Note 11 — BOOK XV.

We are afraid M. Michaud carries the partialities of Biography into the pages of History: in the former, such are sometimes excusable; in the latter, never. Our readers who look back to the taking of Jerusalem or Ptolemaïs, will at once see how weak is the claim of the Christians to a superiority over their adversaries in mercy. As to the religious portion of the account, history teems with wholesale conversions of conquered armies and nations. See Charlemagne and our own Alfred, for instance. We thought that the idea of Mahometanism being a religion of the sword was exploded. Gibbon positively denies it to be so, and asserts that no precept or passage of the Koran inculcates it.—Trans.