nion, founded on some erroneous observation, that the fixed stars moved for some time according to the order of the signs; but they afterwards proceeded to a retrograde direction, and returned to their former places, after which they assumed a direct motion, which was rapid for a certain period, then became slower, and at last insensible. According to Thebit, the obliquity of the ecliptic was variable, and subject to similar periods of increase. His opinions prevailed for a considerable time, not only among the astronomers of his own nation, but among some Christians.

MEDICINE.

RHAZES, one of the oldest and most distinguished of the Arabian physicians, was born at Rei, in the province of Chorazan, about the year 852. There was a school in his native town, at which he received his early education, but he is said not to have commenced the study of medicine till somewhat late in life, having given up much of his time to the cultivation of music. After he was thirty years of age, he removed to Bagdad, and then he turned his attention to philosophy, and afterwards to physic. He became, however, indefatigable in his application, and was continually occupied in observing, reading, and writing, until he obtained the highest reputation; and he was selected out of a hundred eminent physicians, who were then resident at Bagdad, to superintend the celebrated hospital of that city. The historians considered him as the Galen of the Arabians; and from his long life and constant practice, during which he paid the most assiduous attention to the varieties of disease, he obtained the appellation of the experimenter, or the experienced. He was said also to be profoundly skilled in all the sciences, especially in philosophy, astronomy, and music. He travelled much in pursuit of knowledge, and made frequent journeys into Persia, his native country, and was much consulted by several princes, particularly by Almanzor, the chief of Chorazan, with whom he frequently corresponded, and to whom he dedicated several of his writings. Abi Osbaia enumerated two hundred and twenty-six treatises composed by Rhazes, among which the ten books, addressed to his patron Almanzor, are mentioned, and therefore are doubtless genuine, although Hali Abbas, who has given an account of him and his works, has not noticed them. This work Rhazes designs as a complete body of physic, and it may be deemed the great magazine of all the Arabian medicines; the ninth book, indeed, which treats of the cure of diseases, was in such great estimation for several centuries, that it was the text-book of the public schools, and was commented upon by the most learned professors. Nevertheless, like the rest of

the Arabian writings, it contains very little more than the substance of the works of the Greeks, from whom the Arabians borrowed almost all their medical knowledge. They have, indeed, and Rhazes in particular, given the first distinct account of the small pox, a pestilential malady which the Greeks have no where accurately described, and which is, therefore, generally inferred to have been unknown among that people. This is questionable, but, at all events, the first specific accounts of the small pox is to be found in the works of Rhazes. He was the author also of the first treatise ever composed respecting the diseases of children. His book on the affections of the joints is interesting, and contains an account of some remarkable cures, effected chiefly by copious bloodletting. He describes the symptoms of hydrophobia very well; and also some diseases peculiar to eastern countries, as the ignis persicus, vena medinensis, &c.; and he first noticed the disease called spina ventosa. Rhazes had the reputation of being a skilful alchemist, the art of chemistry, in fact, originated with the Arabians, and Rhazes is the first, as Dr. Friend has shewn, who mentions the use of chemical preparations in medicine, he has a chapter on the qualifications of a physician, and a singular tract on quacks and impostors, in which he has pourtrayed that class of pretenders to the life; and his detail of their pretentions shows that they were at least as numerous, and ingenious in their contrivances of cheatery, as in more recent times. Rhazes lived to the age of eighty, and lost his sight; he died in the year 932. His works that have come down to us, through the medium of translations in Latin, are a sort of common-place book, entitled, "Continens," or "Libri Continentes." A much more perfect work, is the "Libri Decem ad Almansorem," published at Venice 1510. Six books of aphorisms, published under the title of " Liber De Secretis, qui Aphorismorum appellatur Bononiæ," 1489. A tract on the small pox, often translated, and printed with the title of "De Pestilentia;" the best translation is by Channing, London, 1766.

JOHN GEBER, a physician and astronomer of Arabia. He wrote a commentary on Ptolemy's Syntaxis Magna, in which he attempted to correct his astronomy, but Copernicus styles him the calumniator of Ptolemy. He wrote several other works, and Boerhaave styles him a learned chemist. But his writings are so much stuffed with the jargon of the alchemists, that Dr. Johnson traces the derivation of the word Gibberish from them.

ALBUMAZAR, an Arabian physician and astronomer. His works entitled, " De Magnis Conjunctionibus, Annorum Revolutionibus, ac eorum Perfectionibus," was printed at Ve

nice in 1526, 8vo.; and his Introductio ad Astronomiam in 1489.

JOHN SERAPION, an Arabian physician, who flourished about 890. He is by some confounded with the Alexandrian, though he lived six hundred years later. His extracts from Trallian have been published in Latin, under the titles of "Practica, Dicta Breviarum ;" and "Therapeutics."

HONAIN, an Arabian physician. He was a Christian, and a native of Hira. After travelling into Greece and Persia, he settled at Bagdad, where he translated into Arabic the Elements of Euclid, the Almagest of Ptolemy, and works of Hippocrates. At the desire of the caliph, he also completed a version of the works of Aristotle, for every book of which he had its weight in gold.

PERIOD XXV.

FROM CONSTANTINE VIII. TO MICHAEL V.

[CENT. X.]

REMARKABLE FACTS, EVENTS, AND DISCOVERIES.

A.D.

903 Rome taken by the Normans.

912 The Normans establish themselves in Normandy.

915 The University of Cambridge founded.

923 Fiefs established in France.

925 Sigefroi elected first Marquis of Brandenburgh.

928 The marquisate of Misnia established.

937 The Saracen empire is divided into seven kingdoms.

941 Arithmetic brought into Europe.

961 Candia recovered from the Saracens.

967 Antioch recovered from them.

969 The race of Abbas extinguished in Egypt.

973 Pope Boniface VII. deposed and banished for his crimes.

977 Greece, Macedon, and Thrace, ravaged by the Bulgarians for ten years. The Bohemians subdued by Otho I.

985 The Danes under Sueno invade England and Scotland.

987 The Carlovingian race in France ended, and the Capetian began by Hugh Capet.

991 The figures now used in arithmetic brought into Europe by the Saracens from Arabia.

995 England invaded by the Danes and Norwegians.

996 Otho III. makes the German empire elective.

999 Boleslaus, the first king of Poland.

On the death of Lewis, the son of Charlemagne, the western empire was divided among his three children. Endless contests ensued, of which the final issue was, that Hugh Capet obtained the sovereign power in 987.

GOVERNMENT.

ROME.

CONSTANTINE VIII., surnamed PORPHYROGENITUS, or born in the purple, was the son of Leo VI., by

Zoe, first his concubine, and afterwards his wife. Constantine was born in 905, and was declared emperor in 912. Romanus, a general, whose life was given in the last period, assumed the government, and Constantine had no power while he lived. Constantine in 945 recovered his rights as sole emperor, and reigned till 960, when it is said he died by poison given to him by his son Romanus, who was impatient to reign. Constantine had a taste for the Belles Lettres, and left the care of the empire to his wife Helena, and his favourite Basil, who loaded the people with taxes, and sold all the offices in church and state to the highest bidders; while the emperor employed himself in reading, writing, and the fine arts, till he became an excellent architect and painter. Though he could not be called a good governor, yet his people were much attached to him. He wrote several biographical and geographical works, which would have done honour to his name, if he had not neglected his duty to compose them.

ROMANUS II., emperor of the East, called the Young, succeeded his father Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 952. He had married Theophano, a woman of mean origin, who was charged with having been chiefly instrumental in the alleged crime of poisoning his father. Romanus was supposed to possess considerable talents, but he was habitually attached to frivolous amusements and dissolute pleasures, and resigned all care of the state to his chief chamberlain. In the morning, this luxurious emperor visited the circus; at noon he feasted the senators; the greatest part of the afternoon he spent in the tennis-court, the only theatre of his victories; from thence he passed over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, hunted and killed four wild boars of the largest size, and returned to the palace, proudly contented with the labours of the day. He banished from court his mother Helena, and his two sisters, who were reduced to a state of great indigence.

During the short reign of this emperor, the two brothers, Nicephorus Phocas, and Leo, obtained great successes against the Saracens in Crete and the East, while the emperor was wasting his time in indolence. According to some historians, debauchery, but according to others, the evil practices of Theophano brought his life to a close in the year 903, at the age of twenty-four, and in the fourth year of his reign.

NICEPHORUS II., PHOCAS, emperor of the East, was the son of Bardas Phocas, commander of the imperial army in Asia. Nicephorus was brought up to a military life, and succeeded his father in the chief command in Asia. He defeated the Saracens on various occasions in the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus: and in that of Romanus he recovered the island of Crete. He was sent against the Saracen caliph of