ABEY. II.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

243

every country; and from the fall of Acre, Villanidates the beginning of the decline of the commer-cial towns in maritime Italy, since from that dayout (he says), they lost half of the advantages thatEastern traffic brought. “ For Acre was a univer-sal resort, and in the middle of Syria, nay, in themiddle of the civilised earth, as at equal distancesbetween Levant and West, and almost on the Eu-ropean frontier, and transit for commerce from allthose distant lands, and had interpreters of everylanguage, and people of every class, and inhabit-ants of every climate; and therefore, in losingAcre, the world lost one of its elements . 1 ” Andthe Holy Land, with its thickly populous districts,and its innumerable clusters of villages, quantitiesof strong castles, and eighty cities inhabited byFranks for the most part, and owing their defenceto the Latins , 2 were all reduced to a devastated wil-derness; “state in which it shall remain, pleaseGod, until the day of judgment,’’ is the devout aspi-ration of a Moslem . 3

What other circular was necessary than whatVilliers had written already? And it had sufficed to

1 Hist. Fior.—Bib. Crois. ii. 621.—Appendix, cii.—Ilallam:Middle Ages, ii. 250.

2 Michaud: Hist., v. 147.

3 Arab. Chron., 575.—Michaud : Hist., v. 148. (

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