OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 15 the well-known cities of Lyons and Besançon. The memory of these devastations, for Abderame did not spare the country or the people, was long preserved by tradition ; and the invasion of France by the Moors or Mahometans affords the ground-work of those fables which have been so wildly disfigured in the romances of chivalry and so elegantly adorned by the Italian muse. In the decline ot society and art, the deserted cities could supply a slender booty to the Saracens ; their richest spoil was found in the churches and monasteries, which tbey stripped of their ornaments and delivered to the flames ; and the tutelar saints, both Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours, forgot their miraculous powers in the defence of their own sepulchres. A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire ; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the High-lands of Scotland : the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat inlo the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.
From such calamities was Christendom delivered by the genius and fortune of one man. Charles, the illegitimate son of the elder Pepin, was content with the titles of mayor or duke of the Franks, but he deserved to become the father of a line of kings. In a laborious administration of twenty-four years, he restored and supported the dignity of the throne, and the rebels of Germany and Gaul were successively crushed by the activity of a warrior, who, in the same campaign, could display his
^With regard to the sanctuary of St. Martin of Tours, Roderic Ximenes accuses the Saracens of the deed. Turonis civitatem, ecclesiam et palatia vastatione et incendio simili diruit et consumpsit. The continuator of Fredegarius imputes to them no more than the intention. Ad domum beatissimi Martini evertendam destinant. At Carolus, &c. The French annalist was more jealous of the honour of the saint.
- Yet I sincerely doubt whether the Oxford mosque would have produced a
volume of controversy so elegant and ingenious as the sermons lately preached by Mr. White, the Arabic professor, at Mr. Bampton's lecture. His observations on the character and religion of Mahomet are always adapted to his argument, and generally founded in truth and reason. He sustains the part of a lively and eloquent advocate ; and sometimes rises to the merit of an historian and philo- sopher. ^^ [For the life and acts of Charles see T. Breysig's monograph, Karl Martell, in the series of the Jahrbiicher der deutschen Geschichte.]
