“The character of Mahomet however was exceeding different from that of Philip, and far more worthy of the attention of a philosopher.  Philip was a mere politician, who employed the cunning of a statesman, and the revenues of a prince, in the corruption of a number of fallen and effeminate republics.  But Mahomet, without riches, without rank, without education, by the mere ascendancy of his abilities, subjected by persuasion and force a simple and generous nation that had never been conquered; and laid the foundation of an empire, that extended over half the globe; and a religion, capable of surviving the fate of empires.  His schemes were always laid with the truest wisdom.  He lived among a people celebrated for subtlety and genius:  he never laid himself open to detection.  His eloquence was specious, dignified, and persuasive.  And he blended with it a lofty enthusiasm, that awed those, whom familiarity might have emboldened, and silenced his enemies.  He was simple of demeanour, and ostentatious of munificence.  And under these plausible virtues he screened the indulgence of his constitutional propensities.  The number of his concubines and his wives has been ambitiously celebrated by Christian writers.  He sometimes acquired them by violence and injustice; and he frequently dismissed them without ceremony.  His temper does not seem to have been naturally cruel.  But we may trace in his conduct the features of a barbarian; and a part of his severity may reasonably be ascribed to the plan of religious conquest that he adopted, and that can never be reconciled with the rights of humanity.”

After the victories of Omar, and the other successors of Mahomet had in a manner stripped the court of Constantinople of all its provinces, the Byzantine history dwindles into an object petty and minute.  In order to vary the scene, and enhance the dignity of his subject, the author occasionally takes a prospect of the state of Rome and Italy, under the contending powers of the papacy and the new empire of the West.  When the singular and unparalleled object of the Crusades presents itself, the historian embraces the illustrious scene with apparent eagerness, and bestows upon it a greater enlargement than might perhaps have been expected from the nature of his subject; but not greater, we confidently believe, than is calculated to increase the pleasure, that a reader of philosophy and taste may derive from the perusal.  As the immortal Saladin is one of the most distinguished personages in this story, we have selected his character, as a specimen of this part of the work.