Javan, and to procure through his af fection for her, a fresh supply of food for her father. Javan meets her there with the food, and renews his impassioned solicitations that she would save her life, and flee with him to a place of safety. To ensure her compliance, he assures Miriam that during this fatal night the for will make their final and fatal assault, and he urges her flight by every motive that affertion can suggest. This lovely, devoted and christian girl withstands his entreaties from a triumphant sense of duty, and they part, as they suppose for ever; Miriam returning to the city. As the night wears on, numbers of the Jews meet and announce to each other the strange and terrible prodigies which have occurred.While they are detailing these fearful events, their sad conference is occasionally interrupted by the distant sounds of the marriage festivities of Amariah and Salone. This is one of the most impressive and beautiful parts of the poem. The effect indeed, from the strange and unnatural contrast, is admirable. While every thing around is gloomy and distressing, the Romans are preparing for their last assault, the watch, overcome by weariness, have left the walls, prodigies the most ominous are seen, and a general despondency and terrour are predominant. In the midst of this complication of evils, the gay chorus of Jewish youths and maidens is heard, singing in sweet and gratulatory strains the marriage hymn. In the midst of these beautiful strains the voice of the son of Hananiah is heard; that singular and melancholy man, who is described by the poet and the historian in the same manner, as proclaiming, Wo, Wo, Wo, to Jerusalem, and all her inhabitauts. His death, which speedily follows his appearance, is altogether unnatural, from the loose and hurried mode in which it is told. A distressed and despairing band of Jews at length disperses, and all is silent in the city. Miriam now appears before the house of her father in sorrowful contemplation. Her meditations are arrested by the bursting of an overwhelming tempest from the heavens, and by the thundering assault of the Romans upon the walls. The Jews overpowered, make no resistance, and all is tumult, and agony, and massacre. Simon is aroused from his sleep, and undisturbed by the borrours which surround him, be interprets them all as the immediate precursors of the Messiah's approach, to rescue bis nation in this their climax of calamity, and to sweep before them the provi and victorious Romans. Some of the Jews propose a retreat to the temple, and Simon determines there to await the impending deliverance of his conntry. We give his speech at length: Of Zion to behold the full accomplishing Of every Type and deep Prophetic word? Ay, to the Temple! thither will I too, There bask in all the fulness of the day That breaks at length o'er the long night of Judah. pp. 141-143 Miriam, in the mean time, has been hurried along by the crowd of fugitives, and in her flight she encounters an old man who had been present at the crucifixion of the Redeemer, and who recognises in the ruin which is now bursting upon Jerusalem, the punishment of the Jewish nation, and the avenging arm of the crucified Messiah. Notwithstanding these awful events, however, he refuses to confide in his name, and he breaks away from Miriam in all the madness of unbelief. She is finally brought back again in her wandering, to the house of her father, which is in flames; and from which she meets her sister Salone rushing in her marriage attire. The exquisite affection of the dying Salone for her husband, her sad and wandering narrative, and the soothing and christian love, and watchfulness of her sister over her, are finely described, and but few poems in our language can furnish passages of equal beauty. After mourning her sister's death, Miriam is taken captive by a Roman soldier, and hurried away from the conflagration of the city to the fountain of Siloe. The soldier then discovers himself to be Javan, her lover, who had assumed the Roman garb, and encountered the horrours of the assault, to rescue her from destruction. This part of the story, though most grateful to our feelings, is somewhat forced and un Still to the pouring out the cup of woe The hundred-gated cities then, is unfurl'd, The skies are shrivell'd like a burning scroll, And the vast common doom ensepulchres the world. Oh! who shail then survive? Oh! who shall stand and live? When all that hath been, is no more; When for the round earth hung in air, With all its constellations fair In the sky's azure canopy ; When for the breathing earth, and sparkling sea, Is but a fiery deluge without shore, Heaving along the abyss profound and dark, A fiery deluge, and without an ark. Lord of all power, when thou art there alone On thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne. moon: When thou art there in thy presiding state, Wide-sceptred Monarch o'er the realm of doom: When from the sea depths, from earth's darkest womb, The dead of all the ages round thee wait: strewn Like forest leaves in the autumn of thine ire: Faithful and true! thou still wilt save thine own! The saints shall dwell within the unharming fire, Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm. Even safe as we, by this still fountain's side, So shall the church, thy bright and mys That in its high meridian noon-ish characters, those of Miriam and Needs upt the perish'd sun, nor Salone are introduced-like the oases ' of the desert-verdure, and fragrance, and beauty, surrounded by horror and death. Salone is a high-minded maiden, rapt in anticipations of the glories of her country, devoted to the rights and superstitions of Judaism, scorning alike the terrours of the Roman invader, and the consolations of the gospel, and looking almost unmoved on the wide-spread evils which encircle her, in her triumph at the battles, and the courage of her countrymen. Miriam is a soft and lovely female, rendered more interesting by the contrast of every thing around her. In the midst of perils, her faith in the Redeemer is unshaken; while her devotedness to her father is unaffected, her attachment to Javan is unwavering; and while she weeps over the bigoted ignorance of her family, she omits not the prayer and the tear, the watchings and the consolations of affection. Titus, the Roman general, and the hero, whom philosophers and moralists have numbered among the best and the brightest heathen characters, is not rendered inconsistent with himself. Of Javan, the lover of Miriam, it is sufficient to say that he is worthy of her. On the other persons of the drama, it is unnecessary to remark. tic bride, Sit on the stormy gulf a baleyon bird of calm. Yes, id yon angry and destroying signs, O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines, We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam, Almighty to avenge, Almightiest to re- After the abundant and varied extracts we have given from the Fall of Jerusalem, it will not be difficult to gather our sentiments respecting its merits. With remarks on its conformity to certain rules of criticism, its consistency with those arbitrary principles which have no foundation in nature, and which receive our as sent from courtesy merely, we shall have no concern; as they have no connection with the Christian Spectator, and would not interest our read ers. We must be indulged however, in a few brief observations. principal personages are described as probability and propriety warrant. Simon and John, the assassin and the tyrant, though different in their characters, are bold and vigorous, delighting in the miseries and massacre of their enemies, consistent in their frantic hostility to each other, and harmonizing only in their fierce opposition to the Romans. The enmity of John is taunting, and that of Simon is undisguised, and blood-thirsy. As a relief to these foul and fiend The Mr. Milman has conducted the story from its commencement to its close, with the hand of a master. He is uniformly grave and dignified; the action is harmonious and supported, the events continued and natural, and the language and sentiments are those of no common mind. That there are some faults is unquestionable; but we have neither leisure nor inclina tion to specify them. Amid so much poetical excellence it were almost invidious to cull those passages which are defective. But the author deserves still higher praise. While he las poured forth some of the sweetest and loftiest strains that the language af lords, he has also consecrated bis harp to the service of the altar. -Religion may number im among the Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. In press, and will soon be published by Robert Donaldson, New-York, A Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, from its establishment in 1789 to February term, 1820, including the cases decided in the Continental Court of Appeals, during the war of the Revolution, by H. Wheaton. Proposals have been issued for publishing a Law Register of the United States, by William Griffith of Burlington, NewJersey, formerly one of the Judges of the United States District Court. The work is announced to be " an epitome of all the laws of the respective States, and of the United States. The work is to be published semi-annually, in half volumes of at least 250 pages, closely printed, at $5 a year.. By the last census, the population of Russia is found to consist of 53,316,797 inhabitants, of whom 31,262,000 profess the Greek religion. At a meeting of the German Reformed Synod of North-America, held at Hagerstown, Md. the Rev. Dr. Milledoler, of the city of New-York, was unanimously elected professor of didactic, polemic, and pas toral theology. There are upwards of 400 congregations belonging to this denomi nation. The site of the seminary is not determined. Spontaneous Combustion. It is stated in the Edinburgh Journal, that about twenty-five pieces of cloth, each of which contained nearly thirty ells, were deposited upon wooden planks in a cellar, near Ly. ons, on the 8th of July, 1815, in order to conceal them from the armies which at that time overran France. In the manufacture of the cloth, twenty-five pounds of oil were used for a quintal of wool, and the cloth was quite greasy, each piece weighing from eighty to ninety pounds. The cellar had an opening at the north, which was carefully shut up, and the door was concealed by bundles of wine-props, which admitted the air. On the 4th of August, the person who entered the stable, was surrounded by a thick smoke, which he could not support; and as soon as a circulation of air was established, the cloth took fire. Petrified Tree. At a quarry in Cowcaddens, Scotland, there has lately been found an interesting specimen for the mineralogist. It consists of a part of a tree, or at least the representation of one, of about six feet in circumference, rising about two feet from the root, which is partly uncovered, and is seen spreading in every direction. It is about twenty feet from the surface, and may probably have been entire, or nearly so, but has been cut away in former operations in the quarry.' The substance of it seems, in no respect, to differ from the surrounding mass, which is a coarse granular freestone; and the surface is covered with a thin coating of a black shining substance, resembling coal, representing what was formerly the exte rior integument of the bark. Classical MSS. discovered.-It has for a considerable period been supposed, that there are, in the Arabic language, translations of the entire works of many of the ancient writers. Mr. Jackson, in his recent travels in Barbary, says, that it is more than probable that the works of maGreek and Roman authors, translated ny during the era of Arabian learning, are to be found in the hands of literary individuals in several parts of West and South Barbary. That this conjecture is not without foundation, now appears from the fact that M. Giarnin, the French ambassador at Constantinople, has sent to Paris fifteen valuable works in Arabic, from the Imperial Library at Constantinople, among which are the complete works of Plutarch and Herodotus. It is known that the works of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Livy, Tacitus, Sallust and others, were translated into Arabic, and it is not improbable that copies of these translations may yet be ob tained, List of New Publications. THEOLOGY. The Difficulties and Temptations which attend the preaching of the gospel in great cities: a Sermon, preached in the first Presbyterian Church in the city of Baltimore, Oct. 19, 1820; at the ordination and installation of the Rev. William Nevins, as pastor of said church; by Samuel Miller, D. D. Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government in the Theological Seminary at Princeton-Baltimore. A Sermon, preached to the Pacifick Congregational Church and Society in Providence, R. I. on the morning of Lord's day, Oct. 29th, 1820: By Otis Thompson, pastor of the Congregational church in Rehoboth, Mass.-Providence. Botanical Exercises, including direc tions, rules and descriptions, coipulated to aid pupils in the analysis of plants; with a labelling catalogue for the assistance of teachers; by Amos Eaton-12:00. 3 bany. Yamoyden, a Tale of the wars of King Philip-a poem, in cix cautos, by the tale Rev. James Wallis Eastburn, M. A. and his friend.-12mo. New-York. The Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences, supported by an association of Physicians, and edited N. Chapinan, M. D. Professor of the Iusfitutes and practice of Physic and Climal Practice in the University of Pennsylva nia.-No. I. Vol. I. Keligious Intelligence. CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, On the 31st of October last, the Rev. James Connor, a Missionary, stationed at Constantinople under the patronage of the Church Missionary Society of London, commenced a journey of investigation to the ancient city of Jerusalem. His object, however, was not merely to ascertain the moral and religious state of that city and of the country through which he should pass, but also to distribute bibles and religious tracts in various languages, and "to open channels for their wider circulation." On his journey, Mr. Conner touched at Smyrua, and at the Islands of Candia, Rhodes, and Cyprus: passed through the villages of Beirout, Saide, Sour, Acre, Nazareth, Napolose, Jaffa, and Rama; and arrived at the Holy City on the 6th of March. He was present at the celebration of the Passover, and, afterward, accompanied the Pilgrims, more than two thousand in number, to the river Jordan, and the Dead Sea. On this excursion, he pas sed through the Gate of Bethlehem, down Mount Moriah, across the Valley of Jehósaphat, along the side of Mount Olivet, and through Bethany, and the plain and village of Jericho. On his return from Jerusalem, he crossed the plain of Sharon, the foot of Carmel, a part of Lebanon, and the Valley of Bekan, to Damascus. After a residence of ten days in that city, he proceeded through Tripoli to Aleppo, where bis latest advices were written. Amer. Miss. Reg. "Contrary winds confined me at Canes for three weeks. At length, on the morn ing of Christmas day, I sailed for Rhodes, and arrived here on the 28th inst. The next day, I sent to the Archbishop an Introductory Letter, the Greek Tracis. and a digest of my plan for the circulation of the Testaments in his diocese. The day following I called upon him. He bade me welcome in the most friendly manner, acceded heartily to my plaas and wishes, and said that he would promote the cause in Rhodes, and would immearately write to the other islands in bis je risdiction. These are Leros, the seat of a Bishop, with about 600 Greeks-Calymne, under the Bishop of Leros, 3000-Niseros, 1200 -Delos, not the celebrated island of the same name, 1000-Syme, 3200-and harke, 600. The Greek population of Rhodes amounts to about 18,000. The Archbishop will also write to i friend, the Metropolitan of the populoes isle of Scarpanto and its dependencies, and encourage him to the difusion of the Testaments in his diocese. Our Consul here, Signor Stephana Masse, house, and will do all in his power to pro a physician, will keep the depot in his mote the sale of the books. I have writ ten a letter to the Bishop of Cos on the subject, which the Consul will transmit, |