The Arabians were the aggressive conservators of talent rather than the productive agents of genius; and it must be confessed that they neither had the presentiment, nor have been direct harbingers of any of the great inventions which have placed modern society so far above the ancients. They greatly aggregated and improved the details of knowledge, but discovered none of the fundamental solutions which have totally changed the scientific world. At the needful moment, a new system came suddenly into existence, and spread rapidly from the Indus to the Tagus, under the victorious crescent. Apparently indigenous in every clime, its monuments arose in India, along the northern coast of Africa, and among the Moors in Spain. At Bagdad and Cairo, Jerusalem and Cordova, Arabian taste and skill flourished in all their magnificence. It is said that no nation of Asia, Africa, or Europe, either ancient or modern, has possessed a code of rural regulations more wise, just, and perfect, than that of the Arabians in Spain; nor has any nation ever been elevated by the wisdom of its laws, the intelligence, activity, and industry of its inhabitants, to a higher pitch of agricultural prosperity. Agriculture was studied by them with that perfect knowledge of the climate, the soil, and the growth of plants and animals, which can alone reduce empirical experience into a science. Nor were the arts cultivated with less success, or less enriched by the progress of natural philosophy. What remains of so much glory? Probably not ten persons living are in a situation to take advantage of the manuscript treasures which are inclosed in the library of the Escurial. Of the prodigious literary riches of the Arabians, what still exist are in the hands of their enemies, in the convents of the monks, or in the royal collections of the West. The instant they had brought forward all the wealth of the East, and planted it where by a fruitful amalgamation great and wide benefits could be produced, then Charles Martel, the _hammer_, heading the progressive progeny of Japhet, broke down the might of Shem, and repelled his offspring forever toward the sombre domain and fortunes of Ham.