and barbarism." ^53 The zeal and curiosity of Almamon were imitated by succeeding princes of the line of Abbas: their rivals, the Fatimites of Africa and the Ommiades of Spain, were the patrons of the learned, as well as the commanders of the faithful; the same royal prerogative was claimed by their independent emirs of the provinces; and their emulation diffused the taste and the rewards of science from Samarcand and Bochara to Fez and Cordova. The vizier of a sultan consecrated a sum of two hundred thousand pieces of gold to the foundation of a college at Bagdad, which he endowed with an annual revenue of fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits of instruction were communicated, perhaps at different times, to six thousand disciples of every degree, from the son of the noble to that of the mechanic: a sufficient allowance was provided for the indigent scholars; and the merit or industry of the professors was repaid with adequate stipends. In every city the productions of Arabic literature were copied and collected by the curiosity of the studious and the vanity of the rich. A private doctor refused the invitation of the sultan of Bochara, because the carriage of his books would have required four hundred camels. The royal library of the Fatimites consisted of one hundred thousand manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly bound, which were lent, without jealousy or avarice, to the students of Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate, if we can believe that the Ommiades of Spain had formed a library of six hundred thousand volumes, forty-four of which were employed in the mere catalogue. Their capital, Cordova, with the adjacent towns of Malaga, Almeria, and Murcia, had given birth to more than three hundred writers, and above seventy public libraries were opened in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom. The age of Arabian learning continued about five hundred years, till the great eruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest and most slothful period of European annals; but since the sun of science has arisen in the West, it should seem that the Oriental studies have languished and declined. ^54
[Footnote 51: The Guliston (p. 29) relates the conversation of Mahomet and a physician, (Epistol. Renaudot. in Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. i. p. 814.) The prophet himself was skilled in the art of medicine; and Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 394 - 405) has given an extract of the aphorisms which are extant under his name.]
[Footnote 52: See their curious architecture in Reaumur (Hist. des Insectes, tom. v. Memoire viii.) These hexagons are closed by a pyramid; the angles of the three sides of a similar pyramid, such as would accomplish the given end with the smallest quantity possible of materials, were determined by a mathematician, at 109 degrees 26 minutes for the larger, 70 degrees 34 minutes for the smaller. The actual measure is 109 degrees 28 minutes, 70 degrees 32 minutes. Yet this perfect harmony raises the work at the expense of the artist he bees are not masters of transcendent geometry.]
[Footnote 53: Saed Ebn Ahmed, cadhi of Toledo, who died A. H. 462, A.D. 069, has furnished Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 160) with this curious passage, as well as with the text of Pocock's Specimen Historiae Arabum. A number of literary anecdotes of philosophers, physicians, &c., who have flourished under each caliph, form the principal merit of the Dynasties of Abulpharagius.]
[Footnote 54: These literary anecdotes are borrowed from the Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, (tom. ii. p. 38, 71, 201, 202,) Leo Africanus, (de Arab. Medicis et Philosophis, in Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. xiii. p. 259 - 293, particularly p. 274,) and Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 274, 275, 536, 537,) besides the chronological remarks of Abulpharagius.]
In the libraries of the Arabians, as in those of Europe, the far greater part of the innumerable volumes were possessed only of local value or imaginary merit. ^55 The shelves were crowded with orators and poets, whose style was adapted to the taste and manners