Bagdad ne'er lost a better heart or head,

Nor e'er had Cordova within her walls

A Saracen of loftier soul"; more wed
To science ?, or the policy which calls
To music, mirth, and courtly gilded halls.

LXIV.

Here the bold sons of Mahomet, a horde

Nor lacking industry, nor care, nor skill,
Long sway'd triumphant, spurning each proud lord

Who dar'd restrain their all imperious will.

Abdalli ! then it was thy fate to fill, Brimfull, the

сир

of a brave people's woe ; Yet spite of seas of blood thy sword would spill,

a

dynasty, under the appellation of “ The Caliphs of Cordova" (A. D. 756.), who were particularly distinguished for the encouragement they gave to arts and sciences.-Koch's Revolutions de l'Europe, tome i. page 10.

1 Russel, in his History of Modern Europe, observes, in speaking of Abdalrahman,“ such was his address as a Mahometan, that, without persecuting Christianity, he almost extinguished it in his dominions ;” and no prince at that time in Europe, equalled him in sagacity, nor any people the Arabs of those days, in whatever tended to the aggrandisement of the human soul.

2 The reader is referred to an excellent work on the arts and literature

Beneath a Christian Monarch's sturdy blow,
Thou and thy thousands mourn'd an overthrow },

Overthrow of the Saracen power in Spain.

LXV.

Which sent you, crescent-fallen, defeated, driven

To baneful exile. So as rolls along
The tide of revolutions, plann'd in heaven,

Would Raymond his rude minstrelsy prolong :

If right, let him rejoice ; and so, if wrong,
He'll crave for mercy, in these merciless times.

Ah ! 'tis a woeful thing, that itch for song !-
Nay, there are those who rank it ’mongst the crimes,
And have no patience with the fool who rhymes.

We crave

mercy.

of the Moors in Spain, by the Rev. T. H. Horne.—See also a work enti. tled, “ Historia di la Dominicon de los Arabes en Espana, per Don Jose Antonio Conde,” admirably reviewed in the Foreign Quarterly Review for July 1827.

1 It was in A. D. 1472 that the last struggle was made by the Moors for independence in Spain, when Grenada was taken by Ferdinand, but not before a most gallant defence had been made by Abdalli. This put an end to the dominion of the Mahometans in Spain, that had existed since the famous battle of Xeres in Andalusia, in 712, and overthrew the empire of the Visegoths.

END OF CANTO SECOND.

1 2

FITZ-RAYMOND.

CANTO III.