History of the Moorish Empire in Europe. By S. P.
Scott. 8 vols. (J. B. Lippincott Company. 458. net.)—The history of the Moors in Spain, and of the gradual growth of the Spanish nation in its mountain fastness, is full of fascination. An American writer, Mr. S. P. Scott, has devoted the toil of twenty years to its narration in three stout volumes, which are a welcome and valuable addition to the historical library. Nowadays it is quite refreshing to find an author who still has the courage to plan, and the industry to carry out, such an imposing work ; our historians are too apt to content themselves with specialised and depart- mental research. Mr. Scott—who seems to have taken Gibbon for his model, and is a worthy disciple of that great master—has given us an adequate and most entertaining work, which prac- tically exhausts the history of the Moors in Europe. They entered this continent, as legend and history agree in telling us, through the gate which was opened by the sinful love of Roderic, the last ruler of the Gothic kingdom of Spain. The creed of Mehemet was then in the full tide of its wonderful success, and the Moorish flood rapidly submerged nearly the whole of Spain, and, had it not been for Charles Mertes epoch-making victory at Tours, might not improbably have spread to the shores of the English Channel and the Baltic, and then flowed back to meet the other wave of Oriental conquest at Constantinople, with in- calculable effects on the history of the world. Fortunately the onset of Asia was checked by the Frankish chivalry, and Spain was the only Western land in which the Moorish Empire took firm root. Even there the hills of the Asturias stood above the deluge, and not the least interesting part of Mr. Scott's narrative is that which describes the slow consolidation of a new nation among the mountains that the Moors failed to subdue. The Spanish race of modern history was forged there, from the old tribes of the mountaineers, some of them dating back to a time before the first Aryans entered Europe, mingled with the storm- beaten fragments of the Roman and Gothic civilisations. From that small nucleus the great race of Spain was formed, and gradually reconquered the Peninsula, to stamp its mark in so many ways on the modern world, through men like Cervantes and Loyola, Torquemada and Cortes and Charles V. Mr. Scott's history is as readable as a novel, and deals with a great theme in adequate and stirring language. It is rather a pity that the author's plan did not include the supply of references, but the list of books consulted shows that he has omitted no authority bearing on his subject, whilst his impartiality and historic insight make his narrative likely long to remain the standard account of the rise and fall of the Moorish Empire, and of the beginning and consolidation of modern Spain.
ANCIENT AND MODERN HYMNS.
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