this precinct is built a solid tower of one stade division of his army at each end of the town in length and breadth, and on this tower rose where the Euphrates enters, and where it another, and another upon that, to the number flows out of it, and left orders with his of eight. There was an ascent to these on the best troops that they should force their way outside, running spirally round all the towers. into the city as soon as the river should become About the middle of the ascent there was a land-sufficiently shallow; he then employed the ing-place and seats to rest on, where those remainder, and least effective part of his force, who go up sit down and rest themselves; in draining the river, by means of a canal, while in the uppermost tower stands a spa- which led into the great lake above the town. cious temple. There is also another temple All things being completed, Cyrus having below; in it is a large golden statue of Jupiter heard that there was to be a great festival on seated, and near it is placed a noble table of a particular day, and that the citizens would gold; the throne, also, and the steps are of gold. spend the whole night in feasting, ordered Outside the temple is a golden altar; and ano- the sluices to be opened from the river into ther large altar where full-grown sheep were the canal, and, having drawn off the waters sacrificed, for on the golden altar only suck- so that the river became fordable, he entered lings were offered. On the great altar the and took the city. This was done in the Chaldeans consumed yearly a thousand talents night time, when the drunkenness of the of frankincense, when they celebrated the fes- royal guards rendered the conquest easy. At tival of this God; there was also, within the day-break the guards in the Citadel, perceivprecincts of this temple, a statue of solid gold, ing the town in the hands of the Persians, twelve cubits high.' and hearing of the death of the king, surrendered their posts without further bloodshed.* The power of the Babylonians was very great, for the whole territory was divided With Belshazzar the separate existence of into districts for the purpose of furnishing the Babylonian empire terminated, and Babysubsistence to the king and his army. The lon became an appanage of the Persian king had in addition to those used in war, a private stud of 16,800 horses; he kept also such a number of Indian dogs that four considerable towns in the plain were exempted from all other taxes, and appointed to find food for the dogs. empire. But neither the sword of the conqueror, nor the untiring hand of oriental despotism could entirely ruin its prosperity; and it was not until the enterprise of Europe first found a path across the ocean to India,† and the commerce of the world became a For some time Babylon continued to enjoy sea-trade instead of a land-trade, that the the pre-eminence she had acquired; but royal city on the banks of the Euphrates after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, and finally decayed. And when it fell, as it did the succeeding of three rulers for short just when Alexander the Great would have periods, the impious Belshazzar of the Scrip- made it the capital of the greatest empire of tures ascended the throne, who appears to the world, it still left traces of its former have reigned about seventeen years at the glory. In his time the most ancient palace time of the overthrow of his empire by of the kings of Babylon was standing, the united forces of the Medes and Persians, and was probably the temporary abode which was accomplished in the following of Alexander during his inspection of his manner: Cyrus, after the conquest of workmen, while clearing away the ruins of Upper Asia and Asia Minor, turned his army the fallen superstructures from the base of against the Assyrians, and invested Babylon, the temple of Belus. Here it was that he the residence of the kings of the country took the fever, and was borne in a palanquin subsequent to the destruction of Nineveh. He to the river, and thence across to the paraarrived with his army on the banks of the dise, or hanging gardens, where he seems river Gyndes, and delayed his progress during the whole summer, till, by drawing off the waters, he could make the stream fordable. Having crossed the Gyndes, Cyrus advanced upon Babylon at the commencement of the following spring, but was so astonished at its magnitude that he doubted whether it could be reduced by any other means than famine. Upon this coming to the knowledge of the Babylonians, their derision was great, knowing that they had within their walls provisions for twenty years. Cyrus called a council of war to debate upon the best means to be adopted, and came to the determination to cut an immense ditch, to draw off the waters of the river. For this purpose, after having in vain attempted to take the city by a regular blockade, he placed one "The violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon." "And I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry." "One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the and that the passages are stopped, and the reeds they king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end; have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted." "And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, and her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the Lord of Hosts." "Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the king of the Medes: for his device is against Babylon, to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple." (Jer. li.) 66 + For out of the north cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast." (Jer. 1. 3.) 66 'And to have gradually grown worse, and where The lady of kingdoms." "I was wroth with he died. At the epoch of the death of Alex- my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, ander, Babylon began to be deserted. But and given them into thine hand: thou didst the mighty conqueror was himself uncon- show them no mercy; upon the ancient hast scious that he was fulfilling the prophecies thou very heavily laid thy yoke." of Isaiah, in breaking down the walls of Baby- thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever." lon, a portion of which he removed to raise the Secondly, for her pride, sorcery, and love of funeral pyre of Hephæstion,-" And I will pleasure:-"Therefore hear now this, thou punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring that art given to pleasures, that dwellest forth out of his mouth that which he hath carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow and none else beside me." "But these two together any more unto him: yea, the wall things shall come to thee in a moment of Babylon shall fall." (Isaiah li. 44.) This in one day, the loss of children, and widowbreach in the inner wall soon spread, hood; they shall come upon thee in their and after the death of Alexander, Babylon perfection for the multitude of thy sorbecame completely deserted. Even before ceries, and for the great abundance of thine the arrival of Alexander, Patroclus, his enchantments." And, thirdly, for her pride general, had expelled its inhabitants from of knowledge and wisdom :-" Babylon, who, we are told, fled into the desert, or took refuge on the further shores of the Tigris, and some went into Persia. As Babylon decayed, Seleucia, a city not far distant from Babylon, and named after Seleucus Nicator, rose into wealth and importance, the royal residence and seat of power being transferred to that city. From this time the decay of Babylon was rapid. In B.c. 127, a Parthian army reduced many children to slavery, and transported them to Media to be sold. In the reign of Augustus, a very small portion of the city only was inhabited, and the rest under cultivation. Some few years later, a plague ravaged Babylon, and thinned her few remaining inhabitants. From this time Babylon seems to have been completely forgotten, and is rarely after mentioned. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me." "Therefore shall evil come upon thee," "and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know." (Isaiah xlvii.) In our next, we purpose giving a descriptive sketch of the Tower of Babel, with an engraving as it now stands. ANECDOTES. APOLOGUE. "HAVING, in my youth, notions of severe piety," says a celebrated Persian writer, "I used to rise in the night to watch, pray, and read the Koran. One night, wholly engaged in these exercises, my father, a man of practical virtue, awoke while I was reading. "Behold (said I to him) thy other children are lost in irreligious slumber, while I alone wake to praise God." "Son of my soul," he answered, "it is better to sleep, than wake to remark the faults of thy brethren."-Sadi. DR. JOHNSON AND THE FIDDLE. have bestowed a thought on the violin, speaks of THE Doctor, who would not be suspected to it as follows:-"There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first. Every man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and fiddlestick, and he can do nothing."-Boswell's Life of It is scarcely necessary to remark how literally the prophecies respecting Babylon have been fulfilled. From having been the queen among nations, and the "lady of kingdoms," "her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth;" she has "become heaps and a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing without an inhabitant." Her name is never used, in modern days, but as an "hissing" or term of reproach. According to Isaiah, this destruction has come upon her, first, for her pride and cruelty; secondly, for her pride, sorcery, and love of pleasure; and, lastly, for her pride of knowledge and wisdom. "Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon." In the beautiful and expressive language of the East, nothing can be more graceful or truthful than this term -the daughter of Babylon she truly was, AN early geographer, Dicuil, speaks of the for the first Babylon had long since grown journey of a monk named Fideles, who went old in decay, and this, the proud city of the with a party of pilgrims to the mouth of the Chaldeans, had risen out of its ruins. "Come Nile, and who, proceeding up the river, was down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter seven barns in which Joseph had stored his corn, of Babylon, sit on the ground; there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate." "Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness; for thou shalt no more be called, Johnson. USE OF THE PYRAMIDS. struck with astonishment at the sight of the in preparation for the years of famine. His account of these buildings, which of course were the pyramids, is very curious. He describes them as square at the bottom, in the upper part round, and at the summit twisted like a spire, and built of stone throughout; a peculiarity which may perhaps be accounted for by the decayed state of the surface and upper part of many of the pyramids.-Vaux's Historical Sketch of Assyria and Persia. SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE WEED. SIR WALTER'S indulgence of smoking has left on record a tale with which we are all familiar; but there is another anecdote worth repeating on this subject, not so well known as that to which I have referred. Upon one occasion, when Raleigh was conversing with his royal mistress upon the singular properties of this new and extraordinary herb, he assured her Majesty that he had so well experienced the nature of it, that he could tell her of what weight even the smoke would be in any quantity proposed to be consumed. Her Majesty deeming it impossible to hold the smoke in a balance, must needs to lay a wager to solve the doubt. Raleigh procured the quantity agreed upon, he thoroughly smoked it and weighed the ashes, pleading, at the same time, that the weight now wanting was the weight of the smoke dissipated in the process. The Queen did not deny the doctrine of her favourite, saying, "that she had often heard of those who had turned their gold into smoke, but Raleigh was the first who had turned his smoke into gold." CURRAN'S FIRST FEE. infallibly know less of him than he of her, as he I THEN lived upon Hay-hill: my wife and children were the chief furniture of my apartments, and as to my rent, it stood pretty much the same chance of liquidation as the national debt. Mrs. Curran, however, was a barrister's lady, and what she wanted in wealth she was well determined should be supplied by dignity. The landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of any gradation except that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out one morning to avoid the perpetual altercations on the subject, with my mind, you may imagine, in no very enviable temperament. I fell into the gloom to which from my infancy I had been occasionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner, and a landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence—I returned home almost-Leigh Hunt's Journal. in desperation. When I opened the door of my study, where Lavater alone could have found a library, the first object that presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty golden guineas wrapped up beside it, and the name of old Bob Lyons marked upon the back of it. I paid my landlady, bought a good dinner, gave Bob Lyons a share of it, and that dinner was the date of my prosperity.-Curran and his Contemporaries. MARRIAGE A TEST OF COURAGE. CHARLES V. said, no man could be said to be truly brave until he had snuffed a candle with his fingers; a gentleman who had been semipetrified in some continental cold-water establishment, considered that the greatest test of courage was to go naked into a mountain torrent, converted into a douche, on a winter's morning; but my idea is, that no man's courage can be so severely tested as by entering into the holy state of matrimony, provided always that the man be of a contemplative, reflective nature, and not a mere dweller in the moment that now is. This courage is more required on the woman's part than on the man's. She must THE CHARM OF AN OLD HOUSE. closets and cupboards and good thick walls that I LOVE old houses best, for the sake of the old don't let the wind blow in, and the little out-ofthe way polyangular rooms with great beams running across the ceiling-old heart of oak, that has outlasted half a score generations-and chimney-pieces with the date of the year carved above them, and huge fire-places that warmed the shins of Englishmen before the house of Hanover came over. The most delightful associations that ever made me feel, and think, and fall a-dreaming, are excited by old buildings— not absolute ruins, but in a state of decline. Even the clipped yews interest me; and if I found one in any garden that should become mine, in the shape of a peacock, I should be as proud to keep his tail well spread as the man who first carved him.-Southey's Life and Correspondence. FULLER, the well-known author of "British Worthies," wrote his own epitaph, as it appears in Westminster Abbey. It consists of only four words, "Here lies Fuller's earth." USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. "To know That which before us lies in daily life, PEEPS INTO THE LITERARY CIRCLES OF LONDON. THE Society of the literary world of London is conducted after this wise:-There are certain persons, for the most part authors, editors, or artists, but with the addition of a few who can only pride themselves upon being the patrons of literature and art-who hold periodical assemblies of the notables. Some appoint a certain evening in every week during the season, a general invitation to which is given to the favoured; others are monthly; and others, again, at no regular intervals. At these gatherings the amusements are conversation and music only, and the entertainment is unostentatious and inexpensive, consisting of tea and coffee, wine or negus handed about in the course of the evening, and sandwiches, cake, and wine, at eleven o'clock. Suppers are prohibited by common consent, for costliness would speedily put an end to society too agreeable to be sacrificed to fashion. The company meets usually between eight and nine, and always parts at midnight. I believe that these are the only social circles in London in which inexpensiveness of entertainment is the rule, and hence, perhaps, it is that they are the most frequent, the most social, and the most agreeable. At these parties there is always an amusing and singular congregation of characters. The only recognised test of admission is talent. If a person be remarkable for any talent, no matter what his station in life, here he is welcome. The question always asked in the literary circles of London is not, as in other circles, "what is he?" but "who is he?" Authors, artists, editors, musicians, scientific men, actors and singers, male and female, are grouped together indiscriminately, and peers, baronets, knights, lawyers, doctors, booksellers, printers-provided they possess this qualification of being authors, artists, or musicians, or be renowned as the patrons of literature, art, or music-here meet together in temporary social equality, but regulated by so much good sense that it does not lead to familiarity elsewhere.-Critic. THE GERMAN BOOK MART. conditions and guarantees on the part of authors, publishers, editors, printers, and vendors of books -as seriously to cripple the transactions of the most ordinary business. Every one concerned in getting up a book, from the writer of it down to the boy who sells it across the counter, is commanded to ascertain that it contains not a sentence contrary to the new press laws. Another clause empowers the Minister of the Interior to absolutely prohibit any work not actually published in Saxony. Any person in the least acquainted with the Leipsic trade will know that on such terms it cannot be conducted. The booksellers there are merely distributors. They receive parcels from every corner of Europe. They seldom or never open them. The parcels come from Stutgardt-and are sent by next train to Hamburg, there to be shipped, it may be, for London or for New York. Leipsic is merely the literary exchange; and the sellers very often know far less about the contents of their packages than the merchants of Liverpool who receive and transfer merchandise of every kind. The attempt to make them responsible for the contents of their bales must end in the removal of the mart to Brunswick or to Frankfort.—Athenæum. SHAVING SUPERSEDED. MONS. BOUDET, a French chemist, in a communication to the Journal de Pharmacie, says"Take of sulphuret of sodium, or hydrosulphate of soda, crystallised, three parts; quick lime, in powder, ten ditto; starch, forty; mix. This powder, mixed with a little water, and applied over the skin, acts so rapidly as a depilatory, that, if it be removed in a minute or two after its application, by means of a wooden knife, the surface of the skin will be entirely deprived of hair, and it is only after several days that the hair begins to reappear.” PROBABLE DESTRUCTION OF MODERN ROME. MANY authors have asserted, as their inter pretation of some part of the Apocalypse, that Rome will be destroyed with fire from heaven, or swallowed up by earthquakes, or overwhelmed with destruction by volcanoes, as the visible punishment of the Almighty for its Popery and its crimes. I am unwilling, having read so many books on the interpretation of prophecy, to deduce any argument of this kind from the prophecies which are unfulfilled; but I behold everywhere-in Rome, near Rome, and through the whole country from Rome to Naples-the most astounding proofs, not merely of the possibility but of the exceeding probability that the whole region of Central Italy will one day suffer AMONG the signs which suggest to us strange misgivings of the future peace of Germany are the continual attacks of its governments on literature and the press. Even Saxony, once so liberal, has now entered the race of reaction-under such a catastrophe. The soil of Rome is and the publishing capital of Central Europe is threatened with the total destruction of its trade. Leipsic, as our readers know, lives on books. It is not alone the great emporium for German literature; but it is also the great central market for the import and delivery of the literature of all nations to Prussia, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the German principalities. What London is for ordinary traffic, Leipsic is for literature. But the Saxon government seems resolved to drive this intellectual business from the country. The recent press law lays so many restrictions-pronounces so many penalties-exacts so many tufa of a volcanic origin; the smell of sulphur, which we found so disagreeable, must be the result of subterranean action still going on. At Naples the boiling sulphur is seen bubbling near the surface of the earth. When I drew a stick along upon the ground the sulphurous smoke followed the indentation; and it would never surprise me to hear of the utter destruction of the southern peninsula of Italy, from Rome to the neighbourhood of Naples. It is saturated with beds of sulphur and the substrata of destruction. It seems as certainly prepared for the flames as the wood and coal on the earth are prepared for the taper which kindle the fire to D consume them. I again read the remarks of Dr. Cumming. Rome, he believes, is to be overthrown by judgments, not to be exhausted by political assaults. It is literally to be consumed by fire. Whether he is correct in regarding such an event as the fulfilment of the prophecies, and the demonstration of the anger of the Creator against the incorrigible assumptions of an erring and influential church, I know not; but the Divine hand alone seems to me to hold the element of fire in check by a miracle as great as that which protected the cities of the plain, till the righteous Lot made his escape to the mountains.-Townsend's Tour in Italy in 1850. EUROPEAN LONGEVITY GEOGRAPHICALLY CONSIDERED. SOME curious statistics, as to geographical distribution of health and disease, have been recently published. According to them generally, both in countries and in cities, the chances of longevity are greatly in favour of the more northerly latitudes. Near the top of the scale are Norway, Sweden, and parts of England. Of cities, the lowest in the list in this respect, is Vienna, and the highest is London. A cool or cold climate near the sea is the most favourable situation for health and longevity. While formerly one out of every thirty of the population of England, France, and Germany died in each year, now the average is one in forty-five. The chances of life in England have nearly doubled within eighty years. IMPORTANCE OF RAGS. period, probably in the first century, to that singular and ancient people. The urgent and constant wants, therefore, of the community are met by that combination of skill, science, and industry which produces from materials apparently the most worthless, by the powers of chemistry, hydrostatics, and mechanics, the best satin paper for a lady's correspondence, the broad sheet of the Times, or that delicate tissue which carries so great a value when circulated under the authority of the governor and company of the Bank of England." A WONDERFUL BEE-HOUSE. I HAD been in this position for some time, little regarding the whizzing hum of insects constantly passing and repassing, when, my gaze chancing to fall a yard or more from my restingplace, I detected a small bright-gray bee, about the third of an inch in length, disappearing in what seemed a solid part of the trunk. There was no hole or crevice perceptible to the eye, nor did that portion of the bark feel less smooth than that immediately adjoining. I might be mistaken-nay, I must be. I had just arrived at this last conclusion, when a tiny piece of the bark was suddenly raised, and out flew the little gentleman I had seen disappear, or one too like him not to belong to the same family. The mystery was solved. Some ingenious bee-architect had devised an entrance-gate, fitting so admirably as to defy discovery when shut. The bark, though polished and even, was covered with faint interlaced streaks, from which even the smoothest bark is never free; and the skilful "EVEN these relics of poverty and wretchedness carpenter had adapted the irregular tracings of are not without value; and although in small quan- nature to his object of concealment. Wishing tities this article is so worthless, yet in truth it to inspect the workmanship, without injuring its forms an item of considerable commercial impor- delicacy, I had to wait patiently until it should tance. So much are rags valued by some of the again fly open; nor was I kept long in expectaEuropean states, that their exportation is pro- tion, for it presently popped up to permit the hibited altogether; our foreign supplies reach us egress of another of the fraternity, and a ready from Austria, Italy, and Germany, from which twig prevented its descending. I found it deheaps of linen rags, of every colour-when indeed signedly crooked and jagged at the sides, with that colour can be distinguished through the dirt an average width of about a quarter of an inch, which adheres to them-are gathered by small and twice that in length; its substance was little traders, who travel through the country for the more than the outer skin of the bark, and, being purpose of collecting them, each rag having pro- still connected at one end, opened and closed bably formed part of some article of dress, which with a spring. Immediately within the doorway passed from a more to a less respectable possessor, was a small ante-chamber, forming a sort of till it at length became the tattered and thread- porter's lodge to a little surly gray-liveried genbare covering of the poorest mendicant. The tleman inside, who, without quitting his retreat, importation of rags exceeds seven thousand tons showed his displeasure at my intrusion in a per annum; those coming from abroad being manner too pointed to be mistaken. From the generally used in the manufacture of the best entrance-hall, two circular tunnels conducted printing paper, while those gathered at home are into the interior of the establishment, from used for writing paper. The process by which whence came the confused murmurs of a numethe most worthless and vilest materials are con-rous and busy community. I had just allowed verted into such an admirable substance as paper, is probably the greatest triumph of human talent and ingenuity. It has more than realised the dreams of the alchemists, and been incomparably more beneficial to us, than if we had become acquainted with the means of transmuting the inferior metals into gold. For this valuable article of daily demand, it may be observed, we are indebted to the Moors, who were the first to introduce it into Europe. There is no record of the origin of this precious invention, but in all probability the Arabs gathered their knowledge of this fabric from the Chinese, for the manufacture of paper was certainly known at a very early the door to close, and was admiring the exceeding neatness of the workmanship, when another of the family returned home, signifying his arrival, and obtaining admittance in a manner at once novel and singular. After darting against the entrance, and touching it with his feet, he rose again into the air, and taking a wide swoop round the trunk, came up on the other side, this time flying straight towards the "trap," which was quickly raised, when he was a few inches distant, and, on his entering, as quickly closed. The office of the pugnacious individual inside was explained; he was actually the doorkeeper, and his returning comrades, |