The recent discoveries of Fellowes, Layard, and others, have satisfactorily proved that the statements of many Greek authors were no exaggerations; and the vast remains of architectural wonders that are scattered throughout, not only in the East, but also rescued from their long burial amid the wilds of America, would almost seem to corroborate the tradition that they were the work of a past generation of giants.

Above thirty years ago, the eminent historian Niebuhr offered an opinion, which Mr. Layard's discoveries confirm, so far as one nation is concerned, for which his countrymen may well claim for him the gift of prophecy.

"There is no doubt but that Egypt must become the possession of a civilized European power; it must sooner or later become the connecting link between England and the East Indies. European dominion naturally supports science and literature, together with the rights of humanity; and to prevent the destruction of a barbarous power would be an act of high treason against intellectual culture and humanity. When that shall have been accomplished, new treasures will be brought to light, and Egyptian antiquity will be laid open before our eyes: we stand at the very threshold of a new era in the history of antiquity. In Nineveh, Babylonia, and Persia, centuries long past will come to light again, and the ancient times will present themselves clearly and distinctly in all their detail. It is true that all those nations are deficient in individuality, and in that which constitutes the idea of humanity, and which we find among the Greeks, Romans, and moderns; but their conditions and changes will become clear. In all its details, the ancient world will acquire a fresh

reality, and fifty years hence essays will appear on the history of those nations, compared with which our present knowledge is like the chemistry, such as it was a hundred years before the time of Berzelius."

As some of these almost superhuman fabrics are continually brought before our mind's eye in connexion with Biblical History, and our imagination every hour of our existence raises some fresh topic which awakens a rational curiosity to discuss and master it,—the compiler hopes the time of the reader will not have been idly employed in receiving all the information here gathered respecting these mightiest of the works of man.

From the records of the grandeur and wealth of the cities and palaces here noticed, we may turn to the accounts of the barbarous hordes who, from the North, were permitted by Divine Providence to ravage and destroy all these works of the most civilized countries; and, like some sad pestilence sent on earth as a punishment and a warning for their crimes, these " of God," as they have been justly termed, everywhere marked their progress by ruin and desolation; and the sites of populous cities are now only recognised by blackened ruins and solitary columns.

Scourges

We may at the same time reflect, with pious awe, on the inscrutable ways of the Most High, who hath thus permitted for a time unlimited conquest and power beyond human control; and then, when their crimes and their pride were at the highest pitch, has humbled the haughtiest nations by the arm of cruel barbarians, and cut them off from the face of the earth.

THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT

THOSE mighty piles—the Pyramids have over-lived
The feeble generations of mankind.

What though unmoved they bore the deluge weight,
Survivors of the ruin'd world?

What though their founder fill'd with miracles

And wealth miraculous, their ample vaults?

THE eternal Pyramids-the mystery of the past— the enigma of the present-and the still enduring wonder for future ages of this world,-standing at the head of a long reach in the River Nile, directly in front of the traveller, and seeming to darken the horizon, solitary, grand, and gloomy, the only objects to be seen in the mighty desert before him, are the more impressive as being the chief aim and end of an antiquarian journey to the land in which the forefathers of Israel submitted to a bondage, the harshness of which was only surpassed by the marvellous agency that wrought out their deliverance, and left a history of God's power on behalf of his chosen people which no human imagination can surpass-no human powers of description adequately convey to the astonished hearer.

The Pyramids of Gizeh are the most stupendous masses of building in stone that human labour has ever been known to accomplish, and they are still standing, immovable as the rock that forms their bases, to