Encouraged by the example and the patronage of royalty, the mental development of the masses advanced with gigantic strides. The spirit of progress, the incentives of a lofty ambition, animated all orders and conditions of men. So universal was the thirst for knowledge that even the blind, though hampered by the unkindness of nature, were still able, in that age of intellectual rivalry, to attain a high rank in the scale of literary excellence. The rhyming dictionaries, suggestive memorials of perverted and laborious ingenuity; the impassioned poems, born of a tropical clime and a sensual religion; the unprecedented and rapid progress attained in the exact sciences; the voluminous works on theology and history, and the incredible erudition of their authors, the numerous universities, the grand libraries, the competitive examinations, the public contests for literary precedence and royal favor, attest a degree of enlightenment little to be expected from a people sprung from a barbarian and idolatrous ancestry, and are all the more remarkable when contrasted with the degradation of contemporaneous Europe. Fanaticism and prejudice closed to the inquisitive mind of the Moslem some of the most important stores of classic wisdom. For, while the natural philosophers and historians of Athens were studied with the greatest assiduity, Mohammedan piety rejected with abhorrence the sublime creations of Grecian poetry on account of the gross fictions of its mythology, so repugnant to the exalted ideas of the unity and perfection of God. Nor was the fiery and impassioned nature of the Arab capable of appreciating the dignity of heroic verse or the measured cadence and majestic pomp of the Attic drama. It delighted in stirring lyrics, satirical epigrams, amatory songs, and pathetic elegiac lays. The marked influence exerted by Arabic poetry on the civilization of Europe has already been referred to in these pages. Its matter is frequently overloaded with quaint conceits and obscure allusions, its lucidity habitually sacrificed to difficult feats of rhyme, its style disfigured by extravagant metaphor and hyperbole. Love of the beautiful, the marvellous, the supernatural were the most prominent characteristics of Arabic writers, and from the effects of these national propensities even dignified works on scientific subjects were not entirely free.