Semiramis, was first injured by Cyrus, who, diverting the Euphrates, converted the neighbouring country into a morass.-Darius Hystaspes lowered its walls and demolished its gates: gates formed of brass; and walls so thick, that six chariots could run abreast.1 -Then followed the building of Seleucia, and the conflagration of the Parthians. In the time of Pausanias nothing remained but the ruins of its walls and temples. It became a park for those kings of Persia, who succeeded to its ruins, after the Parthian empire was destroyed, to keep their wild beasts in2: in 1173, some ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace only remained 3; in the days of Texeira, these were reduced to a few footsteps:-now, even the dust, into which its fragments pulverized, have long been wafted to the Deserts.-Its site has neither name nor remnant.*-The country, round this city, was once a paradise. The soil, says Quintus Curtius, and Niger, was so fruitful, that it produced corn twice a year :-and the herdsmen were accustomed to drive

As the walls of Pekin are seventy-five feet high, and so broad, that it is guarded by sentinels on horseback, should Pekin gradually experience the fate of Thebes, Memphis, and Nineveh, it will present, for a series of ages, a mass of ruins, the most wonderful, that ever the world saw. 2 St. Jerome, Comment. in Isaiæ, cap. 13, 14.

3 Benjamin's de Tudela. Itinerarium, p. 96.

4 Since this was written, Mr. Rich has published two volumes on Babylon. He found the whole face of the country covered with vestiges of buildings, brick walls, and a vast succession of mounds of rubbish: among which is only one tree; which is an evergreen, resembling the lignum vitæ. The ruins commence at Mohawil, nine miles from Hellah, and about thirty-eight miles from Bagdad: and these ruins, he says, are the ruins of the ancient Babylon.

their cattle from pasture, lest they should die of satiety. Strabo asserts, that it was covered with palms; and "as for its millet and wheat," says Herodotus, who travelled thither, "the former grows to the height of a tree, and the latter produces more than two hundred fold. Of all regions, that I have seen," continues he, "this is the most excellent."

VIII.

PALMYRA, once a paradise in the centre of inhospitable deserts, the pride of. Solomon, the capital of Zenobia, and the wonder and admiration of all the East, now lies" majestic though in ruins!" Its glory withered, time has cast over it a sacred grandeur, softened into grace. History, by its silence, mourns its melancholy destiny; while immense masses and stupendous columns denote the spot, where once the splendid city of the desert reared her proud and matchless towers. Ruins are the only legacy, the destroyer left to posterity. Beholding, on all sides, a wide and abandoned waste, that loses itself in an interminable horizon, the eye rests on disfigured capitals, entablatures, and pilasters, all of Parian whiteness; which, exhibiting, in various quarters, broken and disjointed skeletons of a city, once the seat of a mighty empire, the imagination luxuriates in a thousand elevated contemplations.-The dream of life assumes a more sublime character;—and, beholding the noblest labours of man, the pride of his heart, and the finest monuments of his genius, lying prostrate and in ruins, desolate and deserted, the mind recog

nizes the progression of time; and, reposing on these last witnesses, as it were, of human duration, the memory glides, in solemn awe, to dwell on the walls of BABYLON; the ramparts of NINEVEH; the hundred gates of THEBES; the seven-fold walls of ECBATANA; and the solemn wrecks, that still survive the fortune of PERSEPOLIS.

IX.

Indulging these associations, the soul, impressed with sublime imagery, loses itself in the unfathomable depth of infinite duration. Striking,-august,romantic, and magnificent,-they form at once a sepulchre of human labour, and a monument of human genius-affording the noblest subjects for meditation in the vastness of their bulk, and in the greatness of their manner :-yet bearing ample evidence of inevitable ruin.

The melancholy and interesting fate of JERUSALEM has a character of its own. Once the pride of Western Asia, it has often sat, as it were, silent, solitary, and desolate, amid the ruins of her walls and temples. Judah, being led into captivity and rendered tributary, Jerusalem, as the prophet Isaiah most affectingly expresses it, "sat as a widow; the tears were on her cheeks; and her daughters were in bitterness." Though often ruined, and once furrowed with the plough, fortune has never entirely forsaken her! She has risen from her ashes, and still lives; "shorn of her beams," it is true, but deriving consolation from her former greatness. The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus! History pre

sents no parallel. was a prey to the most intolerable anarchy; robbers having broken into it, and filled almost every house with thieves, assassins, and broilers of every description. The best citizens were thrown into prisons, and afterwards murdered: without even so much

Previous to the siege, the city

as a form of trial. At this time Titus appeared before the gates; a vast multitude having previously arrived in the city to celebrate the feast of the Passover. During this celebrated siege there were no less than three earthquakes; and an aurora borealis terrified the inhabitants with forms, which their fears and astonishment converted into prodigies of armies, fighting in the air, and flaming swords hanging over their temple. They were visited with a plague, so dreadful, that more than one hundred and fifty thousand were persons were carried out of the city, at the public charge, to be buried; and six hundred thousand were cast out of the gates and over the walls !—A famine ensued; and so horrible was the want, that a bushel of corn sold for six hundred crowns: the populace were reduced to the necessity of raking old excrement of horses, mules, and oxen, to satisfy their hunger; and a lady of quality even boiled her own child, and ate it!-a crime so exquisite, that Titus vowed to the eternal gods, that he would bury its infamy in the ruins of the city. He took it soon after by storm :-the plough was drawn over it; and with the exception of the west wall and three towers, not one stone remained above another. Ninetyseven thousand persons were made captives and

one million one hundred thousand perished, during the siege.' Those, made captives, being sold to several nations, were dispersed over a great portion of the ancient world; and from them are descended the present race of Jews, scattered singly, and in detached portions, in every province of Europe, and in many districts of Africa and Asia. Thus terminated this memorable siege !-a siege, the results of which meet the eye in every Jew we see.2

1 Vespasian, to immortalize the sacking of Jerusalem, stamped several medals in silver and gold, in which Titus and himself were represented on one side, and a female on the other, sitting in a melancholy attitude under a plane tree; and with the spoils of the city decorated the temple of peace. Trajan erected an arch to Titus, in memory of this victory. Under this arch the Jews never pass :-It still remains; and is said to exhibit a thousand beauties. In the grand picture of the Prophets, in' the Sistine Chapel, Jeremiah is represented, as exhausted by lamentation, mourning over the ruius of Jerusalem. It is alluded to by Fuseli, p. 128.

2 Solomon's Temple was built in the year 1008 before Christ :-The second temple was finished under Darius in 515;—the third by^ Herod in 19. This temple was destroyed by Titus, A.D. 70; and Julian attempted to rebuild it in the year 363. After the destruction of Jerusalem, Adrian rebuilt the city A.D. 130, and changed its name to Elia Capitolina. Two years afterwards the second Jewish war commenced, which lasted three years; and finished in the final banishment of the Jews from Judea. Previous to the destruction of their city, the Jews were a remarkable people. We are told by Philostratus, that they were aliens to the rest of the world; and that even their neighbours were less strangers to the people of Susa and Bætica, than they were to them. Even Josephus bears testimony to the impracticability of his countrymen. So many villainies prevailed in the city, that the Jewish historian says, in the sorrow of his heart, "I verily believe, that had not the Romans come up against Jerusalem, as they did, the earth would have swallowed

* "Philost, in Vit. Apol. lib. v. c. 33. Olearius. Lat. Ed.