forefeet are those of a lion, its hind legs end in the talons of an eagle, and it has the spreading wings and tail of a bird. The second is a four-winged male figure, whose dress consists of an upper garment, with a skirt of skin or fur, and under robe fringed with tassels, and the sacred horned cap. A long sword is suspended from his shoulders by an embossed belt; sandals, amulets, and bracelets, complete his attire. He grasps in each hand an object in form resembling a double and winged trident, which bears a striking analogy to the thunderbolt, so often represented on Greek monuments, as the peculiar emblem of Jupiter, and which he is in the act of hurling against the monster who turns upon him.

The

Mr. Layard remarks, "This group appears to represent the bad Spirit driven out by a good Deity; a fit subject for the entrance to a Temple, dedicated to the God of War. singular combination of forms by which the Assyrian sculptor pourtrayed the Evil Principle, so prominent an element in the Chaldæan, and afterwards in the Magian, religious system, cannot fail to strike the reader. The co-existence of a principle of Evil and Darkness, with the principle of Good and Light, their contests for supremacy, the temporary success of the former, and its ultimate defeat, appear to have been from the earliest periods essential features in the Religious tenets of a large portion of mankind. They thus sought to account for the antagonistic power of Evil, exemplified in man by the bad passions, moral and physical infirmities, and death; and in Nature, by those awful phenomena which occasionally visit the face of the earth, or even by that periodical decay to which Nature herself is subject. The belief was not altogether confined to the countries watered by the Euphrates and Tigris and to Persia. With certain modifications. it extended Westward, and in the common impersonification of the Evil One, which has passed into Christendom, may perhaps be traced the monstrous forms of the Assyrian Demon."(Nineveh and Babylon, p. 349.)

There is a remarkable resemblance between the figure of the Evil Spirit, as shown on this sculpture, and that of the monster at Persepolis, with whom the person, who has been termed the Pontiff King, is contending. In both cases the heads, fore and hind legs, and the body, would seem to be the same. We shall give an engraving (taken from the work of Sir Robert Ker Porter)

of this contest between the king and the monster, in our account of the remains of Persepolis.

On the outside of the entrance to the Temple, and at right angles with the subject just described, was the slab (numbered 27), apparently that of a priest, richly attired, with flowers on his head, and in his right hand a branch with three blossoms. 32 is a similar figure; it forms the slab in the corresponding position, in the external wall, the other side of the entrance. With this is placed 31, which is the same figure, but of a smaller size. It is, however, not from the Temple, but from another part of the N.W. edifice.

Within the edifice itself were found several representations of the figure, which has usually been called the Fish-God, or Dagon, many specimens of whom have been met with at Koyunjik, and in other Assyrian ruins. One of these, which adjoined the slab with the Good and Evil Genius, from the other side the doorway, is now in the Museum, and bears number 30. The cap is shaped behind, into the head of a fish, whose body descends to his waist: in his left hand is the mystical basket, and his right hand held the cone, which is sculptured upon the return of the slab flanking the doorway. The worship of Dagon, as we know from the Bible, prevailed extensively in early times, and especially among the Philistines, whose chief God he appears to have been. It is almost certain that he was worshipped by these people under the type in which he has been met with at Nimrúd and Koyunjik. It is stated in 1 Samuel v. 4, that, when the Ark of the Lord was brought by the Philistines to Ashdod, and set up by them alongside the image of Dagon in his Temple, on the morrow morning, when they went to the Temple, Behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground, before the Ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump (or, as the margin has it, "the fishy part") of Dagon was left to him." Again, from the history of the death of Samson, it appears that Dagon had another temple at Gaza. In the curious legendary story of ancient Babylonian history, preserved by Berosus, it is stated that "in the first year there appeared from that part of the Erythræan sea which borders upon Babylonia an animal destitute of reason, by name Oannes, whose whole body was that of a fish; that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below, similar to those of

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