turn to the bullets. Squadrons at the wings are often exposed to a cannonading while waiting for the general's orders. They who first tire of this manœuvre, which gives no scope for the display of impetuous courage, disperse and quit the field; and are rallied, if possible, a few miles off. The victorious enemies besiege a town, which sometimes costs them more men, money, and time, than they would have lost by several battles. The progress made is rarely rapid; and at the end of five or six years, both sides, being equally exhausted, are obliged to make peace.

Thus, at all events, the invention of artillery and the new mode of warfare have established among the respective powers an equality which secures mankind from devastations like those of former times, and thereby renders war less fatal in its consequences, though it is still prodigiously so.

The Greeks in all ages, the Romans in the time of Sylla, and the other nations of the West and South, had no standing army; every citizen was a soldier, and enrolled himself in time of war. It is, at this day, precisely the same in Switzerland. Go through the whole country, and you will not find a battalion, except at the time of the reviews, If it goes to war, you all at once see eighty thousand

men in arms.

Those who usurped the supreme power after Sylla, always had a permanent force, paid with the money of the citizens, to keep the citizens in subjection, much more than to subjugate other nations. The Bishop of Rome himself keeps a small army in his pay. Who, in the time of the apostles, would have said that the servant of the servants of God should have regiments, and have them in Rome?

Nothing is so much feared in England as a great standing army.

The Janissaries have raised the Sultans to greatness, but they have also strangled them. The Sultans would have avoided the rope, if instead of these large bodies of troops, they had established small ones.

AROT AND MAROT.

WITH A SHORT REVIEW OF THE KOBAN.

THIS article may serve to show how much the most learned men may be deceived, and to develope some useful truths. In the Dictionnaire Encyclopé dique, there is the following passage concerning Arot and Marot :

"These are the names of two angels, who the imposter Mahomet said had been sent from God to teach man, and to order him to abstain from murder, false judgments, and excesses of every kind. This false prophet adds, that a very beau tiful woman having invited these two angels to her table, she made them drink wine, with which being heated, they solicited her as lovers; that she feigned to yield to their passion, provided they would first teach her the words by pro nouncing which they said it was easy to ascend to heaven; that having obtained from them what she asked, she would not keep her promise; and that she was then taken up into heaven, where, having related to God what had passed, she was changed into the morning star called Lucifer or Aurora, and the angels were severely punished. Thence it was, according to Mahomet, that God took occasion to forbid wine to men."

It would be in vain to seek in the Koran for a single word of this absurd story and pretended reason for Mahomet's forbidding to his followers the use of wine. He forbids it only in the second and fifth chapters.

They will question thee about wine and strong liquors: thou shalt answer, that it is a great sin."

"The just, who believe and do good works, must not be reproached with hav{ ing drunk wine and played at games of chance, before games of chance were forbidden."

It is averred by all the Mahometans, that their prophet forbade wine and liquors solely to preserve their health and prevent quarrels, in the burning climate of Arabia.

The use of any fermented liquor soon affects the head, and may destroy both health and reason.

tribes, and nothing was inserted the in collection that did not appear authentic.

Besides, the chapter concerning the The fable of Arot and Marot descend- journey to heaven, not only is not in the ing from heaven, and wanting to lie with Koran, but is in a very different style, and an Arab woman, after drinking wine with is at least four times as long as any of the her, is not in any Mahometan author. It received chapters. Compare all the other is to be found only among the impostures chapters of the Koran with this, and you which various Christian writers, more in-will find a prodigious difference. It bediscreet than enlightened, have printed gins thus :against the Mussulman religion, through a zeal which is not according to knowledge. The names of Arot and Marot are in no part of the Koran. It is one Sylburgius who says, in an old book which nobody reads, that he anathematises the angels Arot, Marot, Safah, and Merwah.

Observe, kind reader, that Safah and Merwah are two little hills near Mecca; so that our learned Sylburgius has taken two hills for two angels. Thus it was with every writer on Mahometanism amongst us, almost without exception, until the intelligent Reland gave us clear ideas of the Mussulman belief, and the learned Sale, after living twenty-four years in and about Arabia, at length enlightened us by his faithful translation of the Koran, and his most instructive preface.

"One night, I fell asleep between the two hills of Safah and Merwah. That night was very dark; but so still, that the dogs were not heard to bark, nor the cocks to crow. All at once, the angel Gabriel appeared before me in the form in which the Most High God created him. His skin was white as snow. His fair hair, admirably disposed, fell in ringlets over his shoulders; his forehead was clear, majestic, and serene, his teeth beautiful and shining, and his legs of a saffron hue; his garments were glittering with pearls, and with thread of pure gold. On his forehead was a plate of gold, on which were written two lines, brilliant and daz{zling with light; in the first were these words, "There is no God but God;' and in the second these, Mahomet is God's Apostle.' On beholding this, I remained Gagnier himself, notwithstanding his the most astonished and confused of men. Arabic professorship at Oxford, has been I observed about him seventy thousand pleased to put forth a few falsehoods con- little boxes or bags of musk and saffron. cerning Mahomet, as if we had need of He had five hundred pairs of wings; and lies to maintain the truth of our religion} the distance from one wing to another was against a false prophet. He gives us at { five hundred years' journey. full length Mahomet's journey through the seven heavens on the mare Alborac, and even ventures to cite the fifty-third sura or chapter; but neither in this fifty-third sura, or in any other, is there so much as an allusion to this pretended journey through the heavens.

This strange story is related by Abulfeda, seven hundred years after Mahomet. It is taken, he says, from ancient manuscripts which were current in Mahomet's time. But it is evident that they were not Mahomet's; for, after his death, Abubeker gathered together all the leaves of the ran, in the presence of all the chiefs of

"Thus did Gabriel appear before me. He touched me, and said, 'Arise, thou sleeper!' I was seized with fear and trembling, and, starting up, said to him, 'Who art thou?' He answered, 'God have mercy upon thee! I am thy brother Gabriel. O my dearly-beloved Gabriel,' said I, 'I ask thy pardon; is it a revelation of something new, or is it some afflicting threat that thou bringest me?' 'It is something new,' returned he; rise, my dearly-beloved, and tie thy mantle over thy shoulders; thou wilt have need of it, for thou must this night pay a visit to thy lord.' So saying, Gabriel,

taking my hand, raised me from the ground, and having mounted me on the mare Alborac, led her himself by the bridle," &c.

preserved in Syria and Arabia until Mahomet's time.

How many times has it been repeated, that Mahomet had accustomed a pigeon to eat grain out of his ear, and made his followers believe that this pigeon brought him messages from God?

In fine, it is averred by the Mussulmen, that this chapter, which has no authentieity, was imagined by Abu-Horaïrah, who is said to have been cotemporary with the Is it not enough for us, that we are perprophet. What should we say of a Turk, suaded of the falseness of his sect, and who should come and insult our religion invincibly convinced by faith of the truth by telling us that we reckon among our of our own, without losing our time in sacred books, the Letters of St. Paul to calumniating the Mahometans, who have Seneca, and Seneca's Letters to St. Paul; established themselves from Mount Cauthe Acts of Pilate; the Life of Pilate's casus to Mount Atlas, and from the conWife; the Letters of the pretended King fines of Epirus to the extremities of India? Abgarus to Jesus Christ, and Jesus We are incessantly writing bad books Christ's Answer to the same; the Story against them, of which they know nothing. of St. Peter's Challenge to Simon the Ma- We cry out that their religion has been gician; the Predictions of the Sibyls; the { embraced by so many nations only beTestament of the Twelve Patriarchs; and cause it flatters the senses. But where is so many other books of the same the sensuality in ordering abstinence from kind? the wine and liquors in which we indulge to such excess; in pronouncing to every one an indispensable command to give to the poor each year two and a half per cent. of his income, to fast with the greatest rigour, to undergo a painful operation in the earliest stage of puberty, to make, over arid sands, a pilgrimage of sometimes five hundred leagues, and to pray to God five times a day, even when in the field?

We should answer the Turk by saying, that he was very ill informed, and that not one of these works was regarded as authentic. The Turk will make the same answer to us, when to confound him we reproach him with Mahomet's journey to the seven heavens. He will tell us that this is nothing more than a pious fraud of latter times, and that this journey is not in the Koran. Assuredly I am not here comparing truth with error-Christianity with Mahometanism-the Gospel with the Koran; but false tradition with false tradition-abuse with abuse-absurdity with absurdity.

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But, say you, they are allowed four wives in this world, and in the next they will have celestial brides. Grotius expressly says-" It must have required a great share of stupidity to admit reveries so gross and disgusting."

This absurdity has been carried to such We agree with Grotius, that the Mahoa length, that Grotius charges Mahomet metans have been prodigal of reveries. with having said, that God's hands are The man who was constantly receiving the cold, for he has felt them; that God is {chapters of his Koran from the angel Gacarried about in a chair; and that, in briel, was worse than a visionary; he was Noah's ark, the rat was produced from an impostor, who supported his seducthe elephant's dung, and the cat from the{tions by his courage: but certainly there lion's breath. was nothing either stupid or sensual in reducing to four the unlimited number of wives whom the princes, the satraps, the nabobs, and the omrahs of the East kept in their seraglios. It is said that Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines. The Arabs, like the

Grotius reproaches Mahomet with having imagined that Jesus Christ was taken up into heaven instead of suffering execution. He forgets that there were entire heretical communions of primitive Christians who spread this opinion, which was

Jews, were at liberty to marry two sisters; Mahomet was the first who forbade these marriages. Where, then, is the gross

ness?

says, that the sense of hearing will enjoy the pleasures of singing and of speech.

One of our great Italian theologians, named Piazza, in his Dissertation on Para{ dise, informs us that the elect will for ever sing and play the guitar: they will have, says he, three nobilities-three advantages, viz.-desire without excitement, caresses without wantonness, and volup

And with regard to the celestial brides, where is the impurity? Certes, there is nothing impure in marriage, which is acknowledged to have been ordained on earth, and blessed by God himself. The incomprehensible mystery of generation istuousness without excess:-"tres nobili

the seal of the Eternal Being. It is the clearest mark of his power, that he has created pleasure, and through that very pleasure perpetuated all sensible beings.

tates; illecebra sine titillatione, blanditia sine mollitudine, et voluptas sine exuberantià.”

St. Thomas assures us that the smell of the glorified bodies will be perfect, and will not be diminished by perspiration."Corporibus gloriosi serit odor ultima perfectione, nullo modo per humîdum repressus." This question has been profoundly treated by a great many other doctors.

If we consult our reason alone, it will tell us that it is very likely that the Eternal Being, who does nothing in vain, will not cause us to rise again with our organs to no purpose. It will not be unworthy of the Divine Majesty to feed us with delicious fruits, if he cause us to rise again Suarez, in his Wisdom, thus expresses with stomachs to receive them. The Holy himself concerning taste:-"It is not difScriptures inform us that, in the begin-ficult for God purposely to make some ning, God placed the first man and the sapid humour act on the organ of taste." first woman in a paradise of delights.— "Non est Deo difficile facere ut sapiThey were then in a state of innocence dus humor sit intra organum gustus, qui and glory, incapable of experiencing dis-sensum illum intentionaliter afficere.' ease or death. This is nearly the state And, to conclude, St. Prosper, recapiin which the just will be when, after their {tulating the whole, pronounces that the resurrection, they shall be for all eternity blessed shall find gratification without what our first parents were for a few days. satiety, and enjoy health without disease:" Those, then, must be pardoned, who have "Saturitas sine fastidio, et tota sanitas thought that, having a body, that body sine morbo." will be constantly satisfied. Our Fathers It is not then so much to be wondered of the Church had no other idea of theat, that the Mahometans have admitted the heavenly Jerusalem. St. Irenæus says, use of the five senses in their paradise. "that there each vine shall bear ten thou- They say that the first beatitude will be sand branches, each branch ten thousand the union with God; but this does not clusters, and each cluster ten thousand exclude the rest. grapes," &c.

Mahomet's paradise is a fable; but once more be it observed, there is in it neither contradiction nor impurity.

Several Fathers of the Church have, indeed, thought that the blessed in heaven would enjoy all their senses. St. Thomas Philosophy requires clear and precise says, that the sense of seeing will be infi- ideas, which Grotius had not. He quotes nitely perfect; that the elements will be a great deal, and makes a show of reasonso too; that the surface of the earth willing, which will not bear a close examinabe transparent as glass, the water like crystal, the air like the heavens, and the fire like the stars.

St. Augustin, in his Christian Doctrine,

tion.

The unjust imputations cast on the Mahometans would suffice to make a very large book. They have subjugated one

of the largest and most beautiful countries upon earth; to drive them from it would have been a finer exploit than to abuse them.

The Empress of Russia supplies a great example. She takes from them Azoph and Tangarok, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Georgia; she pushes her conquests to the ramparts of Erzerum; she sends against them fleets from the remotest parts of the Baltic, and others covering the Euxine: but she does not say in her manifestos, that a pigeon whispered in Mahomet's

ear.

ART OF POETRY.

because he always says true and useful things in a pleasing manner, because he always gives both precept and example, and because he is varied, passing with perfect ease, and without ever failing in purity of language,

From grave to gay, from lively to severe.

His reputation among men of taste is proved by the fact, that his verses are known by heart; and to philosophers it must be pleasing to find that he is almost always in the right.

As we have spoken of the preference which may sometimes be given to the moderns over the ancients, we will here venture to presume that Boileau's Art of A MAN of almost universal learning-Poetry is superior to that of Horace. Mea man even of genius, who joins philoso-thod is certainly a beauty in a didactic phy with imagination, uses, in his excel- poem; and Horace has no method. We lent article ENCYCLOPEDIA, these remark-do not mention this as a reproach; for his able words:" If we except this Perrault, and some others, whose merits the versifier Boileau was not capable of appreciating," &c.

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poem is a familiar epistle to the Pisos, and not a regular work like the Georgics: but there is this additional merit in Boileau, a merit for which philosophers should give him credit.

The Latin Art of Poetry does not seem near so finely laboured as the French. Horace expresses himself, almost throughout, in the free and familiar tone of his other epistles. He displays an extreme clearness of understanding and a refined taste, in verses which are happy and spirited, but often without connection, and sometimes destitute of harmony; he has not the elegance and correctness of Virgil. His work is very good, but Boileau's appears to be still better: and, if we except the tragedies of Racine, which have the superior merit of treating the passions and surmounting all the difficulties of the stage, Despréaux's Art of Poetry is, indisputably, the poem which does most honour to the French language.

This philosopher is right in doing justice to Claude Perrault, the learned translator of Vitruvius, a man useful in more arts than one, and to whom we are indebted for the fine front of the Louvre and for other great monuments; but justice should also be rendered to Boileau. Had he been only a versifier, he would scarcely have been known; he would not have been one of the few great men who will hand down the age of Louis XIV. to posterity. His tart Satires, his fine Epistles, and, above all, his Art of Poetry, are masterpieces of reasoning as well as poetry :sapere est principium et fons." The art of versifying is, indeed, prodigiously difficult, especially in our language, where alexandrines follow one another two by two; where it is rare to avoid monotony ; { where it is absolutely necessary to rhyme; It is lamentable when philosophers are where noble and pleasing rhymes are too enemies to poetry. Literature should be limited in number; and where a word out like the house of Mecenas-"est locus of its place, or a harsh syllable, is suffi- unicuique suus." cient to spoil a happy thought. It is like dancing on a rope in fetters; the greatest success is of itself nothing.

Boileau's Art of Poetry is to be admired,

The author of the Persian Letters--so easy to write, and among which some are very pretty, others very bold, others indifferent, and others frivolous-this au