At all events, if in his dreams of universal empire Charlemagne seriously meditated the conquest of Spain, this signal reverse must have served to dissipate the illusion. But one can hardly conceive that he would have proclaimed a Champ de Mai, and assembled two immense armies in France, merely to chastise the independent Gascons and Basques, and receive the submission, already pledged, of some cities on the Ebro. Ten centuries afterwards, the great hero of that age, the victorious leader who claimed the succession and aspired to follow in the steps of the first emperor of the French, met his first reverses on the soil of Spain; the passes of the Pyrenees again witnessed the disasters of their retreating army, and, by a singular coincidence, it was from the plains of Saxony that the tidings came which recalled the imperial troops for the defence of the German frontier.

After the retreat of Charlemagne, the caliph of Cordova immediately regained possession of Barcelona and the other frontier towns, and the Spanish march remained as before debateable ground, the possession of which was always precarious and often nominal; the emirs or counts transferring their allegiance to the Christian or the infidel power, as their interests for the time dictated.

Relieved from the apprehension of foreign invasions, though rebellions and insurrections, which he was often in arms to quell, did not allow him to enjoy much repose, Abdalrahman found leisure to cultivate the more congenial arts of peace. The sciences flourished under his enlightened protection; for the caliph himself was an accomplished prince, and is celebrated for a soft and insinuating eloquence, and a delicate vein of poetry, specimens of which are still extant. He embellished Cordova with stately buildings, surrounding it with immense fortifications, the remains of which are still seen; and he laid the foundations of the great mosque, on the model of that of Damascus, which is now the Catholic cathedral; but which he did not live to finish. He died in 788, full of years and of honour; "principe prudente ed de mucho valor," as Mariana pithily sums up his character.

He was succeeded by his son Haschem who in the early part of his reign successfully encountered the Asturian Christians, and reviving the claims of the Visigoth kings of Spain to the province of

Septimania, crossed the Pyrenees and defeated with great slaughter the troops which the count of Toulouse had levied against him. Having burnt the faubourgs of Narbonne, he withdrew into Spain, dragging into slavery a vast crowd of prisoners, and loaded with booty. The fruits of this expedition supplied him with the means of completing the great mosque at Cordova which had been begun by Abdalrahman. The roof of this magnificent building was supported by 1500 columns of marble; 24 gates of bronze, the principal of which was plated with solid gold, admitted the faithful; and when at solemn festivals their devotions were prolonged into the watches of the night, 6000 lamps fed with fragrant oils shed a sweet perfume and a soft radiance over its vast area. The Catholic worshipper may still trace verses of the Koran inscribed on the walls, attesting the creed for which it was founded. He may shudder as they remind him of the infidel who for so many centuries held possession of his noble land, but in the lapse of a thousand years he may probably fail to remember the benefits which the supremacy of the Moslems conferred on Spain.

Other magnificent buildings, a library, palaces, new streets, the noble bridge of twenty-seven arches over the Guadalquiver, repaired or reconstructed, made Cordova the most splendid of the European cities of that age. During the peaceful reign of Haschem, the other towns of Spain received similar embellishments, mosques were built and schools founded; industry was encouraged; and following the wise and equitable administration of his fathers, justice was equally rendered, without distinction of creed, to Christians and Mahometans, the former of whom were conciliated by toleration in the free exercise of their religion.

During the troubled reign of El-Hakem, son of Haschem, the caliph's cruel and arrogant temper, wars on the frontier and the insurrections of rebellious emirs, interrupted for a while the tranquillity, and checked the rising prosperity, of the Saracen empire in Spain. It was during his reign that Lewis le Debonnaire led his father's troops against the infidels on the Spanish frontier, a sort of crusade congenial to his pious temperament. He conducted it with spirit and success, Barcelona being taken and its governor sent in chains to Aix-la-chapelle; and the supremacy of the Franks was for a time reestablished in the Spanish march.

But these advantages were short-lived, and the clouds which hung over Spain during the reign of Al-Hakem were dispelled when his son Abdalrahman the Second, a prince worthy of that great name, succeeded to the caliphate. He was received with acclamations by the people, whose confidence he had gained by the part he had taken in affairs during the misrule of his father Al-Hakem. The early part of the reign of Abdalrahman II was nearly cotemporaneous with that of Lewis le Debonnaire, but its aspect was widely different. A consummate general, as well as a wise and skilful politician, he recovered the losses which had been sustained on the frontier of the Ebro, retook Barcelona, and reestablished the ascendancy of the Saracens in the Spanish march. The incursions of the Christian princes of the Asturias and Navarre were restrained, and the Northmen, expelled from the coast of Lusitania, never succeeded in gaining a footing in Spain. Musa, the most formidable of the rebellious emirs, was reduced by the vigour of his arms, and Abdalrahman justly deserved the proud title of El-Mouzaffer, the "Victorious", by which he is known in the Arabian histories of Spain.

But higher still is the glory which is attached to his name as the patron of science and the arts, and the promoter of every thing which could conduce to the improvement, the happiness, and the prosperity of his subjects. Poets and philosophers flocked to his court to do him honour, and lent their aid in diffusing the love of science and the arts among the Arabs of Spain. All the time he could spare from state affairs was devoted to conversation with the enlightened men who were admitted to his familiar intercourse. Music lent her aid, the marble halls and voluptuous gardens of the caliph and his nobles echoed with melody, romance and song; and they formed the recreation of an imaginative people on the delicious banks of the Guadalquiver, the Guadiana, and the Tagus. Literature in all its branches, history, poetry, philosophy, unfolded the treasures of the past and occupied itself in preparing new offerings for future ages. Astronomy, child of the east, was transplanted to a still congenial climate; chemistry and medicine revealed their secrets and saw a new school founded in the west; and the acute genius of the Arabs cultivated with success the abstruser sciences.

Great indeed was the advance of the Arabs in every branch of

intellectual science and every form of industrial art. That original and picturesque architecture, distinct alike from classic and Gothic models, the remains of which still attract and delight the traveller, embellished the cities of Spain. Colonies from Africa and Asia introduced the Nabathæan cultures, and to them she is indebted for the palm, the mulberry and the sugarcane, as well as for the system of irrigation taught by the Moors, which with the mechanical contrivances for raising water above its natural level, converted the arid slopes of the Sierras into luxuriant gardens and fruitful vineyards. The mines of gold and silver, for which Spain had long been celebrated, were successfully worked; pearl and coral fisheries were established on the coasts; and every industrial process which could invite the labours of an intelligent people and the encouragement of an enlightened government, was diligently pursued. Under such circumstances,— with an impregnable frontier, exemption from foreign wars, civilization advancing and order and tranquillity maintained by the firm administration of a line of wise and prudent sovereignsthe Arabian kingdom in Spain was in the middle of the ninth century the richest and most populous of European countries."

At the outset of our present undertaking, a summary glance on the course of affairs during the ninth century suggested certain marked epochs, corresponding with its natural divisions-and each of them distinguished by different phases of the political phoenomena, as convenient points for our departure, for an intermediate rest, and for the final term of the enquiry. Two of them, fixed at the middle and the close of the century, had the further advantage of being nearly coincident with the dates of the birth and death of Alfred.

Our first point of view, taken from the beginning of the century, exhibited the empire of the Franks, under Charlemagne, at the zenith of his power, in all its extent and integrity. Following the course of events during the reign of his successor Lewis le Debonnair, we have seen the sovereign power completely shat

(10) Mariana, Istoria. Cardonne Histoire de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne sous la domination des Arabes.

tered, and the unity of the empire become nearly nominal. It expired with him; and the results of the battle of Fontenay, with the treaties of the sons of Lewis for the partition of his dominions and for a mutual concert which vainly aimed to supply the place of the unity they had dissolved, have brought us to the close of the first half of the century.

From thence taking our second general point of view, we find the empire of Charlemagne divided into three great kingdoms, with still inherent and growing tendencies to further dissolution, which will be developed in its progress to the final dismemberment with which the century closed, and which is the term of our present essay.

As however two important European kingdoms, branches of the former western empire, did not enter into the system of Charlemagne and his successors, they found no place in our review of events and influences connected with the Carlovingian empire. Of these two independent states, the Saracen caliphate in Spain was therefore reserved for a separate notice; while of the state of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain at this period, the "Harmony of the Chronicles" and other portions of the present volumes will furnish ample and authentic records.

But it must be also remembered that at the time to which our survey of European affairs is now brought, Alfred the AngloSaxon king comes,—so to speak, upon the stage of history; and though, as we have already remarked, his relations with the continental states were but slight, it cannot be supposed that a prince of his enlightened character was an unobservant spectator of events which were changing the face of Europe. The expedition he sent forth to penetrate into the far East, and his own notes on the voyage of Othere into unknown regions towards the Northpole, bespeak an extended range of observation which could not have overlooked the revolutions of neighbouring states. Alfred must have retained some personal recollections of European courts, and in his earlier years was connected with the family

(1) Industry and civilization must have made some progress in these early times in the Scandinavian peninsula, for Othere speaks of a herd of 600 tame rein-deer. Travellers who at this day find such herds depasturing on the higher Fjelds, and wonder how they have been reclaimed, may learn that a thousand years ago tame deer were used as decoys.