mound. The palaces, as it appears, have been mostly destroyed by fire, so that the basement-story and the central parts of the mound, are the points to be kept in view, in order to discover such remains as have escaped destruction. When the workmen find a basement, or groundfloor, of a building, by following that, they are led to a wall, and thus they are conducted into the central chambers. Instead, therefore, of digging, as at the outset, at random, or cutting trenches into the heart of the mound, the workmen tunnel it, with shafts sunk at intervals, to draw up the rubbish, and to admit light and air. The following is the summary of results as stated by Layard himself:

SUMMARY OF RESULTS.

1 must remind the reader that, shortly before my departure for Europe, in 1848, the forepart of a human-headed bull, of colossal dimensions, had been uncovered on the east side of the Kouyunjik Palace. This sculpture then appeared to form one side of an entrance or doorway, and it is so placed in the plan of the ruins accompanying my former work. The excavations, had, however, been abandoned before any attempt could be made to ascertain the fact. On my return, I had directed the workmen to dig out the opposite sculpture. A tunnel, nearly one hundred feet in length, was accordingly opened at right angles to the bull first discovered; but without coming upon any other remains than a pavement of square limestone slabs, which stretched without interruption as far as the excavation was carried. I consequently discontinued the cutting, as it was evident that no entrance could be of so great a width, and as there were not even traces of a building in that direction.

The

The workmen having been then ordered to uncover the bull, which was still partly buried in the rubbish, it was found that adjoin. ing it were other sculptures, and that it formed part of an exterior façade. upper half of the next slab had been destroyed; but the lower still remained, and enabled me to restore the figure of the Assyrian Hercules strangling the lion, similar to that discovered between the bulls in the Propylæa of Khorsabad, and now in the Louvre. The hinder part of the animal was still preserved. Its claws grasped the huge limbs of the giant, who lashed it with the serpent-headed scourge. The legs, feet, and drapery of the god were in the boldest relief, and designed with great truth and vigour. Beyond this figure, in the same line, was another bull. The façade then opened into a wide portal, guarded by a pair of winged bulls, twenty feet long, and probably when entire more than twenty feet high. Forming the angle between them and the outer bulls, were gigantic winged figures in low relief; and flanking them were two smaller figures, one above the other. Beyond this entrance was a group similar to

and corresponding with that on the opposite wall, also leading to a smaller entrance into the palace, and to a wall of sculptured slabs; but here all traces of building and sculpture ceased, and we found ourselves near the edge of the water-worn ravine.

They

Thus a façade of the south-east side of the palace, forming apparently the grand entrance to the edifice, had been discovered. Ten colossal bulls, with six human figures of gigantic proportions, were here grouped together; and the length of the whole, without including the sculptured walls, continued beyond the smaller entrances, was one hundred and eighty feet. Although the basreliefs to the right of the northern gateway had apparently been purposely destroyed with a sharp instrument, enough remained to allow me to trace their subject. had represented the conquest of a district, probably part of Babylonia, watered by a broad river and wooded with palms, spearmen on foot in combat with Assyrian horsemen, castles besieged, long lines of prisoners, and beasts of burden carrying away the spoil. Amongst various animals brought as tribute to the conquerors, could be distinguished a lion led by a chain. There were no remains whatever of the superstructure which once rose above the colossi, guarding the magnificent entrance; but I shall hereafter more particularly describe the principal decorations and details of Assyrian architecture, and shall endeavour to restore, as far as the remains still existing will permit, the exterior and interior of the palaces of Nineveh.

The bulls, as I have already observed, were all more or less injured. The same convulsion of nature-for I can scarcely attribute to any human violence the overthrow of these great masses-had shattered some of them into pieces, and scattered the fragments amongst the ruins. Fortunately, however, the lower parts of all, and consequently the inscriptions, had been more or less preserved. To this fact we owe the recovery of some of the most precious records with which the monuments of the ancient world have rewarded the labours of the antiquary.

On the great bulls, forming the centre portal of the grand entrance, was one continuous inscription, injured in parts, but still so far preserved as to be legible almost throughout. It contained one hundred and fifty-two lines. On the four bulls of the façade were two inscriptions-one inscription being carried over each pair, and the two being of precisely the same import. These two distinct records contain the annals of six years of the reign of Sennacherib, besides numerous particulars connected with the religion of the Assyrians, their gods, their temples, and the erection of their palaces, all of the highest interest and importance.

Many remarkable discoveries have been made relative to individuals. In one case Sennacherib himself is represented as seated, and surrounded by his officers with the following inscription above his head :

Sennacherib, the mighty King, King of the country of Assyria, sitteth on the throne of judgment before the city of Lachish. I give permission for its slaughter.

This, then, is the actual picture of the taking of this famous city, sustaining and illustrating the Sacred Scriptures to the very letter; nay, the name of Hekekiah himself has been discovered in some inscriptions as well as that of Sennacherib, Jehu, Omri, and many others. Mr. Layard discovered the Record Chamber of a palace, in which many clay seals attached to the records were still remaining. Some of these seals are Egyptian, having been attached to treaties entered into with the Egyptian Pharaohs. One of the seals contained two inscriptions; the one being that of the King of Assyria, the other that of the King of Egypt, both on the same lump of clay, affording one of the most striking tokens of amity and concord that history furnishes. This is a new species of evidence for the truths of revelation, and the Infidel world had better look to it.

The volume contains facts and circumstances in which the friends of Missions are interested. Our great traveller has borne a noble testimony to the success of the American Missionaries, with whom he met; but he was mortified to find that prejudice had been raised against them, not only among the Mahommedans, but among the Nestorians, and other Christian denominations. The following concerns

MARSHAMOUN, PATRIARCH OF THE

NESTORIANS.

Old influences, which I could not but deeply deplore, and to which I do not in Christian charity wish further to allude, had

been at work; and I found him even more bitter in his speech against the American missionaries than against his Turkish or Kurdish oppressors. He had been taught (and it is to be regretted that his teachers were of the Church of England) that those who were endeavouring to civilize and instruct his flock were seceders from the orthodox community of Christians, heretical in doctrine, rejecting all the sacraments and ordinances of the true faith, and intent upon reducing the Nestorians to their own hopeless condition of infidelity. His fears were worked on by the assurance that, ere long, through their means and teaching, his spiritual as well as his temporal authority would be wholly destroyed. I found him bent on deeds of violence and intolerant persecution, which might have endangered, for the second time, the safety of his people as well as his own. I strove, and not without success, to calm his unreasonable violence. I pointed out to him his true position with regard to the American missions, trying to remove the calumnies that had been heaped upon them, and to show in what respects they could benefit and improve the condition of the Nestorians.

This is a poor picture of a Patriarch. The man seems to have been destined for a Popish priest. But he was not the only bishop that was like-minded. The following is Layard's picture of another:

BISHOP BIGOT.

It was difficult to determine whom the poor bishop feared most, the Turk or the American missionaries: the first he declared threatened his temporal, the others his spiritual, authority. I gave him the best advice I was able on both subjects, and urged him not to reject the offer that had been made to instruct his people; but to identify himself with a progress on which might be founded the only reasonable hope for the regeneration of his creed and race. Unfortunately, as in the case of Marshamoun, strange influences had been at work to prejudice the mind of the bishop.

AMONG the various publications of merit and magnitude which, of late years, have issued from the American Press, few present a more sumptuous appearance than the present. The volume of Professor Wines has already taken a high place in the Author's native country, where it is incomparably the best publication on the subject that has yet seen the light. The first scholars and divines vie with each other in eulogizing it. It is not often that praise so fervent and copious is so well deserved; but as Dr. Woods, of

Andover, has truly said, "from the beginning to the end, these Lectures exhibit marks of extensive, patient study, and of profound, discriminating thought. The style in which they are written is perspicuous and forcible, and often arises to animation and eloquence." In this opinion every British Critic will agree. The Lectures can scarcely fail to be profitable to all who like to think; they are specially adapted to be useful to the students of Law and Theology, as also to the different classes of students whose object is

the cultivation of general knowledge, and to acquire a mastery over that most complex but most important of all booksthe Laws of Moses.

The Professor has clearly consecrated no small portion of his life to the present work; and the result is a sufficient justification. An attempt is here made to analyze and to develope, systematically, the Civil Polity of the Inspired Hebrew Lawgiver. As the civil government of the ancient Hebrews was that of a free

people, it was a government of laws adapted to a system of self-government. In this view it possesses a value which it is difficult adequately to appreciate. The American President himself, in the midst of his Republican subjects, presents not a more simple and attractive spectacle than did David at the beginning and the end, and through the whole of his royal career. Moses is not only the first but incomparably the greatest of Legislators. The wisdom which pervades his work everywhere proclaims its celestial origin. It was far beyond the reach of any one man in those times, or at any times which have since transpired. In an age of barbarism and tyranny, through all the earth, it was reserved for this Jew to solve the problem how a people could be self-governed, and yet well governed; how men could be kept in order, and still free; and how the liberty of the individual could be reconciled with the welfare of the community.

Professor Wines starts with the idea, that the true character of the Hebrew constitution is not well understood,-a fact which is accounted for from the circumstance, that during the long period when the words people, law, equality, intellectual superiority, independent and regular legislation, scarcely found a place in any living language, it was not likely that Moses would be duly estimated. If for ages the Scriptures of truth themselves were lost sight of by mankind, it is no marvel if the legal portions of the Old Testament Scriptures shared the same fate. The bulk of the people were too ignorant to converse with Moses, and the tyrants of the earth would have felt their pride and oppression rebuked by his ardent Republicanism and humane legislation. Those times, however, have gone by; and now the need of a better system of political organization, in many places, is being felt. There is everywhere being developed a strong tendency towards popular freedom and power. Everywhere an irresistible impulse is

urging nations at last to try to substitute for the arbitrary, capricious, and inconsistent government of men, the just and suitable government of laws. The more this state of things developes itself—the more the principles of reason, justice, equality, liberty, and public utility take possession of men's minds, and assert their claims to control human affairsthe more will the polity of the Hebrew Commonwealth become the object of study, of interest, of admiration, and of imitation. A set of greater fools exist not than liberty-loving infidels, who raise their voice against the Sacred Scriptures as the charter of tyranny, the instrument of tyrants! It is just the reverse. It is the charter of human freedom-the most thoroughly liberal book on the face of the earth. Nothing could be more free than the ancient Hebrews; and as to the New Testament churches, they were, at the outset, and in the highest possible sense, free societies. It is not quite fair to call them democracies, although Gibbon has done so, representing each church as a little independent state or republic, entirely free from any foreign control, and possessing the exclusive management of its own affairs. The Christian Church, although its atmosphere is that of an essentially perfect freedom, yet is not to be called a democracy, forasmuch as it has no power to make laws. These are made to its hand, and its business is to apply them. It may be better to use a once well-known French phrase, that Christianity is a monarchy surrounded with republican institutions.

The Introductory Essay on Civil Government is one of great ability-no inconsiderable publication of itself. Of course, the reader is to lay his account with a strong flavour of Republicanism, but Republicanism of a legal, consolidated, and ever-during character.

The

Professor entertains a strong conviction that nothing can preserve a people free but virtue-virtue in the individual, in the family, and in the government. Professor Wines has sung the glory of freedom in a strain the most elevated; we say, sung, for he becomes, at length, inspired with the spirit of poetry. Would that he had given more adequate prominence to the abominations and the horrible incongruities of Slavery, which exists in the presence of such a system of boasted freedom! This vaunted American Republic has more slaves than all the other Governments of the world united!

Having opened his way, Professor Wines proceeds to lay down the plan of his work, after which he expatiates on Moses as a Man and a Lawgiver, on his Credibility and Legation; to which is added an elaborate disquisition on Objections, followed by some admirable chapters on the Influence of the Laws and Writings of Moses on the subsequent Civilization of the World. We have next an interesting disquisition on the leading Constitutions of Gentile Antiquity, with special reference to the question, how far civil liberty was secured by them.

The Second Book discourses of Fundamental Principles-The Hebrew Theocracy-Constitution-Chief Magistrates -Senate Commons-Oracles- Priesthood-and Prophets. We cannot withhold the close of the dissertation:

Never before, since Luther hurled his iron gauntlet at the door of the Vatican, has Rome tottered and reeled, as under the heavings of the political earthquake of 1848. The papacy, though not dead, is dying. Like an expiring giant, it puts forth gigantic energies, even in the death-struggle. Its latest usurpation, the daring attempt to reestablish its ecclesiastical rule, and cast the fetters of its worn-out superstition, over Gospel-enlightened England, is not the effect of conscious life and health, but rather a spasm of waning vitality.

But American thought, American genius, and American freedom have extended their influence far beyond the confines of European life and society. Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, and a long belt of the western coast of Africa, have felt their genial power. The Sultan has established religious liberty by law, as the fruit of American missionary zeal. Persia owns the healthful pressure of American intelligence and American piety. The wild Indians of our own continent, the roving hunters and herdsmen of Asia, the imbruted savages of Africa, the cannibal barbarians of Polynesia, and the stolid and changeless dwellers in the flowery land, have all been breathed upon by the influences of a higher life, emanating from this Christian republic.

Here, again, do we behold the noble fruits of our national constitution and our national union, in shaking the thrones of despotism, in liberalizing the political systems of foreign lands, in widening the domain of civil freedom, and in extending the blessings of Christian knowledge and civilization to the very ends of the earth.

There is another glorious issue of our free and common government. It has made our country the true Bethesda-a house of mercy for the suffering of all lands. It has made of it a new land of promise, to which the oppressed and stifled millions of Europe are rushing, like the tides of the ocean, to breathe the air of hope and freedom. And let them come! God forbid that our be

loved country, whose boast it is to be free and happy herself, should ever cease to afford to the sons and daughters of sorrow, fleeing from the wrongs and miseries of European despotism, a hearty welcome and a happy home! Let us not drive back from our shores one such refugee, to perish in the flood, or starve in the lap of an unnatural mother. Rather, let us extend to all a Christian welcome and a Christian care. Let us freely bestow upon them the blessings of a Christian press, a Christian ministry, and a Christian education, teaching them to practise the duties of citizenship here, and to aspire to the honour of a nobler citizenship above. That we have the ability to exercise such a ministry of love and mercy, is due to our union in a federal government. Palsied be the hand that would sunder a bond which confers so beneficent, so Godlike a power! Congealed be the fountain of life in him who would tear from his country's brow so bright a jewel, so resplendent a glory!

It

All these are results of our union, already achieved. But the hopes which it inspires are still more sublime and animating. was a saying of Archimedes, that if he had a place to stand on, he could move the world by the mechanical power of the lever. The dream of the ancient philosopher is the realization of our youthful republic. Standing upon the soil of freedom, and using the lever of Christian civilization, she has a place whereon, and a power wherewith, not only to move the world, but to transform it from a desolate wilderness into the garden of the Lord, covering it with the light of truth and the beauty of goodness. There are two principles-American principles pre-eminentlywhich may be made to mould and sway the destinies of this earth. They are popular constitutional government and universal Christian education. The light of these principles, shining upon the nations in our example, will be like the sun in the firmament at high noon-bright, glowing, penetrating, and vivifying. If we are true to our position, and to the trust which it involves, these principles will move on, with a constantly accelerated progress, till they shall have completed the circuit of the earth;dropping everywhere, in their course, the inestimable blessings of true liberty-liberty based on the Bible, and vivified by its living power.

Such are the results of the American union; such the hopes which it inspires ; such our mission as a nation; such the part assigned us by Providence, in the great work of improving human affairs.

Our path of duty is straight onward; and it is as clearly defined to the view as the milky girdle of the heavens in a cloudless night. We must stand by the constitution of our country. If that perish, our happiness perishes with it; the hopes that swell the hearts of millions perish; the sublime enterprises of Christian philanthropy are arrested; and the chariot wheels of the Gospel, that are now rolling on to the conquest of a world, are stopped, turned back, and made to recede far within the line, to which they have already advanced. We must stand by the laws of our country, indignantly

frowning upon all sentiments and utterances of revolutionary violence. We must stand by the rulers of our country, honouring them as the ministers of God to us for good. We must stand by the union of our country, regarding it as the spring of our blessings, the palladium of our freedom, the sheet-anchor of our felicity, and the star of hope to the oppressed and down-trodden nations. We must stand by the schools of our country, multiplying and purifying these fountains of popular knowledge and virtue. Above all, we must imbibe the spirit, and think the thoughts, and pray the prayers, and live the life of Christ; for then are we the best citizens, when we are the best Christians. A free government, a free Gospel, a free education, a free press, an open Bible, a reverence for authority, a willing subservience to law, and an enlightened, earnest, active piety, are the great and fitting elements of American institutions and American character.

As a nation, we hold a trust of mightiest significance. We hold it in the sight of suffering and struggling humanity. We hold it in full view of the illustrious dead, whose spirits are hovering over us, and whose affections are breathing around us. Let us catch the inspiration of their sentiments and example; and go forth, like men, to the fulfilment of our trust. Let us feel that we are ONE PEOPLE; having a common history, a common end, a common character, a common freedom, and a common destiny. Let us cling, with a firm grasp, to the union of these states, and to the principles on which it is founded. Let us give to these principles, under the stripes and stars of our common flag, a broader development, a higher activity. Let us transmit them to our children, as we received them from our fathers, entire, and untainted-to be by them, in like manner, under the shield of the national banner, handed down to theirs, a precious and perpetual inheritance. Then shall the republic be preserved, united, and flourishing, to the latest period of time; and the civilization, the prosperity, the happiness, flowing from our glorious CONSTITUTIONAL UNION, as from a perennial spring, shall outstrip our fondest anticipations, and more than realise the brightest vision of bard or prophet.

as

Spirit of Washington! breathe upon our hearts, inspire our councils, and guide our policy!

The pleasure attending the perusal of these noble paragraphs is embittered, at every breath, by the painful remembrance that they are written in the midst of a nation of slaves-three and a half millions of fettered men! It is not to be endured that Professor Wines should declaim about "the wrongs and miseries of European despotism," while the cries of oppressed millions rend the air, and the horrid sound of the clanking of fetters is wafted across the Atlantic on every breeze! The Professor closes with an invocation of the spirit of Washington. Let him be well assured that unless an

other and a higher than his "breathe upon their counsels, and guide their policy," days of darkness will overtake them, and the sorrows of that slavecursed land will be many! We pass by the impiety of the language, as a flight of patriotic declamation.

We cannot close without citing a passage of great power and great spirit, as touching Slavery. The Professor does not point to the United States; he satisfies himself with laying down the doctrine, leaving all whom the matter concerns to make the application:

In former ages men were like herds of cattle. They worked in masses. They were a part of the freehold. They had a master, an owner. They were kindred to the brutes. Now, each one says, or feels: "I am somebody. I am not a chattel. I have a mind, a soul, a conscience. I am a free agent. I can think. I go erect. I am not prone, like the beasts. No man owns me. No man is my master.' What a power there is in this! It has lifted crowns from the head of princes. It has wrested the sceptre from the grasp of kings. It has made thrones topple and fall.

The slumber of ages is broken. The masses have discovered, that political sovereignty is in them; that no man has the right, irrespective of the assent of the governed, to rule his fellow-men. The iron barrier, which hitherto has shut them out from their rights, if not yet broken down, has been terribly shattered. The dawn of a rational freedom is visible above the political horizon. The potentates, who feel the ground giving way under them, and power stealing from their grasp, chafe and roar and gnash their teeth. By combined and extraordinary efforts, by a lavish expenditure of blood and treasure, they have succeeded in giving a check to the onward progress of events. They have produced an apparent quiet, and flatter themselves, that the spirit of liberty is crushed. Vain toil! Delusive confidence! The seeming calm is but the stillness which precedes the earthquake or the hurricane. There is a power behind the throne greater than the throne. It is the power of individual man; the power of a newly awakened consciousness of manly dignity; the power of a felt personal responsibility; the power of a great and vital truth, long smothered beneath the abuses of ancient dynasties, but now breaking through the pressure, and asserting its vivifying force.

These are specimens of a work which does the highest credit to the literature of the United States. We cannot but anticipate for it extensive celebrity on this side the Atlantic.

WORKS OF OWEN. VOLUMES XI., XII., and XVI., completing this great enterprise, are now before us, on which we most heartily congratulate both the Publishers and the