Zobeir alternately addressed the multitude, and were
followed by Ayesha, who harangued them from her camel.
Her voice, which she elevated that it might be heard by all,
became shrill and sharp, instead of intelligible, and provoked
the merriment of some of the crowd. A dispute arose as to
the justice of her appeal ; mutual revilings again took place
between the parties ; they gave each other the lie, and again
threw dust in each other's faces. One of the men of Bassora
then turned and reproached Ayesha. "Shame on thee, oh
Mother of the Faithful !" said he. " The murder of the Caliph
was a grievous crime, but was a less abomination than thy
forgetfulness of the modesty of thy sex. Wherefore dost thou
abandon thy quiet home, and thy protecting veil, and ride
forth like a man barefaced on that accursed camel, to foment
quarrels and dissensions among the faithful?"
Another of the crowd scoffed at Telha and Zobeir. "You
have brought your mother with you," cried he; " why did you
not also bring your wives?"
Insults were soon followed by blows, swords were drawn, a
skirmish ensued, and they fought until the hour of prayer
separated them.
Ayesha sat down before Bassora with her armed host, and
some days passed in alternate skirmishes and negotiations.
At length a truce was agreed upon, until deputies could be
sent to Medina to learn the cause of these dissensions among
the Moslems, and whether Telha and Zobeir agreed voluntarily
to the election of Ali, or did so on compulsion : if the former,
they should be considered as rebels ; if the latter, their parti
sans in Bassora should be considered justified in upholding
them.
The insurgents, however, only acquiesced in this agreement
to get the governor in their power, and so gain possession of
MAHOMET AND HIb SUCCESSOR-. 401
the city. They endeavored to draw him to their camp by
friendly messages, but he apparently suspected their inten
tions, and refused to come forth until the answer should be re
ceived -from Medina. Upon this Telha and Zobeir, taking ad
vantage of a stormy night, gained an entrance into the city
with a chosen band, and surprised the governor in the mosque
where they took him prisoner, after killing forty of his guard.
They sent to Ayesha to know what they should do with their
'Mptive. "Let him be put to death," was her fierce reply.
Upon this one of her women interceded. "I adjure thee," said
she, "in the name of Allah and the companions of the apostle,
do not slay him." Ayesha was moved by this adjuration, and
commuted his punishment into forty stripes and imprison
ment. He was doomed, however, to suffer still greater evils
before he escaped from the hands of his captors. His beard
was plucked out hair by hair, one of the most disgraceful
punishments that can be inflicted on.an Arab. His eyebrows
were served in the same manner, and he was then contemptu
ously set at liberty.
The city of Bassora was now taken possession of without
further resistance. Ayesha entered it in state, supported by
Telha and Zobeir, and followed by her troops and adherents.
The inhabitants were treated with kindness, as friends who
had acted through error; and every exertion was made to
secure their good-will, and to incense them against Ah", who
was represented as a murderer and usurper.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A LI DEFEATS THE REBELS UNDER AYESHA— HIS TREATMENT
OF HER.
WHEN Ali heard of the revolt at Mecca, and the march
against Bassora, he called a general meeting in the mosque,
and endeavored to stir up the people to arm and follow him iri
pursuit of the rebels; but, though he spoke with his usual
eloquence, and was popular in Medina, a coldness and apathy
pervaded the assembly. Some dreaded a civil war: others
recollected that the leader of the rebels, against whom they
were urgod to take up arms, was Ayesha, the favorite wife of
4-..J MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the prophet, the Mother of the Faithful; others doubted
whether All might not, in some degree, be implicated in the
death of Othman, which had been so artfully charged against
him.
At length a Moslem of distinction, Ziyad Ibn Hantelah, rose
with generous warmth, and btepping up to Ali, "Let who
soever, will hold back," cried he; "we will go forward."
At the same time two Ansars, or doctors of the law, men of
great weight, pronounced with oracular voice, " The Imam
Othman, master of the two testimonies, did not die by the*
hand of the master of the two testimonies ;"* that is to say,
' ' Othman was not Slain by Ali. "
The Arabs are a mercurial people, and acted upon by sudden
impulses. The example of Ziyad, and the declaration of the
two Ansars, caused an immediate excitement. Abu Kotada,
an Ansar of distinction, drew his sword. "The apostle of
God," said he, "upon whom be peace, girt me with this sword.
It has long been sheathed. I now devote it to the destruction
of these deceivers of the faithful."
A matron in a transport of enthusiasm exclaimed, "Oh
Commander of the Faithful, if it were permitted by pur law, I
myself would go with thee ; but here is my cousin, dearer to me
than my own life ; he shall follow thee and partake of thy for
tunes."
Ali profited by the excitement of the moment, and making a
hasty levy marched out of Medina at the head of about nine
hundred men, eager to overtake the rebels before they should
reach Bassora. Hearing, however, that Ayesha was already
in possession of that city, he halted at a place called Arrabdah
until he should be joined by reinforcements ; sending messen'
gers to Abu Musa Alashair, governor of Cufa, and to various
other commanders, ordering speedy succor. He was soon
joined by his eldest son Hassan, who undertook to review his
conduct and lecture him on his policy. " I told you," said he,
" when the Caliph Othman was besieged, to go out of the city,
lest you should be implicated in his death. I told you not to
be inaugurated until deputies from the Arabian tribes were
present. Lastly, I told you when Ayesha and her two con
federates took the field, to keep at home until they should be
* The two testimonies mean the two fundamental beliefs of the Moslem creed:
" There is but one God. Mahomet is the apostle of God." The Caliph, as Imam or
pontiff of the Mussulman religion, is master of the two testimonies.
MAHOMET AND UTS SUCCESSORS. 4Q3
pacified ; so that, should any mischief result, you might not be
made responsible. You have not heeded my advice, and the
consequence is that you may now be murdered to-morrow,
with nobody to blame but yourself."
Ali listened with impatience to this filial counsel, or rather
censure; when it was finished he replied, "Had I left the city
when Othman was besieged, I should myself have been sur
rounded. Had I waited for my inauguration until all the
tribes came in, I should have lost the votes of the people of
Medina, the 'Helpers,' who have the privilege of disposing of
the government. Had I remained at home after my enemies
had taken the fie!d, like a wild beast lurking in its hole, I
should like a wild beast have been digged out and destroyed.
If I do not look after my own affairs, who will look after
them? If I do not defend myself, who will defend me? Such
are my reasons for acting as I have acted ; and now, my son,
hold your peace." We hear of no further counsels from
Hassan.
Ali had looked for powerful aid from Abu Musa Alashair,
govenlor of Cufa, but he was of a lukewarm spirit, and
cherished no good will to the Caliph, from his having sent
Othman Ibn Hanef to supplant him, as has been noticed. He
therefore received his messengers with coldness, and sent a
reply full of evasions. Ali was enraged at this reply ; and his
anger was increased by the arrival about the same time of the
unfortunate Othman Ibn Hanef, who had been so sadly
scourged and maltreated and ejected from his government at
Bassora. What most grieved the heart of the ex-governor
was the indignity that had been offered to his person. uOh
Commander of the Faithful," said he, mournfully, "when you
sent me to Bassora I had a beard, and now, alas, I have not a
hair on my chin !"
Ali commiserated the unfortunate man who thus deplored
the loss of his beard more than of his government, but com
forted him with the assurance that his sufferings would be
counted to him as merits. He then spoke of his own case;
the Caliphs, his predecessors, had reigned without opposition ;
but, for his own part, those who had joined in electing him,
had proved false to him. "Telha and Zobeir," said he, "have
submitted to Abu Beker, Omar, and Othman ; why have they
arrayed themselves against me? By Allah, they shall find
that I am not one jot inferior to my predecessors !"
Ali now sent more urgent messages to Abu Musa, governor
404 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
of Cufa, by his son Hassan and Ammar Ibn Yaser, his general
of the horse, a stern old soldier, ninety years of age, the same
intrepid spokesman who, for his hardihood of tongue, had
been severely maltreated by order of the Caliph Othman.
They were reinforced by Alashtar, a determined officer, who
had been employed in the previous mission, and irritated by
the prevarications of Abu Musa.
Hassan and Ammar were received with ceremonious respect
6y the governor, and their mission was discussed, according
to usage, in the mosque, but Alashtar remained with the
guard that had escorted them. The envoys pressed their
errand with warmth, urging the necessity of their sending
immediate succor to the Caliph. Abu Musa, however, who
prided himself more upon words than deeds, answered them
by an evasive harangue ; signifying his doubts of the policy of
their proceeding ; counselling that the troops should return to
Medina, that the whole matter in dispute should be investi
gated, and the right to rule amicably adjusted. "It is a bad
business, " added he, ' l and he that meddles least with it stands
less chance of doing wrong. For what says the prophet
touching an evil affair of the kind? He who sleepeth in it is
more secure than he that waketh ; he that lyeth than he that
sitteth ; he that sitteth than he that standeth ; he that standeth
than he that walketh; and he that walketh than he that
rideth. Sheathe, therefore, your swords, take the heads from
your lances, and the strings from your bows, and receive him
that is injured into your dwellings, until all matters are ad
justed and reconciled."
The ancient general, Ammar, replied to him tartly, that he
had misapplied the words of the prophet, which were meant
to rebuke such servants as himself, who were better sitting
than standing, and sleeping than awake. Abu Musa would
have answered him with another long harangue in favor of
non-resistance, but was interrupted by the sudden entrance of
a number of his soldiers, bearing evidence of having been
piteously beaten. While Abu Musa had been holding forth at
the mosque, Alashtar, the hardy officer who remained with
the escort, had seized upon the castle of Cufa, caused the
garrison to be soundly scourged, and sent them to the mosque
to cut short the negotiation. This prompt measure of Alashtar
placed the cold-spirited conduct of Abu Musa in so ridiculous
a light that the feelings of the populace were instantly turned
against him. Hassan, the son of Ali, seized upon the moment
MAHOMET AND U1S SUCCESSORS.
to address the assembly. He maintained the innocence of his
father in regard to the assassination of Othman. "His
father," he said, "had either done wrong, or had suffered
wrong. If he had done wrong, God would punish him. If
he had suffered wrong, God would help him. The <
in the hand of the Most High. Telha and Zobeir, who were
the first to inaugurate him, were the first to turn against him.
What had he done, as Caliph, to merit such opposition? What
injustice had he committed? What covetous or selfish pro
pensity had he manifested? I am going back to my father,"
added Hassan; " those who are disposed to render him assist
ance may follow me."
His eloquence was powerfully effective, and the people of
Cufa followed him to the number of nearly nine thousand. In
the mean time the army of Ali had been reinforced from other
quarters, and now amounted to thirty thousand men, all of
whom had seen service. When he appeared with his force
before Bassora, Ayesha and her confederates were dismayed,
and began to treat of conciliation. Various messages passed
between the hostile parties, and Telha and Zobeir, confiding in
the honorable faith of Ali, had several interviews with him.
When these late deadly enemies were seen walking back
ward and forward together, in sight of either army, and hold
ing long conversations, it was confidently expected that a
peace would be effected ; and such would have been the case
had no malign influence interfered ; for Ali, with his impres
sive eloquence, touched the hearts of his opponents, when he
reproached them with their breach of faith, and warned them
against the judgments of heaven. ' ' Dost thou not remember, "
said he to Zobeir, "how Mahomet once asked thee if thou
didst not love his dear son Ali? and when thou answered yea,
dost thou not remember his reply: 'Nevertheless a day will
come when thou wilt rise up against him, and draw down
miseries upon him and upon all the faithful?'"
"I remember it well," replied Zobeir, "and had I remem
bered it before, never would I have taken up arms against
you."
He returned to his camp determined not to fight against Ali,
but was overruled by the vindictive Ayesha. Every attempt
at pacification was defeated by that turbulent woman, and the
armies were at length brought to battle. Ayesha took the field
on that memorable occasion, mounted in a litter on her great
camel Alascar, and rod* up and down among her troops, ani-
408 MAHOMET AND HIS
mating them by her presence and her voice. The fight was
called, from that circumstance, The Battle of the Camel, and
also the battle of Karibah, from the field on which it was
fought.
It was an obstinate and bloody conflict, for Moslem was ar
rayed against Moslem, and nothing is so merciless and unyield-
, ing as civil war. In the heat of the fight Merwan Ibn Hakem,
j who stood near AH, noticed Telha endeavoring to goad on the
j flagging valor of his troops. ' * Behold the traitor Telha, " cried
he, ' ' but lately one of the murderers of Othman, now the pre
tended avenger of his blood." So saying, he let fly an arrow
and wounded him in the leg. Telha writhed with the pain, and
at the same moment his horse reared and threw him. In the
dismay and anguish of the moment he imprecated the ven
geance of Allah upon his own head for the death of Othman.
Seeing his boot full of blood, he made one of his followers take
him up behind him on his horse and convey him to Bassora.
Finding death approaching, he called to one of Ali's men who
happened to be present, " Give me your hand," said the dying
penitent, "that I may put mine in it, and thus renew my oath
of fealty to Ali." With these words he expired. His dying
speech was reported to Ali, and touched his generous heart.
"Allah," said he, " would not call him to heaven until he had
blotted out his first breach of his word by this last vow of
fidelity."
Zobeir, the other conspirator, had entered into the battle
with a heavy heart. His previous conversation with Ali had
awakened compunction in his bosom. He now saw that old
Ammar Ibn Yaser, noted for probity and rectitude, was in the
Caliph's host ; and he recollected hearing Mahomet say that
Ammar Ibn Yaser would always be found on the side of truth
and justice. With a boding spirit he drew out of the battle
and took the road toward Mecca. As he was urging his mel
ancholy way he came to a valley crossed by the brook Sabaa,
where Hanef Ibn Kais was encamped with a horde of Arabs,
awaiting the issue of the battle, ready to join the conqueror
and share the spoil. Hanef knew him at a distance. "Is there
no one," said he, " to bring me tidings of Zobeir?" One of his
men, Amru Ibn Jarmuz, understood the hint, and spurred to
overtake Zobeir. The latter, suspecting his intentions, bade
him keep at a distance. A short conversation put them on
friendly terms, and they both dismounted and conversed to
gether. The hour of prayers arrived. " Salat" (to prayers!)
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 4Q7
cried Zobeir. u Salat," replied Amru; but as Zobeir prostrated
himself in supplication. Ainru struck off his head, and has
tened with it, as a welcome trophy, tc Ali. That generous
conqueror shed tears over the bleeding head of one who was
once his friend. Then turning to his slayer, u Hence, miscre
ant!" cried he, " and carry thy tidings to Ben Safiah in hell!"
So unexpected a malediction, where he expected a reward,
threw Amru into a transport of rage and desperation ; he ut
tered a rhapsody of abuse upon Ali, and then, drawing his
sword, plunged it into his own bosom.
Such was the end of the two leaders ot the rebels. As
to Ayesha, the implacable soul of the revolt, she had mingled
that day in the hottest of the fight. Tabari, the Persian his
torian, with national exaggeration, declares that the heads of
threescore and ten men were cut off that held the bridle of her
camel, and that the inclosed litter in which she rode was bris
tled all over with darts and arrows. At last her camel was
hamstringed, and sank with her to the ground, and she re
mained there until the battle was concluded.
Ayesha might have looked for cruel treatment at the hands
of AM, having been his vindictive and persevering enemy, but
he was too magnanimous to triumph over a fallen foe. It is
said some reproachful words passed between them, but he
treated her with respect, gave her an attendance of forty fe
males, and sent his sons Hassan and Hosein to escort her a
day's journey toward Medina, where she was confined to her
own house, and forbidden to intermeddle any more with affairs
of state. He then divided the spoils among the heirs of his sol
diers who were slain, and appointed Abdallah Ibn Abbas gover
nor of Bassora. This done, he repaired to Cufa, and in reward
of the assistance he had received from its inhabitants, made
that city tho seat of his Caliphat. These occurrences took place
in the thirty -i^bh year of the Hegira, the 655th of the Chris
tian era.
408 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
<APTEK XXXIX.
BATTLES BETWEEN ALI AND MOAWYAH — THEIR CLAIMS TO THE
CALIPHAT LEFT TO ARBITRATION; THE RESULT— DECLINE OF
THE POWER OF ALI— LOSS OF EGYPT.
THE victory at Karibah had crushed the conspiracy of
Ayesha, and given AH quiet dominion over Egypt, Arabia, and
Persia ; still his most formidable adversary remained unsub
dued. Moawyah Ibn Abu Sofian held sway over the wealthy
and populous province of Syria ; he had immense treasures and
a powerful army at his command ; he had the prejudices of the
Syrians in his favor, who had been taught to implicate Ali in
the murder of Othman, and refused to acknowledge him as
Saliph. Still further to strengthen himself in defiance of tbe
sovereign power, he sought the alliance of Amru, who had
been displaced from the government of Egypt by Ali, and was
now a discontented man in Palestine. Eestoration to that
command was to be the reward of his successful co-operation
with Moawyah in deposing Ali; the terms were accepted;
Amru hastened to Damascus at the head of a devoted force ;
and finding the public mind ripe for his purpose, gave the hand
of allegiance to Moawyah in presence of the assembled army,
and proclaimed him Caliph, amid the shouts cf the multitude.
Ali had in vain endeavored to prevent the hostility of
Moawyah, by all conciliatory means; when he heard of this
portentous alliance he took the field and marched for Syria, at.
the head of ninety thousand men. The Arabians, with theii
accustomed fondness for the marvellous, signalize his entrance
into the confines of Syria with an omen. Having halted his
army in a place where there was no water, he summoned a
Christian hermit, who lived in a neighboring cave, and
demanded to be shown a well. The anchorite assured him
that there was nothing but a cistern, in which there were
scarce three buckets of rain water. Ali maintained that
certain prophets of the people of Israel had abode there in
times of old, and had digged a well there. The hermit replied
that a well did indeed exist there, but it had been shut up for
ages, and all traces of it lost, and it was only to be discovered
and reopened by a predestined hand. He then, says the
Arabian tradition, produced a parchment scroll written by
MAHOMRS AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 409
Simeon ben Safa (Simon Cephas), one of the greatest apostles
of Jesus Christ, predicting the coming of Mahomet, the last of
the prophets, and that this well would be discovered and
reopened by his lawf ul heir and successor.
Ali listened with becoming reverence to this prediction;
then turning to his attendants and pointing to a spot, "Dig
there," said he. They digged, and after a time came to an
immense stone, which having removed with diffculty, the
miraculous well stood revealed, affording a seasonable supply
to the army, and an unquestionable proof of the legitimate
claim of Ali to the Caliphat. The venerable hermit was struck
with conviction ; he fell at the feet of Ali, embraced his knees,
and never afterward would leave him.
It was on the first day of the thirty-seventh year of the
Hegira (18th June, A.D. 657), that Ali came in sight of the
army of Moawyah, consisting of eighty thousand men, en
camped on the plain of Seffein, on the banks of the Euphrates,
on the confines of Babylonia and Syria. Associated with
Moawyah was the redoubtable Amru, a powerful ally both
in council and in the field. The army of Ali was superior in
number; in his host, too, he had several veterans who had
fought under Mahomet in the famous battle of Beder, and
thence prided themselves in the surname of Shahabah ; that is
to say, Companions of the Prophet. The most distinguished
of these was old Ammar Ibn Yaser, Ali's general of horse, who
had fought repeatedly by the side of Mahomet. He was
ninety years of age, yet full of spirit and activity, and idolized
by the Moslem soldiery.
The armies lay encamped in sight of each other, but as it
was the first month of the Moslem year, a sacred month, when
all warfare is prohibited, it was consumed in negotiations ; for
Ali still wished to avoid the effusion of kindred blood. His
efforts were in vain, and in the next month hostilities com
menced; still Ah' drew his ssvord with an unwilling hand; he
charged his soldiers never to be the first to fight ; never to
harm those who fled, and. never to do violence to a woman.
Moawyah and Amru were likewise sensible of the unnatural
character of this war; the respective leaders, therefore, avoided
any general action, and months passed hi mere skirmishings.
These, however, were sharp and sanguinary, and in the course
of four months Moawyah is said to have lost fivc-and-forty
thousand men, and Ali more than half that number.
Among the slain on tho part of Ali were five-and-twenty of
410 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the Shahabah, the veterans of Eeder, and companions of the
prophet. Their deaths were deplored even by the enemy ; but
nothing caused greater grief than the fall of the brave old
Ammar Ibii Yaser, Ali's general of horse, and the patriarch of
Moslem chivalry. Moawyah and Amru beheld him fall. ' ' Do
you see," cried Moawyah, "what precious lives are lost in our
dissensions?" "See," exclaimed Amru; "would to God I had
died twenty years since !"
Ali forgot his usual moderation on beholding the fate of his
brave old general of the horse, and putting himself at the head
of twelve thousand cavalry, made a furious charge to avenge
his death. The ranks of the enemy were broken by the shock ;
but the heart of Ali soon relented at the sight of carnage.
Spurring within call of Moawyah, "How long," cried he,
" shall Moslem blood be shed like water in our strife ? Come
forth, and let Allah decide between us. Whichever is victor
in the fight, let him be ruler."
Amru was struck with the generous challenge, and urged
Moawyah to accept it; but the latter shunned an encounter
with an enemy surnamed "The Lion," for his prowess, and
who had always slain his adversary in single fight. Amru
hinted at the disgrace that would attend his refusal ; to which
Moawyah answered with a sneer, "You do wisely to provoke
a combat that may make you governor of Syria."
A desperate battle at length took place, which continued
throughout the night. Many were slain on both sides; but
most on the part of the Syrians. Alashtar was the hero of
this fight ; he was mounted upon a piebald horse, and wielded
a two-edged sword ; every stroke of that terrible weapon clove
down a warrior, and every stroke was accompanied by the
shout of Allah Achbar ! He was heard to utter that porten
tous exclamation, say the Arabian historians, four hundred
times during the darkness of the night.
The day dawned disastrously upon the Syrians. Alashtar
was pressing them to their very encampment, and Moawyah
was in despair, when Amru suggested an expedient, founded on
the religious scruples of the Moslems. On a sudden the Syrians
elevated the Koran on the points of their lances. " Behold the
book of God," cried they. "Let that decide our differences."
The soldiers of Ali instantly dropped the points of their
weapons. It was in vain Ali represented that this was all a
trick, and endeavored to urge them on. "What!" cried they,
" do you refuse to submit to the decision of the book of God ?"
Mr.T A\D I ITS SUCCESSORS. 4H
All found that to persist would be to shock their bigot
prejudices, and to bring a storm upon his own head; reluc
tantly, therefore, he sounded a retreat; but it required
repeated blasts to call off Alnshtar, who came, his scimetar
dripping with blood, and murmuring at being, as he said,
tricked out of so glorious a victory.
Umpires were now appointed to settle this great dispute
according to the dictates of the Koran. All would have
nominated on his part Abdallah Ibn Abbas, but he was
objected to, as being his cousin-german. He then named
the brave Alashtar, but he was likewise set aside, and Abu
Musa pressed upon him, an upright, but simple and somewhat
garrulous man, as has already been shown. As to Moawyah,
he managed on his part to have Amru Ibn al Aass appointed,
the shrewdest and most sagacious man in all Arabia. The
two rival leaders then retired, Ali to Cufa, and Moawyah to
Damascus, leaving generals in command of their respective
armies.
The arbitrators met several months afterward at Jumat al
Joudel, in presence of both armies, who were pledged to sup
port their decision. Amru, who understood the weak points
of Musa's character, treated him with great deference, and
after having won his confidence, persuaded him that, to heal
these dissensions, and prevent the shedding of kindred blood,
it would be expedient to set aside both candidates and let the
faithful elect a third. This being agreed upon, a tribunal was
erected between the armies, and Amru, through pretended def
erence, insisted that Musa should be the first to ascend it and
address the people. Abu Musa accordingly ascended, and pro
claimed with a loud voice, ''I depose Ali and Moawyah from
the office to which they pretend, even as I draw this ring from
my finger." So saying, he descended.
! Amru now mounted in his turn. " You have heard," said he,
1 ' how Musa on his part has deposed Ali ; I on my part depose
him also; and I adjudge the Caliphat to Moawyah, and invest
him with it, as I invest my finger with this ring ; and I do it
with justice, for he is the rightful successor and avenger of
Othman."
Murmurs succeeded from the partisans of Ali, and from Abu
Musa, who complained of the insincerity of Amru. The Syrians
applauded the decision, and both parties, being prevented from
hostilities by a solemn truce, separated without any personal
violence, but with mutual revilings and augmented enmity. A
412 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
kind. of religious feud sprang up, which continued for a long
time between the house of Ali and that of Ommiah ; they never
mentioned each other without a curse, and pronounced an ex
communication upon each othor whenever they harangued the
people in the mosque.
The power of Ali now began to wane ; the decision pronounced
against him influenced many of his own party, and a revolt
was at length stirred up among his followers, by a set of fanatic
zealots called Karigites or seceders, who insisted that he had
done wrong in referring to the judgment of men what ought to
be decided by God alo*ie ; and that he had refused to break the
truce and massacre his enemies when in his power, though they
had proved themselves to be the enemie.3 of God ; they there
fore renounced allegiance to him ; appointed Abdallah Ibn
Waheb as their leader, and set up their standard at Nahar-
wan, a few miles from Bagdad, whither the disaffected re
paired from all quarters, until they amounted to twenty-five
thousand.
The appearance of Ali with an army brought many of them
to their senses. Willing to use gentle measures, he caused a
standard to be erected outside of his camp, and proclaimed a
pardon to such of the malcontents as should rally round it.
The rebel army immediately began to melt away until Abdal
lah Ibn Waheb was left with only four thousand adherents.
These, however, were fierce enthusiasts, and their leader was a
fanatic. Trusting that Allah and the prophet would render
him miraculous assistance, he attacked the army of Ali with
his handful of men, who fought with such desperation that
nine only escaped. These served as firebrands to enkindle
future mischief.
Moawyah had now recourse to a stratagem to sow troubles in
Egypt, and ultimately to put it in the hands of Amru. Ali, on
assuming the Caliphat, had appointed Saad Ibn Kais to the gov
ernment of tha'j province, who administered its affairs with
ability. Moawyah now forged a letter from Saad to himself,
professing devotion to his interests, and took measures to let it
fall into the hands of Ali. The plan was successful. The sus
picions of Ali were excited ; he recalled Saad and appointed in
his place Mahomet, son of Abu Beker, and brother of Ayesha.
Mahomet began to govern with a hig;h hand, proscribing and
exiling the leaders of the Othman faction, who made the mur
der of the late Caliph a question of party. This immediately
produced commotions and insurrections, and all Egypt was
MAHOMET AXI> iff' firrrrsmRfi. \\:,
getting into a blano. Ali apjain sought to remedy the evil by-
changing the governor, ai »l dispatched Malec Shulur. a man of
prudence and ability, to take the command. In the course of
his journey Ma Ice lodged one night at the house of a peasant,
on the confines of Arabia and Egypt. The peasant was a crea
ture of Moawyah's, and poisoned his unsuspecting guest with a
pot of honey. Moawyah followed up this treacherous act by
sending Amru with six thousand horse to seize upon Egypt in
its present stormy state. Amru hastened with joy to the scene
of liis former victories, made his way rapidly to Alexandria.
united his force with that of Ibn Sharig, the leader of the Oth-
man party, and they together routed Mahomet Ibn Abu Beker.
and took him prisoner. The avengers of Othman reviled Ma-
hornet with his assassination of that Caliph, put him to death,
enclosed his body in the carcass of an ass, and burnt both to
ashes. Then Amru assumed the government of Egypt as lieu
tenant of Moawyah.
When Ayesha heard of the death of her brother, she knelt
down in the mosque, and in the agony of her heart invoked a
curse upon Moawyah and Amru, an invocation which she
thenceforth repeated at the end of all her prayers. Ah", also,
was afflicted at the death of Mahomet, and exclaimed, ' ( The
murderers will answer for this before God,"
CHAPTER XL
PREPARATIONS. OP ALI FOR THE INVASION OF SYRIA— HIS
ASSASSINATION.
THE loss of Egypt was a : :vere blow to the fortunes of Ah',
and he had the mortification subsequently to behold his active
rival make himself master of Hejaz, plant his standard on the
sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, and ravage the fertile
province of Yemen. The decline of his power affected hia
spirits, and he sank at times into despondency. His melan
choly was aggravated by Che conduct of his own brott ?r Okail,
who, under pretence that Ali did not maintain him in suitable
style, deserted him in his sinking fortunes, and went over to
Moawyah, who rewarded his unnatural desertion with ample
revenues.
Still Ah' meditated one more grand effort. Sixty thousand
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
devoted adherents pledged themselves to stand by him to the
death, and wiili these he prepared to march into Syria. While
preparations were going on, it chanced that three zealots, of
the sect of Karigites, met as pilgrims in the mosque of Mecca,
and fell into conversation about the battle of Naharwan, where
in four thousand of their brethren had lost their lives. This
led to lamentations over the dissensions and dismemberment of
the Moslem empire, all which they attributed to the ambition
of Ali, Moawyah, and Amru. The Karigites were P .anatic
sect, and these men were zealots of that dangerous kind who
are ready to sacrifice their lives in the accomplishment of any
bigot plan. In their infuriate zeal they determined that the
only way to restore peace and unity to Islam would be to
destroy those three ambitious leaders, and they devoted them
selves to the task, each undertaking to dispatch his victim.
The several assassinations were to be effected at the same
time, on Friday, the seventeenth of the month Ramadan, at
the hour of prayer ; and that their "blows m^ht be infallibly
mortal, they were to use poisoned weapons.
The names of the conspirators were Barak Ibn Abdallah,
Amru Ibn Asi, and Abda'lrahman Ibn Melgem. Baiak re
paired to Damascus and mingled in the retinue of Moawyah on
the day appointed, which was the Moslem sabbath ; then, as
the usurper was officiating in the mosque as pontiff, Barak
gave him what he considered a fatal blow. The wound was
desperate, but the life of Moawyah was saved by desperate
remedies; the assassin was mutilated of hands and feet and
suffered to live, but was slain in after years by a friend of
Moawyah.
Amru Ibn Asi, the second of these fanatics, entered the
mosque in Egypt on the same day and hour, and, with one
blow killed Karijah, the Imam, who officiated, imagining him
to be Amru Ibn al Aass, who was prevented from attending the
mosque through illness. The assassin being led before his in
tended victim, and informed of his error, replied with the resig
nation of a predestinarian, "I intended Amru ; but Allah in
tended Karijah." He was presently executed.
Abdalrahman, the third assassin, repaired to Cufa, where
Ali held his court. Here he lodged with a woman of the sect
of the Karigites, whose husband had been killed in the battle
of Naharwan. To this woman he made proposals of marriage,
but she replied she would have no man who could not bring
her, as a dowry, three thousand drachms of silver, a slave, a
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 415
maid-servant, and the head of All. He accepted the conditions,
and joined two other Karaites, called Derwan and Shabib',
with him in the enterprise. They stationed themselves hi the
mosque to await the coming of the Caliph.
Ali had recently been afflicted with one of his fits of despon
dency, and had uttered ejaculations which were after van!
considered presages of his impending fate. In one of his mel
ancholy moods he exclaimed, with a heavy sigh, uAlas, my
heart! there is need of patience, for there is no remedy against
death !" In parting from his house to go to the mosque, there
was a clamor among his domestic fowls, which he interpreted
into a fatal omen. As he entered the mosque the assassins
drew their swords and pretended to be fighting among them
selves ; Derwaii aimed a blow at the Caliph, but it fell short,
and struck the gate of the mosque ; a blow from Abda'lrahman
was better aimed, and wounded Ali in the head. The assassins
then separated and fled. Derwan was pursued and slain at the
threshold of his home; Shabib distanced his pursuers and
escaped. Abda'lrahman, after some search, was discovered
hidden in a corner of the mosque, his sword still in his hand.
He was dragged forth and brought before the Caliph. The
wound of Ali was pronounced mortal ; he consigned his mur
derer to the custody of his son Hassan, adding, with his accus
tomed clemency " Let him want for nothing; and, if I die of
my wound, let him not be tortured ; let his death be by a single
blow." His orders, according to the Persian writers, were
strictly complied with, but the Arabians declare that he was
killed by piecemeal ; and the Moslems opposed to the sect of
Ali hold him up as a martyr.
The death of Ali happened within three days after receiving
his wound: it was in the fortieth year of the Hepira, A.D. 6GO.
He was about sixty-three years of age, of which he had reigned
not quite five. His remains were interred about five miles
from Cufa; and, in after times, a magnificent tomb, covered
by a mosque, with a splendid dome, rose over his grave, and it
became the site of a city called Meshed Ali, or, the Sepulchre
of Ali, and was enriched and beautified by many Persian mon-
archs.
We make no concluding ?/»omor»:c* on the noble and gener
ous character of All, T.7hic>. i«* '.3se?i wttoTontly illustrated
throughout all the recorded. <#>.« «««**»<*=»• /: his life. He was
one of th.} last and <arorthv\ f " ' ':-hfc *>r?mit?.T~o Moslem^ who
imbibed his religious enthusiasm from companionship with the
416 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
prophet himself ; and who followed, to the last, the simplicity
of his example. He is honorably spoken of as the first Caliph
who accorded some protection to Belles-Lettres. lie indulged
in the poetic vein himself, and many of his maxims and prov
erbs are preserved, and have been translated into various lan
guages. His signet bore this inscription: " Tht king Join be
longs to God." One of his sayings shows the little value he set
upon the transitory glories of this world. "Life is but the
shadow of a cloud ; the dream of a sleeper."
Ly his first wife, Fatima, the daughter of Mahome, the had
three sons, Mohassan, who died young, and Hassan and Hosein,
who survived him. After her death he had eight other wives,
and his issue, in all, amounted to fifteen sons and eighteen
daughters. His descendants, by Fatima, are distinguished
among Moslems as descendants of the prophet, and are very
numerous, being reckoned both by the male and female line.
They wear turbans of a peculiar fashion, and twist their hair
in a different manner from other Moslems. They are consid
ered of noble blood, and designated in different countries by
various titles, such as Sheriffs, Fatimites, and Emirs. The
Persians venerate Ali as next to the prophet, and solemnize
the anniversary of his martyrdom. The Turks hold him in
abhorrence, and for a long time, in their prayers, accompanied
his name with execrations, but subsequently abated in their
violence. It is said that Ali was born in the Caaba, or holy
temple of Mecca, where his mother was suddenly taken in
labor, and that he was the only person of such distinguished
birth.
CHAPTER XLI.
SUCCESSION OF HASSAN, FIFTH CALIPH— HE ABDICATES IN FAVOB
OF MQAWYAH.
IN his dying moments, Ali had refused to nominate a suc
cessor, but his eldest son Hassan, then in his 37th year, was
elected without opposition. He stood high in the favor of the
people, partly from his having been a favorite with his grand
father, the prophet, to whom in his features he bore a strong
resemblance; but chiefly from the moral excellence of his
character, for he was upright, sincere, benevolent, and devout.
MAHOMET A\D ;//.s SUCCESSORS. 417
He lacked, however, the energy and courage necessary to a
sovereignty, where the sceptre was a sword; and he was un
fitted to command in the civil wars which distracted the em
pire, for he had a horror of shedding Moslem blood. He made
a funeral speech over his father's remains, showing that his
death was coincident with great and solemn events. ** He was
slain," said he, "on the same night of the year in which the
Koran was transmitted to earth; in which Isa (Jesus) was
taken up to heaven, and in which Joshua, the son of Nun, was
killed. By Allah ! none of his predecessors surpassed him, nor
will he ever be equalled by a successor."
Then Kais, a trusty friend of the house of Ali, commenced
tho inauguration of the new Caliph. ' ' Stretch forth thy hand, "
said he to Hassan, "in pledge that thou wilt stanl by the book
of God, and the tradition of the apoctlo, r.nd make war against
all opposers." Hassan complied with the ceremonial, and was
proclaimed Caliph, and the people were called upon to acknowl
edge allegiance to him, r.nd engage to maintain peace with his
friends, and war with his enemies. Some of the people, how
ever, with the characteristic fickleness of Babylonians, mur
mured at the suggestion of further warfare, and said, we want
no fi/rhtiiig Caliph.
Had Hassan consulted his own inclination, he \vould willing-
ingly hive clung to peace, and sitbmiiieu to the usurpations of
Moa \vyah ; but be wns surrounded by valiant generals eager
for action, and stimulated by his brother Hosein, who inher
ited tho daring character of their father; besides, there were
sixty thousand fighting men, all ready for the field, and who
had been on the point of marching into Syria under Ali. Un
willingly, therefore, he put himself at tho head of this force
and commenced his march. Receiving intelligence that Moa-
wyah had already taken the field and was advancing to meet
him, he sent Kais in the advance, with 12,000 light troops, to
hold the enemy in check, while he followed with the main
army. Kais executed his commission with spirit, had a smart
skirmish with the Syrians, and having checked them in their
advance, halted and put himself in a position to await the
coming of the Caliph.
Hassan, however, had already become sensible of his incom
petency to military command. There was disaffection among
some of his troops, who were people of Irak or Babylonia, dis
inclined to this war. On reaching tho city of Madayn, an affray
took place among the soldiers in which one was slain; a fierce
418 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
tumult succeeded; Hassan attempted to interfere, but was
jostled and wounded in the throng, and obliged to retire into
the citadel. He had taken refuge from violence, and was in
danger of treason, for the nephew of the governor of Madayn
proposed to his uncle, now that he had Hassan within his
castle, to make him his prisoner, and send him in chains to
Moawyah. " A curse upon thee for a traitor and an infidel!"
cried the honest old governor ; ' ' wouldst thou betray the son
of the daughter of the Apostle of God?"
The mild-tempered Caliph, who had no ambition of command,
was already disheartened by its troubles. He saw that he had
an active and powerful enemy to contend with, and fickleness
and treachery among his own people; he sent proposals to
Moawyah, offering to resign the Caliphat to him, on condition
that he should be allowed to retain the money in the public
treasury at Cufa, and the revenues of a great estate in Persia,
and that Moawyah would desist from all evil speaking against
his deceased father. Moawyah assented to the two former of
these stipulations, but would only consent to refrain from
speaking evil of Ali in presence of Hassan ; and indeed such
was the sectarian hatred already engendered against Ali,
that, under the sway of Moawyah, his name was never men
tioned in the mosques without a curse, and such continued to
be the case for several generations under the dominion of the
house of Ommiah.
Another condition exacted by Hassar, and which ultimately
proved fatal to him, was that he should be entitled to resume
the Caliphat on the death of Moawyah, who was above a score
of years his senior. These terms being satisfactorily adjusted,
Hassan abdicated in favor of Moawyah, to the great indigna
tion of his brother Hosein, who considered the memory of their
father Ali dishonored by this arrangement. The people of
Cufa refused to comply with that condition relative to the
public treasury, insisting upon it that it was their property.
Moawyah, however, allowed Hassan an immense revenue,
with which he retired with his brother to Medina, to enjoy that
ease and tranquillity which he so much prized. His life was
exemplary and devout, and the greater part of his revenue
was expended in acts of charity.
Moawyah seems to have been well aware of the power of
gold in making the most distasteful things palatable. An old
beldame of the lineage of Haschem, and branch of Ali, once re
proached him with having supplanted that family, who were
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 419
his cousins, and with having acted toward them as Pharaoh
did toward the children of Israel. Moawyah gently replied,
"May Allah pardon what is past," and inquired what were her
wants. She said two thousand pieces of gold for her poor re
lations, two thousand as a dower for her children, and two
thousand as a support for herself. The money was given in-
atantly, and the tongue of the clamorous virago was silenced.
CHAPTER XLII.
REIGN OF MOAWYAH I., SIXTH CALIPH— ACCOUNT OF HIS ILLE
GITIMATE BROTHER ZEYAD— DEATH OF AMRU.
MOAWYAH now, in the forty-first year of the Hegira, assumed
legitimate dominion over the whole Moslem empire. The Kari-
gites, it is true, a fanatic sect opposed to all regular govern
ment, spiritual or temporal, excited an insurrection in Syria, but
Moawyah treated them with more thorough rigor than his pre
decessors, and finding the Syrians not sufficient to cope with
them, called in his new subjects, the Babylonians, to show
their allegiance by rooting out this pestilent sect ; nor did he
stay his hand until they were almost exterminated.
With this Caliph commenced the famous dynasty of the
Ommiades or Omeyades, so called from Ommiah his great
grandfather; a dynasty which lasted for many generations,
and gave some of the most brilliant names to Arabian history.
Moawyah himself gave indications of intellectual refinement.
He surrounded himself with men distinguished in science or
gifted with poetic talent, and from the Greek provinces and
islands which he had subdued, the Greek sciences began to
make their way, and under his protection to exert their first
influence on the Arabs.
One of the measures adopted by Moawyah to strengthen
himself in the Caliphat excited great sensation, and merits
particular detail. At the time of the celebrated flight of Ma
homet, Abu Sofian, father of Moawyah, at that time chief of
the tribe of Koreish, and as yet an inveterate persecutor of the
prophet, halted one day for refreshment at the house of a pub
lican in Tayef. Here he became intoxicated with wine, and
passed the night in the arms of the wife of a Greek slave.
420 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
named Somyah, who in process of time made him the father
of a male child. Abu Sofian, ashamed of this amour, would
not acknowledge the child, but left him to his fate ; hence he
received the name of Ziyad Ibn Abihi, that it is to say, Ziyad
the son of nobody.
The boy, thus deserted, gave early proof of energy and
talent. When scarce arrived at manhood, he surprised Amru
Ibn al Aass by his eloquence and spirit in addressing a popular
assembly. Amru, himself illegitimate, felt a sympathy in the
vigor of this spurious offset. " By the prophet !" exclaimed he,
" if this youth were but of the noble race of Koreish, he would
drive all the tribes of Arabia before him with his staff I"
Ziyad was appointed cadi or judge, in the reign of Omar,
and was distinguished by his decisions. On one occasion, cer
tain witnesses came before him accusing Mogeirah Ibn Seid, a
distinguished person of unblemished character, with inconti
nence, but failed to establish the charge ; whereupon Ziyad dis
missed the accused with honor, and caused his accusers to be
scourged with rods for bearing false witness. This act was
never forgotten by Mogeirah, who, becoming afterward one of
the counsellors of the Caliph Ali, induced him to appoint
Ziyad lieutenant or governor of Persia, an arduous post of
high trust, the duties of which he discharged with great
ability.
After the death of Ali and the abdication of Hassan, events
which followed hard upon each other, Ziyad, who still held
sway over Persia, hesitated to acknowledge Moawyah as
Caliph. The latter was alarmed at this show of opposition,
fearing lest Ziyad should join with the family of Haschem,
the kindred of the prophet, who desired the elevation of
Hosein; he, therefore, sent for Mogeirah, the former patron
of Ziyad, and prevailed upon •htm to mediate between them.
Mogeirah repaired to Ziyad in person, bearing a letter of kind
ness and invitation from the Caliph, and prevailed on him to
accompany him to Cufa. On their arrival Moawyah embraced
Ziyad, and received him with public demonstrations of respect
and affection, as his brother by the father's side. The fact of
their consanguinity was established on the following day, in
full assembly, by the publican of Tayef, who bore testimony
to the intercourse between Abu Sofian and the beautiful slave.
This decision, enforced by the high hand of authority, ele
vated Ziyad to the noblest blood of Koreish, and made him
eligible to the highest offices, though in fact the strict letter
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 421
of the Mahometan law would have pronounced him the son of
the Greek slave, who was husband of his mother.
The family of the Ominiades were indignant at having the
base-born offspring of a slav< thus introduced among them;
but Moawyah disregarded these murmurs; he had probably
gratified his own feelings of natural affection, and he had
firmly attached to his interest a man of extensive influence,
and one of the ablest generals of the age.
Moawyah found good service in his valiant though misbe
gotten brother. Under the sway of incompetent governors
the country round Bassora had become overrun with thieves
and murderers, and disturbed by all kinds of tumults. Ziyad
was put in the command, and hastened to take possession of
his turbulent post. He found Bassora a complete den of assas
sins ; not a night but was disgraced by riot and bloodshed, so
that it was unsafe to walk the streets after dark. Ziyad was
an eloquent man, and he made a public speech terribly to the
point. He gave notice that he meant to rule with the sword,
and to wreak unsparing punishment on all offenders ; he ad
vised all such, therefore, to leave the city. He warned all
persons from appearing in public after evening prayers, as a
patrol would go the rounds and put every one to death who
should be found in the streets. He carried this measure into
effect. Two hundred persons were put to death by the patrol
during the first night, only five during the second, and not a
drop of blood was shed afterward, nor was there any further
tumult or disturbance.
Moawyah then employed him to effect the same reforms in
Khorassan and many other provinces, and the more he had to
execute, the more was his ability evinced, until his mere name
would quell commotion, and awe the most turbulent into
quietude. Yet he was not sanguinary nor cruel, but severely
rigid in his discipline, and inflexible in the dispensation oi
justice. It was his custom, wherever he held sway, to ordej
the inhabitants to leave their doors open at night, with merely
a hurdle at the entrance to exclude cattle, engaging to replace
anything that should be stolen ; and so effective was his police
that no robberies were committed.
Though Ziyad had whole provinces under his government
he felt himself not sufficiently employed; he wrote to the
Caliph, therefore, complaining that, while his left hand was
occupied in governing Babylonia, his right hand was idle ; and
he requested the government of Arabia Petrea also, which the
422 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Caliph gladly granted him, to the great terror of Hs inhabi
tants, who dreaded so stern a ruler. But the sand of Ziyad
^as exhausted. He was attacked with the plague when on the
point of setting out for Arabia. The disease made its appear
ance with an ulcer in his hand, and the agony made him de
liberate whether to smite it off. As it was a case of conscience
among predestinarians, he consulted a venerable cadi. "If
you die," said the old expounder of the law, "you go before
G-od without that hand, which you have cut off to avoid ap
pearing in his presence. If you live, you give a by-name to
your children, who will be called the sons of the cripple. I
advise you, therefore, to let it alone." The intensity of the
pain, however, made him determine on amputation, but the
sight of the fire and cauterizing irons again deterred him. He
was surrounded by the most expert physicians, but, say the
Arabians, "It was not in their power to reverse the sealed de
cree." He died in the forty-fifth year of the Hegira and of
nis own age, and the people he had governed with so much
severity considered his death a deliverance. His son Obei-
dallah, though only twenty-five years of age, was immediately
invested by the Caliph with the government of Khorassan, and
gave instant proofs of inheriting the spirit of his father. On
his way to his government he surprised a large Turkish force,
and put them to such sudden flight that their queen left one of
her buskins behind, which fell into the hands of her pursuers,
and was estimated, from the richness of its jewels, at two
thousand pieces of gold.
Ziyad left another son named Salem, who was, several years
afterward, when but twenty-four years of age, appointed to the
government of Khorassan, and rendered himself so beloved by
the people that upward of twenty thousand children were
named after him. He had a third son called Kameil, who was
distinguished for sagacity and ready wit, and he furthermore
left from his progeny a dynasty of princes in Arabia Felix,
who ruled under the denomination of the children of Ziyad.
The wise measures of Moawyah produced a calm through
out his empire, although his throne seemed to be elevated on
the surface of a volcano. He had reinstated the famous
Amru Ibn al Aass in the government of Egypt, allowing him
to enjoy the revenues of that opulent province, in gratitude
for his having proclaimed him Caliph during his COM test with
AH; but stipulating that he should maintain the forces
ptationed there. The veteran general did not long enjoy
MAHOMET AND Hlfl SUCCESSORS.
post, as he died in the forty third year of the Hegira, A.D. 663,
as full of honors as of years. In him the cause of Islam lost one
of its wisest men and most illustrious conquerors. "Show inc. "
said Omar to him on one occasion, 4> tin- sword with which you
have fought so many battles and slain so many infidels." The
Caliph expressed surprise when he unsheathed an ordinary
scimetar. "Alas!" said Amru, "the sword without the arm
of the master is no sharper nor heavier than the sword of
Farezdak the poet. "
Mahomet, whose death preceded that of Amru upward of
thirty years, declared, that there was no truer Moslem than he
would prove to be, nor one more steadfast in the faith. Al
though Amru passed most of his life in the exercise of arms,
he found time to cultivate the softer arts which belong to
peace. We have already shown that ho was an orator and a
poet. The witty lampoons, however, which he wrote against
the prophet in his youth, he deeply regretted in his declining
age. He sought the company of men of learning and science,
and delighted in the conversation of philosophers. He has left
some proverbs distinguished for pithy wisdom, and some
beautiful poetry, and his dying advice to his children was cele
brated for manly sense and affecting pathos.
• CHAPTER
SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE— TRUCE WITH THE EMPEROR— MURDER
OF HASSAN — DEATH OF AYESHA.
THE Caliph Moawyah being thoroughly established in his
sovereignty, was ambitious of foreign conquests, which might
shed lustre on his name, and obliterate the memory of these
civil wars. He was desirous, also, of placing his son Yezid in a
conspicuous light, and gaining for him the affections of the
people ; for he secretly entertained hopes of making him his
successor. He determined, therefore, to send him with a great
force to attempt the conquest of Constantinople, at that time
the capital of the Greek and Roman empire. This indeed was a
kind of holy war; for it was fulfilling one of the most ardent
wishes of Mahomet, who had looked forward to the conquest of
the proud capital of the Caesars as one of the highest triumph*
424 MAHOMET Atfti HIS SUCCESSORS.
of Islam, and had promised full pardon of all their sins to the
Moslem -army that should achieve it.
The general command of the army in this expedition was
given to a veteran named Sophian, and he was accompanied
by several of those old soldiers of the faith, battered in the
wars, and almost broken down by years, who had fought by
the side of the prophet at Beder and Ohod, and were, there
fore, honored by the title of "Companions," and who now
showed among the ashes of age the sparks of youthful fire, as
they girded on their swords for this sacred enterprise.
Hosein, the valiant son of Ali, also accompanied this expe
dition; in which, in fact, the flower of Moslem chivalry
engaged. Great preparations were made by sea and land, and
sanguine hopes entertained of success ; the Moslem troops were
numerous and hardy, inured to toil and practised in warfare,
and they were animated by the certainty of paradise, should
they be victorious. The Greeks, on the other hand, were in a
state of military decline, and their emperor, Constantine, a
grandson of Heraclius, disgraced his illustrious name by in
dolence and incapacity.
It is singular and to be lamented, that of this momentous
expedition we have very few particulars, notwithstanding that
it lasted long, and must have been checkered by striking vicissi
tudes. The Moslem fleet passed without impediment through
the Dardanelles, and the army disembarked within seven
miles of Constantinople. For many days they pressed the
siege with vigor, but the city was strongly garrisoned by
fugitive troops from various quarters, who had profited by sad
experience in the defence of fortified towns; the walls were
strong and high ; and the besieged made use of Greek fire, to
the Moslems a new and terrific agent of destruction.
Finding all their efforts in vain, the Moslems consoled them
selves by ravaging the neighboring coasts of Europe and Asia,
and on the approach of winter retired to the island of Cyzicus,
about eighty miles from Constantinople, where they had estab
lished their headquarters.
Six years were passed in this unavailing enterprise; im
mense sums were expended ; thousands of lives were lost by
disease; ships and crews, by shipwreck and other disasters,
and thousands of Moslems were slain, gallantly fighting for
paradise under the walls of Constantinople. The most re
nowned of these was the venerable Abu Ayub, in whose house
Mahomet had established his quarters when he first fled to Me-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOR*.
dina, and who had fought by the Bide of the prophet at Beder and
Ohod. He won an honored grave ; for though it remained f 01
ages unknown, yet nearly eight centuries aft <-r this ev<>iit.
when Constantinople was conquered by Mahomet II., the spot
was revealed in a miraculous vision, and consecrated by a
mausoleum and mosque, which exist to this day, and to which
the grand seigniors of the Ottoman empire repair to be belted
with the scimetar on their accession to the throne.
The protracted war with the Greeks revived their military
ardor, and they assailed the Moslems in their turn. Moawyah
found the war which he had provoked threatening his own
security. Other enemies were pressing on him ; age, also, had
sapped his bodily and mental vigor, and he became so anxious
for safety and repose that he in a manner purchased a truce of
the emperor for thirty years, by agreeing to pay an annual
tribute of three thousand pieces of gold, fifty slaves, and fifty
horses of the noblest Arabian blood.
Yezid, the eldest son of Moawyah, and his secretly -intended
successor, had failed Jx> establish a renown in this enterprise,
and if Arabian historians speak true, his ambition led him to
a perfidious act sufficient to stamp his name with infamy. He
is accused of instigating the murder of the virtuous Hassan,
the son of Ali, who had abdicated in favor of Moawyah, but
who was to resume the Caliphat on the death of that potentate.
It is questionable whether Hassan would ever have claimed
this right, for he was of quiet, retired habits, and preferred the
security and repose of a private station. He was strong, how
ever, in the affection of the people, and to remove out of the
way so dangerous a rival, Yezid, it is said, prevailed upon one
of his wives to poison him, promising to marry her in reward
of her treason. The murder took place in the forty-ninth year
of the Hegira, A.D. 669, when Hassan was forty-seven years of
age. In his last agonies, his brother Hosein inquired at whose
instigation he supposed himself to have been poisoned, that he
might avenge his death, but Hassan refused to name him,
"This world," said he, "is only a long night; leave him alone
until he and I shall meet in open daylight, in the presence of
the Most High."
Yezid refused to fulfil his promise of taking the murderess to
wife, alleging that it would be madness to intrust himself to
the embraces of such a female; he, however, commuted the
engagement for a large amount in money and jewels. Moa
wyah is accused of either countenancing or being pleased with a
426 MAHOMET AND UlS SUCCESSORS.
murder which made his son more eligible to the succession, for
it is said that when he heard of the death of Hassan, uhe fell
down and worshipped."
Hassan had been somewhat uxorious; or rather, he had
numerous wives, and was prone to change them when attracted
by new beauties. One of them was the daughter of Yezdegird,
the last king of the Persians, and she bore him several children.
He had, altogether, fifteen sons and five daughters, and con
tributed greatly to increase the race of Sheriffs, or Fatimites,
descendants from the prophet. In his testament he left direc
tions that he should be buried by the sepulchre of his grandsire
Mahomet ; but Ayesha, whose hatred for the family of Ali went
beyond the grave, declared that the mansion was hers, and re
fused her consent ; he was, therefore, interred in the common
burial-ground of the city.
Ayesha, herself, died some time afterward, in the fifty-eighth
year of the Hegira, having survived the prophet forty-seven
years. She was often called the Prophetess, and generally de
nominated the Mother of the Faithful, although she had never
borne any issue to Mahomet, and had employed her widowhood
in intrigues to prevent Ali and his children, who were the only
progeny of the prophet, from sitting on the throne of the
Caliphs. All the other wives of Mahomet who survived him
passed the remainder of their lives in widowhood ; but none,
save her, seem to have been held in especial reverence
CHAPTER XLIV.
MOSLEM CONQUESTS IN NORTHERN AFRICA — ACHIEVEMENTS OF
ACBAH; HIS DEATH.
THE conquest of Northern Africa, so auspiciously commenced
by Abdallah Ibn Saad, had been suspended for a number of
years by the pressure of other concerns, and particularly by
the siege of Constantinople, which engrossed a great part of
the Moslem forces ; in the mean time Cyrene had shaken off
the yoke, all Cyrenaica was in a state of insurrection, and
there was danger that the places which had been taken and
the posts which had been established by the Arab conquerors
would be completely lost.
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 427
The Caliph Moawyah now looked round for some active and
able general, competent to secure and extend his sway along
the African sea-coast. Such a one he found in Acbah Ibn NaTe
el Fehri, whom he dispatched from Damascus with ten thou
sand horse. Acbah made his way with all speed into Africa,
his forces augmenting as he proceeded, by the accession of
barbarian troops. He passed triumphantly through Cyrenaica ;
laid close siege to the city of Gyrene, and retook it, notwith
standing its strong walls and great population; but in the
course of the siege many of its ancient and magnificent edifices
were destroyed.
Acbah continued his victorious course westward, traversing
wildernesses sometimes barren and desolate, sometimes en
tangled with forests, and infested by serpents and savage
animals, until he reached the domains of ancient Carthage, the
present territory of Tunis. Here he determined to found a city
to serve as a stronghold, and a place of refuge in the heart of
these conquered regions. The site chosen was a valley closely
wooded, and abounding with lions, tigers, and serpents. The
Arabs give a marvellous account of the founding of the city.
Acbah, say they, went forth into the forest, and adjured its
savage inhabitants. "Hence! avaunt! wild beasts and ser
pents ! Hence, quit this wood and valley !" This solemn ad
juration he repeated three several times, on three several days,
and not a lion, tiger, leopard, nor serpent, but departed from
the place.
Others, less poetic, record that he cleared away a forest
which had been a lurking place not merely for wild beasts and
serpents, but for rebels and barbarous hordes ; that he used the
wood in constructing walls for his new city, and when these
were completed, planted his lance in the centre, and exclaimed
to his followers, "This is your caravan." Such was the origin
of the city of -Kairwan or Caerwan, situated thirty-three
leagues southeast of Carthage, and twelve from the sea on the
borders of the great desert. Here Acbah fixed his seat of gov
ernment, erecting mosques and other public edifices, and hold
ing all the surrounding country in subjection.
While Acbah was thus honorably occupied, the Caliph
Moawyah, little aware of the immense countries embraced in
these recent conquests, united them with Egypt under one
command, as if they had been two small provinces, and ap
pointed Muhegir Ibn Omm Dinar, one of the Ansari, as emir
or governor, Muhegir was an ambitious, or rather an envious
428 MAHOMET AND HTS SUCCESSORS.
and perfidious man. Scarce had lie entered upon his govern
ment when he hegan to sicken with envy of the brilliant fame"
of Acbah and his vast popularity, not merely with the army,
but throughout the country; he accordingly made such un
favorable reports of the character and conduct of that general,
in his letters to the Caliph, that the latter was induced to dis
place him from the command of the African army, and recall
him to Damascus.
The letter of recall being sent under cover to Muhegir, he
transmitted it by Muslama Ibn Machlad, one of his generals,
to Acbah, charging his envoy to proceed with great caution,
and to treat Acbah with profound deference, lest the troops,
out of their love for him, should resist the order for his depo
sition. Muslama found Acbah in his camp at Gyrene, and
presented him the Caliph's letter of recall, and a letter from
Muhcpir as governor of the province, letting him know that
Muslama and the other generals were authorized to arrest him
should he hesitate to obey the command of the Caliph.
There was no hesitation on the part of Acbah. He at once
discerned whence the blow proceeded. "Oh God!" exclaimed
he, " spare my life until I can vindicate myself from the slan
ders of Muhegir Ibn Omm Dinar. " He then departed instantly,
without even entering his house ; made his way with all speed
to Damascus, and appeared before Moawyah in the presence of
his generals and the officers of his court. Addressing the Caliph
with noble indignation, "I have traversed deserts," said he,
" and encountered savage tribes; I have conquered towns and
regions, and have brought their infidel inhabitants to the know
ledge of God and his law. I have built mosques and palaces,
and fortified our dominion over the land, and in reward I have
been degraded from my post, and summoned hither an a cul-
piit. I appeal to your justice, whether I have merited such
treatment?"
Moawyah felt rebuked by the mapmanimous bearing of his
general, for he was aware tint he had been precipitate in con
demning I'im on false accusations. "I am already informed,"
said he, "of the true nature o£ the case. I now know who is
Muhegir, and who is Aobah; return to the command of the
army, and pursue. your glorious career of conquest."
Although it was not until the succeeding Caliphat that Acbah
resumed the command in Africa, we will anticipate dates in
order to maintain unbroken the thread of his story. In pass
ing through Egypt he deposed Muslama from a command, in
MAIH>M/-:T AM) ins SUCCESSOR*. 499
which he had been placed by Muhegir, and ordered him to
remain in one of the Egyptian towns a prisoner at largo.
He was grieved to perceive the mischief that had been done
in Africa, during his absence, by Muhegir, who, out of mere
envy and jealousy, had endeavored to mar and obliterate all
traces of his good deeds ; dismantling the cities he had built,
destroying his public edifices at Caerwan, and transfcrriu ;:
the inhabitants to another place. Acbah stripped him of his
command, placed him in irons, and proceeded to remedy the
evils he had perpetrated. The population was restored to
Caerwan, its edifices were rebuilt, and it rose from its tempo
rary decline more prosperous and beautiful than ever*. Acbah
then left Zohair Ibn Kais in command of this metropolis, and
resumed his career of western conquest, carrying Muhegir with
him in chains. He crossed the kingdom of Numidia, now
Algiers, and the vast regions of Mauritania, now Morocco,
subduing their infidel inhabitants or converting them with
the sword, until, coming to the western shores of Africa, he
spurred his charger into the waves of the Atlantic until they
rose k> his saddle girths ; then raising his scimetar toward
heaven, " Oh Allah!" cried the zealous Moslem, "did not these
profound waters prevent me, still further would I carry the
knowledge of thy law, and the reverence of thy holy name."
While Acbah was thus urging his victorious way to the utter
most bounds of Mauritania, tidings overtook him that the
Greeks and barbarians were rising hi rebellion in his rear;
that the mountains were pouring down their legions, and that
his city of Caerwan was in imminent danger. He had hi fact
incurred the danger against which the late Caliph Omar had
so often cautioned his too adventurous generals. Turning his
steps he hastened back, marching at a rapid rate. As he
passed through Zab or Numidia, he was harassed by a horde
of Berbers or Moors, headed by Aben Cahina, a native chief of
daring prowess, who had descended from the fastnesses of the
mountains, in which he had taken refuge from the invaders.
The warrior, with his mountain band, hung on the rear of the
army, picking off stragglers, and often carrying havoc into the
broken ranks, but never venturing on a pitched battle. H&
gave over his pursuit as they crossed the bounds of Numidia.
On arriving at Caerwan Aobah found every tiling secure, the
rebellion having been sup-vessod by the cnorpry and bravery
of Zohair, aided by an associate vrarrior, Omar Ibn Ali. cf tho
tribe oi Koreish.
430 MAHOMET AXD HIS SUCCESSORS,
Acbah now distributed a part of his army about the neigh
borhood, formed of the residue a flying camp of cavalry, and
leaving /ohair and his brave associate to maintain the safety
of the metropolis, returned to scour the land of Zab, and take
vengeance on the Berber chief who had harassed and insulted
him when on the march.
He proceeded without opposition as far as a place called
JTehuda; when in some pass or defile he found himself sur
rounded by a great host of Greeks and Berbers led on by the
mountain chief Aben Cahina. In fact, both Christians and
Moors, who had so often been in deadly conflict in these very
regions, had. combined to drive these new intruders from the
land.
Acbah scanned the number and array of the advancing
enemy, and saw there was no retreat, and that destruction
was inevitable. He marshalled his little army of horsemen,
however, with great calmness, put up the usual prayers, and
exhorted his men to fight valiantly. Summoning Muhegir to
his presence, " This," said he, " is a day of liberty and gain for
all trus Moslems, for it is a day of martyrdom. I would not
deprive you of so great a chance for paradise." So saying, he
ordered his chains to be taken off.
Muhegir thanked him for the favor, and expressed his deter
mination to die in the cause of the faith. Acbah then gave
him arms and a horse, and both of them, drawing their swords,
broke the scabbards in token that they would fight until vic
tory or death. The battle was desperate, and the carnage
terrible. Almost all the Moslems fought to the very death,
asking no quarter. Acbah was one of the last of Ins devoted
band, and his corpse was found, scimetar in hand, upon a heap
of the enemy whom he had slain.
CHAPTER XLV.
MOAWYAH NAMES HIS SUCCESSOR— HIS LAST ACTS AND DEATH-
TRAITS OF HIS CHARACTER.
MOAWYAH was now far advanced in years, and aware that
he had not long to live ; he sought therefore to accomplish a
measure which he had long contemplated, and which was in
dicative of his ambitious character and his pride of family. It
AXD I/IS 8UCCK.->»1^. 43]
was to render the Caliphat hereditary, and to perpetuate it in
his line. For this purpose he openly n;nnrd his son Yezid as
his successor, and requested the diilVn-nt provinces to send
deputies to Damascus to perform the act of fealty to him.
The nomination of a successor was what the prophet himself
I UK! not done, and what Abu Beker, Omar, and Othman had
therefore declined to do; the attempt to render theCaliphut
hereditary was in direct opposition to the public will mani
fested repeatedly in respect to Ali; Yezid, to whom he pro
posed to bequeath the government, was publicly detested, yet,
notwithstanding all these objections, such influence had Moa-
wyah acquired over the public mind that delegates arrived at
Damascus from all parts, and gave their hands to Yezid in pledge
of future fealty. Thus was established the dynasty of the Om-
miades, which held the Caliphat for nearly a hundred years.
There were fourteen Caliphs of this haughty line, known as
the Pharaohs of the house of Omaya (or rather Ommiah). The
ambition of rule manifested in Moawyah, the founder of the
dynasty, continued even among his remote descendants, who
exercised sovereignty nearly four centuries afterward in Spain.
One of them, anxious to ascend the throne in a time of turbu
lence and peril, exclaimed, "Only make me king to-day, and
you may kill me to-morrow !"
The character of the Caliph had much changed in the hands
of Moawyah, and in the luxurious city of Damascus assumed
more and more the state of the oriental sovereigns which it
superseded. The frugal simplicity of the Arab, and the stern
virtues of the primitive disciples of Islam, were softening down
and disappearing among the voluptuous delights of Syria.
Moawyah, however, endeavored to throw over his favorite city
of Damascus some of the sanctity with which Mecca and
Medina were invested. For this purpose he sought to transfei
60 it, from Medina, the pulpit of the prophet, as also his walk
ing-staff; "for such precious relics of the apostte of God,"
said he, " ought not to remain among the murderers of Oth-
tnan."
The staff was found after great search, but when the pulpit
was about to be removed, there occurred so great an eclipse of
the sun that the stars became visible. The superstitious Arabs
considered this a signal of divine disapprobation, and the pul-
it was suffered to remain in Medina.
Feeling his end approaching, Moawyah summoned his son
Tezid to his presence, and gave advice full of experience aud
432 HAROMM AND HIS 8U00B880&8.
wisdom. " Confide in the Arabs," said he, " as the sure foun
dation of your power. Prize the Syrians, for they are faithful
and enterprising, though prone to degenerate when out of their
Own country. Gratify the people of Irak in all their demands,
for they are restless and turbulent, and would unsheathe *i
hundred thousand scimetars against thee on the least provo
cation*"
1 'There are four rivals, my son," added he, "on whom thou
must keep a vigilant eye. The first is Hosein, the son of Ah\
who has great influence in Irak, but he is upright and sincere,
and thy own cousin; treat him, therefore, with clemency, if
he fall within thy power. The second is Abdallah Ibn Omar;
but he is a devout man, and will eventually come under alle
giance to thee. The third is Abda'lrahman ; but he is a man of
no force of mind, and merely speaks from the dictates of
others ; he is, moreover, incontinent, and a gambler ; he is not
a rival to be feared. The fourth is Abdallah Ibn Zobeir; he
unites the craft of the fox with the strength and courage of
the lion. If he appear against thee^ oppose him valiantly ; if
he offer peace, accept it, and spare the blood of thy people. If
he fall within your power, cut him to pieces !"
Moawyah was gathered to his fathers in the sixtieth year
of the Hegira, A. D. 679, at the age of seventy, or, as some say,
seventy-five years, of which he had reigned nearly twenty.
He was interred in Damascus, which he had made the capital
of the Moslem empire, and which continued to oe so during
the dynasty of the Ommiades. The inscription of his signet
was, "Every deed hath its meed;" or, according to others,
" All power rests with God."
Though several circumstances in his reign savor of crafty,
and even treacherous policy, yet he bears a high name in
Moslem history. His courage was undoubted, and of a gener-
erous kind; for though fierce in combat, he was clement in
victory. He prided himself greatly upon being of the tribe of
Koreish, and was highly aristocratical before he attained to
sovereign power; yet he was affable and accessible at all times,
and made himself popular among his people. His ambition
was tempered with some considerations of justice. He as
sumed the throne, it is true, by the aid of the sc^motar, without
regular election; but he subsequently bought cl the right of
lis rival Hassan, the legitimate Caliph, and transcended mu-
lificently all the stipulations of his purchase, presenting him,
vfc one tima with four million pieces of gold. One almost i&
M M10MET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 433
gards with incredulity the stories of immense sums passing
rrom hand to hand among these Arab conquerors, as freely as
bags of dates in their native deserts ; but it must be recollected
they had the plundering of the rich empires of the East, and
as yet were flush with the spoils of recent conquests.
The liberality of Moawyah is extolled as being beyond all
bounds : one instance on record of it, however, savors of policy.
He gave Ayesha a bracelet valued at a hundred thousand
pieces of gold, that had formerly perhaps sparkled on the arm
of some Semirainis ; but Ayesha, he knew, was a potent friend
and a dangerous enemy.
Moawyah was sensible to the charms of poetry, if we may
judge from the following anecdotes :
A robber, who had been condemned by the Cadi to have his
head cut off, appealed to the Caliph in a copy of verses, plead
ing the poverty and want by which he had been driven.
Touched by the poetry, Moawyah reversed the sentence, and
gave the poet a purse of gold, that he might have no plea of
necessity for repeating the crime.
Another instance was that of a young Arab, who had mar
ried a beautiful damsel, of whom he was so enamored that he
lavished all his fortune upon her. The governor of Cufa, hap
pening to see her, was so struck with her beauty that he took
her from the youth by force. The latter made his complaint
to the Caliph in verse, poured forth with Arab, eloquence, and
with all the passion of a lover, praying redress or death.
Moawyah, as before, was moved by the poetic appeal, and
sent orders to the governor of Cufa to restore the wife to her
husband. The governor, infatuated with her charms, en
treated the Caliph to let him have the enjoyment of her for
one year, and then to take his head. The curiosity of the
Caliph was awakened by this amorous contest, and he caused
the female to be sent to him. Struck with her ravishing
beauty, with the grace of her deportment, and the eloquence oi
her expressions, he could not restrain his admiration; and in
the excitement of the moment told her to choose between the
young Arab, the governor of Cufa, and himself. She ac
knowledged the honor proffered by the Caliph to be utterly
beyond her merit; but avowed that affection and duty still
inclined her to her husband. Her modesty and virtue do-
lighted Moawyah even more than her beauty; he restored
her to her husband, and enriched them both with princely
munificence.
484 MAHOMET AND SIS SUCCESSORS,
CHAPTER XLVI.
SUCCESSION OF YEZID, SEVENTH CALIPH — FINAL FORTUNES OF
HOSEIN, THE SON OF ALL
YEZID, the son of Moawyah, succeeded to the Caliphat with
out the ceremony of an election. His inauguration took place
in the new moon of the month Rajeb, in the sixtieth year of
the Hegira, coincident with the seventh day of April in the
year of our Lord 680. He was thirty-four years of age, and is
described as tall and thin, with a ruddy countenance pitted
with the small-pox, black eyes, curled hair, and a comely beard.
He was not deficient in talent, and possessed the popular gift
of poetry. The eif ect of his residence among the luxuries and
refinements of Syria was evinced in a fondness for silken rai
ment and the delights of music; but he was stigmatized as
base-spirited, sordid, and covetous ; grossly sensual, and scan
dalously intemperate.
Notwithstanding all this, he was readily acknowledged afe
Caliph throughout the Moslem empire, excepting by Mecca,
Medina, and some cities of Babylonia. His first aim was to
secure undisputed possession of the Caliphat. The only com
petitors from whom he had danger to apprehend were Hosein,
the son of Ali, and Abdallah, the son of Zobeir. They were
both at Medina, and he sent orders to Waled Ibn Otbah, the
governor of that city, to exact from them an oath of fealty.
Waled, who was of an undecided character, consulted Merwan
Ibn Hakem, formerly secretary of Othman, and suspected of
forging the letter which effected the ruin of that Caliph. He
was in fact one of the most crafty as well as able men of the
age. His advice to the governor was to summon Hosein and
Abdallah to his presence, before they should hear of the death
of Moawyah, and concert any measures of opposition; then
to tender to them the oath of fealty to Yezid, and, should they
refuse, to smite off their heads.
Hosein and Abdallah discovered the plot in time to effect
their escape with their families to Mecca, where they declared
themselves openly in opposition to Yezid. In a little while
Hosien received secret messages from the people of Cufa, in
viting him to their city, assuring him not merely of protection,
but of joyful homage as the son of Ali, the legitimate successor
MAHOMET AND TTIS SUCCESSORS. 435
of the prophet. He had only, they said, to show himself in
their city, and all Babylonia would rise in arms in his favor.
Hosein sent his cousin, Muslim Ibn Okail, to ascertain the
*ruth of these representations, and to foment the spirit of in
surrection should it really exist among the people of Cufa.
Muslim made his way, almost unattended, and with great peril
and hardship, across the deserts of Irak. On arriving at Cufa
he wa>» well received by the party of Hosein ; they assured him
that eighteen thousand men were ready to sacrifice their blood
and treasure in casting down the usurper and upholding the
legitimate <Jaliph. Every day augmented the number of ap
parent zealot in the cause, until it amounted to one hundred
and forty thousand. Of all this Muslim sent repeated accounts
to Hosein, urgi.?^ him to come on, and assuring him that the
conspiracy had b^n carried on with such secrecy that Nu'man
Ibn Baschir, the governor of Cufa, had no suspicion of it.
But though the coi^piracy had escaped the vigilance of Nu'
man, intimation of it had reached the Caliph Yezid at Damas
cus, who sent instant or<>rs to Obeid'allah, the emir of Bassora.
to repair with all speed fc Cufa, displace its negligent gover
nor, and take that place likewise under his command.
Obeid'allah was the son of Z?\ad, and inherited all the energy
of his father. Aware that the moment was critical, he set off
from Bassora with about a score ot* tieet horsemen. The peo
ple of Cufa were on the lookout for vho arrival of Hosein, which
was daily expected, when Obeid'allab rode into the city in the
twilight at the head of his troopers. H<* wore a black turban.
as was the custom likewise with Hosein. The populace crowded
round him, hailing the supposed grandson ox the prophet.
"Stand off!" cried the horsemen fiercely, "it is the emir
Obeid'allah."
The crowd shrank back abashed and disappointed, and the
emir rode on to the castle. The popular chagrin increased
when it was known that he had command of the province ; for
he was reputed a second Ziyad in energy and decision. His
measures soon proved his claims to that character. Ho dis
covered and disconcerted the plans of the conspirators ; drove
Muslim to a premature outbreak ; dispersed his hasty levy, and
took him prisoner. The latter shed bitter tears on his capture;
not on his own account, but on the account of Hosein, whom
he feared his letters and sanguine representations had involved
in ruin, by inducing him to come on to Cufa. The head of
Muslim was struck off and sent to the Caliph,
436 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
His letters had indeed produced the dreaded effect. On
receiving them Hosein prepared to comply with the earnest in
vitation of the people of Cufa. It was in vain his friends re
minded him of the proverbial faithlessness of these people ; it
was in vain they urged him to wait until they had committed
themselves, by openly taking the field. It was in vain that his
near relative Abdallah Ibn Abbas urged him at least to leave
the females of his family at Mecca, lest he should be massacred
in the midst of them, like the Caliph Othman. Hosein, in the
true spirit of a Moslem and predestinarian, declared he would
leave the event to God, and accordingly set out with his wives
and children, and a' number of his relatives, escorted by a
viandful of Arab troops.
Arrived in the confines of Babylonia, he was met by a body
of a thousand horse, led on by Harro, an Arab of the tribe of
Temimah. He at first supposed them to be a detachment of
his partisans sent to meet him, but was soon informed by Harro
that he came from the emir Obeid'allah to conduct him and all
the people with him to Cufa.
Hosein haughtily refused to submit to the emir's orders, and
represented that he came in peace, invited by the inhabitants
of Cufa, as the rightful Caliph. He set lorth at the same time
the justice of his claims, and endeavored to enlist Harro in his
cause; but the latter, though in no wise hostile to him, avoided
committing himself, and urged him to proceed quietly to Cufa
under his escort.
While they were yet discoursing, tour horsemen rode up ao
companied by a guide. One of these named Thirmah was
known to Hosein, and was reluctantly permitted by Harro to
converse with him apart. Hosein inquired about the situation
of things at Cufa. " The nobles," replied the other, "are now
against you to a man; some of the common people are still
with you ; by to-morrow, however, not a scimetar but will be
unsheathed against you."
Hosein inquired about Ka'is, a messenger whom he had sent
in advance to apprise his adherents of his approach. He had
been seized on suspicion, ordered as a test, by Obeid'allah, to
curse Hosein and his father Ali, and on his refusing had been
thrown headlong from the top of the citadel.
Hosein shed tears at hearing the fate of his faithful mes
senger. " There be some," said he, in the words of the Koran,
"wjip are already (Jeacl, and some who living expect death,
Let their mansions, oh God, be in the gardens of paradise,
receive us with them to thy mercy."
Thirmah represented to Hosein that his handful of follow, i •-
would be of no avail against the host prepared to oppose him
in the plains of Cufa, and offered to conduct him to the im
pregnable mountains of Aja, in the province of Naja, where
ten thousand men of thn tribe of Tay might soon be assembled
to detend him. He declined his advice, however, and ad
vanced toward Kadesia, the place famous for the victory over
the Persians. Harro and his cavalry kept pace with him,
watching every movement, but offering no molestation. The
mind of Hosein, however, was darkened by gloomy forebod
ings. A stupor at times hung over his faculties as he rode
slowly along ; he appeared to be haunted with a presentiment
of death.
"We belong to God, and to God we must return," exclaimed
he as he roused himself at one time from a dream or reverie.
He had beheld in his phantasy a horseman who had addressed
him in warning words: "Men travel in the night, and their
destiny travels in the night to -meet them." This he pro
nounced a messenger of death.
In this dubious and desponding mood he was brought to a
halt, near the banks of the Euphrates, by the appearance of
four thousand men, in hostile array, commanded by Amar Ibn
Saad. These, likewise, had been sent out by the emir Obeid'
allah, who was full of uneasiness lest there should be some
popular movement in favor of Hosein. The latter, however,
was painfully convinced by this repeated appearance of hostile
troops, without any armament in ais favor, that the fickle
people of Cufa were faithless to him. He held a parley with
Amar, who was a pious and good man, and had come out
very unwillingly against a descendant of the prophet, stated
to him the manner in which he had been deceived by the peo
ple of Cufa, and now offered to return to Mecca. Amar dis
patched a fleet messenger to apprise the emir of this favorable
offer, hoping to be excused from using violence against Hosein.
Obeid'allah wrote in reply: "Get between him and the Eu
phrates ; cut him off from the water as he did Othman ; force
him to acknowledge allegiance to Yezid, and then we will
treat of terms."
Amar obeyed these orders with reluctance, and Vhe little
camp of Hosein suffered the extremities of thirst. Still he
43B MAHOMET AND HtS SUCCESSORS.
could not be brought to acknowledge Yezid as Caliph. He
now offered three things, either to go to Damascus and nego
tiate matters personally with Yezid ; to return into Arabia ; or
to repair to some frontier post in Khorassan and fight against
the Turks. These terms were likewise transmitted by Amar
to Obeid'allah.
The emir was exasperated at these delays, which he consid
ered as intended to gain time for tampering with the public
feeling. His next letter to Amar was brief and explicit. "It
Hosein and his men submit and take the oath of allegiance,
treat them kindly ; if they refuse, slay them — ride over them —
trample them under the feet of thy horses !" This letter was
sent by Shamar, a warrior of note, and of a fierce spirit. He
had private instructions. "If Amar fail to do as I have or
dered, strike off his head and take command of his troops."
He was furnished also with a letter of protection, and pass
ports for four of the sons of Ali, who had accompanied their
brother Hosein.
Amar, on receiving the letter of the emir, had another par
ley with Hosein. He found him in front of his tent convers
ing with his brother Al Abbas, just after the hour of evening
prayer, and made known to him the peremptory demand of
the emir and its alternative. He also produced the letter ot
protection and the passports for his brothers, but they refused
to accept them.
Hosein obtained a truce until the morning to consider the
demand of the emir ; but his mind was already made up. He
saw that all hope of honorable terms was vain, and he resolved
to die.
After the departure of Amar, he remained seated alone at
the door of his tent, leaning on his sword, lost in gloomy cogi
tation on the fate of the coming day. A heaviness again came
over him, with the same kind of portentous fantasies that he
had already experienced. The approach of his favorite sister,
Zenaib, roused him. He regarded her with mournful signifi
cance. "I have just seen," said he, "in a dream, our grand-
sire the prophet, and he said, * Thou wilt soon be with me in
paradise.' "
The boding mind of Zenaib interpreted the portent. "Woe
unto us and our family," cried she, smiting her breast; "our
mother Fatima is dead, and our father Ali and our brother
Hassan ! Alas for the desolation of the past and the destruc
tion that is to come 1" So waving, her grief overcame her,
AM) in* srcrr.ztonfi. 459
she fell into a sv/oon. Hosein raised her tenderly, sprinkled
wat or in her face, and restored her to consciousness. He en
treated her to rely with confidence on God, reminding her that
nil the people of the earth must die, and everything that exists
must perish, but that God, who created them, would restore
them and take them to himself. " My father, and my mother,
and my brother," said he, " were better than I, yet they died,
and every Moslem has had an example in the death of the
apostle of God." Taking her then by the hand, he led her into
the tent, charging her, in case of his death, not to give way
thus to immoderate sorrow.
He next addressed his friends and followers. " These troops
by whom we are surrounded," said he, " seek no life but mine,
and will be contented with my death. Tarry not with me,
therefore, to your destruction, but leave me to my fate."
" God forbid," cried Al Abbas, "that we should survive your
fall ;" and his words were echoed by the rest.
Seeing his little band thus determined to share his desperate
fortunes, Hosein prepared to sell their lives dear, and make
their deaths a memorable sacrifice. By his orders all the tents
were disposed in two lines, and the cords interwoven so as to
form barriers on both sides of the camp, while a deep trench
in the rear was filled with wood, to be set on fire in case of
attack. It was assailable, therefore, only in front. This done,
the devoted band, conscious that the next day was to be their
last, passed the night in prayer, while a troop of the enemy's
horse kept riding round to prevent their escape.
When the morning dawned, Hosein prepared for battle.
His whole force amounted only to twoscore foot soldiers and
two-and-thirty horse; but all were animated with the spirit
of martyrs. Hosein and several of his chief men washed, an
ointed, and perfumed themselves; "for in a little while," said
they, " we shall be with the black-eyed Houris of paradise."
His steadfastness of soul, however, was shaken by the loud
lamentations of his sisters and daughters, and the thought of
the exposed and desolate state in which his death would leave
them. He called to mind, too, the advice which he had neg-
locted of Abdallah Ibn Abbas, to leave his women in safety at
Mecca. "God will reward thee, Abdallah!" exclaimed he, in
the fulness of his feelings.
A squadron of thirty horse, headed by Harro, now wheeled
up. but they came as friends and allies. Harro repented him
of having given the first check to Hosein, and now came in
440 MAHOMET AX7) HIS SUCCESSORS.
atonement to fight and die for him. "Alas for you men of
Cufa!" cried he, as Amar and his troops approached; "you
have invited the descendant of the prophet to your city, and
now you come to fight against him. You have cut off from
him and his family the waters of the Euphrates, which are
free even to infidels and the beasts of the field, and have shut
him up like a lion in the toils."
Amar began to justify himself and to plead the orders of the
emir ; but the fierce Shamar cut short all parley by letting fly
an arrow into the camp of Hosein, calling all to witness that
he struck the first blow. A skirmish ensued, but the men o!
Hosein kept within their camp, where they could only be
reached by the archers. From time to time there were single
combats in defiance, as was customary with the Arabs. In
these the greatest loss was on the side of the enemy, for
Hosein's men fought with the desperation of men resolved on
death.
Amar now made a general assault, but the camp, being open
only in front, was successfully defended. Shamar and his fol
lowers attempted to pull down the tents, but met with vigorous
resistance. He thrust his lance through the tent of Hosein,
and called for fire to burn it. The women ranrout shriek
ing. "The fire of Jeheiinam be thy portion!" cried Hosein;
"wouldst thou destroy my family?"
Even the savage Shamar stayed his hand at the sight of
defenceless women, and he and his band drew off with the loss
of several of their number.
Both parties desisted from the fight at the hour of noontide
prayer ; and Hosein put up the prayer of Fear, which is only
used in time of extremity.
When the prayers were over the enemy renewed the assault,
but chiefly with arrows from a distance. The faithful foL
lowers of Hosein were picked off one by one, until he was left
almost alone; yet no one ventured to close upon him. Ar
arrow from a distance pierced his little son Abdallah, whom
he had upon his knee. Hosein caught his blood in the hollow
of his hand and threw it toward heaven. "Oh God," ex^
claimed he, ' ' if thou withholdest help from us, at least take
vengeance on the wicked for this innocent blood."
His nephew, a beautiful child with jewels in his ears, was
likewise wounded in his arms. " Allah will receive thee, my
child," said Hosein; "thou wilt soon be with thy forefathers
in paradise."
MAIIOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 441
At thie moment Zeinao rushed forth, imprecating the ven
geance of Heaven upon the murderers of her family. Her
voice was overpowered by the o;iths and curses of Shamar,
who closed with his men upon Hosein. The latter fought
desperately, and laid many dead around him, but his strength
was failing him ; it became a massacre rather than a fight ; he
sank to the earth, and was stripped ere life was extinct.
Thirty wounds were counted in his body, and four-and-thirty
bruises. His head was then cut off to be sent to Obeid'allah,
and Shamar, with his troops, rode forward and backward over
the body, as he had been ordered, until it was trampled into
the earth.
Seventy-two followers of Hosein were slain in this massacre,
seventeen of whom were descendants from Fatima. Eighty-
eight of the enemy were killed, and a great number wounded.
All the arms and furniture of Hosein and his family were
taken as lawful spoils, although against the command of
Amar.
Shamar dispatched one of his troopers to bear the head of
Hosein to the emir Obeid'allah. He rode with all speed, but
arrived at Cufa after the gates of the castle were closed.
Taking the gory trophy to his own house until morning, he
showed it with triumph to his wife ; but she shrank from him
with horror, as one guilty of the greatest outrage to the family
of the prophet, and from that time forward renounced all inter
course with him.
When the head was presented to Ooeid'allah, he smote it
on the mouth with his staff. A venerable Arab present was
shocked at his impiety. " By Allah !" exclaimed he, "I have
seen those lips pressed by the sacred lips of the prophet !"
As Obeid'allah went forth from the citadel, he beheld several
women, meanly attired and seated disconsolately on the
ground at the threshold. He had to demand three times who
they were, before he was told that it was Zeinab, sister of
Hosein, and her maidens. "Allah be praised," cried he, with
ungenerous exultation, "who has brought this proud woman
to shame, and wrought death upon her family/' "Allah be
praised," retorted Zeinab, haughtily, "who hath glorified our
family by his holy apostle Mahomet. As to my kindred, death
was decreed to them, and they have gone to their resting-place ;
but God will bring you and them together, and will judge be
tween you/'
The wrath of the emir was inflamed by this reply, and hii
442 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
friends, fearful he might oe provoked to an act of violence,
reminded him that she was a woman and unworthy of his
anger.
"Enough," cried he; "let her revile; Allah has given my
soul full satisfaction in the death of her brother, and the ruin
of her rebellious race."
"True!" replied Zeinab, "you have indeed destroyed our
men, and cut us up root and branch. If that be any satisfac
tion to your soul, you have it."
The emir looked at her with surprise. " Thou art, indeed,"
said he, "a worthy descendant of Ali, who was a poet and a
man of courage."
"Courage," replied Zeinab, "is not a woman's attribute; but
what my heart dictates my tongue shall utter."
The emir cast his eyes on Ali, the son of Hosein, a youth
just approaching manhood, and ordered him to be beheaded.
The proud heart of Zeinab now gave way. Bursting into tears
she flung her arms round her nephew. " Hast thou not drunk
deep enough of the blood of our family?" cried she to Obeid'-
allah ; " and dost thou thirst for the blood of this youth? Take
mine too with it, and let me die with him.
The emir gazed on her again, and with greater astonish
ment ; he mused for awhile, debating with himself, for he was
disposed to slay the lad ; but was moved by the tenderness of
Zeinab. At length his better feelings prevailed, and the life of
Ali was spared.
The head of Hosein was transmitted to the Caliph Yezid, at
Damascus, in charge of the savage-hearted Shamar ; and with
it were sent Zeinab and her women, and the youth Ali. The
latter had a chain round his neck, but the youth carried him
self proudly, and would never vouchsafe a word to his con
ductors.
When Shamar presented the head with the greetings of
Obeid'allah, the Caliph shed tears, for he recalled the dying
counsel of his father with respect to the son of Ali. " Oh
Hosein!" ejaculated he, "hadst thou fallen into my hands
thou wouldst not have been slain." Then giving vent to his
indignation against the absent Obeid'allah, "The curse of
God," exclaimed he, "be upon the son of Somyah." *
He had been urged by one of his courtiers to kill Ali, and
* A sn«e- at Obeid'allah's illegitimate descent from Somyah, the wife of a Greek
slave.
MAI10M /•:•/• AM) HIS SUCCRSSOli*. 443
extinguish the whole generation of Hosein, but milder coun
sels prevailed. When the women and children were brought
before him, in presence of the Syrian nobility, he was shocked
at their mean attire, and again uttered a malediction on Obeid'-
allah. In conversing with Zeinab, he spoke with disparage
ment of her father Ali and her brother Hosein, but the proud
heart of this intrepid woman again rose to her lips, and she re
plied with a noble scorn and just invective that shamed him
to silence.
Yezid now had Zeinab and the other females of the family of
Hosein treated with proper respect ; baths were provided for
them, and apparel suited to their rank ; they were entertained
in his palace, and the widowed wives of his father Moawyah
came and kept them company, and joined with them in
mourning for Hosein. Yezid acted also with great kindness
toward Ali and Amru, the sons of Hosein, taking them with
him in his walks. Amru was as yet a mere child. Yezid
asked him one day jestingly, "Wilt thou fight with my son
Khaleda" The urchin's eye flashed fire. "Give him a knife,"
cried he, " and give me one!" " Beware of this child," said a
crafty old courtier who stood by, and who was an enemy to
the house of Ali. "Beware of this child; depend upon it, one
serpent is the parent of another."
After a time when the family of Hosein wished to depart for
Medina, Yezid furnished them abundantly with every com
fort for the journey, and a safe convoy under a careful officer,
who treated them with all due deference. When their journey
was accomplished, Zeinab and Fatima, the young daughter of
Hosein, would have presented their conductor with some of
their jewels, but the worthy Syrian declined their offer.
"Had I acted for, re ward," said he, "less than these jewels
would have sufficed; but what I have done was for the love
of God, and for the sake of your relationship to the prophet."
The Persians hold the memory of Hosein in great venera
tion, entitling him Shahed or the Martyr, and Seyejed or
Lord ; and he and his lineal descendants for nine generations
are enrolled among the twelve Imams or Pontiffs of the Per
sian creed. The anniversary of his martyrdom is called Rus
riosein (the day of Hosein), and is kept with great solemnity.
A splendid monument was erected in after years on the spot
where he fell, and was called in Arabic Meshed Hosein, The
Sepulchre of Hosein. The Shyites, or sectaries of Ali, relate
divers prodigies as having signalized his martyrdom, The
444 MABOMtiT ANb UiS
sun withdrew his light, the stars twinkled at noonday and
clashed against each other, and the clouds rained showers of
blood. A supernatural light beamed from the head of the
martyr, and a flock of white birds hovered around it. These
miracles, however, are all stoutly denied by the sect of Mos
lems called Sonnites, who hold Ali and his race in abomination.
CHAPTER XLVII.
INSURRECTION OF ABDALLAH IBN ZOBEIR— MEDINA TAKEN AND
SACKED— MECCA BESIEGED— DEATH OF YEZID.
THE death of Hosein had removed one formidable rival of
Yezid, but gave strength to the claims of another, who was
scarcely less popular. This was Abdallah, the son of Zobeir ;
honored for his devotion to the faith, beloved for the amenity
of his manners, and of such adroit policy that he soon man
aged to be proclaimed Caliph by the partisans of the house of
Haschem, and a large portion of the people of Medina and
Mecca. The martyrdom, as he termed it, of Hosein fur
nished him a theme for public harangues, with which, after
his inauguration, he sought to sway the popular feelings. He
called to mind the virtues of that grandson of the prophet, his
pious watchings, tastings, and prayers ; the perfidy of the peo
ple of Cufa, to which he had fallen a victim: the lofty heroism
of his latter moments, and the savage atrocities which had ac
companied, his murder. The public mind was heated by these
speeches; the enthusiasm awakened f or <the memory of Hosein
was extended to his politic eulogist. An Egyptian soothsayer,
famed for skill in divination, and who had studied the prophet
Daniel, declared that Abdallah would live and die a king ; and
this operated powerfully in his favor among the superstitious
Arabs, so that his party rapidly increased in numbers.
The Caliph Yezid, although almost all the provinces of the
empire were still in allegiance to him, was alarmed at the
movements of this new rival. He affected, however, to re
gard him with contempt, and sent a silver collar to Merwan
Ibn Hakem, then governor of Medina, directing him to put it
round the neck of the "mock Caliph," should he persist in his
folly, and send him in chains to Damascus. Merwan, how-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 445
ever, who was of a wily character himself, and aware of the
craft and courage of Abdallah, and his growing popularity in
Medina, evaded the execution of the order.
Yezid had no better success in his endeavors to crush the
rising power of Abdallah at Mecca. In vain he repeatedly
changed his governors of that city ; each in his turn was out
witted by the superior sagacity of Abdallah, or overawed by
the turbulent discontent of the people.
Various negotiations took place between Yezid and these
disaffected cities, and dispatches were sent from the latter to
Damascus ; but these only rendered the schism in the Caliphat
more threatening. The deputies brought back accounts of the
dissolute life of Yezid, which shocked the pious and abstemious
Arabs of the sacred cities. They represented him as destitute
of religion and morality ; neglectful of the hours of worship ; a
gross sensualist addicted to wine and banqueting; an effemi
nate voluptuary, passing his time amid singing and dancing
women, listening to music and loose minstrelsy, and sur
rounded by dogs and eunuchs.
The contempt and loathing caused by their representations
were fomented by the partisans of Abdallah Ibn Zobeir, and
extended to the whole house of Ommiah, of which Yezid was a
member. Open rebellion at length broke out in a manner char
acteristic of the Arabs. During an assemblage in the mosque
of Medina, one of the conspirators threw his turban on the
ground, exclaiming, " I cast off Yezid as I cast off this turban."
Another seconded him with the exclamation, " I cast off Yezid
as I cast off this shoe." Heaps of shoes and turbans soon
showed that the feeling was unanimous.
The next move was to banish the house of Ommiah and all
its dependents ; but these, to the number of a thousand, took
refuge in the palace of Merwan Ibn Hakem, the governor,
who was of that race. Here they were closely besieged and
sent off to Yezid, imploring instant succor.
It was with difficulty Yezid could prevail upon any of his
generals to engage in so unpopular a cause. Moslem Ibn
Okbah, a stout-hearted but infirm old general, at length un
dertook it ; but observed, with contempt, that a thousand men
who suffered themselves to be cooped up like fowls, without
fighting, scarce deserved assistance.
When the troops were about to depart, Yezid rode about
among them, his scimetar by his side, and an Arab bow across
{us shoulder, call in- upon them to show their loyalty and cour
446 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
age. His instructions to Meslem were to summon the city of
Medina, three days in succession, before he made any assault ;
if it refused to surrender, he should, after taking it, give it
up to three days' pillage. He charged him, however, to be
careful of the safety of the youth Ali, son of Hosein, who was
in the city, but had taken no part in the rebellion.
Meslem departed at the head of twelve thousand horse and
five thousand foot. When he arrived before Medina he found
r, huge trench digged round the city, and great preparations
made fur defence. On three successive days he summoned it
to surrender, and on each day received a refusal. On the
fourth day he attacked it by storm, making his assault on the
east side, that the besieged might be blinded by the rising sun.
The city held out until most of its prime loaders were slain; it
would then have capitulated, but the stern old general com
pelled an unconditional surrender.
Meslem entered the city sword in hand, and sent instantly
for Ali, the youthful son of Hosein, whom he placed on his
own camel, and furnished with a trusty guard, His next care
was to release the thousand men of the house of Ommiah from
confinement, lest they should be involved in the sacking of the
city ; this done, he abandoned the place for three days to his
soldiery, and a scene of slaughter, violence, and rapine ensued,
too horrible to be detailed. Those of the inhabitants who sur*
vived the massacre were compelled to submit as slaves and
vassals of Yezid. The rigid severity of old Meslem, which far
surpassed his orders, gained him the appellation of Musreph,
or The Extortionate. His memory has ever been held in
odium by the Moslems, for the outrages which he permitted in
this sacred city. This capture of Medina took place at nipht,
in the sixty-third year of the Hegira, and the year 682 of the
Christian era.
The old general now marched on to wreak the same fate
upon Mecca ; but his fires were burnt out ; he died on the march
of fatigue, infirmity, and old age, and the command devolved
on a Syrian general named Hozein Ibn Thamir. The latter led
his force up to the walls of Mecca, where Abdallah Ibn Zobeir
commanded in person. For the space of forty days he be
sieged the city, battering the walls with engines brought from
Syria. In the course of the siege a part of the Caaba was
beaten down and the rest burnt. Some ascribe the fire to the
engines of the besiegers ; others affirm that Abdallah, hearing
a shouting in the night, caused a flaming brand to be elevated
MAllnui-:r AMt HIS SUCCESSORS. 447
on a lance to discover the cause, and that the fire communi
cated to the veil which covered the edifice.
Mecca was reduced to extremity, and the inhabitants began
to dread the fate of Medina, when a swift messenger brought
to Abdallah Ibn Zobeir the joyful tidings of the death of Yezid.
He immediately mounted the walls and demanded of the be
siegers why they continued to fight, seeing that their master
Yezid was no more. They regarded his words as a men
terfuge, and continued the attack with increased vigor. The
intelligence, however, was speedily confirmed.
Hozein now held a conference with Abdallah ; he expressed
an ardent desire to put an end to all further effusion of kindred
blood, and proffered the allegiance of himself and his army, in
which were some of the leading men of Syria, Abdallah, for
once, was too cautious for his own good. He shrank from
trusting himself with Hozein and his army; he permitted
them, however, at their earnest request, to walk in religious
procession round the ruins of the Caaba, of course without
arms ; after which Hozein and his host departed on the march
homeward; and the late beleaguered family of Ommiah ac
companied them to Syria.
The death of the Caliph Yezid took place at Hawwarin, in
Syria, in the sixty-fourth year of the Hegira, A.D. 683, in the
thirty -ninth year of his age, after a reign of three years and
six months. He was cut down in the flower of his days, say
the Moslem writers, in consequence of his impiety, in ordering
the sacking of Medina, the burial-place of the prophet ; for the
latter had predicted, u Whoever injureth Medina, shall melt
away even as salt melteth in water." The Persian writers
also, sectarians of Ali, hold the memory of Yezid in abhor
rence, charging him with the deaths of Hassan and Hosein,
and accompany his name with the imprecation, "May he be
accursed of God 1"
CHAPTER XLVIII.
INAUGURATION OF MOAWYAH n., EIGHTH CALIPH— HIS ABDICA^
Tin*; AND DEATH— MERWiN IBN HAKEM AND ABDALLAH IBN
ZOBEIR, RIVAL CALIPHS — CIVIL WARS IN SYRIA.
ON the death of Yezid, his son, Moawyah II., was proclaimed
at Damascus, being the third Caliph of the house of Ommiah
448 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
He was in the twenty-first year of his age, feeble in mind and
body, and swayed in his opinions and actions by his favorite
teacher, Omar Almeksus, of the sect oi' the Kadarii, who main
tain the free-will of men, and that a contrary opinion would
make God the author of sin.
Moawyah assumed the supremo authority with extreme
reluctance, and felt his incompetency to its duties; for the
state of his health obliged him to shun daylight and keep in
darkened rooms ; whence the Arabs, in their propensity to by
names, gave him the derisive appellation of Abuleilah,
" Father of the Night."
He abdicated at the end of six months, alleging his incom
petency. The Ommiades were indignant at his conduct ; they
attributed it, and probably with reason, to the counsels of the
sage Omar Almeksus, on whom they are said to have wreaked
their rage by burying him alive.
Moawyah refused to nominate a successor. His grandfather
Moawyah, he said, had wrested the sceptre from the hands of
a better man ; his father Yezid had not merited so great a
trust, and ho himself being unworthy and unfit to wield it,
was equally unworthy to appoint a successor ; he left the elec
tion, therefore, to the chiefs of the people. In all which he
probably spake according to the dictates of the sage Omar
Almeksus.
As soon as he had thrown off the cares of government he
shut himself up in the twilight gloom of his chamber, whence
he never stirred until his death, which happened soon after
caused, some say, by the plague, others by poison. His own
diseased frame and morbid temperament, however, account
sufficiently for his dissolution.
The election of a Caliph again distracted the Moslem empire.
The leading men at Damascus determined upon Merwanlbn
Hakem, of the family of Ommiah, and once the secretary of
state of Othman, who had so craftily managed the correspond
ence of that unfortunate Caliph. He was now well stricken
in years ; tall and meagre, with a pale face and yellow beard,
doubtless tinged according to oriental usage. Those who
elected him took care to stipulate that he should not nominate
any of his posterity as his successor ; but should be succeeded
by Khaled, the son of Yezid, as yet a n: inor. Merwan, in his
eagerness for power, pledged himself without hesitation; how
faithfully he redeemed his pledge will be seen hereafter.
While this election was held at Damascus, Abdallah Ibn
MAUOMKT AXD HIS XUCCE^O.
Zobeir was acknowledged as Caliph in Mecca, Medina, and
throughout Arabia, as also in Khorassan, in Babylonia, and in
Egypt.
Another candidate for the supreme power unexpectedly arose
in Obeid'allah Ibn Ziyad, tho emir oi' Bassora, the same who
had caused the massacre of Hosein. He harangued an assem
blage of the people of Bassora on tho state of the contending
factions in Syria and Arabia; the importance of their o\vn
portion of the empire, so capable of sustaining itself in inde
pendence, and the policy of appointing some able person as a
protector to watch over the public weal until these dissensions
should cease, and a Caliph be unanimously appointed. Tho
assembly was convinced by his reasoning, and urged him to
accept the appointment. Ho declined it repeatedly, with poli
tic grace, but was at length prevailed upon ; and the leaders
gave him their hands, promising allegiance to Imn as a provi
sional chief, until a Caliph should be regularly elected. His
authority, however, was but of short duration. The people of
Cufa, who had experienced his tyranny as governor, rejected
with scorn his election as protector; their example reacted
upon the fickle Bassorians, who suddenly revoked their late
act of allegiance, rose in tumultuous opposition to the man
they had so recently honored, and Obeid'allah was fain to dis
guise himself in female attire, and take refuge in the house of
an adherent. During his sway, however, he had secured an
immense amount of gold from the public treasury. This he
now shared among his partisans, and distributed by handfuls
among the multitude; but though he squandered in this way
above two hundred thousand pieces of gold upon the populace,
and raised a few transient tumults in his favor, he was ulti
mately obliged to fly for his life, and his effects were pillaged
by the rabble. So fared it with the temporary tyrant who
smote the gory head of the virtuous Hosein.
He fled by night at the head of only a hundred men ; after a
time weariness compelled him to exchange the camel on which
he was mounted for an ass. In tin's humble plight, with
drooping head, and legs dangling to the ground, journeyed the
imperious Obeid'allah, who, but the day before, was governor
of Babylonia, and aspired to the throne of the Caliphs. One
of his attendants, noticing his dejection, and hearing him mut
ter to himself, supposed him smitten with contrition, and
upbraiding himself with having incurred these calamities, as a
judgment for the death of Hosein : ho ventured to suggest his
450 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSO&B.
thoughts and to offer consolation ; but Obeid'allah quickly let
him know that his only repentance and self-reproach were for
not having attacked the faithless Bassorians, and struck off
their heads at the very outbreak of their revolt. Obeid'allah
effected his escape into Syria; and arrived at Damascus in
time to take an active part in the election of Merwan to the
Caliphat ; in the mean time Bassora declared its allegiance to
Ibn Abdallah Zobeir.
The claims of Merwan to the Caliphat were acknowledged in
Syria alone, but Syria, if undivided, was an empire in itself.
It was divided, however. A powerful faction, headed by De-
hac Ibn Kais, late governor of Cufa, disputed the pretensions
of Merwan, and declared for Abdallah. They appeared in
arms in the plain near Damascus. Merwan took the field
against them in person; a great and sanguinary battle took
place; Dehac and fourscore of the flower of Syrian nobility
were slain, and an immense number of their adherents. Vic
tory declared for Merwan. He called off his soldiers from the
pursuit, reminding them that the fugitives were their brethren.
. When the head of Dehac was brought to him he turned from
it with sorrow. ' ' Alas !" exclaimed he, ' ' that an old and worn-
out man like myself should occasion the young and vigorous
to be cut to pieces !"
His troops hailed him as Caliph beyond all dispute, and bore
him back in triumph to Damascus. He took up his abode in
the palace of his predecessors, Moawyah and Yezid ; -but now
came a harder part of his task. It had been stipulated that at
his death Khaled the son of Yezid should be his successor ; it
was now urged that he should marry the widow of Yezid, the
mother of the youth, and thus make himself his legitimate
guardian.
The aged Merwan would fain have evaded this condition,
but it was forced upon him as a measure of policy, and he com
plied ; no sooner, however, was the marriage solemnized than
he left his capital and his bride, and set off with an army for
Egypt, to put down the growing ascendency of Abdallah in that
region. He sent in advance Amru Ibn Saad, who acted with
such promptness and vigor that while the Caliph was yet on
the march he received tidings that the lieutenant of Abdallah
had been driven from the province, and the Egyptians brought
under subjection : whereupon Merwan turned his face again
toward Damascus.
Intelligence now overtook * :t an army under Musab,
MA1HJUKT AX7J 1IIS SUCCESSORS. 451
brother of Abdallah, was advancing upon Egypt. Tho old
Caliph again faced about, and resumed his march in th;rt
direction, but again was anticipated, by Amru, who routed
Musab in a pitched battle, and completely established the sway
of Merwan over Egypt. The Caliph now appointed his son
Abd'alaziz to the government of that important country, and
once more returned to Damascus, whither he was soon followed
} the victorious Amru.
CHAPTER XLIX.
STATE OP AFFAIRS IN KHORASSAN— CONSPIRACY AT CUFA— FAC
TION OF THE PENITENTS; THEIR FORTUNES— DEATH OF THE
CALIPH MERWAN.
IN the present divided state of the Moslem empire, the people
of Khorassan remained neuter, refusing to acknowledge either
Caliph. They appointed Salem, the son of Ziyad, to act as
regent, until the unity of the Moslem government should be
restored. He continued for a length of time in this station,
maintaining the peace of the province, and winning the hearts
of the inhabitants by his justice, equity, and moderation.
'• About this time there was a sudden awakening among the
sect of Ali, in Babylonia. The people of Cufa, proverbially
fickle and faithless, were seized with tardy remorse for the
fate of Hosein, of which they were conscious of being the
cause. Those who had not personally assisted in his martyr
dom formed an association to avenge his death. Above t.
hundred of the chief men of the country joined them; they
took the name of The Penitents, to express their contrition for
having been instrumental in the death of the martyr; and they
chose for their leader one of the veteran companions of the
prophet, the venerable Solyman Ibn Sorad, who devoted his
gray hairs to this pious vengeance.
The awakening spread far and wide ; in a little while upward
of sixteen thousand names were enrolled ; a general appeal to
arms was anticipated throughout the country, and the veteran
Solyman called upon all true Moslems disposed to prosecute
this " holy war," to assemble at a place called Nochaila. Be
fore the appointed time, however, the temporary remorse of
the people of Cufa had subsided ; the enthusiasm for the mem-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
ory of Hosein had cooled throughout the province ; intriguing
meddlers, jealous of the appointment of Solyman, had been at
work, and when -.the veteran came to the place of assemblage
he found but an inconsiderable number prepared for action.
He now dispatched two horsemen to Cufa, who arrived
there at the hour of the last evening prayer, galloped through
the streets to the great mosque, rousing the Penitents with the
war cry of " Vengeance for Hosein." The call was not losu on
the real enthusiasts ; a kind of madness seized upon many o±
the people, who thronged after the couriers, echoing the cry of
vengeance. The cry penetrated into the depths of the houses.
One man tore himself from the arms of a beautiful and tenderly
beloved wife, and began to arm for battle. She asked him if
he were mad. " No!" cried he, " but I hear the summons of
the herald of God, and I fly to avenge the death of Hosein."
" And in whose protection do you leave our child?" " I com
mend him and thec to the protection of Allah !" So saying, he
departed.
Another called for a lance and steed ; told his daughter that he
fled from crime to penitence ; took a hurried leave of his family
and galloped to the camp of Solyman.
Still, when the army of Penitents was mustered on the
following clay it did not exceed four thousand. Solyman flat
tered himself, however, that reinforcements, promised him
from various quarters, would join him when on the march. He
harangued his scanty host, roused their ardor, and marched
them to the place of Hosein's murder, where they passed a day
and night in prayer and lamentation. They then resumed
their march. Their intention was to depose both Caliphs,
Merman and Abdallah, to overthrow the family of Ommiah,
and restore the throne to the house of Ali ; but their first object
was vengeance on Obeid'allah, the son of Ziyad, to whom they
chiefly ascribed the murder of Hosein. The aged Solyman led
his little army of enthusiasts through Syria, continually dis
appointed of recruits, but unabated in their expectation of aid
from Heaven, until they were encountered by Obeid'allah with
an army of twenty thousand horsemen, and cut in pieces.
In the midst of these internal feuds and dissensions, a spark
of the old Saracen spirit was aroused by the news of disastrous
reverses in Northern Africa. We have recorded in a former
chapter the heroic but disastrous end of Acbah on the plains
of Numidia, where he and Jais little army were massacred by a
Berber host, led on by Aben Cahina. That Moorish chieftain,
MAHOHET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
while flushed with victory, had been defeated by Zohair beloro
the walls of Caerwan, and the spirits of the Moslems had onco
more revive! ; especially on the arrival of reinforcements sent
by Abd'alaziz from Egypt. A sad reverse, however, again
took place. A largo forco of imperialists, veteran and wel\
armed soldiers from Constantinople, were landed on the African
coast to take advantage of the domestic troubles of the Mos
lems, and drive them from their African possessions. Being
joined by the light troops of Darbaiy, they attacked Zobcir in
open field. He fought long and desperately, but being deserted
by the Egyptian reinforcements, and overpowered by numbers,
was compelled to retreat to Earca, while the conquering foo
marched on to Caerwan, captured that city, and made them
selves masters of the surrounding country.
It was the tidings of this disastrous reverse, and of the loea
of the great outpost of Moslem conquest in Northern Africa,
that roused the Saracen spirit from its domestic feuas. Abd'al-
rruflec, the eldest son of the Caliph Merwan, who had already
served in Africa, was sent with an army to assist Zobcir. Ho
met that general in Barca, where ho was again collecting an
army. They united their forces, retraced the westward routo
of victory, defeated the enemy in every action, and replaced
the standard of the faith on the walls of Caerwan. Having
thus wiped out the recent disgraces, Abd'almalcc lelt Zobeir in
command of that region, and returned covered with glory to
sustain his aged father in the Caliphat at Damascus.
The latter days of Mcrwan had now arrived. He had boon
intriguing and faithless in his youth ; he was equally so in his
age. In his stipulations on receiving the Caliphat he had pro
mised the succession to Khaled, the son of Yczid; he had einco
promised it to his nephew Amni, who had fought his battles and
confirmed his power; in his latter days he caused his own son
Abd'almalec, fresh from African exploits, to be proclaimed bis
successor, and allegiance to be sworn to him. Khaled, his step
son, reproached him with his breach of faith ; in tho heat of
reply, Merwan called the youth by an opprobriouo epithet,
which brought in question the chastity of his mother. This
unlucky word is said to havo caused the sudden death of
Merwan. His wife, the mother of Khaled, is charged with
having given him poison ; others say that she threw a pillow
on his face while he slept, and sat on it until he was suffocated.
He died in the C5th year of the Hcgira, A.D. C84, after a brief
reign of not quite a year.
454 MAHOMET AXI> HIS SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER L.
INAUGURATION OF ABD'ALMALEC, THE ELEVENTH CALIPH— STOR*
OF AL MOKTAR, THE AVENGER.
ON the death of Merwan, his son Abd'almalec was inaugu
rated Caliph at Damascus, and acknowledged throughout Syria,
and Egypt, as well as in the newly-conquered parts of Africa.
He was in the full vigor of life, being about forty years of age ;
his achievements in Africa testify his enterprise, activity, and
valor, and he was distinguished for wisdom and learning.
From the time of his father's inauguration he had been look
ing forward to the probability of becoming his successor,
and ambition of sway had taken place of the military ardpr of
his early youth. When the intelligence of his father's death
reached him, he was sitting cross-legged, in oriental fashion,
with the Koran open on his knees. He immediately closed the
sacred volume, and rising, exclaimed, "Fare thee well, I am
called to other matters."
The accession to sovereign power is said to have wrought a
change in his character. He had always been somewhat
superstitious; he now became attentive to signs, omens, and
dreams, and grew so sordid and covetous that the Arabs, in
their propensity to give characteristic and satirical surnames,
used to call him Eafhol Hejer, that is to say, Sweat-Stone,
equivalent to our vulgar epithet of skinflint.
Abdallah Ibn Zobeir was still acknowledged as Caliph by a
great portion of the Moslem dominions, and held his seat of
government at Mecca; this gave him great influence over the
true believers, who resorted in pilgrimage to the Caaba.
Abd'almalec determined to establish a rival place of pilgrimage
within his own dominions. For this purposejie chose the tem
ple of Jerusalem, sacred in the eyes of the Moslems, as con
nected with the acts and revelations of Moses, of Jesus, and of
Mahomet, and as being surrounded by the tombs of the pro
phets. He caused this sacred edifice to be enlarged so as to
include within its walls the steps upon which the Caliph Omar
prayed on the surrender of that city. It was thus converted
into a mosque, and the venerable and sanctified stone called
Jacob's pillow, on which the patriarch is said to Jiave had his
UAHUM
dream, was presented for the kifiaee (l< pilgrims, in like manner
us the bla*'k stoiie of the Caaba.
There- was at this time a general of bold if not feroc-iuii>
character, who played a sort of independent part in the
troubles and commotions of the Moslem empire. He was
KOU of Abu Obeidah, and was sometimes called Al Th.:
from his native city Thayef, but won for himself the more
universal appellation of Al Moktar, or the Avenger. The first
notice we find of him is during the short reign of Hassan, the
son of Ali, being zealously devoted to the family of that
Caliph. We next find him at Cufa, harboring and assisting
Muslem, the emissary of Hosein, and secretly fomenting the
conspiracy in favor of the latter. When the emir Obeid'allah
came to Cufa, he was told of the secret practices of Al Moktar,
and questioned him on the subject. Receiving a delusive
reply, he smote him over the face with his staff, and struck out
one of Ms eyes. He then cast him into prison, where he lay
until' the massacre of Hosein. Intercessions were made in his
favor with the Caliph Yezid, who ordered his release. Tho
emir executed the order, but gave Al Moktar notice Jiat if,
after the expiration of three days, he were found within his
jurisdiction, his life should be forfeit.
Al Moktar departed, uttering threats and maledictions. One
of his friends who met him inquired concerning the loss of
his eye. " It was the act of that son of a wanton, Obeid'allah,"
said ho, bitterly; " but may Allah confound me if I do not one
day cut him in pieces." Blood revenge for the death of Hosein
became now his ruling thought. " May Allah forsake me," he
would say, " if I do not kill as many in vengeance of that mas-
nacre as were destroyed to avenge the blood -of John, the son
of Zacharias, on whom be peace !"
He now repaired to Mecca, and 'presented himself before
AlHlalla.il Ibn Zobeir, who had recently been inaugurated; but
he would not take the oath of allegiance until the Caliph had
rjedared his disposition to revenge the murder of Hosein.
" Never," said he, " will the affairs of Abdallah prosper, until I
ain at the head of his army taking revenge for that murder."
Al Moktar fought valiantly in defence of the sacred city
\vhilc b<>si. >-•<!; but when the siege was raised in consequence
of the (Vail i of Yezid, and Abdallah became generally acknow
ledged, he found the Caliph growing cold toward him, or
toward the constant purpose of his thoughts: he left him
therefore, and set out for Cufa, visiting all the mosques on the
456 MAHOMET AND JUS SUCCESSORS.
way, haranguing the people 011 the subject of the death of
Hosein, and declaring himself his avenger.
On arriving at Cufa he found his self-appointed office of
avenger likely to he forestalled by the veteran Solymaii, who
was about to depart on his mad enterprise with his crazy Peni
tents. Calling together the sectaries of Ali, ho produced cre
dentials from Mahomet, the brother of Hosein, which gained
lor him their confidence, and then represented to them the'
rashness and futility of the proposed expedition; and to his
opposition may be ascribed the diminished number of volun
teers that assembled at the call of Solyman.
While thus occupied he was arrested on a charge of plotting
en insurrection with a view to seize upon the province, and
was thrown into the same prison in which he had been con
fined by Obeid'ailah. During his confinement he kept up a
correspondence with the sectaries of Ali by letters conveyed
in the lining of a cap. On the death of the Caliph Merwan
ho was released from prison, and found himself head of the
Allans, or powerful sect of All, who even offered their adhesion
lo him CG Caliph, 011 condition that he would govern according
to the Koran, and the Sonna or traditions, and would destroy
the murderers of Hcscin and his family.
Al Moktur entered heartily upon the latter part of his duties,
r.iul ccoii established his claim to the title of Avenger. The first
on whom he wreaked his vengeance was the ferocious Shamar,
who had distinguished himself in the massacre of Hosein.
Him ho overcame and slew. The next was Caulah, who cut
off the head of Hosein end conveyed it to the emir Obeid'ailah.
Him he beleaguered in his dwelling, and killed, and gave his
body to the flames. His next victim was Amar Ibn Saad, the
commander of the army that surrounded Hosein ; with him
ho slew his son, and sent both of their heads to Mahomet, the
brother of Hosein. He then seized Adi Ibn Hathem, who had
stripped the body of Hosein while the limbs were yet quivering
with life. Him he handed over to some of the sect of Ali, who
stripped him, set him up as a target, and discharged arrows at
him until they stood out from his body like the quills of a por
cupine. In this way Al Moktar went on, searching out the
murderers of Hosein wherever they were to be found, and in
flicting on them a diversity of deaths.
Sustained by the Allans, or sect of Ali, ho now maintained a
military sway in Cufa, and held, in fact, a sovereign authority
over Babylonia ; ho felt, however, that his situation was preca-
XAI10MRT AND HIS SUCCESSOR*. 457
riotis ; an array out of Syria, sent by Abd'alm;ilcc, -was threat
ening him on ono side; and Musab, brother of the Caliph
Abdallah, was in great force at Bassora menacing him on tho
other. Ho now had recourse to stratagems to sustain his
power, and accomplish his great scheme of vengeance. He
made overtures to Abdallah, offering to join him with his
forces. The wary Caliph suspected his sincerity, and re
quired, as proofs of it, the oath of allegiance from himself and
his people, and a detachment to proceed against tho array of
Abd'almalec.
Al Moktar promptly sent off an officer, named Serjabil, with
three thousand men, with orders to proceed to Medina. Ab
dallah, still wary and suspicious, dispatched a shrewd general,
Abbas Ibn Sahel, with a competent force to meet Serjabil and
sound his intentions, and if he were convinced there was lurk
ing treachery, to act accordingly.
Abbas and Serjabil encountered at the head of their troops on
the highway to Medina. They had an amicable conference, in
which Abbas thought he discovered sufficient proof of perfidy.
He took measures accordingly. Finding the little army of
Serjabil almost famished for lack of provisions, he killed a great
number of fat sheep and distributed them among the hungry
troops. A scene of hurry and glad confusion immediately took
place. Some scattered themselves about the neighborhood in
search of fuel ; some were cooking, some feasting. In this un
guarded moment Abbas* set upon them with his troops, slew
Serjabil and nearly four hundred of his men ; but gave quarter
to the rest, most of whom enlisted under his standard.
Al Moktar, finding that his good faith was doubted by Ab
dallah, wrote privately to Mahomet, brother of Hosein, who
was permitted by the Caliph to reside in Mecca, where ho led
a quiet inoffensive life, offering to bring a powerful army to
his assistance if ho would take up arms. Mahomet sent a
verbal reply, assuring Al Moktar of his belief in tho sincerity
of his offers ; but declining all appeal to arms, saying he was
resolved to bear his lot with patience, and leave tho event to
God. As the messenger was departing, ho gave him a parting
word: "Bid M Moktar fci^r God and abstain from shedding
blood."
The pious resignation and passive life of Mahomet were of
no avail. Tho suspicious eye of Abdallah was fixed upon him.
The Cufians of tho sect of Ali, and devotees to tho memory of
Hosein, who yielded allegiance to neither ol tho rival Cal
458 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
were still permitted to make their pilgrimages to the Caaba,
and when in Mecca did not fail to do honor to Mahomet Ibn
Ali and his family. The secret messages of Al Moktar to Ma
homet were likewise known. The Caliph Abdallah, suspecting
a conspiracy, caused Mahomet and his family, and seventeen
of the principal pilgrims from Cufa, to be arrested, and con
fined in the edifice by the sacred well Zem Zem, threatening
them with death unless by a certain time they gave the pledge
of allegiance.
From their prison they contrived to send a letter to Al
Moktar, apprising him of their perilous condition. He assem
bled the Alians, or sect of Ali, at Cufa, and read the letter.
" This comes," said he, "from Mahomet, the son of Ali and
brother of Hosein. He and his family, the purest of the house
of your prophet, are shut up like sheep destined for the slaugh
ter. Will you desert them in their extremity, and leave
them to be massacred as you did the martyr Hosein and his
family?"
The appeal was effectual ; the Alians cried out to be led to
Mecca. Al Moktar marshalled out seven hundred and fifty
men, bold riders, hard fighters, well armed and fleetly
mounted, arranged them in small troops to follow each other
at considerable intervals, troop after troop like the waves of the
sea ; the leader of the first troop, composed of a hundred and
fifty men, was Abu Abdallah Aljodali. He set off first; the
others followed at sufficient distance to be out of sight, but all
spurred forward, for no time was to be lost.
Abu Abdallah was the first to enter Mecca. His small troop
awakened no alarm. He made his way to the well of Zem
Zem, crying, "Vengeance for Hosein;" drove off the guard
and broke open the prison house, whence he liberated Ma
homet Ibn Ali and his family.
The tumult brought the Caliph and his guard. Abu Ab
dallah would have given them battle, but Mahomet interfered,
and represented that it was impious to fight within the pre
cincts of the Caaba. The Caliph, seeing the small force that
was with Abdallah, would on his part have proceeded to
violence, when lo, the second troop of hard riders spurred up ;
then the third, and presently all the rest, shouting "Allah
Achbar," and " Vengeance for Hosein."
The Caliph, taken by surprise, lost all presence of mind. He
knew the popularity of Mahomet Ibn Ali and his family, and
dreaded an insurrection. Abu Abdallah in the moment of
MKT AM) HIS SUCCESSORS. 459
triumph would have put him to death, but his hand was
stayed by the pious and humane Mahomet. The matter was
peaceably adjusted. The Caliph was left unmolested; Ma
homet distributed among his fiiends and adherents a great
sum of money, which had been sent to him by Al Moktar, and
then with his family departed in safety from Mecca.
Al Moktar had now to look to his safety at home ; his old
enemy Obeid'allah, former emir of Cufa, was pressing forward
at the head of an army of the Caliph Abd'almalec, to recover
that city, holding out to his troops a promise of three days'
sack and pillage. Al Moktar called on the inhabitants to take
arms against their former tyrant and the murderer of Hosein.
A body of troops sallied forth headed by Ibrahim, the son of
Alashtar. To give a mysterious sanctity to the expedition, Al
Moktar caused a kind of throne covered with a veil to be
placed on a mule, and led forth with the army ; to be to them
what the ark was to the children of Israel, a sacred safeguard.
On going into battle, the following prayer was to be offered up
at it: " Oh God! keep us in obedience to thee, and help us in
our need." To which all the people were to respond, "Amen !"
The army of Ibrahim encountered the host of Obeid'allah on
the plains, at some distance from Cufa. They rushed forward
with a holy enthusiasm inspired by the presence of their ark :
" Vengeance for Hosein !" was their cry, and it smote upon the
heart of Obeid'allah. The battle was fierce and bloody; the
Syrian force, though greatly superior, was completely routed;
Obeid'allah was killed, fighting with desperate valor, and more
of his soldiers were drowned in the flight than were slaughtered
in the field. This signal victory was attributed, in a great
measure, to the presence of the ark or veiled throne, which
thenceforward was regarded almost with idolatry.
Ibrahim caused the body of Obeid'allah to be burned to
ashes, and sent his head to Al Moktar. The gloomy heart of
the avenger throbbed with exultation as he beheld this relic of
the man who had oppressed, insulted, and mutilated him; he
recollected the blow over the face which had deprived him of
an eye, and smote the gory head of Obeid'allah, even as he had
been smitten.
Thus, says the royal and pious historian Abulfeda, did Allah
make use of the deadly hate of Al Moktar to punish Obeid'
allah, the son of Ziyad, for the martyrdom of Hosein.
The triumph of Al Moktar was not of long duration. He
ruled over a fickle people, and he ruled them with a rod of
460 MAHOMET AND J7IS SUCCESSORS.
iron. He persecuted all who were not, or whom he chose to
consider as not, of the Hosein party, and he is charged with
fomenting an insurrection of the slaves against the chief men
of the city of Cufa. A combination was at length formed
against him, and an invitation was sent to Musab Ibn Zobeir,
who had been appointed emir of Bassora, by his brother, the
Caliph Abdallah.
The invitation was borne by one Shebet, an enthusiast who
made his entrance into Bassora on a mule with cropt ears and
tail, his clothes rent, exclaiming with a loud voice, "Ya,
gautha ! Ya gautha ! Help ! help !" He delivered his message
in a style suited to his garb, but accompanied it by letters from
the chief men of Cufa, which stated their grievances in a moro
rational manner. Musab wrote instantly to Al Mohalleb, the
emir of Persia, one of the ablest generals of the tune, to come
to his aid with men and money; and on his arrival, joined
forces with him to attack the Avenger in his seat of power.
Al Moktar did not wait to be besieged. He took the field
with his accustomed daring, and gave battle beneath the walls
of his capital. It was a bloody fight ; the presence of the mys
terious throne had its effect upon the superstitious minds of
the Cufians, but Al Moktar had become hateful from his
tyranny, and many of the first people were disaffected to him.
His army was routed; he retreated into the royal citadel of
Cufa, and defended it bravely and skilfully, until he received
a mortal wound. Their chief being killed, the garrison sur
rendered at discretion, and Musab put every man to the sword,
to the number of seven thousand.
Thus fell Al Moktar Ibn Abu Obeidah, in his sixty-seventh
year, after having defeated the ablest generals of three Ca
liphs, and by the sole power of his sword made himself the
independent ruler of all Babylonia. He is said never to have
pardoned an enemy, to have persecuted with inveterate hate
all who were hostile to the family of All, and in vengeance of
the massacre of Hosein to have shed the blood of nearly fifty
thousand men, exclusive of those who were slain in battle.
Well did he merit the title of the Avenger.
MAHOMET AND 1I1S SUCCESSORS.
CHAPTER LI.
MUSAB IBN ZOBEIR TAKES POSSESSION OF BABYLONIA— USURPA
TION OF AMRU IBN SAAD ; HIS DEATH— EXPEDITION OF ABD'
ALMALEC AGAINST MUSAB — THE RESULT— OMENS ; THEIR EFFECT
UPON ABD'ALMALEC— EXPLOITS OF AL MOHALLEB.
THE death of Al Moktar threw the province of Babylonia,
with its strong capital, Cufa, into the hands of Musab Ibn
Zobeir, brother to the Caliph Abdallah. Musab was well
calculated to win the favor of the people. He was in the flower
of his days, being but thirty-six years of age, comely in person,
engaging in manners, generous in spirit, and of consummate
bravery, though not much versed in warfare. He had been
an intimate friend of Abd'almalec before the latter was made
Caliph, but he was brother to the rival Caliph, and connected
by marriage with families in deadly opposition to the house of
Ommiah. Abd'almalec, therefore, regarded him as a formi
dable foe, and, warned by the disasters of his army under
Obeid'allah, resolved now to set out at the head of a second
expedition in person, designed for the invasion of Babylonia.
In setting forth on this enterprise he confided the govern
ment of Damascus to his cousin, Amru Ibn Saad ; he did this
in consideration of the military skill of Amru, though secretly
there was a long nourished hate between them. The origin of
this hatred shows the simplicity of Saracen manners in those
days. When boys, Abd'almalec and Amru were often under
the care of an old beldame of their family, who used to prepare
their meals, and produce quarrels between them in the allot
ment of their portions. These childish disputes became fierce
quarrels and broils as they grew up tog?*1"-- °i'1 ^vere rivals
in their youthful games and exercises. In manhood they
ripened into deadly jealousy and envy, as they became con
quering generals ; but the elevation of Abd'almalec to the Ca-
liphat sank deep into the heart of Amru, as a flagrant wrong;
the succession having been promised to him by his uncle, the
late Caliph Merwan, as a reward for having subjugated Egypt.
As soon, therefore, as Abd'almalec had departed from Damas
cus, Amru, not content with holding the government of the
city, aspired to the sovereignty of Syria, as Jiis rightful do
minion.
462 MAHOMET AND 111S
Abd'almalec heard of the usurpation while on the march,
returned rapidly in his steps, and a bloody conflict ensued
between the forces of the rival cousins in the streets of Damas
cus. The women rushed between them ; held up their children
and implored the combatants to desist from this unnatural
warfare. Amru laid down his arms, and articles of reconcilia
tion were drawn up and signed by the cousins.
Abd'almalec proved faithless to his engagements. Getting
Amru into his power by an artful stratagem, he struck off his
head, put to death the principal persons who had supported
him in. his usurpation, and banished his family. As the exiles
were about to depart, he demanded of the widow of Amru the
written articles of pacification which he had exchanged with
her husband. She replied that she had folded them up in his
winding-sheet, to be at hand at the final day of judgment.
Abd'almalec now resumed his march for Babylonia. He
had sent agents before him to tamper with the fidelity of the
principal persons. One of these, Ibrahim Ibn Alashtar, he
had offered to make emir if he would serve his cause. Ibra
him, who was of incorruptible integrity, showed the letter to
Musab, warned him that similar attempts must have been
made to sap the fidelity of other persons of importance, and
advised him to use the scimetar freely, wherever he suspected
disaffection ; but Musab was too just and merciful to act thus
upon mere suspicion. The event showed that Ibrahim under
stood the fickle and perfidious nature of the people of Irak.
A battle took place on the margin of the desert not far from
Palmyra. It commenced with a gallant charge of cavalry,
headed by Ibrahim Ibn Alashtar, which broke the ranks of the
Syrians and made great havoc. Abd'almalec came up with a
reinforcement, and rallied his scattered troops. In making a
second charge, however, Ibrahim was slain, and now the per
fidy of the Cufians became apparent. Musab's general of
horse wheeled round and spurred ignominiously from the
field ; others of the leaders refused to advance. Musab called
loudly for Ibrahim ; but seeing his lifeless body on the ground,
"Alas!" he exclaimed, "there is no Ibrahim for me this
day."
Turning to his son Isa, a mere stripling, yet who had fought
with manly valor by his side, "Fly, my son, "cried he; "fly
to thy uncle Abdallah at Mecca ; tell him of my fate, and of
the perfidy of the men of Irak." Isa, who inherited the un
daunted spirit of the family of Zobeir, refused to leave his
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSO. 463
father. " Let us retreat," said he, " to Bassora, where you will
still find friends, and may thence make good your return to
Mecca." uNo, my son!" replied Musab, " never shall it be
baid among the men of Koreish, that I fled the field of battle,
or entered the temple of Mecca a vanquished general !'
During an interval of the battle, Ab'd'almalec sent Musab an
offer of his life. His reply was, he had come to conquer or to
die. The conflict was soon at an end. The troops who had
adhered to Musab were cut to pieces, his son Isa was slain by
his side, and he himself, after being repeatedly wounded with
arrows, was stabbed to the heart, and his head struck off.
When Abd'almalec entered Cufa in triumph, the fickle in
habitants thronged to welcome him and take the oath of alle
giance, and he found himself in quiet possession of both Baby
lonia and Persian Irak. He distributed great sums of money
to win the light affections of the populace, and gave a sump
tuous banquet in the citadel to which all were welcome.
In the height of the banquet, when all was revelry, a thought
passed through the mind of the Caliph, as to the transient
duration of all human grandeur. ' ' Alas !" he ejaculated, ' ' how
sweetly we might live, if a shadow would but last !" The same
vein of melancholy continued when the banquet was over,
and he walked about the castle with an old gray-headed in
habitant, listening to his account of its antiquities and tradi
tions. Every reply of the old man to his questions about
things or persons began with the words, "This was — That was
—He was."
" Alas!" sighed the Caliph, repeating a verse from an Ara
bian poet; "everything new soon runneth to decay, and of
every one that is, it is soon said, He was 1"
While thus conversing, the head of Musab was brought to
him, and he ordered a thousand dinars of gold to the soldier
who brought it, but he refused the reward. " I slew him," he
said, "not for money, but to avenge a private wrong." The
old chronicler of the castle now broke forth on the wonderful
succession of events. "I am fourscore and ten years old,"
said he, "and have outlived many generations. In this very
castle I have seen the head of Hosein presented to Obeid'allah,
the son of Ziyad; then the head of Obeid'allah to Al Moktar;
then the head of Al Moktar to Musab, and now that of Musab
to yourself." The Caliph was superstitious, and the words of
the old man Rounded ominously as the presage of a brief career
to himself. He determined that his own head should not
464 MAUOMET AND Ills SUCCESSORS.
meet with similar fate within that castle's walls, and gave
orders to razo the noble citadel 01 Cufa to the foundation.
Abd'almalcc now appointed his brother Besher Ibn Merwan
to the government of Babylonia; and as he was extremely
young, ho gave him, as chief counsellor, or vizier, a veteran
named Musa Ibn Nosseyr, who had long enjoyed the confi
dence of the family of Merwan, as had his father before him.
It is said by some that his father Nosseyr was a liberated slave
of the Caliph's brother Abd'alaziz, and employed by him in
high functions. So great was the confidence of the Caliph in
Musa that he intrusted him with all the military rolls of tho
province, and signified to him that in future the responsibility
would rest upon him. On taking possession of his government,
Besher delivered his seal of office into the hands of Musa, and
intrusted him with the entire management of affairs. This
Musa, it will be found, rose afterward to great renown.
The Caliph also appointed Khaled Ibn Abdallah to the com
mand at Bassora, after which he 'returned to his capital of
Damascus. The province of Babylonia, however, was not
destined to remain long at peace. There was at this time a
powerful Moslem sect in Persia, a branch of tho Motalazites,
called Azarakites from the name of their founder Ibn Al
Azarak, but known also by the name of Separatists. They
were enemies of all regular government, and fomenters of se
dition and rebellion. During the sway of the unfortunate
Musab they had given him great trouble by insurrections in
various parts of the country, accompanied by atrocious cruel
ties. They had been kept in check, however, by Mohalleb, tho
lieutenant of Musab and one of the ablest generals of the age,
who was incessantly on the alert at the head of the army, and
never allowed their insurrections to come to any head.
Mohalleb was on a distant command at the time of the inva-
eion and conquest. As soon as ho heard of the defeat and
death of Musab, and the change in the government of Irak, ho
hastened to Bassora to acknowledge allegiance to Abd'almalcc.
Khaled accepted his services, in the name of the Caliph, but
instead of returning him to the post he had so well sustained
at the head of the armv, appointed him supervisor or collector
of tributes, and gave the command of tho forces to his own
brother, named Abd'alaziz. The change was unfortunate. The
Azarakites had already taken breath, and acquired strength
during the temporary absence of their old adversary, Mohal
leb ; but as soon as they heard he was no longer in command.
MAHOMET AND 7775
they collected all their forces and made a rapid inroad into
Irak.
Abd'alaziz advanced to meet them; but he was new to his
own troops, being a native of Mecca, and ho knew little of the
character of the enemy. Ho was entirely routed, and his wife,
a woman of great beauty, taken captive. A violent dir pulo
arose among the captoi-s as to the ransom of their prize, como
valuing her at one hundred thousand dinars ; until a iui ioun
;zealot, indignant that her beauty should cause dissension
among them, struck off her head.
The Caliph Abd'alm-llcc was deeply grieved when he heard
of this defeat, and wrote to Khaled, emir of Bascora, reproving
him for having taken the command of the army from Mohal-
leb, a man of penetrating judgment, and hardened in war, and
given it to Abd'alaziz, "a mere Arab of Mecc*a." He ordered
him, therefore, to replace Mohallcb forthwith, and wrote also
to his brother Ccshcr, emir of Babylonia, to send the general
reinforcements.
Once more Mohallcb proved his generalship by defeating tho
Azrakitcs in a signal and bloody battle near the city of Ahwaz ;
nor did he suffer them to rally, but pursued them over the bor
ders and into the heart of the mountains, until his troops lost
almost all their horses, and returned crowned with victory, but
wayworn and almost famished.
The effect of all those internal ware was to diminish, for a
time, the external terror of the Moslem name. The Greek em
peror, during the recent troubles, had made successful incur
sions into Syria; and Abd'almPJec, finding enemies enough
amonft those of his own faith, had been fain to purchase a
humiliating truce of the Christian potentate by an additional
yearly tribute of fifty thousand ducats.
CHAPTER LIT.
ABD'ALMALEC MAKES WAR UPON ms RIVAL CALTTH IN MECCA-
SIEGE OF THE SACRED CITY— DEATH OF ABDALLAE— DEMOLITION
AND RECONSTRUCTION OP THE CAABA.
ABD'ALMALEC, by his recent victories, had made himself
sovcrei?^i of all the eastern part of tho Moslem dominions; he
had protected himself also from the Christian emperor by a
466 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
disgraceful augmentation of tribute; he now determined to
carry a war against his rival Abdallah, to the very gates ot
Mecca, and make himself sovereign of an undivided empire.
The general chosen for this important enterprise was Al
Hejagi (or Hedjadgi) Ibn Yusef, who rose to renown as one of
the ablest and most eloquent men of that era. He set off from
Damascus with but two thousand men, but was joined by
Taric Ibn Amar with five thousand more. Abd'almalec had
made proclamations beforehand, promising protection and
favor to such of the adherents of Abdallah as should come
unto his allegiance, and he trusted that many of the inhabit
ants of Mecca would desert to the standard of Al Hejagi,
Abdallah sent forth troops of horse to waylay and check the
advance of the army, but they were easily repulsed, and Al
Hejagi arrived without much difficulty before the sacred city.
Before proceeding to hostilities he discharged arrows over the
walls, carrying letters, in which the inhabitants were assured
that he came merely to release them from the tyranny of
Abdallah, and were invited to accept the most favorable
terms, and abandon a man who would fain die with the title
of Caliph, though the ruins of Mecca should be his sepulchre.
The city was now assailed with battering-rams and catapul-
tas ; breaches were made in the walls ; the houses within were
shattered by great stones, or set on fire by flaming balls of
pitch and naphtha.
A violent storm of thunder and lightning killed several of
the besiegers, and brought them to a pause. "Allah is wreak
ing his anger upon us," said they, " for assailing his holy city."
Al Hejagi rebuked their superstitious fears and compelled
them to renew the attack, setting them an example by dis
charging a stone with his own hands.
On the following day there was another storm, which did
most injury to the garrison. " You perceive," said Al Hejagi,
"the thunder strikes your enemies as well as yourselves."
The besieged held out valiantly, and repulsed every assault.
Abdallah, though now aged and infirm, proved himself a
worthy son of Zobeir. During the early part of the siege he
resided chiefly in the Caaba; that sacred edifice, therefore,
became an object of attack ; a part of it was battered down
by stones, and it was set on fire repeatedly by the balls of
naphtha. He therefore abandoned it, and retired to his own
dwelling. He was sustained throughout all this time of peril
by the presence and counsels of his mother, a woman of
.V.1//O.VAT AM) Ills SUOGl .1H7
masculine spirit and unfailing energy, though ninety years of
age. She was the granddaughter of Abu Beker, and proved
herself worthy of her descent. She accompanied her son t«.
the ramparts, caused refreshments to be distributed among tho
fighting men, was consulted in every emergency and present in
every danger.
The siege continued with unremitting strictness ; many of
Abdullah's most devoted friends were killed; others be
disheartened : nearly ten thousand of the inhabitants deserted
to the enemy; even two of the Caliph's sons, Hamza and
Koheib, forsook him, and made terms for themselves with the
besiegers.
In this forlorn state, his means of defence almost exhausted,
and those who ought to have been most faithful deserting him,
Abdallah was tempted by an offer of his own terms on con
dition of surrender.
He turned to his aged mother for advice. " Judge for your
self, my son," said the resolute descendant of Abu Beker. "If
you feel that your cause is just, persevere. Your father Zo-
beir died for it, as did many of your friends. Do not bend
your neck to the scorn of the haughty race of Ommiah. How
much better an honorable death than a dishonored life for the
brief term you have yet to live. "
The Caliph kissed her venerable forehead. " Thy thoughts
are my own," said he, "nor has any other motive than zeal
for God induced me thus far to persevere. From this moment,
consider thy son as dead, and refrain from immoderate lamen
tation." " My trust is in God," replied she, "and I shall have
comfort in thee, my son, whether I go before or follow thee."
As she took a parting embrace, she felt a coat of mail under
the outer garments of Abdallah, and told him to put it off, as
unsuited to a martyr prepared to die. "I have worn it,"
replied he, ''that I might be the better able to defend thee, my
mother." He added that he had little fear of death, but a
horror of the insults and exposures to which his body might
be subjected after death.
" A sheep once killed, my son, feels not the flaying." With
these words she gave him, to rouse Ms spirits, a cordial
draught in which was a strong infusion of musk, and Abdallah
went forth a self -devoted martyr.
This last sally of the veteran Caliph struck terror and
nst'inishment into the enemy. At the head of a handful of
troops he repulsed them from the breach, drove them into the
468 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
ditch, and slew an incredible number with his crm hand;
others, however, thronged up in their place ; he fought until his
followers were slain, his arrows expended,- and ho had no
weapon but sword and lance. He now retreated, step by step,
with his face to the i'oe, disputing every inch of ground, until
he arrived in a narrow place where he could only be assailed
in f^ont. Here he made his last stand. His opponents, not
daring to come within reach of his weapons, assailod him from
a distance with darts and arrows, and when these missiles
were expended, with bricks and tiles and stones. A blow
on the head from a stone made him totter, and the blood
streamed down his face and beard. His assailants gave a
shout ; but he recovered himself and uttered a verse of a poet,
"The blood of our wounds falls on our instep, not on our
heels," implying that he had not turned his back upon the foe.
At length he sank under repeated wounds and bruises, and tho
enemy closing upon him cut off his head. Thus died Abdallah
the son of Zobeir, in the seventy-third year of the Hcgira, and
the seventy-second year of his own age, after a stormy and
disastrous reign of nine years.
Taric Ibn Amar, struck with admiration of his persevering
valor, exclaimed, ''Never did woman bear a braver son!"
"How is this," cried Al Hejagi; "do you speak thus of an
enemy of the Commander of the Faithful ?" But Abd'almalec,
when the speech was reported to him, concurred in the praise
of his fallen rival. "By Allah!" exclaimed he, "what Taric
hath spoken is tho truth." "When the tidings of Abdallah's
death were brought to his aged mother, she experienced a
revulsion of nature which she had not known for fifty years,
and died of hemorrhage.
Abdallah was said to unite tho courage of the lion with the
craftiness of the fox. He was free from any glaring vice, but
reputed to be sordidly covetous and miserly, insomuch that ho
wore tfre same garment for several years. It was a saying in
Arabia that he was the first example of a man being at tho
same time brave and covetous ; but the spoils of foreign con
quest were fast corrupting the chivalrous spirit of the Arab
conquerors. He was equally renowned for piety, being ac
cording to tradition so fixed and immovable in prayer that a
pigeon once perched upon his head mistaking him for a statue.
With tho death of Abdallah ended the rival Caliphat, and
the conquering general received the oaths of allegiance of tho
Ambs for Abd'ahnalec. His conduct, however, toward the
MAHOMET A.\D JUS SUCCESSORS. 469
jpeoplo of Mecca and Medina was as cruel and oppressive as his
military operations had been brilliant. He inflicted severe
punishments for trivial offences, sometimes on mere suspicion ;
and marked many with stamps of lead upon the neck, to dis
grace them in tho public eye. His most 'popular act was tho
reconstruction of the dilapidated Caaba on the original form
which it had borne before the era of the prophet.
For a time tho people of Mecca and Medina groaned under
his tyranny, and looked back with repining to tho gentler
sway of Abdallah ; and it was a cause of general joy through
out those cities when the following circumstances caused him
to bo removed from their government and promoted to a
distant command.
Though tho death of Abdallah had rendered Abd'almalec,
sole sovereign 01 tho Moslem empire, the emir of Khorassan,
Abdallah Ibn Hazem, who had been appointed by his rival,
hesitated to give in his allegiance. His province, so distant
and great in extent, might make him a dangerous rebel;
Abd'almalec, therefore, sent a messenger, claiming his oath
of fealty, and proffering him in reward the government of
Khorassan for seven years, with tho enjoyment of all its
revenues; at the same ti'me he sent him the head of the
deceased Caliph, to intimate the fate he might expect should
he prove refractory.
The emir, instead of being intimidated, was filled with
horror, and swore never to acknowledge Abd'almalcc as Com
mander of the Faithful. He reverently washed and embalmed
the head, folded it in fine linen, prayed over it, and sent it to
the family of the deceased Caliph at Medina. Then summon
ing the messenger, he made him cat the epistle of Abd'almalec
in his presence, and dismissed him with the assurance that his
sacred character of herald alone saved his head.
It was to go against this refractory but high-minded emir
that Al Hejagi was called off from his command in Arabia.
He entered Khorassan with a powerful army, defeated tho
emir in repeated battles, and at length slew him and reduced
the province to obedience.
The vigor, activity, and indomitable courage displayed by
Al Hejagi in these various services pointed him out as the
very man to take charge of tho government of Babylonia, or
Irak, recently vacated by tho death of tho Caliph's brother
Bosher; and he was accordingly sent to break that refractory
province into more thorough obedience.
470 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
The province of Babylonia, though formerly a part of the
Persian empire, had never been really Persian in -character.
Governed by viceroys, it had partaken of the alien feeling of a
colony ; forming a frontier between Persia and Arabia, and its
population made up from both countries, it was deficient in
the virtues of either. The inhabitants had neither the sim
plicity and loyalty of the Arabs of the desert, nor the refine-
ment and cultivation of the Persians of the cities. Restless,
turbulent, factious, they were ever ready to conspire against
their rulers, to desert old faiths, and to adopt new sects and
heresies. Before the conquest by the Moslems, when Irak was
governed by a Persian satrap, and Syria by an imperial pre
feet, a spirit of rivalry and hostility existed between these
frontier provinces ; the same had revived during the division
of the Caliphat ; and while Syria was zealous in its devotion to
the house of Ommiah, Irak had espoused the cause of Ali.
Even since the reunion and integrity of the Caliphat, it still
remained a restless, unsteady part of the Moslem empire ; the
embers of old seditions still lurked in its bosom, ready at any
moment once more to burst forth into flame. We shall see
how Al Hejagi fared in his government of that most com
bustible province.
CHAPTER LIII.
ADMINISTRATION OF AL HEJAGI AS EMIR OF BABYLONIA.
AL HEJAGI, aware of the nature of the people over whom he
was to rule, took possession of his government in military
style. Riding into Cufa at the head of four thousand horse,
he spurred on to the mosque, alighted at the portal, and as
cending the pulpit delivered an harangue to the multitude,
that let them know the rigorous rule they were to expect. He
had come, he said, "to make the wicked man bear his own
burden, and wear his own shoe ;" and, as he looked round on
the densely-crowded assemblage, he intimated he saw before
him turbaned heads ripe for mowing, and beards which re
quired to be moistened with blood.
His sermon was carried out in practice ; he ruled with a rigor
ous hand, swearing he would execute justice in a style that
should put to shame all who had preceded, and serve as an
example to all who might follow him. He was especially
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 47]
severe, and even cruel, toward all who had been in any way
implicated in the assassination of the Caliph Othman. Ono
person, against whom he came prepared to exercise the utmost
severity, was the veteran Musa Ibn Nosseyr, who had offici
ated as prime minister to the deceased emir Basher. He had
been accused of appropriating and squandering the taxes col
lected hi the province, and the Caliph had lent a too ready ear
to the accusation. Fortunately, the following letter, from a
friend in Damascus, apprised Musa in time of his danger.
" Thy deposition is signed; orders have been dispatched to
Al Hejagi to seize on thy person and inflict on thee the most
severe punishment; so awayl away! thy safety depends on
the fleetness of thy horse. If thou succeed in placing thyself
under the protection of Abd'alaziz Ibn Merwan, all will go well
with thee."
Musa lost no time, but mounted his steed and fled to Damas
cus, where Abd'alaziz was then sojourning, having arrived
with the tribute of Egypt. Abd'alaziz received with protecting
kindness the veteran adherent of the family, and accompanied
him before the Caliph. "How darest thou show thy beard
here?" exclaimed Abd'almalec. " Why should I hide it?" re
plied the veteran; "what have I done to offend the Comman
der of the Faithful?" "Thou hast disobeyed my orders, and
squandered my treasures." "I did no such thing," replied
Musa, firmly; "I have always acted like a faithful subject;
my intentions have been pure; my actions true." "By Allah,"
cried the Caliph, " thou shalt make thy defalcation good fifty
times over." The veteran was about to make an angry reply,
but at a sign from Abd'alaziz he checked himself, and bowing
his head, " Thy will be done," said he, "oh Commander of the
Faithful." He was fined fifty thousand dinars of gold; which,
however, Abd'alaziz enabled him to pay ; and, on his return to
his government in Egypt, took his old favorite with him. How
he further indemnified Musa for his maltreatment will be
shown hereafter.
To resume the affairs of Al Hejagi in Irak. Having exer
cised the rod of government in Cufa, he proceeded to Bassora,
where he was equally sharp with his tongue and heavy with
his hand. The consequence was, as usual, an insurrection.
This suited his humor. He was promptly in the field ; defeated
the rebels in a pitched battle ; sent the heads of eighteen of
their leaders to the Caliph, and then returned to the adminis
tration of affairs at 3assora, He afterward sent two of hi
IfATTOMET AND IHS SUCCESSORS.
lieutenants to suppress a new movement among the Azarakito
sectaries, who were defeated and driven out of the province.
In the 76th year of the Hegira a conspiracy was formed
against the life of Abd'aimalec, by two Karigite fanatics,
named Shebib Ibn Zeid and Saleh Ibn Mari. Their conspiracy
was discovered and defeated, but they made their escape and
repaired to the town of Daras, in Mesopotamia, where they man
aged to get together adherents to the number of one hundred
and twenty men. Saleh was smooth-tongued and seductive,
having a melodious voice and a great command of figurative
language. He completely fascinated and bewildered his com
panion Shebib, and their infatuated followers, mingling his
inflammatory harangues with pious precepts and expositions
of the Koran. In the end he was hailed Commander of tho
Faithful by tho motley crew, and gravely accepted the office.
His men were all armed, but most of them were on foot; he
therefore led them to a neighboring village, where they seized
upon the best horses in the name of Allah and the prophet, to
whom they referred the owners for payment.
Mahomet, brother of Abd'aimalec, who was at that time
emir of Mesopotamia, was moved to laughter when he heard
of this new Caliph and his handful of rabble followers, and
ordered Adi, one of his officers, to take five hundred men and
sweep them from the province.
Adi shook his head doubtfully. "One madman," said he,
"is more dangerous than five soldiers in their senses."
"Take one thousand then," said the emir; and with that
number, well armed and mounted, Adi set out in quest of tho
fanatics. He found them and their peeudo Caliph living in
free quarters on the fat of the land, and daily receiving re
cruits in straggling parties of two, and three, and four at a
time, armed with such weapons as they could catch up in their
haste. On the approach of Adi they prepared for battle, hav
ing full confidence that a legion of angels would fight on their
side.
Adi held a parley, and endeavored to convince them of the
absurdity of their proceedings, or to persuade them fco carry
their marauding enterprises elsewhere; but Saleh, assuming
the tone of Caliph as well as sectarian, admonished Adi and
his men to conform to his doctrines, and come into his allegi
ance. Tho conference ended while it was yet the morning
hour. Adi stili forbore to attack such a handful of mieguided
men, and paid clearly for his forbearance. At noontide, when
AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 473
be and his men wero engaged in the customary prayer, ,-m'l
their steeds were feeding, the enthusiast band charged sud
denly upon them with the cry of Allah Achbar! Adi was
slain in the onset, and bis body was trampled under foot; his
troops were slaughtered or dispersed, and his camp and horses,
with a good supply of arms, became welcome booty to tho
victors.
The band of sectarians increased hi numbers and in daring
after this signal exploit. Al Hejagi sent five thousand veteran
troops against them, under Al Harcth Alamdani. These came
by surprise upon the two leaders, Saleh and Shebib, with a
party of only ninety men, at a village on the Tigris not for
from Mosul, the capital of Mesopotamia. The fanatic chiefs
attacked the army with a kind of frantic courage, but Saleh,
the mock Caliph, was instantly killed, with a score of his fol
lowers. Shebib was struck from his horse, but managed to
keep together the remnant of his party ; made good his retreat
with them into Montbagi, a dismantled fortress, and swung to
and secured the ponderous gate.
The victors kindled a great fire against the gate, and waited
patiently until it should burn down, considering their prey
secure.
As the night advanced, Shebib, who from his desolate re
treat watched anxiously for some chance of escape, perceived,
by the light of the fire; that tho greater part of the besiegers,
fatigued by their inarch, were buried in deep sleep. He now
exacted from his men an oath of implicit obedience, which
they took between his hands. He then caused them to steep
most of then* clothing in a tank of water within the castlo,
after which, softly drawing the bolts of the flaming got?, they
threw it down on the fire kindled against it ; flung their wo
garments on the burning bridge thus suddenly formed, and
rushed forth scimetar in hand.
Instead of contenting themselves with an escape, tho crazy
zealots charged into the very heart of the sleeping camp and
wounded the general before an alarm was given. Tho soldiers
started awake in the midst of havoc and confusion ; supposing
chemsclvcs surprised by a numerous army, they flel in all
directions, never ceasing their flight until they had taken re
fuge in Mosul or Jukhi, or some other walled city.
Shebib established himself amid the abundance of the de
serted camp ; scarce any of his men had been killed or wounded
ID this midnight slaughter; he considered himself Lhcreloro
474 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSOR.
invincible] proclaimed himself Commander of the Faithful,
and partisans crowded to his standard. Strengthened by num.-"
bers, he led his fanatie horde against Cufa, and had the address
and good fortune to make himself master of it, Al Hejagi, the
emir, being absent at Bassora. He was soon joined by his wife
Gazala ; established himself as Caliph with some ceremonial,
and doubtless his vagabond sway was more acceptable to the
people of Cufa than the iron rule of Al Hejagi.
The mock Caliphat, however, was of brief duration. Al
Hejagi, reinforced by troops from Syria, marched in person
against Cufa. He was boldly met in the plains near that city
by Shebib, at the head of four thousand men. The fanatics
were defeated, and Gazala, the wife of the mock Caliph, who
had accompanied her husband to the field, was slain. Shebib
with a remnant of his force cut his way through the Syrian
army, crossed and recrossed the Tigris, and sought refuge and
reinforcements in the interior of Persia. He soon returned
into Irak, with a force inconsiderable in numbers, but formi
dable for enthusiasm and desperate valor. He was encoun
tered at the bridge of Dojail al Awaz. Here a sudden and un
expected end was put to his fanatic career. His horse struck
his fore feet on some loose stones on the margin of the bridge,
and threw his rider into the stream. He rose twice to the sur
face, and each time uttered a pious ejaculation. " What God
decrees is just !" was the first exclamation. "The will of God
be done!" was the second, and the waters closed over him.
His followers cried with loud lamentations, " The Commander
of the Faithful is no more !" and every man betook himself to
flight. The water was dragged with a net, the body was found
and decapitated, and the head sent to Al Hejagi, who trans
mitted it to the Caliph. The heart of this enthusiast was also
taken out of his breast, and is said to have been as hard as
stone. He was assuredly a man of extraordinary daring.
Arabian writers say that the manner of Shebib's death was
predicted before his birth. His mother was a beautiful Chris
tian captive, purchased at a public sale by Yezid Ibn Nairn for
his harem. Just before she gave birth to Shebib, she had a
dream that a coal of fire proceeded from her, and, after en
kindling a flame over the firmament, fell into the sea and was
extinguished. This dream was interpreted that she would
give birth to a man-child, who would prove a distinguished
warrior, but would eventually be drowned. So strong was
her belief in this omen, that when she heard, on one occasion,
ins 8VCCK880H*. 475
of his defeat mid of his alleged death on the luttl<> fi^M
treated the tidings as an idle rumor, saying it w.i- by
only her son would die. At the time of Shebib's death hi' had
just passed his fil'tieth \
The emir Al Hejagi was destined to have still farther com
motions in his turbulent and inconstant province. A violent
feud existed between him and Abdu'lrahnmn Ibn Mohammed,
a general subject to his orders. To put an end to it, or to re
lieve himself from the presence of an enemy, he sent him on
an expedition to the frontiers against the Turks. Abda'lrah-
man set out on his march, but when fairly in the field, with a
force at his command, conceived a project either of revenge or
ambition.
Addressing his soldiers in a spirited harangue, he told them
that their numbers were totally inadequate to the enterprise ;
that the object of Al Hejagi in sending him on such a danger
ous service with such incompetent means was to effect his de-
uid ruin, and that they had been sent to be sacrificed with
him.
The harangue produced the desired effect. The troops
vowed devotion to Abda'lrahinan and vengeance upon the
einir. Without giving their passion time to cool, he led
them back to put their threats in execution. Al Hejagi
heard of the treason, and took the field to meet them, but
probably was not well seconded by the people of Babylonia,
for he was defeated in a pitched battle. Abda'lrahman then
marched to the city of Bassora ; the inhabitants welcomed him
as their deliverer from a tyrant, and, captivated by his hu
mane and engaging manners, hailed him as Caliph. Intoxi
cated by his success, he gravely assumed the title, and pro
ceeded toward Cufa. Encountering Al Hejagi on the way,
with a hastily levied army, he gave him another signal de
feat, and then entered Cufa in triumph, amid the shouts of its
giddy populace, who were delighted with any change that re
leased them from the yoke of Al Hejagi.
•Abda'lrahman was now acknowledged Caliph throughout
the territories bordering on the Euphrates and the Tigris, a
mighty empire in ancient days, and still important from its
population, for he soon had on foot an army of one hundred
thousand men.
Repeated defeat had but served to rouse the energy of Al
ITejagi. He raised troops among such of the people of Irak as
•incd faitful to Abd'almalec, received reinforcement from
476 MAHOMET AND
one (Jaiipn, diia by dint oi indQlatigabie exertions was agaiii
enabled to take the field.
The two generals, animated by deadly hate, encamped then
armies at places not far apart. Here they remained between
three and four months, keeping vigilant eye upon each other,
and engaged in incessant conflicts, though never ^venturing
upon a pitched battle.
The object of Al Hejagi was to gain an advantage by his
superior military skill, and he succeeded. By an artful
manoeuvre he cut off Abda'lrahman, with a body of five
thousand men, from his main army, compelled him to retreat,
and drove him to take refuge in a fortified town, where, being
closely besieged, and having no hope of escape, he threw him
self headlong from a lofty tower, rather than fall into the
hands of his cruel enemy.
Thus terminated the rebellion of this second mock Caliph,
and Al Hejagi, to secure the tranquillity of Irak, founded a
strong city on the Tigris, called Al Wazab, or the Centre, from
its lying at equal distance from Cufa, Bassora, Bagdad, and
Ahwaz, about fifty leagues from each.
Al Hojagi, whom we shall have 110 further occasion to men
tion, continued emir of Irak until his death, which took place
under the reign of the next Caliph, in the ninety-fifth year of
the Hegira, and the fifty-fourth of his own age. He is said to
have caused the death of one hundred and twenty thousand
persons, independent of those who fell in battle, and that, at
the time of his death, he left fifty thousand confined in different
prisons. Can we wonder tbat he was detested as a tyrant?
In his last illness, say the Arabian historian, he sent for a
noted astrologer, and asked him whether any great general
was about to end his days. The learned man consulted the
stars, and replied, that a great captain named Kotaib, or
"The Dog," was at the point of death. "That," said the
dying emir, "is the name my mother used to call me when a
child. " He inquired of the astrologer if he was assured of his
prediction. T3io sage, proud of his art, declared that it was
infallible. " Then," said the emir, " I will oako you with me,
that I may have the benefit of your skill in the other world."
Bo saying, he caused his head to be struck off.
The tyranny oi; this general was relieved at times by dis
plays of groat magnificence and acts of generosity, if not
clemency. Ho spread a thousand tables at a single banquet,
and bestowed a million dirhems of silver at a single donation.
.-l.VT) TT: -*.<?07?.?. 477
On ono occasion, an Arab, ignore '-3 cf
him, in his presence, ;• I tyrant. " Do you I;::OT?
said Al He jap, sternly. "I do not," replied tho Arab. "I
am Al Hcjagi!" "That may be," replied the Arab, q;iicklj;
"but do you know me? I am of tho family of Zobcir, vrho
are fools in tho full of tho moon; and if you look upon tto
heavens you will sec that this is my day." The emir laughed
it his ready wit, and dismissed him with a proccnt.
On another occasion, when separated from his party whilo
hunting, he came to a spring whcro an Arab wan feeding his
camels, and demanded drink. Tho Arab bado him, rudely, to
alight and help himself. It was during the rebellion of
Abda'lrahman. After ho had slaked liis thirst he demanded of
the Arab whether he was for the Caliph AbcValmalcc. Tho
Arab replied " No; for tho Caliph had sent the worst man in
the world to govern tho province." Just then a bird, passing
overhead, uttered a croaking note. The Arab turned a quick
eye upon the emir. "Who art thou?" cried he, with con*
sternation. " Wherefore the question?" "Because I under
stand the language of birds, and he says that thou art chief of
yon horsemen that I see approaching."
The emir smiled, and when his attendants camo up, bado
them to bring the camel-driver with them. On the next day
he sent for him, had meat cct before him, and bade him cat.
Before he complied, the Arab uttered a grace, "Allah grant
that the end of this meal bo as happy as tho beginning."
The emir inquired if he recollected their conversation of
yesterday. " Perfectly! but I entreat Ihcc to forget it, for it
was a secret which should be buried in oblivion."
"Here are two conditions for thy choice," said tho emir;
"recant what thou hast said and enter into my ecrvicc, or
abide tho decision of the Caliph, to whom thy treasonable
speech shall bo repeated." "There is a third course," replied
the Arab, " which is better than cither. Send me to my own
home, and let us be strangers to each other as heretofore."
The emir was amused by the spirit of tho Arab, and dis
missed him with a thousand dirhcms of silver.
There were no further troubles in Irak during tho lifetime of
Al Hejagi, and even the fickle, turbulent, and faithless peoplo
of Cufa became submissive and obedient. Abulfaragius saya
that this general died of eating dirt. It appears that he wao
subject to dyspepsia or indigestion, for which he used to eat
Terra Lemnia and other medicinal or absorbent earths.
478 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Whether he fell a victim to the malady or the medicine is not
olearly manifest.
CHAPTER LIV.
RENUNCIATION OF TRIBUTE TO THE EMPEROR — BATTLES IS
NORTHERN AFRICA — THE PROPHET QUEEN CAHINA; HER
ACHIEVEMENTS AND FATE.
THE seventy-second year of the Hegira saw the Moslem
dominions at length free from rebellion and civil war, and
united under one Caliph. Abd'almalec now looked abroad,
and was anxious to revive the foreign glories of Islam, which
had declined during the late vicissitudes. His first movement
was to throw off the galling tribute to the Greek emperor.
This, under Moawyah I., had originally been three thousand
dinars of gold, but had been augmented to three hundred and
sixty-five thousand, being one thousand for every day in the
Christian year. It was accompanied by three hundred and
sixty-five female slaves, and three hundred and sixty-five
Arabian horses of the most generous race.
Not content with renouncing the payment of tribute, Abd'
almalec sent Alid, one of his generals, on a ravaging expedition
into the imperial dominions, availing himself of a disaffection
evinced to the new emperor Leontius. Alid returned laden
with spoils. The Cities of Lazuca and Baruncium were likewise
delivered up to the Moslems through the treachery of Sergius,
a Christian general.
Abd'almalec next sought to vindicate the glory of the Moslem
arms along the northern coast of Africa. There, also, the im
perialists had taken advantage of the troubles of the Caliphat,
to reverse the former successes of the Moslems, and to
strengthen themselves along the sea-coast, of which their
navy aided them to hold possession. Zohair, who had been
left by Abd'almalec in command of Barca, had fallen into an
ambush and been slain with many of his men, and the posts
still held by the Moslems were chiefly in the interior.
In the seventy-seventh year of the Hegira, therefore, Abd'al
malec sent Hossan Ibn An-no'man, at the head of forty thou
sand choice troops, to carry out the scheme of African con
quest, That general pressed forward at once with his troops
MA1IOMKT AND II IS SUCCESSORS. 479
against the city of Carthage, which, though declined from its
ancient might and glory, was still an important seaport,
fied with lofty walls, haughty towers, and powerful bulwarks,
and had a numerous garrison of Greeks and other Christians.
Hossan proceeded according to the old Arab mode ; beleaguer
ing it and reducing it by a long siege ; he then assailed it by
storm, scaled its lofty walls with ladders, and made himself
master of the place. Many of the inhabitants fell by the edge
of the sword; many escaped by sea to Sicily and Spain. The
walls were then demolished, the city was given up to be plun
dered by the soldiery, the meanest of whom was enriched by
booty. Particular mention is made among the spoils of victory
of a great number of female captives of rare beauty.
The triumph of the Moslem host was suddenly interrupted.
While they were revelh'ng hi the ravaged palaces of Carthage,
a fleet appeared before the port, snapped the strong chain
which guarded the entrance, and sailed into the harbor. It
was a combined force of ships and troops from Constantinople
and Sicily, reinforced by Goths from Spain, all under the com
mand of the prefect John, a patrician general of great valor
and experience.
Hossan felt himself unable to cope with such a force; he
withdrew, however, in good order, and conducted his troops
laden with spoils to Tripoli and Caerwan, and having strongly
posted them, he awaited reinforcements from the Caliph.
These arrived in the course ot time, by sea and land. Hossan
again took the field, encountered the prefect Jonn, not far
from Utica, defeated him in a pitched battle, and drove him to
embark -the wrecks of his army and make all sail for Constan
tinople.
Carthage was again assailed by the victors, and now its deso
lation was complete, for the vengeance of the Moslems gave
that majestic city to the flames. A heap of ruins and the re
mains of a noble aqueduct are all the relics OL a metropolis that
once valiantly contended for dominion with Rome, the mistress
of the world.
The imperial forces were now expelled from the coasts of
Northern Africa, but the Moslems had not yet achieved the
conquest of the country. A formidable enemy remained in the
person of a native and heroic queen, who was revered by her
subjects as a saint or prophetess. Her real name was Dhabbd,
but she is generally known in history by the surname, given
to her by the Moslems, 01 Cahina or the Sorceress. She has
480 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
occasionally been confounded with her son Aben, or rather Ibn
Cahina, of whom, mention has been made in a previous chapter.
Under the sacred standard of this prophet queen were com
bined the Moors of Mauritania and the Berbers of the moun
tains, and of the plains bordering on the interior deserts. Rov
ing and independent tribes, which had formerly warred with
each other, now yielded implicit obedience to one common
leader, whom they regarded with religious reverence. The
character of marabout or saint has ever had vast influence
over the tribes of Africa. Under this heroic woman the com
bined host had been reduced to some degree of discipline, and
inspired with patriotic ardor, and were now prepared to make
a more effective struggle for their native land than they had
yet done under their generals.
After repeated battles, the emir Hossan was compelled to re
tire with his veteran but diminished army to the frontiers of
Egypt. The patriot queen was not satisfied with this partial sue
cess. Calling a council of war of the leaders and principal war
riors of the different hordes: " This retreat of the enemy," said
she, * ' is but temporary ; they will return in greater force. What
is it that attracts to our land these Arab spoilers ? The wealth
of our cities, the treasures of silver and gold digged from the
bowels of the earth, the fruits of our gardens and orchards,
the produce of our fields. Let us demolish our cities, return
these accursed treasures into the earth, fell our fruit trees, lay
waste our fields, and spread a barrier of desolation between ua
and the country of these robbers I"
The words of the royal prophetess were received with fanatic
enthusiasm by her barbarian troops, the greater part of whom,
collected from the mountains and from distant parts, had little
share in the property to be sacrificed. Walled towns wero
forthwith dismantled, majestic edifices were tumbled into
ruins, groves of fruit trees were hewn down, and the whole
country from Tangier to Tripoli was converted from a populous
and fertile region into a howling and barren Avaste. A short
time was sufficient to effect a desolation which centuries have
not sufficed to remedy.
This sacrificial measure of Queen Cahina, however patriotic
its intention, was fatal in the end to herself. The inhabitants
of the cities and the plains, who had beheld their property laid
waste by the infuriated zeal of their defenders, hailed the re
turn of the Moslem invaders as though they had been the
saviors of the land.
MAJlOMh'T AXD JUS SUCCESSORS.
<The Moslems, as Cahina predicted, returned with augmented
forces : but when she took the field to oppose them, the ranks
of her army were thinned; the enthusiasm which had fori.
animated them was at an end : they were routed, after a san
guinary battle, and the heroine fell into the hands of the
enemy. Those who captured her spared her life, because she
was a woman and a queen. When brought into the presence
of Hossan, she maintained her haughty and fierce demeanorJ
He proposed the usual conditions, of conversion or tribute.
She refused both with scorn, and fell a victim to her patriotism
and religious constancy, being beheaded in the presence of the
emir.
Hossan Ibn An-no'man now repaired to Damascus, to give
the Caliph an account of his battles and victories, bearing an
immense amount of booty, and several signal trophies. The
most important of the latter was a precious box containing the
embalmed head of the slaughtered Cahina. He was received
with great distinction, loaded with honors, and the govern
ment of Barca was added to his military command.
This last honor proved fatal to Hossan. Abd'alaziz Ibn Mer-
wan, the Caliph's brother, was at that time emir of Egypt, and
considered the province of Barca a part of the territories under
his government. Ho had, accordingly, appointed one of his
officers to command it as his lieutenant. He was extremely
displeased and disconcerted, therefore, when he was told that
Hossan had solicited and obtained the government of that
province. Sending for the latter, as he passed through Egypt
on his way to his post, he demanded whether it was true that
in addition to his African command he was really appointed
governor of Barca. Being answered in the affirmative, ho ap
peared still to doubt; whereupon Hossan produced the man
date of the Caliph. Finding it correct, Abd'alaziz urged him
to resign the office. " Violence only," said Hossun, "shall
wrest from me an honor conferred by the Commander of the
Faithful." "Then I deprive thee of both governments," ex
claimed the emir, in a passion, ' * and will appoint a better man
in thy stead ; and my brother will soon perceive the benefit ho
derives from the change." So saying, he tore the diploma in
pieces.
It is added that, not content with depriving Hossan of his
command, he despoiled him of all his property, and carried his
persecution so far that the conqueror of Carthago, the slayer
of tho patriot queen, within a brief time after her death, and
482 MAHOMET AND HIS
almost amid the very scenes of his triumphs, died of a broker
heart. His cruel treatment of the heroic Cahina reconciles us
to the injustice wreaked upon himself.
CHAPTER LV.
MUSA IBN KOSSEYR MADE EMIR OF NORTHERN AFRICA— HIS CAM
PAIGNS AGAINST THE BERBERS.
THE general appointed by the Caliph's brother, Abd'alazi2
Ibn Merwan, to the command in Northern Africa, was Musa
Ibn Nosseyr, the same old adherent of the Merwan family that
had been prime counsellor of the Caliph's brother Besher, when
emir of Irak, and had escaped by dint of hoof from the clutches
of Al Hejagi, when the latter was about to arrest him on a
charge of squandering the public funds. Abd'alaziz, it will be
remembered, assisted him to pay the fifty thousand dinars ot
gold, in which he was mulcted by the Caliph, and took him
with him to Egypt ; and it may have been with some view to
self -reimbursement that the Egyptian t3mir now took the some
what bold step of giving him the place assigned to Hossan by
Abd'almalac.
At the time of his appointment Musa was sixty years of age.
He was still active and vigorous, of noble presence, and con
cealed his age by tinging his hair and beard with henna. He
had three brave sons who aided him in his campaigns, and in
whom he took great pride. The eldest he had named Abd'al
aziz, after his patron; he was brave and magnanimous, in the
freshness of his youth, and his father's right hand in all his
enterprises. Another of his sons he had called Merwan, the
family name of Abd'alaziz and the Caliph.
Musa joined the army at its African encampment, and ad
dressed his troops in frank and simple language. "I am a
plain soldier like yourselves," said ho; " whenever I act well,
thank God, and endeavor to imitate me. When I do wrong,
reprove me, that I may amend ; for we are all sinners and
liable to err. If any one has at any time a complaint to make,
let him state it frankly, and it shall be attended to. I have
orders from the emir Abd'alaziz (to whom God be bountiful !}
to pay you three times the amount of your arrears. Take it,
MAHOMET AND UTS SUCCESSORS. 453
and make good use of it." It is needless to say that the ad
dress, especially the last part, was received with acclamations.
While Musa was making his harangue, a sparrow fluttered
into his bosom. Interpreting it as a good omen, he caUed for
a knife, cut off the bird's head, besmeared the bosom of his
vest with the blood, and scattering the feathers in the air
above his head : * ' Victory I Victory !" he cried, ' ' by the master
of the Caaba, victory is ours !"
It is evident that Musa understood the character and foibles
of his troops; he soon won their favor by his munificence, and
still more by his affability ; always accosting them with kind
words and cheerful looks ; carefully avoiding the error of those
reserved commanders, shut up in the fancied dignity of sta
tion, who looked, he said, "as if God had tied a knot in their
throats, so that they could not utter a word."
" A commander, "he used to say, " ought to consult wise and
experienced men in every undertaking; but when he has made
up his mind, he should be firm and steady of purpose. He
should be brave, adventurous, at times even rash, confiding in
his good fortune, and endeavoring to do more than is expected
of him. He should be doubly cautious after victory, doubly
brave after defeat."
Musa found a part of Eastern Africa,* forming the present
states of Tunis and Algiers, in complete confusion and insur
rection. A Berber chief, Warkattaf by name, scoured night
and day the land between Zaghwan and Caerwan. The Ber
bers had this advantage: if routed in the plains they took
refuge in the mountains, which ran parallel to the coast, form
ing part of the great chain of Atlas ; in the fastness of these
mountains they felt themselves secure; but should they be
driven out of these they could plunge into the boundless des
erts of the interior, and bid defiance to pursuit.
The energy of Musa rose with the difficulty of his enterprise.
" Take courage," would he say to his troops. " God is on our
side, and will enable us to cope with our enemies, however
strong their holds. By Allah! I'll carry the war into yon
haughty mountains, nor cease until we have seized upon their
passes, surmounted their summits, and made ourselves mas
ters of the country beyond."
His words were not an empty threat. Having vanquished
* Northern Africa, extending from E(?ypt to th« extremity of Mauritania, wa§
subdivided Into Eastern and Western Afric*.
434 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
the Berbers in the plains, he sent his sons Abd'alaziz and Mer-
wan with troops in different directions, who attacked the
enemy in their mountain-holds, and drove them beyond to
the borders of the Southern desert. Warkattaf was slain with
many of his warriors, and Musa had the gratification of seeing
his sons return triumphant from their different expeditions,
bringing to the camp thousands of captives and immense
booty. Indeed the number of prisoners of both sexes, taken in
these campaigns, is said to have amounted to three hundred
thousand, of whom one fifth, or sixty thousand, formed the
Caliph's share.
Musa hastened to write an account of his victories to his
patron Abd'alaziz Ibn Merwan, and as he knew covetousness
to be the prime failing of the emir, he sent him, at the same
time, a great share of the spoils, with choice horses and female
slaves of surpassing beauty.
The letter and the present came most opportunely. Abd'ala
ziz had just received a letter from his brother, the Caliph, re
buking him for having deposed Hossan, a brave, experienced
and fortunate officer, and given his office to Musa, a man who
had formerly incurred the displeasure of the government ; and
ho was ordered forthwith to restore Hossan to his command.
In reply, Abd'alaziz transmitted the news of the African
victories. " I have jusfc received from Musa," writes he, " the
letter which I enclose, that thou mayest peruse it, and give
thanks to God."
Other tidings came to the same purport, accompanied by a
great amount of booty. The Caliph's feelings toward Musa
immediately changed. He at once saw his fitness for the post
he occupied, and confirmed the appointment of Abd'alaziz,
making him emir of Africa. He, moreover, granted yearly
pensions of two hundred pieces of gold to himself and one hun
dred to each of his sons, and directed him to select from among
his soldiers five hundred of those who had most distinguished
themselves in battle, or received most wounds, and give them
each thirty pieces of gold. Lastly, he revoked the fine formerly
imposed upon him of fifty thousand dinars of gold, and autho
rized him to reimburse himself out of the Caliph's share of the
spoil.
This last sum Musa declined to receive for his own benefit,
but publicly devoted it to the promotion of the faith and the
good of its professors. "Whenever a number of captives were
put up for sale after a victory, he chose from among them
MAHOMET AND IUS SUCCESSORS. 485
those who were young, vigorous, intelligent, of nobls origin,
and who appeared disposed to be instructed in the religion of
Islam. If they were converted, and proved to have sufficient
talent, he gave them their liberty, and appointed them to com
mands in his army ; if otherwise, he returned them to the inasa
of captives, to be disposed of in the usual manner.
The fame of Musa's victories, and of the immense spoil col
lected by his troops, brought recruits to his standard from
Egypt and Syria, and other distant parts ; for rapine was be
coming more and more the predominant passion of the Moslems.
The army of Musa was no longer composed, like the primitive
armies of the faith, merely of religious zealots. The campaigns
in foreign countries, and the necessity, at distant points, of
recruiting the diminished ranks from such sources as were at
hand, had relaxed the ancient scruples as to unity of faith, and
men of different creeds now fought under the standard of
Islam without being purified by conversion. The army was,
therefore, a motley host of every country and kind; Arabs
and Syrians, Persians and Copts, and nomadic Africans; ar
rayed in every kind of garb, and armed with every land of
weapon. Musa had succeeded in enlisting in his service many
of the native tribes ; a few of them were Christians, a greater
proportion idolaters, but the greatest number professed Juda
ism. They readily amalgamated with the Arabs, having the
same nomad habits, and the same love of war and rapine.
They even traced their origin to the same Asiatic stock. Ac
cording to their traditions five colonies, or tribes, came in an
cient times from Sabsea, in Arabia the Happy, being expelled
thence with their king Ifrique. From these descended the fivo
most powerful Berber tribes, the Zenhagians, Muzamudas,
Zenetes, Gomercs, and Hoares.
Musa artfully availed himself of these traditions, addressed
the conquered Berbers as Aulad-arabi (sons of the Arabs), and
so soothed their pride by this pretended consanguinity, that
many readily embraced the Moslem faith, and thousands ot
the bravest men of Numidia enrolled themselves of their own
free will in the armies of Islam.
Others, however, persisted in waging stubborn war with the
invaders of their country, and among these the most powerful
and intrepid were the Zenetes. They were a free, independent,
and haughty race. Marmol, in his description of Africa, rep
resents them as inhabiting various parts of the country.
Some leading a roving life about tho plains, living in tentc
486 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
like the Arabs; others having castles and strongholds in the
mountains; others, very troglodytes, infesting the dens and
caves of Mount Atlas, and others wandering on the borders of
the Libyan desert.
The Gomeres were also a valiant and warlike tribe ; inhabit
ing the mountains of the lesser Atlas, in Mauritania, bordering
the frontiers of Ceuta, while the Muzamudas lived in the more
western part of that extreme province, where the great Atlas
advances into the Atlantic Ocean.
In the eighty-third year of the Hegira, Musa made one of his
severest campaigns against a combined force of these Berber
tribes, collected under the banners of their several princes.
They had posted themselves in one of the fastnesses of the Atlas
mountains, to which the only approach was through different
gorges and defiles. All these were defended with great ob
stinacy, but were carried, one after the other, after several
days of severe fighting.
The armies at length found themselves in presence of each
other, when a general conflict was unavoidable. As they
were drawn out, regarding each other with menacing aspect, a
Berber chief advanced, and challenged any one of the Moslem
cavaliers to single combat. There was a delay in answering
to the challenge ; whereupon Musa turned to his son Merwan,
who had charge of the banners, and told him to meet the Berber
warrior. The youth handed his banner to his brother, Abd'ala-
ziz, and stepped forward with alacrity. The Berber, a stark
and seasoned warrior of the mountains, regarded with surprise
and almost scorn an opponent scarce arrived at manhood.
"Return to the camp," cried he; "I would not deprive thine
aged father of so comely a son." Merwan replied but with his
weapon, assailing his adversary so vigorously that he retreated
and sprang upon his horse. He now urged his steed upon the
youth, and made a thrust at him with a javelin, but Merwan
seized the weapon with one hand, and with the other thrust
his own javelin through the Berber's side, burying it in the
flanks of the steed ; so that both horse and rider were brought
to the ground and slain.
The two armies now closed in a general struggle; it was
bloody and desperate, but ended in the complete defeat of the
Berbers. Kasleyah, their king, fell fighting to the last. A
vast number of captives were taken ; among them were many
beautiful maidens, daughters of princes and military chiefs.
At the division of the spoil, "ftlusa caused these high-born dam-
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 48}
sols to stand before him, and bade Merwan, his son, who had
so recently distinguished hi,i,M-if. to choose among them. The
youth chose one who was a daughter of ti i 1 it : • k i n- i
She appcai-8 to have found solace for the loss of her father in
the arms of a youthful husband ; and ultimately made Merwan
the father of two sons, Musa and Abd'almalec.
CHAPTER LVI.
NAVAL ENTERPRISES OP MUSA — CRUISIXGS OF HIS SON ABDOLOLA
—DEATH OF ABD'ALMALEC.
THE bold and adventurous spirit of Mu^a Ibn Noeseyr was
not content with victories on land. "Always endeavor to do
more than is expected of thec," was his maxim, and he now
aspired to achieve triumphs on the sea. He had ports within
his province, whence the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, in
the days of their power, had fitted out maritime enterprises.
Why should he not do the same?
The feelings of the Arab conquerors had widely changed in
regard to naval expeditions. When Amru, the conqueror of
Egypt, was at Alexandria, the Caliph Omar required of him a
description of the Mediterranean. " It is a great pool," replied
Amru, "which some foolhardy people furrow; looking like
ants on logs of wood. " The answer was enough for Omar, who
was always apprehensive that the Moslems would endanger
their conquests by rashly-extended enterprises. Ho forbade
all maritime expeditions. Perhaps he feared that the inexpe
rience of the Arabs would expose them to defeat from the
Franks and Romans, who were practised navigators.
Moawyah, however, as we have shown, more confident of
the Moslem capacity for nautical warfare, had launched the
banner of Islam on the sea from the ancient ports of Tyre and
Sidon, and had scoured the eastern waters of the Mediterra
nean. The Moslems now had armaments in various ports of
Syria and Egypt, and warred with the Christians by sea as
well as by land. Abd'almalec had even ordered Musa's prede
cessor, Hossan, to erect an arsenal at Tunis ; Musa now under
took to carry those orders into effect, to found dock-yards, and
to build a fleet for his proposed enterprise
488 MAHOMET AND JITS SUCCESSORS,
At thb outset he was surrounded by those sage doubters wh6
aro ever ready to chill the ardor of enterprise. They pro
nounced the scheme rash and impracticable. A gray-headed
Berber, who had been converted to Islam, spoke in a different
tone. "lam one hundred and twenty years old," said he,
" and I well remember hearing my father say, that when the
Lord of Carthage thought of building his city, the people all,
as at present, exclaimed against it as impracticable ; one alone
rose and said, Oh king, put thy hand to the work and it will be
achieved; for the kings, thy predecessors, persevered and
achieved every thing they undertook, whatever might be the
difficulty. And I say to thee, Oh emir, put thy hand to this
work, and God will help thee !"
Musa did put his hand to the work, and so effectually that
by tha conclusion of the eighty-fourth year of the Hegira, A.D.
703, the arsenal and dock-yard were complete, and furnished
with maritime stores, and there was a numerous fleet in the
port of Tunis.
About this time a Moslem fleet, sent by Abd'alaziz, the emir
of Egypt, to make a ravaging descent on the coast of Sardinia,
entered the port of Susa, which is between Caerwan and Tunis.
Musa sent provisions to the fleet, but wrote to the commander,
Atta Ibii Ran, cautioning him that the season was too late for
his enterprise, and advising him to remain in port until more
favorable time and weather.
Atta treated his letter with contempt, as the advice of a
landsman; and, having refitted his vessels, put to sea. He
landed on an island, called by the Arab writers Salsalah,
probably Linosa or Lampedosa; made considerable booty of
gold, silver and precious stones, and again set sail on his
plundering cruise. A violent storm arose, his ships were
dashed on the rocky coast of Africa, and he and nearly all his
men were drowned.
Musa, hearing of the disaster, dispatched his son, Abd'alaziz,
with a troop of horse to the scene of the shipwreck, to render
all the assistance in his power, ordering that the vessels and <
crews which survived the storm should repair to the port of
Tunis ; all which was done. At the place of the wreck Abd'al-
aziz found a heavy box cast up on the sea-shore ; on being
opened, its contents proved to be the share of spoil of one of
the warriors of the ileet who had perished in the sea.
The author of the tradition from which these facts are
gleaned, adds, that one day he found an old man sitting on the
KAHOXET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 4SO
sea-shore with a rood in his hand, which ho attempted to tako
from him. A scuffle ensued ; he wrested the reed from liin
hands, and struck him with it over his head; when lo, it
broke, and out fell gold coins and pearls and precious stones.
Whether the old man, thus hardly treated, was one of tho
wrecked cruisers, or a wrecker seeking to profit by their mis
fortunes, is not specified in the tradition. The anecdote shows
in what a random way the treasures of the earth were in those
days scattered about tha world by the predatory hosts of
Islam.
The surviving ships having been repaired, and added to those
recently built at Tunis, and the season having become favor&-
ble, Musa, early in the eighty-fifth year of the Hegira, declared
his intention to undertake, in person, a naval expedition.
There was a universal eagerness among the troops to embark ;
Musa selected about a thousand of the choicest of his warriors,
especially those of rank and family, so that the enterprise was
afterward designated The Expedition of tho Nobles. He did
not, however, accompany it as he had promised ; he had done so
merely to-enlist his bravest men in the undertaking: the com
mand was given to his son Abdolola, to give him an opportu
nity to distinguish himself; for the reputation of his sons was
as dear to Musa as his own.
It was, however, a mere predatory cruise; a type of the rar-
aging piracies from the African ports in after ages. Abdolola
coasted the fair island of Sicily with his ships, landed on the
western side and plundered a city, which yielded such abun
dant spoil that each of the thousand men embarked in the
cruise received one hundred dinars of gold for his share. This
done, the fleet returned to Africa.
Soon after the return of his ships, Musa received news of the
death of his patron Abd'alaziz, which was followed soon after
by tidings of the death of the Caliph. On hearing of the death
of the latter, Musa immediately sent a messenger to Damascus
to take the oath of allegiance, in his name, to the new Caliph ;
to inform him of the naval achievements of his son Abdolola,
and to deliver to him hio share of the immense booty gained.
The effect of course was to secure his continuance in office aa
emir of Africa.
The malady which terminated in the death of Abd'almalec is
supposed to have been the dropsy. It was attended in its last
stages with excessive thirst, which was aggravated by the pro
hibition of his physicians that any water should be given to
490 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
him, lest it should cause certain death. In the paroxysms of
his malady the expiring Caliph demanded water of his son
Waled; it was withheld through filial piety. His daughter
Fatima approached with a flagon, but Waled interfered and
prevented her ; whereupon the Caliph threatened him with dis
inheritance and his malediction. Fatima handed to him the
flagon, he drained it at a draught, and almost instantly ex
pired. He was about sixty years old at the time of his death,,
and had reigned about twenty years. Abulfeda gives him a
character for learning, courage, and foresight. He certainly
showed ability and management in reuniting, under his sway,
the dismembered portions of the Moslem empire, and quelling
the various sects that rose in arms against him. His foresight
with regard to his family also was crowned with success, as
four of his sons succeeded him, severally, in the Caliphat.
He evinced an illiberal spirit of hostility to the memory of
Ali, carrying it to such a degree that he would not permit the
poet Ferazdak to celebrate in song the virtues of any of his
descendants. Perhaps this may have gained for Abd'almalec
another by-name with which some of the Arab writers have
signalized his memory, calling him the " Father of Flies ;" for
so potent, say they, was his breath, that any fly which alighted
on his lips died on the spot.
CHAPTER LVH.
INAUGURATION OF WALED, TWELFTH CALIPH — REVIVAL OF THE
ARTS UNDER HIS REIGN — HIS TASTE FOR ARCHITECTURE—
ERECTION OF MOSQUES— CONQUESTS OF HIS GENERALS.
WALED, the eldest son of Abd'almalec, was proclaimed
Caliph at Damascus immediately on the death of his father, in
the eighty-sixth year of the Hegira, and the year 705 of the
Christian era. He was about thirty-eight years of age, and is
described as being tall and robust, with a swarthy complexion,
a. face much pitted with the smallpox, and a broad flat nose;
in other respects, which are left to our conjecture, he is said to
have been of a good countenance. His habits were indolent
and voluptuous, yet he was of a choleric temper, and some
what inclined to cruelty.
:.!.\IIOMI-:T AM) ms SUCCESSORS. 491
During the reign of Waled the arts began to develop them
selves under the Moslem sway ; finding a more genial home in •
the luxurious city of Damascus than they had done in the holy
cities of Mecca or Medina. Foreign conquests had brought the
Arabs in contact with the Greeks and the Persians. Inter
course with them, and residence in their cities, had gradually
refined away the gross habits of the desert; had awakened
thirst for the sciences, and a relish for the elegancies of culti
vated life. Little skilled in the principles of government,
accustomed in their native deserts to the patriarchal rule of
separate tribes, without any extended scheme of policy or
combined system of union, the Arabs, suddenly masters of a
vast and continually widening empire, had to study the art of
governing in the political institutions of the countries they
conquered. Persia, the best organized monarchy in Asia, held
out a model by which they were fain to profit ; and in their
system of emirs vested with the sway of distant and powerful
provinces, but strictly responsible to the Caliph, we see a copy
of the satraps or viceroys, the provincial depositaries of the
power of the Khosrus.
Since Moawyah had moved the seat of the Caliphat to
Damascus, a change had come over the style of the Moslem
court. It was no longer, as in the days of Omar, the confer
ence of a poorly clad Arab chieftain with his veteran warriors
and gray -beard companions, seated on their mats in the corner
of a mosque: the Moslem Caliph at Damascus had now his
divan, in imitation of the Persian monarch ; and his nalace be
gan to assume somewhat of oriental state and splendor.
In nothing had the Moslem conquerors showed more igno
rance of affairs than in financial matters. The vast spoils
acquired in their conquests, and the tribute and taxes imposed
on subjugated countries, had for a time been treated like the
chance booty caught up in predatory expeditions in the des
erts. They were amassed in public treasuries without register
or account, and shared and apportioned without judgment,
and often without honesty. Hence continual frauds and
peculations; hence those charges, so readily brought and
readily believed, against generals and governors in distant
stations, of enormous frauds and embezzlements, and hence
that grasping avarice, that avidity of spoil and treasure, which
were more and more destroying the original singleness of pur
pose of the soldiers of Islam.
Moawyah wa- the first of the Caliphs who ordered that
492 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
registers of tribute and taxes, as well as of spoils, should be
kept in the Islamite countries, in their respective languages ;
that is to say, in the Greek language in Syria, and in the Per
sian language in Irak; but Abd'almalec went further, and
ordered that they should all be kept in Arabic. Nothing, how
ever, could effectually check the extortion and corruption
which was prevailing more and more in the administration of
'the conquered provinces. Even the rude Arab soldier, who in
*his desert would have been content with his tent of hair-cloth,
now aspired to the possession of fertile lands, or a residence
amid the voluptuous pleasures of the city.
Waled had grown up amid the refinements and corruptions
of the transplanted Caliphat. He was more of a Greek and
Persian than an Arab in his tastes, and the very opposite of
that primitive Moslem, Omar, in most of his habitudes. On
assuming the sovereign power he confirmed all the emirs or
governors of provinces, and also the generals appointed by his
father. On these he devolved all measures of government and
warlike duties ; for himself, he led a soft, luxurious life amidst
the delights of his harem. Yet, though he had sixty -three
wives, he does not appear to have left any issue. Much of his
time was devoted to the arts, and especially the art of archi
tecture, in which he left some noble monuments to perpetuate
his fame.
He caused the principal mosque at Cairo to be demolished,
and one erected of greater majesty, the pillars of which had
gilded capitals. He enlarged and beautified the grand mosque
erected on the site of the temple of Solomon, for he was anx
ious to perpetuate the pilgrimage to Jerusalem established by
his father. He gave command that the bounds of the mosque
at Medina should be extended so as to include the tomb of the
prophet, and the nine mansions of his wives. He furthermore
ordered that all the buildings round the Caaba at Mecca
should be thrown down, and a magnificent quadrangular
mosque erected, such as is to be seen.at the present day. For
this purpose he sent a body of skilful Syrian architects from
Damascus.
Many of the faithful were grieved, particularly those well
stricken in years, the old residents of Mecca, to see the ancient
simplicity established by the prophet, violated by the splendor
of this edifice, especially as the dwellings of numerous indi
viduals were demolished to furnish a vast square for the
foundations of the new edifice, which now inclosed within its
MAHOMET AND ms SUCCESSORS. 493
circuit the Caaba, the well of Zom Zcm, and tho stations of
different sects of Moslems which came in pihrrimago.
All these works were carried on under tho supervision of
his emirs, but the Caliph attended in person to tho erection of
a grand mosque in his capital of Damascus. In making ar
rangements for this majestic pile he cast his eyes on tho
superb church of St. John the Baptist, which had been em
bellished by the Roman emperors during successive ages, and
enriched with the bones and relics of saints and martyrs. He
offered the Christians forty thousand dinars of gold for this
holy edifice ; but they replied, gold was of no value in com
parison with the sacred bones enshrined within its walls.
The Caliph, therefore, took possession of the church on his
own authority, and either demolished or altered it so as to suit
his purpose in the construction of his mosque, and did not
allow the Christian owners a single dirhem of compensation.
He employed twelve thousand workmen constantly in this
architectural enterprise, and one of his greatest regrets in his
last moments was that he should not li ve to see it completed.
The architecture of these mosques was a mixture of Greek
and Persian, and gave rise to the Saracenic style, of which
Waled may be said to be founder. The slender and graceful
palm-tree may have served as a model for its columns, as the
clustering trees and umbrageous forests of the north are
thought to have thrown their massive forms and shadowy
glooms into Gothic architecture. These two kinds of archi
tecture have often been confounded, but the Saracenic takes
the precedence; the Gothic borrowed graces and embellish
ments from it in tfee times of the Crusades.
While the Caliph Waled lived indolently and voluptuously
at Damascus, or occupied himself in erecting mosques, his gen
erals extended his empire in various directions. Moslema Ibn
Abd'almalec, one of his fourteen brothers, led an army into Asia
Minor, invaded Cappadocia, and laid siege to Tyana, a strong
city garrisoned with imperial troops. It was so closely in
vested that it could receive no provisions; but the besiegers
were equally in want of supplies. The contest was fierce on
both sides, for both were sharpened and irritated by hunger,
and it became a contest which could hold out longest against
famine.
The duration of the siege enabled the emperor to send rein
forcements to the place, but they were raw, undisciplined rc-
cruite, who were routed by the hungry Moslems, their camp
494 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
captured, and their provisions greedily devoured. The defeat
of these reinforcements rendered the defence of the city hope
less, and the pressure of famine hastened a capitulation, the
besieged not being aware that the besiegers were nearly as
much famished as themselves. Moslema is accused by Chris
tian writers of having violated the conditions of surrender;
many of the inhabitants were driven forth into the deserts,
'and many of the remainder were taken for slaves. In a sub
sequent year Moslema made a successful incursion into Pontus
and Armenia, a great part of which he subjugated, and took
the city of Amasia, after a severely contested siege. He after
ward made a victorious campaign into Galatia, ravaging the
whole province, and bearing away rich spoils and numerous
captives.
While Moslema was thus bringing Asia Minor into subjec
tion, his son Khatiba, a youth of great bravery, was no less
successful in extending the empire of the faith toward the East.
Appointed to the government of Khorassan, he did not content
himself with attending to the affairs of his own province, but
crossing the Oxus, ravaged the provinces of Turkistan, de
feated a great army of Turks and Tartars, by which he had
been beleaguered and reduced to great straits, and took the
capital city of Bochara, with many others of inferior note.
He defeated also Magourek, the Khan of Charism, and drove
him to take refuge in the great city of Samarcand. This city,
anciently called Marcanda, was one of the chief marts of Asia,
as well for the wares imported from China and Tangut across
the desert of Gobi, as of those brought through the mountains
of the great Thibet, and those conveyed from India to the Cas
pian Sea. It was, therefore, a great resort and resting-place
for caravans from all quarters. The surrounding country was
renowned throughout the East for fertility, and ranked among
the paradises or gardens of Asia.
To this city Khatiba laid siege, but the inhabitants set him at
defiance, being confident of the strength of their walls, and
aware that the Arabs had no battering-rams, nor other engines
necessary for the attack of fortified places. A long and close
siege, however, reduced the garrison to great extremity, and
finding that the besiegers were preparing to carry the place by
storm, they capitulated, agreeing to pay an annual tribute of
one thousand dinars of gold and three thousand slaves.
Khatiba erected a magnificent mosque in that metropolis,
and officiated personally in expounding the doctrines of Islam,
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 40.1
which began soon to supersede the religion of the Magians or
Ghebers.
Extensive victories were likewise achieved in India daring
the reign of Waled, by Mohamed Ibn Casern, a native of
Thaycf, one of his generals, who conquered the kingdom of
Sindia, or Sindc, killed its sovereign in battle, and sent his
head to the Caliph ; overran a great part of Central India, and
first planted the standard of Islam on the banks of the Ganges,
the sacred river of the Hindoos.
CHAPTER
FURTHER TRIUMPHS OF MUSA IBN NOSSEYR— NAVAL ENTERPRISES
— DESCENTS IN SICILY, SARDINIA, AND MALLORC A— INVASION
OF TINGITANIA— PROJECTS FOR THE INVASION OF SPAIN— CON
CLUSION.
To return to affairs hi Africa, During the first years of the
Caliphat of Waled the naval armaments fitted out by Musa in
the ports of Eastern Africa continued to scour the Mediterra
nean and carry terror and devastation into its islands. One of
them coasted the island of Sicily in the eighty-sixth year of
the Hegira, and attacked the city of Syracuse ; but the object
appears to have been mere plunder, not to retain possession.
Another ravaged the island of Sardinia, sacked its cities, and
brought off a vast number of prisoners and immense booty.
Among the captives were Christian women of great beauty,
and highly prized in the Eastern harems. The command of
the sea was ultimately given by Musa to his son Abdolola, who
added to his nautical reputation by a descent upon the island
of Mallorca.
While Abdolola was rejoicing his father's heart by exploits
and triumphs on the sea, Abd'alaziz contributed no less to his
pride and exultation by his achievements on land. Aided by
this favorite son, Musa carried the terror of the Moslem arms
to the western extremity of Mount Atlas, subduing Fez, Du-
quella, Morocco, and Sus. The valiant tribes of the Zenetes at
length made peace, and entered into compact with him ; from
other tribes Musa took hostages, and by degrees the sway of
the Caliph was established throughout western Almagreb to
Cape Non on the Atlantic.
496 MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
Musa was not a ferocious conqueror. The countries sub
jected by his arms became objects of his paternal care. He
introduced law and order, instructed the natives in the doc
trines of Islam, and defended the peaceful cultivators of the
fields and residents in the cities against the incursions of pre
datory tribes. In return they requited his protection by con
tributing their fruits and flocks to the support of the armies,
and furnishing steeds matchless for speed and beauty.
One region, however, yet remained to be subjugated before
the conquest of Northern Africa would be complete; the
ancient Tingis, or Tingitania, the northern extremity of Ahna-
greb. Here the continent of Africa protruded boldly to meet
the continent of Europe ; a narrow strait intervened— the strait
of Hercules, the gate of the Mediterranean Sea. Two rocky
promontories appeared to guard it on each side, the far-famed
pillars of Hercules. Two rock-built cities, Ceuta and Tangiers,
on the African coast, were the keys of this gate, and con
trolled the neighboring sea-board. These had been held in
ancient times by the Berber kings, who made this region their
stronghold, and Tangiers their seat of power; but the keys
had been wrested from their hands at widely-separated peri
ods, first by the Vandals, and afterward by the Goths, the
conquerors of the opposite country of Spain ; and the Gothic
Spaniards had now held military possession for several genera
tions.
Musa seems to have reserved this province for his last Afri
can campaign. He stationed his son Merwan, with ten thou
sand men, in a fortified camp on the frontier, while Taric Ibn
Zeyad, a veteran general scarred in many a battle, scoured the
country from the fountains or head waters of the river MQ-
luya to the mountains of Aldaran. The province was bravely
defended by a Gothic noble, Count Julian by name, but he.
was gradually driven to shut himself up in Ceuta. Meantime
Tangiers yielded to the Moslem arms after an obstinate de
fence, and was strongly garrisoned by Arab and Egyptian
troops, and tho command given to Taric. An attempt was
mado to convert the Christian inhabitants to the faith of Is
lam; tho Berber part easily conformed, but the Gothic persisted
in unbelief, and rather than give up their religion, abandoned
their abodes, and crossed over to Andaluz with the loss of all
their property.
Musa now advanced upon Ceuta, into which Count Julian
AXD ms SUCCESSORS. 497
had drawn all his troops. He attempted to carry it by storm,
but was gallantly repulsed, with the loss of many of his best
troops. Repeated assaults were made with no better success ;
the city was situated on a promontory, and strongly fortified.
Musa now laid waste the surrounding country, thinking to re
duce the place by famine, but the proximity of Spain enabled
the garrison to receive supplies and reinforcements across the
straits.
Months were expended in this protracted and unavailing
siege. According to some accounts Musa retired personally
from the attempt, and returned to his seat of government at
Caerwan, leaving the army and province in charge of his son
Merwan and Taric in command oi: Tangiers.
And now occurred one of the most memorable pieces of trea
son in history. Count Julian, who had so nobly defended his
post and checked the hitherto irresistible arms of Islam, all at
once made secret offers, not merely to deliver up Ccuta to the
Moslem commander, but to betray Andaluz itself into bis
hands. The country ho represented as rife for a revolt against
Roderick, the Gothic king, who was considered a usurper ; and
he offered to accompany and aid the Moslems in a descent
upon the coast, where he had numerous friends ready to flock
to his standard.
Of the private wrongs received by Count Julian from his so
vereign, which provoked him to this stupendous act of treason,
we shall here say nothing. Musa was startled by his proposi
tion. He had long cast a wistful eye at the mountains of An
daluz, brightening beyond the strait, but hitherto the conquest
of Northern Africa had tasked all his means. Even now he
feared to trust too readily to a man whose very proposition
showed an utter want of faith. He determined, therefore, to
dispatch Taric Ibn Zeyad on a reconnoitering expedition to
coast the opposite shores, accompanied by Count Julian, and
ascertain the truth of his representations.
Taric accordingly embarked with a few hundred men in four
merchant vessels, crossed the straits under the guidance of
Count Julian, who, on landing, dispatched emissaries to his
friends and adherents, summoning them to a conference at
Jesirah al Khadra, or the Green Island, now Algcziras. Here,
in presence of Taric, they confirmed all that Julian had said of
the rebellious disposition of the country, and of their own
readiness to join the standard of an invader. A plundering
498 MAUOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
cruise along the coast convinced Taric of the wealth of the
country, and he returned to the African shores with ample
spoils and female captives of great beauty.
A new career of conquest seemed thus opening upon Musa.
His predecessor, Acbah, had spurred his steed into the waves
of the Atlantic, and sighed that there were no further lands to
conquer ; but here was another quarter of the world inviting
the triumphs of Islam. He forthwith wrote to the Caliph,
giving a glowing account of the country thus held out for con
quest ; a country abounding in noble monuments and wealthy
cities; rivalling Syria in the fertility of its soil and the beauty
of its climate ; Yemen, or Arabia the Happy, in its tempera
ture ; India in its flowers and spices ; Hegiaz in its fruits and
productions; Cathay in its precious and abundant mines;
Aden in the excellence of its ports and harbors. "With the
aid of God," added he, " I have reduced to obedience the Zen-
etes and the other Berber tribes of Zab and Derar, Zaara, Ma-
zamuda, and Sus : the standard of Islam floats triumphant on
the walls of Tangiers ; thence to the opposite coast of Andaluz
is but a space of twelve miles. Let but the Commander of the
Faithful give the word, and the conquerors of Africa will cross
into that land, there to carry the knowledge of the true God
and the law of the Koran."
The Arab spirit of the Caliph was roused by this magnificent
prospect of new conquests. He called to mind a tradition that
Mahomet had promised the extension of his law to the utter
most regions of the West ; and he now gave full authority to
Musa to proceed in his pious enterprise, and carry the sword
of Islam into the benighted land of Andaluz.
We have thus accomplished our self -allotted task. We have
set forth, in simple and succinct narrative, a certain portion of
this wonderful career of fanatical conquest. We have traced
the progress of the little cloud which rose out of the deserts of
Arabia, "no bigger than a man's hand, "until it has spread
out and overshadowed the ancient quarters of the world and
all their faded glories. We have shown the handful of prose
lytes of a pseudo prophet, driven from city to city, lurking in
dens and caves of the earth ; but at length rising to be leaders
of armies and mighty conquerors ; overcoming in pitched bat
tle the Roman cohort, the Grecian phalanx, and the gorgeous
hosts of Persia; carrying their victories from the gates of the
Caucasus to the western descents of Mount Atlas ; from the
Ibanks of the Ganges to the Sus; the ultimate river in Maun-
MAllOMKT AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
400
tania; and now planting their standard on the pillars of Her
cules, and threatening Europe with like subjugation.
Here, however, we stay our hand. Here we lay down our
pen. Whether it will ever be our lot to resume this theme, to
cross with the Moslem hosts the strait of Hercules, and narrato
their memorable conquest of Gothic Spain, is one of those un
certainties of mortal life and aspirations of literary zeal which
beguile us with agreeable dreams, but too often end in disap-
TX)intment
THI END.
MOORISH
CHKONICLES.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
MOORISH CHRONICLES.
CONTENTS.
CHRONICLE OF FERNAN GONZALEZ.
\JTRODtrcnow ........................... .. .......................................... 7
CHAPTER I.
Installation of Fernan Gonzalez as Count of Castile.— His first campaign against
the Moors.— Victory of San Quirce.— How the Count disposed of the spoils.. . . 8
CHAPTER H.
Of the sallj from Burgos and surprise of the castle of Lara.— Capitulation of
the town.— Visit to Alfonso the Great, King of Leon ............................ U
CHAPTER HI.
Expedition against the fortress Mugnon.— Desperate defence of the Moors.—
Enterprise against Castro Xeriz ............................ .................. 14
CHAPTER IV.
How the Count of Castile and the King of Leon make a triumphant foray into
the Moorish country.— Capture 01 Salamanca.— Of the challenge brought by
the Herald and of the Count's defiance ........................................ M
CHAPTER V.
A night assault upon the castle of Carazo.— The Moorish maiden who betrayed
thegarrison .................................................................. 18
CHAPTER VI.
Death of Alfonso, King of Leon.— The Moors determined to strike a fresh blow
at the Count, who summons all Castile to his standard.— Of his hunt in th«
forest while waiting for the enemy, and of the hermit that he met with ....... It
CHAPTER VIL
The battle of the Ford or cascajares ......................................... • . . *?
4 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VOL
BUM
Of tha message sent by the Couat to Sancho II., King ef Navarr«, amd the roplj.
—Their encounter in battle 88
CHAPTER IX.
How the Count of Toulouse makes a campaign against Castile, and how ho r»-
turngin his coffin 87
CHAPTER X.
How the Count went to receive the hand of a Princess, and was thrown into a
dungeon.— Of the stranger that visited him in his chains, and of the appeal
that he made to the Princess for his deliverance 88
CHAPTER XI.
Or the meditations of the Princess, and their result.— Her flight from the prison
with the Count, and perils of the escape.— The nuptials 80
CHAPTER XH.
King Garcia confined hi Burgos by the Count.— The Princess intercedes for hia
release .'. 84
CHAPTER XHI.
Of the expedition against the ancient city of Sylo.— The unwitting trespas* of
the Count into a convent, and his compunction thereupon 84
CHAPTER XIV.
Of the Moorish host that came up from Cordova, and how the Count repaired
to the hermitage of San Pedro, and prayed for success against them, and re
ceived assurance of victory in a vision.— Battle of Hazinas 86
CHAPTER XV.
The Count imprisoned by the King of Leon.— The Countess concerts his escape.
—Leon and Castile united by the marriage of the Prince Ordono with Urraca,
the daughter of the Count by his first wife 40
CHAPTER XVI.
Moorish incursion into Castile.— Battle of San Estevan.— Of Pascual Vira» and
, the miracle that befell him.— Death of Ordofio HI 43
CHAPTER XVII.
King Sancho the Fat. —Of the homage he exacted from Count Fernan Gonzalez,
and of the strange bargain that he made with him for the purchase «f his
horse and falcon 46
CHAPTER XVin.
Further of the horse and falcon 48
CHAPTER XIX.
Jbe last oanapaign of Count Fernaa.— His death ,,....,. 60
' OXT1
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO THE SAINT.
CHAITKi: I
PACK
The parentage of Fernando.— Queen Berenguela. — The Laras.— Don Alvar con
ceals tlie death of King Henry. — Mission of Queen Berenguela to Alfonso IX.
—She renounces the crown of Castile in favor of her son Fernando 55
CHAPTER II.
King Alfonso of Leon ravages Castile.— Captivity of Don Alvar.— Death of the
Laras I'J
CHAPTER III.
Marriage of King Fernando.— Campaign against the Moors.— Aben Mohamed,
King of Baeza, declares himself the vassal of King Fernando.— They march to
Jaen.— Burning of the tower.— Fernando commences the building of the
cathedral at Toledo 63
CHAPTER IV.
Assassination of Aben Mohamed.— His head carried as a present to Abullale, the
Moorish King of Seville.— Advance of the Christians into Andalusia.— Abullale
purchases a truce 66
CHAPTER V.
Aben Hud.— Abullale purchases another year's truce.— Fernando hears of the
death of his father, the King of Leon, while pressing the siege of Jaen.— He
becomes sovereign of the two kingdoms of Leon and Castile . . 18
CHAPTER VI.
Expedition of the Prince Alonzo against the Moors.— Encamps on the banks of
the Guadalete.— Aben Hud marches out from Xerez, and gives battle.— Prowess
of Garcia Perez de Vargas.— Flight and pursuit of the Moors.— Miracle of the
blessed Santiago 70
CHAPTER VII.
A bold attempt upon Cordova, the seat of Moorish power.
75
CHAPTER VIH.
A spy in the Christian camp.— Death of Aben Hud.— A rital blow to Moslem
power.— Surrender of Cordova to King Fernando 77
CHAPTER IX.
Marriage of King Fernando to the Princess Juana.— Famine at Cordova.— Don
Alvar Perez .. 81
CHAPTER X.
Aben Alhamar, founder of the Alhambra —Fortifies Granada and mokes It his
capital.— Attempts to surprise the castle of Martos.— Peril of the fortress.— A
woman's stratagem to save it.— Diego Perez, the Smasher.— Death of Comat
AJvar Per«* d« Cagtro
6 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XI.
PAGfi
Aben Hudiel, the Moorish King of Murcia, becomes the vassal of King Fernan
do. — Aben Alhainar seeks to drive the Christians out of Andalusia. — Fer
nando takes the field against him.— Ravages of the king.— His last meeting
with the queen -mother 8?
CHAPTER XH.
King Fernando's expedition to Andalusia.— Siege of Jaen.— Secret departure of
Aben Alhamar for the Christian camp.— He acknowledges himself the vassal
of the king, who enters Jaen in triumph 92
CHAPTER Xin.
Axataf, King of Seville, exasperated at the submission of the King of Granada,
rejects the propositions of King Fernando for a truce.— The latter is en
couraged by a vision to undertake the conquest of the city of Seville.— Death
of Queen Berenguela.— A diplomatic marriage 94
CHAPTER XIV.
In vestment of Seville.— All Spain aroused to arms.— Surrender of Alcala del Rio.
—The fleet of Admiral Ramon Bonifaz advances up the Guadalquivir. — Don
Pelayo Correa, Master of Santiago.— His valorous deeds, and the miracles
wrought in his behalf 97
CHAPTER XV.
King Fernando changes his camp.— Garci Perez and the seven Moors 101
CHAPTER XVI.
Of the raft built by the Moors, and how it was boarded by Admiral Bonifaz.—
Destruction of the Moorish fleet.— Succor from Africa 104
CHAPTER XVII.
Of the stout Prior, Ferran Ruyz, and how he rescued his cattle from the Moors.
—Further enterprises of the Prior, and of the ambuscade into which he fell. . . 106
CHAPTER XVIII.
Bravado of the three cavaliers.— Ambush at the bridge over the Guadayra.—
Desperate valor of Garci Perez.— Grand attempt of Admiral Bonifaz on the
bridge of boats.— Seville dismembered from Triana « 109
CHAPTER XIX
Investment of Triana.— Garci Perez and the Infanzon ! 114
CHAPTER XX.
Capitulation of Seville.— Dispersion of the Moorish Inhabitants.— Triumphant
entry of King Fernando 116
CHAPTER XXI.
Death of King Fernando 119
MOORISH CHRONICLES.
CHRONICLE OF FERNAN GONZALEZ,
OF CASTILE.
INTRODUCTION.
AT the time of the general wreck of Spain by the sudden
tempest of Arab invasion, many of the inhabitants took ref
uge in the mountains of the Asturias, burying themselves in
narrow valleys difficult of access, wherever a constant stream
of water afforded a green bosom of pasture-land and scanty
fields for cultivation. For mutual protection they gathered to
gether in small villages called castros, or castrellos, with watch-
towers and fortresses on impending cliffs, in which they might
chcltcr and defend themselves in case of sudden inroad. Thus
arose the kingdom of the Asturias, subject to Pelayo and the
kings his successors, who gradually extended their dominions,
built towns and cities, and after a time fixed their seat of gov
ernment at the city of Leon.
An important part of the region over which they bore sway
was ancient Cantabria, extending from the Bay of Biscay to
the Duero, and called Castile from the number of castles with
which it was studded. They divided it into seigniories, over
wliich they placed civil and military governors called counts —
a title said to be derived from the Latin comes, a companion,
the person enjoying it being admitted to the familiar compan
ionship of the king, entering into his councils in time of peace,
and accompanying him to the field in time of war. The title
of count was therefore more dignified than that of duke in the
time of the Gothic kings.
8 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
The power of these counts increased to such a degree that
four of them formed a league to declare themselves- independ
ent of the crown of Leon. Ordoiio II., who was then king, re
ceived notice of it, and got them into his power hy force, as
some assert, but as others maintain, by perfidious artifice. At
any rate, they were brought to court, convicted of treason, and
publicly beheaded. The Castilians flew to arms to revenge
their deaths. Ordono took the field with a powerful army, but
his own death defeated all his plans.
The Castilians now threw off allegiance to the kingdom of
Loon, and elected two judges to rule over them — one in a civil,
the other in a military capacity. The first who filled those
stations were Nuno Rasura and Lain Calvo, two powerful no
bles, the former descended from Diego Porcelle, a count of
Lara ; the latter, ancestor of the renowned Cid Campeador.
Nuno Rasura, the civil and political judge, was succeeded by
his son Gonzalez Nuno, who married Dona Ximena, a daughter
of one of the counts of Castile put to death by Ordono II.
From this marriage came Fernan Gonzalez, the subject of the
following chronicle.
CHAPTER I.
INSTALLATION OF FERNAN GONZALEZ AS COUNT OF CASTILE. —
HIS FIRST CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE MOORS.— VICTORY OF SAN
QTIIRCE. — HOW THE COUNT DISPOSED OF THE SPOILS.
THE renowned Fernan Gonzalez, the most complete hero of
his time, was born about the year 887. Historians trace his
descent to Nuno Belchidez, nephew of the Emperor Charle
magne, and Dona Sula Bella, granddaughter to the Prince Don
Sancho, rightful sovereign of Spain, but superseded by Roder
ick, the last of the Gothic kings.
Fernan Gonzalez was hardily educated among the mountains
in a strong place called Maron, in the housaof Martin Gonzalez,
a gallant and veteran cavalier. From his earliest years he was
inured to all kinds of toils and perils, taught to hunt, to hawk,
to ride the great horse, to manage sword, lance, and buckler;
in a word, he was accomplished in all the noble exercises befit
ting a cavalier.
CILRONICLE OF FKRNAN GONZALEZ. 9
His father Gonzalvo Nuiicz died in 1)03, and his elder brother
Rodrigo in 904, without issue; and such was the admir.it i n al
ready entertained of Fernan Gonzalez by the hardy mountain
eers and old Castilian warriors, that though scarce seventeen
years of age he was unanimously elected to rule over them.
His title is said to have been Count, Duke, and Consul, under
the seigniory of Alonzo the Great, King oi' Leon. A cortes, or
assemblage of the nobility and chivalry of Castile and of the
mountains, met together at the recently built city of Burgos to
do honor to his installation. Sebastian, the renowned Bishop
of Oca, officiated.
In those stern days of Spain, the situation of a sovereign was
not that of silken ease and idle ceremonial. When he put the
rich crown upon his head, he encircled it likewise with shining
steel. With the sceptre were united the lance and shield, em
blems of perpetual war against the enemies of the faith. The
cortes took this occasion to pass the following laws for the
government of the realm :
1. Above all things the people should observe the law of God,
the canons and statutes of the holy fathers, the liberty and
privileges of the Church, and the respect due to its ministers.
2. No person should prosecute another out of Castile at any
tribunal of justice or of arms, under pain of being considered
a stranger.
3. All Jews and Moors who refused to acknowledge the
Christian faith should depart from Castile within two months.
4. That cavaliers of noble blood should treat their tenants
and vassals with love and gentleness.
5. That he who slew another, or committed any other grave
offence, should make equal measure of atonement.
6. That no one should take the property of another; but, if
oppressed by poverty, should come to the count, who ought to
be as a father to all.
7. That all should unite and be of one heart, and aid one
another in defense of their faith and of their country.
Such were the ordinances of the ancient Cortes of Burgos ;
brief and simple, and easy to be understood; not, as at the
present day, multifarious, and perplexed, to the confusion and
ruin of clients and the enrichment of lawyers.
Scarce was the installation ended, and while Burgos was yet
abandoned to festivity, the young count, with the impatient
ardor of youth, caused the trumpets to sound through tho
streets a call to arms. A captain of tho Moorish king of
10 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
Toledo was ravaging the territory of Castile at the head of
seven thousand troops, and against him the youthful count
determined to make his first campaign. In the spur of the
moment but one hundred horsemen and fifteen hundred foot-
soldiers could be collected; but with this slender force the
count prepared to take the field. Ruy Velazquez, a valiant
cavalier, remonstrated against such rashness, but in vain. " I
owe," said the count, a "death to the grave; the debt can
never be paid so honorably as in the service of God and my
country. Let every one, therefore, address himself heart and
hand to this enterprise; for if I come face to face with this
Moor, I will most assuredly give him battle. " So saying, he
knelt before Bishop Sebastian of Salamanca and craved his
benediction. The reverend prelate invoked on his head the
blessing and protection of Heaven, for his heart yearned
toward him ; but when he saw the youthful warrior about to
depart, he kindled as it were with r holy martial fire, and
ordering his steed to be saddled he sallied forth with him to
the wars.
The little army soon came upon traces of the enemy in fields
laid waste, and the smoking ruins of villages and hamlets.
The count sent out scouts to clamber every height and explore
every defile. From the summit of a hill they beheld the
Moors encamped in a valley which was covered with the flocks
and herds swept from the neighboring country. The camp of
the marauders was formidable as to numbers, with various
standards floating in the breeze; for in this foray were en
gaged the Moorish chiefs of Saragossa, Denia, and Seville, to
gether with many valiant Moslems who had crossed the straits
from Africa to share in what they considered a hply enter
prise. The scouts observed, however, that the most negligent
security reigned throughout the camp ; some reposing, others
feasting and revelling, all evidently considering themselves
3afe from any attack.
Upon hearing this the count led his men secretly and silently
to the assault, and came upon the Moors in the midst of their
revelry, before they had time to buckle on their armor. The
infidels, however, made a brave though confused resistance;
the camp was strewn with their dead ; many were taken pri
soners, and the rest began to falter. The count killed their
captain-general with his own hand, in single fight, as he was
bravely rallying his troops. Upon seeing htm fall, the Moors
threw down their weapons and fled,
CHRONICLE OF FEUNAN GONZALEZ. \\
Immense booty was found in the Moorish camp,— partly tho
rich arms and equipments of the inlaid warriors, partly the
plunder of tho country. An ordinary victor would 1
merely shared tho spoils with his soldiery, but the count
was as pious as he was brave, and, moreover, had by his side
the venerable Bishop of Salamanca as counsellor. Contenting
himself, therefore, with distributing one-third among his
soldiery, he shared the rest with God, devoting a large pa
the Church, and to the relief of souls in purgatory—a pious
custom, which he ever after observed. He moreover founded
a church on the field of battle, dedicated to St. Quirce, on
whose festival (the IGth July) this victory was obtained. To
this church was subsequently added a monastery where a
worthy fraternity of monks were maintained in the odor of
sanctity, to perpetuate the memory of this victory. All this
was doubtless owing to tho providental presence of the good
bishop 011 this occasion; and this is one instance of the ^n at
benefit derived from those priests and monks and other pur
veyors of the Church, who hovered about the Christian camps
throughout all these wars with the infidels.
CHAPTER H.
OF THE SALLY FROM BURGOS AND SURPRISE OF THE CASTLE OF
LARA. — CAPITULATION OF THE TOWN. — VISIT TO ALFONSO THE
GREAT KING OF LEON.
COUNT FERN AN GONZALEZ did not remain idle after the
victory of San Quirce. There was at this time an old castle,
strong but much battered in the wars, which protected a small
town, the remains of the once flourishing city of Lara. It was
the ancient domain of his family, but was at present in posses
sion of the Moors. In sooth it had repeatedly been taken and
retaken : for in those iron days no castle nor fortress remained
long under the same masters, One year it was in tho hands of
the Christians, the next, of the Moors, Some of those castles,
with their dependent towns, were sacked, burnt, and demo*
lishcd; others remained silent and deserted, their original
owners fearing to reside in them ; and their ruined towers were
only tenanted by bats and owls and screaming birds of prey.
Lara had lain for a time in ruins after being captured by the
12 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
Moors, but had been rebuilt by them with diminished grand
eur, and they held a strong garrison in the castle, whence they
sallied forth occasionally to ravage the lands of the Christians.
The Moorish chieftain of Lara, as has been observed, was
among the associated marauders who had been routed in the
battle of San Quirce ; and the Count Fernan Gonzalez thought
this a favorable time to strike for the recovery of his family
domain, now that the infidel possessor was weakened by de
feat and could receive no succor.
Appointing Bodrigo Velasquez and the Count Don Vela
Alvarez to act as governors of Castile during his absence, the
count sallied forth from Burgos with a brilliant train of
chivalry. Among the distinguished cavaliers who attended
him were Martin Gonzalez, Don Gustios Gonzalez, Don Ve-
lasco, and Don Lope de Biscaya which last brought a goodly
train of stout Biscayans. The alfarez, or standard-bearer was
Orbita Velasquez, who had distinguished himself in the battle
of San Quirce. He bore as a standard a great cross of silver,
which shone gloriously in front of the host, and is preserved,
even to the present day, in the church of San Pedro de Ar-
lanza. One hundred and fifty noble cavaliers, well armed
and mounted, with many esquires and pages of the lance,
and three thousand foot-soldiers, all picked men, formed this
small but stout-hearted army.
The count led his troops with such caution that they arrived
in the neighborhood of Lara without being discovered. It was
the vigil of St. John; the country was wrapped in evening
shadows, and the count was enabled to approach near to the
place to make his observations. He perceived that his force
was too inconsiderable to invest the town and fortress. Be
sides, about two leagues distant was the gaunt and rock-built
castle of Carazo, a presidio or stronghold of the Moors, whence
he might be attacked in the rear, should he linger before the
fortress. It was evident, therefore, that whatever Avas to be
effected must be done promptly and by sudden surprise. Ee-
volving these things in his mind, he put his. troops in ambush
in a deep ravine where they took their rest, while he kept
watch upon the castle ; maturing his plans against the morrow.
In this way he passed his midsummer's night, the vigil of the
blessed St. John.
The festival of St. John is observed as well by Mahometans
as Christians. During the night the bonfires blazed on the
hill-tops and the sound of music and festivity was heard from
OF FEHNAN GONZALI \$
\vithin the town. When the rising sun shone along the valley
of the Arlanza, the Moors in the castle, unsuspicious of :my
lurking danger, threw open the gates and issued forth to rec
reate themselves in the green fields and along the banks of the
river. When they had proceeded to a considerable distance,
and a hill shut them from view, the count with his eager fol
lowers issued silently but swiftly from their hiding-plac-
made directly for the castle. On the way they met with an
other band of Moors who had likewise come forth for amuse
ment. The count struck the leader to the earth with one blow
of his lance ; the rest were either slain or taken prisoners ; so
that not one escaped to give the alarm.
Those of the garrison who had remained in the castle, seeing
a Christian force rushing up to the very walls, hastened to
close the gates, but it was too late. The count and his cava
liers burst them open and put every one to the sword who
made opposition. Leaving Don Velasco and a number of
soldiers to guard the castle, the count hastened with the rest
in pursuit of the Moors who were solemnizing the day on the
banks of the Alanza. Some were reclining on the grass,
others were amusing themselves with music and the popular
dance of the Zambra, while their arms lay scattered among
the herbage.
At sight of the Christians, they snatched up their weapons
and made a desperate though vain resistance. Within two
hours almost all were either slain or captured ; a few escaped
to the neighboring mountains of Carazo. The town, seeing
the castle in the hands of the Christians, and the garrison
routed and destroyed, readily capitulated; and the inhabi
tants were permitted to retain unmolested possession of their
houses, on agreeing to pay to the count the same tribute which
had been exacted from them by the Moorish king. Don
Velasco was left alcaid of the fortress, and the count returned,
covered with glory, to his capital of Burgos.
The brilliant victories and hardy deeds of arms with which
the youthful Count of Castile had commenced his reign excited
the admiration of Alfonso the Great, King of Leon, and he
sent missives urging him to appear at his royal court. The
count accordingly set forth with a cavalcade of his most ap
proved knights and many of his relatives, sumptuously armed
and arrayed, and mounted on steeds richly caparisoned. It
was a pageant befitting a young and magnificent chief, in the
freshness and pleasance of his years.
14 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
The king came out of the city to meet him, attended by all
the pomp and grandeur of his court. The count alighted, and
approached to kiss the king's hand ; but Alfonso alighted also,
and embraced him with great affection, and the friendship of
these illustrious princes continued without interruption
throughout the lif e of the king.
CHAPTER III.
EXPEDITION AGAINST THE FORTRESS OF MUGNON. — DESPERATE DE
FENCE OF THE MOORS.— ENTERPRISE AGAINST CASTRO XERIZ.
MANY are the doughty achievements recorded in ancient
chronicles of this most valorous cavalier ; among others is his
expedition, with a chosen band, against the castle of Mugnon,
a place of great importance, which stood at no great distance
from Burgos. He sallied from his capital in an opposite direc
tion, to delude the Moorish scouts ; but making a sudden turn,
came upon the fortress by surprise, broke down the gates, and
forced his way in at the head of his troops, having nothing but
a dagger in his hand, his lance and sword having been broken
in the assault. The Moors fought desperately from court to
tower, from tower to wall ; and when they saw all resistance
vain, many threw themselves from the battlements into the
ditch rather than be made captives. Leaving a strong garri
son in the place, the count returned to Burgos.
His next enterprise was against Castro Xeriz, a city with a
strong castle, which had been a thorn in the side of Castile —
the Moorish garrison often sweeping the road between Bur
gos and Leon, carrying off travellers, capturing cattle, and
plundering convoys of provisions and merchandise. The count
advanced against this place in open day, ravaging the country
and announcing his approach by clouds of smoke from the
burning habitations of the Moors. Abdallah, the alcaid of the
fortress, would have made peace, but the count refused all
terms. "God," said he, "has appointed me to rescue his holy
inheritance from the power of infidels; nothing is to be ne
gotiated but by the edge of the sword."
Abdallah then made a sally with a chosen band of his cava
liers. They at first careered lightly with their Arabian steeds
CllROXICLK OF /''A'A'.VLY UOMALEZ. 15
And launched their Moorish darts, but the Christians closed in
the old Gothic style, fighting hand to hand. Abdallah Ml by
the sword of the count, and his followers iled with loosened
reins back to the city. The Christians followed hard i
them, strewing the ground with dead. At the gate of the <-it y
thoy were met by Almondir, the son of Abdallah. who disputed
the gateway and the street inch by inch, until the whole place
ran with blood. The Moors, driven from the streets, took
refuge in the castle, where Almondir inspirited them to a
desperate defence, until a stone struck him as he stood on the
battlements, and he fell to the earth dead. Having no leader
to direct them, the Moors surrendered. When the town was
cleared of the dead and order restored, the count divided the
spoils— allotting the houses among his followers, and peopling
the place with Christians. He gave the command of it to
Layn Bermudez, with the title of count. From him descended
an illustrious line of cavaliers termed de Castro, whose male
line became extinct in Castile, but continued to flourish in
Portugal. The place is said to have been called Castro Xeriz,
in consequence of the blood shed in this conflict— xeriz, in the
Arabic language signifying bloody.*
CHAPTER IV.
HOW THE COUNT OP CASTILE AND THE KING OP LEON MAKE A.
TRIUMPHANT FORAY INTO THE MOORISH COUNTRY.— CAPTUUE
OF SALAMANCA. — OF THE CHALLENGE BROUGHT BY THE HER
ALD AND OP THE COUNT'S DEFIANCE.
COUNT FERNAN GONZALEZ was restless, daring, and impet
uous ; he seldom suffered lance to rest on wall or steed in sta
ble, and no Moorish commander could sleep in quiet who held
town or tower in his neighborhood. King Alfonso the Great
became emulous of sharing in his achievements, and they made
a campaign together against the Moors. The count brought a
s-plf-udid array of Castilian chivalry into the field, together
with a host of Montancses, hardy and vigorous troops from the
Asturias, excellent for marauding warfare. The King of Leon
* Sandoval, p. 301.
16 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
brought his veteran bands, seasoned to battle. With their
united forces they ravaged the Moorish country, marking their
way with havoc and devastation ; arrived before Salamanca,
they took that city by storm after a brave defence, and gave
it up to be sacked by the soldiery. After which such of the
Moors as chose to remain in it were suffered to retain their pos
sessions as vassals to the king. Having accomplished this
triumphant foray, they returned, each one to his capital.
The Count of Castile did not repose long in his palace. One
day a Moorish herald magnificently dressed, rode into the city
of Burgos, bringing Fernan Gonzalez a cartel of defiance. It
was from a vaunting Moor named Acef eli, who had entered the
territories of Castile with a powerful force of horse and foot,
giving out that he had come to measure strength and prowess
with the count in battle. Don Fernan Gonzalez replied to the
defiance with weapon in hand at the head of his warriors. A
pitched battle ensued, which lasted from early morn until
evening twilight. In the course of the fight the count was in
imminent peril, his horse being killed under him and himself
surrounded, but he was rescued by his cavaliers. After great
bloodshed, the Moors were routed and pursued beyond the bor
ders. The spoil gained in this battle was devoutly expended
in repairing the churches of Castile and the Montaneses.
CHAPTER V.
A NIGHT ASSAULT UPON THE CASTLE OF CARAZO.— THE MOORISH
MAIDEN WHO BETRAYED THE GARRISON.
IN those warlike times of Spain every one lived with sword
in hand ; there was scarcely a commanding cliff or hill-top but
had its castle. Moors and Christians regarded each other from
rival towers and battlements perched on opposite heights, and
were incessantly contending for the dominion of the valleys.
We have seen that Count Fernan Gonzalez had regained pos
session of the ancient town and fortress of Lara, the domain
of his ancestors; but it will be recollected that within two
leagues' distance stood the Moorish presidio of Carazo. It was
perched like an eagle's nest on the summit of a mountain, and
tlio cragged steepness of its position, and its high and thick
cimoxicu-: OF FI:I;\AN GONZALEZ. 17
walls seemed to render it proof against all assault. The Moors
who garrisoned it were fierce maraii'lr -s. \\h<, uS(-il to sweep
<lo\vu like birds ol prey from tln-ir lofty nest, pounce upoi
flocks and dwellings of the Christians, make hasty ravages,
and bear av.ay their spoils to the mountain-top. There was no
living with safety or tranquillity within the scope of their ma
raudings.
Intelligence of their misdeeds was brought to the count at
Burgos. He determined to have that castle at Carazo, what
ever might be the cost ; for this purpose he called a council of
his chosen cavaliers. He did not conceal the peril of the enter
prise, from the crag-built situation of the castle, its great
strength, and the vigilance and valor of its garrison. Still the
Castilian cavaliers offered themselves to carry the fortress or
die.
The count sailed secretly from Burgos with a select force,
and repaired in the night-time to Lara, that the Moors might
have no intimation or suspicion of his design. In the midst of
the nest night, the castle-gate was quietly opened and they is
sued forth as silently as possible, pursuing their course in the
deep shadows of the valley until they came to the foot of the
mountain of Carazo. Here they remained in ambush, and
sent forth scouts. As the latter prowled about the day began
to dawn, and they heard a female voice singing above them on
the side of the mountain. It was a Moorish damsel coming
down, with a vessel upon her head. She descended to a foun
tain which gushed forth beneath a grove of willows, and as she
sang she began to fill her vessel with water. The spies issued
from their concealment, seized h«r, and carried her to Count
Fernan Gonzalez.
Overcome by terror or touched by conviction, the Moorish
damsel threw herself on her knees before the count, declared
her wish to turn Christian, and offered, in proof of her sin
cerity, to put him in a way of gaining possession of the castle.
Being encouraged to proceed, she told him that there was to be
a marriage feast that day in the castle, and of course a great
deal of revelry, which would put the garrison off its guard.
She pointed out a situation where he might lay in ambush with
his troopsln sight of the tower, and promised when a favorable
moment presented for an attack to give a signal with a light.
The count regarded her for a time with a fixed and earnest
gaze, but saw no ^ faltering nor change of countenance. The
case required bold measures, combined with stratagem; so he
18 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
confided in her, and permitted her to return to the castle. All
day he lay in ambush with his troops, each man with his
hand upon his weapon to guard against surprise. The distant
sound of revelry from the castle, with now and then the
clash of cymbals, the bray of trumpets, and a strain of festive
music, showed the gaiety that reigned within. Night came
on ; lights gleamed from walls and windows, but none resem
bling the appointed signal. It was almost midnight, and the
count began to fear the Moorish damsel had deceived him,
when to his great joy he saw the signal light gleaming from
one of the towers.
He now sallied forth with his men, and all, on foot, clam
bered up the steep and rugged height. They had almost
attained the foot of the towers when they were descried by a
sentinel who cried with a loud voice, "The foe! the foe! to
arms ! to arms !" The count, followed by his hardy cavaliers,
rushed forward to the gate, crying, "God and Saint Millan !"
The whole castle was instantly in an uproar. The Moors
were bewildered by the sudden surprise and the confusion of
a night assault. They fought bravely, but irregularly. The
Christians had but one plan and one object. After a hard
struggle and great bloodshed, they forced the gate and made
themselves masters of the castle.
The count remained several days, fortifying the place and
garrisoning it, that it might not fall again into the possession
of the Moors. He bestowed magnificent rewards on the Moor
ish damsel who had thus betrayed her countrymen ; she cm-
braced the Christian faith, to which she had just given such a
signal proof of devotion, though it is not said whether the
count had sufficient confidence in her conversion and her
newly moulded piety to permit her to remain in the fortress
she had betrayed.
Having completed his arrangements, the count departed on
his return, and encountered on the road his mother Dona
Nuna Fernandez, who, exulting in his success, had set out
to visit him at Carazo. The mother and son had a joyful
meeting, and gave the name of Contreras to the place of their
CHRONICLE OF FEIINAN QOXZALRZ 10
;. -j CHAPTER VI.
DEATH OF ALFONSO, KING OF LEON. — THE MOORS DETERMINE])
TO STRIKE A FRESH BLOW AT THE COUNT, WHO SUMMONS ALL
CASTILE TO HIS STANDARD.— OF HIS HUNT IN THE FOREST
WHILE WAITING FOR THE ENEMY, AND OF THE HERMIT THAT
HE MET WITH.
ALFONSO THE GREAT was now growing old and infirm,
and his queen and sons, taking advantage of his ago and
feebleness, endeavored by harsh treatment to compel him to
relinquish the crown. Count Fernan Gonzalez interceded
between them, but in vain ; and Alfonso was at length obliged
to surrender his crown to his oldest son, Don Garcia. The
aged monarch then set out upon a pilgrimage to the shrine of
St. lago; but, falling ill of his mortal malady, sent for the
count to come to him to his death bed at Zamora. The count
hastened thither with all zeal and loyalty. He succeeded in
effecting a reconciliation between Alfonso and his son Don
Garcia in his dying moments, and was with the monarch
when ho quietly breathed his last. The death of the king pave
fresh courage to the Moors, and they thought this a favorable
moment to strike a blow at the rising power of the count.
Abderahman was at this time king of Cordova and Miraniam-
olin, or sovereign of the Moors in Spain. He had been enraged
at the capture of the castle of Carazo, and the other victories
of the count ; and now that the latter had no longer the King
of Leon to back him, it was thought he might, by a vigorous
effort, be completely crushed. Abderahman accordingly as
sembled at Cordova a great army of Moorish warriors, both
those of Spain and Africa, and sent them, under the command
of Almanzor, to ravage the country of Count Fernan Ganz ^lez.
This Almanzor was the most valiant Moorish general in Sr .iin,
and one on whom Abderahman depended as upon his right
hand.
•r On hearing of the impending danger, Count Fernan Gonzalez
summoned all men of Castile capable or bearing arms to repair
to his standard at Mufion. His force when assembled was but
small, but composed of the bravest chivalry of Castile, any
one night of which he esteemed equal to ten Moors. One of
gO MOORISH CHRONICLES.
the most eminent of his cavaliers was Don Gonzalo Gustios, of
Lara, who brought seven valiant sons to the field— the same
afterward renowned in Spanish story as the seven princes of
Lara. With Don Gonzalo came also his wife's brother, Buy or
Rodrigo Velasquez, a cavalier of great powers.
In the meantime tidings continued to arrive of the great
force of the enemy, which was said to cover the country with
its tents. The name of the Moorish general, Almanzor, like
wise inspired great alarm. One of the count's cavaliers, there
fore, Gonzalo Diaz, counselled him not to venture upon an
open battle against such fearful odds ; but rather to make a
tula, or ravaging inroad into the country of the Moors, by way
of compelling them to make a truce. The count, however, re
jected his advice. "As to their numbers, " said he, " one lion
is worth ten sheep, and thirty wolves will kill thirty thousand
lambs. As to 'that Moor, Almanzor, be assured we shall van
quish him, and the greater his renown the greater will be the
honor of the victory."
The count now marched his little army to Lara, where he
paused to await the movements of the enemy. While his
troops were lying there he mounted his horse one day and
went forth with a few attendants to hunt in the forests which
bordered the river Arlanza. In the course of the chase he
roused a monstrous boar and pursued it among rocks and
brakes until he became separated from his attendants. Still
following the track of the boar, he came to the foot of a rocky
precipice, up which the animal mounted by a rugged and nar
row path, where the horse could not follow. The count
alighted, tied his horse to an oak, and clambered up the path,
assisting himself at times with his boar-spear. The path led j
to a close thicket of cedars, surrounding a small edifice partly \
built of stone and partly hewn out of the solid rock. The boar
had taken refuge within, and had taken his stand behind what
appeared to he a mass of stone. The count was about to launch .
his javelin when he beheld a cross of stone standing on what'j
now perceived was an altar, and he knew that he was in a .
holy place. Being as pious as he was brave, the good count j
now knelt before the altar and asked pardon of God for the j
sin he had been on the point of committing ; and when he had
finished this prayer, he added another for victory over the
foe.
While he was yet praying, there entered a venerable monk^
Fray Pelayo by name, who, seeing him to be a Christian
C1IROXICLK Or /••/•:/; .Y.M QONZALBZ 21
knight, gave him his benedict i..n. ]!<• informed t IK- count that
he resided in this hermitage in company with two oth.-r monks
— Arsenic and Silvano. The count marvelled much how 1)1. y
could live therein a country overrun l.y enemies, and vrhidb
had for a long time, and but recently, been in the J>OW«T of the
infidels. The hermit replied that in the service of God tin y
were ready to endure all hardships. It is true they Hill'ei.-d
nnu-h from cold and hunger, being obliged to live chieily on
- and roots; but by secret paths and tracks they wei
communication with other hermitages scattered throughout
the country, so that they were enabled to aid and comfort each
other. They could also secretly sustain in the faith the Chris
tians who were held in subjection by the Moors, taid ailord
them places of refuge and concealment in cases of extremity.
The count now opened his heart to the good hermit, revealing
his name and rank, and the perils impending over him from
the invasion of the infidel. As the day was far spent, Fmy
Pelayo prevailed upon him to pass the night in the hermi'
setting before him barley bread and such simple fare as his
cell afforded.
Early in the morning the count went forth and found the
hermit seated beneath a tree on a rock, whence he could look
far and wide out of the forest and over the surrounding count ry .
The hermit then accosted him as one whose holy and medi
tative life and mortifications of the flesh had given to look into
the future almost with the eye of prophecy. " Of a truth, my
son, ''said he, "there are many trials and hardships in store
for thee; but be of good cheer, thou wilt conquer these Moors,
and wilt increase thy power and possessions." He now re
vealed, to the count certains signs and portents which would
take place during battle. " When thou shalt see these," said
he, "be assured that Heaven is on thy side, and thy victory
re." The count listened with devout attention. " If 1 1
things do indeed come to pass," said he, " I will found a church
and convent in this place, to be dedicated to St. Peter, the
patron saint of this hermitage; and when I die my body shall
be interred here." Receiving then the benediction of the holy
friar he departed.
22 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BATTLE OF THE FORD OF CASCAJARE8.
WHEN Count Fernan Gonzalez returned to his troops he
found them in great alarm at his absence, fearing some evil
had befallen him ; but he cheered them with an account of his
adventure and of the good fortune predicted by the hermit.
It was in the month of May, on the day of the Holy Cross,
that the Christian and Moslem armies came in sight of each
other. The Moors advanced with a great sound of trumpets,
atabals, and cymbals, and their mighty host extended over
hill and valley. When they saw how small was the force of
the Christians they put up derisive shouts, and rushed forward
to surround them.
Don Fernan Gonzalez remained calm and unmoved upon a
rising ground, for the hour was at hand when the sign of vic
tory promised by the hermit was to take place. Near by him
was a youthful cavalier, Pedro Gonzalez by name, a native of
La Puente de Hitero, of fiery courage but vainglorious temper.
He was cased in shining armor, and mounted on a beautiful
horse impatient of spirit as himself, and incessantly foaming
and champing on the bit and pawing the earth. As the Moors
drew near, while there was yet a large space between them and
the Christians, this fiery cavalier could no longer contain
himself, but giving reins to his steed set off headlong to en
counter the foe; when suddenly the earth opened, man and
horse rushed downward into an abyss, and ths earth closed as
before.
A cry of horror ran through the Christian ranks, and a
panic was likely to seize upon them, but Don Fernan Gonzalez
rode out in front of them, exclaiming, ' ' This is the promised
sign of victory. Let us see how Castilians defend their lord,
for my standard shall be borne into the thickest of the fight."
So saying, ho ordered Orbita Fernandez to advance his stan
dard ; and when his troops saw the silver cross glittering on
high and borne toward the enemy, they shouted, ' ' Castile !
Castile!" and rushed forward to the fight. Immediately
around the standard fought Don Gonzalo Gustios and his seven
sons, and he was, say the old chroniclers, like a lion leading
OF FEKXAN GONZALEZ. 23
his whelps into the fight. Wherever they fought their way,
they might bo traced by the bodies c,t bleeding and expiring
infidels. Few particulars of this battle remain on record ; but
it is said the Moors were as if struck with sudden fear nnd
weakness, and fled in confusion. Almanzor himself escaped
by the speed of his horse, attended by a handful of his <
Hers.
In the camp of the Moors was found vast booty in gold ,-m<;
silver, and other precious things, with sumptuous armor and
weapons. When the spoil was divided and the troops were re
freshed, Don Fernan Gonzalez went with his cavaliers in pious
procession to the hermitage of San Pedro. Here he gave much
silver and gold to the worthy Fray Pelayo, to be expended in
masses for the souls of the Christian warriors who had fallen in
battle, and in prayers for further victories over the infidels;
after which he returned in triumph to his capital in Burgos.*
CHAPTER VIII.
OP THE MESSAGE SENT BY THE COUNT TO SANCHO II., KING OF
NAVARRE!, AND THE REPLY. — THEIR ENCOUNTER IN PATTLE.
THE good Count of Castile was so inspirited by this signal
victory over the Moors, and their great general Almanzor,
that he determined, now that he had a breathing-spell from
* It does not appear that Count Fenian Gonzalez kept his promise of founding a
church and monastery on the site of the hermitage. The latter edifice remained to
after ages. "It stands," says Sandoval, "on a precipice overhanging th.-
Arlanza, insomuch that it inspires dread to look below. It is extremely ancient:
large enough to hold a hundred persons. Within the chapel is an opening lik«- a
chasm, leading down to a cavern larger than the church, formed in the solid rock.
with a small window which overlooks the river. It was here the Christians used to
conceal themselves."
As a corroboration of the adventure of the Count of Castile, Sandoval assures us
that in his day the oak still existed to which Don Fernan Gonzalez tied his bore
when lie alighted to scramble up the hill in pursuit of the boar. The worthy F
Agapida. however, needed no corroboration of the kind, swallowing the wh<
with th.- ready credence of a pious monk. The action here recorded was known
by the name of the battle of the Ford of Cascajares.
Sandoval gives a diffr rent account of the fate of the hermits. He says 1
manzor, in a rage at their prognostics, overthrew their chapel, and, witli
ing from his liorse. ordered tlu- three monks to he beheaded in his present-
martyrdom," he adds, " is represented in an ancient painting of the chapel whtoft
itill exists."
24 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
Infidel warfare, to redress certain grievances sustained from
one of his Christian neighbors. This was Don Sancho II.,
King of Navarre, surnamed Abarca, either from the abarcas or
shepherd-shoes which he had worn in early life, when brought
up in secrecy and indigence, during the overthrow of his coun
try by the Moors, or from making his soldiers wear shoes of
the kind in crossing the snowy Pyrenees. It was a name by
which the populace delighted to call him.
This prince had recovered all Navarre from the infidels, and
even subjected to his crown all Biscay, or Cantabria, and some
territory beyond the Pyrenees, on the confines of France. Not
content with these acquisitions, he had made occasional in
roads into Castile, in consequence of a contest respecting the
territories of Najarra and Eioxa, to which he laid claim.
These incursions he repeated whenever he had peace or truce
with the Moors.*
Count Fernan Gonzalez, having now time, as has been ob
served, to attend to these matters, sent an ambassador to
King Sancho, charged with a courteous but resolute message.
"I come, Seiior," said the ambassador to the king, "by com
mand of the Count Fernan Gonzalez of Castile, and this is
what I am told to say. You have done him much wrong in
times past, by leaguing with the infidels and making inroads
into his territories while he was absent or engaged in war. If
you will amend your ways in this respect, and remedy the
past, you will do him much pleasure; but if you refuse, he
sends you his defiance. "
King Sancho Abarca was lost in astonishment and indigna-
tion at receiving such a message from a count of Castile.
"Return to the count," said he, "and tell him I will amend
nothing ; that I marvel at his insolence, and hold him for a
madman for daring to defy me. Tell him he has listened to
evil counsel, or a few trifling successes against the Moors have
turned his brain ; but it will be very different when I come to
seek him, for there is not town or tower from which I will not
drag him forth. " t
The ambassador returned with this reply, nor did he spare
the least of its scorn and bitterness. Upon this the count as
sembled his cavaliers and councillors, and represented the
* Sandoval: The Five Bishops. Mariana, lib. 8, c. 5, p. 367. Cron. Gen. de Ea
pafia, part 3, c. 18, fol. 53.
t Cron, Gen. de Espafia, ut supra.
CHRONICLE OF FERNAN GOXZALEZ. 25
case. He exhorted tkem to stand by him in seeking redress
for this insult and injury to their country and their chieftain.
"We are not equal in numbers to the enemy, but we are va
liant men, united and true to each other, and one hundred
good lances, all in the hands of chosen cavaliers, all of one
heart and mind, are worth three hundred placed by chance in
the hands of men who have no common tie." The cavaliers
all assured him they would follow and obey him as loyal sub
jects of a worthy lord, and would prove their fealty in the day
of battle.
A little army of staunch Castilians was soon assembled, the
silver cross was again reared on high by the standard-bearer
Orbita Velasquez, and the count advanced resolutely a day's
journey into the kingdom of Navarre, for his maxim was to
strike quickly and sudden. King Sancho wondered at his dar
ing, but hastened to meet 'him with a greatly superior force.
The armies came in sight of each other at a place called the
Era de Gollanda.
The count now addressed his men. "The enemy," said he,
" are more numerous than we; they are vigorous of body and
light of foot, and are dexterous in throwing darts. They will
have the advantage if they attack us; but if we attack them
and close manfully, shall get the field of them before they
have time to hurl their darts and wound us. For my part, I
shall make for the king. If I can but revenge the wrongs of
Castile upon his person I care not how soon I die."
As the armies drew near each other the Castilians, true to
the orders of their chieftain, put up the war cry, "Castile!
Castile?" and rushing forward, broke through the squadrons of
Navarre. Then followed a fight so pitiless and deadly, says an
old chronicler, that the strokes of their weapons resounded
through the whole country. The count sought King Sancho
throughout the whole field; they met and recognized each
other by their armorial bearings and devices. They fought
with fury, until both fell from their horses as if dead.
Castilians cut their way through the mass of the enemy, and
surrounded their fallen chief. Some raised him from the
earth while others kept off the foe. At first they thought him
dead, and were loud in their lamentations; but when the blood
and dust were wiped from his face he revived and told them
not to heed him, for Ms wounds were nothing; but to press
on and gain the victory, for he had slain the King of Navarre.
At hearing this they gave a great shout and returned to the
26 MOOniSU OSRONiGLm
fight; but those of Navarre, seized with terror at the fall of
their king, turned their backs and fled.
The count then caused the body of the king to bo taken from
among the slain and to be conducted, honorably attended, to
Navarre, Thus fell Sancho Abarca, King of Navarre, and was
succeeded by his son Don Garcia, surnained the Trembler.
CHAPTER IX.
HOtT THE COUNT OF TOULOUSE MAKES A CAMPAIGN AGAINST
CASTILE, AND HOW HE RETURNS IN HIS COFFIN.
WHILE the Count Fernan Gonzalez was yet ill of his wounds
in his capital, and when his soldiers had scarce laid by their
cuirasses and hung up their shields and lances, there was a
fresh alarm of war. The Count of Toulouse and Poictiers, the
close friend and ally of King Sancho Abarca, had come from
France with a host to his assistance, but finding him defeated
and slain, raised his standard to make a campaign, in his re
venge, against the Castilians. The Navarrese all gathered
round him, and now an army was on foot more powerful than
the one which had recently been defeated.
Count Fernan Gonzalez, wounded as he was, summoned his
troops to march against this new enemy ; but the war-worn
Castilians, vexed at being thus called again to arms before
they had time to breathe, began to murmur. "This is the
life of the very devil," said they "to go about day and night,
without a moment's rest. This lord of ours is assuredly Sa
tan himself, and we are lesser devils in his employ, always
busy entrapping the souls of men. He has no pity for us so
battered and worn, nor for himself, so badly wounded. It is
necessary that some one should talk with him, and turn
him from this madness."
Accordingly a hardy cavalier, Nuno Laynez, remonstrated
with the count against further fighting until he should be
cured of his wounds and his people should have time to repose ;
for mortal men could not support this kind of life. "Nor is
this urged through cowardice," added he, " for your men are
ready to fight for and defend you as they would their own
souls,"
&IIROXICLE OF FEItNAN GONZALEZ. 27
"Well have you spoken, Nufio Layncz," replied the count;
" yet for all this I am not minded to defer this fight. A day
lost never returns. An opportunity foregone can never bo
recalled. The worrier who indulges in repose will never leave
the memory of groat deeds behind liim, His name dies when
his soul leaves the body, Let us, therefore, make the most of
the days and hours allotted us, and crown them with such
glorious deeds that the world shall praise us in all future time."
When Nuiio Laynez repeated these generous words to the
cavaliers, the bloco. giowcd in their veins, and they prepared
themselves manfully for the field ; nor did the count give them
time to cool before he put himself at their head and marched
to meet the enemy. He i'ound them drawn up on the opposite
side of a river which was swollen and troubled by recent
rains. Without hesitation he advanced to ford it, but his
troops were galled by flights of darts and arrows as they
crossed, and received with lances on the water's edge; the
bodies o£ many floated clown the turbid stream, and many
perished on the banks. They made good their crossing, how
ever, and closed with the enemy. The fight was obstinate,
and the Castilians were hardly pressed, being eo inferior in
number. Don Fernan Gonzalez galloped along the front of
the enemy. "Where is the Count of Toulouse?" cried he;
"let him come forth and face me, — me, Fernan Gonzalez of
Castille, who defy him to single combat 1" The count answered
promptly to the defiance. No one from cither side presumed
to interfere while the two counts encountered, man to man
and horse to horse, like honorable and generous cavaliers.
They rushed upon each other with the full speed of their
horses; the lance of Don Fenian pierced through all the
armor and accoutrements of the Count of Toulouse and bore
him out of the saddle, and before ho touched the earth his
soul had already parted from Ms body. The men of Toulouse,
seeing their chief fall dead, fled amain, but were pursued, and
three hundred of them taken."*
The field being won, Count Fernan Gonzalez alighted and
took off the armor of the Count of Toulouse with his own
hands, and wrapped him in a xemete, or Moorish mantle, of
great value, which he had gained when he conquered Alman-
zor. He ordered a coffin to be made, and covered with cloth
of gold, and studded with silver nails, and he put therein the
* Cron. Gen. de EspaSa.
gg MOOEISH
body of the count, and delivered it to the captive cavalier^,
whom he released and furnished with money for their ex^
penses, making them swear not to leave the body of the
count until they had conducted it to Toulouse. So the count
who had come from France in such chivalrous state, at the
head of an array of shining warriors, returned in his coffin
with a mourning train of vanquished cavaliers, while Count
Fernan Gonzalez conducted his victorious troops in triumph
back to Burgos.
This signal victory took place in the year of our Redemption
926, in the beginning of the reign of Alfonso the Monk on th<»
throne of Leon and the Asturias.*
CHAPTER X.
HOW THE COUNT WENT TO RECEIVE THE HAND OF A PRINCESS,
AND WAS THROWN INTO A DUNGEON. — OF THE STRANGER
THAT VISITED HIM IN HIS CHAINS, AND OF THE APPEAL THAT
HE MADE TO THE PRINCESS FOR HIS DELIVERANCE.
GARCIA II., who had succeeded to the throne of Navarre on
the death of his father, was brave of soul, though surnamed El
Tembloso, or The Trembler. He was so called because he was
observed to tremble on going into battle ; but, as has been said
of others, it was only the flesh that trembled, foreseeing the
dangers into which the spirit would carry it. The king was
deeply grieved at the death of his father, slain by Count
Fernan Gonzalez, and would have taken vengeance by open
warfare, but he was counselled by his mother, the Queen
Teresa, to pursue a subtler course. At her instigation over
tures were made to the count to settle all the feuds between
Navarre and Castile by a firm alliance, and to this end it watf
proposed that the count should take to wife Dona Sancha, the
sister of King Garcia and daughter of King Sancho Abarca.
The count accepted gladly the proffered alliance, for he had
heard of the great merit and beauty of the princess, and was
pleased with so agreeable a mode of putting an end to all their
contests. A conference was accordingly appointed between
* Mariana, lib. 8, c. 5, p. 367.
wMru-; or J'KRNAN GONZALEZ. 29
the count and King Garcia, to lake place at Ciruena, each to
be attended only by five cavaliers.
The count was faithful to his compact, and appeared at the
appointed place with five of the bravest of his < : but
the king arrived with five-and-thirty chosen men, all armed
cap-a-pie. The count, suspecting treachery, retreated with
his cavaliers into a neighboring hermitage, and, barricading
the door, defended himself throughout the day until ni
fall. Seeing there was no alternative, he at length capitul
and agreed to surrender himself a prisoner, and pay homage
to the king, on the latter assuring him, under oath, that his
life should be secure. King Garcia the Trembler, having in
this wily manner gained possession of the count, threw him in
irons and conducted him prisoner to Navarre, where he con
fined him in a strong castle called Castro Viejo. At his
intercession, however, his five cavaliers were released, and
carried back to Castile the doleful tidings of his captivity.
Now it came to pass that a brave Norman count, who was
performing a pilgrimage to St. lago of Compostella, heard that
the Count Fernan Gonzalez, whose renown had spread far and
wide, lay in chains in Castro Viejo. Having a vehement de
sire to see the man of whom fame had spoken so loudly, he re
paired to the castle, and bribed his way to the prison of the
count. When he entered and beheld so noble a cavalier in a
solitary dungeon and in chains, he was sore at heart. The
count looked up with wonder as this stranger stood before him
in pilgrim garb and with sorrowful aspect, but when he learned
his name and rank, and the object of his visit, he gave him
the right hand of friendship.
The pilgrim count left the castle more enamored than ever of
the character of Count Fernan Gonzalez. At a festival of the
court he beheld the Princess Sancha, who had served as a lure
to draw the good count into the power of his enemies, and he
found her of surpassing beauty, and of a gentle and loving de
meanor; so he determined to seek an opportunity to speak
with her in private, for surely, thought he, in such a bosom
must dwell the soft pity of womanhood. Accordingly, one day
as the princess was walking in the garden with her ladi<
presented himself before her in his pilgrim's garb, and prayed
to speak with her apart, as if on some holy mission. And when
they were alone, "How is this, Princess," said he, "that you
are doing such great wrong to Heaven, to yourself, and to all
Christendom ?" The princess started, and said, "What wrong
20 MOOEISn CHRONICLES.
have I done?" Then replied the pilgrim count, "Behold, for
thy sake the noblest of cavaliers, the pride of Spain, the flower
of chivnlry, the hope of Christendom, lies in a dungeon, fettered
with galling chains. What lady but would be too happy to be
honored with the love of Count Fernan Gonzalez ; and thou
hast scorned it ! How will it tell for thy fame in future times,
that thou wast made a snare to capture an honorable knight ;
that the gentlest, the bravest, the most generous of cavaliers
was inveigled by the love of thce to be thrown into a dungeon?
How hast thou reversed the maxims of chivalry ! Beauty has
ever been the friend of valor; but thou hast been its foe ! The
fair hands of lovely dames have ever bestowed laurels and re
wards on those gallant knights who sought and deserved their
loves ; thou hast bestowed chains and a dungeon. Behold, the
Moors rejoice in his captivity, while all Christians- mourn.
Thy name will be accursed throughout the land like that of
Cava; but shouldst thou have the heroism to set him free, thou
wilt be extolled above all Spanish ladies. Hadst thou but seen
him as I have done,— alone, abandoned, enchained; yet so no
ble, so courteous, so heroic in his chains, that kings upon their
thrones might en\y the majesty of his demeanor. If thou
could st feel love for man, thou shouldst do it for tins knight;
for I swear to thee on this cross which I bear, that never was
there king or emperor in the world so worthy of woman's
love." When the pilgrim count had thus spoken, he left the
princess to meditate upon his words.
CHAPTER XI.
OF THE MEDITATIONS OF THE PRINCESS, AND THEIR RESULT. —
HER FLIGHT FROM THE PRISON WITH THE COUNT, AND PERILS
OF THE ESCAPE.— THE NUPTIALS.
THE Princess Sancha remained for some time in the garden,
revolving in her mind all that she had just heard, and tender
ness for the Count Fernan Gonzalez began to awaken in her
bosom ; for nothing so touches the heart of woman as the idea
of valor suffering for her sake. The more the princess medi
tated the more she became enamored. She called to mind all
she had heard of the illustrious actions of the count. She
CDROX1CLE OF FEUNAN GONZALEZ. 31
thought upon the pictures just drawn of him in prison
noble, so majestic in his chains. She remembered the parting
words of the pilgrim count— "Never \vasilu-iv king nor emperor
so worthy of a woman's love." "Alas !" cried she, " was thcro
ever a lady more unfortunate than I? All the love and devo
tion of this noble cavalier I might have had, and behold it has
been made a mockery. Both he and myself have been wronged
by the treachery of my brother."
At length the passion of the princess arose to such a height
that she determined to deliver the count from the misery of
which she had been the instrument. So she found means one
night to bribe the guards of his prison, and made her way to
his dungeon. When the count saw her, he thought it a beauti
ful vision, or some angel sent from heaven to comfort him, for
certainly her beauty surpassed the ordinary loveliness of
woman.
" Noble cavalier," said the princess, " this is no tune for idle
words and ceremonies. Behold before you the Princess Dona
Sancha ; the word which my brother brake I am here to fulfil.
You came to receive my hand, and, instead, you were thrown
hi chains. I come to yield you that hand, and to deliver you
from those chains. Behold, the door of your prison is open,
and I am ready to fly with you to the ends of the earth. S w« - 1 r
to me one word, and when you have sworn it, I know your
loyalty too well to doubt that you will hold your oath sacred.
Swear that if I fly with you, you will treat me with the honor
of a knight ; that you will make me your wife, and never leave
me for any other woman."
The count swore all this on the faith of a Christian cavalier;
and well did he feel disposed to keep his oath, for never before
had he beheld such glorious beauty.
So the princess led the way, for her authority and her money
had conquered the fidelity of the guards, so that they permitted
the count to sally forth with her from the prison.
It was a dark night, and they left the great road and climbed
a mountain. The count was so fettered by his chains that he
moved with difficulty, but the princess helped and sometimes
almost carried him; for what will not delicate woman perform
when her love and pity are fully aroused. Thus they toiled on
their way until the day dawned, when they hid themseh
the clifts of the mountain, amonp: ro< ks and thickets. AYhil«
thus concealed they beheld an archpriest of the castle, moi
on a mule with a falcon on his fist, hawking about the lower
32 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
part of the mountain. The count knew him to be a base and
malignant man, and watched his movements with great anxiety.
He had two hounds beating about the bushes, which at length
got upon the traces of the count and princess, and discovering
them, set up a violent barking. Alighting from his mule, the
archpriest clambered up to where the fugitives were concealed.
He knew the count, and saw that he had escaped. "Aha!
traitor," cried he, drawing Ms sword, "think not to escape
from the power of the king. " The count saw that resistance
was in vain, for he was without weapon and in chains, and the
archpriest was a powerful man, exceeding broad across the
shoulders ; he sought therefore to win him by fair words, prom
ising that if he would aid him to escape he would give him a
city in Castile, for him and his heirs forever. But the arch-
priest was more violent than ever, and held his sword at the
breast of the count to force him back to the castle. Upon this
the princess rushed forward, and with tears in her eyes im
plored him not to deliver the count into the hands of his ene
mies. But the heart of the priest was inflamed by the beauty
of the princess, and thinking her at his mercy, " Gladly," said
he, ' ' will I assist the count to escape, but upon one condition.
Then he whispered a proposal which brought a crimson glow
of horror and indignation into the cheeks of the princess, and
he would have laid his hand upon her, but he *was suddenly
lifted from the earth by the strong grasp of the count, who
bore him to the edgj of a precipice and flung him headlong
down ; and his neck was broken in the fall.
The count then took the mule of the archpriest, his hawk,
and his hounds, and after keeping in the secret parts of the
mountain all day, he and the princess mounted the mule at
night, and pursued their way, by the most rugged and unfre
quented passes, toward Castile.
As the day dawned they found themselves in an open plain
at the foot of the mountains, and beheld a body of horsemen
riding toward them, conducting a car, in which sat a knight in
armor, bearing a standard. The princess now gave all up for
lost. " These," said she, "are sent by my brother in pursuit of
us; how can we escape, for this poor animal has no longer
strength nor speed to bear us up the mountains?" Upon this
Count Fernan alighted, and drawing the sword of the arch-
priest, placed himself in a narrow pass. "Do you," said he to
the princess, "turn baCk and hasten to the mountains, and
dearly shall it cost him who attempts to follow you." "Not
K OF FERNAX QONZALRZ. 33
so," replied the prince/is; "lor the love of me hast thuu
brought from thine own domain and betrayed into all these
dangers, and I will abide to share them with thee."
The count would have remonstrated, when to his astonish
ment he saw, as the car drew near, that the knight seat-
it was clad in his own armor, with his own devices, and hold
his own banner in his hand. "Surely," said he, crossing him
self, " this is enchantment;" but on looking still nearer, he rec
ognized among the horsemen Nuno Sandias and Nuiio La\
two of his most faithful knights. Then his heart leaped for
joy. "Fear nothing," cried he to the princess; "behold my
standard, and behold my vassals. Those whom you feared
as enemies shall kneel at your feet and kiss your hand in
homage."
Now so it appears that the tidings of the captivity of the
count had spread mourning and consternation throughout
Castile, and the cavaliers assembled together to devise means
for his deliverance. And certain of them had prepared this
effigy of the count, clad in his armor and bearing his banner
and devices, and having done homage and sworn fealty to it
as they would have done to the count himself, they had placed
it in this car and set forth with it as a leader, making a vow,
in the spirit of ancient chivalry, never to return to their
homes until they should have delivered the count from his
captivity.
When the cavaliers recognized the count, they put up shouts
of joy, and kissed his hands and the hands of the princess in
token of devoted loyalty. And they took off the fetters of the
count and placed him in the car and the princess beside him,
and returned joyfully to Castile.
Vain would be the attempt to describe the transports of the
multitude as Count Fernan Gonzalez entered his noble capital
of Burgos. The Princess Sancha, also, was hailed with bless
ings wherever she passed, as the deliverer of their lord and the
saviour of Castile, and shortly afterward her nuptials with the
count were celebrated with feasting and rejoicing and tilts and
tournaments, which lasted for many days.
34 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
CHAPTER XII.
KING GARCIA CONFINED IN BURGOS BY THE COUNT. — THE PRINCESS
INTERCEDES FOR HIS RELEASE.
THE rejoicings for the marriage of Count Fernan Gonzalez
with the beautiful Princess Sancha were scarcely finished
when Kin^ Garcia the Trembler came with a powerful army
to revenge his various affronts. The count sallied forth to
meet him, and a bloody and doubtful battle ensued. Tho
Navarrese at length were routed, and the king was wounded
and taken prisoner in single comba-t by Count Fernan, who
brought him to Burgos and put him in close confinement.
The Countess Dona Sancha was now almost as much alflicted
at the captivity of her brother as she had been at that of the
count, and interceded with her husband for his release. The
count, however, retained too strong a recolbction of the bad
faith of King Garcia and of his own treacherous and harsh im-
'prisonmont to be easily moved, and the king was kept in
duress for a considerable time. The countess then interested
the principal cavaliers in her suit, reminding them of the ser-
vice3 she had rendered them in aiding the escape of their lord.
Through their united intercessions the count was induced to
relent ; so King Garcia the Trembler was released and treated
with great honor, and sent back to his dominions with a
retinue befitting his rank.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE EXPEDITION AGAINST THE ANCIENT CITY CF SYLO. — THB
UNWITTING TRESPASS OF THE COUNT INTO A CONVENT, AND
HIS COMPUNCTION THEREUPON.
VOLUMES would it take to follow the Count Fernan Gonzalez
in his heroic achievements against the infidels— achievements
which give to sober history almost the air of fable. I forbear
to dwell at large upon one of his campaigns, wherein he
scoured the Valley of Laguna ; passed victoriously along the
CHRONICLE OF FI-U\A.\ <;<J.\ZALh'Z. 35
banks of the Douro, building towers and castles to keep the
country in subjection ; how he scaled the walls of the castle of
Onnaz, being the first to mount, sword in hand ; how by the
valor of his arm ho captured the city of Orma ; how he took
the town of Sandoval, the origin of the cavaliers of Sandoval,
who were anciently called Salvadores ; how he made an inroad
even to Madrid, then a strongly fortified village, and having
taken and sacked it, returned in triumph to Burgos.
But it would be wronging the memory ot this great and
good cavalier to pass in silence over one of his exploits in
which he gave a singular instance of his piety. This was in
an expedition against the ancient city of Sylo. It was not a
place of much value in itself, being situated in a cold and
sterile country, but it had become a stronghold of the Moors,
whence they carried on their warfare. This place the count
carried by assault, entering it in full armor, on his steed, over
turning and slaying all who opposed him. In the fury of his
career he rode into a spacious edifice which he supposed to be
a mosque, with the pious intention of slaying every infidel he
might find within. On looking round, however, great was his
astonishment at beholding images of saints, the blessed cross
of our Saviour, and various other sacred objects, which an
nounced a church devoted to the veritable faith. Struck with
remorse, ho sprang from his horse, threw himself upon his
knees, and with many tears implored pardon of God for the
sin he had unknowingly committed. While he was yet on his
knees, several monks of the order of St. Dominic approached,
meagre in looks and squalid in attire, but hailing him with
great joy as their deliverer. In sooth this was a convent ot
San Sebastian, the fraternity of which had remained captives
among the Moors, supporting themselves poorly by making
baskets, but permitted to continue in the exercise of their reli
gion.
Still filled with pious compunction for the trespass he had
made, the count ordered that the shoes should be taken from
his horse and nailed upon the door of the church ; for never,
said he, shall they tread any other ground after having trod
den this holy place. From that day, we are told, it has been
the custom to nail the shoos of horses on the portal of that con
vent -a custom which has extended to many other places.
The worthy Fray Prudencia do Sandoval records a marvel
lous memento of the expedition of the count against this city,
which remained, he says, until his day. Not far from the
36 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
place, on the road which passes by Lara, is to be seen the print
of his horse's hoofs in a solid rock, which has received the im
pression as though it had Been made in softened wax.* It is
to be presumed that the horse's hoofs had been gifted with
miraculous hardness in reward to the count for his pious obla
tion of the shoes.
CHAPTER XIV.
OF THE MOORISH HOST THAT CAME UP FROM CORDOVA, AND
HOW THE COUNT REPAIRED TO THE HERMITAGE OF SAN
PEDRO, AND PRAYED FOR SUCCESS AGAINST THEM, AND RE
CEIVED ASSURANCE OF VICTORY IN A VISION.— BATTLE OF
HAZINAS.
THE worthy Fray Antonia Agapida, from whose manu
scripts this memoir is extracted, passes by many of the strik
ing and heroic deeds of the count, which crowd the pages of
ancient chroniclers; but the good friar ever is sure to dwell
with delight upon any of those miraculous occurrences which
took place in Spain in those days, and which showed the
marked interposition of Heaven in behalf of the Christian war
riors in their battles with the infidels. Such was the renowned
battle of Hazinas, which, says Agapida, for its miraculous
events is worthy of eternal blazon.
Now so it was that the Moorish king of Cordova had sum
moned all the faithful, both of Spain and Africa, to assist him
in recovering the lands wrested from him by the unbelievers,
and especially by Count Fernan Gonzalez in his late victories ;
and such countless legions of turbaned warriors were assem
bled that it was said they covered the plains of Andalusia like
swarms of locusts.
Hearing of their threatening approach, the count gathered
together his forces at Piedrafita, while the Moors encamped in
Hazinas. When, however, he beheld the mighty host arrayed
against him, his heart for once was troubled with evil fore
bodings, and, calling to mind the cheering prognostications of
the friar Pelayo on a like occasion, he resolved to repair again
* Randoval, p. 3J3.
CURONtCLE OF FEUNAN QOXZ A ].!•'/.. 3,
to that holy man for counsel. Leaving his camp, therefore,
secretly, he set out, accompanied by two cavaliers, to seek the
chapel which hu had ordered to be built at the hermitage oi
San Pedro, on the mountain overhanging the river Arlanza,
but when arrived there he heard to his great grief that the
worthy friar was dead.
Entering the chapel, however, he knelt down at the altar
and prayed for success in the coming fight ; humbly represent
ing that ho had never, like many of the kings and nobles of
Spain, done homage to the infidels and acknowledged them for
sovereigns. The count remained a long time at prayer, until
sleep gradually stole over him ; and as he lay slumbering be
fore the altar, the holy Fray Pelayo appeared before him in a
vision, clad in garments as white as snow. "Why sleepest
thou, Fernan Gonzalez?" said he; "arise, and go forth, and
know that thou shalt conquer those Moors. For, inasmuch as
thou art a faithful vassal of the Most High, he has commanded
the Apostle San lago and myself, with many angels, to come
to thy aid, and we will appear in the battle clad in white
armor, with each of us a red cross upon our pennon. There
fore arise, I say, and go hence with a valiant heart."
The count awoke, and while he was yet musing upon the
vision, he heard a voice, saying, "Arise, and get thee hence;
why dost thou linger? Separate thy host into three divisions:
enter the field of battle by the east, with the smallest division,
and I will be with thee ; and let the second division enter by
the west, and that shall be aided by San lago ; and let the third
division enter by the north. Know that I am San Millan who
come to thee with this message."
The count departed joyfully from the chapel, and returned
to his army ; and when he told Ms troops of this, his second
visit to the hermitage, and of the vision he had had, and how
the holy friar San Pelayo had again assured him of victory,
their hearts were lifted up, and they rejoiced to serve under a
leader who had such excellent counsellors in war.
In the evening preceding the battle, Don Fernan Gonzalez
divided his forces as he had been ordered. The first division
was composed of two hundred horsemen and six thousand in
fantry ; hardy mountaineers, light of foot and of great valor.
In the advance were Don Gustios Gonzalez of Salas, and his
tfeven sons and two nephews, and his brother Ruy Velasquez,
and a valiant cavalier named Gonzalo Dias.
The second division was led by Don Lope de Biscaya, with
38 tiooi ran CHRONICLES.
the people of Burueba and Trevino, and Old Castile and Oast,rss
and the Asturias. Two hundred horsemen and six thousand
infantry.
The third division was led by the count himself, and with
him went Euy Cavia, and Nuno Cavia, and the Velascos,
whom the count that day dubbed knights, and twenty
esquires of the count, whom he had likewise knighted. His
division consisted of four hundred and fifty horse and fifteen
hundred foot ; and he told his men that if they should not con
quer the Moors on the following day, they should draw off
from the battle when he gave the word. Late at night, when
all the camp, excepting the sentinels and guards, were buried
in sleep, a light suddenly illumined the heavens, and a great
serpent was seen in the air, wounded and covered with blood,
and vomiting flames, and making a loud hissing that awakened
all the soldiers. They rushed out of their tents, and ran
hither and thither, running against each other in their affright.
Count Fernan Gonzalez was awakened by their outcries, but
before he came forth the serpent had disappeared. He
rebuked the terrors of his people, representing to them that the
Moors were great necromancers, and by their arts could raise
devils to their aid; and that some Moorish astrologer had
doubtless raised this spectrum to alarm them; but he bade
them be of good heart, since they had San lago on their side,
and might set Moor, astrologer, and devil at defiance.
In the first day's fight Don Fernan fought hand to hand with
a powerful Moor, who had desired to try his prowess with
him. It was an obstinate contest, in which the Moor was
slain ; but the count was so badly wounded that he fell to the
earth, arid had not his men surrounded and defended him, he
would have been slain or captured. The battle lasted all day
long, and Gustios Gonzalez and his kindred warriors showed
prodigies of valor. Don Fernan, having had his wounds
stanched, remounted his horse and galloped about, giving
courage to his men ; but he was covered with dust and blood,
and so hoarse that he could no longer be heard. The sun
went down, the Moors kept on fighting, confiding in their
great numbers. The count, seeing the night approaching,
ordered the trumpets to be sounded, and, collecting his troops,
made one general charge on the Moors, and drove them from
the field. He then drew off his men to their tents, where the
weary troops found refreshment and repose, though they
slept all night on their arms.
OF FERNAN GONZALEZ. &j
On the second day tho count rose before the dawn, and hav
ing attended mass like a good Christian, attended next to his
horses, like a good cavalier, seeing with his own eyes that they
were well led and groomed, and prepared for the field. Tho
battle this day was obstinate as the day before, with great
valor and loss on cither side.
On tho third day the count led forth his forces at an early
hour, raising his silver standard of the cross, and praying de
voutly for aid. Then lowering their lances, tho Castilians
shouted San lago ! San lago ! and rushed to the attack.
Don Gustios Gonzalo de tSalas, the loader cf one of the divi
sions, made a lane into the centre of the Moorish host, dealing
death on either side. He was met by a Moorish cavalier of
powerful frame. Covering themselves with their shields, they
attacked each other with great fury but the days of Gustios
Gonzalo were numbered, for the Moor slew him, and with him
fell a nephew of Count Fornan, and many of his principal cav
aliers.
Count Fcrnan Gonzalez encountered the Moor who had just
slain his friend. The infidel would have avoided him, having
heard that never man escaped alive from a conflict with him ;
but the count gave him a furious thrust with his lance, which
stretched him dead upon the field.
The Moors, however, continued to press the count sorely,
and their numbers threatened to overwhelm him. Then he
put up a prayer for the aid promised in his vision, and of a
sudden the Apostle San lago appeared, with a great and shin
ing company of angels in white, bearing the device of a red
cross, and all rushing on the Moors. The Moors were dismayed
at the sight of this reinforcement to tho enemy. The Chris
tians, on the other hand, recovered their forces, knowing the
Apostle San lago to be at hand. They charged the Moors with
new vigor, and put them to flight, and pursued them for two
days, killing and making captive. They then returned and
gathered together the bodies of the Christians who had been
slain, and buried them in the chapel of San Pedro of Arlanza,
and in other hermitages. The bodies of the Moors were piled
up and covered with earth, forming a pile which is still to bo
seen on the field of battle.
Some have ascribed to the signal worn in this battle by the
celestial warriors the origin of the Cross of Calatrava*
40 MOORISH
CHAPTER XV.
THE COUNT IMPRISONED BY THE KING OF LEON. — THE COUNTESS
CONCERTS HIS ESCAPE. — LEON AND CASTILE UNITED BY THE
MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE ORDONO WITH URRACA, THE DAUGH
TER OF THE COUNT BY HIS FIRST WIFE.
NOT long after this most renowned and marvellous battle, a
Moorish captain named Aceyfa became a vassal of the Count
Don Fernan. Under his protection, and that of a rich and
powerful Castilian cavalier named Diego Munon, he rebuilt
Salamanca and Ledesma, and several places on the river
Tormes, which had been desolated and deserted in times past.
Ramiro the Second, who was at this time King of Leon, was
alarmed at seeing a strong line of Moorish fortresses erected
along the borders of his territories, and took the field with an
army to drive the Moor Aceyfa from the land. The proud spirit
of Count Fernan Gonzalez was aroused at this attack upon his
Moorish vassal, which he considered an indignity offered to
himself; so being seconded by Don Diego Munon, he marched
forth with his chivalry to protect the Moor. In the present
instance he had trusted to his own head, and had neglected to
seek advice of saint or hermit ; so his army was defeated by
King Ramiro, and himself and Don Diego Munon taken pris
oner. The latter was sent in chains to the castle of Gordon ;
but the count was carried to Leon, where he was confined in a
tower of the wall, which is to this day pointed out as his
prison.*
All Castile was thrown into grief and consternation by this
event, and lamentations were heard throughout the land, as
though the count had been dead. The countess, however, did
not waste time in idle tears, for she was a lady of more valiant
spirit. She forthwith assembled five hundred cavaliers, chosen
men of tried loyalty and devotion to the count. They met in
the chapel of the palace, and took an oath upon the Holy
Evangelists to follow the countess through all difficulties and
* In the Cronica General de Espafia, this imprisonment is said to have been by
King Sancho the Fat; but the cautious Agapida goes according to his favorite San-
doval in attributing it to King Ramiro, and in so doing he is supported by thf
Chronicle of Bleda. L. 3, c. 19.
C7/A'o.\. .V.V.I. V GONZALEZ 41
dangers, and to obey implicitly aiJ her commands for the
rescue of their lord. With this band the countess departed
secretly at nightfall, and travelled rapidly until morning, whc-n
they left the roads, and took to the mountains, lest their march
should be discovered. Arrived near Leon, she halted her band
in a thick wood in the mountain of Samosa where she ordered
thorn to remain in secrecy. Then clothing herself as a pilgrim
v.-ith her staff and pannier, she sent word to King Ramiro that
she was on a pilgrimage to San lago, and entreated that she
might have pel-mission to visit her husband in his prison.
King Ramiro not merely granted her request, but sallied forth
above a league from the city with a great retinue to do her
honor. So the countess entered a second time the prison where
the count lay in chains, and stood before him as his protecting
angel. At sight of him in this miserable and dishonored state,
however, the valor of spirit which had hitherto sustained her
gave way, and tears flowed from her eyes. The count re
ceived her joyfully, and reproached her with her tears; u for
it becomes us," said he, "to submit to what is imposed upon
us by God."
The countess now sent to entreat the kmg that while she re
mained with the count his chains should be taken off. The
king again granted her request ; and the count was freed from
his irons and an excellent bed prepared in his prison.
The countess remained with him all night and concerted his
escape. Before it was daylight she gave him her pilgrim's
dress and staff, and the count went forth from the chamber
disguised as his wife. The porter at the outer portal, thinking
it to be the countess, would have waited for orders from the
king; but the count, in a feigned voice, entreated not to be de
tained, lest he shoul^ not be able to perform his pilgrimage.
The porter, mistrusting no deceit, opened the door. The count
issued forth, repaired to a place pointed out by the countess,
where the two cavaliers awaited him with a fleet horse. They
all sallied quietly forth from the city at the opening of the
gates, until they found themselves clear of the walls, when
they put spurs to their horses and made their way to the
mountain of Samosa. Here the count was received with
shouts of joy by the cavaliers whom the countess had left there
in concealment.
As the day advanced the keeper of the prison entered the
apartment of Don Fernan, but was astonished to find there
the beautiful countess in place of her warrior husband, Ho
42 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
conducted her before the king-, accusing her of the fraud by
which she had effected the escape cf tin count. King Ramiro
was greatly incensed, and he demand jd of the countess how
she dared to do such an act. " I dared," replied she, "because
I saw iny husband in misery, and felt it my duty to relieve
him ; and I dared because I was the daughter of a king, and
the wife of a distinguished cavalier ; as such I trust to your
chivalry to treat me."
The king was charmed with her intrepidity. " Senora," said
he, " you have acted well and like a noble lady, and it will re
dound to your laud and honor." So he commanded that she
should be conducted 1o her husband in a manner befitting a
lady of high and noble rank; and the count was overjoyed to
receive her in safety, and they returned to their dominions
ana entered Burgos at the head of their train of cavaliers,
amudst the transports and acclamations of their people. And
Kiug Ramiro sought the amity of Count Fernan Gonzalez, and
proposed that they should unite their houses by some matri
monial alliance which should servo as a bond of mutual se-
cui-jty. The count gladly listened to his proposals. He had a
fait' daughter named Urraca, by his first wife, who was now
arr/ved at a marriageable age ; so it was agreed that nuptials
shoald bo solemnized between her and the Prince Ordoiio, son
cf King Ramiro; and all Leoi* and Castile rejoiced at this
union, which promised tranquillity to the land.
CHAPTER XVI
MOORISH INCURSION INTO CASTILE. —BATTLE OF SAN ESTEVAN.—
OF PASCUAL VIVAS AND THE MIRACLE THAT BEFELL HIM. —
DEATH OF ORDONO HI.
FOR several succeeding years of the career of this most re
doubtable cavalier, the most edifying and praiseworthy tracer
which remain, says Fray Antonio Agapida, are to be found in
the archives of various monasteries, consisting of memorials of
pious gifts and endowments made by himself and his countess,
Doiia Sancha.
In the process of time King Ramiro died, and was succeeded
by his son Ordoiio III., the same who had married Urraca, the
CHRONICLE OF FERN AN GONZALEZ. 43
daughter of Count Fernan. Re was surnamed the Fierce,
either from his savage temper or savage aspect. He* had a
step-brother named Don Sancho, nephew, by the mother's side,
of King Garcia of Navarre, surnamed the Trembler. This Don
Sancho rose in arms against Ordofio at the very outset of his
reign, seeking to deprive him of his crown. He applied for
assistance to his uncle Garcia and to Count Fernan Gonzalez,
and it is said both favored his pretensions. Nay, the count
soon appeared in the field in company with King Garcia the
Trembler, in support of Prince Sancho. It may seem strange
that he should take up arms against his own son-in-law ; and
so it certainly appeared to Ordofio III., for he was so incensed
against the count that he repudiated his wife Urraca and sent
her back to her father, telling him that since he would not ac
knowledge him as king, he should not have him for son-in-law.
The kingdom now became a prey to civil wars; the restless
part of the subjects of King Ordofio rose in rebellion, and
everything was in confusion. King Ordofio succeeded, how
ever, in quelling the rebellion, and defended himself so ably
against King Garcia and Count Fernan Gonzalez, that they re
turned home without effecting their object.
About this time, say the records of Compostello, the sinful
dissensions of the Christians brought on them a visible and
awful scourge from Heaven. A great flame, or, as it were, a
cloud of fire, passed throughout the land, burning towns, de
stroying men and beasts, and spreading horror and devastation
even over the sea. It passed over Zamora, consuming a great
part of the place ; it scorched Castro Xerez likewise, and Bre-
biesco and Pan Corvo in its progress, and in Burgos one hundred
houses were consumed.
" These," says the worthy Agapida, "were fiery tokens of
the displeasure of Heaven at the sinful conduct of the Chris
tians in warring upon each other, instead of joining their arms
like brethren in the righteous endeavor to extirpate the vile sect
of Mahomet."
While the Christians were thus fighting among themselves,
the Moors, taking advantage of their discord, came with a great
army, and made an incursion into Castile as far as Burgos.
King Ordofio and Count Fernan Gonzalez, alarmed at the
common danger, came to a reconciliation, and took arms to
gether against the moors ; thougn it does not appear that the
king received again his repudiated wife Urraca. These con
federate princes gave the Moors a great battle near to San
44 MOORISH CHRONICLES,.
Estevan. "This battle," says Fray Antonio Agapida, "in
chiefly memorable for a miracle which occurred there, " and
which is recorded by the good friar with an unction and perfect j
credence worthy of a monkish chronicler.
The Christians were incastellated at San Estevan de Gormaz,;-
which is near the banks of the Douro. The Moors had posses-1
sion of the fortress of Gormaz, about a league further up the!
river on a lofty and rocky height.
The battle commenced at the dawn of day. Count Fernan;
Gonzalez, however, before taking the field, repaired with his!
principal cavaliers to the church, to attend the first morning's]
mass. Now, at this time, there was in the service of the count!
a brave cavalier named Pascual Vivas, who was as pious as hej
was brave, and would pray with as much fervor and obstinacy;
as he would fight. This cavalier made it a religious rule with!
himself, or rather had made a solemn vow, that, whenever her
entered a church in the morning, he would on no account leave!
it until all the masses were finished.
On the present? occasion the firmness of this brave but pious
cavalier was put to a severe proof. When the first mass was"
finished, the count and his cavaliers rose and sallied from th&i
church in clanking armor, and soon after the sound of trumpet
and quick tramp of steed told that they were off to the en*
counter. Pascual Vivas, however, remained kneeling all in
armor before the altar, waiting, according to custom, until all
the masses should be finished. The masses that morning weref
numerous, and hour after hour passed away; yet still the
cavalier remained kneeling all in armor, with weapon in hand,
yet so zealous in his devotion that he never turned his head.
All this while the esquire of the cavalier was at the door oijj
the church, holding his war-horse, and the esquire beheld with
surprise the count and his warriors depart, while his lord re
mained in the chapel ; and, from the height on which the chapel
stood, he could see the Christian host encounter the Moors at
the ford of the river, and could hear the distant sound of trum
pets and din of battle; and at the sound the war-horse pricked
up his ears, snuffed the air, and pawed the earth, and showeoj
all the eagerness of a noble steed to be among the armed menJ
but still Pascual Vivas came not out of the chapel. The es-i
quire was wroth, and blushed for his lord, for he thought itj
was through cowardice and not piety that he remained in the
chapel while his comrades were fighting in the field.
At length the masses were finished, and Pascual Vivas wasi
CBRONICLE OF FERNAN GONZALEZ. 45
about to sally forth when horsemen came riding up the hill
with shouts of victory, for the battle was over and the Moors
completely vanquished.
When Pascual Vivas heard this he was so troubled in mind
that he dared not leave the chapel nor come into the presence
of the count, for he said to himself, "Surely I shall be looked
upon as a recreant knight, who have hidden myself in the hour
of danger. " Shortly, however, came some of his fellow-cava-
iers, summoning him to the presence of the count ; and as he
went with a beating heart, they lauded him for the valor he
lad displayed and the great services he had rendered, saying
;hat to the prowess of his arm they owed the victory. The good
might, imagining they were scoffing at him, felt still more
cast down in spirit, and entered the presence of the count cov
ered with confusion. Here again he was received with praises
and caresses, at which he was greatly astonished, but still
;hought it all done in mockery. When the truth came to be
mown, however, all present were filled with wonder, for it
appeared as if this cavalier had been, at the same moment, in
;he chapel, and in the field ; for while he remained on his knees
>efore the altar, with his steed pawing the earth at the door, a
warrior exactly resembling him, with the same arms, device,
and steed, had appeared in the hottest of the fight, penetrating
and overthrowing whole squadrons of Moors ; that he had cut
us way to the standard of the enemy, killed the standard-
>earer, and carried off the banner in triumph ; that his pour-
>oint and coat of mail were cut to pieces, and his horse covered
with wounds; yet still he fought on, and through his valor
ehiefly the victory was obtained.
What more moved astonishment was that for every wound
received by the warrior and his steed in the field, there appeared
narks on the pourpoint and coat of mail and upon the steed of
?ascual Vivas, so that he had the semblance of having been in
bhe severest press of the battle.
The matter was now readily explained by the worthy friars
who followed the armies in those days, and who were skilful
n expounding the miracles daily occurring in those holy wars.
A miraculous intervention had been vouchsafed to Pascual
Vivas. That his piety in remaining at his prayers might not
mt him to shame before sinful men, an angel bearing his form
md semblance had taken his place in battle, and fought while
be prayed.
The matter being thus explained, all present were filled with
CHRONICLES.
pious Admiration, and Pascual Vivas, if he ceased to be extolled
as a warrior, came near being canonized as a saint.*
King Ordono III. did not long survive this battle. Scarce
had he arrived at Zamora on his way homeward, when he
was seized with a mortal malady of which he died. He was
succeeded by his brother Don Sancho, the same who had for
merly endeavored to dispossess him of his throne.
CHAPTER XVH
KING SANCHO THE FAT. — OF THE HOMAGE HE EXACTED FROM
COUNT FERNAN GONZALEZ, AND OF THE STRANGE BARGAIN
THAT HE MADE WITH HIM FOR THE PURCHASE OF HIS HORSE
AND FALCON.
KING SANCHO I., on ascending the throne, held a cortes at
Leon, where all the great men of the kingdom and the princes
who owed allegiance to him were expected to attend and pay
homage. As the court of Leon was excessively tenacious of
its claim to sovereignty over Castile, the absence of Count
Fernan Gonzalez was noticed with great displeasure by the
king, who sent missives to him commanding his attendance.
The count being proud of heart, and standing much upon the
independence of Castile, was unwilling to kiss the hand of any
one in token of vassalage. He was at length induced to stifle
his repugnance and repair to the court, but he went in almost
regal style and with a splendid retinue, more like a sovereign
making a progress through his dominions.
As he approached the city of Leon, King Sancho came forth
in great state to receive him, and they met apparently as
friends, but there was enmity against each other in their
hearts.
The rich and gallant array with which Count Feman made
* Exactly the same kind of miracle is recorded as happening in the same place to
a cavalier of the name of Don Fernan Antolenez, in the service of the Count Garcia
Fernandez. Fray Antonio Ajrapida has no doubt that the same miracle did actually
happen to hoth cavaliers: ''for in those days." says he. " there was such a demand
for miracles that the same hail frequently to be repeated;" witness the repeated
appearance of San lago in precisely the same manner, to save Christian armies
from imminent danger of defeat, and achieve wonderful victories over the infidels.
as \ve find recorded throughout the Spanish chronicles.
.K or FKHNAN GONZALEZ. 47
his entry in Leon was the theme of every vongue ; but nothing
attracted more notice than a falcon thoroughly trained, which
he carried on his hand, and an Arabian horse of wonderful
beauty, which he had gained in his wars with the Moors.
King Sancho was seized with a vehement desire to possess this
horse and falcon, and offered to purchase them of the count.
Don Fcrnan haughtil y declined to enter into traffic ; but offered
them to the monarch as a gift. The king was equally punc
tilious in refusing to accept a favor ; but as monarchs do not
easily forego anything on which they have set their hearts, it
became evident to Count Fernan that it was necessary, for the
sake of peace, to part with his horse and falcon. To save his
dignity, however, he asked a price corresponding to his rank ;
for it was beneath a cavalier, he said, to sell his things cheap,
like a mean man. He demanded, therefore, one thousand
marks of silver for the horse and falcon, — to be paid on a stip
ulated day ; if not paid on that day the price to doubled on the
next, and on each day's further delay the price should in like
manner be doubled. To these terms the king gladly consented,
and the terms were specified in a written agreement, which
was duly signed and witnessed. The king thus gained the
horse and falcon, but it will be hereinafter shown that this
indulgence of his fancy cost him dear.
This eager desire for an Arabian steed appears the more sin
gular in Sancho the First, from his being so corpulent that he
could not sit on horseback. Hence he is commonly known
in history by the appellation of King Sancho the Fat. His
unwieldy bulk, also, may be one reason why he soon lost the
favor of his warrior subjects, who looked upon him as a mere
trencherman and bed-presser, and not fitted to command men
who lived in the saddle, and had rather fight than either eat
or sleep.
King Sancho saw that he might soon have hard fighting to
maintain his throne; and how could he figure as a warrior
who could not mount on horseback? In his anxiety he repaired
to his uncle Garcia, king of Navarre, surnamed the Trembler,
who was an exceeding meagre man, and asked counsel of him
what he should do to cure himself of this troublesome corpu
lency. Garcia the Trembler was totally at a loss for a recipe,
his own leanness being a gift of Nature; he advised him, how
ever, to repair to Abderahman, the Miramamolin of Spain and
King of Cordova, with whom he was happily at peace, and
consult with him, and seek advice of the Arabian physician^
48 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
resident at Cordova— the Moors oeing generally a spare and
active people, and the Arabian physicians skilful above all
others in the treatment of diseases.
King Saiicho the Fat, therefore, sent amicable messages be
forehand to the Moorish rniramamolin, and followed them as
fast as his corpulency would permit ; and he was well received
by the Moorish sovereign, and remained for a long time at
Cordova, diligently employed in decreasing his rotundity.
While the corpulent king was thus growing leaner, dis
content broke out among his subjects at home; and Count
Fernan Gonzalez, taking advantage of it, stirred up an in
surrection, and placed upon the throne Leon Ordono the
Fourth, surnamed the Bad, who was a kinsman of the late
King Ordono III. , and he moreover gave him his daughter for
wife— his daughter Urraca, the repudiated wife of the late
king.
If the good Count Fernan Gonzalez supposed he had fortified
himself by this alliance, and that his daughter was now fixed
for the second time, and more firmly than ever, on the throne
of Leon, he was grievously deceived; for Sancho I. returned
from Cordova at the head of a powerful host of Moors, and
was no longer to be called the Fat, for he had so well succeeded
under the regimen prescribed by the miramamolin and his
Arabian physicians, that he could vault into the saddle with
merely putting his hand upon the pommel.
Ordono IV. was a man of puny heart ; no sooner did he hear
of the approach of King Sancho, and of his marvellous leanness
and agility, than he was seized with terror, and abandoning
his throne and his twice-repudiated spouse, Urraca, he made
for the mountains of Asturias, cr, as others assert, was over
taken by the Moors and killed with lances.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FURTHER OF THE HORSE AND FALCON.
KING SANCHO I., having re-established himself on the throne,
and recovered the good-will of his subjects by his leanness and
horsemanship, sent a stern message to Count Feman Gonzalez
to oome to his cortes, or resign his countship. The count was
CHRONICLh OF FERNAN GONZALEZ. 49
exceedingly indignant at this order, and feaivd, moreover,
that some indignity or injury would be offered him should he
icp;iir to Leon. He made the message known to his principal
cavaliers, and requested their advice. Most of them were of
opinion that he should not go to the cortes. Don Fernan de-
rl.-ired, however, that he would not act disloyally in omitting
to do that which the counts of Castile had always performed,
although he felt that he incurred the risk of death or imprison
ment. Leaving his son, Garcia Fernandez, therefore, in charge
of his counsellors, he departed for Leon with only seven cav
aliers.
As he approached the gates of that city, no one came forth
to greet him, as had always been the custom. This he con
sidored an evil sign. Presenting himself before the king, he
would have kissed his hand, out the monarch withheld it.
He charged the count with being vainglorious and disloyal;
with having absented himself from the cortes and conspired
against his throne ;— f or all which he should make ; tenement,
and should give hostages or pledges for his good fait' \ before he
left the court.
The count in reply accounted for absenting himself from
the cortes by the perfidious treatment he had formerly experi
enced at Leon. As to any grievances the king might have to
complain of, he stood ready to redress them, provided the
king would make good his own written engagement, signed
with his own hand and sealed with his own seal, to pay for the
horse and falcon which he had purchased of the count on his
former visit to Leon. Three years had now elapsed since the
day appointed for the payment, and in the mean time the
price had gone on daily doubling, according to stipulation.
They parted mutually indignant ; and, after the count had
retired to his quarters, the king, piqued to maintain his royal
word, summoned his major-domo, and ordered him to take a
large amount of treasure and carry it to the Count of Castile
in payment of his demand. So the major-domo repaired to
the count with a great sack of money to settle with him for
the horse and hawk ; but when he came to cast up the account,
and double it each day that had intervened since the appointed
day of payment, the major-domo, though an expert man at
figures, was totally confounded, and, returning to the king,
assured him that all the money in the world would not suffice
to pay the debt. King Sancho was totally at a loss how to
keep his word, and pay off a debt which was more than
00 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
enough to ruin him. Grievously did he repent his first ex
perience in traffic, and found that it is not safe even for a
monarch to trade in horses.
In the mean time the count was suffered to return to Castile ;
but he did not let the matter rest here ; for, being sorely in
censed at the indignities he had experienced, he sent missives
to King Sancho, urging his demand of payment for the horse
and falcon— menacing otherwise to make seizures by way of
indemnification. Receiving no satisfactory reply, he made a
foray into the kingdom of Leon, and brought off great spoil of
sheep and cattle.
King Sancho now saw that the count was too bold and
urgent a creditor to be trifled with. In his perplexity he as
sembled the estates of his kingdom, and consulted them upon
this momentous affair. His counsellors, like himself, were
grievously perplexed between the sanctity of the royal word
and the enormity of the debt. After much deliberation they
suggested a compromise — the Count Fernan Gonzalez to relin
quish the debt, and in lieu thereof to be released from his vas
salage.
The count agreed right gladly to this compromise, being
thus relieved from all tribute and imposition, and from the
necessity of kissing the hand of any man in the world as his
sovereign. Thus did King Sancho pay with the sovereignty
of Castile for a horse and falcon, and thus were the Castilians
relieved, by a skilful bargain in horse-dealing, from all subjec
tion to the kingdom of Leon.*
CHAPTER XIX.
THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF COUNT FERNAN. —HIS DEATH.
THE good Count Fernan Gonzalez was now stricken in years.
The fire of youth was extinct, the pride and ambition of man
hood were over ; instead of erecting palaces and lofty castles,
he began now to turn his thoughts upon the grave and to build
his last earthly habitation, the sepulchre.
Before erecting his own, he had one built of rich and stately
* Cronica de Alonzo el Sabio, pt. 8, c. 19.
CHRONICLE OF FERN AN GONZALEZ. 51
workmanship for his first wite, the object of his early love,
and had her remains conveyed to it and interred with great
solemnity. His own sepulchre, according to ancient promise,
was prepared at the chapel and hermitage of San Pedro at
Arlanza, where he had first communed with the holy Friar
Pelayo. When it was completed, he merely inscribed upon it
the word " Obi jt," leaving the rest to be supplied by others
after his death.
When the Moors perceived that Count Fenian Gonzalez,
once so redoubtable in arms, was old and infirm, and given to
build tombs instead of castles, they thought it a favorable tune
to make an inroad into Castile. They passed the border, there
fore, in great numbers, laying everything waste and bearding
the old lion in his very den.
The veteran had laid by his sword and buckler, and had
almost given up the world ; but the sound of Moorish drum
and trumpet called him back even from the threshold of the
sepulchre. Buckling on once more his armor and bestriding
his war-steed, he summoned around him his Castilian cava
liers, seasoned like him in a thousand battles, and accompanied
by his son Garcia Fernandez, who inherited all the valor of his
father, issued forth to meet the foe ; followed by the shouts and
blessings of the populace, who joyed to see him once more in
arms and glowing with his ancient fire.
The Moors were retiring from an extensive ravage, laden
with booty and driving before them an immense cavalgada,
when they descried a squadron of cavaliers, armed all in steel,
emerging from a great cloud of dust, and bearing aloft the
silver cross, the well-known standard of Count Fernan Gon
zalez. That veteran warrior came on, as usual, leading the
way, sword in hand. The very sight of his standard had
struck dismay into the enemy; they soon gave way before
one of his vigorous charges, nor did he cease to pursue them
until they took shelter within the very walls of Cordova.
Here he wasted the surrounding country with fire and sword,
and after thus braving the Moor in his very capital, returned
triumphant to Burgos.
"Such," says Fray Antonio Agapida, uwas the last cam
paign in the life of this most valorous cavalier;" and n<>\\.
abandoning all further deeds of mortal enterprise in arms to
his son Garcia Fernandez, he addressed all his thoughts, ,-is 1 <•
said, to prepare for his campaign in the skies. He still talk«-«l
as a veteran warrior, whose whole life had been passed in
MOORISH
arms, but his talk was not of earthly warfare nor of earthly
kingdoms. He spoke only of the kingdom of heaven, and
what he Inust do to make a successful inroad and gain an eter
nal inheritance in that blessed country.
He was equally indefatigable in preparing for his spiritual
as for his mortal campaign. Instead, however, of mailed war
riors tramping through his courts, and the shrill neigh of steed
or clang of trumpet echoing among their walls, there were
seen holy priests and barefoot monks passing to and fro, and
the halls resounded with sacred melody of litany and psalm.
So pleased was Heaven with the good works of this pious
cavalier, and especially with rich donations to churches and
monasteries which he made under the guidance of his spi
ritual counsellors, that we are told it was given to him to
foresee in vision the day and hour when he should pass from
this weary life and enter the mansions of eternal rest.
Knowing that the time approached, he prepared for his end
like a good Christian. He wrote to the kings of Leon and
Navarre in terms of great humility, craving their pardon for
all past injuries and offences, and entreating them, for the
good of Christendom, to live in peace and amity, and make
common cause for the defence of the faith.
Ten days before the time which Heaven had appointed for
his death he sent for the abbot of the chapel and convent of
Arlanza, and bending his aged knees before him, confessed all
his sins. This done, as in former times he had shown great
state and ceremony in his worldly pageants, so now he ar
ranged his last cavalgada to the grave. He prayed the abbot
to return to his monastery and have his sepulchre prepared for
his reception, and that the abbots of St. Sebastian and Silos
and Quirce, with a train of holy friars, might come at the
appointed day for his body ; that thus, as he commended his
soul to Heaven through the hands of his confessor, he might,
through the hands of these pious men, resign his body to the
earth.
When the abbot had departed, the count desired to be left
alone; and clothing himself in a coarse friar's garb, he re
mained in fervent prayer for the forgiveness of his sins. As
he had been a valiant captain all his life against the enemies of
the faith, so was he in death against the enemies of the soul.
He died in the full command of all his faculties, making no
groans nor contortions, but rendering up his spirit with the
calmness of a heroic cavalier.
CHRONICLE OF FERNAN GONZALEZ. 53
We are told that when he died voices were heard from
heaven in testimony of his sanctity, while the tears .UK I hanen-
tations of all Spain proved how much he was vahie^and be
loved on earth. His remains were conveyed, according to his
request, to the monastery of St. Pedro de Arlanza by a proces
sion of holy friars with solemn cliant and dirge. In the church
of that convent they still repose ; and two paintings are to be
seen in the convent — one representing the count valiantly
fighting with the Moors, the other conversing with St. Pelayo
and St. Millan, as they appeared to him in vision before the
battle of Hazinas.
The cross which he used as his standard is still treasured up
in the sacristy of the convent. It is of massive silver, two ells
in length, with our Saviour sculptured upon it, and above the
head, in Gothic letters, I. N. K. I. Below is Adam awaking
from the grave, with the words of St. Paul, "Awake, thou
who sleepest, and arise from the tomb, for Christ shall give
theelife."
This holy cross still has the form at the lower end by which
the standard-bearer rested it in the pommel of his saddle.
4 ' Inestimable, " adds Fray Antonio Agapida, ' * are the relics
and remains of saints and sainted warriors." Ir after times,
when Fernando the Third, surnamed the Saint, went to the
conquest of Seville, .he took with him a bone of this thrice-
blessed and utterly renowned cavalier, together with his sword
and pennon, hoping through their efficacy to succeed in his
enterprise, — nor was he disappointed ; but what is marvellous
to hear, but which we have on the authority of the good
Bishop Sandoval, on the day on which King Fernando the
Saint entered Seville in triumph, great blows were heard to
resound within the sepulchre of the count of Arlanza, as if
veritably his bones which remained behind exulted in the
victory gained by those which had been carried to the wars.
Thus were marvellously fulfilled the words of the holy psalm,
— " Exaltabant ossa humilitata." *
Here ends the chronicle of the most valorous and renowned
Don Feman Gonzalez, Count of Castile. Laus Deo.
* Sandoval, p. 334.
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO THE SAINT.
CHAPTER I.
THE PARENTAGE OP FERNANDO.— QUEEN BERENGUELA.— THE
LARAS.— DON ALVAR CONCEALS THE DEATH OF KING HENRY.—
MISSION OF QUEEN BERENGUELA TO ALFONSO IX.— SHE RE
NOUNCES THE CROWN OF CASTILE IN FAVOR OF HER SON
FERNANDO.
FERNANDO III., surnamed the Saint, was the son of Alfonso
HE., King of Leon, and of Berenguela, a princess of Castile;
but there were some particulars concerning his parentage
which it is necessary clearly to state before entering upon hip
personal history.
Alfonso III. of Leon, and Alfonso IX. King of Castile, were
cousins, but there were dissensions between them. The King
of Leon, to strengthen himself, married his cousin, the Princess
Theresa, daughter of his uncle, the King of Portugal. By her
he had two daughters. The marriage was annulled by Pope
Celestine IIT. on account of their consanguinity, and, on their
making resistance, they were excommunicated and the king
dom laid under an interdict. This produced an unwilling sep
aration in 1195. Alfonso III. did not long remain single. Fresh
dissensions having broken out between him and his cousin
Alfonso IX. of Castile, they were amicably adjusted by his
marrying the Princess Berenguela, daughter of that monarch.
This second marriage, which took place about three years after
the divorce, came likewise under the ban of the Church, and
for the same reason, the near propinquity of the parties. Again
the commands of the Pope were resisted, and again the refrac
tory parties were excommunicated and the kingdom laid under
on interdict.
The unfortunate King of Leon was the more unwilling to give
56 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
up the present marriage, as the Queen Berenguela had made j
him the happy father of several children, one of whom he hoped I
might one day inherit the two crowns of Leon and Castile.
The intercession and entreaties of the bishops of Castile so/1
far mollified the rigor of the Pope, that a compromise wadl
made ; the legitimacy of the children by the present marriagell
was not to be affected by the divorce of the parents, and Fer-'l
nando, the eldest, the subject of the present chronicle, was!
recognized as successor to his father to the throne of Leon, i
The divorced Queen Berenguela left Fernando in Leon, and re-
turned, in 1204, to Castile, to the court of her father, Alfonso
III. Here she remained until the death of her father in 1214, \
who was succeeded by his son, Enrique, or Henry I. The latter
being only in his eleventh year, his sister, the ex-Queen Beren
guela, was declared regent. She well merited the trust, for
she was a woman of grea,t prudence and wisdom, and of a reso
lute and magnanimous spirit.
At this time the house of Lara had risen to great power. I
There were three brothers of that turbulent and haughty race, '•
Don Alvar Nunez, Don Fernan Nunez, and Don Gonzalo Nunez. *
The Laras had caused great trouble in the kingdom during the
minority of Prince Henry's father, by arrogating to themselves
the regency ; and they now attempted, in like manner, to get
the 'guardianship of the son, declaring it an office too impor- I
tant and difficult to be entrusted to a woman. Having a pow-
erful and unprincipled party among the nobles, and using great
bribery among persons in whom Berenguela confided, they car- 1
ried their point ; and the virtuous Berenguela, to prevent civil
commotions, resigned the regency into the hands of Don Alvar ,
Nunez de Lara, the head of that ambitious house. First, how- ;
ever, she made him kneel and swear that he would conduct ;
himself toward the youthful king, Enrique, as a thorough friend -i
and a loyal vassal, guarding his person from all harm ; that he
would respect the property of individuals, and undertake
nothing of importance without the counsel and consent of~]
Queen Berenguela. Furthermore, that he would guard and j
respect the hereditary possessions of Queen Berenguela, left to
her by her father, and would always serve her as his sovereign,
the daughter of his deceased king. All this Don Alvar Nunez
solemnly swore upon the sacred evangelists and the holy
cross.
No sooner, however, had he got the young king in his power, i
than he showed the ambition, rapacity, and arrogance of his j
VHRONICLE OF FERNANDO THE SAINT. 57
nature. He prevailed upon the young king to make him a
count ; he induced him to hold cortes without the presence of
Qiu-i'ii Berenguela; issuing edicts in the king's name, he ban
ished refractory nobles, giving their offices and lands to his
brothers ; he levied exactions on rich and poor, and, what is
still more flagrant, he extended these exactions to the Church.
In vain did Queen Berenguela remonstrate ; in vain did the
Dean of Toledo thunder forth an excommunication ; he scoffed
at them both, for in the king's name he persuaded himself he
had a tower of strength. He even sent a letter to Queen Be
renguela in the name of the young king, demanding of her the
castles, towns, and ports which had been left to her by her
father. The queen was deeply grieved at this letter, and sent
a reply to the king that, when she saw him face to face, she
would do with those possessions whatever he should command,
as her brother and sovereign.
On receiving this message, the young king was shocked and
distressed that such a demand should have been made in his
name; but he was young and inexperienced, and could not
openly contend with a man of Don Alvar's overbearing char
acter. He wrote secretly to the queen, however, assuring her
that the demand had been made without his knowledge, and
saying how gladly he would Come to her if he could, and be
relieved from the thraldom of Don Alvar.
In this way the unfortunate prince was made an instrument
in the hands of this haughty and arrogant nobleman of inflict
ing all kinds of wrongs and injuries upon his subjects. Don
Alvar constantly kept him with him, carrying him from place
to place of his dominions, wherever his presence was necessary
to effect some new measure of tyranny. He even endeavored
to negotiate a marriage between the young king and some
neighboring princess, in order to retain an influence over him,
but in this he was unsuccessful.
For three years had he maintained this iniquitious sway, un
til one day in 1217, when the young king was with him at
Palencia, and was playing with some youthful companions in
the court-yard of the episcopal palace, a tile, either falling
from the roof of a tower, or sportively thrown by one of his
companions, struck him in the head, and inflicted a wound of
which he presently <li<-l.
This was a fatal blow to the power of Don Alvar. To secure
himself from any sudden revulsion in the popular mind, he
determined to conceal the death of the king as long as po*
J$ MOORISH CHRONICLES.
sible, and gave out that he had retired to the fortress of
Tariego, whither he had the body conveyed, as if still living
He continued to issue dispatches from time to time in the
name of the king, and made various excuses for his non-
appearance in puuhc.
Queen Bereiiguela soon learned the truth. According to the
laws ot Castile sne was heiress to the crown, but she resolved
to transfer it to her son Fernando, who, being likewise ac
knowledged successor to the crown of Leon, would unite the
two kingdoms under his rule. To effect her purpose she
availed herself of the cunning of her enemy, kept secret her-
knowledge of the death of her brother, and sent three of her
confidential cavaliers, Don Lope Diaz de Haro, Sefior of Bis
cay, and Don Gonzalo Ruiz Giron, and Don Alonzo Tellez de
Meneses, to her late husband, Alfonso IX., King of Leon, who,
with her son Fernando, was then at Toro, entreating him to
send bhe latter to her to protect her from the tyranny of Don
Alvar. The prudent, mother, however, forebore to let King
Alfonso know of her brother's death, lest it might awaken in
him ambitious thoughts about the Castilian crown.
This mission being sent, she departed with the cavaliers of
her party for Palencia. The death of the King Enrique being
noised about, she was honored as Queen of Castile, and Don
Tello, the bishop, came forth in procession to receive her. The
next day she proceeded to the castle of Duenas, and, on its
making some show of resistance, took it by force.
The cavaliers who were with the queen endeavored to effect
a reconciliation between her and Don Alvar, seeing that the
latter had powerful connections, and through his partisans
and retainers held possession of the principal towns and for
tresses; that haughty nobleman, however, would listen to no
proposals, unless the Prince Fernando was given into his
guardianship, as had been the Prince Enrique.
In the mean time the request of Queen Berenguela had been
granted by her late husband, the King of Leon, and her son
Fernando h? stoned to meet her. The meeting took place at
the castle of Otiella, and happy was the anxious mother once
more to omhrooe her son. At her command the cavaliers hi
her train olevnted him on the trunk of an elm-tree for a throne,
and hailed him kin*? with front. aorJamations.
They now proreeded to Valladolid, which at that time was *
great and wealthy town. Here the nobility and chivalry "ft
Estremadura and othe*1 mrts hastened to pay homage to "jha
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO THE SAINT. 69
A stage was erected in >,he market-place, where the
assembled states acknowledged hjr for queen and swore fealty
to her. She immediately, in presence of her nobles, prelates,
and people, renounced the crown in favor of her son. The air
rang with the shouts of "Long live Fernando, King of Cas
tile !" The bishops and clergy then conducted the king in state
to the church. This was on the 31st of August, 1217, and
about three months from the death of King Enrique.
Fernando was at this time about eighteen years of age, an
accomplished cavalier, having been instructed in everything
befitting a prince and a warrior.
CHAPTER H.
BONO ALFONSO OF LEON RAVAGES CASTILE. — CAPTIVITY OF DON
ALVAR.— DEATH OF THE LARAS.
KINO ALFONSO of Leon was exceedingly exasperated at the
furtive manner in which his son Fernando had left him, with
out informing him of King Henry's death. He considered,
and perhaps with reason, the transfer of the crown of Castile
by Berenguela to her son, as a manoeuvre to evade any rights
or claims which he, King Alfonso, might have over her, not
withstanding her divorce ; and he believed that both mother
and son had conspired to deceive and outwit him ; and, what
was especially provoking, they had succeeded. It was natural
for King Alfonso to have become by this time exceedingly
irritable and sensitive ; he had been repeatedly thwarted in his
dearest concerns; excommunicated out of two wives by the
Pope, and now, as he conceived, cajoled out of a kingdom.
In his wrath he flew to arms - a prompt and customary re
course of kings in those days when they had no will to consult
but their own; and notwithstanding the earnest expostulations
and entreaties of holy men, ho entered Castilo with an army,
ravaging the legitimate inheritance of his son, as if it had
been the territory of an onemy. He was seconded in his out
rages by Count Alvar Nunez de Lara and his two bellicose
brothers, who hoped still to retain power by rallying under his
standard.
There were at this time full two thousand cavaliers with the
youthful king, resolute men, well armed and well appointed,
80 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
and they urged him to lead their, against the King of Leon.
Queen Berenguela, however, interposed and declared her son
should never be guilty of the impiety of taking up arms
against his father. By her advice King Fernando sent an
embassy to his father, expostulating with him, and telling
him that he ought to be thankful to God that Castile was in
the hands of a son disposed at all times to honor and defend
him, instead of a stranger who might prove a dangerous foe.
King Alfonso, however, was not so to be appeased. By the
ambassadors he sent proposals to Queen Berenguela that they
re-enter into wedlock, for which he would procure a dispensa
tion from the Pope ; they would then be jointly sovereigns of
both Castile and Leon, and the Prince Fernando, their son,
should inherit both crowns. But the virtuous Berenguela
recoiled from this proposal of a second nuptials. ' ' God for
bid," replied she, ''that I should return to a sinful marriage;
and as to the crown of Castile, it now belongs to my son, to
whom I have given it with the sanction of God and the good
men of this realm."
King Alfonso was more enraged than ever by this reply,
and being incited and aided by Count Alvar and his faction,
he resumed his ravages, laying waste the country and burn
ing the villages. He would have attacked Duenas, but found
that place strongly garrisoned by Diego Lopez de Haro and
Ruy Diaz de los Cameros ; he next marched upon Burgos, but
that place was equally well garrisoned by Lope Diez de Faro
and other stout Castilian cavaliers ; so perceiving his son to be
more firmly seated upon the throne than he had imagined, and
that all his own menaces and ravages were unavailing, he re
turned deeply chagrined to his kingdom.
King Fernando, in obedience to the dictates of his mother as
well as of his own heart, abstained from any acts of retalia
tion on his father ; but he turned his arms against Muiioii and
Lerma and Lara, and other places which either belonged to, or
held out for, Count Alvar, and having subdued them, pro
ceeded to Burgos, the capital of his kingdom, where he was
received by the bishop and clergy with great solemnity, and
whither the nobles and chivalry from all parts of Castile has
tened to rally round his throne. The turbulent Count Alvar
Nunez de Lara and his brothers retaining other fortresses too
strong to be easily taken, refused all allegiance, and made rav
aging excursions over the country. The prudent and provi
dent Berenguela, therefore, while at Burgos, seeing that the
CHRONICLE OW FERNANDO Till: ZA1NT. 61
troubles and contentions or the kingdom would cause great
expense and prevent much revenue, gathered together all her
jewels of gold and silver and precious stones, and all her plate
and rich silks, and other precious things, and caused them to
be sold, and gave the money to her son to defray the cost of
these civil wars.
King Fernando and his mother departed shortly afterward
for Palencia ; on their way they had to pass by Herrera, which
at that time was the stronghold of Count Alvar. When the
king came in sight, Count Fernan Nunez, with his battalions,
was on the banks of the river, but drew within the walls. As
the king had to pass close by with his retinue, he ordered his
troops to be put in good order, and gave it in charge to Alonzo
Tellez and Suer Tellez and Alvar Ruyz to protect the flanks.
As the royal troops drew near, Count Alvar, leaving his
people in the town, sallied forth with a few cavaliers to regard
the army as it passed. Affecting great contempt for the
youthful king and his cavaliers, he stood drawn up on a
rising ground with his attendants, looking down upon the
troops with scornful aspect, and rejecting all advice to retire
into the town.
As the king and his immediate escort came nigh, their at
tention was attracted to this little body of proud warriors
drawn up upon a bank and regarding them so loftily; and
Alonzo Tellez and Suer Tellez, looking more closely, recognized
Don Alvar, and putting spurs to their horses, dashed up the
bank, followed by several cavaliers. Don Alvar repented of
his vain confidence too late, and seeing great numbers urging
toward him, turned his reins aad retreated toward the town.
Still his stomach was too high for absolute flight, and the
others, who spurred after him at full speed, overtook him.
Throwing himself from his horse, he covered himself with his
shield and prepared for defence. Alonzo Tellez, however,
called to his men not to kill the count, but to take him pri
soner. He was accordingly captured, with several of his fol
lowers, and borne off to the king and queen. The count had
everything to apprehend from their vengeance for his mis
deeds. They used no personal harshness, however, but de
manded from him that he should surrender all the castles and
strong places held by the retainers and partisans of his brothers
and himself, that he should furnish one hundred horsemen to
aid in their recovery, and should remain a prisoner until those
places were all in the possession of the crown.
09 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
Captivity broke the haughty spirit of Don Alvar. He agreed
to those conditions, and until they should be fulfilled was con
signed to the charge of Gonsalvo Kuiz Giron, and confined in
the castle of Valladolid. The places were delivered up in the
course of a few months, and thus King Fernando became
strongly possessed of his kingdom.
Stripped of power, state, and possessions, Count Alvar and
bis brothers, after an ineffectual attempt to rouse the King of
Leon to another campaign against his son, became savage
and desperate, and made predatory excursions, pillaging the
country, until Count Alvar fell mortally ill of hydropsy.
Struck with remorse and melancholy, he repaired to Toro and
entered the chivalrous order of Santiago, that he might gain
the indulgences granted by the Pope to those who die in that
order, and hoping, says an ancient chronicler, to oblige God
as it were, by that religious coremony, to pardon his sins.*
His illness endured seven months, and he was reduced to such
poverty that at his death there was not money enough left by
him to convey his body to Ucles, where he had requested to be
buried, nor to pay for tapers for his funeral. When Queen
Berengueia heard this, she ordered that the funeral should be
honorably performed at her own expense, and sent a cloth of
gold to cover the bier.f
The brother of Count Alvar, Don Fernando, abandoned his
country in despair and went to Marocco, where he was well
received by the miramamolin, and had lands and revenues
assigned to him. He became a great favorite among the
Moors, to whom he used to recount his deeds in the civil wars
of Castile. At length he fell dangerously ill, and caused him
self to be taken to a suburb inhabited by Christians. There
happened to be there at that time one Don G onsalvo, a knight
of the order of the Hospital of St. Jean d'Acre, and who had
been in the service of Pope Innocent III. Don Fernando,
finding his end approaching, entreated of the knight his re
ligious habit that he might die in it. His request was granted,
and thus Count Fernando died in the habit of a Knight Hos
pitaller of St. Jean d'Acre, in Elbora, a suburb of Marocco.
His body was afterward brought to Spain, and interred in a
town on the banks of the Pisuerga, in which repose likewise
the remains of his wife and children.
* Cronica Gotica, por Don Alonzo Nufiez de Castro, p. 17.
t Cronica General de Espafia, pt. 3, p. 37(X
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO THE SAI.\T. 03
The Count Gonsalvo Nunez de I^ara, the third of these
brothers, also took refuge among the Moors. He was seized
with violent disease in the city of Bacza, where he died. 1 1 is
body was conveyed to Campos a Zalmos, which appertained
to the Friars of the Temple, where the holy fraternity gave
it the rites of sepulture with all due honor. Such was the
end of these three brothers of the once proud and powerful
house of Lara, whose disloyal deeds had harassed their coun
try and brought ruin upon themselves.
CHAPTER in.
MARRIAGE OP KING FERNANDO.— CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE MOORa
— ABEN MOHAMED, KING OF BAEZA, DECLARES HIMSELF THB
VASSAL OF KING FERNANDO. — THEY MARCH TO JAEN.— BURN
ING OF THE TOWER.— FERNANDO COMMENCES THE BUILDING
OF THE CATHEDRAL AT TOLEDO.
KING FERNANDO, aided by the sage counsels of his mother,
reigned for some time in peace and quietness, administering
his affairs with equity and justice. The good Queen Beren-
guela now began to cast about her eyes in search of a suit
able alliance for her son, and had many consultations with
the Bishop Maurice of Burgos, and other ghostly counsellors,
thereupon. They at length agreed upon the Princess Beatrix,
daughter of the late Philip, Emperor of Germany, and the
Bishop Maurice and Padre Fray Pedro de Arlanza were sent
as envoys to the Emperor Frederick II., cousin of the prin
cess, to negotiate the terms. An arrangement was happily
effected, and the princess set out for Spain. In passing
through France she was courteously entertained at Paris by
King Philip, who made her rich presents. On the borders of
Castile she was met at Vittoria by the Queen Berenguela,
with a great train of prelates, monks, and masters of the re
ligious orders, and of abbesses and nuns, together with a
glorious train of chivalry. In this state she was conducted
to Burgos, where the king and all his court came forth to
receive her, and their nuptials were celebrated with great
pomp and rejoicing.
King Fernando lived happily with his fair Queen Beatrix,
64 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
and his kingdom remained in peace; but by degrees he be
came impatient of quiet, and anxious to make war upon the
Moors. Perhaps he felt called upon to make some signal essay
in arms at present, having, the day before his nuptials, been
armed a knight in the monastery of Las Huelgos, and in
those iron days knighthood was not a matter of mere parade
and ceremony, but called for acts of valor and proofs of stern
endurance.
The discreet Berenguela endeavored to dissuade her son
from taking the field, considering him not of sufficient age.
In all things else he was ever obedient to her counsels, and
even to her inclinations, but it was in vain that she endeav
ored to persuade him from making war upon the infidels.
* ' God, " he would say, ' ' had put into his hand not merely a
sceptre to govern, but a sword to avenge his country."
It was fortunate for the good cause, moreover, and the
Spanish chroniclers, that while the queen-mother was endeav
oring to throw a damper on the kindling fire of her son, a
worthy prelate was at hand to stir it, up into a blaze. This
was the illustrious historian Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo,
who now preached a crusade against the Moors, promising
like indulgences with those granted to the warriors for the
Holy Sepulchre. The consequence was a great assemblage of
troops from all parts at Toledo.
King Fernando was prevented for a time from taking the
field in person, but sent in advance Don Lope Diaz de Haro
and Buy Gonsalvo de Giron and Aloiizo Tellez de Meneses,
with five hundred cavaliers well armed and mounted. The
very sight of them effected a conquest over Aben Mohamed,
the Moorish king of Baeza, insomuch that he sent an em
bassy to King Fernando, declaring himself his vassal.
When King Fernando afterwards took the field, he was
joined by this Moorish ally at the Navas or plains of Tolosa ;
who was in company with him when the king marched to
Jaen, to the foot of a tower, and set fire to it, whereupon those
Moors who remained in the tower were burned to death, and
those who leaped from the walls were received on the points
of lances.
Notwithstanding the burnt-offering of this tower, Heaven
did not smile upon the attempt of King Fernando to reduce
the city of Jaen. He was obliged to abandon the siege, but
consoled himself by laying waste the country. He was more
successful elsewhere. He carried the strong town of Priego
CHRONICLE OP FERNA NDO THE SAfr 65
by assault, and gave the garrison their lives on condition of
yielding up all their property, and paying, moreover, eighty
thousand maravedis of silver. For the payment of this sum
they were obliged to give as hostages fifty-five damsels of
great beauty, and fifty cavaliers of rank, besides nine hum ln-d
of the common people. The king divided his hostages among
his bravest cavaliers and the religious orders ; but his vassal,
the Moorish king of Baeza, obtained the charpre of the Moor
ish damsels.
The king then attacked Loxa, and his men s* -aled the walls
and burnt the gates, and made themselves masters of the
place. He then led his army into the Vega of Granada, the
inhabitants of which submitted to become his vassals, and
gave up all the Christian captives in that city, amounting to
thirteen hundred.
Aben Mohamed, king of Baeza, then delivered to King Fer
nando the towers of Martos and Andujar, and the king gave
them to Don Alvar Perez de Castro, and placed with him
Don Gonzalo Ybanez, Master of Calatrava, and Tello Alonzo
Meneses, son of Don Alonzo Tellez, and other stout cavaliers,
fitted to maintain frontier posts. These arrangements being
made, and having ransacked every mountain and valley, and
taken many other places not herein specified, King Fernando
returned in triumph to Toledo, where he was joyfully received
by his mother Berenguela and his wife Beatrix.
Clerical historians do not fail to record with infinite sati'. .fac
tion a single instance of the devout and zealous spirit which
King Fernando had derived from his constant communion
with the reverend fathers of the Church. As the king was
one day walking with his ghostly adviser the archbishop, in
the principal church of Toledo, which was built in the Moresco
fashion, having been a mosque of the infidels, it occurred, or
more probably was suggested to him, that, since God had
aided him to increase his kingdom, and had given him such
victories over the enemies of his holy faith, it became him to
rebuild his holy temple, which was ancient and falling to
decay, and to adorn it richly with the spoils taken from the
Moors. The thought was promptly carried into effect. The
king and the archbishop laid the first stone with great solem
nity, and in the fulness of time accomplished that mighty
cathedral of Toledo, which remains the wonder and admira
tion of after ages.
66 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
CHAPTER TV.
ASSASSINATION OF ABEN MOHAMED.— HIS HEAD CARRIED AS A
PRESENT TO ABULLALE, THE MOORISH KING OF SEVILLE.—
ADVANCE OF THE CHRISTIANS INTO ANDALUSIA. — ABULLALE
PURCHASES A TRUCE.
THE worthy Fray Antonio Agapida records various other
victories and achievements of King Fernando in a subsequent
campaign against the Moors of Andalusia; in the course of
which his camp was abundantly supplied with grain by his
vassal Aben Mohamed, the Moorish king of Baeza. The assist
ance rendered by that Moslem monarch to the Christian forces
in their battles against those of his own race and his own faith,
did not meet with the reward it merited. " Doubtless," says
Antonio Agapida, "because he halted half way in the right
path, and did not turn thorough renegado." It appears that
his friendship for the Christians gave great disgust to his sub
jects, and some of them rose upon him, while he was sojourn
ing in the city of Cordova, and sought to destroy him. Aben
Mohamed fled by a gate leading to the gardens, to take shelter
in the tower of Almodovar ; but the assassins overtook him,
and slew him on a hill near the tower. They then cut off his
head and carried it as a present to Abullale, the Moorish king
of Seville, expecting to be munificently rewarded; but that
monarch gave command that their heads should be struck off
and their bodies thrown to the dogs, ''as traitors to their liege
lords.*
King Fernando was grieved when he heard of the assassina
tion of his vassal, and feared the death of Aben Mohamed
might lead to a rising of the Moors. He sent notice to Andu-
jar, to Don Alvar Perez de Castro and Alonzo Tellez de Mene-
ses, to be on their guard ; but the Moors, fearing punishment
for some rebellious movements, abandoned the town, and it fell
into the hands of the king. The Moors of Marios did the like.
The Alcazar of Bacza yielded also to the king, who placed in it
Don Lope Diaz de Haro, with five hundred men.
Abullale, the Moorish sovereign of Seville, was alarmed at
* Cron. Gen. de Espafia, pt. 4, fol. 373.
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO TUB SAI.\T. 67
seeing the advances which thu Christians were making in An
dalusia; and attempted to wrest frmn UK i:- hands these newly
acquired places. He marched upon Marios, which was not
strongly walled. The Countess Dona Yrenia, wife to Don
Alvar Perez de Castro, was in this place, and her husband
was absent. Don Tello Alonzo, with a Spanish force, hastened
to her assistance. Finding the town closely invested, he
formed his men into a troop, and endeavored to cut his way
through the enemy. A rude conflict ensued; the cavaliers
fought their way forward, and Christian and Moor arrived
pell-mell at the gate of the town. Here the press was execs
sive. Fernan Gomez »de Pudiello, a stout cavalier, who bore
the pennon of Don Tello Alonzo, was slain, and t'he same late
would have befallen Don Tello himself, but that a company of
esquires sallied from the town to his rescue.
King Abullale now encircled the town, and got possession of
the Pen a, or rock, which commands it, killing two hundred
Christians who defended it.
Provisions began to fail the besieged, and they were reduced
to slay their horses for food, and even to eat the hides. Don
Gonsalvo Ybanez, master of Calatrava, who was in Baeza,
hearing of the extremity of the place, came suddenly with
seventy men and effected an entrance. The augmentation
of the garrison only served to increase the famine, without
being sufficient in force to raise the siege. At length word
was brought to Don Alvar Perez de Castro, who was with tho
king at Guadalaxara, of the imminent danger to which his
wife was exposed. He instantly set off for her relief, accom
panied by several cavaliers of note, and a strong force. They
succeeded in getting into Martos, recovered the Pciia, or rock,
and made such vigorous defence that Abullale abandoned the
siege in despair. In the following year King Fernando led his
host to take revenge upon this Moorish king of Seville ; but tho
latter purchased a truce for one year with three hundred thou
sand maravedis of silver.*
* Cron. Gen. de Espafia, pt. 4, c. II.
68 MOORISH CHRONIOLE&
CHAPTER V.
ABEN HUD. — ABULLALE PURCHASES ANOTHER YEAR'S TRUCE.—
FERNANDO HEARS OF THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER, THE KING
OF LEON, WHILE PRESSING THE SIEGE OF JAEN. — HE BECOMES
SOVEREIGN OF THE TWO KINGDOMS OF LEON AND CASTILE.
ABOUT this time a valiant sheik, named Aben Abdallar
Mohammed ben Hud, but commonly called Aben Hud, was
effecting a great revolution in Moorish affairs. He was of the
lineage of Aben Alfange, and bitterly opposed to the sect of
Almohades, who for a long time had exercised a tyrannical
sway. Stirring up the Moors of Murcia to rise upon their op
pressors, he put himself at their head, massacred all the Almo
hades that fell into his hands, and made himself sheik or
king of that region. He purified the mosques with water,
after the manner in which Christians purify their churches, as
though they had been defiled by the Almohades. Aben Hud
acquired a name among those of his religion fof justice and
good faith as well as valor ; and after some opposition, gained
sway over all Andalusia. This brought him in collision with
King Fernando . . .
t^p (Something is wanting here.) *
laying waste fields of grain. The Moorish sovereign of Seville
purchased another year's truce of him for three hundred thou
sand maravedis of silver. Aben Hud, on the other hand, col
lected a great force and marched to oppose him, but did not
dare to give him battle. He went, therefore, upon Merida,
and fought with King Alfonso of Leon, father of King Fernan
do, where, however, he met with complete discomfiture.
In the following year King Fernando repeated his invasion
* The hiatus, here noted by the author, has evidently arisen from the loss of a
leaf of his manuscript. The printed line which precedes the parenthesis concludes
page 32 of the manuscript; the line which follows it begins page 34. The interme
diate page is wanting. I presume the author did not become conscious of his loss
until he had resorted to his manuscript for revision, and that he could not depend
upon his memory to supply what was wanting without a fresh resort to authorities
not at hand. Hence a postponement and ultimate omission. The missing: leaf would
scarce have filled half a page of print, and, it would seem from the context, muu:
have related the invasion of Andalusia by Fernando aud tha ravages committed
by his armies.— EP,
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO TffK SAINT. 69
of Andalusia, and was ]>!v<sni^ the siege ot the city of Jaen,
which he assailed 1>\ HP-MMS of engines discharging stones,
when a courier arrived in all speed from his mother, informing
him that his father Alfonso was dead, and urging him to pro
ceed instantly.to Leon, to enforce his pretensions to the cn.wn.
King Fernando accordingly raised the siege of Jaen, sen
his engines to Martos, and repaired to Castile, to consult with
his mother, who was his counsellor on all occasions.
It appeared that in his last will King Alfonso had named his
two daughters joint heirs to the crown. Some of the Leonese
and Gallegos were disposed to place the Prince Alonzo, brother
to King Fernando, on the throne ; but he had listened to the
commands of his mother, and had resisted all suggestions of
the kind ; the larger part of the kingdom, including the most
important cities, had declared for Fernando.
Accompanied by his mother, King Fernando proceeded
instantly into the kingdom of Leon with a powerful force.
Wherever they went the cities threw open their gates to them.
The princesses Dofia Sancha and Dona Dulce, with their
mother Theresa, would have assembled a force to oppose them,
but the prelates were all ki favor of King Fernando. On his
approach to Leon, the bishops and clergy and all the principal
inhabitants came forth to receive him, and conducted him to
the cathedral, where he received their homage, and was pro
claimed king, with the Te Deums of the choir and the shouts
of the people.
Doila Theresa, who, with her daughters, was in Gallicia, find
ing the kingdom thus disposed of, ssnt to demand provision
for herself and the two princesses, who in fact were step
sisters of King Fernando. Queen Berenguela, though she had
some reason not to feel kindly disposed toward Dona Theresa.
who she might think had been exercising a secret influence
over her late husband, yet suppressed all such feelings, and
undBrtook to repair in person to Gallicia, and negotiate this
singular family question. She had an "interview with Queen
Theresa at Valencia de Merlio in Gallicia, and arranged a, noble
dower for her, and an annual revenue to each of her daughters
of thirty thousand maravedis of gold. The king then had a
meeting with his sisters at Benevente, where they resigned all
pretensions to the throne. All the fortified places which held
out tor them were given up, and thus Fernando became undis
puted sovereign of the two kingdoms of Castile and Leon.
70 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
CHAPTER VL
EXPEDITION OF THE PRINCE ALONZO AGAINST THE MOORS. — EN
CAMPS ON THE BANKS OF THE GUADALETE.— ABEN HUD MARCHES
OUT FROM XEREZ AND GIVES BATTLE. — PROWESS OF GARCIA
PEREZ DE VARGAS. — FLIGHT AND PURSUIT OF THE MOORS. —
MIRACLE OF THE BLESSED SANTIAGO.
KING FERNANDO III., having, through the sage counsel and
judicious management of his mother, made this amicable
agreement with his step-sisters, hy which he gained possession
of their inheritance, now found his territories to extend from
the Bay of Biscay to the vicinity of the Guadalquivir, and from
the borders of Portugal to those of Aragoii and Valencia ; and
in addition to his title of King of Castile and Leon, called him
self King of Spain by seigniorial right. Being at peace with all
his Christian neighbors, he now prepared to carry on, with
more zeal and vigor than ever, his holy wars against the
infidels. While making a progress, however, through his
dominions, administering justice, he sent his brother, the
Prince Alonzo, to make an expedition into the country of the
Moors, and to attack the newly risen power of Aben Hud.
As the Prince Alonzo was young and of little experience, the
king sent Don Alvar Perez de Castro, the Castilian, with him
as captain, he being stout of heart, strong of hand, and skilled
in war. The prince and his captain went from Salamanca to
Toledo, where they recruited their force with a troop of cav
alry. Thence they proceeded to Andujar, where they sent out
eorredores, or light foraging troops, who laid waste the
country, plundering rind destroying and bringing off great
booty. Thence chey directed their ravaging course toward
Oordova, assaulted and carried Palm a, and put all its inhabi
tants to the sword. Following the fertile valley of the Gua
dalquivir, they scoured the vicinity of Seville, and continued
onward for Xerez, sweeping off cattle and sheep from the
pastures of Andalusia; driving on long cavalgadas of horses
and mules laden with spoil ; until the earth shook with the
tramping of their feet, and their course was marked by clouds
of dust and the smoke of burnuig villages.
In this desolating foray they were joined by two hundred
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO THE SAINT. ft
horse and three hundred foot, Moorish allies, or rather vassals,
being led by the son of Aben Mohamed, the king of Baeza.
Arrived within sight of Xerez, they }>ii<li<-<i ihcir tents on
the banks of the Guadalete-that fatal river, sadly renowned
in the annals of Spain for the overthrow of Roderick and the
perdition of the kingdom.
Here a good watch was set over the captured flocks and
herds which covered the adjacent meadows, while the soldiers,
fatigued with ravage, gave themselves up to repose on the
banks of the river, or indulged in feasting and revelry, or
gambled with each other for their booty.
In the meantime Aben Hud, hearing of this inroad, sum
moned all his chivalry of the seaboard of Andalusia to meet
him in Xerez. They hastened to obey his call ; every leader
spurred for Xerez with his band of vassals. Thither came also
the king of the Azules, with seven hundred horsemen, Moors
of Africa, light, vigorous, and active ; and the city was full of
troops.
The camp of Don Alonzo had a formidable appearance at a
distance, from the flocks and herds which surrounded it, the
vast number of sumpter mules, and the numerous captives;
but when Aben Hud came to reconnoitre it, he found that its
aggregate force did not exceed three thousand five hundred
men — a mere handful in comparison to his army, and those
encumbered with cattle and booty. He anticipated, therefore,
an easy victory. He now sallied forth from the city, and took
his position in the olive-fields between the Christians and the
city ; while the African horsemen were stationed on each wing,
with instructions to hem in the Christians on either side, for he
was only apprehensive of their escaping. It is even said that
he ordered great quantities of cord to be brought from the
city, and osier bands to be made by the soldiery, wherewith to
bind the multitude of prisoners about to fall into their hands.
His whoie force he divided into seven battalions, each contain
ing from fifteen hundred to two thousand cavalry. With
these he prepared to give battle.
When the Christians thus saw an overwhelming force in
front, cavalry hovering on either flank, and the deep waters of
the Guadalete behind them, they felt the peril of their situa
tion.
In this emergency Alvar Perez de Castro showed himself
the able captain that he had been represented. Though ap
parently deferring to the prince in council, he virtually took
72 MOOniSH CHRONlGLfiS.
the command, riding among the croo'ps lightly armed, with
truncheon in hand, encouraging every one by word and look
and fearless demeanor. To give the most formidable appear
ance to their little host, he ordered that as many as possible of
the foot-soldiers should mount upon the mules and beasts of
burden, and form a troop to be kept in reserve. ^Before the
battle he conferred the honor of knighthood on Garcia Perez
de Vargas, a cavalier destined to gain renown for hardy deeds
of arms.
When the troops were all ready for the field, the prince
exhorted them as good Christians to confess their sins and
obtain absolution. There was a goodly number of priests and
friars with the army, as there generally was with all the plun
dering expeditions of this holy war, but there were not enough
to confess all the army; those, therefore, who could not have
a priest or monk for the purpose, confessed to each other.
Among the cavaliers were two noted for their valor; but
who, though brothers-in-law, lived in mortal feud. One was
Diego Perez, vassal to Alvar Perez and brother to him who
had just been armed knight; the other was Pero Miguel, both
natives of Toledo. Diego Perez was the one who had given
cause of offence. He now approached his adversary and asked
his pardon for that day only; that, in a time of such mortal
peril, there might not be enmity and malice in their hearts.
The priests added their exhortations to this request, but Pero
Miguel sternly refused to pardon. When this was told to the
prince and Don Alvar, they likewise entreated Don Miguel to
pardon his brother-in-law. "I will," replied he, "if he will
come to my arms and embrace me as a brother." But Diego
Perez declined the fraternal embrace, for he saw danger in the
eye of Pero Miguel, and he knew his savage strength and
savage nature, and suspected that he meant to strangle him.
So Pero Miguel went into battle without pardoning his enemy
who had implored forgiveness.
At this time, say the old chroniclers, the shouts and yells of
the Moorish army, the sounds of their cymbals, kettle-drums,
and other instruments of warlike music, were so great uhat
heaven and earth seemed commingled and confounded. In
regarding the battle about to overwhelm him, Alvar Peres saw
that the only chance was to torm the whole army into one
mass, and by a headlong assault to break the centre of the
enemy. In this emergency he sent word to the prince, who
was in the rear with the reserve and had five hundred cap-
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO THE SAI\T. 73
tives in charge, to strike off the heads of the captives and join
him with the whole reserve. This bloody order was obeyed.
The prince cande to the front, all formed togi'tlu-r in one dense
column, and then, with the \\ar-cry " Santiago! Santiago! Cas
tile! Castile !" charged upon the centre of the enemy. The
Moors' line was broken by the shock, squadron after squadron
was thrown into confusion, Moors and Christians were inter
mingled, until the field became one scene of desperate, chance-
medley fighting. Every Christian cavalier fought as if the
salvation of the field depended upon his single arm. Garcia
Perez de Vargas, who had been knighted just before the battle,
proved himself worthy of the honor. He" had three horses
killed under him, and engaged in a desperate combat with the
king of the Azules, whom at length he struck .dead from his
horse. The king had crossed from Africa on a devout expedi
tion in the cause of the prophet Mahomet. " Verily," says
Antonio Agapida, " he had his reward."
Diego Perez was not behind his brother in prowess; and
Heaven favored him in that deadly fight, notwithstanding that
he had not been pardoned by his enemy. In the heat of the
battle he had broken both sword and lance ; whereupon, tear
ing off a great knotted limb from an olive-tree, he laid about
him with such vigor and manhood that he who got one blow
in the head from that war-club never needed another. Don
Alvar Perez, who witnessed his feats, was seized with delight.
At each fresh blow that cracked a Moslem skull he would cry
out, " Assi! Assi! Diego, Machacha! Machacha!" (So! So! Diego,
smash them ! smash them !) and from that day forward that
strong- handed cavalier went by the name of Diego Machacha,
or Diego the Smasher, and it remained the surname of several
of his lineage.
At length the Moors gave way and fled for the gates of
Xerez ; being hotly pursued they stumbled over the bodies of the
slain, and thus many were taken prisoners. At the gates the
press was so great that they killed each other in striving to
enter; and the Christian sword made slaughter under the
walls.
The Christians gathered spoils of the field, after this victory,
until they were fatigued with collecting them, and the precious
articles found in the Moorish tents were beyond calculation.
Their camp-fires were supplied with the shafts of broken
lances, and they found ample use for the cords and osier bands
which the Moors had provided to bind their expected captives.
74 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
It was a theme of much marvel end. solemn meditation that
of all the distinguished cavaliers who entered into this battle,
not one was lost, excepting the same Pero Miguel who refused
to pardon his adversary. What became of him no one could
tell. The last that was seen of him he was in the midst of the
enemy, cutting down and overturning, for he was a valiant
warrior and of prodigious strength. When the battle and
pursuit were at an end, and the troops were recalled by sound
of trumpet, he did not appear. His tent remained empty.
The field of battle was searched, but he was nowhere to be
found. Some supposed that, in his fierce eagerness to make
havoc among the Moors, he had entered the gates of the city
and there been slain ; but his fate remained a mere matter of
conjecture, and the whole was considered an awful warning
that no Christian should go into battle without pardoning
those who asked forgiveness.
" On this day," says the worthy Agapida, "it pleased Heaven
to work one of its miracles in favor of the Christian host ; for
the blessed Santiago appeared in the air on a white horse, with
a white banner in one hand and a sword in the other, accom
panied by a band of cavaliers in white. This miracle," he
adds, "was beheld by many men of verity and worth, "pro
bably the monks and priests who accompanied the army; "as
well as by members of the Moors, who declared that the great
est slaughter was effected by those sainted warriors. "
It may be as well to add that Fray Antonio Agapida is
supported in this marvellous fact by Eodrigo, Archbishop of
Toledo, one of the most learned and pious men of the age, who
lived at the time and records it in his chronicle. It is a matter,
therefore, placed beyond the doubts of the profane.
NOTE BY THE EDITOR.— A memorandum at the foot of this page of the author's
manuscript, reminds him to " notice death of Queen Beatrix about this time," but
the text continues silent on the subject. According to Mariana she died in the city
of Toro in 1235, before the siege of Cordova. Another authority gives the 5th of
November, 1236. as the date of the decease, which would be some months after the
downfall of that renowned city. Her body was interred in the nunnery of Las
Huelgas at Burgos, and many vears afterward removed to Seville, where reposed
the remains of her husband.
OF FBUNAXDO T11E SAINT. 75
CHAPTER VIL
A COLD ATTEMPT UPON CORDOVA, THE SEAT OF MOORISH POWER.
ABOUT this time certain Christian cavaliers of the fronticrc,
received information from Moorish captives that the- noble
?ity of Cordova was negligently guarded, so that the suburbs
might easily be surprised. They immediately concerted a
bold attempt, and sent to Pedro and Alvar Perez, who were
at Martos, entreating them to aid them with their vassals.
Having collected a sufficient force, and prepared scaling-lad
ders, they approached the city on a dark night in January,
amid showers of rain and howling blasts, which prevented
their footsteps being heard. Arrived at the foot oi: the ram-
parts, they listened, but could hear no sentinel. The guards
had shrunk into the watch-towers for shelter from the pelting
storm, and the garrison was in profound sleep, for it was the
midwatch of the night.
Some, disheartened by the difficulties of the place, were for
abandoning the attempt, but Domingo Munoz, their adalid, or
guide, encouraged them. Silently fastening ladders tdgethcr,
so as to bo of sufficient length, they placed them against one of
the towers. The first who mounted were Alvar Colodro and
Benito de Banos, who were dressed as Moors and spoke the
Arabic language. The tower which they scaled is to this day
called the tower of Alvar Colodro. Entering it suddenly but
silently, they found four Moors asleep, whom they seized and
threw over the battlements, and the Christians below immedi
ately dispatched them. By this time a number more of Chris
tians had mounted the ladder, and sallying forth, sword in
hand, upon the wall, they gamed possession of several towers
and of the gate of Martos. Throwing open the gate, Pero
Ruyz Tabu** galloped in at the head of a squadron of horse,
and by the dawn of day the whole suburbs of Cordova, called
the Axarqina, were in their possession ; the inhabitants having
hastily gathered such of their most valuable effects as they
could carry with them, and taken refuge in the city.
The cavaliers now barricaded every street of the suburbs
excepting the principal one, which was broad and straight;
the Moors, however, made frequent sallies upon them, or
70 MOORISH CHRONICLES,
showered down darts and arrows and stones from the walls
and towers of the city. The cavaliers soon found that they
had got into warm quarters, which it would cost them blood
and toil to maintain. They sent off messengers, therefore, to
Don Alvar Perez, then at Martos, and to King Fernando, at
Benevente, craving instant aid. The messenger to the king
travelled day and night, and found the king at table ; when,
kneeling down, he presented the letter with which he was
charged.
No sooner had the king read the letter than he called for
horse and weapon. All Benevente instantly resounded with
the clang of arms and tramp of steed ; couriers galloped oft in
every direction, rousing the towns and Villages to arms, and
ordering every one to join the king on the frontier. "Cor
dova! Cordova!" was the war-cry— that proud city of the
infidels! that seat of Moorish power! The king waited not
to assemble a great force, but, within an hour after receiving
the letter, was on the road with a hundred good cavaliers.
It was the depth of winter; the rivers were swollen with
rain. The royal party were often obliged to halt on the bank
of some raging stream until its waters should subside. The
king was all anxiety and impatience. Cordova! Cordova!
was the prize to be won, and the cavaliers might bo driven out
of the suburbs before he could arrive to their assistance.
Arrived at Cordova, he proceeded to the bridge of Alcolea,
where he pitched his tents and displayed the royal standard.
Before the arrival of the king, Alvar Perez had hastened
from the castle of Martos with a body of troops, and thrown
himself into the suburbs. Many warriors, both horse and foot,
had likewise hastened from the frontiers and from the various
towns to which the king had sent his mandates. Some came
to serve the king, others out of devotion to the holy faith,
some to gain renown, and not a few to aid in plundering tho
rich city of Cordova. There were many monks, also, who had
come for the glory of God and the benefit of their convents.
When the Christians in the suburbs saw the royal standard
floating above the camp of the king, they shouted for joy, and
in the exultation of the moment forgot all past dangers and
hardships.
OF FURS AS DO THE t>A. 77
CHAPTER VIH.
1. SPY IN THE CHRISTIAN CAMP.— DEATH OP ABEN HUD.— A VITAL
BLOW TO MOSLEM POWER. — SURRENDER OF CORDOVA TO 1
FERNANDO.
ACEN HUD, the Moorish chief, who had been defeated by
Alvar Perez and Prince Alonzo before Xerez, was at this time
in Ecija with a large force, and disposed to hasten to the aid of
Cordova, but his recent defeat had made him cautious. He
had in his camp a Christian cavalier, Don Lorenzo Xuares by
name, who had been banished from Castile by King Fernando.
This cavalier offered to go as a spy into the Christian camp,
accompanied by three Christian horsemen, and to bring ac
counts of its situation and strength. His offer was gladly
accepted, and Aben Hud promised to do nothing with his forces
until his return.
Don Lorenzo set out privately with his companions, and
when he came to the end of the bridge he alighted and took
one of the three with him, leaving the other two to guard the
horses. He entered the camp without impediment, and saw
that it was small and of but little force ; for, though recruits
liad repaired from all quarters, they had as yet arrived in but
scanty numbers.
As Don Lorenzo approached the camp he saw a rnontero who
stood sentinel. "Friend," said he, " do mo the kindness to call
to me some person who is about the king, as I have something
to tell him of great importance." The sentinel went in and
brought out Don Otiella. Don Lorenzo took him aside and
said, " Do you not know me ? I am Don Lorenzo. I pray you
tell the king that I entreat permission to enter and communi
cate matters touching his safety."
Don Otiella went in and awoke the king, who was sleeping,
and obtained permission for Don Lorenzo to ontor. When the
king beheld him he was wroth at his presuming to return from
exile; but Don Lorenzo replied,— "Sefior, your majesty ban
ished me to the land of the Moors to do me harm, but I believe
it was intended by Heaven for the welfare lx>th of your
majesty and myself." Then he apprised the king of the intoa
78 MOORISH (WRONIOLES.
tion of Ahen Hud to come with a great force against him, and
of the doubts and fears he entertained lest the army of the
king ehould be too powerful. Don Lorenzo, therefore, advised
the king to draw off as many troops as could be spared from
the suburbs of Cordova, and to give his camp as formidable an
aspect as possible ; and that he would return and give Aben
Hud such an account of the power of the royal camp as would
deter him from the attack. "If," continued Don Lorenzo, " I
fail in diverting him from his enterprise, I will come off with
all my vassals and offer myself, and all I can command, for the
service of your majesty, and hope to be accepted for my good
intentions. As to what takes place in the Moorish camp, from
hence, in three days, I will send your majesty letters by this
my esquire."
The king thanked Don Lorenzo for his good intentions,, and
pardoned him, and took him as his vassal ; and Don Lorenzo
said: "I beseech your majesty to order that for three or four
nights there be made great fires in various parts of the camp,
so that in case Aben Hud should send scouts by night, there
may be the appearance of a great host. " The king promised it
should be done, and Don Lorenzo took his leave ; rejoining his
companions at the bridge, they mounted their horses and trav
elled all night and returned to Ecija.
When Don Lorenzo appeared in presence of Aben Hud he
had the air of one fatigued and careworn. To the inquiries of
the Moor he returned answers full of alarm, magnifying the
power and condition of the royal forces. "Senor," added he,
"if you would be assured of the truth of what I say, send out
your scouts, and they will behold the Christian tents whitening
all the banks of the Guadalquivir, and covering the country as
the snow covers the mountains of Granada ; or at night they
will see fires on hill and dale illumining all the land."
This intelligence redoubled the doubts and apprehensions of
Aben Hud. On the following day two Moorish horsemen ar
rived in all haste from Zaen, King of Valencia, informing him
that King James of Aracron was coming against that place with
a powerful army, and offering him the supremacy of the place
if he would hasten with all speed to its relief.
Aben Hud, thur, perplexed between two objects, asked advice
of his counsellors, among whom was the perfidious Don Lo
renzo. They observed that the Christians, though they had
possession of the suburbs of Cordova, could not for a long time
master the place. He would have time, therefore, to relieve
CHRONICLE OF FERNANDO THE SAINT. 79
Valencia, and then turn his arms and those of King Zacn
against the host ..!' King Fernando.
Abcn Hud listened to their advice, and man-hcd immediately
for Alineria, to take thence his ships to guard the port of Valen
cia. While at Almcria a Moor named Abcn Arramin, and who
was Ins especial favorite, invited him to a banquet. ' The un
suspecting Abcn Hud threw off his cares for the time, and
giving loose to convivialty in the house of his favorite drank
irccly of the wine-cup that was insidiously pressed upon him,
until he became intoxicated. Ho was then suffocated by the
traitor in a trough of water, and it was given out that ho had
died of apoplexy.
At the death of Aben Hud, his host fell asunder, and every
one hied him to his home, whereupon Don Lorenzo and the
Christians who were with him hastened to King Fernando, by
whom they were graciously received and admitted into ' his
royal ccrvico.
The death of Aben Hud was a vital blow to Moslem power,
and spread conlusion throughout Andalusia. When the people
of Cordova heard of it, and of the dismemberment of his
army, all courage withered from their hearts. Day after day
the army of King Fernando was increasing, the roads were
covered with foot-soldiers hastening to his standard; every
hidalgo who could bestride a horse spurred to the banks of the
Guadalquivir to be present at the downfall of Cordova. The
noblest cavaliers of Castile were continually seen marching
into the camp with banners flying and long trains of retainers.
The inhabitants held out as long as there was help or hope;
but they were exhausted by frequent combats and long and in
creasing famine, and now the death of Aben Hud cut off all
chance of succor. With sad and broken spirits, therefore, they
surrendered then- noble city to King Fernando, after a siege of
six months and six days. The surrender took place on Sunday,
the twenty-ninth day of July, the feast of the glorious Apostles
St. Peter and St. Paul, in the year of the Incarnation one
thousand two hundred and thirty-six.
The inhabitants were permitted to march forth in personal
safely, but to take nothing with them. " Tims " exclaims the
pious Agapida, "was the city of Cordova, the queen of the
cities of Andalusia, which so long had been the seat of the
power and grandeur of the Moors, cleansed from all the im
purities of Mahomet and restored to the dominion of the truo
faith."
$ MOORISH
King Fernando immediately ordered the cross to be elevated
en the tower of the principal mosque, and beside it the royal
standard; while the bishops, the clergy, and all the people
chanted T '., Dcum Laudamus, as a song of triumph for this
great victory of the faith.*
The king, having now gained full possession of the city, be
gan to repair, embellish, and improve it. The grand mosque,
the greatest and most magnificent in Spain, was now converted
into a holy Catholic church. The bishops and other clergy
walked round it in solemn procession, sprinkling holy water
in every nook and corner, and performing all other rites and
ceremonies necessary to purify and sanctify it. They erected
an altar in it, also, in honor of the Virgin, and chanted masses
with great fervor and unction. In this way they consecrated
it to the true faith, and made it the cathedral of the city.
In this mosque were found the bells of the church of San
lago in Gallicia, which the Alhagib Almanzor, in the year of
our Redemption nine hundred and seventy-five, had brought
off in triumph and placed here, turned with their mouths up
ward to serve as lamps, and remain shining mementoes of his
victory. King Fernando ordered that these bells should be re
stored to the church of San lago ; and as Christians had been
obliged to bring those bells hither on their shoulders, so in
fidels were compelled in like manner to carry them back.
Great was the popular triumph when these bells had their
tongues restored to them, and were once more enabled to fill
the air with their holy clangor.
Having ordered all things for the security and welfare of
the city, the king placed it under the government of Don
Tello Alonzo de Meneses ; he appointed Don Alvar Perez de
Castro, also, general of the frontier, having his stronghold in
the castle of the rock of Martos. The king then returned,
covered with glory, to Toledo.
The fame of the recovery of the renowned city of Cordova,
which for five hundred and twenty-two years had been in the
power of the infidels, soon spread throughout the kingdom,
and people came crowding from every part to inhabit it. The
gates which lately had been thronged with steel-clad warriors
were now besieged by peaceful wayfarers of all kinds, con
ducting trains of mules laden with their effect and all their
* OWL Gea. de Espafla, pt. 4. Bleda, lib. 4, c. 1<X
cnnoxiCLE OF FKKNANDO THE SAINT. n
household wealth; and so jrreat was the throng that in a liltlo
while there were not houses sufficient to receive them.
King Fernando, having restored the bells to San lago, had
others suspended in the tower of the mosque, whence tho
muezzin had been accustomed to call the Moslems to their
worship. " When the "pilgrims," says Fray Antonio Agapida,
"who repaired to Cordova, heard the holy sound of t
bells chiming from the tower of the cathedral, their hearts
leaped for joy, and they invoked blessings on the head of the
pious King Fernando."
CHAPTER IX.
MARRIAGE OF KING FERNANDO TO THE PRINCESS JUAHi —
FAMINE AT CORDOVA.— DON ALVAR PEREZ.
WHEN Queen Berenguela beheld King Fernando retu ning
in triumph from the conquest of Cordova, her heart was > ifted
up with transport, for there is nothing that more rejoices the
heart of a mother than the true glory of her son. The queen,
however, as has been abundantly shown, was a woman of
great sagacity and forecast. She considered that upwards of
two years had elapsed since the death of the Queen Beatrix,
and that her son was living in widowhood. It is true ho was
of quiet temperament, and seemed sufficiently occupied by the
cares of government and tho wars for the faith ; so that ap
parently he had no thought of further matrimony; but tho
shrewd mother considered likewise that he was in the prime
and vigor of his days, renowned in arms, noble and command
ing in person, and gracious and captivating in manners, and
surrounded by the temptations of a court. True, he was a
saint in spirit, but after all in flesh he was a man, and mipht
be led away into those weaknesses very incident to, but highly
unbecoming of, the exalted state of princes. Tho pood mother
was anxious, therefore, that he should enter again into tho
secure and holy state of wedlock.
Kin£ Fernando, a mirror of obedience to his mother, readily
concurred with her views in tho present instance, and left it to
her judgment and discretion to make a choice for him. Tho
choice fell upon the Princess Juana, daughter of the Count of
82 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
Pothier, and a descendant of Louis the Seventh of France.
The marriage was negotiated by Queen Bcrengucla with tho
Count of Pothier; and the conditions being catisfactorily
arranged, the princess was conducted in duo state to Burgos,
where the nuptials were celebrated with great pomp and cere
mony.
Tho king, as well as his subjects, was highly satisfied with
the choice of the sage Berenguela, for the bride was young,
beautiful, and of stately' form, and conducted herself with
admirable suavity and grace.
After the rejoicings were over, King Fernando departed
with his bride, and visited the principal cities and towns of
Castile and Leon ; receiving the homage of his subjects, and
administering justice according to the primitive forms of
those days, when sovereigns attended personally to the peti
tions and complaints of their subjects, and went about hearing
causes and redressing grievances.
In the course of his progress, hearing while at Toledo of a
severe famine which prevailed at Cordova, he sent a largo
supply of money to that city, and at the same time issued
orders to various parts to transport thither as much grain as
possible. The calamity, however, went on increasing. Tho
conquest of Cordova, had drawn thither great multitudes, ex
pecting to thrive on the well-known fertility and abundance of
the country. But the Moors, in the agitation of the time, had
almost ceased to cultivate their fields; tho troops helped to
consume the supplies on hand ; there were few hands to labor
and an infinity of mouths to cat, and the cry o2 famine went
on daily growing more intense.
Upon this, Don Alvar Perez, who had command of the fron
tier, set off to represent the case in person to the king; for one-
living word from the mouth is more effective than a thousand
dead words from the pen. He found the king at Valladolid,
deeply immersed in the religious exercises of Holy Week, and
much did it grieve this saintly monarch, say his chroniclers, to
bo obliged even for a moment to quit the holy quiet of the
church for the worldly bustle of the palace, to lay by the saint
and enact the sovereign. Having heard the representations of
Don Alvar Perez, he forthwith gave him ample funds where
with to maintain his castles, his soldiers, and even the idlers
who thronged about the frontier, and who would be useful
subjects when the times should become settled. Satisfied, also,
of the zeal and loyalty of Alvar Perez, which had been so
CHROMCLE Off i/,;\ UflW) HIE SAINT.
strikingly displays! in ihc ;»v:ciit instance, ho appointed him
adol;iiit.;i:l<> of th»- whole ironticrof Andalusia—an office on ui-
valont to that at present callfd viceroy, Don Alvar hastened
back to execute his mission and enter upon his new office. He
took lu's station at Martos, in its rock-built castle, which \\;is
the key of all that frontier, whence he could carry relief to any
point of his command, and could make occasional incursions
into the territories. Tho following chapter will show tho cares
and anxieties which awaited him in his new command.
CHAPTER X.
ABEN ALHAMAR, FOUNDER OF THE ALHAMBRA. — FORTIFIES GRA«
NADA AND MAKES IT HIS CAPITAL. —ATTEMPTS TO SURPRISE
THE CASTLE OF MARTOS. — PERIL OF THE FORTRESS. — A WOMAN'S
STRATAGEM TO SAVE IT.— DIEGO PEREZ, THE SMASHER. — DEATH
OF COUNT ALVAR PEREZ DE CASTRO.
ON the death of Abon Hud, the Moorish power in Spain was
br- 'ken up into factions, as has already been mentioned ; but
these factions were soon united under one head, who threat
ened to be a formidable adversary to the Christians. This was
Mohammed ben Alhamar, or Aben Alhamar, as he is common
ly called in history. He was a native of Arjona, of noble de
scent, being of the Beni Nasar, or race of Nasar, and had been
educated in a manner befitting his rank. Arrived at manly
years, he had been appointed alcayde of Arjona and Jaen, and
had distinguished himself by the justice and benignity of his
rule. He was intrepid, also, and ambitious, and during the
late dissensions among the Moslems had extended his territo
ries, making himself master of many strong places.
On the death of Aben Hud, he made a military circuit
through the Moorish territories, and was everywhere hailed
with acclamations as the only one who could save tho Moslem
pov/er in Spain from annihilation. At length he entered Gra
nada amidst the enthusiastic shouts of the populace. Hero ho
was proclaimed king, and found himself at the head of tho
Moslems of Spain, being the first of his illustrious line that
ever sat upon a throne. It needs nothing more to give lasting
renown to Aben Alhamar than to say ho was the founder of the
84 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
Alhamhra, that magnificent monument which to this day
bears testimony to Moorish taste and splendor. As yet, how
ever, Aben Alhamar had not tune to indulge in the arts of
peace. He saw the storm of war that threatened his newly
founded kingdom, and prepared to buffet with it. The territo
ries of Granada extended along the coast from Algeziras almost
to Murcia, and inland as far as Jaen and Huescar. All the
frontiers he hastened to put in a state of defence, while he
strongly fortified the city of Granada, which he made his
capital.
By the Mahometan law every citizen is a soldier, and to
take arms in defence of the country and the faith is a religious
and imperative duty. Aben Alhamar, however, knew the un
steadiness of hastily levied militia, and organized a standing
force to garrison his forts and cities, the expense of which he
defrayed from his own revenues. The Moslem warriors from
all parts now rallied under his standard, and fifty thousand
Moors, abandoning Valencia on the conquest of that country by
the king of Aragon, hastened to put themselves under the do
minion of Aben Alhamar.
Don Alvar Perez, on returning to his post, had intelligence
Df all these circumstances, and perceived that he had not suffi
cient force to make head against such a formidable neighbor,
and that in fact the whole frontier, so recently wrested from
the Moors, was in danger of being reconquered. With his old
maxim, therefore, ' ' There is more life in one word from the
mouth than in a thousand words from the pen," he deter
mined to have another interview with King Fernando, and
acquaint him with the imminent dangers impending over the
frontier.
He accordingly took his departure with great secrecy, leav
ing his countess and her women and donzellas in his castle of
the rock of Martos, guarded by his nephew Don Tello and forty
chosen men.
The departure of Don Alvar Perez was not so secret, how
ever, but that Aben Alhamar had notice of it by his spies, and
he resolved to make an attempt to surprise the castle of Mar
tos, \\-hich, as has been said, was the key to all this frontier.
Don Tello, who had been left in command of the fortress,
was a young galliard, full of the fire of youth, and he had sev
eral hardy and adventurous cavaliers with him, among whom
was Diego Perez do Vargas, surnamed Machacha, or the
Smasher, for his exploits at the battle of Xerez in smashing
CHRONICLE OF JTERyAXDO THE *ATXT. $0
the he&ds of the Moors witn the limb of an olive tree. Thcso
hot-blooded cavaliers, looking out liko hawks from their
mountain hold, were seized with an irresistible inclination to
make a foray into the lands of their Moorish neighbors. On a
bright morning they accordingly set forth, promising the don-
zcllas of the castle to bring them jewels and rich silks, the
spoils of Moorish women.
The cavaliers had not been long gone when the castle was
alarmed by the sound of trumpets, and the watchman from
the tower gave notice of a cloud of dust, with Moorish banners
and armor gleaming through it. It was, in fact, the Moorish
king, Aben Alhamar, who pitched his tents before the castle.
Great was the consternation that reigned within the walls,
for all the men were absent, excepting one or two necessary
for the service of the castle. The dames and donzellas gavo
themselves up to despair, expecting to bo carried away cap
tive, perhaps to supply some Moorish harem. The countess,
however, was of an intrepid spirit and ready invention. Sum
moning her duefias and damsels, she made them arrange their
hair, and dress themselves like men, take weapons in hand,
and show themselves between the battlements. The Moorish
king was deceived, and supposed the fort well garrisoned. He
was deterred, therefore, from attempting to take it by storm.
In the mean time she dispatched a messenger by the postern-
gate, with orders to speed swiftly in quest of Don Tello, and
tell him the peril of the fortress.
At hearing these tidings, Don Tello and his companions
turned their reins and spurred back for the castle, but on
drawing nigh, they saw from a bill that it was invested by
a numerous host who were battering the walls. It was an
appalling sight— to cut their way through such a force seemed
hopeless— yet their hearts were wrung with anguish when they
thought of the countess and her helpless donzellas. Upon
this, Diego Perez de Vargas, surnamed Machacha, stepped
forward and proposed to form a forlorn hope, and attempt
to force a passage to the castle. " If any of us succeed," said
he, "we may save the countess and the rock; if we fall, wo
ehall save our souls and act the parts of good cavaliers. This
rock is the key of all the frontier, on which the king depends
to get possession of the country. Shame would it bo if Moors
should capture it; above all, if they should lead away our
honored countess and her ladies captive before our eyes,
our lances remain unstained by blood and we unscarred
86 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
with a -wound. For niy part, I would rather die than sco it.
Life is but short ; we should do in it our best. So, in a word,
cavaliers, if you refuse to join me I will take my leave of you
and do what I can Avith my single arm."
'" Diego Perez," cried Don Tello, " you have spoken my very
wishes; I will stand by you until the death, and let those who
are good cavaliers and hidalgos follow our example."
The other cavaliers caught fire at these words ; forming a
solid squadron, they put spurs to their horses, and rushed
down upon the Moors. The first who broke into the ranks of
the enemy was Diego Perez, the Smasher, and he opened a
way for the others. Their only object was to cut their way
to the fortress; so they fought and pressed forward. The
most of them got to the rock ; some were cut off by the Moors,
and died like valiant knights, fighting to the last gasp.
When the Moorish king saw the daring of these cavaliers,
and that they had succeeded in reinforcing the garrison, he
despaired of gaining the castle without much time, trouble,
and loss of blood. He persuaded himself, therefore, that it
was not worth the price, and, striking his tents, abandoned the
siege. Thus the rock of Martos was saved by the sagacity of
the countess and the prowess of Diego Perez de Vargas, sur-
named the Smasher.
In the mean time, Don Alvar Perez de Castro arrived in pres
ence of the king at Hutiel. King Fernando received him with
benignity, but seemed to think his zeal beyond his prudence ;
leaving so important a frontier so weakly guarded, sinking the
viceroy in the courier, and coming so far to give by word of
mouth what might easily have been communicated by letter.
He felt the value, however, of his loyalty and devotion, but,
furnishing him with ample funds, requested him to lose no
time in getting back to his post. The count set out on his
return, but it is probable the ardor and excitement of his spirit
proved fatal to him, for he was seized with a violent fever
when on the journey, and died in the town of Orgaz.
C1WONWLK OF FERNANDO TllK >.!/ §7
CHAPTER XI.
ADEN HUDIEL, THE MOORISH KING OF MURCIA, BECO^IES Tire
VASSAL OF KING FERNANDO.— ABEN ALHAMAR SEEKS TO 1>
THE CHRISTIANS OUT OF ANDALUSIA. — FERNANDO TAKES T11K
FIELD AGAINST HIM. — RAVAGES OF THE KING. —HIS LAST
MEETING WITH THE QUEEN-MOTHER.
THE death of Count Alvar Perez de Castro caused deep afflic
tion to King Fernando, for he considered him the shield of the
frontier. While he was at Cordova, or at his rock of Martos,
the king felt as assured of the safety of the border as though
he had been there himself. As soon as ho could bo spared from
Castile and Leon, he hastened to Cordova, to supply the loss
the frontier had sustained in the person of his vigilant lieuten
ant. One of his first measures was to effect a truce of one year
with the king of Granada—a measure which each adopted with
great regret, compelled by his several policy : King Fernando
to organize and secure his recent conquests ; Aben Alhamar to
regulate and fortify his newly founded kingdom. Each felt
that ho had a powerful enemy to encounter and a desperate
struggle before him.
King Fernando remained at Cordova until the spring of the
following year (1241), regulating the affairs of that noble city,
assigning houses and estates to such of his cavaliers as had dis
tinguished themselves in the conquest, and, as usual, making
rich donations of towns and great tracts of land to the Church
and to different religious orders. Leaving his brother Alfonso
with a sufficient force to keep an eye upon the king of Gra
nada and hold him in check, King Fernando departed for
Castile, making a circuit by Jacn and Baeza and Andujar, and
arriving in Toledo on the fourth of April. Here he received
important propositions from Abcn Hudiel, the Moorish king
of Murcia The death of Aben Hud had left that kingdom a
scene of confusion. The alcaydes of the different cities and
fortresses were at strife with each other, and many refused
allegiance to Abcn Hudiel. The latter, too, was in hostility
with Aben Alhamar, the king of Granada, and he feared he
would take advantage of his truce with King Fernando, and
the distracted state of the kingdom of Murcia, to make an in-
8$ MOORISH. CHRONICLES,
road. Thus desperately situated, Aben Hudiel had sent mis
sives to King Fernando, entreating his protection, and offering
to become his vassal.
The king of Castile gladly closed with this offer. Ho forth'
with sent his son and heir, the Prince Alfonso, to receive tho
submission of the king of Murcia. As the prince was young
and inexperienced in these affairs of state, he sent with him
Don Pelayo de Correa, the Grand Master of Santiago, a cava
lier of consummate wisdom and address, and also Eodrigo
Gonzalez Giron. Tho prince was received in Murcia with
regal honors; the terms were soon adjusted by which the
Moorish king acknowledged vassalage to King Fernando, and
ceded to him one-half of his revenues, in return for which tho
king graciously took him under his protection. The alcaydes of
Alicant, Elche, Oriola, and several other places, agreed to this
covenant of vassalage, but it was indignantly spurned by the
Wali of Lorca ; he had been put in office by Aben Hud ; and,
now that potentate was no more, he aspired to exercise an
independent sway, and had placed alcaydes of his own party
in Mula and Carthagena.
As the Prince Alfonso had come to solemnize the act of
homage and vassalage proposed by the Moorish king, and not
to extort submission from his subjects by force of arms, ho
contented himself with making a progress through the king
dom and receiving the homage of the acquiescent towns and
cities, after which he rejoined his father in Castile.
It is conceived by the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida, as well
as by other monkish chroniclers, that this important acquisi
tion of territory by the saintly Fernando was a boon from
Heaven in reward of an offering which he made to God of his
daughter Berengucla, whom early in this year he dedicated as
a nun in the convent of Las Huelgas, in Burgos— of which con
vent the king's sister Constanza was abbess.*
About this time it was that King Fernando gave an instance
of his maganimity and his chivalrous disposition. We have
seen the deadly opposition he had experienced from the
haughty house of Lara, and the ruin which the three brothers
brought upon themselves by their traitorous hostility. The
anger of the king was appeased by their individual ruin ; he did
not desire to revenge himself upon their helpless families, nor
* Cronica del Rey Santo, cap. 1&
OF FKR^NDO THE SAINT. 89
to b ."ccUi down and annihilate a house lofty and honored in the
traditions of Spain. One of the brothers, Don Fernando, had
left a daughter, Doiia Sancha Fernandez de Lara; there hap
pencd at this time to be in Spain a cousin-german of the king,
a prince of Portugal, Don Fernando by name, who held the
souoria of Serpa. Between this prince and Dona Sancha the
king effected a marriage, whence has sprung one of the most
illustrious branches of the ancient house of Lara.* The other
daughters of Don Fernando retained largo possessions in Cas
tile ; and one of his sons will be found serving valiantly under
the standard of the king.
In the mean time the truce with Aben Alharnar, the king of
Granada, had greatly strengthened the hands of that monarch.
He had received accessions of troops from various parts, had
fortified his capital and his frontiers, and now fomented dis
turbances in the neighboring kingdom of Murcia— encouraging
the refractory cities to persist in their refusal of vassalage—
hoping to annex that kingdom to his own newly consolidated
dominions.
The Wali of Lorca and his partisans, the alcaydes of Mula
and Carthagena, thus instigated by the King of Granada, now
increased in turbulence, and completely overawed the feeble-
handed Aben Hudiel. King Fernando thought this a good op
portunity to give his son and heir his first essay in arms. He
accordingly dispatched the prince a second time to Murcia, ac
companied as before by Don Pelayo de Correa, the Grand Mas
ter of Santiago ; but he sent him now with a strong military
force, to play the part of a conqueror. The conquest, as may
bo supposed, was easy ; Mula, Lorca, and Carthagena soon sub
mitted, and the whole kingdom was reduced to vassalage—
Fernando henceforth adding to his other titles King of Murcia.
"Thus, "says Fray Antonio Agapida, uwas another precious
jewel wrested from the kingdom of Antichrist, and added to
the crown of this saintly monarch. "
But it was not in Murcia alone that King Fernando found
himself called to contend with his new adversary the King of
Granada. That able and active monarch, strengthened as has
been said during the late truce, had made bold forays in the
frontiers recently conquered by King Fernando, and had even
extended them to the neighborhood of Cordova. In all this he
had been encouraged by some degree of negligence and inac-
•Notas para la Vida del Santo Key, jx 654.
90 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
tion on the part of King Fernando "b Vother Alfonso, who had
been left in charge of the frontier. The prince took the field
against Ahcn Alhamar, and fought him manfully; but the
Moorish force was too powerful to be withstood, and the prince
was defeated.
Tidings of this was sent to King Fernando, and of the great
danger of the frontier, as Aben Alhamar, flushed with success,
was aiming to drive the Christians out of Andalusia. King
Fernando immediately set off for the frontier, accompanied by
the Queen Juana. He did not wait to levy a powerful force,
but took with him a small number— knowing the loyalty of his
subjects and their belligerent propensities, and that they would
hasten to his standard the moment they knew he was in the
field and exposed to danger. His force accordingly increased
as he advanced. At Andujar ho met his brother Alfonso with
the relics of his lately defeated army — all brave and expert
soldiers. He had now a commanding force, and leaving the
queen with a sufficient guard at Andujar, he set off with his
brother Alfonso and Don Nuno Gonzalez de Lara, son of the
Count Gonzalo, to scour the country about Arjona, Jaen, and
Alcandete. The Moors took refuge in their strong places,
whence they saw with aching hearts the desolation of their
country— olive plantations on fire, vineyards laid waste, groves
and orchards cut down, and all the other modes of ravage
practised in these unsparing wars.
The King of Granada did not venture to take the field ; and
King Fernando, meeting no enemy to contend with, while
ravaging the lands of Alcandete, detached a part of his force
under Don Rodrigo Fernandez de Castro, a son of the brave
Alvar Perez lately deceased, and he associated with him Nuno
Gonzalez, with orders to besiege Arjona. This was a place
dear to Abeu Alhamar, the King of Granada, being his native
place, where he had first tasted the sweets of power. ' Hence he
was commonly called the King of Arjona.
The people of the place, though they had quailed before King
Fernando, despised his officers and set them at defiance. The
king himself, however, made his appearance on the following
day with the remainder of his forces, whereupon Arjona ca
pitulated.
While his troops were reposing from their fatigues, the king
made some further ravages, and reduced several small towns
to obedience. He then sent his brother Don Alfonso with suffi
cient forces to carry fire and sword into the Vega of Granada,
CHRONICLE OF FrJlVAXDO Till. 91
In the moan time ho roturnod to Andujar tD the Queen Juana.
Ho merely came, say the old chroniclers, for the purpose of
conducting her to Cordova; fulfilling, always, his duty as a
cavalier, without neglecting that of a king.
The moment he had left her in her palace at Cordova, ho
hastened back to join liis brother in harasdng the territories
of Granada. He came in time; for Aben Alhamar, cnrap:
seeing the destruction of the Vega, made such a vigorous sally,
that had Prince Alfonso been alone in command, he might
have received a second lesson still more disastrous than tho
first. The presence of the. king, however, put new spirits and
valor into the troops ; the Moore were driven back to the city,
and the Christians pursued them to the very gates. As the
king had not sufficient forces with him to attempt the capture
of this place, he contented himself with the mischief he had
done, and, with some more which he subsequently effected, he
returned to Cordova to let his troops rest from their fatigues.
While the king was in this city, a messenger arrived from
his mother, the Queen Bercnguela, informing him of her inten
tion of coming to pay him a visit. A long time had elapsed
since they had seen each other, and her extreme age rendered
her anxious to embrace her son. The king, to prevent her
from taking so long a journey, set off to meet her, taking with
him his Queen Juana. The meeting took place in Pezuclo,
near Burgos,* and was affecting on both sides, for never did
son and mother love and honor each other more truly. In
this interview, the queen represented her ago and increasing
weakness, and her incapacity to cope with the fatigues of pub
lic affairs, of which she had always shared the burden with
the king; she therefore signified her wish to retire to her con
vent, to pass the remnant of her days in holy repose. King
Fernando, who had ever found in his mother his ablest coun
sellor and best support, entreated her not to leave his side in
these arduous times, when the King of Granada on one side,
and the King of Seville on the other, threatened to put all his
courage and resources to the trial. A long and earnest, yet
tender and affectionate, conversation succeeded between them,
which resulted in the queen-mother's yielding to his solicita
tions. The illustrious son and mother remained together six
weeks, enjoying each other's society, after which they scpa-
* Some chroniclers, through mistake, make it Peiuelo, near Cludad Real, In tb«
iaountains on ihe confines of Granada.
92 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
rated— the king and queen for the frontier, and the queen-
mother for Toledo. They were never to behold each other
again upon earth, for the king never returned to Castile.
CHAPTER XII.
KING FERNANDO'S EXPEDITION TO ANDALUSIA. — SIEGE OF JAEN.
—SECRET DEPARTURE OF ABEN ALHAMAR FOR THE CHRISTIAN
CAHP.— HE ACKNOWLEDGES HIMSELF THE VASSAL OF THE
IT was in the middle of August, 1245, that King Fernando
set out on his grand expedition to Andalusia, whence he was
never to return. All that autumn he pursued the same de
structive course as in his preceding campaigns, laying waste
the country with fire and sword in the vicinity of Jaen and to
Alcala la Real. The town, too, of Illora, built on a lofty rock
and fancying itself secure, was captured and given a prey to
flames, which was as a bale-fire to the country. Thence he
descended into the beautiful Vega of Granada, ravaging that
earthly paradise. Abeu Alhamar sallied forth from Granada
with what forces he could collect, and a bloody battle ensued
about twelve miles from Granada. A part of the troops of
Aben Alhamar were hasty levies, inhabitants of ths city, and
but little accustomed to combat ; they lost courage, gave way,
and threw the better part of the troops in disorder ; a retreat
took place, which ended in a headlong flight, in which there
was great carnage.*
Content for the present with the ravage he had made, and
the victory he had gained, King Fernando now drew off his
troops and repaired to his frontier hold of Martos, where they
might rest after their fatigues in security.
Here he was joined by Don Pelayo Perez Correa, the Grand
Master of Santiago. This valiant cavalier, who was as sage
and shrewd in council as he was adroit and daring in tho field,
had aided the youthful Prince Alfonso in completing the tran-
quillization of Murcia, and, leaving him in the quiet adminis
tration of affairs in that kingdom, had since been on a pious
Conde, torn, lit c. 5.
OF FERNANDO THE 8 A TXT. (ft
and political mission to tho court of Rome. He arrived most
opportunely at Martos, to aid the king with his counsels, for
there was none in whoso wisdom and loyalty tho king had
more confidence.
The grand master listened to all the plans of tho king for the
humiliation of the haughty King of Granada; he then gravely
but most respectfully objected to tho course the king was pur
suing. He held tho mere ravaging the country of little ulti
mate benefit. It harassed and irritated, but did not destroy
the enemy, while it fatigued and demoralized tho army. To
conquer tho country, they must not lay waste tho field, but
take tho towns; so long as the Moors retained their strong
holds, so long had they dominion over the land. He advised,
therefore, as a signal blow to tho power of the Moorish king,
the capture of the city of Jacn. This was a city of immense
strength, the bulwark of the kingdom; it was well supplied
with provisions and tho munitions of war ; strongly garrisoned
and commanded by Abu Omar, native of Cordova, a general
of cavalry, and one of the bravest officers of Aben Alhamar.
King Fernando had already besieged it in vain, but the reason
ing of tho grand master had cither convinced his reason or
touched his pride. He set himself down before the walls of
Jaen, declaring ho would never raise tho siege until ho was
master of the place. For a long time the siege was earned on
in the depth of winter, in defiance of rain and tempests. Aben
Alhamar was in despair: ho could not relievo the place; he
could not again venture on a battle with the -king after his late
defeat. He saw that Jaen must fall, and feared it would be
followed by the fall of Granada. Ho was a man of ardent
spirit and quick and generous impulses. Taking a sudden
resolution, he departed secretly for tho Christian camp, and
made his way to the presence of Km^ Fernando. " Behold
before you," said ho, "the King of Granada. Resistance I
find unavailing; I come, trusting to your magnanimity and
good faith, to put myself under your protection and acknow
ledge myself your vassal." So saying, he knelt and kissed the
king's hand in token of homage.
"King Fernando," say the old chroniclers, "was not to bo
outdone in generosity. He raised his late enemy from tho
earth, embraced him as a friend, and left him in tho sovereignty
of his dominions ; the good king, however, was as politic as he
was generous. He received Aben Alharnar as a vassal ; con
ditioned for the delivery of Jaen into his hands; for the yearly
04 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
payment of one-half of his revenues ; for Ms attendance at the
cortcs as one of the nobles of the empire, and his aiding Castile
in war with a certain number of horsemen."
In compliance with these conditions, Jaen was given up to
the Christian king, who entered it in triumph about the end of
February.* His first care was to repair in grand procession,
bearing the holy cross, to the principal mosque, which was
purified and sanctified by the Bishop of Cordova, and erected
into a cathedral and dedicated to the most holy Virgin Mary.
He remained some time in Jaen, giving repose to his troops,
regulating the affairs of this important place, disposing of
houses and estates among his warriors who had most dis
tinguished themselves, and amply rewarding the priests and
monks who had aided him with their prayers.
As to Aben Alhamar, he returned to Granada, relieved from
apprehension of impending ruin to his kingdom, but deeply
humiliated at having, to come under the yoke of vassalage.
He consoled himself by prosecuting the arts of peace, improv
ing the condition of his people, building hospitals, founding
institutions of learning, and beautifying his capital with thoso
magnificent edifices which remain the admiration of posterity ;
for now it was that he commenced to build the Alhambra.
NOTE.— There is some dispute among historians as to the duration of the siege
and the date of the surrender of Jaen. Some make the siege endure eight months,
from August into the middle of April. The authentic Agapida adopts the opinion
of the author of Notas para la Vidn. del Sanio Rei/. etc., who makes the siege begin
on the 31st December and end about the 20th February.
CHAPTER XIII.
AXATAP, KING OF SEVILLE, EXASPERATED AT THE SUBMISSION OF
THE KING OF GRANADA, REJECTS THE PROPOSITIONS OF KING
FERDINAND FOR A TRUCE.— THE LATTER IS ENCOURAGED BY A
VISION TO UNDERTAKE THE CONQUEST OF THE CITY OF SE
VILLE. — DEATH OF QUEEN BERENGUELA. — A DIPLOMATIC MAR
RIAGE.
KING FERNANDO, having reduced the fair kingdom of Gra
nada to vassalage, and fortified himself in Andalusia by tho
possession of the strong city of Jaen, bethought him now of
* Notas para la Vida del Santo Rey, p. 502.
CHRONICLE i F FERNANDO THE a 1 TXT. 95
returning to Castilo. There was but one Moorish potentate in
Spain whoso hostilities he had to fear: thiswi.s Axataf, the
King of Seville. He was the son of Abcn Mini, and succeeded
to a portion of his territories. Warned by UK- MJII;>I defeat of
his father at Xerez, he had forborne to take th 3 field against
the Christians, but had spared no pains and cxpt use to put tho
city of Seville in the highest state of defence ; strengthening
its walls and towers, providing it with munition; of w.ar of all
kinds, and exercising his people continually in the use of arms.
King Fernando was loth to loave this great >. rentier in its
present unsettled state, with such a powerful enemy in tho
neighborhood, who might take advantage of u;s absence to
break into open hostility ; still it was his policy tc - et the sword
rest in the sheath until he had completely secured his new pos
sessions. He sought, therefore, to make a truoc with King
Axataf. and, to enforce his propositions, it is said he appeared
with his army before Seville in May, 134G.* His propositions
were rejected, as it were, at the very gate. It uppeair that
the King of Seville was exasperated rather than dismayed by
tho submission of the King of Granada. He fell that on hi--n-
self depended the last hope of Islamism in Spain ; ho trusted
on aid from tho coast of Barbary, with which his capital had
ready communication by water; and he resolved to make a
bold stand in tho cause of his faith.
King Fernando retired indignant from before Seville, and
repaired to Cordova, with the pious determination to punish
the obstinacy and humble the pride of the infidel, by planting
the standard of the cross on the walls of his capital. Seville
once in his power, the rest of Andalusia would soon follow,
and then his triumph over the sect of Mahomet would bo
complete. Other reasons may have concurred to make him
covet the conquest of Seville. It was a city of great splendor
and wealth, situated in the midst of a fertile country, in a
genial climate, under a tenignant sky ; and having by its river
the Guadalquivir, an open highway for commerce, it was the
metropolis of all Morisma — a world of wealth and delight
within itself.
These were sufficient reasons for aiming at the conquest of
this famous city, but these were not sufficient to satisfy the
holy friars who have written the history of this monarch, and
who have found a reason more befitting his character of saint.
* Notes para la Vida del Santo Key, p. 573.
96 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
Accordingly we are told, by the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida,
that at a time when the king was in deep affliction for the
death of his mother, the Queen Berenguela, and was praying
with great fervor, there appeared before him Saint Isidro, the
great Apostle of Spain, who had been Archbishop of Seville in
old times, before the perdition of Spain by the Moors. As tho
monarch gazed in reverend wonder at the vision, the saint laid
011 him a solemn injunction to rescue from the empire of Ma
homet his city of Seville. " Quc a si la llarno por suya en la
patria, suya en la silla, y suya en la proteccion." "Such,"
says Agapida, ' ' was the true reason why this pious king un
dertook the conquest of Seville ; " and in this assertion ho is
supported by many Spanish chroniclers ; and by the traditions
of the Church — tho vision of San Isidro being read to this
day among its services.*
The death of Queen Berenguela, to which we have just ad
verted, happened some months after the conquest of Jaen and
submission of Granada. The grief of the king on hearing tho
tidings, we are told, was past description. For a time it quito
overwhelmed him. "Nor is it much to be niarvcUed at," says
an old chronicler ; "for never did monarch lose a mother so
noble and magnanimous in all her actions. She was indeed ac
complished in all things, an example of every virtue, the mirror
of Castile and Leon and all Spain, by whose counsel and wisdom
the affairs of many kingdoms were governed. This noble
queen," continues the chronicler, "was deplored in all tho
cities, towns, and villages cf Castile and Leon ; by all people,
great and small, but especially by poor cavaliers, to whom she
was ever a benefactress."!
Another heavy loss to King Fernando, about this time, was
that of the Archbishop of Toledo, Don Rodrigo, the great ad
viser of the king in all his expeditions, and the prelate who
first preached the grand crusade in Spam. He lived a life of
piety, activity, and zeal, and died full of years, of honors, and
of riches— having received princely estates and vast revenues
from the king in reward of his services in the cause.
These private afflictions for a time occupied the royal mind ;
the king was also a little disturbed by some rash proceedings of
his son, the hereditary Prince Alfonso, wuo, Doing left in the
government of Murcia, took a notion oi iniiKiting nis father
* Rodriguez, Memorias del Santo Tley, o. IviiL
+ Oronioadel Bey Don Fernando, fc. xili.
(JllllONICLE OF JrtSWTANDQ TJJ/- 8AtttT<
In his conquests, and ir.ndc an inroad into the Moorish king
dom of Valencia, at that timo in a state of confusion. This
brought on a collision with King Jay me of Aragon, surnamcd
the Conqueror, who had laid his hand upon all Valencia, as
his by right of arms. There was thus danger of a rupturo
with Aragon, and of King Fernando having an enemy on his
back, while busied in his wars in Andalusia. Fortunately
King Jay me had a fair daughter, the Princess Violante; and
the grave diplomatists of the two courts determined that it
were better the two children should marry, than the two
fathers should fight. To this arrangement King Fernando
and King Jay me gladly assented. They were both of tho
same faith ; both proud of the name of Christian ; both zealous
in driving Mahometanisrn out of Spain, and in augmenting
their empires with its spoils. The marriage was accordingly
solemnized in Valladolid in tho month of November in this
same year; and now tho saintly King Fernando turned his
whole energies to this great and crovning achievement, tho
conquest of Seville, the emporium of Mahometanism in Spain.
Foreseeing, as long as the mouth of the Guadalquivir was
open, the city could receive reinforcements and supplies from
Africa, the king held consultations with a wealthy man of
Burgos, Ramon Bonifaz, or Boniface, by name— some say a
native of France— one well experienced in maritime affairs,
and capable of fitting out and managing a fleet. This man ho
constituted his admiral, and sent him to Biscay to provide and
arm a fleet of ships and galleys, with which to attack Seville
by water, while the king should invest it by land.
CHAPTER XIV.
INVESTMENT OF SEVILLE. — ALL SPAIN AROUSED TO ARMS. — SUR
RENDER OF ALCALA DEL RIO. — THE FLEET OF ADMIRAL RAMON
BONIFAZ ADVANCES UP THE QUADALQUI VIR. — DON PELAYO
CORREA, MASTER OF SANTIAGO. —HIS VALOROUS DEEDS AND
THE MIRACLES WROUGHT IN HIS BEHALF.
WHEN it was bruited about that King Fernando the Saint
intended to besiege tho great city of Seville, all Spain was
roused to arms. Tho masters of the various military and
OS MOORISH CHRONICLES
religious orders, the ricos nombres, the princes, cavaliers,
hidalgos, and every one of Castile and Lcoii capable of bearing
arms, prepared to take the field, Many of the nobility of
Catalonia and Portugal repaired to the standard of the king,
as did other cavaliers of worth and prowess from lands far
beyond the Pyrenees.
Prelates, priests, and monks likewise thronged to the army
— some to take care of the souls of those who hazarded their
lives in this holy enterprise, others with a zealous determina
tion to grasp buckler and lance, and battle with the arm of
flesh against the enemies of God and the Church.
At the opening of spring the assembled host issued forth in
shining array i'roni the gates of Cordova. After having gained
possession of Carmona, and Lora, and Alcolea, and of other
neighboring places— some by voluntary surrender, others by
force of arms— the king crossed the Guadalquivir, with great
difficulty and peril, and made himself master of several of tho
most important posts in the neighborhood of Seville. Among
these was Alcala del Rio, a place of great consequence, through
which passed all the succors from the mountains to the city.
This place was bravely defended by Axataf in person, the
commander of Seville. He remained in Alcala with thrco
hundred Moorish cavaliers, making frequent sallies upon the
Christians, and effecting great slaughter. At length he beheld
all the country around laid waste, the grain burnt or trampled
down, the vineyards torn up, the cattle driven away and tho
v&lagos consumed; so that nothing remained to give suste
nance to the garrison or the inhabitants. Not daring to linger
there any longer, he departed secretly in the night and retired
to Seville, and the town surrendered to King Fernando.
While the king was putting Alcala del Rio in a state of de
fence, Admiral Ramon Bonifaz arrived at the mouth of the
Guadalquivir with a fleet of thirteen large ships, and several
small vessels and galleys. While he was yet hovering about*
the land, he heard of the approach of a great force of ships
for Tangier, Ccuta, and Seville, and of an army to assail him
from the shores. In this peril he sent in all speed for succor
to the kir.g; when it reached the sea-coast the enemy had not
yet appeared; wherefore, thinking it a false alarm, the rein
forcement returned to the camp. Scarcely, however, had it
departed when the Africans came swarming over the sea, and
fell upon Ramon Bonifaz with a greatly superior force. The
admiral, in no way dismayed, defended himself vigorously-*
01- VERXAKDO THE SAINT. 99
sunk scvv-r.nl of the enemy, took a fow prizes, and put tho
rest to flight, remaining master of the river. <
heard of tho peril of the fleet, and, crossing tlie lord of the
river, had hastened to its aid; hut when ho camo to the sea-
coast, he found it victorious, at which he was greatly re
joiced, and commanded that it should advance higher up tho
river.
It was on the twentieth of the month of August that King
Fernando began formally tho eiego of Seville, having en
camped his troops, small in number, but of stout hearts and
valiant hands, near to the city on the banks of tho river. From
hence Don Pelayo Corrca, the valiant Master ol Santiago,
with two hundred and sixty horsemen, many of whom wcro
warlike friars, attempted to cross tho river at the ford below
Aznal Farache. Upon this, Abcn Amaken, Moorish king 01
Niebla, sallied forth with a great host to defend the pass, and
the cavaliers were exposed to imminent peril, until tho king
sent one hundred cavaliers to their aid, led on by Rodrigo
Flores and Alonzo Tellez and Fernan Diaiiez.
Thus reinforced, the Master of Santiago scoured the opposite
side of the river, and with his little army of scarce four hun
dred horsemen, mingled monks and soldiers, spread dismay
throughout tho country. They attacked tho town of Gclbes,
and, after a desperate combat, entered it, sword in hand, slay
ing or capturing tho Moors, and making rich booty. They
made repeated assaults upon the castle of Triana, and had
bloody combats with its garrison, but could not take the place.
This hardy band of cavaliers had pitched their tents and formed
their little camp on the banks of tho river, below the castle of
Aznal Farache. This fortress was situated on an eminence
above the river, and its massive ruins, remaining at tho pres
ent day, attest its formidable strength.
When the Moors from tho castle towers looked down upon
this little camp of Christian cavaliers, and saw them sail
forth and careerinp; about the country, and rcturninp: in tho
evenings with cavalcades of sheep and cattle, and mules laden
with spoil, and long trains of captives, they were exceedingly
wroth, and they kept a watch upon them, and sallied forth
every day to fight with them, and to intercept stragglers from
their camp, and to carry off their horses. Then the cavaliers
concerted together, and they lay in ambush one day in tho
road by which the Moors were accustomed to sally forth, and
when the Moors had partly passed their ambush, they rushed
loo Moomsn CHRONICLES.
forth and fell upon them, and killed and captured above threo
hundred, and pursued the remainder to the very gates of tho
castle. From that time the Moors were so disheartened that
they made no further sallies.
Shortly after, the Master of Santiago receiving secret intelli
gence that a Moorish sea-captain had passed from Seville to
Triana, on his way to succor the castle of Aznal Faracho,
placed himself, with a nuinher of chosen cavaliers, in ambus
cade at a pass by which the Moors were expected to come.
After waiting a long time, their scouts brought word that tho
Moors had taken another road, and wore nearly at the foot of
the hill on which stood the castle. "Cavaliers," cried the mas
ter, "it is not too late; let us first use our spurs and then our
weapons, and if our steeds prove good, the day will yet bo
ours." So saying, he put spurs to his horse, and the rest fol
lowing his example, they soon came in sight of the Moors.
The latter, seeing the Christians coming after them full speed,
urged their horses up the hill toward the castle, but the Chris
tians overtook them and slew seven of those in tho rear. In
the skirmish, Garci Perez struck the Moorish captain from his
horse with a blow of his lance. The Christians rushed forward
to take him prisoner. On seeing this, the Moors turned back,
threw themselves between their commander and his assailants,
and kept the latter in check while he was conveyed into the
castle. Several of them fell covered with wounds ; tho residue,
seeing their chieftain safe, turned their reins and galloped for
the castle, just entering in time to have the gates closed upon
their pursuers.
Time and space permit not to recount the many other valor
ous deeds of Don Pelayo Correa, tho good Master of Santiago,
and his band of cavaliers and monks. His little camp becamo
a terror to the neighborhood, and checked tho sallies of tho
Moorish mountaineers from the Sierra Morena. In one of his
enterprises he gained a signal advantage over tho foe, but tho
approach of night threatened to defraud him of his victory.
Then the pious warrior lifted up his voice and supplicated the
Virgin Mary in those celebrated words, "Santa Maria detcn
tu dia" (Holy Mary, detain thy day), for it was one of the days
consecrated to the Virgin. Tho blessed Virgin listened to tho
prayer of her valiant votary ; the daylight continued in a su
pernatural manner, until the victory of the good Master of
Santiago was completed. In honor of this signal favor, ho
K OP \oo nm SAINT. \q
afterward erected a temple GO the Virgin by the name of Nuei*
Ira Seiiora do Tentudia.*
If any one should dorbt this iiiiracle, wrought in favor oi
this pious warrior and his soldiers of the cowl, it may be suf
ficient to relate another, which immediately succeeded, and
which shows how peculiarly he was under the favor of Hea
ven. After the battle was over, his followers were ready to
faint with thirst, and could find no stream or fountain ; and
when the good master saw the distress of his soldiers, his )
was touched with compassion, and, bethinking himself of the
miracle performed by Moses, in an impulse of holy zeal and
confidence, and in the name of the blessed Virgin, he struck
a dry and barren rock with his lance, and instantly there
gushed forth a fountain of water, at which all his Christian
soldiery drank and were refreshed.! So much at present for
the good Master of Santiago, Don Pelayo Correa.
CHAPTER XV.
KING FERNANDO CHANGES HIS CAMP.— GARCI PEREZ AND THE
SEVEN MOORS.
KING FERNANDO the Saint soon found his encampment on
the banks of the Guadalquivir too much exposed to the sudden
sallies and assaults of the Moors. As the land was level, they
easily scoured the fields, carried off horses and stragglers from
the camp, and kept it in continual alarm. He drew off, there
fore, to a securer place, called Tablada, the same where at
present is situated the hermitage of Nuestra Seiiora de el
Balme. Here he had a profound ditch digged all round the
camp, to shut up the passes from the Moorish cavalry. Ho
appointed patrols of horsemen also, completely armed, who
continually made the rounds of the camp, in successive bands,
at all hours of the day and night. | In a little while his army
was increased by the arrival jf troops from all partd— nobles,
* Zunlga: Annales de Sevilla, L. 1.
t Jacob Paranes: Lib. de log Maestro* de St. lago. Cronlca Qotica,T. I, ( xitt
Zuniga: Annales de Sevilla.
* Cromica Gotica, T. 3, $ riii.
102 MOORISH CSRONICLES.
cavaliei ^ t*~ «, ^Jeh men, with their retainers — nor were the
„ wanting holy prelates, who assumed the warrior, and brought
large squadrons of well-armed vassals to the army. Merchants
and artificers now daily arrived, and wandering minstrels,
and people of all sorts, and the camp appeared like a warlike
city, where rich and sumptuous merchandise was mingled
with the splendor of arms ; and the various colors of the tents
and pavilions, and the fluttering standards and pennons bear
ing the painted devices of the proudest houses of Spain, were
gay and glorious to behold.
When the king had established the camp in Tablada he or
dered that every day the foragers should sally forth in search
of provisions and provender, guarded by strong bodies ot
troops. The various chiefs of the army took turns to com
mand the guard who escorted the foragers. One day it was
the turn of Garci Perez, the same cavalier who had killed the
king of the Azules. He was a hardy, iron warrior, seasoned and
scarred in warfare, and renowned among both Moors and Chris
tians for his great prowess, his daring courage, and his coolness
in the midst of danger. Garci Perez had lingered in the camp
until some time after the foragers had departed, who were
already out of sight. He at length set out to join them, ac
companied by another cavalier. They had not proceeded far
before they perceived seven Moorish genetes, or light-horse
men, directly in their road- When the companion of Garci
Perez beheld such a formidable array of foes, he paused and
said: u Sen" or Perez, let us return; the Moors are seven and we
are but two, and there is no la^ in the duello which obliges us
to make front against such fearful odds."
To this Garci Perez replied: "Senor, forward, always for
ward; let us continue on our road; those Moors will never
wait for us." The other cavalier, however, exclaimed against
such rashness, and turning the reins of his horse, returned as
privately as possible to the camp, and hastened to his tent.
All this happened within sight of tho camp. The king was
at the door of his royal tent, which stood on a rising ground
and overlooked the place where this occurred. When the king
saw one cavalier return and the other continue, notwithstand
ing that there were seven Moors in the road, he ordered that
some horsemen should ride forth to his aid.
Upon this Don Lorenzo Xuarez, who was with the king and
had seen Garci Perez sally forth from the camp, said: " Your
majesty may leave that cavalier to himself; that is Garci
OP FERNANDO THE SAINT.
Perez, and he has no neM of aid against seven Moors. 1 1
Moors know him they will not meddle with him ; and if they
do. your majesty will sec what kind of a cavalier ho is."
They continued to watch the cavalier, who rode on tran
quilly as if in no apprehension. When he drew nigh t<
Moors, who were drawn up on each side of the road, he
his arms from his squire and ordered him not to separate from
him. As ho was lacing his morion, an embroidered cap which
he wore on his head fell to tho ground without his percc'i
it. Having Jaced the capcllina, ho continued on his way, and
his squire after him. When the Moors saw him near by
knew by his arms that it was Garci Perez, and bethinking
them of his great renown for terrible deeds in arms, they did
not dare to attack him, but went along the road even with
him, he on one side, they on tho other, making menaces.
Garci Perez went on his road with great serenity, without
making any movement. When the Moors saw that he heeded
not their menaces, they turned round and went back to about
the place where he dropped his cap.
Having arrived at some distance from the Moore, he took off
his arms to return them to his squire, and unlacing the capcl-
Una, found that tho cap was wanting. He asked tho squire
for it, biit the latter knew nothing about it. Seeing that it
had fallen, he again demanded his arms of the squire and re
turned in search of it, telling his squire to keep close behind
him and look out well for it. The squire remonstrated.
"What, senor," said he, ''will you return and place yourself
in such great peril for a mere capa? Have you not already
done enough for your honor, in passing so daringly by seven
Moors, and have you not been singularly favored by fortune
in escaping unhurt, and do you seek again to tempt fortune
for a cap?"
"Say no more," replied Garci Perez; " that cap was worked
for me by a fair lady ; I hold it of great value. Besides, (lost
thou not sec that I have not a head to be without a cap?" allud
ing to tho baldness of his head, -which had no hair in front.
So saying, he tranquilly returned toward the Moors. When
Den Lorenzo Xuarez saw this, he said to the king: " Behold!
your majesty, how Garci Perez turns upon the Moors ; since
they will not make an attack, ho means to attack them. Now
your majesty will see tho noble valor of this cavalier, if the
Moors dare to await him." When the Moors beheld Garci
Perez approaching they thought he meant to assault them,
104 uoomsn CHRONICLES.
and drew off, not daring to ^counter him. When Don Lo>
renzo saw this he exclaimed :
"Behold! your majesty, the truth of what I told you.
These Moors dare not wait for him. I knew well the valor of
Garci Perez, and it appears the Moors are aware of it like
wise."
In the mean time Garci Perez came to the place where the
capa had fallen, and beheld it upon the earth. Then he ordered
his squire to dismount and pick it up, and putting it deliber-
erately on his head, he continued on his way to the foragers.
When he returned to the camp from guarding the foragers,
Don Lorenzo asked him, in presence of the king, who was
the cavalier who had set out with him from the camp, but had
turned back on sight of the Moors ; he replied that he did not
know him, and he was confused, for he perceived that the
king had witnessed what had passed, and he was so modest
withal, that he was ever embarrassed when his deeds were
praised in his presence.
Don Lorenzo repeatedly asked him who was the recreant
cavalier, but he always replied that he did not know, although
he knew full well and saw him daily in the camp. But he was
too generous to say anything that should take away the fame
of another, and he charged his squire that never, by word or
look, he should betray the secret ; so that, though inquiries
were often made, the name of that cavalier was never dis
covered.
CHAPTER XVI.
OF THE RAFT BUILT BY THE MOORS, AND HOW IT WAS BOARDED
BY ADMIRAL BONIFAZ. — DESTRUCTION OF THE MOORISH FLEET.
—SUCCOR FROM AFRICA.
WHILE the army of King Fernando the Saint harassed the
city by land and cut off its supplies, the bold Bonifaz, with his
fleet, shut up the river, prevented all succor from Africa, and
menaced to attack the bridge between Triana and Seville, by
which the city derived its sustenance from the opposite coun
try. The Moors saw their peril. If this pass were destroyed,
famine must be the consequence, and the multitude of their
OF rr.nxAXDO THE SAI\T. 105
soldiers, on which at pi .v n-li< <1 for safety, would then
become the cause of their destruction.
So the Moors devised a machine by which they hoped to
sweep the river and involve tho invading fleet in ruin. They
made a raft so wide that it reached from one bank to the other,
and they placed all around it pots and vessels filled with resin,
pitch, tar, and other combustibles, forming what is called
Greek fire, and upon it was a great number of armed men; and
on each shore— from the castle of Triana on the one side, and
from the city on the other — sallied forth legions of troops, to
advance at the same time with the raft. Tho raft was preceded
by several vessels well armed, to attack the Christian ships,
while the soldiers on the raft should hurl on board their pots of
fire; and at length, setting all the combustibles in a blaze,
should send the raft flaming into the midst of the hostile fleet,
and wrap it in one general conflagration.
When everything was prepared, the Moors set off by land
and water, confident of success. But they proceeded in a wild,
irregular manner, shouting and sounding drums and trumpets,
and began to attack the Christian ships fiercely, but without
concert, hurling their pots of fire from a distance, filling the air
with smoke, but falling short of their enemy. The tumultuous
uproar of their preparations had put all the Christians on their
guard. The bold Bonifaz waited not to be assailed ; he boarded
the raft, attacked vigorously its defenders, put many of them
to the sword, and drove the rest into tho water, and succeeded
in extinguishing the Greek fire. He then encountered th3 ships
of war, grappling them and fighting hand to hand from ship to
ship. The action was furious and bloody, and lasted all the
day. Many were cut down in flight, many fell into thxyvatcr,
and many in despair threw themselves in and were drowned.
The battle had raged no less fiercely upon the land. On tho
side of Seville, tho troops had issued from tho camp of King
Fernando, while on the opposite shoro the bravo Master of San
tiago, Don Pelayo Perez Correa, with his warriors and fighting
friars, had made sharp work with the enemy. In this way a
triple battle was carried on ; there was the rush of squadrons,
the clash of arms, and tho din of drums and trumpets on either
bank, while the river was covered with vessels, tearing each
other to pieces as it were, their crews fighting in the midst of
flames and smoke, the waves red with blood and filled with the
bodies of the slain. At length the Christians were victorious ;
most of the enemy's vessels were taken or destroyed, and on
106 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
cither shore the Moors, broken and discomfited, fled— those on
the one side for the gates of Seville, and those on the other for
the castle of Triana— pursued with great slaughter by the
victors.
Notwithstanding the great destruction of their fleet, the
Moors soon renewed their attempts upon the ships of Ramon
Bonifaz, for they knew that the salvation of the city required
the freedom of the river. Succor arrived from Africa, of ships,
with troops and provisions ; they rebuilt the fire-ships which
had been destroyed, and incessant combats, feints, and strata
gems took place daily, both on land and water. The admiral
stood in great dread of ihe Greek fire used by the Moors. He
caused large stakes of wood to be placed in the river, to pre
vent the passage of the fire-ships. This for some time was of
avail ; but the Moors, watching an opportunity when the senti
nels were asleep, came and threw cables round the stakes, and
fastening the other ends to their vessels, made all sail, and, by
the help of wind and oars, tore away the stakes and carried
them off with shouts of triumph. The clamorous exultation of
the Moors betrayed them. The Admiral Bonifaz was aroused.
With a few of the lightest of his vessels he immediately pur
sued the enemy. . Ho came upon them so suddenly that they
were too much bewildered either to fight or fly. Some threw
themselves into the waves in affright; others attempted to
make resistance and were cut down. The admiral took four
barks laden with arms and provisions, and with these returned
in triumph to his fleet.*
CHAPTER XVH.
OF THE STOUT PRIOR, FERRAN RUYZ, AND HOW HE RESCUED HIS
CATTLE FROM THE MOORS. —FURTHER ENTERPRISES OF THE
PRIOR, AND OF THE AMBUSCADE INTO WHICH HE FELL.
IT happened one day that a great part of the cavaliers of the
army were absent, some making cavalgadas about the country,
others guarding the foragers, and others gone to receive the
Prince Alfonso, who was on his way to the camp from Murcia.
* Cronica Gotica, L. 3, § 13, Cronica General, pt. 4. Cronica de Santo Rey, c. 55,
CHRONICLE OF J-7-:/:.\AM)U Till': >.I/.Y7'.
At this time ten Moorish cavaliers, of the brave lineage of the
Azules, finding the Christian camp but thinly peopled, canic
prowling about, seeking where they might make a bold inroad.
As they were on the lookout they came to that part of tho
camp where were the tents of the stout Friar Ferran Kuvx,
prior of the hospital. The stout prior, and his fighting breth
ren, were as good at foraging as fighting. Around their quar
ters there were several sleek cows grazing, which they had
carried off from the Moors. When the Azules saw these, they
thought to make a good prize, and to bear off the prior's cattle
as a trophy. Careering lightly round, therefore, between the
cattle and the camp, they began to drive them toward the city.
The alarm was given in the camp, and six sturdy friars sallied
forth, on foot, with two cavaliers, in pursuit of the marauders.
The prior himself was roused by the noise ; when he heard that
the beeves of the Church were in danger his ire was kindled ;
and buckling on his armor, lie mounted his steed and galloped
furiously to the aid of his valiant friars, and the rescue of his
cattle. The Moors attempted to urge on the lagging and full-
fed kine, but finding the enemy close upon them, they were
obliged to abandon their spoil among the olive-trees, and to re
treat. The prior then gave the cattle in charge to a squire, to
drive them back to the camp. He would have returned himself,
but his friars had continued on for some distance. The stout
prior, therefore, gave spurs to his horse and galloped beyond
them, to turn them back. Suddenly great shouts and cries arose
before and behind him, and an ambuscade of Moors, both horse
and foot, came rushing out of a ravine. The stout Prior of San
Juan saw that there was no retreat ; and he disdained to render
himself a prisoner. Commending himself to his patron saint,
and bracing his shield, he charged bravely among the Moors,
and began to lay about him with a holy zeal of spirit and a
vigorous arm of flesh. Every blow that he gave was in tho
name of San Juan, and every blow laid an infidel in the dust.
His friars, seeing the peril of their leader, came running to his
aid, accompanied by a number of cavaliers. They rushed
into the fight, shouting, " San Juan! San Juan!" and began to
deal such sturdy blows as savored more of the camp than of
the cloister. Great and fierce was this struggle between cowl
and turban. The ground was strewn with bodies of the in
fidels ; but the Christians were a mere handful among a multi
tude. A burly friar, commander of Sietefilla, was struck to
the earth, and his shaven head cleft by a blow of a scimetar;
108 MOO IU *H CI1UOX1ULKS.
several squires and cavaliers, to the number of twenty, fell
covered with wounds ; yet still the stout prior and his brethren
continued fighting with desperate fury, shouting incessantly,
"San Juan! San Juan!" and dealing their blows with as good
heart as they had ever dealt benedictions on their followers.
The noise of this skirmish, and holy shouts of the fighting
friars, resounded through the camp. The alarm was given,
' ' The Prior of San Juan is surrounded by the enemy ! To the
rescue ! to the rescue !" The whole Christian host was in
agitation, but none were so alert as those holy warriors of the
Church, Don Garcai, Bishop of Cordova, and Don Saricho,
Bishop of Coria. Hastily summoning their vassals, horse and
foot, they bestrode their steeds, with cuirass over cassock, and
lance instead of crosier, and set off at full gallop to the rescue
of their brother saints. When the Moors saw the warrior
bishops and their retainers scouring to the field, they gave over
the contest, and leaving the prior and his companions, they
drew off toward the city. Their retreat was soon changed to a
headlong flight ; for the bishops, not content with rescuing the
prior, continued in pursuit of his assailants. The Moorish
foot-soldiers were soon overtaken and either slaughtered or
made prisoners : nor did the horsemen make good their retreat
into the city, until the powerful arm of the Church had visited
their rear with pious vengeance.* Nor did the chastisement
of Heaven end here. The stout prior of the hospital, being
once aroused, was full of ardor and enterprise. Concerting
with the Prince Don Enrique, and the Masters of Calatrava
and Alcantara, and the valiant Lorenzo Xuarez, they made a
sudden assault by night on the suburb of Seville called Benal-
jofar, and broke their way into it with fire and sword. The
Moors were aroused from their sleep by the flames of their
dwellings and the shouts of the Christians. There was hard
and bloody fighting. The prior of the hospital, with his valiant
friars, was in the fiercest of the action, and their war-cry of
" San Juan! San Juan!" was heard in all parts of the suburb.
Many houses were burnt, many sacked, many Moors slain or
taken prisoners, and the Christian knights and warrior friars,
liaving gathered together a great cavalgada of the flocks and
herds which were in the suburb, drove it off in triumph to the
camp, by the light of the blazing dwellings.
A like inroad was made by the prior and the same cavaliers,
* Cronica General, pt. 4, p. 338.
or FBRtfANDO 'fin-: .<M.\T.
a few nights afterward, into the suburb called Mac;,tvna. *
they laid waste in like inanner, hearing off wealthy KJ
Such was the pious vengeance \vhieb the Moors hrou-hi
themselves by meddling with the kiiie of the stout prior ui the
hospital.
CHAPTER XVIII.
BRAVADO OF THE THRKHJ CAVALIERS.— AMBUSH AT THE BRIDGE
OVER THE GUADAYRA. — DESPERATE VALOR OP GARCI
GRAND ATTEMPT OF ADMIRAL BONIFAZ ON THE LI.
BOATS.— SEVILLE DISMEMBERED FROM TRIANA.
OF all the Christian cavaliers who distinguished themselves
in this renowned siege of Seville, there was none who sur
passed in valor the bold Garci Perez de Vargas. This 1
knight was truly enamored of danger, and like a earnest er
with his gold, he seemed to have no pleasure of his life except
in putting it in constant jeopardy. One of the greatest friends
of Garci Perez was Don Lorenzo Xuarez Gallinato, t lie same
who had boasted of the valor of Garci Perez at the time that
he exposed himself to be attacked by seven Moorish horsemen.
They were not merely companions, but rivals inarms: for in
this siege it was the custom among the Christian k;
vie with each other in acts of daring enterprise.
One morning, as Garci Perez, Don Lorenzo Xuarez. and a
ihird cavalier, named Alfonso Tello, were on horseback, patrol
ling the skirts of the camp, a friendly contest arose bet
them as to who was most adventurous in arms. To settle th"
question, it was determined to put the proof to the Moo;
t^oing alone and striking the points of their lances in the
! ie city.
N > sooner was this mad bravado agreed upon than
turned the reins of their horses and made for Seville.
Moorish sentinels, from the towers of the gate, saw
Christian kniprhts advancing ovr the plain, and sup;
them to be messengers or desert. : the army. "\Yhcii th--
cavaliers drew n«-ar. each struck his lance airainst the g
and wheelin;: round, put spurs to his horse and retreated. The
Moors, considering this a scornful 'letl-in- .
110 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
exasperated, and sallied forth in great numbers to revenge the
insult. They soon were hard on the traces of the Christian
cavaliers. The first who turned to fight with them was Alfonso
Tello, being of a fiery and impatient spirit. The second was-
Garci Perez ; the third was Don Lorenzo, who waited until the
Moors came up with them, when he braced his shield, couched
his lance, and took the whole brunt of their charge. A des
perate fight took place, for though the Moors were overwhelm
ing in number, the cavaliers were three of the most valiant
warriors in Spain. The conflict was beheld from the camp.
The alarm was given ; the Christian cavaliers hastened to the
rescue of their companions in arms ; squadron after squadron
pressed to the field, the Moors poured out reinforcements from
the gate ; in this way a general battle ensued, which lasted a
great part of the day, until the Moors were, vanquished and
driven within their walls.
There was one of the gates of Seville, called the gate of the
Alcazar, which led out to a small bridge over the Guadayra.
Out of this gate the Moors used to make frequent sallies,
to fall suddenly upon tha Christian camp, or to sweep off
the flocks and herds about its outskirts, and then to scour
back to the bridge, beyond which it was dangerous to pursue
them.
The defence of this part of the camp was intrusted to
those two valiant compeers in arms, Garci Perez de Vargas
and Don Lorenzo Xuarez ; and they determined to take ample-
revenge upon the Moors for all the depredations they had com
mitted. They chose, therefore, about two hundred Lardy
cavaliers, the flower of those seasoned warriors on the op
posite side of the Guadalquivir, who formed the little army
of the good Master of Santiago. When they were all assem
bled together, Don Lorenzo put them in ambush, in the way by
which the Moors were accustomed to pass in their maraudings,
and he instructed them, in pursuing the Moors, to stop at the
bridge, and by no means to pass beyond it ; for between it and
the city there was a great host of the enemy, and the bridge
was so narrow that to retreat over i-t would be perilous in the
extreme. This order was given to all, but was particularly
intended for Garci Perez, to restrain his daring spirit, which
was ever apt to run into peril.
They had not been long in ambush when they heard the dis
tant tramp of the enemy upon the bridge, and found that the
OF FERNANDO Till-: SAINT. \\\
Moors were upon the forage. They kept concealed, and the.
Moors passed by them in careless and irregular manner, a-
apprehending no danp-r. Scarce had they gone by when the
cavaliers rushed forth, charged into the midst of them, and
threw them all into confusion. Many were killed or <
thrown in the shock, the rest took to flight, and made at full
speed for the bridge. Most of the Christian soldiers, a< •< -or. 1 i 1 1^
to orders, stopped at the bridge ; but Don Lorenzo, with a few
of his cavaliers, followed the enemy half way across, ma
great havoc in that narrow pass. Many of the Moors, in their
panic, flung themselves from the bridge, and perished in the
Guadayra; others were cut down and trampled under the hoofs
of friends and foes. Don Lorenzo, in the heat of the fight,
cried aloud incessantly, defying the Moors, and proclaiming his
name, — "Turn hither! turn hither! 'Tis I, Lorenzo Xuan/:
But few of the Moors cared to look him in the face.
Don Lorenzo now returned to his cavaliers, but on looking
round, Garci Perez was not to be seen. All were dismayed,
fearing some evil fortune had befallen him ; when, on casting
their eyes beyond the bridge, they saw him on the opposite
side, surrounded by Moors and fighting with desperate
valor.
"Garci Perez has deceived us," said Don Lorenzo, "and has
passed the bridge, contrary to agreement. But to the rescue,
comrades ! Never let it be said that so good a cavalier as <
Perez was lost for want of our assistance." So saying, they all
put spurs to their horses, rushed again upon the bridge, and
broke their way across, cutting down and overturning the
Moors, and driving great numbers to fling themselves into the
river. When the Moors who had surrounded Garci Pere/
this band of cavaliers rushing from the bridge, they turned to
defend themselves. The contest was fierce, but broken ; many
of the Moors took refuge in the river, but the Christians fol
lowed and slew them among the waves. They continued fight
ing for the remainder of the day, quite up to the gate of the
Alcazar; and if the chronicles of the times speak with their
usual veracity, full three thousand infidels bit the dust on that
occasion. When Don Lorenzo returned to the rani]), and was
in presence of the king and of numerous cavaliers, great en
comiums were passed upon his valor ; but he modestly replied
that Garci Perez had that day made them good soldiers by
force.
112 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
From that time forward the Moors attempted no further in
roads into the camp, so severe a lesson had they received from
these brave cavaliers. *
The city of Seville was connected with the suburb of Triaiia
by a strong bridge of boats, fastened together by massive
chains of iron. By this bridge a constant communication was
kept up between Triana and the city, and mutual aid and sup
port passed and repassed. While this bridge remained, it was
impossible to complete the investment of the city, or to cap
ture the castle of Triana.
The bold Admiral Bonifaz at length conceived a plan to
break this bridge asunder, and thus to cut off all communica
tion between the city and Triana. No sooner had this idea
entered his mind than he landed, and proceeded with great
speed to the royal tent, to lay it before the king. Then a con
sultation was summoned by the king of ancient mariners and
artificers of ships, and other persons learned in maritime
affairs ; and after Admiral Bonifaz had propounded his plan, it
was thought to be good, and all preparations were made to
carry it into effect. The admiral took two of his largest and
strongest ships, and fortified them at the prows with solid tim
ber and with plates of iron; and he put within them a great
number of chosen men, well armed and provided with every
thing for attack and defence. Of one he took the command
himself. It was the third day of May, the day of the most
Holy Cross, that he chose for this grand and perilous attempt ;
and the pious King Fernando, to insure success, ordered that a
cross should be carried as a standard at the mast-head of each
ship.
On the third of May, towaud the hour of noon, the two ships
descended the Guadalquivir for some distance, to gain room to
come up with the greater violence. Here they waited the rising
of the tide, and as soon as it was in full force, and a favorable
wind had sprung up from the sea, they hoisted anchor, spread
all sail, and put themselves in the midst of the current. The
whole shores were lined on each side with Christian troops
watching the event with great anxiety. The king and the
Prince Alfonso, with their warriors, on the one side had drawn
close to the city to prevent the sallying forth of the Moors,
while the good Master of Santiago, Don Pelayo Perez Correa.
* Cronica General de Espana, pt. 4. Cronica del Rey Fernando el Santo, c. 6O
Cronica Gotica, T. 3, p. 126.
MCij-: or /•/•;/;.v.i.\//o IIU
kept watch upon tin- .^ates of Trian.i.. Tin Moors crowded the
tops of their towers, their walls and house-tops, and pn ;
engines and weapons of all kinds to overwhelm the ships with
destruction.
Twice the bold admiral set all sail ami started on his career,
and twice the wind died away before he had proceeded half his
course. Shouts of joy and derision rose from the wall
towers of Seville, while the warriors in the ships began to
that their attempt would be unsuccessful. At length a fresh
and strong wind arose that swelled every sail and sent the
ships ploughing up the waves of the Guadalquivir. A dead
silence prevailed among the hosts on either bank; even the
Moors remained silent, in fixed and breathless suspense.
When the ships arrived within reach of the walls of the city and
the suburbs, a tremendous attack was commenced from e\ «TV
wall and tower ; great engines discharged stones and offensive
weapons of all kinds, and flaming pots of Greek fire. On the
tower of gold were stationed catapults and vast cross-bows that
were worked with cranks, and from hence an iron shower
was rained upon the ships. The Moors in Triana were equally
active ; from every wall and turret, from house-tops, and from
the banks of the river, an incessant assault was kept up with
catapults, cross-bows, slings, darts, and everything that could
annoy. Through all this tempest of war, the ships kept on
their course. The first ship which arrived struck the bridpre
on the part toward Triana. The shock resounded from shore
to shore, the whole fabric trembled, the ship recoiled and
reeled, but the bridge was unbroken ; and shouts of joy rose
from the Moors on each side of the river. Immediately after
came the ship of the admiral. It struck the bridge just about
the centre with a tremendous crash. The iron chains which
bound the boats together snapped as if they had been flax.
The boats were crushed and shattered and flung wide asunder,
and the ship of the admiral proceeded in triumph through the
open space. No sooner did the King and the Prince Alfonso see
the success of the admiral, than they pressed with their troops
closely round the city, and prevented the Moors from sallying
forth ; while the ships, having accomplished their enterpris*
tricated themselves fn >m their dangerous situation, and returned
in triumph to their accustomed anchorage. This was the fatal
blow that dismembered Seville from Triana, rnd insured tho
downfall of the city.
114 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
CHAPTER XIX.
INVESTMENT OF TRIANA.— GARCI PEREZ AND THE INFANZON.
ON the day after the breaking of the bridge, the king, the
Prince Alfonso, the Prince Enrique, the various masters of
the orders, and a great part of the army, crossed the Guadal
quivir and commenced an attack on Triana, while the bold
Admiral Bonifaz approached with his ships and assaulted the
place from the water. But the Christian army was unpro
vided with ladders or machines for the attack, and fought to
great disadvantage. The Moors, from the safe shelter of their
walls and towers, rained a shower of missiles of all kinds. As
they were so high above the Christians, their arrows, darts,
and lances came with the greater force. They were skilful
with the cross-bow, and had engines of such force that the
darts which they discharged would sometimes pass through a
cavalier all armed, and bury themselves in the earth.*
The very women combated from the walls, and hurled down
stones that crushed the warriors beneath.
While the -army was closely investing Triana, and fierce
encounters were daily taking place between Moor and Chris
tian, there arrived at the camp a youthful Infanzon, or noblo,
of proud lineage. He brought with him a shining train of
vassals, all newly armed and appointed, and his own armor,
all fresh and lustrous, showed none of the dents and bruises
and abuses of the war. As this gay and gorgeous cavalier was
patrolling the camp, with several cavaliers, he beheld Garci
Perez pass by, in armor and accoutrements all worn and soiled
by the hard service he had performed, and he saw a similar
device to his own, of white waves, emblazoned 011 the
scutcheon of this unknown warrior. Then the nobleman was
highly ruffled and incensed, and he exclaimed, " How is this?
who is this sorry cavalier that dares to bear these devices? By
my faith, he must either give them up or show his reasons for
usurping them." The other cavaliers exclaimed, " Be cautious
how you speak ; this is Garci Perez ; a braver cavalier wears
not sword in Spain. For all he goes thus modestly and quietly
* Cronica General, pt. 4, p. 341.
OF ri-:i;\AM>(j riii-: >.i/.\y.
about, he is a very lion in the field, nor does he assume any
thing that he cannot well maintain. Should lie h.'ar this
which you have said, trust us he would not rest <juiet until In-
had. terrible satisfaction."
Now so it happened that certain mischief-makers ca:
word to Garci Perez of what the nobleman had said, ex pen tin-
to see him burst into fierce indignation, and defy the other to
;the field. But Garci Perez remained tranquil, and said not a
word.
Within a day or two after, there was a sally from the castle
of Triana and a hot skirmish between the Moors and Chii>-
tians; and Garci Perez and the Infanzon, and a number of
cavaliers, pursued the Moors up to the barriers of the c. ;
Here the enemy rallied and made a fierce defence, and killed
several of the cavaliers. But Garci Perez put spurs i«
horse, and couching Ms lance, charged among the thick <
the foes, and followed by a handful of his companions, drov,
the Moors to the very gates of Triana. The Moore seeing how
few were their pursuers, turned upon them, and dealt bravely
with sword and lance and mace, while stones and darts and
arrows were rained down from the towers above the p
At length the Moors took refuge within the walls, leaving tho
field to the victorious cavaliers. Garci Perez drew off coolly
and calmly amidst a shower of missiles from the wall. He
came out of the battle with his armor all battered and defaced ;
his helmet was bruised, the crest broken off, and his buckler
so dented and shattered that the device could scarcely be per
ceived. On returning to the barrier, he found there the Infan
zon, with his armor all uninjured, and his armorial bearings
as fresh as if just emblazoned, for the vaunting warrior had
not ventured beyond the barrier. Then Garci Perez drew
near to the Infanzon, and eyeing liiin^ from head to foot,
1 Senor cavalier," said he, " you may well dispute my right to
wear this honorable device in my shield, since you see I take
so little care of it that it is almost destroyed. You, on the
other hand, are worthy of bearing it. You are the guardian
angel of honor, since you guard it so carefully as to put it to
no risk. I will only observe to you that the sword kept in the
scabbard rusts, and the valor that is never put to the proof
becomes sullied." *
At these words the Infanzon was deeply humiliated, for he
* Cronica General, pt. 4. Cronica Gotica, T. 8, $ 16.
lif, MOORISH VUROXICLK*.
saw that Garci Perez had heard of his empty speeches, and he
felt how unworthily he had spoken of so valiant and magnani
mous a cavalier. " Senor cavalier," said he, "pardon my
ignorance and presumption; you alone are worthy of bear*
ing those arms, for you derive not nobility from them, but
ennoble them by your glorious deeds."
Then Garci Perez blushed at the praises he had thus drawn
upon himself, and he regretted the harshness of his words to
ward the Infanzon, and he not merely pardoned him all that
had passed, but gave him his hand in pledge of amity, and front
that time they were close friends and companions in arm:.*
CHAPTER XX.
CAPITULATION OF SEVILLE.— DISPERSION OF THE MOORISH
INHABITANTS.— TRIUMPHANT ENTRY OF KING FERNANDO.
ABOUT this time there arrived in Seville a Moorish alfaqui,
named Orias, with a large company of warriors, who came to
this war as if performing a pilgrimage, for it was considered a
holy war no less by infidels than Christians. This Orias was of
a politic and crafty nature, and he suggested to the comman
der of Seville a stratagem by which they might get Prince Al
fonso in their power, and compel King Fernando to raise the
siege by way of ransom. The counsel of Orias was adopted,
after a consultation with the principal cavaliers, and measures
taken to carry it into execution ; a Moor was sent, therefore,
as if secretly and by stealth, to Prince Alfonso, and offered to-
put him in possession of two towers of the wall, if he would
come in person to receive them, which towers once in his pos
session, it would "be easy to overpower the city.
Prince Alfonso listened to the envoy with seeming eagerness,
but suspected some deceit, and thought it unwise to put his
person in such jeopardy. Lest, however, there should be
truth in his proposals, a party of chosen cavaliers were sent a&
if to take possession of the towers, and with them was Don
Pero Nuiiez de Guzman, disguised as the prince.
When they came to the place where the Moors had
* Cronica General, pt. 4. Cronica del Rey Santo. Cronica Gotica, T. 3, § 16.
•/./-: OF FBBWAiTDO Tin: vi/.\y 117
appointed to meet thorn, they beheld a party ni mli
strongly armed, who advanced with sinister looks, and
attempted to surround Don Nunez, hut he, hein^ on h
put spurs to his horse, and, breaking through the
them, escaped. His companions followed Ms example, all Imt
one, who was struck from his horse and cut to pieces by tin-
Moors.*
Just aft- -i- tin- event there arrived a great reininreenient to
the cam i) from the city of Cordova, bringing provisions and
various munitions of war. Finding his army thus increased,
the king had a consultation with Admiral Bonifa/, and deter
mined completely to cut oif all communication between Seville
and Triana, for the Moors still crossed the river occasionally
by fording. When they were about to carry their plan into-
effect, the crafty Alfaqui Orias crossed to Triana, accom
panied by a number of Ganzules. He was charged with
instructions to the garrison, and to concert some mode of
reuniting their forces, or of effecting some blow upon the
Christian camp ; for unless they could effect a union and co
operation, it would be impossible to make much longer resist
ance.
Scarce had Orias passed, when the Christian sentinels gave
notice. Upon this, a detachment of the Christian army imme
diately crossed and took possession of the opposite shore, and
Admiral Bonifaz stationed his fleet in the middle of the river.
Thus the return of Orias was prevented, and all intercourse be
tween the places, even by messenger, completely in term.
The city and Triana were now severally attacked, and unahl"
to render each other assistance. The Moors were daily dimi
nishing in number; many slain in battle, many taken captive,
and many dying of hunger and disease. The Christian forces
were daily augmenting, and were animated by continual
success, whereas mutiny and sedition began to break out
among the inhabitants of the city. The Moorish commander
Axataf , therefore, seeing all further resistance vain, sent am
bassadors to capitulate with King Fernando. It was a hard
and humiliating struggle to resign this fair city, the queen of
Andalusia, the seat of Moorish sway and splendor, and which
had been under Moorish domination ever since the com pi
The valiant Axataf endeavored to make various conditions;
that Fernando should raise the siege on receiving the tribute
* Cronica General, pt. 4, p. 484.
118 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
which had hitherto been paid to the miramamolin. This being
peremptorily refused, he offered to give up a third of the city,
and then a half, building at his own cost a wall to divide the
Moorish part from the Christian. King Fernando, however,
would listen to no such terms. He demanded the entire surren
der of the place, with the exception of the persons and effects of
the inhabitants, and permitting the commander to retain pos
session of St. Lucar, Aznal Farache, and Niebla. The comman
der of Seville saw the sword suspended over his head, and had
to submit ; the capitulations of the surrender were signed, when
Axataf made one last request, that he might be permitted to
demolish the grand mosque and the principal tower (or Giralda)
of the city.* He felt that these would remain perpetual mon
uments of his disgrace. The Prince Alfonso was present when
this last demand was made, and his father looked at him sig
nificantly, as if he desired the reply to come from his lips. The
prince rose indignantly and exclaimed, that if there should be
a single tile missing from the temple or a single brick from the
tower, it should be paid by so many lives that the streets of
Seville should run with blood. The Moors were silenced by
this reply, and prepared with heavy hearts to fulfil the capitu
lation. One month was allowed them for the purpose, the
alcazar or citadel of Seville being given up to the Christians as
a security.
On the twenty-third day of November this important fortress
was surrendered, after a siege of eighteen months. A deputa
tion of the principal Moors came forth and presented King
Fernando with the keys of the city; at the same time the
aljamia, or council of the Jews, presented him with the keys of
Jewry, the quarter of the city which they inhabited. This key
was notable for its curious workmanship. It was formed of all
kinds of metals. The guards of it were wrought into letters,
bearing the f olio wing signification,— " God will open— the king
will enter." On the ring was inscribed in Hebrew, — "The
King of kings will enter ; all the world will behold him. " This
key is still preserved in the cathedral of Seville, in the place
where repose the remains of the sainted King Fernando, t
* Mariana, L. 13, c. 7.
t In Castile, whenever the kings entered any place where there was a synagogue,
the Jews assembled in council and paid to the Monteros, or bull-fighters, twelve
maravedis each, to guard them, that they should receive no harm from the Chris
tians; being held in such contempt and odium, that it was necessary they should be
under the safeguard of the king, not to be injured or insulted. (Zuniga: Annales de
•Sevilla.)
CIIHOMCIJ-: <>!•' FERNANDO Tin: SAINT. \\\\
During the month of grace the Moors sold such of i
effects as they could not curry with them, and the kin^ pi-.,
vie led vessels for such as chose to depart I'm- Africa. I" j. ward
of one hundred thousand, it is said, were thus convoyed l,\-
Admiral Bonifaz, while upward of two hundred thousand di -
persed themselves throughout such of the territory of Andalu
sia as still remained in possession of the Moors.
When the month was expired, and the city was evacuated
by its Moorish inhabitants, King Fernando the Saint err
in solemn triumph, in a grand religious and military pr
awn. There were all the captains and cavaliers of the annv,
in shining armor, with the prelates, and masters of the ieli-
giousand military orders, and the nobility of Castile, Leon.
Aragon, in their richest apparel. The streets resounded with
the swelling notes of martial music and with the joyous ar-'la-
mations of the multitude.
In the midst of the procession was ths venerable effiV.
the most Holy Mary, on a triumphal car of silver, wrought
with admirable skill; and immediately after followed
pious king, with a drawn sword in his hand, and on his l--:t
was Prince Alfonso and the other princes.
The procession advanced to the principal mosque, which had
been purified and consecrated as a Christian temple, where the
triumphal car of the Holy Virgin was placed at the grand
altar. Here the pious king knelt and returned thanks to
Heaven and the Virgin for this signal victory, and all present
chanted Te Deum Laudamus.
CHAPTER XXL
DEATH OF KING FERNANDO.
WHEN King Fernando had regulated everything for the
good government and prosperity of Seville, he sallied forth
with his conquering army to subdue the surrounding country.
He soon brought under subjection Xerez, Medina Sidonia,
Alua, Bepel, and many other places near the sea-coast; some
surrendered voluntarily, others were taken by force; ho main
tained a strict peace with his vassal the King of Granada, but
finding not sufficient scope for his arms in Spain, and being
inflamed with a holy zeal in the cause of the faith, he deter-
120 MOORISH CHRONICLES.
mined to pass over into Africa, and retaliate upon the Mos
lems their daring invasion of his country. For this purpose
he ordered a powerful armada to be prepared in the ports of
Oantabria, to be put under the command of the bold Admiral
Bonifaz.
In the midst of his preparations, which spread consterna
tion throughout Mauritania, the pious king fell dangerously
ill at Seville of a dropsy. When he found his dying hour ap
proaching, he made his death-bed confession, and requested
the holy Sacrament to be administered to him. A train of
bishops and other clergy, among whom was his son Philip,
Archbishop of Seville, brought the Sacrament into his pres
ence. The king rose from his bed, threw himself on his knees,
with a rope round his neck and a crucifix in his hand, and
poured forth his soul in penitence and prayer. Having re
ceived the viatica and the holy Sacrament, he commanded all
ornaments of royalty to be taken from his chamber. He as
sembled his children round his bedside, and blessed his son the
Prince Alfonso, as his first-born and the heir of his throne,
giving him excellent advice for the government of his king
dom, and charging him to protect the interests of his brethren.
The pious king after Avar d fell into an ecstasy or trance, in
which he beheld angels watching round his bed to bear his
soul to heaven. He awoke from this in a state of heavenly
rapture, and, asking for a candle, he took it in his hand and
made his ultimate profession of the faith. He then requested
the clergy present to repeat the litanies, and to chant the Te
Deum Laudamus. In chanting the first verse of the hymn,
the king gently inclined his head, with perfect serenity of
countenance, and rendered up his spirit. "The hymn," says
the ancient chronicle, ' ' which was begun on earth by men,
was continued by the voices of angels, which were heard by
all present." These doubtless were the angels which the king
in his ecstasy had beheld around his couch, and which now
accompanied him, in his glorious ascent to heaven, with songs
of holy triumph. Nor was it in his chamber alone that these
voices were heard, but in all the royal alcazars of Seville, the
sweetest voices were heard in the air and seraphic music, as
of angelic choirs, at the moment that the sainted king ex
pired.* He died on the 30th of May, the vespers of the Holy
* Pablo de Espinosa: Grandesas de Sevilla, fol. 146. Cronica del Santo Bey, c.
7'8. (Yonica Gotiea, T. 3, p. 166.
8AZNT. \*>\
Trinity, in the year «»f the Incarnation one thousand two hun
dred and forty-two, aged seventy-three years— having reigned
tliirty-fivc years over Castile and twenty over Leon.
Two days after his death lie was interred in his royal chapel
in the Holy Church, in a sepulchre of alabaster, which still
remains. It is asserted by grave authors that at the time of
putting his body in the sepulchre, the choir of
v as heard chanting his eulogium, and filling the air with
sweet melody in praise of his virtues.*
When Alhamar, the Moorish King of Gran, i • 1 a . 1 1 • M i •< 1 <
death, he caused great demonstrations of mourning to be mad.-
throughout his dominions. During his life he sent yearly a
number of Moors with one hundred wax tapers to assist at his
exequies, which ceremony was observed by his successors,
until the time of the conquest of Granada by Fernando the
Catholic.!
* Argoti de Molina: Nobleza de Andaluzia, L. 1, c. 21. Tomus Bocio: Eignales do
>n 1 -1* -sin. L. 'X). Don Rodrigo Sanchez, Bishop of Palencla, pt. 3, c. 40.
' lJ9blo 4v Espinosa, fol. 146.
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