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By Root 21973 0

and his applauded work, in seven or twelve parts, was abbreviated in three volumes by his son Khondemir, A. H. 927, A.D. 1520. The two writers, most accurately distinguished by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Genghizcan, p.537, 538, 544, 545,) are loosely confounded by D'Herbelot, (p. 358, 410, 994, 995: ) but his numerous extracts, under the improper name of Khondemir, belong to the father rather than the son. The historian of Genghizcan refers to a Ms. of Mirchond, which he received from the hands of his friend D'Herbelot himself. A curious fragment (the Taherian and Soffarian Dynasties) has been lately published in Persic and Latin, (Viennae, 1782, in 4to., cum notis Bernard de Jenisch;) and the editor allows us to hope for a continuation of Mirchond.]

[Footnote 204: Quo testimonio boni se quidpiam praestitisse opinabantur. Yet Mirchond must have condemned their zeal, since he approved the legal toleration of the Magi, cui (the fire temple) peracto singulis annis censu uti sacra Mohammedis lege cautum, ab omnibus molestiis ac oneribus libero esse licuit.]

[Footnote 205: The last Magian of name and power appears to be Mardavige the Dilemite, who, in the beginning of the 10th century, reigned in the northern provinces of Persia, near the Caspian Sea, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 355.) But his soldiers and successors, the Bowides either professed or embraced the Mahometan faith; and under their dynasty (A.D. 933 - 1020) I should say the fall of the religion of Zoroaster.]

[Footnote 206: The present state of the Ghebers in Persia is taken from Sir John Chardin, not indeed the most learned, but the most judicious and inquisitive of our modern travellers, (Voyages en Perse, tom. ii. p. 109, 179 - 187, in 4to.) His brethren, Pietro della Valle, Olearius, Thevenot, Tavernier, &c., whom I have fruitlessly searched, had neither eyes nor attention for this interesting people.]

The Northern coast of Africa is the only land in which the light of the gospel, after a long and perfect establishment, has been totally extinguished. The arts, which had been taught by Carthage and Rome, were involved in a cloud of ignorance; the doctrine of Cyprian and Augustin was no longer studied. Five hundred episcopal churches were overturned by the hostile fury of the Donatists, the Vandals, and the Moors. The zeal and numbers of the clergy declined; and the people, without discipline, or knowledge, or hope, submissively sunk under the yoke of the Arabian prophet Within fifty years after the expulsion of the Greeks, a lieutenant of Africa informed the caliph that the tribute of the infidels was abolished by their conversion; ^207 and, though he sought to disguise his fraud and rebellion, his specious pretence was drawn from the rapid and extensive progress of the Mahometan faith. In the next age, an extraordinary mission of five bishops was detached from Alexandria to Cairoan. They were ordained by the Jacobite patriarch to cherish and revive the dying embers of Christianity: ^208 but the interposition of a foreign prelate, a stranger to the Latins, an enemy to the Catholics, supposes the decay and dissolution of the African hierarchy. It was no longer the time when the successor of St. Cyprian, at the head of a numerous synod, could maintain an equal contest with the ambition of the Roman pontiff. In the eleventh century, the unfortunate priest who was seated on the ruins of Carthage implored the arms and the protection of the Vatican; and he bitterly complains that his naked body had been scourged by the Saracens, and that his authority was disputed by the four suffragans, the tottering pillars of his throne. Two epistles of Gregory the Seventh ^209 are destined to soothe the distress of the Catholics and the pride of a Moorish prince. The pope assures the sultan that they both worship the same God, and may hope to meet in the bosom of Abraham; but the complaint that three bishops could no longer be found to consecrate a brother, announces the speedy and inevitable ruin of the episcopal order. The Christians of Africa and Spain