Nor was Saladin long content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the Christians of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir; Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector; his brother subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at the hour of his death, his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. In the judgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on _our_ minds, impressed, as they are, with the principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in some measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia, which had erased every notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor, his humane and generous behavior to the collateral branches; by _their_ incapacity and _his_ merit; by the approbation of the caliph, the sole source of all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes and interest of the people, whose happiness is the first object of government. In _his_ virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired the singular union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin and Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and sober color over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter was addicted to wine and women, but his aspiring spirit soon renounced the temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of fame and dominion. The garment of Saladin was of coarse woolen, water was his only drink, and while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed the chastity of his Arabian prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a rigid Mussulman; he ever deplored that the defense of religion had not allowed him to accomplish the pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times each day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren; the involuntary omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid, and his perusal of the Koran on horseback between the approaching armies may be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious, of piety and courage. The superstitious doctrine of the sect of Shafei was the only study that he deigned to encourage. The poets were safe in his contempt, but all profane science was the object of his aversion, and a philosopher who had vented some speculative novelties was seized and strangled by the command of the royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanest suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was only for a kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity. While the descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed his garments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants. So boundless was his liberality that he distributed twelve thousand horses at the siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than