three great capitals of Khorassan, and Maru, Neisabour, and Herat, were destroyed by the armies of Genghis, and the exact account which was taken of the slain amounted to four million three hundred and forty-seven thousand persons.  Timur, or Tamerlane, was educated in a less barbarous age, and in the profession of the Mahometan religion; yet, if Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane,[20] either the Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet of the “Scourge of God.”

It may be affirmed, with bolder assurance, that the Huns depopulated the provinces of the Empire, by the murder of Roman subjects whom they led away into captivity.  In the hands of a wise legislator, such an industrious colony might have contributed to diffuse through the deserts of Scythia the rudiments of the useful and ornamental arts; but these captives, who had been taken in war, were accidentally dispersed among the hordes that obeyed the empire of Attila.  The estimate of their respective value was formed by the simple judgment of unenlightened and unprejudiced Barbarians.  Perhaps they might not understand the merit of a theologian, profoundly skilled in the controversies of the Trinity and the Incarnation; yet they respected the ministers of every religion; ind the active zeal of the Christian missionaries, without approaching the person or the palace of the monarch, successfully labored in the propagation of the Gospel.

The pastoral tribes, who were ignorant of the distinction of landed property, must have disregarded the use, as well as the abuse, of civil jurisprudence; and the skill of an eloquent lawyer could excite only their contempt or their abhorrence.  The perpetual intercourse of the Huns and the Goths had communicated the familiar knowledge of the two national dialects; and the Barbarians were ambitious of conversing in Latin, the military idiom even of the Eastern Empire.  But they disdained the language and the sciences of the Greeks; and the vain sophist, or grave philosopher, who had enjoyed the flattering applause of the schools, was mortified to find that his robust servant was a captive of more value and importance than himself.  The mechanic arts were encouraged and esteemed, as they tended to satisfy the wants of the Huns.  An architect in the service of Onegesius, one of the favorites of Attila, was employed to construct a bath; but this work was a rare example of private luxury; and the trades of the smith, the carpenter, the armorer, were much more adapted to supply a wandering people with the useful instruments of peace and war.

But the merit of the physician was received with universal favor and respect:  the Barbarians, who despised death, might be apprehensive of disease; and the haughty conqueror trembled in the presence of a captive to whom he ascribed perhaps an imaginary power of prolonging or preserving his life.  The Huns might be provoked to insult the misery of their slaves, over whom they exercised a despotic command; but their manners were