volume one

258 HISTOET OF THE CHUSADES.
results to the enliglitened observer ; botli offer grand lessons
to policy and illustrious models to valour ; both founded
new states, new colonies, and established relations between
distant nations. Both had a marked influence upon the
ci^Tlization of the ages that followed them : both, in short,
developed great passions and fine characters, and thus
furnished the happiest subjects for the epic muse, who
dehgfhts only in celebrating prodigies and wonders.
AVhen comparing these two memorable wars, and the
poetical masterpieces that have celebrated them, we cannot
but think that the subiect of the *' Jerusalem Delivered" is
more wonderful than that of the '' Iliad." "We may still
further say, that the heroes of Tasso are more interesting
than those of Homer, and their exploits less fabulous. The
cause which armed the Greeks was much less important
than that which actuated the Christians. The latter, in
some sort, took up arms for the assistance of misfortune and
oppressed weakness. They went to defend a reUgion able
to make them sensible of ills that were endured far from
them, and to make them find brothers in regions uukuov>TL
to them. This character of sociability is not to be foimd in
any belief of the ancients.
The Crusaders exhibited another spectacle with which
antiquity was unacquainted—the union of religious humility
with the love of glory. History shows us constantly these
haughty heroes, the terror of Asia and the Mussulmans,
bending their %'ictorious brows to the dust, and marching
from conquest to conquest, covered with the sack of peni-
tence. The priests, who exhorted them in battle, only raised
their com-age by reproaching them with their sins. When
they met vrith reverses, a thousand voices were raised among
them to accuse their own misconduct ;
and when they were
victorious, it was God alone that gave them the victory, and
religion forbade their claiming glory from it.*
The historian may be permitted to think that this difference
between the heroes of the '' Hiad" and those of the
* Daimbert, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Raymond de St. Gilles, when
writing to the pope and the faithful of the We>t. say that the victory of
Dorylreum had filled the pilgrims with pride, and that God, to punish them,
opposed Antioch to them, which delayed them nine months.