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ART. V.-1. Nineveh and Persepolis: an Historical Sketch of ancient Assyria and Persia, with an Account of the Recent Researches in those Countries. By W. S. W. VAUX, M.A. London: Arthur Hall, Virtue & Co. 1850.

2. Notes from Nineveh, and Travels in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Syria. By the REV. J. P. FLETCHER. Two Volumes. London: Colburn. 1850.

IT would be somewhat curious to ascertain the various meditations and ideas which pass through the minds of the many crowds who weekly visit the sculptures of Nineveh in the British Museum. To judge of their interest from the expression given to thought in the form of definite verbal comments would be a test calculated, we suspect, to disappoint enthusiasts, who, fired with the dignity and romance of Eastern history, see the world twice as large as hitherto, from the magnifying power of modern research, which has brought empires and cities dealing in years by the thousand, into the field of distant vision, as remote nebulæ of the heavens are resolved by a six-feet reflector. The real fact is, that the world generally is very ignorant of all but the affairs of its own immediate age. The calls of hunger, of comfort, of splendour and ambition, the distractions of joy, of pain, of thoughtlessness and passion, absorb a very large percentage of sublunary interests. Something, however, is always left for the claims of comprehensive and disinterested information, and the love of past history occupies no contemptible position in the imaginative as opposed to the real appetite of human energies. Nevertheless, mankind en masse are little able to define very accurately, even to themselves, much less to the world at large, of what nature their interest is in remote events, or what thoughts occur to them on beholding and reading of such things as Mr. Layard has unburied alike from time as from the grave of an Eastern desert. Some years ago a gorgeously illuminated copy of Lord Kingsborough's work on Mexican antiquities was presented to the Bodleian Library in that stronghold of antiquated lore, the University of Oxford. So important and valuable was this acquisition, that a special visit of the vice-chancellor in state was thought necessary to celebrate the event. The leaves were turned over before this representative of ancient learning. Proctors and an assembled conclave waited for words of admiration to pour forth from the matured lips of official dignity: but so great was the responsibility of the occasion, or so profoundly mystical were the

thoughts excited within his breast, that no utterance came forth, till feeling at last that something must be said that was intelligible to the vulgar, he exclaimed, pointing with his finger to the object, 'Look at him sticking this fellow in the stomach.'

People can think and talk most readily about what they know, or are accustomed to associate definite ideas with in some way or other. For this reason, the motives of human conduct form a popular subject of conversation under the head of gossip; but on the other hand, the most religious minds find little to talk of in those abstract dogmas of their faith which belong to the regions of the infinite. What, therefore, are we to say when gigantic carvings of exquisite workmanship, full of historical and allegorical meaning, present themselves before us in reference to a vast portion of the world's most illustrious history, that had almost become mythical, or known only as strangely mingled with the dispensation of heaven revealed in the sacred history? Mythical history stands before us in all the absolute and wonderful dignity of real life. The change of ideas in this case is so quick, the contrast so great, that the monsters of Assyrian worship, the representations of Assyrian habits, dress and manners, the noble and stately expressions of the human mind engraven with consummate art, all seem like awakening realities after deep sleep; or perhaps they may be compared rather to the dreamy impersonations which sometimes flit across our slumbering brains, of unknown things and people, till we are convinced that the British Museum actually contains them, and that they are subjects of anxious inquiry to others beside ourselves; nay, that sufficient interest is taken in them to induce men to devote much time and money to investigate their history, a test by which we instinctively feel convinced how vapid mere dreams are. These sculptures are like ghosts come before their time. The majority of people have been quite in the dark as to their existence during that short period between the first gleam of their anticipated appearance and their actual arrival; we have consequently been forestalled in any gradually developing speculations, by the completeness of the result, before our attention had in any way been directed to the affair. But there they are, whether like dreams or ghosts, well able to convince our senses that they exist. All the usual accidents that pertain to statuary must satisfy us that they are in substance as they really seem; nor can any assumption of imposture or deceit stand for a moment before the overwhelming credentials by which they have been introduced to us. Yet is it possible that these clean smooth carvings, in soft rather than hard stone, looking like fresh-cut masonry just prepared for one

of the many-styled edifices of the present day,—is it possible that these are identically the pleasant furniture' spoken of by Nahum the prophet, or that these adorned the temple of Nisroch, where Sennacherib was slain by his two sons? Have these stones heard the sermon of Jonah? Have they accomplished the purposes for which the proud inhabitants of Nineveh reared them up, and then shared the decay of empires? Have they been overthrown in the dust as things long past and gone, only recorded in history through the terrible destruction prophesied against the city of their birth? Have they thus been formed, used, and laid aside, during the first eighteen out of the forty-two centuries that have elapsed since the world sprung afresh from Noah? Is it 2,400 years since they perished to the whole world, and did the armies of Alexander the Great pass over them as but sandhills of the desert?

Other antiquities and works of art we have long possessed. Phidias, however, lived nearly two hundred years after Nineveh was ruined, and all that the Greeks or Romans have left us, seem to be accompanied with a key for their explanation, inasmuch as they are within the range of existing literature, and from boyhood we have been made familiar with them.

Nineveh, however, is wrapt in sublime freedom from the details of history; a mysterious halo hangs over it, no little adorned by the sacred character of those records by which we are chiefly informed of the power that, having its centre in Nineveh, was once felt from one end to the other of the known world.

But if the remains of Nineveh have taken us by surprise, it is natural to suppose, that we should be anxious to know without loss of time whatever may be collected together, in the shape of information, historical or otherwise, to enlighten our understandings on the subject; nor has the public reason to complain that such a want remained long unsatisfied. Seldom have any books appeared more exactly appropriate to the public requirements of literature than Mr. Vaux's Nineveh and Persepolis, and Mr. Fletcher's Notes. People want to know what they can about the East, and in the former book (for of the other we shall afterwards speak) they have it laid before them most diligently collected, most clearly and concisely arranged, and comprehensively planned. No library, public or private, ought to be without so useful a compendium of oriental history and modern travel. It brings home to all in the simplest form what hitherto has required much labour and expense to arrive at, and the perseverance obviously necessary for its composition, together with the unpretending character given to it by the author, are recommendations which cannot fail to please.

The plan of the book is to give an historical sketch, as far as can be ascertained from sacred or classical authorities, of Assyria and Babylon. This is followed by a most interesting summary of the history of Persia, from Cyrus to modern times. An account of many early travellers from Europe to the East is then given, which includes some quaint remarks hereafter to be referred to. Full and particular descriptions are then carefully drawn up of the existing condition of the principal objects and places of interest in the East, viz. Babylon, Khorsabad, Nineveh and Persepolis, and the whole is concluded with a notice, as far as space and the character of the work would allow, of Major Rawlinson's researches in deciphering the cuneiform characters.

The historical portions of Mr. Vaux's book we will first notice. It is this which repeoples the deserted streets and carved palaces with real life, which adds a purpose and a philosophy to the cold remnants of man's early habitations. We have not much sympathy with that mere love of antiquity that dwells on the relic unconnected with its illustrative power, reflected on the being of those who modelled and used it. If antiquity alone is the object, look to the stars above; with these all new events are necessarily hid from us, for their history is written in a character which takes long to reach us; or look to the rocks and strata of the earth's foundation. Antiquarian lore refers to man, and the interest of a relic depends on its representing some phase of character in a bygone race, some principle of the human mind, some illustration of man's social or religious feelings, or perhaps some token of Divine revelations. Associations are thus discovered between ourselves and our remotest fellow-creatures, and we are helping to discover the common elements of mankind, our natural requirements and our religious instincts. The peculiar light however thrown by these remnants of antiquity on their framers and designers will more properly be considered when we come to the descriptive, as opposed to the historical, part of our subject.

As far as any identity can be traced between the geography of the world in its present state, and its antediluvian features, it is nearly certain that the chosen residence of man in his state of innocence must have been in the future kingdom of Assyria. Nor would Moses, in writing the book of Genesis, have described the locality of Eden with reference to such well-known rivers as Hiddekel or the Tigris, and the Euphrates, if the whole face of nature had undergone an entire change in consequence of the deluge. Assyria, therefore, if we comprehend under that name all the country washed by the Tigris and the Euphrates, claims to be the origin of our race. The only city specially mentioned

before the deluge is Enoch, built by Cain and named after his son. This was in the land of Nod, described as being to the east of Eden, which would seem to identify it with the banks of the Tigris; for the Hiddekel is said to have gone towards the east of Assyria, or as the marginal reference translates it, 'eastward to Assyria.' There is, then, a reasonable probability that the cities built in the neighbourhood of these rivers after the flood, were a revival of the traditional pride of the race of giants, who lived to an age that made oral tradition a very direct line of communication between Cain himself and the founders of Babylon and Nineveh. Noah, when he descended from the top of Ararat, had the recollection of six centuries spent among a people and cities then perished from the earth, and he probably witnessed two centuries of that very Nineveh's history which is now untombed.

The actual founder, both of Babylon and Nineveh, some would make out to have been Nimrod, the mighty hunter;' for it is not improbable, Mr. Vaux thinks, that the marginal translation which states that Nimrod went out (from Babel) into Assyria and built Nineveh, may be more correct than the text, 'Out of that land went forth Asshur,' which would convey the notion that Asshur was a man, not a country.

As Nimrod was very distinguished in the politics of his day, we will quote Mr. Vaux's account of him; first suggesting a comparison between him and Cain, the founder of antediluvian worldly power. In these two men we find that the great founders of secular empire of whose personal achievements most is recorded, were not of the chosen race in the destiny of God's revelation, but belonged to rebellious offshoots, the despisers of the simplicity of God's more peculiar family:

In the first place, though no clue is afforded as to the subsequent history of this first Assyrian prince, it is quite clear that his name has been thus prominently mentioned because he was at the time in which he lived, above all others, a remarkable person, and one whose great deeds fitted him for peculiar selection, not impossibly, for some such reason as Sir Walter Ralegh has given, that Nimrod first abolished the simple system of paternity or eldership, and laid the earliest foundations of independent sovereign rule. Whoever, then, he was, it is evident that he was no common man; and the names of the cities which are attributed to him prove, as we shall subsequently show, that his power must have been very great. 'It is not, therefore, at all strange that many attempts should have been made to identify the name of Nimrod with names recorded in classical history, and that it should have been supposed by some that he is the same as the Greek Ninus; by others, as Belus (the Greek form of Baal or Lord). In the traditions of his own country he was considered to be the same as Orion; and the Assyrians associated with him the hare and the dog in that constellation, preserving thereby a curious record of the "mighty hunter of the Scripture narrative. Mr. Cullimore, in his work on Babylonian Cylinders, has engraven one in which Divinities are represented standing