and his grandfather; his uncles were strong and numerous and, in the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share war reduced to five camels and an Ethiopian maid-servant. At home and abroad, in peace and war, Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian of his youth; in his twenty-fifth year he entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage contract, in the simple style of antiquity, recites the mutual love of Mahomet and Cadijah; describes him as the most accomplished of the tribe of Koreish; and stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle.67 By this alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored to the station of his ancestors; and the judicious matron was content with his domestic virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age,68 he assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran.

According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet 69 was distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has

"I copy the honorable testimony of Abu Taleb to his family and nephew. Laus Dei, qui nos a stirpe Abrahami et semine Ismaelis constituit, et nobis regionem sacram dedit, et nos judices hominibus statuit. Porro Mohammed filius Abdollahi nepotis mei (nepos meus) quo cum ex æquo librabitur e Koraishidis quispiam cui non præponderaturus est, bonitate et excellentiâ, et intellectu et gloriâ, et acumine, etsi opum inops fuerit, (et certe opes umbra transiens sunt et depositum quod reddi debet,) desiderio Chadijæ filiæ Chowailedi tenetur, et illa vicissim ipsius, quicquid autem dotis vice petieritis, ego in me suscipiam, (Pocock, Specimen, e septimâ parte libri Ebn Hamduni.) 6 The private life of Mahomet, from his birth to his mission, is preserved by Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. 3-7,) and the Arabian writers of genuine or apocryphal note, who are alleged by Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 204—211,) Maracci, (tom. i. p. 10—14,) and Gagr.ier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 97-134.)

* Abulfeda, in Vit. c. lxv. lxvi. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 272-289. The best traditions of the person and conversation of the prophet are derived from Ayesha, Ali, and Abu Horaira, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 267. Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 149,) surnamed the Father of a Cat, who died in the year 59 of the Hegira.*

Compare, likewise, the new Life of Mahomet (Mohammed der Prophet) by Dr. Weil, (Stuttgart, 1848.) Dr. Weil has a new tradition, that Ma homet was at one time a shepherd. This assimilation to the life of Moses, instead of giving probability to the story, as Dr. Weil suggests, makes it more suspicious. Note p. 34. — M. 1845.

been refused. Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of a public or private audience. They applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his counte nance that painted every sensation of the soul, and his ges tures that enforced each expression of the tongue. In the familiar offices of life he scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness of his country: his respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizens of Mecca: the frankness of his manner concealed the artifice of his views. and the habits of courtesy were imputed to personal friendship or universal benevolence. His memory was capacious and retentive; his wit easy and social; his imagination sublime, nis judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and action; and, although his designs might gradually expand with his success, the first idea which he entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an original and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of Arabia; and the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence. With these powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate Barbarian: his youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and writing; 70 the common

70 Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write are incapabe of reading what is written, with another pen, in the Suras, or chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts, and the tradition of the Sonna, are admitted, without doubt, by Abulfeda, (in Vit. e. vii.,) Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,) Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland, (de Religione Mohammedicâ, p. 236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 42.) Mr. White, almost alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the imposture, of the prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two short trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not sufficient to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca: it was not in the coo., deliberate act of treaty, that Mahomet would have dropped tne mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from the words of disease and delirium. The lettered youth, before he aspired to the prophetic character, must have often exercised, in private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first converts, of his own family, would have been the first to detect and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White's Sermons, p. 203, 204, Notes, p. xxxvi.—xxxviii.)*

Silvester de Sacy (Academ. des Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that the text of the xevith Sura implies that Mahomet could read; the tradi

ignorance exempted him from shame or reproaca, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors, which reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man was open to his view; and some fancy has been indulged in the political and philosophical observations which are ascribed to the Arabian traveller."1 He compares the nations and the reli gions of the earth; discovers the weakness of the Persian and Roman monarchies; beholds, with pity and indignation, the degeneracy of the times; and resolves to unite under one God and one king the invincible spirit and primitive virtues of the Arabs. Our more accurate inquiry will suggest, that, instead of visiting the courts, the camps, the temples, of the East, the two journeys of Mahomet into Syria were confined to the fairs of Bostra and Damascus; that he was only thirteen years of age when he accompanied the caravan of his uncle and that his duty compelled him to return as soon as he had disposed of the merchandise of Cadijah. In these hasty and superficial excursions, the eye of genius might discern somo objects invisible to his grosser companions; some seeds of knowledge might be cast upon a fruitful soil; but his ignorance of the Syriac language must have checked his curiosity; and I cannot perceive, in the life or writings of Mahomet, tha: nis prospect was far extended beyond the limits of the Arabian world. From every region of that solitary world, the pilgrims of Mecca were annually assembled, by the calls of devotion and commerce: in the free concourse of multitudes, a simple citizen, in his native tongue, might study the political state and character of the tribes, the theory and practice of he Jews and Christians. Some useful strangers may be tempted, or forced, to implore the rights of hospitality; and the enemies of Mahomet have named the Jew, the Persian,

"The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahomet, p. 202-228) leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus of Fenelon, or the Cyrus of Ramsay. His journey to the court of Persia is probably a fiction, nor can I trace the origin of his exclamation, "Les Grecs sont pourtant des hommes." The two Syrian journeys are expressed by almost all the Arabian writers, both Mahometans and Christians, (Gagnier ad Abulfed. p. 10.)

non alone denies it, and, according to Dr. Weil, (p. 46,) there is another reading of the tradition, that "he could not read well." Dr. Weil is not quite so successful in explaining away Sura xxix. It means, he thinks that he had not read any books, from which he could have borrowed.M. 1845.

and the Syrian monk, whom they accuse of lending their secret aid to the composition of the Koran.72 Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius; and the uniformity of a work denotes the hand of a single artist. From his earliest youth Mahomet was addicted to religious contemplation; each year, during the month of Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and from the aims of Cadijah in the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca,73 he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is not in the heavens, but in the mind of the prophet. The faith which, under the name of Islam, he preached to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal truth, and a necessary fiction, THAT THERE IS ONLY ONe God, and thAP MAHOMET IS THE APOSTLE OF GOD.

It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the learned nations of antiquity were deluded by the fables of polytheism, their simple ancestors of Palestine preserved the knowledge and worship of the true God. The moral attributes of Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with the standard of human virtue: his metaphysical qualities are darkly expressed; but each page of the Pentateuch and the Prophets is an evidence of his power: the unity of his name is inscribed on the first tabl of the law; and his sanctuary was never defiled by any visible image of the invisible essence. After the ruin of the temple, the faith of the Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and enlightened, by the spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the authority of Mahomet will not justify his perpetual reproach, that the Jews of Mecca or Medina adored Ezra as the son of God.74 But the children of Israel had ceased to be a people;

72 I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or conjectures which name the strangers accused or suspected by the infidels of Mecca, (Koran, c. 16, p. 223, c. 35, p. 297, with Sale's Remarks. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 22-27. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 400.) Even Prideaux has observed, that the transaction must have been secret, and that the scene lay in the heart of Arabia.

73 Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p. 133, 135. The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by Abulfeda, (Geograph. Arab. p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the cave of Egeria, ubi nocturnæ Numa constituebat amicæ, of the Idæan Mount, where Minos Conversed with Jove, &c.

74 Koran, c. 9, p. 153. Al Beidawi, and the other commentators gnoted by Sale, adhere to the charge; but I do not understand that it is colored by the most obscure or absurd tradition of the Talmudists.

and the religions of the world were guilty, at least in the eyes of the prophet, of giving sons, or daughters, or companions to the supreme God. In the rude idolatry of the Arabs, the crime is manifest and audacious: the Sa' xans are poorly excused by the preeminence of the first planet, or intelligence. in their celestial hierarchy; and in the Magian system the conflict of the two principles betrays the imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians of the seventh century had insen. sibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism: their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that dis graced the temples of the East: the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Vir. gin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess.75 The mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation appear to contradict the principle of the divine unity. In their obvious sense, they introduce three equal deities, and transform the man Jesus into the substance of the Son of God: 76 an orthodox com. mentary will satisfy only a believing mind: intemperate curiosity and zeal had torn the veil of the sanctuary; and each of the Oriental sects was eager to confess that all, except themselves, deserved the reproach of idolatry and poly. theism. The creed of Mahomet is free from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational principle that whatever rises must set, that whatever is born must die, that

76 Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 225-228. The Collyridian heresy was carried from Thrace to Arabia by some women, and the name was borrowed from the zolivois, or cake, which they offered to the goddess. This example, that of Beryllus bishop of Bostra, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. L vi. c. 33,) and several others, may excuse the reproach, Arabia hæreseon ferax.

76 The three gods in the Koran (c. 4, p. 81, c. 5, p. 92) are ovi‹ usly directed against our Catholic mystery: but the Arabic comment stors understand them of the Father, the Son, and the Virgin Mary, an heretical Trinity, maintained, as it is said, by some Barbarians at the Council of Nice, (Eutych. Annal. tom. i. p. 440.) But the existence of the Marianites is denied by the candid Beausobre, (Hist. de Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 532;) and he derives the mistake from the word Rouah, the Holy Ghost, which in some Oriental tongues is of the feminine gender, and is figuratively styled the mother of Christ in the Gospel of the Nazarenes