A most melancholy observation is suggested by the destruction of the libraries of Alamut and Bagdad; it is, that the fall of both was caused by the guilt of learned men: the former, by the perfidy of the astronomer, Nassireddin; the latter, by the treachery of the _bel esprit_, Ibn Alkami; both being sacrificed to their revenge. The fate of these two learned statesmen, distinguished alike by their great talents and evil hearts, who caused the overthrow of the Assassins and the khalifat, falls now to be mentioned. A few words will suffice. After the conquest of Bagdad, Nassireddin built the celebrated observatory of Meragha; by which, as well as his astronomical tables, both his name and that of Hulaku are immortalized in the history of astronomy. Thus that science derived, at least, some advantage from the many evils in which astrology had been its handmaid. Ibn Alkami, the man of letters, and vizier, instead of the reward he expected, reaped that of a traitor. As such, treated by the Mongols with the most profound contempt, he died, in a few days, a prey to remorse and despair. The inhabitants of Bagdad wrote on every wall, over the gates of the caravanserais and schools, in large letters cut in marble: “The curse of God on him who curses not Ibn Alkami!” One of the traitor’s partisans, a Shiite, having expunged the “not” from one of these inscriptions, was punished with seventy blows of the bastinado. The name of Ibn Alkami is intimately interwoven with that of Nassireddin, in the history of the fall of the Assassins, and the khalifat. Asia long trembled from the shock of the violent fall of the empire of the dagger, and the prophet’s staff. The conquest of Bagdad has almost diverted us from our proper object, not merely by the intrinsic importance of the subject, but also on account of its intimate connexion with the end of the Assassins, whose overthrow prepared that of the khalifat.