INTRODUCTION. EVERY reader will at once perceive from the nature of the interest, and from the language, that this drama was neither written with a view to public representation, nor can be adapted to it, without being entirely remodelled and re-written. The critic will draw the same conclusion from certain peculiarities in the composition, irreconcilable with the arrangements of the theatre; the introducing and dismissing of the subordinate characters after a single appearance; and yet appropriating to them some of the most poetical speeches. The groundwork of the poem is to be found in Josephus, but the events of a con siderable time are compressed into a period of about thirty-six hours. Though their children are fictitious characters, the leaders of the Jews, Simon, John, and Eleazar, are historical. At the beginning of the siege, the defenders of the city were divided into three factions. John, however, having surprized Eleazar, who occupied the Temple, during a festival, the party of Eleazar became subordinate to that of John. The character of John the Galilean was that of excessive sensuality-I have therefore considered him as belonging to the sect of the Sadducees; Simon, on the other hand, I have represented as a native of Jerusalem, and a strict Pharisee, although his soldiers were chiefly Edomites. The Christians, we learn from Eusebius, abandoned the city previous to the siege, (by divine command, according to that author,) and took refuge in Pella, a small town on the further side of the Jordan. The constant tradition of the Church has been, that no one professing that faith perished during all the havoc which attended on this most awful visitation. It has been my object also to show the full completion of prophecy in this great event; nor do I conceive that the public mind (should this poem merit attention) can be directed to so striking and so incontestible an evidence of the Christian faith without advantage. Those whom duty might not induce to compare the long narrative of Josephus with the Scriptural prediction of the "Abomination of Desolation," may be tempted by the embellishments of poetic language, and the interest of a dramatic fable. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. The Mount of Olives-Evening. Titus, Caius Placidus, Tiberius Alexander, Terentius Rufus, Diagoras, &c. TITUS. ADVANCE the eagles, Caius Placidus, (1) Even to the walls of this rebellious city! What! shall our bird of conquest, that hath flown Over the world, and built her nest of glory High in the palace tops of proudest kings, What! shall she check and pause here in her circle, Her centre of dominion? By the gods, |