successors, during nearly four centuries, kept alive the spirit of literature: it was, however, principally in this last city that it flourished, in which there were at that time two universities, two royak colleges, and a public library, enriched with the productions of the best Greek and Arabic writers. So general was the love of learning in Granada, that it extended, notwithstanding the prohibitions of Mahomed, to the softer sex. Naschina acquired celebrity as a poetess; Mosada as an historian; and Leila as a mathematician and universal scholar.

I shall not enter into the question how far this display of knowledge, this taste for literature, tended to soften the harsh features of the Mahomedan religion, or to mollify the despotism of its government. The moderns are at least indebted to them for having preserved the writings of eminent Greek authors, whose works, when learning revived in Christian Europe, became important auxiliaries in furthering the progress of human acquirement. Physic in particular was diligently studied, and the names of Mesna, Geber, and Avicena, may be classed with those of their Greek instructors. Such was the celebrity of the Mahomedan physicians, that the lives of the Catholic kings, in extreme sickness, were frequently entrusted to their care; and Muratori gives them the credit of having founded at Salerno that school for medicine which diffused the knowledge of the healing art through Italy, and the rest of Europe.

They were, however, but imperfectly acquainted with anatomy, as the dissection of the human frame was forbidden, and they could only judge of its organization from the inspection of monkeys and other animals. Botany was a favourite study, and the travellers of

Granada brought from Africa, Persia, and India, plants, which enriched their collections. In the study of chemistry also they had made some progress: they analyzed substances, observed the affinity of acids and alkalies, and drew valuable medicines from the most poisonous minerals.

The sciences in which the Arabs of Granada more especially excelled, were the various branches of mathematics. Astronomy was early introduced, and eagerly cultivated, and the brilliancy of the atmosphere, the extent of the horizon, and the nature of their occupations, enabled them to make considerable proficiency in that science, even at an early period. An astronomical clock, of very curious construction, was among the presents sent to Charlemagne, by an Arabian king, in the year 807; and in a work published by Almamon, in 814, mention is made of two observations of the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the mode is described of measuring a degree of the meridian, the result of which very nearly corresponds with the more recent experiments made in Peru and Lapland. Alphonso King of Castile employed Arabian astronomers to instruct the professors in his dominions; and it is probable, that, from this circumstance, the terms Nadir, Zenith, Azimuth, and many others, have been transferred from the Arabian language to all the dialects of Europe.

Arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, and optics, were sedulously studied. Although the system of numeration, which is the basis of our arithmetic, may, perhaps, be traced to more remote antiquity, it probably would not have been so extensively and so early adopted, but for the labours of the Arabs of Granada. Algebra, though not indebted to them for its origin, was advanced very considerably by

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their exertions; and a Spanish Arab, of the eleventh century, Geber ben Aphla, is considered almost as the founder of trigonometry, by new theorems, which he proposed.

errors.

In those branches of mathematics which are connected with physics, the Arabs made little or no progress, but contented themselves with servilely copying the antients, or commenting on their With all the knowledge, however, which the Arabs possessed, they were as unacquainted as their Christian contemporaries with those exquisite writings of Greece and of Rome, which have handed down to us the heroic characters described in the pages of Plutarch and Livy, and which have exhibited mankind in its most elevated point of view. But to estimate justly the rank which the kingdom of Granada held among the nations, it ought to be compared with the Christian kingdoms of the same age, and not with those which, since the revival of learning, the reformation of religion, and the establishment of liberty, have so greatly increased in every species of knowledge and refinement.

THE introduction of science extended its influence, in the kingdom of Granada, to objects which at first sight appeared unconnected with it. The extensive population of this small kingdom rendered an attention to its agriculture necessary, in order to supply the means of subsistence. What the exact numbers of the population may have been it is now difficult to ascertain; but in the year 1311, an ambassador, sent from Spain to Vienna, stated the inhabitants of the capital to amount to two hundred thousand Moors, besides fifty thousand renegadoes, and thirty thousand Christian captives.

Agriculture in Granada, under the Saracens, formed the principal and most honourable occupation; and though they had not, like the Romans, the deity Stercutus, the attention paid to manure was not less than with that people: it was carefully preserved in pits, that none of the salts might be lost, and was liberally spread over their fields; irrigation was carefully attended to; and the trans

parent streams which descended from the mountains were diverted into thousands of channels, to fertilize the soil.

The bigotry of Mahomedanism forbade them to sell their superfluous corn to the surrounding nations; and the want of that stimulus, which the certainty of a vent produces, prevented them from carrying the cultivation of grain to any great extent. In years of abundance it was deposited in the caverns of rocks, lined with straw, the mouths of which were covered with the same material, where it was preserved for a long succession of years. On the birth of every child a cavern was filled with corn, which was destined to be his portion when arrived at maturity.

That religious prejudice which induced the Moors to neglect, in some degree, the cultivation of grain, led them to cultivate, with sedulous attention, fruits of all kinds, which seem, indeed, to have formed their principal aliment. Spain owes to this people the introduction of the infinite variety of fruits, which are now considered almost as indigenous. It is equally indebted to them for the sugarcane, the cotton-tree, and all the best horticultural productions with which the country now abounds. Though wine was forbidden, vines were cultivated to such an extent that their annual value in the vega, or plain, is estimated by a writer in the year 1296 at fourteen thousand golden crowns, or eight thousand pounds sterling, a prodigious sum at that day, when the fanega of wheat (nearly two bushels) sold for about one shilling.

The commerce of Granada was very extensive at an early period, and the luxuries of India were brought to supply its voluptuous court from Alexandria to Malaga. The silks of India were, however,