staked too much on his pretensions to suffer his own conviction to be shaken. In chapters 68, 111, 101, 102, 104, 108, and the continuation of 74, we find him maintaining his sacred character to its utmost height-sometimes consoling his animosity with mysterious hints of future and inevitable retribution, and sometimes relieving his passion in the terrific outpourings of a prophet's curse. In chapter 74 his anger adopts a strain of personal ridicule, which the striking singularity of manner can hardly redeem from the character of satire.

"Yes-be considered and he plotted-curse him how he plotted. Aye, curse him how he plotted-then he looked, then he frowned and looked grave-then he turned away in his pride and said, what is this but a charm that is repeated, what is this but the speech of a man."

The classical reader will readily recall the comic scenes which occur in the Greek tragedies, and wonder to find how natural in the simplicity of early composition is the union of the grotesque with the empassioned.

It is important to observe what at this early period was the devotional discipline which Mahomet imposed on his followers himself, and some may be surprised to learn that it was marked with the blindest zeal of fanaticism. From chapter 73 we find that the prophet and his scanty train of believers were in the habit of devoting half the night to prayer and religious meditation; and a permission is there given to relax somewhat of this unnatural austerity, from which it appears their health and spirits had began to suffer.

On the strength of the only conjectures applicable to the case, we should venture to place the chapters from 51 to 56, from 82 to 92, together with the 77th, 99th and 100th, next in the order of composition. They are of all the most vivid in conception, and the most finished in stile; and Mahomet in other chapters rejects with indignation the name of poet, to which none but these would seem to entitle him. Devoid of any attempts to reason with his adversaries, they seem adapted only to the early period of his self-taught ministry. Their constant theme is the truth of the Korann-the powers, the mercy of God-the terrors of the last day-and the fate of the obedient and disobedient after it. These topics indeed prevail in every chapter of the whole, but they were afterwards mingled with others, which we shall soon have occasion to notice.

The truth of the Korann is generally affirmed on the strength of the Almighty's oath. "By all that produces-by all that bears by all that moves-and by all that distributes, what is promised to thee is verily true-this faith comes from heaven." (chap. 51.) In the profuse fertility of his imagination the writer

sometimes crowds poetic images of the highest order into these preliminary asseverations. The classical or the sacred reader will perhaps be glad to compare the horses of Mahomet with those of Homer or of Job. "By the horses running wild and snorting kindling the earth with the sparks they elicit―vying with each other in the freshness of morning-obscuring its splendour with the dust they raise-and rushing into the midst of it themselves." (chap. 100.) His descriptions of the last day are seldom below the Scriptures from which they are borrowed.

Cap. 99." When the earth shall tremble violently and shake off her burdens, men shall say what has come to it? Then shall she declare her tidings, for that the Lord hath communicated them to her."

Cap. 81.-" When the sun shall waver, the stars be obscured, and the mountains be moved-when the camel shall forget her young, and the beasts shall run together-when the sea shall boil-when souls shall be united-when the Heavens shall be taken away-Hell be kindled and Paradise brought near."

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Cap. 14. On that day the eyes of men shall gaze fearfully, dejected, cowering; not an eye shall wink; their hearts shall be a blank."

The paradise of Mahomet is familiar to every one's imagination, but the inquisitive reader will find the most comprehensive representation of it in chapters 32 and 37. The passages relating to the inferno are those which do least credit to the feelings if not the abilities of Mahomet. The utter helplessness of man amidst the wreck of worlds, the consternation of the soul when standing in the sensible presence of an infinite Creator, are topics on which no man should presume to insult another. With a minuteness that is offensive and an avidity that is shocking, he dwells on every refinement of torture that human fancy can depict. The absorbing terror, the excruciating misery, the vain repentance, the prayers, the struggles, the shrieks of the damned, it seems to have been his delight rather than his horror, to contemplate. With a repulsive inconsistency he even makes it one of the occupations if not amusements of the blessed, to scrutinize the scene of torment and observe their former acquaintance in the midst of it. That his ostensible object in framing these fictions was to rescue his countrymen from the reality will not relieve him, in the opinion of the metaphysician, from the reproach of those darker touches, which fancy, unassisted by passion, could never have produced. His real defence must be sought in the exasperations to which he was hourly exposed, and the natural vindictiveness which belonged to him as an Arab. It will be seen when the time comes for observing it, that malignity was not among his failings; or a far greater praise-that if it had been it was not indulged.

From these artless effusions of fancy and of feeling we pass to others more calculated to persuade. Chapters 7, 15, 14, 10, 20, 21, 19 and 27, may be taken as fair and sufficient specimens of the bulk of the Korann. From their vicinity to the Jews and the strict connection which had formerly subsisted between the two people, the Arabs had derived much traditional knowledge, and much fanciful superstition. The stories of the ancient patriarchs were familiar to their imaginations; and they perceived or thought they perceived in various catastrophes that had formerly befallen the most flourishing of their own tribes, similar instances of divine guidance and divine punishment. From the obstinate incredulity with which all recorded messages of God to man had been received, Mahomet must have drawn his earliest support under the staggering opposition which he met with, and he naturally used the consideration to produce in others the same conviction it had afforded to him. With fond pertinacity he everywhere recounts the missions of every prophet from Noah to Jesus, and the punishment of those by whom they were rejected. Identifying his own situation with that of the sacred warners, he sought to drive his despisers into identifying theirs with that of the vainlywarned. His imagination here got the better of his prudence, and the modern inquirer makes it a serious objection to the truth of his mission, that he incessantly threatened what was never sufficiently accomplished.

This, though his principal argument, is not his only one. The Coreysh had asked, how the orphan son of Abdallah, whom for forty years they had known only to disregard, should suddenly become the bearer of heaven's commands to them? With equal skill and effect he wrests his antagonist's weapon from their hands and uses it against themselves. "If," replies he, "I have lived so long an unpretending citizen, wherefore should I pretend now? and if I have been hitherto undistinguished, where have I at once acquired the energies I now display?" The Korann, by a parity of reason, is assimilated to the books of former prophets, which the Arabs enumerate to an extravagant amount; but his favourite and most frequent argument is its inimitability. In the height of his confidence he extends the challenge to the invisible powers of genii and demons; and the weary student wonders to find the whole truth of the mission staked, and staked successfully, on the impossibility of equalling a single passage. How far this vaunt is borne out by the actual merits of the work it is difficult to say, as no native critic can be an unprejudiced one. The fact that nothing equal was produced seems staggering; and yet we learn from the book itself that its decriers always asserted it to be no wise beyond the standard of human invention; it is easily con

ceivable that pride or listlessness may have restrained them from the contest, even if no diffidence in their own powers would else have induced them to decline it. Among other of their objections we find from chap. 25, that they accused Mahomet of being assisted in its composition by some one, who, we learn from the answer, was a foreigner. Maraccius, Prideaux, and other polemical decriers have seized hold of this circumstance to deprive him of the honour of originality, forgetting that no foreigner could supply more than the matter, and that the merit of the Korann lies in its style and spirit. Had their attention been as great as their virulence, they might have drawn from the Korann itself more satisfactory evidence on this point than can possibly be afforded by the casual allegation of his adversaries. It is thronged with imitations of Scripture from Genesis to the Revelations; and Mahomet being totally illiterate himself, must have learned these original passages from others. He was in the habit, it appears, of listening to two Christian youths, shopkeepers of Mecca, who used to read the Bible aloud, while sitting in the streets. This probably contributed from the first to inflame his imagination, and raise in him the frantic piety which lifted him above himself.

Many sacred legends will be found from which no particular inference seems to be drawn or intended, and it appears therefore to have been one of the author's objects to draw together every tradition that was likely to impose on his hearers, and by making the work a receptacle of all that was holy, to raise a presumption that it was holy itself. From the 18th chapter, which is entirely of this nature, we extract one of the very few passages which is likely to interest the cursory reader:

"Then they found one of our servants to whom we had been gracious, and given him instruction from ourselves. Moses said, may I follow thee, that thou mayest instruct me in some of what thou art directed in? He said, thou wilt not be able to bear with me; how should you bear with what you do not comprehend? He replied, thou shalt find me patient, I will not be disobedient in aught. He said, then if thou followest me, ask not of any thing until I mention it to thee. So they went on, till they entered a boat, which he split. Have you split it, cried Moses, that you may drown the owners of it? You have done a strange thing. Did I not tell thee, said he, that thou couldest not bear with me? Chide me not, said Moses, in that I forget; and be not harsh at my behaviour. Then they went on till they met a child, which he killed. What, exclaimed Moses, have you killed an innocent person without his having killed another! truly you have done a grievous deed. Did I not tell you, he said, you could not bear with me? Moses replied, if I ask you about any thing after this, take me with you no longer, verily my excuses are sincere. So they went on till they came to a village, where they asked its inmates for refreshment, but they refused to entertain them, and they found in it a wall that was about to tumble,

me;

and he set it straight. If you pleased, said Moses, you might here requite them. This, said the holy man, is a separation between thee and but I will explain to thee that which thou couldest not bear with. The boat belonged to some poor people who labour on the sea, and I wished to injure it, because a tyrant was in search of them who takes every vessel by force. As to the child, his parents were righteous, and I feared he would afflict them with his unruliness and impiety, and I wished the Lord might give them in exchange a better than he, innocent and dutiful. The wall was the property of two children, orphans in the city, and beneath it was a hidden treasure belonging to them; and their father was righteous, therefore the Lord wished that they should arrive at maturity and obtain their treasure, a tender mercy from the Lord. I did it not of my own suggestion. This is the explanation of what you could not bear with."

But the line of argument adopted by Mahomet involved him in difficulties which more than outbalanced the advantages he derived from it. The miracles performed by the sacred characters to whom he strove to assimilate himself, formed the most striking part of their histories, and he was naturally urged by those whom he addressed to bring the same proof of his divine commission. His continual and contradictory excuses on this point form a leading topic of the work, and prove how much vexation it occasioned him. He often contents himself with expatiating on the inscrutable ways of God till he loses sight of the question. Sometimes he assures them that they would be unable to endure the terrors they demanded. Sometimes that they were too obstinate to be affected by them. His adversaries saw their advantage, and daily in the streets of Mecca the preacher was surrounded and interrupted by scoffers, who defied him to overwhelm them with the vengeance he predicted. "I am a preacher, not an angel," was the disconsolate reply. "Vengeance will come with the hour appointed by God-that hour none can accelerate, any more than they can avert it when it arrives." Here however was another difficulty. In his unbounded jealousy for the glory of God, Mahomet asserted the doctrine of predestination in its utmost strictness, and even while reproaching his hearers for their incredulity, he inconsistently assured them that belief and disbelief were the immediate effects of divine agency. In one of the chapters above noticed, he will be found vainly endeavouring to solve the problem by which the vastest intellects of every other age and country have been baffled and bewildered.

If the reader supposes these arguments to have been advanced, or these disputes carried on, in any connected form, or with any logical precision, he has a very imperfect notion of the Korann, where every proposition is involved and entangled in the fury of denunciation, or the rhapsody of piety and praise: