"Spirit, leave thy house of clay; Lingering dust, resign thy breath: Dust, be thou dissolved in death.' And the ransom'd captive fled. All the region of the sky. Still attended on his way; "Yet while traveling in distress ('T was the eldest curse of sin) Through the world's waste wilderness He had paradise within. And along that vale of tears Which his humble footsteps trod, "Till his Master, from above, When the promised hour was come, To convey the wanderer home. And the steeds that cleft the wind? When his mantle dropp'd behind? So in you his spirit rest! Still shall memory love to weep Where his dear cold relics sleep. Rests in hope again to rise. And ETERNITY thy day!" In that most difficult poetic task, the preparation of hymns for children, Montgomery was frequently very successful. For the children of his own Church, the Moravian; for the anniversaries of Sunday schools of the different denominations in VOL. VII.-16 | muse. Sheffield; and more especially for the Wesleyans, to which body he always had a warm attachment, he was ever ready to meet applications for the service of his Our article has already reached the limits assigned to it, and we may not dwell upon them at further length. We cannot conclude, however, without briefly adverting to one or two of his hymns for family or private devotion. They are superior, we think, to anything of the kind in the English language. The first we notice has a place, with the omission of four stanzas, as No. 619 in the Methodist Collection. It is a social hymn for the evening of the Lord's day, ending with the expressive petition :— "Yet one prayer more; and be it one In which both heaven and earth accord: Fulfill thy promise to thy Son; Let all that breathe call Jesus, Lord!" It was our privilege, some time ago, to visit one of God's suffering ones, who had been for a long time deprived, by sickness, Montof the public means of grace. gomery's poem, entitled A Sabbath in the Sick Chamber, was the solace of many a solitary hour; and the consolation and even joyousness imparted by its repeated perusal would have amply repaid the author, could he have been present, for all his labor of love in the composition of similar strains. The verses alluded to are found in the Methodist Episcopal Hymn Book, (No. 665,) and, as yet, in no other collection with which we are acquainted. Not long after our last visit to that sick chamber, the poet and the patient sufferer, to whom we refer, hailed each other in the better land with " songs of everlasting joy." YOUNG GENERALS.-Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-two. Hannibal gained the battle of Cannæ at about the same age. Scipio fought at Zama when not much over thirty. Julius Cæsar had conquered Gaul when he was forty-five. Germanicus was poisoned in his thirtyfourth year. At the battle of Plassey, Clive's age was not so advanced as that. Napoleon gained his mighty victory at Austerlitz when he had scarcely completed his seventh lustrum; and at the time Wellington finished his campaigns on the plains of Waterloo he was only fortysix years of age. STORY OF ANCIENT NINEVEH. THE HE foundation of the city of Nineveh, by one to whom Moses gives the name of Asshur, and who seems from the disinterred sculptures to have been afterward worshiped as a god, is a fact clearly decided; but the period of that event cannot be ascertained, and conjecture is vain. However, long before the historic age which our enterprising travelers have disclosed to us, there the city stood upon the banks of the Tigris, by the delta which the Zab, flowing into the river, forms at its junction. The country around, though undulating, was anything but hilly, and though it seems to have been fertile, must have been dependent for that circumstance upon the art and toil of husbandry. In addition to the rains which watered the soil, it is probable that from an early period the fields were irrigated by artificial canals. The earliest king with whom Rawlinson makes us acquainted through the inscriptions he has explained, reigned, according to him, about 1250 B. C., and took his name from Derceto, whom he identifies as Semiramis, a personage evidently transformed by the Ninevites into a goddess, which so far accords with the tradition of Ctesias. Another king, named Divanu bara, next gleams out of the past, reflected from many a slab and brick bearing his name, but nothing more -indicating, however, that he must have been a famous builder. Two other names occur afterward, not satisfactorily deci DAFO phered yet; - but before the end of the eleventh century, B. C., there are evidences of a monarch, whom Rawlinson considers to have been the first to carry the Assyrian arms into foreign countries. "His exploits are recorded on a slab which was found at Nimroud, a relic of some ancient palace; and they are of value in defining the limits of the Assyrian empire at that early period. The king boasts that he had extended his sway from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean; but it is evident from his lists of conquests, that neither Syria to the west, nor Asia Minor to the north-west, nor Media to the east, had been yet visited by the armies of Nineveh. In a later age indeed, when Sardanapalus led his troops beyond the Taurus, he expressly says that the king in question had not penetrated so remote a quarter. In the eleventh century B. C., the empire of Nineveh comprised Mesopotamia, Syria, and Babylonia; and incursions seem to have been then first made into Armenia, and the mountainous countries about the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates." The historical epoch of Assyria fairly begins with the tenth century, and thenceforth we trace a nearly uninterrupted series of sovereigns down to the tragical fall of the city in 606. We find that at the time when Solomon in all his glory dwelt in his palace in Zion, Adrammelech the First wielded his scepter over Nineveh and its extensive dominions. But the kings of this epoch seem to have been warriors rather than builders, since no monuments of their magnificence have been found. A great and illustrious king reigned in the tenth century, with whose tastes and exploits we have become familiar by means of the remains of the north-west palace of Nimroud, of which he was the builder. It is a curious fact, which we gather from the cuneiform inscriptions, that this palace was founded upon the ruins of a former one; and we are further informed by the same graven records, that the inhabitants of the countries over whom he ruled sent gold, silver, copper, and iron for the building of the edifice. Concerning the rendering of his name, there is a difference of opinion. Dr. Hincks renders it Assaracbal, and Colonel Rawlinson, Sardanapalus. As if to preserve his fame in the event of his palace being defaced, the annals of his reign were engraved on slabs on the side facing the wall, as well as on the outer surface. As many as three hundred and twenty-five lines of writing remain, in which we find an account of this monarch's warlike expeditions detailed in a succinct and characteristic style : "On the twenty-second day of the month I departed from Calah, (Nimroud;) I crossed the Tigris; on the banks of it I received much tribute; I occupied the banks of the Khabour. I halted at the city of Sadikanni." Having crossed the Euphrates, he says: "On the banks of the Orontes, I occupied the country. By the sea-shore I encamped. While I was at Ariboua, the cities of Lukuta I took; I slew many of their men; I overthrew and burned their cities; their fighting men I laid hold of; on stakes over their city I impaled them. On the great sea I put my servants; I sacrificed to the gods. I went to the forest and cut them down, and made beams of the wood for Ishtar, mistress of the city of Nineveh, my protectress." These curt details receive pictorial illustrations from the cotemporary architecture and sculptures; so that we are enabled to picture the king, Sardanapalus, going forth from the gate of his palace guarded by winged lions-the symbol of Assyrian power employed by Daniel. He appears in the midst of his eunuchs, officers, servants, and soldiers; "the captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men ; horsemen, riding upon horses." We see him in his battle chariot, gorgeously arrayed, drawn by four horses. They sweep along in proud martial array. They cross rivers; the chariots going over in boats, and the men swimming on bladders. They besiege cities; the monarch stands up in his chariot, with drawn bow, before the turreted walls; darts fly, shields are battered, men fall; and then, from the scenes of carnage, we behold the triumphal procession return laden with spoil. We While we see all this warlike array, indicative of the spirit of Assyrian civilization at the time, and which of itself is no sufficient indication of advancement in art as it regarded other things-we have peeps also into peaceful Assyrian life in the sculptures that King Sardanapalus has left us. see him walking out under an umbrella held over him by his eunuch. He stands worshiping before a symbolic tree; the practice of divination is maintained; hunters go out and return from the chase; the mysteries of the kitchen are revealed, and the primitive cooks may be seen busy at their culinary art. We can enter also the very stables of the monarch, where we find grooms currying their horses, and other animals eating or drinking out of troughs. We can here only add, what a feeling of reality is given to that old northwest palace, where Sardanapalus chronicled his deeds and illustrated his civilization, by a little incident mentioned by Layard. He says:— "Standing one day, on a distant part of the mound, I smelt the sweet smell of burning cedar. The Arab workmen excavating in the small temple had dug out a beam, and the weather being cold, had at once made a fire to warm themselves. The wood was cedar, probably one of the very beams mentioned in the inscription as having been brought from the forests of Lebanon by the king who built the edifice." This Sardanapalus the First, who must not be confounded with the hero of so many modern epics and tragedies, was succeeded by his son, whose name Rawlinson takes to be Divanubara. He was the builder of the central palace of Nimroud, and on the famous black obelisk brought from the ruins of his palace, and now placed in the British Museum, we find inscriptions recording the victories of his reign, and sculptures illustrative of the spoils and tribute which were the fruit of those victories. He was a very great warrior, and seems to have kept his armies in a state of efficiency and activity, from the beginning to the end of his reign, for the records state that he led them across the Euphrates no less than twentythree times. A multitude of places are named where he subdued revolts, or brought the people into subjection; and it is remarkable that he seems to have been particularly zealous in promoting his own religion, for he says: "I abode in the country about the rivers which form the Euphrates, and there I set up altars to the supreme gods, and left priests in the land to superintend the worship." Upon the obelisk the king appears twice, followed by his train, with a prisoner at his feet, and his vizier and eunuchs bringing him animals and other tribute. The forms of the animals are of historical importance, for they are all clearly oriental, thus showing his extensive conquests in the east. There are the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, and the monkey, as well as tusks, metal, and rare wood, borne in the hands of the tributaries. From the nature of the bass-relief, observes Dr. Layard, it is natural to conjecture that the monument was erected to commemorate the conquest of India, or of some country far to the east of Assyria and on the confines of the Indian peninsula. There are also doublehumped or Bactrian camels, thus proving that by that time, at least, Bactria was under the Assyrian power; so that, whether first conquered by Semiramis or not, the story of Ctesias, about the subjugation of that eastern country, was not all a dream. Divanubara is ascertained to have been a cotemporary of Benhadad and Hazael, from the obelisk recording expeditions against those very monarchs. "Jehu, the son of Omri," is also expressly named as one of his subject kings; and on the sculpture are represented figures, which, from their physiognomy, short beard, and long robes, look like Jews. Divanubara dwelt indifferently at Nineveh and at Calah, and the latter city he greatly embellished. The duration of his reign cannot be exactly fixed; but as his annals on the obelisk extend to his thirty-second year, and his continued wars and ovations show at that period of his life no decline of vigor, he probably filled the throne of Assyria till about 860 B. C. Shamas Adar and Adrammelech II. were the immediate descendants of Divanubara. Only the name of the former is known, with the circumstance of his adopting the family title Derceto; but the latter is ascertained to have built palaces after the manner of his father, both at Calah and Nineveh. The next Assyrian king added to the palace in the center of the mound of Nimroud, and on a bass-relief of his reign we see him, with a line of war chariots, receiving tribute from Menahem, King of Israel. Only fragments of the annals of this monarch remain, but his first campaign appears to have been in Chaldea, and he is represented as carrying his arms into the remotest parts of Armenia, and across the Euphrates into Syria, as far as Tyre and Sidon. Among the list of conquered towns and tribes are Harran and Ur, names so interesting to us from their association with the early history of the great Jewish progenitor. This monarch is considered by Layard to have been either the immediate predecessor of Pul, Pul himself, or Tiglath Pileser, the name on the pavement slab not having been deciphered. Colonel Rawlinson considers it was Pul himself; and, moreover, conjectures that he took the name of Sardanapulus-that the first Assyrian dynasty ended with him and that the catastrophe described by Ctesias refers to the revolt of an officer of the court who captured Nineveh, and drove out the old family, B. C. 747-this memorable epoch being accordingly adopted by the Babylonians as the basis of their astronomical canon. This obscure and controverted point, however, subsequent investigations may serve to elucidate and decide. The next king was Sargon, the names of whose father and grandfather have been discovered on a tablet at Kouyunjik, though they do not appear to have been either of them kings. Sargon was the builder of the great Khorsabad palace, in whose ruins M. Botta has made so many valuable discoveries, and where some striking accounts of his reign have been met with. It appears by the alabaster chronicles that he extended his conquests to the Isles of the Mediterranean, and set up a monument of his victory in Cyprus. Babylonia, Su siana, Armenia, and Media, were the scenes of his warfare, and even the kings of Egypt apparently rendered him tribute. The palace of Khorsabad has been so well examined, and so fully explained, that we seem as if we could ascend the steps of the broad and lofty terrace that leads to the portal, where we are confronted by the four great winged bulls, two on each side —with their majestic impassive human faces turned toward us as if calmly watching our approach. Passing these huge guardians, we enter the gates, wander from gallery to chamber, and chamber to gallery, in the gorgeous edifice once occupied by the great King Sargon, whom we see yonder represented on a wall, in royal attire, with a long staff in his hand, and attended by the officers of his court. There, too, is the god Nisroch; and Ilus, a winged divinity; another deity also appearing with an eagle head; while yonder is a priest, holding three pomegranates. The symbolic tree is likewise everywhere conspicuous. In other compartments of the pictorial sculptures we see preparations made for warlike expeditions. Logs of wood are being hauled on shore for constructing a port, or building a road. Then we have representations of Assyrian ships -the very ships most likely that were employed for the transport of Sargon's troops. There, too, are galleys with oars, the lofty prow rising up in the form of a horse's head. Sieges are depicted, and we are in the midst of towers and battering rams, the former such as Sargon attacked, and the latter such as he used in the enterprises which his annals record. In other divisions of this panorama of Assyrian life and usages, men are seen in the act of being hewn to pieces, or flayed alive, or deprived of their eyesight, or with hooks fastened in their mouths-pictures, no doubt, of the treatment which captives received at the hands of Sargon. Next, Sargon himself is seen, with his sons, amusing himself in the forest shooting at targets or hunting the lion. Then we come to a feast, where the guests are seated on stools at a table, with wine-cups in their hands, seemingly drinking a health, perhaps that of Sargon. Sennacherib succeeded his father Sargon. This monarch is distinctly mentioned by Herodotus. Eusebius also preserves a fragment of Polyhistor, containing an account of his campaign in Babylonia. The Old Testament, too, contains copious allusions to his wars in Judea. And now, in addition to these materials of history, we have large inscriptions, narrating the events of his reign, upon two clay cylinders, as well as on a pair of winged bulls. Very soon after his accession, he began to build the sumptuous palace at Kouyunjik, with which, restored in its original magnificence, the sketch of Mr. Fergusson has made us familiar.* It stands before us, with its immense terrace and farspreading steps, an oriental pile of surpassing splendor: sculptured slabs, and bulls, forming the basement; while above are rows of columns, surmounted by other stories. Ten colossal bulls, and six human figures of gigantic size, actually remain ; and the sculptured walls forming the façade of the palace, have been traced by Layard to the extent of one hundred and eighty feet. He mentions that the bass-reliefs of Kouyunjik differ from those of the older palaces of Nimroud, in the general treatment of the subjects chosen for illustration, in the costume of the time, in the appearance of the nations warred against, and in the character of the inscriptions, ornaments, and other details; the whole marking a new era in the artistic culture and civilization of Nineveh. We may add that a number of small articles, illustrative of the domestic usages, appliances, and personal decorations of the period, have been found at the mounds of Kouyunjik— such as pieces of pottery, stone utensils, glass vases of great beauty, marble dishes, terra-cotta vessels, and molds for gold and silver ear-rings. It is very remarkable that monuments illustrative of the building of the palace exist, and we positively can see the Assyrians by scores and hundreds busily engaged with levers and ropes dragging the winged bulls along to their places in the structure, just as men at the present day set to work for the accomplishment of similar objects. The inscriptions relative to the warlike proceedings of Sennacherib are very copious. From them we learn that in the first year of his reign he defeated Merodach Baladan, King of Babylon -a name mentioned in the Old Testament A beautifully engraved copy of Mr. Fergusson's water-color drawing appears, as is wellknown, in Dr. Layard's recent work on Nineveh, from which the sectional view that adorns our front page is taken. |