and the writings of the Prophets, collectively taken, in which every species of excellence is carried to unrivalled height, whilst Greece was immersed in barbarism, before Cadmus had taught them letters. Though with a view to the Messiah, a particular prominence is given to individuals and nations connected with that grand event, yet incidentally facts, interesting to the world at large, are interspersed, which form at this day the basis of all credible history.
and whose ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius. The harmony and copiousness of style will net reach in a version the European infidel: he will peruse with impatience the endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian missionary, but his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country and in the same language. if the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a man, to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes?"—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
